Amy Griffin, THE TELL: A Memoir
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[0:45]Amy Griffin is the author of The Tell, and then more.
[0:48]Amy lives in New York City with her husband, John, and their four children.
[0:52]She is the founder of the investment firm G9 Ventures.
[0:55]Welcome, Amy.
[0:56]Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibi to talk about The Tell.
[1:01]at your amazing memoir, congratulations.
[1:04]Thank you, Zibi.
[1:06]Thank you so much for having me, and you're just such a great supporter of women in their
[1:10]stories, and it's so surreal to see you holding my book.
[1:15]Here we go.
[1:17]I have to say, I read it on an airplane at one point, and somebody walked by, and was like,
[1:22]I have to get that book from time, especially for so many, you know, you and I are a few
[1:30]blocks away in New York right now, and I have so many people in common who have been
[1:35]sort of salivating to get their hands on your book, so feel very privileged to have
[1:39]it early.
[1:40]I want to give it out.
[1:41]I want everyone to have it.
[1:42]I think the greatest compliment thus far has been, you know, I've only given them out
[1:45]to a few of my closest friends and early readers for various people in press.
[1:50]And I think, you know, it's so kind when someone has said to me, it really means a lot
[1:54]when they've said to me, Amy, I open up my back, gave your book to someone to read it,
[1:59]it shows that people are talking about it and they're sharing and they're telling their stories,
[2:02]and that's kind of why I wrote it.
[2:04]Wow.
[2:05]Well, okay, to the book itself, tell listeners a little bit about your memoir, and also,
[2:12]you very easily, I mean, I guess every memoir, but you very easily could have not decided to share
[2:18]all of this about yourself, and I'm sorry, by the way, for just everything you've been holding
[2:23]in the secrets and the experiences and all of it.
[2:27]You so easily could have not shared this.
[2:29]Why share it and tell the story too?
[2:32]You know, just going to that very idea that secrets are not for anyone to keep and they're
[2:37]not fair and they're not, they keep people closed off from the relationships and the lives they
[2:43]could be having and living.
[2:44]And I feel like this book was when I started writing it, I had no intention of publishing it.
[2:51]And that's I think the most interesting part about the book is when I wrote it,
[2:56]I wrote it for me, and I wrote it the first time.
[2:59]I feel like I wrote the book twice in essence because I wrote the book,
[3:03]I've been writing the book for a period of five years.
[3:05]And I think that, you know, the importance of this book is that I'm talking about my story,
[3:12]my singular story, I'm not an expert on anything other than me.
[3:16]And I felt like in telling my story and putting those words down on the page,
[3:22]it was the first time that I'd been truly honest about my life and my life could have looked
[3:28]one way or any million ways to various people.
[3:31]And I think one of the really important things in this book is that you just never know what's
[3:35]going on in someone's life. You just have never idea. You have no idea and to always assume,
[3:41]you know, best intent. And so the more I wrote, the freer I felt.
[3:46]And then I realized that as I told someone, first in telling myself in the writing,
[3:52]and then in telling my closest friends and my children and going to this process, that
[3:58]really the book was just as simple because the title is the tell.
[4:02]But I think that the book is everything is in the telling.
[4:05]And it's in the relationships around the telling that are why we live this life and it makes it,
[4:12]it's made my life so much richer and so much fuller to come forward and tell it. I mean,
[4:17]oh, there's days where I'm like, why am I doing this? And then I remember,
[4:22]you know, I'm doing this for myself and I'm doing this for so many others. And the others part
[4:28]comes in because gosh, I feel connected because when I first told my story and I was honest
[4:36]with myself, I got my story. It was so lonely. And I realized at that moment, I felt like I was the
[4:44]only one who'd been something like this. I felt like this is the only one in the entire world
[4:49]that could feel this pain, that could absorb this, and that could live a high functioning,
[4:54]incredible life, and also not even really being honest with myself about what had gone on.
[5:00]And so, you know, to then be to go out and share my story and realize, oh my gosh,
[5:07]you know, I'm not alone. And so I could say that I'd done that for everyone else,
[5:12]but I felt so free and so liberated. And I love people. I don't think that comes from my trauma.
[5:18]I love people pleasing. I love I'm a people pleaser. But I love helping people. I love being
[5:24]connected to other women. And the more I shared just the better I felt about my life and the
[5:31]people in it. I mean, you can tell there's that authenticity to it, right? That you're working
[5:37]through. You can feel you working through some of the things that happened as we read,
[5:42]which makes it even more compelling is to see you. Like you start the book. And I know your kids are
[5:49]very involved in this. And, you know, how they were feeling about you and the sort of wall
[5:54]that you had put up with them, because what you go into it in the but I won't give thing. But
[5:58]you had basically put this sort of wall up. And as we go through the book to see it completely
[6:04]come down. And the closeness that not that you weren't close before, but the change in your
[6:08]relationship with the people even closest to you as a result of being able to share how that
[6:14]transitions and grows throughout the book. Like it's very, very powerful. And, you know, having our
[6:20]closest relationships improved by sharing is it sounds simple, but it is not simple.
[6:26]You know, it's so interesting. It boils down. I think a lot to the word permission. And I think
[6:32]that there was this incredible relationship building, you know, you're right, a closeness that I could
[6:38]not have possibly imagined because I did think that I was incredibly close to my children already. But
[6:43]I had no idea how I would feel about my relationships, friendships, children, every relationship I have.
[6:51]But when it first started with me, then it all stemmed from that. And when I was looking
[6:57]outwards for answers, even in the doing for my children of all the busyness and taking them to
[7:02]and from, that wasn't a closeness. That wasn't necessarily the relationship building piece. And so
[7:08]now I look at the writing and I look at the process I was going through. And, you know, I'm sure
[7:13]people tell, I'm sure you've had this conversation a million times. But in talking about writing a
[7:18]book and they say, oh, it's so hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done or it's not,
[7:22]people say it's cathartic, but it's not. In my case, it saved my life. In my case, writing this
[7:28]book is everything. It was able to put my words down and really understand who I was. I mean,
[7:36]you talk about how your stories are created and how your stories are built. I was an English
[7:40]major in college and I love to write. And my mother, you always said, you're going to write a book
[7:44]someday. It all came to this. So now when I read it and I read about, I reread it and I reread it
[7:50]and I see the relationship changes and I remember how I was feeling when I was writing.
[7:55]You know, I'm so with myself as I'm reading the various parts over and over again because there
[8:01]was this transformation. And so now to look at it, I'm so grateful. I'm so incredibly grateful for
[8:07]that transformation. And I can kind of laugh at parts of myself now too because, I mean, it wasn't
[8:13]I don't know, it was laughable then, but I had this need to record and write down everything that
[8:18]happened to me down to every morsel of eight for fear that what I had remembered and the feelings
[8:25]I had would go away. And I kind of liken it to walking on the other side of the street. You
[8:31]know, you live on a street and you live on a block for so many years and you always walk down
[8:35]that one side. And yet, so you live on that street and you have that experience. But sometimes it's
[8:42]only when you cross over to the other side of the street and you look back at your house,
[8:46]you look back and say, oh, I live on that side of the street and you can understand the full picture
[8:50]and the book is sort of me crossing the street for the first time and really, you know, really
[8:56]looking at my life. So I mean, on the outside, it could seem like your life seemed not that anyone's
[9:02]life is perfect. But here this beautiful gorgeous smart talented professionally mega successful
[9:10]always smiling kind person in society. He was just like, well, hug anybody. And just like,
[9:17]you are so warm and out there. And, you know, you have these fabulous kids and, you know, your life
[9:25]just seems or see could seem just so, you know, blessed and perfect. And that's part of why I
[9:33]said you didn't have to share this, of course, but like nobody has to share. But the things that
[9:37]happened to you and I don't want to ask you to tell them because I feel like part of the book was
[9:42]the discovery of what happened. But you can, I don't know what you're saying in interviews about
[9:47]sort of the main event or whatever. But I don't know, just take me through this and what would
[9:52]have happened. Like, where do you think the parallel life of your would have been had you not kept
[9:58]just a secret? Or what if you would.
[10:00]told the story 10 years ago, or do you think life would be different now?
[10:03]Or what do you say about these misconceptions people have about each other?
[10:07]That was like a thousand questions. So I don't know. Just remember whatever.
[10:10]No, I love it. So how my brain went to the fact that when I first got married and I was living
[10:15]in New York City, my husband once said to me, when I saw a woman that I didn't know well,
[10:20]an older woman who was so lovely. And I jumped and I said, hi, and I said her name.
[10:25]And she sort of jumped against the building. And John then said to me really kindly,
[10:32]he said, I think you scare people sometimes, like, you're Texas friendliness.
[10:37]And when I had taken him for an engagement party, when we were dating,
[10:41]he kind of got lost in the crowd. And this is kind of how I knew, or I was from this amazing
[10:44]community in a small town in Texas, which, you know, so anyway, I took him to go to this
[10:50]engagement party and he came back and I said, how to go? Are you enjoying meeting everyone? And he said,
[10:54]two words, very friendly. So I think that's sort of the nature of where I come from.
[11:00]And I would definitely say that that comes from my mom. And, you know, when I talk about what
[11:05]happened in my life, my mom and my dad and my upbringing, again, your stories are created over
[11:11]many decades. And, you know, would my wife be any different? I think that that's part of the letting
[11:16]go and that I don't look back and say, if only this hadn't happened, and if only this had happened,
[11:22]and why am I telling this story now? And I think the wise in the house and the
[11:26]shoulds and all of that are sometimes questions that have been, I realize I don't have an answer
[11:31]for them. And here I am today. And I'm so wildly grateful. I think part of the reason
[11:39]that I'm so grateful is that for all that I've been through, I do have an amazing life,
[11:45]and I think when people use the word perfect in any vein, I think any woman can relate to that
[11:54]word, because we're all doing a thousand things. You know, when you have the lunchbox under your arm,
[11:58]you're trying to make anything, you have the ring light on, and we exhibit here the queen of that,
[12:03]right? And so it's just not relatable because it's not real. And I think that for so long in knowing
[12:11]myself, but not really acknowledging the trauma. And I will talk about it a bit. But you know,
[12:15]I literally would look over my shoulder like, who are they talking to? I'm just doing the best I can.
[12:20]Isn't that what every woman is doing? We're all holding all these balls in the air at any given time,
[12:26]and that's kind of what makes it a beautiful life. And so, you know, in sharing this story,
[12:32]I think it's all parts of me. So there's like this incredible part of me that's on the business side,
[12:37]and the mom side, and you know, you have all the parts of you. The story is one part of me.
[12:41]And I think once I was able to share it, it is made the full picture. It has helped me understand
[12:46]why I do the things I do. It has helped me understand why I want to bolt out of an elevator sometimes.
[12:52]It has helped me, it has helped my children understand who I am. But, you know, it was only in saying
[12:58]I experienced severe childhood trauma and sexual abuse, and just saying those words is really hard.
[13:07]It's really hard. Sometimes, I think, am I the one saying this sitting in this body? And then,
[13:12]the second I say it, I have a bit more confidence about myself, I had a bit more confidence about
[13:18]you know, for other people. I cannot even tell you the number of women on a daily basis now
[13:25]who have heard of my story, you know, the books went out yet. So that they're just ready to tell.
[13:30]They're ready to find someone that they connect with, and that's really important to them in their
[13:34]life. And it doesn't have to be in it. You know, God willing, I hope that people who have an
[13:39]experience would have experience. But people have also experienced much worse than what I've experienced.
[13:44]And anything, I think there's so many things that as women, we just think it's just easier to
[13:48]tuck it back into our brain and just keep going, right? And so, while life is not perfect, I think that
[13:56]it's incredible to think that the relationships in our life are what's going to get us through.
[14:00]And when you go and you tell and you share and you're vulnerable,
[14:04]just like being vulnerable is like the greatest strength I feel that I can say that I've had in the
[14:09]last few years. It's not perfect. It's not pretty. It's scary. It's ugly sometimes. But it's,
[14:16]there's almost this incredible joy in being vulnerable.
[14:21]So will you take listeners back a little bit and explain all of your professional success?
[14:26]You have become like the most powerful investor of these amazing brands and building brands
[14:33]and doing so much good knowing everybody in the world. Like, where did this come from?
[14:38]I mean, I don't know that I'm any of all those things, but all I can say is I just started by
[14:43]showing up. I just started by showing up. I just said, you know what, my kids had gotten a little bit
[14:48]older. There's a great book called The Power Pause right now. And I do see that. But yes, yes,
[14:52]you know, there was this moment where, you know, I talk about it. I was literally handing kids
[14:57]out of windows in New York City as I was getting out of a car with one and texting with one. This
[15:00]went to a preschool. You know, we were schooled together. And you go to those phases, right? Where
[15:06]your doctor, when you go in for the 100th time and you're sick, but you've got to take care of
[15:09]your children, her sick. And the doctor says, you know, you're just going to be sick. Tell your
[15:13]last child in kindergarten because otherwise everything goes into the mouth, right? And it was
[15:18]really only then once my oldest went to kindergarten. And I've been doing so many things,
[15:22]but I realized I have this skill set. And I think a lot of it probably comes from my
[15:26]upbringing now finding myself as a consumer investor loving brands, loving the people that are
[15:32]building them. You know, it's not a one size fits all. It's very different when every
[15:36]founder that I'm working with. But that was my passion. I love making a call for someone to make
[15:42]a connection to help them with their advertising or their branding or bringing someone on their
[15:46]board or, you know, it's different every day. My job is different every day. But how did I start?
[15:51]I started by showing up. And that was, I think, a value that I got from my parents in
[15:57]at a very, very young age. I thought that I thought that everyone had a grandmother who was the
[16:02]matriarch of this family in a small town in Texas where women didn't work. But my grandmother did.
[16:08]And she went when she walked in the office, there was no chewing gum allowed. Everybody wore
[16:13]hoes and heels. And they all sat at a little straighter when she came in the room. And they had
[16:17]this incredible reverence and respect for her. And here she was this widowed woman in a small town
[16:23]in Texas who was building all these crazy businesses. She built three businesses. I think I wrote
[16:27]about one, but I'm going to wrote about one. But and now to see my family legacy and that my
[16:32]family all still is involved in the business. So definitely stems from that. Wow. And can you talk
[16:38]a little bit about maybe some, like, what does it feel like to you to build, help build a consumer
[16:43]brand? And how does that relate to now sort of building the brand of your own book?
[16:49]That's really interesting. Well, that's kind of just it, right? Is that brand building
[16:55]is storytelling? And, and, you know, we want to use these products. We have to have these
[17:01]products in our life that make our lives better, fuller, richer, make us live lives longer and healthier.
[17:07]And so these are the products that I have gotten behind. And, you know, 20 years ago, however long
[17:12]ago before I was, before I was investing, I would find something and I would love it. And then I would
[17:17]give it to all of my friends and say, this product, this, you know, cream, this food product,
[17:24]everybody has to have it. And I truly felt joy in actually giving that product to people to say,
[17:29]do you like it? Do you like it? Do you like it? I get that. I call my mom the food pusher because you
[17:33]go home to Texas. She says, you have to eat it. You have to eat it. And I say, but mom, I don't
[17:37]want that to Molly. You have to eat the tamale. This woman made it our church. And I say, mom,
[17:41]I don't want the tamale right now. So I get that enthusiasm for my mom. But I think you said it.
[17:48]It's fascinating because now I'm stepping into my story, right? And the table has been turned
[17:55]where I've been so good, you know, and try my best to build the stories of all these women and
[18:02]the founders that I've been associated with. And also there's just this glimmer in every
[18:06]camera I've ever met with about these crazy ideas people have in their determined they're going
[18:10]to go out and change the world with them. And they are on on many levels. But with this book,
[18:17]this book is in many ways far more powerful than any business thing I've done. I think it's the most
[18:23]important thing I will do in my life, hopefully setting a good example for my children and then
[18:29]seeing this book come out. And you know, it's just it's it feels really good. It feels really good
[18:37]to be doing it. It's amazing. What are you afraid of? Is there anybody you're afraid to read this
[18:42]book in particular or just in general what keeps you up at night when you're worrying about it?
[18:46]If you're worrying about it, you know, the very idea, of course, I have so much fear. I think that
[18:54]it keeps having this vision sometimes of meeting on a high dive and jumping into the water. And I
[18:59]can remember as a child being on a high dive ones that are really bouncy and
[19:05]scooting to the side like to the left and thinking if I go to the left maybe it's easier and then
[19:09]my toes will go to the right because the right it's a little bit easier. And then going,
[19:13]then you just have to go off. You can't go off the side. You go off the side you're going to
[19:17]hate your head. And I think with this book, you know, this is remember, this is the story I've
[19:23]been told by someone not to tell and that secret again and not allowing myself permission to just go
[19:32]for it to just do this. I say all the time. I think that, you know, it's maybe it's a branding message
[19:38]for myself. But I say, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's do this. And this is that moment in my
[19:42]life where yeah, I have a lot of fear. And I don't know that I can pinpoint it, but it's fear
[19:48]being told not to tell this story. It's fear of being told that it's not important. It's fear
[19:54]of not being believed. It's fear that I, my life does look perfect. So how can she tell this story?
[20:00]It's fear of come up with one, and I will agree with it. Right? Wow. Do you have any thoughts now?
[20:07]You are such an innovative thinker in terms of how to improve lives and this and that,
[20:12]and now you're in publishing. Maybe it's too early to ask, but I bet your mind is already
[20:17]spinning with ways to improve the system, or did you do it? What are you doing it? We're all watching
[20:24]you. But what have you learned so far? And how did you go about even selling the book? What was
[20:29]that whole process? Well, thank you for asking that question. I can also say, I guess publishing
[20:35]to save my life, because the idea that I had no intention, I had this book, I'd written for many
[20:41]years, and I had 100 to 150,000 words that I'd already written of this book. And actually,
[20:47]someone came to me and said in the literary world and said, would you be willing to write a book
[20:52]about women in business? And I mean, it was an incredible time. It was three days after I had
[21:00]already written something in a short form to sort of consolidate my ideas about, you know, at the time
[21:06]where I was, it was, okay, I need justice. Right? And that's how things can look perfect if you tie
[21:11]everything up with a bow. And so I was in that place where I thought, this is what I'm going to do,
[21:17]and this is the path I'm taking. And there were, there's so many of those in the book. You see that,
[21:21]you know, you don't get what you want, but maybe that's the right answer. Right? It's like you are
[21:26]where you are in that right moment. So just like, be where you are. And in that moment, you see,
[21:33]I sit in those moments throughout the book and have to make these, these terms. And so when I got
[21:40]this phone call to say, Amy, would you write a book about women in business? My answer was there
[21:44]many more women who are qualified to write a book about women in business. I don't know that
[21:48]that is something that people would want to read. That's not how I was feeling anyway at the time.
[21:52]And I said, I looked, I looked at her in the eye and I said, but I wrote a book. And she said,
[21:58]what do you mean? And I said, well, I have one. And I said, can I send it to you? And she said, yes.
[22:04]And I said, hold on. And, and I had it on my computer. I sent her the whole file. And my husband said,
[22:08]what? You just sent it. And I said, yeah, I just, I sent it. And it feels right. And it's,
[22:14]it's, you know, someone pointed this out to me recently, a friend pushing send on that computer
[22:21]was the next step in telling. That was telling again. That was me stepping on the high dive
[22:28]and putting my toes on the end to say, I matter my story matters. And in saying that my story
[22:35]matters, I'm going to show, you know, others that their story matters too. And so that was the
[22:40]the beginning of it. And then the, the thing about writing the book was, and they have alluded to
[22:45]this before, but writing the book was, it just came out of me. I mean, it was, it was the process
[22:52]that I'm more grateful for than I could ever imagine. And as people said, you may, you know,
[22:56]it's be careful. It's not cathartic or it is cathartic. And for me, it wasn't even, it was just
[23:02]everything. It was, it was everything. And I did sort of step back from my life, you know, I was
[23:08]still doing my business and taking care of my kids, but I was frantically writing weekends,
[23:13]nights stepping away. I mean, there was not an hour that I wasn't writing. And, and if you think
[23:17]about it, I was writing for myself, you know, I was writing as I was untangling this part of me.
[23:24]And so it was a great privilege and a luxury to be able to do that.
[23:29]That's amazing. Well, whoever that was who asked you for the moment of business, like, wow,
[23:35]Kate Hoyt, CAA, she's a very special person. Yes. Amazing. Amazing. I mean, I think this is
[23:42]so generous and active yours. You're doing it at perhaps, you know, at your own expensive sort of
[23:51]fear and worry and, you know, lack of privacy. Like, you're putting all these things aside and
[23:58]you're saying like, no, no, I'm ready to share. It's helpful for me, but also all of you out there
[24:04]who have been through something similar can feel inspired. If I can share, you can share. And I
[24:09]feel like you're going to start this whole ripple effect, this whole movement of I know some people
[24:16]have, you know, not that no one has shared, but I just feel like to your permission thing earlier,
[24:23]like you are going to be paving the way as you do in business with sort of working through these
[24:29]issues and having people come forward publicly and get the freedom from that they are so desperately
[24:37]craving. And maybe they didn't know that they needed. I think freedom is exactly the right word
[24:41]and freedom and connection. And I think that, you know, the telling is just it's so,
[24:47]I think I will feel so, I will feel so much gratitude for the book because I think the book,
[24:54]I hope the book lives outside of me and does its own thing and that when someone tells me they,
[25:00]again, that's like the nicest thing I think someone could say to me is I pass the book to someone else
[25:04]because I think they need it or that someone says that they went to tell someone something about their
[25:10]life and they find that person because I think one of the really important points of this book too
[25:16]is that you have to find people in your life and we can all think of them. I hope that everyone has
[25:23]that one at least one person in their life that can listen and hear and hold it. I think I've
[25:28]realized too that you do have to be a bit careful about going to just tell everyone everything
[25:33]that's going on and because not because for fear what you say but for fear that they may not be
[25:38]able to hold it or as you see as I talk about it in my book there are so many times I go to tell
[25:44]my story and I can see now in someone's eyes not even necessarily that it's the same type of trauma
[25:50]but they're dealing with something and so there's this real meeting of where someone else is
[25:56]and their space and making sure that they're able to hear you so that then your needs will
[26:00]met and they feel met and so you know at the core of this it's just about relationships because
[26:05]I would not have survived this as I look at the other side of it would not have survived this
[26:11]without the relationships in my life and that being therapy which I'm so privileged that I could
[26:18]have I still feel so grateful that I could have and it is a privilege but it's the relationships
[26:23]I realized in my life my husband my children my friends and that for me was as important as you
[26:29]know going and getting the therapy. I love that. Well I will be watching rooting for you along the
[26:35]way. Thank you Zippy thank you so much. Anything I can do I'm so excited for you and you know
[26:42]I want to say I feel like I'm really proud of you because it's a really amazing thing to do.
[26:46]I'm so grateful and thank you to you. You lift so many women up and you're doing so much
[26:50]for publishing and we're all watching. It's all so exciting. Thank you. All right thank you Amy.
[26:57]Good luck. Congrats. Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zippy.
[27:01]Formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[27:06]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens and spread the word. Thanks so much.
[27:12]Go and buy the books.