You can’t help but hear Amy Clover’s story and think to yourself, “Wow. This woman is absolutely going to change the world.” Her passion is contagious and her mission is life-changing. After hearing a brief snippet of Amy’s story while attending the 2013 World Domination Summit, I knew I had to interview Amy for Compete Every Day.
Her platform, “Strong Inside Out,” and her recently-finished tour, The 30×30 Project, fits in line with the Compete Every Day message, and she understands the power of believing that life is worth competing for. Amy struggled her whole youth with a “woe is me, my life is so hard” attitude. She was diagnosed with both clinical depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder while in high school, and leaned on both as why her life “sucked.” She was scared of judgment, and would spend her time lashing out at others while keeping her true emotions bottled up inside.
“I was afraid that I would be labeled as ‘the crazy girl’ if anyone ever found out. So I kept everything inside,” Amy said. One night in 2005, Amy had had enough. Her roommate came home and caught her with a knife to her wrist, ready to take her own life. The roommate got the knife away and thanks to an additional friend’s help, convinced Amy to call a suicide prevention hotline. The next morning she checked herself into the ER and was immediately admitted to a mental hospital.
“I’ve never been so angry in all my life. I am sort of the ‘anti-authority’ type and the rigid schedule (when to eat, when to sleep, when to take medicines), was the most frustrated I had ever been. But, my admission to the hospital was the wakeup call I needed.”
As soon as she was released from the hospital, Amy began attending therapy and working out as an additional avenue to release her anger or emotions. It was the one place she felt she could just “let it all out.” She noticed that the more she trained, the more her positive thinking patterns and work with her therapist solidified as habits. As her fitness improved, so did her moods and ability to overcome obstacles. She eventually got into training others to help them achieve the mental and physical benefits that she had.
While at last year’s 2012 World Domination Summit, Amy was inspired to create something bigger than herself. “I met so many people at the event who were living these extraordinary lives and I told myself ‘I want to do that. I want to live the life they’re living.’ I had put myself into a box and decided it was time to break out.”
It was at that moment The 30×30 Project was born. The 30×30 Project was a tour of 30 bootcamps in 30 cities around North America in honor of the 30th birthday Amy almost didn’t have. It was her way to bring her story to people face-to-face while also helping them strengthen themselves inside and out. It wasn’t just about the workouts either. Amy created Movement Meetups to help participants create action steps to start living their extraordinary lives. She wanted to help others looking for a way to help more and give more – the exact same position she had been in just one year earlier. Amy partnered with To Write Love On Her Arms, a nonprofit that provides hope and resources to people who struggle with depression, self-injury, substance abuse and suicide.
To fund the tour, she raised $18,000 with the help of strangers on Indiegogo that were moved by her powerful testimony. With the help of her local lululemon athletica store who believed in the cause and was willing to help reach out to other stores, Amy was able to coordinate with mostly lululemon athletica shops across the continent to host The 30×30 Bootcamps. “We went most everywhere we were welcome. It was amazing.”
So what did you learn from this entire experience?
“My biggest lesson from 30×30 is that this can’t stop with just one tour. I’m already planning to kick off another one next year.” Amy has yet to title the new tour or plan how many stops she will make, but one thing is for sure – she plans to meet more people and help change more lives. There is no doubt in our mind that she will do so.
Right now Amy devotes a majority of her time to Strong Inside Out, where she initially started out as a fitness blog but has morphed it into a community to help empower people to discover and unleash their inner strength through outer strength. You can see why the Compete Every Day team loves Amy and her projects. She truly believes life is worth competing for and has invested her life into helping others realize that same truth.
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