Julie Laufer: Most of us know exactly what we want and what we want to do. We've just gotten really good at talking ourselves out of it. I'm Julie and welcome to Be Cringe, the podcast that explores what happens when you start living for yourself and stop worrying about the opinions of others. This might be cringe, but we are doing it anyway. Happy to have you here. Let's go. Hello and welcome everybody to Be Cringe. I am so excited to introduce today's guest, Amanda Jackson. Amanda is a marketer, a content creator. She's got this bustling freelance studio that I'm just super proud of her watching it all happen. Amanda is a creator, a writer, a crafter, a very talented crocheter and an ice skater among Just wanted to say a big thank you to Amanda for me on the podcast. I loved that conversation. I loved where it went. ⁓ I felt it was... ⁓ She's such a good example of whatever you want to in your life, not knowing where it's going to lead, knowing it might be perceived a certain way and just kind of doing it anyway. ⁓ So... things. So welcome Amanda, so happy to have you. Loved having that conversation.
Amanda Jackson: I'm obsessed with including ice skater in my intro because anyone who has ever been at an ice skating rink with me would not call me that.
Julie Laufer: Hope you all enjoyed it too. Again, you can find Amanda on her sub stack and her LinkedIn. Those will be linked in the show notes. If you want more of Be Cringe, I'd love if you subscribe to this podcast wherever you are listening to this podcast, share it with a friend. And if you think you would be a good podcast guest and want to self-nominate, there is a form in the show notes for you to do so. I am loving these conversations that I'm having. I'm loving meeting new people and want to continue doing so. I mean, you're ice skating. You're an ice skater.
Amanda Jackson: I mean, yeah, if you write, you're a writer. If you get on the ice with skates on, ergo. Naturally.
Julie Laufer: Well, welcome. I'm so happy to have you. Thank you for being here. I gave you some accolades and my own introduction, but Amanda would love for you to introduce yourself, how you usually introduce yourself to others. And I guess ice skater is not included.
Amanda Jackson: Absolutely. You know, I think it's going in the LinkedIn headline now. ⁓ I am a writer, a thinker, a researcher ⁓ that I primarily work with clients in the B2B software space, helping them produce and distribute original research reports ⁓ that influence their buyers hearts and minds and wallets. ⁓ I have
Julie Laufer: So thank you again so much for listening. I hope you have wonderful days whenever you are listening to this. And I wanna encourage you to go out and do that cringe thing that you know you wanna do, but haven't done yet. You still got it, you're still not doing it, do it. All right, thanks everyone. Until the next one.
Amanda Jackson: in business for myself for the past four years. ⁓ And throughout that time, my ⁓ and my purpose has evolved a lot. ⁓ ⁓ recently, I'm in a season of extreme experimentation, ⁓ adding a lot of things onto my plate outside of my client work to explore and take risks and ⁓ about new facets and angles of my field and myself. I recently produced my own research report, so I'm playing around with what it looks like distribute that and share it with people and be bold. ⁓ I'm learning about community building and I host creative meetups burnt out folks to ⁓ come and witness together just work on a craft that makes their ⁓ soul lighter. And ⁓ also bake a lot. We'll put that one in there too. ⁓
Julie Laufer: Mmm, you're a baker. I love it. So good. I loved that research report. I don't even know if I was like the total target demographic, but I got a lot of use out of it. So clearly doing something right. I really, just this whole season of experimentation is something that I so resonate with and it's so clear that, and I'm in this bit of a period too where I'm doing a lot of things. I'm throwing a lot of intention and whatever into a proverbial fire and I don't know where any of it's gonna go, but I know it feels right and that very much feels like what you are doing and it's very cool to witness and kind of doing it alongside you.
Amanda Jackson: I love being in it together. It's great.
Julie Laufer: Yes, yes. ⁓ And you, this is not your first podcast. This is your second podcast, right? So maybe that's something that you have been experimenting with. ⁓ And Amanda and I connected on Substack. I threw a note out there because I wanted to line up my first like dozen-ish interview guest, half dozen or whatnot. And I was like, if anybody knows anyone that wants to be on a podcast in this, or like, you anyone who knows anyone who's being a little cringe in their day to day, living their truth unapologetically. And Amanda commented and was like, hey, this is me. ⁓ I was on a podcast it launched this week. Today, I told myself I want to be on three more podcasts in 2026. And I saw this note and here I am. one, when I wrote that note, I phrase it in that way because I realized that ⁓ one of my opportunities in life is to get better at putting myself out there. And so when I was writing, was like, nobody's going to want to volunteer for this themselves. ⁓ why would So I edited immediately and I was like, ⁓ yes, please, everyone like recommend yourselves. But I also love that you went on this podcast, you enjoyed it. You got some feedback that, you know, the guest was, the host was like, you're a natural, you should do more of these. And you're like, okay, well, and you like set a goal and did it. And here we are making our way towards goal.
Amanda Jackson: And here we are. You know, it's funny, Julie is when I was telling one of ⁓ good friends about some of this and ⁓ on the topic of cringe, she reminded me, she was like, Amanda, you hosted a podcast. And like, it's not that I forget, I just don't talk about it a lot. I was one of however, however many thousands of people who during ⁓ it didn't start because of COVID, but it happened to align with COVID ⁓ So somewhere out in the ether ⁓ Spotify or your podcast,
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jackson: platform of choice, there is a DCOM podcast, 10 episodes, hosted by me and a friend. ⁓ if we're compiling things for a cringe bucket, it would go in there. It would go in there.
Julie Laufer: I am obsessed that like it wasn't on your radar. So it's not your second podcast. I mean, I guess it's your second podcast guest, but you have a lot of, you have more hosting experience than I do. So I'm in the presence of a seasoned professional. And just to clarify my understanding, DCOM is Disney Channel Original Movies, correct? Okay. Wonderful. I'm really good at finding things on the internet. So I will find it and I will put it the show notes if I do.
Amanda Jackson: No, it just didn't even occur to me. It absolutely is. It absolutely is. ⁓ my gosh, I love that.
Julie Laufer: ⁓ God, could not have invented that segue if I had tried. On the topic of Disney Channel original movies, there is an essay that you wrote that I love and also resonated with so much that used the movie Ice Princess. with Michelle Trottenberg ⁓ as a catalyst to talk through your own ice skating journey. I love this essay ⁓ the thesis of it is, ⁓ should all get better at doing things we're bad at. And that's something that I've ⁓ carried with me. ⁓ Similar to your, ⁓ being a skater, I am a tennis player, ⁓ I have a tennis racket that I bought during COVID and I go to the handball court at the park ⁓ by my house and I smack a tennis ball on wall and I'm not good at it. And I miss a of balls, but I have so much fun doing it. And so I'd love for you to talk about your journey of becoming and being an ice skater.
Amanda Jackson: Yep. when, I don't know what it was, but there was a period of time when Disney was all about ice skating movies. was Ice Princess one of them. And then there was a movie called Go Figure that was a DCOM about, yes, this girl who is a figure skater and she wants to train with this really illustrious coach and the only way for her to do that. is to go to the sporting school on a hockey scholarship. So she lives this double life as both an ice skater and a hockey player. Anyway, these two movies were my entire personality in 2003, 2005. ⁓ And I loved them. ⁓ Went ice skating with family gatherings a couple of times as a young child, but it was just a little side quest. And then... When I was in college, I had some extra credit hour space on my schedule and I decided to take an elective ice skating class and I thought, my gosh, this is gonna be so great. I'm gonna live my dreams. I'm sure quietly in the back of my mind, I thought I was going to be Casey Carlisle in Ice Princess and just learn that I was innately talented and probably go to the Olympics. And that is the opposite of what happened because in the movie, Casey Carlisle discovers she has this supernatural ability to ice skate with very little effort. And I put in a lot of effort over the course of an entire semester doing basic ice skating instruction. And basically, by the end of the semester was no better than when I started. Still stumbled around on the ice. We had a final exam that was we had to skate to a song, and that was just clunky and terrible. ⁓ And one of my favorite, like tags onto that story is that I went ice skating with one of my dearest friends ⁓ a couple years later and just, I mean, just still was like stumbling around, could barely walk on skates. And ⁓ at a later date after that, I texted my friend and was like, remember when went ice skating? That was so fun. And she, we have a great rapport, but she was like, I remember ice skating. I don't know what you were doing. ⁓ So all of that is to say ice skating has been quite a journey for me and my dreams of being incredibly talented at it never solidified. However, I still love it. Like I still am planning to go to the ice skating rink in my town and just like even though there is no innate talent, like whatever the opposite of innate talent is. That's what I have. ⁓ it's been such, like writing that essay and reflecting on what it means to do activities that we are bad at, do them on purpose and do it ⁓ as a creative practice and as a self-exploration. ⁓ I think it's so important and so meaningful because we live at a time where Perception is everything. Our lives are online all of the time and everything needs to be polished. I'm a very young millennial, but I watch Gen Z and how by and large there is this attachment to how are people gonna perceive this? My Instagram has to be exactly a certain way and ⁓ just every way that I show up in the world has to be so carefully curated. And I think what it's done for a lot of us is
Julie Laufer: Hmm.
Amanda Jackson: It stops us from trying things that could actually be really fun or good or interesting for us. And it really holds us back from a lot of delight and experimentation and a lot of creativity that could be really important for us and freeing. And it all is in the name of perception and this fear of cringe. And so I think a lot of us need to I'd like to inspire other folks to lean into whatever their ice skating is, whatever thing that they either might be bad at or know they're bad at, ⁓ and do it in public and allow it to be authentic and cringe and vulnerable. It's okay, it's part of the process.
Julie Laufer: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, some of us might be pleasantly surprised that with hours and hours of practice or whatever, we get better, or maybe we do become innately good at it and go on to win the championships or whatever our thing is. ⁓ But you stay bad at it, right? There's a reason why not can just be an Olympian by trying hard enough or go to the US Open because I tried hard enough. And I think like sitting into that, think, I don't know, I've had this narrative growing up as a fellow recovering gifted kid of like, if I do it enough, if I work hard, if I try enough, then maybe I can get good at it. And I think where our paths diverge is I sort of got that gifted, I don't wanna call it a diagnosis, but label early on like you at like six. And then I used that to hold myself to this standard of perfection when I couldn't reach it immediately, I just gave up. So I did not score a perfect score on the SATs like you did. I... ⁓
Amanda Jackson: Where did you find it? don't remember. Did I put that on Substack somewhere?
Julie Laufer: It's in your gifted child essay. I can't remember the title of it right now. ⁓ But I think for me, returning to and letting myself do things I'm quote bad at ⁓ almost healing part of me that was like, well, if I don't get an A, I'm not perfect. So I might as well just not study for the test, which is very self sabotaging. ⁓
Amanda Jackson: Ugh.
Julie Laufer: in many ways, but I do think we need to hear more of those stories ⁓ and do out in public this tennis is right next to a ⁓ basketball court where teenagers play and I'm like the teenagers are me ⁓ run after these balls and ⁓ and they toss them to me the times that they fly over the and they're not mean at all and they're very kind, but like even going to the park when the teenagers were there was something I had to talk myself into.
Amanda Jackson: If you want to get better at and more comfortable being cringe, spend more time around teenagers. That's the best advice I can offer as somebody who is married to a high school teacher because any amount of time that I spend in his office or around the kids is just an exercise in humility. I'm somebody who, like I talk with my hands and I like dance in public if I know the song and I, you know. talk about my life pretty openly and the children will humble you so fast. So fast. So I want to just commend you for your willingness to play tennis and do something that you are not innately skilled at in the presence of teenagers because there is maybe no scarier gauntlet for cringe than that.
Julie Laufer: plus one. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. thank you. And I will have a teenager one day. One day my toddler will be a teenager, so I guess I'm preparing for that as well. also, I mean, I touched on this, but I really, do see lot of parallels between doing these things that we're bad at, doing them anyway, and this past of being such an achiever. you know, ⁓ knowing that you were an achiever, you a grade, and were ⁓ thrust on this path. I'm wondering how now that you are, you you have been in your own career and your own running your own business for a few years now and you're like, this is working, but there are so much more that I could be doing. wondering how that's all led you to this point ⁓ and helped explore all of that or not, any undoings you've had to do.
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I've reached this liminal space in my career where something slash a lot of things are not working. And I know that. And I've known that for a while. I reached ⁓ this saturation point where I just got really tired of every time I caught up with a friend or a family member and they said, how's work going? The answer is always bad. And maybe for different reasons, right? Maybe I'm doing well with my clients, but I'm exhausted or I'm not seeing the business growth, quote unquote, that I'd like to see, ⁓ but I'm actually making a lot of money this month or whatever. But there's always some reason that the answer is not doing well. And for months now, I've been thinking about what would it look like to go back to grad school and try this field? Or what would it look like to move into an adjacent field to my own? Or what would it look like to pivot? completely and start over. in most of those self-reflections, I cut myself off before I take any next steps because the idea of being a beginner again and setting aside this field that I've spent years in and built up skills and built up a portfolio and built up a network and all of those kinds of things that are safe spaces and comfort for me, even though they've made me miserable. I just keep burrowing down there because the idea of starting over as a beginner again is so frightening. And I spent my entire academic career being fed praise and being conditioned for a certain kind of praise for a certain kind of thing. And so the idea of hitting a hard reset and... exploring the idea of what does it look like to know my innate worth that doesn't necessarily come from that external achievement and praise and affirmation. That idea is just so scary. And so I'm starting with small experiments, things that ⁓ may may not work ⁓ to to ⁓ slowly myself in that direction because I know myself and if I ⁓ just try to get it to be a full hard reset or a full pivot all at once, ⁓ that will probably not stick. But if I start small and like, Substack is a very, has been for me a very safe space to experiment, right? Like a playground of, ⁓ I'm a writer by trade. And so I've written for my clients for the last, I mean, four years and for five more beyond that in-house. ⁓ And so I've... gotten very comfortable with a workflow that involves an external editor and involves the external feedback of a team of people. And on Substack, I put whatever is in my brain on paper, whether it's as a note or an article, then I, with relatively speaking, minimal editing and feedback, I put it out into the world. And it's especially scary because on Substack, you're sending it out as an email. So I love that. you know, on Substack I can edit essays as they exist, but I also know it went into their inboxes. So the email is there. ⁓ And all of that is, has just been really refreshing to have a chance to reset my expectations around what the writing process looks like and know I might fail on a smaller scale, which can help me sort of ladder up to whatever it might look like to. start as a beginner in a new field, whatever that may be.
Julie Laufer: I love this approach. think that knowing that something that's not going right, knowing that there is a shift that needs to happen, but not knowing what it looks like can be really ⁓ stagnating for a lot of people. could be a to not explore. just like, well, I don't know what it is. So I might as well stay here till I figure it out. ⁓ And I think I was in that space for a little but. The truth is, you can't figure it out if you're not taking small steps or any steps at all. And so I love this approach of being like, this is working now, or it's working enough now that I'm going to stay in it. But I also need to keep doing, I need to figure something else out. So let me experiment on Substack. Let me experiment with interviewing people with your Healthy Jealous series. me host events for people to come hone their craft with me. I think that that's such a cool. powerful way to see what sticks. ⁓ And ⁓ I, like opposite or a different version of the story where I was in a role that I knew didn't suit me. I got laid off. I had this period of like, okay, I'm going to put eggs in multiple baskets and see what sticks. And I got a contract opportunity that turned into full time. And it was like, okay, great. I guess I'll just like keep going with my career. Even though deep down I knew that wasn't really where I wanted to go. ⁓ And then, forward six months later, I've quit that job because I knew it wasn't right. And I didn't have the bandwidth when I was in it to ⁓ to do all these little things that I knew I wanted to do. And that was a sign for me. I tried, I couldn't hack it. ⁓ And I think that ⁓ realities are ⁓ valid. I think approach is so refreshing and it's light I'm a big believer in I don't know we can almost feel when something is right verse not so even if it's just you write something about one topic and You're reflecting. It's like ⁓ that felt different. I'm gonna keep going down that and just like see what happens
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I had that experience with an essay. I posted one about intuition a couple of weeks ago. ironically, I wrote it. ⁓ It was a brain dump. I was like, this isn't super well organized. I'm not sure I love how this is looking on paper. And so I sat on it for two days. Didn't make super substantial edits, but just finally said, you know what? This needs to go out. And it seemed to really resonate with people.
Julie Laufer: Yeah. Mm.
Amanda Jackson: in the context of all the essays I had posted on Substack, it really resonated with people. And I just kept laughing to myself at the irony of me taking several days to trust my intuition about an essay, about trusting my intuition. And I also love that you can already look back at your decisions over the last year and say, you know, I felt that something was off. I I said yes anyway, because the number of times, I mean, there are contexts. there are clients that I have now that I should be trusting my intuition with now, or with and saying, no, it's probably time to walk away. And I think there's a balance of learning from those experiences, because you can look back and say, I said yes to it for a time, worked there for six months, and then I walked away. And ⁓ I for myself, I don't know. if this is your experience, but in those contexts, I kind of kick myself a little bit and I'm like, I wasted six months. Why did I do that? Like I knew it was wrong and I said yes anyway. So there's this, balance to strike in those situations of acknowledging the learning and saying, put in that situation again next time, I will do the hard work of not saying yes, unless I absolutely have to, unless there's ⁓ some extenuating circumstance that must say yes. ⁓ But learning from that
Julie Laufer: Mm.
Amanda Jackson: And also giving yourself grace and saying, I don't know how, ⁓ for some reason that needed to be part of my story. I needed those six months for whatever reason and had to be part of the journey. But I have learned enough that next time that will probably be a no because I will listen to that inner knowing that said, that's probably the wrong call.
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes the learning is saying yes to the wrong thing ⁓ like, right. Sometimes the learning is just my situation aside, right. it's putting out the experiment and seeing it play out despite feeling a certain way about it and being like, ⁓ yeah, I felt that that wasn't right. And I needed to do it to know that it wasn't right until I confirm it, because I don't know if I would have gotten to where I am now.
Amanda Jackson: Mmm.
Julie Laufer: had I not taken that job, And I almost needed to prove to myself that I could do it, throw that crazy number out there, get them to accept it, And I don't know if I would have gotten there on my own ⁓ and so I'm excited to see all the things that come out of everything that you're doing just sort of you all these things that light you up. I saw a children's book happening. I saw that on your sub stack, your notes. ⁓
Amanda Jackson: So yes, and it's a little bit of a marketing challenge because it's technically, the vision is an illustrated book for adults. what's funny is I posted that note and then hours later last night I was like, ⁓ I called it a children's book. ⁓ well, whatever. It's easier this way. ⁓ But yeah, so I, for the past few months, have been working on copy for a picture book that I call a parable about workplace accommodations.
Julie Laufer: Mmm.
Amanda Jackson: ⁓ And it took me about a month or maybe two months to get the copy in a place where I was like, this is the story. There will be some edits, but this is the story. And at the beginning of March, I went on a writer's retreat with one of my dear friends. I had her take a look at it. ⁓ I had my husband take a look at it. And so it's currently in its infancy in terms of the copy itself. And... I am now in a space where I could go a couple of different directions with it. ⁓ I could query it, which I have not done for projects before, even though I have completed projects in my Google Drive. ⁓ And so I'm sitting with a little bit of research there and collecting some publishing houses that I could reach out to. But the other path that I could see it going is one where I handle the visuals. I'm on a little bit of a... ⁓
Julie Laufer: you
Amanda Jackson: an illustration odyssey, I'm calling it. And I'm just exploring the potential. What would it look like for me to try to tackle these illustrations myself? And I do have a little bit of an ace in the hole because my husband is a graphic designer. So I have his visual art expertise alongside of me. But I am currently in the stage where I am thinking through what it looks like to storyboard this. what I've put together and I've also spent the last four nights in a row when we're sitting there doing our TV time in the evening just sketching out what I think this character looks like. as part of my gifted kidness, I always thought I was just bad at drawing. I just put that in a bucket and said, I'm not good at this. And in a note on Substack the other day, I blamed it on somebody that I went to junior high with that was just otherworldly talented at drawing. And I saw her abilities and how natural that was for her. And I said, ⁓ I must not be good at drawing. And the other night, ⁓ sort of jokingly, my husband was like, he's drawn me a lot of different times. He's great at doing little cartoons of his people. ⁓ And actually, the book that he proposed to me with was all ⁓ illustrated, all digitally illustrated.
Julie Laufer: Stop it. Ugh.
Amanda Jackson: And he's just so talented. I love bragging about him. But he has drawn me many times. sort of casually, he was like, you know, you've never drawn me before. And I had been talking about the book a little bit. And I was like, I don't want to. And I sat there with my cringe for like five minutes. I was like, I don't want to. It's going to look bad. And then I pushed through and I sat there and I, he thought I was just going to do a little like cartoon, whatever. And I'm actually, I actually tend to be a little bit more sensitive to like cart. cartoon style things feel like more vulnerable to me. And so I sat there and I realistically sketched him for like a half hour and I loved how it came out and it's instantly recognizable as him. And that was the moment that I was like, I need to start trying to like make a good faith effort to illustrate this book and see what happens. And so it's my current daily practice of something that I don't think I'm inherently, I don't. I inherently identify as being good at it. And it's honestly been so refreshing and affirming so far. And it's just been delightful. So that's where we are in the process.
Julie Laufer: That's, ⁓ One, I love a picture book for adults about workplace accommodations. am not a publisher, but I feel like there's a market for that. I think that's so fantastic. But I also just love story of and ⁓ for me at least, it's really being as you said, like this girl junior high, like people who are. good at things, like your husband's drawn you dozens of times and it's like, oh, you're going to, you want me to draw you now? Like you're the one that's good at this. And I, I love that. Like that was your catalyst. That was your moment of being like, I can, I can do this. This is like my book. So I will be the one to try to do these pictures. And it's another example of just you throwing these experiments and being so open about the outcome. think that's also something that I hope everybody listening gets. out of this conversation, it's like, it's okay to not know the end result. Like if it's going to work out, if you are going to be the one, right, you might storyboard and draw all these illustrations and then end up querying and they're like, okay, great, we have an illustrator and maybe that's the direction you want to go in, right? And ⁓ think there is so much pressure when we ⁓ to do things to have all of the answers of being like, this is how it's gonna go, this is how I'm going to do it, this is the outcome and... not knowing is it's more freeing, but it also just sort of opens us up to the other possibilities. Because I'm also a like we don't yes, having intuition is important and having some sort of plan or whatever. But at least for me, there have been many times in my life where I don't know where something is going and I do it anyway. And I'm ⁓ so surprised by the outcome. it's way better than I ever thought it could be. And had I been so restrictive and prescriptive about my plan. It would not have gone that way. So I am very excited about that. you seem to be a person who's always known you were creative and has always called yourself creative. I think I've always been creative, but it's only been the last two years that I've let myself call myself a creative person because, ⁓ and like, ⁓ when I think back on it, it's actually quite ridiculous. you have always ⁓ known you're creative and it sounds like have owned that label ⁓ and ⁓ I was listening to the other podcast were ⁓ the art of Wall Street and you sort of about falling into marketing as a creative adjacent career. it sort of seems like you're having this return, ⁓ return home moment. you've always been this creative person. You took this creative adjacent career. You're very good at it. now like, okay, what else?
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I think I have two thoughts here. One is that I do tend to gravitate towards when I hear people say there's no such thing as a creative, like we're all creative people, right? Like the label of calling people creatives is misleading because we all have that creative impulse. It's a human, it's an engine. Like all of us do things that are creative. And I definitely resonate with that on the one hand and would love for part of my life and legacy to be pulling that out of people. I also think that through Hone Your Craft and just through kind of some of the writing that I've been doing and the conversations that have started with people, I also think that I am drawn to this population of people who know that they are creative and we'll say donated those abilities to a company of some kind and
Julie Laufer: Mm.
Amanda Jackson: think that it is going to be the best of both worlds and then years later they end up completely burnt out and devoid of purpose in their work and need to feel the desperate need to reconcile that somehow. I think those are my people. think those are my people and that part of my work is to
Julie Laufer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jackson: draw them out and encourage them to spend that time and help them to make the time for joy based creativity. Because I think, I think the nature of the working world these days makes it really tricky to ⁓ like turn the turn the art that comes out of our souls into a career. I look up so strongly to anybody who as a novelist and that is their full-time gig or folks that are on Substack and it is their whole deal. I think that is so awesome. I also know myself well enough to foresee that if I ever try to make the joy-based thing the money thing, I will be the responsible one who sucks the joy out of the thing.
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jackson: And so I don't have answers to that. And it's something that I'm reflecting on, exploring and want to explore in community. But for now, think part of what I feel drawn to do is helping people that are currently giving all of their creative energy to a company or to whatever is bringing their income, helping them carve aside that space to refill their creative cup and do that work. outside of work or alongside of work so that they are their best self in all spheres of their life.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, I really love that. think it's so hard to do when you are burnt out and when you have been, I love donating your creativity elsewhere ⁓ and you just sort of like, yeah, connecting to those little like, maybe I could try this, maybe I could try this. I know I am. ⁓ very much a person with a hobby graveyard and it's big. ⁓ But each of those like tombstones represent something that I thought could be fun and I tried and I did have fun doing it and for whatever reason, you know, stopped doing it. And maybe it was meant to be a one-time thing. Yes.
Amanda Jackson: And at any point you could go back. Yeah, but any at any point you could go back again if you if you chose to do that. That's the beauty of being a human.
Julie Laufer: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. ⁓ I think that's such a good point. I often think of things so linearly. like, I played guitar in middle school and high school and then I stopped. And so I'll never play again. And then a couple of years ago, my husband got me a guitar for Christmas and I pick it up every now and then. And I usually just play acoustic versions of songs I listened to when I was in high school, like when I was in that phase I am not signing up for any open mic nights anytime soon, but it's very fun. And I got into keyboard building during the pandemic and it's like a very nerdy hobby. And I don't really feel like I need to do it again, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I have a keyboard that I built. And I think that as humans, it's just giving ourselves that permission to. follow those bursts of energy, because that's really what it is, right? It's like creative energy is kind of flowing. Mine very much peaks, and it's like I get an idea, and I go after it, and I do it, and then let it settle. And I think that's very important.
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, think as a former gifted kid, my threshold for what constitutes failure is very low. So if I pick something up and start doing it and then make the conscious choice to put it down, that may constitute a failure for me. If I put it on a list somewhere or set it as a goal or some arbitrary metric, whereas in this season of my life, I've started to
Julie Laufer: Hmm.
Amanda Jackson: understand and accept kind of what you were talking about, the ebb and flow of energy, because we all have limited time and capacity. And in some seasons, my practice of going to the gym is going to be more frequent, and that will give me life, and that will be great. But then at certain points, we're going to lay that aside and spend more time on a different hobby or... we will acknowledge that we have just generally limited capacity right now. And if we don't have time for anything creative or generative that we're being intentional about, that's okay because that means it's a restorative and a restorative season of repair. ⁓ And I think as anyone who knows that they are creative and is intentional about that will have work to do around acceptance and grace with themselves of some seasons I have a lot of capacity to do multiple different hobbies or give my full self to everything and then in some seasons I will have very little capacity and that is part of the creative ebb and flow.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I do think that I've definitely learned that starting to give myself more grease around that, especially when I look at you and I both live in places with seasons, right? Like with weather seasons. And this winter particularly was one of the worst winters I've experienced in my life. I know you and I talked about this. ⁓ And that was a season where I Yeah, there was no creative energy available to tap into. And I kind of knuckled through a little bit and was like, I'm just going to get like an essay up a month and that's going to be the goal. you know, it's way less than I usually do, but we're going to do it. And I signed up for a half marathon that required winter training, which honestly, it's kind of a saving grace that I did that because I don't know if I would have moved my body at all. ⁓ But yeah, it's about, you know. having all these different things we want to go after and knowing what's for now, what's for not now, what we're going to put down temporarily and not bury it, not call it a failure, but pick it back up when we're ready. And that just feels like a lifelong lesson. It feels like something that I don't know if any of us will ever be perfect at, but it's like continuous cycle of learning and observing
Amanda Jackson: 100%.
Julie Laufer: One thing that you said at the beginning of this interview, ⁓ I you touched on it in ⁓ places, is like, ⁓ in this season of life of experimenting, but you're also in this season of, it's a little bit of a hard pivot, like reaching out to people, letting yourself, wait for the answer, coupled with what you've called a superpower of vulnerability and being honest. And we'd love to hear how that has shaped how you show up in all of these spaces, with all these people that you surround yourself with, ⁓ and what that feels like.
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I have what I think some people might call a tendency to overshare and that has become a gift because I accepted it and acknowledged it and have found in spaces like book clubs or one-off conversations with strangers or even in a professional context that sharing what I honestly think or feel or how I see the world invites that from other people. When they see somebody else doing that, they feel a little bit more open to share and have that free exchange of conversation. And that could be really cringe, right? Sharing what you honestly think or feel. Again, just going back to that idea of, oh my gosh, perception is a really scary thing. I have come to a place of owning that that is something that I'm good at and I can model for other people. On the reach out front, I am very much still learning and honing that skill and figuring out what it looks like to, and how much capacity I have for it, I will say. ⁓ I wish that I felt like I had this high volume of capacity to reach out to people constantly and show up, but I... Even just sending one email to somebody that I've never met before takes a lot of energy because I refine it very closely and I have a very close eye on those things. I'm sure that plenty of folks are able to scale it up. Maybe they're using a combination of AI tools, which I would not personally use for these bold reach outs, but I'm sure folks have different ways of doing that more rapidly. But I will put an hour of time on my calendar. I'm like, this is a pitch time. And I'll go into it thinking, ⁓ it'll take me 20 minutes each, and I can send out three. And I'll spend the whole hour on one because I'm putting so much time and energy into personalizing the message and doing my research or carefully keeping an eye on what I'm sending. But also, it takes a high volume of energy. While I am skilled at that vulnerability, I also know that it can take a lot out of me. And that means that this season of experimentation is not high volume and it's not high scale, but it is, it does feel wild and it does feel playful and it does feel expansive in different ways because anytime you say yes, ⁓ it is vulnerable and.
Julie Laufer: Mm. Yeah.
Amanda Jackson: And that makes it meaningful. And my hope, the gamble that I'm taking in this season is that those qualities are going to lead me into the right conversations and connect me to the right people.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, that's so, it's hard to do. I've been sitting on an email to somebody for three days that I want on the podcast. by the time I get this out, I'm going to commit to have reached out to them. That's, I'm going to say that now with you as my witness. But it's hard. It's hard to like put yourself out there and package it well. And for me, it's like, Hey, do you want to come on my podcast about being embarrassing? Like, I don't know how else to say that. So I'm trying to massage it and be like, it's so cool that you're doing this. But yeah, I very much understand ⁓ taking gamble and letting take those risks and knowing that ⁓ it's hard, but doing it I see a lot of people being like, yeah, I'm reaching out to all these people and it's hard. And like sometimes people don't answer and it's exhausting and it takes a lot of my energy and it's not just shooting off five emails a day. I think there's a lot of truth to fact that it is draining, it is time consuming. another that you said that, ⁓ this energy of like ⁓ the superpower you have of being honest and getting people to want to share their vulnerability, like that's ⁓ that's really, ⁓ important to have in this world and I've met people like you and I very much feed off of that energy because I can be more closed and I tend to not, I don't tell unless I'm asked and I'm working on that but it's like, hey, how are you doing? And I'm very much like, ⁓ fine. I don't offer up a lot unless somebody asks me about it directly. so like that sort of oversharing energy, I very much feed off of but I also acknowledge that like ⁓ that is a, you're giving, you're giving a lot of yourself in that, right? and then, the other person in this example, me, it's like taking from that. So there is this like, yes, powerful, but also a need to recharge and sort of ⁓ get back to yourself a little bit.
Amanda Jackson: Absolutely.
Julie Laufer: Yeah. How do you recharge? Like, what's your...
Amanda Jackson: I, ⁓ so I've talked about this on sub stock before, but I'm an Enneagram 3. Are you familiar with the Enneagram at all? Yeah.
Julie Laufer: I am. I actually like, I'm very into that type of stuff. The Enneagram is very hard for me to grasp. Like I'm very into like Myers-Briggs and astrology and human design, which is very complicated, but Enneagram is difficult for me. I think I'm a nine or a seven. I don't have, you know.
Amanda Jackson: Okay. Okay. I try not to type other people, so I will not comment, but I am an Enneagram three, which is like the achiever, and my husband is an Enneagram nine. And for anyone listening who understands the Enneagram, I'll just say preface with that. But in other terms, I historically have filled my schedule to the brim and will not slow down and will commit to too many things. And my husband,
Julie Laufer: There, fine.
Amanda Jackson: is more, we'll say he's more naturally gifted at taking time to rest and knowing what that looks like for himself. So over the past five years that we've been married, I have gotten a lot better at building rhythms of rest into my life. I would say like sort of in a general self-care sense, ⁓ I recharge. Like we have a rhythm of like, this is our time on the couch that we're, we'll usually pop on a TV show. ⁓ And from season to season, it kind of differs. Like sometimes my recharge will be, ⁓ I'll read. And so I'm consuming something and, or like taking something in. But then I also love, for the last, I think year and a half crochet has been the way that I, can do something with my hands and it's, it's. me generating something and I love the very slow process of it. just resets kind of my brain and body. ⁓ And then recently over the past couple of weeks, ⁓ my little crochet bag that has sat on the couch has been replaced with my sketchbook. And so in this moment, ⁓ that even though there is a, I'm doing something and there is work to it, there is... and exploratory energy to it, that does feel like a recharge to me in this season. And so I love the, I try to be attuned to the ebb and the flow of seasons where different things can recharge me in different ways. ⁓ It is very, it's very natural for me to assume that recharging needs to look like doing something. I'm trying to expand my practice of spending time, maybe it's 30 seconds, maybe it's five minutes, just sitting. just doing nothing, looking at the ceiling, looking at the wall. ⁓ I think the kids have a term for that that I won't say on the podcast that's kind of goofy. But that has existed long before TikTok, so we don't even need to go there. ⁓ But it is really important, I think, to work on practicing doing nothing. And also, I think I can treat doing, like,
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. You
Amanda Jackson: I know that as a woman in her 30s, if I sit there and do nothing long enough, I'm gonna fall asleep. That's what's gonna happen. And in my brain, I have this little broken loop that says, well, if I fall asleep, I did nothing wrong, which is just insane, just so, so incredibly silly. But I am working on allowing myself to do nothing as a form of recharging.
Julie Laufer: You That's the Achiever.
Amanda Jackson: as well as having activities that I love and enjoy spending time on.
Julie Laufer: of that. I love that. It's so funny. feel like I have like the sort of the back half of the story I have a very similar relationship to, but I'm historically very good at doing nothing and can do nothing for a long time. And so I feel like I've sort of worked on the other side of that of like, okay, how do I not do nothing for so long that, and this is something that I think really came to fruition during the pandemic. It's like, I've been on the couch for a week. Like, how do we balance the doing nothing with doing things I do enjoy letting myself recharge, but also so funny. It's almost like I conditioned myself to be like doing nothing is bad and so therefore I must like chase ⁓ being an achiever, even though that's not who I am. I've always looked up to those It's like, wow, you can just like go, go, go. ⁓ I want to be like that. How do I get more of that? So I've sort of tried to, on the other side of it, have this baseline of doing nothing, try to fill my day with all these things because it looks productive or whatnot and I'm returning to doing nothing. ⁓ And for me, nothing is very much an activity. When my mom tells this story, I don't remember it, but when I was a kid, she would walk by my room and I'd be laying on the bench like, what are you doing? Like nothing. and she'd like, do something. I'm like, no, the activity is nothing. And I felt that way in my college days and 20s. Like, ⁓ what are you doing today? Like, ⁓ I'm doing nothing. Like, ⁓ great, do you want to come? No, I'm doing nothing. I don't want to go to the bar. My plan is to do nothing tonight. I will see you tomorrow or whatever. And it's all a balance. It's all song and dance.
Amanda Jackson: I admire that so much and I need to channel Baby Julie. I need to learn from her.
Julie Laufer: Slang in my bed. Toys galore around me. Like Game Boy in the corner, looking up at the ceiling.
Amanda Jackson: My husband likes to joke about, but this is real. When I was in elementary school, like on the last day of school before Christmas break, so it was in this liminal space where I had no homework for this brief moment of time, and it was before, you know, I had all of Christmas break spread out in front of me. I would take all of my, I had to. beanie babies in a shoe hanging thing on the back of my closet door. And I would take them all out and I would put them all on my bed and I would just like, sounds so funny, I was eight, I would roll around until the beanie babies all fell on the floor. And that was my activity that I could only do when I had no homework, I had nothing going on. And I love that precious instinct in me and also, what has carried over to adulthood is sometimes this all or nothing feeling that I can only be at rest when I have nothing on my plate. And that's never going to happen. And so if I think about rest that way, I will never truly rest. And so that's part of the work too, is giving myself space to do nothing or do something joyful, even when the slate is not clean, we'll say.
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's literally like, I had this moment, I feel like it was a year ago at this point where I was just like, I'm never gonna have, my to-do list will never be empty because unless I like become a nudist, there will always be laundry to do, there will always be like a dust bunny in the corner. And I first, like it kind of like hit me really hard and I was like, that sucks. And then I was like, not. Like, no, that's okay. Like, that's a sign of like life moving on and, how do you find joy despite always have something to do? And I think that is such an important ⁓ just way of putting it. I think it's so to see someone living their lives. ⁓ doing their things, putting themselves out there, et cetera, and be like, I wish I could be like that. I wish I had that quality. So what would you say to somebody who's listening to this, who's like, man, Amanda's got it figured out?
Amanda Jackson: ⁓ I would say one, no she does not. She is very much on a messy little liminal journey. So I would just reset expectations in that regard. But you mentioned my healthy jealous interview series earlier and that's kind of what I'll go back to here, ⁓ which is a practice I sort of cobbled together a few months ago. after noticing that there were a lot of people on my LinkedIn feed that I kept, their content would come up and I would feel that little green ball of envy in my stomach saying I wish I had done that or I wish I were doing that. ⁓ over time, by default practice in those moments has been to say, to get really clear on what is it that they're doing or that they have that I'm jealous of? Is it like the branding on their website? Is it that I like that the services that they offer are really repeatable and they're not customizing everything they do for everybody. Is it that I just think they're funny? And so I try to get really clear about what it is that I feel jealous of. And then the next step is what am I gonna do about it? Is it feasible for me to try to replicate it? ⁓ Am I jealous that they're a digital nomad and that's not really feasible for me in this season of life where I am rooted in one location? ⁓
Julie Laufer: Mm.
Amanda Jackson: Is there something that I would gain from sitting down with them and scheduling coffee or ⁓ just sending them a message to say, hey, I think you're doing cool things. ⁓ And so for me, what that has done is take an abstract pejorative gross feeling emotion and turn it into something more specific and actionable. And from there, can turn ⁓ like that feeling of comparison or negativity and I can turn it into connection and inspiration. And so if you are listening to this conversation and anything jumps out or you have this general feeling of, if anything that I've said stands out as something that you would like to replicate or emulate, sit with what it is that makes you feel that way. And my DMs and my... My online presence is always open. I'd love to talk more if that is what you come to as your action step. get specific about, whether it's me or somebody else, get specific about what is raising that feeling in you ⁓ and do something about it.
Julie Laufer: I love that. I think that is, it's such a good reframe, right? This idea of your term, being healthy, jealous. It's like, yes, there's this feeling of envy, gosh, I want to do that. And I felt that so many times throughout my life. And I just, I let it pass. I'm like, ugh, they've got it all done. ⁓ Good for them. ⁓ turning, what we of as an unhealthy emotion and being like, hey, here are the actual steps that I can take to figure out what it is. Because the key is really examining it under the microscope and being like, what am I actually, ⁓ what am drawn to? What is the thing? It makes it so that you can actually do something about it, right? I feel like I've often shoved those feelings down because I feel like guilty for having them where they feel dirty and there's a lot of power in looking at that and being like, this is happening. Why? What is it? Let's go. I think I'm going to adopt that
Amanda Jackson: I can't wait to see what happens.
Julie Laufer: Yes. Amanda, this was such a good conversation. I just know you and I could keep talking forever and ever. But I really want to thank you for coming onto the podcast, being so open, sharing your gift of vulnerability with all of us. ⁓ ⁓ would love for everyone listening to keep in touch with you and know where to find you. So what are some good places online to find you?
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, the two best ones LinkedIn ⁓ Substack. So LinkedIn is ⁓ a lot of my original research stuff and thoughts lives. ⁓ And then ⁓ is a little bit more of the creative play space. It's where I talk about the liminal season of my career and also just falling back in love with life. ⁓ So Mandaroo Stack over on Substack ⁓ and Jackson on LinkedIn.
Julie Laufer: Perfect, and I will link those in the show notes for everybody so that you can find them. And I will also do my due diligence to find that Disney Channel original movie podcast. And hopefully it's there too. Time will tell. Amanda, thank you. Yes, yes, exactly. And if that's not the ethos of this podcast, I don't know what is. And I think, yeah, like that feeling of cringe is kind of what.
Amanda Jackson: And you can all enjoy my secondhand cringe.
Julie Laufer: moving beyond, like it's almost like the other side of that healthy, jealous feeling. It's like if I can get past that and I can just do it, then maybe someone will think I'm cringe and maybe that's the gift.
Amanda Jackson: I think so.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, Amanda, thank you so much. This was such a lovely conversation. And of course,
Amanda Jackson: Thank you for having me.
Amanda Jackson: I'm obsessed with including ice skater in my intro because anyone who has ever been at an ice skating rink with me would not call me that.
Julie Laufer: Hope you all enjoyed it too. Again, you can find Amanda on her sub stack and her LinkedIn. Those will be linked in the show notes. If you want more of Be Cringe, I'd love if you subscribe to this podcast wherever you are listening to this podcast, share it with a friend. And if you think you would be a good podcast guest and want to self-nominate, there is a form in the show notes for you to do so. I am loving these conversations that I'm having. I'm loving meeting new people and want to continue doing so. I mean, you're ice skating. You're an ice skater.
Amanda Jackson: I mean, yeah, if you write, you're a writer. If you get on the ice with skates on, ergo. Naturally.
Julie Laufer: Well, welcome. I'm so happy to have you. Thank you for being here. I gave you some accolades and my own introduction, but Amanda would love for you to introduce yourself, how you usually introduce yourself to others. And I guess ice skater is not included.
Amanda Jackson: Absolutely. You know, I think it's going in the LinkedIn headline now. ⁓ I am a writer, a thinker, a researcher ⁓ that I primarily work with clients in the B2B software space, helping them produce and distribute original research reports ⁓ that influence their buyers hearts and minds and wallets. ⁓ I have
Julie Laufer: So thank you again so much for listening. I hope you have wonderful days whenever you are listening to this. And I wanna encourage you to go out and do that cringe thing that you know you wanna do, but haven't done yet. You still got it, you're still not doing it, do it. All right, thanks everyone. Until the next one.
Amanda Jackson: in business for myself for the past four years. ⁓ And throughout that time, my ⁓ and my purpose has evolved a lot. ⁓ ⁓ recently, I'm in a season of extreme experimentation, ⁓ adding a lot of things onto my plate outside of my client work to explore and take risks and ⁓ about new facets and angles of my field and myself. I recently produced my own research report, so I'm playing around with what it looks like distribute that and share it with people and be bold. ⁓ I'm learning about community building and I host creative meetups burnt out folks to ⁓ come and witness together just work on a craft that makes their ⁓ soul lighter. And ⁓ also bake a lot. We'll put that one in there too. ⁓
Julie Laufer: Mmm, you're a baker. I love it. So good. I loved that research report. I don't even know if I was like the total target demographic, but I got a lot of use out of it. So clearly doing something right. I really, just this whole season of experimentation is something that I so resonate with and it's so clear that, and I'm in this bit of a period too where I'm doing a lot of things. I'm throwing a lot of intention and whatever into a proverbial fire and I don't know where any of it's gonna go, but I know it feels right and that very much feels like what you are doing and it's very cool to witness and kind of doing it alongside you.
Amanda Jackson: I love being in it together. It's great.
Julie Laufer: Yes, yes. ⁓ And you, this is not your first podcast. This is your second podcast, right? So maybe that's something that you have been experimenting with. ⁓ And Amanda and I connected on Substack. I threw a note out there because I wanted to line up my first like dozen-ish interview guest, half dozen or whatnot. And I was like, if anybody knows anyone that wants to be on a podcast in this, or like, you anyone who knows anyone who's being a little cringe in their day to day, living their truth unapologetically. And Amanda commented and was like, hey, this is me. ⁓ I was on a podcast it launched this week. Today, I told myself I want to be on three more podcasts in 2026. And I saw this note and here I am. one, when I wrote that note, I phrase it in that way because I realized that ⁓ one of my opportunities in life is to get better at putting myself out there. And so when I was writing, was like, nobody's going to want to volunteer for this themselves. ⁓ why would So I edited immediately and I was like, ⁓ yes, please, everyone like recommend yourselves. But I also love that you went on this podcast, you enjoyed it. You got some feedback that, you know, the guest was, the host was like, you're a natural, you should do more of these. And you're like, okay, well, and you like set a goal and did it. And here we are making our way towards goal.
Amanda Jackson: And here we are. You know, it's funny, Julie is when I was telling one of ⁓ good friends about some of this and ⁓ on the topic of cringe, she reminded me, she was like, Amanda, you hosted a podcast. And like, it's not that I forget, I just don't talk about it a lot. I was one of however, however many thousands of people who during ⁓ it didn't start because of COVID, but it happened to align with COVID ⁓ So somewhere out in the ether ⁓ Spotify or your podcast,
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jackson: platform of choice, there is a DCOM podcast, 10 episodes, hosted by me and a friend. ⁓ if we're compiling things for a cringe bucket, it would go in there. It would go in there.
Julie Laufer: I am obsessed that like it wasn't on your radar. So it's not your second podcast. I mean, I guess it's your second podcast guest, but you have a lot of, you have more hosting experience than I do. So I'm in the presence of a seasoned professional. And just to clarify my understanding, DCOM is Disney Channel Original Movies, correct? Okay. Wonderful. I'm really good at finding things on the internet. So I will find it and I will put it the show notes if I do.
Amanda Jackson: No, it just didn't even occur to me. It absolutely is. It absolutely is. ⁓ my gosh, I love that.
Julie Laufer: ⁓ God, could not have invented that segue if I had tried. On the topic of Disney Channel original movies, there is an essay that you wrote that I love and also resonated with so much that used the movie Ice Princess. with Michelle Trottenberg ⁓ as a catalyst to talk through your own ice skating journey. I love this essay ⁓ the thesis of it is, ⁓ should all get better at doing things we're bad at. And that's something that I've ⁓ carried with me. ⁓ Similar to your, ⁓ being a skater, I am a tennis player, ⁓ I have a tennis racket that I bought during COVID and I go to the handball court at the park ⁓ by my house and I smack a tennis ball on wall and I'm not good at it. And I miss a of balls, but I have so much fun doing it. And so I'd love for you to talk about your journey of becoming and being an ice skater.
Amanda Jackson: Yep. when, I don't know what it was, but there was a period of time when Disney was all about ice skating movies. was Ice Princess one of them. And then there was a movie called Go Figure that was a DCOM about, yes, this girl who is a figure skater and she wants to train with this really illustrious coach and the only way for her to do that. is to go to the sporting school on a hockey scholarship. So she lives this double life as both an ice skater and a hockey player. Anyway, these two movies were my entire personality in 2003, 2005. ⁓ And I loved them. ⁓ Went ice skating with family gatherings a couple of times as a young child, but it was just a little side quest. And then... When I was in college, I had some extra credit hour space on my schedule and I decided to take an elective ice skating class and I thought, my gosh, this is gonna be so great. I'm gonna live my dreams. I'm sure quietly in the back of my mind, I thought I was going to be Casey Carlisle in Ice Princess and just learn that I was innately talented and probably go to the Olympics. And that is the opposite of what happened because in the movie, Casey Carlisle discovers she has this supernatural ability to ice skate with very little effort. And I put in a lot of effort over the course of an entire semester doing basic ice skating instruction. And basically, by the end of the semester was no better than when I started. Still stumbled around on the ice. We had a final exam that was we had to skate to a song, and that was just clunky and terrible. ⁓ And one of my favorite, like tags onto that story is that I went ice skating with one of my dearest friends ⁓ a couple years later and just, I mean, just still was like stumbling around, could barely walk on skates. And ⁓ at a later date after that, I texted my friend and was like, remember when went ice skating? That was so fun. And she, we have a great rapport, but she was like, I remember ice skating. I don't know what you were doing. ⁓ So all of that is to say ice skating has been quite a journey for me and my dreams of being incredibly talented at it never solidified. However, I still love it. Like I still am planning to go to the ice skating rink in my town and just like even though there is no innate talent, like whatever the opposite of innate talent is. That's what I have. ⁓ it's been such, like writing that essay and reflecting on what it means to do activities that we are bad at, do them on purpose and do it ⁓ as a creative practice and as a self-exploration. ⁓ I think it's so important and so meaningful because we live at a time where Perception is everything. Our lives are online all of the time and everything needs to be polished. I'm a very young millennial, but I watch Gen Z and how by and large there is this attachment to how are people gonna perceive this? My Instagram has to be exactly a certain way and ⁓ just every way that I show up in the world has to be so carefully curated. And I think what it's done for a lot of us is
Julie Laufer: Hmm.
Amanda Jackson: It stops us from trying things that could actually be really fun or good or interesting for us. And it really holds us back from a lot of delight and experimentation and a lot of creativity that could be really important for us and freeing. And it all is in the name of perception and this fear of cringe. And so I think a lot of us need to I'd like to inspire other folks to lean into whatever their ice skating is, whatever thing that they either might be bad at or know they're bad at, ⁓ and do it in public and allow it to be authentic and cringe and vulnerable. It's okay, it's part of the process.
Julie Laufer: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, some of us might be pleasantly surprised that with hours and hours of practice or whatever, we get better, or maybe we do become innately good at it and go on to win the championships or whatever our thing is. ⁓ But you stay bad at it, right? There's a reason why not can just be an Olympian by trying hard enough or go to the US Open because I tried hard enough. And I think like sitting into that, think, I don't know, I've had this narrative growing up as a fellow recovering gifted kid of like, if I do it enough, if I work hard, if I try enough, then maybe I can get good at it. And I think where our paths diverge is I sort of got that gifted, I don't wanna call it a diagnosis, but label early on like you at like six. And then I used that to hold myself to this standard of perfection when I couldn't reach it immediately, I just gave up. So I did not score a perfect score on the SATs like you did. I... ⁓
Amanda Jackson: Where did you find it? don't remember. Did I put that on Substack somewhere?
Julie Laufer: It's in your gifted child essay. I can't remember the title of it right now. ⁓ But I think for me, returning to and letting myself do things I'm quote bad at ⁓ almost healing part of me that was like, well, if I don't get an A, I'm not perfect. So I might as well just not study for the test, which is very self sabotaging. ⁓
Amanda Jackson: Ugh.
Julie Laufer: in many ways, but I do think we need to hear more of those stories ⁓ and do out in public this tennis is right next to a ⁓ basketball court where teenagers play and I'm like the teenagers are me ⁓ run after these balls and ⁓ and they toss them to me the times that they fly over the and they're not mean at all and they're very kind, but like even going to the park when the teenagers were there was something I had to talk myself into.
Amanda Jackson: If you want to get better at and more comfortable being cringe, spend more time around teenagers. That's the best advice I can offer as somebody who is married to a high school teacher because any amount of time that I spend in his office or around the kids is just an exercise in humility. I'm somebody who, like I talk with my hands and I like dance in public if I know the song and I, you know. talk about my life pretty openly and the children will humble you so fast. So fast. So I want to just commend you for your willingness to play tennis and do something that you are not innately skilled at in the presence of teenagers because there is maybe no scarier gauntlet for cringe than that.
Julie Laufer: plus one. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate that. thank you. And I will have a teenager one day. One day my toddler will be a teenager, so I guess I'm preparing for that as well. also, I mean, I touched on this, but I really, do see lot of parallels between doing these things that we're bad at, doing them anyway, and this past of being such an achiever. you know, ⁓ knowing that you were an achiever, you a grade, and were ⁓ thrust on this path. I'm wondering how now that you are, you you have been in your own career and your own running your own business for a few years now and you're like, this is working, but there are so much more that I could be doing. wondering how that's all led you to this point ⁓ and helped explore all of that or not, any undoings you've had to do.
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I've reached this liminal space in my career where something slash a lot of things are not working. And I know that. And I've known that for a while. I reached ⁓ this saturation point where I just got really tired of every time I caught up with a friend or a family member and they said, how's work going? The answer is always bad. And maybe for different reasons, right? Maybe I'm doing well with my clients, but I'm exhausted or I'm not seeing the business growth, quote unquote, that I'd like to see, ⁓ but I'm actually making a lot of money this month or whatever. But there's always some reason that the answer is not doing well. And for months now, I've been thinking about what would it look like to go back to grad school and try this field? Or what would it look like to move into an adjacent field to my own? Or what would it look like to pivot? completely and start over. in most of those self-reflections, I cut myself off before I take any next steps because the idea of being a beginner again and setting aside this field that I've spent years in and built up skills and built up a portfolio and built up a network and all of those kinds of things that are safe spaces and comfort for me, even though they've made me miserable. I just keep burrowing down there because the idea of starting over as a beginner again is so frightening. And I spent my entire academic career being fed praise and being conditioned for a certain kind of praise for a certain kind of thing. And so the idea of hitting a hard reset and... exploring the idea of what does it look like to know my innate worth that doesn't necessarily come from that external achievement and praise and affirmation. That idea is just so scary. And so I'm starting with small experiments, things that ⁓ may may not work ⁓ to to ⁓ slowly myself in that direction because I know myself and if I ⁓ just try to get it to be a full hard reset or a full pivot all at once, ⁓ that will probably not stick. But if I start small and like, Substack is a very, has been for me a very safe space to experiment, right? Like a playground of, ⁓ I'm a writer by trade. And so I've written for my clients for the last, I mean, four years and for five more beyond that in-house. ⁓ And so I've... gotten very comfortable with a workflow that involves an external editor and involves the external feedback of a team of people. And on Substack, I put whatever is in my brain on paper, whether it's as a note or an article, then I, with relatively speaking, minimal editing and feedback, I put it out into the world. And it's especially scary because on Substack, you're sending it out as an email. So I love that. you know, on Substack I can edit essays as they exist, but I also know it went into their inboxes. So the email is there. ⁓ And all of that is, has just been really refreshing to have a chance to reset my expectations around what the writing process looks like and know I might fail on a smaller scale, which can help me sort of ladder up to whatever it might look like to. start as a beginner in a new field, whatever that may be.
Julie Laufer: I love this approach. think that knowing that something that's not going right, knowing that there is a shift that needs to happen, but not knowing what it looks like can be really ⁓ stagnating for a lot of people. could be a to not explore. just like, well, I don't know what it is. So I might as well stay here till I figure it out. ⁓ And I think I was in that space for a little but. The truth is, you can't figure it out if you're not taking small steps or any steps at all. And so I love this approach of being like, this is working now, or it's working enough now that I'm going to stay in it. But I also need to keep doing, I need to figure something else out. So let me experiment on Substack. Let me experiment with interviewing people with your Healthy Jealous series. me host events for people to come hone their craft with me. I think that that's such a cool. powerful way to see what sticks. ⁓ And ⁓ I, like opposite or a different version of the story where I was in a role that I knew didn't suit me. I got laid off. I had this period of like, okay, I'm going to put eggs in multiple baskets and see what sticks. And I got a contract opportunity that turned into full time. And it was like, okay, great. I guess I'll just like keep going with my career. Even though deep down I knew that wasn't really where I wanted to go. ⁓ And then, forward six months later, I've quit that job because I knew it wasn't right. And I didn't have the bandwidth when I was in it to ⁓ to do all these little things that I knew I wanted to do. And that was a sign for me. I tried, I couldn't hack it. ⁓ And I think that ⁓ realities are ⁓ valid. I think approach is so refreshing and it's light I'm a big believer in I don't know we can almost feel when something is right verse not so even if it's just you write something about one topic and You're reflecting. It's like ⁓ that felt different. I'm gonna keep going down that and just like see what happens
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I had that experience with an essay. I posted one about intuition a couple of weeks ago. ironically, I wrote it. ⁓ It was a brain dump. I was like, this isn't super well organized. I'm not sure I love how this is looking on paper. And so I sat on it for two days. Didn't make super substantial edits, but just finally said, you know what? This needs to go out. And it seemed to really resonate with people.
Julie Laufer: Yeah. Mm.
Amanda Jackson: in the context of all the essays I had posted on Substack, it really resonated with people. And I just kept laughing to myself at the irony of me taking several days to trust my intuition about an essay, about trusting my intuition. And I also love that you can already look back at your decisions over the last year and say, you know, I felt that something was off. I I said yes anyway, because the number of times, I mean, there are contexts. there are clients that I have now that I should be trusting my intuition with now, or with and saying, no, it's probably time to walk away. And I think there's a balance of learning from those experiences, because you can look back and say, I said yes to it for a time, worked there for six months, and then I walked away. And ⁓ I for myself, I don't know. if this is your experience, but in those contexts, I kind of kick myself a little bit and I'm like, I wasted six months. Why did I do that? Like I knew it was wrong and I said yes anyway. So there's this, balance to strike in those situations of acknowledging the learning and saying, put in that situation again next time, I will do the hard work of not saying yes, unless I absolutely have to, unless there's ⁓ some extenuating circumstance that must say yes. ⁓ But learning from that
Julie Laufer: Mm.
Amanda Jackson: And also giving yourself grace and saying, I don't know how, ⁓ for some reason that needed to be part of my story. I needed those six months for whatever reason and had to be part of the journey. But I have learned enough that next time that will probably be a no because I will listen to that inner knowing that said, that's probably the wrong call.
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. And sometimes the learning is saying yes to the wrong thing ⁓ like, right. Sometimes the learning is just my situation aside, right. it's putting out the experiment and seeing it play out despite feeling a certain way about it and being like, ⁓ yeah, I felt that that wasn't right. And I needed to do it to know that it wasn't right until I confirm it, because I don't know if I would have gotten to where I am now.
Amanda Jackson: Mmm.
Julie Laufer: had I not taken that job, And I almost needed to prove to myself that I could do it, throw that crazy number out there, get them to accept it, And I don't know if I would have gotten there on my own ⁓ and so I'm excited to see all the things that come out of everything that you're doing just sort of you all these things that light you up. I saw a children's book happening. I saw that on your sub stack, your notes. ⁓
Amanda Jackson: So yes, and it's a little bit of a marketing challenge because it's technically, the vision is an illustrated book for adults. what's funny is I posted that note and then hours later last night I was like, ⁓ I called it a children's book. ⁓ well, whatever. It's easier this way. ⁓ But yeah, so I, for the past few months, have been working on copy for a picture book that I call a parable about workplace accommodations.
Julie Laufer: Mmm.
Amanda Jackson: ⁓ And it took me about a month or maybe two months to get the copy in a place where I was like, this is the story. There will be some edits, but this is the story. And at the beginning of March, I went on a writer's retreat with one of my dear friends. I had her take a look at it. ⁓ I had my husband take a look at it. And so it's currently in its infancy in terms of the copy itself. And... I am now in a space where I could go a couple of different directions with it. ⁓ I could query it, which I have not done for projects before, even though I have completed projects in my Google Drive. ⁓ And so I'm sitting with a little bit of research there and collecting some publishing houses that I could reach out to. But the other path that I could see it going is one where I handle the visuals. I'm on a little bit of a... ⁓
Julie Laufer: you
Amanda Jackson: an illustration odyssey, I'm calling it. And I'm just exploring the potential. What would it look like for me to try to tackle these illustrations myself? And I do have a little bit of an ace in the hole because my husband is a graphic designer. So I have his visual art expertise alongside of me. But I am currently in the stage where I am thinking through what it looks like to storyboard this. what I've put together and I've also spent the last four nights in a row when we're sitting there doing our TV time in the evening just sketching out what I think this character looks like. as part of my gifted kidness, I always thought I was just bad at drawing. I just put that in a bucket and said, I'm not good at this. And in a note on Substack the other day, I blamed it on somebody that I went to junior high with that was just otherworldly talented at drawing. And I saw her abilities and how natural that was for her. And I said, ⁓ I must not be good at drawing. And the other night, ⁓ sort of jokingly, my husband was like, he's drawn me a lot of different times. He's great at doing little cartoons of his people. ⁓ And actually, the book that he proposed to me with was all ⁓ illustrated, all digitally illustrated.
Julie Laufer: Stop it. Ugh.
Amanda Jackson: And he's just so talented. I love bragging about him. But he has drawn me many times. sort of casually, he was like, you know, you've never drawn me before. And I had been talking about the book a little bit. And I was like, I don't want to. And I sat there with my cringe for like five minutes. I was like, I don't want to. It's going to look bad. And then I pushed through and I sat there and I, he thought I was just going to do a little like cartoon, whatever. And I'm actually, I actually tend to be a little bit more sensitive to like cart. cartoon style things feel like more vulnerable to me. And so I sat there and I realistically sketched him for like a half hour and I loved how it came out and it's instantly recognizable as him. And that was the moment that I was like, I need to start trying to like make a good faith effort to illustrate this book and see what happens. And so it's my current daily practice of something that I don't think I'm inherently, I don't. I inherently identify as being good at it. And it's honestly been so refreshing and affirming so far. And it's just been delightful. So that's where we are in the process.
Julie Laufer: That's, ⁓ One, I love a picture book for adults about workplace accommodations. am not a publisher, but I feel like there's a market for that. I think that's so fantastic. But I also just love story of and ⁓ for me at least, it's really being as you said, like this girl junior high, like people who are. good at things, like your husband's drawn you dozens of times and it's like, oh, you're going to, you want me to draw you now? Like you're the one that's good at this. And I, I love that. Like that was your catalyst. That was your moment of being like, I can, I can do this. This is like my book. So I will be the one to try to do these pictures. And it's another example of just you throwing these experiments and being so open about the outcome. think that's also something that I hope everybody listening gets. out of this conversation, it's like, it's okay to not know the end result. Like if it's going to work out, if you are going to be the one, right, you might storyboard and draw all these illustrations and then end up querying and they're like, okay, great, we have an illustrator and maybe that's the direction you want to go in, right? And ⁓ think there is so much pressure when we ⁓ to do things to have all of the answers of being like, this is how it's gonna go, this is how I'm going to do it, this is the outcome and... not knowing is it's more freeing, but it also just sort of opens us up to the other possibilities. Because I'm also a like we don't yes, having intuition is important and having some sort of plan or whatever. But at least for me, there have been many times in my life where I don't know where something is going and I do it anyway. And I'm ⁓ so surprised by the outcome. it's way better than I ever thought it could be. And had I been so restrictive and prescriptive about my plan. It would not have gone that way. So I am very excited about that. you seem to be a person who's always known you were creative and has always called yourself creative. I think I've always been creative, but it's only been the last two years that I've let myself call myself a creative person because, ⁓ and like, ⁓ when I think back on it, it's actually quite ridiculous. you have always ⁓ known you're creative and it sounds like have owned that label ⁓ and ⁓ I was listening to the other podcast were ⁓ the art of Wall Street and you sort of about falling into marketing as a creative adjacent career. it sort of seems like you're having this return, ⁓ return home moment. you've always been this creative person. You took this creative adjacent career. You're very good at it. now like, okay, what else?
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I think I have two thoughts here. One is that I do tend to gravitate towards when I hear people say there's no such thing as a creative, like we're all creative people, right? Like the label of calling people creatives is misleading because we all have that creative impulse. It's a human, it's an engine. Like all of us do things that are creative. And I definitely resonate with that on the one hand and would love for part of my life and legacy to be pulling that out of people. I also think that through Hone Your Craft and just through kind of some of the writing that I've been doing and the conversations that have started with people, I also think that I am drawn to this population of people who know that they are creative and we'll say donated those abilities to a company of some kind and
Julie Laufer: Mm.
Amanda Jackson: think that it is going to be the best of both worlds and then years later they end up completely burnt out and devoid of purpose in their work and need to feel the desperate need to reconcile that somehow. I think those are my people. think those are my people and that part of my work is to
Julie Laufer: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jackson: draw them out and encourage them to spend that time and help them to make the time for joy based creativity. Because I think, I think the nature of the working world these days makes it really tricky to ⁓ like turn the turn the art that comes out of our souls into a career. I look up so strongly to anybody who as a novelist and that is their full-time gig or folks that are on Substack and it is their whole deal. I think that is so awesome. I also know myself well enough to foresee that if I ever try to make the joy-based thing the money thing, I will be the responsible one who sucks the joy out of the thing.
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jackson: And so I don't have answers to that. And it's something that I'm reflecting on, exploring and want to explore in community. But for now, think part of what I feel drawn to do is helping people that are currently giving all of their creative energy to a company or to whatever is bringing their income, helping them carve aside that space to refill their creative cup and do that work. outside of work or alongside of work so that they are their best self in all spheres of their life.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, I really love that. think it's so hard to do when you are burnt out and when you have been, I love donating your creativity elsewhere ⁓ and you just sort of like, yeah, connecting to those little like, maybe I could try this, maybe I could try this. I know I am. ⁓ very much a person with a hobby graveyard and it's big. ⁓ But each of those like tombstones represent something that I thought could be fun and I tried and I did have fun doing it and for whatever reason, you know, stopped doing it. And maybe it was meant to be a one-time thing. Yes.
Amanda Jackson: And at any point you could go back. Yeah, but any at any point you could go back again if you if you chose to do that. That's the beauty of being a human.
Julie Laufer: Yes. Yes, exactly. Yeah. ⁓ I think that's such a good point. I often think of things so linearly. like, I played guitar in middle school and high school and then I stopped. And so I'll never play again. And then a couple of years ago, my husband got me a guitar for Christmas and I pick it up every now and then. And I usually just play acoustic versions of songs I listened to when I was in high school, like when I was in that phase I am not signing up for any open mic nights anytime soon, but it's very fun. And I got into keyboard building during the pandemic and it's like a very nerdy hobby. And I don't really feel like I need to do it again, but I had a lot of fun doing it and I have a keyboard that I built. And I think that as humans, it's just giving ourselves that permission to. follow those bursts of energy, because that's really what it is, right? It's like creative energy is kind of flowing. Mine very much peaks, and it's like I get an idea, and I go after it, and I do it, and then let it settle. And I think that's very important.
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, think as a former gifted kid, my threshold for what constitutes failure is very low. So if I pick something up and start doing it and then make the conscious choice to put it down, that may constitute a failure for me. If I put it on a list somewhere or set it as a goal or some arbitrary metric, whereas in this season of my life, I've started to
Julie Laufer: Hmm.
Amanda Jackson: understand and accept kind of what you were talking about, the ebb and flow of energy, because we all have limited time and capacity. And in some seasons, my practice of going to the gym is going to be more frequent, and that will give me life, and that will be great. But then at certain points, we're going to lay that aside and spend more time on a different hobby or... we will acknowledge that we have just generally limited capacity right now. And if we don't have time for anything creative or generative that we're being intentional about, that's okay because that means it's a restorative and a restorative season of repair. ⁓ And I think as anyone who knows that they are creative and is intentional about that will have work to do around acceptance and grace with themselves of some seasons I have a lot of capacity to do multiple different hobbies or give my full self to everything and then in some seasons I will have very little capacity and that is part of the creative ebb and flow.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I do think that I've definitely learned that starting to give myself more grease around that, especially when I look at you and I both live in places with seasons, right? Like with weather seasons. And this winter particularly was one of the worst winters I've experienced in my life. I know you and I talked about this. ⁓ And that was a season where I Yeah, there was no creative energy available to tap into. And I kind of knuckled through a little bit and was like, I'm just going to get like an essay up a month and that's going to be the goal. you know, it's way less than I usually do, but we're going to do it. And I signed up for a half marathon that required winter training, which honestly, it's kind of a saving grace that I did that because I don't know if I would have moved my body at all. ⁓ But yeah, it's about, you know. having all these different things we want to go after and knowing what's for now, what's for not now, what we're going to put down temporarily and not bury it, not call it a failure, but pick it back up when we're ready. And that just feels like a lifelong lesson. It feels like something that I don't know if any of us will ever be perfect at, but it's like continuous cycle of learning and observing
Amanda Jackson: 100%.
Julie Laufer: One thing that you said at the beginning of this interview, ⁓ I you touched on it in ⁓ places, is like, ⁓ in this season of life of experimenting, but you're also in this season of, it's a little bit of a hard pivot, like reaching out to people, letting yourself, wait for the answer, coupled with what you've called a superpower of vulnerability and being honest. And we'd love to hear how that has shaped how you show up in all of these spaces, with all these people that you surround yourself with, ⁓ and what that feels like.
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, I have what I think some people might call a tendency to overshare and that has become a gift because I accepted it and acknowledged it and have found in spaces like book clubs or one-off conversations with strangers or even in a professional context that sharing what I honestly think or feel or how I see the world invites that from other people. When they see somebody else doing that, they feel a little bit more open to share and have that free exchange of conversation. And that could be really cringe, right? Sharing what you honestly think or feel. Again, just going back to that idea of, oh my gosh, perception is a really scary thing. I have come to a place of owning that that is something that I'm good at and I can model for other people. On the reach out front, I am very much still learning and honing that skill and figuring out what it looks like to, and how much capacity I have for it, I will say. ⁓ I wish that I felt like I had this high volume of capacity to reach out to people constantly and show up, but I... Even just sending one email to somebody that I've never met before takes a lot of energy because I refine it very closely and I have a very close eye on those things. I'm sure that plenty of folks are able to scale it up. Maybe they're using a combination of AI tools, which I would not personally use for these bold reach outs, but I'm sure folks have different ways of doing that more rapidly. But I will put an hour of time on my calendar. I'm like, this is a pitch time. And I'll go into it thinking, ⁓ it'll take me 20 minutes each, and I can send out three. And I'll spend the whole hour on one because I'm putting so much time and energy into personalizing the message and doing my research or carefully keeping an eye on what I'm sending. But also, it takes a high volume of energy. While I am skilled at that vulnerability, I also know that it can take a lot out of me. And that means that this season of experimentation is not high volume and it's not high scale, but it is, it does feel wild and it does feel playful and it does feel expansive in different ways because anytime you say yes, ⁓ it is vulnerable and.
Julie Laufer: Mm. Yeah.
Amanda Jackson: And that makes it meaningful. And my hope, the gamble that I'm taking in this season is that those qualities are going to lead me into the right conversations and connect me to the right people.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, that's so, it's hard to do. I've been sitting on an email to somebody for three days that I want on the podcast. by the time I get this out, I'm going to commit to have reached out to them. That's, I'm going to say that now with you as my witness. But it's hard. It's hard to like put yourself out there and package it well. And for me, it's like, Hey, do you want to come on my podcast about being embarrassing? Like, I don't know how else to say that. So I'm trying to massage it and be like, it's so cool that you're doing this. But yeah, I very much understand ⁓ taking gamble and letting take those risks and knowing that ⁓ it's hard, but doing it I see a lot of people being like, yeah, I'm reaching out to all these people and it's hard. And like sometimes people don't answer and it's exhausting and it takes a lot of my energy and it's not just shooting off five emails a day. I think there's a lot of truth to fact that it is draining, it is time consuming. another that you said that, ⁓ this energy of like ⁓ the superpower you have of being honest and getting people to want to share their vulnerability, like that's ⁓ that's really, ⁓ important to have in this world and I've met people like you and I very much feed off of that energy because I can be more closed and I tend to not, I don't tell unless I'm asked and I'm working on that but it's like, hey, how are you doing? And I'm very much like, ⁓ fine. I don't offer up a lot unless somebody asks me about it directly. so like that sort of oversharing energy, I very much feed off of but I also acknowledge that like ⁓ that is a, you're giving, you're giving a lot of yourself in that, right? and then, the other person in this example, me, it's like taking from that. So there is this like, yes, powerful, but also a need to recharge and sort of ⁓ get back to yourself a little bit.
Amanda Jackson: Absolutely.
Julie Laufer: Yeah. How do you recharge? Like, what's your...
Amanda Jackson: I, ⁓ so I've talked about this on sub stock before, but I'm an Enneagram 3. Are you familiar with the Enneagram at all? Yeah.
Julie Laufer: I am. I actually like, I'm very into that type of stuff. The Enneagram is very hard for me to grasp. Like I'm very into like Myers-Briggs and astrology and human design, which is very complicated, but Enneagram is difficult for me. I think I'm a nine or a seven. I don't have, you know.
Amanda Jackson: Okay. Okay. I try not to type other people, so I will not comment, but I am an Enneagram three, which is like the achiever, and my husband is an Enneagram nine. And for anyone listening who understands the Enneagram, I'll just say preface with that. But in other terms, I historically have filled my schedule to the brim and will not slow down and will commit to too many things. And my husband,
Julie Laufer: There, fine.
Amanda Jackson: is more, we'll say he's more naturally gifted at taking time to rest and knowing what that looks like for himself. So over the past five years that we've been married, I have gotten a lot better at building rhythms of rest into my life. I would say like sort of in a general self-care sense, ⁓ I recharge. Like we have a rhythm of like, this is our time on the couch that we're, we'll usually pop on a TV show. ⁓ And from season to season, it kind of differs. Like sometimes my recharge will be, ⁓ I'll read. And so I'm consuming something and, or like taking something in. But then I also love, for the last, I think year and a half crochet has been the way that I, can do something with my hands and it's, it's. me generating something and I love the very slow process of it. just resets kind of my brain and body. ⁓ And then recently over the past couple of weeks, ⁓ my little crochet bag that has sat on the couch has been replaced with my sketchbook. And so in this moment, ⁓ that even though there is a, I'm doing something and there is work to it, there is... and exploratory energy to it, that does feel like a recharge to me in this season. And so I love the, I try to be attuned to the ebb and the flow of seasons where different things can recharge me in different ways. ⁓ It is very, it's very natural for me to assume that recharging needs to look like doing something. I'm trying to expand my practice of spending time, maybe it's 30 seconds, maybe it's five minutes, just sitting. just doing nothing, looking at the ceiling, looking at the wall. ⁓ I think the kids have a term for that that I won't say on the podcast that's kind of goofy. But that has existed long before TikTok, so we don't even need to go there. ⁓ But it is really important, I think, to work on practicing doing nothing. And also, I think I can treat doing, like,
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. You
Amanda Jackson: I know that as a woman in her 30s, if I sit there and do nothing long enough, I'm gonna fall asleep. That's what's gonna happen. And in my brain, I have this little broken loop that says, well, if I fall asleep, I did nothing wrong, which is just insane, just so, so incredibly silly. But I am working on allowing myself to do nothing as a form of recharging.
Julie Laufer: You That's the Achiever.
Amanda Jackson: as well as having activities that I love and enjoy spending time on.
Julie Laufer: of that. I love that. It's so funny. feel like I have like the sort of the back half of the story I have a very similar relationship to, but I'm historically very good at doing nothing and can do nothing for a long time. And so I feel like I've sort of worked on the other side of that of like, okay, how do I not do nothing for so long that, and this is something that I think really came to fruition during the pandemic. It's like, I've been on the couch for a week. Like, how do we balance the doing nothing with doing things I do enjoy letting myself recharge, but also so funny. It's almost like I conditioned myself to be like doing nothing is bad and so therefore I must like chase ⁓ being an achiever, even though that's not who I am. I've always looked up to those It's like, wow, you can just like go, go, go. ⁓ I want to be like that. How do I get more of that? So I've sort of tried to, on the other side of it, have this baseline of doing nothing, try to fill my day with all these things because it looks productive or whatnot and I'm returning to doing nothing. ⁓ And for me, nothing is very much an activity. When my mom tells this story, I don't remember it, but when I was a kid, she would walk by my room and I'd be laying on the bench like, what are you doing? Like nothing. and she'd like, do something. I'm like, no, the activity is nothing. And I felt that way in my college days and 20s. Like, ⁓ what are you doing today? Like, ⁓ I'm doing nothing. Like, ⁓ great, do you want to come? No, I'm doing nothing. I don't want to go to the bar. My plan is to do nothing tonight. I will see you tomorrow or whatever. And it's all a balance. It's all song and dance.
Amanda Jackson: I admire that so much and I need to channel Baby Julie. I need to learn from her.
Julie Laufer: Slang in my bed. Toys galore around me. Like Game Boy in the corner, looking up at the ceiling.
Amanda Jackson: My husband likes to joke about, but this is real. When I was in elementary school, like on the last day of school before Christmas break, so it was in this liminal space where I had no homework for this brief moment of time, and it was before, you know, I had all of Christmas break spread out in front of me. I would take all of my, I had to. beanie babies in a shoe hanging thing on the back of my closet door. And I would take them all out and I would put them all on my bed and I would just like, sounds so funny, I was eight, I would roll around until the beanie babies all fell on the floor. And that was my activity that I could only do when I had no homework, I had nothing going on. And I love that precious instinct in me and also, what has carried over to adulthood is sometimes this all or nothing feeling that I can only be at rest when I have nothing on my plate. And that's never going to happen. And so if I think about rest that way, I will never truly rest. And so that's part of the work too, is giving myself space to do nothing or do something joyful, even when the slate is not clean, we'll say.
Julie Laufer: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's literally like, I had this moment, I feel like it was a year ago at this point where I was just like, I'm never gonna have, my to-do list will never be empty because unless I like become a nudist, there will always be laundry to do, there will always be like a dust bunny in the corner. And I first, like it kind of like hit me really hard and I was like, that sucks. And then I was like, not. Like, no, that's okay. Like, that's a sign of like life moving on and, how do you find joy despite always have something to do? And I think that is such an important ⁓ just way of putting it. I think it's so to see someone living their lives. ⁓ doing their things, putting themselves out there, et cetera, and be like, I wish I could be like that. I wish I had that quality. So what would you say to somebody who's listening to this, who's like, man, Amanda's got it figured out?
Amanda Jackson: ⁓ I would say one, no she does not. She is very much on a messy little liminal journey. So I would just reset expectations in that regard. But you mentioned my healthy jealous interview series earlier and that's kind of what I'll go back to here, ⁓ which is a practice I sort of cobbled together a few months ago. after noticing that there were a lot of people on my LinkedIn feed that I kept, their content would come up and I would feel that little green ball of envy in my stomach saying I wish I had done that or I wish I were doing that. ⁓ over time, by default practice in those moments has been to say, to get really clear on what is it that they're doing or that they have that I'm jealous of? Is it like the branding on their website? Is it that I like that the services that they offer are really repeatable and they're not customizing everything they do for everybody. Is it that I just think they're funny? And so I try to get really clear about what it is that I feel jealous of. And then the next step is what am I gonna do about it? Is it feasible for me to try to replicate it? ⁓ Am I jealous that they're a digital nomad and that's not really feasible for me in this season of life where I am rooted in one location? ⁓
Julie Laufer: Mm.
Amanda Jackson: Is there something that I would gain from sitting down with them and scheduling coffee or ⁓ just sending them a message to say, hey, I think you're doing cool things. ⁓ And so for me, what that has done is take an abstract pejorative gross feeling emotion and turn it into something more specific and actionable. And from there, can turn ⁓ like that feeling of comparison or negativity and I can turn it into connection and inspiration. And so if you are listening to this conversation and anything jumps out or you have this general feeling of, if anything that I've said stands out as something that you would like to replicate or emulate, sit with what it is that makes you feel that way. And my DMs and my... My online presence is always open. I'd love to talk more if that is what you come to as your action step. get specific about, whether it's me or somebody else, get specific about what is raising that feeling in you ⁓ and do something about it.
Julie Laufer: I love that. I think that is, it's such a good reframe, right? This idea of your term, being healthy, jealous. It's like, yes, there's this feeling of envy, gosh, I want to do that. And I felt that so many times throughout my life. And I just, I let it pass. I'm like, ugh, they've got it all done. ⁓ Good for them. ⁓ turning, what we of as an unhealthy emotion and being like, hey, here are the actual steps that I can take to figure out what it is. Because the key is really examining it under the microscope and being like, what am I actually, ⁓ what am drawn to? What is the thing? It makes it so that you can actually do something about it, right? I feel like I've often shoved those feelings down because I feel like guilty for having them where they feel dirty and there's a lot of power in looking at that and being like, this is happening. Why? What is it? Let's go. I think I'm going to adopt that
Amanda Jackson: I can't wait to see what happens.
Julie Laufer: Yes. Amanda, this was such a good conversation. I just know you and I could keep talking forever and ever. But I really want to thank you for coming onto the podcast, being so open, sharing your gift of vulnerability with all of us. ⁓ ⁓ would love for everyone listening to keep in touch with you and know where to find you. So what are some good places online to find you?
Amanda Jackson: Yeah, the two best ones LinkedIn ⁓ Substack. So LinkedIn is ⁓ a lot of my original research stuff and thoughts lives. ⁓ And then ⁓ is a little bit more of the creative play space. It's where I talk about the liminal season of my career and also just falling back in love with life. ⁓ So Mandaroo Stack over on Substack ⁓ and Jackson on LinkedIn.
Julie Laufer: Perfect, and I will link those in the show notes for everybody so that you can find them. And I will also do my due diligence to find that Disney Channel original movie podcast. And hopefully it's there too. Time will tell. Amanda, thank you. Yes, yes, exactly. And if that's not the ethos of this podcast, I don't know what is. And I think, yeah, like that feeling of cringe is kind of what.
Amanda Jackson: And you can all enjoy my secondhand cringe.
Julie Laufer: moving beyond, like it's almost like the other side of that healthy, jealous feeling. It's like if I can get past that and I can just do it, then maybe someone will think I'm cringe and maybe that's the gift.
Amanda Jackson: I think so.
Julie Laufer: Yeah, Amanda, thank you so much. This was such a lovely conversation. And of course,
Amanda Jackson: Thank you for having me.
