The One With Amy Mandelj

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:00:32]:
Hello. Welcome back. Thank you so much for for joining me for another episode. Do remember, give us a like, a comment, a share, and subscribe. It all helps. This week, this episode, I have a guest, a fantastic guest. My guest is Amy Mandel. Now Amy is a single mom to her son, Tyler, and she is a dedicated entrepreneur.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:00:57]:
She’s the founder of AMT Office Admin Solutions where she helps businesses to streamline their operations and to regain precious time. She’s also co owner co owner of “A Tinchy Bit Of Sparkle”. Love that name. She co owns that with her son, and it’s a venture focused on promoting positivity through crystals and wellness products. Amy’s work is driven by her passion for helping others and her personal journey with neurodivergence and chronic illness. And this makes her a compassionate advocate and a resource for those navigating similar paths, and that’s exactly why I knew I had to bring Amy on to my, to my show. So with that said, let’s bring Amy on. Hello, Amy.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:01:45]:
How are you doing?

Amy Mandelj [00:01:46]:
I’m very well. Thank you. How are you?

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:01:49]:
Oh, brilliant. Fabulous as always. Thank you. Fabulous as always. Great. Amy, we have heard your bio. Like, who is Amy? Who’s the lady behind it all?

Amy Mandelj [00:02:03]:
I’m just I guess. Yeah. So very much just me. Focused on my son. Focused very much on other people. Crazy cat lady. Crystal lover. Very much collect things, bits and box.

Amy Mandelj [00:02:26]:
Yeah. Like to help others. What more can I say, really?

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:02:35]:
Fantastic. Fantastic. And you are also, unfortunately, someone who suffers with, chronic illness. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:02:48]:
So so when Amy son turned 1, he’s 12 now, when he turned 1, I got diagnosed with her non shoreline purpura, which is a form of vasculitis. I’ve had to do a lot of research and a lot of digging about the condition. It’s typically in children, normally 12 to 16, and it’s meant to disappear after 6 to 8 weeks. It gives you, like, a rash. Like, a meningitis style rash appear under a glass, but it can also affect your kidneys and give you rheumatoid arthritis. The problem is mine never went away, and I’m still suffering now, 11 years on. So since then, I saw being diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which is chronic pain, chronic fatigue, brain fog, and a whole host of other variants with it, which most people look at me like, how are you even in front of me? How are you sat there doing an interview? What gives you the motivation to to carry on? And I really struggled at first. Like, when I got the HSP, so her nocturnal and purpura HSP for shock.

Amy Mandelj [00:04:21]:
When I got that diagnosis, my world kind of stopped. I didn’t go walking. I didn’t take my son to the park because of the fear that if I stand up for too long, if I do too much, it’s gonna flare up. I’m gonna end up back in hospital. And by the time I got the fibro diagnosis, because that can flare up at any point, no matter what you’ve done. You you could have literally just got out of bed and be in agony, which is typically my days. But it changed my mindset on things rather than having fear of doing things. I push myself out of my comfort zone because I could end up in pain regardless.

Amy Mandelj [00:05:09]:
So I had that math shift. And then COVID hit, and all the awareness videos came up on TikTok about neurodiversions, especially ADHD in women and the amount of women that have gone undiagnosed. And my son turned around and was like, that’s you. All of those boxes are you. You’re ticking everything. I’m not too bothered about getting an official diagnosis, but I’m putting in the tweaks that I can put in place. And I think the reason I wanted to apply for doing podcasts and things is the amount of people that are either waiting for a ADHD or autism diagnosis that are women in their thirties, or fibromyalgia is getting bigger. More people are getting diagnosed with it.

Amy Mandelj [00:06:13]:
More people are sat questioning what what they can do, what they can’t do. And I think I want to just be there and go, but let it stop you. Flip your mindset. Do what you can. I mean, part of the reason I settle on businesses was because in work, it gets 2 o’clock and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. And I always knew I needed to provide for my son. So by having my own business, I can work my clients around me. So if I need to go and nap, I will go and nap and carry on working later on.

Amy Mandelj [00:07:00]:
And everyone’s really understanding. And because I’m open about my illnesses, people are more open with me, which then gives me the ability to help them if it’s setting goals, if it’s wanting to achieve something by a certain time and breaking it down further into manageable chunks. I’ve got the ability to do that with them and work around their issues too. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not being easy.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:07:32]:
I can I can imagine? I can imagine. I mean, that that gives us a lot to explore in in this episode. I guess let’s let’s go back to, the first part of it. What’s how how does do these I mean, you you’ve got a you’ve got you’ve got almost, like, the full set there. Collectronics, stuff now. Yeah. Yeah. You’ve always turned it into Pokemon.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:07:57]:
Gotta gotta catch them all. What what are the kind of everyday symptoms that, that manifest themselves for for for you?

Amy Mandelj [00:08:07]:
So a lot of it is widespread chronic pain. It can hurt to get in the shower. Where normal people will go and find the water on their shoulders relaxing, It’s like a stabbing pain. So even the simple things aren’t simple. It takes it away. I tend to have a lot of issues with my knees and ankles because there’s rheumatoid arthritis that links in with the HSP. I have carpal tunnel in both hands, so right in then becomes a shoe. Mhmm.

Amy Mandelj [00:08:48]:
I have had the operations previously, but you tend to need them every 7 to 8 years if you’ve had them done once. Oh. So, gradually, it’s going back, and I’m waiting to be referred for that again. Yeah. Brain fog, forgetting things, walking to a room and going, I don’t know why I’m here. Mhmm. I can be talking and forget what I’m saying mid sentence, which touch wood, that’s not gonna happen today. But, yeah, it so many different aspects that you wouldn’t think could be linked together.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:09:32]:
Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:09:32]:
Are linked together. Numbness. I I use a crutch rather than a walking stick because my hand will go numb.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:09:43]:
Oh. The crutch. Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:09:44]:
Obviously, the crutch goes around your arm. So when my hand goes numb, I don’t drop the stick because it’s attached to me. Oh. But it’s a lot of forward thinking and risk assessments. And, I mean, that could be part of a whole host of different things because I haven’t mentioned

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:10:04]:
half of

Amy Mandelj [00:10:04]:
what there is going But I think it’s important to stay positive anyway.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:10:11]:
Oh, sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. And we’ll we’ll go on to how how you do that in in in just a moment. Couple couple of things to to ask before then. One is, I guess, how how do this huge range of of of symptoms and issues, how do they kind of affect your daily life? What does it stop you being able to do?

Amy Mandelj [00:10:35]:
I don’t go out very much. I very much turn into a hermit, I guess. A lot of what I do is based at home. Fortunately, I have a good support network around Amy. And as my son’s getting older, like I say, 12 now, he’s 13 at Christmas, he has been amazing. I do get a lot of mum guilt in that because, to me, he hasn’t been able to be a normal child.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:11:08]:
Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:11:08]:
But then I look at other people and their kids can’t do anything where Yeah. He’s gonna make husband one day because he can make a meal. He can do the washing, that kind of thing. So I think it it’s brought in good life skills, and I need to remember that and be kind to myself. I could practically rattle as I walk the amount of medications, But then that can create another thing because you can then have reactions to the medications too. Yes. So it it it’s the finding that balance and I mean, I’ve done a lot of research and hyper focusing into finding out more about the illnesses that I have Mhmm. Purely because when new symptoms arise, do you go to a doctor or or is it put under one umbrella? I’ve recently been diagnosed as type 2 diabetic, and I think since Christmas, I probably have been.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:12:14]:
Mhmm.

Amy Mandelj [00:12:14]:
But I’ve put the fatigue, the memory loss, the the different things all fall under fibromyalgia too. So I haven’t ever thought, oh, this is a bit off. Let’s go see a doctor. I’ve waited until the annual test comes back. Yeah. So it can be a hindrance in that respect because you assume the doctors are just gonna go, oh, yeah. That that’s this. You’ve already been diagnosed.

Amy Mandelj [00:12:44]:
What are you here for?

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:12:45]:
Gotcha. Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:12:46]:
And, actually, can be other things going on. So, tracking if symptoms can be good. Just in case of a one’s crop into the mix that

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:12:58]:
Yes. Yes.

Amy Mandelj [00:12:59]:
Might not be down to the what you think it is.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:13:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, going going back to when you were first diagnosed with your the the first of your of your your chronic illnesses, I mean, how how did you how did you take the, take the take the news? How did you feel? What’s what kind of impact is that? How are your life being told this? So

Amy Mandelj [00:13:26]:
with the HSP, it was diff difficult because it’s out literally as a rash. I didn’t feel poorly. There was nothing. There was literally 3 spots on my leg, which by the time I got home from work had turned into 10 spots. And half an hour later, it doubled again.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:13:44]:
Wow.

Amy Mandelj [00:13:47]:
And it was a lot of ins and outs to the hospital and back. And I was always hopeful that it’d be gone in 6 to 8 weeks that I was told that I’d done my research, that it said, yeah. You wait 6 to 8 weeks, it’ll disappear. It’ll be as if nothing’s happened. You don’t need medications and everything else. The 6 to 8 weeks came and went, and I’ve been on steroids. I’d had to go into hospital on my birthday to have a drip because the rash had got that bad. I remember the rheumatologist saying that she she hadn’t seen a case as bad as mine in a long time, and a lot of the the staff had never seen a case as bad as mine.

Amy Mandelj [00:14:39]:
It caused ulcerations on my legs, which is then impacted on the fibro, because they’re very deep scarring, damaged, so it affects wild wear when going out. I got prescribed different foundation creams and things to make me feel comfortable, but then I’m not a girly girl. So learning to apply makeup to cover scarring when I don’t wear makeup anyway seemed a bit backwards. So it’s easier for me just to wear trousers. It was a lot. Yeah. And I think at one point, my hands had swelled up. I couldn’t lift my son.

Amy Mandelj [00:15:31]:
I had to form my mom Mandelj, like, get her to come around and help me change him, and it was awful. The the whole impact of how I’ve raised him changed in that moment.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:15:49]:
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s it’s it’s I can’t I don’t think anybody who hasn’t been through it could truly imagine that that the massive impact. I think it would it’s easy to see how easily one could become very disillusioned with with life and sort of feel, oh my word. Well, how on earth do I go on from this? What’s is is this it forevermore? Well, is it this this sucks.

Amy Mandelj [00:16:19]:
Yeah.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:16:19]:
You didn’t. You you have turned things around. You, you run you founded your own, business, as you said, A and T Office admin solutions. You help other business owners. You’ve also got a business created with your with which you co own with your son. Yes. How how did you turn around the very natural, feelings and turn it around into how did you find the positive and build upon it knowing that this is what you’re gonna be facing forevermore?

Amy Mandelj [00:16:50]:
I think, like I mentioned previously, I was always hopeful that that 6 to 8 weeks would end and it disappear. And then I was noticing different things in terms of, like, rheumatoid arthritis. My doctor had said, but there’s no inflammation markers, so it can’t be that. So then I went digging to find out more, and I approached the doctor with the the fibromyalgia symptoms list. And he basically looked at me and went, I can’t argue. Like, I completely agree with everything he’s saying. And I think that was the turning point where most people would have been like, that’s a second diagnosis that’s never going away. It’s a proper chronic illness.

Amy Mandelj [00:17:40]:
There’s no cure. A lot of people go and hide away where because I’d lived for 6 years with the HSP, hopeful that it’d go, but terrified to do anything at risk of flaring it up again. I took that and run with it. I’m very much thought, well, if I if I want to take my son to the park I’ve got a mobility scooter by this point. I’ve got a stair lift and everything that I need at home. But if I wanna take my son to the park and I’m gonna get a flare up, could that flare up happen just by sitting at home? Yeah. Right. So it’s pointless trying to sit at home and do nothing.

Amy Mandelj [00:18:29]:
Let’s go to it. And I had that full mental shift of you don’t have to do a lot. You can save up your energy and just do it one day a week or whatever you need to. Let’s change things up a bit. And then with with the likes of work, like I said, I was struggling to stay awake at work. Do you know when you feel your eyes dropping?

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:18:59]:
Yes. Yes.

Amy Mandelj [00:19:00]:
You’re not quite asleep, but you’re definitely not fully functional and awake. And that was happening more and more. And, ultimately, it my son is the reason I’m I’m now full time self employed. He turned around after COVID and said, I don’t want you to go back. I very much like you being at home. I’ve always thought of self employment as not being a real job Mhmm. And not being able to sustain not being able to make money and be guaranteed the money’s there. And because my illnesses were getting worse, and he very much keep being at home.

Amy Mandelj [00:19:49]:
He’s been in nursery from being I I quite like not having to go to nursery. I like you being able to pick me up from school was the right I’m doing it. And I think the end of that week, I’d handed in a sick note and was planning my future very much. If I need to sleep, I’ll sleep. It’s fine. If if I need to work with more people, we will find more people to work with. Like I say, the the Crystal’s business, the Tinchy Bit of Sparkle was set up by my son. It’s simply that he’s 12 and can’t legally run a business while it’s in my name.

Amy Mandelj [00:20:36]:
But I get to do my admin thing on his business, which I love anyway. The name actually came about. He wanted to call the business A Little Bit of Sparkle, and I’ve done my research, gone on Companies House, and there was another little bit of spark. I always have to dream big. So company’s house, when you need to go limited, if your business name isn’t there, you have to then rebrand, and that’s a whole new ballgame. So I always future proof things, and we always look on Companies House. And my son was born, but he was 5 pounds 12 ounces. So his nickname was Tinchy.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:21:23]:
Uh-huh. Right.

Amy Mandelj [00:21:24]:
And that’s where the name

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:21:25]:
comes from

Amy Mandelj [00:21:27]:
because he he named it, but he needed another word instead of little. And Ting Shih means it’s always gonna be tied to him or wasn’t take that away from him. So, yes, the idea is to build the business for when he leaves school. So 16, if he if he chooses to go the apprenticeship route, Amy, otherwise, and he can come into the business and take it over and go from there. And I can crack on with my admin stuff is the

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:22:00]:
theory. Beautiful. Beautiful. Couple of things, stood out for me there with with your with your whole approach. The first was the, very important and significant realization that, hey. If I go to the park, I could have a flare up. But you know what? If I sit at home, I could have a flare up. So it could happen either way.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:22:22]:
Am I gonna stay indoors miserable the whole time, or am I gonna make the most of most of things? Because it’s gonna flare up anyway. Might as well do it while I’m I’m enjoying life and and take mitigation so that if it does happen, you’ve got ways to to to deal with it. So I

Amy Mandelj [00:22:38]:
guess HSP side, it they very much said, if I do too much, it could flare up. Whereas Yeah. It was the fibro that kind of ticked it over its edge. Now I went and ran with it very much like the ADHD side.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:22:52]:
Mhmm. If I can

Amy Mandelj [00:22:53]:
put things in place and manage it, then that makes more sense.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:22:57]:
Yeah. So is that the the realization that whether you go out and live life or whether you hide away, you’re still gonna get flare ups. So you might as well enjoy life. And the second thing that really stands out was that when you realize work isn’t working for me, but I need, obviously, need money to be able to get the roof over our heads and food on the Noble, and you found a way to to make it work for you by going up going, self employed, which is which is never an easy route. Let’s let’s make no bones about it. It’s it’s very, very difficult. Yeah. But you you realized there are things I can do to, to work with what I’ve got.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:23:39]:
This is the hand I’ve been dealt. Let’s work with it. Let’s not let’s not bemoan it. Let’s work with it. Let’s find a way to to make it work. Exactly. Brilliant. Love it.

Amy Mandelj [00:23:49]:
That way.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:23:49]:
Yeah. So your your business, a A and T Office admin solutions, who who are the sorts of people that it helps? What do what do you do for them?

Amy Mandelj [00:23:57]:
So I tend to help more with business start ups, getting them into the routines, making sure they’ve crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s and that kind of thing. But more recently, I’ve been working with women with ADHD, some men with ADHD as well actually, who just need that extra power up. With ADHD, you can procrastinate an awful lot, and it’s it’s kind of trying to stop that from happening and come up with different mechanisms and support there. So, yeah, I’m open to work with anyone. There is no one that I will turn away very much. People say I’m a sucker for a sob story, which sounds awful, but I don’t mean it in that sense.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:24:53]:
Yeah. But

Amy Mandelj [00:24:54]:
I bend over backwards to help anyone in need, and get them on the right path, basically. I am doing a lot of work at the minute with people who are disabled on neurodivergent. The government have an access to work program, which not many people are aware of, and I help people get the funding that they deserve. So I can sit and help them with application forms and everything that they need as well.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:25:27]:
Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Well, that’s that’s wonderful. And I know you you’ve also, much to your surprise, because because I know when we were chatting before we before we started recording this, this is something that was never never on your plan of of things new. You’ve, you’ve, contributed to a book.

Amy Mandelj [00:25:46]:
I have indeed. So Mandy Nicholson has put together a book called The Ordinary, and she’s got 30 neurodiverse and creative women, each to write a chapter, and one of those chapters is mine. So, yeah, that’s very exciting, and it launches on the 11th October. So not long to go. I think 4 weeks now.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:26:13]:
4 weeks as we record. But, the promise comes out, the book will already be out, and I have no doubt a huge success as well.

Amy Mandelj [00:26:21]:
Yeah. Thank you so much. Exciting.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:26:24]:
Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:26:25]:
I’ve also got another book that I’m gonna be doing, called thank God it’s Monday, which coming out over in America. But that’ll be launched summer 2025.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:26:38]:
And is is that another collaborative book? Or

Amy Mandelj [00:26:40]:
It is. Yeah. So that one’s got 12 different women in. And it’s, again, about the creative side and doing what you love to do, essentially. Doing doing things that make you shine and thrive.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:26:59]:
Love it. Love it. Any any plans to be a solo author, or is is is this it?

Amy Mandelj [00:27:04]:
I think I’d love to be. If the right opportunity came up, I’d need to kind of I mean, I’d love to do a book all about chronic illness and the power of changing your mindset

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:27:19]:
Yeah.

Amy Mandelj [00:27:19]:
Rather than it being like a business type book.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:27:23]:
Yes.

Amy Mandelj [00:27:24]:
I think that’d be useful to a lot of people. Like I say, I know that so many struggle. Yeah. Yeah.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:27:32]:
No. I I that and you’ve you’ve definitely got the background to, to write that book and your own story is is testament to how one can shine and step up even though one has chronic illnesses and all their all their issues that go along with that, you can still navigate away.

Amy Mandelj [00:27:50]:
Yeah. I think it’s important to to shine. Yes. So bright.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:27:58]:
Shine bright. Time is unfortunately marching away as it inevitably does. For those who want to find out more, Amy, or maybe even get in touch with you, what’s the best way for them?

Amy Mandelj [00:28:10]:
I would say probably going on my website, which is www. Atofficeadminsolutions.co.uk. And there you can find out all about the different things that I do to help people and the access to work program too. There’s details there on on how I can help with that.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:28:31]:
Fantastic. So www.atofficeadminsolutions, all one word, dotco.uk.

Amy Mandelj [00:28:40]:
That’s correct. Yes.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:28:41]:
Beautiful. As as you might imagine, Amy is very much present on the socials. She put a bunch of links for, Office Admin Solutions and also for a tinty bit of sparkle. Yes. All the links for the sites, the Facebook presences, Instagram, LinkedIn, all of those links are on the show notes for this episode. As always, go to Keith Blakemorenoble.com/show. Look for the Keith Blakemorenobal Radio Show, and look for the one with Amy Mandelj, and you’ll be able to connect with her across all the platforms there. Or as as Amy said, just go to www.atofficeadminsolutions.co dotuk.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:29:21]:
Find out more and get connected.

Amy Mandelj [00:29:24]:
Thank you so much.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:29:25]:
Thank you, Amy. And thank you, Amy, for for taking time out to, to share a little glimpse of of, what makes Amy Amy and how it is possible to to, live with and even thrive despite having, chronic illnesses. Yes. And thank you, dear viewer, dear listener. Thank you for catching us. Please remember to give us a like, a comment, a review, or subscribe. Giving us a review on your favorite podcast platform is a great way to boost, boost awareness of the of the show. Catch you in another episode very soon, and I will leave you with Amy’s favorite quote.

Keith Blakemore Noble [00:30:04]:
It’s a beautiful quote coined by her son. I can achieve great things.