Latest / Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane / The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 2 - Episode 28 with Amy Kemp, Amy Kemp, Inc.

Transcript

The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 2 - Episode 28 with Amy Kemp, Amy Kemp, Inc. · Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane

• 0:00
  Hello, my name is Leslie Cain and I'm the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
• 0:06
  This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, why not today?
• 0:11
  I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Cain, who often did say, why not today?
• 0:16
  I'm based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, D.C., and thanks
• 0:20
  for joining us today.
• 0:22
  So I'm excited to have my guest today, who I've known of for years, but didn't get to
• 0:26
  know her until recently, and been watching what she's been doing, doing some new stuff
• 0:30
  on social media.
• 0:31
  So Amy Kemp is my guest today.
• 0:34
  And I've just been watching, seeing her and what she's been doing.
• 0:37
  And I reached out to her and she has a book coming out, which we're going to talk about.
• 0:41
  And so reached out to her and just so impressed with how she evolved and the courage it took
• 0:45
  to kind of recreate yourself.
• 0:47
  And I'm finding a lot of people doing the, and then something, adding something.
• 0:52
  And you definitely did that.
• 0:53
  So and have a book coming out on February 29th, which I know you can pre-order now.
• 0:58
  So I'm super excited to hear your courage stories and have you share just as we approach
• 1:04
  the new year and just talking about how we can love ourselves and see, be seen.
• 1:12
  So Amy Kemp, introduce yourself with a fun fact and then we'll get into courage.
• 1:17
  Yeah.
• 1:18
  Well, first of all, thank you for having me.
• 1:19
  I'm applauding your courage in creating something like this.
• 1:24
  I think anytime we actually put that idea into motion or take action on it, this podcast
• 1:32
  was, I'm sure, an idea before it was reality.
• 1:35
  Well, absolutely.
• 1:36
  Signifies the presence of courage.
• 1:39
  There's no way to do it without.
• 1:41
  So I applied your steps to do that and to serve people in this space.
• 1:48
  Quick story.
• 1:49
  I live an hour south of Chicago.
• 1:53
  I love the strategy of building businesses.
• 1:57
  I love all things about business.
• 1:59
  I find it to be a very creative, energizing, exciting space, having an idea or a product
• 2:09
  or a service and bringing it into the world to serve the world.
• 2:13
  I am a writer always.
• 2:16
  I'm an English major and always have loved words and reading and words have changed my
• 2:24
  life and I think they're very important.
• 2:27
  I'm a teacher.
• 2:29
  Actually my first life was as a teacher, a high school teacher.
• 2:34
  But I still find myself constantly using those skills and it's a part of who I am.
• 2:39
  And then I'm also a spaceholder, meaning I create safe spaces for people to grow and
• 2:46
  learn as a coach where I help them discover what's next on their journey.
• 2:52
  So I also have three kids and a husband who are awesome and very messy and imperfect.
• 2:58
  It is a mad life.
• 3:02
  So what's a fun fact about Amy Kemp?
• 3:05
  Okay.
• 3:06
  One thing that people are often surprised about is that I love sports talk radio.
• 3:12
  Really?
• 3:13
  Yes.
• 3:14
  I will always be listening to some sort of dumb podcast.
• 3:20
  I love the Dan Patrick show, for example.
• 3:23
  And I love listening to, I think it's three men, three old men and something, but that's
• 3:29
  JJ Reddick's podcast.
• 3:30
  But I just love when I'm relaxing and I need to give my brain a break.
• 3:35
  It's a fun place for me to.
• 3:37
  Okay.
• 3:38
  Never would have guessed that.
• 3:39
  If you lived in the DC area, you'd know there's lots of stuff happening here sports.
• 3:44
  It could be a whole show on itself.
• 3:47
  So yeah, crazy stuff going on.
• 3:50
  So Amy, what is your definition of courage?
• 3:55
  I think it's inviting all the feelings that come up when you're going to engage or embark
• 4:01
  on a new journey to just come along with you.
• 4:04
  It's not about like, I'm not going to feel all those things.
• 4:08
  I'm not going to feel the fear and feel the anxiousness and feel the uncertainty and feel
• 4:15
  the doubt.
• 4:18
  It's that I just say, oh, those feelings are there.
• 4:23
  Encourage to me is like hop in the car.
• 4:26
  We're going.
• 4:29
  That's so true.
• 4:30
  And that's this whole podcast.
• 4:31
  And my word this year is actually brave.
• 4:34
  I switched a million times became brave because I am working on or putting in place the pieces
• 4:41
  to really legitimize the podcast, make it into a business and do other things.
• 4:45
  And I feel like you got to take that cape and put it on to be brave.
• 4:49
  And then you just put it on and like, okay, I'm going to do things that I don't, you know,
• 4:54
  follow through the ideas you have and shy away from them.
• 4:59
  And some of those feelings are there to make sure you're ready for that thing.
• 5:03
  Right.
• 5:04
  You can't bring them along.
• 5:05
  You're not ready to go.
• 5:06
  Exactly.
• 5:07
  So it's okay.
• 5:09
  It just means, okay, I'm not quite ready to move forward on that, but it will be a part
• 5:13
  of anything you do if you're creating something that doesn't exist currently.
• 5:19
  So you talked about life one teacher life and now are you on three or four iterations?
• 5:26
  Talk about your transition to where you are now, how that took courage.
• 5:31
  And then let's talk about your book, which I loved, I watched your video like five times
• 5:35
  yesterday with you getting your book for the first time.
• 5:38
  So that was, and so let's
• 5:40
  It drives me that moment of opening the box with the book for the first time.
• 5:45
  I'm not really very emotional usually.
• 5:48
  I'm more of a thinker and I'm pretty chill, but that moment really caught me.
• 5:54
  So yeah, let's talk about that transition to how you got to where you are and how do
• 6:00
  you feel with people?
• 6:01
  Yeah, maybe I'm still transitioning a little bit.
• 6:04
  You know, it's kind of still a process, but I think I had to get really honest.
• 6:12
  So teacher started a business, grew it for 20 years into a very large business and then
• 6:21
  started to feel this calling and nudge and whisper and leading to work with women outside
• 6:29
  of that business.
• 6:31
  And it felt really ridiculous.
• 6:35
  I also had a real financial need in the sense of just we needed to make more money as a
• 6:40
  family to achieve our financial goals and to pay for our three kids to go to college.
• 6:45
  And to live where we live, honestly, near Chicago is expensive.
• 6:49
  So we just needed to increase our income.
• 6:52
  So all of these things were sort of swirling at the same time.
• 6:55
  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
• 7:01
  I had, because I knew as a leader that my choices would not just affect me, but they
• 7:07
  would affect all of the people that followed me.
• 7:11
  And I take that so seriously.
• 7:15
  And so there was a lot of untangling of that and pulling away very slowly from one space
• 7:21
  as I started to build what is now called EME Kemp Inc., which is six years old.
• 7:26
  I just celebrated six years of filming.
• 7:30
  And so it was very gradual.
• 7:32
  It wasn't fast, which is something I would say I've learned about transitions and maybe
• 7:36
  courage is that transitions are important.
• 7:40
  Sorry, I'm eating my hair.
• 7:43
  So I'm just whipping my transitions are important because we need what they have for us in the
• 7:51
  next phase of the journey.
• 7:53
  And we want to rush through them because they're really uncomfortable.
• 7:57
  But if we don't process through all of the things that they have for us, so for example,
• 8:04
  one of the things I had to let go of was this story that the only way you fail is to quit.
• 8:12
  This is in chapter one of the book, but that's not really true.
• 8:17
  And that story had been so repeated to me over and over and over and over again.
• 8:22
  And I just had to pull that story out and say, well, wait, maybe I actually do need
• 8:26
  to quit in order to grow to the next level.
• 8:30
  I need to quit waiting for approval from other people.
• 8:34
  I need to quit giving away areas of natural genius that are worth so much money.
• 8:40
  And I'm just giving them away.
• 8:42
  I need to quit over giving to the people I'm leading so that I have more time and energy
• 8:48
  to build this new thing.
• 8:50
  There were a lot of things I needed to quit.
• 8:53
  And some of those quitting affected other people in ways that didn't make them thrilled
• 8:59
  with my choices either.
• 9:00
  So I had to sort of just allow that and have allow them to have their experience with it
• 9:05
  as well.
• 9:07
  I tried to do it as kindly and with as much love as I could and as slowly as I could and
• 9:16
  just to give people time to process through that.
• 9:20
  Because leaving an area as a leader, again, anyone who's led people knows that it affects
• 9:25
  a lot of people.
• 9:26
  So I did it very imperfectly.
• 9:29
  I made some mistakes along the way, but I tried to do it with integrity as much as possible.
• 9:34
  So is that?
• 9:37
  That's perfect.
• 9:38
  And I think what I love is the transition, it does take time and it's not immediate.
• 9:43
  And it's that stirring in our soul.
• 9:45
  And I can remember exactly where I was walking with a friend when I first threw out of my
• 9:50
  mouth, I want to do a podcast.
• 9:53
  No idea.
• 9:54
  But I just said it and then it's just kind of evolved.
• 9:58
  And I just know that there's ways to touch other people.
• 10:02
  And I think you are definitely one of those people in my life put in there for a purpose
• 10:07
  to help me transition and watching what you're transitioning.
• 10:11
  And she said it's a journey.
• 10:12
  Here's the other thing I think that's really important about transitions.
• 10:19
  The thing you're leaving doesn't have to be bad for it to mean that it's time for you
• 10:23
  to go.
• 10:25
  So sometimes people assume like, oh, if you're leaving, there must be something wrong or
• 10:29
  bad.
• 10:30
  But that's not always true.
• 10:32
  It may just be that it's no longer a fit for you or that there's something new being prepared
• 10:37
  for you also.
• 10:38
  So I had to let go of that also that this wasn't bad just because I was leaving it and
• 10:44
  moving into a new space.
• 10:46
  It just for me, there was something new and that I was being moved to pursue.
• 10:53
  And so when you pursue something for a long time like you have and I have, it's, I don't
• 10:59
  know about you, but I get bored really easily.
• 11:02
  And somebody said something to me a couple of years ago.
• 11:04
  I said, it's really hard to get excited about something you've already accomplished.
• 11:08
  Oh, yeah, to do it again.
• 11:10
  Like the first time it's really exciting.
• 11:12
  But then after you've done it, it's like, it's hard to get excited about it.
• 11:17
  And so creating new businesses and watching them, like you said, the excitement of just
• 11:21
  watching it grow and, and, you know, your business, the book, my podcast, where this
• 11:27
  is going.
• 11:28
  And it's something we're creating on our own.
• 11:30
  Yeah.
• 11:31
  Not following a cookie cutter.
• 11:33
  I mean, although you we can.
• 11:35
  Awesome and terrifying.
• 11:37
  Absolutely.
• 11:38
  Yes.
• 11:39
  I put off starting an LLC until I did it January 2nd.
• 11:44
  I'm like, this is going to be my first brave move.
• 11:46
  I love it.
• 11:47
  Yeah.
• 11:48
  Cool.
• 11:49
  So let's talk about the conversation you had with the woman after networking event and
• 11:54
  how that evolved into your coaching and especially the title of your book.
• 11:59
  Yeah.
• 12:00
  Let's talk about how we can be there for other people.
• 12:02
  I just mentioned to you when we started, my sister recommended a book.
• 12:05
  She's in actually commercial real estate and she recommended a book called unreasonable
• 12:09
  hospitality.
• 12:10
  And at first I'm like, well, I'm not in the hospitality business, but we all are.
• 12:14
  And making people feel special and seen and giving that experience.
• 12:18
  And I think that's what you were able to do and continuing to do.
• 12:23
  And I love the thing you said, holding space for people.
• 12:26
  Yeah.
• 12:27
  Well, first, I think it's important to know that this book was written for someone and
• 12:33
  not about something.
• 12:36
  My reader is a woman who has done some stuff.
• 12:43
  She's accomplished some things.
• 12:45
  She's not just starting out on the journey, but she's reached a point in her journey where
• 12:50
  she can't work any harder or any more.
• 12:54
  And yet she longs for more income, impact and influence.
• 12:59
  And that woman doesn't need five quick tips or she's not.
• 13:06
  So I'll tell the story because it's one of my favorite stories that inspired the title
• 13:12
  of the book.
• 13:14
  But that really encapsulates the whole energy around my business and how I want people to
• 13:22
  feel in my presence.
• 13:23
  So I met someone briefly, her mutual friend at a networking event, just a community event.
• 13:30
  And I really was intrigued and I was like, oh, I'd love to meet your sign.
• 13:34
  I invited her to meet me for a cup of coffee.
• 13:37
  And she's very accomplished.
• 13:39
  She's at some tables in our community where really important decisions are made.
• 13:44
  She has a busy family from the outside looking and she has it all together.
• 13:49
  And she's a leader in her place of work.
• 13:54
  And so we sat down and for about an hour I just asked her questions.
• 13:58
  I just wanted to know her story.
• 14:02
  And toward the end of the conversation, she looked up at me kind of brusquely and she
• 14:07
  said, why did you invite me for coffee?
• 14:12
  And with that, I just came out of me.
• 14:16
  But I just said, because I see you.
• 14:22
  And then there was like a long pause and she put her head down and she just wept.
• 14:26
  Wow.
• 14:27
  We're like a long time.
• 14:29
  Well, at least it felt like in my end, you know.
• 14:33
  But I just let her cry and then she sat up and she like wept her eyes and she said, thank
• 14:39
  you so few people do.
• 14:42
  You know, and that's so true.
• 14:44
  And as leaders, there was actually somebody shared an article that was written in I think
• 14:50
  Wall Street Journal or Washington Post or something about a sports, go back to your sports analogy,
• 14:54
  a sports team owner and during COVID he said, you know, leaders and people that are strong
• 15:00
  and look like they got it all together and nobody asks, are you okay?
• 15:05
  And you know, when you are a leader, you don't get asked that question and you aren't seen.
• 15:13
  And I know some powerful people and they look like they got it all going on and you get
• 15:19
  behind pulled behind the curtain today and it's like, wow, you know, you think and you
• 15:25
  know, those powerful people, I don't know about you, but they can be sometimes intimidating.
• 15:29
  Like will they even talk to me?
• 15:32
  And you know, but nobody's talking to them because, oh, I was watching the Brook Shields.
• 15:39
  There was a Brook Shields show on the other day.
• 15:41
  Did you see that?
• 15:42
  No, but I love it.
• 15:44
  It was three hours, I think on Brook Shields.
• 15:49
  And what she and I didn't know her whole story, but she went to Princeton.
• 15:54
  And this is after, you know, her acting career and she went to college and they were shocked
• 15:58
  that they didn't think she had any brains to get in there.
• 16:00
  But she said, people were so hands off because they want to give her a space because who
• 16:07
  she was.
• 16:08
  And she goes, I was so lonely and I was so starving for a friend.
• 16:13
  She goes, but nobody would come near me because of who I was and I didn't think I would talk
• 16:17
  to them.
• 16:18
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  But yeah.
• 16:20
  And if you think about it as a leader, let's say you're a woman who has worked your way
• 16:25
  up into the leadership ranks of a company and maybe you have a family or not.
• 16:30
  It doesn't even really matter, but let's say you're at those tables.
• 16:34
  It's not appropriate for you to be friends with the people you're leading.
• 16:37
  So you can't be friends there, right?
• 16:40
  And then you go home and you're leading at home because you're taking care of everything
• 16:44
  there, whether you have aging parents or you have small children or medium children or
• 16:48
  whatever, right?
• 16:49
  So then you're leading there and there's just not a lot of time and there's not a lot of
• 16:54
  people who are seeing you.
• 16:56
  So I do think, I think it's a warning.
• 17:00
  I always say to people, if you're in that space where no one is holding space for you
• 17:07
  and no one really knows how you're doing, there should be red flags that are saying,
• 17:14
  danger, danger, danger, because we do not make great decisions when we don't have safe
• 17:19
  spaces, when we can't say to someone, whether it be a coach or a therapist or whatever,
• 17:27
  you've got to have places in your life where someone is hearing the raw version or else
• 17:34
  we just tend to make not great choices and we tend to start to cope and escape and pick
• 17:42
  your poison.
• 17:43
  It doesn't matter what you're doing.
• 17:44
  It just tends to lead to not great outcomes.
• 17:47
  Yes, so agree.
• 17:48
  Yeah.
• 17:49
  So your book is coming out and you got your hands on it yesterday for the first time.
• 17:54
  By the time the podcast will launch or drop, as I say, there's lots of pre-orders.
• 18:00
  So let's talk about what you talked about.
• 18:03
  The book is for someone and not about something.
• 18:09
  And so let's talk about some of the messages.
• 18:11
  I know you sent me a couple chapters and I was like, that was such a tease.
• 18:15
  I'm like, I want the whole book, which I know you said it's on its way.
• 18:20
  But yeah, let's talk about some of the chapters, some of the things that you and I talked about
• 18:24
  before about the under-earning and about the money and, you know, you want to talk about
• 18:30
  money?
• 18:31
  I love to talk about money.
• 18:32
  Talk about money.
• 18:34
  Okay.
• 18:35
  Women have such a checkered relationship with money and we haven't been taught a lot about
• 18:44
  it and we have often undersold ourselves.
• 18:48
  We also do the vast share of unpaid labor in our economy.
• 18:53
  So a lot of our energy is taken up doing that, that this is gender stereotyping, but that
• 19:02
  a lot of men have the freedom to go to the before and after work meetings and network
• 19:08
  and they have someone taking care of all of the unpaid labor in their home.
• 19:15
  Right.
• 19:16
  And so sometimes we blame that lack of progress financially on our lack of skill.
• 19:22
  I find more often than not, it's because of the amount of time we spend doing unpaid labor.
• 19:28
  No, true.
• 19:30
  We'll volunteer for everything.
• 19:32
  Yeah, we also do all of the gift buying, all of the appointment making, all of the, even
• 19:40
  if it's not cleaning, but like the household maintenance, food prep.
• 19:47
  There's actually a survey in the book where you get to count how many hours a week of
• 19:51
  unpaid labor you do and it's eye-opening.
• 19:56
  It's interesting and interesting dynamics.
• 20:00
  Maybe I'm not married, I don't have kids, but I'm one of six kids and the youngest sister
• 20:04
  has Down syndrome.
• 20:06
  My dad's passed away and my mom is 82, so she needs some support here and there.
• 20:11
  She will call me in a second to help her or my other sister, but would never call my brothers
• 20:16
  in the middle of the day to ask them a question like they're working.
• 20:19
  Like, well, what am I doing?
• 20:21
  You know, and they're getting paid when they don't work.
• 20:23
  I don't get paid, you know, but she goes to myself and my sister to ask all those questions
• 20:29
  and never would think about calling my brothers.
• 20:33
  Absolutely.
• 20:34
  Or we would often have this happen in our house too.
• 20:37
  You have a sick kid, right?
• 20:39
  Well, if I'm an entrepreneur who works from home, then, oh, I, but we, I would, I always
• 20:46
  would say, no, we are alternating days.
• 20:49
  Like, I get, I will stay home for the day and take the day off work, but then tomorrow
• 20:53
  you're taking the day off work.
• 20:55
  And I ran into that when my sister was in the hospital one time, my brother is like,
• 21:01
  well, I can't spend the night at the hospital because I have to go to work tomorrow.
• 21:05
  I'm like, and what do I have to do?
• 21:07
  You know?
• 21:08
  Yes.
• 21:09
  So there's that element of this question, but even bigger is that money is such a great
• 21:14
  mirror for us in examining and really exploring what we believe we're worth.
• 21:24
  And one of the hardest truths to grapple with is that we are getting paid what subconsciously
• 21:31
  we believe we're worth.
• 21:36
  And there's all of this pushback that comes up when I even say that sometimes to people,
• 21:42
  you know, I have this job and I have to have this and I get it.
• 21:47
  I'm not.
• 21:48
  What I'm saying is in the end, the only way to earn more is to grow yourself and believe
• 21:55
  that you're worth more.
• 21:57
  And most of the time it doesn't require more work.
• 22:01
  Most of the time the next level of income depends on you doing less, but showing up
• 22:06
  in spaces as more thinking of yourself differently.
• 22:11
  We want it to be all external.
• 22:13
  Like, well, I need to get this degree or I need to pursue this.
• 22:16
  And there are some actions that will happen, but it's more about what do you believe you
• 22:24
  are worth.
• 22:25
  And here's the tricky part.
• 22:26
  The parts of us that are areas of natural genius, we tend to undervalue because they
• 22:31
  feel so easy to us.
• 22:34
  Yeah.
• 22:35
  They feel like, well, anyone could do that.
• 22:40
  And so we don't recognize, oh my goodness, that's actually worth a lot of money.
• 22:46
  After we talked the other day about that, I've been paying attention to that when people
• 22:52
  are like, oh, how do you do that?
• 22:54
  And I'm like, that's, and I'm like, oh my gosh, that's so easy.
• 22:58
  But in the book, I say, pay attention to the thing that feels easy to you, but astonishes
• 23:04
  everyone else.
• 23:06
  So I'll give you an example.
• 23:08
  One thing I always have been good at in as a teacher in my first business and then is
• 23:14
  facilitating small group conversations.
• 23:17
  Always I did that in my classroom.
• 23:19
  I did that always with my business.
• 23:23
  I thought like, oh, that's so everyone could do that.
• 23:26
  Right.
• 23:27
  Where I'm digging deep with people, pulling people into the conversation, getting everyone
• 23:32
  involved, you know, and just facilitating.
• 23:34
  Well, I learned no one really can do that very well.
• 23:38
  And it's exceptionally valuable in our marketplace.
• 23:43
  It is rare, therefore is valuable.
• 23:49
  And I can take that gift and use it as a part of my business, which I do with my small group
• 23:57
  coaching and earn a lot of money for it.
• 24:01
  And for me, I would do it for free.
• 24:03
  It's so fun.
• 24:05
  It's so life-giving to me.
• 24:06
  Again, I do it.
• 24:08
  If I go out to you with friends, I do it.
• 24:10
  I do it even when I'm not, you know, I just do it.
• 24:13
  It's just who I am.
• 24:14
  Exactly.
• 24:15
  Yeah.
• 24:16
  One of those things we just do and people like, you don't think it's anything special.
• 24:20
  Somebody said, I don't know if you said this or somebody, somebody I read, it's like when
• 24:25
  people think it's magical what you're doing and you're like, oh my gosh, it's so easy.
• 24:30
  Like gathering people, putting on an event.
• 24:32
  Yeah.
• 24:33
  Yeah.
• 24:34
  But here's where I had to grow.
• 24:37
  I'm still growing every day is when you start to have to put a price tag on that, you get
• 24:47
  to encounter all of your unhealthy habits of thinking.
• 24:50
  You get to really, it brings everything up to the surface where it's like, wait a second,
• 24:55
  I've been doing that for free for so long.
• 24:58
  No one's ever paid me for that.
• 25:00
  How could I ever charge someone for that?
• 25:01
  Would someone pay for that?
• 25:03
  How much would they pay for that?
• 25:04
  What are people going to say about me if I charge for that?
• 25:07
  I mean, all, that's all what I would put in quotation marks is noise.
• 25:12
  Right.
• 25:13
  Come to the surface to either be healed, to be acknowledged, to be heard, to be surrendered.
• 25:22
  You know, you get to encounter it though.
• 25:28
  But every step of the way, the growth of my earnings has required more letting go than
• 25:35
  doing.
• 25:37
  It's required more expansive thinking than actual hours.
• 25:43
  It's required more of a connection to source or God, whatever you call it.
• 25:49
  But to me, like more of an openness to be a vessel through which that energy can flow
• 25:54
  out into the world and clearing out the blockage, then it has been about me strategically figuring
• 26:01
  something out.
• 26:02
  Now when that flow happens through me, I'm super strategic.
• 26:06
  I love energy, but that's not me figuring it out.
• 26:10
  That's just me responding and allowing and growing and like expanding.
• 26:15
  Yeah.
• 26:16
  And as you're in that creative space and creating new stuff, it does take being quiet.
• 26:23
  I am the other night, I couldn't sleep and all of a sudden I was like came up with these
• 26:27
  grand ideas and I'm like, oh my gosh, they're right here.
• 26:30
  But it took being quiet and not being able to sleep.
• 26:34
  And I literally got up and took notes and I'm like, all right, this is where we're going.
• 26:40
  But it was ideas and it was meetings and it was brainstorming and it just was kind of
• 26:44
  marinating.
• 26:45
  And then, yeah, yeah.
• 26:49
  Thinking of courage, that's scary because sometimes we've created such a hamster wheel
• 26:55
  of doing to keep up with our lifestyle.
• 27:00
  So to stop or to like show up differently or to pull away from some of that stuff, to
• 27:05
  say no to some of that for me meant I'm not going to be making income from there then.
• 27:11
  And so I've got to let that go, make space for something new before the new shows up.
• 27:17
  There was a moment, there was a gap of like, where you're like, yeah, what am I doing?
• 27:25
  However, I would not have been able to create the new thing holding onto those old mindsets.
• 27:34
  The other piece about money is that we give it, we give so much of our power away to it
• 27:39
  to make us feel a certain way.
• 27:43
  So when I earn this much, then I will be happy or I will be safe or I will be fulfilled.
• 27:52
  When I, I'll give you a really a concrete example because they just, the painter just
• 27:58
  came yesterday.
• 27:59
  I want, I've been wanting to redo our master bedroom and I kept putting it off, putting
• 28:07
  it off, putting it on.
• 28:08
  And then I was like, why do I want this?
• 28:10
  What do, what do I think this is going to give me?
• 28:14
  And when I think about it, I think, oh, it's like an inviting, warm, cool space that I'm
• 28:22
  proud of that I want to create that is beautiful and representative of our life and our love
• 28:29
  for each other.
• 28:30
  And, you know, I wanted to create this feeling with this room.
• 28:34
  Right.
• 28:35
  Well, if I head into my day with that feeling already there before I have the money to pay
• 28:39
  for it, I'm going to create the money way faster than if I'm thinking I got to create
• 28:45
  the money to get this thing I want.
• 28:48
  Right.
• 28:49
  So I can have that feeling.
• 28:50
  Yeah.
• 28:51
  I can access the feeling now.
• 28:53
  I can feel warm and excited and proud and energizing.
• 28:55
  Right.
• 28:56
  I can access that right where I am.
• 28:58
  Move into my day.
• 28:59
  I am much more likely to generate the income I need to pay for it.
• 29:03
  Right.
• 29:04
  Than the other way around.
• 29:07
  But we're constantly giving our power away to money to allow us to feel a certain way.
• 29:12
  Yeah.
• 29:13
  Yeah.
• 29:14
  And just I'll give you an example of painting the wall, the room and how it can shift your
• 29:19
  energy, do it.
• 29:21
  The wall behind me, as people are watching on YouTube, was a bright pink wall.
• 29:26
  And that's not my favorite color.
• 29:28
  And I didn't like it.
• 29:29
  I had it for meetings and things.
• 29:30
  And last year I took the time to paint the wall, the color, to match everything else.
• 29:35
  And I was like, oh my gosh, what energy and freedom that gave me to just, you know, I
• 29:42
  would, I told somebody I'm like every night I put all the clutter away and it just gave
• 29:46
  me so much more peace.
• 29:48
  And sometimes we need to spend the time doing those little things that are going to open
• 29:52
  us up to more.
• 29:54
  Yeah.
• 29:55
  And our physical spaces are a representation of our inner world too.
• 29:58
  I also love your blue because it's like the branding of all my business and my book.
• 30:02
  So branding.
• 30:03
  It's more of a teal.
• 30:06
  But yeah, from my watch to my earrings, that's all the why not today look.
• 30:11
  And it's, you know, and those kind of things, it just, I noticed it does.
• 30:16
  And I noticed something you posted with the blue, you're a ball pit, it looked like, or
• 30:22
  something.
• 30:23
  Yeah, we went to New York and they had the color factory had my color blue, like this
• 30:27
  whole room full of these balls that you could jump in.
• 30:30
  Yeah, so surrounding yourself with that, those colors and energy does make a difference.
• 30:35
  So is there another chapter or something you want to share your love or your favorite?
• 30:42
  Yeah, I think one thing that I am most proud of in this book is the chapter on structure,
• 30:51
  which is toward the end.
• 30:52
  It's called surrender to structure.
• 30:54
  Okay.
• 30:55
  There are a lot of areas in our life where we know that embracing structure would benefit
• 30:58
  us with a budget, with our health, with basically all of the things you set New Year's resolutions
• 31:07
  about are they revolve around structure.
• 31:13
  And what I have learned about structure is that powering through and trying to discipline
• 31:20
  yourself to embrace structure, particularly in an area where you've had a lot of failure
• 31:26
  or a lot of times recommitting to it is futile and not beneficial.
• 31:35
  What I've discovered is that if you, you know, you're walking on the beach, sometimes you
• 31:40
  see the people with the metal detectors and they're scanning the sand.
• 31:46
  I love when in my coaching with a client, I encounter a space where they're not resisting
• 31:53
  or where they are resisting structure.
• 31:55
  They know it would benefit them.
• 31:57
  They know it would benefit them to make a to-do list in the morning before they get started
• 32:01
  on their day, but they just don't do it.
• 32:04
  They know it would benefit them to start setting aside money for savings every month, but they
• 32:10
  just don't do it.
• 32:11
  It's like that thing where you know, it's you know, but you're just not doing it.
• 32:17
  If you can imagine that person walking along the beach, when you run into the place where
• 32:22
  you are resisting structure, if you will stop and dig down deep right there, there is almost
• 32:29
  always unhealed pain.
• 32:34
  Almost I actually can't think of one instance with a client where there hasn't been.
• 32:39
  And for women, that tends to be a lot around our bodies.
• 32:44
  We have a lot of unhealed pain as that pertains to our bodies.
• 32:48
  We will resist structure that takes care of them because we have messaging about putting
• 32:53
  ourselves first being selfish.
• 32:56
  We have messaging about what shape our body should be and you know, what is good and bad
• 33:03
  for that shape.
• 33:05
  We have a lot of experiences with our bodies that weren't positive.
• 33:10
  So a lot of times we will resist structure in places that would aid or make our bodies
• 33:17
  be more healthy.
• 33:20
  Mine in the book, the story that I share in the book is around money.
• 33:23
  So you'll have to read the story, but it is about me resisting a structure with money
• 33:28
  that I knew would serve my business.
• 33:31
  I knew that if I implemented this structure, everything would flow better.
• 33:36
  I would make more.
• 33:38
  The business would be more healthy.
• 33:40
  And yet I was not doing it.
• 33:45
  And so I had read this book about this structure.
• 33:48
  I actually emailed the author and said, I'm not sure that this is the correct way to do
• 33:56
  this.
• 33:57
  I was in such resistance to this structure.
• 34:00
  And what I learned with the help of a coach is that underneath that was a bunch of unhealed
• 34:08
  pain around money.
• 34:11
  As soon as we together acknowledged that and I worked through it and really felt the pain
• 34:18
  of it and then was able to just feel it and let it go, I within a day had embraced and
• 34:26
  gotten the whole thing set up.
• 34:28
  There was no external resistance.
• 34:30
  It was all about me healing this part of me.
• 34:36
  And so that's probably the chapter I'm praying that people get to because I'm most proud of
• 34:43
  it.
• 34:44
  It is the most tender and vulnerable without question, but it's also, I feel like the most
• 34:49
  important.
• 34:50
  I'm going to read that one first.
• 34:52
  All right.
• 34:54
  So how would you encourage somebody else to be courageous?
• 34:57
  I know we've talked about a lot of different things, but anything specific?
• 35:03
  I think if particularly if you're a woman, to take conscious, concrete action to prioritize
• 35:14
  investing in you, whether that be joining the yoga studio or hiring the babysitter or
• 35:26
  taking the webinar or whatever is in front of you that feels like, ooh, this is just
• 35:35
  about me investing in me, I would encourage that.
• 35:40
  Whatever that is, I think that's where your next best step is because if you grow you,
• 35:47
  the rest of it tends to take care of itself.
• 35:50
  Yeah.
• 35:51
  And keep your cup filled.
• 35:54
  That is such a powerful thing and we put ourselves last.
• 35:57
  And I did this several years ago and then 2019, I started again, I called it my toes
• 36:02
  in the sand tour and I'm a beach girl and I like the beach, but you know, you own your
• 36:07
  own business, we can work 24 seven.
• 36:09
  And so I was, and started in 2019, intentional and deliberate about going somewhere every
• 36:15
  month on vacation and just taking a few days off to put my toes in the sand.
• 36:20
  And if it wasn't scheduled, I would like, there was one time I went one night and came
• 36:24
  back the next day, but I was intentional.
• 36:27
  And then when COVID happened and I started traveling more with just because I could work
• 36:32
  anywhere, it became, I traveled all the time, like I was gone 50% of the time, but I was
• 36:36
  working all that time.
• 36:38
  I never was off.
• 36:39
  So I decided at the beginning of the year, I'm going to start that again.
• 36:42
  Last weekend I went to the beach and I was thinking, there's so many things I need to
• 36:45
  do, but I'm like, I need to fill my cup.
• 36:47
  And I came back just the time in the car, walking on the beach, just watching a movie,
• 36:53
  even though it was rainy, it's like, who cares?
• 36:56
  It's guilt free.
• 36:57
  Exactly.
• 36:58
  So we need to do all those things.
• 37:00
  So love it.
• 37:01
  So I always try to, when I interview anybody, connect it back to my dad because he is who
• 37:07
  I honor with doing this podcast.
• 37:09
  And you know, people are like, well, I never met your dad, which obviously you didn't.
• 37:13
  But so I was trying to, as we talk different stories.
• 37:16
  And I think I'm going to relate the Chicago.
• 37:18
  And this actually goes back to the money thing.
• 37:20
  So first of all, my dad had a pivot in his life when the logo for the podcast is his,
• 37:27
  we call it flat pat, his name was Pat, but he had an iPad and a handlebar mustache.
• 37:31
  And he had the iPad because he got in a major car accident when he was in high school the
• 37:35
  night he graduated.
• 37:36
  And so he had to pivot and he was supposed to play football and he lived in California,
• 37:40
  I think for USC, but because of being in the hospital a month, he couldn't.
• 37:44
  And so this is so funny that today and he, he would be like, what?
• 37:50
  His grandfather lived in the Cleveland area.
• 37:53
  So my grand, my grandfather put my dad on a train and sent him to Notre Dame to go to
• 37:58
  college.
• 37:59
  You know, just like, okay, go to Notre Dame instead.
• 38:02
  Like, how would that possibly happen today?
• 38:05
  But one time, and this made me so mad, my brother got in trouble.
• 38:08
  I don't even remember what he did.
• 38:09
  But my dad's punishment was to take him to a Notre Dame football game.
• 38:12
  I'm like, how is that punishment?
• 38:14
  Well, they flew into Chicago and he drove them through all the bad parts of Chicago.
• 38:20
  And then he took them to Notre Dame to a football game because you get to choose.
• 38:25
  It's crossroads in your life.
• 38:27
  Like what are you going to do?
• 38:29
  And he's very successful and chose the right path.
• 38:32
  But so the Chicago connection was the biggest thing.
• 38:34
  We're talking about money.
• 38:36
  So well, I can't wait to get my hands on your book and we're going to share all the contact
• 38:41
  information, the show notes, how to find you.
• 38:44
  What is the best place that you like people to find you?
• 38:47
  Yeah, amykemp.com is my website and the easiest place to find out all about the book.
• 38:52
  Of course, Instagram and Facebook also are at Amy Kemp Inc.
• 38:56
  You can find me there as well.
• 38:58
  But my website's fun.
• 39:00
  You can toggle around to a bunch of different things.
• 39:02
  My blog, you can take the Habit Finder Assessment, you can read all about the book.
• 39:06
  There's a trailer about the book.
• 39:07
  It's fun stuff on there.
• 39:09
  And then the book is coming out February 29th.
• 39:11
  Yes.
• 39:12
  I love that such a great order, which is super exciting.
• 39:16
  People can actually order it now, which is great.
• 39:18
  And the article will be up as well.
• 39:20
  I recorded the audible.
• 39:21
  So if you're a listener, you'll get tizzy in my voice.
• 39:24
  I love February 29th because that's a magical day.
• 39:26
  It's the extra day of the year.
• 39:28
  Every four years.
• 39:29
  So yeah, well, thank you for being a guest and lots of good tidbits here.
• 39:34
  And if you're listening to the podcast, make sure you go review the podcast, like it, share
• 39:41
  it with friends, and we are going to a weekly episode now.
• 39:45
  So lots of fun things going on.
• 39:46
  Of course, I do have the why not today swag.
• 39:48
  If you remember, remind you, just like life is good, why not today?
• 39:52
  With t-shirts and cups and stickers to remind you to be brave and be courageous every day.
• 40:00
  So thanks again, Amy.
• 40:01
  And thank you everybody for listening.
• 40:03
  And remember, say why not today?