We were lucky to catch up with Amanda Gibby Peters recently and have shared our conversation below.
Amanda, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a time you helped a customer really get an amazing result through their work with you.
Years ago, I had a client who owned a thriving business. However, she was reaching out to me because of a few concerning staffing issues. Simultaneously, the owner of the home she was currently living in (and renting) was ready to sell – and my client didn’t have a new place to move. On top of those stressors, she felt disconnected from her daughter and desperately wanted their relationship to improve.
When I arrived at her house, I was delighted by how shui-friendly it was. We walked every room, and nothing was *screaming* at me. When we went to the second floor, I looked out the window and noticed a detached garage. It was tucked back in the LOVE / RELATIONSHIP section of her property. I inquired about it, and she said, “It is so full of stuff, I don’t think I could open the door without it all tumbling out.”
BINGO!
I encouraged her to spend the holidays (it was November) clearing it out. Most clients don’t want to tackle the clutter because it is so exhausting and demanding. With the holidays looming, I didn’t expect she would right away.
In January, though, I heard from her husband. She had spent the last week of December hauling everything out of the space. She donated, recycled, and threw stuff away – making the space functional again. And on the heels of her hard work, 3 things happened within a week.
First, the troublemaker stirring up her staff unexpectedly quit, and the camaraderie among the crew resumed.
Next, the landlord had a change of heart and asked if they would stay in the house another year. As incentive, she discounted the rent by $1000!
Finally, her daughter had suddenly decided to move back home and live with her.
How did this all happen so quickly?
She cleared the clutter from her LOVE gua, and ALL the relationships in her life improved!
In my work, I see this all the time – clutter is that insidious. It tricks us into thinking the work ahead of us is harder than the challenges it creates for us, so we ignore it. We make intentions to deal with it later. We put it where we won’t see it, thinking that’ll help us feel a little better – but what we really experience is all that resistance and overwhelm creeping into other places of our lives. The clutter we dread and avoid is often the source of energy infiltrating our happiness. Meanwhile, the more we resist dealing with those postponed decisions and piles of procrastination, the more we compromise our own energy. The cycle will continue until something disrupts it.
Amanda, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
My story starts right at home, truly. It’s what got me into all of this in the first place, so let me explain.
Up until my early 30s, I had a thing for hard proof – it furnished me a sense of control. So, when we stepped into our new-to-us home and nothing felt right, I heaped blame on the recent move. Months later, though, things were still “off.” Our house catered well to our needs, but it didn’t feel like home.
In the clutches of a really bad day, I grabbed a book from my nightstand and treated it like an oracle – superstitiously summoning an answer. Letting the book fall open, I saw two words: FENG SHUI.
First impressions? It sounded dubious, mystical, and certainly not my cuppa, but something was different about us in this new house. Since the move, our financial obligations had increased, leaving our resources without any elasticity. The stress was strangling all hope, and our marriage bore the marks.
It didn’t hurt, either, that this was the early 2000s when blogs were all the rage, so I saw an opportunity.
What if I blogged about applying Feng Shui to our house and shared any “results” in my daily posts?
And that was that.
I bought a Feng Shui book, made my list of “to do’s”, and off my skepticism went to prove this “change your home, change your life” was nonsense.
Except…things did start improving. Gradually at first, irrefutably eventually. There were too many coincidences happening, so I had a choice: Continue being the skeptic or become the student and learn what was really happening within our home.
I read all the books I could get my hands on (this was pre-Amazon). I constantly practiced in my home and the homes of any family and friends who’d let me. I poured over magazines and watched shows, “practicing” how I would apply what I was learning. I hired several practitioners to give us consultations – one of them who quickly became a mentor and friend. And at her encouragement, I found a certification program to immerse myself in so I could begin learning the language for this life-changing wisdom.
After a couple years of practice and starting my own consulting business, I enrolled in an advanced certification program – determined to understand the differences between the various schools of Feng Shui and why there are so many contradictions within this practice.
Simple Shui exists because of the it all – the readers who commented and asked me questions on the blog in those early days; the communities that trusted me with their audiences and let me keep the shui conversations simmering; the classes I taught and students who showed up with their own questions and curiosities; and my clients – from every stretch and walk of life – who’ve challenged me in the best possible ways to always find the opportunities.
It’s also why I know working with this wisdom is not income, design or circumstance dependent.
You do not need to live in the house of your dreams for your surroundings to trigger the opportunities to make those dreams a reality.
I believe and know that what we experience in life is reflected energetically around us. And when we understand that, our home becomes a collaborative partner willing to help us influence what’s happening around us in the most delightful ways.
Even better? When we improve our home, it generates and triggers power within ourselves!
If I am an expert at anything, it is this: I navigate people closer to their full potential by helping them tell better stories. Words, actions, intentions, and our surroundings are opportunities to generate new energy with some straight talk.
So, how do I share this work with people?
You can find me on my blog and subscribe to my newsletter over at simpleshui.com; listen to me over on my “House Therapy” podcast; and follow me on Instagram @amandagibbypeters.
My book, Simple Shui for Every Day:365 Ways to Feng Shui Your Life, is filled with daily prompts (not calendar-sensitive) that dose you with a little shui every day!
I have an online course, Become Your Own Feng Shui Consultant, where I teach you how I *read* homes so you can Feng Shui your own house confidently. Anyone that completes the course is invited to apply to my House Therapy certification program, an intensive year-long study with me to learn how to “read” other people’s homes and spaces.
Finally, I work with a small amount of 1:1 clients, where we focus specifically on your home to find opportunities to optimize it for your success.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
My favorite entrepreneurial (for me) reads almost always have an overlap between good business sense and Feng Shui principles. So, with that in mind, here is a list of some of my top MUST HAVES for your shelves.
The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life | Twyla Tharp: “Creativity comes from our daily routines around it. It’s that insane commitment to showing up to the best investment we can make, which is ourselves.”
Atomic Habits | James Clear: “Motivation is overrated, environment often matters more.”
The Sum of Our Days | Isabel Allende: “The ritual of beginning another book is more or less the same every year. So I thoroughly cleaned my study, aired it out, changed the candles on what my grandchildren call the ‘ancestor altar,’ and got rid of boxes filled with texts and documents used in researching last year’s undertaking. I left nothing on the shelves lining the walls other than the tightly aligned first editions of my books and pictures of the living and dead who are always with me. I took out anything that might muddle inspiration or distract me from this memoir that demands clear space in which to express itself. It was the beginning of a time of solitude and silence…and any distraction frightens off the muse of imagination.”
Badass Habits | Jen Sincero: “We are enormously influenced by who and what we surround ourselves with, our environment can make or break is faster than almost anything.”
Joyful | Ingrid Fetell Lee: “The power of the aesthetics of joy is that they speak directly to our unconscious minds, bringing out the best in us without our even being aware of it.”
Decoded | Jay-Z: “It’s always been most important for me to figure out “my space” rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself – and that’s essential for any artist, I think.”
The Artist’s Way | Julia Cameron: “True life is lived when tiny changes occur.”
Essentialism | Greg McKeown: “What do I want to go big on because I can’t do everything?
Am I majoring in minor activities? Do I prioritize my time or does someone else? Are my days structured by ‘have to’ or ‘choose to’?”
The Creative Act: A Way of Being | Rick Rubin: “Thoughts and habits not conducive to the work: Believing you’re not good enough. Feeling you don’t have the energy it takes. Mistaking adopted rules for absolute truths. Not wanting to do the work (laziness). Not taking the work to its highest expression (settling). Having goals so ambitious that you can’t begin. Thinking you can only do your best work in certain conditions. Requiring specific tools or equipment to do the work. Abandoning a project as soon as it gets difficult. Feeling like you need permission to start or move forward. Letting a perceived need for funding, equipment, or support get in the way. Having too many ideas and not knowing where to start. Never finishing projects. Blaming circumstances or other people for interfering with your process. Romanticizing negative behaviors or addictions. Believing a certain mood or state is necessary to do your best work. Prioritizing other activities and responsibilities over your commitment to making art. Distractibility and procrastination. Impatience. Thinking anything that’s out of your control is in your way.”
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
In some ways, I feel lucky I started out when blogs were the only “online” vehicle for communicating with potential customers and marketing my business. I wasn’t persuaded by the metrics of social media or newsletter subscribers; instead, I had to first, trust that everything I was posting on my blog would somehow pay itself forward. And guess what? All these years and multiple social media platforms later, I thank myself at least once a day I was consistent with the content back then because I can often mine my own work to share with my audience today. Secondly, when opportunities knocked on my door – requests to speak, teach, contribute – I said, “Yes!”, whether they paid or not. I treated any opportunity for exposure like a BIG win. Those years of doing (what I call) “palms open” work; finding myself in front of uninterested audiences; and learning how to share shui so people lean in – all of it, I believe, is what compounded and helped me establish myself as a respected and recognized expert in this field.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://simpleshui.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandagibbypeters/
- Other: House Therapy | the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/house-therapy/id1634078000 Simple Shui for Every Day: 365 Ways to Feng Shui Your Life | the book: https://amzn.to/3PoYJTD
Image Credits
Olivia Steuer | photographer Lisa Haukom | photographer Anastasia Chomlack | photographer