Welcome back to the show, my fellow extraordinary Americans. Today’s guest is Amanda Johnson. Amanda is the CEO and founder of True to Intention, and Co. is the founder of Saved by Story Publishing. After 20 years of facilitating transformative experiences through story and literacy writing and narrative medicine, Amanda Johnson, a.k.a. the story article, is determined to empower a generation that challenges disempowerment with curiosity and love. as a speaker.

She is a facilitator, storyteller, strategist, guide, and Ally. She partners with emerging leaders to become uncompromising agents of change—their families, communities, and industries. Through her two businesses, true to intention and say by the story, she midwives, paradigm, changing brands, content, and more thought leaders and storytellers into the world with story, healing quests, and message manifesting retreats from inspiration to impact. 

She and her team helped inspire souls, dissolve lives, and reorganize their sacred material. True to the intention with every piece of content they craft. 

She is an extraordinary American, and I’m glad she is on the show. Amanda, are you there?

Yes, I’m here. I’m excited.

Thank you so much for taking the time to be on this podcast. I’m truly grateful to have you on the show.

Thanks for having me. I’m excited to chat with you today about what freedom sounds like.

Yeah. So, Amanda, can you tell me and the audience more about yourself, your background, your story, and how you got started?

People ask me, “How did you become the story Oracle? People don’t attend school for this”. I kind of laugh and want to say yeah. Have you ever played with the pinball machine? That’s kind of how my career felt at the beginning because there were many things I thought I wanted to do, and it just turned into one thing leading into another, but again, in that pursuit, it felt like many failures.

So, initially, I went to college. I was going to be a journalist. And tell, you know, tell people stories in magazines and inspire people that way. It got to college. And I don’t know how I got invited except, you know, divine Providence. I got invited to an honors program at Biola University called the Tory Honors Institute. 

It was a classic book program, and I was amazed by what I learned there. No one had ever taught me critical thinking skills, working through arguments, or becoming persuaded. You know, technically, it was grueling, and I faced a lot of my own beliefs during that time. 

For the first time. Like, do I believe in a god? Do I believe everything I was taught when I was young was real and true? It was tough. But through that, I learned how important it was to understand history and authors’ intentions. Understand what was driving a person to pick up a pen, a typewriter, or a computer and pour themselves into putting an argument forth or a story into the world.

And so, through that process, I decided, you know what? I could have been taught history better. So maybe I’ll become a history teacher. I’ll learn history and help young people learn how to think critically before they turn 18, leave home, get out into the world, and feel like I do—struggling without that type of foundation.

So, I became a teacher, got my teaching credential, jumped into that system, married a little one at home, and quickly realized that wasn’t my place. I wasn’t strong enough to be who I wanted to be in that situation. I hadn’t done enough personal work yet, and I couldn’t give the students everything I wanted to give them and then go home and have anything left for my little one.

It’s 20 years later, but when I started, they put me in a classroom with all the teens that nobody wanted to teach. The gangsters, the drug dealers—the ones who, you know, were pregnant and hadn’t told anyone. And they just kind of put them all in one room and were like, hey, new teacher, give it a shot, and I mean, talk about it. You know, young people start with cards dealt against them. You know, the stories that they were facing at that age, I couldn’t even fathom. And I thought I just didn’t have what I needed to give them what they needed to succeed. I tried. I used many stories in the classroom.

On the last day that I was there, the drug dealer walked into the classroom. And he went through this process of saying, “You know, this is like his money-making time of the day, right?” This is what I was thinking. Like, why are you? Here dude. And he said, I just wanted to know, we appreciate how you’re trying to help us and me. Do you think this speaks to you? What we’re talking about today is the American dream, you know, and this idea of what’s possible in our culture. And I think the 30 young people in my classroom didn’t think they had a future. They couldn’t see. You know, and he went through and knew every single story in that room—30 kids—and he told me the story of this one whose brother just died in the gang fight down the street. And this girl who she is abusing, etc. I mean, he knew everyone’s story and realized he wasn’t dealing drugs to be an entrepreneur. He was dealing drugs to help himself. Friends with pain. Like this, he knew the pain and the stories and tried to help in a way he couldn’t. Yeah. Maybe make a buck or two, but it was this fascinating and painful experience because, like I said, I wanted to give him what I could, but I didn’t have. 

So, I have this opportunity. A family friend knew my ability to write, knew I had my teaching credential, and asked me. To help her teach online. We were teaching people who wanted to become teachers who were great at math and science. Usually, second language learners who struggle to write an essay and pass the basic skills test for writing become teachers.

And so, we were helping them through that whole process, I heard, oh man, it helped me to think, or Amanda helped me to get my story straight. And so, I started hearing about how I had been working on my craft. But through this process of helping, they learn how to write. We decided we would start marketing this business, and we went wrong. Group we went to a whole group of entrepreneurs. Who said we don’t want you to teach us how to write? Well, we want you to fix what we’ve written because we’ve written a bunch of content—blogs, books, you know—all of these different things. And they weren’t getting any traction, and they weren’t doing what they wanted them to do. And so, I became an editor on the side, which was useful for my little one at home. There was some stuff going on at home that was hard.

So, it was kind of nice to have this little enterprise. You know, I planned on being something other than an entrepreneur. It was something that kind of fell into my lap. I liked it. And I had a few stints of going outside of that and working, you know, for a county and doing all of these different jobs, and every single time, I would have people who would hear me talking about the things I was passionate about and what they would be like. It would be best if you were not here. It would be best if you did your own thing. It would be best to do what you want because it’s cool. 

So, I was helping people with editing and got involved in the teen facilitation program. They were teaching emotional literacy skills, which was maybe one of the most important experiences of my life because I had to be in the room doing all of my work and learning social-emotional literacy myself. After all, I was the one who didn’t get along with critical thinking growing up.

And so, I got to do all this work. I got to learn how to facilitate transformation for teens and adults. And eventually, I found myself in a situation where I had many people who wanted to write books. And I thought, you know, it would be easier to help people write them from the beginning. Because once they spend a year, or the average was about five or seven years, people will work on this before they are willing to share it with anyone and get feedback.

I thought I just wanted to help people from the beginning. And help them see that it doesn’t have to take this long. You can organize it well. You can have someone help you with the writing, keep you accountable, and support you through this process. Keep it true to intention, and then in my first retreat. I realized I was being asked to help people face their stories because when someone says I want to write a book, I want to share what I overcame or something I learned, whenever they get to the point where they have to write anything about it. The question always becomes: Why does it matter to you? Right.

To connect with a reader, you must say, “This is why it matters, which usually requires you to return to that.” Kind of a crappy, painful part of your story before you overcame and faced anything that’s not resolved there. And that was what I learned early: that was keeping people from finishing their books. They would get to a certain point, and there’d be that story that they’d be like. I can’t tell it, so all of a sudden, I was blending my ability to help people with writing with the actual writing technique and facilitating transformation, and that’s when true intention took off because I was kind of using all of my skills at once.

I find it interesting that you mentioned that some people don’t want to tell that part of the story because they must like to do those. There are unresolved parts, but that’s exactly what people want to hear because it’s like overcoming that pain that, like many people, gets inspired by. They’re like, OK, this person could do it. I can also do it, and it connects with people going through similar problems. So, it’s something that I noticed, you know.

It’s so true. It is the way to connect with people to tell the story. You know, all of the neuroscience shows how simply telling and listening to a story gets everybody’s brain on the same page. It’s ridiculous—the power of storytelling and what they’re finding. And yet, it is that thing. Sometimes, we’d rather not remember that, or maybe we overcame this part, but we haven’t quite figured out how to take the lessons we learned that helped us overcome this area of our lives. Like professionally, we nailed it, right?

But we still need to figure out how to translate that into our personal lives. And so are our personal lives. It’s kind of a **** show behind the scenes. I hope it’s okay for me to curse, but if you know, hair is not back there, right? Then, we split our lives. We have this, like, look at me. I figured this out, so don’t look over here because I still need to figure that out. Instead of, you know, being able to look back and say, “What did I learn, and how can I use this everywhere to build a whole life instead of just helping a few people with this one thing.”

Man, that is one thing I found interesting. I love discussing this with you because you’re in the entrepreneurship and storytelling sectors. But what? Many businesses need to realize that stories and narratives can be used. Make it so much fun once people get into it. The story of how a business was created or how the founder had to go through trials and tribulations. Who created this business? A business is even more popular in terms of this saying.

I remember this case when they talked about Apple. Right, there are so many competitors out there who are competing with Apple. But at the end of the day, Steve Jobs’ story of overcoming his trials makes people want to buy the iPhone because there are many of them. Android phones that have more technicalities, like technologies, were better. It’s a story, and ultimately, I mean it. We almost became like a myth and a legend, and people like me have to get it not only to go to status but also because I know the story of Steve Jobs.

So, I’ll say many people underestimate the power of storytelling in getting their businesses to the next level.

Yeah, yeah, it’s true. It’s getting businesses and messages out there. You know, all of the messages, all the books on the bottom shelf—some books have impacted me personally besides those I’ve helped put into the world. I can tell you I like the big theme. I can tell you the time of my life when I was reading those and why they were important. 

But I can always tell you that big story the author told that was like, oh my gosh, this person understands this bit of pain I’m in, and they figured it out.

And they were willing to say, “I remember reading several books and just thinking, how did she even tell this story?” How did she convince her husband? And to be able to tell this story, you know, liability and all of those things asking questions because those are the things that you have to think about when you start to tell your story because our stories are all so tightly woven with each other that when you have, you know, for instance, right for me, one of the big stories that I tell frequently is a story about my dad, which my dad and I like. I got so many superpowers from him, but he also caused the most wreckage for me. 

And so, whenever I lean into those superpowers, guess what comes to bear underneath? Is the wreckage right? Because they lean in, and then there it is right there.

And so, I’ve had to learn how to do something. Heal and learn to manage those things while I heal to keep moving forward. But I have three siblings who have had beautiful relationships with my dad. And so, we’re all, you know, well, three of the four of us are super close, right? And they have very different experiences with him.

So, when they hear me talking about my story and what I’ve had to overcome, you know, that’s one of those things that I had to do to make that decision. It was important enough for me to share. And then I had to talk to them and say, this was my experience. I’m so glad you didn’t have it. But to do my work in the world, I have to own it. This is so, but it’s, you know, those are all the hard things because they’re all, so they’re all so tightly interwoven with everyone else’s stories.

What was the biggest revelation you had during all these years when you were writing stories? Like you’re hearing the stories of all these different people, what is a common theme you saw while in this industry area?

You know I do. I don’t know if this is true for you, but I feel like it is for me and many others. I’ve worked with. We tell ourselves many of the same stories, and I think you know at some point. I realized that all these people were arriving in my world to work on their projects and have me lend my superpowers. They’re paying me to help them accomplish their goals, but they’re bringing up all of my stuff in the process, right?

So, I have someone come in, and she’s talking about stuff going on with parents, or she’s talking about, you know, having to deal with addictions, or this one’s talking about a father’s wound, and so on. Over the first few years of my business, I remember thinking. OK. I think that this is for me. That was the biggest and maybe most important revelation because I’ve noticed over time that many people in the helping industry, like me, are trying to help people heal, thrive, and grow businesses. If we’re attracting our versions of ourselves and having that be reflected all the time, we don’t know it.

How does that usually feel? It could be better, right? They’re usually triggering and activating all of our stuff repeatedly. And I knew enough. I had developed enough awareness, mindfulness, and pausing skills. To be able to say. OK, what just happened? Right in that room with that client and be able to go work it out with the people who support me, and then eventually, at the end of 2019, I had this idea that I wanted everyone to tell their stories because, you know, maybe half of the books that I worked on were so.

It was so important to my own personal and professional journey that I wanted to tell the story of this, like what happened for them and all of their healing processes, but also, as a coach, what they were able to open up for me that I’m not sure I would have been able to work through. Had they not come to me at that time with that message, that set of circumstances, or that story that was keeping them from moving forward, that was also keeping me from moving forward. I think that’s probably the biggest and most important revelation.

So, as a continuation of this, I wanted to know from your perspective what makes a great story. Like, what do you think makes, like, you know, people can tell their story in different ways, but there’s a certain way.

For instance, I read it a long time ago; when the author of The Lord of the Rings was writing the story, he utilized the hero’s journey tactic like there’s this turn-taking. You write a story, and it makes for an amazing story, but from your perspective, how do you think a person should write this story so that it has the maximum impact?

Well, the first and most important thing, especially for people writing something heavily focused on their own experience, is to write it true first, even if they end up fictionalizing it later. I feel that truth makes people connect right to honesty; there’s the storytelling element you need. You need good visuals, right? 

It would be best to have all that sensory information so that people could see the scene, smell what was happening, and feel what was happening with the character’s Body, right? It would be best to have an internal dialogue to connect with them. Oh yeah, I’ve had those thoughts about the world.

So, I know you had the opportunity to talk to us about Ross recently, right? So, I had the opportunity to work with him on his book. And I remember that as we were shipping chapters to different readers, there was this one moment where one of my client partner’s friends called me, and she was like, you know, something is happening with this book that I don’t quite understand because it’s raw. You know, it wasn’t. We hadn’t done much work on story-telling elements, right? It was just him getting the content out there.

And so, she was. It’s not even. Following this, the voracious reader needs to follow the normal way of developing a character or an attachment to the characters in their lives. She said, but I am so attached to these characters that I feel like something just happened to this character, which I modified. I have to talk to you on the phone and process This, and she’s like, how did he do that?

And my answer was: He knows the characters like he is attached to them. There’s a truth. In each of those characters, some of them, you know. Like the love that that character has for his wife, that has to be how Assad feels about his wife, right? Like, how could You not? How can you write anything other than that?

But other characters might not represent actual people in his life, and wasn’t he still attached to them because he’d been thinking about them? He’d been building a relationship with them. He’d been asking himself, “What are they thinking all the time, and what kind of pain?” Are they in, and what kind of questions need to be answered? He knew them so intimately. There was a truth. That came through as he wrote these characters that immediately got everyone attached to them, and whether you’re working on fiction or nonfiction, I think that’s the case. It’s the truth. It’s that element. Nothing is being held back here; I think that’s what people remember.

Yeah, it’s interesting, like speaking the truth. You’re like how you perceive the world; adding passion and emotion becomes compelling. And yeah, I mean, I think I know about The Assassin’s Book, and it’s pretty. It’s pretty, and it’s intense. I looked at it at Amazon. Just by looking at it, it is like a summary. I was like, man, this is almost like a 1984 situation.

Yep, it is. It is. It’s a powerful story. It was a giant part of my healing process for the close of a chapter for me last year was being able to work with him on that project because there was so much truth in it and because he operates in the world in such a way that I could be the one.

I would tell him. Usually, it’s me being the stable composer. One of my clients had a space to fall apart, and it was reversed this time because there were scenes from the book that mirrored these very important scenes in my life as they were. Like unraveling me, I mean talking about the power of a story and the power of getting inside the psyche of a character in the body and having a different experience in the same sort of scene are such opportunities for healing. So yeah, truth needs freedom, for sure.

So, Amanda, as a continuation of this, I wanted to ask you about the Great American Story and how millions of American stories are now playing out into this greater national identity. So, from your perspective, what do you think? Are we at the beginning, middle, or end of the Great American?

So, in terms of, like, a climate thing, because, right now, we’re going through much polarity. But do you think that’s like, in every good story, there is tension and drama? So, do you think you see what you see towards the end of such a story? In your opinion,

I wish I could remember exactly the words. I think Joseph Campbell talked about that part of the hero’s journey. The hero has to go into the cave to find the treasure, right? It’s like going to the darkest place to find the answer.

So, Star Wars, right? Luke Skywalker, right? And he, like, sees him down and his you. You know he’s seeing what he sees, right? And then he’s like, Oh, my God. Oh, this is the actual answer. And I feel like that’s where we are in America right now, is that? There is a lot of beauty, truth, and goodness. The truth is amazing. 

It was like so much light was packed into our inception, right? Like the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. Like those were ideas and principles that maybe had never been witnessed that way before in the world, right? This is a new idea. And I remember. A few years ago, one of my clients was talking about the dark side of America. She was focused on, you know, all of the conversation around, you know, the founders and the slavery that was happening at this time.

And this, like, dark underbelly Right. And I was trying to reflect on her. What if we created a country? It’s like writing a book. You know, you have this idea, this, like, really beautiful idea, and then you get into it, and you’re like, holy crap, there’s a whole bunch of me, what I believe, and parts of my life that just don’t match that yet. We like to set a standard. That was a standard like no one had ever seen before. And, of course, we dreamed it.

So, it’s not like we were embodying it. How long does it take for us to embody our message? Was my question to her, like, are you embodying yours? We’re struggling to write these books because we’re wrestling with them. Have we embodied this? Do we believe it? Are there parts of it like that? It isn’t possible or true for us. And that wrestling match, And I feel like that’s what’s happening in America right now, like that wrestling match. Do we believe this stuff, and what does it mean if we believe it for it to be worked out in the world right now in the ways that it needs to be worked out?

So, I think we’re in the cave. We’re in the cave and have to face the shadowy stuff there. You know, we have yet to want to own, or we have yet to have the opportunity to see, many of us, right?

Amanda, please tell me, for the audience’s sake, if you like the hero’s journey so they can understand what it is. The cave and all the other things

I don’t know that I have that. I don’t know if I could represent that well, but what I will do is. I’ll give you one. A few years ago, my son and I wrote a book called A Religion of Story. And, you know, he was like, mom, we’re not going to do the hero’s journey thing. I’m like, no, we’re going to do our own thing. We will base it on our story—our story of what? We were dealing with it at different times, but it was hilarious that after we mapped ours out, we pulled it out and looked at it right next to it. The Hero’s Journey It turns out Joseph Campbell was right. All of us are kind of on a hero’s journey, right?

So, there’s this idea that there’s an ordinary world, and suddenly something happens, right? Either there’s a call to adventure, and if there’s something new and exciting that you’re called to, or if there’s a tragedy that kind of forces you out of it, you know what’s comfortable from order into chaos, right?

So, the first theme that we talk about is uncertainty. What happens when the world as you know it changes, for whatever reason—because you’re being invited to something great or because you’ve been forced to deal with something tragic and hard? And then the next theme is self-knowledge.

So, what do you have to do in a space of uncertainty? You kind of have to assess and take inventory, right? What do I have to use? What are my superpowers? And I better get really clear on my weaknesses as well, right? Which is when the next theme becomes important. When training, the mentor has to show up because we realize we cannot do this alone. We need to develop skills and have some better tools. And what we have to accomplish is what needs to be accomplished.

And so, training, dealing with what fills in any gaps, but then that camaraderie because in every good story, you mentioned Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, like this is one of my favorite stories to talk about. He did it in such a beautiful way with the different species, right? You have the dwarves, the men, the elves, and the wizards, and they all have an important superpower.

And you have the fellowship because Photo cannot do it by himself. He needs help to accomplish the goal. And so, you need that fellowship. You need the camaraderie, and you need to be clear. About where your deficiencies are so that you can put other superpowers in place so that when times are hard, and you need someone fast and quick, you have an elf right there, or when you need a wizard to show up with a staff, he’s there, right?

And so, there’s that camaraderie, and then you have this area I’m talking about now with the cave. We call it building strength through redemption. And this is where the character has to come out with parts of themselves. Are they wounded, or are they the parts of themselves that they’ve completely abandoned? I will never do this, for example, with my dad. Right. 

I’m never going to do that. You can’t say that, Amanda, because you have to activate that superpower to accomplish your purpose. So, how do you reclaim the superpower without taking all the paint? Not do it in the same way that shadow work is part of the redemption story. And then, as soon as they move through there, there’s usually this moment where they come to the end of what they can do, right? We’re like we’ve gathered all the tools, the mentors. Sometimes, the mentors disappear, and we have to take action. But we know that we can’t do it by ourselves. Again, we have to rely on something bigger than us.

So, whether you call that God or the universe or the force, or whatever you’re going to call it, right? There’s usually this moment of having to have some faith in destiny. It would be best to believe that whatever moved you out of that space would help you all along the way. Resource you and help carry you through those big, scary leaps you must take at the end. Of a hero’s journey. And then, of course, the last. We call it impact through leadership, but it’s taking the elixir back, right? It’s getting to the point where you’ve reached your destiny, and now you must take it back to the people who need it.

So, in the messenger world, this is the sacred code message. What did you figure out that you’re going to take back? And yeah, that’s probably an A; it’s close. I won’t say. It’s just like Joseph Campbell’s, but it’s pretty nearby.

Wow. I mean, just like you’re going through all the different arcs of the story. Like, you’re right. America is kind of like the story of The Cave. But then comes the next part. Is it a pretty thing? Is this the part where? The redemption arc starts. You know, and yeah,

It’s pretty interesting. I just like thinking about it.

Yeah, I think if we can own it, you know, if we can say truthfully, we didn’t know what we didn’t know, and we did know, and we did it anyway, and we made mistakes, and we’re sorry, and you know, some things are built in that would be better, not baked into the system.

And so, if we work together and sort through that, then I think we can. I think we can achieve our destiny. We can accomplish what that declaration made possible for us.

Yeah, that’s pretty true, right? I kind of looked over it. It’s like, yeah, we started with this thing, but sometimes we go through these bumps, but that’s because overcoming these barriers leads us to greater heights. And the same thing applies to anything, even in 2024, right? We think in our lives. We’re going through these challenges, and they’re hardships. 

Ultimately, I think the main reason for us going too harsh is that we can overcome it and then tell our story, which inspires many others to overcome the same thing. 

So sometimes, and I’m telling the audience, if there’s a trial and tribulation in our lives, we realize that maybe it’s God’s way of getting us to inspire others. And I like you. We have to overcome that, no matter what.

Yeah. I mean, what are your options? You may have followed Jordan Peterson, but he’s always talking about, you know, Cain and Abel. Life deals with what it deals with, right? And you’re either going to accept it and figure out how to keep doing better, or you’re just going to get resentful and create chaos and pain for yourself and everyone else. Those are the only two options. It’s funny because one of my mentors remembers when she and I talked about America. Oh, I don’t know, half a dozen years ago.

And she said, “I know if you think about it.” What America is like—a toddler Compared to the rest of the countries and a lot of the countries in the world, you know, it’s this new thing, it’s this new like, and she had run a daycare for many years, and she’s like, you know, toddlers, what do they do? They’re trying to figure it out. Where do they end, where do other people begin, and how much power do they have? Do they have, what can they accomplish, and how do they ask for help?

And I was like, that is such a fascinating way to think about us as a collective, but it kind of makes sense, right? If we’re talking about the, you know, personal heroes’ journeys mirror the collective heroes’ journey. There’s also the developmental process. You know, getting your feet under, going through the toddler, the young child, the adolescent, and a grown adult and mature adult that knows how to be what they were originally intended to be. That was what made me giggle. I was like, hmm. The toddler, compared to the rest,

No, I mean, yeah, we are. We are like a new civilization compared to many others; there have been civilizations there for thousands of years, like India. It’s been there for 7000 years, 5000 years, etc.

It’s an interesting thought, right? We have yet to quite grow into what we were meant to be.

As I would say, we’re in the teenage phase where so many emotions and passions are running around, and we are still trying to find out who we are. And then we have, you know when you’re in your teenage years, you have this thing where you think you know who you are. But then events happen in your life, and you just realize it. That’s not who I thought I was. And then you are struggling with identity.

And so right now, one of the things I see is that many Americans are struggling with their national identity. But I think just like. Any good story? It’ll eventually get resolved. So yeah. 

But Amanda, on a different note, can you tell me and the audience more about your two businesses, being true to intention and saved by the story and the premise of how they both got started?

So true to intention is the business through which I help people tell their stories, whether memoirs based on their lives or fiction. And so that’s where I help people develop content for the world. Whether that’s, you know, writing a good book or many my clients, you know, they finish a book, and then someone wants them to speak on their topic.

And so they need the keynote that will go along with the book. To keep that coherence and alignment message, I’ve worked with many clients to help them build out curricula and events that are also part of that. It is taking that initial message, really expanding it, and expanding the opportunities for people to experience it at different, deeper levels. 

So that’s true of intention. There is lots of content development and story feeling because, like I said before, you know. And with entrepreneurship, it’s like the only limits we have are the ones we have for ourselves, right? Like, we don’t have a boss telling us you can or can’t do that, or, I mean, sure, they’re like rules and ethics and those types of things. But when you say what? Do you want it? To create, the only thing limiting us is what’s happening here.

And were they helping people deal with those limits and step into putting their work into the world, taking their elixir back, right? So that’s true of intention. And I worked on that for almost 20 years. And then, I was helping people through the process of self-publishing. So, they do; they get their books done. I had designers in the background, so I found an interior designer.

And so, I was acting like a project manager to help them move through self-publishing. It was great. And then I had a few sayings: I need a publisher. I need an imprint because of me. The status conversation in my industry, or for whatever reason, they were saying this, so I watched a few people go the traditional and hybrid routes, and I was. I don’t even want to be mortified. I was just infuriated by how people were treated in these systems because they would go from a space where there was so much care about them as a person and their project. You know they’re giving birth to something incredible in the world. Then, they take it to this place that treats it like a product and a means of profit.

And so, the person gets left out; their hopes and dreams get left out often; their branding gets left out. You know, people with 15 years of a brand following and the publisher didn’t even bother to look at their website. Or, like, I don’t know, a brand style of fonts and colors. And just stuff like that. It breaks the trust between a messenger and their audience, right? It’s too much of a difference.

And so, my son, who was 18/19 at the time, got tired. I think of you listening to me complain about the situation. And I was facing this because I would also have to jump in and help with these things, right? I love to do it, but I would say something other than I liked the price they were paying for it. They were investing so much money and time in themselves and getting mistreated. 

And so, he said, you know what, Mom? Let’s just start a publishing house. Like, let’s just figure it out. We can do it. And I’m like, you’re crazy. And he said, “No, let’s do it.” So, he rallied a few of my siblings. 

That’s how every, that’s how every. A great entrepreneurial start-up starts with you. I know it’s wild, but then.

We have four family members, and I have four clients who heard us talking about this. And who just loves the work we are doing at Trudeau’s intentions so much that they are like something we want to be part of?

So, we have Eight partners, four of us—half of us are real blood family, and the other four are like chosen family—and most of us have all published books, so we know what it’s like and the importance of building a brand.

So, there’s much service. We provide for that around branding and websites and all of those other things just to help people create that container for the elixir, you know, so it gets to the world in the quickest, fastest, smoothest, most aligned way possible.

That’s awesome. Amanda, are there any other projects you’re doing that you’d want the audience to glimpse?

After working on a soft book last year and experiencing the narrative healing I did, I have some exciting things I’m working on for this year. I felt like I had completed a chapter of my business, like maybe the whole reason I started it was so I could heal that wound, and I got to the end of it, and I had to ask myself, what will compel me? Like, what do I want, if not? to heal that? The answer for me was for other people to experience it. Right, the end of a hero’s journey. You go back and try to figure out how to help others.

So, the retreats that I do are all room-based. You know, we have some focused on Hunger Games, and we have some focused on, you know, fate and destiny and working those things out, and some of the time travel movies that we love.

And so, I have these magical retreats and incredible writing. Quests that help people use the story as a language to sort of work their stuff out as medicine and as an invitation for a deeper connection with themselves and other people. You know, sometimes you have kids. No. OK, so. When you have kids, you’ll experience this moment where you say, hey, how’s it going? And they’ll say it’s fine. And you know that it’s not fine. You know it’s not OK, but they don’t have the language. They don’t have the words yet, for this is what’s happening. And this is how it’s making me feel. And the story was my way of doing that with Aaron, where I would say, oh, this sounds like a friend thing.

So, I would choose stories with many friend situations and conflicts, ask him about them, and get all the information I needed about what was going on here to support them. Use the story to help him build those skills, so I want to do more in 2024 and beyond to help people. To stop unquestioningly consuming stories and start realizing their power, and to help us figure things out and move forward. And raise children who are good thinkers and big feelers and, you know, can figure out their compass rather easily. walking millions of miles in other people’s shoes so that they don’t have to make all of those same mistakes that we watch heroes make all the time. You know.

My son went through all of his teen years without giant issues, and when I sat down and asked him, “How did this happen?” He was like, well, I already know not to do that. I mean, how many? How many stories have we seen? Do that, and it’s a terrible ending. But if we did that with our kids, what would happen to the next generation? They could be a little freer.

I mean, yeah. We can avoid the mistakes in our own stories by seeing the mistakes in other stories.

We see it all the time, right? It’s not like we don’t see it every time we flip on Netflix, Prime, or one of our channels, but it’s mindfulness. It’s the adults or another person. My husband and I do it all the time while we’re watching.

The shows that we are watching are like, what do I do? You think about this like this. How do you think this is going to end? Noticing what’s coming up with this character. Like God, why do you? I hate this character so much. Be careful when you ask your spouse about that because they usually have a really good answer for you. You probably hate that person because you’re a little bit like them. It’s interesting but opens up these ways of talking about important things. But we don’t. When do we do that?

No, we’re just chilling out and watching the show. You can do much more than just chill out and watch a show. You can build bridges of connection. Develop skills. Social-emotional skills with kids and help them make decisions before they have to make them and are put on the spot and scared and don’t know what they’re doing.

No, it matters. Like. Yeah, that’s true. So, Amanda, how can our audience, like our audience, connect with you and learn more about what you’re doing and your work?

Yeah, so three websites, truetointention.com, are where to go. If you are someone who is like, you know, I’ve been thinking about a book for a certain amount of time, and I don’t know what to do, or if you want to be a speaker, you should use intention as a place to develop content. Or find out how we do it. SavedbyStory is like, if you’re already done with the manuscript and you’re like, I have no idea what I’m going to do or how I will get this out there, contact us at Save My Story. House, we have a cool education program that we will roll out this year to help people get in the driver’s seat of the publishing process, whether they publish with us or elsewhere. Then, the story Oracle.com is the new space I’m creating for more speaking and facilitation on how we use stories to build social and emotional literacy for ourselves and the next generation.

Also, Amanda and Amanda, I’m grateful you took the time to come and do this podcast with me. I do hope that you come back at a later time because our entire understanding of storytelling, especially when it comes to business, is so relevant in today’s world. And I do hope the audience understands that.

Yeah, me too. I’m. I’m happy to come back at any time. Thank you for today. I enjoyed our conversation.

Thank you, Amanda. And I want to conclude this episode by letting my fellow extraordinary Americans know. Look, there’s something extraordinary within each of us, and it is our responsibility to awaken and unleash it until the next time. Bye for now.