As any woman in her 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond can attest: with age comes wisdom.

Often, no matter how careful and secure and safe we stay in our lives, we are inevitably challenged with things that open our mind to a new understanding of the world and we become more knowledgeable.

And even though Danny-J and I joke that we’d rather be dating at 26 instead of 36 (ha!), we know we’re so much better off for having grown through the tough experiences we’ve had, and to have gleaned lessons we’d not have gotten otherwise.

So when we came across a 24-year old who seemingly has her sh*t together, who has the wisdom and emotional maturity of someone we’d expect to be much older, well, we took notice.

It’s exactly what we found in Amanda Bucci, who we recently interviewed for The Best Life podcast.

You can listen here (iTunes) or Stitcher here.

Amanda is a fitness entrepreneur and lifestyle vlogger who has grown her platform relatively quickly, and shared with us exactly how she did it (including growing her social media platform to over 1M while also adding tremendous value and service to her viewers and listeners).

Man, part of me wanted to believe she was just a pretty face (and she is that for sure), but we ended up being super impressed with her breadth of knowledge and the personal experience she shared.

Something that doesn’t get talked about a lot is the courage it takes to be a creator.

To put your information, opinions and even your personality on the chopping block on social media and lay it all out there for other people to judge and criticize—of course it’s worth it, but it’s not always easy.

Which is why I will always respect ANY creator, even if we don’t agree on things.

And Amanda has weathered a lot of criticism (with big online personalities criticizing her publicly or even calling her ‘Scamanda’), but she’s risen above, using it to introspect, empathize and even get clearer and more confident in her message.

Some of us will sit around reading about how not take things personally, or how to weather judgment, while others are out there putting themselves in the line of fire. And the latter, to me, is the best personal development work we can do.

There’s nothing like having the full experience and opening yourself up to judgment in order to force maturity and master your mindset.

Also, in case you missed it—I also interviewed my ex-husband, Dr. Jade Teta on a recent episode of The Best Life podcast as well.

It was open, honest, vulnerable and pretty juicy.

I asked Jade about his affair, and about the lessons he learned as a result. I asked him how he handles romance now. And we discussed honesty and the process of being able to heal after a betrayal. I think you’ll like it!

But curiously, after the podcast’s release, both of us received feedback that we are “self-indulgent” and “self-absorbed” as a result of sharing our whole story publicly.

And I get that. Honestly, a big part of me wonders who the heck does care about my personal life? Ha. So I definitely see that.

But what gets missed is that I’m not sharing my personal life for fun. Lol. It’s anything but fun to share publicly about infidelity, food obsession, weight re-gain and more, BUT … the way I see it, it’s all a service.

How can it not be when I’ve had literally hundreds of personal messages and emails from men and women on all sides of infidelity, telling me that the sharing of our story has made them feel more understood, less alone and less shameful about theirs?

And generating those things—understanding, connection and openness—are why Danny-J and I started The Best Life podcast. We wanted to pull back the curtain on a lot of typically-taboo topics and dissipate the illicitness, shame and fear around them.

And that’s what we’re aiming to do, normalize and neutralize.

So, listen to Jade's episode here (iTunes) or on Stitcher here.

And it would be a huge favor to us if you’d consider clicking to SUBSCRIBE and leaving a review! We drop new episodes every week.

Thank you, and as always, I’m open to feedback. I love hearing anything you’ve got to share—good, bad or ugly.

Love you and thank you ;)

Xo,

Jill