May 1, 2025 • 40 mins
Amy Griffin does it all and seemingly perfectly so. In addition to being a wife and mother to 4, Amy is the Founder of G9 Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in brands and companies dedicated to improving people’s quality of life. She’s also the author of a new memoir, The Tell, an Oprah’s Book Club pick. Amy’s book is an exploration of her efforts to understand and begin to heal from deeply buried childhood trauma. Martha and Amy discuss Amy’s story, her upbringing in Texas, the growing field of psychedelic therapy, and how it all comes together in The Tell.
This episode contains discussion of abuse—listener discretion is advised.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hi, everyone. This is Martha Stewart and our guest today
is Amy Griffin. She is the founder of G nine Ventures,
a venture capital firm that invests mostly in female driven
early stage companies like Goop, Sarah Blakeley's Spanks, the beauty
company Westman Atelier, and the wearable fitness tracker Aura. You
(00:28):
know what, I have an Aura ring and I still
I have it on the charger and I have not
worn it yet. So we're gonna talk about that in
a little bit. I first met our guest Amy at
her home in East Hampton, Long Island, and I hope
you're enjoying that beautiful place every single summer. You go
out there all the time.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know, it's been the place really where we raised
our kids. It's the place where I'll talk about it.
But I sat on the bathroom floor to write my book.
It's been you know. I love design, and so over
the years of you know, living in that house and
having my kids, there's been absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
They must have loved it so much.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
But also, Martha, I remember the day that you came
over that day because I remember there was a plant
in the corner and you said, Amy, this plant is dry.
Oh and I said, oh no, oh no. And actually
from that point on I learned how to take care
of that plant. How are you being in the house,
And so every time I see it, I think of you.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
And I'm going to give you my gardening handbook today
right so that you can learn more about garden great
And then I rekindle our friendship just recently at a
lunch that Joe was hosted for female founders in a
room full of women who are growing innovative new businesses.
And that was such a great lunch downtown. And I
(01:40):
admire so much of the work that you've done, Amy,
and we'll talk about that today also. But your busy
life has had an outward appearance of perfection. A beautiful family,
four children, how old are they now?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So I have one that is twenty one, who is eighteen,
one who will be sixteen in a few weeks, in
one who is twelve, Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And you have an adoring husband. You are a professional success.
Your life is enviable. And then all of a sudden
you publish a book called The Tell, a very personal
memoir about a deeply repressed secret. And the catharsis that
the memoir brought to you by writing a book and
(02:24):
by doing a few other things, you have come to
Is it a bigger calm?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Absolutely? Yeah, I mean a calm, but also just a freedom.
And a lot of the things I talk about in
the book are the themes around power and the power
that comes not from control and perfection, but this power
that comes from vulnerability. And it was this idea of
when I really stopped. The book has a lot of
themes about running and that in many ways I was
running from something and so I built this life, Martha,
(02:52):
this life that I had in many ways, in some
ways gotten lost in. And it was really only in
sitting down to write this book where I've sat down
on podcasts conversations and people have thought, oh, we're going
to be talking today about the companies you support and
why do you support a founder in a certain way,
and how did you build your business? And actually really
has nothing to do with why I wrote the book,
But in some ways it has everything to do with
(03:13):
why I wrote the book, because it connects to how
I can now connect with founders and then how they
build their businesses and say, Okay, let's sit down and
figure out how we're going to do this honestly.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, how interesting. So welcome to the podcast and we're
on our way. It's very interesting to talk to someone
like you who who for many many years didn't realize
you were repressing something horrific that had happened in your youth.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, there was this idea, Martha, that I think that
i'd done. I've been working in business, I'd been building
the foundation with this with G nine, my business that
I've built, and also as a mother, my children were
finally of the ages where they weren't falling in swimming pools,
and I had a little bit more time to be
honest about my life and take accountability for what had
gone on. Also, you know, I look at the idea
(03:57):
that i'd been in as a twenty year relationship with John,
where I felt safe enough that I could come out
and say this had really gone on, and I knew
it was time to address. And what the word I
use is permission. So I decided that I was going
to give myself permission to hold myself accountable for everything
that had gone on.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I know, but it's not about even accountability. I mean,
you were a young child when a school teacher had
his way, and you have had repressed that for how
many years?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Many many years?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But how many years did it go on?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It went on from the time that I was around twelve.
And you know, the idea around memory is that I
don't know exactly the dates of it. And as much
as I wish I could know exactly every date from
the time I believe it started when I was twelve
until I was a teenager. My sal was sixteen.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Oh, and you didn't tell anybody that it was going on.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Why because you know, I also grew up in the
conservative South.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Rillo, Texas, where I've been by the way.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You know what it is. It's a beautiful this place
of community where I grew up, and Martha, it's amazing
cattle ranches, but and you could see forever. I mean,
it's an incredibly beautiful place as well. It's flats you
can see for miles. But one of the things that's
so fascinating is that I equate you to my grandmother,
who is this incredible pioneer in a small town, who
much like you. In the nineteen fifties, my grandmother my
(05:15):
grandfather had passed away, and my grandmother had these children
to raise, and she thought, how am I going to
do this, and she looked and saw these needs. She started,
which you're going to love this. She started three businesses.
I don't talk about all of them in the book,
but she was the original entrepreneur in the first business
she started was a lighting business because there were no
chandeliers in the Panhandle, and she thought everyone does, everyone
(05:35):
should have nice life lighting. And she started a wedding
registry business which still exists today, and you would go
in and you would register for a plate and buy
a plate. It's called the Little Brown House. And you
can still go in and buy silver set and register
for your wedding set. So in many ways she is
connected to you. And the third business that she started
was a convenience store chain.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And when I know, we all know how successful convenience
stores have vin so how many stores now?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I think there's I'm not going to say it incorrectly,
but I think there's almost one hundred stores. They're out
the Panhandle. Who runs those names and my family still
runs them. It's still family owned. It's a family business.
But you know, it was my grandmother who did all
of this. And so she was the first entrepreneur. And
I think that I really I link back now to
what I learned from her and seeing I thought that
was the norm that you saw a woman go to
work every day and run a business.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, but you didn't tell your grandma.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Amy uses the name mister Mason, who is the teacher
who started to abuse her, rape you on the school
grounds or elsewhere?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It was on the school grounds, only on the school ground, only,
school bathroom.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Ow in the school bathroom. Do you remember the episodes?
Did they do? You do?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I do? And you know I had remembered. One of
the things I think I talk about in the book
is this idea that there was so much that I remembered.
I remembered being around this person. I can't really use
him by name because it's still hard for me to
even speak the name, even though that's not mister Mason,
is not his name. I recognize that. It's only in
my experience. I've just come to understand how my memory
has worked, and how there were things that were so
(07:06):
difficult for me to process, that what I did was
sort of perfection myself out of them, and that if
I could just succeed, if I could get away from
all of it and I could make sure that no
one saw what was going on, then I could be successful.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
But you did that so successfully. I mean Amy Griffin
at the time. What was your maiden name, Mitchell, Amy Mitchell,
Amy Mitchell was a very fantastic athlete. Tell us about
what sports did you participate in.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I played volleyball, and I played tennis in high school
and then went on to play volleyball at the University
of Virginia, which was a real ticket out for me.
That was the most incredible opportunity. And Martha, I think
about all the time that when I went on the
recruiting visit to go for the University of Virginia and
I walked on those holid grounds where there was this
sense of place in the community, Thomas Shefferson and the architecture,
(07:53):
and I thought, this is unlike anything I've ever seen
in my entire life. I want to walk on these
copplestones every day. I want to be part of this
piece of history. And you did, and it was it.
But what's interesting was I called my parents the night
I was still believe it or not, I was still
the payphone days, and I remember I came off to the
lawn after seeing the rotunda and the pavilions. And I
(08:14):
called home and I said, well, this is where I'm
going to school. And they said, but you haven't met
the coach or talked to the team, or even been
to the gym. I said, doesn't matter. This is where
I'm going to spend the next four years of my life.
I'm going to commit to the coach.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
You were probably there with some of my family. My
husband went to UVA, but I know that son in
law went to Uva, my sister's husband, her her son went. Oh.
So many people in our family went to Uva.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, and now I have a son that's there.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Oh you do. Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So I love going back down and it brings up
back such incredible, fabulous place. I would think that Charlott's
will be a place that you love.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I love it, I loved I loved Thomas Jefferson's home Maticicillo.
I love visiting the gardens there, and of course the
campus is so beautiful. Well, your life really did and
does look upsolutely picture perfect from the outside. And there
was one episode I read somewhere that caused you to
face the facts that you had a dark secret and
(09:10):
that involved your daughter. What happened.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, aren't our children always our greatest, our parents If
we pay attention to them, they parent us in many ways.
And I think it was this recognition that when my daughter,
both of them pulled me into a room and said, Mom,
you know you do everything perfectly, but we we don't
know you. You're you're not real. Who are you? We
want to know you? And it was that moment they
really said that they did.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
They did. Those are children.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I actually, I'll have I tell you a funny story,
but in that moment, this was not funny. But in
that moment, I went in and I slammed the door
and my husband said, well, what was that all about?
And I said, Oh, she's so mad because she wants this,
that and the other for me, and I do everything
for her and I plan everything, and I, you know,
try to make life perfect for all of our children.
And what he said was, I think she's trying to
tell you something. And it was this idea that they
(09:56):
didn't want me to be perfect, They wanted me to
be reachable. And I write that in the book. And
I think it was that moment that I had, that
I had that ability to decide I was either going
to pay attention to them, or I was not going
to acknowledge that. And it was in that moment that
I heard my children and I acknowledged it, and I
acknowledged that, and I knew that I needed to pull
on that thread. But Martha, it's so funny because the
(10:17):
book has been out now almost a month, and I've
tried to stay away from reading reader reviews, and friends
who were authors said, don't read anything. Just stay in
your bubble and do what you have to do, and
you know, believe in yourself. And so, but my daughter
came to me, the one who called me into the
bedroom recently, and she said, Mom, Mom, I have to
tell you something fantastic. And I said what happened? She said, well,
(10:37):
I saw someone on the that didn't give you a
great review because they said they didn't think that I
could say the words that were in the book. And
I said really, and she said, so I wrote them.
I wrote them, and I told them I said those
exact words, and she took the comment down, and I thought, gosh,
this child is so astute. She's been telling me this
for such a long time, and here we are right
back in that same You know, it's the same situation.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Do you have anything else to Jill or no?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Good? No?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
But what did they think about the story? The children? Well,
I mean have they read the book?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
My children have read the book. I think the most
interesting part of all of this is that all of
it's been a process. So when you when you read
the book, you recognize I have.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
To started before you answered did your husband know about
when you when you met your husband and you subsequently
got engaged and married, did he know about this childhood trauma?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
He didn't know, specifically, because I never laid it out
for him perfectly. At the same time, there are many
clues that throughout the book I write about that he
had recognized in me in certain moments that come up
in the book that he said, Wow, I don't really
understand why that just happened. And at the time, remember,
I'm living it, so I don't understand why I'm protecting myself.
But as we've talked about it, and as I wrote
(11:46):
the book and I went through the process of.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Writing, had you had psychiatric help?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I've been to a therapist before, but I was never
really willing to touch it. It was something that just
was not going to be in this universe that I
was going to touch. I don't know in this lifetime
if maybe I would have just that I was just
not going to I wasn't going to address it because
it was too hard. It was something that didn't feel
like it was of this world. But I think, you know,
we were talking about my children and one of the
(12:11):
things that happened on the first night after the book launched,
and it was really surreal when Oprah surprised me and
walked out on stage at the Ford Foundation and we
had this incredible interaction, and then I was interviewed by
Mariska Hargate, who has been a longtime friend, and it
was just it was overwhelming and beautiful in that moment.
But I went home and I decided to go to
(12:32):
all of my children and say what did you think
about that? And how did you feel about it? And
realized it was really important in this relationship with my
children that I continue to go back and forth with them.
So I went to my twelve year old and I said, Julian,
how did you feel about tonight? He said, Mom, it
was great, it was great. I loved it, and that
It was then, Martha that I realized that he was
seven when I wrote the book and he couldn't read.
(12:53):
And so I said, you know, you haven't read the book.
And I realized tonight there were a lot of things
said about the book that you may not have known.
He said, Mom, I never knew you had that conversation
with my sisters. And I said, right right, because you
haven't been able to read it. And I said, well,
do you think you'd like to read it now? And
he said yeah, but I think I'm going to wait
for a book report. I said, okay. He said, let's
(13:16):
wait for a book report because I know I'll probably
get an a on the subject because it's my mom's book,
and I'll just, you know, do it all at once.
And I thought, this is just the way it is, though,
and this is the relationship that I wanted to have
with my children and having these conversations.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So were you fearful about losing their attention by telling
the story? I think you're pretty bold, should you know,
put it all out there.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I think I was worried. And this is where I
realized that the word control in so many areas of
my life that I was worried about so many things
that didn't happen and then there were things that did
happen that you know, I could never have even known
to worry about. But in this case, what was most
fascinating was that I went to my children, and my children,
in their childlike brains, didn't ask me the questions that
(13:57):
a lot of adults asked me. So I was so worried.
I mean, one of the worst days of my life
was going and I knew it would be. Was going
to tell my incredible mother, who does everything well and
is beautiful like you, Mars, it's horrific.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
My mother didn't tell her a thing.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It's horrific. But what happened was that when I recognized
as I started telling people that each person I had
a relationship with each person as I told them my story,
and I became aware that what I needed to do
was when I was going to tell someone a story,
I had to make sure that I understood where they
were and how they could handle it. And oddly enough,
or actually beautifully enough, when I went to tell my children,
(14:38):
all of my children, in their various ways, just said,
we get it, we see you, we support you, and
we're so proud of you for doing this.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So that's what you want to.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Hear and that's where, you know. And many times when
I would go to an adult, some of my family
members might say, but why, but how? But where were we?
And a lot of those questions are questions that I
don't necessarily have answers for. And it's so hard for
me because the writing of this book and believe it
or not the title. At one point in time, as
(15:08):
I was writing in the manuscript, I thought about calling
it believe Me or just having something about being believed,
because it was so hard for me to believe what
had gone on myself, having tucked away some of these
memories for so long. There are so many memories of
myself with this teacher. You know, I thought about this
teacher even as an adult, over and over and over again,
but I just wouldn't let myself touch the abuse for
(15:30):
such a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Incredible You had a book agent, Kate. Wait, but why
did you mention? Because she's also my agent. She helped
you negotiate what you felt comfortable revealing in the book.
It didn't start out as the tell well, what's the
(15:52):
original book?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I think there's so many things that have come into this,
you know, I look at the book now, and sometimes
I think of the thousands of things that had to
happen to fall in line, from one from Kate to
getting a phone call from Oprah. But what happened was
Kate really started everything. Kate a friend called me and said,
would you mind if I connected you to Kate Hoyt.
I didn't even know she was a literary agent. I
(16:14):
was told she was a literary agent. But I said,
I'm happy to take a phone call with her because
I'd been writing for over two years. I'd been in
East Hampton, writing and writing and writing, and had been
an English major in college. And my husband the day
that I really decided to confront all of this, he
handed me a notebook and he said, Amy, this is
what you do best. Go sit and process and write.
(16:35):
And I knew it in that moment before you had
your treatment. This was the morning after. Oh. But to
say so, what happened was if you want me to
talk about the MDMA piece. I had made this decision.
I'd seen John talking about PTSD. My husband had been
interested in psychedelic therapy from a veteran's perspective, and I
(16:56):
had never recognized because of his father. Yes, John's father
was a war veteran, and oftentimes when we would go
out for dinner, someone might say, John, what did your
father do? And John would say he ran the Westchester
It's Soccer youth league, and I would think, Okay, that's
not really a job. But what happened was that John
decided that he wanted to go in to understand what
psychedelic therapy was, to work with a practitioner with MDMA
(17:18):
and have his own session. And we were at dinner
one night a week or so later, and someone said, John,
what did your father do growing up? And John said
he didn't. He was a war veteran, and he didn't work,
and he didn't have a job. And so I saw something,
a change and a shift in John, and also in
a friend who'd also worked with a practitioner. The thing
about me and Martha, which I think is fascinating to note,
is that I never expected myself to be the psychedelic person,
(17:41):
and I never I am the straightest person you will
ever meet. If you've talked to my college friends, I
was a very serious college athlete, and I actually recognize
that I don't like being out of control. I barely
drink alcohol.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, you barely drink. You never took drugs recreationally. I've
never seen drugs recreation. Yeah, but all of a sudden
you thought, well, maybe this will help.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And I'd also met the person I was going to
be working with, and I understood it to be in
a very clinical setting with a practitioner who'd been doing
it for many decades. And I knew in that moment
that it was something that I needed for myself, and
that I'd been talking around what had gone on in
my life, and I think I recognized that it was
it was again I talk about this idea. People say
(18:22):
to me, oh, it's so brave that you went to
do that, But I never really thought of it as brave.
I thought of it as giving myself this freedom, or
this permission to go in and explore and be compassionate
with myself.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Weren't you afraid at all? Very?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Oh, my bet, I was very afraid.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I mean, you're completely at the mercy of the psychedelics.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I've also came to recognize I didn't. I purposely
didn't do a lot of research in knowing that I
had talked to my husband who had been through this
process and said, you know, the idea is to let
go and to have this compassion for yourself to go
in and have the session. But Martha, that was the
hardest part of it is to say, Okay, I'm going
to surrender.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Is a session?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Well, well, the other thing I like to talk about,
which I think is why it's been interesting that the
book people are talking about my story is that I
am not a scientist and I'm not a doctor, and
I don't have I don't have a story for someone
to say that I did this session and now my
life is perfect. Now my life truly is perfect. Instead,
it's actually the process that I walk through of unwinding
something that was really horrific and to be able to
(19:21):
come out on the other side and say, I personally
feel like I understand now that myself, like everyone, is
a work in progress. But I understand that work in
progress much better than I did before. And so yes,
on the day that I went in to have the therapy,
I went to the practitioner and I said to her,
I know I need to address a lot of sexual
abuse or just a sexual try to record you. You're
(19:43):
in my case, I could record it, and I didn't.
The person took notes for me.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
You drink it and you inject it. What is it?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
So it's a pill, and what's fascinating for me? And
in my case was I was so nervous to take
the pill. But I took the pill. And when I
swallowed the pill and I put the eye shades on,
I turned the practitioner and I said, how long is
it going to take for this to work? And she
said it's you know, relax, It'll take you thirty minutes
or forty minutes just to find yourself and just go
(20:10):
be with yourself. The way that I've been told that
it works is that that MDMA is an intactogen or
an empathogen. It's not a hallucinogen. It also from the
research that they have now, but just from my experience,
what I was going to say was that it absolutely
within five minutes, Martha, within five minutes, I said, I said, well,
it takes thirty minutes. I'm ready to tell you everything.
(20:33):
This is where I'm not a scientist again. But I
think the idea that I took the pill, which was
this lack of control to say it was right there
on my brain and to understand that I could go
in and just I could tell the story of what
had gone on, and.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Talked to experts since and did they say anything negative
about it?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Or I don't know the science behind it. I'm fascinated
to learn what the science will develop to be. What
I came to understand now in the way that the
science and I tried to study and understand the science
behind it, is that the brain, it allows the fight
or flight, the fear center of the brain, the amignala,
to shut down, so that the fear center allows you
to have this empathy for yourself. And I could only
(21:11):
say that in my case, again having no drug experience whatsoever,
that in that moment, I spent eight hours in a room,
eight hours in my case. And I've heard people say
that it's been different lengths of time from five hours
to four hours to ten hours, that in my situation
the first eight hours, I spent eight hours with.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
This practicition, only with one person.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
With this person, and I told my story of being
in this bathroom, of the multiple times that I was
sexually abused over and over and over again, and I
could recall everything down to minute details, down to the
handle in the door, to the sinks, to the tiles,
and I clung to those I clung to those details
(21:54):
as a way for me to recognize that I understood
in that moment that I could leave my b and
go somewhere else, and that's how I would survive. And
that is the only way that I could describe how
I could recognize how survival works in many cases for humans.
I think about Martha, even someone who has a car
crash or you know, I can think of many other
situations in my life where someone tells me something horrible.
(22:15):
It's like I write in the book that my father
always says, when we call home to tell my mother
and father something bad has happened, we have to immediately say,
I'm calling right now. Everything's okay, everyone's alive, but I
have to tell you something. And sometimes I've had other
instances in my life where if you can think back
when someone tells you something and then you later remember, wait,
I can't remember what they actually even told me because
(22:37):
I was I'd gone into a state of frozen. And
in this case is the only way that I can
recognize that it was a compassion that I have for
myself of protection of what had gone on.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
So you took this pill, you really didn't know what
was going to happen. You entrusted all your memories to
the therapists. Is she a well known therapist for this.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Well, she's been well known in the circles, But I
don't know how well known she is because I'm the
only one. You know. I was introduced to her, my
husband has worked with her, and I completely That's exactly right, Martha.
She was completely trusted. She was a trusted source. She
was someone that I trusted immediately. I would never have
gone to also take a drug at a club, and
(23:20):
I haven't done that. That's not something that's been my experience.
So when we talk about what MDMA is and ecstasy is,
and I've only people say, oh, I did ecstasy at
a club, I don't have any experience of doing ecstasy
at a club. I only had this experience for myself.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But sounds a little bit like hypnosis in a way,
because because I remember getting hypnotized. Do you remember every
single thing?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I remember, every single note there was music playing in
the background. Why when I do you remember everything that
I remember everything that was also happening in the room,
down to the note of the flamenco.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Music mentally and physically, did you notice anything different.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
After my experience. Oh, I mean, you know, the next
day was it was the aftermath of all of it.
That night, when I came out of the session, I
told John, and I can only describe it in the
way that I ride about it say. He knew in
the moment he did what I think could be the
most loving, compassionate thing for a spouse. He listened, and
over time we unpacked a lot of the stories that
(24:15):
made him recognize why maybe I'd done some of the
things I've done, and how he could have He recognized
that maybe this had gone on. But in that moment, Martha,
it was wildly liberating to be able to tell the
secret not only what had been done to me, but
this idea that I live, this life that looks one
way that I built up all these walls and castles,
(24:36):
and yet I was able to dismantle the secret that
I'd kept from the person who I loved the most
in this world.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
It was so free, That's what's so strange. And you've
been married for how long before this happened.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Let's see, it was I miss eighteen nineteen years. I
lose track, but I think it was about seventeen eighteen
years wow. And it was because of that connection with him.
I think it was because of that that freedom that
I had in the relationship with John, that I was
able to te tell him in knowing in this that
there wasn't going to be this fear that I would
be cast out. And it was after this long period
(25:07):
of connecting and building this relationship with him that I
felt safe to do so. And also there were so
many things that led to this. Also, I think it's
really important to note that my daughters were also of
the ages that I was when I was going through
this abuse, and so to say that I was feeling
this tension with them when they called me out, along
with having the session, being in the relationship that I
was in, and being safe enough within myself to say,
(25:30):
I'm strong enough in the business I built you to
each that I am.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I didn't tell your mom.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
No, but why because this person told me that I
wouldn't be believed if I did. He told me, you
come from one of the nicest families in town, you
will not be believed, no one will love you. So
what did I do? I achieved out of it. I
achieved away from it such that no one could see
what was going on. One of the things I write
about in the book is how you know we have
(25:55):
one foot in a bucket of hot water and one
foot in a bucket of cold water, and that's we
live our life in between. In some ways, I was
always living fearful of the secret coming out, and so
I was building this life such that no one could
touch me. And yet at the same time I was
living in fear from all of that. And I think
in acknowledging what had gone on, it was so beautiful
because now I could live so fully on both sides
(26:18):
that I can still feel deep, deep sadness and I
still feel deep, deep signest and then also the joy
of the freedom.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But raising children, I mean, aren't you You must be
terribly concerned about.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Your kids, definitely, And I think one of the things
that's so beautiful in the relationship was in the idea
that if in the book, I talk about running a lot,
but I also talk about how I really was so
controlling over my children, and the idea that if I
could just keep them safe. I thought it was in
many of the ways that I talk about from the
conservative South, that in the South we were raised that
your skirt needs to be a certain link, that your
nail shouldn't be too red, that your heels should be
(26:50):
a certain height, and those were ways that might keep
you safe in life. But what I came to realize,
and it was one night that I write about in
the book, where my son was maybe one minute late
from coming home from curfew. I stood in the doorway
pacing because of that one minute. And there was this
recognition also in that moment too, where John and I
talked about what was I solving for the relationship or
control of him? And through this process, I've been able
(27:13):
to recognize that I can solve for the relationship with
them of the conversation back and forth, not of the control.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
In the book, too, you talk about the fact that
you were not able to have any retribution whatsoever with
your abuser.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Why, well, there was a loophole in the statute of
limitations that had passed in terms of me being able
to move forward. But I think one of the most
interesting threads of the book is that, and I talk
about this a lot in people that haven't read the book,
is the book is not just about the horrific things
that happened to me. The book in fact, I look
at it. There's a crazy crime thriller that goes on
that I was writing about as I was living in it, Martha,
(27:58):
as I'm going after this person, and I was doing
what I had always done in my life, which was
the idea if I could go and get this person
and do everything I could to hold this person accountable,
then life would be perfect again, and I could tie
it up with a bow and I could say I
accomplished this. This person is in jail, and look what
I did. But in reality, I was trying to take
care of myself, take care of my family, run my business,
(28:19):
and hold this person accountable. And the statut limitations had
changed in Texas as such that there actually were two
people that had been led out of jail because their
cases had been overturned based on a loophole.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And this is just going to be a movie.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Oh gosh, you know, I've been asked that so many times,
and I actually don't know, because also can I say why?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
It sounds like Ryan Murphy.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I could only wish. But you know what's interesting about
the movie piece of it is that I put hundreds
of thousands of hours into the word choice of how
I wrote about this book and the idea of then
going back into it again. I'd just come out of
putting the book out into the world and also putting
the book out into the world so that people would
read it. But imagine that Martha. There was this decision
which just as I was going to get back to
(29:04):
Kate hoyt our agent who when she said to me,
you know, can I read what you wrote? And I
have this one thought of when I pushed send and
I turned to John. He said, what did you do?
I said, I just sent Kate everything I've been writing
for two years. He said, you send it to her,
and I said, yes, because it's time for me to
tell this story and I think I'll help a lot
of other people. Without knowing that that was what was
(29:26):
going to happen, I had no idea that a literary
agent was going to call me. And so the most
important thing about the book that I say is the
takeaway for me, which I've had to get comfortable with,
which is why I don't know if there will be
a movie, is that I've had to get comfortable with
the fact that I wrote this book on my bathroom floor. First,
for me, not thinking that anyone in the entire world
would ever read it. And so now that that's changed,
(29:48):
I'm having these conversations with people all over the world
that are writing to tell me how this has opened
something up for them, or they've remembered something that they
had hidden. And what's been fascinating too, is that such
a big part of this has not just been about
sexual trauma. It's been about all kinds of things, people's
sexual orientation, or something happening with a partner, or something
at worked that happened that was inappropriate. There's just so
(30:09):
many things that I think we as humans overlook, and
especially Martha and you know this, we as women hold
and we are held to different standards.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Totally argally right. So, has the feedback that you've received
surprised you or anything to say about that? I mean,
the feedback's been amazing. Every magazine I open has a
very good review of your book, every single one, and.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That's so kind. Yeah, you know, I was very nervous.
This is the first time I'm probably saying I was
very scared to put my words out into the world
for so many reasons, for fear of being judged, for
fear of being not believed for fear of the idea
that this is what I was told was the secret
in many ways, was the thing I was running from.
(30:53):
That was the hardest part to tell my parents and
to break that secret. So to put the book out
into the world and have the people people come back
to me with me like the connection one on one.
I cannot tell you. Seeing people reading it in lawn
chairs and on subways and having these threads that they
pull of it has been. It's been absolutely surreal, and
that has been such a gift to me. I'm so
grateful for it.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So what did your mom say when I told her?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, immediately when I went to tell my mom, you know,
it all felt so fuzzy. As I told her what
had happened. She went inside to get something to drink,
and I found her on the floor, on the tile floor,
curled up in a ball, and she said, I can't
get up. I can't get up. And I said, Mom,
you're going to have to get up because I have
to finish telling you this. I have to tell you,
tell you, tell you. Back to the title of the
book and Martha, I have to say, my mother is
(31:37):
the most extraordinary woman. She has risen from this she
has read. She was five steps ahead of me in
terms of reading every book to then come to me
and say, I understand now why you couldn't tell us.
I understand why how other people had been through this.
There's a story that happened last night. A woman that
is in the book that I write about, who haven't
spoken to a long time. He's a dear friend, wrote
(31:58):
me last night and said me, when I had my incident,
happened to me and I had this horrific thing happen
of abuse, your mother twenty years ago, twenty five years
ago was the first person that showed up at my
house to tell me her story. Oh wow, And I
heard that story last night. So to go back to
my mother and see how my mother has grown and
(32:20):
accepted this and understood this, and how we've grown as
a family has been one of the most beautiful parts
of this process.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
I as a person would hope that it happened earlier
in your life, but it's good that it's happened now. Well.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I always have had a beautiful relationship with my mom.
She's an incredible homemaker and she can do anything, and
she could be a senator or a CEO or she
still could be, and who knows what she will do.
She's only like seventy two years young. And we were
always close, and this was something that was also part
of the problem, is that we were so close that
I came from a beautiful family that was intact. And
I do believe as I went through all of this,
(32:55):
and I surfed through all of it, through the waters,
that I realized that it was my family that kept
me intact. And I was so I was so blessed
I had the family to go home to that was intact,
that I could go home to my parents who were
loving and caring.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No, it's amazing that you have that and that strength
behind you. But so this has been a tough conversation
and it's heartrending, and it's also extremely enlightening and also
very encouraging that someone can live through what you've lived through,
succeeded so beautifully, and so many many things. And I
(33:31):
just wanted to talk a little tiny bit about Amy's
amazing accomplishments as a female founder, as a fantastic mother,
as a wonderful wife. You run a company that everybody
admires so greatly. Tell us about g nine.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Well, G nine started with the idea that I loved
I was an athlete, and I loved being on a team,
and I love supporting people. And I came to this
realization that I had the skill set from my background
to jump in and figure out how to be a
problem solver and to be a leader, and to lead
these founders and to surround them with the support they
might need as they're building their businesses. And so I
(34:07):
started very simply by making one or two investments in
a few businesses. What was your first investment One of
the first businesses that was material that I made. I
made a few others, I mean an ice cream store
and this and that and the other, but one of
the first that was material, really was believing in Goop
and what Gwyneth was building and seeing that transition that
she was making, both from having this model of sending
out this weekly email to saying, you know what, I'm
(34:30):
going from Hollywood to go be this founder and I'm
going to step in and run this business. And I
wholeheartedly believed her and still do and seeing what she's
doing and how she's stuck with it and how she's
become the CEO of that business that she is today.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
And more than seventy percent of your portfolio, which is
quite extensive from what I've read, are female founders.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
That's right, And that wasn't by design necessarily, except that
I recognized that I come from the female perspective, and
I recognized, you know, you look at a business like
a spanks or a bumble, or there's many health which
is around men's healthcare. And I saw areas where women
were being left out, and I wanted to apply my
experiences to those businesses. And so over time, as I
had enough founders around the table, I started seeing these
(35:10):
patterns within founders and how they did well and how
they built their businesses. And I also recognized that there
were patterns. But at the same time, it was about
showing up and just rolling up by sleeves and saying,
what do you need is you need a new CMO,
you need someone to help you with branding, You need
me to show up and help hand out flyers. I mean,
it's this idea that it's like whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Reese Witherspoon's company Hill at Sunshine, Yes, incredible, Yeah, how's
that doing?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I mean, what a beautiful idea that I did that,
Reese took and said, I'm going to help women tell
their stories in a very different way, and I'm going
to help them own their stories from start to finish
in a different model. And so I was so proud
to be a part of what she was doing. As
she said, also, I don't see women in these roles,
and I want to give more women the opportunities to
take these lead roles. So I'm going to buy these
(35:55):
scripts and I'm going to make these movies and I'm
going to make it happen. And that's like as exciting
as it can get for me.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You said that you are also invested in Westbinochlier.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Oh, I mean, Gucci's the most fabulous, sickest human alive.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
And that was also the neighbor of mine. I've been
Bedford and I love her products. I think she's done
such an amazing job with her company from start to finish. Yes,
and she's done it the right way. She's built it
slow and methodically and with thought. She deeply cares about
every single product that she makes. She's been a longtime friend,
(36:28):
but I've watched her and immediately when she said she
was starting this business, I said, I would love to
be part of it. And can I tell you that,
you know, I would like to say that I've been
helpful to these businesses, but in many ways I learned
from them and Gucci and Gucci is one of those
founders that I learned so much from in terms of
what to do and how to build a business the
right way. And Spanks that is evolving and evolving. That's
(36:49):
how old is that company now?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Well, Spanks is just going into its twenty fifth year.
Sarah Blakely is the original inventor creative of shapewear. Shapewear
and you know, I think of Sarah as a real
She is an icon like you in many ways. So
to sit with Sarah who still comes to board meetings
and says, wait a minute, light bulb idea and always
has these incredible answers as to how we should move
(37:11):
and where we should take the company in the next iteration.
And truly, this was this first idea that she believed
in a business that could make women feel better in
the clothing that they were wearing, and she did it,
and she's just so much.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
It's just incredibly what's up and coming? Can you talk
about any company?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Well, My team is focused a lot on women's sports
right now and just making sure that there are women
owners of sports teams. I think that's one thing we've
been looking at a lot, because otherwise evaluations are going
to get away from us, and you know that we
want to. It's really exciting to see what's happening in
women's sports from an investment perspective. But also we've been
really focused on women's health and just finding businesses in
women's health that are going to transform women's wives in
(37:50):
various ways, from the female microbiome with EVY to MIDI,
which is a midlife care. We're really interested in them
right now because of the fact that I see how
they can transform for.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Most of them more I think we I think women
need more information.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
We look at someone like doctor Mary Clare. I don't
know if you've followed her, but she's someone that's been
a friend for a while, and I've seen so many
women talking about We're talking about things that we didn't
talk about before. And those are some of the categories
that I've been interested in. Like, no one said the
word menopause, no one said the word perimenopause. No one
knew that there were there was businesses to be built
around this to help women not just men.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
And my company are talking about menopause.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Great and it's working. I mean that means there's money
to be made, but not the money is not where
the money is one part of it.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
They know what it is now because of companies like
medi and those. You know that there that is in
the conversation now, which is interesting.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I think there's so many subjects that have been passe
and off you can't have the conversation. So the fact
that we're having conversations about menopause, both women were silid
from it too. I think women are for the first
time actually learning what it means to have these symptoms
of menopause. So that's an area that we've been really
excited about.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, keep up your fantastic good work. Congratulations on being
able to tell with the tell and encourage all of
us not to think that we have to hide things
that are painful or secretive in our lives. Amy, You've
done a good service to all of us by writing
this book and coming forth with the truth.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I'm living in the messy now, Martha. That's the thing,
the idea I'm trying to embrace the spilled glass of
wine on the table, and stay a little longer, and
you know, as life changes and transforms. I think the
greatest gift that I've given myself is in the freedom
of this book, okay, because I can now go back
to my businesses, Yes, and even more open mind.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
You have the most It's very exciting what you're doing.
Thank you, and I'm excited for you, and I'd love
to see the enthusiasm that is spilling out of your
beautiful eyes is great. Well, thank you so much for
speaking with us today and this of luck.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. My icon
Hi, everyone. This is Martha Stewart and our guest today
is Amy Griffin. She is the founder of G nine Ventures,
a venture capital firm that invests mostly in female driven
early stage companies like Goop, Sarah Blakeley's Spanks, the beauty
company Westman Atelier, and the wearable fitness tracker Aura. You
(00:28):
know what, I have an Aura ring and I still
I have it on the charger and I have not
worn it yet. So we're gonna talk about that in
a little bit. I first met our guest Amy at
her home in East Hampton, Long Island, and I hope
you're enjoying that beautiful place every single summer. You go
out there all the time.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know, it's been the place really where we raised
our kids. It's the place where I'll talk about it.
But I sat on the bathroom floor to write my book.
It's been you know. I love design, and so over
the years of you know, living in that house and
having my kids, there's been absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
They must have loved it so much.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
But also, Martha, I remember the day that you came
over that day because I remember there was a plant
in the corner and you said, Amy, this plant is dry.
Oh and I said, oh no, oh no. And actually
from that point on I learned how to take care
of that plant. How are you being in the house,
And so every time I see it, I think of you.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
And I'm going to give you my gardening handbook today
right so that you can learn more about garden great
And then I rekindle our friendship just recently at a
lunch that Joe was hosted for female founders in a
room full of women who are growing innovative new businesses.
And that was such a great lunch downtown. And I
(01:40):
admire so much of the work that you've done, Amy,
and we'll talk about that today also. But your busy
life has had an outward appearance of perfection. A beautiful family,
four children, how old are they now?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So I have one that is twenty one, who is eighteen,
one who will be sixteen in a few weeks, in
one who is twelve, Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
And you have an adoring husband. You are a professional success.
Your life is enviable. And then all of a sudden
you publish a book called The Tell, a very personal
memoir about a deeply repressed secret. And the catharsis that
the memoir brought to you by writing a book and
(02:24):
by doing a few other things, you have come to
Is it a bigger calm?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Absolutely? Yeah, I mean a calm, but also just a freedom.
And a lot of the things I talk about in
the book are the themes around power and the power
that comes not from control and perfection, but this power
that comes from vulnerability. And it was this idea of
when I really stopped. The book has a lot of
themes about running and that in many ways I was
running from something and so I built this life, Martha,
(02:52):
this life that I had in many ways, in some
ways gotten lost in. And it was really only in
sitting down to write this book where I've sat down
on podcasts conversations and people have thought, oh, we're going
to be talking today about the companies you support and
why do you support a founder in a certain way,
and how did you build your business? And actually really
has nothing to do with why I wrote the book,
But in some ways it has everything to do with
(03:13):
why I wrote the book, because it connects to how
I can now connect with founders and then how they
build their businesses and say, Okay, let's sit down and
figure out how we're going to do this honestly.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Well, how interesting. So welcome to the podcast and we're
on our way. It's very interesting to talk to someone
like you who who for many many years didn't realize
you were repressing something horrific that had happened in your youth.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, there was this idea, Martha, that I think that
i'd done. I've been working in business, I'd been building
the foundation with this with G nine, my business that
I've built, and also as a mother, my children were
finally of the ages where they weren't falling in swimming pools,
and I had a little bit more time to be
honest about my life and take accountability for what had
gone on. Also, you know, I look at the idea
(03:57):
that i'd been in as a twenty year relationship with John,
where I felt safe enough that I could come out
and say this had really gone on, and I knew
it was time to address. And what the word I
use is permission. So I decided that I was going
to give myself permission to hold myself accountable for everything
that had gone on.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
I know, but it's not about even accountability. I mean,
you were a young child when a school teacher had
his way, and you have had repressed that for how
many years?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Many many years?
Speaker 1 (04:26):
But how many years did it go on?
Speaker 2 (04:28):
It went on from the time that I was around twelve.
And you know, the idea around memory is that I
don't know exactly the dates of it. And as much
as I wish I could know exactly every date from
the time I believe it started when I was twelve
until I was a teenager. My sal was sixteen.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Oh, and you didn't tell anybody that it was going on.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Why because you know, I also grew up in the
conservative South.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
Rillo, Texas, where I've been by the way.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You know what it is. It's a beautiful this place
of community where I grew up, and Martha, it's amazing
cattle ranches, but and you could see forever. I mean,
it's an incredibly beautiful place as well. It's flats you
can see for miles. But one of the things that's
so fascinating is that I equate you to my grandmother,
who is this incredible pioneer in a small town, who
much like you. In the nineteen fifties, my grandmother my
(05:15):
grandfather had passed away, and my grandmother had these children
to raise, and she thought, how am I going to
do this, and she looked and saw these needs. She started,
which you're going to love this. She started three businesses.
I don't talk about all of them in the book,
but she was the original entrepreneur in the first business
she started was a lighting business because there were no
chandeliers in the Panhandle, and she thought everyone does, everyone
(05:35):
should have nice life lighting. And she started a wedding
registry business which still exists today, and you would go
in and you would register for a plate and buy
a plate. It's called the Little Brown House. And you
can still go in and buy silver set and register
for your wedding set. So in many ways she is
connected to you. And the third business that she started
was a convenience store chain.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And when I know, we all know how successful convenience
stores have vin so how many stores now?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I think there's I'm not going to say it incorrectly,
but I think there's almost one hundred stores. They're out
the Panhandle. Who runs those names and my family still
runs them. It's still family owned. It's a family business.
But you know, it was my grandmother who did all
of this. And so she was the first entrepreneur. And
I think that I really I link back now to
what I learned from her and seeing I thought that
was the norm that you saw a woman go to
work every day and run a business.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah, but you didn't tell your grandma.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Amy uses the name mister Mason, who is the teacher
who started to abuse her, rape you on the school
grounds or elsewhere?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It was on the school grounds, only on the school ground, only,
school bathroom.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Ow in the school bathroom. Do you remember the episodes?
Did they do? You do?
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I do? And you know I had remembered. One of
the things I think I talk about in the book
is this idea that there was so much that I remembered.
I remembered being around this person. I can't really use
him by name because it's still hard for me to
even speak the name, even though that's not mister Mason,
is not his name. I recognize that. It's only in
my experience. I've just come to understand how my memory
has worked, and how there were things that were so
(07:06):
difficult for me to process, that what I did was
sort of perfection myself out of them, and that if
I could just succeed, if I could get away from
all of it and I could make sure that no
one saw what was going on, then I could be successful.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
But you did that so successfully. I mean Amy Griffin
at the time. What was your maiden name, Mitchell, Amy Mitchell,
Amy Mitchell was a very fantastic athlete. Tell us about
what sports did you participate in.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I played volleyball, and I played tennis in high school
and then went on to play volleyball at the University
of Virginia, which was a real ticket out for me.
That was the most incredible opportunity. And Martha, I think
about all the time that when I went on the
recruiting visit to go for the University of Virginia and
I walked on those holid grounds where there was this
sense of place in the community, Thomas Shefferson and the architecture,
(07:53):
and I thought, this is unlike anything I've ever seen
in my entire life. I want to walk on these
copplestones every day. I want to be part of this
piece of history. And you did, and it was it.
But what's interesting was I called my parents the night
I was still believe it or not, I was still
the payphone days, and I remember I came off to the
lawn after seeing the rotunda and the pavilions. And I
(08:14):
called home and I said, well, this is where I'm
going to school. And they said, but you haven't met
the coach or talked to the team, or even been
to the gym. I said, doesn't matter. This is where
I'm going to spend the next four years of my life.
I'm going to commit to the coach.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
You were probably there with some of my family. My
husband went to UVA, but I know that son in
law went to Uva, my sister's husband, her her son went. Oh.
So many people in our family went to Uva.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Well, and now I have a son that's there.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
Oh you do. Oh?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
So I love going back down and it brings up
back such incredible, fabulous place. I would think that Charlott's
will be a place that you love.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I love it, I loved I loved Thomas Jefferson's home Maticicillo.
I love visiting the gardens there, and of course the
campus is so beautiful. Well, your life really did and
does look upsolutely picture perfect from the outside. And there
was one episode I read somewhere that caused you to
face the facts that you had a dark secret and
(09:10):
that involved your daughter. What happened.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, aren't our children always our greatest, our parents If
we pay attention to them, they parent us in many ways.
And I think it was this recognition that when my daughter,
both of them pulled me into a room and said, Mom,
you know you do everything perfectly, but we we don't
know you. You're you're not real. Who are you? We
want to know you? And it was that moment they
really said that they did.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
They did. Those are children.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I actually, I'll have I tell you a funny story,
but in that moment, this was not funny. But in
that moment, I went in and I slammed the door
and my husband said, well, what was that all about?
And I said, Oh, she's so mad because she wants this,
that and the other for me, and I do everything
for her and I plan everything, and I, you know,
try to make life perfect for all of our children.
And what he said was, I think she's trying to
tell you something. And it was this idea that they
(09:56):
didn't want me to be perfect, They wanted me to
be reachable. And I write that in the book. And
I think it was that moment that I had, that
I had that ability to decide I was either going
to pay attention to them, or I was not going
to acknowledge that. And it was in that moment that
I heard my children and I acknowledged it, and I
acknowledged that, and I knew that I needed to pull
on that thread. But Martha, it's so funny because the
(10:17):
book has been out now almost a month, and I've
tried to stay away from reading reader reviews, and friends
who were authors said, don't read anything. Just stay in
your bubble and do what you have to do, and
you know, believe in yourself. And so, but my daughter
came to me, the one who called me into the
bedroom recently, and she said, Mom, Mom, I have to
tell you something fantastic. And I said what happened? She said, well,
(10:37):
I saw someone on the that didn't give you a
great review because they said they didn't think that I
could say the words that were in the book. And
I said really, and she said, so I wrote them.
I wrote them, and I told them I said those
exact words, and she took the comment down, and I thought, gosh,
this child is so astute. She's been telling me this
for such a long time, and here we are right
back in that same You know, it's the same situation.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Do you have anything else to Jill or no?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Good? No?
Speaker 1 (11:02):
But what did they think about the story? The children? Well,
I mean have they read the book?
Speaker 2 (11:07):
My children have read the book. I think the most
interesting part of all of this is that all of
it's been a process. So when you when you read
the book, you recognize I have.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
To started before you answered did your husband know about
when you when you met your husband and you subsequently
got engaged and married, did he know about this childhood trauma?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
He didn't know, specifically, because I never laid it out
for him perfectly. At the same time, there are many
clues that throughout the book I write about that he
had recognized in me in certain moments that come up
in the book that he said, Wow, I don't really
understand why that just happened. And at the time, remember,
I'm living it, so I don't understand why I'm protecting myself.
But as we've talked about it, and as I wrote
(11:46):
the book and I went through the process of.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Writing, had you had psychiatric help?
Speaker 2 (11:50):
I've been to a therapist before, but I was never
really willing to touch it. It was something that just
was not going to be in this universe that I
was going to touch. I don't know in this lifetime
if maybe I would have just that I was just
not going to I wasn't going to address it because
it was too hard. It was something that didn't feel
like it was of this world. But I think, you know,
we were talking about my children and one of the
(12:11):
things that happened on the first night after the book launched,
and it was really surreal when Oprah surprised me and
walked out on stage at the Ford Foundation and we
had this incredible interaction, and then I was interviewed by
Mariska Hargate, who has been a longtime friend, and it
was just it was overwhelming and beautiful in that moment.
But I went home and I decided to go to
(12:32):
all of my children and say what did you think
about that? And how did you feel about it? And
realized it was really important in this relationship with my
children that I continue to go back and forth with them.
So I went to my twelve year old and I said, Julian,
how did you feel about tonight? He said, Mom, it
was great, it was great. I loved it, and that
It was then, Martha that I realized that he was
seven when I wrote the book and he couldn't read.
(12:53):
And so I said, you know, you haven't read the book.
And I realized tonight there were a lot of things
said about the book that you may not have known.
He said, Mom, I never knew you had that conversation
with my sisters. And I said, right right, because you
haven't been able to read it. And I said, well,
do you think you'd like to read it now? And
he said yeah, but I think I'm going to wait
for a book report. I said, okay. He said, let's
(13:16):
wait for a book report because I know I'll probably
get an a on the subject because it's my mom's book,
and I'll just, you know, do it all at once.
And I thought, this is just the way it is, though,
and this is the relationship that I wanted to have
with my children and having these conversations.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
So were you fearful about losing their attention by telling
the story? I think you're pretty bold, should you know,
put it all out there.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I think I was worried. And this is where I
realized that the word control in so many areas of
my life that I was worried about so many things
that didn't happen and then there were things that did
happen that you know, I could never have even known
to worry about. But in this case, what was most
fascinating was that I went to my children, and my children,
in their childlike brains, didn't ask me the questions that
(13:57):
a lot of adults asked me. So I was so worried.
I mean, one of the worst days of my life
was going and I knew it would be. Was going
to tell my incredible mother, who does everything well and
is beautiful like you, Mars, it's horrific.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
My mother didn't tell her a thing.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It's horrific. But what happened was that when I recognized
as I started telling people that each person I had
a relationship with each person as I told them my story,
and I became aware that what I needed to do
was when I was going to tell someone a story,
I had to make sure that I understood where they
were and how they could handle it. And oddly enough,
or actually beautifully enough, when I went to tell my children,
(14:38):
all of my children, in their various ways, just said,
we get it, we see you, we support you, and
we're so proud of you for doing this.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So that's what you want to.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Hear and that's where, you know. And many times when
I would go to an adult, some of my family
members might say, but why, but how? But where were we?
And a lot of those questions are questions that I
don't necessarily have answers for. And it's so hard for
me because the writing of this book and believe it
or not the title. At one point in time, as
(15:08):
I was writing in the manuscript, I thought about calling
it believe Me or just having something about being believed,
because it was so hard for me to believe what
had gone on myself, having tucked away some of these
memories for so long. There are so many memories of
myself with this teacher. You know, I thought about this
teacher even as an adult, over and over and over again,
but I just wouldn't let myself touch the abuse for
(15:30):
such a long time.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Incredible You had a book agent, Kate. Wait, but why
did you mention? Because she's also my agent. She helped
you negotiate what you felt comfortable revealing in the book.
It didn't start out as the tell well, what's the
(15:52):
original book?
Speaker 2 (15:53):
I think there's so many things that have come into this,
you know, I look at the book now, and sometimes
I think of the thousands of things that had to
happen to fall in line, from one from Kate to
getting a phone call from Oprah. But what happened was
Kate really started everything. Kate a friend called me and said,
would you mind if I connected you to Kate Hoyt.
I didn't even know she was a literary agent. I
(16:14):
was told she was a literary agent. But I said,
I'm happy to take a phone call with her because
I'd been writing for over two years. I'd been in
East Hampton, writing and writing and writing, and had been
an English major in college. And my husband the day
that I really decided to confront all of this, he
handed me a notebook and he said, Amy, this is
what you do best. Go sit and process and write.
(16:35):
And I knew it in that moment before you had
your treatment. This was the morning after. Oh. But to
say so, what happened was if you want me to
talk about the MDMA piece. I had made this decision.
I'd seen John talking about PTSD. My husband had been
interested in psychedelic therapy from a veteran's perspective, and I
(16:56):
had never recognized because of his father. Yes, John's father
was a war veteran, and oftentimes when we would go
out for dinner, someone might say, John, what did your
father do? And John would say he ran the Westchester
It's Soccer youth league, and I would think, Okay, that's
not really a job. But what happened was that John
decided that he wanted to go in to understand what
psychedelic therapy was, to work with a practitioner with MDMA
(17:18):
and have his own session. And we were at dinner
one night a week or so later, and someone said, John,
what did your father do growing up? And John said
he didn't. He was a war veteran, and he didn't work,
and he didn't have a job. And so I saw something,
a change and a shift in John, and also in
a friend who'd also worked with a practitioner. The thing
about me and Martha, which I think is fascinating to note,
is that I never expected myself to be the psychedelic person,
(17:41):
and I never I am the straightest person you will
ever meet. If you've talked to my college friends, I
was a very serious college athlete, and I actually recognize
that I don't like being out of control. I barely
drink alcohol.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, you barely drink. You never took drugs recreationally. I've
never seen drugs recreation. Yeah, but all of a sudden
you thought, well, maybe this will help.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And I'd also met the person I was going to
be working with, and I understood it to be in
a very clinical setting with a practitioner who'd been doing
it for many decades. And I knew in that moment
that it was something that I needed for myself, and
that I'd been talking around what had gone on in
my life, and I think I recognized that it was
it was again I talk about this idea. People say
(18:22):
to me, oh, it's so brave that you went to
do that, But I never really thought of it as brave.
I thought of it as giving myself this freedom, or
this permission to go in and explore and be compassionate
with myself.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Weren't you afraid at all? Very?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Oh, my bet, I was very afraid.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
I mean, you're completely at the mercy of the psychedelics.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And I've also came to recognize I didn't. I purposely
didn't do a lot of research in knowing that I
had talked to my husband who had been through this
process and said, you know, the idea is to let
go and to have this compassion for yourself to go
in and have the session. But Martha, that was the
hardest part of it is to say, Okay, I'm going
to surrender.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Is a session?
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Well, well, the other thing I like to talk about,
which I think is why it's been interesting that the
book people are talking about my story is that I
am not a scientist and I'm not a doctor, and
I don't have I don't have a story for someone
to say that I did this session and now my
life is perfect. Now my life truly is perfect. Instead,
it's actually the process that I walk through of unwinding
something that was really horrific and to be able to
(19:21):
come out on the other side and say, I personally
feel like I understand now that myself, like everyone, is
a work in progress. But I understand that work in
progress much better than I did before. And so yes,
on the day that I went in to have the therapy,
I went to the practitioner and I said to her,
I know I need to address a lot of sexual
abuse or just a sexual try to record you. You're
(19:43):
in my case, I could record it, and I didn't.
The person took notes for me.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
You drink it and you inject it. What is it?
Speaker 2 (19:50):
So it's a pill, and what's fascinating for me? And
in my case was I was so nervous to take
the pill. But I took the pill. And when I
swallowed the pill and I put the eye shades on,
I turned the practitioner and I said, how long is
it going to take for this to work? And she
said it's you know, relax, It'll take you thirty minutes
or forty minutes just to find yourself and just go
(20:10):
be with yourself. The way that I've been told that
it works is that that MDMA is an intactogen or
an empathogen. It's not a hallucinogen. It also from the
research that they have now, but just from my experience,
what I was going to say was that it absolutely
within five minutes, Martha, within five minutes, I said, I said, well,
it takes thirty minutes. I'm ready to tell you everything.
(20:33):
This is where I'm not a scientist again. But I
think the idea that I took the pill, which was
this lack of control to say it was right there
on my brain and to understand that I could go
in and just I could tell the story of what
had gone on, and.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Talked to experts since and did they say anything negative
about it?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Or I don't know the science behind it. I'm fascinated
to learn what the science will develop to be. What
I came to understand now in the way that the
science and I tried to study and understand the science
behind it, is that the brain, it allows the fight
or flight, the fear center of the brain, the amignala,
to shut down, so that the fear center allows you
to have this empathy for yourself. And I could only
(21:11):
say that in my case, again having no drug experience whatsoever,
that in that moment, I spent eight hours in a room,
eight hours in my case. And I've heard people say
that it's been different lengths of time from five hours
to four hours to ten hours, that in my situation
the first eight hours, I spent eight hours with.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
This practicition, only with one person.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
With this person, and I told my story of being
in this bathroom, of the multiple times that I was
sexually abused over and over and over again, and I
could recall everything down to minute details, down to the
handle in the door, to the sinks, to the tiles,
and I clung to those I clung to those details
(21:54):
as a way for me to recognize that I understood
in that moment that I could leave my b and
go somewhere else, and that's how I would survive. And
that is the only way that I could describe how
I could recognize how survival works in many cases for humans.
I think about Martha, even someone who has a car
crash or you know, I can think of many other
situations in my life where someone tells me something horrible.
(22:15):
It's like I write in the book that my father
always says, when we call home to tell my mother
and father something bad has happened, we have to immediately say,
I'm calling right now. Everything's okay, everyone's alive, but I
have to tell you something. And sometimes I've had other
instances in my life where if you can think back
when someone tells you something and then you later remember, wait,
I can't remember what they actually even told me because
(22:37):
I was I'd gone into a state of frozen. And
in this case is the only way that I can
recognize that it was a compassion that I have for
myself of protection of what had gone on.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
So you took this pill, you really didn't know what
was going to happen. You entrusted all your memories to
the therapists. Is she a well known therapist for this.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Well, she's been well known in the circles, But I
don't know how well known she is because I'm the
only one. You know. I was introduced to her, my
husband has worked with her, and I completely That's exactly right, Martha.
She was completely trusted. She was a trusted source. She
was someone that I trusted immediately. I would never have
gone to also take a drug at a club, and
(23:20):
I haven't done that. That's not something that's been my experience.
So when we talk about what MDMA is and ecstasy is,
and I've only people say, oh, I did ecstasy at
a club, I don't have any experience of doing ecstasy
at a club. I only had this experience for myself.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
But sounds a little bit like hypnosis in a way,
because because I remember getting hypnotized. Do you remember every
single thing?
Speaker 2 (23:40):
I remember, every single note there was music playing in
the background. Why when I do you remember everything that
I remember everything that was also happening in the room,
down to the note of the flamenco.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Music mentally and physically, did you notice anything different.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
After my experience. Oh, I mean, you know, the next
day was it was the aftermath of all of it.
That night, when I came out of the session, I
told John, and I can only describe it in the
way that I ride about it say. He knew in
the moment he did what I think could be the
most loving, compassionate thing for a spouse. He listened, and
over time we unpacked a lot of the stories that
(24:15):
made him recognize why maybe I'd done some of the
things I've done, and how he could have He recognized
that maybe this had gone on. But in that moment, Martha,
it was wildly liberating to be able to tell the
secret not only what had been done to me, but
this idea that I live, this life that looks one
way that I built up all these walls and castles,
(24:36):
and yet I was able to dismantle the secret that
I'd kept from the person who I loved the most
in this world.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
It was so free, That's what's so strange. And you've
been married for how long before this happened.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Let's see, it was I miss eighteen nineteen years. I
lose track, but I think it was about seventeen eighteen
years wow. And it was because of that connection with him.
I think it was because of that that freedom that
I had in the relationship with John, that I was
able to te tell him in knowing in this that
there wasn't going to be this fear that I would
be cast out. And it was after this long period
(25:07):
of connecting and building this relationship with him that I
felt safe to do so. And also there were so
many things that led to this. Also, I think it's
really important to note that my daughters were also of
the ages that I was when I was going through
this abuse, and so to say that I was feeling
this tension with them when they called me out, along
with having the session, being in the relationship that I
was in, and being safe enough within myself to say,
(25:30):
I'm strong enough in the business I built you to
each that I am.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I didn't tell your mom.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
No, but why because this person told me that I
wouldn't be believed if I did. He told me, you
come from one of the nicest families in town, you
will not be believed, no one will love you. So
what did I do? I achieved out of it. I
achieved away from it such that no one could see
what was going on. One of the things I write
about in the book is how you know we have
(25:55):
one foot in a bucket of hot water and one
foot in a bucket of cold water, and that's we
live our life in between. In some ways, I was
always living fearful of the secret coming out, and so
I was building this life such that no one could
touch me. And yet at the same time I was
living in fear from all of that. And I think
in acknowledging what had gone on, it was so beautiful
because now I could live so fully on both sides
(26:18):
that I can still feel deep, deep sadness and I
still feel deep, deep signest and then also the joy
of the freedom.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
But raising children, I mean, aren't you You must be
terribly concerned about.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Your kids, definitely, And I think one of the things
that's so beautiful in the relationship was in the idea
that if in the book, I talk about running a lot,
but I also talk about how I really was so
controlling over my children, and the idea that if I
could just keep them safe. I thought it was in
many of the ways that I talk about from the
conservative South, that in the South we were raised that
your skirt needs to be a certain link, that your
nail shouldn't be too red, that your heels should be
(26:50):
a certain height, and those were ways that might keep
you safe in life. But what I came to realize,
and it was one night that I write about in
the book, where my son was maybe one minute late
from coming home from curfew. I stood in the doorway
pacing because of that one minute. And there was this
recognition also in that moment too, where John and I
talked about what was I solving for the relationship or
control of him? And through this process, I've been able
(27:13):
to recognize that I can solve for the relationship with
them of the conversation back and forth, not of the control.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
In the book, too, you talk about the fact that
you were not able to have any retribution whatsoever with
your abuser.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Why, well, there was a loophole in the statute of
limitations that had passed in terms of me being able
to move forward. But I think one of the most
interesting threads of the book is that, and I talk
about this a lot in people that haven't read the book,
is the book is not just about the horrific things
that happened to me. The book in fact, I look
at it. There's a crazy crime thriller that goes on
that I was writing about as I was living in it, Martha,
(27:58):
as I'm going after this person, and I was doing
what I had always done in my life, which was
the idea if I could go and get this person
and do everything I could to hold this person accountable,
then life would be perfect again, and I could tie
it up with a bow and I could say I
accomplished this. This person is in jail, and look what
I did. But in reality, I was trying to take
care of myself, take care of my family, run my business,
(28:19):
and hold this person accountable. And the statut limitations had
changed in Texas as such that there actually were two
people that had been led out of jail because their
cases had been overturned based on a loophole.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And this is just going to be a movie.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Oh gosh, you know, I've been asked that so many times,
and I actually don't know, because also can I say why?
Speaker 1 (28:40):
It sounds like Ryan Murphy.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
I could only wish. But you know what's interesting about
the movie piece of it is that I put hundreds
of thousands of hours into the word choice of how
I wrote about this book and the idea of then
going back into it again. I'd just come out of
putting the book out into the world and also putting
the book out into the world so that people would
read it. But imagine that Martha. There was this decision
which just as I was going to get back to
(29:04):
Kate hoyt our agent who when she said to me,
you know, can I read what you wrote? And I
have this one thought of when I pushed send and
I turned to John. He said, what did you do?
I said, I just sent Kate everything I've been writing
for two years. He said, you send it to her,
and I said, yes, because it's time for me to
tell this story and I think I'll help a lot
of other people. Without knowing that that was what was
(29:26):
going to happen, I had no idea that a literary
agent was going to call me. And so the most
important thing about the book that I say is the
takeaway for me, which I've had to get comfortable with,
which is why I don't know if there will be
a movie, is that I've had to get comfortable with
the fact that I wrote this book on my bathroom floor. First,
for me, not thinking that anyone in the entire world
would ever read it. And so now that that's changed,
(29:48):
I'm having these conversations with people all over the world
that are writing to tell me how this has opened
something up for them, or they've remembered something that they
had hidden. And what's been fascinating too, is that such
a big part of this has not just been about
sexual trauma. It's been about all kinds of things, people's
sexual orientation, or something happening with a partner, or something
at worked that happened that was inappropriate. There's just so
(30:09):
many things that I think we as humans overlook, and
especially Martha and you know this, we as women hold
and we are held to different standards.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Totally argally right. So, has the feedback that you've received
surprised you or anything to say about that? I mean,
the feedback's been amazing. Every magazine I open has a
very good review of your book, every single one, and.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
That's so kind. Yeah, you know, I was very nervous.
This is the first time I'm probably saying I was
very scared to put my words out into the world
for so many reasons, for fear of being judged, for
fear of being not believed for fear of the idea
that this is what I was told was the secret
in many ways, was the thing I was running from.
(30:53):
That was the hardest part to tell my parents and
to break that secret. So to put the book out
into the world and have the people people come back
to me with me like the connection one on one.
I cannot tell you. Seeing people reading it in lawn
chairs and on subways and having these threads that they
pull of it has been. It's been absolutely surreal, and
that has been such a gift to me. I'm so
grateful for it.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So what did your mom say when I told her?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Yeah, immediately when I went to tell my mom, you know,
it all felt so fuzzy. As I told her what
had happened. She went inside to get something to drink,
and I found her on the floor, on the tile floor,
curled up in a ball, and she said, I can't
get up. I can't get up. And I said, Mom,
you're going to have to get up because I have
to finish telling you this. I have to tell you,
tell you, tell you. Back to the title of the
book and Martha, I have to say, my mother is
(31:37):
the most extraordinary woman. She has risen from this she
has read. She was five steps ahead of me in
terms of reading every book to then come to me
and say, I understand now why you couldn't tell us.
I understand why how other people had been through this.
There's a story that happened last night. A woman that
is in the book that I write about, who haven't
spoken to a long time. He's a dear friend, wrote
(31:58):
me last night and said me, when I had my incident,
happened to me and I had this horrific thing happen
of abuse, your mother twenty years ago, twenty five years
ago was the first person that showed up at my
house to tell me her story. Oh wow, And I
heard that story last night. So to go back to
my mother and see how my mother has grown and
(32:20):
accepted this and understood this, and how we've grown as
a family has been one of the most beautiful parts
of this process.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
I as a person would hope that it happened earlier
in your life, but it's good that it's happened now. Well.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
I always have had a beautiful relationship with my mom.
She's an incredible homemaker and she can do anything, and
she could be a senator or a CEO or she
still could be, and who knows what she will do.
She's only like seventy two years young. And we were
always close, and this was something that was also part
of the problem, is that we were so close that
I came from a beautiful family that was intact. And
I do believe as I went through all of this,
(32:55):
and I surfed through all of it, through the waters,
that I realized that it was my family that kept
me intact. And I was so I was so blessed
I had the family to go home to that was intact,
that I could go home to my parents who were
loving and caring.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
No, it's amazing that you have that and that strength
behind you. But so this has been a tough conversation
and it's heartrending, and it's also extremely enlightening and also
very encouraging that someone can live through what you've lived through,
succeeded so beautifully, and so many many things. And I
(33:31):
just wanted to talk a little tiny bit about Amy's
amazing accomplishments as a female founder, as a fantastic mother,
as a wonderful wife. You run a company that everybody
admires so greatly. Tell us about g nine.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Well, G nine started with the idea that I loved
I was an athlete, and I loved being on a team,
and I love supporting people. And I came to this
realization that I had the skill set from my background
to jump in and figure out how to be a
problem solver and to be a leader, and to lead
these founders and to surround them with the support they
might need as they're building their businesses. And so I
(34:07):
started very simply by making one or two investments in
a few businesses. What was your first investment One of
the first businesses that was material that I made. I
made a few others, I mean an ice cream store
and this and that and the other, but one of
the first that was material, really was believing in Goop
and what Gwyneth was building and seeing that transition that
she was making, both from having this model of sending
out this weekly email to saying, you know what, I'm
(34:30):
going from Hollywood to go be this founder and I'm
going to step in and run this business. And I
wholeheartedly believed her and still do and seeing what she's
doing and how she's stuck with it and how she's
become the CEO of that business that she is today.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
And more than seventy percent of your portfolio, which is
quite extensive from what I've read, are female founders.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
That's right, And that wasn't by design necessarily, except that
I recognized that I come from the female perspective, and
I recognized, you know, you look at a business like
a spanks or a bumble, or there's many health which
is around men's healthcare. And I saw areas where women
were being left out, and I wanted to apply my
experiences to those businesses. And so over time, as I
had enough founders around the table, I started seeing these
(35:10):
patterns within founders and how they did well and how
they built their businesses. And I also recognized that there
were patterns. But at the same time, it was about
showing up and just rolling up by sleeves and saying,
what do you need is you need a new CMO,
you need someone to help you with branding, You need
me to show up and help hand out flyers. I mean,
it's this idea that it's like whatever it takes.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
Reese Witherspoon's company Hill at Sunshine, Yes, incredible, Yeah, how's
that doing?
Speaker 2 (35:34):
I mean, what a beautiful idea that I did that,
Reese took and said, I'm going to help women tell
their stories in a very different way, and I'm going
to help them own their stories from start to finish
in a different model. And so I was so proud
to be a part of what she was doing. As
she said, also, I don't see women in these roles,
and I want to give more women the opportunities to
take these lead roles. So I'm going to buy these
(35:55):
scripts and I'm going to make these movies and I'm
going to make it happen. And that's like as exciting
as it can get for me.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You said that you are also invested in Westbinochlier.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Oh, I mean, Gucci's the most fabulous, sickest human alive.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
And that was also the neighbor of mine. I've been
Bedford and I love her products. I think she's done
such an amazing job with her company from start to finish. Yes,
and she's done it the right way. She's built it
slow and methodically and with thought. She deeply cares about
every single product that she makes. She's been a longtime friend,
(36:28):
but I've watched her and immediately when she said she
was starting this business, I said, I would love to
be part of it. And can I tell you that,
you know, I would like to say that I've been
helpful to these businesses, but in many ways I learned
from them and Gucci and Gucci is one of those
founders that I learned so much from in terms of
what to do and how to build a business the
right way. And Spanks that is evolving and evolving. That's
(36:49):
how old is that company now?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Well, Spanks is just going into its twenty fifth year.
Sarah Blakely is the original inventor creative of shapewear. Shapewear
and you know, I think of Sarah as a real
She is an icon like you in many ways. So
to sit with Sarah who still comes to board meetings
and says, wait a minute, light bulb idea and always
has these incredible answers as to how we should move
(37:11):
and where we should take the company in the next iteration.
And truly, this was this first idea that she believed
in a business that could make women feel better in
the clothing that they were wearing, and she did it,
and she's just so much.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
It's just incredibly what's up and coming? Can you talk
about any company?
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Well, My team is focused a lot on women's sports
right now and just making sure that there are women
owners of sports teams. I think that's one thing we've
been looking at a lot, because otherwise evaluations are going
to get away from us, and you know that we
want to. It's really exciting to see what's happening in
women's sports from an investment perspective. But also we've been
really focused on women's health and just finding businesses in
women's health that are going to transform women's wives in
(37:50):
various ways, from the female microbiome with EVY to MIDI,
which is a midlife care. We're really interested in them
right now because of the fact that I see how
they can transform for.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Most of them more I think we I think women
need more information.
Speaker 2 (38:03):
We look at someone like doctor Mary Clare. I don't
know if you've followed her, but she's someone that's been
a friend for a while, and I've seen so many
women talking about We're talking about things that we didn't
talk about before. And those are some of the categories
that I've been interested in. Like, no one said the
word menopause, no one said the word perimenopause. No one
knew that there were there was businesses to be built
around this to help women not just men.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
And my company are talking about menopause.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
Great and it's working. I mean that means there's money
to be made, but not the money is not where
the money is one part of it.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
They know what it is now because of companies like
medi and those. You know that there that is in
the conversation now, which is interesting.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I think there's so many subjects that have been passe
and off you can't have the conversation. So the fact
that we're having conversations about menopause, both women were silid
from it too. I think women are for the first
time actually learning what it means to have these symptoms
of menopause. So that's an area that we've been really
excited about.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, keep up your fantastic good work. Congratulations on being
able to tell with the tell and encourage all of
us not to think that we have to hide things
that are painful or secretive in our lives. Amy, You've
done a good service to all of us by writing
this book and coming forth with the truth.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I'm living in the messy now, Martha. That's the thing,
the idea I'm trying to embrace the spilled glass of
wine on the table, and stay a little longer, and
you know, as life changes and transforms. I think the
greatest gift that I've given myself is in the freedom
of this book, okay, because I can now go back
to my businesses, Yes, and even more open mind.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
You have the most It's very exciting what you're doing.
Thank you, and I'm excited for you, and I'd love
to see the enthusiasm that is spilling out of your
beautiful eyes is great. Well, thank you so much for
speaking with us today and this of luck.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. My icon
Host
Martha Stewart
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