We recently had the chance to connect with Amy Thurman and have shared our conversation below.
Amy, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What do you think others are secretly struggling with—but never say?
I honestly believe most people are walking around with a very private war inside themselves, questioning whether they’re enough, whether they’re capable, whether they’re allowed to take up space. Self-doubt and imposter syndrome don’t discriminate. Even the people who look the most confident are usually the ones terrified of being “found out.”
But we don’t talk about it because we think admitting it makes us weak, when it actually makes us real. The irony is that the thing we’re afraid will make us look weak is the very thing that makes us powerful. The moment we stop pretending is the moment we finally become who we were meant to be.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Amy Thurman, and I run a company called Polish the Mirror, where my work centers on something I believe the world is starving for right now: helping people remember who they are beneath all the expectations, roles, and survival strategies they’ve picked up along the way.
My work focuses on Authentic Intelligence (AQ), the human capacity for alignment, congruence, and truth, and my framework, Your Authenticity Score, which gives people a simple, measurable way to understand how closely they’re living in alignment with the person they truly are. It’s a new kind of human metric for a world that’s moving faster than our nervous systems were ever designed to handle.
What makes my work unique is that it didn’t come from theory. It came from living ten years with a broken neck and a sheared brainstem that went undiagnosed for six months, and rebuilding my life piece by piece. When everything familiar fell away, I discovered that authenticity isn’t a nice idea, it’s a lifeline. It shapes how we lead, how we love, how we heal, and whether we feel at home in our own lives.
Through my speaking, my writing, my online communities, and my growing book series, I help people strengthen the one intelligence AI will never touch or replicate: the inner alignment that makes us human.
In a world accelerating toward automation, I’m working to make sure we don’t lose the very thing that sets us apart.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
I can feel that the part of me who worked quietly, guiding small groups and individuals through their own becoming, has completed her assignment. She was the version of me who learned how to hold space, how to listen beneath the surface, how to walk people back to themselves. She was essential, but she was also preparing me for something larger.
There’s a shift happening in me now, a knowing that it’s time to step beyond the small rooms and private conversations and bring this message to the world in a much bigger way. The world is changing fast, and people are losing themselves even faster. I can’t stay hidden in the familiar anymore.
It’s time to release the version of me who stayed safe and step into the one who is meant to create change on a much wider scale. Not out of ambition, but out of responsibility. This message is ready to be carried farther. And so am I.
When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
I stopped hiding my pain the day I walked out of a mental health hospital after spending a full week there because I could no longer function in the life I had built. That week broke open truths I had avoided for years. It peeled back every layer of strength I had used to hold myself together and left me face-to-face with the part of me that was exhausted from pretending to be okay. It was humbling, disorienting, and strangely clarifying all at once.
As I stepped outside those doors, still tender and unsure of how to re-enter my life, something settled in me that felt deeper than fear; an understanding that what I had just walked through was not mine alone. I knew there were countless others carrying the same weight in silence, terrified that speaking their pain aloud would cost them their relationships, their careers, or their sense of worth. In that moment, it became clear that someone had to go first, someone needed to say what so many people were quietly living through.
Initially, I believed that sharing what happened would destroy my credibility, especially because my work had been rooted in strength and resilience. What surprised me was how differently people responded when I shared the truth. Instead of pulling away, they drew closer. They recognized themselves in my story, and something in their shoulders softened. The honesty became a bridge.
That moment became the beginning of #AuthenticallyAmy, not because I had everything figured out, but because I stopped hiding the parts of me I once believed disqualified me. My pain became power not through overcoming it, but through allowing it to be seen, and realizing that my openness had the ability to free something in others, too.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. What’s a belief or project you’re committed to, no matter how long it takes?
The project I am committed to, no matter how long it takes or how many times I have to evolve to meet it, is bringing the message of Authentic Intelligence (AQ) into the world in a way that reaches people at the level where they have been silently hurting. I am committed because I know what it feels like to lose yourself so completely that you can no longer find the edges of who you used to be, and I also know what it feels like to slowly piece yourself back together and realize that authenticity isn’t a luxury or a personality preference, but the very thing that makes life feel livable again.
My belief that “authenticity isn’t just a personal choice, it’s a cultural force” comes from lived experience, not theory. I have seen how quickly everything shifts when someone stops abandoning themselves and begins moving back toward who they truly are beneath all the noise, fear, the roles, and the expectations. Families soften. Conversations open. Workplaces heal. Communities reconnect. There is a ripple that moves outward in ways we rarely recognize, and yet it changes everything.
Because of this, I feel an undeniable pull to share this message far beyond the spaces I have reached so far, and part of that calling includes speaking on a TEDx stage. It isn’t about visibility or accomplishment; it is about placing this message where people who are quietly struggling might finally hear words that let them breathe again. I am committed to this work for as long as it takes because I know, with absolute clarity, that it has the power to free people in the same way it freed me, and I will continue carrying it forward until it reaches every person who needs to hear it.
This isn’t simply a project I am working on or a belief I hold; it is the purpose I am living.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: What do you think people will most misunderstand about your legacy?
I think what people will misunderstand about my legacy is how much it costs to live it. From the outside, it may look like passion, purpose, and clarity come easily to me because I share my work so openly, and I speak about authenticity with conviction. But, choosing this path requires a quiet battle inside me every single day. It takes an intentional decision, before my feet even touch the floor, to keep showing up for a message that asks everything of me.
People may assume I’m naturally strong, naturally brave, naturally aligned, but they won’t see the daily discipline it takes to stay connected to my purpose, or the moments where doubt, exhaustion, and fear ask me to walk away. They won’t see how many times I have to remind myself why this work matters or how deeply I feel the weight of carrying a message meant to reach the world.
What will be misunderstood is that none of this is effortless. It’s a choice I remake every day, not because it’s easy, but because the calling is louder than the struggle, and because I refuse to let the world go without the message I know I’m here to deliver.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.getamyshelp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amycthurman
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin,com/in/amythurman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amy.thurman1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@IAmAuthenticallyAmy
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@authenticallyamy
Image Credits
Heidi Dunstan
Amber Lee Fuller
Shevaun Williams
Circle House Media
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