Amy Weatherly and Jess Johnston, I'LL BE THERE (BUT I'LL BE WEARING SWEATPANTS)

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[1:28]Amy Weatherly and Jess Johnson are co-authors of All Be There, but I'll be wearing sweatpants, finding unfiltered real-life friendships in this crazy chaotic world.

[1:37]Amy Weatherly is a Texas girl through and through, which is where she lives with her husband, three kids, and two rescue dogs, Lou, and Brewster.

[1:44]She is passionate about helping women embrace courage, confidence, and purpose for their life, and she does it with a quick wit and down to Earth since a humor.

[1:51]She is written for the Today Show, MSN.com, Good Morning America, Yahoo.com, and Love What Matters.

[1:57]Jess Johnson lives in Southern California with her husband and four kids who are the loves of her life.

[2:02]It's so funny when I read that I'm like, wow, four kids, that's a lot, but then I'm like, I have four kids.

[2:06]Anyway, her favorite thing to do is sit around a table with her best friends eating nachos and laughing until her stomach hurts.

[2:12]She is the co-author of All Be There, but I'll be wearing sweatpants and has been a tough contributor to publications, such as have posts, scary mommy, and motherly.

[2:19]And has been honored with motherly's writer of the year award.

[2:22]I wonder how you win that.

[2:24]Welcome, Amy and Jess to moms don't have time to read books to discuss I'll be there, but I'll be wearing sweatpants.

[2:31]Which by the way, I wore an honor of this episode, not that I can barely lift up my leg, but I want to thank you for having us.

[2:42]It's my pleasure.

[2:43]Okay, both of you introduced yourselves one by one, so listeners can tell who's talking when.

[2:48]I'm Amy.

[2:49]I am in Texas. I'm married with three kids.

[2:53]Do you hear noise in the background? It is them, honestly, making them.

[2:57]But I hear them and they're making cereal.

[3:01]How old are your kids?

[3:03]I've got a 10, 8 and 5, 10, 8 and 5.

[3:07]So we, you know, I write and start a sister. I'm Jess and I started a sister. I'm with you together. And that's, that's kind of it.

[3:15]Make a lot of songs. Make a lot of snacks. We're really into frozen pizzas right now. So.

[3:21]Oh, that Amy's frozen pizza.

[3:23]I didn't even mean you Amy. I mean, like the brand, but never.

[3:27]Oh, nice. I really like whole new things.

[3:30]Okay, favorite.

[3:33]Now we go out and the kids are like, well, it's not as good as Amy's pizza at home. I'm like, are you cool?

[3:37]That's amazing.

[3:38]No, it's not that terrible.

[3:40]It's not good.

[3:42]No, no, it's just like a commentary on like their taste buds at this point.

[3:46]Totally have like, you know, whatever. It's fun. You know, not exactly pizza kind of source.

[3:52]Okay, Jess, tell us a little about you too.

[3:55]I'm Jess Johnston and I live in Southern California with my husband and four kids.

[4:01]And yesterday was like all the graduations like my son graduated from junior high, which I realized is not high school, but I was still a mess.

[4:13]So my kids are 15, 13, 11 and eight. And it's just pure chaos. So this is the first day of summer. So I'm just trying to stock up on popsicles and figure out what we're going to do.

[4:26]I'm with you. I have two 15 almost 15 year olds next week. I have an eight year olds. And then I also have a seven year old.

[4:35]Yeah. Yes. We're not quite into that. We're pretty never here, but still a lot of water parks near me like 10 times.

[4:43]Like where, what are we going to do?

[4:46]Amazing. Okay. So your book.

[4:49]Let's talk about friendship. Which of you said they were having a hard time having making friends and finding keeping good friends. And that had been like an issue. And there was all this loneliness and parenting and all of that, which one of you said that.

[5:01]I know someone said that.

[5:03]Probably both of us.

[5:04]I know.

[5:05]Okay.

[5:06]About the different time of struggle with it. I feel like when Jess and I first met, I was going to a period where I really didn't have any friends. And I was.

[5:13]I lost.

[5:14]I lost friends that I thought, you know, we're going to be in it forever. And was heartbroken. But yeah, just has been through it too. I don't know.

[5:23]We both kind of been there.

[5:26]We definitely hit me. And when specifically after I had, I think all four of my kids and they were all in the little stage and life was so chaotic and crazy. And one night we put all the kids to bed.

[5:40]And we're just watching like TV. And I just started like bawling.

[5:45]Because life was so chaotic and crazy. But it was in the like quiet moments where I'm like, I'm like so lonely. And I have no idea where to even start.

[5:55]Like what am I supposed to do. Where am I supposed to find these people because I just want to friends that I could be in it with.

[6:02]But I was having a hard time imagining how to get past like the awkward first.

[6:08]And then just come in my house and sit next to my laundry pile. Like I didn't want to do the, the beginning stages. I just wanted to have the people already.

[6:17]So I remember when I had my twins. I feel like I was one of the first of my friends here in New York City to have kids and certainly two of them at once.

[6:26]And I remember one time like my mom and I were leaving the park. And I had said like I haven't been able to find really any friends with kids my same age, except for like this one baby playground.

[6:34]And there was like this little group of moms with their kids like huddled on a bench. And my mother was like, go over there.

[6:40]And I'm like, I'm like, I cannot introduce myself to random people. You know, just because, you know, like there.

[6:46]So anyway, so I didn't, but I know that feeling because I was like, why don't I wish I had like a best friend or sister somebody I could call is like going through this right now.

[6:56]But I didn't. So anyway, so you two started a whole movement around this basically.

[7:02]Yeah, we kind of did that's it just we just we met on the internet and we got to, you know, we kind of went to like first base sending like Instagram us just back and forth.

[7:14]And then second base kind of went to actually talking on the phone. And while we were talking on the phone. That's what we just realized is people are dealing with this and nobody's really talking about it in a deep way.

[7:27]Nobody's saying like my thing is I probably talk way too much. And I say, I just blur like I can't steer the story on here, but I just like blurred out stuff and like make jokes that are unbelievably inappropriate.

[7:42]And I like, I always go back and like, why did you do that. Amy, why did you do that. Why did you do that.

[7:46]So I don't have a problem making friends, but it felt like keeping friends was where I struggled like man, why do they get so why did they get tired of me, why am I all in and they're like fine.

[7:58]Was this was this actually true or did you just like worry that they didn't want to be with you like, is it confirmed.

[8:05]You know, because there's also this whole level of like, Oh, they must not want to hang out with me.

[8:09]I have a tendency to.

[8:11]Okay, I don't know if this is normal or not. I don't know which one is normal.

[8:15]I feel like the healthy thing to do is assume people like you and tell they prove otherwise right like you assume that they like you, unless they do something that should show you that they in fact do not.

[8:27]I am the opposite.

[8:28]I didn't.

[8:29]Nobody likes me ever.

[8:31]They have to prove to me that they like me, which is probably very unhealthy and something I should talk to my therapist about.

[8:38]Somebody's a combination of both, but you know, I had lost friends. We've been really good friends for about a year and then it just ended like I, you know, I saw on social media them all hanging out without me.

[8:50]And you know that that text to come across like love when all the girls get together and sitting at home with being like that.

[8:56]But wait, wait, hang on, but I am one of the girls.

[9:00]was one of the girls two weeks ago.

[9:02]And nothing had happened and just trying to figure it out and it was, I tried to very timely confront the situation, hey, what happened, what did I do?

[9:10]And it just got passed around like blame and blame and blame and oh, well, this person was just kind of this and you know, I was terrible by the way.

[9:19]It was awful.

[9:20]And it was just one girl had decided she didn't like me.

[9:23]And for, I didn't do anything.

[9:27]We got one girl just decided she didn't like me anymore.

[9:30]And none of the others were willing to say anything or do anything or go, no, we're still kind of biting me.

[9:36]Get over it.

[9:37]They just, they were like, okay, at the top where do we just bone and bite her.

[9:40]And we'll just act like, you know, I don't know.

[9:42]It was very, very powerful.

[9:43]Because so the same, like, I don't really know what I did or what was going on.

[9:50]I don't know.

[9:51]But that stuff happens in adult friendships.

[9:54]Yeah.

[9:55]It shouldn't.

[9:56]But it happens.

[9:57]It shouldn't.

[9:58]But it happens.

[9:59]It happens.

[10:00]And even when you're nice and when you're good, when you're all in and when you give it to your best, even when you come front the situation, say, hey, did I do something wrong because if I did, please give me the opportunity to fix it.

[10:10]And even when you make all the right moves, sometimes it just doesn't work out and it's when that happens. I mean, there's no other way to put it. It just sucks.

[10:20]It sucks. And yeah, so I think I spent a lot of time just trying to figure that out and go, why don't people like me, what do I do wrong, why am I, why am I the kind of person that looks, I look better in the rear view mirror than I do in the passenger seat.

[10:34]And yeah, so Jess and I kind of worked through all that together and then one day out of absolutely nowhere. I had this idea and I called Jess up and I was like, Jess, I think we should start a page on social media and call us destroying with you and just let it be all about friendship.

[10:49]I was like, I've been digging around and researching for like five to 10 minutes. And I don't see, I don't see another place on the internet like that. I've already secured the Facebook name, the Instagram name, the handle, we've got it.

[11:02]But I really feel like this is something we should do. And let's just, let's just see where it goes and Jess was all in. And so we did it and started it and it grew really quickly. And it just caught on, but we wanted to talk about more than just find your friend.

[11:16]Because duh, I hate when people are like, find a friend, find your people, find your tribe and I'm like, well, dad, well, like, where and how tell me where these people are mine seem to be hiding.

[11:28]Wait, so when, when did you start the page and how big has it grown to now? Oh, gosh, when did we start the page for the 2019 huh.

[11:38]Yeah, 2019, it would have been like in November. No, and it was like four thousand followers in like a month or something. No, we had a hundred thousand followers in a month. Yeah.

[11:51]And we just reached a million. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's amazing. What we just realized in our own, I think, Amy and I both in our own blogging worlds, the power and just kind of blowing the lid off of those insecure

[12:07]bodies and hard things that we all go through. But when you talk about it and you say it out loud, like, hey, adult friendships actually hard. Hey, I've really struggled with loneliness, the power and that, that it like

[12:21]releases that for everybody else. That feeling of, oh my gosh, I thought I was the only one who struggled with this. I thought I was the only one who was left out.

[12:30]I thought I was the only one who was somehow an adult and still feels super awkward about making friends. There's just such power and telling the truth. And that's really what we wanted to create this space for is like, let's talk about this in a real way.

[12:46]Because it's one of the biggest parts of life, but we're not, I don't know. We're not talking about it in a way that says, Hey, this, this isn't as easy as I thought it would be. This isn't as easy as when I was in school and see there, you're seeing on social media like, oh, there's this beautiful sisterhood friendship trips, everybody's wearing the same t-shirt and they have everything I'm longing for.

[13:11]Or, and that's kind of it. Well, I think it's particularly powerful coming from the two of you who you two are so likable. That's what I'm like, not even understanding when Amy when you're sitting there talking like people didn't like me. And I'm just like, I'm literally like searching the like a little scanner of like any issues. I can sense that would turn people off in some way. And I literally am coming up with nothing like no matches found. So I don't quite get it. So I feel like coming from the two of you who seem like

[13:41]nice normal people who would have a lot of friends and wouldn't have an issue. I think that makes it even more compelling, right?

[13:46]Yeah, isn't that what we do? People that we always assume we look at them and we always assume no, they have friends. No, they know people know they are not struggling with this. And I think there's just, there's just something beautiful about vulnerability that allows other people into that circle to say, Oh, oh, okay, you, okay, if you have said this, I feel safe.

[14:11]Also, admitting that I am insecure. I will say also admitting that I struggle with making a friendship last longer than a year. You know, it's just really something it is powerful and it's beautiful, but the truth is most people feel lonely. Most people don't have a ton of friends. It is a struggle that we've had in this country. I mean, it is a problem. When you look at the statistics and the research, it just got breaks your heart.

[14:40]I mean, it breaks my heart because I don't think there's anything more powerful than connection. It is what we strive for as humans. We strive to be connected. And I think, you know, a lot of the disconnect comes from, you know, we still have these brains that lived in these villages where everyone did everything together and you washed your clothes together. And you, I didn't live back then. I don't know. You walked around. And I mean,

[15:04]you carry each other's babies on your hips. And yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You walked, you put on dresses and you walked around fields together, just

[15:19]being comforted anymore. We never do that. We live very isolated in our own houses. And, you know, I mean, like how often is that we don't even know our neighbors. That's that's very common to not know your neighbor now.

[15:35]But I feel like our brains are still in that village mentality, but we're living in a culture that is not conducive to just, you know, walking around and putting together babies and going to pick up. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

[15:49]But, you know what I'm saying? It's not because of somewhere there's something that's happening. And I do think we have to work harder because I think as humans, I don't think we feel full.

[16:03]It takes, it just, it takes connection. We have to be connected to each other. We are social creatures and there's nothing we will do or, or can do that can get away from that. We're social creatures.

[16:13]Yeah. And I think we're longing to for that deeper connection. I think another problem is getting stuck in these like kind of surface level.

[16:22]friendships that revolve around our kids sports or, or whatever it is. And what we're really longing for is to be known and to know and to be loved and seen and to belong.

[16:35]And that's a hard part of it too.

[16:37]That's why I love my podcast.

[16:40]Honestly, I mean, every day, like, look at this. I'm having this like, we don't have to mess around. We only have 30 minutes. We'll go right to it. And like, I get that over and over again. I'm like, okay.

[16:49]Wait. Tell me about your, the loss, the deepest darkest loss in your life. And it's only been like five minutes.

[16:54]Yeah.

[16:55]But I guess they're like, so forget about, you know, that's why I always recommend people do a podcast because you can get to know someone so quickly.

[17:04]Unless you're really off putting out the podcast or something.

[17:07]Or you know what I mean. I think that there's such a lack of dedicated time to where you're not interrupted. That's like another podcast bonus.

[17:16]Like, you're not watching your kids. Like, it's almost impossible. Like what you, what you mentioned.

[17:21]Jess about like sports games. Like, you're screaming one minute and then you go on the field and you, like, you try to have a conversation with one like dad from this team. And then next thing you know, you're like, it's just impossible.

[17:33]It is totally.

[17:34]Yeah.

[17:35]Yes. So,

[17:36]I'm testing as an answer as is your community.

[17:39]Yeah. I have. I felt that way. Well, as we've done all these podcasts on my plow, I just, I just felt like I had the best time was friends.

[17:46]Just really quality conversations.

[17:49]Yeah. It's true.

[17:50]So how did you do it? Because this is like a business question too. Right. You started a page and grew it exponentially over two years.

[17:59]We don't. I don't think we have any giant secrets to how we grew it. I think that we found something that it was like this is what these women were bleeding.

[18:09]And they were just like they were bleeding in here as a band. They, that could help them feel less alone. And we just happen to be one of the first ones to do it and to figure that out.

[18:18]And we don't hold anything bad on our page. We don't try to sound puffed up. We don't try to sound like we have it together.

[18:25]It doesn't come off as a super business. Sort of thing. I think it just sounds like two girls talking. And I think people just craved it. I don't know. And that's the only reason that I grew there was.

[18:35]There's no special secret to anything that we did, except for that we were truly passionate about it.

[18:40]We were willing to take a risk and do something that hadn't really been done before. And we were extremely vulnerable. And I think those are some of the things.

[18:49]I think a lot of times people are starting pages. They look at what other people are doing like, Oh, this is popular. Okay, I'll do that. And that's not the key.

[18:56]That's not the key. Find something that you are deeply passionate about that this is your lane.

[19:03]And you stay in it and you do it. You do it well and dedicate yourself to that and find, you know, find the people who are wanting to believe in that same thing that you're believing in wanting to do the same thing you're doing.

[19:16]And it'll grow. Hopefully it'll grow where it'll be good. I mean, it'll be good because it's true and it's honest and it is real to you.

[19:24]I think we had a really unique situation too that we had found each other and that we're both really passionate about it. And I know as busy moms, I don't think I couldn't have done it without Amy.

[19:35]And even having Amy and like knowing that we're working on this together. Like if I had started this out my own thing doing this, I think I would have run out of steam probably.

[19:46]But that we had our own friendship and our own just that I don't know if synergies the right word, but our own like bouncing ideas off each other like hey, throughout the day. Hey, I'm thinking this is on my heart about friendship.

[19:59]Like let's.

[20:00]talk about friendship breaks breakups and then going back and forth and just doing that

[20:04]all together has been really huge for me.

[20:07]And then tell me a little about writing the book too. What was that like? Whose idea

[20:12]was that? How did that come about? Would you do it again? Oh, well, I think we're both

[20:18]different answers.

[20:19]What was that a harder time at? I had a harder time with writing the book than just

[20:25]it flowed out of just very naturally and I did not flow out of me. I got my feelings

[20:37]hurt when the edits came to and just did not. I was like, in bed, I was like, hey,

[20:42]did everything I wrote, but no, it just came, you know, okay, so one of the good things

[20:50]is when you grow a page to a certain size publishers are going to take note. And

[20:55]we both kind of put off writing a book because we both have our own personal pages too

[20:59]that are fairly successful. They're not as big a sister. I'm with you, but they've done well.

[21:04]And when you grow a page to a certain size, and we put off, because I don't know about just

[21:08]but I knew I was like, no, it's not time for me to write a book yet. It's not time. It's not time.

[21:14]It's not time. And I really waited until I felt like, okay, this is it. Because when I did it,

[21:18]I wanted to do it right. And I wanted to. I wanted to have my choice of publishers. I didn't

[21:22]want to have to beg anybody to write this book. I did, I wanted it to be a big open field that I

[21:28]could choose from. So I waited for a long time. And I'm really lucky that I was able to do that,

[21:32]that I had a husband supportive that was like, you want to write on the internet and make no money

[21:36]for a long time? Okay, that sounds good. Yeah, I support you. I'm very lucky to have him. But yeah,

[21:46]so then it just happened that there was one week where three different publishers reached out to me

[21:51]the same week. It was bizarre. I think somebody from Random House, somebody from Harper Collins,

[21:57]or, you know, they all, all these publishers have these different divisions, to someone from Harper,

[22:01]someone from Random House, and someone from his chef, like all reached out to me in the same week.

[22:07]And so I knew I was like, okay, this is it. This is it. We're doing it. It's happening. And so

[22:12]kind of got the ball rolling from there, from there, went on, found an agent, found the agent,

[22:17]knew it was, I knew it was going to be a book on friendship. And then, you know, I obviously knew

[22:21]if I'm going to write a book on friendship. Jess is going to write it with me. And so we just kind

[22:26]of got the ball rolling pretty quickly from that. I think that was in February. And then we got

[22:31]the book deal in March, March or April. We got the book deal. So it all happened really quickly

[22:36]when it happened. And which we just knew that was sure to do choose. We went with Thomas Nelson,

[22:44]so they're part of Harper Collins. Sorry, I got you off. Just go ahead.

[22:47]Oh, no, you're good. We just knew that we needed something like with more depth than what we're

[22:53]able to do on our page. Like more of a handbook of like, this is how you get there. With more stories,

[23:00]with more. Okay, this is how we walk this out in our life. We knew people were hungry for it. So we

[23:07]knew we needed to write a book pretty quickly. As soon as the page started exploding, we're like,

[23:12]okay, next step, probably a book. Yeah. And so what are you thinking next step is now? Oh,

[23:19]man. Well, when does this come out? I don't can we tell. I thought we can tell them. I'm going to do

[23:25]anything. It's actually being adapted to a tween, like a version for eight to 10 year olds, eight to

[23:33]12 year olds. It's 12 year olds. Yeah. And then there'll be another book. And there'll be another

[23:41]book. And we would love to do a podcast. I think at some point. Yep. Amazing. Wow. Yeah. So it's

[23:50]really fun. But it is, you know, the book gives you the opportunity to write more stories because when

[23:54]you're writing on social media, you don't have a ton of words. People's, I mean, people's

[24:00]attention is very small. Like the one of the comments, like if they're like, who is this person who

[24:05]had time to write a book on social media? Maybe that's why you don't have any friends. Okay,

[24:09]you're like, it's like five paragraphs. I'm pretty sure this is not a book.

[24:13]It's neat. And it's to write this search. I think it's fine. I'm all about the long caption.

[24:18]By the way, I love writing on captions because I'm writing. I'm writing every day. This is

[24:22]me writing, you know, exactly. Exactly. My daughter's like, oh, yeah, well, I didn't really read it.

[24:27]And I'm like, but I put it out there. Like, it doesn't matter. That's what you

[24:34]I realized like, I'm like, okay, so few people read things all the way through. Yeah,

[24:38]very much. It was alarm. That's why we get, you get so mad and there's so many people who are like,

[24:43]mad at the things you wrote on the internet. You come back and you're like, that did you

[24:46]listen to it? Because I feel like you did not. You didn't get to the internet.

[24:51]Not mad and stopped. But I don't share a ton of stories on social media because, you know,

[24:56]I live in a town with these people. I'm not going to just be like, well, well, well,

[25:00]and I'm not going to have, I don't have people scared to be my friend in real life.

[25:04]Like, yeah, you cannot be your friend because she's going to write about you on the internet.

[25:07]You know, so I don't tell a lot of stories. So a book kind of gives you space to do that

[25:11]to share more personal stuff. And that part of it freaks me out just was fine. But I was like,

[25:16]oh my gosh, did I change the stories enough to where I don't want anybody to know that it's about

[25:20]them? I don't anybody like to hurt anybody's feelings that I don't want to write some kind of

[25:25]Taylor Swift breakup songs. You know, I haven't been more coming out soon, but I had another

[25:33]draft of it years ago. And I sent it to a few of my best girlfriends. And my one friend called

[25:38]me and was like, you know, I'm, you know, I'm honored. You put that scene in with me and that

[25:42]you changed my name and everything. And I'm thinking, that was that had nothing to do with you.

[25:48]Yeah. I was like, that was not you at all. And but okay. And I was like, no problem.

[25:53]That's hilarious. Yeah. People see what they want to see, you know, people can

[25:58]yeah. I know. I believe it is any negative story. I'm like, everybody's wondering it's a system.

[26:04]I just want to like post like, there's nobody. It's nobody. No, but it's not.

[26:08]Oh, okay. So do you have any advice for in particular for people writing books together?

[26:17]Or for your number one, like piece of advice for finding your people or finding your

[26:23]tribe the way you were just saying that people always say you can do, but you can't.

[26:28]I would say my number one thought was that changed my life was with making friendships,

[26:35]was intentionality and putting myself out there to pursue people and realizing how any other

[26:43]people are in the same boat as me. They're also lonely. They haven't not invited me over because

[26:48]they just decided they don't like me. They're also overwhelmed and they're busy and they don't

[26:53]have time and they don't know how. Creating space in your life, whatever that is, if it's a couple

[26:58]hours a month, if it's a weekly dinner that you invite people over to, whatever it is,

[27:07]finding something that you can do and doing it consistently.

[27:12]I think what really helped me. I am a big people pleaser. And so it really helped me to kind of

[27:17]of switch, switch my thinking in that and going out when I was with people and when I was

[27:22]meeting people to switch from feeling like I was chasing them, like I was desperate for them to

[27:29]like me. Like I was desperate for their approval to kind of, and so I convinced them I was good enough

[27:36]to be there and to kind of switch my role into let them be themselves, figure out who they are,

[27:42]ask them questions, be interested in them and they would probably come back. People like to be

[27:48]liked, you know, people like to be liked. So like them, find some common ground, talk about,

[27:54]talk about it, ask them good questions, be interested in them and stop trying so hard to just

[28:00]convince people. You just like just like some kind of confidence in myself and just like a relax of

[28:06]like be genuine, be who you are and just show up, just show up that way and then love on other

[28:12]people and if it works out cool and if it doesn't, cool, you put your best self out there and you

[28:18]can feel good about that. Yeah. Fabulous. All right. Well, now I think I'm going to go call some of my

[28:23]old girlfriends who I have been doing well. Anyway, thank you so much. This is really fun.

[28:30]I really applaud the two of you. It's so awesome what you're building and everything. It's so

[28:35]cool and yeah, I'll be following along. Thank you so much. It's so nice to meet you. You too.

[28:41]Okay. Take care. Bye. All right. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't

[28:48]Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't

[28:53]Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual

[28:58]book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan

[29:03]in fact, texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for

[29:07]providing this fantastic intro and outro music.