September 10, 2020 • 38 mins
Jamie Ivey is on for all '4 things' this week to discuss her newest book called You Be You: Why Satisfaction and Success Are Closer Than You Think (out October 1st). FIRST THING: Amy and Jamie talk about false definitions of success and comparing yourself to others based on social media, interactions, or impressions. SECOND THING: What is your calling? Jamie encourages us to live out OUR story, push our comfort level, set boundaries and when to say no to things. THIRD THING: Does discontentment lead to other feelings that you don’t need to worry about? Jamie breaks this down (contentment vs. discontentment) and shares how to figure out what to worry about, and what to focus on what you have, and how to enjoy it! FOURTH THING: Jamie talks about living like it matters...reawakening your personal goals, and doing your best, to “finish well.”
Jamie's book link: YouBeYouBook.net (available for pre-order now and out Oct. 1st)
For Jamie's Podcast & More: JamieIvey.com
Fall #4Things Pullovers that support Haiti: RadioAmy.com
myLIFEspeaks in Haiti: @myLIFEspeaks
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for you so life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
it's pretty beautiful than that a little mouth. Tighten your
(00:29):
kicking with four Brown Happy Thursday. I am pumped to
have on podcaster and best selling author and friend of
mine for many years, Jamie Ivy. She is back on
the Four Things podcast today because she has a new
book coming out called You Be You Why satisfaction and
(00:49):
success are closer than you think. Jamie does all four
Things with me and we discuss false definitions of success,
living your story, contentment versus discontentment it, and lastly, finishing well.
I really hope you enjoy our chat and you can
check out Jamie's podcast it's called Happy Hour with Jamie Ivy.
And then if you want to pre order her book,
(01:10):
which is officially out October one. Depending on when you're
listening to this, you can go to you bu dot
net or I linked it on my Amazon Favorites page
under books, which you can find at Radio amy dot
com and also at radiomy dot com. You can find
a link to our Fall four Things pullovers that release
this Saturday, September twelve, And if you love Fall, you're
(01:31):
definitely gonna want to get one of the two pre
made options that we're putting up, or maybe maybe both.
One is maroon, one is burnt orange, and they both
say at different four things and they're so cute. I'm
wearing mine all the time and we just hope you
love them as much as we do. And you can
wear and rep our four things community like I feel
like anytime you'll use anything for things, it's part of
(01:52):
our little community here and you can feel good knowing
that these pullovers and then everything is spat is supporting
my life speaks the next couple of months and they're
doing may using work in Haiti. Okay, well, here is
my interview with Jamie Ivy. Enjoyed me. First, I have
my friend Jamie Ivy here. She's been on the podcast
before and before we started recording, I was like, you
(02:14):
know what, Jamie, I just want you to be you
and we laughed a little bit because this is exciting.
Jamie has another book coming out and it's called You
Be You Be You, and we're going to go into
like four different parts of the book. But I think
that that's something that sometimes we struggle with, is being
a chameleon to whatever audience were with and it's like, well,
(02:38):
what's what's the point. Well, it's funny because the way
you said it to me, I was like, okay, you
mean like, tell me about your audience. I want to
meet them where they are. And you weren't trying to
be funny and just said, I want you to be you.
And I was like, that's true. That's what I want
to be is I want to be me. But this
is why Amy, and I don't know if you've ever
said with this, I guess you have, because I think
everyone has struggled with this that we look around and
we think she's killing it. She's awesome, her kids are great,
(03:00):
her marriage is great, her job is awesome, she doesn't
have any struggles. If I could just be her, I'd
be happy. Okay, yeah, me too. I know. And again
our conversation before is private too. But I think that
if people could be able to fly on the wall
for that, they would realize if they look at your
Instagram or my Instagram or wherever they're getting their bird's
eye view of our life from, if they could be
a fly on the wall for certain things, they would
(03:22):
learn really quickly. That's there's a lot that people don't
know and that we're going through and nobody is perfect
and has it all together, and this dream life that's
so true. It's so true. And I think I talk
about that a lot with people about Instagram. You love Instagram.
I love Instagram. It's my favorite place to hang out.
I don't if it's your favorite you like it that much.
It's my social media. It's my favorite one me too.
(03:44):
It's my favorite because I feel like it's nice, you know,
and people aren't gonna, for the most part, come at you.
But I always think, like when I look at someone's Instagram,
I think, oh, I see some great things about them,
but I don't see their whole life. And here's why
I know that, because people don't see my whole life
on my Instagram. You know, Like what I put up
is it's a what I want you to see. It's
not a lie by any means, it's just not the
(04:05):
entire whole story. And so we have to be careful
as intake of social media to know that when you're
seeing someone else and you think, if I had her life,
I'd be so happy, there's more to her life than
you actually know. And that's what we have to remember too,
because if you start to believe that we could sit
down and name five people that were like, oh, if
I could have her life like I see on Instagram,
And then if we brought that person in here, they'd
(04:26):
be like, let me tell you the hard things we're
going through, let me tell you about this, let me
tell about this. But like, oh, we're more like than
we thought, like we have the same struggles. Yeah. I
think that we often look at certain people and what
they've achieved and think, okay, now that's success. So what
are some false definitions of success or you know, more importantly,
why do we need to throw them out the window?
(04:47):
Success is this weird word because we want it, but
I don't think we always know what that means, and
so I think success is kind of a moving target.
So let's say I'll use you as an example. You
work at this radio station, or will you your podcast?
Lest So let's say your podcast gets this many downloads
and your boss comes to you is like okay, awesome,
and you think, oh, I'm a success and then like okay,
(05:07):
but now you need more, like good job, but you
need more, Or you think, oh, a successful parent is
someone who their kids say yes name and no ma'am.
They follow all the rules, they obey you, they love you,
and they turn out to be great human beings. Like
that feels successful and we want that right? Oh, I
want that so bad too, Like, we want that so bad,
but I think that we can't actually ever reach the target.
(05:28):
It's a moving target. So it's moving with marriage, it's
moving with parenting, it's moving with jobs. So this is
what I'm thinking, Amy is instead of me saying I
want to be a successful mom, because what everyone says
a successful mom is is that her kids turn out great.
But honestly, what if one of my kids doesn't? Am
I a failure? No? So instead I'm like, how about
I just be a faithful mom, which means I'm going
(05:48):
to be a faithful mom to these kids that God
gave me. I'm gonna faithfully love them. I'm gonna faithfully
teach them. But what they choose to do with their
lives is not my responsibility. Do Should I be a
good mom? Yes, but I'm gonna be faithful. So my
goal is to be faithful, not to be successful in
my job. My goal is to be faithful, not successful,
because what happens when I reach what I think of
(06:08):
success and then I find out there's more actually, like
you're not actually at the end. It's constantly moving. So
I think that's draining for me to try to always
be quote unquote successful based on what someone else says.
I can't do that. I can't be amy like, I
cannot be your success because that's for you. But I
can be faithful Jamie, and I can do what I'm
supposed to do, and that takes a lot of weight
off me. And how do we stop the blame game
(06:32):
of if something goes wrong at work or if something
goes wrong with one of our kids, Because yes, I
can hear you say that, and I can receive it
and be like, Okay, yeah, if one of my kids
has an episode of X y Z going on with
themselves and I feel like, oh, I may be triggered
this or I messed up or something I did, and
now look at what they're struggling with. Now I hear
what you're saying, and I know deep down it's not me,
(06:54):
But somehow I guess. I feel like with work and
being a mom, I take the response ability kind of
like is any boss. It's ultimately I feel like it
falls on me so how do we give ourselves permission
to release that it's hard. I guess that's where the
faithfulness comes in. Yes, and as like a working mom too,
we're talking about parenting like sometimes I feel like, okay,
(07:16):
because I'm with you right now in Nashville. My four
children are not here, and so there's this kind of burden.
So I don't feel it this much because listen, we've
been in the middle of COVID. I was like, peace out, kids,
I'm going to Extraville. I will see you later. But
there's this kind of sense of like, oh, if I
can't be with my kids, I'm not a good mom.
I'm not being able to give them what they need.
But also I'm like love my job and I'm also
good at that, and so I can do both. But
(07:38):
it's just like, what is my my goal is to
be faithful instead of my goal is to be successful,
because success is, like I said, it's a smoothing target.
Like what if my kids go through a really hard
time and then I'm like I'm the same mom, like
I'm still being faithful to what he called what God
asked me to do. So it's this faithfulness that you
have to like this is gonna be my goal, That's
going to be my end game. Now it's a whole
(07:58):
another podcast amy how we as moms deal with Like
I feel like it is my fault and I feel
like I'm blaming myself because I struggle with that. You
and I we talked about that before. That's hard. It's
hard stuff, for sure. I think that it's just maybe
like some sort of a mantra and reminder of I'm
not going to define success this way anymore, and I'm
going to remind myself like I'm doing my best, I'm
(08:21):
doing what I was called to do, kind of just
over and over until it until a Steve sin But
then I feel like you, even you writing this book
and focusing on some of that and part of it,
like you probably still have to remind yourself. I think
sometimes our listeners are like, Okay, they've got it all
figured out, but we're sitting over your struggling, just like you.
And so like with my job as a podcaster, obviously
(08:43):
numbers matter, downloads matter, like it's my job, no one's.
I don't make a living if people don't listen to
my job. So there's that thin line of I want
to be successful with my show. But also let's say
that my show, like there's like eight thousand podcasts right now,
you know, and so not anyone can listen to every
show every week, you know. So let's say the numbers
aren't growing at the speed that they used to. Am
(09:04):
I a failure? I don't think so, because I'm faithfully
doing doing what I need to be doing for my
show every week. And so the show I put out,
I'm proud of it, I love it. I'm faithful to
do what I think that God has asked me to do.
And will it be number one? Probably not. Do I
want it to be absolutely, you know. So it's not
like I'm like I don't care what happens in life. No,
(09:25):
like I want to do my best. But also, when
I changed my mindset, I'm going to be faithful. That
means when it's number fifty, number twenty, number one, number ten,
I still lay my head down at nine and be like,
I did exactly what you asked me to do. Yeah,
And people can apply that to anything anything. I mean,
switching the mindset that's huge, and I don't know that
I am good at doing that, but I'm going to
(09:45):
really try. I know, that this was everything that I
needed to do for my job, for my kids, for
my friends or whatever. And then and there are some
days if it doesn't work, it's not my fault exactly.
And there are some days that you're gonna be telling
yourself that every forty five seconds. Okay, I'm faithful. I'm
gonna I'm going to be the best mom I can. Okay,
that's that's my job right now. Okay, I just adopted it.
(10:07):
That's my mantra. I'm faithful. Yeah, I'm going to be faithful.
Love it. Okay. The next thing I want to talk
about is how do we live our story? How do
we know how to use the gifts that we've been given?
Where how do we find those? I feel like last
week on my podcast, I was talking about honing your
(10:28):
skills and then knowing like your mission statement of sorts?
Do you have a mission statement? Oh? I don't. I'm
working on one. My husband's working on one, I am,
and then we're working on one for our family, so
you will each individually have one and then you have
a family one. Yeah, Like what are our goals? What
do we want to be? And how are we going
to do it? And it's sort of making a little
(10:49):
proclamation of what do you want to live for? Are
having the kids do so? No, not yet. Maybe it
is something we'll have them do, but we're both in
our own therapy and it's just he brought it up.
And then I was doing some research on how to
be a human being and not human doing because my
therapist told me I was in doing mode so much
so we're working on a mission statement, so I didn't
know when it came to living your story or trying
(11:11):
to use the talents you've been given a mission statement.
I'm on this now, Amy, I'll get back with you,
all right. Yeah, yeah, you know. I think it's interesting
is when you and I talked about like living out
your story and doing what you're called to do and
finding your passions and your gifts. You and I both
started doing what we're doing kind of the same way,
Like you started in radio a weird way and so
(11:33):
did I and it's changed our whole lives. Do you
see that, Like did you ever wake up one day
and you're like, I am going to be that zero
aspirations for radio? Me too? But we both that's a
part of our careers now today and I think that's
so crazy. And back in Austin, Texas, when you were
at CAVA and I was at h F I, we
met be like what are we doing exactly? And that's
(11:55):
so funny to me because I think so many times
we're like, what is my calling? What is my gifting?
What am I supposed to do? And sometimes, honestly, I
feel like you just kind of take the next step
right in front of you and it might seem weird
and it might seem crazy, and you never know what
that's going to lead to. And both you and I
did that. We just were like, well, I don't know,
this sounds like interesting, let's fun, and let's do this.
And then here we are, all these years later, still
(12:16):
doing parts of that job that we well, you're still
doing the same job and I'm doing a different job,
but we're doing things that we didn't know or planned
to do. Kind of same job, a very very very
different like I never thought it would be. I mean
we kind of like we're just in Austin one market
hanging out. I was not going to a country radio station. Yeah,
we were doing pop. There's been some changes, but I
(12:40):
think sometimes we're just thinking, how do I find out
what I'm supposed to do, like what is my life
long mission? Like you kind of said with that, but
what am I supposed to do? And I sometimes think
that you kind of go through life and there's turns
and there's pivots, and there's things that you didn't know
you were going to try and that you were going
to do. And I've learned that to find like what
my calling is, sometimes I think it's just looking around
and seeing what's the need, Like what is happening around me.
(13:02):
I have a friend who always says the need is
the call, and I have found that when I have
like spent time volunteering in certain areas or even us
leading to our family, like the way our family has
been formed is I just kind of looked around and
was like, Oh, where's the need here? I could do that.
Like I spent a handful of years volunteering in this
in this organization that worked in our county jail, like
I would have never imagined doing that. I never set
(13:23):
out to do, like jail ministry, but a friends just said, like,
we're starting this, you want to be a part of it?
And I was like, yes, I have the time out
of the space of the capacity and it seems like
something that would joy and ended up doing it for
three years. But I never would have said, like, oh,
I'm called to jail ministry. That's going to be a
part of my life plan. But I just said yes,
I think that's a part of it too. It's just like,
how are we going to say yes to things and
see where they take us? And to me, I feel
(13:45):
the most satisfied when I'm doing what I'm supposed to
do and not what you're supposed to do or anyone else.
Like I can look at my life and go, this
is where I'm supposed to be and it looks different
than other people's, but I'm really happy here. Yeah. I
love like the need is the call. So you're and
presented you something to do that was a need and
you took it. Do you struggle with what you should
say yes to? I don't really know this about you.
(14:06):
If you're a yes person or you're okay with saying
no and setting boundaries. I have struggled it before a
handful of years. Book go I read a book called
The Best Yes. It's by a woman named Lisa Turkhurst,
and at that time I was going I'm saying yes
to everything, and I feel really exhausted four kids. I
wasn't even doing really what I'm doing now, but I
was just saying, anyone needed something, Yes, Okay, I can
(14:27):
do it, Yes, yes, yes. And I don't know if
this book encouraged me to do this or I just
did it, But I made a list of like the
four most important things in my life, like family obviously,
but career wise, and then I decided that if it
didn't fall under one of those categories, I had to
say no to it for the next year. And I
remember amy someone invited me to do something and it
(14:48):
felt like big, kind of like this could be a
lot of fun, this is a really big deal, and
I said yes, And then I remembered the list I
made and like I tried to fit it in one
of them, and like I couldn't fit it in, like
it didn't fall under any of those yeses, And I
had a caller back and say I couldn't do it,
and I felt like a loser for going back on
my word, and I also felt mad that I had
made that stinking list. Ever, but it ended up being
(15:09):
like exactly what I needed to do, because I had
made a commitment. I'm only going to say yes to
these things. So yes. That used to be hard for me.
Now I pretty am Like, if it doesn't fit in
my life space, I'm gonna say no to it. I
like that, do you do field trips? What? What my kids? Yeah? Well,
I mean I haven't really had to because of coronavirus lately.
But no. See, that's the thing that's always that for
(15:29):
me is I'm not a field trip mom, okay, and so,
but say no to that. I always felt like the
worst mom, Like who who like has the chance I
want to field trip and says no? Well, me, I
don't like field trips. I mean, is it truly a need?
Though I'm sure they have other moms right, surely they do.
I don't know that that's a need. But what I'm
saying is I realized that that's okay if I say
(15:50):
no to that, Like I'm not a bad mom if
I can't go to the zoo with my kids and
my kids older from not doing field trips anymore. And
I would actually probably like their field trips these days, Like, hey,
who wants to go to Washington d C. Me I'll
go on that track I'll go on that. But I
tend to figure out like it's okay if I say
no to that, because that's not me. Yeah. I had
to say no to something the other day, and not
because I had made a list, like you, but you're
(16:11):
encouraging me to do that. I think that that's so
many things come through, and they're good things, and it's
really easy to just not want to hurt anybody's feelings
or make them feel like you're not grateful, and to
just say yeses yes. And I had to guess send
a note the other day that again not because I
have a list, but I was just looking at how
I had been stretched then even just emotionally and time wise,
(16:34):
and then carving out time for rest and family. And
if I keep saying yes, then that that stuff dwindles down.
And I sent the note and I was nervous about it,
and she replied back with such grace, And so that
as scary as it is sometimes to say no, people
can surprise you. I think it's also like that's a
(16:54):
good reminder to us when we're on the receiving end
of someone being like, y, I can't do this because
I need to dress to not be offended and to
be like, good for you. I'm proud of you for
doing that in your life. So that was good that
your friend responded that way. So do you feel like
responding to the need and then that being your calling?
Even if it's just for three years, it doesn't mean
you're committing the rest of your life, Like that's you
(17:15):
living you know, your story and leaving your deepest miss
That's what I think is Like I think that we
think we need to have a sentence long calling, and
me as a as a Christian, I think there is
a bigger calling on my life. Like I want someone
who loves God. I want other people to love God.
So that's a calling for me that never changes, you know,
Like I want my kids to love God. I want
my friends love God. I want people that I know
(17:36):
to love God. So for me, that's a big deal.
And I think all those other things kind of fall
underneath there, you know, like me serving in the prison
ministry that was great. I used to be a teacher.
I used to teach singing school on my church. Like
all these things, I think we're a part of my story.
And they say different, it's fluid, yes, and that's okay.
And that's good. You have to remember that though, when
(17:57):
you look at someone else's life and think how does
she have what she has? And you have to dig
deeper to be like, well, she used to do this,
and she used to do that, and she started here.
Like you said, you started at this one little station
in Austin and that was it and you never expected
to be here. So it's not like you wrote down
my calling is to be in I don't know, eight
hundred thousand places at one time. You could have never
(18:17):
imagined that. And I still don't even know that that.
I I still struggle with waking up. I mean, of
course I love what I do, and I love who
I work with. And then even doing a podcast, I mean,
you were in the podcast game way before anybody. You're
for sure. My first friend had a podcast, and then
you know, and I even work in the industry. So
when Bobby came to me and said, I think you
should do a podcast. I'm gonna start a network, I thought, oh, really,
(18:40):
what am I going to talk about? I mean, who,
why would I do a podcast? I don't even know
what I'm doing. And the only radio experience I had
was by his side. The entire time, and he's like,
I think it's time that you just go spread your wings,
do it yourself. And it took me probably a year
to get it together and finally put out an episode
and do what I needed to do. Life took some turns,
and I had to keep postponing it, but I really
(19:00):
think I kept saying no, no, no, but not permanently,
just not right now. But obviously knew I had to
do it, but I didn't ever feel called. But then
I thought, okay, well, Bobby saying that there's a need
here for me, I guess now I'm using your language
and thinking of how I approached it, and I was like,
I guess I'll just go and see where this goes.
And then now love for years and I really do
(19:22):
enjoy it, and I love connecting with my community and
having my own group outside of the Bobby body. Now
a lot of them might be from that, which is amazing,
but some people come from other parts that don't know,
and then we just have this connection. I mean, if
someone said to me recently, they're like, Jamie, if you
think about it, when you were in college, and I'm
forty two, so when I was in college, there were
(19:44):
there were no podcasts, Like there was no iPhone and
so to think, like the career that I have now
didn't even exist when I was in college. So if
you're listening and you're in college, who knows what you're
gonna be doing in twenty years that might not even
be exists in existence in that's crazy. Right out of college,
I was selling granite and look at you. There's a
(20:06):
really fun job. I loved it. I worked with all
my friends. But I kind of thought that's what I
was going to do the rest of my life, and
travel the world, going to quarries like in Italy and
that does sound and it was like that was my goal.
And then I met Bobby at Culvert so Sonny and
changed everything. But okay, I love that, Like the need
is your college. Look around? What is it? What is it?
(20:27):
And then that might lead to X, which leads to why,
which leads to just don't know? Yeah, open your eyes
one day. Yeah, well you're sitting in Nashville with your
friend talking about all the crazy things. Alkay, let's talk
(20:50):
contentment versus discontentment. This is hard. This is really hard
because to be content means to be like, I'm satisfied,
with my life, with my circumstance, aways with how things
are going, and honestly, sometimes that feels like like it's unattainable.
Everything feels hard. Sometimes, you know, life feels difficult. I
don't know how it can be content with where I am,
(21:10):
or who I'm with or all the things. And I
think that when we are doing and being and living
as we are supposed to be, like as me being myself,
as me trusting my gifts and my talents and my passions,
me really saying I want to be me. I don't
want to be anybody else. I want to be Jamie.
Ivy is when I can start to feel more satisfied
(21:31):
with who I am and satisfied with what I'm doing,
which leads to more contentment as well. And I think
that discontentment can lead to envy, it can lead to jealousy,
It can lead to so many different things, and I
don't want any of those in my heart, even though
they creep in a lot if I'm honest, and so
for me having to fight those, one of the best
(21:51):
ways that I fight envy and jealousy and discontentment in
the life that I'm living is by being a cheerleader
for other people. I think that that is one way
that we can really, really really fight that in our
own hearts is to be happy when someone else has
something that maybe you desire. Like you've talked about infertility
on Bobby Bone Show, right, okay, so nothing new here.
When you and your husband walking through that, I'm sure
(22:13):
there were moments when you were like, I'm angry, I
hate God. Were there also moments when you're like, I'm
genuinely happy for my friend? Sure? You know my sister
has had four babies pregnant wise out of herself, I
guess I just want to make sure you clarify there.
None are adopted, So she's gotten pregnant four times. When
we were trying to get pregnant, I remember literally taking
(22:33):
a pregnancy test and then getting a text same day
from a friend announcing her pregnancy, which I was happy.
And I've done segments on this podcast about giving people
permission to tell their friends how they really feel and
what they're going through and that they are happy for them,
but not to carry that weight of the envy and
(22:54):
the for me, it's okay that you feel that, like,
don't stick with it. Let's not you want that, and
I think it's okay if it's your real friends that
you can say, gosh, I really want that for myself.
And if you maybe can't pull it together to make
it to a brunch or a baby shower because it's
too hard. I try to give people that permission you
(23:16):
know hopefully you can, but if you can't, it is okay,
and that friend should understand because it's very hard and
can feel very lonely in that kind of I'm gonna
ask you a more question. In those moments when you
were like, I am genuinely happy for you, like I'm
genuinely happy for you, did you feel a little bit
more content and where you were? I mean, because you
stall the emotions you still have, the like I would
(23:38):
give like my left arm to be pregnant, like you
still are, like I would give anything, but I would
suspect in all those years there were probably moments where
you would go, I'm genuinely happy for my friend. Yes, yes,
I was always genuine and my sister and I love
my friends, kids and my nieces and my nephews, and
I wouldn't for whatever reason. Once I got past again,
(24:00):
I think I addressed those feelings and then when I
started to see that there was other I wouldn't have
Stevenson and stuff here if I had gotten pregnant. And
everybody's life just takes different paths, but sometimes you have
to be a little bit on the other side of
those negative pregnancy tests too then appreciate, Okay, why I
(24:21):
went through that, and what am I going to do
to find a need and where can I come in
and fill it? And now it becomes my life's purpose.
So I think when you're genuinely happy for that person
and you're genuinely cheering them on, it helps you fight
jealousy and envy. Again, those feelings are not bad or wrong,
and it's not like you shouldn't feel that way, but
that lane in bed of I am so jealous of her.
(24:43):
I'm so envious of her. I want her life so badly.
That can be healthy, because that is totally saying she
has everything and I have nothing, and I just don't
think that's true either, And that's a whole another conversation
as well, of like, well you just think the grass
is grea you always think the grass is greener, but
it's not all you have grass right in front of you.
You know that is yours, and so for me cheering
(25:03):
women on in a professional place as well, I was like, okay,
you've maybe got what I think I want or deserve.
When I am so happy for you and I can
be a cheerleader for you and I wish you the best,
it's really hard for me to then sit in that
jealousy and envy. So for me, contentment has been a
lot of me going I'm going to look at my
(25:24):
life and see that this is where God wants me
and this is what he has for me, the good,
the bad, ugly, to all the things. And I'm also
going to look at your life and think, I'm so
happy that that is where you're supposed to be and
what you're doing. And listen for the listener, I fully
understand this is hard work. Like I'm not saying like, oh,
just say these things and then you'll be like everything
will be great. This is really hard work. You and
(25:45):
I both know that it's hard work of every day
going Okay, she has what I want, but I want
to look at what I have and how can I
do the best with what I have? Because also this
feels like a soapbox for me, Amy, but I feel
like when we look at our life, our children are
not having children, our spouses, our friends are, community or job,
whatever it is. There's nothing wrong with wanting to do better,
and there's nothing wrong with wanting to succeed. But I
(26:07):
think where it gets tricky is when we look at
the people that God has put in front of us
to influence. And I believe everyone's an influencer, whether you're
like PTA, president, CEO of whatever, everyone's an influencer. And
I feel like when you look at those people and
you think I want to influence those people over there,
you're looking at the people that God has given you
influence over and saying you don't matter, Like you're not enough,
(26:29):
You're not worth me putting my time into. And that
could be your classroom, it could be your whole organization,
it could be your family, it could be your community.
And I want to be someone who looks at the
people that God has given me, family, community, professional, and go,
you matter enough for me to give you my best.
That's what I want to do. And I don't want
to constantly wish I had hurt people because I feel
like I'd be more successful, or more liked or more whatever.
(26:52):
I want to focus on who you've put in front
of me that's been really good for me. Yeah. I
feel like since I used the cliche earlier of the
grass is always green or when it's not, I'll go
ahead and follow it up with another one of watering
your own grass. Yeah, it's so true because it might
seem brown for a reason. What are you doing to
invest back in? And I think when it comes back
(27:12):
to any envy or jealousy, I've been trying to lean
into some of those feelings lately instead of suppressing them,
or at least acknowledging that they're there so that they
don't manifest as something else later where I'm being tacky
and icky, and I feel like they have power over
you when you don't say like I see you, like
I know you're here and I'm going to fight against it.
(27:32):
But if you kind of don't acknowledge it, it feels
like it wins a little bit. Yeah, and we don't
want it to win. We don't. What about fully embracing gifts, Like,
if we don't do that, what are we missing up?
I think when I talk about like fully embracing the
gifts you've been given, I think the problem if we
even go back a little bit. The problem is that
is that we look around at other people's talents or
(27:53):
gifts or influence or power, whatever their voice, whatever they
might have, and go, those are the best possible things
to have, Like, she has this talent if I had that, Like,
let's just say, like she has the talent of you know, hospitality.
You go into this woman's office, her work, her classroom,
whatever it might be, and you feel so at home,
(28:15):
and you think, I don't have that gift. She must
be a better woman than me. And again, there's nothing wrong.
Everyone should feel like like hospitable to people, right, but
we know some people who you're like, I feel so
at home, Like you're the most hospitable person I've ever met,
Like I wish I had more of that. And so
there's this like, yes, we need to be hospital but
then we also have to go like God has given
(28:36):
her something special, and like that's something that she can
like own and she can stand tall in and she
can shine in that. But He's given me other special
gifts that maybe she doesn't have so much of, And
I need to be proud of the way God made me.
And I think if we go back a little bit.
We have to quit making other gifts and talent seem better.
Like people might look at you and I'd be like, oh,
(28:57):
that must be awesome because they get to be on
a rated show, host podcasts, all the things. They are
better women than we are. But that's just the way
God has made us, and it's the places He put us,
and that's the talents He's given us, and it's the
way that our life has worked out. But it doesn't
make your eye any better than the amazing woman who
runs the shelter downtown Nashville for the homeless community, and
(29:18):
nobody knows her name, you know what I mean, Like,
she has amazing talent. To me neither, and so I
want to cheer her on and be happy for her
and not think, oh, if you're a public personality, then
you're better than everyone else, because that's just not true,
you know. And I want people who are living their
best life right where God has planted them to trust
(29:38):
that they're doing the best thing they could possibly do.
So after we find our version of success or faithfulness,
and then we use our gifts and we try to
live our story and we find contentment, we're doing all
(30:00):
that to live a life that we're proud of. Right,
it's hard because I don't want to sound morbid by
any means, but we're all going to die. Like all
of us are going to die. It's the way life works,
you know. And all of us that are listening to
you and I, we've all lost people close to us
and we've seen that happen. I really started thinking about
this a lot. Two years ago. I lost a friend unexpectedly.
(30:22):
She was thirty seven, four girls really like you feel
like she was in the prime, like she was doing
so many amazing things that she was so lovely amy
you would really liked her. I remember it was such
a shock and I thought, God, this doesn't seem fair
and this doesn't seem right, and so I had to
wrestle through that, right, like, I don't understand why you
let this happen. So I went to a funeral and
it was a really good funeral. And that feels weird
(30:45):
to say, but every person that talked about her, it's
like there was this theme. And I left there thinking
everyone that talked about her said she lived her days well,
and I left their thinking, Okay, so I'm not guaranteed
E d like how do we know? For is thirty seven?
Thirty seven? I'm no one says, Jamie, you have eighty
years to live? What if I have forty five? It
(31:06):
doesn't you know? Who knows? And I made a decision
after that funeral. I thought, I want to no matter
how many years I get, I want to get to
the end and say I live them well, which means
I don't want to sit around and wish I was
somebody I was never made to be, because the worst
thing amy would be for me to be eighty dying
and look back and think I always wanted to be
something else and now it's over. I didn't ever really
(31:26):
truly want to be me. I didn't never truly want
to live into the places and potential that God had
for me. And so that was a little bit of
a wake up call for me to say I want
to live every day like it matters. That also sounds
like a cliche statement, like okay, everyday matters, but I
kind of think it does. You know, like we don't
(31:47):
know what's going to happen, We don't we don't know
how much time, we don't know if we're going to
get sick or whatever. And I just want to live
everyday matters, and for me personally, that means trusting that
God loves me. That means trusting that God likes me.
It means trusting that God has a plan for me.
It means trusting that God has given me gifts and
talents and a purpose and I want to walk in
them and not wishing that my life looked like someone else's,
(32:09):
because that's draining to always think that, and it's exhausting
and it's never satisfying. Yeah. I think as my mom
was wrapping up her cancer battle, which we knew was
ultimately resulting in death, we had time to prepare for it.
We were like you were shocked when your friends. So
we had an opportunity of hospice and being with her
(32:31):
and knowing that the end is near, and she was
doing so much reflecting and you could see her just
thinking about her life, and she would say things to
me and my sister Christie, like I just don't know
that I I lived my best life, or I don't
know that I was the mom that y'all needed me
(32:53):
to be. And I don't think she was looking for
affirmation from us, like oh no, Mom, you were, you were,
you were that's what I think anybody we're going to
be left with that that wrestling with did we do
life well? And of course we looked at her and said, Mom,
you did life well. And whatever she was feeling at
the time, wherever she was having that discontentment that maybe
(33:16):
she didn't live up to where she thought she should have,
I feel as though she was doing her best, which
is kind of back at the beginning where we started
this talk, was we're doing our best. She was faithful
to so many different things. Was she perfect? No, none
of us are, and that's okay. She was faithful. Amy.
(33:38):
This is a side note, but do you remember when
you were on my podcast. We have interviewed a lot
of people like you have, and there's some that stand
out forever. I remember you talking about the end of
your mom's life and when your when your dad came
in to talk to your mom, and that that moment
that you shared on my show. I've never forgotten it,
(33:59):
and don't I feel like I just had this moment
of like I remember when that and that feels to
me also like your dad was having this moment too,
of like I want to do this right, Like I
get to do this right, and like he had an
opportunity to do that, you know, because it was presented
to him and he got to kind of make things right.
And I feel like that too, is like and we
don't always get it. I shouldn't say that, but your
(34:20):
dad got the opportunity, and I feel like that I
want to remember that as well. Is to live my
life so well that I see those opportunities to to
make things right as well, and my mom's patience even
with that. Just for new listeners to get if you
haven't heard the story, you can go listen to me
on Jamie Ivy's podcast, which was probably so it was
(34:42):
a while ago, but still it was awesome coming on.
So thank you for having me, And yes, I would
encourage people to go check it out. It's the Happy
Hour with Jamie Ivy. I don't know how to they
can just type in Amy Brown Jamie Ivy it'll come up.
But my parents were not together. My dad left when
I was eight, and then towards the end of her
life he kind of had another marriage but got divorced
and then suddenly we were his family again, and I
(35:03):
was like, Okay, welcome back. But you know, my mom
would have taken him back all those years, and she
was trying to be faithful to that because that's what
she felt she wanted for her life and my dad
just wasn't there yet. And then suddenly when she had cancer,
he wanted her back. He's like, sorry, you want to
go on a date. She's like, I'm a little busy here.
I've got Keemo and India Anderson and then radiation. So
(35:24):
but he would take her to Houston for her appointments.
It was weird. But then yeah, when she was in
hospice and a few days before she died, she had
waited twenty five years for him to say he was
sorry and for leaving, and she didn't need that. She
had forgiven him. But she also even though she was
busy with cancer, she knew because Christie and I were like, mom,
(35:45):
dad wants to take you out, like we prayed for
this since we were kids, for our parents to get
back together. And she said, girls, I can't be with
someone that isn't going to recognize what they did and
say they're sorry. She had forgiven him, so again, it
wasn't about that, but she wasn't going to date him
until the acknowledge acknowledge, and you know he's a little
slow so but he got it in there a few
(36:08):
days before she passed away. He's my sister and I
got to be in the room at Christopher House in
Austin before we moved my sister to my mom's house
to ultimately just pass away. But he was there stroking
what little hair she had left, and he said, Judy,
I'm I'm sorry. And I think for him it was
a switch and a transition of now he's turning that
course at seventy something years old to try to live well,
(36:30):
which that is so beautiful because we all mess up. Yes,
like your dad, he really messed He messed up, My
mom messed up exactly. So no one's living perfect here,
but he did have that opportunity and I think it's
as one of my favorite stories ever told on the show.
So thanks for reading it. Yeah, No, I hope you
will go check it out, And then I hope they
check out your book, You Be You, and especially towards
(36:53):
the end as you wrap it up with that and
your friend and the tragic loss that that that was
for you and kind of how her story now is
going to affect other people through your heart and your words,
and I'm sure all a ripple effect through tons of
other people that she impacted. And then that's how she
can be used, just how now my mom is used
with pimp and joy And she would freak out with
(37:14):
all of that, right, she probably doesn't. She never really
liked that it was pimping, but her legacy has helped
so many people, and your friends legacy is doing that
and one day and we all do that for your kids. Whoever. Yeah,
Stashira had a homework assignment the other night. It was
all about influence and ways your influence and it was
(37:34):
like five different questions about how are you influenced here?
And where do you influence here? And where do you
and so she's like, mom, where do I get my influence?
And there at home so much obviously because the coronavirus
and they just started back school, so they have a
few friends, but we're not really all hanging out. But
I kind of thought, oh gosh, like we are her
main I was like me, Dad, like how you you know?
(37:54):
So it's that's such a I don't know why they
just talked in my head, but it's a heavy risk sponsibility.
I want to influence her as best as I can.
But I also want her to grow up to be
whoever and whatever woman she is supposed to be, and
I can do my best with that, but I know
I want her to live well and her to leave
(38:15):
a legacy. Like we're thinking about ourselves and our friends too,
but then we have these future generations of its exactly
exactly right, so much you can be faithful to the
people that you influence right in front of you, right
under your roof, right under your roof. Well, I love that, Jamie,
And thank you so much for coming by. I'm glad
you were in Nashville. I know you're gonna you're gonna.
Have you been over to Annie Downstown head and there
(38:38):
now so you can check out Jamie on Annie's podcast
because she's amazing too. So you've I know you've got
a busy day, so I'll let you get going. And
I'm so excited for this book. You be you, Thank you,
Okay, little food for you so life. Oh it's pretty Bay,
it's pretty beautiful than that a little mouth. Tighten your
(00:29):
kicking with four Brown Happy Thursday. I am pumped to
have on podcaster and best selling author and friend of
mine for many years, Jamie Ivy. She is back on
the Four Things podcast today because she has a new
book coming out called You Be You Why satisfaction and
(00:49):
success are closer than you think. Jamie does all four
Things with me and we discuss false definitions of success,
living your story, contentment versus discontentment it, and lastly, finishing well.
I really hope you enjoy our chat and you can
check out Jamie's podcast it's called Happy Hour with Jamie Ivy.
And then if you want to pre order her book,
(01:10):
which is officially out October one. Depending on when you're
listening to this, you can go to you bu dot
net or I linked it on my Amazon Favorites page
under books, which you can find at Radio amy dot
com and also at radiomy dot com. You can find
a link to our Fall four Things pullovers that release
this Saturday, September twelve, And if you love Fall, you're
(01:31):
definitely gonna want to get one of the two pre
made options that we're putting up, or maybe maybe both.
One is maroon, one is burnt orange, and they both
say at different four things and they're so cute. I'm
wearing mine all the time and we just hope you
love them as much as we do. And you can
wear and rep our four things community like I feel
like anytime you'll use anything for things, it's part of
(01:52):
our little community here and you can feel good knowing
that these pullovers and then everything is spat is supporting
my life speaks the next couple of months and they're
doing may using work in Haiti. Okay, well, here is
my interview with Jamie Ivy. Enjoyed me. First, I have
my friend Jamie Ivy here. She's been on the podcast
before and before we started recording, I was like, you
(02:14):
know what, Jamie, I just want you to be you
and we laughed a little bit because this is exciting.
Jamie has another book coming out and it's called You
Be You Be You, and we're going to go into
like four different parts of the book. But I think
that that's something that sometimes we struggle with, is being
a chameleon to whatever audience were with and it's like, well,
(02:38):
what's what's the point. Well, it's funny because the way
you said it to me, I was like, okay, you
mean like, tell me about your audience. I want to
meet them where they are. And you weren't trying to
be funny and just said, I want you to be you.
And I was like, that's true. That's what I want
to be is I want to be me. But this
is why Amy, and I don't know if you've ever
said with this, I guess you have, because I think
everyone has struggled with this that we look around and
we think she's killing it. She's awesome, her kids are great,
(03:00):
her marriage is great, her job is awesome, she doesn't
have any struggles. If I could just be her, I'd
be happy. Okay, yeah, me too. I know. And again
our conversation before is private too. But I think that
if people could be able to fly on the wall
for that, they would realize if they look at your
Instagram or my Instagram or wherever they're getting their bird's
eye view of our life from, if they could be
a fly on the wall for certain things, they would
(03:22):
learn really quickly. That's there's a lot that people don't
know and that we're going through and nobody is perfect
and has it all together, and this dream life that's
so true. It's so true. And I think I talk
about that a lot with people about Instagram. You love Instagram.
I love Instagram. It's my favorite place to hang out.
I don't if it's your favorite you like it that much.
It's my social media. It's my favorite one me too.
(03:44):
It's my favorite because I feel like it's nice, you know,
and people aren't gonna, for the most part, come at you.
But I always think, like when I look at someone's Instagram,
I think, oh, I see some great things about them,
but I don't see their whole life. And here's why
I know that, because people don't see my whole life
on my Instagram. You know, Like what I put up
is it's a what I want you to see. It's
not a lie by any means, it's just not the
(04:05):
entire whole story. And so we have to be careful
as intake of social media to know that when you're
seeing someone else and you think, if I had her life,
I'd be so happy, there's more to her life than
you actually know. And that's what we have to remember too,
because if you start to believe that we could sit
down and name five people that were like, oh, if
I could have her life like I see on Instagram,
And then if we brought that person in here, they'd
(04:26):
be like, let me tell you the hard things we're
going through, let me tell you about this, let me
tell about this. But like, oh, we're more like than
we thought, like we have the same struggles. Yeah. I
think that we often look at certain people and what
they've achieved and think, okay, now that's success. So what
are some false definitions of success or you know, more importantly,
why do we need to throw them out the window?
(04:47):
Success is this weird word because we want it, but
I don't think we always know what that means, and
so I think success is kind of a moving target.
So let's say I'll use you as an example. You
work at this radio station, or will you your podcast?
Lest So let's say your podcast gets this many downloads
and your boss comes to you is like okay, awesome,
and you think, oh, I'm a success and then like okay,
(05:07):
but now you need more, like good job, but you
need more, Or you think, oh, a successful parent is
someone who their kids say yes name and no ma'am.
They follow all the rules, they obey you, they love you,
and they turn out to be great human beings. Like
that feels successful and we want that right? Oh, I
want that so bad too, Like, we want that so bad,
but I think that we can't actually ever reach the target.
(05:28):
It's a moving target. So it's moving with marriage, it's
moving with parenting, it's moving with jobs. So this is
what I'm thinking, Amy is instead of me saying I
want to be a successful mom, because what everyone says
a successful mom is is that her kids turn out great.
But honestly, what if one of my kids doesn't? Am
I a failure? No? So instead I'm like, how about
I just be a faithful mom, which means I'm going
(05:48):
to be a faithful mom to these kids that God
gave me. I'm gonna faithfully love them. I'm gonna faithfully
teach them. But what they choose to do with their
lives is not my responsibility. Do Should I be a
good mom? Yes, but I'm gonna be faithful. So my
goal is to be faithful, not to be successful in
my job. My goal is to be faithful, not successful,
because what happens when I reach what I think of
(06:08):
success and then I find out there's more actually, like
you're not actually at the end. It's constantly moving. So
I think that's draining for me to try to always
be quote unquote successful based on what someone else says.
I can't do that. I can't be amy like, I
cannot be your success because that's for you. But I
can be faithful Jamie, and I can do what I'm
supposed to do, and that takes a lot of weight
off me. And how do we stop the blame game
(06:32):
of if something goes wrong at work or if something
goes wrong with one of our kids, Because yes, I
can hear you say that, and I can receive it
and be like, Okay, yeah, if one of my kids
has an episode of X y Z going on with
themselves and I feel like, oh, I may be triggered
this or I messed up or something I did, and
now look at what they're struggling with. Now I hear
what you're saying, and I know deep down it's not me,
(06:54):
But somehow I guess. I feel like with work and
being a mom, I take the response ability kind of
like is any boss. It's ultimately I feel like it
falls on me so how do we give ourselves permission
to release that it's hard. I guess that's where the
faithfulness comes in. Yes, and as like a working mom too,
we're talking about parenting like sometimes I feel like, okay,
(07:16):
because I'm with you right now in Nashville. My four
children are not here, and so there's this kind of burden.
So I don't feel it this much because listen, we've
been in the middle of COVID. I was like, peace out, kids,
I'm going to Extraville. I will see you later. But
there's this kind of sense of like, oh, if I
can't be with my kids, I'm not a good mom.
I'm not being able to give them what they need.
But also I'm like love my job and I'm also
good at that, and so I can do both. But
(07:38):
it's just like, what is my my goal is to
be faithful instead of my goal is to be successful,
because success is, like I said, it's a smoothing target.
Like what if my kids go through a really hard
time and then I'm like I'm the same mom, like
I'm still being faithful to what he called what God
asked me to do. So it's this faithfulness that you
have to like this is gonna be my goal, That's
going to be my end game. Now it's a whole
(07:58):
another podcast amy how we as moms deal with Like
I feel like it is my fault and I feel
like I'm blaming myself because I struggle with that. You
and I we talked about that before. That's hard. It's
hard stuff, for sure. I think that it's just maybe
like some sort of a mantra and reminder of I'm
not going to define success this way anymore, and I'm
going to remind myself like I'm doing my best, I'm
(08:21):
doing what I was called to do, kind of just
over and over until it until a Steve sin But
then I feel like you, even you writing this book
and focusing on some of that and part of it,
like you probably still have to remind yourself. I think
sometimes our listeners are like, Okay, they've got it all
figured out, but we're sitting over your struggling, just like you.
And so like with my job as a podcaster, obviously
(08:43):
numbers matter, downloads matter, like it's my job, no one's.
I don't make a living if people don't listen to
my job. So there's that thin line of I want
to be successful with my show. But also let's say
that my show, like there's like eight thousand podcasts right now,
you know, and so not anyone can listen to every
show every week, you know. So let's say the numbers
aren't growing at the speed that they used to. Am
(09:04):
I a failure? I don't think so, because I'm faithfully
doing doing what I need to be doing for my
show every week. And so the show I put out,
I'm proud of it, I love it. I'm faithful to
do what I think that God has asked me to do.
And will it be number one? Probably not. Do I
want it to be absolutely, you know. So it's not
like I'm like I don't care what happens in life. No,
(09:25):
like I want to do my best. But also, when
I changed my mindset, I'm going to be faithful. That
means when it's number fifty, number twenty, number one, number ten,
I still lay my head down at nine and be like,
I did exactly what you asked me to do. Yeah,
And people can apply that to anything anything. I mean,
switching the mindset that's huge, and I don't know that
I am good at doing that, but I'm going to
(09:45):
really try. I know, that this was everything that I
needed to do for my job, for my kids, for
my friends or whatever. And then and there are some
days if it doesn't work, it's not my fault exactly.
And there are some days that you're gonna be telling
yourself that every forty five seconds. Okay, I'm faithful. I'm
gonna I'm going to be the best mom I can. Okay,
that's that's my job right now. Okay, I just adopted it.
(10:07):
That's my mantra. I'm faithful. Yeah, I'm going to be faithful.
Love it. Okay. The next thing I want to talk
about is how do we live our story? How do
we know how to use the gifts that we've been given?
Where how do we find those? I feel like last
week on my podcast, I was talking about honing your
(10:28):
skills and then knowing like your mission statement of sorts?
Do you have a mission statement? Oh? I don't. I'm
working on one. My husband's working on one, I am,
and then we're working on one for our family, so
you will each individually have one and then you have
a family one. Yeah, Like what are our goals? What
do we want to be? And how are we going
to do it? And it's sort of making a little
(10:49):
proclamation of what do you want to live for? Are
having the kids do so? No, not yet. Maybe it
is something we'll have them do, but we're both in
our own therapy and it's just he brought it up.
And then I was doing some research on how to
be a human being and not human doing because my
therapist told me I was in doing mode so much
so we're working on a mission statement, so I didn't
know when it came to living your story or trying
(11:11):
to use the talents you've been given a mission statement.
I'm on this now, Amy, I'll get back with you,
all right. Yeah, yeah, you know. I think it's interesting
is when you and I talked about like living out
your story and doing what you're called to do and
finding your passions and your gifts. You and I both
started doing what we're doing kind of the same way,
Like you started in radio a weird way and so
(11:33):
did I and it's changed our whole lives. Do you
see that, Like did you ever wake up one day
and you're like, I am going to be that zero
aspirations for radio? Me too? But we both that's a
part of our careers now today and I think that's
so crazy. And back in Austin, Texas, when you were
at CAVA and I was at h F I, we
met be like what are we doing exactly? And that's
(11:55):
so funny to me because I think so many times
we're like, what is my calling? What is my gifting?
What am I supposed to do? And sometimes, honestly, I
feel like you just kind of take the next step
right in front of you and it might seem weird
and it might seem crazy, and you never know what
that's going to lead to. And both you and I
did that. We just were like, well, I don't know,
this sounds like interesting, let's fun, and let's do this.
And then here we are, all these years later, still
(12:16):
doing parts of that job that we well, you're still
doing the same job and I'm doing a different job,
but we're doing things that we didn't know or planned
to do. Kind of same job, a very very very
different like I never thought it would be. I mean
we kind of like we're just in Austin one market
hanging out. I was not going to a country radio station. Yeah,
we were doing pop. There's been some changes, but I
(12:40):
think sometimes we're just thinking, how do I find out
what I'm supposed to do, like what is my life
long mission? Like you kind of said with that, but
what am I supposed to do? And I sometimes think
that you kind of go through life and there's turns
and there's pivots, and there's things that you didn't know
you were going to try and that you were going
to do. And I've learned that to find like what
my calling is, sometimes I think it's just looking around
and seeing what's the need, Like what is happening around me.
(13:02):
I have a friend who always says the need is
the call, and I have found that when I have
like spent time volunteering in certain areas or even us
leading to our family, like the way our family has
been formed is I just kind of looked around and
was like, Oh, where's the need here? I could do that.
Like I spent a handful of years volunteering in this
in this organization that worked in our county jail, like
I would have never imagined doing that. I never set
(13:23):
out to do, like jail ministry, but a friends just said, like,
we're starting this, you want to be a part of it?
And I was like, yes, I have the time out
of the space of the capacity and it seems like
something that would joy and ended up doing it for
three years. But I never would have said, like, oh,
I'm called to jail ministry. That's going to be a
part of my life plan. But I just said yes,
I think that's a part of it too. It's just like,
how are we going to say yes to things and
see where they take us? And to me, I feel
(13:45):
the most satisfied when I'm doing what I'm supposed to
do and not what you're supposed to do or anyone else.
Like I can look at my life and go, this
is where I'm supposed to be and it looks different
than other people's, but I'm really happy here. Yeah. I
love like the need is the call. So you're and
presented you something to do that was a need and
you took it. Do you struggle with what you should
say yes to? I don't really know this about you.
(14:06):
If you're a yes person or you're okay with saying
no and setting boundaries. I have struggled it before a
handful of years. Book go I read a book called
The Best Yes. It's by a woman named Lisa Turkhurst,
and at that time I was going I'm saying yes
to everything, and I feel really exhausted four kids. I
wasn't even doing really what I'm doing now, but I
was just saying, anyone needed something, Yes, Okay, I can
(14:27):
do it, Yes, yes, yes. And I don't know if
this book encouraged me to do this or I just
did it, But I made a list of like the
four most important things in my life, like family obviously,
but career wise, and then I decided that if it
didn't fall under one of those categories, I had to
say no to it for the next year. And I
remember amy someone invited me to do something and it
(14:48):
felt like big, kind of like this could be a
lot of fun, this is a really big deal, and
I said yes, And then I remembered the list I
made and like I tried to fit it in one
of them, and like I couldn't fit it in, like
it didn't fall under any of those yeses, And I
had a caller back and say I couldn't do it,
and I felt like a loser for going back on
my word, and I also felt mad that I had
made that stinking list. Ever, but it ended up being
(15:09):
like exactly what I needed to do, because I had
made a commitment. I'm only going to say yes to
these things. So yes. That used to be hard for me.
Now I pretty am Like, if it doesn't fit in
my life space, I'm gonna say no to it. I
like that, do you do field trips? What? What my kids? Yeah? Well,
I mean I haven't really had to because of coronavirus lately.
But no. See, that's the thing that's always that for
(15:29):
me is I'm not a field trip mom, okay, and so,
but say no to that. I always felt like the
worst mom, Like who who like has the chance I
want to field trip and says no? Well, me, I
don't like field trips. I mean, is it truly a need?
Though I'm sure they have other moms right, surely they do.
I don't know that that's a need. But what I'm
saying is I realized that that's okay if I say
(15:50):
no to that, Like I'm not a bad mom if
I can't go to the zoo with my kids and
my kids older from not doing field trips anymore. And
I would actually probably like their field trips these days, Like, hey,
who wants to go to Washington d C. Me I'll
go on that track I'll go on that. But I
tend to figure out like it's okay if I say
no to that, because that's not me. Yeah. I had
to say no to something the other day, and not
because I had made a list, like you, but you're
(16:11):
encouraging me to do that. I think that that's so
many things come through, and they're good things, and it's
really easy to just not want to hurt anybody's feelings
or make them feel like you're not grateful, and to
just say yeses yes. And I had to guess send
a note the other day that again not because I
have a list, but I was just looking at how
I had been stretched then even just emotionally and time wise,
(16:34):
and then carving out time for rest and family. And
if I keep saying yes, then that that stuff dwindles down.
And I sent the note and I was nervous about it,
and she replied back with such grace, And so that
as scary as it is sometimes to say no, people
can surprise you. I think it's also like that's a
(16:54):
good reminder to us when we're on the receiving end
of someone being like, y, I can't do this because
I need to dress to not be offended and to
be like, good for you. I'm proud of you for
doing that in your life. So that was good that
your friend responded that way. So do you feel like
responding to the need and then that being your calling?
Even if it's just for three years, it doesn't mean
you're committing the rest of your life, Like that's you
(17:15):
living you know, your story and leaving your deepest miss
That's what I think is Like I think that we
think we need to have a sentence long calling, and
me as a as a Christian, I think there is
a bigger calling on my life. Like I want someone
who loves God. I want other people to love God.
So that's a calling for me that never changes, you know,
Like I want my kids to love God. I want
my friends love God. I want people that I know
(17:36):
to love God. So for me, that's a big deal.
And I think all those other things kind of fall
underneath there, you know, like me serving in the prison
ministry that was great. I used to be a teacher.
I used to teach singing school on my church. Like
all these things, I think we're a part of my story.
And they say different, it's fluid, yes, and that's okay.
And that's good. You have to remember that though, when
(17:57):
you look at someone else's life and think how does
she have what she has? And you have to dig
deeper to be like, well, she used to do this,
and she used to do that, and she started here.
Like you said, you started at this one little station
in Austin and that was it and you never expected
to be here. So it's not like you wrote down
my calling is to be in I don't know, eight
hundred thousand places at one time. You could have never
(18:17):
imagined that. And I still don't even know that that.
I I still struggle with waking up. I mean, of
course I love what I do, and I love who
I work with. And then even doing a podcast, I mean,
you were in the podcast game way before anybody. You're
for sure. My first friend had a podcast, and then
you know, and I even work in the industry. So
when Bobby came to me and said, I think you
should do a podcast. I'm gonna start a network, I thought, oh, really,
(18:40):
what am I going to talk about? I mean, who,
why would I do a podcast? I don't even know
what I'm doing. And the only radio experience I had
was by his side. The entire time, and he's like,
I think it's time that you just go spread your wings,
do it yourself. And it took me probably a year
to get it together and finally put out an episode
and do what I needed to do. Life took some turns,
and I had to keep postponing it, but I really
(19:00):
think I kept saying no, no, no, but not permanently,
just not right now. But obviously knew I had to
do it, but I didn't ever feel called. But then
I thought, okay, well, Bobby saying that there's a need
here for me, I guess now I'm using your language
and thinking of how I approached it, and I was like,
I guess I'll just go and see where this goes.
And then now love for years and I really do
(19:22):
enjoy it, and I love connecting with my community and
having my own group outside of the Bobby body. Now
a lot of them might be from that, which is amazing,
but some people come from other parts that don't know,
and then we just have this connection. I mean, if
someone said to me recently, they're like, Jamie, if you
think about it, when you were in college, and I'm
forty two, so when I was in college, there were
(19:44):
there were no podcasts, Like there was no iPhone and
so to think, like the career that I have now
didn't even exist when I was in college. So if
you're listening and you're in college, who knows what you're
gonna be doing in twenty years that might not even
be exists in existence in that's crazy. Right out of college,
I was selling granite and look at you. There's a
(20:06):
really fun job. I loved it. I worked with all
my friends. But I kind of thought that's what I
was going to do the rest of my life, and
travel the world, going to quarries like in Italy and
that does sound and it was like that was my goal.
And then I met Bobby at Culvert so Sonny and
changed everything. But okay, I love that, Like the need
is your college. Look around? What is it? What is it?
(20:27):
And then that might lead to X, which leads to why,
which leads to just don't know? Yeah, open your eyes
one day. Yeah, well you're sitting in Nashville with your
friend talking about all the crazy things. Alkay, let's talk
(20:50):
contentment versus discontentment. This is hard. This is really hard
because to be content means to be like, I'm satisfied,
with my life, with my circumstance, aways with how things
are going, and honestly, sometimes that feels like like it's unattainable.
Everything feels hard. Sometimes, you know, life feels difficult. I
don't know how it can be content with where I am,
(21:10):
or who I'm with or all the things. And I
think that when we are doing and being and living
as we are supposed to be, like as me being myself,
as me trusting my gifts and my talents and my passions,
me really saying I want to be me. I don't
want to be anybody else. I want to be Jamie.
Ivy is when I can start to feel more satisfied
(21:31):
with who I am and satisfied with what I'm doing,
which leads to more contentment as well. And I think
that discontentment can lead to envy, it can lead to jealousy,
It can lead to so many different things, and I
don't want any of those in my heart, even though
they creep in a lot if I'm honest, and so
for me having to fight those, one of the best
(21:51):
ways that I fight envy and jealousy and discontentment in
the life that I'm living is by being a cheerleader
for other people. I think that that is one way
that we can really, really really fight that in our
own hearts is to be happy when someone else has
something that maybe you desire. Like you've talked about infertility
on Bobby Bone Show, right, okay, so nothing new here.
When you and your husband walking through that, I'm sure
(22:13):
there were moments when you were like, I'm angry, I
hate God. Were there also moments when you're like, I'm
genuinely happy for my friend? Sure? You know my sister
has had four babies pregnant wise out of herself, I
guess I just want to make sure you clarify there.
None are adopted, So she's gotten pregnant four times. When
we were trying to get pregnant, I remember literally taking
(22:33):
a pregnancy test and then getting a text same day
from a friend announcing her pregnancy, which I was happy.
And I've done segments on this podcast about giving people
permission to tell their friends how they really feel and
what they're going through and that they are happy for them,
but not to carry that weight of the envy and
(22:54):
the for me, it's okay that you feel that, like,
don't stick with it. Let's not you want that, and
I think it's okay if it's your real friends that
you can say, gosh, I really want that for myself.
And if you maybe can't pull it together to make
it to a brunch or a baby shower because it's
too hard. I try to give people that permission you
(23:16):
know hopefully you can, but if you can't, it is okay,
and that friend should understand because it's very hard and
can feel very lonely in that kind of I'm gonna
ask you a more question. In those moments when you
were like, I am genuinely happy for you, like I'm
genuinely happy for you, did you feel a little bit
more content and where you were? I mean, because you
stall the emotions you still have, the like I would
(23:38):
give like my left arm to be pregnant, like you
still are, like I would give anything, but I would
suspect in all those years there were probably moments where
you would go, I'm genuinely happy for my friend. Yes, yes,
I was always genuine and my sister and I love
my friends, kids and my nieces and my nephews, and
I wouldn't for whatever reason. Once I got past again,
(24:00):
I think I addressed those feelings and then when I
started to see that there was other I wouldn't have
Stevenson and stuff here if I had gotten pregnant. And
everybody's life just takes different paths, but sometimes you have
to be a little bit on the other side of
those negative pregnancy tests too then appreciate, Okay, why I
(24:21):
went through that, and what am I going to do
to find a need and where can I come in
and fill it? And now it becomes my life's purpose.
So I think when you're genuinely happy for that person
and you're genuinely cheering them on, it helps you fight
jealousy and envy. Again, those feelings are not bad or wrong,
and it's not like you shouldn't feel that way, but
that lane in bed of I am so jealous of her.
(24:43):
I'm so envious of her. I want her life so badly.
That can be healthy, because that is totally saying she
has everything and I have nothing, and I just don't
think that's true either, And that's a whole another conversation
as well, of like, well you just think the grass
is grea you always think the grass is greener, but
it's not all you have grass right in front of you.
You know that is yours, and so for me cheering
(25:03):
women on in a professional place as well, I was like, okay,
you've maybe got what I think I want or deserve.
When I am so happy for you and I can
be a cheerleader for you and I wish you the best,
it's really hard for me to then sit in that
jealousy and envy. So for me, contentment has been a
lot of me going I'm going to look at my
(25:24):
life and see that this is where God wants me
and this is what he has for me, the good,
the bad, ugly, to all the things. And I'm also
going to look at your life and think, I'm so
happy that that is where you're supposed to be and
what you're doing. And listen for the listener, I fully
understand this is hard work. Like I'm not saying like, oh,
just say these things and then you'll be like everything
will be great. This is really hard work. You and
(25:45):
I both know that it's hard work of every day
going Okay, she has what I want, but I want
to look at what I have and how can I
do the best with what I have? Because also this
feels like a soapbox for me, Amy, but I feel
like when we look at our life, our children are
not having children, our spouses, our friends are, community or job,
whatever it is. There's nothing wrong with wanting to do better,
and there's nothing wrong with wanting to succeed. But I
(26:07):
think where it gets tricky is when we look at
the people that God has put in front of us
to influence. And I believe everyone's an influencer, whether you're
like PTA, president, CEO of whatever, everyone's an influencer. And
I feel like when you look at those people and
you think I want to influence those people over there,
you're looking at the people that God has given you
influence over and saying you don't matter, Like you're not enough,
(26:29):
You're not worth me putting my time into. And that
could be your classroom, it could be your whole organization,
it could be your family, it could be your community.
And I want to be someone who looks at the
people that God has given me, family, community, professional, and go,
you matter enough for me to give you my best.
That's what I want to do. And I don't want
to constantly wish I had hurt people because I feel
like I'd be more successful, or more liked or more whatever.
(26:52):
I want to focus on who you've put in front
of me that's been really good for me. Yeah. I
feel like since I used the cliche earlier of the
grass is always green or when it's not, I'll go
ahead and follow it up with another one of watering
your own grass. Yeah, it's so true because it might
seem brown for a reason. What are you doing to
invest back in? And I think when it comes back
(27:12):
to any envy or jealousy, I've been trying to lean
into some of those feelings lately instead of suppressing them,
or at least acknowledging that they're there so that they
don't manifest as something else later where I'm being tacky
and icky, and I feel like they have power over
you when you don't say like I see you, like
I know you're here and I'm going to fight against it.
(27:32):
But if you kind of don't acknowledge it, it feels
like it wins a little bit. Yeah, and we don't
want it to win. We don't. What about fully embracing gifts, Like,
if we don't do that, what are we missing up?
I think when I talk about like fully embracing the
gifts you've been given, I think the problem if we
even go back a little bit. The problem is that
is that we look around at other people's talents or
(27:53):
gifts or influence or power, whatever their voice, whatever they
might have, and go, those are the best possible things
to have, Like, she has this talent if I had that, Like,
let's just say, like she has the talent of you know, hospitality.
You go into this woman's office, her work, her classroom,
whatever it might be, and you feel so at home,
(28:15):
and you think, I don't have that gift. She must
be a better woman than me. And again, there's nothing wrong.
Everyone should feel like like hospitable to people, right, but
we know some people who you're like, I feel so
at home, Like you're the most hospitable person I've ever met,
Like I wish I had more of that. And so
there's this like, yes, we need to be hospital but
then we also have to go like God has given
(28:36):
her something special, and like that's something that she can
like own and she can stand tall in and she
can shine in that. But He's given me other special
gifts that maybe she doesn't have so much of, And
I need to be proud of the way God made me.
And I think if we go back a little bit.
We have to quit making other gifts and talent seem better.
Like people might look at you and I'd be like, oh,
(28:57):
that must be awesome because they get to be on
a rated show, host podcasts, all the things. They are
better women than we are. But that's just the way
God has made us, and it's the places He put us,
and that's the talents He's given us, and it's the
way that our life has worked out. But it doesn't
make your eye any better than the amazing woman who
runs the shelter downtown Nashville for the homeless community, and
(29:18):
nobody knows her name, you know what I mean, Like,
she has amazing talent. To me neither, and so I
want to cheer her on and be happy for her
and not think, oh, if you're a public personality, then
you're better than everyone else, because that's just not true,
you know. And I want people who are living their
best life right where God has planted them to trust
(29:38):
that they're doing the best thing they could possibly do.
So after we find our version of success or faithfulness,
and then we use our gifts and we try to
live our story and we find contentment, we're doing all
(30:00):
that to live a life that we're proud of. Right,
it's hard because I don't want to sound morbid by
any means, but we're all going to die. Like all
of us are going to die. It's the way life works,
you know. And all of us that are listening to
you and I, we've all lost people close to us
and we've seen that happen. I really started thinking about
this a lot. Two years ago. I lost a friend unexpectedly.
(30:22):
She was thirty seven, four girls really like you feel
like she was in the prime, like she was doing
so many amazing things that she was so lovely amy
you would really liked her. I remember it was such
a shock and I thought, God, this doesn't seem fair
and this doesn't seem right, and so I had to
wrestle through that, right, like, I don't understand why you
let this happen. So I went to a funeral and
it was a really good funeral. And that feels weird
(30:45):
to say, but every person that talked about her, it's
like there was this theme. And I left there thinking
everyone that talked about her said she lived her days well,
and I left their thinking, Okay, so I'm not guaranteed
E d like how do we know? For is thirty seven?
Thirty seven? I'm no one says, Jamie, you have eighty
years to live? What if I have forty five? It
(31:06):
doesn't you know? Who knows? And I made a decision
after that funeral. I thought, I want to no matter
how many years I get, I want to get to
the end and say I live them well, which means
I don't want to sit around and wish I was
somebody I was never made to be, because the worst
thing amy would be for me to be eighty dying
and look back and think I always wanted to be
something else and now it's over. I didn't ever really
(31:26):
truly want to be me. I didn't never truly want
to live into the places and potential that God had
for me. And so that was a little bit of
a wake up call for me to say I want
to live every day like it matters. That also sounds
like a cliche statement, like okay, everyday matters, but I
kind of think it does. You know, like we don't
(31:47):
know what's going to happen, We don't we don't know
how much time, we don't know if we're going to
get sick or whatever. And I just want to live
everyday matters, and for me personally, that means trusting that
God loves me. That means trusting that God likes me.
It means trusting that God has a plan for me.
It means trusting that God has given me gifts and
talents and a purpose and I want to walk in
them and not wishing that my life looked like someone else's,
(32:09):
because that's draining to always think that, and it's exhausting
and it's never satisfying. Yeah. I think as my mom
was wrapping up her cancer battle, which we knew was
ultimately resulting in death, we had time to prepare for it.
We were like you were shocked when your friends. So
we had an opportunity of hospice and being with her
(32:31):
and knowing that the end is near, and she was
doing so much reflecting and you could see her just
thinking about her life, and she would say things to
me and my sister Christie, like I just don't know
that I I lived my best life, or I don't
know that I was the mom that y'all needed me
(32:53):
to be. And I don't think she was looking for
affirmation from us, like oh no, Mom, you were, you were,
you were that's what I think anybody we're going to
be left with that that wrestling with did we do
life well? And of course we looked at her and said, Mom,
you did life well. And whatever she was feeling at
the time, wherever she was having that discontentment that maybe
(33:16):
she didn't live up to where she thought she should have,
I feel as though she was doing her best, which
is kind of back at the beginning where we started
this talk, was we're doing our best. She was faithful
to so many different things. Was she perfect? No, none
of us are, and that's okay. She was faithful. Amy.
(33:38):
This is a side note, but do you remember when
you were on my podcast. We have interviewed a lot
of people like you have, and there's some that stand
out forever. I remember you talking about the end of
your mom's life and when your when your dad came
in to talk to your mom, and that that moment
that you shared on my show. I've never forgotten it,
(33:59):
and don't I feel like I just had this moment
of like I remember when that and that feels to
me also like your dad was having this moment too,
of like I want to do this right, Like I
get to do this right, and like he had an
opportunity to do that, you know, because it was presented
to him and he got to kind of make things right.
And I feel like that too, is like and we
don't always get it. I shouldn't say that, but your
(34:20):
dad got the opportunity, and I feel like that I
want to remember that as well. Is to live my
life so well that I see those opportunities to to
make things right as well, and my mom's patience even
with that. Just for new listeners to get if you
haven't heard the story, you can go listen to me
on Jamie Ivy's podcast, which was probably so it was
(34:42):
a while ago, but still it was awesome coming on.
So thank you for having me, And yes, I would
encourage people to go check it out. It's the Happy
Hour with Jamie Ivy. I don't know how to they
can just type in Amy Brown Jamie Ivy it'll come up.
But my parents were not together. My dad left when
I was eight, and then towards the end of her
life he kind of had another marriage but got divorced
and then suddenly we were his family again, and I
(35:03):
was like, Okay, welcome back. But you know, my mom
would have taken him back all those years, and she
was trying to be faithful to that because that's what
she felt she wanted for her life and my dad
just wasn't there yet. And then suddenly when she had cancer,
he wanted her back. He's like, sorry, you want to
go on a date. She's like, I'm a little busy here.
I've got Keemo and India Anderson and then radiation. So
(35:24):
but he would take her to Houston for her appointments.
It was weird. But then yeah, when she was in
hospice and a few days before she died, she had
waited twenty five years for him to say he was
sorry and for leaving, and she didn't need that. She
had forgiven him. But she also even though she was
busy with cancer, she knew because Christie and I were like, mom,
(35:45):
dad wants to take you out, like we prayed for
this since we were kids, for our parents to get
back together. And she said, girls, I can't be with
someone that isn't going to recognize what they did and
say they're sorry. She had forgiven him, so again, it
wasn't about that, but she wasn't going to date him
until the acknowledge acknowledge, and you know he's a little
slow so but he got it in there a few
(36:08):
days before she passed away. He's my sister and I
got to be in the room at Christopher House in
Austin before we moved my sister to my mom's house
to ultimately just pass away. But he was there stroking
what little hair she had left, and he said, Judy,
I'm I'm sorry. And I think for him it was
a switch and a transition of now he's turning that
course at seventy something years old to try to live well,
(36:30):
which that is so beautiful because we all mess up. Yes,
like your dad, he really messed He messed up, My
mom messed up exactly. So no one's living perfect here,
but he did have that opportunity and I think it's
as one of my favorite stories ever told on the show.
So thanks for reading it. Yeah, No, I hope you
will go check it out, And then I hope they
check out your book, You Be You, and especially towards
(36:53):
the end as you wrap it up with that and
your friend and the tragic loss that that that was
for you and kind of how her story now is
going to affect other people through your heart and your words,
and I'm sure all a ripple effect through tons of
other people that she impacted. And then that's how she
can be used, just how now my mom is used
with pimp and joy And she would freak out with
(37:14):
all of that, right, she probably doesn't. She never really
liked that it was pimping, but her legacy has helped
so many people, and your friends legacy is doing that
and one day and we all do that for your kids. Whoever. Yeah,
Stashira had a homework assignment the other night. It was
all about influence and ways your influence and it was
(37:34):
like five different questions about how are you influenced here?
And where do you influence here? And where do you
and so she's like, mom, where do I get my influence?
And there at home so much obviously because the coronavirus
and they just started back school, so they have a
few friends, but we're not really all hanging out. But
I kind of thought, oh gosh, like we are her
main I was like me, Dad, like how you you know?
(37:54):
So it's that's such a I don't know why they
just talked in my head, but it's a heavy risk sponsibility.
I want to influence her as best as I can.
But I also want her to grow up to be
whoever and whatever woman she is supposed to be, and
I can do my best with that, but I know
I want her to live well and her to leave
(38:15):
a legacy. Like we're thinking about ourselves and our friends too,
but then we have these future generations of its exactly
exactly right, so much you can be faithful to the
people that you influence right in front of you, right
under your roof, right under your roof. Well, I love that, Jamie,
And thank you so much for coming by. I'm glad
you were in Nashville. I know you're gonna you're gonna.
Have you been over to Annie Downstown head and there
(38:38):
now so you can check out Jamie on Annie's podcast
because she's amazing too. So you've I know you've got
a busy day, so I'll let you get going. And
I'm so excited for this book. You be you, Thank you,
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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