FIRST THING:
Amy loves listening to Oprah’s podcast & her intro gets Amy every single time! She loves it. It goes like this: "I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations: The Podcast. I believe one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time—taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired & connected to the deeper world around us starts right now." TIME IS A GIFT!!! However, time can be hard to find, so Amy shares some tips from Ally Fallon’s (@AllyFallon) book: The Power of Writing It Down on “Making Space In Your Calendar” — these tips will help you take an honest look at your calendar so you can see where all your time is going! Also, you’ve likely heard the saying: “If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no” — try to keep that in mind when you’re looking at your calendar too!
SECOND THING:
Amy talks about exploring, dreaming & discovering with her brother-in-law Ben Dozier.
It all started with this Mark Twain quote: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Ben then shares a motto his family & business has adopted that is in alignment with this quote and it’s “vamos afuera” which means let’s go out / let’s go outside! They like to say that and see where it takes them! What are your vamos afuera moments in life??? Another good quote to keep in mind that has a similar theme is this Chinese Proverb: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
THIRD THING:
Amy shares a post that recently resonated with her from @TheAngryTherapist! It’s all about how we are meant to lose our way because that is how we find ourselves. The post is from his Instagram page on October 3rd if you want to go back and read it.
FOURTH THING:
Amy saw someone share that they often search thrift stores for cute casserole dishes…so that way when they have to make a home cooked meal for someone…they can deliver it in a REAL DISH that the person can then just keep (and not have to worry about washing & returning). Such a good idea, right?? This led to Amy sharing some other “home hacks” from a cool account that’s gone viral on TikTok called: @CreativeExplained.
Best places to find more about Amy: RadioAmy.com + @RadioAmy
LINK TO Amy’s LIVE Podcast Event:
https://selectaseat.com/amy
LINK TO @TheShopForward FALL COLLECTION:
https://www.theshopforward.com/collections/fall-collection
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, little food for yourself. Oh that's pretty. It's pretty
(00:20):
beautiful than beautiful. That for a little moth kicking. Four
Happy Thursday, Four Things fam Amy here, And I'm gearing
up for a weekend with my sister at a writing workshop.
(00:41):
The workshop called Write Your Story with Ali Fallon and
Donald Miller. And I'm so excited that my sister and
I are taking the time to do this. And as
I'm reflecting on time and calendar and making space for things,
it makes me think of Oprah's Super Soul Conversation podcast intro.
Y'all listen to that podcast. You know what I'm talking about.
(01:01):
I mean, I'm sure most of you do, if not,
It's one of my favorite podcasts ever. I love pretty
much every episode that she puts out. But she starts
it off by saying, I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super
Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe one of the most
valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time
(01:22):
to be more fully present. Your journey to become more
inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts now,
and then she goes into the interview or whatever conversation
that she's having with her guests for that episode. But
I love that podcast. I love that she reminds me
every single time that time is this precious gift and
(01:43):
that's one of the best things we could give ourselves.
But I also love that Ali Fallon put in her
book The Power of Writing It Down, this whole section
about making space in your calendar. And I feel like
a lot of times we don't feel like we have
time to really give ourselves the gift of time time
because we're just go, go go, go, go go, and trying
to do all the different things on our calendar. But
(02:04):
what if you really took a long, hard look at
your calendar? Have you done that? I mean, and I'm
new to having a calendar. I can't believe I lived
majority of my life without a calendar and I was
just to fly by the seat of my pants kind
of girl moment to moment. But that was actually really
taxing on me and other people in my life because
I didn't have a system and I didn't have a schedule,
but I had several things and people relying on me
(02:26):
and things get that I needed to get done. But
I now have a full calendar system and it is
color coordinated and coded. My kids have a calendar, everybody's
got a calendar. We're all SYNCD up together and it's awesome.
But you know that saying if not hell yes, it's
a no. Or you can say heck yes, whatever it's not,
heck yes it's a no. Whatever feels good for you.
(02:48):
A lot of people have said that, so surely you've
heard it somewhere. But I've really been trying to apply
that to my calendar lately. It's not easy to do
because it doesn't mean that whatever has come across my desk,
I guess for lack of a better term, or whatever,
whatever has been put in front of me, or an
opportunity or different things. It doesn't mean I don't care
about it or it's not something that I'm truly interested
(03:09):
in and maybe even excited about. But does it fit
my calendar at this moment? And can I make space
for it? Or should I make space for it? Or
do I need a clear thing so that I can
just give myself the gift of time of doing nothing.
That could also be some time that you need, or
time with other people. So it's on page forty four
(03:31):
of Ali's book, The Power of Writing It Down and
I'm just going to read it to you about making
space in your calendar, because this might be an activity
that you want to do with your calendar. Bust it out.
I mean, Ali wants you to look at that thing,
look at a solid month and see what you're doing
with your time. And then she actually shares tips on
how you can create more space in your calendar if
(03:52):
need be. Now she's referring to specifically making time for writing,
because she's about well writing, but I think you could
insert anything into that, so just know it could be
making space for a hobby, making space for a side
hustle that you want to do, making space for a
project you want to work on, making space for people
(04:12):
in your life, kids, different activities. You get the idea.
All right, here's what Ali wrote, making space on your calendar.
Never before in our lives have we been so busy.
In the twenty one century, busy is a badge of honor.
It's the first thing we say to people when they
ask how we've been, how are things great? Busy? But
(04:33):
having no space in our calendars works a lot like
having no space in our physical environments. It represents how
we feel about ourselves and our right to take up
space in the world. Pause for a minute and look
at your calendar. How do you feel about it? How
do you feel about the things that are on it?
What percentage of the things on your calendar are things
you actually want to do? And what percentage are you
(04:55):
doing for other reasons. I want you to actually pull
out your physical calendar system, whatever you use for scheduling,
and go through a month of your time. Make a
list of the things on the calendar. A friend told
me once that we can tell a person's religion by
looking at their calendar. I wasn't sure what she meant
(05:15):
by that at first, and then I completed this activity
that I'm going to teach you now, and I saw
what I had been missing. I made my own list.
I started teaching participants that Find Your Voice workshops to
make this list, and I understood exactly what she meant.
Time is the resource most limited to us on this planet. Okay,
(05:38):
I'm gonna skip through to the activity that she shared
she wrote a lot more. Highly recommend this book, by
the way, if you are wanting to get into writing,
it's it's a book about it says here, A simple
habit to unlock your brain and reimagine your life. Ali
fallon all right, So here's the questions that Ali wants
us to ask ourselves when we bust out our calendars.
(06:02):
What do I spend most of my time doing? Why
am I doing these things? What is my religion? According
to my calendar? When I come to the end of
my life, will I feel I spent my time? Well?
Where can I make space for writing? But again me
talking here that writing can be Where can I make
(06:22):
space for X, Y Z You fill in the blank.
Ali went on to say, this might seem like a
heavy handed way to start a section about finding time
on your calendar, but you'll see why I started here
in just a minute. Despite the fact that time is
our most limited resource on this planet, and despite the
fact that I meet people every day who dream of
writing something, I hear the same phrase over and over
(06:43):
and over again. I don't have the time. I'm as
busy as the next person. I'm married and about to
give birth to a baby girl at the time that
I'm writing this, I run a successful six figure business
with a team of five. I'm regularly on airplanes, flying
to this event or that event to speak or to
network with authors. Who need our help. But the thought
strikes me that if we are spending our most precious
(07:05):
resources on something that doesn't matter to us so that
we can keep our parents happy, or so that our
spouse doesn't have a meltdown, or so the people in
our church community don't judge us, or so our Instagram
followers are impressed with us, then we're tiptoeing around on
the margins of this one precious life we've been given.
And then Ali goes on and on and on with
(07:26):
other things, and she encourages you, yet again to grab
your calendar and walk through it and then physically add
in writing time into your schedule. Just add it into
your day wherever you can find it. Add it in,
and then it'll start to happen. And again that writing
could be whatever it is you want it to be.
It doesn't have to be. Writing can be whatever you're
(07:48):
needing to make space for. But you might need to
weed out some things first. And that's where the if not,
the heck, yes it's a no comes in, because I
feel like that can be very helpful. And maybe if
you have a friend or a coworker or your spouse
or someone that you can bounce that off of like, Hey,
I'm really trying to work through whether or not this
(08:08):
is a heck yes for me and if it should
be a no, because I don't think that that's something
that you just feel with your gut right away. Maybe
some opportunities it is, or maybe some things on your
calendar it's like, oh check, I know that that needs
to go or that can that needs to stay, But
other things you maybe need to wrestle with a bit.
And I think that that is okay to give yourself
that time to wrestle and then you can figure out
(08:33):
if it needs to stay or go. And I'm again
circling back to this weekend the Right Your Story Workshop.
I'm so glad my sister carved out the time. I mean,
she's taking space away from her four kids and running
a business and filming a TV show for h d
t V Season two, shout Out Building Roots, which my
(08:55):
brother in law is going to be on for the
next thing, the second thing, and we're gonna be talking
about dream mean, chasing dreams, exploring being a doer. That's
my brother in law is a very adventurous person, and
I think that's why they ultimately decided to do the
TV show when it's not something they were pursuing. But anyway,
all that to say, my sister definitely has a lot
going on right now, and it wasn't easy for her
(09:16):
to make space for a trip to Nashville this weekend
to do this workshop, but she knew that being able
to attend would be a gift to herself and she
needed to prioritize it and make that time for herself.
And I've gotten notes from a lot of you that
are making time to come to which at all in
(09:36):
a couple of weeks and just a few days it's
gonna be exactly two weeks away, and those notes worem
my heart. They mean so much to me. Some of
you are coming solo. I've gotten emails and d ms
from people that are coming alone. So I just want
to give comfort to anybody that's coming to the taping,
the live podcast taping, and which at all solo our
(09:56):
girls night out with guys in attendance sort of what
we're calling it, but our first ever Four Things live taping.
If you're coming sol, awesome. One person d M two
B yesterday this said I'm coming alone and I'm so nervous,
but I'm so glad I'm coming, and I d m
her back and said, don't be nervous. There's so many
people coming alone and it's gonna be totally fine, and
our community is amazing and you'll be welcome with open
(10:18):
arms and hopefully you'll meet some friends and it'll be
all good. Or maybe you're not looking to even meet
anybody or hang out. You just want to be there
for yourself, and you need to take the time to
do that. I mean, it's not lost on me that
y'all are choosing to spend your time and your resources
to go to which it all for that weekend, and
some of you are from Kansas and which tall, but
(10:39):
others are are traveling, and that's that's a big commitment.
Just like I recognized my sister coming to Nashville this
weekend is a big commitment. But I know she's gonna
be better for it. It's gonna be an awesome weekend
and I'm so pumped about it. I mean, being in
the presence of Donald Miller and Ali fallon like up
close and into mind setting, and I'm just excited for
us to experience that to other as sisters. So what
(11:01):
can that be for you, what is something you can
make space for. And I'm not saying it has to
be the live event, but for some of you it is.
And I'm so pumped that you're coming. And other questions
that I've seen about that night are if teenage girls
could come. Some moms want to bring their daughters, and
I would say, if you're okay with your teenager listening
to the Four Things podcast, then it should be a
(11:23):
totally fine evening for her to come, and hopefully that
will be a special night for y'all if that's who
you want to spend this evening with, totally I would
do something like that with my daughter, Stashira. My kids
will not be coming, but that's just a scheduling thing
with things they have going on. My daughter's got gymnastics
and my son's got football, and they don't want to
miss their stuff that they have going on. Actually, my
(11:45):
son's football is TVD because it's only if he makes
the championship that there will be a game that weekend,
and I'm super bummed that I will not be able
to see the game, but I'm gonna you can better
believe I'm going to be making time to watch all
the videos that get texted to me so that I
can see him on that field and I'll face time
with him before the game, and I'm gonna make time
(12:06):
for that because that's important and I'm sad I'm going
to miss it, but I I've committed to this and
something like this this night in which at all this
taking my podcast on the road, that was a heck
yes for me. It took me a while to get there.
It's actually been a heck yes. But then not right now,
Oh let's wait a few more months or oh shoot,
(12:27):
even though at times there was pressure like oh, we
could do it now, and not pressure from anybody like
in a bad way, but there was just conversations and talks,
and I felt like meetings were starting to happen, and
I didn't want to let anybody down, and so I
thought we just needed to do it. But then for
me in the moment, it wasn't a heck yes, And
now it is and I've committed to be there. So
and my kids understand all that. To say, if you
wanted to bring your teenagers, that's totally fine. And then
(12:51):
another question that I keep saying is about because you know,
it's it's a girl's night. Maybe you're wanting to go
out and have this time for yourself, you want to
let loose a little bit. You might want to have
a cock tailor too. There will be a bar, so
that answers that question. And then I guess we haven't
been very clear on what the v i P includes.
Now every ticket purchased, whether v I P or not,
(13:11):
includes a four things gift from the shop Forward and
one Country. And then my friend Gracy Mockler is launching
a new company that I'm so excited to tell you about,
and she is giving an item to every single person
that is attending. And there's gonna be a whole story
behind that. That's gonna be super fun. Oh that's just
gonna be I have goose bumps thinking about that moment
(13:33):
because it's gonna be so special. But that's every ticket holder.
Now the v i P. Some might call it a
meet and greet before, but I feel weird calling it that,
So let's just call it an hour hang time before
the show, like we're all hanging out as friends and
taking pictures. So that's what the v i P is.
And then your seats are closer to the stage, so
those are the main questions that I'm seeing about that night.
(13:53):
But I'm glad I'm making space for Write your Story
workshop this weekend, and I'm glad that I'm making time
to take this show on the road at least one
city and then we'll see where it goes from there,
and that some of you listening right now are making
the time to do that for yourself. But I leave
you with this encouragement, at least with this thing before
we get into the thing with my brother in law.
(14:15):
I want you to try to do this activity with
your calendar. I want you to ask yourself those questions
and maybe you need to go rewind and you know,
get a pen and paper and write down, you know
what I asked earlier, what Ali technically was asking what
do I spend most of my time doing? Why am
I doing these things? What is my religion according to
my calendar? And then also if you don't have a calendar,
(14:38):
you are missing out, So get on it, and then
that way you can take a look and maybe you're
starting fresh. Maybe you get to start with a calendar
right now and you're going to start adding things and
you get to make your calendar what you want from
the beginning that would be awesome, But no shame if
you're not a calendar person, because that was not me.
But I just highly recommend it, sort of like I
wasn't to make your bed person back in the day,
(15:00):
but now I highly recommend making your bed. And I
was a snooze person and now I'm not a news person.
I love evolving and changing and growing, and uh, if
you still snooze, no shame in that, although I will
say it is better on the other side, so come
and join us. I'll leave you with my Oprah impression
for this thing. I believe one of the most valuable
(15:20):
gifts you can give yourself is time. You know, if
you've listened to her podcast, you know I'm talking about
and I'm doing a horrible impression, by the way. And
then also i'll just say with which at all, select
a seat dot com slash amy if you want to
get tickets to that again coming up on Saturday. It's
only two weeks away, which is bonkers, and I'm so excited. Second,
(15:46):
all right for this saying, I brought my brother in
law on because the quote I'm going to share with
you all is from Mark Twain, and I feel like
it represents my brother in law beIN in a nutshell. Okay,
so it's twenty years from now, will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones
you did. So throw off the bow lines, sail away
(16:08):
from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sales. Explore, dream, discover,
and I feel like you're and explore a dreamer and
a discoverer, I hope. So that was very deep. That's
a good quote. I think we've sorted it down to
(16:28):
maybe two words in our life, UM that Christie and
I have enjoyed for some time alb almost of what
Spanish for let's go outside. And we used to say
in our office with a lot of our crew and
guys and on the job side, so I could draw
it all day long on the table, but they'd be like,
let's go outside, almost let's go outside and figure it out.
(16:49):
And then we kind of became a life motto with
our kids and adventure, and when we moved from Austin
to Colorado, UM just going like right now we need
to get outside our convenient come words, get outside our
every day get outside sometimes the box we put ourselves
in and explore new things, take adventures, take risks, jump
off that cliff. You don't know what's on the other
(17:11):
side until you do in twenty years from now, you know,
looking back, I hope we experienced an adventure more than
we ever expected. And we call those kind of our
little Vamo flota moments. I know, you'll have shirts and
hats and they say valma se futa, which is also
a conversation starter. I'm sure for a lot of people
(17:32):
if they see you wearing it, do they ever ask
what is that? What is that about? Yeah? They always
ask how do you say that? How do you pronounce that?
And I think it's easy once you get it, once
you get the role, it's easy of almost a flota.
But yeah, everybody asking it just gives us an opportunity
to either tell a little bit of our story about
you know, risking and taking adventures and new journeys and um.
(17:54):
And so that's you know, we run into a lot
of people doing that here in Colorado. We've done it
with all the businesses and obviously that's crazy TV show
that we have no clue about. But we took an adventure,
we took a job. It was our almost up what
a moment, Let's try this and see where it goes.
And twenty years from now, we'll see what kind of
(18:14):
stories we have to tell, see where it's sailing you
off to. And I feel like, as my dad being
or how he wasn't a South Texas boy, I feel
like I have to represent him right and make sure
that I'm saying the how how can you impersonate dad
doing it? If he was here? Oh there you go?
(18:36):
So yeah, come into the kitchen every morning and be
like almost almost, let's go outside, let's go get it done. Yea.
And that was his life motto. The guy did more
by seven am than I did all day most days,
at three times my age, And so I think he
kind of had a little bit of the same life
motto too, unbeknownst to him, is is either kyboy, No,
(18:58):
that's good because he was always being courage or let's go,
let's go get something done. Yeah. I know, he definitely
accomplished a lot in those early morning hours of life,
for sure. So whatever you take away from this little
chat here, hopefully you can apply it into your life.
And you know, there's that Chinese proverb the best time
to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second
(19:22):
best time is now, so it's time to act. That's right.
Plant more tree, yes, plant more trees? All right? Thank you, Ben,
I love you all right for this thing. I want
(19:44):
to tell you all about the Angry Therapist. He's an
account that I started following on Instagram. He's a therapist
and author, and he also says in his bio a
tad off center. I love some of his posts and
I think that if you wanted to follow him, you could.
If not, I'm gonna share with you a post that
really resonated with me, and I feel like if I
needed to hear it, then someone else does. But here's
(20:06):
what he wrote earlier this month. We're meant to lose
our way. That's how we find ourselves. Self discovery requires
getting lost. That's how we learn about ourselves. Who we are,
what we are meant to give, who we are supposed
to meet, what we're supposed to learn from them, and
where we're supposed to go. That's how we become. If
(20:27):
life went exactly as we planned or wanted, we wouldn't
change because we wouldn't need to. And that isn't life.
That would just be accomplishing goals without internal change, and
without internal change, there is no fulfillment or meaning. Life
has lived in the mess, the underbelly, the building, the falling,
the breaking, the grit, the standing up, the dusting off.
(20:49):
The shine is not life. That's the reflection of hard
work and determination. Life is the journey there and it's
not a straight line. That is one of the greatest
misconceptions about life. The line is actually squirrelly with many loops,
and that's what makes life a journey instead of a destination.
Point A to B is not life. That is a sentence.
(21:11):
Life requires the entire alphabet. If you feel lost, know
that this is the process and you're on your journey
to explore, to learn to evolve. Without this process, you
a stone will never become a diamond. So lean into
your broken heart, your transition, your rebirth, your new beginning,
your resistance. Let go of what you need to let go,
(21:32):
forgive you need to forgive, face your dragon, squash your judgment,
toss your blueprints, hold onto your dreams, and keep moving
forward even if you're crawling, because if you're moving, you're alive,
and if you're alive, you're on your journey. Go all right,
(21:55):
we have talked about cast roles on the podcast multiple times,
most recently because Jenny Allen was talking about how delivering
cast roles to people should not be weird, Like we
need to know about taking meals to our neighbors, to
our friends, to our coworkers, and it shouldn't feel like
we're intruding on anybody. And I just saw this tip
(22:16):
on Instagram that I thought was really cool that I
wanted to pass along to you. In case you're making
a meal for someone that recently had a baby, or
someone that has a family member sick, or you're part
of one of those meal trains and you have to
cook something for someone, go to a thrift store and
try to collect different cast role dishes that are only
a couple bucks each, and that way, when you deliver
(22:36):
the meal to them, you get to say keep the
dish because it's one woman. The tip that she was
sharing on Instagram was that anytime she's near a thrift store,
she always goes to the kitchen section and tries to
collect cute things and it's just a more affordable way
to do it and deliver something, and it feels more special,
more substantial giving it to them in a legit dish
(22:58):
and then they don't have to worry about getting the
dish back to you. You get to say, keep the dish,
and then maybe they can keep that tradition going and
then they have a dish that they can then pass
along to somebody else and it's not like they're giving
away some special cookware that they got with their wedding
registry or whatnot. So that is a tip that I
saw on Instagram that I thought might be really helpful
because I tend to lean towards going with those disposable
(23:21):
pans from the grocery store, and I think that that
is totally fine if that is you and what you
want to do. But I love this woman's tip and
I might have to adopt that anytime I'm near a
thrift store, because there is something too having dishes and
meals in like real plates. I mean, my sister's whole
theory is that food taste better when it is eaten
(23:43):
off of a real plate with real silverware. And I
am a paper plate girl, So no judgment at all whatsoever,
But I have tested my sister's theory out and she's
not wrong. Like I fought her on it, and fought
her on it. But at the end of the day,
she's right, and it does taste better, feel better. All
that things are better when you feel like you're eating
off a real plate. So therefore, when you're delivering a
meal to someone, how special to give it to them
(24:06):
in a legit, real casserole, dish and real quick. Since
we're talking about tips from the internet, there's this guy
that is super popular on TikTok. His name is Armand
and he's from Denmark and his handle is at creative
Underscore explained I believe, and I've seen a ton of
people post about him. But one of the hacks that
I loved seeing was the sticker hack, because if you
(24:31):
don't have googy gone and you're trying to peel stickers
off the bottom of a glass or a picture frame,
it can be so annoying. But he just squeezed a
little bit of lemon juice on the sticker and let
it sit for two minutes, and the sticker basically just
fell off and there was nothing left behind to clean.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I love that tip.
So I kept watching, and then there was another one
(24:51):
about putting a wrinkled shirt into the dryer with an
ice cube and do it for one minute and while
you're shirt isn't wrinkled anymore. And then another thing he
had was, if you've shrunk a shirt, you can put
it in a bucket with water and the conditioner that
you wash your hair with and mix it up, squeeze
it all in there, and then rinse it out, wring
(25:12):
it out, hold it up, and the shirt is back
to its normal size. I haven't tested that one out
by any means, but it did look pretty fascinating, and
I didn't know there was ever any way possible to
unshrink a shirt, especially by just using water and conditioner.
And then I also saw that he was on Koda
and Jenna and he was asking Jenna how she keeps
(25:34):
carrots fresh in her fridge and she's like, I don't know,
and just keep him in the bin. And he said
that if you wet a paper towel and then wrap
the big carrots up in it, and then stick the
carrots and the paper towel into a ziploc bag, it'll
keep them fresh for fourteen days. And I am the
queen of buying produce and then not all of it,
but eventually whatever's left goes bad, and it's so depressing.
(25:58):
I just need all the tips on keeping produce fresh
because at my house, I feel like we've been wasting
a lot of it recently, and I try to get
my kids like, hey, you want to eat these carrots,
you want to eat these blueberries, you want to eat
these peaches, because they're going to go bad. But if
you follow someone like that, there's all these hacks and
tricks to help your produce last longer. Because I know
he had other stuff on there for bell peppers and
(26:18):
other things that might be in your fridge. But I
haven't watched all of his videos, but he has a
lot of good ones, and again, he's creative underscore explained.
So if you have any good hacks or tips that
you've learned from the Internet or social media or anything
like that and you would love to share them, you
can send me an email. I want to know them.
Four Things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com.
Okay, little food for yourself. Oh that's pretty. It's pretty
(00:20):
beautiful than beautiful. That for a little moth kicking. Four
Happy Thursday, Four Things fam Amy here, And I'm gearing
up for a weekend with my sister at a writing workshop.
(00:41):
The workshop called Write Your Story with Ali Fallon and
Donald Miller. And I'm so excited that my sister and
I are taking the time to do this. And as
I'm reflecting on time and calendar and making space for things,
it makes me think of Oprah's Super Soul Conversation podcast intro.
Y'all listen to that podcast. You know what I'm talking about.
(01:01):
I mean, I'm sure most of you do, if not,
It's one of my favorite podcasts ever. I love pretty
much every episode that she puts out. But she starts
it off by saying, I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super
Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe one of the most
valuable gifts you can give yourself is time, taking time
(01:22):
to be more fully present. Your journey to become more
inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts now,
and then she goes into the interview or whatever conversation
that she's having with her guests for that episode. But
I love that podcast. I love that she reminds me
every single time that time is this precious gift and
(01:43):
that's one of the best things we could give ourselves.
But I also love that Ali Fallon put in her
book The Power of Writing It Down, this whole section
about making space in your calendar. And I feel like
a lot of times we don't feel like we have
time to really give ourselves the gift of time time
because we're just go, go go, go, go go, and trying
to do all the different things on our calendar. But
(02:04):
what if you really took a long, hard look at
your calendar? Have you done that? I mean, and I'm
new to having a calendar. I can't believe I lived
majority of my life without a calendar and I was
just to fly by the seat of my pants kind
of girl moment to moment. But that was actually really
taxing on me and other people in my life because
I didn't have a system and I didn't have a schedule,
but I had several things and people relying on me
(02:26):
and things get that I needed to get done. But
I now have a full calendar system and it is
color coordinated and coded. My kids have a calendar, everybody's
got a calendar. We're all SYNCD up together and it's awesome.
But you know that saying if not hell yes, it's
a no. Or you can say heck yes, whatever it's not,
heck yes it's a no. Whatever feels good for you.
(02:48):
A lot of people have said that, so surely you've
heard it somewhere. But I've really been trying to apply
that to my calendar lately. It's not easy to do
because it doesn't mean that whatever has come across my desk,
I guess for lack of a better term, or whatever,
whatever has been put in front of me, or an
opportunity or different things. It doesn't mean I don't care
about it or it's not something that I'm truly interested
(03:09):
in and maybe even excited about. But does it fit
my calendar at this moment? And can I make space
for it? Or should I make space for it? Or
do I need a clear thing so that I can
just give myself the gift of time of doing nothing.
That could also be some time that you need, or
time with other people. So it's on page forty four
(03:31):
of Ali's book, The Power of Writing It Down and
I'm just going to read it to you about making
space in your calendar, because this might be an activity
that you want to do with your calendar. Bust it out.
I mean, Ali wants you to look at that thing,
look at a solid month and see what you're doing
with your time. And then she actually shares tips on
how you can create more space in your calendar if
(03:52):
need be. Now she's referring to specifically making time for writing,
because she's about well writing, but I think you could
insert anything into that, so just know it could be
making space for a hobby, making space for a side
hustle that you want to do, making space for a
project you want to work on, making space for people
(04:12):
in your life, kids, different activities. You get the idea.
All right, here's what Ali wrote, making space on your calendar.
Never before in our lives have we been so busy.
In the twenty one century, busy is a badge of honor.
It's the first thing we say to people when they
ask how we've been, how are things great? Busy? But
(04:33):
having no space in our calendars works a lot like
having no space in our physical environments. It represents how
we feel about ourselves and our right to take up
space in the world. Pause for a minute and look
at your calendar. How do you feel about it? How
do you feel about the things that are on it?
What percentage of the things on your calendar are things
you actually want to do? And what percentage are you
(04:55):
doing for other reasons. I want you to actually pull
out your physical calendar system, whatever you use for scheduling,
and go through a month of your time. Make a
list of the things on the calendar. A friend told
me once that we can tell a person's religion by
looking at their calendar. I wasn't sure what she meant
(05:15):
by that at first, and then I completed this activity
that I'm going to teach you now, and I saw
what I had been missing. I made my own list.
I started teaching participants that Find Your Voice workshops to
make this list, and I understood exactly what she meant.
Time is the resource most limited to us on this planet. Okay,
(05:38):
I'm gonna skip through to the activity that she shared
she wrote a lot more. Highly recommend this book, by
the way, if you are wanting to get into writing,
it's it's a book about it says here, A simple
habit to unlock your brain and reimagine your life. Ali
fallon all right, So here's the questions that Ali wants
us to ask ourselves when we bust out our calendars.
(06:02):
What do I spend most of my time doing? Why
am I doing these things? What is my religion? According
to my calendar? When I come to the end of
my life, will I feel I spent my time? Well?
Where can I make space for writing? But again me
talking here that writing can be Where can I make
(06:22):
space for X, Y Z You fill in the blank.
Ali went on to say, this might seem like a
heavy handed way to start a section about finding time
on your calendar, but you'll see why I started here
in just a minute. Despite the fact that time is
our most limited resource on this planet, and despite the
fact that I meet people every day who dream of
writing something, I hear the same phrase over and over
(06:43):
and over again. I don't have the time. I'm as
busy as the next person. I'm married and about to
give birth to a baby girl at the time that
I'm writing this, I run a successful six figure business
with a team of five. I'm regularly on airplanes, flying
to this event or that event to speak or to
network with authors. Who need our help. But the thought
strikes me that if we are spending our most precious
(07:05):
resources on something that doesn't matter to us so that
we can keep our parents happy, or so that our
spouse doesn't have a meltdown, or so the people in
our church community don't judge us, or so our Instagram
followers are impressed with us, then we're tiptoeing around on
the margins of this one precious life we've been given.
And then Ali goes on and on and on with
(07:26):
other things, and she encourages you, yet again to grab
your calendar and walk through it and then physically add
in writing time into your schedule. Just add it into
your day wherever you can find it. Add it in,
and then it'll start to happen. And again that writing
could be whatever it is you want it to be.
It doesn't have to be. Writing can be whatever you're
(07:48):
needing to make space for. But you might need to
weed out some things first. And that's where the if not,
the heck, yes it's a no comes in, because I
feel like that can be very helpful. And maybe if
you have a friend or a coworker or your spouse
or someone that you can bounce that off of like, Hey,
I'm really trying to work through whether or not this
(08:08):
is a heck yes for me and if it should
be a no, because I don't think that that's something
that you just feel with your gut right away. Maybe
some opportunities it is, or maybe some things on your
calendar it's like, oh check, I know that that needs
to go or that can that needs to stay, But
other things you maybe need to wrestle with a bit.
And I think that that is okay to give yourself
that time to wrestle and then you can figure out
(08:33):
if it needs to stay or go. And I'm again
circling back to this weekend the Right Your Story Workshop.
I'm so glad my sister carved out the time. I mean,
she's taking space away from her four kids and running
a business and filming a TV show for h d
t V Season two, shout Out Building Roots, which my
(08:55):
brother in law is going to be on for the
next thing, the second thing, and we're gonna be talking
about dream mean, chasing dreams, exploring being a doer. That's
my brother in law is a very adventurous person, and
I think that's why they ultimately decided to do the
TV show when it's not something they were pursuing. But anyway,
all that to say, my sister definitely has a lot
going on right now, and it wasn't easy for her
(09:16):
to make space for a trip to Nashville this weekend
to do this workshop, but she knew that being able
to attend would be a gift to herself and she
needed to prioritize it and make that time for herself.
And I've gotten notes from a lot of you that
are making time to come to which at all in
(09:36):
a couple of weeks and just a few days it's
gonna be exactly two weeks away, and those notes worem
my heart. They mean so much to me. Some of
you are coming solo. I've gotten emails and d ms
from people that are coming alone. So I just want
to give comfort to anybody that's coming to the taping,
the live podcast taping, and which at all solo our
(09:56):
girls night out with guys in attendance sort of what
we're calling it, but our first ever Four Things live taping.
If you're coming sol, awesome. One person d M two
B yesterday this said I'm coming alone and I'm so nervous,
but I'm so glad I'm coming, and I d m
her back and said, don't be nervous. There's so many
people coming alone and it's gonna be totally fine, and
our community is amazing and you'll be welcome with open
(10:18):
arms and hopefully you'll meet some friends and it'll be
all good. Or maybe you're not looking to even meet
anybody or hang out. You just want to be there
for yourself, and you need to take the time to
do that. I mean, it's not lost on me that
y'all are choosing to spend your time and your resources
to go to which it all for that weekend, and
some of you are from Kansas and which tall, but
(10:39):
others are are traveling, and that's that's a big commitment.
Just like I recognized my sister coming to Nashville this
weekend is a big commitment. But I know she's gonna
be better for it. It's gonna be an awesome weekend
and I'm so pumped about it. I mean, being in
the presence of Donald Miller and Ali fallon like up
close and into mind setting, and I'm just excited for
us to experience that to other as sisters. So what
(11:01):
can that be for you, what is something you can
make space for. And I'm not saying it has to
be the live event, but for some of you it is.
And I'm so pumped that you're coming. And other questions
that I've seen about that night are if teenage girls
could come. Some moms want to bring their daughters, and
I would say, if you're okay with your teenager listening
to the Four Things podcast, then it should be a
(11:23):
totally fine evening for her to come, and hopefully that
will be a special night for y'all if that's who
you want to spend this evening with, totally I would
do something like that with my daughter, Stashira. My kids
will not be coming, but that's just a scheduling thing
with things they have going on. My daughter's got gymnastics
and my son's got football, and they don't want to
miss their stuff that they have going on. Actually, my
(11:45):
son's football is TVD because it's only if he makes
the championship that there will be a game that weekend,
and I'm super bummed that I will not be able
to see the game, but I'm gonna you can better
believe I'm going to be making time to watch all
the videos that get texted to me so that I
can see him on that field and I'll face time
with him before the game, and I'm gonna make time
(12:06):
for that because that's important and I'm sad I'm going
to miss it, but I I've committed to this and
something like this this night in which at all this
taking my podcast on the road, that was a heck
yes for me. It took me a while to get there.
It's actually been a heck yes. But then not right now,
Oh let's wait a few more months or oh shoot,
(12:27):
even though at times there was pressure like oh, we
could do it now, and not pressure from anybody like
in a bad way, but there was just conversations and talks,
and I felt like meetings were starting to happen, and
I didn't want to let anybody down, and so I
thought we just needed to do it. But then for
me in the moment, it wasn't a heck yes, And
now it is and I've committed to be there. So
and my kids understand all that. To say, if you
wanted to bring your teenagers, that's totally fine. And then
(12:51):
another question that I keep saying is about because you know,
it's it's a girl's night. Maybe you're wanting to go
out and have this time for yourself, you want to
let loose a little bit. You might want to have
a cock tailor too. There will be a bar, so
that answers that question. And then I guess we haven't
been very clear on what the v i P includes.
Now every ticket purchased, whether v I P or not,
(13:11):
includes a four things gift from the shop Forward and
one Country. And then my friend Gracy Mockler is launching
a new company that I'm so excited to tell you about,
and she is giving an item to every single person
that is attending. And there's gonna be a whole story
behind that. That's gonna be super fun. Oh that's just
gonna be I have goose bumps thinking about that moment
(13:33):
because it's gonna be so special. But that's every ticket holder.
Now the v i P. Some might call it a
meet and greet before, but I feel weird calling it that,
So let's just call it an hour hang time before
the show, like we're all hanging out as friends and
taking pictures. So that's what the v i P is.
And then your seats are closer to the stage, so
those are the main questions that I'm seeing about that night.
(13:53):
But I'm glad I'm making space for Write your Story
workshop this weekend, and I'm glad that I'm making time
to take this show on the road at least one
city and then we'll see where it goes from there,
and that some of you listening right now are making
the time to do that for yourself. But I leave
you with this encouragement, at least with this thing before
we get into the thing with my brother in law.
(14:15):
I want you to try to do this activity with
your calendar. I want you to ask yourself those questions
and maybe you need to go rewind and you know,
get a pen and paper and write down, you know
what I asked earlier, what Ali technically was asking what
do I spend most of my time doing? Why am
I doing these things? What is my religion according to
my calendar? And then also if you don't have a calendar,
(14:38):
you are missing out, So get on it, and then
that way you can take a look and maybe you're
starting fresh. Maybe you get to start with a calendar
right now and you're going to start adding things and
you get to make your calendar what you want from
the beginning that would be awesome, But no shame if
you're not a calendar person, because that was not me.
But I just highly recommend it, sort of like I
wasn't to make your bed person back in the day,
(15:00):
but now I highly recommend making your bed. And I
was a snooze person and now I'm not a news person.
I love evolving and changing and growing, and uh, if
you still snooze, no shame in that, although I will
say it is better on the other side, so come
and join us. I'll leave you with my Oprah impression
for this thing. I believe one of the most valuable
(15:20):
gifts you can give yourself is time. You know, if
you've listened to her podcast, you know I'm talking about
and I'm doing a horrible impression, by the way. And
then also i'll just say with which at all, select
a seat dot com slash amy if you want to
get tickets to that again coming up on Saturday. It's
only two weeks away, which is bonkers, and I'm so excited. Second,
(15:46):
all right for this saying, I brought my brother in
law on because the quote I'm going to share with
you all is from Mark Twain, and I feel like
it represents my brother in law beIN in a nutshell. Okay,
so it's twenty years from now, will be more disappointed
by the things you didn't do than by the ones
you did. So throw off the bow lines, sail away
(16:08):
from the safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sales. Explore, dream, discover,
and I feel like you're and explore a dreamer and
a discoverer, I hope. So that was very deep. That's
a good quote. I think we've sorted it down to
(16:28):
maybe two words in our life, UM that Christie and
I have enjoyed for some time alb almost of what
Spanish for let's go outside. And we used to say
in our office with a lot of our crew and
guys and on the job side, so I could draw
it all day long on the table, but they'd be like,
let's go outside, almost let's go outside and figure it out.
(16:49):
And then we kind of became a life motto with
our kids and adventure, and when we moved from Austin
to Colorado, UM just going like right now we need
to get outside our convenient come words, get outside our
every day get outside sometimes the box we put ourselves
in and explore new things, take adventures, take risks, jump
off that cliff. You don't know what's on the other
(17:11):
side until you do in twenty years from now, you know,
looking back, I hope we experienced an adventure more than
we ever expected. And we call those kind of our
little Vamo flota moments. I know, you'll have shirts and
hats and they say valma se futa, which is also
a conversation starter. I'm sure for a lot of people
(17:32):
if they see you wearing it, do they ever ask
what is that? What is that about? Yeah? They always
ask how do you say that? How do you pronounce that?
And I think it's easy once you get it, once
you get the role, it's easy of almost a flota.
But yeah, everybody asking it just gives us an opportunity
to either tell a little bit of our story about
you know, risking and taking adventures and new journeys and um.
(17:54):
And so that's you know, we run into a lot
of people doing that here in Colorado. We've done it
with all the businesses and obviously that's crazy TV show
that we have no clue about. But we took an adventure,
we took a job. It was our almost up what
a moment, Let's try this and see where it goes.
And twenty years from now, we'll see what kind of
(18:14):
stories we have to tell, see where it's sailing you
off to. And I feel like, as my dad being
or how he wasn't a South Texas boy, I feel
like I have to represent him right and make sure
that I'm saying the how how can you impersonate dad
doing it? If he was here? Oh there you go?
(18:36):
So yeah, come into the kitchen every morning and be
like almost almost, let's go outside, let's go get it done. Yea.
And that was his life motto. The guy did more
by seven am than I did all day most days,
at three times my age, And so I think he
kind of had a little bit of the same life
motto too, unbeknownst to him, is is either kyboy, No,
(18:58):
that's good because he was always being courage or let's go,
let's go get something done. Yeah. I know, he definitely
accomplished a lot in those early morning hours of life,
for sure. So whatever you take away from this little
chat here, hopefully you can apply it into your life.
And you know, there's that Chinese proverb the best time
to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second
(19:22):
best time is now, so it's time to act. That's right.
Plant more tree, yes, plant more trees? All right? Thank you, Ben,
I love you all right for this thing. I want
(19:44):
to tell you all about the Angry Therapist. He's an
account that I started following on Instagram. He's a therapist
and author, and he also says in his bio a
tad off center. I love some of his posts and
I think that if you wanted to follow him, you could.
If not, I'm gonna share with you a post that
really resonated with me, and I feel like if I
needed to hear it, then someone else does. But here's
(20:06):
what he wrote earlier this month. We're meant to lose
our way. That's how we find ourselves. Self discovery requires
getting lost. That's how we learn about ourselves. Who we are,
what we are meant to give, who we are supposed
to meet, what we're supposed to learn from them, and
where we're supposed to go. That's how we become. If
(20:27):
life went exactly as we planned or wanted, we wouldn't
change because we wouldn't need to. And that isn't life.
That would just be accomplishing goals without internal change, and
without internal change, there is no fulfillment or meaning. Life
has lived in the mess, the underbelly, the building, the falling,
the breaking, the grit, the standing up, the dusting off.
(20:49):
The shine is not life. That's the reflection of hard
work and determination. Life is the journey there and it's
not a straight line. That is one of the greatest
misconceptions about life. The line is actually squirrelly with many loops,
and that's what makes life a journey instead of a destination.
Point A to B is not life. That is a sentence.
(21:11):
Life requires the entire alphabet. If you feel lost, know
that this is the process and you're on your journey
to explore, to learn to evolve. Without this process, you
a stone will never become a diamond. So lean into
your broken heart, your transition, your rebirth, your new beginning,
your resistance. Let go of what you need to let go,
(21:32):
forgive you need to forgive, face your dragon, squash your judgment,
toss your blueprints, hold onto your dreams, and keep moving
forward even if you're crawling, because if you're moving, you're alive,
and if you're alive, you're on your journey. Go all right,
(21:55):
we have talked about cast roles on the podcast multiple times,
most recently because Jenny Allen was talking about how delivering
cast roles to people should not be weird, Like we
need to know about taking meals to our neighbors, to
our friends, to our coworkers, and it shouldn't feel like
we're intruding on anybody. And I just saw this tip
(22:16):
on Instagram that I thought was really cool that I
wanted to pass along to you. In case you're making
a meal for someone that recently had a baby, or
someone that has a family member sick, or you're part
of one of those meal trains and you have to
cook something for someone, go to a thrift store and
try to collect different cast role dishes that are only
a couple bucks each, and that way, when you deliver
(22:36):
the meal to them, you get to say keep the
dish because it's one woman. The tip that she was
sharing on Instagram was that anytime she's near a thrift store,
she always goes to the kitchen section and tries to
collect cute things and it's just a more affordable way
to do it and deliver something, and it feels more special,
more substantial giving it to them in a legit dish
(22:58):
and then they don't have to worry about getting the
dish back to you. You get to say, keep the dish,
and then maybe they can keep that tradition going and
then they have a dish that they can then pass
along to somebody else and it's not like they're giving
away some special cookware that they got with their wedding
registry or whatnot. So that is a tip that I
saw on Instagram that I thought might be really helpful
because I tend to lean towards going with those disposable
(23:21):
pans from the grocery store, and I think that that
is totally fine if that is you and what you
want to do. But I love this woman's tip and
I might have to adopt that anytime I'm near a
thrift store, because there is something too having dishes and
meals in like real plates. I mean, my sister's whole
theory is that food taste better when it is eaten
(23:43):
off of a real plate with real silverware. And I
am a paper plate girl, So no judgment at all whatsoever,
But I have tested my sister's theory out and she's
not wrong. Like I fought her on it, and fought
her on it. But at the end of the day,
she's right, and it does taste better, feel better. All
that things are better when you feel like you're eating
off a real plate. So therefore, when you're delivering a
meal to someone, how special to give it to them
(24:06):
in a legit, real casserole, dish and real quick. Since
we're talking about tips from the internet, there's this guy
that is super popular on TikTok. His name is Armand
and he's from Denmark and his handle is at creative
Underscore explained I believe, and I've seen a ton of
people post about him. But one of the hacks that
I loved seeing was the sticker hack, because if you
(24:31):
don't have googy gone and you're trying to peel stickers
off the bottom of a glass or a picture frame,
it can be so annoying. But he just squeezed a
little bit of lemon juice on the sticker and let
it sit for two minutes, and the sticker basically just
fell off and there was nothing left behind to clean.
And I was like, oh my gosh, I love that tip.
So I kept watching, and then there was another one
(24:51):
about putting a wrinkled shirt into the dryer with an
ice cube and do it for one minute and while
you're shirt isn't wrinkled anymore. And then another thing he
had was, if you've shrunk a shirt, you can put
it in a bucket with water and the conditioner that
you wash your hair with and mix it up, squeeze
it all in there, and then rinse it out, wring
(25:12):
it out, hold it up, and the shirt is back
to its normal size. I haven't tested that one out
by any means, but it did look pretty fascinating, and
I didn't know there was ever any way possible to
unshrink a shirt, especially by just using water and conditioner.
And then I also saw that he was on Koda
and Jenna and he was asking Jenna how she keeps
(25:34):
carrots fresh in her fridge and she's like, I don't know,
and just keep him in the bin. And he said
that if you wet a paper towel and then wrap
the big carrots up in it, and then stick the
carrots and the paper towel into a ziploc bag, it'll
keep them fresh for fourteen days. And I am the
queen of buying produce and then not all of it,
but eventually whatever's left goes bad, and it's so depressing.
(25:58):
I just need all the tips on keeping produce fresh
because at my house, I feel like we've been wasting
a lot of it recently, and I try to get
my kids like, hey, you want to eat these carrots,
you want to eat these blueberries, you want to eat
these peaches, because they're going to go bad. But if
you follow someone like that, there's all these hacks and
tricks to help your produce last longer. Because I know
he had other stuff on there for bell peppers and
(26:18):
other things that might be in your fridge. But I
haven't watched all of his videos, but he has a
lot of good ones, and again, he's creative underscore explained.
So if you have any good hacks or tips that
you've learned from the Internet or social media or anything
like that and you would love to share them, you
can send me an email. I want to know them.
Four Things with Amy Brown at gmail dot com.
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