Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Welcome to the
Author Revolution Podcast.
I'm Carissa Andrews, author andyour host, here to help any
authors like you master mindset,harness manifestation, and
embrace cutting-edge innovationto elevate your career.
Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_01 (00:24):
Hey there guys,
welcome back to the Author
Revolution podcast.
Okay, so today's episode feels alittle surreal.
As I sit down to record this, Ican feel the full weight of this
moment.
It's not in a heavy way, but ina way that feels really big and
(00:45):
meaningful.
Kind of like the final pages ofa really beloved book.
So six years ago, today, October29th, 2019, Author Revolution
Podcast was born.
This podcast was my way ofreaching into the indie author
space, sharing what I waslearning, what I was passionate
(01:08):
about, and helping you, myfellow indie author rebels,
carve out your own path in thiswild world of self-publishing.
And now here we are, fullcircle.
This is going to be the finalepisode of the Author Revolution
podcast.
At least for now.
(01:29):
So today I want to reflect withyou, to honor this incredible
journey that we've takentogether, to talk about why now
is the time for me to let go andto leave you with one final
message that I hope sticks, nomatter where you are on your
journey or where it takes younext.
So six years.
(01:49):
If I'm being honest, it stillblows my mind.
I've been showing up here weekafter week, well, at least until
recently, right?
Sharing strategies, stories,interviews, and plenty of
ramblings about author life.
When I started AuthorRevolution, I was deep in the
indie publishing trenches,trying to figure out how to make
(02:09):
this author career thingactually work.
And like so many of you, Iwanted to write books that
really mattered.
I wanted to build a businessthat felt meaningful and
soul-aligned.
And maybe most of all, I wantedto prove that I didn't have to
play by someone else's rules inorder to succeed.
Over the years, I've talked withincredible guests.
(02:32):
We've tackled hard truths aboutbook marketing, and I've shared
my own ups and downs in realtime.
There were high points, youknow, launches that went better
than expected, courses thatlanded perfectly, and a
community that kept showing upwith love and curiosity.
And then there were also the lowpoints, right?
Moments where I wondered if Iwas on the right path anymore,
(02:54):
when the energy just felt offand when my heart wasn't in it
the way that it used to be.
About a year ago, something inme started to shift.
If you've been listening for awhile, you probably noticed,
right?
That's when I moved the podcastfrom weekly to monthly, and I
told myself I just needed morespace.
But deep down, I think I knew.
I was starting to let go.
(03:16):
It wasn't burnout exactly, or atleast not entirely, right?
It was more like the podcast andauthor revolution, the way it
was built, no longer felt likehome.
I still loved creating for it.
I still loved writing andcoaching and helping authors,
but something in me had changed.
And at first I thought it wasjust me, that maybe I was
(03:37):
outgrowing the platform or theformat, but then I started
having conversations with otherindustry leaders, you know,
people I trust and respectdeeply.
And I realized that this wasn'tjust a me thing.
There are winds shifting in ourindustry, and honestly, not all
of them are so great.
We're seeing more authorsstepping back from the hustle,
(03:59):
the grind, the constant do more,be more, earn more narrative.
And we're also seeing a clearshift in where people are
putting their energy and theirmoney.
Authors aren't spending on theircareers the way that they used
to, and maybe that's just theeconomy right now.
Maybe it's collective fatigue,or maybe, just maybe, we're
finally waking up to the truththat performance-based success
(04:22):
metrics aren't the only way todefine a fulfilling creative
life.
And I can tell you this (04:27):
once
you start feeling that truth in
your bones, it becomes really,really hard to keep pretending
otherwise.
Now, over this past year, Istarted leaning more into what
really felt good in my body.
You know, I've been big intosomatic exercises now, probably
for the past year as well.
So it was all about what feltaligned, what felt the most me.
(04:50):
And what emerged was something Inever expected.
It was my YouTube channelfocusing on verbal Reiki, you
know, portal energy, full moons,new moons, that sort of thing,
and really supporting peoplethrough energetic shifts and
their scarcity mindset release.
It might sound like a leap frombook launches and backless
marketing, but it's not really.
It's all connected.
(05:11):
At the heart of it, I'm stilldoing what I've always done:
helping people come back tothemselves, to trust their inner
knowing, to create a life thatfeels like theirs.
And you know what?
It's really honestly been prettyamazing.
The channel has grown fasterthan I imagined.
The feedback has been beautiful,and more importantly, I feel lit
(05:33):
up in ways I haven't felt lit upin when I create those videos.
You know, I feel that alignment,I feel grounded and energized
and like I can truly be me.
And that's the sign, right?
The nudge, the the knowing.
And over the years, I've learnedto trust it.
(05:54):
Now I want to be clear aboutsomething.
I had really big plans for 2026.
As I was retiring all of my oldcourses, I created three new
Author Revolution courses thatwere mapped out.
You know, they're all shiny andstructured and full of
potential.
And they're they've got, youknow, baked in the ideas of how
(06:18):
I now operate in my indie authorlike career, how I look at
developing and doing certainthings, how I market, how I um
outline, how I create my worlds,like everything, like the whole
strategy is there.
And maybe they'll still happen,but I'm not forcing it.
(06:39):
So I've decided I'm no longerliving my life or running my
business or businesses based onshoulds.
I'm listening to my intuition,you know, my guides, my joy.
And right now, that path isleading me somewhere new.
So does that mean authorrevolution itself is gone
forever?
I don't know.
Maybe I'll return uh, you know,in a new form.
(07:02):
Maybe it won't.
That's that part's not mine toreally figure out today.
I do plan on continuingmasterclasses when they feel
aligned, when they feel likethey're a part of, you know, the
strategies that I want to besharing with authors.
But overall, I don't feel ascompelled to continue to create
(07:22):
in that capacity.
Does that make sense?
So whether or not these coursesare going to come about, I'm not
quite sure.
I'm leaving it open.
I have them, you know, like Isaid, mapped out.
They're in the backdashboard ofKajabi, waiting for me to
decide.
But here's what I do know.
This revolution, the one thatwe've been talking about for six
(07:43):
years, it was never about me,right?
It's it's always been about you.
You are the author of your ownstory, literally and
metaphorically.
You get to decide how you write,how you publish, how you live.
You get to choose joy overpressure and alignment over
algorithms, authenticity overexpectation.
(08:04):
All of those things matter.
And I think that's part of thereason why I was so drawn to
manifestation and teachingmanifestation, because I felt
the need, the desire in thecollective to remind you that
that way of being an author, youknow, the hustle, the grind, the
publish like a lunatic, that'sone way of being, but it's not
(08:26):
the only way of being, right?
It's not the only way to enjoyour creativity and our
imaginations and our writing.
It gets to be whatever we wantit to be.
And we get to create and latchon to whatever it is we actually
want to receive via that aswell.
(08:47):
So many of us started thisjourney, I think, thinking that
we had to hit certain benchmarksin order to quote unquote make
it.
But I want to leave you withthis truth.
You get to define your success,no matter how that looks for
you.
You get to build your career onyour terms.
And you get to start yourrevolution whenever you decide
(09:08):
it's time.
So if something doesn't feelaligned anymore, if something
isn't making your heart sing, Iwant you to give yourself
permission to redefine, to takea step back, to allow some time
in order to see things moreclearly, because sometimes
that's what it takes.
Sometimes we need a step back,even if it's just a little step
(09:31):
back, you know, like for me inAuthor Revolution, it was um,
you know, to stepping back fromweekly podcast episodes to
monthly.
And then it was dropping some ofthe calls that I felt like were
no longer necessary.
I was originally doing groupcoaching calls for some of my
courses, and they just didn'tfeel necessary anymore.
(09:52):
And maybe it'll be masterclassesnext, but it was courses.
Like I was taking a look at thecourses and they no longer felt
aligned with the direction whichI'm going.
And it's not to say that all ofthose steps leading up until
this point didn't make me forwho I am now, right?
And they wouldn't still betaught, and that they still
(10:14):
wouldn't be taught in somecapacity in the new version,
which is why I was mapping outthose new courses.
But overall, like we get todecide for ourselves when it
feels right.
And author evolution, you know,over the past probably two and a
bit years, I I felt like in someways, like it was a relationship
(10:41):
that was starting to unravel.
You know, when I think back tomy relationship with my ex, I
knew it was time to let go.
I just didn't have it in me fora while to actually pull the
trigger.
And so what ended up happening,it's like you go through the
motions and you stick it outthinking that that's the best
way to handle this, right?
(11:02):
But instead, what ends uphappening is you start feeling
resentment behind it.
And that's not an energy or avibration that I want in my
daily life.
It helped, honestly, to talkwith other industry experts and
hear that like this is not justa me thing.
It's not, you know, like as mycourses and my reach was
(11:23):
starting to waver, which feltreally weird because as a
manifestation teacher, I wastrying to go bigger.
Um, it felt weird for that tofeel like collapse instead of
expansion.
And I'm like, what is going on?
Like, why are people notunderstanding what I'm saying?
Or how am I not connecting?
Or like, why don't my wordsmatter?
Because of course I always makeit like it's a me thing, like
(11:45):
something's wrong with me.
But in actuality, it's it'sreally not.
And that's a wound that I've hadto work on over the years and
still work on often.
And so instead, I was able tosee, oh, there is a bigger
undercurrent happening rightnow.
There is something shifting, andso it's not, it's not just about
(12:07):
what I teach or what I'm doingor offering or how I'm feeling.
It's a collective, we're allkind of expanding, being called
to do something else, somethingbigger.
And what that looks like, I'mnot quite sure.
And so my expansion, even thoughas I feel like it's um, you
know, going the oppositedirection in some ways, in other
(12:29):
areas, I am expanding.
I am growing and I'm growingfaster than I have ever before.
And so the the growth is there.
I just had to be willing to letgo enough to pivot.
Does that make sense?
So if you're feeling this waywith your author career, with
anything else in your life,whether it's relationships or
old, maybe you're you're maybeyou're working another job,
(12:51):
maybe it's how you're handlingyour family structure, um,
whatever it is, if you feel likeyou've outgrown its current
rendition, its currentincarnation, whatever, give
yourself permission to look atit a little differently or to
take a step back and see whatneeds to be done and how you
feel when you let it go.
(13:13):
Because sometimes it's hard tolet things go fully, like in one
go, like just to chop it off andbe done with it.
My husband can do that, but Ican't do that.
For me, I think sometimes it hasto be a gradual release.
It has to be like a blessing initself where I am able to see
everything for what it is, kindof work through the process of
(13:36):
it, understand what's happening,why it's happening, and then
bless it on its way.
So that's where we're at.
That's where everything is atthe moment.
And so, my friend, we're comingup on holidays, we're coming up
on a lot of different things,and I just found it so poetic
(13:59):
that this episode that I've beenkind of toying with playing
around with doing actually cameout now.
And it it's kind of interestingbecause I planned on this
episode being the last episodeuntil I realized that like this
date, this actual specific date,would have been six years.
(14:22):
And so what I ended up doing thelast, you know, two weeks ago
wasn't even a planned episode.
I wasn't going to do anotherhow-to type episode tying to my
master classes because I wasgoing to deliver this message
instead.
But now you get one extra, oneextra episode out of me.
So thank you from the bottom ofmy heart.
(14:45):
You know, thank you for beinghere, for listening all these
years, for growing with me, fortrusting me to be part of your
journey as well.
So, like I said, this isn'tgoodbye forever.
It's just a transition, a newseason in my life and maybe
yours.
And I hope that wherever yourpath takes you next, you walk it
(15:05):
with confidence and creativityand that spark of magic that
made you want to write in thevery first place.
And right now, if you want tostay in touch, you know where to
find me.
I'm still gonna be creating,still supporting, still cheering
you on.
Uh, you can find me over atmanifestdifferently.com or at
manifest differently on YouTube.
(15:26):
You can find me through my booksbecause I'm still gonna be
writing.
Creation feels more like my viberight now, and I'm returning
more deeply to what does thatmean?
Instead of being through, youknow, instead of being through
the lens of performance andmetrics and jumping through
hoops, I am here to feel intowhat my soul is wanting to give
(15:52):
and resonating with that andsharing it.
So for now, this is where Ileave you.
And like I said, it's kind ofbittersweet.
It's wild to think that thiscould be the last podcast
episode ever for AuthorRevolution and for sure for the
(16:12):
foreseeable future.
If I come back with a a seasontwo, for instance, it will be
interesting.
But right now I have nointention of that being the
case.
So for you, my friend, I wantyou to write boldly, create from
(16:32):
your soul, and always alwaysremember that you get to choose
your story now and always.
So go forth and start yourauthor revolution.