A 2019 Interview with Amy Bond
Who is your favorite Disney character?
Anger from Inside Out.
What is your favorite Disney movie?
Inside Out.
What is your favorite food?
Tacos or Fajitas, Chocolate, Tiramisu from the Park City Waldorf Astoria.
What is your favorite animal?
Pigs & Dolphins.
What is your favorite color?
Aquamarine.
What is your favorite drink?
Coffee.
What is your favorite tv show?
Dietland, Veep, Succession, West Wing, Shrill.
What’s your top three favorite places you’ve ever traveled?
Istanbul, All of Greece, Positano, Italy.
If you could live anywhere, where would it be?
Both coasts of CA- SF and LA with a few days a month in Portland (pretty much what I do now but not as much LA as I’d like).
What does your average day look like?
6:30 wake up, 6:30-7:10 coffee/breakfast/fuck with twitter (this is my sacred me time), 7:10-8 stretch or jog, 8-12 1-2 hours writing/2-3 hours email and biz dev, 12-1 lunch and go to studio, 1-3 train, 3-5 meetings, 5-6 talk with team, 6-9 teach or be at studios, 9-9:30 commute home, 9:30 dinner. 10:30-11 go to bed.
What do you spend a ridiculous amount of money on?
Uber, Uber Eats.
If you only had two extra hours per day outside of work, what would you spend it on?
Pole Dancing.
What has become more important for you in the last few years?
My book/manuscript - I think I'm going to finish it this year and get an agent.
What has become less important for you in the last few years?
Pole is still the light of my life but pole comps are less important to me.
What would you do/have/be if you had $10 million dollars?
Same thing I'm doing now - I'm literally living what I think I'm called to earth to do. More investing in artistic projects, buy a second house in LA and build a treehouse in Portland.
What can you do that will be remembered in 200-400 years?
This question doesn’t interest me.
What assets do you have (not financial)?
IP - my manuscript, my teacher trainings, my training log that I sell, my businesses, our house.
When you think of the word successful, who comes to mind?
Keith/Me/Cheryl Strayed/ Roxane Gay/Lidia Yuknavitch/Michelle Shimmy/Jacques the Stripper - basically anyone who is doing the thing that makes their face light up when they tell you about it.
What is something you believe that other people think is insane?
That sex work should be treated like other blue/white collar jobs.
What is the book (or books) that you’ve gifted and/or discussed/referenced the most?
“Tiny Beautiful Things.”
What is your favorite documentary or movie?
“Home Alone”, “Clueless”.
What purchase of $100 or less has most positively impacted your life in the last couple years?
Diva Cup, little plastic earwax remover, electric toothbrush, tsa pre + clear, silicone bakeware, antimicrobial sheets.
What are your morning rituals? What do the first 60minutes of your day look like?
They used to be minute by minute productive in a wellness sense but I find that once I start moving for the day I can't stop so I don't get heavy thinking work done (for me morning is the most useful time for deep thinking and writing to me is the #1 deepest form of thinking. I drink a coffee and look at twitter then start writing before moving. Now 1-4 is my personal training time before I start teaching at the studio and I'm liking this much better. I don't believe as much in the optimize your am = optimize your life mentality.
What obsessions do you explore on the evenings or weekends?
Deep dive into business analytics on Saturday nights usually, dinner with friends. Weekends are my busiest studio time so teaching and training A LOT too.
What topic would you speak about if you were asked to give a ted talk on something outside your main area of expertise?
Why Legalization of Sex Work Will Decrease Sex Trafficking, How To Run a Million $ Pole Dance Studio Brand, Immigration Law; An On the Ground Look.
Do you have a quote you live your life by or think about often?
"Birds of a Feather Flock Together" comes straight to mind. Whenever I'm cultivating a relationship, I ask myself 'would I like to be more like this person?' If the answer isn't a Eff Yes than I force myself to spend less time on them.”
What is the worst advice you see or hear being dispensed in the world?
“Follow your passion.”- It makes me so mad.
If you could have one gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say?
Dump Him!
What is something weird or unsettling that happens to you on a regular basis?
When I go to bed at night, about 50% of the time, I dream that there is a bee crawling on my skin and then I wake up with a fright and a noiseless scream before realizing it’s a dream and then for real going to sleepfeel spacey.
What have you changed your mind about in the last few years, why?
3 yrs ago I heard someone ask what my 'pronouns' are. I thought it was the most bullshit thing I'd ever heard. Since then. I've met so many people who don't identify with a gender or are gender fluid and I've realized for myself that gender (LIKE ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD) is not binary. It's not black or white. There are so many different types of gender that now it feels like a dichotomy that we've been fed and is just totally fake. I think the corollary to that is that the world would be better if we didn't try to fit people into gender boxes.
What do you believe is true, even though you can’t prove it?
I believe in....nothing that I can't prove? Not sure.
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? or, do you have a favorite failure of yours?
Getting fired from my last tech job is something people would call a 'failure' but the actual stated reason for being fired was that I was too distracted working on my own business and hearing someone echo back to me what was important to me was the small push I needed to go all in on my own vision. And now look at it!
What advice would you give to your 20-, 25-, or 30-year-old self? and please place where you were at the time, and what you were doing?
None. She would not listen to anything I'd say. Honestly, I'd like to hear some advice my former self has for my current self. She'd be SOOOOO disappointed that I'm a homeowner, haha!
What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made? could be an investment of money, time, energy, or other resource. How did you decide to make the investment?
My book/manuscript - I think I'm going to finish it this year and get an agent, my business, my husband. All of the artistic projects that fuel my passion for my life. Learning to prioritize those has literally changed my life and who I am in the world.
If you were teaching a ninth grade class, what would you teach?
Relationship boundaries/Starting a Business/Empathy/Immigration Law/I'd love to teach 9th graders pole dancing. They'd be better than me by the end of the semester haha!
What do you think financially successful people who are generally unhappy in common?
I don't know - I only know happy financially successful people.
If you had to choose three herbs or spices to cook with for the next year, what would they be?
Tarragon for eggs ( a Tim Ferris thing), chai for chai tea, pepper.
Do you meditate?
I consider running and repetitive activities - even dishwashing - to be meditative. I would like to explore the art of it more though people who sell meditation seem to be snake oil machines to me.
What is the best or most worthwhile investment you’ve made?
Stated above.
Who are three people or sources you’ve learned from- or followed closely- in the last year?
Keith/Cheryl Strayed/ Roxane Gay/Lidia Yuknavitch/Michelle Shimmy/Jacques the Stripper - basically anyone who is doing the thing that makes their face light up when they tell you about it and then also seeing how these kinds of people owning their power will invite a lot of hatred and online abuse.
What is the worst advice you see or hear given in your tradE?
Stated above.
If you were a billionaire and you could give 2-3 books to every graduating high schooler, what would they be?
“Tiny Beautiful Things”
What are some of the choices you’ve made that made you who you are?
Doing porn at 19 taught me a lot about the hypocrisy of reputation and how society uses women's purity and sexuality against them in a really weird double standard that has affected my life in great and not great ways, being in an abusive relationship taught me compassion and empathy for women who stay in those relationships and led me to pro bono family law, doing pro bono legal work with immigrant communities has been a foundation for my last year and has made me something of a SJW (not in the commonly used pejorative sense).
What’s the best lessons your father ever taught you?
Some battles just aren't worth fighting.
What’s the best lessons your mother ever taught you?
That what I look like is not the point. Mom did a great job at inculcating a sense of responsibility for others in us.
What are you waiting for?
To get Oakland P&D in order with solid management before I start my next studio, I'm waiting to finish a Lidia approved draft of my manuscript before sending out my current 1st 100 pages to agents, I'm waiting to finish paying off my house in Berkeley before we look at commercial spaces.
If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things together financially?
Nothing.
What do you owe your community?
Oooh, weird question. I don't know that I understand it. Like, one, which community - the geographically bounded community that I live in, the community I create through my business, political community?
Is there anything you would die for?
If I could die in a Jesus way, I would die for humane immigration policy, I would die if it meant domestic violence was legally treated appropriately. I would die for big structural change at a policy level. I would not die for any specific individual though. It would need to be a mass upheaval to current systems that oppress people. .
What is your idea of happiness?
Balance between body nourishment and mind nourishment. Moving to the point of exhaustion, eating a big lunch and then reading/learning/writing the rest of the day. Throw in weekend dinners with friends and family. Happiness to me is more a daily practice of doing what you want with your time not a state of being. That said, I do like the specific euphoria that comes after running a half marathon, throwing a routine on a stage after 3 month of grueling prep. The happiness is quieter after mind work.
What is your idea of wealthy?
I am wealthy - heartily working is a form of wealth to me. The traditional idea of wealth - Relaxing on a beach with a corona looks like hell to me - honestly, If I had 10M more dollars than I have now, the only difference I'd make is not flying commercial and paying my studio instructors/GMs more.
How do you ideally see yourself at the age of 75?
Hopefully doing exactly what I'm doing now.
What do you always have with you when you leave the house?
Phone, Pole Clothes.
If you could automatically learn another language or two, what would they be?
Better French, Russian so I could talk to my favorite pole dance inspiration.