3 Questions to Break Through Fear! with Amy E. Smith

My guest is Amy E. Smith. Amy is the owner and founder of Joy Junkie Enterprises. 

She hangs out at her site, the Joyjunkie.com. She’s also the creator of the Joy Junkie Show.  It’s a popular weekly podcast designed to go after issues of worthiness, self-confidence, and letting go of that people pleasing to assist her listeners in creating and living radically, joyful lives. How awesome is that?

Listen To The Podcast:

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Grab Amy’s FREE eWorkbook, “Stand up for Yourself without Being a Dick!” http://thejoyjunkie.com/free  

Twitter: @thejoyjunkie

TRANSCRIPT: 

Mitch Matthews: Amy uses her roles as a coach, a writer, a podcaster, and a speaker to move individuals beyond those limiting beliefs and sabotaging mindsets to a place of, listen to this, I love this, radical personal empowerment and self love. I’d say the world needs a lot more of that. Amy’s been instrumental in aiding countless women especially, but I’m guessing she’s helped a whole lot of men too, in stepping into their authentic power and craft lives they actually want.

Amy is making a big impact, and it’s just about dang time to have her on the show. So let’s do this. 

Amy, welcome to DREAM THINK DO.

Amy Smith: Well, I sound really fancy when you read it.

Mitch Matthews: I always say a good intro is my gift to my guests. You deserve a good intro, plus you’re-

Amy Smith: Are you available for voiceover work because that’s-

Mitch Matthews: I do have a face for radio, I’ll admit. I love it. All right, so for you guys who can’t see her, we’ll put some of the video up online and all that stuff. But she’s got these awesome, awesome glasses. She’s wearing a cool hat, the whole thing. She is a bold statement in and of herself. You got to go check out The Joyjunkie.com, all of that.

Amy, obviously you’re living this, you are helping people move past these limiting beliefs, kind of the self-sabotaging mindsets. You’re living who you are boldly, which I just want to honor. I just think it’s so cool.

Amy Smith: Thank you.

Mitch Matthews: I’m guessing for someone like yourself, I’m guessing you’ve had to fight for that. Has this always been easy for you to live it as well as help others or is this something you’ve had to fight for?

Amy Smith: Well, I pretty much came out of the womb speaking like Tony Robbins and dressing like Sophia Lauren, so, no, I’ve always had it. 

Mitch Matthews: I’m here.

Amy Smith: No, oh, quite the sordid tale of that. No. I think that is… I’m sure you can relate that sometimes the hardest things that we go through are in service of the mission and what we need to actually get out in the world, and we needed to learn those lessons in order to really be a viable voice for people to go, “Oh, I think she might be onto something here.” 

So, yeah, I grew up in an extremely conservative born again Christian family… very, very dogmatic. It’s interesting even now for you and I to discuss faith kind of behind the scenes. It wasn’t even until the last decade I’d say where I started to meet people of faith that were identified as Christians that I’m like, “That’s not how I was raised.”

Mitch Matthews: Right.

Amy Smith: I’m like, “You’re cool. You’re allowed to have an alcoholic beverage?” 

Mitch Matthews: You’re actually it seems like enjoying life and happy.

Amy Smith: Yeah, exactly. I had a really tough time even saying the word God for a long time because I was quite scathed by my upbringing.  My father was actually an incredible human, and he had both a master’s in divinity and a doctorate in ministry, so he was not messing around.

Mitch Matthews: Right. Exactly. He paid for that.

Amy Smith: He did. He did. He has since passed on. He passed away in 2007, which really was perhaps the impetus for the direction that I ended up taking in my career. At the time I had been studying personal development and started to get my feet wet. It was kind of when The Secret came out, you might remember, [crosstalk 00:06:46]. It was like, “Woh, manifestation!” And I thought, “Ooh, I can sink my teeth into this.”

Mitch Matthews: I’m down on that, yeah.

Amy Smith: Right. [crosstalk 00:06:54]

Mitch Matthews: Thank you very much.

Amy Smith: Yep exactly. Dial it in. And just a little context prior to that, by all intensive purposes I was the “good kid”. I was the one who was working since she was 14 and put myself through college and juxtaposed between two younger siblings who both did jail time, had trouble with drugs and didn’t go to school… sort of the classic tale, right?

Mitch Matthews: Yeah, right.

Amy Smith: So keep that in the corner of your mind. So we get to my dad’s service and I have a history… my first big girl job was in makeup artistry… shocker. And so I felt very strongly that if my father was going to have an open viewing, an open casket, that I was going to do the makeup for it.

Mitch Matthews: Wow. 

Amy Smith: So yes, everyone, you’ve heard that right. I did mortuary makeup on my father’s corpse. 

Mitch Matthews: Wow.

Amy Smith: Yeah, talk about [crosstalk 00:07:58].

Mitch Matthews: That’s a whole conversation in and of itself because I’m guessing that’s just something you felt led to to.

Amy Smith: Oh yeah. 

Mitch Matthews: But that’s amazing. What a [crosstalk 00:08:08].

Amy Smith: I felt like if I had this skillset… like, “Oh no, Dad. Get another makeup artist.” I felt like that was a really rude thing to so. I’m like, no this is something I need to do. Plus, I spoke at the service to a crowd of hundreds. He had an incredible life story. That’s a whole separate situation.

Mitch Matthews: Yeah.

Amy Smith: But I knew very strongly that those two things were going to be pivotal in that day so let’s just say I felt like I was winning at daughter that day.

Mitch Matthews: Yeah, right! Yeah. Come on! If we’re keeping score here, you are winning! Yeah.

Amy Smith: And some bonus points, I’d say. So and I do also have to say that there was a lot of laying the hands on and a lot of prayer and a lot of things that I felt like I was folded into this faith that I didn’t… It wasn’t supporting me in the way that it was supporting other people. And so I felt very like an imposter, really… like this is not who I am. I felt very out of touch and out of place. So we get back to my mom’s home that day and she finds that the most opportune time to let me know that it feels like my father and her have failed as parents because the three of us are not “walking with the Lord.” 

And the only thing that I could really muster in that moment was, “Mmm, this is a teaching moment.” So I said, “You probably shouldn’t say that to a child.” And she said, “Well, that’s just how I feel.” And that was incredibly difficult for me to handle… again, thinking about, wait a minute. I was the good kid. I had been working. [crosstalk 00:09:54] I just put makeup on my dad’s dead body. Like I’m winning and yet you’re not enough. You’re not enough because you don’t fit this criteria and that was a really pivotal moment for me, Mitch… really, where I went there are going to be these moments in my life and it’s not always this hyperbolic, but there are moments where if I choose, I get to decide, do I make you happy or do I make me happy? And sometimes it’s that extreme. And I thought in that moment, all right if push is going to come to shove, I choose me. I choose me, and up until that point I had told my husband, “Okay, we’re going to my mom’s house. Same thing that you had shared with me anecdotally about your family. Here’s what we don’t talk about. We don’t talk about Jon Steward. We don’t talk about abortion. We don’t talk about South Park. We do not cuss. Don’t drink… all of it.” 

Mitch Matthews: That’s right.

Amy Smith: And I went, “My God, I’m cowering. I’m creating this subconscious message over and over again that somebody else’s wants, opinions, needs beliefs are more important than mine.” So I need to cower. I need to twist and contort and that really was the beginning, the genesis of the work that I do. Let me tell you it got really sticky because the first iteration after that was all out assault. It was full combativeness. I was adversarial. I’m like, “Let’s talk about all the things we don’t agree on.” 

Mitch Matthews: Exactly, we opened the door, so I am going through it. Exactly. [crosstalk 00:11:35] That’s right. “And I’ve been thinking this for years! Let’s do this!” Well that’s what I wondered too because with you… what I love about your stuff is you are obviously helping people to boundary… get that clarity, boundary, take a stand for themselves, but at the same time not being a jerk about it. You really have… so I wondered if the pendulum was over here and then it swung way over there and then you found this way to find you in that middle so that you really can stand up for yourself, to be yourself fully… at the same time, not be a jerk to the world about it.

Amy Smith: Well it really went through this season and time where I felt that I needed to fight for my belief and I had to do it in that really combative way. And there were many, many fights, and it was also compounded by the fact that my mom had now lost her partner of 30 years and was looking for who’s the next support? And there was a lot of turning to me for social life, turning to me for all of the things. I’m going, “I lost him too and I also have my family that I need to take care of.” So there was a lot of stuff, right? And I often like to say, “Life coaching, because who doesn’t have mom issues?” 

So yeah.

Mitch Matthews: Please buy that domain name, right?

Amy Smith: So yeah, it took me many, many years and what really got cultivated was two things, it was the actual cadence and rhythm of speaking to somebody who I did not agree with on many fronts and actually delivering it without bite and that acerbic tone and having a real understanding that my voice mattered, what I believed mattered. My wants and needs and opinions mattered. And no one else was going to stand up for that except me, and a lot of times I think very disproportionately for women versus men, we think, “Okay if I’m going to get my way, I need to be masculine. I need to be really abrupt and aggressive.” Obviously I use a lot of other terms for that. But we get this idea that it’s one or the other. It’s either we’re really strong and really aggressive or we’re subservient and we’re passive and we sweep everything under the rug and there really is this hybrid. 

You can ask for a divorce with the utmost love and compassion. You can ask your children to move out of the house with the utmost empathy and kindness. You can tell your relatives that you don’t believe in the same religion that you were raised in or that you have political opposition and do it with the most kind, respectful cadence rhythm in your voice. So now that has really become the bulk of what I do. It’s twofold. It’s the inner peace of, I matter. My voice matters. I actually believe in my own intrinsic worth and then what does that sound like? What does that actually look like to be vocal? To tell somebody, “Please don’t rub my pregnant belly. I find that really offensive.” 

Mitch Matthews: That’s exactly right. “You didn’t put it there, so you don’t get to touch it!”

Amy Smith: Yeah, should we talk about your reproductive organs while we’re at it? Rude. Rude.

Mitch Matthews: I love it. I love it. Well you mentioned imposter syndrome and I really want to go after that with you, but I also… I want to spend just more time here because I think what you’re talking about is gold because I do think that there is a journey to this. You do want more and more people to actually get clear on who they are, what they were put on the planet to do, be able to do that with boldness, but at the same time, I do think… oftentimes it seems like there’s a journey that people go on and it’s that pendulum. It’s a little bit of the “I don’t know”, or “I’m getting beat down so I’ve lost it”, to then the, “I really know and I’m going to be in your face.” And then being able to help them swing back to be able to say, “All right. Be comfortable in that. Be joy filled in that, but you don’t necessarily have to be a jerk about it.”

Amy Smith: Right.

Mitch Matthews: So when you help people through that process, what would you say are a couple of things that you coach them on to help bind that ability to relay your feelings… to boundary what your standing in, but at the same time maybe not be a jerk about it?

Amy Smith: Yeah, well the first item of business that I usually tell people to do is to take an inventory of the things that you chronically complain about or whom you chronically complain about because most of the time, if you are really upset with your spouse, your business partner gets an earful. If you are really upset with your mother-in-law or with your mom, your partner gets an earful. So a lot of times we are very clear about where we need to speak up, where we need to establish a boundary, but we are paralyzed by fear of the actual interaction and we also think that it means something about us. “If I speak up then I am deliberately inflicting pain.” Or “I am purposely hurting somebody.” And really what that is is we’re taking responsibility for other people’s feelings. But we’re told all the time, we have all sorts of rules for… or phrases for it. Don’t rock the boat. Sweep it under the rug. Don’t open up a can of worms. We have a lot of ways to say, “Shut up.”

Mitch Matthews: Yeah, right.

Amy Smith: And it’s social niceties. It’s being polite about things and I think that it’s time for us to value who we are as much as we value our receptivity. So one of the other things that I introduce to people is this idea that you are responsible for your intention, not hour reception. 

Mitch Matthews: I like that.

Amy Smith: So we walk around thinking, “I must be valuable if my in-laws like me. I must be worthy if my business partner thinks that I have a lot of business acumen. I must be valuable if I own this property.” So we invest all of our worth in these things that are outside of ourselves and then we negate who we are being and we just tally everything in the external. We do that with people’s opinions and that radically affects our self worth, which then affects, what do we go after? I was just talking to somebody the other day who has an un… she has a dream in molecular biology or something like that and she’s working retail because she feels like an imposter. She is so paralyzed and afraid of, “What if… what if people don’t think I’m smart enough? What if I’m actually not? What if I get the job and then can’t perform?” And so-

Mitch Matthews: Yeah, what if I get called out? Yeah.

Amy Smith: That’s self worth. All of that is enough-ness. That’s an inside job. 

Mitch Matthews: Yep.

Amy Smith: Yeah.

Mitch Matthews: That’s huge.

Amy Smith: I don’t know if I answered your question correctly.

Mitch Matthews: Well yeah, no. I love that. So I’ll reflect back and see, but I love that from the standpoint of, if I’m understanding what you’re saying, in some ways to take an inventory of some of the conversations you’re needing to have, think through, “Who am I complaining about and who am I complaining to?” To be able to say, “All right, who is it that just really is getting under my skin? Who is pinging me, pushing all the buttons?” All of that to be able to say, “Okay that person is… there’s a very good chance you need to have that conversation with that person.” Then be able to get clear on where is it you need to take a stand? Is it boundaries? Is it to be able speak to something you believe in? All those… standing up for yourself, but I love the phrase, “Let’s be responsible for our intention, not our reception.” So I’m sure you still have to be real careful with that because if I go in guns ablazing-

Amy Smith: Right.

Mitch Matthews: Or that comes back to, “All right, is my intention truly to get clarity? Is my intention truly to have breakthrough or is my intention to bust this person up hardcore?” So it’s that whole thing of being able to [inaudible 00:19:57] to yourself with the attention, but then to go in and say, “All right, before I do that, I do need to do some assessment and say okay self worth, where am I at? Am I doing this out of fear? Am I doing this out of jealousy? Am I doing this because I need to take a stand?” So is that about right?

Amy Smith: Yeah. You’re really spot on with this because I think we… if we really take it down to a primitive response, we have fight, flight, and freeze. We’ve got, “I’m either going to be extremely combative,” or “I’m going to hide out and not say anything.” And you see it a lot of times in couples. There’s usually one [inaudible 00:20:32] who’s a little more demonstrative and one who’s a little bit more reclusive. You really have to understand that if you are constantly silencing yourself or you’re constantly being combative, you’re not actually getting what you want. But I think we have to truly understand that we’re wired that way and we’re wired that way for survival, so just because you’ve been adversarial or just because you’ve been a little more snippy or biting, you have done that throughout your life because that was the way to get things done. That was how you learned to survive.

Mitch Matthews: Yep.

Amy Smith: And conversely if you learn to hide out or to be quiet or to silence yourself, that’s what you learned as a tool. And it’s also not effective. It’s not getting you where you want to go. It’s not allowing that dream to come to fruition. So we need a different set of skills. We need a different set of tools here. 

Mitch Matthews: I love that because you really are… you’re taking somebody from survival, right… so they’ve figured out the survival tactics to say, “All right, you’ve used it to survive, but not thrive.” But to be able to say, “All right, if we want to thrive, we’ve got to move past those things we did to either go passive or go animalistic.” To be able to say, “All right, let’s find a better way.” So I love that. What I see with your work is you’re actually doing it too. That’s a big thing. Obviously you started with yourself and I think that that’s critical.

Now we brushed up against it, and I know this is a passion area for you, but we’ve brushed up against it even a couple of times now and I really want to dive into the subject of the imposter syndrome with you.

Amy Smith: Yeah.

Mitch Matthews: Because this is something that’s big. The research that I’ve done and I know you’ve spent a ton of time in this, but fascinating to me in that, from what I understand about the imposter syndrome, it is something that actually affects people that are more successful. Imposter syndrome doesn’t really affect people that are just living lives, kind of checked out, all of that. Obviously it can have an impact in everybody, but it’s more prevalent in people that are successful or who are growing or who are stretching and all of those things. So I want to really get your take on this because we got a lot of DREAM, THINK, DOERS who are, they’re going for it. They’re taking steps. They’re breaking through comfort zones, but then they get nailed by imposter syndrome and they’ve either never experienced it before or it’s hitting them at new levels.

So let’s go after this. Let’s [crosstalk 00:23:03]. So how do you describe to someone the imposter syndrome? And maybe even a better way to say it is, how do you help someone know that’s what they’re experiencing?

Amy Smith: Yeah, it’s usually a slew of excuses that don’t matter. It’s the… that’s a great play. That’s an entry point of, “Yeah, but I just don’t know because of where my kid is in school.” And we know very well your kid’s doing fine. It would rather you not show up to the events. 

Mitch Matthews: Right, right. Exactly.

Amy Smith: And so it’s when you’re leaning into the excuse that’s not really viable and as a coach, I’m sure you have this as well where you can hear it. You can hear where they want permission to quit… where they want that ally to say, “You know what? Go ahead and throw in the towel.” But the deal with imposter syndrome and you’re absolutely right about it affecting people who are highly successful, it has nothing to do with what you actually are doing or creating in the world. It’s about how you feel doing those things.

Mitch Matthews: Yep.

Amy Smith: It’s that when you go to do the speech, you do the speech. You might even kill it, but you are talking such mad crap to yourself the entire time. It’s that the success isn’t as enjoyable. It’s that you aren’t relishing the accomplishments. So I think it’s a mindset more than anything else. So I think one of the easiest tools to attack this is a series of three questions that you can ask yourself.

Mitch Matthews: I love questions. Let’s do it.

Amy Smith: I love a good format. It’s just how my brain works.

Mitch Matthews: Right. Oh me too. Absolutely. I love it.

Amy Smith: Well especially when we have personal development that’s so like, “Just believe in yourself.” Awesome, I’ll get right on that. How? 

Mitch Matthews: That’s right. It’s, “For that very reason, we’re talking here. Give me something!” Yes, exactly.

Amy Smith: So three steps… if you notice that you’re going into the place of, “They’re going to find me out. I’m not as qualified as they think that I am or I know that I always stumble over my words.” Or where your focus is acutely on the shortcomings, the things that you don’t want to come to fruition. You don’t want to be found out. You don’t want to be called out. So going into a place, when you notice that, going into this place, first question is what are the facts? The facts are, I have a presentation. I am talking as an investment banker. I am looking at an acquisition. I am writing a book. I am putting in a proposal, whatever. What are the facts? Because most of time we take the facts and then we go, “Ah!” We make this huge story about all of a sudden, I’m not enough and I’m destitute and I’m on the street.

Mitch Matthews: Oh I can be in an alley and in a cardboard box in like six seconds which is hilarious because I live in Iowa and there’s only two alleys, but seriously my brain is amazingly creative. Yes.

Amy Smith: Yeah. So first question, what are the facts? Second question, what am I making up?

Mitch Matthews: I like that.

Amy Smith: What am I making up? That is where you have to catch the story, and what we do know about how the brain functions is that we naturally want to find the answer. If we ask ourselves the question, we will supply the answer. We like to complete everything. What am I making up? So it might be, “I am making up that I am not qualified despite all of these degrees on my wall,” or despite all of this arsenal or education or experience that I have. I’m making up what those people think about me. Yeah, good luck with that mind reader. Like, wow.

Mitch Matthews: Exactly. They might be frowning at you and you’re thinking, “Oh my gosh.” Or even in your mind, you’re like, “They’re not going to like me,” but-

Amy Smith: They’re constipated.

Mitch Matthews: Exactly. They had a bad burrito last night. [crosstalk 00:26:59] What are going to do? Yeah, absolutely. I love it.

Amy Smith: So what am I making up? So you’ve got to really parse the facts from the story. What am I making up and then finally anchor in what is the truth? 

Mitch Matthews: Nice.

Amy Smith: And the truth is you are likely experiencing emotion. I think that our lives could radically change for the better, everyone, if we were taught emotional intelligence… if we were taught that feeling fear does not always means, run away. That feeling an embarrassment does not have to mean that you are a failure. It just means that it is messaging. It is information coming to you for your benefit. “Okay, cool. I’m experiencing fear. What is the truth? The truth is I am totally qualified. The truth is I am completely prepared for this. The truth is I am terrified.” Is that a human response? Yes. Can I grapple with fear? I call it becoming fear optimized instead of fearless… to make fear as useful and as effective as possible. There is only one documented case that I know of of somebody who existed without a fear response and it’s terrifying because she was just like walk into-

Mitch Matthews: I was just going to say, were they clinically insane? Like that is crazy.

Amy Smith: They chronicled it on NPR. It was a really, really fascinating… I think on a hidden brain episode, but she would just walk into traffic. There was just no concern. There was just no fear response. So unless you are her listening, you are going to be dealing with fear. So the idea is fear is just saying, this is unknown. It’s not saying necessarily that this is dangerous. It is saying that this is a territory that we have not computed as of yet. What do we have to do in order to make it compute? We have to do it with repetition over and over again. So when you know that you can go, “Oh.” Talking to your body, I used to do that all the time when I would do community theater and I would get so nervous before I’d go for an audition, and I would just talk to my body like, “Oh sweet pea. You think we’re going to get attacked by a lion. How cute. You are preparing.”

Mitch Matthews: You’re adorable.

Amy Smith: “Oh I love you. Guess what? We’re going to kill it. We have got this handled.” Then what’s happening? What’s happening right then is I’m occupying my mind with something other than the narrative of “What if I fall on my face? What if they don’t like me?” Making up stuff again. So what are the facts? What am I making up? And then what is the truth? And usually that truth has something to do with addressing emotions and understanding it’s just a message. What is this emotion trying to tell me?

Mitch Matthews: Yep. Absolutely.

Amy Smith: And what do I need to do about it?

Mitch Matthews: And to overcome that… to be able to identify, even speak to and then redirect that emotion and then turn it into excitement, turn it… I love that. So what are the facts? What am I making up? And I think that making up question is so… as a recovering worrier, DREAM THINK DOERS know I am a recovering worrier and we… it’s so funny because I think a lot of people that worry don’t think of themselves as creatives. They may not be in the design industry. They may not be a painter or an artist, but in order to worry, we have to be massively creative because we are painting these pictures in our head of all these things that can go terribly wrong and those become incredibly real. “Wait. What am I making up? Am I fearing what could happen?” All of those things.

But then to say, “All right. Drill down what’s the truth? And then how do I point this emotion? How do I direct this emotion?” I love that… even speaking to that emotion, saying “Thank you for being worried about lions, tigers, and bears, but that’s not this. We’re going to kill it.” So that’s huge.

Amy Smith: I’d love to share with you a little anecdote of how this shows up in relationships too. [crosstalk 00:30:53] I had a situation with my husband a few years ago. We were renovating an area in our living room prior to us moving from California to North Carolina. It was about two years ago and at the time I was doing a type of yoga in our living room and I would call them my dates with Dylan. It was this yogi I was following at the time, like an acro-yoga. So my husband had, because he was renovating part of the living room… we were doing new flooring… he had moved a bunch of stuff from the patio into the living room. He says one thing to me, Mitch. He says, “Are you still having your dates with Dylan?” Those were the facts… one phrase. So guess what I made up? He thinks I’m not taking care of my body. He’s not attracted to me. He thinks I’m gross. He thinks I’m gaining all this weight. He’s doesn’t think that’s attractive. He thinks I’m letting myself go. [inaudible 00:31:48] Story, story, story. And then what happens if we don’t acknowledge that is we start gathering evidence to support the story.

Mitch Matthews: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Amy Smith: So if we’re watching a movie and he thinks somebody is attractive and says like, “Oh wow. She looks really sharp.” Or “I like that dress.” What? Right, because I’m gathering-

Mitch Matthews: I knew it! I knew it!

Amy Smith: Yeah. And that happens in all of different scenarios where we gather evidence to support that story, but if we can shoot it down in the moment, and so that’s what I did. I said, “Babe, can I just tell you where my head went just now?” So I tell him the whole story. “Here’s what I just made up. Here’s how it landed. Here’s how it interpreted that.” Take the responsibility. And the goes, “Oh wow, hon. That is not at all what I meant. I just… I felt like a made a mess of the living room and I didn’t know if I needed to get it out so you had space to do what you do.” Here he is being totally chivalrous and kind and I’m going into this total, ridiculous story. And we do that non-stop. We do that because we communicate in different ways. We go, “Oh that look”, like you were saying. “They looked at me the wrong way.” And then we gather more evidence to support it. [crosstalk 00:32:57]

Mitch Matthews: And it happens in a nanosecond. It happens at a subconscious level so often, so unless you really are paying attention like, “What’s going on to me? Why did I get pinged like that?” That is… that’s that training the mind to be able to say, “Wait a second”, because I don’t know about you, but on a bad day, I can get pinged and be pinged the rest of the day and can’t even… at the end of the day, I’m still pinged and going, “I can’t quite remember what the trigger was.” But now, it’s like I’ve been searching for evidence all day long.

Amy Smith: Yes.

Mitch Matthews: So I think that is so, so true. So here’s… we could keep talking for an hour, may hours, so we’re going to go to a quick break, but when we come back though we’re going to ask for one last piece of wisdom because you’ve been so, so generous with us, but I want to talk about like one thing that keeps you going because I know you’re going out there dreaming big, thinking better, and doing so much of what you were put on the planet to do, so we’ll take a quick break. Then we’ll come back and go for that.

All right so we’re back. Oh my gosh! Seriously we could keep going for hours here, but let’s just talk about, what’s one thing… whether it’s a quote, just a piece of wisdom, piece of advice, something that helps you stay on track because Amy you’re obviously out there killing it… doing it with the podcast, doing it with so many different things. What’s something that helps you stay on track?

Amy Smith: There is an amazing quote by Wayne Dyer that I think brings a lot of this stuff back home. So and how is it that says, “Borrow somebody else’s words. It makes you sound smarter.”

Mitch Matthews: I like it, and if it was me, I’d say “Say it with a British accent”, because “Bloody hell, that makes you sound great.” Yeah.

Amy Smith: “Jolly good. Self worth comes from one thing.” Yeah the quote is “Self worth comes from one thing, thinking that you are worthy.” 

Mitch Matthews: Oh wow.

Amy Smith: And I would almost infuse that with believing that you are worthy. So even if we’re talking about speaking up, if we’re talking about our intention versus our reception, if we’re talking about imposter syndrome, we think that we will somehow magically get this bolt of lightening of like, “Oh now I feel worthy. Now I’m going to go after all my dreams.” And the big fallacy that no one tells us is that it’s quite simply a choice. That we can all believe that we are intrinsically valuable and worthy and then everything outside of that is just the human experience. Some things feel painful. Some things feel euphoric, but neither one of those things have to mean that you are either valuable or invaluable. The way that shows up in my life is to accept the gifts. 

So if somebody such as yourself has said such lovely things about my work or what I do, I acknowledge that that’s a gift. I get to bring that into my house and say, “Thank you. I accept that.” And I don’t need that to be worthy. They doesn’t… Okay now I’m enough. And conversely if somebody does not like who I am or thinks that I handled myself poorly, made a mistake, that will hurt. It was carry emotion, but that also doesn’t have to mean that I’m not worthy. It just means that I’m a human having a human experience.

I like to say that there’s no self worth store where you can be like, “Hmm, let me pick up some self worth.”

Mitch Matthews: That’s right… two scoops of self worth [crosstalk 00:36:23] today. Thank you so much. Yes. 

Amy Smith: And a shot of confidence.

Mitch Matthews: That’s right.

Amy Smith: Exactly. You have to decide. The opposite, the other paradigm is the chase. Okay this career will make me worthy. Being partnered will make me worthy. Having a baby will make me worthy. This house will make me worthy. People’s accolades and honors and accreditations… so we chase and how’s that working out?

Mitch Matthews: Yeah, right.

Amy Smith: What that means is we put our happiness on hold. I’ll be happy when… that’s what it means. So what if you could actually be happy now and believe in your own worth now and still have goals, but you would just like yourself while you went after them.

Mitch Matthews: Right. And actually live in that joy more often which I love. All right.

Amy Smith: Way to bring it back, Mitch.

Mitch Matthews: See I’m always on brand. I am always on brand. Hello. So Amy, how do people find out more about you? What’s the best way to track you down?

Amy Smith: Yeah, so my little corner of the internet is over at thejoyjunkie.com and junkie is J-U-N-K-I-E and I’m pretty much everywhere under that handle. I hang out mostly in Instagram and I like to mini-blog over there, but I do a weekly podcast with my husband.

Mitch Matthews: Mr. Smith.

Amy Smith: Mr. Smith. I like to say he’s the Robin to my Barry Gibb or the Robin to my Batman or the Robin to my Howard Stern. Pick a Robin.

Mitch Matthews: Exactly. I love it.

Amy Smith: So be forewarned, I’m a bit of a sailor so when you come over there, there’s lots of explicit content.

Mitch Matthews: You’re not afraid to cuss it like it’s… that is awesome. I love it. I love it. So well thank you for coming and talking with us. 

Amy Smith: Yes, I had a blast.

Mitch Matthews: You have us some [inaudible 00:38:11] stuff and I’ll look forward to having you back. Just know that we’re rooting for you and cheering for you.

Amy Smith: Likewise. Thank you.

Mitch Matthews: All right gang. DREAM THINK DOER, what did you think? I love this. I love what Amy’s up to. She is hilarious, but full of wisdom as well. Those three questions, what are the facts, what am I making up, what is the truth? Powerful stuff and I love having questions in my back pocket.  How about you? What’s something that stood out? Leave a comment below and let me know!