Abby Green 00:00:00  Even if something is different than you originally think it’s going to be, does it make it wrong? You just learn to adapt, as hard as that can be for some people, including myself, you just learn to adapt, and it’s a whole new path that you were always supposed to be on, just didn’t know it was part of your original plan.

Katy Ripp 00:00:20  Hey there, fellow rebels, welcome to #ActuallyICan, the podcast where we say a hearty hell yes to designing life on our own terms. I’m Katy Ripp, a lifestyle coach, business mentor, and serial entrepreneur here to guide you through the wild ride, defying what society expects of us and embracing our authenticity. On this show, we dive deep into taboo topics like death, money, spirituality, entrepreneurship, unapologetic self-care, and personal development, all while swearing and laughing along the way. Expect down and dirty conversations, plenty of humor, and a whole lot of exploration, leaving you feeling empowered to be your truest self. Whether you’re craving a good laugh, seeking unconventional self-care tips, or simply looking for some camaraderie.

Katy Ripp 00:01:06  You’ve come to the right place. We only get this one short life, so buckle up and let’s design yours on our own terms. Ready to dive in? Let’s go. Welcome back, listeners to #ActuallyICan. The podcast where we celebrate bold stories, shatter societal norms and explore what it truly means to live authentically. I’m your host, Katy Ripp, and today we are diving into a conversation that will inspire you to embrace all of life’s little pivots. Hopefully, give yourself permission to let go of any perfection you’re holding on to and pursue your dreams with courage. Our guest today is someone who embodies all of that and so much more. Abby Green is a coach, speaker, and fierce advocate for down syndrome inclusion. She’s also the co-owner of the wildly popular Herself podcast, a community dedicated to helping women pursue their dream lives without losing their relationships, their values or themselves in the process, as in any agreement. Three and recovering perfectionist Abby knows the power of a completed to do list, but she’s also learned that life is so much more than just checking off boxes.

Katy Ripp 00:02:17  Abby’s journey includes growing up in a home where making ends meet was a constant challenge, channeling that experience into an unstoppable entrepreneurial drive and finding her own. Actually, I can moment through her son own a sweet and spirited three year old. Her story is one of resilience, advocacy and the power of giving yourself permission to evolve. And so excited for you to hear this conversation and the wisdom Abby has to share. Welcome, Abby Green, thank you so much for being here. I’m so excited. I’m sort of fangirling here, right? Because I met you in person once just a few weeks ago, but I feel like I’ve known you forever.

Abby Green 00:02:56  And now we’re really friends. We’re real life friends. So you no longer have to go out. Cause we I look up, I.

Katy Ripp 00:03:04  I had to look up IRL not.

Abby Green 00:03:06  Too long ago. I’m not going to.

Katy Ripp 00:03:07  Lie about that. I was like, what, IRL?

Abby Green 00:03:10  Oh, God, if you’re not a IRL in real life, yes, if you.

Katy Ripp 00:03:16  Are 46 like I am IRL means in real life. I feel better about that now. So welcome Abby, I introduced you a little bit before, but I’d love to get your take on your life because of course I can collect all of the little snippets from everywhere, but, those always come up a little bit short, depending on who we are. So I’d love to get into your story. And you’re actually I can moment. And I think most of those come from our childhood where we make some turns and pivots and all of that. So, yeah, the floor is yours, sister.

Abby Green 00:03:51  Well, I’m a person who is made up of all the things that have come before, and all the dreams that are up ahead, just like every one of your listeners. Right? So we are born into families. We are born into bodies. We are born into circumstances that we can’t always change. Right then. Definitely not when we are, you know, two days old, but we can learn to work with them in ways that can make us either more successful and more powerful, or more resentful and more shy and more unknowing and more fearful.

Abby Green 00:04:21  And it’s a choice every day. It’s a choice with every decision, big and small. It’s a choice every single day. And I just want to remind everyone listening that you do have that choice. And I always get the flack of like, oh, you don’t know my life. It’s like, okay, well what within that can you control? Like, what can you control? Control the controllables because there’s a whole lot in this world that we don’t have control over, and we can literally burn ourselves out trying to make every single change. And I think that brings me right back to my childhood. I mean, I grew up in a home where we made $6,000 a year as a family. We sometimes had food on the table. We sometimes had work giving us food. I lived in rural North Dakota, like 50 miles from the Canadian border. So think like 70 miles to get to a grocery store. If we forgot milk, we weren’t drinking milk for two weeks. And it was one of those things that I didn’t know it at the time, but it was really going to set a precedent for how I viewed friendships, how I viewed money, how I viewed success and family and caring and all of those things because it was just different.

Abby Green 00:05:25  It was different than the life that I’m living now. And that is 100% the truth. And I think some people will have that type of lifestyle and continue with it, and other people will have that type of lifestyle and want something completely different. And that’s where the perfectionist side of me comes in, where my family is like type B, like everyone is type B, like they are clutter blind. They cannot see a mess. Like everything was dirty. And I think I saw like a little bit of mess and was like, oh, let me just clean that up. And I was probably two and a half and I never stopped. So I literally used like the messy, chaotic, always late lifestyle around me and built it into a habit that I’m trying to get better with. But it’s this perfectionism that kind of controls a lot of the way that I look and view the world, and I wish that I didn’t have that all the time, but that’s what my upbringing kind of brought in.

Katy Ripp 00:06:13  Well, it clearly it served you.

Katy Ripp 00:06:15  It’s served me.

Abby Green 00:06:16  Yes. It habits always do have it’s always.

Katy Ripp 00:06:18  Serve you in any way. Yes of course. And we get rewards from a lot of different things. Right. Like no. On the opposite side of this, my mother cleaned our house from top to bottom every single day. Every single day top to bottom. Everything was clean, immaculate. My friends would joke that we had like sunburst vacuum marks in our plush carpeting, right? Like every single day. I am the opposite. I don’t clean anything. I have people that help me do that. It took me a long time to figure that out, that it wasn’t like an inherently bad trait. It just was something I wanted to be clean. I wanted to be organized. I just don’t have the capability to do it. And so in my older years, when I’ve made some money, I’ve just used that money to get someone else to do it for me and given myself permission to do that. But in some way that, like freeing chaos, also served me right, like where my mother controlled that part of it.

Katy Ripp 00:07:14  It was a part of me that was like, I can control this on the opposite side. So fascinating that we probably come from like different sides and yet still are sitting here struggling with one thing or the other and wishing we were a little bit the other way. And it’s still okay that we’re the way we are.

Abby Green 00:07:34  Yeah. Or maybe you grew up in a house that was completely clean and that was the precedent and that was the standard. And so you’ve always kept that, like, how are childhood like we look at those things like big or small, and we look at those things as being like, this is I have an opinion on this, and this is what I want my life to look like. And you might be a person that doesn’t have the skill in that area. So then you hire or you barter, or you find a partner that can help with that kind of a deal, or you’re literally just crazy all the time because your house is west and you don’t know how to do it and you aren’t outsourcing it.

Abby Green 00:08:04  And that’s also an option that many of us have. Like, that’s also an option. But I do think that it’s like the part that really in my mind I’m like, okay, where can I get more help? And you said it like I pay people for it. And then that’s where it crosses over with, I want all these things, but I’m not willing to pay for it because of my scarcity mindset. We have the means to do it, and we have started outsourcing. Like if you looked at my life ten, 15 years ago, you’d be like, okay, you’re doing a much better job with like learning to let go, learning to let someone else do that. But always in my mind I’m like, but I could do it.

Katy Ripp 00:08:37  Oh yeah, I am the same. I mean, ten years ago I was doing everything running two businesses, running my little kids, all of the things. Right? And I just didn’t realize that asking for help or paying for help or any of that didn’t make me weak.

Abby Green 00:08:54  Oh, right.

Katy Ripp 00:08:55  I mean, I had to do it all because I could do it all. That is one of the things that I talked to people all the time. They’re like, but I can do it. Yes, I can do everything too. I can figure anything out. Also, there’s information for everything. We can be taught by the computer, by other people, by books and podcasts, and we can be taught. Just because we can do it does not mean we should do it. Yeah. So tell me about when you were living in North Dakota and living in this sort of small town. I’m guessing a little bit of small minds. Small. Just kind of small. Everything. Did the life that you’re living now ever cross your mind?

Abby Green 00:09:36  No. And, like, even fast forward to when I was 23 years old and getting my second big girl job at the time and were the person asked. They said if you could make any dollar amount, what would you make? And I sat there and I was like, I someday hope to make $80,000 in one year.

Abby Green 00:09:54  And he looked at me like, are you kidding? It’s a sales job. The answer is supposed to be like, it’s limitless. Like $11 million a year. Yeah, like it’s like like $7 million. Like something like that every single year for the next 30 years. And I said $80,000. And they looked at me and almost laughed, and I almost didn’t get the position because of that answer, because they’re like, is she so small minded? Like, so scarcity mindset, so finite mindset that she’s not going to try very hard. And the reason I came up with that number is that our family never made that. We never had a household income of that dollar amount. And I lived great in high school, like just compared to living in North Dakota, where the grocery store was 70 miles away. And I mean, between my brother and I, there was only two babies born at the hospital. Like, that’s how small it was. My brother is two and a half years younger than I am.

Abby Green 00:10:36  Like, it was so small that like, my high school experience felt It felt frivolous, like it felt just abundant, even though we were just very, very much middle class, lower middle class at that point. So I remember answering that question then, looking back now and being like, okay, like very much a different lifestyle now, very much a different life between my partner and I. And no, I couldn’t imagine that. And I think that some people don’t imagine it and then don’t get it. They don’t go for it. Yeah, yeah. You know, go for it. And other times they.

Katy Ripp 00:11:04  Don’t know it’s there.

Abby Green 00:11:05  They don’t know you’re there. It’s not possible.

Katy Ripp 00:11:07  You might not know what you don’t know. And I get that. But we also live in a world now that it is possible for anyone. There is so much out there and I’m sure we’ll get some backlash. I’m like, yes, we will. You don’t know my situation, sure I don’t, I know mine and I know that I didn’t come from I mean, we never wanted for anything that comes with its own baggage, right.

Katy Ripp 00:11:31  Like like there’s baggage in all of this. It’s really just like picking out the pieces and really figuring out how to react to almost everything or respond.

Abby Green 00:11:41  Yeah, and you had mentioned asking for help and not asking for help. I got into this point where all of a sudden I was working so hard. I bought a house at age 22 because I graduated college and went right into my master’s degree, because the job that I had was paying for it. So like I literally specifically found a job that would give me benefits and would pay for my master’s degree, like I was looking very specifically for that. And then I moved to Iowa. Like of all places, had never been to the state of Iowa and bought a house because it was the same amount of money to buy a house than to rent. So why wouldn’t I buy a house and then have a roommate or two? Or that roommate or two ended up being five roommates because I built out the basement and added in some more bedrooms, and then all of a sudden, 22, 22.

Abby Green 00:12:22  That was probably 23 at that point. But yes, like added a bathroom, added in bedrooms because in my.

Katy Ripp 00:12:26  Mind, no. Well.

Abby Green 00:12:28  In my mind I was just taking the next step. Like I was just taking the next best step. So like and now we own lots of properties and we’re part of property management companies. That was never part of my little dream. When I bought a house in Dubuque, Iowa, for $98,000, because the market was trashed in 2008, and they were trying to get anybody to buy any kind of house and, you know, put my 20% down because I had saved up the 20%, which I was so proud of. And I remember my dad, he didn’t come to the closing with me, but he came to the walkthrough with me and he kept on telling my realtor, I did not buy this house like my daughter bought this house I did not give her. And he said that and I’m being like so proud. I’m like, I’m tearing up thinking about it because I’m like, you know what dad, like you easily could have, like any parent could have easily taking credit for that.

Abby Green 00:13:11  But he made sure that this woman who was walking us through was like, this is my daughter’s decision. This is my daughter’s money. This is my daughter’s success that is buying this house and ended up being great. I had it for 15 years. I think it turned into, I mean, we could not live the life that we live without that house. Like it was paid off within four years because of the extra income that was coming in. And from that, that like triggered a different kind of mentality when it came to money because at the time, like if we can talk numbers, I was making $37,000, but was living so abundantly that, I mean, I was a single, like, didn’t have I had a dog but didn’t have kids or. Yeah. And I was living in Dubuque, Iowa. Like the costs were very, very low. And I remember being like, okay, well, if I’m making this much money here, where else can I make money? And I think that’s the entrepreneurial mindset is, okay, you have money and it can come from one place.

Abby Green 00:13:57  Why not add another place and another place and another place? And now fast forward to today. I have 27 different revenue streams that are coming in, all from a couple $10 a month all the way to dozens of thousands of dollars a month, just based on the different decisions that we’ve made all throughout the last couple of years.

Katy Ripp 00:14:15  Tell me how you gave yourself permission to do all of this. I think that there’s something so powerful in I mean, when you talk about it, it seems very like rational, right? Like this was the next best step. So I just did it and I did the next best step, and I just did it. And I think part of that is so much of what you learned as a child. Like it seemed like there was no other choice. Like, this is just what you did if you wanted to get ahead. So maybe you didn’t have some of the, like, baggage that comes with some of the kids that were raised with money, right? Because there is a whole bunch of baggage that comes with that too.

Katy Ripp 00:14:52  And you make it sound like very simple. Well, I just did the next best thing for me and to learn like, oh, I got an entrepreneur for it. Now I can make more money. How did you give yourself permission to do that? Were you looking for permission or were you just like, well, obviously I can just do this myself?

Abby Green 00:15:11  Well, I’m a person who learned to do everything myself to a fault. Like at two and a half. If my mom or dad wasn’t going to fill up my sippy cup, I was going to learn how to open up the apple juice and fill up my sippy cup. And like, that’s a story that my parents have, is that I literally was filling up my own cups at two and a half years old because someone wasn’t there fast enough, and I wanted everything right now. So I am a person. Like I want things right now. I know what I want after I’ve thought about it for way too long. So I don’t want things to sound simple, because every single one of these decisions took a lot of overthinking.

Abby Green 00:15:42  I am in overthinker to a tee and I’m like, overthink, overthink, overthink, overthink. But then as soon as I make a decision, it literally is such a good decision. Like I don’t go back on my decisions very often. And when I do, I can remember every bad decision I’ve made. Like, I can remember every bad decision that I’ve made because I’m like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that I did that. There’s only like six in my life. I mean, there’s probably more than that, but like six big bad decisions in my life. Yeah, that.

Katy Ripp 00:16:03  You remember.

Abby Green 00:16:03  And yeah, that I can remember. And they like, they, they haunt me at night because there were ones that I didn’t think about enough. I didn’t overthink them enough. But then in my mind, I’m like, wouldn’t it be better to just not overthink every decision and just kind of go for it once in a while? So I started doing that. I started doing like a combination of it, which goes against my natural instincts.

Abby Green 00:16:23  In 2001 or 2000, I should say it was in 2000, and at that point in time, we had just started the Herself podcast. It had a really big start. I was still working my full time. Wait wait.

Katy Ripp 00:16:33  Wait. Back up.

Abby Green 00:16:34  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:16:35  Did you say in 2001?

Abby Green 00:16:37  Sorry, I’m saying 2001. Wow, Abby. Wow. 2020.

Katy Ripp 00:16:43  Oh my God. I was like, oh my gosh. Didn’t have podcasts been around. Wow. I guess even.

Abby Green 00:16:48  Around in.

Katy Ripp 00:16:48  2001.

Abby Green 00:16:51  2001 comes with its own baggage. And I can talk about that for anybody that needs like. Yeah. Binge eating, eating disorders. Like hyper fixated on my body. That was a whole nother like bad decision that has like lasted me decades and decades and I’m still trying to recover from. But in 2000 is when we started the herself podcast and I still had a full time job. 2020 2020. And it was right before the pandemic. So everyone remembers early 2020.

Katy Ripp 00:17:18  Okay, it’s right.

Abby Green 00:17:18  Before the pandemic, January of 2020, and it started off with a bang. A couple of months in, I’m like, gosh, this podcasting thing is a lot more work than then you think it is. It’s a lot more work. And I was doing my full time job. I was still traveling almost every single week for my corporate job because I was in traveling sales. I had I had two kids and I was pregnant. I was newly pregnant, so like no one knew I was pregnant. So I’m like throwing up on airplanes and like, so nauseous. And you can’t tell anybody. I got viciously sick with every pregnancy, especially that last one. And in March of 2020 was when I probably made like one of those decisions that I was like, okay, you know what? I just got to do it or not. And I said, I’m going to go part time at work. Well, they didn’t have the option to go part time. So here I thought I made this like bold decision to go part time at work.

Abby Green 00:18:03  And it came with a lot of red tape. So we figured it out over the next couple of weeks of, okay, this is going to be the first time part time sales position that’s going to be offered here. And I was excited because I could still do my social media thing, I could still do the podcast thing, and I could still do my full time work thing. And then that was.

Katy Ripp 00:18:21  In March and and and.

Abby Green 00:18:23  And and and and that was in March, beginning of March. And 11 days later, the pandemic happened. Wow. And everyone went part time and no one was traveling. So everything that I had hoped and dreamed, I didn’t want to travel as much. I wanted to be home more. I wanted to like, be able to work from home. All of that was all of a sudden everyone got it, but they were getting a full time paycheck and I wasn’t. And so.

Katy Ripp 00:18:49  Shut up.

Abby Green 00:18:50  At that time, it was literally 11 days later. Katie.

Abby Green 00:18:52  It was 11 days after I had made that decision and signed the paperwork. I literally asked my boss, I’m like, is there any way I can go back on this? And she’s like, can I rescind? No. Like we just be like, we worked really hard. Like, we don’t know how long this is going to last. Well, it ended up lasting a very long time and that was a bad decision. Like in hindsight, that moment was a bad decision, but it led to so much more.

Katy Ripp 00:19:12  It might have been a bad decision then, right.

Abby Green 00:19:14  Then and that moment. And that’s where like when I say bad decision, I don’t want it to come with a negative connotation with it because every bad decision leads you to something else, either a lesson learned or a whole new opportunity that you had no idea about. Because that was in March of 2020. And in April of 2020, I found out that I was gonna have a baby who was going to be born with Down’s syndrome.

Abby Green 00:19:36  And that again just threw me off. Like, I’m like, what? Like, hold on here. So I start a podcast and then I go part time at work, and then a worldwide pandemic happens. And then now my third baby is going to be born with severe special needs. After I’m a planner, everything’s perfect. Everything goes as planned. Like I have three children who are all going to be very successful, very ahead of the head of the curve. And now I’m going to have a child that I don’t know anything about. I’ve never been around somebody with Down’s syndrome. I don’t know about Down’s syndrome. What am I going to do? And that opened up so many opportunities. I mean, just the online presence of being able to be vocal about the terrible thoughts that I was having and the what ifs that I was having and like, how can this be happening to me? LED to more people saying, wow, I’ve never said those words out loud. Like, thank you for finally saying that and hear you think you’re a terrible person for any thought you have.

Abby Green 00:20:27  Like think about in motherhood or in partnership or with work, you can think you’re a terrible person, and then you realize that other people are having those same thoughts. Just people aren’t talking about those terrible things because it’s uncomfortable. So it was like all of those little decisions seemed like, okay, we’re going to do this. It’s going to be so hard in the moment. But they’ve led to so many more beautiful opportunities to come.

Katy Ripp 00:20:51  So that three weeks, four weeks, six weeks of life right there. Packed possibly a lifetime of change into like six weeks right. Yes. Tell me about what did you do to keep your head above water at that time.

Abby Green 00:21:08  I remember very vividly staring at walls for like hours on time. Hours at a time, like hours and hours. I would just like blackout, I would blackout, I wouldn’t know what was happening. My husband went to research. I. Yeah. Just cut off the world like that was my way of dealing with it. I cut off the world.

Abby Green 00:21:23  But I did end up developing an autoimmune condition. And so I’m living with hypothyroidism that turned into Hashimoto’s. And I’m very curious if the stress that, like, I didn’t let go of during that time, combined with the stress afterwards, combined with all the pressure that the world puts on us as women, as humans, as mothers, that manifested itself into this autoimmune condition that I’ll have for the rest of my life now. And so when I say above water like, I don’t think I was above water, Katie, like I thought that I was drowning for a very long time and I was just trying to doggy paddle. Like I was really, really struggling just to stay afloat. There was no forward progress in my life at that time. It was like just meeting the bare minimums.

Katy Ripp 00:22:05  How long did that take? I mean, maybe you’re still not out of it. Totally. Right? Well, like.

Abby Green 00:22:10  When, I mean, because I went from having no doctor appointments with our third baby because it was the middle of a pandemic to having doctor appointments two to 3 to 4 times every single week.

Abby Green 00:22:20  And if anybody is listening that had a baby during that time, like my heart goes out to you because you have to go in, you have to get temperature checked, you have to answer 35 questions. You have to make sure you’re wearing a mask or six feet away. Like just getting into the hospital takes 30 minutes, and then you’re there for however long and then getting back home. And then every time you’re worried, like, am I bringing any type of disease back to my family? Because I was just in this public setting where there’s a whole bunch of sick people. So it’s like just this constant battle of like, should I be here or should I not be here? I’m here for my third child, but I’m actually am I giving consequences to my other kids and my partner and myself? So it was just this back and forth. And when he was and.

Katy Ripp 00:22:56  Also very much alone and isolated alone.

Abby Green 00:22:59  Every time, my husband wasn’t even there. Like when I found out that I was gonna have a baby with down syndrome, my husband wasn’t even there.

Abby Green 00:23:04  It wasn’t even there because it was the middle of the pandemic. So when Owen was actually born, that was like a huge moment where he came out and I had the dream birth that I always wanted to have, like it was the only normal part of that pregnancy was the birth. So it was exactly as I had planned. Yes, there was like a million people in the room because it’s a teaching hospital. And I said yes. And everyone wanted to see the woman giving birth without pain medication to a kid with down syndrome. Like it was like all these levels of like, okay, well, will he have a hole in his heart which he had in pregnancy? Will his liver not be functioning, which it wasn’t in pregnancy? Will he have a cyst on his brain which he did in pregnancy? Will he have bloody bowels, which he did in pregnancy? And literally he came out and there were, I mean, dozens of people in the room, the cardiologist, the liver specialist, the brain health specialist, the NICU like team had come down and they said, we’re most likely going to have to take him away for the NICU.

Abby Green 00:24:01  And I’m like, I get it. I packed a bag for three weeks and he came out. We found out that he was a boy because even though we knew all these things about our third child, we didn’t know if he was going to be a boy or girl. And he came out and I put him on my chest and I was like, can I like, can I? I don’t even know the words that I said at that moment, but I’m like, is it okay that he’s here? Like, is he going to. Is he? I was so scared that he was going to die because that was what the doctors kept on saying. Like, if we don’t get him away, get the help that he needs. And the doctors looked at him and they’re like, he’s good. Like Abby. He’s healthy, he’s perfect. And then I remember looking at him and he was so cute, and I was so scared that my child wasn’t going to be cute. Like, I was so worried that I wouldn’t be, that I wouldn’t like how he looked because of the down syndrome.

Abby Green 00:24:42  And if anybody is listening and they’re about to experience a child who has a special need or something that you’re not expecting, like he was the cutest. He was the absolute cutest. He looked just like his big siblings, just with an extra. So it was wonderful.

Katy Ripp 00:24:56  It was the cutest.

Abby Green 00:24:57  He is the cutest. Like he’s still the cutest, cutest.

Katy Ripp 00:24:59  Everybody that’s listening will go if they don’t already follow you. Go follow Abby. Yeah.

Abby Green 00:25:05  On Abby Rose green. You can see. Yeah on Instagram. At Abby Rose green, you can see a bunch of photos of our whole family. And he’s just great.

Katy Ripp 00:25:11  Yeah, and your other kids are also equally adorable. But he is just. I mean, he has, like, a bright, shiny, like, light aura around us.

Abby Green 00:25:20  Yes. He’s like chubby cheeks with this light aura. And I think that, like, what his birth meant, like to kind of bring it all in is that the doctors kept telling me that all these things were going to be wrong.

Abby Green 00:25:29  The books kept telling me how hard it’s going to be, and it is hard. You know, things weren’t perfect and there was some things that happened, but we got through them all and that was the thing. It’s like, even if something is different than you originally think it’s going to be, does it make it wrong? You just learn to adapt. As hard as that can be for some people, including myself, you just learn to adapt, and it’s a whole new path that you were always supposed to be on, just didn’t know it was part of your original plan.

Katy Ripp 00:25:56  Did you find any resources that looked at it the other way, that looked at it like that? Yes, it’s hard, but it’s not a death sentence because I think we do think special needs and or down syndrome. Like now you have a lifetime of right? Like and this is probably the worst word to use. But like shackled right. Like you’re like, yes. Tethered to this. Like, not only is it your child, but like all of a sudden it’s going to like somehow take your freedom away, which you’ve worked very hard for.

Katy Ripp 00:26:28  So tell me about that part of it. We were able to because I think you are a resource now, like you’ve been able to create yourself as a resource, but did you have other people to look to?

Abby Green 00:26:39  Yeah. And well, in freedom, kind of going back to what you said, freedom and independence are two of my biggest priorities in life. Like, I want my kids to grow up to be kind, independent individuals. And so when we found out that our child was going to be born with Down’s syndrome, I’m like, what does that mean for him? And he is independent, just in different ways. And I get to hold on to my baby for a little bit longer, like as our last child. Like there’s also some good things with that.

Katy Ripp 00:27:01  Highly independent he is. Yes, very much so. And it’s very much the shoe thing out of the closet to get outside. I mean, it’s like my favorite.

Abby Green 00:27:13  What’s Katie is talking about is he likes to escape and he’ll do anything to escape.

Abby Green 00:27:17  So we’ve now locked all of our doors. And what he does is he like piles shoes in front of the door because he’s too short to reach the lock in order to get out, and instead of like, he just tells me what he’s doing, he’s like, you didn’t let me out, so I’m going to make my own way out. I don’t know where the ladder is. So shoes in front of the door it is.

Katy Ripp 00:27:32  I wonder where he got that. It’s so weird that, like, it would be like his mom tried to get apple juice for herself.

Abby Green 00:27:38  Oh, gosh. That’s just like one of those things that just happens in his mind. Yes, he is so innovative. And that’s the thing is that he is so innovative because he didn’t learn that from anybody. And it just literally came into his mind like, I need to be taller. These shoes make me taller. A lot of shoes will make me a lot taller. Let’s go.

Katy Ripp 00:27:56  Maybe if we just all looked at life a little bit like that.

Abby Green 00:27:59  I mean, because there’s always an option and that’s like what we’re talking about the beginning. Like there is always an option. Yes, some of us were born into circumstances or have current circumstances that are harder. Yes. We’re not taking that away from you. And at the same time, we can literally do it if we pull the resources in order to do it. And some of the resources that I found were Jack’s basket. So Jack’s basket had all the pamphlets that I would reread over and over again because they weren’t scary. They were super comforting. They were positive about down syndrome. Julius Away was a great resource because I wanted to breastfeed our third child, just like I had with the other two. And they teach you all about breastfeeding kids with down syndrome because it can be a little bit tricky. Gigi’s Playhouse, they have a whole bunch of free resources. We are now big supporters of them. We love the stuff that they’re doing for our family and for others, and their social media presence, the pamphlets that they have, even just their monthly newsletter.

Abby Green 00:28:51  It just gave me this, like, okay, this isn’t so bad, I think I can do this.

Katy Ripp 00:28:56  Yeah. Tell me about the community around that, because that’s also like the other piece of this is no matter what you’re going through, If you think you’re the only one going through it, or that you’re the only one with the particular situation, right? Because everybody’s situation is a little bit different, how isolating it can be. And I don’t necessarily my intention is not to compare this necessarily. But like, for me, my biggest adversity in my adult life was becoming sober, right? Like quitting drinking. And for me, it was like so isolating. And the minute I started to talk about it and like really started to, like find kind of a tribe around it is when it really, like, opened up a whole community and opened up an entire new like, I don’t know, like a whole side of life I was not even privy to before. Right? Like you might have been privy to a maybe somebody you knew somewhere had a child with Down’s syndrome, but like, you weren’t in it like you are now.

Abby Green 00:29:57  I didn’t know anybody with down syndrome. I knew one person with down syndrome. Growing up like that is my story. I knew one person. They went to our church with down syndrome growing up. Like, I couldn’t tell you anything about that family, but that’s the only experience I had with down syndrome. Even in our high school, there was a special wing hallway. We didn’t go into class, it wasn’t integrated, so I didn’t have that kind of experience. And for a while there, I was almost thinking, and I don’t know, I’m going to say this out loud because I think that others might be able to relate to it. I almost wanted to be the only one because I’m like, I do have it harder than anyone else. I do have it harder than anybody else. Like I’m having a baby in the pandemic, which is hard enough. While working two full time jobs with my partner and I with two other kids. And this kid has down syndrome like I am the only one going through this, my situation is harder.

Abby Green 00:30:42  And then higher power universe, your higher self, whatever it is. One of our closest friends got pregnant. She was 25 at the time, so close that my husband officiated their wedding because we’re that close with them. She got pregnant with a baby with down syndrome. She lives two towns over and I’m like, how in the freaking world? So our babies are six months apart and we are doing so much life together now, but I think I needed that reality check to be like, okay, I’m not the only one. And what I realized, like going backwards in time, is that if I had never done the Herself podcast, I would not have found so many people that were in it. Like the online resources we call ourselves the Lucky Few. It’s the community that I get a VIP pass to that I never knew I wanted to. I remember saying I was like, I don’t want to be part of your stupid club. I remember saying that six days post diagnosis, I was like, I don’t want to be part of your stupid club because they were all so happy and they were so energetic and they were so useful and they were so helpful.

Abby Green 00:31:43  And I was like, I don’t want to be part of your stupid club, and now I’m part of that stupid club, and I am a like queen and that stupid club like I am anybody.

Katy Ripp 00:31:51  Who the stupid club.

Abby Green 00:31:52  Anybody who gets a diagnosis or like, is there. It’s like I want to be there. I want to like, I want to tell you my story. I want you to tell me your story. I want you to tell me your hesitations and, like, looking back, like the bad decision that I made to go part time at work in the middle of a pandemic. A it wouldn’t have given me if I was working full time. I wouldn’t have been able to go to all these doctor appointments. I would have been like, just completely strung out. I wouldn’t have given myself to the Herself podcast as I did, which is now my entire full time job, and I wouldn’t have met all the people. That literally became my lifeline during that process.

Katy Ripp 00:32:26  And the ability to look at that now is such a gift.

Katy Ripp 00:32:32  Yes. And to be able to share it with other people. Right. Like we want to be able to share these things so people don’t have it as hard. I think we have so many things that we can share with people that it’s not a competition of like, this is harder for me than it was for you or vice versa. It’s how can we collectively just be better people for each other. And I think that’s one of the things that like, every time I see Owens smile, I’m just like, oh, like the way that you advocate for him, but like, inside of your life is so refreshing, I think. And you also haven’t seen to lost yourself in the process, right? So tell me about that a little bit, because there is so much of this that goes along with like you possibly lost some of your independence. How do you keep that? How do you not feel guilty for having some of it? How do you still do the things that fill your cup while you’re trying to do all the other things and do, do, do and more and more and more? How does this all? I’m not asking for an answer here.

Katy Ripp 00:33:43  More of like, tell me some things that people can do that might feel like they’re drowning in a situation like this.

Abby Green 00:33:50  Yeah. And I think that some people do make it their entire identity. I don’t think that it’s necessarily wrong if you can still have part of yourself in that, like if that truly is how you feel, but especially the stay at home parents that are there and they are with their kiddo all day, they are taking them to every therapy appointment. They are taking them to every doctor appointment. They are being their therapist. They are being their doctor. In some cases, like that can be really hard. The first year of life was really hard. It was doctor appointments every week, you know, multiple times a month. It was so much therapy because it wasn’t offered by the school at that point yet, because we weren’t in school settings. It was like trying to figure out the insurance and trying to figure out the free resources and like, which one should we do that’s more convenient, but also within budget.

Abby Green 00:34:33  And I think that it can become your entire identity. So I just want to say that I have chosen for it not to become that. And on almost every interview that I do that comes up there like it’s not your entire identity, like you still are a mom to two typical kids. You’re still a partner, you’re still a businesswoman, you’re still a podcaster and a speaker, and you’re an inclusion advocate. Like, and that’s part of you.

Katy Ripp 00:34:54  And and and you can be all of it. Yeah. We can’t.

Abby Green 00:34:57  And so like I think like growing up when someone asks what do you want to be when you grow up? You’re like, I want to be a ballerina and a musician and a scientist, and I want to go to the moon, and I’m going to be a teacher and a mom. And then you’re like, okay, that’s cute. And like, we think that you can do that when you’re little, but then you grow up and you realize, okay, you can do that, but you can’t do all of those at the same time.

Abby Green 00:35:19  Yeah. So it’s kind of figuring out, okay, in this season, what am I going to prioritize. And then in this season, what am I going to prioritize? Having a two month old with down syndrome and two older kids versus having a four year old with down syndrome and two older kids? It’s night and day different. Like I have so much more capacity. I am sleeping well. The school is helping out with so much of the therapies. The doctor appointments are down to every other month if that. So like the living in abundance is coming back in with time and with energy now where it was really hard for a couple of years there. It was really, really hard.

Katy Ripp 00:35:54  Yeah, that’s such a good point. When we think about abundance, we always think money, right? Oh I mean oh almost immediately. Right. We think, oh well there’s more money, there’s more money, but the time and the energy. Thank you for saying that, because I think that there’s something so much that we miss sometimes of what is the scarcity mindset look like in terms of time or in terms of energy? We very rarely talk about that of when your time is sucked away from you.

Katy Ripp 00:36:23  You might be making all the money in the world, but of course all of us don’t have all the time in the world. We just don’t, right? There’s not enough time. Forever is has an end date. It has an we are going to expire. Abundance for money is infinite, right? Infinite. You can make as much money as you want. There’s never any end to it. Energy to in. In theory, if you’re not a 40 something year old woman, Energy is also infinite. but when you talk about the creating some space for energy and time for yourself, tell me about like, what does that look like? You know, when you have good sleep and when your health is in check and you’re filling your cup and doing all of that, what is your time and energy look like when you’re in a decent space? An abundant space for that?

Abby Green 00:37:13  Yeah. And I’ll go back to saying control the controllables. I mean, having Hashimoto’s, if anybody is listening that has hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s, the main symptoms are lack of energy.

Abby Green 00:37:22  And so I went through two years of my life where I couldn’t make it until 1 p.m. without needing a nap, and when I needed a nap, it was a three hour nap. So I was taking like three hour naps 3 or 4 times a week just to make it through. And just living in a constant state of like. My skin was dull, my eyes were dull. If someone brought up a conversation that was controversial and I didn’t agree with it, I would just say yes to it because I literally didn’t have enough energy to even say my opinion, and I lived like that for a very long time. And some of those habits have stayed. And for like, I don’t have to bring up every single argument like some of it’s probably good. Like, you know what? I could probably just pass on that one. you know, like, I would.

Katy Ripp 00:38:01  Have a choice here if I was being.

Abby Green 00:38:02  Really spunky, I’d bring that one up. But you know what? I’m just not going to.

Abby Green 00:38:04  I’m not. You’re not going to fight. I don’t have the energy for that one right now. But like the energy and time you can buy back from making more money or using that money wisely is so important. Because I don’t want to die at. Let’s have like 90 years old with a whole chunk of cash that I’ll just hand off to my kids and grandkids and have a life that I’m like, was I just busy that whole time? Was I just always busy and not asking for help or delegating help? And what I do in this lifetime. And I think that right now, like there’s times where I’m like, I’m just busy and I don’t think that’s a badge of honor. I don’t think it’s a badge of honor. I’m. I’m just busy, and I don’t want to be busy. I want to be prioritized. I want to be prioritized. I want it to feel good with the things that I’m doing. I want my calendar, and I encourage everyone listening. I want your calendar to reflect your values.

Abby Green 00:38:57  And if there’s things on there that aren’t part of your values, like, no, you can’t just like stop going to work unless you find another job, which if you don’t like your work, I always encourage you find something that you do like. But if you don’t have like a lunch on there with a friend, even though you really want to have more adult friendships if you don’t have a workout on there. Even though valuing your workout is super important, if you don’t have a date night on there, even though your partnership is super important to you like, is this worth living? No.

Katy Ripp 00:39:23  I say to a lot of people because I’m a values junkie, is that your calendar and your bank accounts are an amazing mirror for your values. Whether you think you have something on your calendar that you value, or you’re missing something from your calendar, your calendar and your spending accounts will tell you what you value right now. And if they don’t align, that is how we get sick. That is how we start drinking.

Katy Ripp 00:39:51  Start eating too much. Start bingeing in front of Netflix, which, you know, I do all of these things. I’m not perfect either, but it has opened up my eyes in. If I don’t really value these things, why am I spending my time doing them? And I’ve had to put up some tough boundaries. Yes, connection is absolutely one of my core values, but connection to me could be connection at home with my family. It doesn’t need to be a lunch with friends. However, I still value my friends so I have to make an effort. I want to keep my friendships. I have to make an effort. That means I might have to forgo my afternoon nap for lunch. And those are things that I do. But the values piece we’ve been prescribed as women, especially values, we get prescribed values rather than set them on our own. And if I can say anything to anyone is please find your actual values, not what somebody has prescribed to you, and start living by them, because your life will turn around immediately if you start doing that.

Katy Ripp 00:40:57  And my number one core value this year was comfort and pleasure. Period. Like that’s how I base my decisions. Like is this comfortable for me? Some things are not comfortable for me. I have to decipher whether the comfort is uncomfortable because I’m not going outside my comfort zone. Right. Or it’s uncomfortable because it’s unsafe. There’s a difference. There’s a difference between pushing myself outside my comfort zone for growth and then being uncomfortable because this is actually not safe for me. But digging into that has made such a huge in my spending habits. How I spend my time, how I live unapologetically. I’m like, listen, these are my values. It just makes it so much easier. I just don’t have anything to apologize for anymore because I’m just living in my values. If you don’t like it, I’m so sorry.

Abby Green 00:41:46  Right. Well, I mean.

Katy Ripp 00:41:47  Sorry, not sorry, I.

Abby Green 00:41:49  Know. Well, give yourself permission to make the change. Like, I think that some people like. I’m 38.

Abby Green 00:41:53  You’re 46. Like, some people are like. Well, you know, I’ve already done 46 years on this planet. I’ve already done 38 years on this planet. It’s like, okay, you still have so much more. If you can make a decision right now and actually act upon that decision by giving yourself permission to fully go into that decision, you’re going to have such a better next year, next five years, next ten years, next 30, 40, 50 years. And I mean, how wonderful is that?

Katy Ripp 00:42:17  I think to when you say 46, you know, 3846 for me at like 42 is when I really started digging in, right? Like I had some shit go down in my life that I was like, oh, I’m going to make a decision about this, and we’re going to go this way. Instead. It was one of those things that I would have like said, no thank you to, but it was like one of those things that I made a decision, like I moved in a positive direction, but at 42 I was like, okay, well, I’m halfway to 84.

Katy Ripp 00:42:42  At the time, 84 was like the average women’s lifespan. Okay, so at 42, I was like, I have 42 years left. But if you think about it, like 20 of my last 42 years were learning like a learning from like 0 to 20. Major, major learning. I have so much like I have like actually another 60 years, if you think about it, like dog years. Right. Because we know so much more and we can do so much more with the next 40 years. And for me, like comfort also physically, like I want to be comfortable when I’m 84, that means that I have to do certain things. I have to walk every day. I have to stretch. I have to lift weights, I have to eat healthy. I have to do things so that I’m comfortable physically in my 40s and 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s. So I think really just again, that values peace is just. I’m a real values junkie right now.

Abby Green 00:43:39  It’s everything.

Abby Green 00:43:39  Yeah, yeah. And I reevaluate my values multiple times a year, and I look back at them and even if the word is the same, I reevaluate. What does that mean to me now? Like, has the word freedom changed? Like the word freedom? Before becoming an entrepreneur, when I only had two kids, both typically developing kids is a lot different than the word freedom now. Yeah, independence. Lifelong learner, like all those different pieces, can just really make a big difference when you break it down and you live your daily life because that’s what it is. Life is a whole bunch of daily decisions. Yeah, that’s your life. And like I used the I’ll start tomorrow thinking with so many things and I still fall back on that. And like when I do it, I’m like, stop doing that, Abby. Stop doing that. Because the starting tomorrow, I’m like, start right this second when you can start things right this second and make those changes. That’s when, first of all, you rewire your brain to actually make those changes instead of using the scapegoat of tomorrow.

Abby Green 00:44:31  And then you also have a whole extra six hours, 12 hours, 18 hours of living that way.

Katy Ripp 00:44:38  Yeah. Tell me about the permission piece. Both of us are. When we started talking about this, it was like, God, could we just start writing out permission slips for everybody? Like, would that be amazing? But. And as much as I would love to do that, it’s actually we cannot give you permission. Nobody can give you permission to do anything. You have to give yourself the permission to say yes, say no, say maybe, say any of it. Say, actually, I can do that. What does it look like? How do I make these steps? What are you currently looking to give yourself permission for?

Abby Green 00:45:14  Ooh, I think for me it’s really sinking into the little enjoyments in life. I’m a big picture thinker, and I think that’s served me well. And I think one thing that three kids, especially one with down syndrome, teaches you is that, like, the littlest of things can have the most amount of enjoyment.

Abby Green 00:45:35  And I think so much of us. I do this all the time where I’m like, hurry up, we got to get in the car. Or like you’re pushing things to the very last minute. You’re trying to get too much in and in one day. And it’s like if you can like stop and slow down just a tiny little bit and give yourself permission just to be like, whoa, that walk like the point of a walk is the walk. It’s not to get to the end of it. The point of the walk is to be out there walking like the point. And I thought about this one time when I was this summer when we were having a campfire, and I’m like, the whole point of this campfire isn’t for the ashes to burn out and for it to be done. The point of the campfire is like the burning and the changing and like adding another log. Like that’s the point of the campfire. It’s the in it, it’s the in it, not the destination. And so I’m giving myself permission to enjoy the journey and not just focus on the destination.

Katy Ripp 00:46:23  I love that I think that there’s so much obviously there’s we’re not just trying to get to the end of our life, right? Right. Like the fire is burning. Yeah, I know that sounds super cheesy, but like, the fire is burning right now. Like we’re just not trying to get to the end. I think that’s one of the things that’s changed the most for me is at 46, I just thought, I thought my life would be different. At 46, I thought, God, well, I also look in the mirror every day and I’m like, am I 46? Like, I remember my mom being 46 and like my mother in law turning 50 and my sister just turned 50. And like, I think the 46 is like the new 36 or the new 30 or whatever. I think we’re in a different generation than lots of 46 year olds. Were 40 years old for sure, and we should be very thankful for that. And I go back and forth about like, what do the next years look like or what kind of permit.

Katy Ripp 00:47:18  I mean, for me, like I’m trying to give myself permission to I’m a big dreamer, but not really for myself. So it’s really been like I’ve dreamt for businesses, or I’ve dreamt for other people, or I’ve dreamt really like I can dream really big. Like you can do anything, but I haven’t really done it for myself. So I think this is the year that I’m like, oh, I’m gonna like, this is going to be it. I’ve been waiting for a while, like churning for a while. But I would imagine that in your 20s or 30s, if you’re listening to this, you’re like, oh shit, I’m like, I missed the boat on some of this, right? Like, yeah, I’m not married yet. I don’t have kids yet. I don’t I can’t afford a house yet. All the things that we like check the boxes for. I talked to a lot of women right now that have checked all the boxes and are still unfulfilled. Like kids marriage.

Katy Ripp 00:48:10  Right? Right. House.

Abby Green 00:48:12  Right. What is going to make you happy? What is gonna make you happy? Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:48:16  401 K right. And there’s that, like, funny, cute movie. You know, what do women really want? Like, what do you really want? I think we just haven’t even, like, dug down far enough to realize, like, what are we looking for, really? Because there is going to come a time in your life that you have checked all the boxes, and then what?

Abby Green 00:48:35  And then what?

Abby Green 00:48:36  And then I get to answer life with a completed to do list without actually enjoying that part of it. That yeah, I struggle with that. Like, and I and I agree, I struggle with that. And I think that it’s when we have conversations like this, I always leave these and I’m like, okay, what’s one thing I can do right now? Maybe I won’t pull up my laptop. We’ll go out for a walk instead. Maybe I’ll call that friend that I’ve been wanting to call for a long time, and then life starts to happen.

Abby Green 00:49:00  And then it’s easy to get back into the habit of it. So, like, don’t be hard on yourself if you get back into habit of it and every season brings something new. Like that’s the truth too, is that every single season brings different kinds of abundance, different kinds of opportunities. And you have to know that sometimes, like, this might not be your season for all the things, but the next season might be a lot easier.

Katy Ripp 00:49:18  And seasons can be different, like lengths of time. Like it’s not like four seasons every year, right? I feel like six months ago I was in a totally different season with my kids, and all of a sudden both of them are taller than I am. Like, literally within the last six months, both of them are taller than I am. Both of them have had like hit like a growth period of their lives. Not just physically, but like mentally, emotionally, hormonally, all of the things. And now I’m in this different season where I was like, oh, they are so independent, but also like such a lovely place to be.

Katy Ripp 00:49:56  I mean, people say that the teenagers are horrible or whatever. I find this to be like one of the best seasons of my life. I think it’s probably because I feel really healthy right now. Yeah. So I just feel really good about myself. So I just there’s really just not a lot of chaos in our life. So I know that sounds crazy because we’ve got a lot of stuff going on all the time, but my kids are just kind of even keeled right now. And I’m like, man, it’s fun to watch them get into a like, do I miss the snuggle baby part? Yes. Do I miss the car seats? Fuck no. If I never have to have another car seat, I just like the car. As soon as we get out of car seats, I was like, oh God, thank the Lord. I didn’t really want to wish it away, but I did. Oh gosh.

Abby Green 00:50:37  There’s so many of those things. That’s like, once I get out of this stage, I’ll miss this and this, but I won’t miss this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this and this.

Katy Ripp 00:50:47  It’s so true, it’s so true. But the seasons to like all of these things that I talked to a lot of people about now is all the things that I used to roll my eyes at. I say this all the time. Like I used to roll my eyes like meditation doesn’t work and journaling doesn’t work, and long walks don’t work. It was only balls to the wall. I have to run a marathon. I have to eat clean. I’m never eating sugar again. I like all of this very black and white restrictive thinking. And then if I failed at something, which was an unrealistic expectation, so incredibly failed that every single thing like ten minutes of doing something isn’t enough to do it. Except it is enough depending on what you’re doing it for, right? Like I was ten minutes of yoga every single day for the rest of your life is way better than three weeks of hot yoga at 90 minutes and then never doing it again.

Katy Ripp 00:51:45  Uhhuh.

Katy Ripp 00:51:46  And so consistency has been a really, like, a tough thing for me to wrap my head around, because I’ve just always been such a black and white thinker.

Katy Ripp 00:51:54  If it’s not 60 miles an hour, it’s zero. Yeah, there’s no nice 35, right?

Abby Green 00:52:02  I’m a black and white thinker, too, and I think that one of the easiest things to start it on is workouts, because it’s like, well, I don’t have time for a 60 minute workout, so I’m not going to do that. And then weeks can go by and you don’t get it in. But if you’re like, I’m just going to start, like I’m just going to start. If I have energy for ten minutes, I have energy for ten minutes. If I have energy for six minutes, I have energy for six minutes, and usually you have energy for a 20 minute workout. And if you can do that 3 or 4 times a week for the rest of your life, like like you said with the yoga. How big of a difference it makes. And it’s not just in like, because some people might have those goals because of a physical look, but then you realize like, okay, the physical look is what I started this for.

Abby Green 00:52:37  But like how I feel internally, how my mind is working and how my relationships are, how I don’t snap at my kids or my partner nearly as much, how I’m more focused at work, how I’m actually now I’m eating better and drinking more water because I know the workouts going to feel better. If I do that. It’s like one little decision all of a sudden manifests itself into all these different decisions. And life is easier all around because of a six minute workout. Because you said yes to a six minute yes.

Katy Ripp 00:53:03  Any bright I think. You know, Emmy, I started working with her as a nutritionist, and she said this to me and I’m probably going to butcher it again. I’ve done like ten times. But she asked me on our first consultation. I said, I just can’t get I can’t wrap my head around like ten minutes a day. If it’s not 45 minutes, I just feel like it’s not enough. And she was like, well enough for what? And I was like, well, I don’t know.

Katy Ripp 00:53:26  And she was like, well, what’s your goal? And I was like, well, I don’t know. Health. I want to be healthy. And she was like, well, so is it enough to be healthy? And I was like, yeah. And she goes, what you’re talking about is it’s not enough for weight loss. And that’s different. It might not be enough for weight loss. You don’t know that. But if your goal is health and longevity, you can bet your ass that ten minutes a day is enough right. For one bottle of water is enough.

Abby Green 00:53:54  Right. Like as we’re both drinking a gallon.

Katy Ripp 00:53:56  Yeah. Like not a gallon. You don’t have to drink a gallon every day or do two 45 minute workouts. You just have to do ten minutes and one more bottle of water a day. And that, like, changed everything for me is like, is this enough? Well, enough for what? Enough for what has always been like now that she opened up that entire world to me, I’m like, okay, well, is it enough to walk down my driveway and back or not enough? Like enough for what? If it’s enough for my health, then yes, of course I should walk down the driveway and back.

Katy Ripp 00:54:31  It’s better than not doing it at all. So shout out to Amy, who changed my life.

Abby Green 00:54:37  For what? Enough for what? Enough for what? Like a good line pick up.

Katy Ripp 00:54:41  Like do the dishes. Right. I could leave dishes for days because I was like, well, if I’m not going to do all the dishes, it doesn’t make sense to do.

Katy Ripp 00:54:50  or.

Katy Ripp 00:54:50  If I’m not going to clean the entire house, okay, why would I just do the dishes? Or why would I make my bed if I’m just going to get in it later? That’s one for me, for sure. But I also want my environment to be nice. So is it enough to just make the bed? Sure, it does make a difference to just make your bed. So that sort of is it enough has now turning in my head. So if that helps anybody, I hope it does.

Abby Green 00:55:18  I like that I’ll be thinking of that too.

Katy Ripp 00:55:20  Oh, happy. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Abby Green 00:55:24  Oh my gosh.

Katy Ripp 00:55:25  I would really love for you to share how people can find you, how people can find the podcast. We are definitely going to put all of them actually mentioned a couple of resources here to that. I will definitely put in the show notes, but I would love to hear where anybody can find you, your work, your podcast, you do some coaching right now. I would love all of that. So give it to me.

Abby Green 00:55:46  Yeah. So the Herself podcast comes out every Monday and we have for five years now since 2020, not 2001. And that is where yeah, we speak with amazing people and experts and just are figuring out life’s inquiries over there. And then my personal Instagram account is Abby Rose green. And that’s where I share my lifestyle and my family and a little bit of budget friendly fines, along with inclusion advocacy. Along with just being a mom and being a wife and all that that entails. So between those two resources, that’s where you can find me the most amazing.

Katy Ripp 00:56:25  I would love to drop a little option for coaching for people. What are you coaching people on right now?

Abby Green 00:56:31  Yes. So mainly on online business. So if anybody wants to start online business, think anything with social media, anything with podcasting. I also have a podcast course that I teach people on, which.

Katy Ripp 00:56:42  I took, by the way.

Abby Green 00:56:43  I it’s a good one. You’re learning all the things from here.

Katy Ripp 00:56:46  I will be your testimonial. Here we are.

Abby Green 00:56:49  Yeah. We’ve helped hundreds of women with that podcasting course to get their podcasts out into the world, and then a lot of mindset coaching. So if you’re stuck on anything, whether it’s a transition to try to do something new, whether it’s giving yourself permission to actually do the thing, whether it’s something with your health. A lot of people come to me for different things with their health, whether it’s binge eating or just being able to do the thing. So much of it is usually a mindset and not external resources. And I’ve learned that in my own life.

Abby Green 00:57:16  I’ve learned that in hundreds of women who I’ve coached. And so between mindset and online business, which they can also go very much hand in hand, those are things I mean, things.

Katy Ripp 00:57:25  In coaching, I mean, really.

Katy Ripp 00:57:27  Can’t do it without the mindset shift. So yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on. We’ve got some other projects with Abby coming up too, so I’m very excited about that. So stay tuned. Go over and follow Abby on her Instagram. You will not be disappointed. Her children are adorable. Owen’s now a celebrity. Well, all three children are kind of celebrities, so head on over there and check that out. You will not be disappointed. So thank you for joining me today. Thanks again. And that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed diving deep into the world of living authentically with me. Before you go, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram. Shoot me a message at Katy Ripp. I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and connect with you further.

Katy Ripp 00:58:13  And remember, if you want more details on today’s episode, or just want to explore more about designing your life unapologetically, head on over to my website at Katy Ripp dot com. There you’ll find all the juicy details and resources you need to keep the inspiration flowing. Lastly, if you’d like to join me on the show, whether it’s to tell about your experience of designing your own life, to share your expertise, or if you’d like to participate in lifestyle coaching live on air, don’t hesitate to reach out. Your story could inspire countless others on their own path to living authentically. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep living boldly designing your life. And remember, #ActuallyICan.