55. Ex-Google Executive "Empowering Women" to Step Up Amy Yip w/ 'Favazza'

If you're looking for change and transformation, 80% of it comes from mental fitness and habits. Only 20% comes from knowledge and insight, which is why reading books only got me 20% of the way there

We're tapping into surpassing expectations from the most successful. And the modern day and honing in on new foresight, methodologies and clairvoyance. You never knew this is "Your Transformation Station" with your host, Greg Favazza

Amy. Yip. Welcome to your transformation stage. I want you to be able to share with us your background and just paint a picture for our audience who you are and what you do.

Yeah, of course. Um, thank you for having me really excited to be here. So I am a life transformation and mental fitness coach, and I am super passionate about mental fitness because it is what has helped me through my transformation. So I don't even know where to begin, I guess.

You worked at Google, is that right? Yes. Yes. Okay. And people will probably cringe when I say this, but you left Google after five years. You went off to volunteer. Yes. Okay. Can you elaborate about that? Sure.

So in. January, 2020. I sold all my belongings. I quit my job at Google and I took a one-way flight to Ghana to volunteer at a breast cancer non-profit and it was my husband and I, it was our dream to just travel the world. So we had plans to volunteer until may and then go traveling. And then there's that little thing in the world, that game called COVID, which got in disrupted our plans. So we ended up stuck in Ghana until September of 2020.

And why volunteer?

So. I I've always been drawn to giving back and particularly to helping women and in Ghana, in particular. So breasts, I focused on breast cancer for a variety of reasons. One is my family has a history of breast cancer. So that's one, two is. In Ghana, the women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, their husbands will just leave them. Their families will disown them because they have this notion that once you get breast cancer, you're going to die. And they're also very religious. So rather than seeking medical help, Women are told you need to go to prayer camps and the pastor will just pray for them. And it's really fad because they will be in prayer camps for like a year. Their breasts will become 20 kilos before they go seek medical help. And by then it's either too late or, you know, it's going to be a very challenging recovery for them. And during that time, their, their families have just abandoned them. Right. And so it's quite lonely. Really sad and it's just due to misinformation. And so. I was just really passionate about that. And, you know, our workout, there was one supporting the women and giving them the love and care and community that they didn't get from their families. And then the second thing was educating the small communities because they're still run by chiefs like really small communities run by chiefs and. Going into the communities, educating the chiefs on this is the science. This is what is happening. And if you could get their buy in, then you can save so many people's lives that are needlessly being lost.

Yes, no, I completely agree. Before we move forward, I want to just go back a little bit, then we'll segue towards. Your time in Ghana and what you went through, but since you were previously employed at Google, can you explain a little bit about your role there and any additional information tidbits on why you left to kind of highlight that.

Yeah. So I, while I was at Google, I was in two different roles. One was a marketing role and my role was focused on enabling people to live happier, healthier lives through food. And so, you know, like marketing could be everything from placement to, um, programs that really get people to understand where their food comes from. And after that I led the. Talent. It was a talent strategy capacity. It was a global role where I led a team to, um, if you could think about it like a chief people officer role, because I led a team of people that worked on everything from diversity, equity, inclusion, compensation, benefits, learning, and development. So all of that, and my passion point, there was very much around the diversity equity inclusion. Um, and, and so that's kind of that. Give you a little bit about who I am and why I was so passionate about working with women and helping to empower them in Ghana and with regard to my departure at Google. So I had always known, well, I, when I first started at Google, I always said five years from now. I plan on leaving the company and going to travel and volunteer. Cause it's been a dream of mine since I don't even know when. Right. So when I started at Google, I was in my early thirties and I didn't realize how much changes in your life in your thirties and how that's a pivotal point to make a lot of decisions. And so during those five years, I got a husband and for many people who are married or have been, you know, in a relationship, you know, how much getting married to somebody, changes how you make decisions. So, um, that, that happened, uh, I had everyone around me asking me, why would you leave Google? Everyone's trying to get in. Are you crazy? So

that like crisis or

something? Yes. Yes. Especially my parents. They're like, so why would you do that? You know, like they're, they're my, I have immigrant parents and they came from nothing and they're like, you're going to quit your job. To go do volunteer, work, not get any money and why. Right. Like couldn't you just donate money. That that was their mindset. And so that w you know, I heard a lot of those things. Um, I heard a lot of you're getting old. Your eggs are rotting. You need to decide, are you going to have. Babies or not. And if you want babies, you should just do that right now. And stop playing because everyone called volunteering and traveling, playing right there. Like that's just luxury. You're going to regret it because by the time you get back, you'll be in your forties and you're not going to be able to have kids. So that was another pressure point. And then also my parents were aging and I'm the baby of three girls. My sisters both have kids, so it was up to me to take care of my parents. And so there was all this stuff happening and I felt just so much pressure. I was also the breadwinner in my relationship with my husband. So I felt like I needed to be the stability, you know, and like make that money and income. And so my husband and I, we were like, we're, we're going to do something brilliant. We're going to go freeze our embryos. And so we went, we frozen embryos were like, Security blanket. And then a year later we find out, we don't know there was a mishap at the facility. We don't know the viability of the embryos. And we still don't know

when that situation happened. You received that phone call about the mishap at the facility. What was your immediate response?

It wasn't even a phone call. We got an email on a Sunday morning. Yeah. There wasn't even a phone call. It was an email that said your embryo was in this container. There is the thing that happened and we're unsure of whether it's viable or not call us. If you want to learn more,

my God, I don't even have the words, but that pisses me off, but they can't even call you, but they'll send you an email

it's on a Sunday. So they're not even open for me to call. So I'm like sitting there, I read it a few times. I showed it to my husband. I'm like, what do you think this means? And he thought. I don't know. I mean, he's like, let's try calling, but they're not, they weren't open on Sunday. So I call on Monday and I get like a voice answering machine. So yeah. Like, you know, I, I was freaking out during that time. I was like, oh no, maybe this is a sign from God. I'm not even religious, but I'm like, maybe it's a sign the world telling me I shouldn't go do this thing. And, um, you know, so, and I always, I just felt like all that. Pressures of everyone telling me who and who I should, and shouldn't be what I should and shouldn't do that. I should not play and be a mom. And, you know, and I first part of, part of the mishap at the facility, I was like, maybe this is a sign from, you know, some greater being that I shouldn't go do this thing. Right. And so. On the outside, everything looked great. I had this job at Google. I lived in New York in a nice apartment. I had a wonderful husband, great family, lots of friends, lots of support system, but on the inside, I was like, you know, I don't feel happy. I want something different at the same time. I don't know if I should go do it because of all these other factors. Right. And I mean, I even in the back of my mind would always hear. If I go do this travel, have a kid at 40, the risk of them having some sort of an illness or some something right. Is going to be big. I mean, I had people, I had people literally saying to me, your kid's going to come out retarded. If you wait until you're. And, and so th those are really hurtful and I didn't know what to do. So I decided to go on a self-help journey. And this was the start of my transformation. I went on the self-help journey. And because everything on the outside looked great. I felt ashamed of even admitting I'm not happy because I should be happy. Right. Everyone's like, oh, your life is so great. And so I didn't talk about it to people. I read books. That was my first step for eight months. I read every Bernay brown book out there who moved my cheese, like all this stuff. And I learned a lot. But I didn't get the answer I wanted. And, and there are all actually studies out there that show, um, if you're looking for change and transformation, 80% of it comes from mental fitness and habits. Only 20% comes from knowledge and insight, which is why reading books only got me 20% of the way there. It doesn't actually change you. You have that knowledge now, but are you going to actually do something about it? It's like when people say I want to be healthier, everyone knows. What to do, like, you know, you sleep 6, 7, 7, 8 hours. You eat healthy workout, but yet that's

true. Like the new year's resolution is they'll go to the gym for a month and then they don't keep up with it. It's not about, it's about understanding the definition of commitment and being disciplined. That's where your transformation happens. You can have a solid foundation and let nobody distract. You can make a transformation through anything.

I completely agree. And, and a big, a big element of like the coaching work that I do. And, and transformation is understanding your own obstacles because we all have different obstacles. And so it's understanding your mindset and what's in your way to be able to overcome those. And then being dedicated enough to do that.

One of us pause you here in your line of work. Was there a common theme you came across with the different, you worked with a lot of different people of mass culture of people. Was there a common theme of obstacles that people encounter?

It was always, fear-based afraid of something, right? Like, and everyone has different fears. So, um, some people it's fear of fear or some, some sort of a relationship with money and there's this constant like, but I need more money. And I need more money to do all this stuff. So I can't like quit my job to do this other thing. Right. So it could be money. It could be fear of failure because if I give up my current secure blanket and do this other thing, that's unknown, then what if I fail? Right. Um, there's also for some people it's. Relationships with their parents and being accepted by their parents and fear of, if I do this thing, my parents will disapprove. So it's always some sort of a fear, but it just depends on the person

working with these, uh, these people is there, like this need for money or this fear of failure is this rooted to something from within their childhood that they latched on. Oh,

yeah. It's it's, it's, it's a survival mechanism. And this is like, why I'm so passionate about mental fitness is because your mind was created for survival. It was not created for happiness, right? Like your mind is it goes back to cave, woman, cave, men days. It is constantly looking for what is wrong. It is looking and it looks for patterns. So that it could survive, right? Like the trees, Russell Ling, and last time the trees rustled, there was a tiger there. So I see the trees rustling. I better run. Right? Like, and that's just how our brains are wired. It is not wired for happiness at the same time. You can learn to be aware of it and train your mind to. See things differently and it's not like you can shut off that survival brain. It's a good thing, because if a tiger is coming chasing after you, you shouldn't be like, oh, cuddly little tiger. You should run. But for majority of things in our life today, we don't have those tigers that we have to run away from. We should be aware of that. And then we can make better decisions. And the thing with mental fitness is that there's actually, um, there's two sides of your brain. Uh, one that's I like to call it the, uh, Darth Vader or you know, where your saboteurs live. Exactly. Um, and then there's the other side where it's the inner Jedi, right? Like the deeper wisdom, the Sage and, and they are two different sides of your brain as children. We could leverage. The saboteurs side is like the survival side, right? Like always looking for what's wrong. If I were to put your brain under an MRI scan as children, we could use both. We knew how to use both. Both were active and under an MRI scan, you could see both sides are activated as adults. Once we become adults, guess which side quiets down in which the eye gets louder,

I would say.

Energetic. What

happens to that one? He's going to be most active Darth. Vader's gonna be kinda.

No as adults, your Darth Vader gets louder. Oh my goodness. Yeah. As you become an adult, your inner Darth Vader, those saboteurs, the survival mechanism just gets louder and louder. And we can see that by putting brains under an MRI scan, which has been done. And you'll see that that survival brain gets stronger and stronger. And the other side is so quiet. Right. And that's what most of us do on an everyday basis. We're looking for what is wrong, right? We have between 12 to 60,000 thoughts a day. Guess what percentage is negative?

I don't know. You're gonna have to tell me this 180% of our thoughts are negative. Now let me ask you this. What is the percentage? Do we act on those 80? What is the percentage that we act on those negative thoughts.

So the thing is your, your, your thoughts and your beliefs feed into your actions. So if 80% are negative, it doesn't even matter whether you act or not. You're not going to act on anything positive because that's dominating your mind. Right? And, and, and the reason why people struggle to transform and change is because of your 12 to 60,000 thoughts a day. Yeah, take a wild guess percentage wise. What percentage of those do you think are repeated day after day after day?

I can't even buy them

95%. You have the same thoughts repeated, right. And that's why it makes it so challenging to change and transform because. 80% are negative. 95% are the same thoughts day after day after day. And it's because we get stuck in our stories and the negativity is for survival reasons. It's looking around at your landscape at what could possibly go wrong. What is wrong? What is not good. So that. I'm aware of when danger comes because your brain was created for

this is interesting that you brought this up. I haven't even come close to thinking about this, but the fact of certain thoughts that repeat, we don't even question them why they are repeating, you know, in a way it's like our bodies are trying to tell us. When we're sick, we know we have experienced symptoms and our brain is telling us these thoughts, which is our symptoms and why we are unhappy. We don't know why we're unhappy, but we usually find that out through our social interactions, but these are the symptoms. Okay. This thought has occurred already 20 times and people who are reflective and who spend time journaling and all those exercises that benefit a self-awareness can probably identify this. And I just think it's really interesting. I've never thought of it like this.

Yeah. And, and being able to, and that's why awareness is so important, because if you can become more aware of your thoughts and that's what mental fitness and, and the work that I do is all about, is learning to become aware of your thoughts so that you can catch. Before you take any sort of action or whatnot. Right. And so it's almost like being able to take that pause and recognizing, okay. I'm con I'm thinking about this thing. And now what choice do I want to take?

Let's segue back to while you were in Ghana, you were there for one year because of COVID. Tell us about tell us about that experience.

So. So, well, actually, can I finish the part about how I even left Google or that, that journey, because that will help explain the Ghana part. Um, so I was talking about books. They self help books, which clearly didn't help me. And then, um, for all the reasons that we just talked about and so. After that I went home and, uh, my good friend told me about Iowasca. And for those who don't know what Iowasca is, it is a medicinal medicinal, like it's a psychedelic plant. They use it in Peru as a, um, ceremonial type thing for cleansing and cleansing your spirits and, and. So my friend told me about it and she's like, you know what? I heard this thing about Iowasca it's supposed to give you clarity. And I was like, clarity. That's exactly what I need. I need clarity. Yes. So I flew down to Peru. For a five day Iowasca ceremony. Wow. And they, they, they always say, though, Iowasca gives you what you need, not what you want. So I got a lot of clarity about my way of being and, you know, um, my relationships and how I showed up in the world. If you met me through even three or four years ago, like you would see a very armored Amy. I would not be sharing any of this. I would be saying, I'm this strong, independent woman. I don't need your help. You know, like that's what I was saying to my husband at the time. I don't need your help. I love you, but I don't need your help because I'm a strong woman. And so I learned a lot about just my way of being my armor, how like that armor really wasn't actually strong. It was just a fake way of trying to protect myself and, and. And so I got a lot of insight, but I didn't, I went home without clarity of, do I have babies now? Or do I go and live my dream and travel the world?

Did you experience anything different since you didn't come to the big aha moment that you wanted? Was there a change in your, and your behavior in your action? Like, was there anything different or noticeable by your husband?

Like I went home. So before my Iowasca experience, I never allowed him to take care of me or help me, but one of my evenings, um, doing the Iowasca, I had this vision that I was burning and I was in a lot of pain and I was curled up in a ball on the floor and I was just in so much pain and normally. Like, I would not let anybody take care of me. I would take care of myself. Right. But in my vision, I saw my husband, he showed up and he just started rubbing my back, holding my hand and telling me it'll be okay. And I was just telling him how much it hurt. And he's like, it's okay. Like, I'm here, I'll take care of you. And he just held my hand and I allowed him to, and it just felt so good to, um, let somebody take care of you and help you. And so when I returned home, I started. Asking for help and allowing him to help me and take care of me, which I used to not. So that was one of the things

that's interesting. I just had a thought and I just wanted to share it, like for people that hit the certain age and they spark, they start to experience this midlife crisis. It's just a fascinating subject on why this occurs and like they do, but they, for those that are. That do, they just do it. And that's what I did with myself. I mean, I hit 30 and I realized that I'm going to be a dad. And I'm also fathering to, uh, children that aren't mine. I have a blended family, so I had to make a decision. Well, Greg, what are you going to do? Well, we can't stay in this apartment. So I went out and bought myself a house. And now do I continue the podcast? Do I go back to school? How am I going to support? Yeah, I don't know, but I'm just going to do it. That's that's the decision it's. Are you going to do it or are you not? And then when you don't, you're going to have to do it later. It's just like after the emotional breakdown or before.

A hundred percent agree, and I always

want to stop you because we usually, when thoughts are flowing, we got to hit it. Otherwise I lose it. I just wanna understand if we're going through that what's missing. And I've also, I've noticed that I can connect this with the midlife crisis, um, topic that a lot of people aren't embracing their vulnerabilities as their authentic self. Yes. And that's why they kind of feel like something's missing. Like I had the job, I have this, but why do I feel like I'm missing something? And it's because you were afraid of allowing your guards to be down. You choose to wear a social mask. You wear your, your occupational mask when you're at work, and then you barely show your loved one, your real self.

I could not agree more with you. Um, and it's yeah, I had masks on and I was protecting myself and I had like different personas and I mean, part of it is also, I just didn't know who I was myself. Like I, and this goes back to when you're a child and what are your survival mechanisms? And those survival strategies are carried into your adulthood. Um, and, and the work of mental fitness is about like, learning about what are those survival mechanisms, what are those conditioned tendencies that you have? And part of my condition tendency as a kid, I used to be this. The nicest little kid, but then I got bullied all the time, you know, and I got, and so my survival mechanism was I'm going to be a hard-ass I'm not going to let anybody in. I'm going to punch your face. If you try to, you know, like that's became.

Yeah, you doubt you adapt to protect yourself and now people have this misunderstanding about you that, oh, I don't want to mess with her. She's a hard ass. I can't deal with her. It's like, well, if you actually spent some time interacting with her, you'll know she is very soft and gooey, but you don't, you make a judgment based on. Your own understanding from previous engagements. Oh, she meets the criteria of an asshole or a hardest, and, and that's where there's so much confusion in this world is we base all of our previous experiences on what they think is relevant right now, when it's all bias, it's all flawed. Nobody critical reasons are challenged with.

Correct. And it's all based on, on judgements and assumptions. And I always say that every person has a story. Even the people we deem to be evil or horrible out there. Right. Like you like, I'm in Poland right now. So I've been visiting a lot of the sites on Hitler and the Jewish internment camps and even Hitler. Like he is an evil guy. Many people believe that. Right? Like, I mean, he's. If you look into his history, he was bullied. He was rejected. He was like, there was all this stuff that happened. And I'm not saying that justifies it, but it gives you a sense of empathy, empathy for what he went through as a child, he got beaten up all the time and then right. Like it just kind of went to his head and he something. Flipped in his mind, and this happens to a lot of people. And so just even understanding people's stories, it doesn't justify their actions or behaviors at the same time. It helps you to build your own empathy skills for understanding that everybody has a story that can kind of explain their way of being

nobody

nobody's no. Well, nobody is, um, nobody comes out from their mother's room saying. I want to be evil. I want to hate on people. I want to be this angry person. This is the story of their life that has caused them to become a certain way and actually empathy and kindness is one of the greatest antidotes to helping people transform and shift into becoming a better person.

I'm probably going to get a little negative backlash on this, but I don't care. Hitler, definitely an asshole, but a total genius to be able to. Thousands hundreds of thousands of people to do what he wanted them to do. I mean, that kind of influence that kind of like that ability just to persuade these were merchant people to. Act to me. I think that's fascinating.

I, I completely agree. And imagine if people had believed in him before he could have used that brilliance in a positive way, rather than this negative, crazy way,

because he was latched on to his past. He didn't know how to work through those emotions and understand why. Things happened. And what he's looking back is this adult, right? His, his rationalize with, with his adult mindset.

Yeah. So, so that, that. Yeah, completely agree. And I know even when I talk about Hitler and you know, like some people are like really like, yeah. You know, like everyone has a story. Um,

Well,

um, so after Iowasca though, because after, so after Iowasca I got back, I didn't know what I wanted. I still didn't know the answer. And this is, this is the last part. So, um, a colleague told me about coaching. I didn't know anything about coaching before. And honestly, I had my doubts about X I'm. Like how could somebody else help me figure out what I want to do in my life? Like, I'm smart enough to figure it out, but I was so desperate. I'm like, whatever, I'm willing to try it. And so my coach is the person who helped me to peel back the layers of my onions, all those, the layers of the onions or the shoulds, right? Like people telling you who you should and shouldn't be what you should and shouldn't do. And to get to my core of my being. On what it was that mattered and what I really wanted. And so at that point, that was when I made two decisions. One is I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to go volunteer and travel the world. Because if I don't, I will hold a lot of regret. And who knows, I might end up unintentionally holding a lot of resentment towards my future. And I don't want to do that. And so I made the decision to leave and the other was, I decided I want to be a coach because that just sucked the last few years of my life. Right. Like not knowing what I wanted and feeling like I couldn't talk to anyone about it and feeling stuck. And so I went, um, to coaching certification program for eight months. Studied. After I finished studying, and I always believe things happen for a reason. The program that I went to, uh, they just happened to have a program that graduated December, 2019, which was my five-year point at Google. So right after I graduated, I left the company and in January, 2021 is when I went off to Ghana.

So is there any difference with, uh, being a certified life coach versus being. Like any other kind of coach. Cause when I, when I think of coach, I, I feel like it embodies everything because everything is connected. I mean, if I need to improve my finances, well, I'm sure my finances would definitely improve if I would go to bed on time because I can start making better choices. If you can explain to me like the key aspects. Your certification covers to help get people moving in the right direction.

Yeah. So with coaching, so coaching is, is about helping you to go in the direction that you want. It is about helping you to, um, to change in the way that you wish. And sometimes you don't even know what that changes or what that direction is because it's about helping you to peel back those layers. Right? It helps you to see the choices that you have because oftentimes when you feel stuck, you feel like you don't have. And so it's helping you to see those choices and helping you to feel empowered, to make the change and take one of those choices, even if it's uncomfortable and helping you to see what are those barriers in your way. I always liken myself to being the mirror for people. So the mirror that you may not want to look at, or that you just don't see

peeling back, the layers of the onion you came across, we talked about earlier, the need of money and then fear of failure. How do those people get past those two different, uh, issues. If we were to say like, just put it down on paper in order to get past this, you have to do X, Y, and Z. If you can share that with

us. Th the other thing with coaching is it is not advice-giving and it's the exact, you know, like what we talked about earlier because, and health and health and wellbeing is one of those, because I could tell you all the things you need to do. But it's not gonna, you know, like we all know what to do to be healthy, but why does it not work? Because it might not be specific enough to you. Like it's not identifying what's in your way.

Okay. Now I see. Yes. And it's also framing the mindset, but then also knowing what, what, uh, what motivates you behind the reason why you do the various.

Correct. And also identifying where that even came from. So for example, one of my clients that has a relationship issues with money, it came from growing up in a household where she had to grow up much older. She had to work, they lost everything. She watched her parents lose everything, right? Like, and so she has this fear of loss. And so it's not even about the money, but of the loss of it. And she feels like there's never enough. So it's working around those emotions and those fears, and being able to release that rather than like, okay, this is what you need to do with money. And it's also, um, depending on the person, if they're a rational thinker or an emotional thinker, being able to help them through that. So she was very rational person. And one of the things that we worked on was she constantly talked about not having enough for the lifestyle that she wanted. And so we talked, so then I was like, well, what's the lifestyle that you want? And she's like, well, I've never really thought about that. And I'm like, okay, well, let's talk about it. So we started talking through the lifestyle that she wanted, and then I was like, so how much does that cost you? And she's like, I don't know. And I'm like, okay. So if you don't know, how do you know it's not. And so one of the things that she went back to do was actually jot down what's the lifestyle I want. How much does that cost and what income do I really need to make to be able to support that lifestyle? Because before that, she was just like, I just don't have enough and I need to make more

okay with that. And the reason why people don't do the very thing that they should do is just write this stuff down for the issue with the needle. That there's, there's a common thing with people not wanting to look at it because they're afraid of coming to the realization that what they're doing is they're way over in their head. They're living beyond their means, or they really just don't know. And they're just filling the void to make it in this way.

There's always a fear. And honestly, for her, like she jotted down the lifestyle she wanted, she has plenty, she doesn't need any more like that was her, her like, you know, she had this fear of loss and everything, and she justified it by telling herself she didn't have enough. And it was a justification for the fear, not the reality itself. When she actually sat down to look at everything, she's like, oh, I could. Not make a cent more than I do right now. I could actually make less and totally support the lifestyle that I want. Right. And that was a big aha moment for her, of like, well, that, that kind of throws my fear out the window

can, now I should have asked you, I should have framed the question that way. Can you give me an example of someone with, uh, the fear of failure?

Can you repeat

that again? Sure. Uh, could you give me, can you give us, cause you just gave us an example of someone you encounter with the need of money. Could you give me an example with someone that you've experienced and helped with the fear of

failure? Uh, and so this is specifically this person, so. The fear of failure. Our fears of failure often come from different places. One of my clients, um, his fear of failure came from growing up in a household where anytime he failed, he would just be lashed out at right. Like you're just not good enough. And so he associated achievement and success and, you know, be up not failing as love from his parents. Because the only way to get love when he grew up was by getting an, a plus or making a sports team or scoring a point. Right. And so he was so afraid of. Failing because he associated that as if I fail, my parents will not love me. And so it was working around that relationship with his parents and, you know, on the positive side, like his parents were still alive. So having that conversation with his parents and really getting an understanding, because he would say all these things like, yeah, but my parents, me, they don't love me. They don't, you know, and I'm like, how do you know that? And he's like, cause I just do. And helping. And so what we did was work on how do you have those conversations with your parents? And what he did was he eventually did start having open conversations with his parents about success, achievement, the pressures, and for them, they pushed him the way that they did because they came from nothing. And they didn't want him to suffer in that way. And so they always felt like education and success had to come from like achieving and being the best. And that was all they knew, and that was their story. Right. And so by him having those open conversations with his parents, he was able to heal those, um, experiences that he had in that notion of failure.

So with helping people that have those they've experienced those issues with their parents, Is the realization with them kind of understanding it's not their parents' fault on why they feel with the field, but it's more of understanding that your parents did everything they could possibly do to help you become successful. And that's where the gap is where people are missing is to understand that and then be okay with the fact of that name.

Yeah. And so for everyone, you know, it's about empowering you to understand that you own your life, you own the stories and that you can rewrite your story. So one of the things that I work on a lot with my clients is to identify the stories that they have about their life, their history, right? Like we have stories in our, it, all of it is just stories because. We filter out what we don't want to see. And we only filter in and see what we want to see. Like, if I were to ask you to look around your room right now and count how many things are green, right. How many DC? I

have zero in this room, had a room of black and white. Okay. So

normally you would look around and then if I asked you, okay, well, how many are red? You wouldn't know because you filtered out all the red to look for the green and that's what we do in our life. And so helping people to understand that we filter things in and out. And that's how we form our stories of our life, our history, who we are today and what is possible for the future. And so helping them to reframe those stories, um, and see that they own their reality. Right. I own the story that I tell myself about what my life is like. I can see my life as, um, you know, being wonderful or I can see it as being horrible. And it's all about my own framing and perception.

I like that. That's, that's a very unique and I can see where it all integrates from. And I think that's fantastic, but we're segwaying back to God and we're going to get some takeaways from there. Uh, is there some, can you give us a few takeaways from our audience, for our audience in that experience?

Yes, I definitely can. So we, I ended up getting stuck in Ghana and everyone's like, oh man, you know, that must have sucked, but it was actually such a gift. And my main takeaway for any part of your life is that if you look hard enough, there is a gift or opportunity in every circle. Every single one, right? Like if you look at the, your lifeline from all of all the high points, if you looked at the high and low points of your life, every high point was only made possible because there was a low point. And so you can always find a gift or opportunity no matter what the situation. Right? Like the only reason I married to my fabulous husband now is because I ended all those other relationships. When in the moment I was like, oh no, I'm being rejected. And this is horrible, right? Like in the moment it was horrible. But the gift and the opportunity was I met the best man out there. And so with Ghana, like so many wonderful things happen, one. While I was at Google. I traveled a lot. I was always on the road and I always said, I wish that I could just be in one place and just have a slow paced life. And that's exactly what I got in Ghana. I was able to read books, do yoga, you know, like all this other stuff. I rediscovered my love for writing. For bringing people together. And that's actually what triggered the growth of my coaching business. Because at first I was only going to keep two or three of my clients because I wanted to travel and be focused on traveling. And so while I was in Ghana, I started writing more sharing. I started bringing people together in groups, and that was the start of my group coaching. That was the start of like, you know, people got inspired from stuff that I wrote and they reached out for one-on-one coaching and. I speak at conferences and workshops. So like my business thrived from that. And then it also just helped, um, my relationship with my husband. Cause we were stuck in a very small room together all the time. And we learned to work with each other in such a small environment, you know, like, um, so it strengthened our relationship. So that would be my one takeaway for everyone is no matter what your situation or circumstance, can you look for what the gift or opportunity.

I think that's fantastic advice and information. And that always made me wonder during, like, COVID like with people that are married, like you guys are no longer going to your jobs and be doing a nine to five that you're home with the people that you love and is kind of, and I've, I'm not a hundred percent sure. But through my experience through, uh, hearing from my peers, Some of them are coming to the realization that am, why did I marry this person? But so it kind of makes you think about what you want out of your life and is that the person that I'm living with, the really the right person, some of them, cause some people won't address their issues and they'll just push past it. But as you continue to do that, you're kind of. Standing on a tiny, tiny little pole. That's about a thousand feet off the ground, and eventually you're just going to drop. And then that's when we kind of hit rock bottom. Cause we been avoiding these root issues. Yeah. And, uh, no, I, I think that is a fantastic story. It was all over the place

and I was physically all over the place, so,

but, uh, Can you give us some information about your business and how people can get in contact with you.

So, uh, so you can visit Amy yet coaching.com to find out more about my coaching work. I coach people one-on-one. I have group programs and I also run a workshops and talk for organizations and groups. And for the women out there. If you go to my website, you can download the nine rules for remarkable women. It's a workbook, how to live life remarkably. Wow. I

love that. And I want to get one more before I just forgot about this one. What are three pieces of advice you have for people who are stuck in their life right now, and a job or just a situation and they don't know what to do. What would you tell them?

Uh, one hire coach and don't do this on your own. And you know, like this is not a self promotion, but I truly believe everybody needs a coach. I still have a coach because you just don't see what you don't see too, is journal journaling helps so much to unravel the thoughts in your head. Don't get stuck in your head journal. And three is be mindful of who you share this with because everyone has an opinion and it will just get you more confused when he tried to tell your loved ones about your confusion or what you're thinking about. And everyone's going to tell you all these things of what you should and shouldn't do, and it'll just get even more confusing.

Wow. That's fantastic. Piece of advice. I mean, I really appreciate you coming on for your transformation station.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

You've been listening to your transformation station, rediscovering your true identity and purpose on this planet. We hope you enjoyed the show and we hope you've gotten some useful and practical information. In the meantime, connect with us on Facebook and Instagram @followfavazza we'll be back soon until then. This is your transformation. Signing off.