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The Power of Words, Faith, and Empathy with Amy Wolff

People often turn their heads away from encouraging words plastered on the streets. They scoff and think these words are nothing but cliché. After all, how can simple words heal gaping wounds? But this is exactly what Amy did. She changed people’s lives, and ultimately the world, with some yard signs and simple motivational words.

In this episode, we talk to Amy Wolff, a speaker, coach and founder of Don’t Give Up Signs about the power of words and empathy. She relays the story behind her viral yard signs that inspired and helped many people. Amy candidly shares the events that challenged her belief system and helped her become more empathetic to others. We also talk about faith, politics, and the importance of nuance.

Listen to the episode if you want to know more about the power of words and empathy.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

Learn more about the inspiration behind the Don’t Give Up movement.
Know about the events that changed Amy’s black-and-white belief system.
Discover the power of words and the way we deliver it.

Resources

Subscribe to our website to get resources from our guests and updates on our latest giveaways and episodes.
Distinction Communication Inc.
Signs of Hope: How Small Acts of Love Can Change Your World
Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World by Bob Goff
The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are by Brené Brown
Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
Some personality tests you can check out:
The Nine Enneagram Types
DiSC
Strengths Finder
Check out Amy’s essays on faith, feminism, and politics.
Connect with Amy: Website | Facebook |LinkedIn | Email
Know more about Don’t Give Up Signs: Website | Facebook | Instagram
Episode Details

Episode Highlights

[02:46] About Amy

Amy is a speech coach at Distinction Communication, Inc. She provides one-on-one or small group speaker coaching.
In 2017, she staked 20 uplifting yard signs with hopeful messages that started the Don’t Give Up Signs movement.
The Don’t Give Up Signs movement has been able to help people fight addiction, leave an abusive relationship, and even keep people from physically harming themselves.

[06:07] Signs of Hope

At Amy’s small group in church, they talked about the high suicide rates in her town. She felt like she needed to do something to help.
She printed yard signs and set them up anonymously.
The signs worked because they invited people to have a moment of sovereignty. People who see these signs decide that it’s for them and take hope for themselves.
The signs went viral during her vacation with her family. They began to produce custom products in different languages.
She got an email from a literary agent who encouraged her to write a book.

[15:42] The Signs’ Messages

All of the yard signs had “Don’t give up” written on them.
The first 20 signs that were put up had two different messages, namely, “You are worthy of love” and “Your mistakes do not define you.”
The movement produced car decals, encouragement cards, postcards, pins, and even tattoos with these messages.
The messages that sell most include “You matter,” “You got this,” and “We’re all in this together.”
Listen to the full episode to know more about the other messages in these signs!

[26:06] Amy’s Superpower and Kryptonite

Amy’s strength is loving people well.
She considers her ego as her kryptonite.
She is outward with her opinions, doesn’t mind being vulnerable, and likes speaking.

[29:04] Speaking at Church

If she speaks in a spiritual setting, she has a healthy fear of God.
At church, she feels like she shouldn’t speak just words, but inspired words.
Amy tempers a bit, not because of a religious spirit, but because she does not want her opinions to get in the way of her relationship with God.
She believes that God is calling her to hate her sin more than other people’s.
God wants her to stay humble and to love other people like He loves them.

[35:26] Moments That Changed Amy’s Belief System

Amy was sitting on her bed watching a YouTube video about two gay men speaking at Seattle Pacific University. The two men had opposing views on whether to act on their sexual desires.
She realized that even if the men had different opinions, they still loved each other.
At 14 years old, she lost her brother. She was never angry nor had any traumas due to the incident; she believes that God gave her a miraculous ability to bear the situation.
She believed that experience solidified her faith and made her feel a sense of urgency in making her life count.
She shares that her journey to understand people and their experiences is a slow, steady evolution. She advises us to be patient when we feel like someone isn’t getting where we’re coming from.

[46:04] On Maturity

Amy believes that maturity is opening everything up to God.
It’s allowing God to touch, influence, correct, and rebuke everything.

[48:05] What Is Nuance?

Nuance is when two things seemingly conflict, and yet they are both true.
Amy explains that nuance is like how God can be terrifying and full of anger but at the same time, he can be tender, approachable, and merciful.
It’s not always black and white.

[51:37] On Feminism

Amy remembers watching the women’s marches on TV, but she felt isolated and alienated because she is pro-life. Because of this, she did not want it to represent her.
However, due to an unlikely friendship, she came to realize that opposing things can have a middle ground.
Amy came to accept that she is a pro-life feminist.
Even pro-life legislation is nuanced. There are some parts that Amy doesn’t agree with.
The challenge is to find a seat at the table for someone in the middle.

[57:35] The Power of Words

Amy believed that language and how we speak matter.
We tend to create cognitive distortions about people and what they say.
Amy learned to temper her language by leading with empathy and not defensiveness.
We see each other as humans; we understand that people are coming from different places.

[01:04:43] Amy’s Book

Amy already had a manuscript of a different book about public speaking.
In her two years of writing, Amy learned that walking through tragedy in her life helped her see hope, what helped, and what didn’t.
Signs of Hope is a collection of stories of other people encountering hope; it's a book full of nuance.
She hopes that through her book, people feel empowered and challenged.
She hopes that in reading the book during a moment of desperation, there's hope that we can take off the page and find our own moments of sovereignty.

[01:09:03] Seeking with Amy

Even though Amy’s instinct is to go and take action, she chooses to seek.
She has found that when she stops and goes slow, the journey becomes more fruitful, deep, and transformative.

5 Powerful Quotes From This Episode

[32:34] “God told me, ‘Amy, I need you to hate your sin more than anyone else's sin. And as long as you hate yours more and you don't start to categorize and measure certain sins, I need you to hate yours more and stay humbled before me. And it will allow you to love other people like I love them.’”

[42:59] “I was forced to grow up really quickly but it benefited me in that I never was under the false assumption that I have forever.”

[45:03] “Here's the slow, steady evolution of me learning, of me transforming the way I've judged people and evaluated people's experiences. But that wasn't instant; that was so slow in a huge transformation.”

[45:31] “Sometimes we need to be patient because the progress will be slow, but it will be deep and it will be real. So be patient with those in your lives that are slow to understand.”

[49:18] “There's nuance—it's not so black and white, yes or no, all in or all out, you're either for me or against me. There's nuance in the middle, and it's very uncomfortable because you have to be willing to hold both and not evaluate or try to tip the scales.”

About Amy

Amy Wolff is a speaker coach, motivational speaker, and author of Signs Of Hope. She is the president of Distinction Communication, Inc. and the founder of the nonprofit Don’t Give Up Signs.

Behind the scenes, she is a mother of two daughters and a wife of her high school sweetheart. She loves house plants, vacuum lines in carpets, and using words (spoken and written) as a vehicle to process the world around her—oppression, nuance, grief, spirituality, politics, and everything in between.

Connect with Amy through her website and on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. You may also email her at hello@amynwolff.com.

To know more about Don’t Give Up Signs, visit their website. You can also check out their Facebook and Instagram accounts.

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