Believe The Hope

Paul Nottoli (00:00.927)
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Believe the Hope podcast. I'm here with Amanda Almond and she's a nutjob. I'm just kidding. She's a little crazy. But seriously, you'll hear why in a second. But anyway, if you're an OG of the old podcast, I used to do Health Geeks Radio. She was actually a co -host for the last few episodes that we had did over.

Amanda Almond (00:13.582)
But seriously.

Paul Nottoli (00:30.785)
the last six months of the episode before I stopped that. So Amanda is a personal trainer, mom to two boys, elite triathlete, which she just finished first during an age group in the Louisville Half Mariner Ironman this weekend. So congrats on that. Another trophy to her tremendous trophy case that she has. She's a Lululemon ambassador, master trainer. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her family and her dog, Mr. Pete.

Amanda Almond (00:46.804)
Thank you.

Paul Nottoli (00:58.047)
And for fun, she likes doing home projects and enjoying specialty coffee. So welcome, Amanda. Thanks for being here.

Amanda Almond (01:06.413)
Thank you for having me.

Paul Nottoli (01:08.821)
So the first question I ask because I like to get a perspective on everybody's definition of hope because everyone has a little bit definition usually based on life experience or where they're at in their life right now. So what does hope mean to you?

Amanda Almond (01:26.838)
This is a tough one. I actually thought about this. I had a three hour bike ride this morning. So I thought about this a lot while I was riding my bike and what hope means for me. And for me personally, I think there's a degree of you can't necessarily separate hope and faith, whatever that means to you, but they kind of all go together because there's an aspect of hope that there's a belief or a trust.

Paul Nottoli (01:31.229)
Hahaha

Amanda Almond (01:56.512)
in that there's a bigger plan, a bigger purpose, that you're part of something greater, and that it's gonna work out in the end. And I think that's the key in hope. And when I think about hope, or I think about being hopeless, is that you've lost sight of what is possible. So for me, hopelessness is when you've lost the ability

Paul Nottoli (02:12.811)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (02:24.888)
to trust that there's something bigger, better out there. So for me, hope is the belief that there is a greater plan, a greater purpose, that there is something bigger out there. And that there then you have this hope, you have this belief, this sight, this ability to see past your current situation, past

the current struggles and believe that something's going to get better.

Paul Nottoli (02:59.841)
And how often do you feel hopeless when you're running, when you're going to in 70 .3 miles of biking, running, swimming combination.

Amanda Almond (03:12.078)
I mean, so we'll just take a step back. I love the full Ironman distance. and for those who are listening, who don't know, a full Ironman is a 2 .4 mile swim, a 112 mile bike, and then a marathon 26 .2 mile run. and so I just did half of that. I did a half Ironman this past weekend. And I will say of all of the races I've done,

Paul Nottoli (03:12.841)
You

Paul Nottoli (03:20.192)
Okay.

Amanda Almond (03:40.414)
this is the one where I actually did feel hopeless for a couple of minutes. And it was ironic because when I finally got out of that state, I was kind of like, shoot, Paul, this is all your fault. You messaged me right before the race. Do you want to talk about hope? was like, yeah, sure. I have lots of hope. And then I was like, this is over. My race is done with. And so it was very, very ironic at the moment. honestly,

Paul Nottoli (03:43.773)
you

Amanda Almond (04:10.082)
I think that sport has helped me have more hope and the ability of that, there are hopeless times in training, especially in endurance. Like there are days you show up and you're tired and you're fatigued. There are days that nothing feels good. Actually, most days things don't feel good. And it's kind of just the belief in showing up and creating a consistent routine and then trusting.

I guess that's a component of hope as well, trusting that the work you've done, the consistency is going to pay off in the long run. And so I would say that I honestly probably am better at having hope in races and hope in sport than I am sometimes in real life because I practiced it so much and I've spent so much time, I mean, somewhere between 16 and 25 hours a week for

Paul Nottoli (04:56.789)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Nottoli (05:00.459)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (05:08.814)
don't even know how long, a long time. That's why, excuse me, that's why I yawn all the time. Because thinking about that, I'm like, wow, that's a lot of time. But I spent a lot of time training and building consistency and building a base that allows me to get into races most of the time and believe that even if I'm not at the front now, I can be.

Paul Nottoli (05:14.433)
you

Amanda Almond (05:38.798)
There's been quite a few races that I've never doubted that. So last year, last year, no, 2023. Yeah, I guess it was last year. I won my first ever like bigger race 70 .3. And coming off the bike, I was in 10th place for the females. So I had to run down 10 women and people asked me like,

Did you question that? Did you think you couldn't do it? And I answered, I was like, no, honestly, like the whole time I just had this confidence and belief that I could, and it didn't matter where I came off the position on the bike. I was like, I'm going to run them down. And I did. And it was awesome. This past race, so my story of hopelessness, I got caught in a pack on the bike.

in an unfortunate time and got caught kind of going up a hill and tried to get out of the draft, but not in enough time that an official came by. And so we all got drafting penalties. It's the first penalty I've ever gotten in a race. And so it means you sit in a tent basically and watch all your friends go by or watch everybody else go by for five minutes. And five minutes is a really long time in a race. And so I was sitting in the penalty tent.

Paul Nottoli (06:50.335)
Thank

Paul Nottoli (06:58.396)
Yeah

Amanda Almond (07:03.018)
And for the first time ever, I was like, it's over. This is it. Like I worked so hard. I'm not the best swimmer. I worked so hard on this bike to put myself in a good spot. And this is it. My race is done. I have no hope. There is nothing left. A couple of my teammates saw me as they were going by the penalty tent. They're what are you doing in there? You can't park there. And I was like, yeah, well, just giving you a head start. Like, ha ha ha.

and so I finally get out of the penalty tent and get my, back to transition, get my shoes and I take off running and everything hurt. And I knew like the logical part of me was like, Hey, it's because you got a penalty. Like this is why you hurt so bad because you were sitting in the penalty tent and now you're mad and you don't think it was fair. And now you're having a pity party. And I could tell myself that, but I couldn't.

Paul Nottoli (07:48.546)
Mm

Amanda Almond (08:00.012)
I couldn't get past it. I was spiraling. was like, man, my race is over. I knew I had lost positions. I knew I was in fifth in my age group. I knew I was not high enough overall and I probably had put myself out of an overall win again. And so I was really spiraling for like two miles, which is a decent amount of time. Hindsight and reflection if I had had more hope and belief in myself.

Paul Nottoli (08:22.268)
Mm -hmm

Paul Nottoli (08:28.235)
You

Amanda Almond (08:28.778)
might have been a different outcome. But for two miles, I had a nice little pity party running through the streets of downtown Louisville until I came upon one of my teammates who said, get out of your head and go get it. And I was like, yeah, that's what I've been trying to tell myself, but it's a little different when somebody else tells you that. And so I started to, for the next two miles, change my self -talk into

Paul Nottoli (08:50.529)
Hmm.

Amanda Almond (08:57.302)
Okay, be, you feel bad acknowledging. I did feel bad. My ankles were sore. My calf was hurting a little bit, but I knew all of those things were, I was aware of all of those things because I was in a bad mood. and so I started to acknowledge them. You hurt because this is why you hurt. and yes, you are not in a great position anymore, but you can still run and you can.

Paul Nottoli (09:16.619)
Mm

Amanda Almond (09:25.194)
maybe not run your way into first place overall, but you can run yourself into first place age group. You know that. And so I started to change my self -talk in what I was telling myself about this race. And then I started to have some hope. And I saw a teammate who had been counting people for me and was like, hey, you've moved up to third, right? So, okay, I've moved up two positions. I was counting women and I was like, okay.

Paul Nottoli (09:29.781)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Nottoli (09:34.273)
some talk about in whatever song that sounds about this piece and then I started to have some hope about...

Amanda Almond (09:52.102)
Now I really am starting to see like, am hopeful that I can actually finish this race. And about that time, mile four, my body physically started following what I was telling myself mentally and I started to feel good. And I ran better and ran my way into a first place win. But it's just really interesting to think about.

the hopelessness in that point and the physical response. Like I think that is a very interesting takeaway that people neglect to think about is your mental state often shows up in a physical response as well. And so when I was hopeless, physically I felt terrible. And when I started to have hope and belief again, physically I came around.

Paul Nottoli (10:29.98)
-huh.

Amanda Almond (10:42.926)
And maybe that wouldn't always be the case, but I have found many times in life, same thing, when I am hopeless about something, this is never going to change. We bought a house like two months ago and there were a couple, like the inspection came back and it was, you know, they're always terrible at first. And I was like, this is it. We're going to be broke for the rest of our lives. Like it's all terrible. And that wasn't the case. And thankfully,

Paul Nottoli (11:04.683)
for the rest of our lives. It's all terrible.

Amanda Almond (11:11.968)
my husband's a little bit better, but like at refocusing that. But the physical response to that was training wasn't as good. I slept in instead of getting up to go to the pool. There was a physical response to the mental hopelessness that I was not pulling myself out of. Whereas other times when I've been like, yes, this is going to be different this time or

This is going to be, you know, when we did finally close on the house, I was up early and I was ready to go and it was all great and it was fine because I was able to have that hope. And so I think there is.

There's two lessons that I have drawn from this race weekend to share with everyone is that there's one, like, hope is a conscious effort. It doesn't disappear. And I do think that. Like, you can be a positive person and still not have a lot of hope. I think they're different. Because I don't think you have to be positive to have hope. I think you can very much acknowledge

Paul Nottoli (12:06.655)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (12:21.044)
a negative or a bad situation and still have hope that it serves a purpose, that it will get better or that something will happen or that you can make it through, right? Like it doesn't even necessarily have to get better, but you can make it through. And so I think very much hope is a practice and it's a choice to show up all the time. And then the second thing is that it's very hope.

Paul Nottoli (12:31.789)
Mm

Amanda Almond (12:51.36)
is like a feeling, a mental state, it's internal, but it's manifested very externally. And I would say that people who are hopeful, who have hope, walk around differently, look a little bit different, act a little different than people who are hopeless. And that if you would line people up or watch patterns of behavior and ask people, you could probably make a connection on, those people are hopeless and these people have hope.

Paul Nottoli (12:57.854)
Mm -hmm.

Paul Nottoli (13:09.025)
Mm

Paul Nottoli (13:18.941)
Mm hmm. You did mention something too about in the training of an Iron Man and how rigorous it is that even when things were bad, because you kept showing up in that training, it gave you the hope to understand it because you always showed up. And so that hope was always there because you were constantly you were consistently doing the things that you had to do, regardless of how the house wasn't good, you know, whatever all the different situations that can happen in life.

Amanda Almond (13:47.374)
It's one.

Paul Nottoli (13:48.459)
when you consistently show up and do an action towards that greater goal or that hope that you have. I think that goes a long way as well, because especially in something, just a physical aspect like an Ironman or a marathon, those are long, then things don't go well all the time. And there's a lot of variables that can, between the weather and just how your body feels that day, or if the gel had too much, one more gram of carbs that your body can...

tolerate at the time. There's always kind of variables, but because you constantly put yourself in those situations, you know you can bounce out of it or you have the mental clarity. Like you said, you started talking to yourself to say, and then your body did respond in that. And I think there's a lot of lessons in sport or just those types of things that always showing up consistently does help. It does prevent those.

Amanda Almond (14:17.198)
I'm

Paul Nottoli (14:43.317)
downside or that hopeless feeling that you have in some situations that eventually you know you're going to be okay and you're just going to come back and because you've been consistently doing the work up until that point every day in and out.

Amanda Almond (14:56.633)
Yeah, well, and it's like anything. I mean, if you want to get better at, let's just take something obscure, you're doing a Rubik's Cube. Like you have to practice doing that. It doesn't just, you're not just going to magically get better at doing that. There's a certain level of skill you want to get better at.

Paul Nottoli (15:07.166)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (15:13.272)
frosting a cake, you have to practice working through it. Like anything you want to do in life and be good at, you have to practice and work towards that. And it's the same with emotional responses, behaviors, having hope, being a hopeful person, being able to acknowledge a situation and not get stuck there and be able to move through it or believe you can survive that situation are all practices. And so the more often we can do this and

Paul Nottoli (15:38.934)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (15:41.726)
we could get really nerdy into like neuroplasticity and how your brain rewires. But it, which I find it very, very interesting topic. But the reality is, is the more times you practice something, the easier it becomes to take that pathway. And so if you practice showing up when it's bad, showing up when it hurts, believing like, Hey, I didn't feel good starting out this workout, but by the end I felt better.

Paul Nottoli (15:43.777)
Thank

Amanda Almond (16:08.288)
then when you get to those tough situations in race, it's a lot easier to be like, yeah, I don't feel good now, but I can in a little bit. And even if I don't, I can still keep moving forward. And so acknowledging those things, it's the same with life, right? Like, okay, this may seem really bad right now. This may seem like the biggest thing in the world right now. However, can I get through this? Can I overcome it?

Paul Nottoli (16:19.164)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (16:36.814)
Yes. Okay, great. Or even if it stays bad for a little and it's uncomfortable, how am I going to show up in other aspects and kind of compartmentalize this so that I can keep on going?

Paul Nottoli (16:51.625)
What are ways you think people listening to this podcast can individually or in their community help inspire more hope in the world or maybe in their community? The world meeting, not necessarily like global, but just their world, whether it's locally, just, yeah.

Amanda Almond (17:07.947)
Yeah.

Amanda Almond (17:11.458)
You know, I think there is a lot of power in sharing your story. that's, though I hate social media for some things, I do try and be very transparent on my Instagram and kind of share my story, whether good, bad, or ugly, and struggles and this, that, and the other, so that people can recognize. Like, before I really started talking about things that have happened in my life,

A lot of people looked at my life and they're like, you have the perfect life and nothing bad has ever happened to you and your life's been so easy and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it'd be really easy to look at things on the surface and say that. But when I started sharing with people, like even my journey in sport will use that. Like people have just assumed that I've always been fast and I've always been good. And when I started telling people like, I wasn't fast. In fact, my high school teachers told me I'd never be fast.

Paul Nottoli (18:03.541)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (18:03.598)
at running or anything endurance related. And it finally took like a group of people who believed in me and saw something in me for it to be like, you know, I think you can be really fast and we can help you get there. It's just gonna take some time and consistency. And I think that's the cool part of empowering your community is being willing to open up about struggles and then how you've gone through. So not pretending that everything's okay.

When it's not, think you have to be able to be a little bit of vulnerable, be vulnerable and authentic and share your story and find the right people to be like, hey, like, I'm not trying to negate your struggles, but I'm telling you, I've also struggled. I've been there. And it's hard and it's tough and acknowledging that. And then saying like, you know, how could I show up for you? How can I support you?

Paul Nottoli (19:00.278)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (19:01.794)
to get through this because people showed up and supported me and that's how I got through this. So like, what do you need to get through this? I think that's one of the best ways to inspire hope and to elicit hope in their community is to kind of break the cycle of everything's awful and terrible and just being super negative and, but rather acknowledging the negative and then moving on. Like, okay, yes, this is terrible. This is awful.

but life still goes on. So what are we going to do about this? How can we support each other? and having those conversations, being willing to say, you know, yeah, like this happened to me and it was really bad. and, and here I am, or maybe I'm still going through it, but I can still find this and this, or this helps me or.

Paul Nottoli (19:35.591)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (19:56.002)
you know, I've had to go see a therapist or I've had to talk to a life coach or I've had to take medication. Being honest about those things instead of creating stigmas, I think really goes a long way to help people be hopeful.

Paul Nottoli (20:09.889)
Yeah, and that's I mean, this is the reason why I started this podcast movement of hope is having a variety of people talk about different experiences and share their stories because

I feel like one, my experiences are my experience and there's some people that can relate to that. But me just talking about my own experiences can only reach so many people. But the more people I have talking about that, the more people they can inspire when they may not feel like there's a community of support. And I do think helping people looking for someone that may be going through the same thing that you're going through and actually helping them through it can also play a role and giving you hope again, because you can see.

Amanda Almond (20:38.446)
Absolutely.

Paul Nottoli (20:50.293)
how much that inspires them and that just belief, a belief in something or someone can go a long way, especially if they feel like no one believes them at the time or no one believes that they're worthy at the time or whatnot, whatever they're going through. So yeah, I believe that's huge. Was it Bernard? Was that Bernard that was the mass on your neck when you had the goyere thing? Yeah.

Amanda Almond (21:16.426)
My thyroid, yeah, my thyroid nodule, Bernard, yes. Bernard, I almost forgot about Bernard. That was a long time ago. yeah.

Paul Nottoli (21:19.233)
Bernard, remember that a lot. I don't know where that came back from, like the recesses of my brain from our previous conversation that Bernard.

Amanda Almond (21:29.55)
I am impressed. Yeah. That was, yeah, so I have half a thyroid and manage it just fine. And I was terrified. I had a rather very large thyroid nodule. So you can kind of tell sometimes I have a little scar on my neck and sometimes I get more tired than other times, but we manage it.

Paul Nottoli (21:33.729)
So just that alone, yeah.

Paul Nottoli (21:52.619)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (21:59.506)
But I had this thyroid nodule that I needed to have removed because it was cutting off like a third of my airway, which makes life kind of difficult when you can't breathe, especially as a fitness instructor, like you're talking and I was like, okay, so I can only turn my head to the right because otherwise like it cuts off my air supply. So that was quite the challenge. I raced an entire season of triathlon with some PRs.

through all of this with a third, getting a third less oxygen than normal. And that kind of took some of this like belief and trust and hope that I could. I had put in the work and it wasn't, I wasn't maybe gonna feel great or I wasn't gonna feel good. And I spent a lot of time in tears on my bike that season, just not feeling great. But when all was said and done, it made me a stronger athlete and a stronger person. And then there was,

you know, the choice to have half a thyroid and the thyroid is kind of important to metabolism. And so I had this fear and kind of hopelessness that the whole world was over and I was going to be like 300 pounds and never be able to do anything. And people were going to think I was a fraud and a phony. And kind of, I followed a little bit of a special diet post -surgery that I believed was going to help me heal better. But it was kind of like,

Paul Nottoli (23:07.499)
You

Paul Nottoli (23:11.915)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (23:25.932)
opposite of what every like was trending at the time for being like if you want to be lean you should be like this and it was the opposite and so but I I had done the research and so with Not a lot kind of wavering. Hope. Started that and had thankfully again a couple of good friends who were like But what if it's not like what if this is what if what if?

Paul Nottoli (23:32.504)
huh.

Amanda Almond (23:52.238)
you're good. What if this is the game changer? What if this is the difference? Like what if it's not my 300 count life? What if it's this is your ticket to freedom and feeling awesome again? And I was like, yeah, yeah, that I should probably be focusing on that. And so that was another situation of kind of like, I felt very hopeless kind of through that whole time. And there were a lot of people who didn't

Paul Nottoli (23:58.325)
Mm -hmm.

Mm

Paul Nottoli (24:10.187)
Mm

Amanda Almond (24:18.584)
a lot of endocrinologists, a lot of doctors who didn't listen to me, who told me I was silly, who told me I didn't know anything. I was like, I know my body pretty well. I am pretty sure this is the problem. And it took a lot of people coming alongside me and being like, trust your gut, trust you and believe that you don't have to live in pain. You don't have to live like this. You don't have to live feeling like crap. And that was kind of the first step.

Paul Nottoli (24:26.195)
I'm pretty sure this is the problem.

Paul Nottoli (24:40.289)
you

Amanda Almond (24:45.506)
Let's see, there's been lots of situations that could have felt very hopeless. I got married the first time, super, super young. And then after five years, got divorced and could have felt really hopeless. Like I had spent and wasted all this time. And I will say I was very, at that time, I don't know that I was ever really hopeless. I was kind of in a mentality.

Paul Nottoli (24:52.781)
Mm -hmm.

Amanda Almond (25:12.418)
Some people had told me I wouldn't make it on my own. And so I was kind of in a mentality of like, I'll show you. And so there never was really hopelessness in there. And that happened not too long after Bernard. So I'm not sure if that played a part in it or not, that like, there was a belief. But I do know is that I had a community of people around me at that time who would have given up everything for me to see me succeed. And so I had so much hope and belief that there was

Paul Nottoli (25:17.795)
Yeah.

Paul Nottoli (25:22.783)
So, so, so, so.

Amanda Almond (25:42.25)
it was never going to be a failure or anything like that, that I was going to be just fine. Because I had this community that I had built around me that was like, I mean, they were like team Amanda, like we, we got you and you're going places and like, it's going to be great. And so that's like an example again of like having that community and having people around you who are positive. And like,

Paul Nottoli (25:55.965)
Mm -hmm

Amanda Almond (26:12.31)
that kind of right after that time I had had some pretty quick athletic success and qualified for Kona. And so like kind of on top of the world. And it's also a lot easier to have hope when you're feeling kind of on top of the world. When you're not, it's a lot harder. yeah, and so it's kind of one of those, like, I would say I still struggle with hope.

Paul Nottoli (26:24.875)
Yeah.

Paul Nottoli (26:28.345)
That's a lot harder.

Amanda Almond (26:41.908)
often. Like it's something I have to actively think about often. Even with all of that, I'm in a co -parenting situation that kind of goes back and forth and it's been two years of back and forth. And that has seemed very hopeless at times. And to my, not my credit, I oftentimes get very discouraged about like,

how things are going in that situation. And I'm not great at being hopeful. It definitely takes people around me, reminding me, supporting me, like reminding me of what I'm doing makes a difference and that it's important in that situation to keep me focused. I, my default mechanism is not hope, I would say. I'm much better at it in sport.

Paul Nottoli (27:34.303)
Mm

Amanda Almond (27:37.454)
But that's because I can actively put in the work and I could look at almost any of my competitors and say, you haven't outworked me. And so it's very easy for me to have that confidence and that hope in sport. But in terms of life, when there's not much I can do,

Paul Nottoli (27:40.959)
Mm -hmm

Amanda Almond (27:58.974)
I am not always great at hope and I will be the first to admit that. And so it is a constant reminder. And I think again, that's why it's important to have this community to have people who can have hope, who can be that. For me, having faith has a large part of playing in that. Like when I am focusing on my faith and people who are positive influences in my life and can remind me of my values and my vision and like.

It's the end goal, right? It's not right now, it's the end goal. That's important for me to keep me being hopeful. Otherwise, like, I'm very much a hopeless person. Which I don't like to admit, but I would say that's probably my go -to and my default is I'm not always a sunshine and rainbows person. And I'm not always a hopeful person.

Paul Nottoli (28:39.869)
Yeah.

Amanda Almond (28:56.526)
but I have surrounded myself with people who are more hopeful and who are able to refocus me in order to keep myself like it's part of that practice, to keep myself on, a path of trying to be more hopeful in life.

Paul Nottoli (29:14.291)
Yeah, and the community gives you that because you said it. We always focus on what if it doesn't work, but then very rarely do we focus on what if it does. What if this hope that you have to change your life in some way, shape or form or step into something that you're you're scared to because you just don't know what's on the other side. But deep down in your gut, you trusted your gut that you know it's going to be better or that there's that there's better on that other side, even though it's scary because you don't know what it looks like.

Amanda Almond (29:25.772)
Yeah.

Paul Nottoli (29:43.201)
that community or that support or that hope gives you that permission to ask the question instead of what if it doesn't work, asks you, but what if it does? And usually that question's, that's a more powerful question for hope. And it often is, I would say more times, it's not necessarily a 50 -50 flip, it's more times that it actually works out in our favor in some way, shape or form. We just can't see it and it's sometimes far down the line many years, but there is, but.

Amanda Almond (29:54.626)
Yes.

Paul Nottoli (30:12.811)
that, yeah, the question is, but what if it does? I think that's a very powerful question in that community to help with that.

Amanda Almond (30:21.829)
Yes. Social media is a great way. am mildly active on Facebook, but more so on Instagram. So you can find me on Instagram at, at.

Paul Nottoli (30:23.935)
All right, how can people connect with you so they can keep living authentically and have connection and share more experiences with you?

Paul Nottoli (30:40.553)
Okay.

Amanda Almond (30:45.094)
A underscore fit, F -I -T -T underscore almond, like the nut. And all that stuff goes to Facebook. I do answer Facebook messages. I'm just better at Instagram. But that is a pretty good snapshot into what I'm doing, what I'm racing, lessons I've learned. Occasionally I do Thursday thoughts or different things that I've been working through.

Paul Nottoli (30:49.951)
Okay.

Paul Nottoli (30:59.551)
Okay.

Amanda Almond (31:13.165)
I try and be pretty transparent on there or just there's a lot of pictures of me in bright yellow spandex on bikes and my adorable cute children and black labs. So, yes, and or in my stories like random food and recipes. It is pumpkin season coming up. So I'll apologize ahead of time to all of you who don't like pumpkin. But I am a lover of all things.

Paul Nottoli (31:19.274)
Hahaha

Paul Nottoli (31:24.308)
Yes.

Paul Nottoli (31:37.153)
Apples are apples, apples so much better than pumpkin. That's just me. I'm an apple. I'm an apple.

Amanda Almond (31:41.484)
Listen, apple is also good. I do love apples, but like a good like a pumpkin muffin, a pumpkin donut, a pumpkin cake, like it's so good. it's not, sometimes apple things are too sticky, but now I'm not a huge fan of like Starbucks pumpkin spice, but we have a couple of really good local coffee shops here that just make a killer like pumpkin latte with real pumpkin. I'm here for it.

Paul Nottoli (31:52.481)
Fair enough, yeah. Yeah.

Paul Nottoli (32:11.295)
You're here for it.

Amanda Almond (32:11.682)
Smoothie King has a whole line of pumpkin smoothies that are delicious.

Paul Nottoli (32:16.049)
I'm not gonna lie, Smoothie King has got some good ones. I prefer to make my own smoothies because I don't put all the extra stuff in it, but yeah, Smoothie, yeah, they make some good.

Amanda Almond (32:21.057)
Yes.

Amanda Almond (32:27.75)
But they make some good smoothies and I'm not sponsored by them but I'd love to be. Because I drink a lot of smoothies.

Paul Nottoli (32:30.037)
Yeah. Hashtag Lulu. Hashtag Lulu lemon, right? Shout out to Lulu lemon.

Amanda Almond (32:37.832)
Yes. Shout out to Lululemon. One year they had like a pumpkin spice legging and I totally bought it. I was just like, I can drink my pumpkin spice and wear my pumpkin spice. So yeah, so I apologize in advance if you start following me now. Pumpkin season is a short season, but it is an important season in my life. So be prepared.

Paul Nottoli (32:45.771)
Yeah, I mean, naturally. Absolutely.

Paul Nottoli (32:59.851)
There you go. So that's A underscore fit F I T T underscore almond. Like the nut, follow her on Instagram and get plugged into all things. Spandex, pumpkin spice, kids and dogs. Yeah. And good coffee. Not bad coffee. Yes. None of that Folgers stuff.

Amanda Almond (33:15.97)
Yes, and good coffee. Good coffee. No. Good. No. Only,

Paul Nottoli (33:24.415)
I don't drink coffee, I have no, don't, you could tell me what, you could be like, this is so good. I'd like, okay, like you could give me, you could give me instant coffee.

Amanda Almond (33:31.592)
it's a whole... no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's like, as much as a connoisseur of people can be of wine, it's equally so with coffee. just one you're like sleeping in the next morning and one you can't sleep at night. So it's wonderful, but there's like flavor profiles and all this, you can go way into it. But I'll spare you. It's great.

Paul Nottoli (33:53.899)
Sounds fantastic. Well, follow her on social media so you can get all things coffee as well. Yeah. Thanks for coming on, Amanda. Thanks for sharing your stories, your insights of hope, life, all kinds of things that help people get more inspired, spread more hope in their community, and keep the movement going. And we'll bring you another episode of the Believe the Hope podcast.

Amanda Almond (34:18.188)
Awesome, thanks for having me. Bye.

Paul Nottoli (34:19.637)
Bye.