Carrie Severson's Blog

My book, Unapologetically Enough, came out in May. It’s been a slow burn on sales, and yet still I’ve sold more so far than many authors I work with.

I’ve done everything from securing TV, podcast, and print interviews for promotional purposes to sending my book to celebrities for reviews.

About six months ago I started pitching my book to subscription box services. It seems that’s where book consumption is heading and I want to be a part of it.

Last week, I got the GO light that my book is being included in a company’s September box to go out to many, many, MANY women!

Check out this video for more. https://youtube.com/shorts/dm9x7O4lYQY?feature=share

I’d love to hear from you. What are you doing to promote your book?

When I accepted the fact that I was burned out, all I really did was give myself permission to look at my own mess.

I woke up on my 35th birthday and said to myself in the mirror, “Hey Carrie, you’re a burnout and that’s okay.” That was just the start of it. Major healing had to happen after that.

Looking at how and why I got to burnout took some time. It wasn’t like I woke up the next day ready to dive in and dig up a bunch of roots around overworking, overgiving, and being unbalanced in my own feminine and masculine energy.

I wasn’t able to start to heal my own patterns until I redefined what success meant to me.

Before burning out, success meant I received praise, accolades, more money, new followers, or new opportunities. And with every like, share, check, media opportunity, speaking gig, or writing gig I got, the harder I worked. The more I worked. The longer I worked. And the deeper into my burnout I became.

When I started to reshape what success meant to me, I was able to see that I no longer wanted to associate it with things. I wanted to associate success with feelings.

Burnout was an awful, toxic, suffocating experience. The feelings I had while in burnout weren’t at all good ones! I looked successful on the outside. But inside I was dying. I was crying. I was silently screaming and felt alone.

As I reshaped my success, I could see new ways to live, new ways to work, and new ways to share myself with the world.

I share all of this and so much more in my upcoming book release, Unapologetically Enough: Reshaping Success & Self-Love. It’s due out May 24th and being called a mental health must-have and essential self-love tool.

Grab yourself a copy as you start to reshape what success means to you!

My day started with the news that a subscription box company is going to include my book, Unapologetically Enough, in an upcoming box out to 1,000 members.

It didn’t take long for that excitement and pure joy to wash over my mind and down through my heart. I let that amazing opportunity sink in for a minute and then burst into a happy dance in my kitchen while squealing and clapping all at the same time. When I thought of 1,000 people reading my book and the impact that will make, my whole body buzzed.

I manifested that. And I believe it’s just the beginning of what’s coming forward.

It took several hours after that awesome bit of news for me to normalize and stabilize my emotions. I didn’t want to come down off that high. But I have learned over the years that my magic and manifestation abilities actually lie in the stabilizing and grounding of my emotions.

The trick for me is grounding my emotions while expanding them at the same time. What I’m doing to help myself stay balanced during this next month, before Unapologetically Enough is released, is getting as heart-centered as possible.

Today, that included big breaths, cooking a lot, and snuggling with my dog!

How do you get heart-centered?

When I woke up on my 35th birthday, a term I never heard before flashed through my mind.

BURNOUT.

Before I checked the clock, or looked to see who wished me happy birthday, I Googled the word burnout.

It’s when someone experiences a state of emotional overwhelm, paired with physical and mental exhaustion.

I know it well now. I lived it for years. The worst part about it is we do it to ourselves by running ourselves into the ground. We buy into the world’s demands that we need to DO more with our lives each day and if we don’t or can’t, we aren’t successful or worthy.

Burnout is common in entrepreneurs. And due to COVID, so many of us are living with it.

I reached burnout while running a non-profit I created, launched, and ran. I saw successful leaders all around me. The demand for the program was every which way I turned. Instead of pacing myself, putting a waiting list in place, taking care of myself, I worked. Until I couldn’t work anymore.

In my upcoming book release, Unapologetically Enough: Reshaping Success & Self-Love, I share really personal details about how I really reached burnout. And I share the painful experience I went through as I pulled myself out of it.

Knowing those details are about to meet strangers, I’m preparing myself for deeper conversations about burnout, how I still work to balance my feminine energy vs. masculine energy each day, and why I hope more people experiencing burnout take a deeper look at how they are taking care of themselves.

If we reach burnout by DOING too much, it seems to me that we have to DO less to get out of it. At least, that was my experience.

I moved out of burnout by letting myself BE in the moment, BE fully in my feminine energy, and BE okay with doing less.

My coach told me months ago, “We have to destroy your ego and release all your attachment to the success of your book.”

I broke into an ugly cry within seconds. I interrupted that to mean she was preparing me for failure. And ultimately, that scares me more than strangers reading intimate bits and pieces about the most sacred parts of my life when they read Unapologetically Enough.

She’s said that to me many times over the last handful of months. And it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. Releasing the attachment to anything we want is a key step to manifesting. I learned that when I picked up my first book on manifesting 15 years ago.

Still, destroying my attachment and my ego to and for my book has been a roller coaster. I’m not surprised by the number of emotions that show up for me to look at when I release the attachment to any potential success.

Sadness and heartache greet me first.
Disappointment shows up for me to address next.
Confusion is usually there too at some point.
And then resentment and anger bubble up before I eventually land in a place of understanding and neutrality.

It’s exhausting.

And I do it because I know the importance of it. When we first started doing the work, my coach said I was gripping the outcome of my book’s success.

Nobody wants to sabotage their own success. I believe I created a great book. I spent close to a decade working on. it. I love Unapologetically Enough more than I have anything else I’ve ever written and so I wasn’t really surprised that I was smothering my goals and vision of how it would land in the hearts of readers.

And, the idea that I would stand in the way of its success by wanting an end result so deeply was more painful then stripping away my ego.

So for the last several months, I’ve been in a daily practice of checking in with my ego.

Every morning, I tune into how I’m feeling that day. If I feel anxious, super excited, or attached to any potential outcome of my book, Unapologetically Enough: Reshaping Success & Self-Love, I turn my attention to my self-love and mental wellness practice because those are the days destroying my ego is as painful as my first heartbreak.

I curl up on the couch and think of all the amazing possibilities unfolding in my little corner of the world. I feel into the joy, excitement, and the eagerness of wanting. I bring myself back to my center with some deep breathing and then I imagine all the amazing possibilities going away and feel into that heartache, sadness, and disappointment.

I go through this cycle as many times as it takes for me to get to a place where I’m not crying with joy or heartache when I think of one extreme or the other.

On the days I feel neutral about any possible outcome, I go about my promotional efforts. I think to myself, que sera sera. And as I’m sending off pitches to celebrity publicists or producers of mainstream media, I smile and move more freely because I remember I never had any control over any of it.

With 30 days to go until Unapologetically Enough meets the public, I have a ton of compassion for myself for the work I’ve done around ego and attachment. I’m sure I have more work to do, but for today, I’m at peace saying my book belongs to the Universe and I’m simply the vessel for it to come through.

Rejection happens often in my line of work. I’m a storyteller — both for media outlets and on stage. I started writing for the masses nearly 20 years ago when I took a job with the student newspaper. After college, I jumped into the world of magazines. I left the magazine to pursue a career as a freelance writer. I covered celebrities, politicians, doctors and everything else I could. I didn’t have a specialty. That’s when I really learned how to pitch a story. And that’s when I really learned how to accept and learn from rejection.

I’ve been rejected more times than I’ve been published. Rejection is hard to move through at first but it is a part of business most of us face daily. Rejection can happen because what we put out into the world wasn’t what an editor or an end user was comfortable with.

We have the choice to respond to rejection one of two ways. We can see rejection as a blessing. Or we can accept rejection as a curse.

During my nearly 20-year career as a writer, I can honestly say I’ve seen rejection from both perspectives. The healthier version is definitely to see rejection as a blessing.

Today, I work with entrepreneurs to help them learn how to soulfully share stories. We address the fear or starting, the fear of sharing and the fear of rejection. I see many inspirational humans more afraid of rejection than the reaction to their own story. We address her fear and made an action plan together.

If you’re too afraid to share your stories because you don’t want to face rejection, follow these steps.

1. Ask yourself what you’re really afraid of and write down what comes to you. Tell a trusted coach in your life what you’re worried about and ask that person to help you address your fear.

2. Get into a supportive groove. Do something super supportive for your overall well being. Meditate/pray/exercise and clear your mind. Remember that the rejection is simply a RE-DIRECT to make your work even better. Give yourself the day and then rework it tomorrow and go back out to your audience and pitch.

3. Focus on your goals. Remind yourself of the journey you’re on by creating a vision board. Cut out pictures of where you see yourself next year and place your vision board near your work station. It’s helpful to create healthy mantras that in alignment with your vision board and remind yourself of your mantra when you face rejection.

Those three steps should help you get your energy moving in the right direction!

My experience as a writer helped me face rejection as an entrepreneur. I’ve launched two businesses. One is a nonprofit. The other is a storytelling business where I teach entrepreneurs how to write soulful stories in online writing courses. My goal in every writing course is to move my inspired leaders through the fear of rejection.

Rejection is frustrating. It’s not a dead end.

Join me in The Soulful Storyteller Facebook Group for more tips!

3 Ways to Address Rejection was originally published in Thrive Global on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It’s the middle of the day and I’m surrounded by entrepreneurs. The room buzzes with conversation.

We are natural storytellers. We tell stories with every new exchange. We could even tell the same story over and over again without realizing we’re storytelling!

Entrepreneurs are wired to share stories. We’re armed with the desire to make an impact in the world. And we tend to naturally share our desire through success stories or benefits of a certain product or service.

Personal storytelling takes our opportunity of sharing to a new level. When we personalize a story we reach a wider audience and gain awareness as a business leader.

Sharing with the masses on a personal level can be daunting. Here are three quick tips to help you get out of your head and move through that fear of starting.

We are in an instant society. We’re all looking to learn something new from an expert. YOU are one of those experts. You’ve gained lessons from your experience as a business leader. What lesson can you share through a personal story?

Here are a few examples to get you going: How did you gain confidence as a business leader? How do you empower your employees? How do you create balance in your life as a business leader?

Each of those questions are stories for you to personalize! You’re welcome. Get going!

One of the quickest ways to start storytelling is to use a daily hashtag as a launching point for your story.

#MondayMotivation
#GratiTuesday
#WellnessWednesday
#ThrowbackThursday
#FundayFriday

What can you share personally as a result of one of those hashtags? Tie your story into your experience as a business leader and join in the hashtag conversation.

Is there a hot topic happening in your area of business that you can respond to? Watch trends and use your blog, LinkedIn profile or even Medium.com to add value to a conversation that exists in your business sector.

Be sure to include your expertise and any research or statistics that you and/or your business has collected.

Storytelling can start at any point in the day!

Starting is the hardest part! Use one of these tips to help you get started today!

If you’re interested in more, check out my storytelling online course at storyteller-junction.teachery.co/welcome-to-storyteller-junction.