From Blowing Up Her Life to Never Been Happier, Amber James

From Blowing Up Her Life to Never Being Happier, Amber James

[00:00:15] Amber: I think that's why I'm sharing my story now is I want other women to be able to tell their stories, to find their voice, take that chance on themselves and find their happy because everybody's different.

And what society tells us isn't necessarily going to make us happy.

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[00:00:35] Amber: I'm doing great. How about yourself?

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[00:00:41] Amber: Yeah. Thanks for having me today. I'm excited to chat with you.

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[00:00:51] Amber: Oh, where in Ohio?

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[00:01:00] Amber: Yes. A small town. Really like just south of Akron, Ohio.

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[00:01:08] Amber: too far, but I know this is probably terrible for me to say, but I've never been to Cincinnati. I cannot believe it. I'm so sorry.

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He's a chef. you know, It's always good to go home and get fed by my brother. He actually has a pizza restaurant now, which is even better

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[00:01:50] Kristin: It's trophy pizza. and you'll appreciate this as well. It's and it's been called the one like true Brooklyn style pizza in Cincinnati. So definitely recommended.

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[00:02:12] Kristin: And I was a Brooklyn girl for a long time as well. So we have a lot of parallels.

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[00:02:17] Kristin: I'm going to read a clip from the very beginning of your book, because I think that gives people, even more than what we're saying, a little image about you. So sit back, relax, listen to me, read your book.

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[00:02:31] Kristin: From a young age, I understood my role. The good girl, the obedient daughter and the diligent student. My brother, on the other hand, was the quingent central rebel who dared to question and defy expectations. Caught in the duality of our roles, I clung even tighter to the straight and narrow path, shouldering the responsibility of being the steady and predictable one. No one explicitly instructed me to act this way, but somewhere along the way, I took it upon myself to step into this role.

The expectations of others became my compass. Tell me a little bit about this childhood. Tell me about your striving for perfection from the beginning.

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[00:03:55] Kristin: And were you the oldest as well?

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[00:03:58] Kristin: Oh, okay. That makes it interesting.

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[00:04:11] Kristin: And I do think there is something that I, especially in years prior, I think we're getting better about this, but I do think there's this sort of Oh, he's a boy or that's just, the whole like snakes and snails and puppy dog tails thing. And with girls, they're supposed to be sweet and good and follow the right path and like a rebel girl wasn't a thing, I feel like when we were younger.

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You must not have done this. And I'm like, oh, maybe I'm just supposed to lie and just be completely perfect and have the right answers all the time because that's the way, that's what everyone's expecting of me. And I'm not allowed to fall off that straight line.

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And eventually that led to my family starting to go to church more. And then suddenly there was that kind of thing for me as well, where it was this feeling of like really good and evil. And there wasn't really a gray area where you could speak up or be rebellious.

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But that really, I started to harness my own individuality once I turned 18 and went off to college and walked away from this Small town and realized there was a much, much bigger world out there. That definitely suited me and what I was meant for.

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[00:06:24] Amber: Yes,

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[00:06:30] Amber: Yeah. Just pass, hard pass.

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[00:06:47] Amber: Yes. It's a rite of passage in Ohio.

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[00:06:53] Amber: yes. Yeah, what, I think there's that whole image that like the writers in the newsroom have all this alcohol and drink all the time. But I think that's just college kids being college kids.

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[00:07:10] Amber: Yeah, I started working at The Post, which is Ohio University student run newspaper. I started essentially like the third week Into my freshman year, I was like, I need to just start writing because that's what I want to do. And I quickly found my people. And it was like, here we are, all these like budding journalists were so wide eyed, ready to change the world with journalism.

But I think it really brought us really close together because we were all under this. We're looking for the truth and we're trying to get stories out there. And for me, it wasn't even, I was doing like culture and entertainment staff. So it's not like I was covering crimes and courts, but I still knew at that time, I'm like, everybody has a story and and that was my mantra throughout college when I started this like journalism career in college.

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And some of those stories are just the amazing stories of everyday life. But it is really interesting to, know about people.

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And it really opened my eyes to, even though I was in Athens, Ohio, I was still, it was widening my scope of,

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[00:08:48] Amber: if this is just Athens, Ohio, what else is out there beyond this?

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[00:08:58] Amber: Post graduation, I decided I always knew I wanted to live in New York City and actually during college, I had an internship in New York City at Hearst. So that was really big and prestigious and I absolutely fell in love with the city over those three months. And I knew once I graduate, I'm going to New York. So at graduation, I did not have a job offer yet, but I was not going to let that. deter me. I was like, all right, that was probably one of my biggest first just jump and let's see what happens. So I moved to New York City with two suitcases and a dream, moved into this cute little, it's called like the Macaw houses on the Upper East Side.

as an entertainment reporter [: 00:10:00

But it was such an amazing opportunity, and I honestly, it was meant to be.

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pacey. But I was team Pacey. And I was like, Oh, Joshua Jackson.

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[00:10:42] Kristin: My TAM stamp is a little bit older than 12 at the time, but yes, Joshua Jackson was the dream. Obviously, you did work your way up through being an entertainment reporter, getting to talk to really interesting people, hot celebrities to the point that you were earning a six figure salary, living, I'm going to say living the New York dream, really, the kind of move to New York, get the big job, get the big salary.

You were engaged and then Let me ask you about the first part of the title of your book, I Blew Up My Life. How did you get to the point that you needed to blow up your life and what happened?

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[00:11:27] Kristin: Yeah.

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That was scary.

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[00:11:53] Amber: it really was. I think the thing is, even if you're trying to keep six feet, six feet apart. You can't, everybody's on the subway or everyone is doing what they need to do, but it became to the point when you would walk out and not see anybody,

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[00:12:08] Amber: Insane. Like you could walk down the middle of like ninth Avenue and there would be no cars, no people.

That's how isolated it was. And it's because the rates were so high and everyone was really scared of contracting COVID and, hospitals were running out of beds. So it was really a scary, isolating time.

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[00:12:36] Amber: a hundred percent. Sometimes people don't even believe me when I say there were literally freezer trucks outside of hospitals in New York that bodies were just being put because there wasn't anywhere else. The morgue was loaded up.

And that is so scary. To be able to witness that, I think sometimes, like I said, when I tell that story, I think a lot of people don't want to believe me, but I'm like, no, that was a real reality of things I saw with my own eyes and it, and then it's on top of that, then you start learning that people you work with.

are getting COVID and dying. And that adds a whole other element of grief and fear, because you're like, these are people that I was working alongside and they're gone. And you can't say goodbye to them. You there aren't funerals going on. And it just, it was a lot. I'm tearing up now,

just thinking about it.

It's really, I'm like, Ooh, this is bringing up some raw emotions for me for that time. But it was really scary.

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[00:13:57] Amber: A hundred percent.

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You said twice.

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But I was like, this is not normal. I have to get there. So I had an emergency surgery, appendectomy, and then, Two months later, I ended up back in the hospital to get my gallbladder removed.

So two organs in two months, I lost. And it's the recovery from just losing one organ is enough, let alone two. And I just. It was a really scary time because that was another thing. I was living with my fiance and he was really the only person that was there. Nobody else was really around.

asn't safe for them. They're [: 00:15:00

And it just becomes very I felt like the walls were just coming in on me.

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[00:15:38] Amber: I mean, I think there were a little, there were a few red flags before COVID, but then once we were really spending every day together, I was starting to see the cracks in our relationship and. There was a lot of gaslighting, a lot of just lies. And, I really felt like he was trying to control me a lot and it wasn't until I got sick and realized wait, we're engaged, this is supposed to be, in sickness and health till death do us part, and here I am, I'm sick.

I need this person to be there for me because it's the only person I really have. And. He was trying to be friends with all of his female co workers and going out with them while I was home recovering, and that's really when I started to have to face the reality of how toxic this relationship Really had become.

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[00:16:33] Amber: No. Yes. When I say I blew up my life, I really blew up my life. I quit my job, my six figure job. I broke up with my fiance, moved out. I left New York city and I'd been living there for 15 years. So that was like my home. I left it all behind. And said, I need to just jump, take this chance on myself because I really had to do an inventory of what's making me happy.

I realized none of those things were making me happy. And I was simply checking boxes off a checklist that society says, this is what is going to make you happy and make you successful.

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[00:17:16] Amber: Yes. And I think finally for the first time I was able to just let go of the fear of being perfect to come back home to myself and what was actually going to make me happy. So I, my parents love them so much. Packed up all my stuff in New York City. We drove eight hours back to Ohio and I stayed with them for a month while I got my life figured out and just tried to get my bearings again, which I have to say that was the best month of my life.

It was so much fun.

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[00:18:19] Amber: yeah I apparently go big or go home literally. But for

me during, the 15 years I lived in New York, I loathed going home. I was like, Oh, small town, Ohio. Everyone's just. It's just not New York. And I, New York had gotten to the point where I was so stressed out all the time. And I'm like, why do I have all this anxiety and depression?

And I'm go, go, go. And sometimes I wonder if the stress and the fast pace of New York was actually what caused. me to end up in the hospital in the first place. The body keeps the score and I think that may have had a lot to do with it. But when I moved back home with my parents after living in New York, I just had so much fun being able to reconnect with them.

And I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that also, yeah, in addition to all those other crazy things that happened, I had lost my grandfather during the pandemic and couldn't get home. To go to his funeral. It just wasn't safe. So I think that also changed my view of family and what that means and that time is so precious and we need to not be so stuck in these, Oh, I'm way better than this or whatever.

I need to start making time for my family and being closer to them was a really important part of that transformation.

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I'm way too busy to. ABC, whatever it is. So I do think having to [00:20:00] stop for a minute and, especially after someone that you were close to dies, but to go home and maybe just to breathe for a minute and really value the fact that you are with family, it's a nice thing. I did something similar right after, I think, the pandemic and my mom had to have major surgery and she wasn't going to be able to lift anything and she wasn't going to be able to, and I spent virtually a month with her.

I was the only one who was working a job that was, I freelance, it's self employment. I just said, I have to take a month and I can do some of my working remotely. And it made a difference. Like I was really glad I did that because, my mom's not getting any younger.

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yeah, I began to value that and also understand now we're all adults and we can all have some fun times together and be like, remember that thing from childhood or remember this or I can actually talk to you like an adult now and I don't feel like I'm regressing to a teenager.

It was nice. And I think, too, going through that craziness, especially a breakup, it was so nice to just be able to go in my room, eyeball my eyes out many a day. But you know what? My mom was like, hey, whatever you need, you let me know. And it was just so nice to have her there and to know that they were literally just a few steps away from me, whatever I needed to talk. And it really, I think, brought us all closer together as a family, because I was finally communicating my needs, saying what I needed, and my parents were like, We can do that for you. As long as you tell us what you need, we're here for you. We got you. And that was so important to me. And once again, it also showed me how toxic my relationship had become that I felt like I couldn't trust anybody or ask for anything that I needed and that my needs were too much, but my family was able to bring me back to center and be like, no, you're worthy of all these things that you want.

And we can give them to you. We love you unconditionally. And I think that's. Man, I did not expect to cry during this interview, Kristin. Thank you.

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[00:22:12] Amber: I'm like, thanks, Kristin. I'm like, now I'm gonna grab my tissues, but. I am just very thankful that I had that family to lean on during that time. And since then, my family and I, we see each other all the time now because now I live closer to my family.

I moved to Pittsburgh. I didn't stay in Ohio, but it's so close to my family now. And we see each other all the time. And now I get to spend a lot of time with my nieces and nephew and see them growing up. And it's so awesome to have them when they see me, they're running to me Aunt Amber, we're so excited to see you and like big hugs.

And I'm like, this is so amazing. And I'm so glad that even though things had to blow up, it actually brought things back into my life that I actually really needed. And that made me truly happy and see what truly matters in life.

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Was that the first time your parents had seen kind of what Trying to be so perfect had maybe how painful that had become for you.

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I just want to come and be with you And that. Was like full circle to just them understanding me and me also finally finding my voice to be able to tell people what I needed. And I think that's why I'm sharing my story now is I want other women to be able to tell their stories, to find their voice, take that chance on themselves and find their happy because everybody's different.

And what society tells us isn't necessarily going to make us happy.

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Never being happier.

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Pittsburgh is

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[00:24:47] Amber: I love Pittsburgh. I have to say, I want to be like an advocate for Pittsburgh. It's just such a beautiful city.

There's so much culture and [: 00:25:00

[00:25:14] Kristin: who's sitting here now.

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[00:25:16] Kristin: Those of you who are listening, I'm looking at her and she's adorable.

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And he makes me, he treats me like a queen. He gets me flowers. He's just the best. And he doesn't want to change me. He just loves me the way that I am.

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[00:25:59] Amber: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

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[00:26:15] Amber: Yeah. So I started the Instagram at notes to self shop just. Putting together quotes that I had used during the pandemic that I'd written myself, I decided to create a whole Instagram around it. And then I created a journal because I felt during that time, journaling was so important to me and really connecting with myself.

And a lot of people get nervous about blank journals. So I decided to create the journal that I was always looking for during this time. So that's an offshoot of the Instagram.

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It just had to be something that really honestly resonated with me that day. So every day for a year, it was like, this is my quote of the day. This is my quote of the day. And I put it out on Facebook so that it was like, something that I. Committed to every day, finding something that touched me or that helped me that day.

And as, as I don't know, I keep saying cheesy, but as cheesy as it was, it was something that for me, it gave me a little bit of purpose. And it was just enough positivity in my day to keep me like one foot in front of the other. And yeah, I really do believe I'm not so good at journaling and I say so good because I feel like it's something I should do.

I shouldn't say that, but I really do feel like something like that is amazing.

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[00:27:45] Kristin: And other than this journal and notes to self, what's the mission behind it? if I can call it a

mission, I think probably.

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We're competing for all of the spots at the table. We're doing this. We're doing that. Where Notes to Self is about bringing women together because together we can achieve incredible things. We can push each other forward and we can just do it. Like we got this.

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Isn't gonna take away from my own and it was very quickly from this instant Competitive no to wait a minute. She's gonna do it her way And of course I want to support that because, she wants to tell women's stories as well. Why would I ever deny that?

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And I think that's so important. And also by us championing other women, we're also showing other women, this is possible. Yes, you can do this too. It's not just for the men. It's. If it's something you're passionate about and want to do, just go do it. There's no competition needed. Let's just work together.

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I think it's really brave to say, you know what, I'm going to give it up because. It's not making me [00:30:00] happy. And sometimes I think that's hard to admit,

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[00:30:28] Kristin: what people will think.

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[00:30:49] Kristin: So is that your quote? Or did you bring another quote for me today? Because that was a pretty good quote.

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[00:30:57] Kristin: I know I was thinking that looking at notes to stuff. I was like, she's gonna have a hard time.

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Don't ask for the raise, keep quiet, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But two things can be true. You can be grateful and say, I am worthy enough. To ask for what I deserve.

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[00:31:36] Amber: Yes, you can want the higher salary. That doesn't make you a bad person. It's that's what you're worth. And I don't think a man would be like, Oh, I'm not worth that.

I'm not going to ask for that,

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[00:31:47] Amber: just be grateful. I'll just keep taking on tasks without a raise, without a promotion. It'll all come around to me. It's no do you need to stand up for yourself? And if people don't recognize your talent and your worth, maybe that's a sign that there's something bigger, better out there and that you need to move on.

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[00:32:13] Amber: Just that, I really hope that everybody can pick up my book. I blew up my life and I've never been happier. You can pick it up on notes to self shop. com Amazon.

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[00:32:27] Amber: You can also follow all my daily inspiration on Instagram at notes to self shop. So that's where you can really find me find all the inspiration that you could possibly want.

I think. Man, I just am so excited to see all the people from around the world that are reaching out to me every single day, telling me that this has changed their life and that this is so important and life changing for them. Me just posting these quotes and I love it. It's being on Instagram and chatting with women from around the world who say that my quotes have given them the courage to go after what they want. That's. means more to me than anything else. To me, knowing that I'm changing people's lives one Instagram post at a time is pretty awesome.

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[00:33:17] Amber: Yes, exactly. I want to be. The beacon of hope for people. I hope other people don't have to blow up their life as crazy as I did. So hopefully they only need to change maybe like one thing, maybe leave the job, leave the relationship, or move it to a city, not all three at once. But the fact that I did all three and came out happier says, You too can do this and it's so worth it.

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[00:33:55] Amber: Yes, for sure. I highly recommend.

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[00:34:01] Amber: Yes, this has been great. So yes I will. I'm coming back full circle here. I am going to Cincinnati and I'm going to go to your brother's pizza shop. And maybe we'll have to meet up at some point for that pizza together and meet

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[00:34:21] Amber: Yes,

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[00:34:25] Amber: yes.

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[00:34:30] Amber: That is one thing about, oh man, that's skyline chili. Chef's kiss. So

good. So unique. There's nothing else like it in the world. It is incredible.

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[00:34:46] Amber: Me too. Me too.

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[00:34:52] Amber: Awesome. Sounds good. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks again for having me today.

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