Shownotes:
In this episode of the pod, Dr. Amy Mathews-Perez shares her unique perspective on gratitude and let's just say it's not all rainbows and unicorns (although those are pretty cool too!). For her, gratitude is about being grateful for every opportunity to learn and grow, even in the face of challenges and mistakes. From learning what to do to what not to do, every opportunity is a chance to evolve and improve. Discover the power of gratitude in personal and professional growth in this short and sweet podcast episode.
"Life is short, but our influence is never-ending so let's be our best & make the best of every interaction, situation and opportunity."
-Dr. Amy Mathews-Perez
About Our Guest:
Dr. Amy Mathews-Perez is a Texas native with over 30 years of experience serving public education. She has held various roles in the field including GENED Teacher, SLP, Diagnostician, SPED Supervisor, Principal, Assistant Principal, and Director of Special Education. Currently, Dr. Mathews-Perez is serving as a Director of Special Programs. Her passions include communication, authenticity, and laughter, and she finds her greatest fulfillment in using these qualities to inspire and empower others. As a lifelong learner, she considers herself an "Experience Expert" and is constantly seeking to learn and grow. Dr. Mathews-Perez is also an aspiring author and speaker, using her talents to connect with others, share stories, and highlight the best in those around her.
Twitter: @drgrowtoknow
About Lainie:
Lainie Rowell is an educator, international consultant, podcaster, and TEDx speaker. She is the lead author of Evolving Learner and a contributing author of Because of a Teacher. Her latest book, Evolving with Gratitude, was just released. An experienced teacher and district leader, her expertise includes learner-driven design, community building, online/blended learning, and professional learning. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.
Twitter - @LainieRowell
Instagram - @LainieRowell
Evolving with Gratitude, the book, is now available! Purchase here!
You can also get bulk orders for your staff (10 copies or more) at a discounted price! Just fill out the form linked below and someone will get back to you ASAP! bit.ly/ewgbulkdiscount
Transcript:
Lainie Rowell: [00:00:00] Hello friends, we have Dr. Amy Mathews-Perez with us. Hello, Amy, may I call you Amy on air?
Amy Mathews-Perez: Of course. Yes, please do. How are you doing Lainie?
Lainie Rowell: I'm doing so great, especially now that I get to talk to you.
We've been connected on the socials, but this is our first live conversation and I'm super excited about it. So Amy, I'm gonna tell people a little bit about you and then I'm gonna toss the ball to you and ask you to fill in the blanks. So your current role, and by the way, you're in Waco, Texas...
Amy Mathews-Perez: Yes.
Lainie Rowell: I have a lot of my love to Texas. I have so many friends in Texas. In fact, I don't think you're the first person living in Texas that I've talked to today, and I live in California. So Dr. Amy Matthews Perez is Director of Special Programs in Robinson ISD.
She wears a lot of hats my friends, I mean, she's in her 30th year of public education and she has done it all. I dare to say, Amy, I'm gonna let you take it in just a minute, but you have definitely done everything from gen ed teacher, SLP, diagnostician, special ed supervisor, principal, assistant principal, director of special, I mean, it's a long list.
And so that's kind of a lot of a listing of job titles. And you're much more than that. So I wanna give you an opportunity, what did I miss there, Amy?
Amy Mathews-Perez: Well, you didn't miss a lot, but you're right. It's been three decades as someone described it the other day, which makes me feel exceptionally old.
But I do have a funny story in listening to you list those job titles. When I got my doctorate degree, I was honored to do the speech for the National Junior Honor Society in the district in which I was working. One of my very best friends had a daughter in the audience that was getting inducted, so they introduced me and you know, went through my Vita and et cetera, et cetera.
I did my speech. It ended, yada, yada, yada. And then in speaking with one of my best friend's daughters, she said that the young lady next to her, now keep in mind, Lainie, this is junior high, where they're honest. The young lady next to her said, sounds to me like this lady can't keep a job. What is she gonna have to teach us?
And I just thought that was so funny because it's all about perspective, right? To that girl, I've just been job hopping when in reality it's just been advancement and just, just meeting my needs. Really just starting as a general ed teacher and I knew I was gonna work with students with special needs when I was in fifth grade, lainie a long time. I didn't know how, and I didn't know where, but I knew that's what I was gonna do. And then my senior year in college for my undergrad was at North Texas State. And I decide I was getting my teaching degree and I decided, oh, no, no, no, no. I took a phonetics course and I fell in love.
And I was like, no, I need to be a speech pathologist. I talked for a living anyway, so let's, let's make it official. So I called my parents. I'm the youngest of six, and I said, guess what? I know what I wanna do. And they're like, tell us all about it. Which I did. It was a master's degree, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And they said, we are so excited, you can do whatever you wanna do. And I was like, really? That's awesome. They said, yeah, as soon as you graduate and get a job. Yeah, you do whatever you want to, sweet girl. So, so, yes, I've, I've held lots and lots of positions, but I've always followed my heart. Yeah. So that's okay with me.
I've always followed my heart.
Lainie Rowell: Well, I can relate with that because I would've never guessed, especially in early college, that I would've become a teacher. But it was actually an interest in going into special ed. By the way, I love how you said middle schoolers are really honest, cuz that's a very honest way of saying that. And I live with one and our lives are full of honesty.
But, I love that. And I think it's not that you can't hold a job. It's that you go, like you said, where your heart takes you. I think that's really important and I think that's something to be valued and honored and supported.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Yeah, and I appreciate that. And it doesn't always jive with what society, and you can't, our listeners can't see my fingers, expect you to do.
Right. When I went from a director to a principal position and then from principal back to director, a lot of people thought, Ooh, you know, people are gonna have their own opinions and perspectives and you know what the the saying is, that's none of my business I'm gonna do what my heart tells me to do, and I'm gonna do the job and the work that fulfills me the most.
Yeah. I loved being a principal. It, we were a successful campus, but special education is where I get fulfilled. That's what makes my heart full and happy and all the, all the good things. So yes, I've always just followed my heart when it's come to my profession.
Lainie Rowell: Mm. You said one of my favorite words, fulfilling. I love that word. I feel like it's very inclusive of a lot of different things and not that it's always easy, right? But fulfilling is, is really special. So I have to tell you, Amy, I was on the phone with a dear friend of mine, someone whose opinion I value tremendously, and I'm not gonna say his name because I don't know if he'll be comfortable with me sharing this comment, but he said, Lainie I to your podcast, and when you go to ask your first question, I'm anxious for the guest because it's such a big question.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: What does gratitude mean to you? Mm-hmm And I said, dear friend, I give them this question in advance and I hope that they know that it is no right or wrong answer and so I'm just saying that because if there are other listeners that feel like this is an ambush, not that my friend thought that, but if there's other listeners concerned about the wellbeing of the guests, I do want you to know, I do give a heads up and want you to feel comfortable that there's no right or wrong answers.
So I just wanna hear from your heart, what does gratitude mean to.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Awesome. No, I, I definitely appreciated the heads up cuz it means a lot. And I know we only have so long on our podcast, so I did try to pair it down, but for me, gratitude means being present in the moment, in as many moments as you can, right?
We're all human, but also gratitude means seeing the benefit of every experience and embracing it as an opportunity to grow. So sometimes you grow from hard experiences. Sometimes you grow from positive experiences. I personally consider myself an experience expert because I learn from all of my experiences.
But I know a lot of people in a lot of places hear the word gratitude and they think, oh, hearts, rainbows, flowers, love, kumbaya. That's not what it is for me. It is a gratefulness of the opportunity to learn and the more challenging, the better. Now, the learning might not be quick. The learning might be delayed for a long time, but I'm always grateful for the, for the opportunity to learn because that's how I continue to grow. And I continue to evolve not only as a person, but in my practices and in my thoughts and in my beliefs. I seek out opportunities to grow. That's what Gratitude is for me. It's being present and having the perspective of, okay, what can I learn from this?
And sometimes, let's be honest, Lainie, I'm learning what not to do. Or I'm learning about a mistake I made, and that's okay too because it's an opportunity to learn. So that, so that's what gratitude is to me.
Lainie Rowell: I heard you say learning might be delayed, ongoing. I would maybe add recurring.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: Because I find there are lessons that I need to relearn over and over in my life. And like you, I have had a variety of experiences, not only in my life, but even within my career. And sometimes I need to relearn lessons in a new context. And so maybe I...
Amy Mathews-Perez: absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: ...I understood how to handle this situation in that context, but now I'm in a different context with different people and there's just so many variables that are potentially different.
I have to really be thoughtful about that and, and embrace the learning.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: Which to me, someone who has had as many opportunities to hold as many positions as you have, you clearly are an experiences expert in learning.
Amy Mathews-Perez: I do. I do love to learn. I mean, I know it's what us educators say, we're lifelong learners, but I really, I really do love to learn and I really do seek out, okay, what can I gain from this experience?
And not only just for me, but if I can put my finger on what I learned and then share it with someone, that's awesome. Cause I definitely don't want learning to stop with me. I want learning to flow through me. And if I can prevent someone from going through a bad experience or prevent them from having something negative happen because of what happened to me, that's awesome.
But I'm all about learning and that's what gratitude is to me. To me, gratitude is an attitude. I do like some rhyming. I do. I might say I'm a rapper, but we won't go there. But gratitude is an attitude that makes learning an option. That's kind of where my brain goes when I think about gratitude.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And I heard you, as you were describing what it means to you, talking about that being present in as many moments as possible and appreciating even when it's not always maybe what you were hoping it would be.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right.
Lainie Rowell: It's another opportunity to learn.
Amy Mathews-Perez: And being a leader, there are lots of opportunities to learn and I am always the one that's willing to fail first, because I think in leadership, you have to be willing to be honest and say you don't know everything.
And I always say that I, I'll never claim that I know everything, but I know where to find the answers, right? But as part of leadership, you have to have gratitude, and I think gratitude is completely different than praise. I think praise is something like ,"Good job, Ted". Whereas gratitude is very specific and intentional and it makes the connection between what that person offered and you. So what did I gain from what you did? So a better example might be, "Ted, thanks for being so organized and on top of things that really helps keep me organized." So instead of just "Good job, Ted". I think praise versus gratitude makes a huge difference. And you can't give gratitude unless you're paying attention.
Right. You get to know people and have relationships with people. You figure out and get to know what they value because that's how you communicate it to them. Some people like a note. Some people like a social media acknowledgement. Some people just want a smile or a pat on the back or a kind comment in front of someone else.
You have to have relationships in order to make gratitude effective in my opinion.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. You opened a door and I'm gonna walk through it and you can tell me...
Amy Mathews-Perez: okay.
Lainie Rowell: ...how you feel about it. So if you look at the literature on praise, I'm talking about research on praise. Mm-hmm. It is actually the way you're describing gratitude, but what I think has happened, cause I've gotten pushback when I use the word praise, even though I'm referring to it in how they speak about it in research on how does it impact business relationships, romantic relationships, learning relationships, all of that. But I think what's happened over time is the word praise has been given a new meaning in the way that people use it. Does that make sense?
Amy Mathews-Perez: Uhhuh.
Lainie Rowell: So I have a, a more of a classical opinion of that word praise, but I think that because it's been used in like the example, you gave of pretty empty praise.
It's just like, "good job". It's nice, don't get me wrong, but there's not a lot of specificity, authenticity. There's not enough to it, for it to be meaningful. And so for me, I would consider praise a form of gratitude, but I really am honing in on how you're saying it's the, the use of the word praise has kind of evolved over time and some people have a negative connotation to it. I totally get that.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right. And you can even give specific praise. You and, and again, all this is obviously kept to my opinion, you know, I can say, "Mary, thanks for being so organized". Well, that's great, but in, I'm, I'm giving her praise for that.
But in my, what I call my Amy brain, okay, it's not better than anybody else's brain. It's not worse. It's just very, very unique. I call it my Amy brain. But in my Amy brain, to really express the gratitude that I wanna express, I'm gonna connect it back to what that person offered, how it benefited me, because I wanna circle back and follow up and help them understand, I'm not just saying, you did a good job, but you positively impacted me. And this is how.
Lainie Rowell: I love that. That reminds me of the Jeremy Adam Smith definition of the best thank yous. Acknowledging the intention, the cost, and the value. And I think that's what I'm hearing you describe is, I wanna take it to that next level and really make the connection of how I see this interpersonal thing happening.
Is that fair to say? I don't wanna put words in your mouth.
Amy Mathews-Perez: No, that's absolutely right. And, and along those lines, I also work really hard to empower other people with my gratitude because there are so many people that don't realize what their strengths are. They don't realize that what they're offering is benefiting me and possibly the situation or you know, lots of things.
And they might not realize that. I want to highlight that so they can start to have maybe a little bit more confidence and possibly say, oh, I do have something to offer. I do have something that's benefiting the big picture instead of just, I don't wanna take that for granted because when people do that for me, it means a lot.
It means a whole lot. So I definitely wanna do that for, for others. Also, I wanna be sure that I can empower them through gratitude to let them know some of the awesome things they have to offer.
Lainie Rowell: I think it has a very profound effect on the relationship.
When you're talking about, I see you and this is, I value you, I honor you, I see all these things and it's come up a a couple times on this show that sometimes you show gratitude to someone for something and they're completely taken aback. "What do you mean? You see that in me?" And I think that's a really lovely thing too, is when we acknowledge something that we feel is maybe even very obvious about someone else that never even occurred to them is one of their strengths.
And so I think that's a really thoughtful way to approach gratitude. I know you are huge into gratitude, so I wanna give you an opportunity to share even more ways that you experience and express gratitude. I'm gonna open it up pretty widely, let you take it where you wanna...
Amy Mathews-Perez: Sure.
Lainie Rowell: ...cause I know you have some specific thoughts on this.
Amy Mathews-Perez: I do. So working in as the director of special programs, there are six programs that I work with, but the biggest one, if I could say that, is special education. And so when a lot of people hear that term, they have an emotional response to that.
And special education in public schools is hard. There's no getting around that. It is hard. I'll show gratitude for the challenges that come with the job, and there are a lot of them, but I only wanna talk about a few, you know, the challenge of meeting the needs of diverse learners.
That's, that's hard work, but it's very gratifying. And when I talk about diverse learners, I'm not just talking about students, I'm also talking about staff because. Teachers, paraprofessionals, campus district administration, everybody's a learner. So I find I'm very grateful for that challenge when I'm successful with that challenge.
And I'm grateful when I'm not successful. But again, that's a little bit of a delayed gratitude. But another challenge with special education is compliance. With all of the laws. And that's something else that people think of when they hear special education. They think legal paperwork. But I'm grateful for that because, well, I'm not grateful that the laws change, but they do.
And if they're evolving to better serve the students and families, that's great. But there are, you know, there are local, there are state, there are federal laws. And that's a challenge not only to stay aware of what they are, but to be able to communicate those to all of the stakeholders in the process.
And in that way, I'm grateful to serve as somewhat of an advocate for students and teachers and parents. So I'm grateful for that opportunity because it's, like I said, special ed is hard, and if I can make it easier for other people, easier to understand, easier to take action, then I'm grateful for that opportunity.
For sure.
Lainie Rowell: That is a huge gift. I appreciate it when you are including adults as learners cuz we are all learning, we're all evolving and it's a very core belief of mine that we have to remove as many barriers as we can. And I have a visceral reaction to the word advocate because I think we should all be advocates for our learners.
Right, right. Again, kids and adults so I will say that I have a habit of designing learning experiences that would be ideal for me. That is a, a default that I have to often overcome is like, Ooh, I could do this. But then I have to think about, okay, well what are the, what are the multiple means I'm offering to meet the needs of everyone.
And I have a strong belief that even though not every child or adult is identified with learning differences, I do believe we all have learning differences and that it's very much contextual and it could have to do with what happened five minutes ago.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right.
Lainie Rowell: What happened five weeks ago, five years ago.
I mean, there's so many things that are coming into play of, okay, well this is where I am in this situation at the moment. Mm-hmm. And so I appreciate it when I am given opportunities to make choices based on what's gonna fit my needs in this context best.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right, and, and one thing that's kind of a broken record of mine is there are no special education students in our district.
They're only students because in my, again, my very humble opinion, everyone is special. All the kids and all the staff, we're all special. We all have things that we either require because of physical issues, you know, like food allergies or illness. Then we also have things that we prefer. Like I don't want tomatoes on my burger.
I don't like tomatoes. They're not finished in the middle. Does that make me special? Yes, it does, because I want my burger, my special way, right? So we're all special, and I'm not trivializing special education, but we're all special and we all want what we want and need what we need. So let's make that happen for everybody. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to be able to perpetuate that and model that.
That, that's kind of one of the things I talk about a lot. And when I do training and speaking, I work really, really hard to do it in different ways. And most importantly, most importantly is engage your listener. And get them to participate in the learning.
And I always, always, always say, you have to ask me questions. I would rather you ask me the same question 15 times than guess once, because when you guess we don't know what we're gonna get. So please, please, please. I love play. You know, interact through, play, through music, through silliness, through jokes, and I can tell you my favorite joke, but if you ever come to one of my presentations, you're gonna hear it again.
But here you go. Just for you, Lainie, and your listeners, my favorite joke in the whole wide world is, what does a thesaurus eat for breakfast?
Lainie Rowell: I don't know. What does a thesaurus eat for breakfast?
Amy Mathews-Perez: Synonym rolls.
Did I mention that I'm a speech path and I'm a word nerd. I love me some language stuff, but yeah, that's my favorite. That's my favorite.
Lainie Rowell: Word play is a good deal. I wanna touch on something you said... you're talking about, I want you to be asking questions.
I don't remember where I heard this tip years ago, but it was when you pause for questions, you don't say, "Do you have any questions?", or "Does anyone have any questions?" Instead, "What questions do you have?
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right.
Lainie Rowell: I know there are questions out there, so I wanna frame that in a way that invites the questions rather than framing it in a way, "Are you asking a question cuz you didn't get it?"
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right, no, absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: It's a small, but when you were saying that, I was like, oh, I, I know she does this.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Absolutely.
And you know what else I do, Lainie, is I refer to other people that have asked other questions. Because I can anticipate what the questions are gonna be.
And I'll say, you know, I was speaking with someone the other day and their question was, and I see the, the heads and the audience nodding Yes. So I anticipate their questions so that they don't have to feel like they literally have to ask. But again, I want it to be a fun atmosphere where we can be silly.
And sometimes I'll make mistakes on purpose just to let them say, what, what, what? That doesn't make sense. And I'm like, okay. Well, let's talk about why that doesn't make sense, because sometimes that's the best learning mode also, again, grateful for the opportunity to help people learn and facilitate, you know, maybe their passion, maybe helping them align their energy and their efforts into what action they wanna take.
That that's kind of what I'm always grateful for those opportunities.
Lainie Rowell: So helpful and I think that's where we can leverage the unique and dynamic interests and gifts of our learners, again, of all ages.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: And find ways to leverage that to what are some ways that we could actually do some good in the world, that pro-social learning, like I'm grateful for athletics, like I'm grateful for sports. I love to play sports well. Mm-hmm. Can you do a sports clinic? It's like a service learning project for some younger kids or, you know, I am a big foodie. I love to eat and I'd love to help our food services people with maybe a garden on campus or with composting or even if there's ways to, test out menu items that would fall within the very strict guidelines of food services.
But you know what I mean?
Amy Mathews-Perez: Absolutely.
Lainie Rowell: I think there's all these opportunities to bring in these unique and dynamic interests and strengths to leverage it. And I think that's what makes the learning really authentic and also has that undercurrent, has that framing of gratitude, if you will.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Absolutely. Absolutely. I love to learn. I love to teach, and I love to have fun, and I love to laugh and I love to empower people. So anytime somebody needs somebody to stand up and do the talk and then walk the walk, I'm, I'm the girl. Bring it on. Let's make it happen.
Lainie Rowell: I hear you ready. Now, believe it or not, we are approaching the end of our time. It always goes way too fast and I know that.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Oh my goodness.
Lainie Rowell: I know, it's just bananas how fast it goes, but I wanna give you an opportunity for any last quick tips you have for teachers, coaches, and /or administrators.
Amy Mathews-Perez: I want to remind people to see the able, not the label. Whether that label is special education, GT, English language learner, whatever that label is. And even on adults, if it's, you know, temper tantrum, Tammy, don't see her label.
See what she's able to do. But when it comes to gratitude, I kind of think of it in a way of and I had to look this term up, let's be honest cuz I couldn't think of it. Frequency bias. Have you heard of that? So what, when you notice something or you're looking for something, you tend to see more and more of it and there's a much more official name, but I'm going with frequency bias and I feel like that can evolve with gratitude. If you start to look for it and hone in on it, you are gonna notice it everywhere. And the other thing that popped into my head, Lainie. What comes first, the blessings or the gratitude, and I think that's up to each individual, but I, I think that's important to know that you can have gratitude for lots of things without them being major life changing blessings.
You know, I'm, I'm grateful that we had a little bit of rain today. I'm also grateful that we had some sunshine today. So it's, it's super important to me that we find the gratitude and we seek the gratitude. And the more often we seek it, the more often we're gonna see it because of that frequency bias thing.
And then the other thing I really like to practice is remembering that our point of view drives what we do. So our point of view drives what we do. And if we have a point of view of gratefulness and awareness then those are the things we're gonna see and that we're gonna naturally gonna practice more and more.
Lainie Rowell: I a hundred percent agree. I think it might've been my therapist who said, we see what we look for.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Mm-hmm.
Lainie Rowell: When you go looking for it, you will find it.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Right. Just like when you buy a new car, you think you're the only one with a black wagoneer, and you're like, what? Why does everybody have the same car as me?
What's this about? And I, I believe the same thing can happen with gratitude.
Lainie Rowell: Yeah. And so when you were talking about the blessings, You know what comes first, blessings or gratitude? I think when you look for the blessings, you'll find the gratitude and also. When you're grateful, you realize how many blessings you already had.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Absolutely. I could not have said it better. That's excellent.
Lainie Rowell: Oh, I'm pretty sure you already said it better, but you're very kind. You have given us so much wisdom and so many strategies. I really appreciate your time, Amy. I wanna make sure and give you time to do your shout out.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Well, the obvious shout out, which I've heard on quite a few of your podcasts is my spouse. I have a wonderful, loving, supportive husband who is phenomenal.
But I was also thinking in the context of what you and I are doing. So when I think about podcasting and Twitter, I have to give a shout out to Sarah Pedrotti cuz she introduced me to Twitter. I don't know how long ago, wait till my Twitter anniversary thing pops up. I'm gonna say 10 years, but I could be totally wrong.
So shout out to Sarah and then podcast world, I have to give a shout out to Brian Martin because he was the first podcast to have me as a guest. You know, just little ol me. I don't, I don't have any books published yet. I don't have a website yet. I'm not doing a lot of speaking engagements yet, but I am driven to make a difference in the world.
So shout out to Brian Martin for being brave enough to have me as a guest on his podcast.
Lainie Rowell: Well, I'm gonna echo that shout out to Brian Martin. He is one of my favorite people and we've been on each other's podcast, so listeners, I don't have his episode number off the top of my head, but he's been on Evolving with Gratitude. You should check it out. And you should also go listen to Amy on his podcast.
I wanna say, you know, bringing it back to, we were talking about that like specific authentic gratitude to people. I think we often risk showing it the least to the people we're closest to. And you mentioned gratitude to your spouse, and I think that's so important.
And again, I know not everyone loves the phrase praise, but when I think of that praise to correction ratio, I think of my spouse and how I really need to be so careful to be overwhelming showing gratitude for all the wonderful things that he does. Be much more strategic about, do I need to give him this feedback?
Is this something that is actually going to make our marriage better, or is this something that I'm just feeling in the moment? Maybe I should wait on it. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's so easy to point out the negative, with that negativity bias.
Amy Mathews-Perez: It's also so easy to take things for granted. I work really, really hard at not doing that. But again, it's that awareness and the perspective. And you said strategic, and that is something that I was just chatting with him about, about a week or so ago, how he's taught me, again, showing him gratitude for teaching me how to be more strategic in certain areas of what I do.
So it's an awareness and I never, ever, ever wanna take him or anyone that I'm close to, family, friends for granted. So it's the awareness and the perspective and what am I learning? And once I learn something and have that lesson, I want to show gratitude for gaining that from that person.
Lainie Rowell: Lovely way to end. But we're not actually a hundred percent done though, because we need to hear about how people can connect to you. And I wanna just give you a shout out for that mindset and that frequent use as you were describing, where you are in your journey of "yet" that constant use of the word "yet". And you're already doing amazing things. You're already having a huge impact. I can't wait to see how you're gonna put that out to an even bigger audience. That impact is already happening and I'm excited to see what is yet to come.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Well, you're very kind.
Thank you so much, Lainie. I appreciate that. They can reach me at Twitter. It's probably the best way to reach me @DrAmyMP @drgrowto know. And now that we've had this conversation, you understand where that name came from. My initials are AMP and I've gone round and round and round.
I was called AMP for a long time. And, but let me tell you, there are a lot of Twitter people out there with those initials, so I had to figure out something. But it's @DrAmyMP @drgrowtoknow. So if you wanna reach out, that's the fastest way to reach me.
Lainie Rowell: Perfect. I'm gonna put that in the show notes so people can, can have quick access to that. Amy, thank you for this opportunity to chat. So happy that we get to share your thinking with the world and people should definitely connect with you to continue to learn from you.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Well, Lainie, I have to tell you. So, so grateful for the opportunity. I know you have a wait list of people to chat with, so the fact that you took time to chat with me, and I'm just so grateful. I'm so grateful because I follow what you do and the impact you're making is huge and it's one grateful moment at a time.
So I'm just. Just really honored to be a part of that journey, so thank you so much.
Lainie Rowell: We're gonna get in a gratitude loop here. I just wanna say, a little behind the scenes, I send guests a form and I ask them to tell me about themselves.
And just so the listener knows I'm asking for their headshot and all these things just to make it really easy. I have a little comment section that's optional. You almost brought me to tears with this beautiful message that you put in there and it was, it was just so heartwarming and special to me. You made me feel seen, known, heard, and valued.
But it was just like, oh my gosh, right there she's taking this little opportunity. I give you a little box, it says comment optional. And you took that opportunity to, to show me some, some gratitude and I just wanna thank you for that. So I. I we're gonna have to stop the Gratitude loop because I feel like you and I are one of those people that we'll just go round and round on this, but just again, Amy, thank you for being here.
And to our listeners, thank you for being here too.
Amy Mathews-Perez: Thanks everybody.