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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
I have clients come to me and they're like, I know you're anti Botox and I get a lot of it, but I think if and when you were ever curious to look at what lives underneath that. It's not the Botox. The Botox is a symptom of something deeper that you are running from. Right? And so it's about looking at that.
Amanda Hanson:It's never about shame. But I will tell you, as women, if we feel attacked and othered and shamed around every corner, we can't have any real conversations, and that I am not a stand for. It is time for us as women to have these hard elevated conversations and not give 10,000,000 trigger warnings or think, oh, now everyone's gonna feel other they're gonna feel shame, they're gonna feel bad.
Kate Northrup:No. Hello. Welcome to another episode of Plenty. I have an amazing guest today, and her name is Amanda Hanson. She's the midlife muse on the Internet, and she has taken the world by storm with her somewhat controversial, but very powerful perspective on women and aging and beauty, specifically what she has to say about cosmetic enhancements.
Kate Northrup:And I can't wait for you to dig in. This episode is a little bit gritty. It might challenge some of your own practices and beliefs, but it is absolutely beautiful and a very important conversation. Enjoy. Welcome to Plenti.
Kate Northrup:I'm your host, Kate Northrup. And together, we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time, and energy, and to have abundance on every possible level. Every week, we're gonna dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of hunting. Let's go fill our cups.
Voice Over:Please note that the opinions and perspectives of the guests on the Plenty podcast are not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Northrop or anyone who works within the Kate Northrop brand.
Kate Northrup:Amanda, thank you so much for being here. Thank you
Amanda Hanson:so much for having me.
Kate Northrup:Thank you for coming a second time. Our listeners don't know this, but you were so generous to come back. Something happened with the footage, and we were meant to have this conversation again, but different. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Kate Northrup:So you have a revolutionary stance around women and aging and beauty. How would you want to say today what that revolutionary stance is just to kick us right off?
Amanda Hanson:I think for me, it's this belief that as I'm watching the world move along, I'm a 51 year old woman who is immersed in that world. And what I see playing out before me globally is really alarming and concerning. And the reason I believe that to be is because we are losing the faces of aging women. And I think about my 21 year old daughter, and I think about all of the young women who are watching this happen. And I'm wondering where we got the message that aging for women, not for men, but for women in particular, is somehow a failure, is somehow so embarrassing we couldn't possibly show it to the world.
Amanda Hanson:So my stance is that we are in an epidemic of our times for women, particularly now that we see 10 year old girls doing get ready with me on TikTok. And all of this sensation around Sephora, Some of their biggest consumers right now are the 10 to 12 year old range. I remember being 10.
Kate Northrup:I do too.
Amanda Hanson:I don't even think that I took time to look at myself in the mirror. I was climbing trees. My fingernails were in the dirt. We were building forts in the woods behind our house. So I'm very concerned for what is happening for young girls.
Amanda Hanson:This stance I have taken 11 years ago when I was approaching 40 and watched all of the women around me starting to panic. And I didn't understand what was happening. I worked one of my first jobs in college, I worked on the Alzheimer's unit of a nursing home where I took care of Alzheimer's patients. And, also, with my grandmothers, being surrounded by people who were aging, really aging with deep crevices on their face was such a joy for me, something I so deeply enjoyed. I found so much wisdom in every single story they told and in the moments that I got to be with them.
Amanda Hanson:And I remember thinking when I was very, very young, even 19 years old, 20 years old, that I couldn't wait to see that journey play out for myself. So it's something that's been there for a very long time for me, and I just decided to go public with it.
Speaker 5:I love that.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. What about your mom? Was she someone, and is she someone? Like, what's her relationship been like for with aging, and what was modeled
Amanda Hanson:for you? Well, I think this I I wanna back up even one step further before I to my mom is I was standing at her mother's funeral, my grandmother's, when she was 87, several years ago. And I was in the receiving line at the funeral, and everybody who came through said over and over and over again, your grandmother was so beautiful, and that was it. And then the next person and the next person, And I hungered for more. I knew my grandmother as well, and I knew that her priority was her beauty, and it broke my heart.
Amanda Hanson:I thought, on the day that I die at my funeral, I want people telling revolutionary stories about what I did and the impact I made because the way I look is the least interesting thing about me. And so I know that my mother grew up with that influence as well and has, for her entire life, been an energy of berating herself in one form or fashion or another. She's in awe of how I show up in the world, particularly with my gray hair. But she she is learning, I think, to love herself on this journey. She's 75 now.
Amanda Hanson:Wow. So
Kate Northrup:So the other day, I heard the most beautiful story, which I think is gonna I I will likely cry when I tell it because the last couple of times I've tried to tell, like, I cry. So there's a friend of mine who has a 12 year old daughter.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:And through the choices that they've made around parenting and the school, she you know, they're they've really, like, worked to sort of preserve her sense of self. You know? Because we all my little girls are 6 and 8a half, and they both think they're fabulous. And I'm just really like, can we keep that for as long as possible? So I'm really, as a mom, leaning in hard on this.
Kate Northrup:Yes. So this little girl, the 12 year old, you know how, at least when I was 12, I was pretty awkward Yeah. Just in, like, the cultural standard. Like, it's just not gonna fuck
Amanda Hanson:up funny. Like, I wore my headgear to school,
Speaker 5:and that's how awkward I'm gonna say.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. It's just kind of a funny time, like, the in between body and the outfits. Are we a child? Are we what's happening? So, you know, it's awkward stage.
Kate Northrup:Right. And at the age of 12, I was deeply aware of that awkwardness. This little girl was going to a wedding, and she looked at herself in the mirror, and she just said, I just look so beautiful. Like, I just feel so good. And I heard that story and I just burst into tears because I was like, how could we now I know it is a story about visual beauty, but I think that, and I'm curious about this for you raising girls as well because I think our culture has way too much of a focus of telling little girls they're pretty or that they look good Yes.
Kate Northrup:Just around anything. And, like, we can also really celebrate, like, hey. That was so smart. You're so creative. Wow.
Kate Northrup:It looks like you're having fun. You know? Wow. What all the things that we could talk about that aren't just physical beauty. And, also, I find as a woman, like, I love celebrating my beauty, you know, and and so I I wanna talk about I'm gonna we're gonna come back to, like, how valuable is visual beauty and where is its place?
Kate Northrup:But this little girl, I was so struck by, like, the miracle of a 12 year old little girl in that awkward phase, looking at herself in the mirror and having that sense of like, god, I'm gorgeous.
Speaker 5:You know? And I
Kate Northrup:was like, I want that for my kids. Yes. So my question is for you, now you made that stance and you had this awareness on the verge of 40. I know you do have, you know, it's 11 years later now. So you you probably came to it, like, a little after your girls were already possibly moving into adolescence or maybe not.
Kate Northrup:I don't know how old they are, and I don't really know what the timeline is. So how did you pass this along to your kids other than modeling, especially for the for the for your do you have one daughter?
Amanda Hanson:I have one daughter.
Kate Northrup:For your 1 girl?
Speaker 5:Yes.
Amanda Hanson:Yeah. She's 21 now.
Speaker 5:Okay. Amazing.
Amanda Hanson:I taught her obviously, modeling is a huge part of it. Right? The way she hears me speak about the things I think about myself and the way I show up for myself. But more importantly, I think, was the message I would say to her over and over and over again is pay attention to how you feel living your life. Don't worry so much about how you look living your life.
Amanda Hanson:And over and over and over again, and also the positive attention, I guess, I would say, was really centered around her love for acting, her her very deep, natural activist heart, her concern about global issues, the way she leads in her classrooms and asks, you know, professors, can I lead a conversation about what's happening in the world that feels more pertinent than this other thing? Can we weave this piece in? So celebrating those things about her and making that the focus, sure, she's a beautiful girl, but that was a blessing by genetics that just came together. She didn't do anything to earn that. Yeah.
Amanda Hanson:So I remember also taking a walk. I was doing a 60 mile walk for the Susan G Komen Foundation when I was in my thirties and being really taken by a quote. And I'm gonna forget who said it now, but it said something along the lines of, if you are beautiful at 16, that is not of your own doing. But if you're beautiful at 60, that was your soul's work. And I remember the impact at 30 some years old that made on me.
Amanda Hanson:And I thought, that's how I wanna live.
Kate Northrup:Yeah.
Amanda Hanson:I want the beauty to be radiating from my soul, having nothing to do with the external, you know, look.
Kate Northrup:And when going back to the story about your grandmother's funeral, so it seems like from the story, correct me if I'm wrong, that what people were commenting on was more of a external Only. Purely visual.
Amanda Hanson:Yes. That was what she was known for.
Kate Northrup:Because that was what she was focused on.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Kate Northrup:And then there's the inner beauty, which does radiate right out of us at any age regardless of what we are wearing, what makeup, you know, the hair does is irrelevant.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Kate Northrup:And and it is true. Like, the the feeling of internal beauty that what we are radiating in the world is a match for the beauty that is inside of us and that people can feel it in our presence, and our life is an extension of that. Absolutely. And then as your daughter was I'm just gonna ask you all the parenting questions. Please.
Amanda Hanson:I don't have So,
Kate Northrup:like okay. So I come from Maine.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:It is a very different culture than Miami. Yes.
Amanda Hanson:But I'm from Ohio.
Kate Northrup:So okay. Yeah. Originally. And you raised your kids somewhat in Connecticut. Right?
Amanda Hanson:I've moved all over California, Boston, Connecticut.
Kate Northrup:Yes. Okay. Cool. So, Southern Florida is a very visual beauty focused culture
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:In general. Yes. Very different from where I come from in Maine. Like, women in Maine don't like, maybe they're wearing, like, a tiny bit of mascara. Yes.
Kate Northrup:Like, there's not really the conversation around Botox so much or, like, the like, it's not like a a thing that folks are talking now maybe more since I left. I don't know. I left 3 years ago. And so it's just been wild
Speaker 5:to come
Kate Northrup:down here. And I I witnessed it in my girls, just in this very simple ways. Right now, they both wanna get their ears pierced, which I was told I had to wait until I was 13. I don't remember what the rationale was for that. Same.
Kate Northrup:And okay. Same. Yeah. And so it's so funny because I was like originally, I was like, no. You can't get your ears pierced.
Kate Northrup:And then when they ask me why,
Speaker 5:I'm like, I don't have a good reason to tell you.
Kate Northrup:But then same with, like, oh, they're watch you know, little girls are sometimes already in their school. You know, their school goes up to 4th, 5th grade. They're starting to wear a little makeup here and there, and I'm like, oh, like, and I'm really reexamining all my stuff around what's okay, what's not okay. And, and so, you know, I'm doing that inner work, but I'm curious when your daughter wanted to start wearing makeup or doing and then the I I totally understand also that, you know, we I wanna talk about the difference between medical procedures and, like, mascara.
Speaker 5:Yes. I mean, so, like, we're
Amanda Hanson:we're not
Kate Northrup:Yes. You know, because it's a different thing. But I we're gonna ask I'm gonna just ask the makeup question. Like, how how what did you how did you handle that, and when were you feeling supportive of her starting to wear makeup and, like, whatever? She's real specifically.
Kate Northrup:Yes.
Amanda Hanson:I mean, I don't remember exactly how old she was. Maybe 7th, 8th grade when she wanted to have mascara and things. And, listen, I'm not anti makeup. I'm not anti beauty. What I am anti is this idea that you become obsessed.
Amanda Hanson:It becomes a fixation. This goal post constantly moving of never being able to reach it, never being able to be enough, that's what I am most concerned about. It's it's tipped over into a very obsessive way of being and functioning now, and that is what is alarming. Anything that becomes that kind of fixation to the point where it's never enough that you now have to alter yourself and the looks of beauty are becoming so narrow now, that's what I find concerning. I don't find makeup concerning.
Amanda Hanson:I don't find beautiful clothes concerning. I find, for me, it's primarily this aging, the denial. There's something I think quite different, the denial of human evolution and aging that you feel is somehow so embarrassing or so ugly or so unworthy that you have to erase it, you have to freeze it, That is what I am concerned about. And I know that this is a big concern for girls in their twenties thirties, and they are hungry for leaders because I get stopped in the streets no matter where in the world I am. This is a global issue.
Amanda Hanson:So everywhere I go, without fail, young women approach me and thank me for my work because they tell me, we don't have role models. Thank you so much for leading us. So it is the reason why I continue on at the level with which I do because I'm doing it for my daughter and all the girls who need a role model.
Kate Northrup:I love that so much. What is the difference for somebody? I think you just articulated it so well, but you're someone who, you know, has taken a very clear stance that you find, any kind of, like, medical, like, injections, surgeries, that sort of thing, like, concerning and disturbing because of the alteration of, like, actually who we are. Where do you see the difference? I think it's kind of obvious, but just in case for someone who's struggling with the difference between, like, enhancement of our beauty, wearing earrings, putting on some lie eyeliner Right.
Kate Northrup:You know, wearing mascara to make our eyes look like more awake and more open. Where do you where where does one end and the next begin for you, and what's the difference? At the end
Amanda Hanson:of the day, if women decide they want to do enhancements, they want to do work on themselves, that is not the question. You know, I have clients come to me, and they're like, I know you're anti Botox, and I get a lot of it. But I'm like, no. I'm not anti Botox.
Speaker 5:I'm
Kate Northrup:That they're having Botox shame instead of wrinkle shame.
Amanda Hanson:No. I'm I think what the fact that you're even bringing it up to me is interesting, I say to them, but I think if and when you were ever curious to look at what lives underneath that. It's not the Botox. The Botox is a symptom of something deeper that you are running from. Right?
Amanda Hanson:And so it's about looking at that. It's never about shame. But I will tell you, as women, if we feel attacked and othered and shamed around every corner, we can't have any real conversations, and that I am not a stand for. It is time for us as women to have these hard elevated conversations and not give 10,000,000 trigger warnings or think, oh, now everyone's gonna feel other they're gonna feel shame. They're gonna feel bad.
Amanda Hanson:No. Yeah. Let's look at what we're doing with our own hands as women. We are the ones writing the rules every time we open our pocketbook and continue to say that I won't be worthy if I show up in the world, you know, the way I am naturally. So I think it's more about that, and we can go on and on as how did that even become a concern for women.
Amanda Hanson:Right? Like, how did we even get here where men don't seem to be as concerned about aging? I watched my husband reach you know, he's, 6 years older than me, and I watched him as he was approaching his forties and his fifties. And if as he became gray, as he became, you know, more wrinkled, It it was not even a thought. It was just another day.
Amanda Hanson:It was just another decade. And in my eyes, he became even more sexy, even more refined, even more distinguished. But I did have that thought. Will he think that about me? Because he travels the world globally.
Amanda Hanson:He's insanely successful. He interacts and is with and next to beautiful women all day every day. Is he gonna come home and think, oh, I wish my wife looked smooth and What
Speaker 5:a great
Kate Northrup:magic do Smooth. For this ridiculous goal.
Amanda Hanson:Right? Smooth. Or as if maybe she was younger than she is. Maybe she appeared younger than she is. But, it it's just a top value of mine that that will never happen.
Amanda Hanson:And now it's so interesting too to watch because he was really curious when I stopped coloring my hair, what my reason was, why I you know, all of the questions he had. And I'm like, well, I'm super curious why you're not coloring yours. Yeah. And it was this moment for him of, like,
Kate Northrup:oh. And I will just say as, like, a, you know, person just out there in the world, I find it to be really strange when older men color their hair. I think it looks so weird, but I never it is a complete double standard. I don't ever look at an older woman who colors her hair and think that's weird. To me, like, visual you know, this is how our wiring works.
Kate Northrup:It is just literally that's what's going on in my in in my neurons and my synapses that, like, man coloring his hair, weird, bizarre. Woman, fine. Totally normal.
Speaker 5:Yes.
Kate Northrup:And in fact, it's more unusual Mhmm. For natural Mhmm. You know, for the natural color. So okay. Thank you so much for highlighting that it's not so much the resultant behavior.
Kate Northrup:It's what's underneath it. Because I find in the work that I do that the same it can look the same on the outside, like the behavior. 2 people could do the same dance. Yes. And one of them could be doing those dance steps from a place of, like, I need to prove myself.
Kate Northrup:I'm unworthy. I'm inherently flawed. And the other one can be doing that dance from the place of, like, I am whole and complete, and this dance is an expression of, like, the divinity of my soul.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:And on the external, we can never know. You can only know on the inside. Right. So is that kind of what you're saying in terms of women and aging and this ridiculousness about erasing the aging face.
Amanda Hanson:I don't know how divine someone actually feels and how whole the words you use someone actually feels when they are putting, for all intents and purposes, it is rat poison into their face. I think that's how deep the marketing runs. That's how well we have been diluted to believe this is now in form of feminism. This is now in form of my body, my choice, my power. I think that, women who believe that have taken hook, line, and sinker to the mass media marketing that has happened for us.
Amanda Hanson:That is $1,000,000,000 industry, multi $1,000,000,000 industry. So if if you delude yourself, if you decide to delude yourself and tell you this is done under self love and self care, I would I would personally disagree. Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I would personally disagree. I applaud such a strong stance. Like you said, we have come to a time where there are so many trigger warnings.
Amanda Hanson:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:There is
Amanda Hanson:so much apology saying anything.
Kate Northrup:For just landing our opinion. Yeah. Especially when it's not a positive one.
Amanda Hanson:As a woman. As a woman, if you have a strong opinion and everyone doesn't agree with you, then you are shaming other people. You are not being open and fair to everyone. And I just I refuse to not have an opinion about things. It doesn't mean that everyone's gonna agree with me.
Amanda Hanson:I'm so okay with me and my stance. I don't need people. Judging by how quickly all of this has gone for me in my world of social media in just a couple of years, I it's pretty obvious that women are hungry for this message. Yeah. They're starving for a new narrative.
Amanda Hanson:I can't even read all of my DMs because of the amount that come in from women around the world and the love and the thank you so much. Please keep this going. So that's the all the proof I need. My message is for those women.
Kate Northrup:Okay. Couple things about that. Number 1, I love that. It's such a deep service and, you know, something we talked about during our last interview.
Amanda Hanson:They got those files are corrupted.
Speaker 5:Those were corrected. It's so juicy.
Kate Northrup:So juicy, so we're gonna go there again. I wanna talk about your relationship with money, so we're gonna come back to that because one of the things I I know about you is that this this work comes from a deep place of service. Yes. By the way, work that we do that we do, you know, because we need to make money and can be of service at the same time. Yeah.
Amanda Hanson:There is.
Kate Northrup:But I also know too that there wasn't, like, a pressing financial need. And so this is really, like, coming from a place of, like, this is my mission. I gotta do this. So amazing and such a deep service, because I also am sure that not all of the messages you receive are positive and and glowing. And so thanks for taking one for the team.
Amanda Hanson:And then Being a free agent is incredibly liberating. Yeah. Because I can be as free, and I can say no. I have more most offers I say no to. It's very rare I'm a yes because it has to be deeply, deeply aligned for me and my time.
Amanda Hanson:So, being a free agent is a wonderful thing, and I feel the privilege of that.
Kate Northrup:So great. So great. But I think that there's a core level that we all are free agents on some deeper level, and I I I absolutely understand economic need, and I absolutely understand that sometimes it feels like we have to sacrifice our values at the altar of money. Yeah. And perhaps I will do a solo episode about this at another time, but I would encourage all of us to lean in and question those places Oh, yes.
Kate Northrup:Where we might look at someone like you and say, well, easy for her to say whatever and just really ask, how could I operate with that level of liberation
Speaker 5:Yes.
Kate Northrup:With my set of circumstances? Yes. Because, like, it is available.
Amanda Hanson:Yes.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Okay. And then the second thing I wanted to say, and and I wanna pivot a little bit and talk about the extraordinary growth of your business, is that, like, hot marketing tip, having a controversial opinion and being unapologetic about it is very effective, and you are also very clear. It makes it easy to find you because you are like, this is my stance. This is what I am, you know, standing up for.
Kate Northrup:It's not I know you didn't do because it's controversial. It's because it's true. No.
Amanda Hanson:But, Other people just said it was controversial.
Kate Northrup:Right. I didn't. You know, it's just who
Speaker 5:you are.
Kate Northrup:So you started your business talking about this in a public way how long ago?
Amanda Hanson:4 years ago. Only 4
Kate Northrup:years ago. You have a very large Instagram account. You you know, I don't know much about the rest of your business, but that's, like, from the outside, you know, visible that way. So you started 4 years ago.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:And what did you start doing? Like, did you know what you were doing? What did you how did you start? What inspired you? Well, prior to that, I
Amanda Hanson:was in private practice. I have my doctorate. I'm a clinical psychologist. So I was in private practice before that seeing one on one clients. Right?
Amanda Hanson:Whoever could get in their car and drive to my studio
Kate Northrup:And just and and and and around any kind of issues. Topic. Women. Okay. So
Amanda Hanson:Women, and, occasionally, they would bring their partner in. We would do couples therapy. Right? That was kind of my specialty. And then I started doing group events.
Amanda Hanson:I started hosting different events for divorced women, new moms. I was running workshops. And so it was really becoming apparent to me how much women need each other. I always knew that, but it was really becoming more apparent in in front of my very own eyes how rapidly women were claiming more for themselves or healing or moving mountains that before seemed immovable. So, it was COVID happened, and my group sessions then went online because we couldn't meet in my studio, thinking it was just gonna be a temporary thing.
Amanda Hanson:And I eventually did go back to the studio, but there was something in the back of my mind that kept saying, oh my gosh. I could reach more women if I decide to do this online. I knew nothing about social media. I knew nothing about barely had a website. I had nothing.
Amanda Hanson:I still have, like, old fashioned business cards. Yeah. I'm like, how am I gonna make this happen? I have no idea. Next thing I knew, it started to organically unfold when women would say, hey.
Amanda Hanson:My sister lives in Kansas. Can she join our group? Hey. My sister lives in Dubai. Can she be a part of this?
Amanda Hanson:It just started word-of-mouth growing and growing. And then I decided to close my studio because my husband said, let's move to South Florida and try the boating lifestyle. And even though we're both still working full time and very, very busy, location wise, we prefer being here right now. And I thought this will be perfect. Now I can do everything online.
Amanda Hanson:And so it just really happened very naturally. It it unraveled in the way that it was meant to. I wasn't really I don't wanna say I wasn't trying. It just happened. And the very first video I put on TikTok went viral.
Amanda Hanson:Wow. Yeah. I will I put it up, and then I woke up the next morning, and I was What was it about? Shocked that, I wouldn't be coloring my hair anymore. But I I already had stopped coloring my hair years prior.
Amanda Hanson:I was telling the story.
Kate Northrup:But, I have stopped years ago.
Amanda Hanson:Yes.
Kate Northrup:Also, I won't start again.
Amanda Hanson:Yes. Yeah. Yes. And so you were telling the story. Yes.
Amanda Hanson:And, it went viral, and people went crazy. I was like, oh, wow. Wow. Didn't even seem like that big of a deal.
Kate Northrup:But okay. But what a great example from a business perspective of, like, the DNA of who we are, we take for granted. Oh. We take for granted many of the most interesting things about us. Yes.
Kate Northrup:We take for granted many of the most valuable things about the work that we do Yes. Which is why community like what you create, communities like what I create are so important because we cannot see ourselves straight. It's why the coaching industry exists. It's why, you know, therapy is so beautiful. Like, we need each other to reflect back.
Amanda Hanson:That's my tattoo, Ubuntu. It's an African Zulu term. It means I I exist because you are here. And, like, we need each other. We're coexisting because you bring talents and gifts that I need, and I bring things that you need and vice versa.
Amanda Hanson:So as communities, as we come together, we all, like, can optimize ourselves. Mhmm.
Speaker 5:We can
Amanda Hanson:be inspired by each other. We can support one another. And I don't think we inspired by each other. We can support one another. And I don't think we were meant to do this in isolation.
Amanda Hanson:And this time in particular, in our world, I feel like we are becoming more and more isolated and and why these, communities that you build, that I build, are
Kate Northrup:interesting. Your trajectory was like, okay. Started in person then COVID. Then when, you know, went online, obviously, then you can have a global impact. So smart, so brilliant.
Kate Northrup:You know, you've grown this huge, huge online community. And then also, I know and, you know, we'll talk about it more at the end. I know that also now you're going to create your big live event
Amanda Hanson:live events.
Kate Northrup:For people to come back in person because we can only take the connection so far
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:Virtually. Absolutely. You know? So okay. I love it.
Amanda Hanson:I'm really missing the in person stuff.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:It's really beautiful. It's really beautiful. Media. Yes. Social media.
Kate Northrup:Yes. We're talking about what a beautiful thing it is for creating impact, for creating a business, for, you know, getting ideas out there that we wouldn't necessarily have access to if we were all just in our own insular communities.
Amanda Hanson:Right.
Kate Northrup:And, also, it is one of the number one, purveyors of toxic brainwashing Yes. That is responsible for the very thing
Speaker 5:Yes.
Kate Northrup:That you are speaking out against.
Speaker 5:Absolutely.
Kate Northrup:So I'm curious because you have kids who are older than mine are.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:What were some of your guidelines? What was some of your thinking around your kids with phones and social media specifically, but just media in general?
Amanda Hanson:Yes, absolutely. I have a very strong stance for myself personally, and I speak openly about it to my daughter and to my clients. And then ask them encourage them to consider doing the same for themselves, even trying it for a 30 day experiment and noticing if they feel any different. So for my daughter, when she first started having social media and Instagram, I would sit down next to her, and and she would scroll. And I said, show me your your feed.
Amanda Hanson:Who are you following? And we would stop on certain ones. I'm like, so tell me why do you follow this person? Oh, for this reason, this reason, reason. Oh, okay.
Amanda Hanson:Do you feel good when you look at their things? Yeah. Oh, seems like maybe there's some hesitation there. We'll come back to this one. Scroll again.
Amanda Hanson:Oh, why do you follow her? Oh, she's so beautiful, and she's, like, this really famous model. And do you feel good when you are on her page? Do you do you feel inspired? Do you feel creative?
Amanda Hanson:Do you get new ideas? She's like, no. Like, then why do you follow her? Right? So teach people how to be more curious.
Amanda Hanson:Teach people to do their own thinking that takes it to a deeper level, which I did for myself. If you were to grab my phone and look at my feed, I follow people who wild I have had chills right now because I am impeccable in who I follow. I follow people who uplift the world, who inspire me, who make me think beyond my limitations for myself. I don't waste my time of my one and only precious life having people who are there for, just posing. I'm not interested in posing.
Amanda Hanson:Like, if if if that's the world we're living in, I want no part of it. I have never I'm so proud to admit I have never watched a single episode of a reality TV show. I have absolutely no interest watching other people live their life. I'm so busy creating my own. And so I've raised all of my kids, my 3 boys as well, under this consideration and this lens.
Amanda Hanson:And I talk to my clients about this, you know, that you may think you are just watching some housewives show, reality show, for entertainment to shut your brain off. I guarantee you, when you go to bed at night, your unconscious is processing a lot of what you saw. Oh, yeah. Just like we take food in, everything we take in has an effect on our lives. So we get to decide, and I am impeccable with what I eat.
Amanda Hanson:I'm impeccable with what I watch, what I take in, in all forms and fashions. That's why I can vibrate so high because I'm only taking in high quality in all regards, in all five senses.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:So after you and this episode will come over come out later, I'm interviewing, hypnotist hypnotherapist named Grace Smith. And in her book, she talks about that, we actually when we're consuming media, we are more in a theta brain state, and it actually is kind of a form of hypnotism. And we are our most suggestible at that time. And so we really can't just be like, oh, it's just entertainment. It's just a movie.
Kate Northrup:It's just, oh, whatever. It's just a model's Instagram feed or whatever. It's not. It's like I wouldn't eat Cheetos all day and be like, oh, it's just Cheetos.
Amanda Hanson:I wonder I wouldn't just eat Cheetos all day and be like, I wonder why I don't feel good. I wonder why my stomach hurt. I wonder why yeah. Exactly.
Kate Northrup:Same thing. Like, it's it's I think that I didn't realize how big of a deal it is, though I notice it come up as a mama bear because when my girls start watching something where they talk to each other in a certain way or whatever, I'm like, oh, no. We're immediately turning this off. Like, I could there's just a feeling of, like, oh, no. That is not going into your psyche
Speaker 5:Yes.
Kate Northrup:As, like, a way of being or any way of suggestion of a goal.
Amanda Hanson:During such an impressionable time too. Right?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Before the age of 7, we're, like, always basically in that theta brainwave.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. And then the rest of the time, we can come into it, and we are when we're scrolling, when we're reading stories, when we're watching stories, when we're consuming media. Okay. So you do seem to operate at a pretty high level with a, high level of judiciousness about what goes onto your calendar, what comes into your life, what goes into your body, your thoughts, all of those things. Was there a particular moment where there was, like, a before and after?
Kate Northrup:Did you grow up in a house hold where there was a lot of consciousness around this sort of thing? How did you get this way?
Amanda Hanson:I think I remember being 8 years old and being very inquisitive and actually getting in trouble for my level of inquisitiveness and curiosity. Like, for me, nothing was ever what it seemed. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know, okay, so that's the story you tell everybody, but what were you actually feeling and thinking, and what happened? What made you decide to do that?
Amanda Hanson:And it would be that question of, like, they used to call me Mandy. Mandy, just quit with all the questions. So I think I've always had this form of curiosity. And so I'm trying to think of when it really, really turned on. But, I mean, if we were to lay out my whole life, I've done pretty much everything not by the book in every regard, even when it comes to medical choices, when it comes to birthing my children, when it comes to natural healing for one of my children, when it comes to supporting children who've made different choices about their expressions in this world.
Amanda Hanson:I am there's nothing for me that's off the table. I'm willing to get behind, a higher state of consciousness everywhere. And I think I also operate with love at the core. And so with the curiosity, with openness and willingness and love as my base, I feel like I have kind of morphed into or created the most dreamy way of operating that works for me. So I asked myself, Amanda, does this feel loving?
Amanda Hanson:Does this feel so nourishing? Before I interact with somebody, before I do something for myself? Does this actually is this really the best way? If you only have 45 minutes this morning, is this the most nourishing way to spend time with yourself, right, in all of the ways? So I think that, for me, it's really just so much consciousness around the way I am choosing everything because it's one go round.
Amanda Hanson:And I really wanna optimize it as much as I possibly can in my thoughts, in my body, in my heart, in my soul.
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when we spoke last time, I remember we were talking a little bit about, your relationship with money
Amanda Hanson:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:And how that has shifted. And I'm curious, like, as a business owner, how does your relationship with money impact your ability to be out here growing when, the truth is that what you're talking about is incredibly economically disruptive.
Speaker 5:Mhmm.
Amanda Hanson:Oh, yes. Mhmm.
Kate Northrup:And and I love that. You know, we vote with our dollars by what we spend money on. And I wrote
Amanda Hanson:that exact line in my book. Oh,
Kate Northrup:okay. Great. I can't wait to read your book. So when does it come out, Gina?
Amanda Hanson:January.
Kate Northrup:Oh, January. Okay, great. So I'm just curious, like, can you tell me about what your relationship is like with money now and what possibly was required to update it as your abundance expanded?
Amanda Hanson:My relationship with money was that there is never enough of it. You have to work in painfully hard amounts of your life to earn a little bit, but you'll still never have enough. And it is elusive. So, I grew up, my parents got divorced when I was young. My dad left, and my mom has zero education.
Amanda Hanson:So, she was working 2 3 jobs just to keep the lights on. We were on food stamps for a while, and there was a lot of shame around not having money. So I think that my relationship with money ever so slowly evolved and changed when I started to make my own money and first was terrified about spending any of it and really having this belief of, like, but but what if I can't get anymore? What if I can't generate this again? And then over time, I felt safer and safer and safer as I trusted myself to constantly receive money.
Amanda Hanson:And when I shifted the belief that money is an energy, just like everything else that we experience in this lifetime, so me holding on to it so tightly was also going to probably affect the way it came in for me. So every time, even still, I have this practice of every time I pay someone like, I paid my team in the car before I came in. Right? Every time I pay someone, I pay them with a generous heart. I get very emotional about it, actually, because I pay them knowing that my voice, this work I do in the world is only possible because they have the talents that they have.
Amanda Hanson:And that, otherwise, it would just be me sitting, you know, with these thoughts and not having this megaphone to my heart the way that they have helped me do that. Also, everyone that helps in any other way or form or fashion of my life. I just recently purchased last week, we signed the papers, my mother and her husband, a beautiful condo here in South Florida. And my mom and I said, did we ever think, like, this turn of events that we'd have this moment where she wasn't sure how we were gonna eat? And now here, her daughter was buying her this beautiful place to live.
Amanda Hanson:And it really did come with changing the mindset. I see she still has that mindset, but that's okay because Yeah. I have so much abundance in my heart and in my in my financial situation that I wanna share. And I also believe that money is an amplifier. If you have a good and full and rich heart, money will only amplify that.
Amanda Hanson:And if you are corrupted and evil and greedy, money will showcase that as well. So money amplifies. So if you're a beautiful, amazing person, why wouldn't the universe trust money to come into your hands because you'll do beautiful things with it?
Kate Northrup:Yeah. Yeah. So there's a thread between what you speak about with withworthiness and beauty and aging Mhmm. And what you're speaking about here. And I wanna highlight that, like, the the root foundation is there's, like, a deep sense of infinite, inherent worth in you that is showing up in your business, in your fortitude that you have to claim what I know you didn't like, you weren't like, oh, this is gonna be unpopular, but to claim a a a belief that is not common, maybe it's not.
Kate Northrup:I think it's actually quite popular, but maybe not as common. It's groundbreaking. Right? It's groundbreaking. Like, to be able to just put your antenna up and be, like, this is what I'm claiming and then in your money.
Kate Northrup:And then in the way that you are judicious about what ends up on your calendar, what ends up in your body, what all of those things, like, they're all coming from that root of deep worthiness, which it sounds like you came in with to some degree, and then worked on over time. And is there anything in particular that you still lean into that helps you to amplify or dip into that source of worth on the on a regular basis?
Amanda Hanson:You know, I have I just had a vision when you were talking about when I was little, and my dad stopped coming to see us and started a new family 3 miles down the road. Wow. And I had to tell the story for a while that, he just didn't know any better. Someday, he was gonna figure out that I was really amazing, and then it was gonna all click for him. Unfortunately, that day didn't really come.
Amanda Hanson:We did kinda see each other for 5 days before he died. We spent together, but, and he was not a part of my life prior to that. And I did. I don't know how it happened. I feel so wildly thankful because it's a huge threat of the work I do now for women.
Amanda Hanson:It's helping them realize that they were born worthy. Every single human being is born worthy. And then our decision is to we get to decide, like, will I protect that under all circumstances, or will I allow the world to dictate and tell me that's not actually true? This is how you'll be worthy for me, for the world,
Speaker 6:for this space, for this conversation. I have just decided that I will protect my worthiness with everything that I have. I have just decided
Amanda Hanson:that I will protect my worthiness with everything that I have. Even as a little girl, I knew that he made a mistake. I never took it on as there must be something wrong with me. So I just I don't know where that came from. I'm so grateful that it happened and that I have that rooted in me, but it's a deep and I use that word and that language a lot.
Amanda Hanson:I feel deeply rooted like an old oak tree. I feel like the roots are wide and deep, and, I'm pretty unshakable because I source from here. I don't source from my husband or my children or how much money comes into my bank account each week,
Kate Northrup:or smoothness.
Amanda Hanson:No. At all. Actually, I I might tend the other way. Yeah. The more gray, the more wrinkles, the more things.
Amanda Hanson:I'm in awe. Yeah. I'm in awe. Well, it's such evidence
Kate Northrup:of a life. It is. Well lived. You know? It really is.
Amanda Hanson:And I wanna see it all.
Kate Northrup:So what about for someone listening who's like, I'm not a deeply rooted tree. Like, my it doesn't feel like my worth comes from like, how do they tap into that? What's one thing they might be able to do to start to reconnect with that worth?
Amanda Hanson:You know, this is a hard one for women. I have 2 things technically. One thing, one of the most primary practices that I teach in my work and one of the things that I have women do from the beginning of our time together is begin a mirror practice. And I know it's very hard for Whitman, shockingly, to spend any amount of time in the mirror because the relationship with the mirror has always been, let me go to identify all that is wrong, all that needs to be fixed. And I approach it from, let me come to see the reverence and and be in reverence.
Amanda Hanson:Let me come to see the majesty and and the divinity here and stay until you feel that. And what happens for women? The way they tell me, and I know for myself, I felt cellular change over after 90 days of committing to mere practice for myself that I'm gonna come here before I even turn my phone on in the morning. I'm gonna come here, and I'm gonna stand, and I'm gonna be in awe of what is, not what used to be, what may happen in the future, what is right here and now. And with that, you start your day from a groundedness because I'm witnessing.
Amanda Hanson:It's the same as we go to see a sunrise or we stand with our feet in the sand at the ocean. If I allow it long enough, Kate, I'm witnessing mother nature. It's a miracle. It's a it's a miracle that you're here, that any of us are here. And to to bypass that, wow.
Amanda Hanson:I don't wanna miss it. So every day I stand there. And from that energy, I then go into the world, and I love harder, and I create more, and I keep showing up because I remembered for those 3 minutes every morning that it's all okay. It's all beautiful just as it is right here, right now.
Kate Northrup:It's so gorgeous. And I've been doing that a little bit since I first started listening to some of your stuff, and it is beautiful. And when I remember, it is powerful.
Speaker 5:And sometimes it is a little uncomfortable at the beginning, but, like, pretty
Kate Northrup:soon, it just feels really good. And might be more available, But I do wanna say for those listening, like, it is a rewiring. Like, we are looking in our own eyes, being present with ourselves. It is a repatterning, and it will get easier and easier. And are you, at that time, just, you know, making eye contact in the mirror?
Kate Northrup:Are you saying anything?
Amanda Hanson:Does it vary on day to day? It varies on day to day depending I pay attention to what I need, right, and depend and what's going on for me. So it really is eye contact for some people. It's about sending love to certain parts of their body that they've really been uncomfortable with. I do that as well.
Amanda Hanson:But I think it is really about this idea of, yes, it is this rewiring, but it's building self intimacy. We go into the world seeking intimacy and being seen. I assure you, and I know you know this, but this is for everyone listening, is that we can't actually build true intimacy with other people until we've met ourselves, until we've gone into the deep recesses of our heart and our soul and our shadows and our wounds and our fears until we can't do it in a way that actually is going to be sustainable long term with someone else. Right? And then and then what happens is you become dependent on the first person who pays you a little bit of attention, who who tosses you a dried bread crumb.
Amanda Hanson:And you're like, oh, it's a feast. You're delusional because you haven't built any of that self intimacy within. So you're taking what you believe to be intimacy, which is usually, not quite even close.
Kate Northrup:Not it. Totally not it. Okay. So as we kinda bring this home, what if you were to say, like, what's your what is the world that you envision when your daughter is on the verge of 40 in 20 years from now or slightly less? Yeah.
Kate Northrup:What do you want that world to be for her at that juncture?
Amanda Hanson:I want that world to be just in the same way they can't my kids cannot believe I use telephones where I had to dial each number, or then then maybe my mom would pick up from the other room and listen in, in that same world that feels unfathomable to them. I want when my daughter's 40 for it to be unfathomable that women used to inject poison into themselves and call it a beauty treatment. They used to do these modifications and believe that then they would be more worthy. I want it to be like they're aghast at the fact that you believe that the women used to do that? Could you believe they didn't understand how profoundly stunning and gorgeous and worthy and beautiful they were?
Amanda Hanson:What were they thinking? Oh my gosh. In the same way we now think about lobotomies. You know, when people used to have mental illness, they would remove the frontal lobe. When women were
Speaker 5:pregnant and gaining a lot of weight, smoke some cigarettes. It'll help to
Amanda Hanson:curb your appetite. Even I'm thinking about the practice of foot binding. Yes. Curb your appetite.
Kate Northrup:Raven, I'm thinking about the practice of foot binding. Yes. You know? Like, that that would just be yes.
Amanda Hanson:What? Yes. Like, we what? So barbaric. I hope that it's so barbaric when my daughter is my age.
Amanda Hanson:That's specific. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So if people wanna find out more, lean into this work, possibly attend your live event, where should they go?
Amanda Hanson:Just come to Instagram. You can find everything there. It's midlife muse, and I will be sharing everything that is happening, how to be involved in one form, fashion, or another. And there's just there's content that will definitely stir something in you, either an inferno for the good or that you may want to delete and block me immediately. I don't know.
Amanda Hanson:But either way, I am all for, elevating our conversation. Whether I see you at an in person event of mine, whether I meet you online, or you read my book that comes out in January, or start listening to my podcast that comes out in May, we have What's it called? It's called mid well, it's named Midlife Muse because we're really keeping all of the branding super tight. Very wise and efficient. But then it's called the subtitle is things your mother never told you because no one ever told her.
Kate Northrup:That's beautiful. That's super beautiful.
Amanda Hanson:Yeah.
Kate Northrup:I feel blessed in this moment that my mom told me a lot of good stuff, But there's plenty of your mom. Yeah. She's great. She's great. She's she's an original.
Kate Northrup:Me. She taught
Amanda Hanson:me a lot of things back in my the child birthing days. I learned a lot of things from natural childbirth parents.
Kate Northrup:That's amazing. That's amazing. Thank you for this conversation. Thank you for the work that you do. Thank you.
Kate Northrup:For your generosity and, like, that deep connection because the overflow is felt. And it's really abundant and generous, and I'm just grateful for you.
Amanda Hanson:Thank you very much for having me. I've enjoyed every minute. Both times.