We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Amanda Smith Mccombs a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Amanda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Believe it or not, I signed up for a beauty pageant. It wasn’t anything I ever thought I would do, but I felt the pull towards something different. Until recently, I was a teacher. I was going to tea parties and other events and kept thinking they should be connected to a charity. I wanted something more than socializing with people, I wanted to help others and raise awareness for causes around me.

What began as an idea for a blog over 20 years ago, turned into a podcast and social media handle. Honestly, I never thought this is where my life would have ended up. 2 years ago, I was teaching and had just gotten my Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction. Then shingles went through my sinuses, and now I have permanent light and sound sensitivity.

Eventually, because of the pageant, I was able to share my story. The more I shared, the more people it helped. I have been through a lot of things in my life that one person shouldn’t have had to manage. We talk about resilience, and forget that it means that someone had to bounce back from something difficult in their lives. We forget about the difficult thing and brush past it like the healing is done. Its far from over!

My hope is to create a positive and supportive network, full of resources to help others share their stories and heal.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Most of what I do involves connecting people together and helping with fundraising.

The podcast helps give myself and others a platform to heal and tell their stories. I am working on my public speaking skills and hope to go speak about my experience with PTSD and healing.

Eventually, I want to build a website full of resources available for others that need them. These will include places in the community that offers resources or services for those that need them. There are a lot of healing and supportive tools available and having them in one place would make life easier for people in situations like mine.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The last two years would have to be a testament to this. When I had shingles go through my sinuses, I went from being at my peak to being laid down flat. I couldn’t do anything that you would normally do when you’re sick. With the light and sound sensitivity that came with it, I couldn’t read or watch TV. I had to wear sunglasses inside the house with the blinds closed and a hat on. The sound of my own breath was painful. I nearly lost my vision and my eye was bulging out of my head – it was not a good look.

During this time, my mom’s house burned down. She barely made it out alive only to pass six months later unexpectedly. My father passed just over a year after her, after not knowing who I was. The side effects of his dementia increased, and less of him was there with every visit.

It took about a year for me to comfortably read words on a page again. The snow is still too intense for my eyes, but at least I can use my phone and computer again. And I don’t need a hat and sunglasses inside anymore!

How do you come back from this? None of this was part of the trauma I was already trying to recover from.

Honestly – understanding my value and knowing that this feeling was temporary got me through. I surrounded myself with people that lifted me up. There were times I wasn’t sure I was going to come back from it, but I am so glad that I did. I didn’t want my kids to have their memories of their mother to be her depressed in bed all the time – because that was what I had and it is no way to grow up. I realized what I am leaving behind for my family isn’t stuff – its the memories I am making with them now. And I want to leave some good ones behind.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

I make jokes about how I quit my teaching job to do charity work and beauty pageants – that’s not true at all!

I had to leave teaching so I could heal. Making that decision was one of the hardest I had to make. For years, it had been my focus and my main identity. I had to figure out who I was outside of teaching. I needed to be able to make time for myself and my doctor’s appointments so that I could show up for my family better.

The pageant helped me to prioritize that and more. I wrapped up my first season and didn’t return to school the following year. It opened the door for my new podcast and make new connections. My network had been mostly teachers until recently. I had begun recording for my podcast and sharing my story when I left teaching. I was able to shift my focus and show up for local networking meetings and lunches. Showing up and just being who I was is what lead to a lot of my networking connections.

Things began to align pretty quickly after that. I was able to find authentic connections with others who aligned with my mission. The rest… we will see how it goes! But the main thing that lead to my career change was understanding that I needed something different so I could heal.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://notsogenius.podbean.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/notsogenius/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/notsogenius/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-mccombs-a60163174/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@notsogeniuspodcast/videos
• Other: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpQvXxWlgK8wOyWyKYNorq-QvVd8Pa5P1

  (Playlist with more videos from the podcast network – the other channel is new!)

Image Credits

Carolina Burton Photography