Amanda Goetz, TOXIC GRIT: How to Have It All and (Actually) Love What You Have
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[0:48]We are here today with Amanda Getz, who's the author of Toxic Grit.
[0:53]How to have it all, and actually love what you have.
[0:57]Welcome.
[0:58]Thank you for having me.
[0:59]This is amazing.
[1:00]I love it.
[1:01]We just saw each other at Zibi's bookshelf, which was so great.
[1:04]Thank you for coming there.
[1:05]Oh my gosh.
[1:06]The community there.
[1:07]It just felt like a family, like everybody knew each other, and it was my first book tour
[1:12]event, so it was so fun to meet other authors.
[1:14]So thank you.
[1:15]Aw, you're welcome.
[1:16]It was great to have you.
[1:17]Why don't you tell listeners a little bit about what Toxic Grit is about?
[1:21]Yes.
[1:22]So I wrote this book.
[1:23]I'll share a quick little story that led to the framework inside, but I was leading
[1:28]marketing, and I was living in New York City, leading marketing at the knot with three
[1:33]young babies at home, under the age of four, going through a divorce.
[1:40]And I came home one night, and I remember after I got the two older ones in bed, I was
[1:45]rocking my son, and I took out my notes app, and I wrote the words, you can have it
[1:53]all.
[1:54]I was like, where is the friction coming from?
[1:57]And it dawned on me that it wasn't about the all, it was about the you, because there's
[2:02]so many different versions of me inside of me.
[2:06]There's the version of me that wants to kill it at work, and wants to have an amazing
[2:10]career.
[2:11]Then there's a version of me that just wants to be a mom, and let all the work stuff go.
[2:16]Then there's a fun party girl inside of me that wants to go have fun and see my friends
[2:21]and travel the world.
[2:23]And so I realized the friction was coming from the word, or that comes up so often.
[2:29]You're either a girl boss, or you're a trad wife, and we keep trying to pull apart and
[2:36]put us in these neat buckets.
[2:39]So toxic grit really came from this idea of character theory.
[2:43]How do we create space for all of these somewhat competing parts of ourselves?
[2:49]And honor that they don't always share the same goals, same values, same energy.
[2:55]So meet those parts of yourself, and then start to see which characters took over the
[3:01]whole movie, and maybe which ones need to be written back into the script so that you can
[3:06]honor all those different parts of yourself.
[3:09]Amazing.
[3:10]And you define toxic grit in the book, so just explain what that is.
[3:14]It's hustle without intention.
[3:16]We all have seen the headlines like, oh hustle is bad, hustle is bad.
[3:19]It's like, no, that's actually just one part of yourself that you have to honor, create
[3:25]some, what I call spin cycles, some checkpoints to say, is this still in alignment with
[3:31]what I want right now?
[3:32]Have I written other characters off the script entirely that I need to build back in?
[3:37]So I call toxic grit, hustle without intention.
[3:41]So if you don't have these kind of frameworks and checkpoints with built into your kind
[3:47]of life operating system, then you will burn out.
[3:50]You will wake up one day and be like, I don't know who I am anymore.
[3:55]So it's about the intention piece and writing that back in.
[3:59]So you can still hustle go after a big goal.
[4:02]The next three months of my life will look very much like hustle.
[4:06]However, I have a spin cycle coming up at the end of that and for anyone that does
[4:11]laundry, I know it's New York City, but like for anyone that does laundry in New York City,
[4:16]thank you very much.
[4:17]I never had a lot.
[4:18]I always do wash and full, but for the last cycle of a washing cycle is called the spin
[4:24]cycle.
[4:25]It's intentionally designed to take out all the water, all the heaviness before you put
[4:30]it into the dryer so that the next part goes a little faster.
[4:33]It doesn't take as long to dry.
[4:36]And for me, spin cycles should be built into our life.
[4:40]We will have a period of intensity and how many times do you get to that work project
[4:45]and then you're just on to the next one or you had a series of intensity with your kids
[4:50]and they needed a lot from you and then you're just on to the next part.
[4:54]And so it's this intentional moment to really alleviate that heaviness that built up in whichever
[5:00]character you're prioritizing in that season.
[5:03]So before we get into your theories and frameworks, how did you get from that moment with
[5:09]your three kids post divorce to today?
[5:14]Lots of, lots of inner work and lots of therapy and I would say, so during COVID, I left
[5:21]my job and started a VC back to start up, raised millions of dollars in VC capital, built
[5:26]it and sold it a few years later, all while having three young kids at home during COVID.
[5:33]And I remember this one particular moment where I was in my bedroom and I had a babysitter
[5:39]watching the three kids and I had to come out and go straight from what I call CEO character
[5:44]into mom character and I remember coming out of that door and I had just been dealing
[5:51]with like a legal issue, I was pitching an investor, there was a supply chain thing that
[5:56]I was working on.
[5:57]I remember coming out and trying to be a mom mode and for me, mom mode, when I'm a mom,
[6:03]I am so silly.
[6:05]I want to dance poop jokes like you name it.
[6:08]We're having fun.
[6:10]That is really hard transition for me.
[6:13]So I that day said, I'm going to go take a bath and put on blueie and take 20 minutes
[6:21]to transition into mom mode.
[6:23]It's blueie for you.
[6:24]I was like, that mom, that's your mommy needs to break, yeah, it's your guilty pleasure
[6:30]as well.
[6:31]I put on a blueie and then.
[6:34]And so from that point forward, my kids would be like, oh, are you going to go turn into
[6:40]a mommy and I was like, yes, I'm going to go become a mommy because I honored the fact
[6:46]that I could not transition neatly.
[6:48]And this goes for a lot of roles.
[6:51]How many of you have tried to work or be on with your kids all day?
[6:54]And then you're like, oh, I have to be sexy.
[6:56]I have to like go on a date and I found that that was really hard for me when I became
[7:01]a single mom.
[7:03]So creating these intentional transition sequences is what I call them in the book and
[7:09]you go through and figure out what each character needs to build a transition sequence
[7:14]so that we don't guilt ourselves or not being able to be present on a date.
[7:19]Like, no, you needed a time to get out of that last character that you were in.
[7:25]And you also show this through a few diagrams where you show us what balance is and you're
[7:30]like, balance is not half and half, it's like a line down the, but balance can also
[7:36]some days look like this little piece and then or some days this giant piece.
[7:40]Why don't you say that a little better than me?
[7:42]Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
[7:43]So balance happens in the macro, not the micro, right?
[7:47]So we want to look back at the end of our life and be like, I allowed each character
[7:51]to have some character development.
[7:52]Like if you got to a move end of a movie and you just saw one character go through the
[7:58]whole thing that the best movies you see the like arc for multiple characters, right?
[8:04]So intentional imbalance is this idea that it's okay if you choose that one day you're
[8:10]going to be really on at work and then you might maybe give 20% in mom mode.
[8:17]And what I kind of talk about the minimally viable day.
[8:22]So if you think about these different versions of you, there's the ideal scenario.
[8:27]So the version of me that wants to take care of myself and work out and be super healthy.
[8:32]The ideal day would be, okay, I'm going to get an hour workout in, I'm going to like
[8:37]sauna, I'm going to really like be present and give myself some time.
[8:42]That's the ideal.
[8:43]Does that happen most days?
[8:45]No.
[8:46]So what's the minimally viable version of that character that would feel like I'm still
[8:52]satiating that need?
[8:53]For me, that's like 20 minute walk.
[8:56]If I could get a 20 minute walk in, I'm like, okay, that's the minimally viable version.
[9:01]So if you go through-
[9:02]It's a good day for me.
[9:03]But anyway, that's like you-
[9:06]I got in those steps.
[9:08]But I like to say, if you only have 20% to give and you give 20%, then you gave 100%.
[9:16]You gave what you were able to give.
[9:18]But so much of like so many of us go through life and we're just constantly putting
[9:24]gilts, injecting gilt into everything.
[9:27]So if I only have 20% to give at work because I took my kids to the trampoline park and
[9:33]then I was there with them, I only had 20% to give at work, then that was okay.
[9:38]The next day it may shift and I'm more present at work and maybe I have to work a little
[9:43]later.
[9:44]But it's just about the intention so that you can say which character is in the spotlight
[9:50]so that you don't feel guilty about the other ones.
[9:53]So have you essentially eliminated gilt?
[9:56]Yes.
[9:57]Like that is what my goal, my whole mission.
[10:00]in life is to just remove women are constantly
[10:04]just inundated with guilt.
[10:05]And I do believe that these societal trends
[10:09]are really designed to just make us feel guilty
[10:12]because every movie, every person in here
[10:16]has a different movie of their life.
[10:18]And at different times, the characters will switch.
[10:21]And so whatever's on trend by society,
[10:25]that's not your movie, that's not your script.
[10:28]And it's really important to understand
[10:31]who wrote the script that your characters are reading from.
[10:34]Is it society?
[10:35]Is it generational?
[10:37]Is it cultural?
[10:38]Is it your family?
[10:39]Is it your experiences?
[10:40]Like who is the writer of your script?
[10:43]And which of your characters are reading
[10:44]from that script versus the version of you
[10:47]that you are today writing your own script?
[10:50]So you also not to expose your innermost
[10:54]sexual secret here, but you do go into this in the book a little bit.
[10:58]You want to share a little bit about what
[10:59]happened after your divorce?
[11:00]You don't have to.
[11:01]Oh, yeah.
[11:01]No, I'm an open book.
[11:02]It's there.
[11:03]You can find it.
[11:05]So it was really important for me.
[11:08]I got married when I was night, well,
[11:10]engaged at 19, married at 21.
[11:12]Yeah, from the Midwest.
[11:14]And so when I became single at 32 with three kids,
[11:20]I had to relearn what it meant to allow
[11:23]what I call the goddess character, the character
[11:26]that really does deserve and seek out pleasure,
[11:30]not just sexually, but just pleasure from life
[11:33]and looking at the world in this lens of just fun
[11:36]and pleasure seeking.
[11:38]And it was really freeing for me to understand
[11:43]that I had that character inside of me
[11:45]that I thought was gone.
[11:47]I had been married for over 12 years,
[11:49]and I just thought that character had been written
[11:51]off the script for me.
[11:53]And realized that no, I actually,
[11:57]that character still very much is in this movie,
[12:01]but I had to create space for her to come back out.
[12:05]And that was really important.
[12:07]And now I'm getting married again next year to an amazing man.
[12:10]And it's so amazing to realize I have the agency
[12:16]with a lot of the tools from this book
[12:18]to write that character back in even during the days
[12:22]that like other characters are trying to take over.
[12:26]There was more in the book, but you're gonna just have to.
[12:28]LAUGHTER
[12:30]Okay, the characters, how do we know when we're overdoing it?
[12:35]I mean, obviously deep down,
[12:36]we know when we're overdoing whatever.
[12:37]But how do you, I mean, it's one thing to say yes,
[12:40]okay, I have all these different versions of myself
[12:42]and sometimes I'm a mom and sometimes I work out and whatever.
[12:45]But how do we do a better job of getting the balance
[12:50]in total even, right?
[12:52]I mean, how do we do that?
[12:54]That's like the goal of life, right?
[12:57]Yeah, it's definitely the goal.
[12:59]So I have an exercise in there
[13:00]that I would really love for you all to do.
[13:03]It's called the Perfect Day exercise.
[13:06]And I was on a retreat with a bunch of female founders
[13:10]and I went on this retreat and they did,
[13:12]had us do this exercise on the beach
[13:15]and it was this very kind of like kumbaya moments.
[13:19]And they had us close our eyes
[13:22]and we pictured our most perfect day.
[13:25]Money is not an object.
[13:26]You could be doing anything with your day.
[13:29]You start from the moment you wake up.
[13:32]What are your sheets feel like?
[13:34]What's outside?
[13:35]Like in great detail.
[13:37]So then you go through your whole day
[13:40]till the point where your head hits the pillow again at night.
[13:43]And then you get depressed that your real day
[13:44]looks nothing like that.
[13:45]Yeah.
[13:46]Well, so this is interesting.
[13:48]After you did the visualization exercise,
[13:51]you then had to reveal to the group.
[13:54]And I went first because I'm like the type
[13:56]I straight-a straight I was like, I'll go first.
[13:58]So I shared that my Perfect Day, now granted,
[14:01]I'm the founder of a VC backed startup.
[14:03]I am hustling.
[14:06]My CEO character was in the spotlight for a long time.
[14:10]My Perfect Day had nothing to do with work.
[14:13]It was truly about like I was still single at the time.
[14:17]I was like, I woke up and I had a partner.
[14:20]I woke up and I went and found friends
[14:22]to go for a walk with.
[14:23]I hosted a barbecue at night.
[14:26]It was so much about community and friends.
[14:29]The woman next to me went.
[14:31]She woke up.
[14:32]She was on Good Morning America
[14:33]because she was on the cover of Forbes.
[14:35]And I literally said to myself, fuck, I did it wrong.
[14:38]I'm on a founder retreat.
[14:40]But this exercise illuminated to me
[14:43]that the CEO character was taking over
[14:46]and I hadn't created space for the characters
[14:49]that crave connection, meaningful connection, community,
[14:53]stability.
[14:54]So that visualization exercise led to me selling my company
[14:59]because I realized I wanted to create more space.
[15:03]Now, funny enough, a year later, I had met my partner
[15:08]and was in a relationship we were moving in together.
[15:12]And I had built community after I'd moved to Miami
[15:15]from New York City and I did the exercise again
[15:18]and I pictured walking into a bookstore with my kids
[15:22]and seeing my book and talking in front of people.
[15:26]I was like, oh, I'm ready to have the CEO character
[15:29]take over a little bit more.
[15:31]So it's this idea that you create these intentional moments
[15:35]where you just check in with yourself
[15:36]to say when you do that exercise
[15:38]and I've done this now with countless groups of people
[15:41]and coaching sessions and workshops.
[15:44]Every time somebody's like, ah, it illuminates to them
[15:47]which character they've kind of repressed from the movie.
[15:52]My perfect day involves me waking up on a beach in Mexico.
[15:56]So I don't know what that says.
[15:57]We all have to leave because now I'm quitting the podcast.
[16:00]Go to it again.
[16:00]No, but you're so, what that says to me is
[16:03]you're craving maybe novelty and exploration and rest.
[16:07]So which characters do you need to write back in
[16:10]so that those needs, those human needs that you have
[16:13]right now are getting met a little bit more right now?
[16:15]Sure, we can all use some rest.
[16:17]Yeah.
[16:18]Yeah, but he needs a little more rest in their day.
[16:19]Oh my goodness.
[16:21]Okay, so is this your perfect day then?
[16:23]You get to be in CEO mode.
[16:24]You're like on state, like is this a good day for you?
[16:27]A bed, like how is your perfect day?
[16:29]Oh, how is your perfect day shifted?
[16:31]This is exactly what I pictured for this season of life.
[16:36]And I'm going, I have a check in scheduled in December
[16:40]after I get through the book tour to do that exercise again.
[16:43]And I have a feeling it's going to look different
[16:46]the next time I do it because I will,
[16:48]I'm letting the CEO take the spotlight for this chunk of time.
[16:52]I have a feeling in December it's going to be probably
[16:55]mom mode and a little bit softer characters.
[16:58]And you weave in Maslow's hierarchy of needs
[17:00]into your book is like a founding principle.
[17:02]Talk a little bit about that.
[17:04]Well, when you think about our basic human needs,
[17:07]we start with obviously everyone knows Maslow
[17:10]like the bottom is food and shelter
[17:12]and then you kind of move up to self-actualization.
[17:14]But when you think about our human needs
[17:18]of we want to feel significant,
[17:20]we want connection, we want play.
[17:24]When you look at those human needs
[17:26]and then you start to look at each of your characters.
[17:29]And I have in the workbook that comes with it.
[17:33]There's a spectrum for each of these human needs.
[17:36]And you look at your character, okay, my CEO character
[17:39]does that give me significance?
[17:40]For some people, their job may or may not give them significance.
[17:45]It may or may not give them creativity or connection.
[17:49]So every character for each person is different
[17:52]and how they meet their human needs.
[17:54]So when you start to look at those,
[17:56]oh, if you've been living in your CEO character for so long
[18:00]and you have a need for significance and creativity
[18:06]and your CEO character is starving that from you.
[18:09]That's line of sight into, okay,
[18:12]I now need to create some intentional time
[18:14]for these other characters that will help me meet those needs.
[18:18]And how was it for you getting all of these thoughts
[18:21]and theories into practice and putting them all into a book?
[18:24]It was so fun.
[18:26]So for me, I started a newsletter first
[18:29]just to see, I had been writing for a very long time
[18:33]and I had never put anything out into the world.
[18:37]So I was like newsletter first.
[18:38]This seems like a safe spot to write like 1,000 words at a time.
[18:43]And it was just incredible to see the response
[18:46]from putting some of these frameworks that I had put into my life
[18:50]that really helped me balance three kids, jobs,
[18:53]finding a love again and writing the book was literally,
[18:57]I felt like it kind of just like poured out of me.
[19:00]I wrote it really fast and it was such a fun moment
[19:04]to kind of get 20 years of a lot of life
[19:08]and lived experience that I had lived into this book.
[19:12]So there's a lot of sharing, as Zibi already mentioned,
[19:17]in the book, but it's a lot of raw, real stuff
[19:20]that has happened that I've learned from over the years.
[19:23]Were there books that you turned to
[19:25]as you went through this big life transition?
[19:27]I mean, so many.
[19:31]I'm so fortunate to be surrounded by so many amazing women
[19:35]that write.
[19:36]I mean, gosh, there's just a few on the spot.
[19:39]You don't have to do that.
[19:40]Yeah, there's so many that I read so many people's newsletters
[19:43]and just I get fascinated by writing style
[19:47]to just really kind of getting nerdy
[19:50]about how someone writes and what it makes you feel,
[19:55]which I find fascinating.
[19:57]So if somebody was going to attempt to do a book like this.
[20:00]which illustrates frameworks and is self-help,
[20:02]but also brings in emotions in your personal story.
[20:06]How do they get started?
[20:08]Journaling.
[20:09]I mean, getting comfortable knowing your story
[20:12]and being able to share it is hard.
[20:16]I think that that takes time.
[20:18]And I always like to remind people,
[20:21]share lived experience from a place of processed emotion,
[20:25]especially if you're doing it with the purpose
[20:28]of helping others.
[20:29]And so I could not have written this book in 2021
[20:33]when I was still going through my divorce,
[20:36]getting through COVID.
[20:37]Like, I hadn't processed a lot of it.
[20:42]So it took me years to actually work through
[20:45]what I learned from it, not just what I felt from it.
[20:49]Amazing.
[20:50]And what do your kids think about this whole situation?
[20:52]I've turned my middle daughter into a writer.
[20:55]She's got, she's like trying to find an agent.
[20:57]Like, she wakes up in the morning, she writes,
[21:01]she has a new little book, peanut butter and jelly,
[21:03]the ventures of peanut butter and jelly.
[21:05]And yeah, so it's really cool to see them wanting
[21:09]to do that.
[21:10]So it makes me so happy.
[21:12]Had we known, we could have sold it here.
[21:14]I know, right?
[21:15]Yeah.
[21:16]It's amazing.
[21:18]So of all the frameworks, and I only touched on a few of them,
[21:21]but there are many in the book.
[21:23]What do you find on a day-to-day basis
[21:26]when you get out of bed in the morning?
[21:27]What helps you the most?
[21:28]How do you make sure you are essentially living your best life
[21:32]every day?
[21:33]What do you use most regularly?
[21:35]It's the concept of the two do-list, the one-two do-list.
[21:40]So for each of my characters that I'm choosing to place
[21:43]in the spotlight that day, I pick two things
[21:47]that would be meaningful or impactful for that character
[21:50]to move their plotline forward.
[21:52]And for me, that's enough.
[21:54]I think the journey of knowing what is enough is important
[21:57]as you're writing your script, but the two do-list.
[22:01]So what are the two most meaningful and impactful things
[22:03]I can do for work?
[22:04]What are the two most meaningful and impactful things
[22:06]I can do in my mom character?
[22:08]For me, that's usually we have to have sit down dinner,
[22:11]and I have to be present phone-free for tuck-ins.
[22:14]I love tuck-ins.
[22:14]Like I think that you can have a great tuck-in experience
[22:18]when you're present and there.
[22:20]And so the two do-list, figuring out
[22:22]what are two things that I can do to honor each of those
[22:25]characters, has helped me because how many of you have written?
[22:29]You're like, OK, I'm going to write a long list
[22:31]of all the things I need to do today.
[22:34]First of all, you're like, OK, I feel accomplished
[22:36]because I wrote it, but then you didn't do it.
[22:39]Then we are wired to crave dopamine.
[22:43]So what do we do?
[22:44]We go for the easiest thing to get done on the list.
[22:48]That doesn't mean it's most impactful.
[22:50]In the same with kids, it's like a day can really go by
[22:53]where you are just in robotic mom mode.
[22:57]And it's important to just really take a moment
[22:59]to say what does meaningful and impactful look like
[23:02]for that character.
[23:04]Awesome.
[23:04]So what's on your list today?
[23:06]Today is really CEO mode all day.
[23:10]And I'm allowing all my other characters
[23:13]to have a very tiny to-do list.
[23:15]Like we're going to get a small little walk-in, hopefully,
[23:19]if it's not so raining.
[23:19]But today I recorded audio book this morning, then this.
[23:24]And then I have the host of a new podcast coming out.
[23:27]And we have three episodes to film today.
[23:30]Oh my gosh.
[23:30]So it's CEO character, but that is intentional by design.
[23:35]It's a big CEO character day.
[23:37]And then tomorrow I fly home and I'm in mom mode.
[23:40]Amazing.
[23:41]Wow.
[23:42]One piece of parting advice for everybody?
[23:44]What would you say?
[23:47]When you start to feel the word should coming
[23:51]into your vocabulary, oh, I should be doing this.
[23:54]I should be doing that.
[23:56]Ask yourself who's writing that script.
[23:59]Who is directing that movie?
[24:02]It's probably not the current version of you.
[24:07]It's somewhere from your past.
[24:09]It's you from younger years, a six-year-old Amanda likes
[24:15]to try to direct the movie of my life a lot.
[24:18]And I have to remind her she's not the director.
[24:21]So it's just reminding yourself who you are the director,
[24:25]you are the writer, you are casting the characters.
[24:28]Amazing.
[24:28]Amanda, thank you so much.
[24:30]Thank you for having me.
[24:31]Thank you.
[24:33]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi.
[24:36]Formerly, mom's don't have time to read books.
[24:38]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[24:41]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[24:44]and spread the word.
[24:46]Thanks so much.
[24:47]Oh, and buy the books.