Latest / Pete Vs Anxiety!!!!! / From Corporate Firefighter to Soulfire Creator: Amanda’s Journey to Self-Healing
Transcript
- Pete: Welcome to another exciting episode of Pete from Exciting. Before we get started, guys, remember, go check out my partners over at PsychPow, guys. There's a link in the bio. You don't need to my code, pete at checkout for 20 % off. I'm such a nice guy, I got you 20 % off your first month's subscription. With that being said, my guest today is a master life coach, former tech and finance executive, creator of the Soulfire Method. The one, the only, Amanda Christensen is here. Amanda, how are you doing today? Ever wish you had someone to talk to anytime, anywhere, matter what you're going through? Meet PsychPAL, your 24-7 AI companion, designed to help you process your thoughts, calm your mind, and keep you moving forward. Chat anytime during a panic attack on a restless night or just when you need to vent. Prefer talking instead of typing? Try voice journaling. PsychPAL listens, transcribes, and truly understands. You can even upload screenshots of tough conversations, and it'll help you unpack how they made you feel. PsychPAL keeps life organized, too. Amanda L. Christian: I'm doing fantastic. Pete: So, Amanda, why don't you tell everybody a little more about yourself and then we'll get into the SO FAR method itself. It can add appointments to your calendar, track your mood, and even summarize your sessions for your therapist so you'll never lose progress. Plus, built-in crisis resources are always just one click away. It's a privacy-first, constantly evolving, made to complement your professional care, not replace it. Ready to try it out? Head over to the link in this episode and use my code, Pete, at checkout to get 20 % off your first month subscription to PsychPAL. PsychPAL, because your mind deserves a companion too. Amanda L. Christian: Well, I think before we get into the method, let me kind of go way back. Because honestly, I didn't start with the work. I started with the experience, right? And especially with anxiety, around anxiety. I think mine started before I even had a language for it, probably around four or five years of age. ⁓ Pete: Okay. Amanda L. Christian: And up until then, you know, I had about four, when I was about four and a half, almost five, my family uprooted from Southern New Hampshire and moved to Florida. And so that literally ripped me out of like this idyllic pocket of life where I was primarily staying with my aunt and uncle and their three kids, which were all. Pete: There we go. I think that's the one I like. We got it. We got it. Boom. Amanda L. Christian: a little bit older than me, cousin Daniel is nine months older than me. So we were closest in age. And, you know, we spent our time running through the woods, building forts, catching fireflies and polywalks. And it just felt free. ⁓ But at the same time, my body was under constant stress because even when I was born, I was born with a chronic ear and sinus infection. And that they never stopped. It just continued and continued and continued. And how that impacted me was I could barely hear unless something was really loud. So think fireworks, ⁓ fire engines or police sirens, right? Then once we moved, so I get ripped out of that little like idyllic life that I think all kids should have. And then we moved to Florida. And that's when I really kind of started to know my parents more because I didn't have the extended family support. And ⁓ it was a completely different environment. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: ⁓ A lot of fighting, alcohol definitely was involved in a lot of unpredictability. And what that felt like for me was just chaos, just this constant chaos. There was no real sense of order, just like noise, ⁓ physical noise, emotional noise. It never really stopped. And what I didn't understand at the time was Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: You know, my system never learned how to filter it out. So even now, ⁓ when I walk into like a loud bar or crowded restaurant, my body immediately goes into high alert. And the hardest part is I can't always separate the sounds. And especially in loud, noisy environments, because it's just becomes like this wall of noise. So, you know, when I was a lot younger, I learned how to read lips in order to hear or whatever ⁓ what people were saying, especially in noisy environments. ⁓ When later on, and I don't want to go into all the details, I'm a suicide attempt survivor. I think about eight years old, didn't call, you you wouldn't call it suicide, but I just remember going out in the backyard going, God, please take me away. And of course the answer was no. And then when I didn't get a response from God, I'm like, okay, space aliens come take me away. And that of course didn't happen either. space aliens, right? So, and Pete: said space aliens. I love it, I love it, okay, okay. Amanda L. Christian: There were like, I think, little attempts throughout my like preteen and teens. And it wasn't until I reached college that I actually, was my, it was the summer between my junior year and my college year. And I was very active on campus and had friends and all that. But I had this sense of just being alone. Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: And it was like, and being so tired. And so that kind of what led to the ⁓ suicide attempt. That was unsuccessful. In part due to some of my friends. So, and so after that, I ended up working in a group home for young women ages eight, ⁓ not eight. 11 to 18 for the most part for two years. And I was a counselor there. And then an incident happened where a house across the street got shot up one night. And I was working nights at the time and they, remember calling 911 saying, you know, this is going on and talking to the dispatcher. And they said, well, how many shots have been fired? And I'm like, ⁓ about 15 right now. And they literally laughed at me and said, you don't know what you're talking about and hung up on Pete: What? Amanda L. Christian: Yeah. And so, you know, made it through the night and, I had, I think we had about maybe 18 clients in the house at the time. And I'm, the only person there and I'm responsible for these girls. And so I reached out and talked to the director of the program and all that. And I said, we need more security because we weren't in the best of neighborhoods, right? And they're like, well, we just can't afford it. Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: And that's when I just kind of said, OK, I'm done. And so then I fell back on because one of my majors was business and I really wanted to get into marketing. And so I started networking with marketers and stuff, you trying to get my foot in the door. And they're like, ⁓ you need to you need more computer skills. So this was about like 1988, 19. ⁓ early 1989 and I'm going, okay, so I happened upon a position at a bank and was offered a position. I'm like, okay, this is two year, I'm just gonna do two years, get the skills I need and then I'm gonna go do what I wanna do, right? Well, 33 years later, I finally retired. But over the course of that time, I... I was definitely a high, what they call like a high achiever because I had these perfectionist attendancies and ⁓ also couldn't say no. So, you know, give me more work. Amanda will do it. Right. I became ⁓ literally a firefighter in a way because, ⁓ bad project, project going down in flames. Get Amanda. Amanda will fix it. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: ⁓ this team needs a lot of help, get Amanda. She'll go in and fix it. So I was always like the fixer, always the firefighter. It was never ending because in banking, you don't really have seasons or time off. ⁓ early in my career, actually became first the assistant manager to our small data center. Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: and then became the data center manager. And so it was, and then my career just kind of spread out from there. But what I found is when I was working in the corporate world, I was carrying not only the historical stress of like my upbringing and all that fun stuff, right? Is Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: I brought those skills that taught me basically how to survive as a young child and teenager. I brought that with me into the corporate world. And I remember this was later on in my career. I was talking to my manager and we found out we were both children, adult children of alcoholics. And we got talking and we're like, yeah, if you ever want someone to get something done, get an adult child of an alcoholic. because they're going to do everything, they're going to try to be perfect, they're going to try to get everything accomplished, get the project or whatever it is over the finish line, in the timeframe, whatever. And that really got me thinking later on because that conversation kept coming back to me and said, yeah, I'm going, yeah, I learned a lot of things, but there are a lot of things I need to unlearn. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: especially working in a male-dominated space. so that's ⁓ I do the work I do now is because I see these, ⁓ know, a lot of women working in male dominated workspaces that ⁓ just like I did. I mean, I leaned in before it leaned in was a thing. And I spoke like the guys, you know, I could, you know, go toe to toe. ⁓ and speak up and all that. And I was told I was being too aggressive, be more feminine. ⁓ can you take minutes at the next meeting? And it was just like, wait a minute, I'm in a room full of guys and I'm not being feminine enough, but I need to talk like them so that they can hear me and hear what I'm saying. And it was just, you know, Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: just for me in my experience and a lot of my clients doesn't work. you know. What I found it, I remember talking with, ⁓ I think it was my mother, this was later on, and she's like, says something like, how are you doing or something like that. I'm like, I'm just really stressed. And she goes, what do you have to be stressed about? And, you know, that, that's, you know, I was like, Whoa, what, what do you mean? You know, I'm at that time I had a young child, my son, and I was also taking care of her. was her primary caregiver and I'm going, and then I had a, full-time job that was very stressful. That was very demanding. I would work 60 to 70 hours a week. plus, you know, do things with my son, because he was in scouts and sports and all those things. And then I had her and it was like, what do I have to be stressed about? I've, you know, and I remember thinking in my head, everything woman, everything. Pete: All right. All right. Because you got so much going on. You have the kids, you got her, you got the high level stress of job. It's like, I'm surprised you didn't have a heart attack the way you were going at that rate because you have all these stressors coming in. You know, it had to be rough on you, though, like because you're in a constant state of just animosity and, you know, that constant state of feeling, man. You're just ready to snap at any point, you know. And then for her to ask you that, it's like, what do you mean? What do you mean? What am I stressed about? Let me list it for you. You got 20 minutes. Let me give it to you, you know. Amanda L. Christian: Yep. Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, exactly. And, you know, I've, you know, I'm no, I'm very open about, you know, I see a therapist. ⁓ I also have a life coach too. We work on very different things ⁓ with both. And... Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: you know, for example, you know, the therapist helps me with, cause I also suffer from PTSD. Actually, I think he's now labeled it chronic PTSD. ⁓ But, and then I'm on the life coach side because of the one I choose to work with, it's more somatic work. So I get more tools to deal with the Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: anxiety, the stress, whatever it might be. Pete: Yeah, no, that makes sense. You know, and the funny thing, a lot of people don't realize a lot of therapists have their own therapist and things like that. And a lot of people, you me and my guest the other day, I was interviewing, she's she's actually a world renowned. She has some international award for, you know, being a Filipino woman and things like that. I mentioning the same thing was like, you know, that was the thing a lot of people back in the her when she was starting were like, ⁓ if your therapist had a therapist, they thought they were crazy. I'm like, not really. They deal with all these things that people come to you with. It's like Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Pete: You know, you don't understand the things they get told every single day, the wild things they get told, you know. But I'm really not honestly not shocked though. mean, with all the stress and things you deal with and you know, and to me, it's really awesome that you're talking about it because a lot of people won't even mention they're in therapy. It's like, I don't know what you're ashamed of. It's like we all need help sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just like you go to the doctor when you need something, when you go to a therapist when you need something and you have a life coach as well. I mean, why not? You have somebody helping you with what you're dealing with. You know, it doesn't change what you're doing. Amanda L. Christian: Yes. Mm-hmm. Pete: You you've invented this, you you've invented what you've, you know, you've been doing all these great things. And it's like, I think people are too quick to judge, you know, about everybody else and what they're doing in their situation, because you really don't know anything. And like you said, you found somebody what you were working with that was also a child that was of an alcoholic home. You would never know until you start having that conversation about it and things like that. So that's really cool, you know. And also, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about the suicide thing. I know we're not going to touch on that because obviously you already requested not to. Amanda L. Christian: Exactly. Pete: And I respect that space for people in this room, this 100 % safe space for that. But you know, it's hard when people even mention that because people act weird about it after like, oh, well, okay, I don't want to try and stress them out. It's just, it's no need for all that. Like people do too much for things. Amanda L. Christian: Absolutely. And I remember afterwards, ⁓ because I was actually ended up in a mental hospital, which has a whole nother connotation on it. But that was the safest place for me at the time. And I remember several people said to me, ⁓ you were so weak. Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that gets us set too. Amanda L. Christian: And it's like, if you knew my history, which at that time I did not talk at all about what was going on and what had happened over the past, you know, up until that point of my life, was you would not call me weak. Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: you know, ⁓ because of what I lived through, survived, you know, the whole thing. And so to be called weak was kind of like, no, this is like the, I'm done, I'm tired. ⁓ This is not what life is supposed to be like. Pete: Yeah, yeah. You know, and for anybody, anybody who thinks she's kidding, Amanda's got a list of things here that she's got. Certified Impostor Syndrome Coach, certified in Neurologistics Programming, Master Life Coach, certified through Elemental ⁓ Coaching Institution. Like, she's got credentials here. So when she says that, she ain't joking. Like, she's not weak in any way possible. This woman's got achievements beyond, even though all these things that she's been dealing with. So. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: Let's get into the Soulfire method. So how did you invent that? What brought you to that moment that you're like, you know what, I'm going to change what I'm doing. I'm going to start doing this instead. Amanda L. Christian: Well, it started back, I was still working at, I worked for a Fortune 500 bank in technology, went through what I call the merger wars back in the ⁓ 1990s, I think it was. ⁓ Sometimes I get dates from here, so bear with me. And I was, I've built, Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: you know, was part of the team that built data centers. I've moved data centers. ⁓ At one point, had a coworker and I wrote the disaster recovery plan for technology and I actually had to execute it twice. One for 9-11 and then Hurricane Floyd, which about killed me. ⁓ That was the hurricane that bounced up and down the eastern coast between Florida and North Carolina. Pete: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was a wild hurricane, Amanda L. Christian: And it was definitely wild. so I had gotten to the point where I was in between that, I was laid off for a year and then came back working in a totally different area in the bank. I was just like, I am so done with this. I am so done with the... ⁓ the patriarchy that goes on, the boys club. And earlier in my career, I would push back. ⁓ I remember I was responsible for all the physical data of the bank. So at that time we would record ⁓ all the statements, all the transactions, everything else. It eventually ended up on these tapes. Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: that looked like sort of like an 8-track tape, if you remember those. But they would hold terabytes of data. And we had these huge silos. And that was the environment I was responsible for. And I had teams and whatnot. And Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: you know, especially during Hurricane Floyd, you know, I had, had a data center in Jacksonville and a couple in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so our recovery, you know, disaster preparedness or recovery was we would take the critical, you know, tapes out of Jacksonville and bring them up to our system in Charlotte. And we take down half the environment and then bring it up as Jacksonville. Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: and then load everything in. So we didn't lose any data. So during Hurricane Floyd, what happened was, the hurricane's not gonna hit Jacksonville. It's going to come to North Carolina, right? And so by that time, we'd already gotten all the tapes from Jacksonville. And I remember, cause I had to call in to the board of directors when we report what was going on with our data. And this was before we had, I'm gonna kind of scroll back a little bit, before we had the Jacksonville data center, we got the tapes out of there. I'm on the call with board of directors and said, okay, here's our plan, this is what we're gonna do, da, da, da, da, da. And one of the board members literally said, well, why are we doing that so early? let's just fly a plane in when the eye of the hurricane's over Jacksonville and then fly the tapes out. And I'm going, well, that's an idea, but here's the problems with it. One, it's a no-fly zone because of the hurricane. a ⁓ pilot will lose, literally lose his license if he doesn't lose his life because he has to fly through the outer wall of Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: you know, the outer wall of the hurricane. And, you know, I was being called stupid and all this other stuff. And I remembered this succinctly because it was the first time out of a few times that I ever had a leader really stand up for me. it was one of the, he was probably up, he was high up in technology. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: And he also had this lovely personality where he would literally blow and then once he blew, he was fine. So it took me a while to learn that, but he actually blew up at this board member saying she knows what she's talking about, she knows what she's doing and he went off on him and he goes, know, and he was a pilot so he knew and could cite like, the actual FCC regulations and all that. But it was that type of environment where I was just a woman and I didn't know anything. Basically it was how I was made to feel. And I realized over the course of my career where I would, early on I would push back. Boys Club, you guys, this vendor at the time. is taking you all off for golf weekend, I'm coming too. Well, we normally just have guys, well, I'm coming. I'm the one that signs your contracts. I'm the one that ⁓ is your primary contact here at the bank. So if you're taking everyone that has really nothing to do with you, they're just buddies of my managers. then I'm going to. So I wasn't quietly sitting back going, okay, this is how it works and da da da. I was actively pushing back. But again, I kept getting called aggressive and not feminine enough and all these things that I'm going, I'm like. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: I have to talk this way. I'm talking with the exact words you use, but Joe over here gets commended for how he says something. I say the exact same thing in the exact same tone and I'm being aggressive. And that's because I'm a woman. you know, so I ended up, I noticed I got really, really quiet. I stopped speaking up. I stopped. Pete: Yeah, exactly. Amanda L. Christian: calling things out, you know, I just, because it was like, you get hammered on so much that you're like, why am I doing this? You know, and for me, you know, my nervous system was very out of whack at the time. You know, I didn't know anything about life coaching. know, I didn't know about anything about somatics or neuroscience or. ⁓ or very limited stuff, you know, because I was in the thick of it. And so it was later on in my career and I was talking with my therapist and I'm like, I need to get out of here. ⁓ There's just, you know, my son was having issues at that time, major issues, and my mother's health was really failing. And it was just like, I can't take on anymore. and I wanna do something else. And he was trying to get me because by that time when I was talking to him and working with him, he's like, you've done so much research on being a child of alcoholics, being an adult child of the whole alcohol. you know, alcoholic recovery and all that. He goes, and with your son, you did a lot of development, you know, how kids develop and, all that. goes, you have all this knowledge, you need to go back to school. Get your MBA and then get your doctorate in, you know, in psychology. And I'm going, know, Tom, going, I remember going, I don't want to go back to school. Pete: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: You know, I don't wanna go and to me, know, a degree, yes, a degree is nice. It gives you some credibility, but it's more, you know, I didn't wanna be tied to that, I guess in a way. just, Yeah, so you got a title, you know. So you have an MBA, big whoop. How does that? And I had started an MBA program at one Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: and then had to quit. It was like, so what is this giving me that I can actually apply to my work? And it was all this, you know, it was more theory and different things. And it was like, okay, that's only part of the picture. There's this whole other part and there's this whole other dynamic part. And nowadays, you know, there's a lot of top, Pete: Hmm. Amanda L. Christian: talk about emotional intelligence. And yes, we need emotional intelligence, right? But you can in some ways, emotionally intelligence and executive presence yourself back into old patterns. And that's where kind of where my Soulfire methodology came from is that internal world we as leaders have, ⁓ especially for high achieving women. Because, know, and I watched this when I was back in corporate. I watched a new, she was brought in from outside with some other leaders. And I literally watched her over six months, literally aged before our eyes. And I'm going, Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: And I remember thinking, and this was really just like on the cuffs of my starting down the path of becoming a life coach. And which my therapist said when I said, I'm not gonna go to school, back to university and all that, goes, well, have you thought about becoming a life coach? I'm like, what's that? And so I was thinking, I'm like, I'm wondering what is causing her to age. And I knew we'd be in a meeting and she'd be like this. She wouldn't be, if it was a Zoom call or something, higher level meetings at that time, they were able to do Zoom. We as underlings could not, but she'd be working and sort of paying attention to the meeting. And it wasn't... And having done that on conference calls before in the past, I knew exactly what she was doing. She was trying to keep up with everything she had to do. And also trying to ⁓ basically double tasking, doing two things at one time. And which when you actually do that, you don't do either one as well, right? Because it doesn't have your focus. Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: but what I noticed in myself first, and then I noticed it in other women. When we went into a room, we might look like really solid, but internally, I was constantly scanning and reading the room. I was anticipating what Joe over in the corner was going to say, because I knew he was going to fight back whatever I said, right? Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: and then trying to manage the outcomes before anything even happened. And so when I have clients come in and go, you know, I'm just overthinking things. I'm really strong on this point because I tell them, know, you're not, no, you're not overthinking. It feels like overthinking. You're just trying to stay ahead of everyone else's reaction, which is a safety mechanism. it goes back to the, ⁓ ⁓ for me, ⁓ know, being safe and ⁓ feeling safe goes back way back to childhood and what I'm finding in a lot of women and they don't ⁓ that ⁓ has its roots in childhood. ⁓ that saying? No, no, no one escapes childhood unscathed. Pete: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: or without some trauma. And that's kind of what you have to deal with. ⁓ And some of it doesn't ever go away, but you can find tools that work for you to relieve those symptoms. And of course, we don't want stress, right? Because we all know ⁓ stress is a killer. Pete: ⁓ yeah, definitely. Amanda L. Christian: So, you know, it's. That's kind of how Soulfire was born because I'm like, yeah, I can go in and I can take up space and I can deepen my voice and I can do my power pose, right? But that's not paying attention to what's going on inside of me. And again, I go back to that chaos because inside I remember just feeling chaotic inside. Pete: Thanks Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: knowing that I had to do, you know, I'm doing all these things simultaneously and it's not like I was thinking about doing them. It became so automatic. Pete: Yeah, yeah, you go. You essentially go into like an autopilot basically. You you're doing these. Yeah, I get you. Yeah, no, makes sense. Amanda L. Christian: that, Yes. So that's where Soulfire, my Soulfire methodology got birthed from. Pete: Yeah, you know, I want to ask you, though, about some of the other credentials you have listed, like the imposter syndrome thing. I think it's really interesting, though. What got you to go into that area? Because imposter syndrome is something I dealt with for long time when I started this show. You know, I didn't realize how how big it was until like the demands are coming in. And I just kept telling myself, oh, no, it's not that big. And like my my show just kept booking and booking and booking like we're booking out to almost August now with. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Pete: three to four people in the two days I have open because I went from, you know, one day like going a couple during every day of week to just bulk recording it and then distributing it that way. And you know, and I don't think a lot of people understand what, you know, imposter syndrome is. So do you want to clarify that for some people that are listening at home? Amanda L. Christian: I think imposter syndrome is when you show up, in the back of your mind, you think, I, who am I? Who am I to do this role or who am I to say these things or talk in front of these people or whatever it might be. It's that question of who am I to where you don't feel good enough ⁓ or worthy enough or whatever. And I think I struggled with that at some points in my life. Pete: Mm. Amanda L. Christian: ⁓ But, you know, I kind of always knew who I was, but I didn't always show up that way. Because I was more in the performance mode. I'm going to show up and perform how people expect me or want me to perform. And that in itself, when you start doing that going, ⁓ I need to tone it down in meetings, or I need to say it this way. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: that helps bring on that imposter syndrome because you're constantly questioning, how do I say this so that I will land correctly and I don't get the pushback? Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: ⁓ ⁓ know, ⁓ again, imposter syndrome can ⁓ back when you're young. So, yeah. Pete: I just thought that was interesting because I went to your website and looked at some of your background stuff and I was checking it out and I saw the neural logistics programming. I'm just like, these are some pretty impressive areas to be in, especially. You've put the work in though. mean, shows. mean, Soulfire is doing really well. mean, and you clearly have the credentials that you're doing so many. And it's awesome though. I mean, it's so cool to see it. I know when we met at the summit. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: I was already drawn in. was like, yeah, we got to talk more about this. is interesting because I always find it interesting when you meet other people or life coaches because everybody has their own method. That's the great thing about it though is that everybody's method works differently, you know, and then you work with women, which is really cool too, because it's like, you know, a lot of times women always get pushed. You always hear the phrase, ⁓ go back to the kitchen. You still hear it now. These guys telling girls, go back to the kitchen. And it's like, you don't understand, like women bring a lot to the table. The emotional side of things, you know. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. It's... Pete: They bring a lot of that to the table because us guys were not allowed to be like that because we're, us men, tell each other we're wusses and, you can't have sensitive feelings and things like that too. You know, and I think that, you know, it's, it's really cool to see, you know, women succeeding in all these kinds of things, you know, because it means that, you know, you know, that whole campaign Nike had for longest time, if you can do it, I can do it better kind of thing. The whole thing, putting that women can do the same, you know, that whole campaign that came out. It's like, yeah. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Pete: Why can't they do it? Because they're women. It's like you're not asking to do anything other differently than what we're doing. You know, and it's always been a male dominated role. Amanda L. Christian: Right, just might, yeah, we just might do it in a different way. And here's a ⁓ very interesting fact. Women ⁓ corporations that have a CEO that is a woman or predominant amount of people that are female on their boards, they are more successful financially. They have more innovation. They retain, their talent. And, you know, across the board, all performance rises compared to a, ⁓ like a patriarchy setup, where it's mostly men. Pete: I believe it. Yeah, no, I get that completely. I think it makes sense though, because women have more compassion than men. Like you see a lot of these men-driven businesses. We had a gentleman on the show named Brandon. He runs a podcast as well called The Breakfast Club. And he worked with a lot of these Fortune 500 companies. Now, I didn't ask him where may run, but you could probably tell based on what he was saying. He was like, I talked to a lot of them. He told them like in 10 years, if you keep going the way you're going, you're not going to exist as a company because you're going to run out of people. Amanda L. Christian: Good. Pete: You know, we men are always told, you know, book up, keep doing this. whole macho male persona they want us to put on the alpha male thing. to me, it's just, I think it's all horse shit, honestly. I think it's stupid. Makes no sense. It's archaic and anything, you know, it's like that old world method doesn't work these days, especially with the, the evolution of these younger generation of learning more about their emotions and things, you know, and females being more in tune to theirs. Cause I raised three daughters of my own for a little bit when before they lived with their mom. And I learned a lot about, you know, like how females operate things. I had to, I had to be that that mom in the relationship because their mom wasn't there for a little bit of their life. So I had to be that present role. I had to be the sensitive part of that. You know, and this led to the conversation before I told you what the woman that told me I needed to chop wood because I wanted a man enough. I'm like, well, why are we going back to that method? Does that make sense? What is wrong with understanding how the other side of the coin thinks? You know, I think if anything, it makes you makes you the alpha male because you understand these things more because you are in tune to everything around you. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. ⁓ huh. Pete: And I think I hate that whole tower system males have. It's like, ⁓ we got to. Okay, so then if you're the alpha male, why does it you can't talk about your feelings, you can't talk about your thoughts and everything else, you have to put this mantra persona on because it's not working. You know what mean? It's just doesn't make sense to me. With the ever changing way that society is going and things that are going. It's like we're instead of evolving, we're staying in this caveman caveman way of just, ⁓ we're just going to break it and it'll work. It's like it doesn't work like that, though, if you add the emotional touch in there. Amanda L. Christian: Right. Pete: you now you've got in the edge because now you understand how the other side of the coin looks, you know, and I feel like that's what happens a lot of female businesses. They have more understanding of what, you know, these methods aren't working and you know, they're using the logical sense because us, we use men, we're just sometimes hard headed. I'm like, I'm going to be honest, we're just hard headed. Let's be honest. We are. We have that caveman logic. We just want to bang it and think it works. You know what mean? Take it, hit it with a club. It ain't working though. That's the problem. If you look at like Amazon, places like that, these places where they're just instantly churning through people, it's like, Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Pete: What are you doing? You're not sustaining work. It makes no sense. You should be looking for longevity versus trying to just mill through people because by the time you run through it, it makes no sense. You want to retain people because you know, these turnover rates are always an interesting to see with a lot of people. know, whenever people come and work wherever I'm at, know, because I work in a gas station setting. like, I'm always curious into why people left their last job because that's what I've asked them. They feel like, well, no, no, they used to work here. So why did they leave? And no one ever asked that question. It's like, why did you leave? And you didn't ask them why they left? What was that? Upset them? Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: You know that because that would be my first question is that if they have such a colorful background, they have a lot of experience and they left somewhere after being there for so long. And what made them leave is the question of, you know, why not stay there even longer if you were there that long, you know? And I think that's a question a lot of people forget to ask is like, you know, the why, why, why, why, you why did you leave? What was it that, you know, and take those answers and use those to better yourself. You beat the competition that way. think too many people are just like, well, it's burned through everybody and then nobody wants to show up and it's ⁓ we can't find people to work for us because you're methods don't work. Like you burning through people too fast just doesn't make any sense. I think Brandon had a really good point. He's like a lot of these top 500 companies, he's like, they just burn through people and then they don't realize at the end of the day when you don't have anybody who's going to run your company. And it's like you don't think of longevity, you're just thinking of, let's make money now. No, let's think of the long game. Like why not play the long game in the end of this thing? Amanda L. Christian: You heard? Right. Pete: And especially with mental health, like a lot of these companies have no idea even begin like mine doesn't. can tell you right now mine doesn't. They say a little flyer about it. They offer four sessions of therapy and like four sessions of therapy isn't enough for people. I'm sorry. If somebody's really struggling and you really want to help them, you got to do more than that. There's got to be more options out there for people than just that. Talk therapy doesn't work for everybody, you know? I think that, you know, a lot of these Amanda L. Christian: Right. Pete: holistic approaches are coming through even stronger because a lot of people are finding they fit more to what they're doing. And that's what I love about the show is that I invite all those type of people here because I want people to know, you know, psych of like, what, hypnotherapy has been the one big one that's been coming through this season. A lot of hypnotherapists come in and they make a lot of interesting things, you know, because everybody doesn't realize, you know, like how a lot of stuff works, you know, hypnotherapists go deep in your mind. They don't stay in the forefront. They go deep in your subconscious where a lot of the stuff lives, you know, and a lot of people are like, Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: Oh, and then you get neuros. I've had a couple of neuroscientists come on. I love talking to them because they're always so great, man. They have so great insight in things, you know, one of them, especially we talked to, was talking about negative self-talk. She was, I were discussing, she had said that they discovered that your negative self-talk comes from a part of your brain that a lot of people didn't even know existed. And I was like, this, this is really cool. Cause you know, you get all of them come in and give you different insights and things. But I, I agree with you. think that, I think your statistics are right though, if you think about it, cause women have more compassion than men for a lot of things. And it's just because the way we've been raised. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: Like look at how we are in our society. Like look at how these social posts where they tried to degrade women for no reason. It's like, why? are you doing that? Like that's somebody's mother out there that you're degrading because you're just like, oh, I'm not going to do this. It's like, come on, guys. You know how stupid we sound? You know what mean? It's just it makes me laugh when I'm watching these guys say things. And then you see these guys how they interact with women. And it's just like you're watching them and they're like, well, I'm single. Well, I wonder why. Think what you're doing ain't working. You just keep doing the same approach, you know. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: To me it's just stupid, it makes no sense. Amanda L. Christian: I totally agree with you. And I also know from my own studies and just kind of, I tend to watch people and it's very interesting because the men I worked with, they were very A plus B plus C equals D. Where I myself, Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, I do too. Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: take things, okay, this piece and this piece, this piece and this piece, and then bring it together and go, whoa, this is not... Pete: Yeah, you look at it from a logical standpoint, you're not you're not doing that driving force, like almost got to power through it kind of thing. Like, yeah, it doesn't work anymore, guys. Sorry. Amanda L. Christian: Yes. And so, and you know, I bring that into ⁓ my methodology. ⁓ In fact, I have, ⁓ what did I, I forget. I think it's called ⁓ Line Leadership Pattern Quiz. And so you can actually go in, it's free, go in and. Pete: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: it explores how you actually think and comes up and says, maybe you're a, ⁓ I can't even think of one now. Hey, I'm getting a little bit long in the tooth. But say I am, ⁓ let's just say connector, I know that's one part of them. And so you, Pete: You know Amanda, love, have you ever? Amanda L. Christian: and I'll probably get this all wrong, but you connect different points of things and come up with, and it could be things from left field or something that's totally irrelevant. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: What I found going back in my career, I remember when I came back after being laid off, I was working with this team and they had this process. It took them 170 days to do. And I'm like going, that's way too long. Why? And so I dove into all the different steps, worked with them. I got it from 170 days down to two weeks. Pete: Yeah. I'm saying, you know, so these people go to the weird methods they come up and make no sense. Like why do that? Amanda L. Christian: And it was. Yeah, I'm going, it makes no sense. ⁓ So yeah, and I think the, going back to your original question about why did I decide to kind of leave the corporate world was a variety of things. And I had literally been working with my manager at the time for like six months of how to find a way out of no way for me to stay. Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: she definitely knew my value because she was like, ⁓ should be doing my job if not higher. And I'm like, yeah, they forget to tell you about the trap door. ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ were talking and I happened to get on a call, I was managing a ⁓ ⁓ they brought in a new ⁓ leader for ⁓ Indian team that was working, doing the development work. and he came in and he hadn't even been there three weeks. We get on this call and he is like laying into me about how I don't know what I'm doing. I've run this project into the ground and all these other things that I'm going, what? You don't know the history, do you know the history of this project? He goes, no, I don't need to know that. just know you're, you know, basically he was saying I was incompetent. And There were two things. One is, yes, I did push back and gave him the history of the project. A lot of it was based on other leadership decisions of leaders that were on that call that did not speak up in my defense. And I was like, okay, here's the history, da, da, da. We are the only, we were basically building a new application from the ground up. I said, within six months, without full teams, staffing that we've been promised and all these other things, we have deployed the basic framework of this application into production. The business unit is going crazy over it. They love it. Just what little, you know, what that first phase that we put out. And they're going out telling their counterparts and now their counterparts are coming back saying, we wanna get in on it. So how can you tell me that I don't know what I'm doing? here's the, know, and I've done it with, I was supposed to have at that time, it was three Scrum teams. not, originally it was supposed to be five. and then they reduced it to, ⁓ you can have three. And I was basically working with one team. And that's what we did in basically six months of bringing that team on board. And I'm going, that's never been done in this bank before, to my knowledge. How am I incompetent in all these other things? And ⁓ you're gonna bring in this other team. Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: which I knew about beforehand, because ⁓ I had been made aware of this. I said, yeah, I talked to them. They're not going to be available for another six months. And then their availability is only going to be 20%. That's not going to move this forward, because they have to learn this whole, you know, everything that we've done in order to get plugged in to do the work. And I said, you know, Pete: Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: were set to finish in February, I think this was like in, I want to say it was April. or maybe it was March, March, April timeframe. And I said, know, we're on target to, you know, full deployment in the bag in February. Even though we don't have all the resources we need and we're dependent on these other teams for support because they have to do their little piece, right? And... Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: They're saying this project's not a priority, but you're telling me it's a top priority because we're trying to mitigate a security risk. And so tell me where, know, no, we can have it done by September of this year. I'm like, good luck with that. And so I got off that call and I immediately texted my manager and said, I'm putting in for retirement. ⁓ literally broke my back because not only that whole discussion, but there were leaders in that room that I had worked with for years that knew what I could deliver. No one spoke up in my defense. Pete: Yeah. Yeah. Amanda L. Christian: And I was basically, it was on a call, but I was basically the only female in the room. Pete: Yeah. That's that's yeah, that's that's ridiculous. mean, it's really not shocking, honestly. But Amanda, we're at the point of this interview where I'm going to ask you those two questions I previewed you about earlier. OK, so the first question is kind of a fun one. I borrowed from a friend of mine that runs a podcast called The Shit That Goes On In Our Head. OK, so my question to you is that if your mental health had a song, what would you say that song would be? Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. If my mental health had a song, ooh. Pete: Yeah, this is a really fun question because you get a lot of interesting answers to this. Amanda L. Christian: I think for me, ⁓ at this point in my life, is I'm not going to take it. We're not going to take it. Pete: There you go. Yeah, OK. OK, I like that one. All right. OK, that's that's the first entry for that for Twisted Sister to come on. But I loved it. I think it's a great song. I think it's a great one for you because you weren't you really weren't going to take anybody's shit. You're like, forget this. I'm done with this crap. Amanda, the last question and the reason I started this podcast is that if you could break the stigma about mental health. And when I ask you this, I'm asking you from the aspect of things that you hear or something you hear when people stop believing, what would you say that would be? Amanda L. Christian: Yes. Yes. When people repeat that. Pete: I said, you can break the stigma about mental health. this question applies to anything that you hear that you just want people to stop believing that, know, like any kind of false narrative you hear people saying or things that you hear from your own clients that you constantly hear people saying. What would you say that would be? Amanda L. Christian: ⁓ huh. I think this, ⁓ what I really, really want to break is this false belief that everyone is fine. That I'm the only broken one. Because I see that in so many people and in my clients to a large extent, but I was one of those. was like, I felt so broken for so long. and I would look at other people and go, they have it, why can't I be like that? Something's wrong with me. And it's not that something's wrong with you. ⁓ I talked to a lot of my clients, I'm like, I'm not here to fix you. We're here just to kind of move some things around and reframe things so that it doesn't affect you like it has been. Pete: Mm-hmm. Amanda L. Christian: because we're all humans. We all bring different experiences to the table. Different things have happened to us in our lifetime that just adds to it. We bring our experience from our work to the table. And so we're all unique and we all have different talents. And to compare yourself to someone else that you think is better, or is healthier or whatever it might be is basically wrong because you don't know that person's story. You don't know what's going on behind the scenes because they're not allowing it to show. Pete: Yeah, yeah, I love it. Absolutely love it. I you make really great points all in there, man. And thank you so much for coming and hanging out with me. I appreciate it. I had a great time getting to know you and learning more about the Soulfire Method. ⁓ Before we log off, do you want to let me know where they can find you? Plug that website. Let them know where they can come find you. Amanda L. Christian: You can find me ⁓ at www.amandalchristian.com and ⁓ I'll send it to you later, but I'm on LinkedIn. Pete: Lay on those, there you go, lay on those social links girl. You gotta get them for them. Where else can they find you? Awesome. Amanda L. Christian: And I have a YouTube channel that I just started up called Soul Fire Leadership. And let's see, I'm also on Instagram, but I'm not as heavily on there as I am on LinkedIn. Pete: Thanks Mm-hmm. Awesome. Awesome. Well, listen, guys, I'll have all those in the bio for everybody to get to. Amanda and I will make sure I have the right ones, everything like that. But again, Amanda, thank you so much coming to hang out with me. I appreciate you. It was so great getting to know you. And I love exactly what you're doing. Keep going, man. Just keep going. Because what you're doing is working. You're helping a lot of people. So with that being said, guys, we're going to wrap up this episode of Pete first anxiety. You guys want to find me at peteranxiety.com? I'll be down on the TikTok. I'm on Spotify all the way down to Pandora radio. And as I always say, it costs nothing absolutely to be kind to somebody. Amanda L. Christian: Mm-hmm. Pete: One kind act you could do could save some life or hell, can make their day. I'm Pete for this anxiety set. saying don't ask how your day is today. Say, hey, how's your mental health?