PRP 167 | Namaste Bitches

 

Life is filled with joys and challenges. Namaste Bitches is a poem journal containing a heartfelt and raw interpretation of life. In this episode, Juliet Clark’s guest is Amy Rodeffer Thompson, the author behind this masterpiece. Join in the conversation as Amy shares behind the scenes in writing the poem journal. Amy’s passion is to help people articulate their “why” and give them tools and techniques so they can go after it. What’s your “why” in your life journey? Tune in, chase after your “why,” and grow!

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The Serious Sorcery Of Namaste Bitches With Amy Rodeffer Thompson

Welcome to the show. We have one of our authors on deck. Before we get started, I want to send you over to take our Promote Profit Publish Quiz. You can find it at www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com. What are you going to find out? You’re going to find out if you’re ready to publish. Most of you are not.

It’s important to build that audience, to have a plan with the book beyond just making money with the book. Know what has to be done in between. If you do it in steps, like wait to promote after the book is done, you’re going to run into a lot of problems. You’re behind the curve. Also, don’t forget to go over and subscribe to us over on YouTube at Super Brand Publishing. You can see all of these over in video.

Our guest is Amy Rodeffer Thompson. When Amy, the author of Namaste Bitches, is not busy writing poetry on the Notes app on her cell phone, she’s a coach for professionals and business owners. She did all the adulting things she thought she was supposed to do. By that, she means college, corporate career and is now delighted to be the Cocreator of the Bossibly Arena, a community of people who aspire to make a difference doing work that lightens them up.

As a recovering people-pleaser, she nudges others towards true joy leading by her personal example and guided by the divine intuition she possesses. She uses humor and kindhearted intent to help others see what’s possible. Amy shares her life with her husband, Don and an amazing circle of loved ones. As you’re going to find from this interview, Amy has a wonderful sense of humor. She is really kind even with that sense of humor. I’m wondering what that circle of loved ones is. When I read it, I was like, “Are those animals? Are they sheeple? Are they a combination? What are those?

Family by blood and by choice. That’s how I would describe those humans who surround me with love.

As you’re going to find in this interview, Amy has a wonderful sense of humor and she is kind, even with that sense of humor. It’s that dry thing. Namaste Bitches, I’m sure everybody’s out there is like, “That’s sort of an ironic name.” Where did that come from?

It has a couple of layers. Initially, it came to me when I was doing a coaching call and one of our clients. For whatever reason, she wanted to sign off on our call with hands in prayer and bow and say “Namaste bitches.” It was hilarious. We’re like, “We love that.” We want to use that to close out a Zoom call.

PRP 167 | Namaste Bitches

Namaste Bitches: A Poetry Journal

We decided we were going to write this thing and create a book journal. I was like, “What the heck do I call it?” I was in the middle of yoga teacher training. Namaste is a yoga phrase. I’m like, “The timing seems kind of synced up.” When I say bitches, I’m talking to girlfriends. I’m like, “Bitches, it’s about to get real in here.” The combination of the two words just seemed very on point.

It’s so interesting because obviously, you went through yoga training. I’m one of those people that are supposed to go to yoga to relax and I’m competitive and I’m stretching. For me, when you say that at the end, I’m like, “Yeah, I finished.”

If you choose to make yoga an internal competition, by all means, you’re in the right place. No one said you had to leave all like light and airy and rainbows and unicorns. Some people leave like, “I left everything on the mat.” If that brings you joy, by all means, Juliet, use yoga in that way. I give you permission. Go ahead, girl. Be your competitive self. It’s fine.

You and Michelle reached out to me. Tell me how this all started. You had your book written pretty much before you ever got here but you didn’t know it.

In January of 2019, I was at a weekend retreat put on by a facilitator of one of Danielle LaPorte’s things, which is The Desire Map. I literally spent two full days figuring out five words that describe how I want to feel more often than not. It sounds like a heck of a lot of time to spend but I’m a word nerd. That totally was my love language.

I figured out my five words. The next morning, I woke up and I wrote a poem. I’m like, “What is that?” I wrote it for some stranger. I’ll say, “I wrote something for you. Can I read it to you?” She’s like, “Is it going to make me cry?” I go, “No.” I start reading it. She starts crying. I start crying. Other people in the room start crying. I was like, “Maybe this is a thing. I don’t know. ”

From that point on, things were just coming to me and I would literally grab my cell phone, go on the notes and just type it all out, go “Okay.” It just kept happening. I spoke with my business partner, Michelle. I was like, “Check this out. Isn’t this fun?” She’s like, “Can I publish it on our website?” I went, “No, it’s personal. That’s a work website. What is that?” She reminded me that people need to hear things whether they’re directly work-related or not. “Okay.”

I’ve been doing that for a few years now. I have well over 100 poems there. We thought, “This might actually be the kind of thing people might want all together,” versus the internet. It’s too much work finding stuff on the internet. We talked about doing this and I’m the one who thought a journal would work. The idea was born to make it a thing. Here we are.

I want to tell you how brave these ladies were. When we got down to go get endorsements, they wrote the Dalai Lama. They gave me their list of people and I was like, “Oh my God.” We all have lofty goals for our endorsements but the Dalai Lama. Tell us what happened when you wrote the Dalai Lama because this was the part that was pretty darn incredible.

Do what gives you joy.

What happened was my business partner, Michelle, hand-wrote this letter to the Dalai Lama. His team emailed her back and thanked her for her beautifully handwritten letter. They didn’t endorse it. How sweet that they actually acknowledged it and pointed us to his documentary that’s coming out or something, which is fine. It was cathartic to think His Holiness for inspiring us, which is how I used this task to find endorsements.

I just said, “That’s super awkward.” Let me lean in with gratitude and then go, “You’ve meant so much to me. Here’s specifically how something you’ve written or something you’ve said has meant something to me. Here’s the ask. I’m not attached to outcomes but if you could, that’d be amazing.” His Holiness chose not to endorse but did acknowledge that the compliment was well-received.

As did Danielle LaPorte. She wrote you guys a very nice letter back. It’s just that her schedule just did not permit it at this time. I don’t know about Michelle. It seems like Michelle’s comfort zone is everywhere. To just watch you guys go outside your comfort zone to these like huge names, track them down, stalk them and then graciously take your nose and love it.

When Danielle LaPorte wrote me personally and she so graciously said that she’s up against her own deadline but genuinely wished me well and hopes I get everything I want out of this venture. I thought, “I was just given the gift of being shown how to say no with grace.” I’m going to print that thing out and slap it on the wall. Someday I’m going to tell somebody no and be like, “What would Danielle do? Perhaps I should follow in her footsteps.”

When you broke down the book, you broke it into five sections.

Five sections based on those core desired feelings that came from the Danielle LaPorte workshop that actually started the fountain of poetry. I kind of made it go full circle. Depending on how heavy or light someone’s in the mood at the moment when they pick up the book, it goes from something as heavy as divine purpose to something as light as joy and in-between. They’re generally thematic based on the chapter.

Do you want to jump into the themes?

PRP 167 | Namaste Bitches

Namaste Bitches: We help people articulate their why, and then we give them tools and techniques so they can go after it.

 

These are my core desired feelings. Everyone’s are different. The first one is luminous. I feel like I’m a lighthouse and my job is to put out good into the world. Divine purpose is me tapped into a Source or God’s spirit. However, you refer to something bigger than you. It’s really important for me. In fact, I feel like I co-authored this with God. I’m looking beyond my little self to something bigger.

Power, a lot of these poems are about me taking back my power. I had disempowered myself and then going, “Cut that shit out. Just start living your life.” A lot of the poems are in that lane. Open is figuring out that bamboo is so tough because it’s flexible. Part of life’s struggle is how do you bend but not break. It’s in that lane. Joy, I like being a joyful person. Those moments where you realize something is really savory and relishing that moment. Not holding onto it but going, “This is freaking awesome.” Living in those moments and allowing them to pass until the next one comes along.

You said something so powerful there about power. How freeing is it when you acknowledge that the power is yours and not blaming anybody else for whatever is in the way? It’s all you. I do not mean that in a narcissistic way, all you all the time. You have the ability to take that power and do whatever you want. Many people do give it away. It is so freeing when you step up. We had this conversation with another one of my authors about that realization that the patterns in your world and how you contribute that’s part of your power.

Stuff is going to come at us all the time. The choice we have is how do I receive it and then what do I do about it. The quicker you can get on board with that, the easier it is to actually start enjoying life. You’re not just sitting around getting beat up by life. You’re like, “Life is just life. It’s neutral.” All the insults that we have are a perception. Is that really an insult? Is that just them doing their best and me doing my best? They may not be in alignment. That’s pretty neutral and then it can get fun.

It’s amazing to watch inside of that the anger that falls away when you just say, “I’m going to choose to do this or I’m going to choose to do that.” I think the world would be a much better place if we all took our power back and stopped with the rest. I’m only responsible for myself and whatever good I put in the world is mine. I love that. You put this book out. Tell us a little bit about Bossibly, the organization that you and Michelle run together.

We’ve been doing individual and group coaching. We’ve created a community of people. I was traveling and someone asked me, “What do you do?” I pause. I’m like, “How do I describe it? We help people figure out what they want to do when they grow up.” It doesn’t matter how old or young they are. I said, “More specifically, we help people articulate their why and then we give them tools and techniques so they can go after it.” It’s in the lane of workplace coaching but it’s a little bit broader.

When you talk about work, you talk about getting paid and then you’re in the field of value and worth. It is broader than just your profession. That’s the space we plan. We have created this community we call the arena. We only want people who are willing to do the work to come in there. If you’re just sitting on the sidelines, armchair quarterbacking then you can go somewhere else. There are other places for you. If you’re in the mud and be willing to be in the mud with others, that’s the community we’re building.

Be a lighthouse and put out good into the world.

The workplace can be so confusing. I heard on another podcast that people are actually getting out of their houses and going back to the office and they want to continue wearing sweats. They want the suits to be gone. They had a year in their sweats. Let’s be honest. For a lot of them, nothing else fits. I think that a workplace is a confusing place with all of the social justice, all of the, “How do we speak to people? What do we wear? Is it brown sweats? Is it black sweats? Do we have formal sweats with the tuxedo stripe down the side?”

I have a pair of black leggings that have a tuxedo stripe and I used to wear them before the pandemic. You can get away with those.

I will tell you when I worked at Mattel, this was in the mid-’90s, we used to have casual Friday and they stopped us women from wearing leggings to work. My boss said something about the pounds per square foot, per inch or something being packed into them and it was pretty crazy.

The things we used to say back in the ’90s.

Ladies and gentlemen, the ’80s were worse. I had that conversation with somebody.

A friend of mine said that she’s gone full feral. She doesn’t think that she’s fit to be in society after the pandemic. I’m like, “I get it, girl.”

I totally get it too. It’s so funny. For those of you out there who are a certain age, if you were in Corporate America in the ’80s and ’90s, believe me, all this wine that’s going on, it’s nothing. It was freaking free for all back then. I remember I had tequila on my desk and it was okay. What are the next steps with the book and what do you guys do at Bossibly that help bring the book in and build your audience with the book?

PRP 167 | Namaste Bitches

Namaste Bitches: Writing is one of many tools we use to help people talk about difficult things.

 

We will be doing some pre-sales with the wisdom of Juliet bringing this book to market with us. We have a speaking engagement. That’s how we picked the launch date. We’re going to be in Colorado speaking with 350 leaders who have their own businesses. We’re actually giving this book to the audience as a gift. These leaders are not loved on and it’s our intent to love on them and help them not feel like it’s just them who have to do it all.

This group is mostly women. I think culturally, often, women assume they have to do it all and do it all by themselves and all that stuff that we make our lives unnecessarily hard. We think independence is where it’s at. There’s a time and a place for that but I’m leaning towards interdependence these days. I’m seeing a lot of value in it.

We’re hoping somebody resonates with something. This is one of many tools that we use to help people as they talk about the hard stuff. I can go, “That resonates with me. In fact, let me show you how much that resonates with me. Every little thing about that. Does that feel like you?” It’s like a crazy person thinking that you’re crazy. We all have these inner secrets about fear, shame, pain and all that crap that nobody talks about because it’s not polite. I’ve apparently abandoned all polite conversations. Here we are.

Would you like to read one of the poems?

Squeezed Between. “At that age, where your energies are pulled, raising kids into adulthood while also helping parents into aging, I observed my friends, frayed from the strain, worry cast in all directions. This is a particularly exhausting time. Both parties crave their independence, yet both need watchful attention, keeping them out of harm’s way. For the caregiver, there is no out-of-office. The phone calls can come at any time. Heart racing. What is it this time?”

“Dropping everything, racing to deal with the latest surprise. The tricky part is how to refuel the tank. Me time is for the betterment of everyone. Yet, those who need it are too damn tired. Too tired to relax, to blow off steam. Creating that time requires effort they don’t possess. There are no easy solutions, only compassion. This is a hard thing. I know your heart is heavy. I’m here sitting with you as you do this hard thing.”

The book will be available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble pre-release for the 19th of October. It will be available online on November 2nd. Thank you so much for sharing all this, Amy. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Juliet.

 

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About Amy Thompson

PRP 167 | Namaste BitchesWhen Amy Rodeffer Thompson, author of Namaste Bitches, is not busy writing poetry on the Notes app in her cell phone, she is a coach for professionals and business owners. She did all the adulting things she thought she was supposed to (college, corporate career, blah, blah, blah) and is now delighted to be co-creator of The Bossibly Arena, a community of people who aspire to make a difference doing work that lights them up. As a recovering People Pleaser, Amy nudges others towards true joy, leading by personal example and guided by divine intuition. She uses humor and kind-hearted intent to help others see what is possible. Amy shares her life with her husband Don and an amazing circle of loved ones.

 

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