Hope Comes to Visit

Boundaries, Broken Places, and Being Mended with Gold - with Aimee Kandrac

• Danielle Elliott Smith • Season 1 • Episode 16

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What happens when life breaks open in every direction? For Aimee Kandrac, it all came crashing down in a six-week period — empty nesting, a cancer scare, the end of her 23-year marriage, and selling her dream home. But from that breaking point came something extraordinary: “Amy 2.0.”

In this episode of Hope Comes to Visit, Aimee shares how she rebuilt her life with new boundaries, deeper self-knowledge, and a joy her own friends and family had never seen before. As CEO and co-founder of What Friends Do, Aimee also brings hard-won wisdom about how we show up for each other in times of crisis. Because when we let others in — when we accept help as much as we give it — we create the kind of connection that heals us all.

This is a story of transformation, community, and the gold that can mend our broken places.

Connect with Aimee here on her website: AimeeKandrac.com, on What Friends Do, and of course on her social channel - LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Thank you for listening to Hope Comes to Visit. If this episode resonated with you, please follow, rate, and share the show — it helps others find their way to these conversations.

New episodes drop every Monday and Friday, so you can begin and end your week with a little light and a lot of hope.

For more stories, reflections, and ways to connect, visit www.DanielleElliottSmith.com or follow along on Instagram @daniellesmithtv and @HopeComestoVisit



Speaker 1:

I also was in a situation two years ago where my life just fell apart, just shattered, in ways that I didn't see coming.

Speaker 2:

This is a space for stories that matter, for real human connection. I'm Danielle Elliott Smith and this is Hope Comes to Visit. I'm very excited about our guest today. Our guest today is Amy Kandrick. She is a speaker, consultant, author and the co-founder and CEO of what Friends Do. Her work is instrumental to organizing support during life-changing events and she speaks to organizations about creative ways to help friends and family during times of crisis. Amy has been recognized as a top 50 mompreneur by babblecom and has been, and is, the first female CEO in the state of Indiana to close a $500,000 funding round. She's been featured in Forbes, time, fortune and the LA Times, oprahcom and more.

Speaker 2:

Amy's the host and producer of the podcast Kitchen Chats, a graduate of the University of Illinois and enjoys spending time with her two children cooking and playing in the garden. Let's take a quick moment to thank the people that support and sponsor the podcast. When life takes an unexpected turn, you deserve someone who will stand beside you. St Louis attorney Chris Dulley offers experienced one-on-one legal defense. Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUI-HELP, or you can visit Dulleyullylawfirmcom that's D-U-L-L-E lawfirmcom for a free consultation. Amy, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Speaker 1:

Danielle, thanks for the opportunity to join you and your audience.

Speaker 2:

I am so excited to have this conversation because so much of the work you do is heart work, the work that so many of us always want to do, and in reading about the work that you've done, I know it's the work that people want to do and aren't always sure how to help. So I want to start by asking you to explain what is what friends do, and then we're going to get into why you started it and sort of how you accidentally stumbled into this CEO role.

Speaker 1:

Sure, thanks. Well, um, oh, and it's uh I tell the story hundreds of times and this week just happens to be the anniversary week of um, one of the reasons that we started this Um. So we had a um, a family loved one, who had terminal brain cancer when she was 25. And we were the first layer friends who were kind of getting information from the family when they were in the hospital and sharing it with I say the masses in quotes, but all of the people who wanted to be up to date on what was going on. And as we were sharing that information, the response was always twofold. It was always first and foremost, please tell the family that I love them and I'm thinking of them. And the second was always and let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Speaker 2:

And isn't that always the question? What do you need? How can I?

Speaker 1:

help Right and so so what we figured out, though, was, if we could give people specific ways to help, they would help they would, and I believe that, after all of these years, the reason I continue what I'm doing is because I see the magic that happens and the healing that happens on both sides when people who are in need are willing to accept help and people who want to help are given that opportunity and who are actually plugged in in the right way.

Speaker 2:

To what the actual need is, as compared to just floundering with the. Do I give you dollars? Do I give you food? Do I do your laundry?

Speaker 1:

Yes, and I would say there's actually one more, even more critical piece of that, because I agree a hundred percent with what you've said. But the other critical piece for that is what are they good at? I love that. So I I actually like to cook, so I don't mind making a meal for someone. But my best friend is like I can't get dinner on the table for my own family. Why am I trying to put food? Like, why am I giving food to somebody else? But she's? She's a CFO, and she's like if I could go and organize all their bills for them and make sure everything was paid? She's like that's where it feels better to also receive the help when someone's doing something that they love.

Speaker 2:

And that they're good at right, because I don't necessarily want the best chef in the world messing with my bills Right, correct, well, but I do want someone who is, who doesn't feel overburdened, someone who can't stand doing their own bills. I don't want them having to take on the burden of my bills.

Speaker 1:

No, and let's. Let's go back to this other friend who I love so dearly. He's never cooked for me. There's probably a reason for that, right.

Speaker 2:

Like.

Speaker 1:

I don't. I don't want someone who doesn't like to cook and and like my family, we have someone with severe food allergies. If somebody doesn't understand that, so I. So I say this I'm I'm kind of nagging on food and I don't mean to do that because food is, I think, one of the first love languages that people think of when anything is going on. But knowing that that's just not where everybody, it's not always the need that needs to be filled.

Speaker 2:

But it is most frequently the let's get a meal. Train together, right Right, train together right. So how does what friends do work? How does it tap into everybody's love language of giving?

Speaker 1:

Right. So we actually are in the process right now of launching a brand new service. It's a concierge service and we are talking to people about what their needs really are. Okay, and so the reason I like to start with that is because sometimes you don't even realize that somebody could come and walk your dog and take your trash out and clean your house, and once we can talk through some of the needs that you might have, what friends do?

Speaker 1:

We're a software, right, we're an online software that allows people to have their own personal calendar to post all of the things that they do need help with. And maybe it's, maybe it's a chemo buddy, maybe it's somebody taking the kids to go buy new shoes because school is starting, and all of this can be laid out on a calendar on the what Friends Do software. And then we engage your social networks. We're looking at the people who you already have in your network and I think people don't always understand and appreciate how many people would be willing to help them if they were given those really concrete things that they could do to help so it's almost like your best friend would come in and say I know these are the things that Danielle needs done.

Speaker 2:

And then everyone else could tap in and say okay, I'm going to go walk her dogs. And someone else would come in and say I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to clean out this closet, and someone else would say that's brilliant.

Speaker 1:

So so it's all one online space. We also have a um, a spot in there, um to kind of give updates. That way you don't have to retell the story all the time, like we used to play that game of telephone right Like right. It never gets told the same way and it's also really exhausting to have to retell the story sometimes. Sometimes, as the person or even that frontline, it can be emotionally draining to have to repeat it over and over. You get the text message and you're like, oh shoot, I sent it to the wrong group and I left off these two people and now you know. So, all of having all of that stuff in one space, we have a place for donations. We have a place for an integrated Amazon wishlist, so all of it can be held in one spot for people to go find.

Speaker 2:

How long have you been doing this now?

Speaker 1:

So we've been doing this for almost 10 years. We actually started it a little bit before that. I started it with my mom and kind of figured out a few. You know after a few years that we were best as a mom and daughter and not as business partners and at that point switched our business model up and that's when I raised venture capital funding, was the first female CEO in the state of Indiana to close funding over $500,000 and really pivoted away from consumers and moved into selling our product into healthcare systems and worked kind of alongside a lot of healthcare.

Speaker 2:

And is that what it does now?

Speaker 1:

of healthcare, and is that what it does now. So that's what? Um, we are in the process of doing that now and integrating this new concierge service. We actually had some rough years during COVID. Um, the first couple of years of COVID were gangbusters for us, and then, um, we found, once we were inside of those hospital systems, workflows changed. Caregivers who we used to give information to to help set up our service weren't in hospitals anymore. Right, people weren't coming in in the same way, and the delivery of services has just changed so drastically in the past five years. And so that's why we're in the entrepreneurial world, pivoting again and adding this new service level.

Speaker 2:

What have you found has been the most important lesson you have learned, working with people who are in this place of struggle and loss and need?

Speaker 1:

The word grief comes up the most as I try to think through the struggle, and that is because we as humans like to think of ourselves as capable and all of the sudden your life changes and it doesn't look like how you thought it was going to change, or it doesn't look like what you had even dreamed of having your life look like, and you are grieving the way you thought your life was going to be. The fact that you can't care for yourself independently, that's a huge thing. I share the story of a few years ago. It was a Friday night and my kids were not old enough to drive yet, but old enough for me to leave them home alone.

Speaker 1:

And I went to the grocery store to get some things for dinner and as I was walking into the store I got hit by a car. Into the store, I got hit by a car and I ended up with a broken foot and a broken hand and I've explained a little bit about my business so far and had to have almost a little intervention. My mom and sister walked in one day and they were like you need a what Friends Do page. You cannot drive, you can't go get your own cup of coffee, you cannot get in and out of the bathtub or shower by yourself. You have to accept help for this short amount of time.

Speaker 2:

That is the hardest thing, right, and so go ahead yeah, I was going to ask you if you'd had been in a position to accept the help you are offering to others well.

Speaker 1:

So that that's my easy story of it. Um, I, I also was in a situation, um two years ago where my life just fell apart, just shattered in ways that I didn't see coming. Over the course of six weeks, I became an empty nester, had a cancer scare. It was benign, but I ended up having to have surgery. My husband of 23 years decided he didn't want to be married anymore and filed for divorce and then subsequently moved out and we had to put our dream house up for sale. Oh, amy and I was shattered. I refused to let friends do page because I was so embarrassed, because I was so broken.

Speaker 1:

Um, and I think that's something that happens to a lot of people um, is that we often can't face it, and so the fact that we would have to talk to others about it, it's just too overwhelming. Um, but one of the things. So I also have a podcast and, uh, I've shared a lot of this on my podcast and my sister has been my rock through everything and she's a therapist, so I get a little bit of sister, a little bit of therapy, a whole lot of love, a whole lot of love. Who knows where the doses lie?

Speaker 2:

each day, some days it's a full therapy and 15% sister, some days all sister.

Speaker 1:

But very much. But one of the things that she said to me was she was really proud of me that I put my oxygen mask on first and so easy to forget to do that.

Speaker 1:

It is and and it took me I mean, it's still taking me like I'm going to verbally process this again right now with you Like what? What did that mean? What was my oxygen mask for me? And for me, I think it really was the friendships and relationships that I had established already, knowing that I had safe places, knowing that I had safe people who could come in and pick me up out of bed and say we're just going downstairs for coffee today. Kick me up out of bed and say we're just going downstairs for coffee today. People who would come in and say I am cleaning out your closets because the house has to go up for sale. I don't care what the closets look like, I can get this done.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't bother me. To someone who is going through a breaking point, like you were at that point, who feels resistant to allowing themselves to be seen at their bottom, to say it's okay, it's okay, we've. You're not alone, we've. I've been there, we've been there, you're going to be okay, but you've got to. Let us see you.

Speaker 1:

So that's one that I don't know, that there's any particular words that are right, any particular timing that is right for whatever the situation is you're going through, and whether or not this is the right thing or not. This is what I often say to people, and that is, if the roles were reversed, how would you want me to be behaving? And if you knew that I was going through something, would you want to be here helping and would you be loving me unconditionally? And the answer is, of course of course.

Speaker 1:

Now again, this is where the therapy sister could say well, that's not the right way to do it. But um but it's something that works for me in my life.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I think what's powerful about that is and this does go to the therapy sister piece, right that I've had therapists say to me if this was your daughter, how would you treat her? Right, and I can remember a therapist saying that to me at one low point in my life. Would you, would you allow your daughter to put herself as such a low priority? Of course's, I mean, that's an analogy I've heard over and over and over. I remember the first time I heard it I want to say the first time I heard it, susie Orman said it when she was talking about finances and I've since heard it ad nauseum, to the point that I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, my oxygen, I got it.

Speaker 2:

And I still don't always remember to do it. I still probably don't do it more often than I do it, and but I know it, you know it. But I believe this goes to one of the core principles I have in this show that hearing someone else telling a piece of your story, seeing that someone else can make it through something, is powerful. Knowing that there are other people who go through hard things and they don't just claw their way through, barely surviving, they find light in it, that is powerful. The most powerful things we can hear are truths we already know, and I think it comes out of someone else.

Speaker 1:

It does come out of someone else. And I think the other part of it is, um, when we're going through something we're we're not always going through it as alone as we like to think we are Right, and and it's almost. You know, when I was getting divorced, my family was losing family. When I was moving, my neighbors were losing me as a neighbor, and and I forgot you know when, when we have things in life, other people are affected by those changes as well. And again, that healing can happen for both of us when we can go through that grief together, when we can move together through some of these times where you feel like all you can do is crawl your way through, claw your way through, maybe sleep your way through. Who knows? Yeah, it's, it's really hard. What pulled you through? It was my people, literally my people, who I could call in the middle of the night, who came over and pulled me out of bed, who came over and just did stuff. Right, they're like, no, but I'm here, I'm here. Right, they didn't have to necessarily answer.

Speaker 1:

They didn't take no for an answer and and they used the gifts that they had, right. So some of those people who were lawyers were good at helping me through all the legal stuff. Good at helping me through all the legal stuff. Um, I, I became such beautiful friends with a woman who I was already friends with, but she ended up being my realtor and I didn't know the level of friendship that I could have from her through all of this and the support that I needed from her in order to get these things done. Again, people came in with their strengths and that's where I just kind of would look around and I was like, oh, that's done. And they're like, yeah, it was easy for me, right, because they did the thing that was good for them, right.

Speaker 2:

How do you define hope?

Speaker 1:

for them, right? How do you define hope? Oh, you should give me a pre-reminder on that question. You should have given me a warning hope. I think that my definition of hope today is nothing like what it would have been two years ago, three years ago, 25 years ago.

Speaker 2:

Would the two years ago, three years ago, 25 years ago have been the same or? Would they be different each time.

Speaker 1:

I think they'd be different each time and I say 25 years ago because it was actually more like 27 years ago. I lost my dad. 25 years ago. We I guess 20 years ago we lost our friend.

Speaker 1:

Two years ago I was going through my divorce and empty nesting and all of those things, and each time hope looked a little different, I think. Hope, though, if I want to come up with an overarching theme, it's the golden thread that kind of puts everything through, and actually it's not even the golden thread. I'm going to share a quick story with you. I love stories. While I was going through my life quake and the shattering that happened, I had a visual that kept me going, and it's called a Kintsu bowl, and I don't know if you've ever seen a picture of this, and it is this beautiful asian ceramic dish of many, many, many pieces, and it is soldered back together with pieces of gold, and all I could think about as I was going through everything was one day I am going to be put back together in an even more beautiful way than I was before.

Speaker 2:

So funny, funny story. I was sent one when the man I had been with for five years passed away two years ago. Um with that story and I hosted a retreat this past weekend and I found cards with a picture of one with the story and I gave them to each of the women who came on the retreat. That explained that. So it's funny that you brought that up, because I have always said that I would rather sit in a room full of people who are beautifully broken that have had to work to put their pieces back together, because the way we get put back together leaves room for the light to go in, and I said that before that bowl was ever sent to me.

Speaker 2:

I would rather sit in a room full of people who are beautifully broken than people who consider themselves normal. Because we have to fight to be more self-aware. We have to fight for our patience and our empathy and our compassion, because we had to choose to stay and to be here, and that's what you're describing with that bull. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I, I love that and how? Um, I'll just say, of course, of course, we had this. No, that sounds about right Was.

Speaker 2:

was there a time during any of those experiences 25 years ago, six or seven years ago, two years ago that you felt hopeless?

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, I didn't know who I was anymore. Um, many of those times, like I was really, I was really young when my dad died. I'm sorry, so I don't think so. Well, like 20, um, which is pretty young, and, uh, I didn't know what the world would be like without a dad. Right, right, but even that loss wasn't the same as my entire identity being changed. I was no longer needed as a mom on a minute-by-minute person basis. Right, I'm still. Yes, I didn't have my house. I wasn't a wife anymore. I um, didn't really know who I was going to be.

Speaker 2:

So who is Amy?

Speaker 1:

Amy is experiencing a life that I didn't know existed. I did not know that life could be happier and easier and that I still get to learn something new every day and that I get the opportunity to create the most magical life that I want. I didn't know that was an option that I want. I didn't know that was an option. I didn't know that I got to decide how people treated me. I didn't know that I got to decide how I want to show up.

Speaker 2:

I want to show up so this version of Amy has boundaries.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yes, this version of Amy has boundaries and they are magical, and they're magical and um, and it's been a little weird. Some people are like I don't know about this Amy we used.

Speaker 2:

you know this isn't quite, but but, that's not a you problem, amy, that's a problem.

Speaker 1:

Oh it is. But the thing that makes me so happy is literally, at least once a week, someone's like you're just glowing and I feel like that.

Speaker 2:

I get that this 2.0 version of you is Is bright, yeah, bright and shiny and full of energy that isn't tamped down by all of the ands that defined you in everyone else's terms. They're all stories you are writing and definitions you are putting behind your name. Yeah, thank you, you're welcome. It's uh, I mean clearly we don't know each other very well, but this is wonderful, but it's uh, I don't know. I mean it's it's fun to to see and to to have these conversations and to get to learn, not just the story you've had, but the story you're writing.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think I didn't know how much I've read all of the things right, and I've heard this so many times, and it's so similar to put your oxygen mask on first, but you are the writer and creator in your own story. Uh-huh, and I wasn't. I wasn't owning that enough.

Speaker 2:

Well, I think that there is seeing a quote, and then there is the application of it in your life. Right, there is, and I used this quote in a we were talking about it in a previous interview one day at a time right, I'm, I'm in recovery, and another woman was using it in terms of a business model she has for families who are in a different kind of struggle, like it. Just, they need to focus on things one day at a time. All they're focusing on making sure that families are focusing on today. And I get that.

Speaker 2:

When I first used to hear the phrase one day at a time, I thought stupid sobriety phrase. Okay, until I actually understood its application in my own world. I need to focus on just making sure I'm not drinking today. And until I really applied it to that day and thought, okay, I need to make it through the next five minutes, I need to not walk to the store, I need to not go to the grocery store and buy a bottle of wine. I need to make it until I go to bed. I need to get to bed tonight. So it's one day at a time.

Speaker 2:

My goal is not I'm never drinking again. My goal is I'm not drinking today, right? So until you're actually applying something to your life, when you think someone else has been writing my story and then you say, oh, no, no, I get to choose, I'm going to decide what this looks like. And it's once you start to own it. And then someone says to you you're glowing and you think, right, that's because I'm owning my story, right, because you've started to apply it. And you realize that the reason you are glowing is because you are taking ownership for your own life. No one is telling you what to do anymore. No one is telling you who you are, or what time to get up, or who you can be, or what job to have, or how to behave or what boundaries to have.

Speaker 2:

Those are all Amy decisions.

Speaker 1:

And I think, the the unlearning of unwritten rules. Um, you know, I did have one friend who told me she's like Amy, there are no rules. Right, like I I was, I was trying to live like I had created this big, beautiful, pseudo picture perfect world. That wasn't.

Speaker 2:

So this begs a question what rules did you recognize you had been living by, that you didn't need to apply to your life anymore?

Speaker 1:

Um, I thought that I had to stay married, even though we just weren't the right people for each other. I did too right like we were not. I don't like the Amy. I was with him, right. I don't like how we treated each other.

Speaker 2:

My ex-husband is one of my good friends. We are not supposed to be married. My kids will tell you. We are better apart. He has a girlfriend and she is delightful. Yes, and I am getting married in November. Oh, congratulations, thank you. And he is fantastic in every way and we are happy. I mean, my daughter turned 21 a couple of weeks ago. We were celebrating with her and she looked at me and she said Mom, you are so happy and I love seeing you this happy and I've. It's amazing. I've never seen you this happy, like it's just and there is beauty in that Like my fiance and I have been able to talk to each other and say isn't it cool that our kids get to see us like in love, like because we're flourishing in love with each other and our kids get to witness that, right? And so you're walking out of one thing and making yourself available to the rest of your story. There's so much more to come and I just didn't know that Right and and it, it.

Speaker 1:

There's no part of me. That's logical. That would say what were you thinking Like? I should have known better, but I I didn't.

Speaker 2:

Why would you? Why would you? Because you were, once you entered into that marriage, understanding as well, until there was a realization that we weren't the right people for each other. Not that either of us were bad people, both good people. We're just not the right people for each other, and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

And that's okay. And I didn't know that, um, and I didn't know that, um, I didn't know that and I didn't know that, I didn't know that love could be easy and kind and sacred, and I thought it had to have clashing, I had to be rubbing in turmoil and it doesn't.

Speaker 2:

Doesn't.

Speaker 1:

So that's yeah, and and again. There's just um, I get to learn something new every day, and I wasn't as open to that before, even though I was learning something new all the time. I think that life is fun again.

Speaker 1:

Right, mm-hmm, once you realize that the growth and the evolution are supposed to be part of the process and that the person you are now had to go through, and I wouldn't be the person I am now if I hadn't gone through all of these things exactly, and I think that's one of those that like as people are in it. Whatever it is, I don't like to share it's going to be better. Sunny days are ahead, even though there will be but there might be some really hard, tragic things that happen that you don't necessarily want to lose, right, and so it's hard when you're in it.

Speaker 2:

Well, grief and loss are the one universal experience we have. Not everyone's going to get married or have kids, or find the love of their life, or live in the city they love or have the job that they love, but every single one of us is going to experience the loss of someone we love dearly.

Speaker 1:

And so.

Speaker 2:

But you're right, without each of these experiences we don't get to be who we are. And until we experience the hard, we don't necessarily appreciate the dichotomy of that, right? I don't? I don't know true joy without experiencing hard. If everything was good all the time, there would never be amazing, because everything was good Right, so I wouldn't know extraordinary Right. And that's where joy gets to come in.

Speaker 1:

And I think, along with what you just said, is recognizing that some people's lows are lower than others and that doesn't make it worse or better for any one person or any other thing. And that's I do hear from people every once in a while. They're like oh well, I've never had a time in my life where I would need your service and I secretly think I'm like what a fucking great life you have led. Yes, that is the thing, yes. And so then I also like to say well, that's wonderful if you ever have someone else, and because the other problem is, no one ever wants to think that they're going to need my service because they don't.

Speaker 2:

It's congratulations so far, right, right, you know, I think that it's amazing that your service exists, because everyone's going to need it sometime, whether or not they're open to having the help, because we do have to be vulnerable enough to accept the help. But what a huge gift it is to have people who love you enough to make sure you're taken care of, right.

Speaker 1:

And to be the person who you love, someone enough to be willing to take care of them Completely.

Speaker 2:

It has been such an incredible gift having you on here with me. Where can people find you and support the work you're doing?

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you. So obviously our service is available at what friends docom and then you can find out more about me, my podcast. I have a written workbook planner that you can either buy a hard copy or a downloadable. That is at amykandrakcom and a-i-m-e-e-k-a-n-d-r-a-ccom and follow me on the places, on all the socials I'm on there. I'm pretty easy to find and I would love. One of my gifts is being able to help people figure out how to help, and so I encourage people to reach out and ask.

Speaker 2:

Perfect. Amy, thank you so much for spending time with me and with our listeners and with people who show up with us on YouTube. I am so grateful for the work you do and it's a joy to get to know this 2.0 version of you. So thank you for being here, thanks for having me, and thank you, friends, for taking time with us here on Hope Comes to Visit. I certainly hope that we have met you with the inspiration and hope and light that you needed, and I hope you will take time to share this episode and make sure that other people in your life get a little bit of hope visiting them today. Between now and the next time we visit with you, I hope you will take good care of you. Thank you for being here, and the next time we visit with you, I hope you will take good care of you. Thank you for being here. I'm incredibly grateful to the people who support and sponsor the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes, life takes a sharp turn and when it does, having someone steady in your corner can make all the difference. Chris Dully is a trusted St Louis attorney who personally guides his clients through criminal defense cases with clarity, compassion and experience. From traffic violations to serious charges. He shows up fully and directly. Call 314-384-4000 or 314-DUI-HELP or you can visit DulleyLawFirmcom for a free consultation.