Welcome! I’m glad you stopped by. Today, I’m talking to Amy Carroll, Rebel Rule Follower. I found out about Amy through the Grit ‘N Grace Girls Podcast. I’d been listening to every episode and heard Cheri Gregory say they were looking for interns. She encouraged applying to those who thought they wouldn’t be selected. I applied and have been proofreading for the podcast for over a year. I love being on the Grit ‘N Grace Team and being part of the Grit ‘N Grace community. Amy encouraged me to re-start my blog, and I’m thrilled she did. Her message is one of hope, and I love the way she encourages others to follow good rules while breaking bad ones.
Josie: On the Grit and Grace podcast, you share a lie and a truth. How did that originate?
Amy: It’s that way in my book, as well, as you know. It’s so funny, because Cheri Gregory and I have been friends for a long time. Sometimes I think that we share a brain. We process things a lot the same. For the book, it was my editor’s idea to do it that way. She started noticing a pattern in my chapters where I would talk about the lie that we believe and then I would combat it with the truth and scripture. So she said, “Hey, let’s put that up front.” And then, when we did Grit and Grace, Cheri’s whole concept is good girls breaking bad rules so she embedded that idea, too, of a lie that we battle with the truth. I really think it makes sense to so many women who are wired like I am, who are reforming perfectionists and people pleasers, that have gotten to that place of being a perfectionist who has been damaged by perfectionism because we’ve believed so many lies. And the only way to combat a lie, to squelch a lie, is to live in the truth.
Josie: I noticed that immediately when reading the book that it sounds like the podcast!
Amy: Isn’t that funny? They were developed separately, those ideas, but like I said Cheri and I share a brain.
Josie: Is there anything else you want to share about the development of Breaking Up with Perfect?
Amy: It’s funny, because the book ended up being published at the end of lots of rejections. I had pitched a lot of other ideas, and they had all been rejected. This idea came about because a publisher approached me. She said, “I like this message that you share. I’m a speaker, too. Would you be interested in developing a book around that message?” And I had never even thought of it. When I started to dig into that it wouldn’t let me go. It was interesting because part of my process for writing the book was to go back to all my old blog posts, all my devotions, everything I had written for the last ten years. I thought each one stood alone, but when I went back to look at them it became obvious that they did not stand-alone. I had been writing about this journey that God had me on without even recognizing that I was on a journey until I looked at it all together. Then I thought, “Wow. This really is my story! This is what God has been doing in me.
Josie: That’s great! I know I have perfectionist tendencies, but when I picked up the book and started reading, things I did not expect to see in myself came to mind. I was wondering, when you hear from people who have read the book, if people express surprise that they find perfectionist tendencies in themselves while reading.
Amy: So much! In fact, I had a lot of friends early on that read the book, because they were my friends. Many of them came back and said, “Wow, I didn’t think I was a perfectionist until I read your book.” I think for most of us it would be completely exhausting to be a perfectionist in every single area of our life. Lots of us have what Kathi Lipp calls pocket perfectionism. We have these pockets of our lives whether it’s the way we look, what we weigh, the way our house is decorated, or the way our children behave. We have these pockets of perfectionism, and sometimes we don’t recognize them as such. I didn’t for a long, long time. The book really unpacks what it looks like to start recognizing all these places of perfectionism in my life that were damaging my relationships. I hadn’t seen it for a long, long time. It took a crisis in my life. I had four friendships that imploded within five years.
Josie: Wow!
Amy: By the fourth time I thought I am the common denominator here. None of the other friends even knew each other so I’m the problem here. What is happening? God started showing me once I started asking that question.
Josie: It’s interesting you said it that way, because some similar things are happening with me. God’s showing me some things I didn’t want to see really.
Amy: It’s so painful to start looking at those ugly sides of ourselves. So painful! I’m grateful for the pain of it, because it was the pain that brought my attention to the problem. If I hadn’t had the pain, I would have never faced the problem. It’s easy to say that now.
Josie: What is something that people don’t know about you that you’d like to share?
Amy: I’ll share one frivolous thing about me and one serious thing. The frivolous thing is if I really didn’t feel any responsibility to serve God and I had unlimited funds, I would spend all day, every day working in my yard and decorating my house. I love that! It’s my creative outlet. I don’t spend all day every day doing that, but I do love those things. Because I do feel a calling to serve God, my bucket list, I have on my list that I want to share the gospel on every continent. Antarctica, I don’t know if that’s even in the realm of possibility. Do you share the gospel with penguins? I don’t know.
Josie: Are there any people in Antarctica at all?
Amy: There are people at a science station. So I’m like maybe I’ll get to go there some day and share the gospel.
Josie: Would you share how your positions with Proverbs 31 Ministries, as an experienced author, speaker, and speaking coach with Next Steps Coaching and other previous positions have led you where you are?
Amy: I do feel like I am now living the dream of my heart that I would never acknowledge for a long time. I feel like I’m in the center of God’s will, which is where we all want to be. There were a lot of steps in getting to this place. And when I look back now every single one of those steps mattered and every single one of those steps trained me for what I’m doing now. I mean everything. I think back to my job at McDonalds working at the drive through when I was 18 and that mattered because it taught me customer service. My years as a stay-at-home mom that mattered, because I learned to serve other people and not think of myself so much, to die to myself, but even during that time I was teaching adult literacy classes. That mattered, because I was working with a very diverse group of people and people who didn’t have a lot of money and so they were struggling. I learned a lot there, so every step along the way from the ice cream shop to McDonalds to stay-at-home mom to teaching in the classroom to teaching adult education. All those things! I was the welcome wagon lady in my little town for six years and all of that lead to what I’m doing now. I love to share that with people, because I think that we’ve all been in that place where we think what I’m doing doesn’t matter. I was in that place so many times in those years where I thought this is a waste. What I’ve learned is God doesn’t waste anything. He uses everything, I think I was in the center of God’s will all that time, to bring us where he wants us to be.
Josie: What refreshment should your readers enjoy while reading your book?
Amy: I describe myself as a rebel rule follower, because mostly I follow the rules (here’s the truth) unless I decide your rules are stupid. I have two things. The rule follower part of me thinks that you should drink La Croix when you are reading my book because it’s good for you and there are no calories. The rebel part of me thinks you should definitely have apple pie with it. I like fruit desserts. So you should have La Croix and something sugary.
Thanks for joining me, Amy! I invite you to leave a comment about how Amy’s message impacts you. I’d love to hear from people who are already familiar with Amy’s work and from those who are discovering her for the first time.
Online Work:
proverbs31.org/speakers/amy-carroll
amycarroll.org/resources/freebies
Audiobook (read by the authors):
Books:
Exhale: Lose Who You’re Not, Love Who You Are, Live Your One Life Well
Breaking Up With Perfect Online Book Study
NIV Real-Life Devotional Bible (contributing author)
Encouragement for Today (contributing author)