OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB PICK! Zibby interviews her friend, accomplished investor and talented writer, Amy Griffin, about THE TELL, an astonishing and courageous memoir that explores how far we’ll go to protect ourselves, and the healing made possible when we finally face our past. Amy reflects on her buried childhood trauma and what it was like to finally confront her secrets. She delves into the process of healing through writing, the misconception of seemingly perfect lives, the power of vulnerability and connection, and the unexpected ways sharing her truth has deepened her relationships.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Amy. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about the Tell You're amazing 

memoir.

Congratulations. 

Amy: Thank you, Zibby. Thank you so much for having me. And, um, you're just such a great supporter of women and their stories and, um, it's, you know, it's so surreal to see you holding my book. 

Zibby: Here we go. I have to say, I was, I read it on an airplane at one point and somebody walked by and was like, I have to get that book, especially for so many.

You know, you and I are a few blocks away in New York right now, and have so many people in common who have been sort of salivating to get their hands on your book. So I feel very privileged to have read it early.

Amy: I want to give it out. I want everyone to have it. I think, um, I think the greatest compliment thus far has been You know, I've only given them out to a few of my closest friends and, and early readers were very people impressed.

And I think, um, you know, it's so kind when someone has said to me, it really means a lot when they've said to me, Amy, I hope you don't mind, but I gave your book to someone to read it and it shows that people are talking about it and they're sharing and they're telling their stories. And that's kind of why I wrote it.

Zibby: Wow. Well. Okay, to the book itself, tell listeners a little bit about your memoir and also you very easily, I mean, I guess every memoir, but you very easily could have not decided to share all of this about yourself. And I'm sorry, by the way, for just everything you've been holding and the secrets and the experiences and, and all of it, but you so easily could have not shared this.

Why share it and tell the story too? 

Amy: You know, just going to that very idea that secrets are not for anyone to keep and they're not fair and they're not, they keep people closed off from the relationships and the lives they could be having and living. And I feel like this book was when I started writing it, I, I had no intention of publishing it.

And that's, I think the most interesting part about the book is when I wrote it, I wrote it for me. And I wrote it the first time. I feel like I wrote the book twice in essence, because I wrote the book. I've been writing the book for a period of five years. And, and I think that, you know, the importance of this book is that I'm talking about my story, my singular story.

I'm not an expert on anything other than me and I felt like in telling my story and putting those words down on the page, it was the first time that I'd been truly honest about my life. And my life could have looked one way or any million ways to various people. And I think one of the really important things in this book is that you just never know what's going on in someone's life.

You just have never idea you have no idea and to always assume, you know, best intent. And so the more I wrote, the freer I felt. And then I realized that as I told someone first and telling myself in the writing and then in telling my closest friends and my children and going through this process, that really the book was just so simple because the title is the tell, but I think that the book is, is everything is in the telling and it's in the relationships.

around the telling that are why we live this life. And, and, and it makes it, it's made my life so much richer and so much fuller to come forward and tell it. I mean, Oh, there's days where I'm like, why am I doing this? And then I remember, no, I'm doing this for myself and I'm doing this for so many others and, and, and the others part comes in because, gosh, I feel connected because when I first told my story and I was honest with myself about my story, it was so lonely, it was so lonely.

And I realized at that moment, I felt like I was the only one who'd been through something like this. I felt like this is the, I'm the only one in the entire world that could feel this pain, that it could absorb this and that could live a high functioning, incredible life. And also not even really being honest with myself about what had gone on.

And so, you know, to then be, to go out and share my story and realize, oh my gosh. You know, I'm not alone. And, and so I could say that I'd done that for everyone else, but I felt so free and so liberated and I love people. I don't think that comes from my trauma. I love people pleasing. I love I'm a people pleaser.

That's for sure. But, um, I love helping people. I love being connected to other women. And the more I shared, it. Just the better I felt about my life. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Amy: And the people in it. 

Zibby: I mean, you can tell there's that authenticity to it, right? That you're working through, you can feel you working through some of the things that happened as we read, which makes it even more compelling, is to see you, like you start the book, and I know your kids are very involved in this, and you know, how they were feeling about you, and the sort of wall that you had put up with them, because.

Well, you go into it, but I won't give a thing. But you had basically put this sort of wall up, and as we go through the book to see it completely come down and the closeness that, not that you weren't close before, but the change in your relationship with the people even closest to you as a result of being able to share how that transitions and grows throughout the book.

Like, it's very, very powerful. And, you know, having our, Closest relationships improved by sharing is, it sounds simple, but it is not simple. 

Amy: You know, it's so interesting. It boils down. I think a lot to the word permission. And I think that there was this incredible relationship building, you know, you're right.

A closeness that I could not have possibly imagined because I did think that I was incredibly close to my Children already, but I, I had no idea how I would feel about my relationships, friendships, children, every relationship I have. But when it first started with me, then it all stemmed from that. And when I was looking outwards for answers, even in the doing for my children and all the busyness and taking them to and from, um, That wasn't a closeness.

That wasn't necessarily the relationship building piece and so now I look at the writing and I look at the process I was going through. And, you know, I'm sure people tell, I'm sure you've had this conversation a million times, but in talking about writing a book and they say, Oh, it's so hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

Or it's not, people say it's cathartic, but it's not in my case. It saved my life. In my case, writing this book is, is everything. It was able, it was able to put my words down and really understand who I was. I mean, You talk about how your stories are created and how your stories are built. I was an English major in college, and I love to write.

And my mother, who always said, You're gonna write a book someday. It all came to this. So now when I read it and I read about, I reread it and I reread it, and I see the relationship changes, and I remember how I was feeling when I was writing. You know, I'm so with myself as I'm reading the various parts over and over again, because there was this transformation.

And so, now to look at it, I'm so grateful. I'm so incredibly grateful for that transformation. And I can kind of laugh at parts of myself now, too, because, I mean, it wasn't, I don't know, it was laughable then, but I had this need to record and write down everything that happened to me, down to every morsel that I ate for fear that what I had remembered and the feelings I had would go away.

And I kind of liken it to walking on the other side of the street, you know, you live on a street and you live on a block for so many years and you always walk down that one side and yet, so you live on that street and you have that experience, but sometimes it's only when you cross over to the other side of the street and you look back at your house, you look back and say, Oh, I live on that side of the street and you can understand the full picture and, and the book is sort of, yeah.

me crossing the street for the first time and, and really, you know, really looking at my life. 

Zibby: So, Amy, on the outside, it could seem like your life seemed, not that anyone's life is perfect, but you're this beautiful, gorgeous, smart, talented, professionally mega successful, always smiling, kind person in society who is just like, will hug anybody and just like you are.

So warm and out there and you know you have these fabulous kids and you know, your life just seems or seem, could seem just so you know, blessed and perfect. And that's part of why I said you didn't have to share this of course, but like nobody has to share. But the things that happen to you, and I don't want to ask you to tell them because I feel like part of the book was the discovery of what happened.

Um, but you can, if I don't know what you're saying in interviews about sort of the main event or whatever, but I don't know, just take me through this and what would have happened? Like what, where do you think the parallel life of your would have been had you not kept this a secret? Or what if you had told this story 10 years ago, or do you think life would be different now?

Or what do you say about these like misconceptions people have about each other? That was like a thousand questions. So I don't know. Just run with whatever. 

Amy: No, I love it. Some of my brain went to the fact that when I first got married and I was living in New York city, my husband once said to me when I saw a woman that I didn't know well, an older woman who was so lovely and I jumped and I said, hi, and I said her name and she sort of jumped against the building.

And John then said to me really kindly, he said, Amy, I think you scare people sometimes like your Texas friendliness. And when I had taken him for an engagement party when we were dating. He kind of got lost in the crowd and this is kind of how I knew where I was from, this amazing community in a small town in Texas, which, you know, so anyway, I took him to go to this engagement party and he came back and I said, how'd it go? Are you enjoying meeting everyone? And he said, two words, very friendly. So I think that's sort of the nature of where I come from. And I would definitely say that that comes from my mom and, and. You know, when I talk about what happened in my life, um, my mom and my dad and my upbringing, again, your stories are created over many decades and, you know, would my life be any different?

I think that that's part of the letting go and that I don't look back and say, if only this hadn't happened and if only this had happened and why am I telling this story now? And I think the why's and the how's and the should's and all of that are sometimes questions that then I realize. I don't have an answer for them and and here I am today and I'm so wildly grateful.

I think part of the reason that I'm so grateful is that for all that I've been through, I do have an amazing life, I have an amazing life, and I think when people use the word perfect in any vein, I think any woman can relate to that word because we're all doing a thousand things, you know, when you have the lunchbox under your arm, you're trying to make a meeting, you have the ring light on, and I mean, Zippy, you're the queen of that, right?

And, and so it's just not relatable because it's not real, and I think that for so long in, in knowing Myself, but not really acknowledging the trauma. And I, I will talk about it a bit, but you know, I, I literally would look over my shoulder, like, who are they talking to? I'm just doing the best I can. Isn't that what every woman is doing?

We're all holding all these balls in the air at any given time. And that's kind of what makes it a beautiful life. And so, you know, in sharing this story, I think it's, it's all parts of me. So there's like this incredible part of me that's on the business side and the mom's side. You know, you have all the parts of you.

The story is one part of me. And I think once I was able to share it, it has made the full picture. It has helped me understand why I do the things I do. It has helped me understand why I want to bolt out of an elevator sometimes. It has helped me, it's helped my children understand who I am. But you know, it was only in saying I experienced severe childhood, uh, trauma and sexual abuse.

And just saying those words is really hard. It's really hard. Um, sometimes I think, am I the one saying this sitting in this body? And then the second I say it, I have a bit more confidence about myself, have a bit more confidence about, you know, for other people. I cannot even tell you the number of women on a daily basis now who have heard of my story.

You know, the book's not out yet, so, but they're just ready to tell. They're ready to find someone that they connect with and that's really important to them in their life. And it may, it doesn't have to be, and you know, God willing, I hope that people who haven't experienced what I've experienced, but people have also experienced much worse than what I've experienced.

And anything, I think there's so many things that as women, we just think it's just easier to just tuck it back into our brain and just keep going. Right. And so while life is not perfect, I think that it's incredible to think that the relationships in our life are what's going to get us through. And when you go and you tell and you share and you're, you're vulnerable, just like being vulnerable is like the greatest strength I feel that I can say that I've had in the last few years.

It's not perfect. It's not pretty. It's scary. It's ugly sometimes, but it's, there's almost this incredible joy in being, in being vulnerable. 

Zibby: So, will you take listeners back a little bit and explain all of your professional success? You have become, like, the most powerful investor of these amazing brands and building brands and doing so much good, knowing everybody in the world.

Like, where did this come from? 

Amy: I mean, I don't know that I'm any of all those things, but all I can say is I just started by showing up. I just started by showing up. I just said, you know what? My kids have gotten a little bit older. There's a great book called the power pause right now. I don't know if you've seen it, but you know, there was this moment where, you know, I talk about, I was literally handing kids out of windows in New York city as I was getting out of a car with one and texting with one, this one to a preschool.

I mean, you know, we were school together and you go through those phases, right? Where. Your doctor, when you go in for the hundredth time and you're sick, but you've got to take care of your children who are sick and the doctor says, you know, you're just going to be sick till your last child is in kindergarten because otherwise everything goes into the mouth. Right? And it was really only then once my oldest went to kindergarten and I've been doing so many things, but I realized I have this skill set and I think yeah. A lot of it probably comes from my upbringing now finding myself as a consumer investor, loving brands, loving the people that are building them.

You know, it's not a one size fits all. It's very different with every founder that I'm working with, but that was my passion. I love making a call for someone to make a connection to help them with their advertising or their branding or bringing someone on their board or, you know, it's different every day.

My job is different every day, but How did I start? I started by showing up and that was, I think, a value that I got from my parents in at a very, very young age. I thought that I thought that everyone had a grandmother who is the matriarch of this family in a small town in Texas where women didn't work.

But my grandmother did. And she when she walked in the office, there was no chewing gum allowed. Everybody wore hoes and heels and they all sat up a little straighter when she came in the room and they had this incredible reverence and respect for her. And here she was this widowed woman in a small town in Texas who was building all these crazy businesses.

She built three businesses. I think I wrote about one, but, um, I mean, I wrote about one, but, and now to see my family legacy and that my family all still is involved in the business. So definitely stems from that. 

Zibby: Wow. And can you talk a little bit about maybe some, like, what does it feel like to you to build, help build a consumer brand?

And how does that relate to now sort of building the brand of your own book? 

Amy: Mm. That's really interesting. Well, that's kind of just it, right? Is that Brand building is storytelling and, and, you know, we want to use these products. We have to have these products in our life that make our lives better, fuller, richer, make us live lives longer and healthier.

And so these are the products that I have gotten behind. And, you know, 20 years ago, however long ago, before I was real, before I was investing, I would find something and I would love it. And then I would give it to all of my friends and say, this product, this You know, cream, this food product, everybody has to have it.

And I truly felt joy and actually giving that product to people to say, do you like it? Do you like it? Do you like it? I get that. I call my mom the food pusher because you could go home to Texas. She says, you have to eat it. You have to eat it. And I say, but mom, I don't want that tamale. You have to eat the tamale.

This woman made it at our church and I said, mom, I don't want the tamale right now. So I get that enthusiasm, uh, my mom. But I think. You said it. It's fascinating because now I'm stepping into my story. Right. And the tables have been turned where I've been so good, you know, and try my best to build the stories of all these women and the founders that I've been associated with.

And also, there's just this glimmer in every founder I've ever met with about these crazy ideas people have, and they're determined they're going to go out and change the world with them. And they are on on many levels. But With this book, this book is in many ways far more powerful than any business thing I've done.

I think it's the most important thing I will do in my life, hopefully setting a good example for my children and then seeing this book come out. And, you know, it's just It's, it's, it feels really good. It feels really good to be doing it. 

Zibby: It's amazing. What are you afraid of? Is there anybody you're afraid to read this book in particular or just in general?

What keeps you up at night when you're worrying about it, if you're worrying about it? 

Amy: You know, the very idea, of course, I have so much fear. I think that I keep having this vision sometimes of me being on a high dive and, uh, jumping into the water. And I can remember as a child being on a high dive, ones that are really bouncy and scooting to the side, like to the left and thinking, if I go to the left, maybe it's easier. And then my toes would go over to the right. You go to the right, it's a little bit easier. And then going, no, no, you just have to go off. You can't go off the side. If you go off the side, you're going to hit your head. And I think with this book, you know, this is, remember, this is the story I've been told by someone not to tell and that secret again, and not allowing myself permission to just go for it, to just do this.

I say it all the time. I think that, you know, it's maybe it's a branding message for myself, but I say, let's do this. Let's do this. Let's do this. And this is that moment in my life where, um, yeah, I have a lot of fear and I don't know that I can pinpoint it, but it's fear of being told not to tell this story.

It's fear of being told that it's not important. It's fear of not being believed. It's fear that I, my life does look perfect. So how can she tell this story? It's fear of come up with one and I will agree with it, right? 

Zibby: Wow. Do you have any thoughts now? You are such a like, innovative thinker in terms of how to improve lives and this and that and now you're in publishing.

Maybe it's too early to ask, but I bet your mind is already spinning with, with ways to improve the system or did you? Well, you've done 

Amy: it. No. You're the one doing it. We're all watching you. 

Zibby: Like, what have you learned so far, like, and how did you go about even selling the book? Like, what was that whole process like?

Amy: Well, that, thank you for asking that question. I think that, um, I can also say, I guess, publishing saved my life because the idea that I had, I had no intention, I had this book I'd written. for many years. And I had 100, 150, 000 words that I'd already written of this book. And actually someone came to me and said in the literary world and said, would you be willing to write a book about women in business?

And I mean, it was an incredible time. It was three days after I had already written something in a short form, um, to sort of consolidate my ideas about, you know, at the time where I was, it was okay, I need justice. Right. And that's, that's how things can look perfect if you tie everything up with a bow.

And so I was in that place where I thought, this is what I'm going to do. And this is the path I'm taking. And there were, there's so many of those in the book. You see that, you know, you don't get what you want, but maybe that's the right answer, right? It's like you are where you are in that right moment.

So just like be where you are and, and in that moment, you see, I, I sit in those moments throughout the book and have to make these decisions. These terms. And, um, so when I got this phone call to say, Amy, would you write a book about women in business? My answer was, there are many more women who are qualified to write a book about women in business.

I don't know that that is something that people would want to read. That's not how I was feeling anyway at the time. And I said, I looked at, I looked at her in the eye and I said, but I wrote a book. And she said, what do you mean? And I said, well, I have one. And I said, can I send it to you? And she said, yes.

And I said, hold on. And, and I had it on my computer and I sent her the whole file. And my husband said, what? You just sent it? And I said, yeah, I just, I sent it. And it feels right. And it's, it's, you know, someone pointed this out to me recently, a friend pushing send on that computer was the next step in telling that was telling again, that was me stepping on the high dive.

And putting my toes on the end to say, I matter. My story matters. And in saying that my story matters, I'm going to show, you know, others that their story matters too. 

Zibby: Wow. 

Amy: And so that was the beginning of it. And then the, the, the thing about writing the book was, and I may have alluded to this before, but writing the book was, it just came out of me.

I mean, it was, it was a process that I'm more grateful for than I could ever imagine. And then as people said, you may, you know, it's. Be careful. It's not cathartic or it is cathartic. And for me, it wasn't even, it was just everything. It was, it was everything. And I did sort of step back from my life. You know, I was still doing my business and taking care of my kids, but I was frantically writing weekends, nights, stepping away.

I mean, there was not an hour that I wasn't writing. And, and if you think about it, I was writing for myself, you know, as writing as I was untangling this part of me. And so it was, It's a great privilege and a luxury to be able to do that. 

Zibby: That's amazing. Well, whoever that was who asked you for The Woman of Business, like, wow.

Amy: Kate Hoyt, CAA. She's a very special person. Yes. 

Zibby: Amazing. Amazing. Amy, I think this is so generous, an act of yours. You're doing it at perhaps, you know, At your own expense of sort of fear and worry and, you know, lack of privacy, like you're putting all these things aside and you're saying like, no, no, I'm ready to share.

It's helpful for me. But also all of you out there who have been through something similar. And I feel like you're going to start this whole ripple effect, this whole movement of, I know some people have, you know, not that no one has shared, but I just feel like to your permission thing earlier. Like you are going to be paving the way as you do in business with sort of working through these issues and, and having people come forward publicly and, and, and get the freedom from that they are so desperately craving.

And maybe they didn't know that they need it. 

Amy: I think freedom is exactly the right word and freedom and connection. And I think that, you know, the telling is just, it's so, I think I will feel. So I'll feel so much gratitude for the book because I, I think the book, I hope the book lives outside of me and does its own thing.

And that when someone tells me they, again, that's like the nicest thing I think someone could say to me is I pass the book to someone else because I think they need it. Or that someone says that they went to tell someone something about their life and they find that person. Because I think one of the really important points of this book too, is that you have to find people in your life And, and, and you can, we can all think of them.

I hope that everyone has that one, at least one person in their life that can listen and hear and hold it. I think I've realized too, that you, you do have to be a bit careful about going to just tell everyone everything that's going on. And because not because for fear of what you say, but for fear that they may not be able to hold it.

Or as you see, as I talk about it in my book, There are so many times I go to tell my story and I can see now in someone's eyes, not even necessarily that it's the same type of trauma, but they're dealing with something. And so there's this real meeting of where someone else is and their space and making sure that they're able to hear you so that then your needs feel met and they feel met.

And so, you know, at the core of this, it's, it's, it's just about relationships because I would not, I would not have survived this. As I look at the other side of it would not have survived this without the relationships in my life. And that being, you know, therapy, which I'm so privileged that I could have, I still feel so grateful that I could have.

And um, it is a privilege, but it's the relationships I realized in my life, my husband, my children, my friends. And that for me was as important as, you know, going and getting the therapy. 

Zibby: I love that. Well, I will be. Watching, rooting for you along the way. 

Amy: Thank you, Zibby. Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Anything I can do, I'm so excited for you and, you know, I want to say I feel like really proud of you.

This is a really, really amazing thing to do. 

Amy: I'm so grateful and thank you to you. You lift so many women up and uh, you're doing so much for publishing. We're all watching. It's all so exciting. 

Zibby: Thank you. All right. Thank you, Amy. Good luck. Congrats.