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Today I am speaking with a woman from Texas who, while writing a book, embarked on a rather unusual journey back in time where she encountered her 10-year-old self on a 36-hour trip to her childhood home. While completely fictitious, the experience challenged her in ways she didn’t anticipate.
Amy Weinland Daughters had the idea to write the book for a long time, but it took a long time for her to develop the confidence she needed in her writing ability to even begin the project.
In her book, “You Cannot Mess This Up,” Amy travels back to Thanksgiving 1978 where she finds herself in her home with her parents and siblings as well as the 10-year-old version of herself. In fact, everyone thinks Amy is a cousin from Ohio.
In real life, Amy has been fascinated with the idea of time travel for many years. For an inexperience writer, her book won an award for time-travel fiction.
Amy’s career was in purchasing while she and her husband raised their children in the United States and United Kingdom. While in Europe, Amy started dabbling in writing, but it was after turning 50 that she really pursued her dream.
While becoming an author was certainly a new direction for Amy’s life, her life really changed profoundly after she read that a contact on LinkedIn had a son who was battling cancer.
That prompted Amy to start sending handwritten, personalized letters of encouragement to families staying at the Ronald McDonald House and, later, to all 580 of her Facebook friends.
Today, Amy knows how impactful those letters are for people receiving them. She knows, because their replies have impacted Amy, too, and opened her eyes to the lost art of letter writing.
Amy’s experience sending notes to her friend, Dana, while her son was battling cancer, started several pen pal relationships. Most of the people Amy wrote to were connected to her in some way over the years. Some were from high school, professional jobs and even casual acquaintances.
However, she did not really know some of the people before writing the first letter. Yet, when they responded, the messages Amy received in return touched her heart.
Amy’s mission to send personalized handwritten notes to every one of the 580 people she counted as friends on Facebook was a process that took her 18 months to complete.
The experience proved to Amy that absolutely anyone can have purpose in their life by simply speaking words of empathy or encouragement to others.
We are awash with junk mail every day. As a result, a handwritten note really stands out. She called the letters an ideal way to re-establish connections that have faded over the years.
More importantly, those letters have opened doors for Amy to connect with people who may not share the same political, social or religious beliefs. However, as humans, we all share a desire for meaningful connection, which is absent in society today.
Amy would find something she had in common with each person and focus her message on that. The response was overwhelming because every person has a deep desire to be noticed and valued. A personalized note sends that message loud and clear.
Best of all, even people with bad penmanship or arthritis can do the same thing with personalized typed letters inserted into a card and mailed, too. As long as the message comes from the heart, the impact will be tremendous.
The letter-writing experience has been so profound that Amy wrote another book titled, “Dear Dana,” which focuses on her project to send handwritten notes to all 580 Facebook friends.
People can connect with Amy by visiting www.amydaughters.com. She is also active on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
Both of Amy’s Books, “You Cannot Mess This Up,” and “Dear Dana,” are available on Amazon, at other bookstores and on her website.
That’s all I have for this week’s show. If you’d like help in identifying a purpose for your life or to get help planning your next steps, I’m offering a complimentary brainstorming session to members of the Forward From 50 Facebook community. For details, connect with me on Facebook or visit www.forwardfrom50.com.
I’ll have another inspirational interview on the next episode of the Forward From 50 podcast. Thanks for listening. If you like this show, please consider leaving a review wherever you download the episodes.
If you purchase a book from one of the Amazon links above, Forward From 50 may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
After closing his business and enduring several painful years of uncertainty regarding what to do with his life, Greg founded Forward From 50 to help men and women over 50 to live more purposeful lives by pursuing things they are passionate about. A Wisconsin native, Greg currently lives in Arizona.