Impossible FM #007: Growing Stronger from The Inside Out with Amy Clover

Hey everybody. Welcome to Impossible FM – the show where we talk about pushing your limits and doing the impossible in fitness, gritness, business, and life. I’m your host Joel Runyon, welcome to the show. Let’s get started!

Hey everybody. Welcome to Impossible FM today on the show we’ve got Amy Clover of Strong Inside Out and I’ll be talking with her about growing stronger from the inside out step by step. But before we get into that I wanna take care of some housekeeping announcements if you guys don’t know already on July 10th in Portland I’m going to take a few people bungee jumping, and by few I mean ten to twenty or so. We’re having an Impossible meet-up. But we don’t do Impossible meet-ups like other people do meet-ups. Most meets up in a bar or whatever. We actually do stuff, like get you out of your comfort zone, makes you do something you’re scared of. And maybe cross something off your Impossible list. So we’re taking ten to twenty people bungee jumping. We’ve got a few spots left. And if you go to ImpossibleHQ.com/plummet for plummet at the summit which is what we’re calling it because it’s right before WDS or the World Domination Summit. You can find more information and sign-up. Again, we’re only taking about ten to twenty people. That’s the capacity we have to move people and also we just have a time limit that we have to stay within. So, we’re taking about ten to twenty people we’ve done this in the past two or three times. People have a blast. We’ve got photos on the website of people screaming their heads off as they’re jumping off the edge of the bridge ahead. It’s literally one of the best ways I found to actually go out and do something that you’re scared of, instead of just talking about it, instead of just imagining what it might be like to actually stand on a bridge and decide you’ll gonna jump off it and hope that the rope holds you. So, check that out ImpossibleHQ.com/plummet, for information. If you guys wanna come out, we’ve got a few spots left.

Also I wanna give some shout-outs to people who are viewing us on iTunes. YoDawg80 says “Right on par. Joel offers great content in pushing you to go do. Life isn’t about sitting and watching things happen to other people. It’s about experiencing life for yourself. Joel helps you go do that.”

SMerrill8 says “Do battle with your fears. Joel Runyon is the voice struggling within us to command us to overcome our worst vices.” That’s pretty good, I just read that right now. That’s pretty good SMerrill8. So if you guys haven’t reviewed the podcast yet. Go over and do that. You can go to ImpossibleFM/iTunes and that will take you right to the store and you leave a review there. That’s the best way to help us reach more people and spread the word about Impossible FM. So without further ado, we’re gonna jump right into the main part of the pod cast. Here’s the interview with Amy Clover.

Hey everybody welcome to Impossible FM today on the show we’ve got Amy Clover of Strong Inside Out. Amy’s a good friend of mine. And a fitness and mindset blogger over at stronginsideout.com and I am pumped to have her on the show.

Amy:
PUMPED!!

JOEL:
That’s the new intro. Amy and I are friends. Not quite neighbors in San Diego but pretty close. We see each other quite often. But Amy writes at stronginsideout.com about fitness, mindset and becoming strong from the inside out. So, Amy I know you have a really strong background, a really compelling story. And I figured, at least for the start of the show, if we can kinda share your story, share your background. Kinda get people an understanding of where you’re coming from and how you got started with this whole fitness thing.

AMY:
Sure, sure. So we can dive into my story a little bit. So when I first started stronginsideout, I really didn’t know how it was gonna be different. But I realized that my backstory was getting more hits than my actual blog posts were. So that’s when I know that I needed to delve more into this mindset realm and the reason why I was getting more hits there was because I actually told my story in the full honest truth. So my story was that, for years I’ve been struggling with clinical depression and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. And I never wanted to talk about it because who does? You know there’s this stigma, we just don’t talk about our struggle. We don’t talk about our pain because we’re gonna be either weak or complainers. So we don’t talk about that kind of stuff, we just, you know, stuff it down. Try to ignore it, man up, and get over it. But trying to think that way is horrible if you have a chemical imbalance in your brain. You can’t really man up above that without help. So it just got worse, and it got worse, and it got worse. And it was really terrible during my teenage years, my early twenties. And it got to this point where I just couldn’t fight it on my own anymore. And I was so afraid of reaching out that it wasn’t worth it to me. So I just wanted to end it, and I tried. And luckily my roommate stopped me, and she begged me to go into the ER the next day, and that’s what I did, and they threw me in the hospital against my will, and it was in there and I’m sure Joel, that you all can imagine how this feels, having all your choices stripped from you. And just like not being able to choose, you know, whether you want to take a medication or not. Whether you want to go to bed or not. Whether you want to eat at this time or not. And I really realized being in there that I had all these choices in my real life that I didn’t, that I had been taking for granted. I had never really even tried to get to a point where I would be happy. I just didn’t think it was possible, so I never tried. So when I got out of there, I determined to at least try to change my life even if it was just gonna fail miserably. I had to at least try. So, I got into a program with my counselor. I went into support groups. I actually started medication at that time. Or I actually got smarter about the medication I was on because one of the issues that led me to that point was my medication was wrong. So I got to clarify that with my, with working really closely with my therapists, multiples. But I was, I needed a lot of help at that time and I really did commit to getting it and that’s what helped me cure it. But, what really helped me stick with the lot of the work that I was doing was the fact that I found fitness by accident. I actually started working out because I thought I needed to lose a few pounds, because, hey I was living in LA and I wasn’t a size double-zero.

JOEL:
<laughter>

AMY:
I started fitness and I started realizing, oh, I feel pretty awesome about myself after I leave here and while I’m here. And I started realizing how much stronger I felt inside and outside the gym. And how much better I was able to hold on to those cognitive behavorial therapy tools that i was being given. That I knew it was something that I needed to share. Well, I knew it was something that helped. I didn’t know it was something I needed to share at that point, honestly. Because it took me about five years of overcoming that, or three years of overcoming that to share it. So, that’s kind of my whole story and I became a personal trainer from feeling that myself. And all that fun stuff.

JOEL:
Yeah. I one of the things that, there’s a couple different things in there that I can relate to. I haven’t personally gone through, like, clinical depression or anything like that. But, part of my story is when I first graduated college I was going out and trying to get a job anywhere. And I couldn’t get a job. And I basically got to this point and the whole reason my entire site started was I got to this point where I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t get a job at Starbucks, I couldn’t get a job at Target, I couldn’t do anything, whatever. And I kinda get to a point where everything seems impossible. I feel like I can’t do anything, at all. And what I liked about, there came a point where you said, “Okay, I have to get help. Then there came a point where you said, “No, but I also have to help myself. I can’t just wait for stuff to get better, I just can’t hope that like, things are just gonna magically improve without doing any work.” And you kinda came to that point where you started to.. you sought out help but you also started helping yourself.

AMY:
Yes, yes, that’s a big key step to take. Yeah, for sure.

JOEL:
And then, as you started doing, getting into fitness, you started realizing, Okay I feel better about doing this. And then you made it into your career. You’re a personal trainer at your gym for a while. And then, how did you make the transition from your personal training offline to personal training online?

AMY:
It was a long process and one that I actually didn’t go into with the hopes of stopping my personal training. I actually still love working with people since I’ve gone online only, I’m actually seeking more ways to work with people again because I have all this energy I need to get out in some way. But I actually, I was personal training and I left my corporate gym because I got so busy outside so that’s when I started my own personal training business. And that was a series of just educating myself non-stop about how the body works, how the brain works, how nutrition works and that kind of stuff. So I really put a lot into that. Because well it’s really what I’m interested in. So I was in my personal training business for in a long time but when I started the 30 by 30 project tour last year, which you helped me with and you helped me in Chicago specially.. It was like, I got into a point where I couldn’t do everything that I wanted to do I just didn’t have enough time in the day and I was freaking stressful, like all the time. And I wasn’t even having, like finding time to work out and that’s like one of my biggest things. You always make time to work out. So something has to give. I can’t keep going at this rate otherwise I’m just gonna collapse. So I was like, what is going to help the most people I can possibly help and it was the online thing, really pushing my message and this mission that I have to empower the struggling through fitness online. And I still see my clients every so often. I got really close with them so I go up to LA about every three weeks, every month or so. So I still see them but it’s hard being away from home for sure. So it was just like planning, a lot of planning that went into it. And a lot of you know, weighing options. But then it was just like cut the cord and you gotta do it. That’s what it comes down to.

JOEL:
One of the things that was cool about that, it’s really about maximizing your impact, it’s really about seeing how many more people you could bring your message to. You kind of, you know by embracing the online medium, you were able to shake your, you know instead of just doing one client every hour for you know maybe six or eight hours a day, along those lines, you could all of sudden reach thousands of people

AMY:
Yeah

JOEL:
And you kind of took that. You mentioned a little briefly, let’s talk about it a little bit more. You took that, again you took that vision of reaching more and more people. Once you brought that online, you said, okay I’m gonna take that back offline again and I’m gonna do this 30 by 30 tour that you did last year. And, can you explain a little more about that? You mentioned it in passing. But kind of explain what was the impetus behind that tour and then, well you’ve got another one coming up so can you talk about that?

AMY:
I’m excited that you’ve brought this up because I never told you this before. So, at the very start, at the first World Domination Summit I got the idea for Strong Inside Out and I met our friend Steve Kamb who helped me start Strong Inside Out. At the second World Domination Summit, Strong Inside Out has come a long way in a short amount of time but I was, I didn’t really know what I was doing with myself. I just knew that I wanted to create a bigger impact. But then I went to World Domination Summit number two, and I met you, and you were like, Oh yeah we just built a school. I was like, what? you built a school?! And I met like all of these people doing these freaking amazing things and I was like, how am I any different. Why can I not do these things that all these amazing people are doing and your story was one of the ones that prompted me to start allowing myself to dream bigger. And so I asked myself, with my skillset, what can I do that would affect the most people possible with this mission that i have. And so I knew that “To Write Love On Her Arms” which is this amazing suicide preventing charity that really speaks to the kids who are in it which is unlike any suicide prevention charity out there. Like, all the other ones just seem like they’re talking to the adults in this situation not the actual teenagers or young adults that need that help, who need that special messaging, like a tactic of messaging. So they’re amazing and I knew I had to help them. So I thought, you know I teach fitness, that’s what I know how to do. But getting in front of all the people is really tough unless you go to those cities and meet them. So I decided to celebrate the thirtieth birthday that I almost gave up by visiting thirty cities across the USA and Canada and teaching fitness classes in each of these cities to raise awareness and funds for the suicide prevention charity “To Write Love On Her Arms.” And so you were a major inspiration for that, Joel.

JOEL:
Awesome

AMY:
<Laughter>

JOEL:
You were very nice to me about that because you did the, as part of the overall tour you did a video workout series. And I actually came up to LA to help out with it. And while you very generously had told all the people in the video what workout is going and giving them training exercises so they would know what they’re doing and not look like they’re completely uncoordinated. You let me just kind of wing it.

AMY:
<Laughter>

JOEL:
Off the bat… and I was a pain afterwards. But I was better prepared for future workouts than we did because we did two or three other ones.

Amy: It was not on purpose. The people who were in my video were clients of mine that had been doing these kinds of work outs for years. And then Joel came out and I was like, Oh you’ll be fine. <Laughter>

JOEL:
And they’re all like balanced exercise which are not necessarily my forte. If you want me to run long distances I’ll deal with that. If you want me to lift a decent amount I can do that. If you want me to like do yoga combinations, Pilates, like, balance yourself, not my forte.

AMY:
You were pretty great and I can’t believe that you’re saying this out loud because now everybody listening can go by the Strong Inside Out work out videos on my site and see you doing the modified version in the background and I’m really excited about that.

JOEL:
Even if you don’t wanna do the work out yourself, you can buy it just for the entertainment of what you’re watching me entirely terrible at something.

AMY:
They’re actually perks for my campaign so just an extra incentive to go get.

JOEL:
So last year you wrapped up this 30 by 30 project. You visited 30 cities throughout the US and Canada. You went to Canada, right?

AMY:
Yes

JOEL:
Okay. And then this year you decided you wanted to follow it up with something else.

AMY:
Yes. So this year, it’s, like the 30 by 30 project all grown up we’re getting much more structure. Because last year was just like, get the message out. Like let people know that this is possible to overcome this kind of struggle. Not overcome, but embrace this kind of struggle and get stronger from it. So it’s basically like getting the hope out. Now this year, we’re implementing structures into our strategies. So that people can actually have something to leave their events with so they can keep moving forward in their lives even after we’re gone. So this year, we’re hitting just major cities. But each event in each city is gonna be much grander in scale. So for instance Denver I’m really excited about, we’re coordinating with Endorphin Fitness out there and we’re doing a whole weekend long of events. Like multiple classes where you’re gonna be able to come out with a theme of “Who Are You Fighting For?” And the whole theme really ties back into: you should always fight for yourself. Like never give up on yourself. And that’s really how the Strong Inside Out workout is structured around and after you come to the classes, you get free access to this ongoing membership program, where depending on your mindset, you’re gonna get a particular track to go on. So for instance let me just clarify that a little bit. So if you are depressed or unmotivated, you’re gonna get a different workout and a different mindset challenge than somebody who comes into the program who is, say ready for a challenge, or motivated. So it’s gonna be a track-based kind of choose-your-adventure type program that gives you a workout regimen as well as mindset challenges and tools to keep you going, to keep you accountable and to keep you motivated. And I’m really really excited about that. If you can’t tell.

JOEL:
<laughter> Well you’re always excited which is always great.

AMY:
I am.

JOEL:
No but the thing I like about the brand you built but also kind of the projects you spearhead is that you do a very good job of melding fitness with mindset. That you take, okay, where are you at personally, where’s your head at personally and then how do you approach fitness from wherever you’re currently at. And that’s one of the things I talk about over and over and over again on the site. Like the reasons why I choose fitness challenges is almost you know for the physical aspect is one aspect of it. But the bigger purpose is, it’s almost like mental training exercise. It’s always, it’s proving to yourself in a very concrete way that you could do this. That you, okay, I don’t think I can do a marathon and you run a marathon. You’re like, oh I can do that, what else can I do? And it sort of reinforces this, just the idea of strength that you have within yourself to be able to, like, okay what do I wanna do? Well if I sit down and I put in the work and I decide to lay out a plan I could probably go out and do it. And it’s sort of like how you, you know, you basically took this personal, you know for a long time you’re just a personal trainer in LA. And then you decided you wanna take this micro step to start an online presence. And then you wanted to grow it a little bit. And then you started going out and trying to, hey maybe I can impact more people than just, you know, my handful of clients. And pushing it a little bit farther and farther and farther and all of a sudden you’re doing this tour all around the US, that I don’t know, probably two or three years ago you were not imagining that you’ll be traveling around the US doing bootcamps.

AMY:
Not at all. No.

JOEL:
And it’s just one of those things that, step by step by step and it’s just continually pushing yourself to do something that’s uncomfortable or a little bit outside of what you’re used to. And all of a sudden, you know, give yourself a couple of years and it’s a complete transformation

AMY:
Yeah, and I think it’s really important to say as well was that– I had a big picture in mind though I didn’t know what that was gonna be. And that’s okay. But I took each step at a time just like you do too. You can’t just say, I’m gonna do, like I’m gonna start my online program and I’m also going to start a 30 by 30 project. It has to be steps and it has to be gradual and you just have to breathe into every single step at a time. It’s not just like, you’ll get lost and be overwhelmed of it if you try to do everything at once. So just take consistent action even if it’s very small actions.

JOEL:
Yeah. But the point I’m trying to make is the large picture, the big picture, is almost inconceivable to you when you’re starting out. Like you can’t even, when you started out, you knew you had like, Okay I wanna do something big. But I don’t know what that looks like. It’s almost like, if you’re running, if you start off and you never run before, and you find out about.. I’m gonna use an ultramarathon because I’m talking about these a lot. But someone says an ultramarathon and you’re like, I don’t know even know what that is! What does that even mean. How. Wha– It’s almost inconceivable. But if you kind of, okay well there’s big stuff about there that I kind of want to do down the road. And you kind of keep that in mind but you don’t focus on it you just focus at the task at hand. You say, okay, I can run a mile or I could walk a mile. My next goal is to do a 5k. And as soon as you do that 5k you’re all of a sudden, whoa I’m like 3x stronger than I was, you know when I first started. You know, what else can I do? And when you continually just push up, you go find whatever current limit you have right now. And you push up against it and you find that barrier moves. And then you keep pushing. And all of a sudden, you know, over time, these barriers kind of just move completely out of the way. And all of a sudden you’re doing things that you never thought you would do.

AMY:
Completely. Every accomplishment, every accomplishment fuels the next.

JOEL:
Yeah and it just sort of snowballs until its this big thing, then you’re like, holy cow! I’m a part of this. I’m doing this. And it’s almost a little bit mind blowing and if you think back just a few years back, you know, where you were then. So.

AMY:
Man, even just when I started my personal training business I was still not completely recovered. You know I started it but I was like, I started from a very surface spot. And it was actually like, it took working with people to realize how they interpreted certain advice that I’d give them. And then looking at what helped them, I kind of used as a reflection on myself as well to kind of know how to coach myself. So that’s a side effect from working with people too, just paying attention to other people.

JOEL:
Oh, that’s great.

AMY:
It’s random, but.. <laugher>

JOEL:
No, I think it just speaks of the power of doing small stuff over time. And the idea of compound action. Like over time action compounds upon itself and all of a sudden, you have this big massive thing, like I don’t even know how this happened but I’m pretty happy it did.

AMY:
Yeah, exactly

JOEL:
So as far as everything else is going, you’re first big event is at Portlan WDS.

AMY:
Yes. Yes. I’m excited.

JOEL:
So that is July 11th.

AMY:
Yeah, yeah. You should know <laughter>

JOEL:
So July 11th in Portland is the first stop but you’re doing several other stops around the country and if people wanna find out more information, where can they find out more information about you and specifically about the tour that you’re doing if they wanna get involved or just support it in general?

AMY:
Yeah definitely so our big thing right now is we just launched our indie-go-go campaign to raise funds for the actual tours, so that we can do it. And to get this movement out and to create this online movement as well. So if you could just contribute even if it’s a small amount or share it with your friends or both, that would be wonderful. Find out everything that you need to know about the tour, our stops that are already established and the ones that we’re trying to get hooked up at stronginsideout.com/tour and you can also click the link to contribute through there as well/

JOEL:
Okay, and that’s a specific indie-go-go page we’ll upload links to all those in the show notes below the podcast. As far as other projects you got going on, any other places that you want people to check out or find more about Amy Clover.

AMY:
Ohhh, I’m always available on stronginsideout.com and same @stronginside out Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

JOEL:
Okay, consistent.

AMY:
Yeah!

JOEL:
Awesome. Well I’m excited for the tour. I’m a little scared because it’ll probably hurt me

AMY:
<laughter>

JOEL:
But I’m excited for this tour. I’m gonna be at a couple stops myself and excited to see you change lives and really inspire a lot of people out there. So hopefully you guys check out stronginsideout.com/tour and you can find out all the stops that Amy’s doing. Amy, it was great to have you on the show.

AMY:
Thank you so much for having me Joel. Thanks for your inspiration as well.

JOEL:
Awesome. I’ll talk to you soon and until next time guys. I’ll see you in the next episode.
All right well that’s the podcast. If you guys enjoyed the podcast with Amy, you can find out more about her at stronginsideout.com and stronginsideout.com/tour to find out where she’s going to be on her tour this year. If you guys liked the podcast, head on over to impossiblefm.com/itunes and leave a review. It will help us immensely. And until next time, I’ll see you on the next show.

Hey everybody thanks for listening to the Impossible FM Podcast. For more tips, blog posts, podcast, videos and a whole lot more, check out impossiblehq.com. Until next time, I will see you guys next Monday morning right here behind the mic at 8:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. Until then, get out there, go do something that push your limits and do something impossible.