I was so excited to speak with Amy Wilson about her newest book Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser (Zibby Books).

Amy and I share a history. She was the director of the inaugural 2012 show of Listen to Your Mother (I’ve spoken in my book about how pivotal that experience was in my career and writing) and I’ve seen her throughout the years at events such as Mom 2.0 (where we were both speakers), and in January at her book launch event at Veronica Beard.

In This Episode 

• The way Estelle and Amy first connected through Listen to Your Mother
• How Amy’s book Happy to Help: Adventures of a People Pleaser manifested
• The formative experience in Catholic school that shaped Amy’s overachiever mindset
• The way Amy used adages to structure her book, and how that happened
• The real reason many women take on too much, and why that’s not a personal flaw
• How perfectionism and people-pleasing show up differently at home vs. in the workplace
• Why Amy included research in her essays and how she seamlessly weaved it into narrative
• Her creative process, perfectionism, and letting go of “doing it all”
• The early impact of magazines on Amy — and women
• Advice for women feeling overwhelmed: It’s not you—it’s the system.
• Sitting in the silence of not knowing

Watch on YouTube

About Amy Wilson

AMY WILSON is a writer, podcaster, and performer. She is the author of the memoir When Did I Get Like This? and her latest book Happy to Help. Amy is also the co-host of the Webby-honored parenting podcast What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood. She and co-host Margaret Ables have racked up over 11 million lifetime downloads and 800 episodes since the podcast’s launch in 2016, and regularly perform live shows for audiences around the country.

As an actor, Amy appeared on Broadway as “Sunny Freitag” in the Tony Award-winning play The Last Night of Ballyhoo. She was a series regular on the sitcoms Norm (ABC) and Daddio (NBC). Other TV guest appearances include Veep, Felicity, Blue Bloods, Unforgettable, Ed, Law and Order: CI, and Deadline. She wrote and performed sketch comedy for NBC’s Live on Tape, which filed in Saturday Night Live’s famed Studio 8H. Amy is also the creator of Mother Load, a one-woman show which she toured to 16 cities after its hit off-Broadway run. Amy’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Redbook, CNN.com, NPR Books, Parenting, Parents, Baby Talk and Big Apple Parent. Amy graduated from Yale University with a dual degree in English and Theater Studies. She lives with her family in New York City.

Connect with Amy 

Website

Podcast

TikTok

Buy Happy to Help on Estelle’s Bookshop

Estelle’s Listen to Your Mother performance (Amy Wilson as director)

Amy’s NBC Appearance for Happy to Help

Connect with Estelle

My TEDx Talk

This was such an amazing experience. I can’t wait to get the video and share it with you in a separate post, but in the meantime, here is a photo from the TEDx Boston College event that took place on Saturday March 29th. More soon, and yes, I felt my dad watching.