Podcasts about it's amy

Amy, a Bright Lifer and TikTok influencer, talks to Bonny, Robin and Meagan about her BLE journey and how she lost 100lbs!!!

Amy is a social media and digital marketing coach specialising in working with small to medium sized service based businesses. Amy reached a full client roster and six figures in her business all in a year after coming back from maternity leave, working four days a week. It's Amy's mission to help clients see growth in client sales, prospects, reach, and warm leads and engagement through sharing her knowledge and expertise. While Amy mainly works with service based businesses, today I've invited her on to share advice about social media planning and content strategy for product businesses in 2024. Amy offered really valuable insights into mapping out social media over the next year - from identifying relevant channels and navigating trends to determining the types of content and campaigns to prioritise each month. Whether you meticulously plan out every social media post or take a more spontaneous approach, there is lots here to take away and use in 2024.An introduction to herself and her business (02:07)Why you should start thinking about your 2024 social media now (02:43)Working out your key dates for the year ahead (04:09)What to do if you have a month where it looks like you won't have something to talk about (08:54)The power of relaunching products and services (10:54)How often you should be posting about your products, and the mix of posts you should be sharing (12:26)The importance of using Instagram stories (13:51)Deciding which channels to focus on (18:18)Using Google Analytics to make strategic choices about which social media channels are working for you (22:39)Navigating social media trends like Threads (26:52)Using micro influencers (38:49)Her number one piece of social media advice for product creators (39:36)The Bring Your Product Idea to Life Podcast - Best Business Podcast Award, Independent Podcast Awards 2023USEFUL RESOURCES:The Femtrepreneur WebsiteFemtrepreneur FacebookFemtrepreneur InstagramFemtrepreneur YoutubeLET'S CONNECTJoin my free Facebook group for product makers and creatorsFind me on InstagramWork with me Buy My Book: Bring Your Product Idea To LifeIf you enjoy this podcast, and you'd like to leave a tip, you can do so here: https://bring-your-product-idea.captivate.fm/supportMentioned in this episode:Get on the waitlist for my Group Product Creation ProgrammeJoin the waitlist to be first to hear when you can join Create a Product to Sell and get a free 1:1 call with me when you sign up! https://checklist.vickiweinberg.com/waitlist

It's Amy's last show as a single host! | Nikola Jokic gets ejected on Serbian Heritage Night in Chicago | Vote NOW for the After Hours "TD of the Week!" 

Hi you guys! It's Amy with a solo episode this week. Today I am talking about something that is very near and dear to my heart; how to avoid burnout as an entrepreneur and balance your life in a way that feels good to you. We know that you didn't leave your job to have a worse schedule than you did before. In this episode I share tried and true tips that have worked for me over the years.First off, I recommend finding a formula that works for your week. I walk you through what my work week looks like and give specific examples of what I do each day. Next, I advise you to think about your year. What does your business year look like? When are your launches? I even share some examples of what our business year looks like inside Pursuing HER Purpose. Do you always feel like you have to have something new to offer or maybe you keep offering something that you don't want to offer any more? I've been there and it's not a good feeling. I challenge you to create a system that does allow you to feel good inside your business. Connection is also something that can fill your soul and help you not feel so lonely as a solopreneur. I remind you to see the people - network and make the connections. Finally, I want you to ask yourself what specifically doesn't feel good in your business right now? What is it that you really don't like? Now challenge yourself to create solutions. Don't buy into the idea that thing's can't change because they can. We want 2024 to be a year where you are able to find steadiness and happiness both inside and outside of your business.Sponsor: How to 2x Your Business with Podcasting WorkshopLet's connect!Purposeful Week Planner: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/shopOur WEBSITE: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.comINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pursuingherpurpose/MEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskiefer/MEET KAT: https://www.instagram.com/kat.herro/ MEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreen/This episode was produced and edited by @pivotballchange.

Should you start a blog or a podcast first? It's Amy here and I have a solo coming at you. I am giving you the benefits of both blogging and podcasting and then sharing (as both a blogger and a podcaster) whether I feel a blog or a podcast should come first! What's your guess? Tune in to today's episode to hear my answer and why!Thanks for listening! Let us know your thoughts on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsWe have a goal to reach 100,000 downloads by December 31 and we need your help! Share an episode you love with a friend and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! We would be so grateful!Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode!SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode101

It's Amy and Abby here with you this week and we are giving you an update on our other business together, the HERself podcast. If you haven't listened to episode 71, go back and check that out because in there we talk about the first two years of HERself.Since the beginning of HERself, we have had an incredible community but there was an opportunity for us in the realm of monetization. We often hear from women in this community that they don't care about the money aspect of their business but we DO! We want to be fully transparent in our revenue goals and our strategies in how we plan to achieve them.In this episode we go into detail about the different revenue streams that we have including sponsors, Patreon, and affiliates. We give you exact numbers on how much each of these has brought in for us so far this year and give you a projection on what we estimate each of our owner profit take home shares will be.If you need a pep talk or a mindset reframe on how you're going to make more revenue as a podcast, let this episode be just that. We want you to be making money and hope that our methods can help you get there!Sponsor: How to 2x Your Business with Podcasting WorkshopLet's connect!Purposeful Week Planner: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/shopOur WEBSITE: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.comINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pursuingherpurpose/MEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskiefer/MEET KAT: https://www.instagram.com/kat.herro/ MEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreen/This episode was produced and edited by @pivotballchange.

It's Amy here coming to you with a solo episode this week. I am speaking to the woman who may think this isn't her time. Today I'm sharing my story to hopefully inspire you to understand that there is no perfect time.We know that most of us are going to have babies during our peak working years. I explain what it can look like if you do choose to pour yourself into your business when you have littles at home. Being pregnant is what sparked my idea to launch my very first business; Expecting and Empowered. I share why this was not the ideal time to dive into entrepreneurship and what time saving hacks I used to make it work anyway.It is so easy for me to sit here and say, “let it rip!” But today I wanted to give you some actual, tangible tips on how to make this happen. Remind yourself, if you are in a demanding season of parenthood, it's not going to last forever. Focus on what you can for now, ask yourself what you can put down, and think about where you truly want to invest your most precious resource; your time.If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on your Instagram tagging @pursuingherpurpose. Thanks for being here!Sponsor: Purposeful Podcast Course - Enter code ‘PODCAST50' at checkout for $50 offLet's connect!Purposeful Week Planner: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/shopOur WEBSITE: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.comINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pursuingherpurpose/MEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskiefer/MEET KAT: https://www.instagram.com/kat.herro/ MEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreen/This episode was produced and edited by @pivotballchange.

Do you know when and how to set reasonable boundaries? Fran is facing some boundary issues. She has a little trouble distinguishing between what it means to go the extra mile and becoming an enabler. It's Tuesday and Fran has a plate full of things to get done for one of her most important clients before a deadline on Wednesday. As she digs in, a coworker walks into her office. “Hey, Fran, how's it going?” It's Amy, a nice gal who is a project manager like Fran, but who somehow always seems to need help from others—especially Fran! “Hi, Amy. Well, it's going good, but I'm under the gun to meet a deadline by tomorrow. How are things going for you?” Uh-oh, Fran thinks, that was not the best question to ask. So, Amy begins to slowly talk about a presentation she is preparing for a new prospect tomorrow, but she is stumped. “Fran, I know you're busy, but you're so smart and so fast, if you could just look over my presentation and give me your opinion, I would be so grateful. It won't take you ten minutes. How about it?” The voice in her head says, “Don't go there, Fran. This is a time to say no.” But her exaggerated idea of what it means to “go the extra mile” overcomes her better sense, and she agrees that she can give Amy ten minutes. What happens? Ten minutes turns into three hours, where basically Fran completely redesigns her presentation, and Amy is thrilled. “Sorry it took so long, Fran, but I know you'll do a great job on your project. Thanks so much,” and off she goes. Now Fran has to take her work home, take time away from her family and her sleep in order to meet her own deadline. Fran has trouble saying no. You see, Fran is a go-to person, so she likes to play the role of superwoman and she truly wants to help others. But she needs to learn where to set boundaries so she doesn't become an enabler at times without realizing it. Fran should have listened to that quiet voice which told her to say no, but she just finds that so hard to do. How do you come to the place where you know when to say no, when to go the extra mile, and when to draw the line in the sand and stick to your boundaries? There are no hard and fast rules here, but one thing to consider is whether or not you are becoming an enabler by refusing to say no. Well, boundary-setting is challenging for Fran, but her attempts at being superwoman will not benefit her or her friends. So, she needs to address this issue in her life. Maybe you do as well.

Do you know when and how to set reasonable boundaries? Fran is facing some boundary issues. She has a little trouble distinguishing between what it means to go the extra mile and becoming an enabler. It's Tuesday and Fran has a plate full of things to get done for one of her most important clients before a deadline on Wednesday. As she digs in, a coworker walks into her office. “Hey, Fran, how's it going?” It's Amy, a nice gal who is a project manager like Fran, but who somehow always seems to need help from others—especially Fran! “Hi, Amy. Well, it's going good, but I'm under the gun to meet a deadline by tomorrow. How are things going for you?” Uh-oh, Fran thinks, that was not the best question to ask. So, Amy begins to slowly talk about a presentation she is preparing for a new prospect tomorrow, but she is stumped. “Fran, I know you're busy, but you're so smart and so fast, if you could just look over my presentation and give me your opinion, I would be so grateful. It won't take you ten minutes. How about it?” The voice in her head says, “Don't go there, Fran. This is a time to say no.” But her exaggerated idea of what it means to “go the extra mile” overcomes her better sense, and she agrees that she can give Amy ten minutes. What happens? Ten minutes turns into three hours, where basically Fran completely redesigns her presentation, and Amy is thrilled. “Sorry it took so long, Fran, but I know you'll do a great job on your project. Thanks so much,” and off she goes. Now Fran has to take her work home, take time away from her family and her sleep in order to meet her own deadline. Fran has trouble saying no. You see, Fran is a go-to person, so she likes to play the role of superwoman and she truly wants to help others. But she needs to learn where to set boundaries so she doesn't become an enabler at times without realizing it. Fran should have listened to that quiet voice which told her to say no, but she just finds that so hard to do. How do you come to the place where you know when to say no, when to go the extra mile, and when to draw the line in the sand and stick to your boundaries? There are no hard and fast rules here, but one thing to consider is whether or not you are becoming an enabler by refusing to say no. Well, boundary-setting is challenging for Fran, but her attempts at being superwoman will not benefit her or her friends. So, she needs to address this issue in her life. Maybe you do as well.

This episode is sponsored by  Better Help. betterhelp.com/neighbors Episode 84!! Bri is editing for the FIRST TIME. So if its messed up... It's Amy's fault. Anyways this week Bri brings back another new segment of Ebay haunts! For sale we have an assortment of dolls, a jewelry box, a chair, a rock, AND even a fashionable potato sac shirt. Amy starts a 2 part story about the infamous Bonnie and Clyde and their journey through the MANY crime sprees they ventured on... INCLUDING MURDER. Whats with the neighbor's podcast is sponsored by "Better Help" get 10% off your first month through our link.   betterhelp.com/neighbors  

It's Amy here and I am really excited for today's episode because I will be telling the story of our third son's birth. If you are looking for other birth stories, be sure to check out episodes #3 and #15.This birth has such a special place in my heart. It was challenging but doable, hard but beautiful all at the same time. I share how my husband Drew played such an important role in Cole's birth. He was an advocate for me and his support gave me faith to know that we were ready to raise three little men together.Cole's birth was definitely the most mentally challenging for me. But we got through it. There's going to be times in birth that you have to reset yourself and reset your mind. It's okay to have that moment of doubt but it's so important to be able to get right back into that 'how am I going to make it through this' mindset.Expecting and Empowered App - For 30% off your first year enter ‘MOMPOD30' at checkout! This code is valid for the entire month of May.Links & ResourcesExpecting and Empowered YouTube ChannelExpecting and Empowered AppExpecting and Empowered WebsiteExpecting and Empowered Instagram

Welcome back to The Ultimate Blog Podcast!  It's Amy here and today I am sharing four foundational tips to help you if you are wanting to start a lifestyle blog. A lot of bloggers want to start with a lifestyle blog and there are some things we think you should know before creating your own. If you are considering starting a lifestyle blog, you won't want to miss this episode! Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out Restored 316's Templates here!Check out The Blog Depot. This is a community and course that we have set up for you if you need questions answered before you start your blog. Join The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.Check out the show notes (link below) for more information including links and resources mentioned in today's episode! SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode73

It's Amy from Last Night's Game, and I'm here to bring you the latest news from the world of sports. This week, we have updates on the Kentucky Derby, the Miami Grand Prix and all the celebs present for the big win, the NBA playoffs and some sweet karma for an NBA star.

It's Amy here this week and I'm educating you on one of my favorite topics which is the difference between lifting weights and cardio. They both have their place but today we are diving into what the science says is best for us.The reason we are really passionate about this subject is that there are a lot of misconceptions about lifting weights. Today I'm hoping to put people's fears at bay. Some women get nervous that they are going to get bulky from lifting and that's just not true.I explain the reasons behind why lifting won't make you bulky, how the word toning is a marketing scheme, what happens to the body when cardio is the primary mode of exercise and so much more. We want people to be educated when they are making decisions about what their workouts look like. We hope that by listening to today's episode everyone wants to add some strength training into their workouts. Your future self will thank you!If you enjoyed this episode we would be honored if you left us a rating and review. It is how people find our podcast. So if this episode has brought some value to your life we would love your support.Links & ResourcesExpecting and Empowered YouTube ChannelExpecting and Empowered App - Enter code PODCAST25 for 25% off your first month or yearExpecting and Empowered WebsiteExpecting and Empowered Instagram

It's Amy & Abby here this week. We are talking about five questions we've asked ourselves recently and we think everyone else should ask themselves these questions too. The whole point of this episode is that all of our answers will be unique. We will give you prompts, and share our own answers to the questions, but we want you to take them and  run with them.We hope that these questions give you something to think about and allow you to do the type of self reflection that you deserve.Sponsor: 30% off Blissy Pillowcases: https://blissy.com/pages/herself code: HERSELFSponsor: 10% off at BETTERHELP: http://betterhelp.com/herselfLinks & Resources:Core Values ExerciseLet's connect!HERSELF SHOP: https://herself-podcast-favorites.myshopify.comHERSELF PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/herselfpodcastHERSELF INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/herselfpodcastMEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskieferMEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreenThis episode was produced and edited by @pivotballchange.

Welcome back to the Ultimate Blog Podcast! It's Amy here today and I am going to talk with you about the best blog marketing ideas.  If you are looking for ways to take a little more control of your content and put it out there in a way that people who need your content can find it, then you aren't going to want to miss this episode!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsYou can join the Blog Depot for $9 a month using code: BLOGGER. Sign up HERE! Get 20% off of Keysearch Starter Plan using this link and code: KSDISCJoin the waitlist for The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode61

It's Amy here with you this week. I've seen this happen so many times with our students. Life gets in the way and the momentum we have toward our business gets knocked down. Today I'm sharing strategies that will help you navigate these hard times in order to continue to pursue your dreams.The main things I cover in this episode are the importance of resilience, how it is normal to be scared right before you release your work into the world, and that feeling of disappointment when you don't get the initial reaction you were hoping for.Understand that you are not the only one that might be having a tough time growing or receiving a no to something. Have compassion for yourself. Choose to keep going. Don't let the way things perform dictate your creation of content. Finish your work and put it out there! The Purposeful Podcast Course is now evergreen! For 25% off the course use the code PODCAST25 to make that purchase. That code will be available for one week. If you're ready to tackle this course it is going to help you get a podcast off the ground!Let's connect!Purposeful Week Planner: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/shopOur WEBSITE: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.comINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pursuingherpurpose/MEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskiefer/MEET KAT: https://www.instagram.com/kat.herro/ MEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreen/

Happy New Year and welcome back to another episode of the Ultimate Blog Podcast! It's Amy here today and I have a solo episode for you. It's an exciting time because the podcast has officially been launched for one year! Jennifer and I set a goal to be consistent and release a new episode each week in 2022 and we did it! On today's episode I want to share more with you about consistency, content, connection, and getting back to the basics! Tune in to hear more!Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconceptsCheck out The Blog Depot. This is a community and course that we have set up for you if you need questions answered before you start your blog. Join the waitlist for The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of.SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode55

It's Amy here and this week we've got a mini episode for you. We put together our tangible, best tips for getting your workouts in because we know it's incredibly hard to do when you have a bunch of little people that depend on you. We've been in the trenches of motherhood where you don't feel like you have a spare moment let alone 45 minutes for a workout.But we do know that prioritizing working out can be so important to our lives so throughout our journeys we've always figured out a way that's worked for us. Today I've pulled them all together for you and I'm sharing four tips that really work during this demanding season. We are in the holidays and we know you probably don't have a lot of spare time right now but we want you to remember how important you are, remember that you really matter, and remember that even during the holidays your body is going to thank you for some kind of movement.If this episode spoke to you we would love it if you shared it into your story tagging @expectingandempowered.Expecting and Empowered YouTube ChannelExpecting and Empowered AppExpecting and Empowered WebsiteExpecting and Empowered Instagram

It's Amy here and today I am honored to have my friend, Dr. Angel Monfort on as a guest. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and certified in perinatal mental health. Dr. Angel helps women navigate the challenging years of motherhood through The Center of Maternal Mental Health and she is a mom of four.Dr. Angel shares the things she had anxiety about when she first became a mama and how being a high achieving perfectionist caused motherhood to be even harder for her. She shares that she wishes she could go back and tell herself that yes, this is hard. And that's okay.The term high functioning anxiety has become increasingly popular and Dr. Angel explains what exactly this term means. She goes into the physiological components that go along with anxiety like panic attacks, extreme fear, heart palpitations, or your breathing might become irregular. Dr. Angel goes into details about how you can set yourself up to help prevent these symptoms. She explains that if you are asking yourself the question of whether or not you should seek help, the answer is absolutely.Maybe you yourself don't suffer from anxiety but you have a friend who does. Dr. Angel shares what we can do as a friend to help a fellow mama. Things like coordinating a meal train, picking up older children from school, or helping the mama get a solid 4-5 hour chunk of consecutive sleep can be so helpful.If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would love it if you could share it to your Instagram stories and tag us, @expectingandempowered. As we like to say, knowledge is power, and we just really want to give more people the information that they may need on their childbirth journey!Follow Dr. Angel on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/drangelmontfort/Dr. Angel's Website:https://www.cfmmh.com/Links & ResourcesExpecting and Empowered YouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@expectingandempoweredExpecting and Empowered App:https://app.expectingandempowered.com/Expecting and Empowered Website:https://www.expectingandempowered.com/Expecting and Empowered Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/expectingandempowered/

It's Amy here today with a really fun episode for you, because you'll get to hear the birth story of one of our employees at Expecting and Empowered, Lacey Yasick who shares how her third child recently came into the world! I had the absolute honor of being there as Lacey's doula for that magical moment where she met her third baby for the very first time, and I can't wait for you to hear all about it in this episode.Lacey also reveals how each of her three pregnancies have been different, how she felt going to her weekly midwife visits and seeing no progression as the due date approached, why she chose to use the services of a doula for this third birth, and a whole lot more! We love bringing these birth stories to you, and because Lacey was so instrumental in getting our Prepping For Labor + Delivery course out in the world, we want to offer you 25% off the price of this course. It will help you prepare for your own birth story, and you can go to https://www.expectingandempowered.com/fitness-guides/labor-and-delivery-course and use the code “birthstory” to get this special discount! If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would love it if you could share it into your Instagram Stories and tag us, @expectingandempowered. As we like to say, knowledge is power, and we just really want to give more people the information that they may need on their childbirth journey! Links & Resources:Get 25% off the Prepping For Labor + Delivery Course Using Code “birthstory” Expecting and Empowered YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/@expectingandempowered Expecting and Empowered App: https://app.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Website: www.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Instagram: http://instagram.com/expectingandempowered

It's Amy here, and I'm so excited to sit down in person with Amber Latsch, who is a member of the American College of Nurse-Midwives and certified by the American Midwifery Certification Board. Amber works right here in Madison, Wisconsin and we got to know her as a part of the midwife team for one of our employees, Lacey. In this episode, Amber shares how she got interested in becoming a midwife, and what the process to become one looked like for her. She talks about who would be a good candidate for midwife services, things women can do in pregnancy to set themselves up to be successful, and a whole lot more. I know that I learned so much from Amber during this conversation, and that you will too. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would love it if you could share it into your Instagram Stories and tag us, @expectingandempowered. As Amber says, knowledge is power, and we just really want to give more people the information that they may need on their childbirth journey! Links & Resources:Learn More About Amber SSM Health - Madison American College of Nurse-MidwivesAmerican Midwifery Certification Board Madison Area Midwives The Birth Partner 5th Edition: A Complete Guide to Childbirth for Dads, Partners, Doulas, and Other Labor Companions by Penny Simkin Heal Your Birth Story: Releasing the Unexpected by Maureen Campion Learn more about the Expecting and Empowered App and all new Empower Your Core Program: https://www.expectingandempowered.com/e-e-appExpecting and Empowered App: https://app.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Website: www.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Instagram: http://instagram.com/expectingandempowered

It's Amy versus Lucy on Tuesday's PopMaster Podcast with Ken Bruce.

It's Amy today and I'm here for a solo. A common question we get from students is “How will I know what to continue talking about?” or “Am I going to run out of things to talk about?” Today I am going to be talking with you about simplifying creating content. It does not have to be hard. I know it can feel that way when you sit down to write content but I want to help you break this down so that it is not difficult. I'm going to be going through the ways you can simplify this so that you don't feel stuck when creating that content for your blog.  Thanks for listening! Check out the show notes (link below) for links and resources mentioned in today's episode! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconcepts Check out The Blog Depot. This is a community and course that we have set up for you if you need questions answered before you start your blog.  Join the waitlist for The Ultimate Blog Bootcamp, our online course and coaching that helps you build the blog that you have always dreamed of. SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode41

It's Amy here, and today I am sharing the story of my second son's birth. His name is Trey Daniel, and I will say that out of my three births, this one was my favourite labor and delivery experience (and you'll hear why that is)! In this episode, I reveal some of the important discussions that I knew I had to have with my OBGYN, the way that I prepared myself for this birth, and how it differed from my first. I also give a complete breakdown at what that day was like for me, from the first contraction until at the hospital where Trey entered this world! If this episode resonated with you, we would be so honored if you shared it and tagged us on Instagram, @expectingandempowered, so that we can see it and get your feedback! We'd also be so grateful if you would rate and review our podcast in your favorite podcast app, because that's the best way for a newer podcast like ours to get more people to listen. Links & Resources:Episode 3: Amy Kiefer's Empowering Unmedicated Hospital Birth (Baby #1)Learn more about the Expecting and Empowered App and all new Empower Your Core Program: https://www.expectingandempowered.com/e-e-appExpecting and Empowered App: https://app.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Website: www.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Instagram: http://instagram.com/expectingandempowered

It's Amy here and today my husband Drew and I are diving into what it looks like when you come to your partner with your big idea! We wanted to paint a picture of how some of these conversations may go by sharing our own experiences when I started Expecting and Empowered with my sister, and with the businesses that followed that one. In this episode, you'll not only hear how I approached getting the buy-in for these businesses from Drew, but what his thoughts were as the analytical thinker that he is. He reveals his expectations for my business in the beginning, the biggest challenges we encountered in those early years, and his advice for how you can start the conversation with your partner to discuss the business that you've been dreaming of creating. Next week is the last launch of 2022 Purposeful Business! If you are about to start an online business of your own, we have a complete roadmap for you and you'll be able to answer all of the questions that we talked about during this interview. By hopping on the waitlist now at www.purposefulbusinesscourse.com, you'll get an exclusive discount and the first chance to become part of this cohort, so don't miss out! Links & Resources:Get on the Purposeful Business Waitlist Now! Expecting and Empowered HERself Podcast Let's connect! Purposeful Week Planner: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/shopOur WEBSITE: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.comINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pursuingherpurpose/MEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskiefer/MEET KAT: https://www.instagram.com/kat.herro/ MEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreen/

It's Amy here today and I'm with my friend Meggie from Everyday Best Buy, who started her Instagram account in January 2021, while she was on maternity leave with her second child. Since then, I've watched Meggie's account grow and I've been so proud of her ability to network and ask her family, friends (including me!) and followers for help along the way. In this episode, Meggie is sharing a behind-the-scenes of her journey moving from a corporate career to building a successful online business. In addition to learning about how she leveraged her network during this process, Meggie shares her strategy for using Instagram Stories versus the feed, the best way to grow on Instagram right now, her advice for busy side hustlers who have a dream like she did, and much more! A lot of people are where Meggie was just a short time ago, and are just starting to dream about doing something on their own, which is why I'm so excited to be bringing you this conversation with her today. If you enjoy this episode, Meggie and I would be so honored if you share it on Instagram and tag us, @everydaybestbuy and @pursuingherpurpose. MEET Meggie: https://www.instagram.com/everydaybestbuy/ Links & Resources:Meggie's Website & InstagramMilestones & Motherhood Let's connect! Purposeful Week Planner: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.com/shopOur WEBSITE: https://www.pursuingherpurpose.comINSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/pursuingherpurpose/MEET AMY: http://instagram.com/ameskiefer/MEET KAT: https://www.instagram.com/kat.herro/ MEET ABBY: http://instagram.com/abbyrosegreen/

It's Amy's latest Netflix binge. Are you into it?

It's Amy's birthday!!! Hooray! To celebrate, Monique recounts Laura Prepon's haunted bedroom story from the greatest tv show there is: Celebrity Ghost Stories! Then Amy reminds us why we can't have nice things with the utterly enraging story of Minh and Hung Hong. If you liked this episode, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe. Edited by: Filip Đorđević

About AmyAmy Tobey has worked in tech for more than 20 years at companies of every size, working with everything from kernel code to user interfaces. These days she spends her time building an innovative Site Reliability Engineering program at Equinix, where she is a principal engineer. When she's not working, she can be found with her nose in a book, watching anime with her son, making noise with electronics, or doing yoga poses in the sun.Links Referenced: Equinix Metal: https://metal.equinix.com Personal Twitter: https://twitter.com/MissAmyTobey Personal Blog: https://tobert.github.io/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Vultr. Optimized cloud compute plans have landed at Vultr to deliver lightning-fast processing power, courtesy of third-gen AMD EPYC processors without the IO or hardware limitations of a traditional multi-tenant cloud server. Starting at just 28 bucks a month, users can deploy general-purpose, CPU, memory, or storage optimized cloud instances in more than 20 locations across five continents. Without looking, I know that once again, Antarctica has gotten the short end of the stick. Launch your Vultr optimized compute instance in 60 seconds or less on your choice of included operating systems, or bring your own. It's time to ditch convoluted and unpredictable giant tech company billing practices and say goodbye to noisy neighbors and egregious egress forever. Vultr delivers the power of the cloud with none of the bloat. “Screaming in the Cloud” listeners can try Vultr for free today with a $150 in credit when they visit getvultr.com/screaming. That's G-E-T-V-U-L-T-R dot com slash screaming. My thanks to them for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast.Corey: Finding skilled DevOps engineers is a pain in the neck! And if you need to deploy a secure and compliant application to AWS, forgettaboutit! But that's where DuploCloud can help. Their comprehensive no-code/low-code software platform guarantees a secure and compliant infrastructure in as little as two weeks, while automating the full DevSecOps lifestyle. Get started with DevOps-as-a-Service from DuploCloud so that your cloud configurations are done right the first time. Tell them I sent you and your first two months are free. To learn more visit: snark.cloud/duplo. Thats's snark.cloud/D-U-P-L-O-C-L-O-U-D.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Every once in a while I catch up with someone that it feels like I've known for ages, and I realize somehow I have never been able to line up getting them on this show as a guest. Today is just one of those days. And my guest is Amy Tobey who has been someone I've been talking to for ages, even in the before-times, if you can remember such a thing. Today, she's a Senior Principal Engineer at Equinix. Amy, thank you for finally giving in to my endless wheedling.Amy: Thanks for having me. You mentioned the before-times. Like, I remember it was, like, right before the pandemic we had beers in San Francisco wasn't it? There was Ian there—Corey: Yeah, I—Amy: —and a couple other people. It was a really great time. And then—Corey: I vaguely remember beer. Yeah. And then—Amy: And then the world ended.Corey: Oh, my God. Yes. It's still March of 2020, right?Amy: As far as I know. Like, I haven't checked in a couple years.Corey: So, you do an awful lot. And it's always a difficult question to ask someone, so can you encapsulate your entire existence in a paragraph? It's—Amy: [sigh].Corey: —awful, so I'd like to give a bit more structure to it. Let's start with the introduction: You are a Senior Principal Engineer. We know it's high level because of all the adjectives that get put in there, and none of those adjectives are ‘associate' or ‘beginner' or ‘junior,' or all the other diminutives that companies like to play games with to justify paying people less. And you're at Equinix, which is a company that is a bit unlike most of the, shall we say, traditional cloud providers. What do you do over there and both as a company, as a person?Amy: So, as a company Equinix, what most people know about is that we have a whole bunch of data centers all over the world. I think we have the most of any company. And what we do is we lease out space in that data center, and then we have a number of other products that people don't know as well, which one is Equinix Metal, which is what I specifically work on, where we rent you bare-metal servers. None of that fancy stuff that you get any other clouds on top of it, there's things you can get that are… partner things that you can add-on, like, you know, storage and other things like that, but we just deliver you bare-metal servers with really great networking. So, what I work on is the reliability of that whole system. All of the things that go into provisioning the servers, making them come up, making sure that they get delivered to the server, make sure the API works right, all of that stuff.Corey: So, you're on the Equinix cloud side of the world more so than you are on the building data centers by the sweat of your brow, as they say?Amy: Correct. Yeah, yeah. Software side.Corey: Excellent. I spent some time in data centers in the early part of my career before cloud ate that. That was sort of cotemporaneous with the discovery that I'm the hardware destruction bunny, and I should go to great pains to keep my aura from anything expensive and important, like, you know, the SAN. So—Amy: Right, yeah.Corey: Companies moving out of data centers, and me getting out was a great thing.Amy: But the thing about SANs though, is, like, it might not be you. They're just kind of cursed from the start, right? They just always were kind of fussy and easy to break.Corey: Oh, yeah. I used to think—and I kid you not—that I had a limited upside to my career in tech because I sometimes got sloppy and I was fairly slow at crimping ethernet cables.Amy: [laugh].Corey: That is very similar to growing up in third grade when it became apparent that I was going to have problems in my career because my handwriting was sloppy. Yeah, it turns out the future doesn't look like we predicted it would.Amy: Oh, gosh. Are we going to talk about, like, neurological development now or… [laugh] okay, that's a thing I struggle with, too right, is I started typing as soon as they would let—in fact, before they would let me. I remember in high school, I had teachers who would grade me down for typing a paper out. They want me to handwrite it and I would go, “Cool. Go ahead and take a grade off because if I handwrite it, you're going to take two grades off my handwriting, so I'm cool with this deal.”Corey: Yeah, it was pretty easy early on. I don't know when the actual shift was, but it became more and more apparent that more and more things are moving towards a world where you could type. And I was almost five when I started working on that stuff, and that really wound up changing a lot of aspects of how I started seeing things. One thing I think you're probably fairly well known for is incidents. I want to be clear when I say that you are not the root cause as—“So, why are things broken?” “It's Amy again. What's she gotten into this time?” Great.Amy: [laugh]. But it does happen, but not all the time.Corey: Exa—it's a learning experience.Amy: Right.Corey: You've also been deeply involved with SREcon and a number of—a lot of aspects of what I will term—and please don't yell at me for this—SRE culture—Amy: Yeah.Corey: Which is sometimes a challenging thing to wind up describing or putting a definition around. The one that I've always been somewhat partial to is, “SRE is DevOps, except you worked at Google for a while.” I don't know how necessarily accurate that is, but it does rile people up.Amy: Yeah, it does. Dave Stanke actually did a really great talk at SREcon San Francisco just a couple weeks ago, about the DORA report. And the new DORA report, they split SRE out into its own function and kind of is pushing against that old model, which actually comes from Liz Fong-Jones—I think it's from her, or older—about, like, class SRE implements DevOps, which is kind of this idea that, like, SREs make DevOps happen. Things have evolved, right, since then. Things have evolved since Google released those books, and we're all just figured out what works and what doesn't a little bit.And so, it's not that we're implementing DevOps so much. In fact, it's that ops stuff that kind of holds us back from the really high impact work that SREs, I think, should be doing, that aren't just, like, fixing the problems, the symptoms down at the bottom layer, right? Like what we did as sysadmins 20 years ago. You know, we'd go and a lot of people are SREs that came out of the sysadmin world and still think in that mode, where it's like, “Well, I set up the systems, and when things break, I go and I fix them.” And, “Why did the developers keep writing crappy code? Why do I have to always getting up in the middle of the night because this thing crashed?”And it turns out that the work we need to do to make things more reliable, there's a ceiling to how far away the platform can take us, right? Like, we can have the best platform in the world with redundancy, and, you know, nine-way replicated data storage and all this crazy stuff, and still if we put crappy software on top, it's going to be unreliable. So, how do we make less crappy software? And for most of my career, people would be, like, “Well, you should test it.” And so, we started doing that, and we still have crappy software, so what's going on here? We still have incidents.So, we write more tests, and we still have incidents. We had a QA group, we still have incidents. We send the developers to training, and we still have incidents. So like, what is the thing we need to do to make things more reliable? And it turns out, most of it is culture work.Corey: My perspective on this stems from being a grumpy old sysadmin. And at some point, I started calling myself a systems engineer or DevOps or production engineer, or SRE. It was all from my point of view, the same job, but you know, if you call yourself a sysadmin, you're just asking for a 40% pay cut off the top.Amy: [laugh].Corey: But I still tended to view the world through that lens. I tended to be very good at Linux systems internals, for example, understanding system calls and the rest, but increasingly, as the DevOps wave or SRE wave, or Google-isation of the internet wound up being more and more of a thing, I found myself increasingly in job interviews, where, “Great, now, can you go wind up implementing a sorting algorithm on the whiteboard?” “What on earth? No.” Like, my lingua franca is shitty Bash, and no one tends to write that without a bunch of tab completions and quick checking with manpages—die.net or whatnot—on the fly as you go down that path.And it was awful, and I felt… like my skill set was increasingly eroding. And it wasn't honestly until I started this place where I really got into writing a fair bit of code to do different things because it felt like an orthogonal skill set, but the fullness of time, it seems like it's not. And it's a reskilling. And it made me wonder, does this mean that the areas of technology that I focused on early in my career, was that all a waste? And the answer is not really. Sometimes, sure, in that I don't spend nearly as much time worrying about inodes—for example—as I once did. But every once in a while, I'll run into something and I looked like a wizard from the future, but instead, I'm a wizard from the past.Amy: Yeah, I find that a lot in my work, now. Sometimes things I did 20 years ago, come back, and it's like, oh, yeah, I remember I did all that threading work in 2002 in Perl, and I learned everything the very, very, very hard way. And then, you know, this January, did some threading work to fix some stability issues, and all of it came flooding back, right? Just that the experiences really, more than the code or the learning or the text and stuff; more just the, like, this feels like threads [BLEEP]-ery. Is a diagnostic thing that sometimes we have to say.And then people are like, “Can you prove it?” And I'm like, “Not really,” because it's literally thread [BLEEP]-ery. Like, the definition of it is that there's weird stuff happening that we can't figure out why it's happening. There's something acting in the system that isn't synchronized, that isn't connected to other things, that's happening out of order from what we expect, and if we had a clear signal, we would just fix it, but we don't. We just have, like, weird stuff happening over here and then over there and over there and over there.And, like, that tells me there's just something happening at that layer and then have to go and dig into that right, and like, just basically charge through. My colleagues are like, “Well, maybe you should look at this, and go look at the database,” the things that they're used to looking at and that their experiences inform, whereas then I bring that ancient toiling through the threading mines experiences back and go, “Oh, yeah. So, let's go find where this is happening, where people are doing dangerous things with threads, and see if we can spot something.” But that came from that experience.Corey: And there's so much that just repeats itself. And history rhymes. The challenge is that, do you have 20 years of experience, or do you have one year of experience repeated 20 times? And as the tide rises, doing the same task by hand, it really is just a matter of time before your full-time job winds up being something a piece of software does. An easy example is, “Oh, what's your job?” “I manually place containers onto specific hosts.” “Well, I've got news for you, and you're not going to like it at all.”Amy: Yeah, yeah. I think that we share a little bit. I'm allergic to repeated work. I don't know if allergic is the right word, but you know, if I sit and I do something once, fine. Like, I'll just crank it out, you know, it's this form, or it's a datafile I got to write and I'll—fine I'll type it in and do the manual labor.The second time, the difficulty goes up by ten, right? Like, just mentally, just to do it, be like, I've already done this once. Doing it again is anathema to everything that I am. And then sometimes I'll get through it, but after that, like, writing a program is so much easier because it's like exponential, almost, growth in difficulty. You know, the third time I have to do the same thing that's like just typing the same stuff—like, look over here, read this thing and type it over here—I'm out; I can't do it. You know, I got to find a way to automate. And I don't know, maybe normal people aren't driven to live this way, but it's kept me from getting stuck in those spots, too.Corey: It was weird because I spent a lot of time as a consultant going from place to place and it led to some weird changes. For example, “Oh, thank God, I don't have to think about that whole messaging queue thing.” Sure enough, next engagement, it's message queue time. Fantastic. I found that repeating myself drove me nuts, but you also have to be very sensitive not to wind up, you know, stealing IP from the people that you're working with.Amy: Right.Corey: But what I loved about the sysadmin side of the world is that the vast majority of stuff that I've taken with me, lives in my shell config. And what I mean by that is I'm not—there's nothing in there is proprietary, but when you have a weird problem with trying to figure out the best way to figure out which Ruby process is stealing all the CPU, great, turns out that you can chain seven or eight different shell commands together through a bunch of pipes. I don't want to remember that forever. So, that's the sort of thing I would wind up committing as I learned it. I don't remember what company I picked that up at, but it was one of those things that was super helpful.I have a sarcastic—it's a one-liner, except no sane editor setting is going to show it in any less than three—of a whole bunch of Perl, piped into du, piped into the rest, that tells you one of the largest consumers of files in a given part of the system. And it rates them with stars and it winds up doing some neat stuff. I would never sit down and reinvent something like that today, but the fact that it's there means that I can do all kinds of neat tricks when I need to. It's making sure that as you move through your career, on some level, you're picking up skills that are repeatable and applicable beyond one company.Amy: Skills and tooling—Corey: Yeah.Amy: —right? Like, you just described the tool. Another SREcon talk was John Allspaw and Dr. Richard Cook talking about above the line; below the line. And they started with these metaphors about tools, right, showing all the different kinds of hammers.And if you're a blacksmith, a lot of times you craft specialized hammers for very specific jobs. And that's one of the properties of a tool that they were trying to get people to think about, right, is that tools get crafted to the job. And what you just described as a bespoke tool that you had created on the fly, that kind of floated under the radar of intellectual property. [laugh].So, let's not tell the security or IP people right? Like, because there's probably billions and billions of dollars of technically, like, made-up IP value—I'm doing air quotes with my fingers—you know, that's just basically people's shell profiles. And my God, the Emacs automation that people have done. If you've ever really seen somebody who's amazing at Emacs and is 10, 20, 30, maybe 40 years of experience encoded in their emacs settings, it's a wonder to behold. Like, I look at it and I go, “Man, I wish I could do that.”It's like listening to a really great guitar player and be like, “Wow, I wish I could play like them.” You see them just flying through stuff. But all that IP in there is both that person's collection of wisdom and experience and working with that code, but also encodes that stuff like you described, right? It's just all these little systems tricks and little fiddly commands and things we don't want to remember and so we encode them into our toolset.Corey: Oh, yeah. Anything I wound up taking, I always would share it with people internally, too. I'd mention, “Yeah, I'm keeping this in my shell files.” Because I disclosed it, which solves a lot of the problem. And also, none of it was even close to proprietary or anything like that. I'm sorry, but the way that you wind up figuring out how much of a disk is being eaten up and where in a more pleasing way, is not a competitive advantage. It just isn't.Amy: It isn't to you or me, but, you know, back in the beginning of our careers, people thought it was worth money and should be proprietary. You know, like, oh, that disk-checking script as a competitive advantage for our company because there are only a few of us doing this work. Like, it was actually being able to, like, manage your—[laugh] actually manage your servers was a competitive advantage. Now, it's kind of commodity.Corey: Let's also be clear that the world has moved on. I wound up buying a DaisyDisk a while back for Mac, which I love. It is a fantastic, pretty effective, “Where's all the stuff on your disk going?” And it does a scan and you can drive and collect things and delete them when trying to clean things out. I was using it the other day, so it's top of mind at the moment.But it's way more polished than that crappy Perl three-liner. And I see both sides, truly I do. The trick also, for those wondering [unintelligible 00:15:45], like, “Where is the line?” It's super easy. Disclose it, what you're doing, in those scenarios in the event someone is no because they believe that finding the right man page section for something is somehow proprietary.Great. When you go home that evening in a completely separate environment, build it yourself from scratch to solve the problem, reimplement it and save that. And you're done. There are lots of ways to do this. Don't steal from your employer, but your employer employs you; they don't own you and the way that you think about these problems.Every person I've met who has had a career that's longer than 20 minutes has a giant doc somewhere on some system of all of the scripts that they wound up putting together, all of the one-liners, the notes on, “Next time you see this, this is the thing to check.”Amy: Yeah, the cheat sheet or the notebook with all the little commands, or again the Emacs config, sometimes for some people, or shell profiles. Yeah.Corey: Here's the awk one-liner that I put that automatically spits out from an Apache log file what—the httpd log file that just tells me what are the most frequent talkers, and what are the—Amy: You should probably let go of that one. You know, like, I think that one's lifetime is kind of past, Corey. Maybe you—Corey: I just have to get it working with Nginx, and we're good to go.Amy: Oh, yeah, there you go. [laugh].Corey: Or S3 access logs. Perish the thought. But yeah, like, what are the five most high-volume talkers, and what are those relative to each other? Huh, that one thing seems super crappy and it's coming from Russia. But that's—hmm, one starts to wonder; maybe it's time to dig back in.So, one of the things that I have found is that a lot of the people talking about SRE seem to have descended from an ivory tower somewhere. And they're talking about how some of the best-in-class companies out there, renowned for their technical cultures—at least externally—are doing these things. But there's a lot more folks who are not there. And honestly, I consider myself one of those people who is not there. I was a competent engineer, but never a terrific one.And looking at the way this was described, I often came away thinking, “Okay, it was the purpose of this conference talk just to reinforce how smart people are, and how I'm not,” and/or, “There are the 18 cultural changes you need to make to your company, and then you can do something kind of like we were just talking about on stage.” It feels like there's a combination of problems here. One is making this stuff more accessible to folks who are not themselves in those environments, and two, how to drive cultural change as an individual contributor if that's even possible. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you have thoughts on both aspects of that, and probably some more hit me, please.Amy: So, the ivory tower, right. Let's just be straight up, like, the ivory tower is Google. I mean, that's where it started. And we get it from the other large companies that, you know, want to do conference talks about what this stuff means and what it does. What I've kind of come around to in the last couple of years is that those talks don't really reach the vast majority of engineers, they don't really apply to a large swath of the enterprise especially, which is, like, where a lot of the—the bulk of our industry sits, right? We spend a lot of time talking about the darlings out here on the West Coast in high tech culture and startups and so on.But, like, we were talking about before we started the show, right, like, the interior of even just America, is filled with all these, like, insurance and banks and all of these companies that are cranking out tons of code and servers and stuff, and they're trying to figure out the same problems. But they're structured in companies where their tech arm is still, in most cases, considered a cost center, often is bundled under finance, for—that's a whole show of itself about that historical blunder. And so, the tech culture is tend to be very, very different from what we experience in—what do we call it anymore? Like, I don't even want to say West Coast anymore because we've gone remote, but, like, high tech culture we'll say. And so, like, thinking about how to make SRE and all this stuff more accessible comes down to, like, thinking about who those engineers are that are sitting at the computers, writing all the code that runs our banks, all the code that makes sure that—I'm trying to think of examples that are more enterprise-y right?Or shoot buying clothes online. You go to Macy's for example. They have a whole bunch of servers that run their online store and stuff. They have internal IT-ish people who keep all this stuff running and write that code and probably integrating open-source stuff much like we all do. But when you go to try to put in a reliability program that's based on the current SRE models, like SLOs; you put in SLOs and you start doing, like, this incident management program that's, like, you know, you have a form you fill out after every incident, and then you [unintelligible 00:20:25] retros.And it turns out that those things are very high-level skills, skills and capabilities in an organization. And so, when you have this kind of IT mindset or the enterprise mindset, bringing the culture together to make those things work often doesn't happen. Because, you know, they'll go with the prescriptive model and say, like, okay, we're going to implement SLOs, we're going to start measuring SLIs on all of the services, and we're going to hold you accountable for meeting those targets. If you just do that, right, you're just doing more gatekeeping and policing of your tech environment. My bet is, reliability almost never improves in those cases.And that's been my experience, too, and why I get charged up about this is, if you just go slam in these practices, people end up miserable, the practices then become tarnished because people experienced the worst version of them. And then—Corey: And with the remote explosion as well, it turns out that changing jobs basically means their company sends you a different Mac, and the next Monday, you wind up signing into a different Slack team.Amy: Yeah, so the culture really matters, right? You can't cover it over with foosball tables and great lunch. You actually have to deliver tools that developers want to use and you have to deliver a software engineering culture that brings out the best in developers instead of demanding the best from developers. I think that's a fundamental business shift that's kind of happening. If I'm putting on my wizard hat and looking into the future and dreaming about what might change in the world, right, is that there's kind of a change in how we do leadership and how we do business that's shifting more towards that model where we look at what people are capable of and we trust in our people, and we get more out of them, the knowledge work model.If we want more knowledge work, we need people to be happy and to feel engaged in their community. And suddenly we start to see these kind of generational, bigger-pie kind of things start to happen. But how do we get there? It's not SLOs. It maybe it's a little bit starting with incidents. That's where I've had the most success, and you asked me about that. So, getting practical, incident management is probably—Corey: Right. Well, as I see it, the problem with SLOs across the board is it feels like it's a very insular community so far, and communicating it to engineers seems to be the focus of where the community has been, but from my understanding of it, you absolutely need buy-in at significantly high executive levels, to at the very least by you air cover while you're doing these things and making these changes, but also to help drive that cultural shift. None of this is something I have the slightest clue how to do, let's be very clear. If I knew how to change a company's culture, I'd have a different job.Amy: Yeah. [laugh]. The biggest omission in the Google SRE books was [Ers 00:22:58]. There was a guy at Google named Ers who owns availability for Google, and when anything is, like, in dispute and bubbles up the management team, it goes to Ers, and he says, “Thou shalt…” right? Makes the call. And that's why it works, right?Like, it's not just that one person, but that system of management where the whole leadership team—there's a large, very well-funded team with a lot of power in the organization that can drive availability, and they can say, this is how you're going to do metrics for your service, and this is the system that you're in. And it's kind of, yeah, sure it works for them because they have all the organizational support in place. What I was saying to my team just the other day—because we're in the middle of our SLO rollout—is that really, I think an SLO program isn't [clear throat] about the engineers at all until late in the game. At the beginning of the game, it's really about getting the leadership team on board to say, “Hey, we want to put in SLIs and SLOs to start to understand the functioning of our software system.” But if they don't have that curiosity in the first place, that desire to understand how well their teams are doing, how healthy their teams are, don't do it. It's not going to work. It's just going to make everyone miserable.Corey: It feels like it's one of those difficult to sell problems as well, in that it requires some tooling changes, absolutely. It requires cultural change and buy-in and whatnot, but in order for that to happen, there has to be a painful problem that a company recognizes and is willing to pay to make go away. The problem with stuff like this is that once you pay, there's a lot of extra work that goes on top of it as well, that does not have a perception—rightly or wrongly—of contributing to feature velocity, of hitting the next milestone. It's, “Really? So, we're going to be spending how much money to make engineers happier? They should get paid an awful lot and they're still complaining and never seem happy. Why do I care if they're happy other than the pure mercenary perspective of otherwise they'll quit?” I'm not saying that it's not worth pursuing; it's not a worthy goal. I am saying that it becomes a very difficult thing to wind up selling as a product.Amy: Well, as a product for sure, right? Because—[sigh] gosh, I have friends in the space who work on these tools. And I want to be careful.Corey: Of course. Nothing but love for all of those people, let's be very clear.Amy: But a lot of them, you know, they're pulling metrics from existing monitoring systems, they are doing some interesting math on them, but what you get at the end is a nice service catalog and dashboard, which are things we've been trying to land as products in this industry for as long as I can remember, and—Corey: “We've got it this time, though. This time we'll crack the nut.” Yeah. Get off the island, Gilligan.Amy: And then the other, like, risky thing, right, is the other part that makes me uncomfortable about SLOs, and why I will often tell folks that I talk to out in the industry that are asking me about this, like, one-on-one, “Should I do it here?” And it's like, you can bring the tool in, and if you have a management team that's just looking to have metrics to drive productivity, instead of you know, trying to drive better knowledge work, what you get is just a fancier version of more Taylorism, right, which is basically scientific management, this idea that we can, like, drive workers to maximum efficiency by measuring random things about them and driving those numbers. It turns out, that doesn't really work very well, even in industrial scale, it just happened to work because, you know, we have a bloody enough society that we pushed people into it. But the reality is, if you implement SLOs badly, you get more really bad Taylorism that's bad for you developers. And my suspicion is that you will get worse availability out of it than you would if you just didn't do it at all.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Revelo. Revelo is the Spanish word of the day, and its spelled R-E-V-E-L-O. It means “I reveal.” Now, have you tried to hire an engineer lately? I assure you it is significantly harder than it sounds. One of the things that Revelo has recognized is something I've been talking about for a while, specifically that while talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is absolutely not. They're exposing a new talent pool to, basically, those of us without a presence in Latin America via their platform. It's the largest tech talent marketplace in Latin America with over a million engineers in their network, which includes—but isn't limited to—talent in Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Argentina. Now, not only do they wind up spreading all of their talent on English ability, as well as you know, their engineering skills, but they go significantly beyond that. Some of the folks on their platform are hands down the most talented engineers that I've ever spoken to. Let's also not forget that Latin America has high time zone overlap with what we have here in the United States, so you can hire full-time remote engineers who share most of the workday as your team. It's an end-to-end talent service, so you can find and hire engineers in Central and South America without having to worry about, frankly, the colossal pain of cross-border payroll and benefits and compliance because Revelo handles all of it. If you're hiring engineers, check out revelo.io/screaming to get 20% off your first three months. That's R-E-V-E-L-O dot I-O slash screaming.Corey: That is part of the problem is, in some cases, to drive some of these improvements, you have to go backwards to move forwards. And it's one of those, “Great, so we spent all this effort and money in the rest of now things are worse?” No, not necessarily, but suddenly are aware of things that were slipping through the cracks previously.Amy: Yeah. Yeah.Corey: Like, the most realistic thing about first The Phoenix Project and then The Unicorn Project, both by Gene Kim, has been the fact that companies have these problems and actively cared enough to change it. In my experience, that feels a little on the rare side.Amy: Yeah, and I think that's actually the key, right? It's for the culture change, and for, like, if you really looking to be, like, do I want to work at this company? Am I investing my myself in here? Is look at the leadership team and be, like, do these people actually give a crap? Are they looking just to punt another number down the road?That's the real question, right? Like, the technology and stuff, at the point where I'm at in my career, I just don't care that much anymore. [laugh]. Just… fine, use Kubernetes, use Postgres, [unintelligible 00:27:30], I don't care. I just don't. Like, Oracle, I might have to ask, you know, go to finance and be like, “Hey, can we spend 20 million for a database?” But like, nobody really asks for that anymore, so. [laugh].Corey: As one does. I will say that I mostly agree with you, but a technology that I found myself getting excited about, given the time of the recording on this is… fun, I spent a bit of time yesterday—from when we're recording this—teaching myself just enough Go to wind up being together a binary that I needed to do something actively ridiculous for my camera here. And I found myself coming away deeply impressed by a lot of things about it, how prescriptive it was for one, how self-contained for another. And after spending far too many years of my life writing shitty Perl, and shitty Bash, and worse Python, et cetera, et cetera, the prescriptiveness was great. The fact that it wound up giving me something I could just run, I could cross-compile for anything I need to run it on, and it just worked. It's been a while since I found a technology that got me this interested in exploring further.Amy: Go is great for that. You mentioned one of my two favorite features of Go. One is usually when a program compiles—at least the way I code in Go—it usually works. I've been working with Go since about 0.9, like, just a little bit before it was released as 1.0, and that's what I've noticed over the years of working with it is that most of the time, if you have a pretty good data structure design and you get the code to compile, usually it's going to work, unless you're doing weird stuff.The other thing I really love about Go and that maybe you'll discover over time is the malleability of it. And the reason why I think about that more than probably most folks is that I work on other people's code most of the time. And maybe this is something that you probably run into with your business, too, right, where you're working on other people's infrastructure. And the way that we encode business rules and things in the languages, in our programming language or our config syntax and stuff has a huge impact on folks like us and how quickly we can come into a situation, assess, figure out what's going on, figure out where things are laid out, and start making changes with confidence.Corey: Forget other people for a minute they're looking at what I built out three or four years ago here, myself, like, I look at past me, it's like, “What was that rat bastard thinking? This is awful.” And it's—forget other people's code; hell is your own code, on some level, too, once it's slipped out of the mental stack and you have to re-explore it and, “Oh, well thank God I defensively wound up not including any comments whatsoever explaining what the living hell this thing was.” It's terrible. But you're right, the other people's shell scripts are finicky and odd.I started poking around for help when I got stuck on something, by looking at GitHub, and a few bit of searching here and there. Even these large, complex, well-used projects started making sense to me in a way that I very rarely find. It's, “What the hell is that thing?” is my most common refrain when I'm looking at other people's code, and Go for whatever reason avoids that, I think because it is so prescriptive about formatting, about how things should be done, about the vision that it has. Maybe I'm romanticizing it and I'll hate it and a week from now, and I want to go back and remove this recording, but.Amy: The size of the language helps a lot.Corey: Yeah.Amy: But probably my favorite. It's more of a convention, which actually funny the way I'm going to talk about this because the two languages I work on the most right now are Ruby and Go. And I don't feel like two languages could really be more different.Syntax-wise, they share some things, but really, like, the mental models are so very, very different. Ruby is all the way in on object-oriented programming, and, like, the actual real kind of object-oriented with messaging and stuff, and, like, the whole language kind of springs from that. And it kind of requires you to understand all of these concepts very deeply to be effective in large programs. So, what I find is, when I approach Ruby codebase, I have to load all this crap into my head and remember, “Okay, so yeah, there's this convention, when you do this kind of thing in Ruby”—or especially Ruby on Rails is even worse because they go deep into convention over configuration. But what that's code for is, this code is accessible to people who have a lot of free cognitive capacity to load all this convention into their heads and keep it in their heads so that the code looks pretty, right?And so, that's the trade-off as you said, okay, my developers have to be these people with all these spare brain cycles to understand, like, why I would put the code here in this place versus this place? And all these, like, things that are in the code, like, very compact, dense concepts. And then you go to something like Go, which is, like, “Nah, we're not going to do Lambdas. Nah”—[laugh]—“We're not doing all this fancy stuff.” So, everything is there on the page.This drives some people crazy, right, is that there's all this boilerplate, boilerplate, boilerplate. But the reality is, I can read most Go files from top to the bottom and understand what the hell it's doing, whereas I can go sometimes look at, like, a Ruby thing, or sometimes Python and e—Perl is just [unintelligible 00:32:19] all the time, right, it's there's so much indirection. And it just be, like, “What the [BLEEP] is going on? This is so dense. I'm going to have to sit down and write it out in longhand so I can understand what the developer was even doing here.” And—Corey: Well, that's why I got the Mac Studio; for when I'm not doing A/V stuff with it, that means that I'll have one core that I can use for, you know, front-end processing and the rest, and the other 19 cores can be put to work failing to build Nokogiri in Ruby yet again.Amy: [laugh].Corey: I remember the travails of working with Ruby, and the problem—I have similar problems with Python, specifically in that—I don't know if I'm special like this—it feels like it's a SRE DevOps style of working, but I am grabbing random crap off a GitHub constantly and running it, like, small scripts other people have built. And let's be clear, I run them on my test AWS account that has nothing important because I'm not a fool that I read most of it before I run it, but I also—it wants a different version of Python every single time. It wants a whole bunch of other things, too. And okay, so I use ASDF as my version manager for these things, which for whatever reason, does not work for the way that I think about this ergonomically. Okay, great.And I wind up with detritus scattered throughout my system. It's, “Hey, can you make this reproducible on my machine?” “Almost certainly not, but thank you for asking.” It's like ‘Step 17: Master the Wolf' level of instructions.Amy: And I think Docker generally… papers over the worst of it, right, is when we built all this stuff in the aughts, you know, [CPAN 00:33:45]—Corey: Dev containers and VS Code are very nice.Amy: Yeah, yeah. You know, like, we had CPAN back in the day, I was doing chroots, I think in, like, '04 or '05, you know, to solve this problem, right, which is basically I just—screw it; I will compile an entire distro into a directory with a Perl and all of its dependencies so that I can isolate it from the other things I want to run on this machine and not screw up and not have these interactions. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about is, like, the old model, when we deployed servers, there was one of us sitting there and then we'd log into the server and be like, I'm going to install the Perl. You know, I'll compile it into, like, [/app/perl 558 00:34:21] whatever, and then I'll CPAN all this stuff in, and I'll give it over to the developer, tell them to set their shebang to that and everything just works. And now we're in a mode where it's like, okay, you got to set up a thousand of those. “Okay, well, I'll make a tarball.” [laugh]. But it's still like we had to just—Corey: DevOps, but [unintelligible 00:34:37] dev closer to ops. You're interrelating all the time. Yeah, then Docker comes along, and add dev is, like, “Well, here's the container. Good luck, asshole.” And it feels like it's been cast into your yard to worry about.Amy: Yeah, well, I mean, that's just kind of business, or just—Corey: Yeah. Yeah.Amy: I'm not sure if it's business or capitalism or something like that, but just the idea that, you know, if I can hand off the shitty work to some other poor schlub, why wouldn't I? I mean, that's most folks, right? Like, just be like, “Well”—Corey: Which is fair.Amy: —“I got it working. Like, my part is done, I did what I was supposed to do.” And now there's a lot of folks out there, that's how they work, right? “I hit done. I'm done. I shipped it. Sure. It's an old [unintelligible 00:35:16] Ubuntu. Sure, there's a bunch of shell scripts that rip through things. Sure”—you know, like, I've worked on repos where there's hundreds of things that need to be addressed.Corey: And passing to someone else is fine. I'm thrilled to do it. Where I run into problems with it is where people assume that well, my part was the hard part and anything you schlubs do is easy. I don't—Amy: Well, that's the underclass. Yeah. That's—Corey: Forget engineering for a second; I throw things to the people over in the finance group here at The Duckbill Group because those people are wizards at solving for this thing. And it's—Amy: Well, that's how we want to do things.Corey: Yeah, specialization works.Amy: But we have this—it's probably more cultural. I don't want to pick, like, capitalism to beat on because this is really, like, human cultural thing, and it's not even really particularly Western. Is the idea that, like, “If I have an underclass, why would I give a shit what their experience is?” And this is why I say, like, ops teams, like, get out of here because most ops teams, the extant ops teams are still called ops, and a lot of them have been renamed SRE—but they still do the same job—are an underclass. And I don't mean that those people are below us. People are treated as an underclass, and they shouldn't be. Absolutely not.Corey: Yes.Amy: Because the idea is that, like, well, I'm a fancy person who writes code at my ivory tower, and then it all flows down, and those people, just faceless people, do the deployment stuff that's beneath me. That attitude is the most toxic thing, I think, in tech orgs to address. Like, if you're trying to be like, “Well, our liability is bad, we have security problems, people won't fix their code.” And go look around and you will find people that are treated as an underclass that are given codes thrown over the wall at them and then they just have to toil through and make it work. I've worked on that a number of times in my career.And I think just like saying, underclass, right, or caste system, is what I found is the most effective way to get people actually thinking about what the hell is going on here. Because most people are just, like, “Well, that's just the way things are. It's just how we've always done it. The developers write to code, then give it to the sysadmins. The sysadmins deploy the code. Isn't that how it always works?”Corey: You'd really like to hope, wouldn't you?Amy: [laugh]. Not me. [laugh].Corey: Again, the way I see it is, in theory—in theory—sysadmins, ops, or that should not exist. People should theoretically be able to write code as developers that just works, the end. And write it correct the first time and never have to change it again. Yeah. There's a reason that I always like to call staging environments in places I work ‘theory' because it works in theory, but not in production, and that is fundamentally the—like, that entire job role is the difference between theory and practice.Amy: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's the problem with it. We're already so disconnected from the physical world, right? Like, you and I right now are talking over multiple strands of glass and digital transcodings and things right now, right? Like, we are detached from the physical reality.You mentioned earlier working in data centers, right? The thing I miss about it is, like, the physicality of it. Like, actually, like, I held a server in my arms and put it in the rack and slid it into the rails. I plugged into power myself; I pushed the power button myself. There's a server there. I physically touched it.Developers who don't work in production, we talked about empathy and stuff, but really, I think the big problem is when they work out in their idea space and just writing code, they write the unit tests, if we're very lucky, they'll write a functional test, and then they hand that wad off to some poor ops group. They're detached from the reality of operations. It's not even about accountability; it's about experience. The ability to see all of the weird crap we deal with, right? You know, like, “Well, we pushed the code to that server, but there were three bit flips, so we had to do it again. And then the other server, the disk failed. And on the other server…” You know? [laugh].It's just, there's all this weird crap that happens, these systems are so complex that they're always doing something weird. And if you're a developer that just spends all day in your IDE, you don't get to see that. And I can't really be mad at those folks, as individuals, for not understanding our world. I figure out how to help them, and the best thing we've come up with so far is, like, well, we start giving this—some responsibility in a production environment so that they can learn that. People do that, again, is another one that can be done wrong, where it turns into kind of a forced empathy.I actually really hate that mode, where it's like, “We're forcing all the developers online whether they like it or not. On-call whether they like it or not because they have to learn this.” And it's like, you know, maybe slow your roll a little buddy because the stuff is actually hard to learn. Again, minimizing how hard ops work is. “Oh, we'll just put the developers on it. They'll figure it out, right? They're software engineers. They're probably smarter than you sysadmins.” Is the unstated thing when we do that, right? When we throw them in the pit and be like, “Yeah, they'll get it.” [laugh].Corey: And that was my problem [unintelligible 00:39:49] the interview stuff. It was in the write code on a whiteboard. It's, “Look, I understood how the system fundamentally worked under the hood.” Being able to power my way through to get to an outcome even in language I don't know, was sort of part and parcel of the job. But this idea of doing it in artificially constrained environment, in a language I'm not super familiar with, off the top of my head, it took me years to get to a point of being able to do it with a Bash script because who ever starts with an empty editor and starts getting to work in a lot of these scenarios? Especially in an ops role where we're not building something from scratch.Amy: That's the interesting thing, right? In the majority of tech work today—maybe 20 years ago, we did it more because we were literally building the internet we have today. But today, most of the engineers out there working—most of us working stiffs—are working on stuff that already exists. We're making small incremental changes, which is great that's what we're doing. And we're dealing with old code.Corey: We're gluing APIs together, and that's fine. Ugh. I really want to thank you for taking so much time to talk to me about how you see all these things. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, where's the best place to find you?Amy: I'm on Twitter every once in a while as @MissAmyTobey, M-I-S-S-A-M-Y-T-O-B-E-Y. I have a blog I don't write on enough. And there's a couple things on the Equinix Metal blog that I've written, so if you're looking for that. Otherwise, mainly Twitter.Corey: And those links will of course be in the [show notes 00:41:08]. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.Amy: I had fun. Thank you.Corey: As did I. Amy Tobey, Senior Principal Engineer at Equinix. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, or on the YouTubes, smash the like and subscribe buttons, as the kids say. Whereas if you've hated this episode, same thing, five-star review all the platforms, smash the buttons, but also include an angry comment telling me that you're about to wind up subpoenaing a copy of my shell script because you're convinced that your intellectual property and secrets are buried within.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

It's Amy here, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Molly Chesterson, who is a member of the Expecting and Empowered community and a mom to 3 beautiful little girls. Molly and I have a really special connection, because I got to be there for her third birth, which is the one that she shares about today on the podcast. In this episode, you'll hear all about Molly's third birth story and why she chose to do a planned induction, her experience with doulas, and why this birth was different than her other two. She  talks us through her journey, how she was able to prepare herself mentally and how important it was to have a trusted source advocating for her during the birth of her third daughter.We want to empower you with the tools and information to help you figure out what it is that you want during childbirth, and to help provide you with more clarity in advocating for yourself during this experience, which is why we think that you'll get so much from this conversation! If you've enjoyed this episode and what Molly shares here, we would be so honored if you shared it and tagged us, @expectingandempowered and @lovebabyandtoddler on Instagram so that we can see it! We'd also be so grateful if you would rate and review our podcast in your favorite podcast app, because that's the best way for a new podcast to get more people to listen. Finally, as a podcast created for mommas by mommas, we want to wish you a very Happy Mother's Day! To celebrate you, we are offering 25% off our monthly or yearly app subscription. Sign up by going to https://bit.ly/3y139as, or visiting the Apple App Store or Google Play and searching for the Expecting and Empowered App. These years can be packed full, but we know how important it is for women to take care of themselves so you can feel your best and show up the best you can for your family, because you deserve it! MEET Molly: https://www.instagram.com/lovebabyandtoddler/ Links & Resources:Molly's InstagramBabies Are Not Pizzas: They're Born, Not Delivered by Rebecca DekkerExpecting and Empowered on App: Apple Store - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/expecting-and-empowered/id1594936110Expecting and Empowered App: Google Play Store - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.expectingandempowered.expectingandempowered Expecting and Empowered Website: www.expectingandempowered.comExpecting and Empowered Instagram: http://instagram.com/expectingandempowered

Hey amazing listeners! It's Amy going solo today dropping you a fun little bonus episode. We do have our regular episode coming up but due to some technical issues it has been delayed until later in the week, so watch this space! Hey amazing listeners! It's Amy going solo today, dropping you a fun little bonus episode. We do have our regular episode coming up but due to some technical issues it has been delayed until later in the week, so watch this space!We still wanted to deliver a little something into your ears so Amy has put together a quick mindfulness exercise that you can do to help you view your space with fresh eyes.Inspired by a mindfulness exercise by Osher Gunsberg on his podcast "Better than Yesterday" Amy takes us on a journey as she intentionally notices everything in the space around her.If you are someone that may have become blind to clutter, doesn't know where to start or finds it tricky to prioritise and make a strategy for decluttering then you will absolutely love this episode. Have a great week and enjoy stopping and noticing! ● Our website The Art of Decluttering● Become a Patron with Patreon – your monthly support makes a huge difference to us being able to producethis podcast. Support can be as little as $1 a month!● Follow us on Instagram● Follow us on Facebook● Join our Facebook group● Leave a review on Apple PodcastThank you to our sound engineer, Jarred from Four4ty Studio Productions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey there! It's Amy here and today I am solo. I am sharing with you all about my blogging journey and what led me to where I am today. It is truly amazing how things worked out and the things that led me to starting my blog, Beautifully Broken Journey, and the business that I run with Jennifer, Spark Media Concepts. Listen in as I share this journey with you! Check out the show notes (link below) for links and resources mentioned in this episode! Thanks for listening! Connect with us on Instagram: @sparkmediaconcepts Thinking about starting a blog? Check out the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp! SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode15

It's Amy birthday but we talk a lot of college Basketball. Bobby wants to know if something he did online last night was a little petty? Bobby rolls through some news he didn't get to during the show as we head into the weekend! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey there! It's Amy here and I am solo on today's episode. I want to focus on your avatar and niche today. I know a lot of people say they don't want to niche down when they are first starting out but just listen to today's episode to hear why it's important to determine who you are talking to with your avatar and what topic they want to hear through your niche. I will explain to you the importance of this and tips on finding your niche. It is so very important to know you are talking to and how you can help your audience with your blog so tune in to hear more! Check out the show notes for links and resources mentioned in this episode! Let us know what you thought of today's episode on Instagram: @sparkmediaconcepts Interested in starting a blog? Join our waitlist for the Ultimate Blog Bootcamp! SHOW NOTES: www.sparkmediaconcepts.com/episode8

Hey guys, It's Amy. I am super excited to introduce my first interviewee! I've asked my friend,Cathy Falk who also happens to be an amazing holistic nutritionist to come share what she does and why. I first met Cathy when she became a client at Infinity Personal Training, the studio my husband and I own. That was over 5 years ago and we have been friends ever since! Before we get started, let me give you a little background on Cathy. After spending 17 years in the financial industry, Cathy went back to school and graduated from the Canadian School of natural nutrition in 2012. She is now a registered Holistic nutritionist and has a healthy hormones certification. She is also a Mind Calm Coach, which may sound unfamiliar but trust me it's something you will want to hear more about. Cathy LOVES learning about the body as a whole and enjoys making food that not only tastes great but is good for you.I even left this interview with a bag of gluten free oatmeal cookies that were AMAZING!. She uses all that knowledge to help her clients learn to heal their bodies and create a sustainable healthier lifestyle. I can't wait for you to hear all about her programs and what she does for her clients . For more info on Cathy Falk and her programs, check out her website: www.cathyfalk.com You can also find her on Facebook as Cathy Falk Holistic Nutritionist. Visit her website to download a FREE 7 Day Clean Eating Meal Plan and join her super informative newsletter!

Z-Man sits down with comedian and author Amy Dresner.  They talk about her new book "My Fair Junkie" and have some laughs along the way. Todd Zalkins: I Want to talk about Amy Dresner for a second. Amy is a former professional stand up comic, having appeared at the Comedy Store, the laugh factory and the [inaudible 00:00:09], by the way, I've already left a bunch since she's been here. It's fricking classic. Since 2012, she has been the sole official columnist for the online addiction and recovery magazine called thefixed.com. She's also written for the good men project, after party, chat refinery 29 salon, cosmopolitan for Latinas and addiction.com. Let's see here, What else? ... Oh, she's got this fabulous book out by the way. It's called "My Fair junkie it is available everywhere Barnes and Noble Amazon. Todd Zalkins: Could you get a close up of this book cover Mike, we're going to show you guys the book cover it's called "My Fair junkie, A Memoir of getting dirty and staying clean" this is gonna be a great a little morning here . She's also had a ... the books been compared to Carrie Fisher's 1987 autobiography called "Postcards from the Edge", that's what Elle magazine said and Amy Dresner story of addiction is a story ... it's one for the ages she'll be speaking at "she recovers" on September 15th at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and at the mindful recovery symposium in North Carolina on October 26. Todd Zalkins: Ladies, and gentlemen Miss Amy Dresner. Come on over here and have a seat and hang out for a few minutes. Amy Dresner: Hi. Todd Zalkins: Hey Amy. How you doing? Put on those headphones for a second. Amy Dresner: Great to be here. Todd Zalkins: Nice to have you, thanks for joining us. Now really quick I gotta ask you I know you just sat down. Are you comfortable?  Amy Dresner: Yes.  Todd Zalkins: It's very important to me that you are comfortable. Amy Dresner: Yes, these pillows are weird. Todd Zalkins: Get rid of the ... You don't have to keep the pillow there. Amy Dresner: This is like for people with lumbar problems.  Todd Zalkins: I've got a lot of those aside I got a lot of problems. Amy Dresner: So do I. Todd Zalkins: Do you? Amy Dresner: Yeah. Todd Zalkins: We're gonna talk about some of those problems and mainly we're all stoked that you're in the solution today.  Amy Dresner: Me too, so is everyone else including the LAPD. Todd Zalkins: The LAPD is glad that she's [crosstalk 00:02:21] they feel like they got lucky with having you get sober. Amy Dresner: Oh God yeah, they've been to my house many times they were just ... "oh" we'll get to that. Todd Zalkins: We are going to cover that. I want to say congratulations on the book that you've come out with. Amy Dresner: Thank you. Todd Zalkins: I know that there's a lot of exciting other stuff on the horizon that we can't talk about right now- Amy Dresner: No, But it will be announced soon.  Todd Zalkins: Okay, cool. Tell us a little bit about where are you from, I know you've been stand up comedy and stuff like that. But where were you born and raised?  Amy Dresner: I was born and raised in Beverly Hills. I'm a Beverly Hills Jew. Todd Zalkins: You are. Are you still practicing that stuff? Amy Dresner: No, I was never practicing. I'm a Hollywood jew, a cultural jew[crosstalk 00:03:04] Todd Zalkins: There's a lot of them up right? Amy Dresner: But I don't go to temple or anything like that. I also went to Catholic school for four years because I was going to public school and then they were “oh” it was busing, It was during that time they were going to bus and my parents just threw me in this really gnarly Catholic school in Beverly Hills it was run by nuns. Todd Zalkins: Your parents threw you under the bus literally and figuratively. Amy Dresner: It just was really ... that was one of the problems when I got sober was the whole higher power stuff because I was really confused by the whole thing, but I went to school, I went to college in Everton in Boston. I lived abroad for a couple of years. And I've been in and out for the program for 20 years and now I have five, and a half years clean. Todd Zalkins: Congratulations- Amy Dresner: Praise Hashem. Todd Zalkins: I'm happy to hear that you're on a better path today and obviously it took a lot to get here. We're going to talk a little bit about the path and where it started out and let's just go straight to it. When did you discover the effects that drugs and alcohol provided you? Amy Dresner: I didn't drink till I was 19.  Todd Zalkins: No way.  Amy Dresner: Yeah, way. To back it up, I was kind of a goody two shoes and school and a straight A student and blah blah and I was really obsessed with purity and I think that's very alcoholic to be honest. We're either smoking meth, or we're vegan, we're not really good at the moderation thing. I was very ... I was not into sex or drugs or alcohol and my dad was ... My mom was living in Mexico at the time, and my father was "how do I get my kid out of Beverly Hills without her becoming a druggie"? Todd Zalkins: Now, real quick, was your family dynamic and tact and you have brothers and sisters- Amy Dresner: No, I have no brothers and sisters. My parents split when I was two. It was very ... Yeah, no.  Todd Zalkins: Okay, so you primarily live with dad.  Amy Dresner: I live with both. I split the week, half and half. My mother is a recovering alcoholic. She was trying to make a living and my father was a screenwriter and my father just sort of was more emotionally available, So I gravitated more to him and then my mother moved to Mexico when I was 13 so then I was raised sort of by my father from that point on. Todd Zalkins: Do you think and I to come from somewhat of a fractured family environment too but ... in your story or for you personally was a somewhat not intact family, did that contribute later on do you think to your alcoholism and addictions?  Amy Dresner: I think that not ... I certainly have abandonment issues and I'm certainly insecurely or what it's called anxiously attached I think what psychiatrists call it, so I definitely ... my mother had been ... she was a little bit shut down and she'd been beaten by her schizophrenic mother and her brother was schizophrenic too and so I felt that her inability to kind of love me the way that I need to be loved and yes I'm really fucking needy but definitely made me feel like I was not good enough, there was something wrong with me. Todd Zalkins: Okay. I appreciate that and I also want to kind of clarify this one that is I have never blamed ... oh yeah this, whatever happened childhood stuff, What have you. I guess what I'm getting at is, do you think that drugs and alcohol at 19 and you moved on from there, do you think it kind of help either sooth or compartmentalize the pain and again not to blame the childhood stuff, but did that work for you?  Amy Dresner: Oh, yeah. I always felt weird and unsafe in the world and confused by everything. And even though I was super smart, I just was terrified. I was so terrified and so for me, and I didn't like myself at all. I hated myself, and there's so much addiction and mental illness in my family. The genetics are there in force, so when I picked up, it was kind of instant. Booze made me ... I blacked out almost immediately.  Todd Zalkins: So, you're real sensitive to alcohol.  Amy Dresner: Yeah. And it was ... I'd get naked and violent and so I was Oh, maybe not that, but then I found crystal meth and that was the drug that made me feel, I got that moment of "Oh my God, this is what I'm looking for, I feel normal for the first time in my life".  Todd Zalkins: That gave you that little balance. Amy Dresner: Yeah, I was ... "why isn't everyone on this? holy shit, this is what I need to be on the planet, you're not going to take it away from me." Todd Zalkins: what was your crew of friends looking like just before you're 19 because that's when you started getting loaded, but what were your interpersonal relationships like in high school for instance? Amy Dresner: In high school I was with a bunch of other goody two shoes.  Todd Zalkins: Really? Amy Dresner: Yeah. No one really drank, no one really smoked. No one did any drugs-  Todd Zalkins: You guys weren't very fun. Me and my friends would be- Amy Dresner: No, I made up for it later, believe me, I was very sluttty and fun later- Todd Zalkins: You played catch up later?  Amy Dresner: Yeah, I was in a really ... all my friends were sort of not geeky just we were just straight, but my father was "hey, I'll bet you'll drink or smoke or do drugs before you're 18 and I said "I bet I won't "and he said "I'll bet you 1000 bucks" and I always make this terrible joke that's how Jews raise each other. We just bribe each other, so dumb. And so I waited till I was 19 to drink, and I was in college, and everyone's drinking in college. I was a virgin in college, and I was Oh, and I never drank, and I was "yaiks"! Todd Zalkins: Did you collect the 1000 bucks?  Amy Dresner: Yeah. Todd Zalkins: You better have. Amy Dresner: And then I was, okay, I'm a weirdo here in college, having never drank and having never had sex and we need to sort that now.  Todd Zalkins: Can you bring us back to ... if you can remember the first drink was it a party situation, couple of girlfriends, what was it looking like? Amy Dresner: It was in the dorms, and it was Greyhound and they were “Yea, It's Amy's first drink” and we had some great hounds. It was some boys, my roommate and it was all my close friends and I remember laughing and I drank and I was sitting down and then I got up and I fell down I didn't realize how drunk I was, but there wasn't that moment of kissing Jesus like that. That I had from crystal and then I just was drinking but it was college, everyone's drinking and throwing up and skipping classes and blacking out. It didn't look that different from anyone else's drinking at that point.  Todd Zalkins: The alcohol or the drinking stuff, you function pretty well early on, right? Amy Dresner: Yeah, I was having a nervous breakdown in college, but that was from mental issues, depressive stuff. I have a full blown eating disorder but I was still getting straight A's and that kind of stuff. I think the first or four nervous breakdowns. I like to have a nervous breakdowns every decade.  Todd Zalkins: I had one before you got here.  Amy Dresner: Did you? Todd Zalkins: I did. That's why I was sweating so bad. That's why you thought I was detoxing still. 11 and a half years sober I still going through post acute withdrawal symptoms. God, where was I here? In the college scene you're doing what everybody's doing and all that kind of stuff. Did you have that kind of epiphany where a lot of people you often hear, “okay, once I started doing this with these people, I'm part of something bigger” was it that feeling or absolutely not? Amy Dresner: I've always felt weird and sort of disconnected from other people and I still feel weird. I feel connected to I have great friends. I have great people in the program and that kind of stuff but no, I didn't have that ... despite my terror and my insecurity, I have a lot of weird fake bravado that some people think I'm really outgoing and I'm not terrified and so it was my early act as if. Todd Zalkins: Were you consumed with the notion or the idea of I really want everybody to like me. Amy Dresner: No. Todd Zalkins: You didn't have that going on. You're anarchist from birth? Amy Dresner: No. Todd Zalkins: Did you hate authority? Amy Dresner: No, because my dad was cool and I got good grades and No, I wasn't like that.  Todd Zalkins: Okay. So you just kind of rolled with stuff, you rolled with life and just. Amy Dresner: Yeah, I got special attention. I can be very ... I can figure out a way, I'm very manipulative and I can find a connection to the authoritative figure so that I get special treatment and my shit gets to fly. My bad attitude, my whatever. That special snowflake I'm different, that's the way I roll.  Todd Zalkins: You brought up a topic that I want to discuss for a few moments. You mentioned maybe some moments of depression or depressive disorder and stuff like that because I too have gone through it. I've battled a great deal of depression both loaded and certainly sober. So, at the young age that when you're in college and stuff like that, were you doing any type of treatment for? Is it okay if we talk about that for a second? Amy Dresner: Sure, I'll talk about everything, tell me anything. I got into therapy and I was really “wow”, something ... I need meds and he was “no” and I didn't get on sort of medication till I was maybe 22. I think it's important, I think that if you have a chemical imbalance, you should be on meds and that doesn't make you not sober. I'm an AA, I see it ... I blow 11 tradition all the time. I think it's super fucking outdated and I think that it drives away more people because they think it's a creepy Christian cult. Todd Zalkins: It saved my life.  Amy Dresner: Yeah, so I'm all about it, and I think more people need to come forward as sober and I'm all about the recover out loud thing to break the stigma. I don't think you can break the stigma of addiction without breaking the stigma of recovery, it's weird to me. Todd Zalkins: That's awesome. Amy Dresner: I'm really out with it. You can be on meds and you are still sober. AA is for your alcoholism. It is not for your fucking mental illness or your diabetes. It's not Christian Science, It's not Scientology. If you add fucking diabetes or fucking cancer and be “you need to drive around more newcomers. You're not doing your steps hard enough, you're not working, you're not connected enough to your HP” it's fuck you!. I definitely have a chemical disorder. Todd Zalkins: I so appreciate what you just said because and this is what I came to find and that is I could not out think my depression, I could not think It, I couldn't out exercise it. I couldn't out sponsor people. All the crap that we do from a recovery sense, which kept me physically sober, but mentally I was going through a tremendous amount of stuff. I just wasn't getting fixed.  Amy Dresner: I have a piece coming out in the fix about depression and sobriety.  Todd Zalkins: Awesome.  Amy Dresner: And what I've learned through Dr. Howard Weissmann who is amazing, amazing person and Dr. Addictionalist, psychiatrist, sober person used to be the chief medical officer of towns and treatment centers is first of all, there is something to AA making you being part of and sharing and being of service does create more dopamine receptors so it does actually fix your brain a little bit but there's a lot of us who have something called low dopamine tone to start with as addicts and you can have a genetic test to see if you have this enzyme where we have a problem converting folic acid that you get from food into L'methylfolate which is what creates dopamine and serotonin. You need enough of that stuff to fucking be going so you can take an L'methylfolate supplement and that's just changed my fucking life. Todd Zalkins: Yeah, because absence serotonin and dopamine being active in your system the low level depression that sets is so extreme. Tell me if you agree or disagree on this but this has been my experience and that is I think so many people end up getting frustrated when they're new and recoveries because they're just not feeling okay. It's because it takes a while. It takes a bit. Amy Dresner: Well, absolutely, my first year was terrible, I tell everyone. I never had a pink cloud. I would cry. Todd Zalkins: Same here, cry gray clouds. Amy Dresner: Yeah, I cried every fucking day. I was really angry and super crazy and had a lot of cravings and it was extremely difficult, but I think also, the problem to which I've realized and this will all come out, this is different in the book, but antidepressants deal with serotonin and drugs deal with dopamine, and so that's different. It's a different thing.  Todd Zalkins: But we need both, and I know that I had destroyed[crosstalk 00:16:19] Amy Dresner: Yes, that's why ... guess what creates dopamine? Fucking smoking cigarettes, nicotine. Why do you think that everyone's fucking smokes? Why do you think everyone's fucking everyone? Or gambling or whatever because it's “ooh, new spike of dopamine.” Todd Zalkins: Do you wanna know what George Carlin, my favorite comedian said about smoking. He said “do you want to know why people smoke? Because it helps”. Amy Dresner: Yeah, I was smoking and then I was vaping which is so douchey. "Here's me with an enormous chrome, fucking penis in my mouth driving ... why are people looking at me like a doctor whose screwdriver”? And I was-  Todd Zalkins: It's a true value little compact thing to go. Amy Dresner: Oh and then instead of moving downward I was moving upward and I was getting ite once a CB radio and I was getting bigger, and I was ... I gotta stop, but when I stopped, I crashed so hard because all the dopamine and the nicotine was spiking left. Todd Zalkins: let's come back to college years, getting out of college years. In college, had you come across the methamphetamine or speed?  Amy Dresner: Nope. Todd Zalkins: Not yet. Amy Dresner: I remember ... Okay, this is not funny. I walked into my college dorm room and my roommate at the time was doing coc with her sorority sisters on my computer, and I was “Oh my God, you're doing cocaine on my computer? That's just so bad, this is disgusting”?. Fast Forward, 10 years I'm shooting cocaine, so all I have to say is careful what you judge because you become it. Todd Zalkins: No doubt. It's so funny you say that. I remember seeing a dear friend of mine, he was trying to kick heroin, and I told myself I remember I didn't make a joke. I was just ... "feel free to get off that shit" and here I was first off not having any clue as to the level of pain that someone's going through, and I love this person very, very much and yet I became that and more. Amy Dresner: Oh yeah that's the story of my book, everything I judged, that was it. Todd Zalkins: Tell the viewers and the listeners about the progression of what happened with you and where it turned and stuff like that. Amy Dresner: I didn't know who I was. I'd grown up very sheltered and after my second nervous breakdown at 22, 23 and getting fired from my job for drinking on the job which wasn't a ding for me but also depression. I moved to San Francisco and I was “let's just say yes to everything, we're gonna say yes to the universe” and I fooled around with girls and I had[inaudible 00:19:02] and I did Molly and I did crystal and I got on stage and dah dah, and it was the crystal that was “ding”. And it brought me down so fast within seven months I'm living in a flophouse with gutter pumps and skinheads but I'm ... “this is cool” because I'm from Beverly Hills I'm ... “this is a Tarantino movie I'm in way” I was digging it and anyway I got a huge infection in my face from crystal meth and my parents came up and they dragged me back to Los Angeles to get clean. Todd Zalkins: Really quick, were you injecting the drug?  Amy Dresner: No, I've never injected. Todd Zalkins: smoked or snorted. Amy Dresner: snorting at that point later was smoking. I didn't get into injecting till I got into coc and by that point I had epilepsy from Crystal so I was scared to fuck with crystal, because I was ... “coc's natural, crystal is made with gin brewing and drinals, so coc is different but- Todd Zalkins: I had a great deal of stock in Pablo Escobar drink, I really did. I sold the stock it's because I bought it from his affiliates. I don't have stock anymore.  Amy Dresner: That's good.  Todd Zalkins: Yeah, it's a good thing. Was there a point in time where things really turn. Let's face it for a while, we both know that drugs and alcohol can work wonderfully. They can work wonderfully for a while, and then- Amy Dresner: I don't know that crystal ever really works that wonderfully. I was staying up for 17 days in a row and refinishing furniture and dumpster diving, plucking my eyebrows for six hours writing a new Bible, I don't know that it was ever working that well. It was certainly keeping my depression at bay but- Todd Zalkins: From the outside it wasn't working from what I can tell, but however for you, you were working all sorts of stuff.  Amy Dresner: Yeah, I was writing a book and all this kind of stuff, but I walked into a market and I woke up in an ambulance and I'd had a seizure and that got me into my first of six of treatment centers. Todd Zalkins: Along the way, in your mid 20s, late 20s, were your parents or close friends going, "Hey, Amy, shake yourself here, you got to look at this" was that happening at? Amy Dresner: My parents didn't really know what was going on. They had gotten me in to work with a therapist was really hard on drugs, and I was high every session in a year, and he never fucking could tell.  Todd Zalkins: Want to talk about that really quick.  Amy Dresner: I was ... “you damn shit”. I do rails in the bathroom before I go into his office and he never fucking could tell. Todd Zalkins: I have that same story. Amy Dresner: My endowment would suit him, he was so fucking pissed, but my parents ... they didn't know what to do. They were just ... I wasn't done they were “go into treatment, please go into treatment”, and I was ... “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, I'm not ready, I'm not done, I need this” blah blah" and then I had that seizure and it really freaked me out and I went into treatment and I never fucked with crystal again. I got high on a bunch of other different things but I never touched crystal again in five years sober I developed full blown epilepsy seizure disorder. I've hyperactive lesions on my frontal lobe from meth. Todd Zalkins: Therapy is not effective if we're high. Amy Dresner: You think? Todd Zalkins: I couldn't fall off the chair, but I wanted to when you said "yeah, I'm packing my beak before I go to see a doctor" I actually would excuse myself in the middle of a session, "doc I'll be right back, I gotta use a restroom" I come back, and I've got shit all over my nose, and I don't think he even paid attention. Amy Dresner: Incredible right?.  Todd Zalkins: Yeah, I don't think he was really paying attention. Amy Dresner: He knew I was here because I had a drug problem and depression.  Todd Zalkins: Not a whole lot of parental intervention or there's not really crisis[crosstalk 00:23:06] Amy Dresner: They were trying. And then later on, they got very, very involved where they would just throw me in a rehab and detox all the time threatening to cut me off, drug testing me all the time, moving me from state to state, they got really involved. Todd Zalkins: Okay, and was at any particular time when you're exposed to treatment. Was there ever a moment that you're going "God, maybe I should change." Amy Dresner: Yeah, I stayed clean. When I first went to treatment, I stayed clean for a year, but I thought I was a tweaker and not an alcoholic, so I was ... "Well, I can drink", so I drank, and I blacked out. And I was in a blackout for three weeks drinking. I don't even know what happened. And then I was ... "oh, maybe not". And then I stayed dry for seven years.  Todd Zalkins: Wow. let's talk about that period. For seven years, you were physically sober on your own? Amy Dresner: Yep.  Todd Zalkins: And can you talk a little bit about untreated alcoholism, and sobriety, was it gnarly? Amy Dresner: I was depressed, My life was this fucking big. I was miserable all the fucking time. It was awful.  Todd Zalkins: That's awesome, though, that you were sober for seven years in that regard, physically speaking, because[crosstalk 00:24:17] Amy Dresner: That's why I tell people, “you can do it, but you're going to feel like shaking your life is going to be this fucking day and you're not going to change at all”.  Todd Zalkins: Seven years clean with no program, and then the other shoe fell off or something. Amy Dresner: Well, I had another nervous breakdown. That's my hobby, and I was gonna have a hobby, some people neat, so I have nervous breakdowns, that's my thing, but I haven't had one for a while. But, I popped open a bottle of wine. I fucking slit my wrists with the box cutter. I was like I'm out, and so that was pretty gnarly. That's in the book, got stitched up and then I came back to LA and I was making out with some loser at the standard and he brew pot smoking my mouth. And I was ... “Oh my god, I'm high” for the first time in seven years high, and I was ... “I can smoke pot”. I hate pot, so now I'm sailing in pot every day and hating it. And then I was ... "I can drink, it'll be okay, and then I'm drinking. Then I'm ... “I can do coc because coc's not crystal” Todd Zalkins: Its natural. Amy Dresner: Right. It's natural. It's not made from drinal and gin brewing and whatever the fuck else. And so then I am in treatment for the second time and I relapse out of treatment, and then I start injecting cocaine, shooting cocaine.  Todd Zalkins: There's a good snapshot of some progression right there. Amy Dresner: Yeah, and then shooting cocaine ... you can have a seizure shooting cocaine normally, but shooting cocaine with epilepsy is a seizure city, and so I'd shoot cocaine wearing a bike helmet, so I wouldn't pop my head open.  Todd Zalkins: Are you being serious? Amy Dresner: Yeah, I'm totally serious. I was "shit, Okay, I get it". It is a high impact sport. I get it, I'm going to wear protective gear, and it made total sense at the time. Todd Zalkins: At a party, "who's the chick with the bike helmet?" "Leave her alone she's got her little hobby, and we just leave her alone, she's a Mrs. Lance Armstrong of meth" that's fricking great, I've never had a protective helmet. Now, with regards to the epilepsy, do you medicate? Do you take something?- Amy Dresner: Yeah, I take medication, and I have it under control for, God almost five years now. Todd Zalkins: Good for you. This stuff kicks in after seven years sober, I'm assuming that we're getting close to the end of the line here of you're drinking and using. Are we getting close? Amy Dresner: No. Todd Zalkins: We have more to go. After you went back out, how long were you out for? Amy Dresner: I guess couple years. I finally started get sober when I was shooting cocaine. I don't know a couple years I guess on and off. It's hard to shoot coc constantly. It's expensive you have to feed the monkey, it's not exactly a social thing you can't get over and be “Hey, what's up, you want a beer? Let me get out my syringes”. It's very much a loner sport.  Todd Zalkins: It's tough to lay that stuff out of the bar. Get a couple shots, "guys hang on, I got the 100 here, could give me some water" Amy Dresner: I went to ... again, they did more therapy. This, that, I started going in meetings. I kept relapsing, kept relapsing, I got three and a half years clean. I had a grand mal seizure just because they screwed up my medication and they gave me Ativan and that caused the relapse. That caused another ... when that stuff hit me, I was ... “Oh, yeah”, so then I was on Atovan thing, more psych ward attempts and then, periods of sobriety. Basically, the end was 2011. I was married and I had been prescribed oxycodone for a shoulder injury and I had been sober about a year and a half at the time and I don't like opioids but I like anything that makes me feel different and that veil went down and I was ... “oh I don't give a fuck awesome” Amy Dresner: And I got in a fight with my now ex husband and it got physical and I pulled a knife on him and he called the cops and I got arrested for felony domestic violence with a deadly weapon and I went to jail. Todd Zalkins: How long were you on the oxycodone for? Amy Dresner: Only a couple months, not long. Todd Zalkins: Okay and is it shortly after that when you had I don't know if it's a moment of clarity but a moment of maybe willingness to make some changes? Amy Dresner: Like a typical alcoholic when we fuck up our lives then we drink over the fuck ups because "oh, poor me, look I'm going through a divorce and a criminal trial" and some drinking another suicide attempt, get into treatment again. I relapse in treatment, I get thrown another sober living, I relapse in sober living, I go to another sober living and at this point it's the end. My parents are just "we have no more money, we're over it" and my moment of clarity came when I was doing community labor for my domestic violence. Amy Dresner: I was sweeping the streets, I was on a chain gang with me and 40 fucking Mexican dudes and then "what are you here for do wedder, huh? I'm here for DUI, What are you here for?" And "I'm here for felony and domestic violence with deadly weapon" they're "Oh shit", So it was humbling.- Todd Zalkins: You're the very top of the line right there. Amy Dresner: It was super humbling. I was the only girL. It was very humbling to show up because I was "oh my God, I'm not a criminal”. I had more time than anyone else. I was one of the few people there for assault. It was extremely humbling and when I was sweeping trash and human feces and syringes in the hot sun for fucking eight hours a day, I had 240 hours community labor, and I had a life changing epiphany.  Todd Zalkins: And was it, "I gotta make a change" Amy Dresner: Yeah, I'd already was sober. I was sober already [crosstalk 00:30:10] I was sober living. Todd Zalkins: But sticking with it though. Amy Dresner: But It was ... I gotta change my fucking character and I gotta change my whole attitude. I'm going to change my whole victim attitude. Maybe this is the best thing that ever happened to me. Could this be the best thing that ever happened to me and not the worst thing that ever happened to me? And I just was ... okay, “you created this Amy. This is the result of all your actions and who you are. You don't like it? Change it”. And I just embraced I was ... okay, humility, work ethic. How can I find the humor in this, let's finish what we start, so we don't go to jail.  Amy Dresner: I just embrace the whole thing, and it shifted. I had been really a spoiled brat before then, I didn't want to take responsibility for myself for my life. I didn't want to be financially responsible and you meet your destiny on the road you've got to avoid it. Todd Zalkins: You're bringing up such good points here, this really self analysis and I think so many people cannot get past this part of sobriety which is "okay, I'm left with me now right, I got a little bit of physical sobriety" but now the emotions and all and it sounds like you're facing these things, demons What have you all this stuff head on. Amy Dresner: Yeah, and that was “I need a fucking really make a fucking change here”, but I still had the ... I was uncomfortable, I was broke, I was 42 years old, I was in sober living for two and a half years. I had a criminal record, I had no job, I was freelance writing, I was “fuck!” And I felt a little sorry for myself and I also was uncomfortable. Feelings would come up and I was pretty early in sobriety, I didn't know how to deal with them. Amy Dresner: Smoking a lot, vaping a lot and I picked up a sex addiction which to me is all alcoholism. All that stuff is alcoholism, it's all “how do I get out of myself” and so I don't think it's separate, I did go Oslo and SAA and all that kind of stuff and it's was really mortifying. That's why I wrote the book ... I am exactly who you wouldn't think would be a perpetrator of domestic violence or a sex addict or. I had everything growing up and I just destroyed my life and myself and addiction does not discriminate. Todd Zalkins: It doesn't, and I appreciate all your transparency big time and thanks for ... you're really putting it all the stuff out there and what I want to ask is did you have some pretty good direction from some other women in the program here "hey, Amy look we got you, we got you, Let's just do the stuff that we do over here, and things are going to get better?" Amy Dresner: Yeah. This is interesting. Well, I was in sober living, and I had a group of women around me that were great, but no one could stop me from acting out sexually and all this kind of stuff, and honestly, you got to hit a bottom with that, you're done when you're done. As my sponsor says, "you stop a behavior when what it's doing to you, is worse than what it's doing for you". I finally hit a bottom with that, and I was ... "Wait a second, I don't want to do this anymore", and it felt so exactly like drug addiction. "I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. Here I am doing this" and then regretting it. I would cry coming back from some guys house.  Amy Dresner: It was horrible. I have a male sponsor, and I've had a few male sponsors, and that can be tricky. People get a little bit weird about that. Only one of them spurk me, so that's pretty good odds.  Todd Zalkins: Hey, there we go, all right. Amy Dresner: I'm serious. That shit happens in the rooms. Such predatory behavior is very much prevalent in the rooms, and it sucks. Todd Zalkins: let's talk about that for a second because, I think the program has gotten ... first and foremost we're not talking about the bedrock of mental health. Amy Dresner: No, of course not. Todd Zalkins: Okay and I do want to say this though, and I think that you're going to concur, but I'm gonna speak from my own experience that is there's a lot of really good groups where people look after each other- Amy Dresner: Absolutely, I was not obviously in one of those. Todd Zalkins: I'm thankful I was raised in a group of ... This guys, they would just say “look, you're going to men's meetings man, you don't need to be dealing with other” ... primarily I did but my point being that, not to give the program a bad rap. There are wonderful groups. There are some places let's face it, there's gonna be some stuff-  Amy Dresner: The steps ... the program is solid. The fellowship is a microplasm of the real world and if you think it's going to be some safe ... wherever there's a power hierarchy and there becomes a power hierarchy in meetings, you're going to have sexual predatory behavior because there's a power imbalance. Happens in Hollywood, it happens to the government. It happens in the military. You think AA is going to be immune to that? Because, it is people who are sick, and I think that for me, what I've seen in my 20 years in and out of the program is that sexual and intimacy and relationship recovery are sort of the last version for many men. Todd Zalkins: Physical sobriety comes first, we all know, and I think too, that there's a lot of people who just do not address stuff that maybe the program just can't fix.  Amy Dresner: Also, they just think "oh, I'm sober and that's okay". If you're not having integrity, you're treating women like garbage, that's part of this whole thing. We use this in all our affairs, but I did not have women pull me aside and go "Hey, these are the predators and dah, dah, dah". Todd Zalkins: This is predator X, there's Y and stay the fuck away from that guy.  Amy Dresner: You know what though? I don't consider myself a victim. I needed validation, I was new, I wanted love, I wanted attention, I wanted to check out, I was never raped, I was a willing participant although I wasn't on all cylinders at the time, but I did have a lesbian sponsor for three and a half years and she was “you're not going to mixed meetings anymore, you're going to women's meetings and gay meetings, and that's it”. And I was “how am I going to get laid doing that?” And she's ... “you're not, you're gonna concentrate on recovery.” “My God, that sounds boring”, but I got a crush on a girl, and I'm straight.  Amy Dresner: Again, it's alcoholism. It's “oh, you, you're gonna fucking fix it, you're my happiness, you're my outside answer”. That's the whole thing that I talk about is for me, the substance is so immaterial. It's just a matter of dessert, extra donut or a coke. It's “oh, I put something in my body and I changed my feelings”. Now I've been celibate for a year and a half. I'm not on nicotine. I become this weird person that I always made fun of.  Todd Zalkins: It sounds like you identified a whole bunch of stuff, worked on a whole bunch of stuff, and speaking of work, I want to ask you about the "my fear junkie" book. At what point did you start writing that? Amy Dresner: I was chronicling the sweeping the streets stuff while it was happening, and it was everyone's favorite Facebook posts of mine. I would take pictures of what I saw, “another day on the chain gang”. I didn't hide it at all, that's kind of my way to deal with shame is sort of “here it is”, and the people were just “oh my God, this is amazing”. And everyone was rooting me on. They were ... “those were so hilarious, get arrested again”. I was “Oh no”. My editor at the time was “you have a book, that's the framework of your book", “Okay”.  Amy Dresner: I've been writing for the fixed since 2012, this must have been 2014 where I started to I think put started writing the book.  Todd Zalkins: How did it take you to finish? Amy Dresner: I had six months, I have a six month deadline. That was it, and I was made sure I hit that deadline because I was thinking "oh, they're going to give an ex junkie all this money", and I wanted to be on deadline. I'm good like that. That's what the program is given me is showing up, integrity. If I say, I'm going to be there, I'm going to be there. I make my deadlines, I show up, I keep my word.  Todd Zalkins: I totally appreciate what you just said there Amy. We got to change so much beyond just the getting ... the drink, the using whatever[crosstalk 00:39:08] Amy Dresner: That's just the beginning. That was the answer. Then you've got to really learn how to become a good person, and have a moral compass and act ... I had one sponsor, and he said “you don't have to be a good person, you just have to act like one, no one knows the fucking difference Amy” Todd Zalkins: Oh, that's interesting. Amy Dresner: And I was ... "but that's not truthful". And he's right. You act like a good person over and over and over. No one cares about your intentions, they care about your actions. Todd Zalkins: That's right.  Amy Dresner: But if you act like a good person over and over and over again, you become a good person that becomes your character. Action is character. Todd Zalkins: It's kind of like retraining the DNA, and just your brain, everything. Amy Dresner: It actually, you create a new neural pathway, which is your default go to and that's your default go to pathway and so now I don't have to try to be a good person. I mostly am a good person. Todd Zalkins: When some big fucking hairy guy, this guy was just massive. He goes, “you gotta change or you got a die son” I'm looking ... “What the hell, Why? What does that mean man?” And now I understand that now. I have to change. We have to make changes in order for us to, I think be reasonably happy and to somewhat thrive in this life of ours because the other direction doesn't sound too appealing to me today. I don't think it does for you either.  Amy Dresner: No. Oh God no. And most people have love the book. I've gotten a lot of messages where people are ... “holy shit, you keep it real. Thank you for your honesty and your humor, I just feel less broken, I feel less alone. You made me laugh at stuff that before I just felt so ashamed about”. I have a bunch of psych ward stories. I got 51, 50 four fucking times and the sex addiction stuff, all of it. And people were just “Thank you”, even a parole officer wrote to me and he was "I understand addiction better than I ever have with 23 years on the job. Todd Zalkins: That's so cool. Amy Dresner: And I was ... “Fuck yes!” I fucking accomplished something, but some people are ... “she's a dick in the book” and, I was “you know what? that's the reality I was mentally ill, and I was on fucking drugs. You bet your sweet ass I was a fucking dick”. I choose to throw over being likable for the truth and also where's their transformation? If you're an angel when you're fucking shooting cocaine and smoking crystal meth and boning guys half your age on Tinder, why the fuck get sober?. Todd Zalkins: I so relate to this. I remember getting some messages from some moms in the Midwest, this great. She says “Todd, my son really got a lot out of your book but if you're my son, I would have spanked you a lot more” and, I said “getting lined” and, the reality is though, a lot of people, this is so true they harbor stigma. It is really tough to digest and really look at what we're like when they're in it.  Amy Dresner: Yeah. I was really honest about what it was like, because if you're trying to look good writing an addiction memoir, you're not being honest enough for real. Jerry Stahl who is a friend of mine and blurb the book who's my icon. There's a great quote from him, and he said ... he wrote permanent midnight, which was one of the first iconic addiction memoirs, and he said, "if you had the nerve to live, what you lived, you should have the nerve to write it". I was "Okay bitch"  Todd Zalkins: Oh, that's cool.  Amy Dresner: I wrote everything, I didn't want to write. The stuff where I was ... "Oh, God, I do not want to put this on a page". I thought, "Amy, don't hold back" Todd Zalkins: Yeah, there's only one thing in mind that I could not ... I was not ready to look at the child abuse and molestation. Amy Dresner: I'm sorry. Todd Zalkins: No, it's okay. I'll tell you why it's okay, because I'm on the other side of it today, and I've done a shit load of work about it. At 18 months sober I was not ready. In fact, I kept burying it, does that make any sense? Amy Dresner: Yeah, of course.  Todd Zalkins: Just push it down and, I'm a proud survivor today. I'm not a victim. Amy Dresner: Good for you. Todd Zalkins: It's all good. Amy Dresner: That's heavy shit, that's trauma. Todd Zalkins: Yeah and it's okay, but I want to come back to this book of yours is helping a lot of people find recovery is that right? Amy Dresner: Yeah some people ... even though people are "oh you're bashing AA meetings or whatever. I wasn't someone who rolled in a meeting. I was “I love this” and I wasn't someone who rolled into a meeting was sober from that day forward either. I was ... “this is creepy, what's what the Kumbaya hand holding, what's what the shit on the walls”? And because of my honesty and my anger around the whole thing, going to a big book study and just sitting there fucking bored and waiting to blow some dude or whatever I was doing at the time. People were ... "you made AA seem cool" and I identified. And I met people readers at a meeting for their first fucking meeting, and they got clean. Todd Zalkins: And how much does that ... doesn't that give you just a great feeling that people are getting it. Amy Dresner: It's service. People were ... "you gave me the opportunity to save my life, Thank you"  Todd Zalkins: That's the best. Amy Dresner: And I was just ... "holy shit" Todd Zalkins: That is so cool. Amy Dresner: I know, it's super cool. Todd Zalkins: At the beginning of the show while I was reading a bit about your bio Amy, it sounds like you got a couple of speaking engagements coming up what's going on there? Can you share with the listeners. And the viewers? Amy Dresner: I got asked to speak at "she recovers" which is a 600 women event at the Beverly Hilton from September 14 to 16th with Mackenzie Phillips and Cheryl Strayed and Janet Mock, and I'm ... "are you sure you want me? I have sailor mouth and obnoxious" and they're ... "yeah, we want you"and I'm "okay" Todd Zalkins: That's so cool. What's the date again and is this open to ... do you buy tickets or[crosstalk 00:45:05] tell people. Amy Dresner: They're still ... you can still buy tickets. If you're a woman, it's sherecovers.com I think the LA event, you can just google it, it'll come up. You can get a day pass too. I'm speaking on the 15th at the gala and then I'm super honored to be there. I'll be there signing books and meeting people and then I got asked to be the speaker at the mindful recovery and wellness symposium in North Carolina, so it's huge in the deep south, that's gonna be interesting.  Todd Zalkins: And by the way guys, It's called "she recovers" not "he recovers" so if you're a dude don't plan on enrolling, or you gonna dress really nice and put a lot- Amy Dresner: What's cool about it, is that "she recovers" is for recovering from anything. Trauma, eating disorder, cutting all of that stuff. It's not just alcohol adiction. [crosstalk 00:46:03] Todd Zalkins: It's recovery symposium for all such a good stuff. Amy Dresner: Looks like I might be speaking in Canada in January and I feel so honored that people want to hear what I have to say because I was just such a fuck up for so long. To turn it around and be an inspiration is incredibly humbling.  Todd Zalkins: I am honored to have you on today, and I want to show the book cover again for people who joined us late. “My Fair junkie” by Amy Dresner is a memoir of getting dirty and staying clean. It's available everywhere, and she's not leaving me with this copy. I'm very upset about this by the way. Amy Dresner: I only have one hardcover left.  Todd Zalkins: One hardcover?  Amy Dresner: You can buy it, why don't you buy it?  Todd Zalkins: I'll buy it. I will buy it. I thought we're going to trade ... I'm just kidding [crosstalk 00:46:56] anyways you guys give this a look. It's available everywhere. I want to thank you so much for being on the program. Amy Dresner: Oh my God, thank you for having me. Todd Zalkins: If we could have one more parting shot before I get to some thank you's. Could you share with it doesn't matter if men or women out there listening something that can make them believe and realize there is hope out there. Can you share with the listeners, the viewers. “You know what? I'm struggling”, you can do this right? Amy Dresner: Yeah absolutely. No matter how many times you've fallen on your face, you can absolutely get this, you just need to find someone who believes in you and believe that they believe and just take the action. Don't let your feelings drag you around. Your feelings in your head will lie to you and they are not your friend. That's the thing that I finally gotten is sobriety was not to listen to my feelings and if you know if you want to use, wait 20 minutes, just watch something on TV, take a bath, jack off, call someone whatever, because the urge passes whether you use or not.  Amy Dresner: And it took me a really longTime to figure that out. You can tolerate your feelings. It's not fun, but you can tolerate and you don't pick up and you don't open up that vortex. You do that one day at a time and it gets easier. You have to act yourself in the right thinking. That's all there is to it. It's hard, but it's doable. And if I can get sober fucking, anyone can get sober. I'm the female Robert Downey Jr said. Todd Zalkins: You see, that was a perfect way to part ways. Amy Dresner telling it like it is and certainly how it was for her, and I think a lot of people are going to be inspired by what they've heard today and certainly hopefully a few people pick up the book, "My Fair junkie". I want to do a quick little thank you to some people who are checking this out. Joshua Richardson, Brandon Yates, Brian birch, Chris, Roseanne, Kelly shelters, Erica, Elaine Smith, Katie Gibson, Nicholas, Monica Steffi. You guys thank you so much for making some comments on the board while we're chatting away and hopefully share this video today and once again, Amy Dresner, I wish you all the success in the world with your book, "My Fair junkie".  Todd Zalkins: And I know that I am going to order it, I will. You're going to leave here with a copy of my book. I signed it for you can use to burn stuff- Amy Dresner: Or I can use level a table or whatever. Todd Zalkins: Anyway, thank you so much Amy for being on the program with us today.  Amy Dresner: Thank you for having me. Todd Zalkins: It was absolute pleasure. And you guys thank you for watching Facebook Live and thanks for listening when the same gets onto Spotify and iTunes. Thank you everybody for joining us.