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Amy Bowllan

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“Even the smallest crayon leaves a mark.” — Amy Bodden Bowllan

Educator, two-time Emmy Award recipient, wife and mother of two, Amy Bodden Bowllan is a true humanitarian whose imprint on our society will indirectly leave its mark for generations. Understanding that knowledge is power, Amy plays an active role in building libraries for low-income families. As well, she and her family are avid walkers in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundations’s Race for the Cure. Amy began her career as a Television Investigative Producer and Reporter for WCBS-TV NY and KNXV in Phoenix, AZ. Memorable achievements include a risk-taking venture into the mind of a pedophile, resulting in a helpful list of Do’s and Don’ts for parents to safeguard their children. Previously held the position of Director of Diversity, Amy currently teaches Broadcast Journalism and Digital Literacy classes at The Hewitt School in NYC, and is accredited for integrating technological resources into staff and students day-to-day programs. Amy has been a teacher (grades K-12) for 18-years and has also hosted “Internet in Action” for PBS. Visit Bowllan’s Blog at SLJ.com, where she spotlighted amazing people doing amazing things, for the School Library Journal Magazine, beginning in May 2005.


Mandela+and+Bowllan

NELSON MANDELA AND AMY BODDEN BOWLLAN

12: Amy Bodden Bowllan: From Mandela to Emmys to Breast Cancer to Hope: I Share Hope

“Even the smallest crayon leaves a mark” – Amy Bodden Bowllan

Intro:

Welcome to I Share Hope! The podcast where world leaders share their real stories of hope and how you can use actionable hope to start changing your life today and now here’s your host, Chris Williams.

Chris Williams:

Amy Bodden Bowlan, two-time Emmy Award recipient, wife and mother of two – I’m just looking through all the things you’re doing educationally and enforcing the learning patterns of so many literally, internationally, humanitarian, someone who’s been very involved in the media for years, also very involved in the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure. You’re really strong in your pattern of sharing hope and you’ve been doing hope sharing really well for a long time.

I’ve got the questions to ask you about hope, but first just a little update about you there in New York. What’s life like?

Amy Bowllan:

Life in New York is such that you are a Petri dish. You go to work with so many different people from so many different ethnicities, genres, backgrounds and it is the most exciting place in the world to be. I have to say that honestly, yes you have people who don’t fit your schematic or your trajectory about where you’re going in life, but when you get on that train and you go to work in the morning, it’s all about we being the same people. I wouldn’t trade that for the world. I actually had an opportunity – for years, I was given a parking space at my job and when I realized that I was missing out on this underground group of fascinating people, I said you know what, this is where I belong and we’re all in it together. That was a moment of hope for me.

Chris Williams:

I think it’s great. I’m so glad your kids get to grow up there. Great cultural place to be.

Amy Bowllan:

Yes indeed.

Chris Williams:

Well, you know how this works Amy, we have five questions we ask each guest about hope. Let me jump in here and I really like this first one because there’s so much just to write down and take a note and put it on the mirror in the bathroom or the sticky notes.

Question 1 – What is your favorite quote about hope or your own quote about hope?

Amy Bowllan:

When I first had my son… I’ll tell you the quote first because I don’t want to bury it, bury the lead, as we say in news. This is an important quote to me and I think it will be on my tombstone. The quote is “Even the smallest crayon leaves a mark”. I’ll say it again, “Even the smallest crayon leaves a mark”. That quote was born as a result of my son who at the time was maybe two. I bought him the big Crayola box of crayons and he broke all of them and my sitter, she was a Guineas woman, she was watching him and he just broke, broke, broke. I came in from teaching and I was like “oh my gosh”. I was so upset that he broke these crayons. I realized when I started to sweep them up, they started to talk to me. It was a profound moment because we came from a family where there was no waste because we came from literal poverty, practically. I couldn’t throw them out and then the crayons, I started looking at them and I said to myself, he broke these crayons but he’s only two. I started to sweep them up and before I put them into the garbage, I said no, no, no. We’re going to put these into a container where he can use them again.

Then, I saw this little black crayon and I said this crayon, still, you can use this crayon. That’s when this quote came to me. I think its providence. I have faith that goes beyond me as a person. I think it was the Holy Spirit in my mind and that which pushes us in our own individual world, but I said this smallest crayon still leaves a mark and we have to use the smallest crayons no matter what because you can still etch and sketch and do and make. So, even the smallest crayon leaves a mark is a quote that resonates. I stand by it. I support it because it was so organic. I didn’t expect it. I was coming into this like, “What? You broke all these crayons? What’s the matter with you?”

It was a moment in time and I’ve never left that moment saying this is providential, this is something that we have to look to, when you have a moment like that. We’re talking about hope and we’re talking about like, when do we grab hope by the horns and how do we recognize it? That was a moment not knowing this, but thank you for having me talk about this because that was the moment that I said, wow, that moment has spurred so many people to look at crayons and say we’re not throwing you away like broken toys, like people who have disabilities.

Chris Williams:

Yes. There you go. You’re so right. In my own journey and I know in the journey of others, there’s that time when you really do feel like you are the small and little broken crayon and you may be causing more trouble than your worth you might feel like and that’s so not true. We are all intrinsically valuable and useful. Just useful is the wrong word. We have so much more value to add to ourselves, to add to the people around us in our communities that you just can’t put a price and value on something based on its size or if the wrapper’s already torn off or if the edges are a little jagged.

Amy Bowllan:

Yes.

Chris Williams:

I love that. Thank you.

Question 2 – Who’s been a great sharer of hope in your life?

You just mentioned a minute ago, you came from a place very different than you are today growing up. It don’t have to be that background, but where is it back there that somebody has really, obviously invested in you to make you who you are.

Amy Bowllan:

I have to say one thing for certain. There are numbers of people who I think collectively as a group, anybody listening will attest to and totally support the fact that we have more than one person to say this is the person or these are the people who got me to where I am because this is a melting pot. I always tell my students, this is a soup. We’re making like the best soup possible. What are you adding to the soup?

But, the one person who I have to say made a change in my life because I went from being – I don’t want to say a nobody to a somebody, I went from being a somebody to a somebody. That person was Nelson Mandela. I have to say I met him in a very precarious way that no one would ever dream they’d have this opportunity because again, I draw reference to the fact that I came from a very, very humble – not poverty because we had love and we never associated poverty without love because we had a lot of kins and my parents were together and it was like you do what you have to do and work hard and we don’t blame anything on anybody.

The point when I met Nelson Mandela was important. This is a man who was imprisoned for, as we know, many, many years. I was starting my career in journalism as basically someone who was getting coffee. I was getting coffee and mixing, taking people who had mail and putting mail and different things. When Nelson Mandela came to Newark Airport in 1992, I was in my early 20s and I begged the reporter who was going after him, who is now deceased, I begged him, I said please can I go with you? My great grandmother – I didn’t anything about Nelson Mandela, mind you. I was like, I just want to go because my grandmother and my great grandmother would talk about this and my father and blah, blah, blah…

I was so taken by the fact that I’m meeting somebody I don’t even know if I’m meeting them, but I’m actually being in the presence of somebody who’s supposed to be so great. So, to fast-forward a little bit, I got to Newark Airport with this reporter and there were throngs of reporters. Everybody from all over. This was the first time Nelson Mandela was at Newark Airport. I mean the first time since his release from prison. I was amidst so many people all over the world, waiting for him, all reporters. I was telling my students the other day because one of my students interviewed me, I was trying to see him, they had everything at the tarmac with the press and all the lights were – you know what he does? I’m looking up like this trying to reach, he looks at me and I look behind me and there’s only the wall because I’m a peon basically, I’m like who the hell is she, he looks and he says “You”. I’m layers deep. This is a true story. Layers deep. I turn around and only the wall is behind me. I was raised to be very humble. My parents would not have anybody raise and “how are you?” He told his security guards, “Get her”.

Chris Williams:

Why?

Amy Bowllan:

I don’t know. Here’s what I’ve been able to think about and process since that time. This is a man who was imprisoned for 27 years. He was looking out of a window toward hope. The hope was through that window. I think when he saw me looking up to him as this young coffee-getter to say we have all these celebrities waiting for me. I want somebody who is a bud of a flower. Do you know what he did? He sent his security guards, lifted me up –

Chris Williams:

Scottie loves this story.

Amy Bowllan:

Yes he does.

Chris Williams:

Big Mandela fan.

Amy Bowllan:

His security detail, they lifted me up, carried me over all the chairs right to the tarmac where he was. He saw me and he stood by me and he said, “Now the press conference can begin”. The crowd went wild. I was a little researcher at CBS, I was in trouble. I was like, “oh my God, I’m going to get in trouble” because we’re not supposed to be a part of this story.

Chris Williams:

You’re supposed to be back getting coffee. Your boss is going to be mad. Where’s the coffee?

Amy Bowllan:

My great grandmother was like, “oh my God, we lived to die for this. You have to get us these pictures”, so what a beautiful photographer. Again, hope, we’re talking about hope, right? One of the photographers who pictured and took us on camera, he said to me “You don’t me, but I’m going to send you this picture because one day you’ll appreciate it” because I think was like 24 or 25. It was 1992 and I said could you sign my reporter pad? I was so new to the business and he was like, of course. This is a man who just got out of jail, who has been in rocks, who was fighting against apartheid. I mean he was more than what I knew. That defining moment, I said to me, you know what Amy, you have to take what he did and use it to everybody else you come across. You have to give everybody a chance no matter who they are, what walks of life. He gave you a chance just to be – I don’t know if it was a photo op. It didn’t matter to me. It was like, I’m in the company of greatness.

He’s telling me, you have to pass that torch and you don’t have to have money to pass the torch. That’s what hope is, which is why I’m so grateful that you invited me to speak because you don’t have to have money to pass a torch. Hope is that. There’s no money attached to it. It’s free. I think we have to make it clear that someone sparked this. That is not independent of who we are and that’s how interconnected it is as people. That it’s not about me, it’s not about you. It’s about how do we get to be connected?

Chris Williams:

You’re so right. Thank you for sharing that. I’m assuming that picture is somewhere that maybe you could email it over?

Amy Bowllan:

Oh my gosh, it’s all online.

Chris Williams:

Okay. Good. Be sure when we get done talking, shoot a copy of that thing or a link to it at least because I want to include that in the show notes. I think it would be a great one to have.

Amy Bowllan:

That is the moment and there are more, but to have that connection to Nelson Mandela, I’m telling you, I cannot tell you how much him seeing me in the back of a throng of reporters and saying you come here was like someone feeding the poor.

Chris Williams:

There are a few people on the planet, who have been on the planet, I wish he was still here, that had an impact on so many people because of the way they handled themselves, their hopes, their dreams and he is just a giant.

Amy Bowllan:

Yes he is.

Chris Williams:

It sounds like he’s a giant because he was so humble and so willing to not just deal with the famous people. He wanted to be real.

Amy Bowllan:

Yes. He wanted to see that vision that he had in his cell. To see, I’m nobody right now.

Chris Williams:

Amazing. Well, tell us another story. I wish we had two hours for this podcast episode. So, tell me another story about you.

Question 3 – Take us back to the time and paint a picture. Take us to that place where you really had to draw in hope to get through something in your own life.

Amy Bowllan:

I think part of what has made me someone who has hope and faith is I never thought I would be defined as someone – as a breast cancer survivor because I have been a supporter of breast cancer from the time I can remember. I never thought I would be someone who would, I don’t say victim, I will never tell myself I’m a victim. I will never tell myself I’m a survivor. My daughter likes to say, mom, you beat cancer’s ass. I don’t challenge cancer because I feel like it’s its own thing. I’ve had it. I’ve had to struggle with it and it is something that’s very real.

So, my story about a hopeless time came when my son was accepted to the school of his choice. The next day after we took him out to dinner, I was in the bathroom and I was doing whatever and I saw this tiny, little dimple on my left breast. The day after he was accepted. We had spent nine months getting him to be in all these schools and he was accepted. We went out to dinner and I looked and immediately, the next morning, I broke out in a cold sweat because I knew something was wrong. I saw an indentation that was just not even a hair. You couldn’t even see it with your human eye. I said to God, “you let my son get accepted to this school and now you’re telling me I have breast cancer?” I didn’t know what was happening. Now I can’t see my son graduate? I was so angry and this flush of air came over me and I was so… This is what happens when you’ve been diagnosed with something that comes out of the blue.

Anybody out there who can appreciate being diagnosed with anything, I don’t care, male, female, gender, whatever it is, there is a moment where you just come to terms with “why?”. My “why” turned into okay, so what do we need to do? The first question I asked my doctors – one question I asked was, how long do I have? I want to make sure that I either don’t have enough time or do. “We can’t tell anything, Amy, until we go get this out and we have to – everything is about tests, tests, tests…” Hope. It always goes back to hope.

Chris Williams:

How long did that last?

Amy Bowllan:

Oh my God. It never stops. It always lasts because you’re always wondering…

Chris Williams:

Is it going to come back?

Amy Bowllan:

Yes. You even have parents, you even have people saying to you, don’t you always worry about the second foot drop, the second dropping and I always say yeah. My son is graduating in May of this year and this is my fourth year of being – I never say I’m cancer-free. My daughter loves to talk about that as cancer awareness month and she’s… I don’t mean to sound trite, but the reality is I was in the trenches of being in an 18, 14, 15-hour surgery, almost died twice, kids and the whole nine yards, you’re just trying to train your kids to say, you know what, if something happens to me, you got to do you. You got to make sure you’re set to be who you need to be and be ethical and transparent. When they tell me they think they have it, I still say, you know what, it could happen to anybody. There is no discrimination which is what kills me.

When we talk about your program of hope, I adore it because it’s so transparent and it’s so connected and interconnected. There’s so many things that are happening in the world whereby we can just – if we connect with each other, be at war, people who can’t get past their depression, if we just reach out to people and say “yes I get it” I know what it’s like, the world would be so much better. That’s why I agreed to speak to this.

Cancer for sure, losing hair, having my kids and having people tease me, the bullying never stops when you are the survivor of any sort. You get discriminated against, you got work stress and everything goes along with it. I was almost grateful, I prayed to God, let me deal with what those that I have to deal with. It’s easy to be a beautiful person on the outside, but yet when you get to deal with the day-in, day-out of what people actually have to deal with, you can connect. You can connect in a way that most people don’t connect. I’m talking too much.

Chris Williams:

No, you’re not talking too much. This is all about you being here. Thank you. Not talking too much at all. So, tell me when you’re still dealing with the question of is cancer going to come back, how do you think through hope because hope may go away. I hate to say it that way. That’s probably a harsh way to say it, but I’m just trying to be straight up with this thing. If it’s going to come back, are you basing hope? I think a lot of people do base hope on the win, on the success of something happening rather than the process, the daily march.

Amy Bowllan:

That’s such a great point. Say that one more time because it’s so important that people hear that.

Chris Williams:

I think people base their hope on the win or the finish line being the success that they want it to be and oftentimes in life, that doesn’t happen the way we think it will. There is something that we have to come back to that keeps us hoping when we’re not focused on the finish line. We have to focus on the steps, what’s today. How are you staying focused on steps today? You’re a cancer survivor and you’re not at the five-year mark and some of the big dates that are coming hopefully to give you a little more confidence…I’ve had a friend tell me last week they just hit the five-year mark last week on cancer and that’s fantastic. But, you can’t live without wondering, does it come back?

Amy Bowllan:

You’re so right. First of all, I’m really grateful that you have such transparency with the obvious. I think that’s the big elephant in the room when people start talking about any kind of life-threatening disease or anything that takes attention away from what the reality of any situation is.

To answer your question, anybody who is presented with “today you are faced with a gun in your face“, it’s like looking at a barrel in your face. How do you respond to it? Then, we go back to our youth, we start digging. People who had been with the barrel in their eyes, they start digging. Where do I go? What do I do? How did I get to this position? I have, as a result of being a breast cancer – I don’t say survivor because again, who knows, but what I had been able to successfully do is when someone comes to me and they say, you know what Amy, I have three months, I have to swallow and I have to say to them, hey chick, what’s going on today that we need to talk about?

I try to keep it real so that I know the mindset of someone who’s on their journey to wherever it is that they’re going. That is work. I think hope is what it is. We try to get people who are living in a world where they had been given a time frame. Since my diagnosis, I had new friends who ask me, what do I do? How do I talk to my kids? How do I handle my hair being off? What I’ve done is I’ve made sure I look like I’m the bomb every single day. I don’t let myself look like – I’m like, this is what you have to do first. Yes, I have reconstruction. I don’t feel anything from my neck down, I have scars, battle scars. I let these women and men know I’m a resource, I’m not here to be prettier than anybody or better than anybody, but I’m here to keep it real. I’m here to be transparent and when you start feeling like, oh, your man is out. He’s not doing this, you still have yourself. This is a world – we haven’t even addressed the world of people who are living. No, we have two months and I have a very good friend of mine who is on her way home and she never, never saw it coming, but giving hope is by providing, as you mentioned and something that I’ve read that you said, humor. Humor is huge.

Chris Williams:

It is.

Amy Bowllan:

That can get you through so many layers of discomfort. Just having the little glass of wine and just talking about like what your kids want when – not writing their soliloquy or writing what I want you to do when you’re married, but telling them today, I like the way you look right now. It’s like today, it’s like I want a broken toy… Let’s be real. We’re real who are right now and we have to always be that way when we’re dealing with – it’s not diseases because everybody you talk to could have something that ticks them.

But, the transparency of who you are to that person makes it authentic and they will always go back to you.

Chris Williams:

You’re right. I’m glad you’re being so authentic. It encourages me to be more and more authentic. This process for me is tiptoeing into the world of authenticity because I think everybody wonders. I just don’t think we talk about it. What if somebody found out this thing that I don’t want them to find out, would it change my job? Would it change my relationships with friends or family? The cancers of the world aren’t just the ones that grow in our cellular structure. They’re the depression and the relationship struggles and where we were brought up and how we were brought up or the circumstances today. Maybe a nation that’s at war. We’re talking to some people overseas that are just in horrible locations and they may be healthy as an ox, but their hope is so dependent on them doing something because it has to be because the things that are going on around them aren’t hopeful.

I love what you’re saying because it’s honest and it’s real and just the past week or so I’ve been learning I should not be looking to the goal of where I hope this will be at the end. I should be looking to what am I going to do with it right now. I was in – this is good enough I think, it was in my psychiatrist’s office recently and on her whiteboard it said “To basically recognize where you are today, deal with it and live with it and start living”. It was just great. Just be where you are and start living with that. Don’t be dragging out the past or the future. Just start living today.

Amy Bowllan:

But when you look at the present and you see – my career in the media, I’m really honestly upset with the media in so many ways because we have such a responsibility to make it such that our people who we love, if we could just spread the word that we don’t accept a lot of the things that happen on the front page, when we show someone being burned alive, that is as bad as the happening. You can’t do anything and when you’re reading and you’re watching these pictures and visuals, it is very tormenting for someone and people who are – every person on this planet has a soul. A person cares and every person has hope, so when you put these lack of hope situations, what are people to do? They lose hope.

Chris Williams:

They do lose hope. They really do.

Amy Bowllan:

I’m a media person. We have to provide hope which is why I teach because I want my students to see and to learn that you don’t have to put the person who’s burning. You may want to interview his parents, you may want to find out if it’s authentic. We cannot support those people who are doing things to get attention. But I don’t want to interrupt…

Chris Williams:

You’re not. Let’s go for question four. These interviews are not about me, they’re about you.

Question 4 – How are you sharing hope today?

What are you doing in your life? I can read through your bio here and it’ll be on the website for those who want to – there’s a lot there you’re doing, but give me some really practical insight stuff on what are you doing.

Amy Bowllan:

That’s a good question. I think for most people out there who are like me, regular, average day people who are walking to work or taking the bus or taking the train or traveling, I think what’s most important is everyday is an opportunity to volunteer. I don’t care if it’s picking up a piece of trash on the street and somebody saying, you know what, that’s a good modeling system for me or opening the door for somebody and even going layers deep, asking someone who is homeless what’s your name.

I have to share a brief story. It’s not a long story, but I saw this man on the train for the past month and a half, maybe two months. Every day, he would shake and I would see him and I couldn’t understand what the heck is wrong with him. In New York City, you see homeless people all the time. Finally, I took my courage because I was scared because I didn’t know who he was or what he was about. I said, what’s your name? He said “Daryl”. I said, Daryl, I’m going to get you dinner and I got him dinner. It was like a piece of chicken and rice, that was fine. The next day, I bought him boots. PS, when I got him boots, I said Daryl and he was like, “Yes?” I said where are the boots? He said “I didn’t need them”. I said okay, but I developed a relationship with him. I think one thing that I think is important, anybody out there who was civic minded and you really want to connect with people who have less than or need, develop a relationship that goes beyond just giving bread and good cheer.

People are people. Ask someone, what is your name? When I asked Daryl his name, it’s almost like he forgot what it was. He said Daryl, so when I go to him… I haven’t seen him since, so I’m really worried. I don’t know what’s happened to him because I haven’t seen him in over a week. I was saying to him, “Daryl” and he would come with this cloth that was like this black cloth. I don’t have to answer to anybody. I’m not getting this for a prize at any contest. It was like my daughter’s waiting because she’s like, “Mom, we have to get to the train”. I was like, okay, I got to say hi to Daryl. Moments and moments and moments.

That’s one piece of advice that I will give to people. If you’re a hope person and you really want to spread this good news, you really have to go beyond your comfort zone when it comes to who do you want to help and why.

Every moment is volunteering.

Chris Williams:

Every moment is volunteering. That’s a really interesting way to look at things. Wow. You’re right. You defined a minute ago, is helping Daryl the thing to do to get an award? So, you got a couple of Emmys on your shelf back in the office, but are they above you right there?

Amy Bowllan:

They are. I’ll show you.

Chris Williams:

I want to see one.

Amy Bowllan:

Okay. Hold on. If I don’t break one of them.

Chris Williams:

Don’t break it. Would you mind putting it on a FedEx box and sending it over? I’d love to keep that on my shelf for a while and share it.

Amy Bowllan:

I will break it.

Chris Williams:

No, leave it there. Don’t hurt it. So, you got a couple of Emmys and you can obviously hit the competition side of things, but if every moment is volunteering then even when you’re sitting in the audience about to ride the red carpet to get an award, the person you’re sitting next to, there’s still a volunteer opportunity there for you to love and respect and deliver more hope to that person?

Amy Bowllan:

Yes. That’s a great idea. You said it best. I think when it comes to Emmys, literally to me, it’s not the statue. It’s what you gain from the experience. There’s no way to reward than having a student come to you and say, you know what you did Ms. Bowllan, you helped me get to this point. You did that. The Emmy is its own side story and news, as a professional news person, we always say you’re only as good as your last story. If I didn’t leave my students tonight with something that they can reflect on and about, I’m no good.

That’s hope for my students because I want them to say, Ms. Bowllan, it’s a new flower tomorrow. She bloomed, she blossomed and I can blossom with her. We’re all in the same trajectory of flowering and that is so cool because our kids deserve to be in a garden. They don’t deserve to be in some old school, 20th century modality of what it was like when they were sitting in rows. I mean there’s so much for them and we don’t appreciate that. I’m a renegade and I will never sacrifice my students’ future for current day way of being in the 20th century and I won’t.

Chris Williams:

Good blossom for so many others of life. Amy, I think you’ve hit question number five on your own.

Question 5 – Really practical, actionable ways that we can be sharing hope.

If every moment is a volunteer moment, I think that is going to be my takeaway for this conversation.If every moment is a volunteer moment, then that really changes the way that I look at everything. Walking across the street with my kids to school, getting the mail from the mail man, the grocery store to seeing a client at work, it’s an opportunity.

Amy Bowllan:

My parents were very instrumental. You model being the good person. You model hope, you model this, you model. You have to be the – and what a grace. It is such a grace to be a person who you don’t have to question. You may question yourself at various times in your life. Did I do the right thing? Did I say the right thing? I may be a little off in this, but boy, to be raised by people who just say, do good by others is not about you.

Chris Williams:

Last question, I think, for you Amy. It’s not one of the five, it’s just a fun one. When you need to listen to something to get your spirits up and have some fun, what kind of music are you popping in? What’s your favorite song, band, whatever.

Amy Bowllan:

I love Michael Jackson and The Jackson’s Can You Feel It.

Chris Williams:

Yes.

Amy Bowllan:

(sings Can You Feel It) Because he talks about the blood that is inside of you, is inside of me.

(continues singing) …and it’s true.

Chris Williams:

Beautiful.

Amy Bowllan:

It’s true because the message that you have, I have it too. It’s inspiring. I get up in the morning and listen to it to get me going and The Impossible Dream by Luther Vandross. He didn’t sing it initially, but To Dream The Impossible Dream is huge. If students come away with being able to feel the fact that we’re in this together and dreaming the impossible dream where we will be set for this new generation.

Chris Williams:

You are the first person on interview to mention a song that’s already been mentioned by somebody else. I was waiting for that to happen. Kind of curios. There’s a little bit of research project going on here for sure and this whole music thing is just me having fun to see what do people of hope listen to? The Impossible Dream, To Dream The Impossible Dream was mentioned a few weeks back.

Amy Bowllan:

That’s awesome. We need to put that out there.

Chris Williams:

Yes we do. Obviously it’s a good one.

Amy Bowllan:

Yes. It’s so monumental because of so many things that we’re not doing right now and we owe it to our kids. We owe it to our kids to be so passionate about life and being transparent. If we don’t do that, something is freaking wrong with us.

Chris Williams:

You’re right. Wow. Say that one more time. I cut you off a little bit there. Where do we follow you?

Amy Bowllan:

My daughter is my inspiration. She is at Twitter, @CBowllan at 11 years old got me through not only breast cancer, but chemotherapy. She started her own Twitter page for breast cancer survivors, both men and women. She’s 15 and she is just freaking wax solid. I bow to her. You don’t know what it’s like to have a mom or a dad who’s damn near death. She’s like, “mom, I’m keeping you up and I’m not going to have you be this”. If you follow anybody, follow @CBowllan. She is on…

Chris Williams:

Scottie, does Scottie have a Twitter account?

Amy Bowllan:

Scottie is great. He doesn’t have his Twitter account, but I do @ABowllan.

Chris Williams:

So, we’re looking for @CBowllan and @ABowllan.

Amy Bowllan:

@ABowllan. I’m on Twitter, I’m on Facebook, I’m on LinkedIn, Pinterest and always available. I have so many people asking me just regular everyday questions about what it’s like when you first get diagnosed. We need resources and that’s hope. Having the ability that you have been so graced with to extend your – I don’t even know what to call it, but your gratitude and your own experience to say this matters and I’m going to extend it. That’s a blessing.

Chris Williams:

You have been a blessing for sure. I think your daughter takes after you.

Amy Bowllan:

I think she came more long before me, but you came as a result of what hope actually means. What we need right now in this day and age. I’m really grateful to you Chris. I can’t tell you.

You’ve just listened to I Share Hope. If you’re ready to make a change, head to our website at isharehope.com and claim your free copy of the Top Ten Actions of Hope from World Leaders to use hope in your own life. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next time.

Chris Williams:

So, walking the dog. What kind of dog do you have?

Amy Bowllan:

I have a Scottish Terrier and he’s going to bark while we’re on, but that’s okay because – stop it Scottie. I hope it doesn’t mess it up.

Chris Williams:

There he is. What’s his name?

Amy Bowllan:

Scottie. He’s a Scottish Terrier.

Chris Williams:

So, his name is Scottie and he’s a Scottie? Got you. That’s easy to remember.