Amanda Knox: How I Reclaimed My Freedom After Wrongful Conviction of Murder | Mindset | E28

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That's Global SKU. Hello, my name is Tim Story. Welcome to Miracle Mentality. Rooftops, drawn spaceships on the ground. It's for the dreamers, the doers, the believers in something greater. In each episode, I'll invite you to rise above the mundane, to push past the messy, and learn to live boldly in the miraculous. Every episode will have practical wisdom, spiritual insight, and my guests will explore what it takes to activate your miracle mindset. Remember to subscribe, follow, and like. Welcome to the Miracle Mentality Podcast. I want to thank you guys for doing what everybody says, to like, subscribe, and tell a friend. We are consistently in the top 10 in all our categories, usually number four. So thank you for doing that. I think a lot of it's because of the guests that we have. I've been wanting to get this guest on for several months. I saw that a friend of mine had her on. I'm like, how do I make this happen? and I really, really care about this guest. When the challenges happen in her life, I, like many of you, were watching from afar, but because of my skill set and gift set as a therapist, I was thinking about different things I wish I could have told her or strategies, and it's amazing to see what she is doing with her life after the setback, because most people, when they have a setback, They sit in it and they cement themselves, but this guest decided not to. Our guest today is going to be Amanda Knox, whose story has been examined, debated, judged by not just her area of the state she lived in, Washington, and lives in, but by the world. And always with people with their different opinions without really understanding what she went through and who she is. but I write in my notes, she is finding a way to rise, rebuild, and truly has reclaimed her voice. Let's welcome to the show, the Amanda Knox. Hi, Amanda. Hi. Oh my gosh. I want to know all of that advice that you were going to tell me while I was in the midst of everything. I'll give you some of it a little later. Yeah. I love it. Thank you for having me. I want to talk about your new book. So we call it free. It's doing well. I've seen other interviews that you've done, even with different countries, letting people know about this book. Then you write free. And then I'm always interested about what's underneath it. My search for meaning. Okay. So break down the word free as it is to you, the word free. What does that word mean to you? Well, that's been the journey of my entire adult life is trying to reclaim freedoms that were stolen from me. And it is this nebulous concept. I think it's something that we take for granted, especially here in the United States, this idea that freedom is something we celebrate, that we congratulate ourselves for, that is a force of nature that is very deeply ingrained in our consciousness and our sense of identity. But I very literally had my freedom stolen from me. I lived years in a prison cell and then discovered upon coming out of that prison cell and even coming out of this whole legal quagmire nightmare that I was not free of it per se. Right. Oh, yeah. I have now a history. I have now a context and one that I did not choose for myself. What do I make of that? How do I live with that? And I think a lot of people, especially after I was no longer in legal jeopardy, with all the best intentions, or sometimes not with the best intentions, would just say things like, you should just move on, put it behind you, as if it never happened. And that struck me as unhelpful, because it did happen. And whether I liked it or not, it not only impacted my life in a very real way because it was so public that it was not something that I could just easily escape. You know, I couldn't just change my name and pretend not to be me because I was still being stalked by paparazzi. I was still very much in the public appetite. So a life of anonymity post that experience was not really available to me. But beyond those external circumstances that were not in my control, I was also personally, intimately, inside of me, changed from this experience. I was not free of it. And I would never be free of it. It was a grief. It was a trauma that I was holding. And so I think in a way, potentially the fact that the world wouldn't let it go helped me very quickly dissipate the illusion that I could run away from it, that I personally could. And instead, I was forced to confront, well, here is this mess that I've been left with. What do I make of it? How do I make meaning out of this that speaks to who I really am? And I think that one of those truly universal questions that I was faced with is one that everyone does when they've survived something is the now what question. Who am I after this? Now, what do I do with myself? And I really struggled with that initially. I was labeled the girl accused of murder. That's how I was known. Any relationship that I made, any career choice that I made was always going to be filtered through this history that I now had like a ball and chain that I carried with me. And so I at first struggled with it. I first a little bit tried to hide from it. And then eventually I said, OK, what good can I do with this for myself and for others? And what are those open questions? What are those open wounds that I still don't feel like have been resolved? How do I personally find closure? And in the process of attempting to find closure and to find understanding, I rediscovered freedom. That's what my book is all about. I love the way you're talking about this. And I think one of the things I really appreciate about you is that you decided not to be what I call a discount version of yourself. and what happens to a lot of people when somebody goes through something and we know about it, that they become a discount version of themselves. They really are this person who's emerging, evolving, discovering, but people want to put them in their past. So I've been working with celebrities for over 35 years as a therapist. And I've watched so many of them who were riding so high, some type of scandal would happen that was either true or not true. But I would find so many of them that just decided to then just become a person that is obscure. And as you know, obscurity is to live in the shadows. And so it would have been tempting for you just to stay in the shadows, but you decided to come out. And I think you're coming out as an Amanda Knox that maybe people in the world did not see before with your humor, with your innocence, but also with your strength. Yeah. And I think that the journey that I describe in order to get to that place that I describe in my book is one that both took place in a public way and in a private way, right? I started out by writing articles and feeling myself informed by what had happened to me. So very clearly thinking about, oh, okay, this experience happened to me, but I'm seeing versions of it happen to other people. And I'm curious about that. I have little alarm bells going off when I see things happening. So I start writing about it. I start writing about it. But then in the meantime, I'm haunted by this very personal question of why did this happen to me. While the rest of the world is still speculating about all of the intricacies of the case, I know that I didn't do this. And what I'm trying to make sense of is how could someone possibly think that I could have done this? Why? Why did some prosecutor in this small town in Italy decide that someone who had no motive, had no history of violence, no physical connection to the crime scene, how could they possibly think that I had mastermind a death orgy? Like where, how? Why? And that haunted me. And so on a very private way, I set about answering that question for myself and not being satisfied with easy answers. I think another, maybe the discount version of a person is someone who is satisfied with easy answers. I was told by many people who supported and loved me, that the reason why this happened to me was because my prosecutor was just an evil guy. And he didn't care that he put an innocent person in jail. And all he cared about was his own reputation. So he would never admit that he was wrong. And that's it. End of story. And I just intuitively understood or intuited. I didn't know for sure, but I felt like there was something more, that there was something more to it than that, that he wasn't just sitting in his office cackling away about how he put an innocent girl in prison. It didn't seem right to me. And as somebody who had been so easily vilified and judged, I did not want to make that same mistake in regards to another person, even the person who hurt me. And so going on that very personal and private for a long time quest to reach out to my prosecutor and get to know him and understand him and connect with him and find common ground and eventually go back to meet him and confront him and truly confront him. That was a personal journey that revealed a lot to me about really true universal human realities of how people misunderstand each other, disconnect, dig ourselves into our own biases and self-narratives, and really gave me a sense of peace as well as empowerment. Because I came away from confronting my prosecutor, realizing that I was not at his mercy anymore. And what a powerful thing. The idea of being free to me, because I love words, is to be unlocked. And when I look at your childhood from what we read or saw or what you showed us, you seem to be at least fairly free with your humor and your quest for life. I see you as a person who loved discovery. So what was it like to go from that freedom of discovery, even to have the guts to go to Italy to go to school? Okay. So I have a daughter and when she was 17 she told her mother and I I going to Australia to fashion design school We're like, what? Love that. I love how she was like, I'm just doing this. I hope you're on board. I love you. And that's what she did. And that's what she did. But I remember I said to her mom, I said, we got to let her go because that's just who she is. and that's who she was it's who she is now she's a producer for a really good show on television and they have to travel everywhere she just got back from china and i said did you get nervous or was it okay she goes dad i like figuring things out so from going from this freedom of discovery of you being a child right what does that initially feel like you're probably in shock of course, but what are some other emotions or feelings that you had? I think I was very similar to your daughter. Maybe your daughter already had a more clear vision of what she wanted her life to be like. Like, you know, I'm going to fashion school. I knew that I wanted to study abroad because I was a very curious person. I grew up in a culturally diverse household. My mom was born in Germany. And so I just intuitively understood that the world is bigger than my own backyard and that there are more languages and more cultures and they're all valid. And because I'm the oldest kid of my generation in my family, I typically ended up being a kind of bridge builder between the adults in my family and the children. And so I really enjoyed that role of being a bridge builder. And so when I sort of determined for myself, what do I want to be in this world? I wanted to be a bridge builder between languages and culture. I really loved the idea of helping two people who literally can't understand the words that they're saying between each other to be the bridge that facilitates that human connection. And I love the idea of traveling. I love the idea of the first time I had studied abroad was when I was 14 years old, and it was one of the most powerful and impactful experiences that I had ever had. So I wanted that for myself. I wanted a global life, an international life, and one that was really based in human connection. So that's why I went to Italy. And then to have my world shrunk down to the size of a cell, and I was trapped in a story that I had no control over. I think the first thing that I felt and that persisted for a long time was a state of bewilderment, more so than anguish or sadness or grief or anything. It was confusion because I didn't understand what was happening or why it was happening to me. As far as I knew, I'd gone to study abroad and then out of the blue, some maniac had broken into my home and murdered my friend. And now all of a sudden, I'm being harassed by police officers and thrown in a prison cell and no one believes me. Anything I say, no one believes me. And so an immediate loss of any kind of human connection, right? As soon as somebody doesn't believe the things that you say, that had never happened to me before. I had always been a good student, a good kid. No one had ever accused me of lying. It never happened to me in my life. And so to be in the scenario where the stakes were so high, the stakes were so high, I didn't even understand how high the stakes were. For months that I was in prison, I was awaiting this investigation and for all the facts of the case to come out, facts to which I was not privy. I did not know who killed my roommate. I did not know why this had happened. I didn't know what had happened to her. I'm sitting there on the edge of my seat waiting to find out just as much as the rest of the world. And I'm attempting to hold on, to grasp onto having faith in these systems and these institutions and these ideas, these ideals that I've always been able to have faith in. Right. I had been raised to trust and respect the police. And so my initial response to being wrongly accused and imprisoned wasn't to say, oh, my God, all the police are monsters. It wasn't that switch. I just thought, oh, no, there's been this horrible misunderstanding. And I think the fact that I was in a foreign country and forced to speak a foreign language that I could not speak, I felt like that was a huge reason why all of this was happening. There was just really grave consequences to very minor miscommunications. I thought that all of this would reveal itself to be a huge misunderstanding, a huge mistake very early on. And so for months, a year into this whole ordeal, my family and I believe that my freedom and my vindication is just around the corner and I'm never going to even have to go to trial. But then, of course, that doesn't happen and I have to go to trial. And this narrative is like a boulder that's just rolling down the hill and gaining momentum. And it was really shocking to realize how fallible these systems that we had always had faith in could be. Yes. And that ultimately these systems are incredible tools that we humans have worked together to devise. But at the same time, they are tools that are at the whim of the people who are wielding them. And those people are very fallible and very susceptible to biases that prevent them from arriving and fulfilling the promise that these institutions promise, which is truth and justice. That was a startling realization for me that took years for me to truly come to accept that human beings and especially these institutions could be so fallible. I think one of the things that makes your life so different than most is that, so the sympathetic observer like myself. So when I was watching as it was unfolding, I was a sympathetic observer towards your life. So even though I had this care and concern and then like, when's her family going to show up? So we're all like walking through this. What people don't understand is behind the scenes what prison feels like, what prison feels like in a foreign land. Prison feels like, as you talked about in the Joe Rogan interview, you only knew so much of the language. So there were so many things said to you that you were misinterpreting, misunderstanding. At that moment, when you are sequestered, you are incarcerated, talk to me about how long 24 hours a day becomes, because some people don't get that. Because it's not like today where you're allowed to check on your kids, see where your husband is, look at your phone. What was 24 hours in a day like at that moment? Prison life. So the first eight months of my imprisonment, I was held in isolation, which meant that I was not allowed into any areas where the general population. There were some very minor activities that were available to prisoners that were in gen pop. So there was outside time where there might be a volleyball that people could pass around. Right. There was mass on Saturdays. You could go to mass. That was pretty much it. various times there might be one class that might be taught. Like I remember at one point they taught a beekeeping class, but it was just learn how bees work through paperwork. It was very theoretical. All of these activities or like having a job, the main thing that helped people pass their time in prison was having a job. So either working in the kitchens or working as a janitor. And they were very wide. People really tried to get those limited number of jobs. Most of the time, everyone spent locked in their cell, at least in my prison. There wasn't like a hanging out. There wasn't a food hall. It was very much your cell is your entire world and you're in that cell 22 hours a day. So I was in my cell 22 hours a day. I was allowed outside of that cell for two hours a day to walk outside by myself. It was a small 15 by 15 foot courtyard where I was alone. So I walked in circles alone. And then I went back to my cell alone. There was a TV that had five channels on it. And that was it. I was allowed three books. I was allowed two CDs. I had a little Walkman. and I just was alone. And I did not have the right to privacy. I was constantly observed. If I ever left my cell or had visitation with my parents, I was strip searched. Every little aspect of my life became incredibly regimented and outside of my control. I did not control when the lights turned on. I could not open any door. For years, for years, I never opened a single door. And anywhere I went, I had to walk and wait from doorway after doorway after doorway because you have your cell door and then there's the hallway door and then there's the stairway door. All of these doors were always locked to me. So I learned a state of helplessness where I just was this body that was being pushed around and I had very little say over any of it. I had no say over my body. I had no say over my space. So I learned very quickly what I did have a say over, which was how I spent my time. The time that was being stolen from me, I had a limited number of things that I could do and limited access to materials in order to accomplish my goals. But I was still physically capable of doing sit-ups. I was still physically capable of writing a letter to my mom or reading a book. And these were my limited and humble decisions that I made over the course of this time period. And I have to say there was this big shift in perspective for me between what it was like for me mentally prior to being convicted and what it was like after being convicted. Because prior to being convicted, I was living in this world of I'm living somebody else's life by mistake. I shouldn't be here. This is not where I belong. I belong back home with my family. I just have to sit and wait and hold tight until the truth comes out and I'm vindicated and freed. And it was a mindset that really was one that involved a lot of bracing, but which was like living in limbo. I very much felt like this world that I was encapsulated in was not my own. And so I did as much as I could to mentally escape from it and to remain as healthy as I could while mentally escaping. I'm believing that you're enjoying this podcast, The Miracle Mentality. And so the best way to help other people is to share it with a friend, a family member, or even a colleague. We work hard on getting the right types of guests that will make your life go from the mundane, the messy, the madness into the miracle mentality. Don't forget your mindset is yours to set. So make sure and share this with someone else. And then tag me at Tim Story Official. That's Tim Story Official. Thank you for making this one of the most listened to and watched podcasts out there in the world. And guess what? Get ready for miracles to come your way. my doctorate is in world religion so in my travels around the world i love to talk to people about spirituality and do they get strength from it how they get strength from it when you're incarcerated you're in prison are you thinking in terms of a higher power or a god and if so well, what are you thinking about this? Because many times when my friends go through a difficulty they then come to me and say like Tim if God is so good then why in the hell am I in this situation Okay And I don always have the answer I think sometimes life is black Sometimes it's white. Sometimes it's gray because we've all had difficult things happen to us, but few have had things like you've had happen to you, even me. What was your connection to any source of the divine or God or universe? Did you have any connection while you're incarcerated? That was a huge question that had opened up for me. And I think that shift in my perspective after I got convicted really brought that to light because suddenly after I'm convicted, I can no longer pretend that this isn't my life anymore, right? I'm not just accidentally living somebody else's life by mistake. This is my life. And now I really have to confront, okay, this isn't just a mistake. This is just unfair. I am living an injustice. How do I make sense of that? And it just so happened that, of course, in a prison context, there are spiritual advisors. In this case, because it's Italy, it's a Catholic country, I had access to a Catholic spiritual advisor. It was funny because I'm not Catholic. I was not raised Catholic. I did go to a Catholic high school, though. So I was familiar with Catholicism and its teachings. And so I did have a common language in order to communicate with this person, the priest who turned into my best friend in the prison. And one of the reasons why I loved him so much is because, you know, I didn't have faith before. And I was certainly not inclined to have faith in the midst of going through this. Not only was I in prison for a crime that I didn't commit, but my friend had been murdered, had been raped and murdered for no reason. And I'm grappling with just the insane injustice of all of this situation. and I go to my priest friend and I say, what the hell? Yeah, of course. What is this? What is this special plan that this benevolent God has up his sleeve? Because I'm waiting for it. What's the big reveal? And he was so great. I mean, he would talk to me about how God has a plan and it's this beautiful tapestry, but until you see the entire thing, you can't really understand all of the little threads yada, yada, yada. I never found that to be very satisfying. But one thing he did say to me when I asked him about prayer, because he said that I should pray even if I don't believe I should pray just in case. And I was like, what's the point of prayer? What is even that all about? Because I see people now that I'm in gen pop, people are in their cells praying for cigarettes. What are we talking about here? Why praying? Why? What does praying do? And he said, well, when you pray to God, you might say you're praying to God for strength, right? You pray to God for strength. You know, the person who's praying for a cigarette is really they're praying for relief, right? When you pray for strength, God doesn't give you strength. He gives you the opportunity to be strong. And that struck me. It didn't make me a believer in God, but it did give me a new framework for understanding or appreciating what I was going through, which was an incredible opportunity for something. And I had to figure out what it was. And it certainly was an opportunity for strength. If this situation was asking, demanding something of me, it was strength. It was patience. It was determination. It was belief. So let me just say something. When you talk about my search for meaning from the new book, Free, this is what so many people in the world are saying, like, what the hell happened to my life and why am I in this situation? Whether it's a woman that's been married for 30 years and the man decides, you know what, I just don't think this is working. And then they'll say to me, Tim, I did not see it coming. Or a case of a young boy riding his bicycle and he is hit by a man and dies. And now the parents have to deal with what the hell just happened. So I really think that the priest did the right thing by really allowing you to communicate and say, what is the meaning of this? Why? And I always also think that it's okay to be angry with God and wonder about what the heck. And again, I think this is one of the great things about you being Amanda Knox now. It wasn't always so great. You're a great person still, but you were in a tough situation. But now that you are free, that you have keys to unlock other people because there are so many people that are locked in, why did this happen to me? If someone came to you and said, you know what, Amanda, my life was going so well. And then the next thing you know, I got cancer and I'm fighting through cancer. give me one little answer that you might give someone like that. Let's say when you're on a book tour and somebody asks you something about, how do I become free? I have cancer, Amanda. What are you trying to tell me? I think one of the things that I really like to point out to people that I think not many people have thought of before is we get really caught up in the idea of what our life should be. And when we get caught up in the idea of what our life should be or should have been, we are preventing ourselves from effectively living the life we actually have. That's it. I was living a life that I should not have been living. If I was dwelling on the fact that I should not have been living that life, it would have prevented me from seeing my life for what it really is and embracing whatever opportunity I had to fulfill myself with the life that I actually had. It's such a flip of a switch kind of thing to just point out to someone like, hey, I think you're maybe still hung up on that life that you think you should have been living. And I hate to break it to you, but that's not the life you're living. And if anything, this idea that any of us should have been living any other life besides the one that we are actually living, when you really think about it, it's kind of laughable. Like, who do we think we are? Yes. Who do we think we are? That's very powerful. But Amanda, even in the way you're saying it is so, so good because I meet with a lot of young people who want to be in the entertainment industry. And they'll say to me like, Mr. Story, I see myself winning an Academy Award, or I see myself. And that's good. Sure. Projected in the universe, whatever. Right. So I love what you're saying that this ideal that we have, you know, sometimes it's like a balloon that just gets popped. And then now I got to deal with my realities. Okay. So let's go back to the book. So you talk about my search for meaning. So meaning, as you know, part of it is what is my purpose? What is my significance? When you look at Amanda Knox at this stage of your life, what is your assignment right now? What is your assignment? Before you answer, I want to say this. I watched an interview you did with people from London, England. So they were asking like, you know, you got this book and does it almost look like you're trying to get back in the limelight? I'm thinking, please. What's happening is that I feel like your calling is calling you. And please, let's go set some people free and unlock them. So this idea of what's your assignment at this stage right now? Yeah. And I think that it goes back to that idea again of you put aside the life that you should have had. What is the life that you're actually living and what is the opportunity embedded within it? Because I think that if you actually look at your life clearly, you find yourself truly being literally called upon to do things. I find myself now very much called upon to shed light on a human experience that a lot of people struggle to empathize with. And for better or for worse, I have had to work really, really hard to learn to articulate what it feels like to go through an experience like this, what I have learned, not just about the criminal justice system, but about human nature and how that plays a role in how justice fails to manifest. And so I'm called upon frequently to comment upon media ethics and criminal justice related issues and individual people's cases, but also on the question of just how do I pick myself like the great struggle of everyone's life, which is how the hell do I pick myself up again and keep going? and those are all things that I have a deep, deep wellspring of knowledge from because it's just hard earned wisdom that I learned the hard way that I can now share in ways that are hopefully entertaining and not painful for people. Yeah, and willing, you were willing to do the work because I think that it could have been so easy just to be the victim and just have a victim mentality. And then that's what we would be hearing from you all these years later. That's not what I'm hearing from you. And victim mentality meaning, yeah, because I think one thing that is potentially a really, again, like the life that you should have been living mentality is this, okay, a bad thing has happened to me. Well, now I expect other people to do the hard work to have good things come to me. That's not how it works. Like you still have to do the work and you have to do the work to have good things come to you and you have to do the work to help other people have good things come to them because nothing comes for free and nothing comes easy. And so in those obstacles, however, there are incredible opportunities for doing something and not just waiting for things to be done. And I think that for me, I know that I cannot wait around for justice to happen for me or for anyone else. I got to get down in the mud and get dirty and get to work. And that's really fulfilling for me. And it helps me with that learned helplessness that the traumatic experience forced me into is, in a way, prison really solidified for me how important it is to grasp onto and hold onto what you can do. Because so much was taken away from me. So much of my agency and my ability to accomplish things and decide things for myself was taken away from me. And so I really grasped onto those very things that could not be taken from me, those choices and those actions that I could take, that could say something about me, that could define me. Those are what I held on to. And that's what I hold on to to this day. So like, I'm not one of those people who has a vision of my future. I just know that right now I can do this. And this is the best good that I can do now. And that's going to lead me to a new scenario down the line. I have faith that's going to give me an opportunity to do the best thing that I can do then, then. And that goes on until I die. Do you want to hear my thoughts on what I would like to see Amanda Knox do? Yes. Tell me. Let's go. Call upon me to do something. Amanda, I'm pretty good at this. Okay I pretty good at this All right So here what I see I think that again life gives people assignments Mm And your assignment right now is you wrote this book Free My Search for Meaning first book Waiting to be Heard which I read that also I think you kind of on a mission to go unlock people. You're like a locksmith. And I think there's so many people locked in these labels. So just because I'm a nerd and I like to study and I help people, a label, as you know, denotes three things. Your value, the value of something, the content and the usage. So like somebody got me this hot tea, it's labeled. So if I drink it, I'm not expecting water, I'm expecting tea because it's been labeled it's a tea. Yes. So when somebody labels Amanda Knox or any of us, they're saying this is the content. This is what you should expect, content. Also usage. It's been labeled. This is how you can use it. But also value. What is the value? So people try to devalue your value. Yes. This is who she is. Gave these fancy names for you that I won't even mention. And now you're saying, I don't think so. And now I'm out and I got keys. Go unlock people. I could even see you on college campuses doing college tours, dialoguing with people. You know, it's a book tour, but you're dialoguing with students that damn feel like they've been labeled and they've been mislabeled. It's funny that you say that because so many people reach out to me right before this interview. I got off a call with somebody who is saying people are labeling me this thing and I'm not. And what do I do about it? And so I advised her through some ideas about how she could unlock herself in her own mind, but also consider a pathway of dealing with that in her own life. And so that's something that regularly comes my way. It keeps being something that I'm called upon to do. And I think part of that is just because I know what it's like to have been judged, especially on misinformation and misleading information. And so people who find themselves similarly cornered and boxed in look at me as someone who has somehow escaped that narrative and go, how do I do that? And, you know, I'm always happy to share all the good, the bad and the ugly that I've learned from my long, long journey of dealing with that. Let's get to the happy, funny side of you for just a moment. I'm always happy, funny. Of course. I'm going to interview your husband about that. Yeah, you should. Yeah. He's my biggest fan. Get your husband up in here. Let me find out. I'm going to ask your husband. Well, he sees the grumpy version of me too. But he's also creative from what I was reading. He's a creative guy as well, right? Yep. Yeah. We work together. We have our own production company. He's in the middle of just wrapping up a documentary that he's working on. But traditionally, he's been a writer. He's a poet. He writes novels. Yeah. See, I love this for you. It's like right into that creative zone of who you are. So how did you meet Nikki Glaser? How did that connection happen in you with the comedy? This is the thing. It's so funny how, so opportunities reveal themselves, right? I live on a small island and the small island happens to be the locus of a lot of very creative people live here, right? Like there are actors who live here, musicians who live here. There's a lot of just live events that are going on, mostly music, but there is a local comedy scene and it's very occasional, like every few months or so. Initially, it's my husband who is invited to take part in this comedy show because he has a history of comedy. But then I just say, hey, I would love to give this a shot. I think it would be fun to just tell some jokes. It's so low stakes. It's like 40 people are going to show up, maybe. And I go up and I tell some jokes and I have a good time and they invite me back. And I do it again and I do it again and I do it again. And eventually I start posting a few clips on social media. And because I happen to be friends with quite a number of comedians, because on the down low, I love comedy and I've always been a huge lover of comedy. And I've been on a few comedians podcasts. some of these comedians start liking my little clips of telling jokes and one of them is Nikki Glaser and she just posts like oh something like that was fire or whatever and my husband is always the big supporter of this idea just like oh if someone has gone out of their way to like comment that's an invitation and so I take up that invitation and I just reach back out to Nikki and say, hey, I love your stuff. You're like the queen of roasting. If you're ever in Seattle, let me know. And she's like, well, actually, I'm going to be in Seattle in two weeks. And I'm like, cool, can I open for you? And she's like, yeah. Okay, how much do I love that? Wow. Yeah. And she was so cool too. Afterwards, she was like, you were really funny. I think you've got a great talent for this. You should keep going for it. And I don't know, I felt very loved and supported and embraced by the Canadian community. You were so good. You were like. Oh, thank you. As speakers, we call it in the pocket. Like you were in the pocket, just boom. Well, it was a great crowd too. Like the crowd was just 3,000 people screaming their heads off. And I was just having a great time. So it was good. See, but that's the authentic you of, you didn't say like, can you get me tickets? No. Can I open for you? That's what. Yeah. You know what? Like, why not? What's the worst that could happen? Just go for it. If you have it in you, just I don't let anything hold me back. One of my jokes is really what's the worst thing that could happen to me on stage at a comedy show? I'd much rather be heckled than shackled. Right. I've already had everything taken from me. What could you possibly do to me? I'm taking a swing for the fences. I love swinging for the fences. And you know what? Every time I've done it, I may not have hit a home run, but I've certainly opened doors. And, you know, after years and years of not being able to, I love opening doors. Okay. I have two more questions for you. Okay. Yes, please. I like talking to you. Very, very smart, as you know. Okay. So first question is, Yes. What are you optimistic about for your personal life, not for your kids, not for your marriage? For my personal life. I mean, I'm feeling really optimistic about finally being recognized for my work. I've done a lot of work in these 10 years that I've been a free person that has been journalistic in nature, that's been performance in nature. And I've put in the hours. I've just put in the hours to become a professional storyteller and writer. And I think that I've now done enough and worked and sort of like delivered enough to enough people that word of mouth has gone around that people are coming to recognize my value as a professional and not just as a story. And that is really, really validating for me because I didn't know if that was going to be something that would come to pass. I didn't know if I would ever be valued for anything other than the fact that I have a crazy story. So I'm really looking forward to the opportunities that are presenting themselves for me to establish myself as a professional writer and thinker and analyzer and storyteller. I love this. Okay, so my last question is this. I think when a lot of us get hurt and challenges happen to us, one thing that can be taken from some people is their compassion towards others. But I see you as a very compassionate person. What does it mean to you to lead with love, to lead with compassion? So I did learn how to turn my own pain into power of being raised in Compton, poor family, went through a lot. And it's strange. Some of that made me more compassionate. I could have stayed bitter. But what does it mean to Amanda Knox to lead with love? I think that it means so understanding, appreciating a person's context, and instead of finding fault in others, trying to find the value in others. I actually had a really fun conversation with my husband about this, where I think that in a world where we have all these expectations about other people, that they live up to our expectations and that we should always be able to assume things about them. I think we do end up in a trap of constantly being disappointed and embittered by the fallibility of our fellow humans and ourselves. And there's a real perspective shift that can happen when you deeply, deeply know that all human beings are fallible. That is something that I just know so, so deeply in my bones that all institutions, all people are fallible. Okay. So if that's the case, then you can find fault in anyone and be disappointed in anything and everything. or you can work to really establish, to see in spite of their faults and their fallibility, what is the value of this person? How can we reframe our own limitations as opportunities for growth and opportunities for connection? That's something that I want to do. What a wonderful answer. Amanda, you have a gift to communicate. Oh, well, thank you. All right. So best way to follow you, would it be your website or social media, Instagram? I think amandanox.com is a solid place to reach out to me to find out what work I'm doing. You can follow me on Instagram at amamanox, on Twitter at amandanox, and on Blue Sky. I think it's at amandanox as well. I'm also on Substack, so amandanox.substack.com. I like that. So we have the new book, which is free, My Search for Meaning. Also, the documentary that you also was, you executive produced. Oh, the Hulu series. Yeah. So there's a scripted Hulu series, eight parts Hulu series called The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox. It's excellent. It came out just this year. I'm very proud of it. It's very compelling. And then we have other stuff in the works that's going to be coming out next year. So stay tuned. Yes. Thank you for taking the time and thank you for being vibrant. It gives people hope that have been through such difficulties that they can still find their shine again someday. I'm very, very, very, very happy for you. Well, thank you so much. So to all of you guys that continue to watch this podcast, this was a great great conversation i want you to make sure and get amanda knox's book called free because a lot of us need more freedom in our lives and me by reading it and understanding what she's saying i like some of her takeaways some of her steps towards freedom the stories that she tells and how she is finding more meaning in her life and so sometimes in life as you know some things you decide, some things you discover. And she's in a discovery and so are you. So continue to watch the podcast. Thank you for liking, subscribing, and telling a friend and keep on doing well. Life is still good. Thank you for sharing space with me on this episode of Miracle Mentality with Tim Story. If today sparked your courage or helped you understand why you're created for success, I invite you to carry that miracle mentality forward. Visit me at TimStory.com. That story with an E-Y on the end. Until next time, walk by faith, embrace possibility, and create your own comeback story.