How Shannon Carroll is Making Her Author emPact

[00:00:00.490] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Shannon, I am so glad that you are here today, that you are part of The emPowered Author Podcast. You were just sharing before we pressed record what resource you've seen this to be, both for you and for others in your life. And it's just I love having people that are so meaningful in my own kind of journey be a part of this. And I really think our connection is not by happenstance, it's by a God-sequence. Isn't that what you called it?

[00:00:28.330] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Divine appointment.

[00:00:29.630] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
A divine appointment. He does do those things. And I kind of think, like, your book was also a divine appointment in your husband's life. And anyway, so, yeah, I'm just so glad that you're here. Thank you for being here today.

[00:00:44.270] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Thank you truly for asking me. I have loved your podcast for myself. I love sharing it with other authors. And I know that you produced the highest quality content and you're very selective about your guests. So I feel very honored.

[00:01:04.050] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
I knew when we first met, I'm like, she's going to be on. Shannon is coming, but I feel like you knew. Go ahead. What did you say?

[00:01:13.670] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
I knew when we first met that I would be working with you. I thought I heard you the very first time on a Mastermind. And I thought, this girl and I, we're going to talk. She's going to help me. There's going to be a connection here. We just knew it.

[00:01:29.530] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Well, I was going to say we have to go back to go forward, I think. And I think it would be nice for listeners today to hear a little bit about how we did meet because it was beautiful and very emotional for me, but very beautiful. We were at this writer's retreat, and so, as with most people, this is just good for authors out there to realize. Usually, we are about one or two or three degrees away from the people that need to be a part of our lives and that we can make the biggest impact with. And it just so happened that the writing coach who you have utilized and I have utilized had a writer's retreat that we were both faculty at. And we met the first day and I was like, she looks so lovely. I'm looking forward to getting to know all these people. And then we slowly started talking and it's just crazy. I want to know from your perspective what that was like.

[00:02:19.770] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Well, I have to go back a step before because I felt like I knew you when I came to the writer's retreat since I had already seen you on a Mastermind, and that's when my radar perked up and I was like, this is a girl I want to know more about. I'd already been to your website, looked at some of your services, and then when I heard you were going to be at the retreat, I thought, I need to get a chance to talk to her. It was so cool. And the lesson in that is, again, we never know. With every podcast we listen to, every class that we go to, every mastermind group that we're a part of, there are going to be connections, sometimes very unexpected, that come out of it and take us along a path. So, yeah, when I got to schedule some time with you at the retreat, I do look back at that time. It was very special, sharing our stories, you hearing mine. There are some similarities and overlap there. And I called my husband on the way home, and I said, I need more time with Stephanie.

[00:03:24.770] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Yeah, I think it was the second day of the retreat. We had met on the first day, and when I was speaking the mastermind that you were talking about, it's not crazy interactive in the sense that I share stuff. Some people ask questions, but you're right, I don't know who listens to it in live time or who listens to it in retrospect. I don't know any of that. And so I didn't know you, even though I wish I would have earlier, because we're now buddies. I consider you now like a lifelong friend, not just some random person. You're more like a buddy girl. Like, we're buddies. But anyway, so the second day, I walked in and we just got to chatting. You said, hey, can we chat sometime today? And I'm sitting here thinking, this is Catholic guilt. And me I'm like, what did I do wrong? Yes, we could chat. What did I do wrong? And then quickly you were like, I've got my book. And I'm like yay. And that's when I started to uncover, like, we just talked about divine appointments, that God has a reason for things.

[00:04:28.820] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
And as we started chatting, I'll never forget getting all comfy. I took my shoes off, we sat in this little comfort. That's what I love about retreats. You just get real comfy on these couches and this, like, hidden space of this beautiful cabin we were staying at or having the retreat at, and we just started sharing. And I think I've shared with some of the listeners about my own health diagnosis, which I received a year ago that had begun neurologically and evolved into a hypersomnia/narcolepsy diagnosis. And as I started to learn your story, I think I almost, like, literally had to pick my jaw up off the ground, because the things with your story and your husband's story, I could relate. And as I'm hearing it from your perspective as a caregiver and an outsider looking in and thinking about my husband and my own diagnosis, and as I'm hearing what you were sharing about your husband and what he went through, I'm sitting here thinking, yes, I understand exactly what that is. Oh, my gosh, yes. I haven't been able to put a word to that and the synergy and understanding both gave me personally a level of peace and feeling of being seen, but also comfort, both in the end results with your husband, but also the underlying threat of it all.

[00:05:42.850] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
And I don't know if I could dance around the topic anymore without asking you to tell more about your story and your book, because it is one thing, no pun intended with the title, but it is one of the books that I have sat down and read cover to cover and couldn't stop. So tell us a little bit about your family's story and your beautiful book.

[00:06:09.330] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
It just goes to show the power of story.

[00:06:11.770] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Yes.

[00:06:12.410] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Why we write our books. And I always had a dream of writing a book. This was not the book that was on the radar to write, but it really is a nightmare that turned into a gift and it was so bizarre and so life changing that we couldn't keep it to ourselves, so we had to share it with others. So, yeah, our beautiful book, I have it here. One Thing Remains. I love it. I love it so much. So one thing remains. One couple's traumatic encounter with amnesia and their life changing journey to restoration. The Cliff Notes version is that in the spring of 2019, my husband, who was a senior pastor, full time pastor at our church, ended up with amnesia. I thought he was having a heart attack, but when all the dust settled, heart was fine, brain was fine, but he could not remember the last eight to 13 years of our life and the doctors couldn't find a single thing wrong with him. So they said that most likely the brain shut down due to years of cumulative stress and we had been living the busy life that everybody else is living.

[00:07:19.900] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
I think there's a uniqueness to some of the burnout and stress that comes from ministry families that we were experiencing, and we weren't paying attention to the red flags that our body and our relationships were throwing up at us. Pay attention, pay attention. And we ignored them. And the brain finally said, David’s brain, if you don't pay attention to me, I'm going to shut you down. He couldn't remember our home, our dog. He thought our boys, who were preteen, were still in car seats, didn't know where we banked, didn't know what side of the bed he slept on. So many things. I had to introduce him to people and places and it was a long 26 days, one of the hardest of my life. Until you take your memories away, you have no idea how much we depend on them. And when any part of your brain is missing, life changes in a very dramatic way. So he miraculously got his memories back in an instant, 26 days later. And we described that in the book and then we took a couple of months after that to process all that had just happened. And we turned our lives upside down.

[00:08:38.230] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
We moved, we downsized, we changed how we approach life and to do lists and priorities and family. And what's more important, we really had those tough conversations and did surgery on our life. Because if we needed a sign from God, you need to change my mind. And so it would be very irresponsible to go back to living the way we did before. So there were five lessons that we learned from amnesia, and we talk about each one of those as well as tell our amnesia story in the book. Our goal is to help other people find that the life of true meaning and thriving, healing and wellness, without having to lose their own mind in the process.

[00:09:22.610] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Well, this is a topic, though so many people, myself included, try to muddle through and forge 100 mph ahead. And then inevitably, something will stop you. Sometimes it's yourself that stops you. Like not so much your brain, but like something like I'm rereading a book. I reread this particular book every year, The Big Leap, and it talks about upper limit. Have you read it, Shannon? If not, you put it on that list, add it to your list. It talks about having upper limit issues and how we ourselves create hindrances to our own. We create our own glass ceilings and understanding that. So I was reading about this and knowing we do it to ourselves, we sabotage ourselves. Sometimes situations sabotage us. But the proof is in the pudding. Stress does so much more than what we know. I was writing in my newest book about how it it compounds and it just keeps adding. You think you've moved through it? Good try, my friend. You haven't. It just keeps coming. And when you talked about how his brain kind of laughed and then shut down, when my symptoms started, I could only explain my brain irregularity or abnormalities with like the blue screen of death on the computer.

You know, like your computer is just like, got an issue, you won't reboot it, you won't do the update, you don't follow what it's saying. And one day it's like, you want it to work today, Stephanie, but you don't get to. And I'm going to close it until you take it to the shop, right? And so when I couldn't put words to my symptoms, I just kept saying, my brain gets to a point where it will stop and I have to go to sleep for hours upon end. Right? And so hearing what you were saying about the amnesia, it's proof that and it's a reminder that what we have today, we may not have tomorrow. What we think we have today, we may not have tomorrow. And if we don't care for ourselves and our bodies and our minds and the vessel we've been given today, we may not have it tomorrow. And your family went through a very painful but eye-opening experience, realizing kind of going through that and the vulnerability in your book. As I'm reading through it all, I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. I can only imagine what David was experiencing with high levels of confusion because sometimes my condition will do that.

[00:11:57.690] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
And then on your side, the depths of loss that you are experiencing, losing the husband you thought you had and the life you thought you had, and yet you had a thread that connected everything. And that's the underlying beauty of your story. I think just talking about it and about the importance of remaining deep in your faith and close to the word because that will be forever a focus and thread to reweave your life back together.

[00:12:35.090] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Thank you for all of that. We did learn that life is fragile, the brain is fragile. I'm a registered nurse, but I had never thought about brain health before until I had to. And the brain needs some TLC and needs some attention. And we're going in this culture, in the Western culture, we are way too focused on production and busyness, and I love production. I wear that as a badge of honor. I love being busy. And when someone says, how are you? Busy and stressed? We say that with pride, all of us. And it just is not worth it and it takes its toll. The book is very vulnerable. When we were recording our audiobook, David and I together in this small booth and were rereading it, oh, my goodness, I can't believe we put some of this stuff in the book. This is like opening up to my journal. And we bring you through our marriage and the difficulties that we experienced. But that is also the power of a story. When we can get to the place of being raw and vulnerable, that's when you reach others. And that's why so many have a response and a true reaction when they read our book, because they felt a connection to it.

[00:13:54.830] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
The last thing I'll say about our book is there is one thing that David didn't forget and that's why it's called one thing remains. And that will be as you alluded to a lifelong lesson that has changed.

[00:14:05.010] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
My life and mine too. So I had a very intimate experience with Jesus, and I'm going to get emotional myself. And I didn't have the scripture to connect to it until I read your book. And I remember texting you, I think I was like, are you kidding? And since then, usually a couple of times a week, you will find on the inside wrists of my right hand because I'm left-handed. D. Capital D 31:8. And it's a reminder of a piece of scripture in Deuteronomy that says, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. I'm always here. And I think everybody's story has power. I think we read books and stories for a reason. There's a reason the author expects to make the impact and then there's a bigger reason. And I walked away from that with a reminder of things I need to do, of how I need to manage my own stress. Because stress will create an impact on your life. That busyness we talk about is not healthy, it's not good. And when I think of book marketing, I mean, not to go to that yet, but when we talk about book marketing, I think, well, actually we can because when we chatted and you were telling me, I said, what are you doing?

[00:15:28.170] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
You tell me all the things. I'm like, Why are you doing all the things? It's because busyness has this feeling of success and movement and momentum. But if you aren't focused in your busyness, all that will happen is you will lose touch with people that matter. You will lose touch with yourself. You will prioritize the wrong things and not prioritize the right things. And everything you're doing to create margin will somehow eat it up. And so busyness in and of itself is not a healthy thing and it's not impactful. It's the type of impact I talk about. Like you throw a rock in a window type of impact. It's not the empowered impact of an author that keeps on giving. And so I walked away from the chat because you and I did have a deep chat that day. And then we've had the opportunity to have deeper deep chats with this. Also remember, even for myself, that busyness does not make me well.

[00:16:25.530] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
And the word that you used with me that really resonated was you said you're doing a lot of churning. So that indicates there's striving, there's movement, there's activity, but is the churning, that should be the energy that then produces an end product. And the end product was not what I was going for. And you're like, well, then this is all just churning action and we need to really evaluate what are you doing. I knew that my book, our book, David and I co authored it, I knew that it has potential to reach so many people and really make a big impact. But I wasn't seeing the impact happen like I had envisioned it, but I was doing all the things. I was busy with marketing, quote unquote things, but there wasn't action. So being able to even stop and evaluate that and we can get so emotionally tied to the actions that we're doing. Just like in our life, we were emotionally tied to all the things we were involved in and it was killing us. So having you to be able to so honestly and candidly question, why are you doing this? What's the value of this?
What's the purpose? Where is this leading you? Does this bring you joy? It was awesome.

[00:17:56.310] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
It was funny. The word churn, I think of I don't know why, but I think of, like, back in the day, people would churn at a grain mill, okay? And you just keep doing it, and there's no end in sight. And it's exhausting to the person. And the person churning doesn't always see the end result in the outcome. And so when we sat down that day, it was just so much fun. But as I started to uncover what you've been doing, I thought, man, this girl knows her stuff. She's doing all these things. And then I started asking deeper questions. I found the question, Why? It's a great guide because we finally got to this last Why? And you were like, I don't know why. And I'm like, okay, so is this action leading to this result? We started to unpack that, and I think it starts as we started with our conversation, what would success look like? And is what you're doing getting you there? And so we uncovered several things of marketing potential that you could do, and we also uncovered several things you could stop doing or at least tier back, unless it brought you joy.

[00:19:06.660] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
See, I'm a big believer that sometimes things bring you joy and you don't know why they do. Well, that's okay for a while. But if you do something, even if it brings you joy today, and it doesn't have a tangible outcome, in the long run, you will no longer have joy with it. We, you know, had great conversations about money. I don't like the word money. I hate talking about it. I hate asking about it. I hate everything that comes with the concept of money. However, money in and of itself is not bad. There's nothing bad with money. We have the ability with making money or creating money. All it is is an exchange of energy. We have the ability to help people, to serve communities, to give back, to pour into what we need to keep ourselves. It is not a bad thing. What people do with it could be bad. So we had a lot of conversation about money and about the churn you were doing and its alignment with money. And I remember, I think, sharing with you "follow the money trail." And it's not because I want you to be anybody, you or any author out there, to be an author that is just doing what you're doing for money.

[00:20:20.060] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
That's not what I mean. It is because I know when that exchange of energy is giving back to this life, money just happens to be the way that some people do it. You will have more energy to do more and give more. But if you're doing it and nobody is showing the type of ROI that you are wanting, there's something deeper.

[00:20:48.510] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Yes. You help to show that money is a positive feedback loop. Yeah. And it does feel good.

[00:20:57.250] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Okay.

[00:20:57.490] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
So I'm happy to give and bless and share, but at some point, my time is valuable, and what I'm doing needs to matter. And one way that we evaluate that is it generating revenue. Yeah. And my husband has been telling me, he still says, how come I've been telling you for years. And then you meet with Stephanie for one day, and you finally get it.

[00:21:26.090] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
It was because of the food that we had at lunch. That was what it is.

[00:21:36.190] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
But you're too close.

[00:21:40.020] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
He was too close, truly. And I had been spending money on all kinds of things that I thought, this is the missing link. And I loved that you said that is not producing this expenditure. It's not producing an ROI. But over here, let's shift this in alignment with who you are, in alignment with what your book is, in alignment with the framework that this book can help provide for your business. And we generate revenue. Over here. Again, I'm not doing it for the money, but it's a way that we can evaluate the effectiveness of our book and our message.

[00:22:16.800] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Well, we took a step back, and let me add in. You and I got the opportunity to spend the full day together. We did a VIP day together. That's when we talk about lunch. I went to my favorite little restaurant here in the country where I live. But we had a really great day together, just chatting. But we started with understanding for you with your book and what you wanted the book to do in your world. How will this give you life? And we started to uncover the margin you had before we did anything else. Right. Like, I remember you talking about some stuff with your children and all these things that are meaningful to you that, unfortunately, in a business, an entrepreneur business, or any business, can get brushed under the rug very easily. And we started there, and then we started to go backwards, and we walked away, like you said, a framework on your business, on things you can do, your target audiences we talked about. Oh, my gosh. Like, we have other book ideas. I mean, it is I probably have like, Cory, my husband, could tell at the end of that day because I was on cloud nine energy from what we were able to do together.

[00:23:30.980] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
And I like him chomping at the bits to see you bring it all to fruition because you have this. And this is, I think, proof. And I want to get your thoughts. When you write a book, it is the beginning of a business. If you want it to be now, it will already be its own business, because you have to deal with sales tax and stuff, right. Like, it's already something. But if you want it to be a door opener to something bigger, that's where you just have to do a moment of reflection to evaluate what do you think, which value do you see and what are people going to invest in? So from your perspective, what was some of your favorite kind of takeaways from the type of impact work we did together?

[00:24:14.370] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
My husband can probably say that the same thing that when I came home that day, I was on cloud nine. In fact, he took me to dinner that night. And so sometimes it's hard for him to focus as I'm talking and talking and talking and talking and talking about something. But he was so sweet and he stayed focused. As I went through all of it, I was just blown away. So I think here are a couple of thoughts. One is determining who the target audience really was and is for me. You know, when David and I wrote the book, we wrote it as a couple and we kind of had a vision of how we thought the book path was going to go. And two years after, I'm evaluating like that didn't really go the direction we had expected. So we had to pivot. And you were able to so brilliantly ask the right questions and be perceptive about areas where I had successful speaking events or successful courses that I had developed and really drill down to figure out who are the people that need to hear the message that I want to share.

[00:25:22.180] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
That, I think, was one of the ways we started our day. And it was very powerful. I had this big, broad umbrella of who I knew my target audience was. But you were able to help define it so clearly it's made a really big difference. It's a foundational starting point. Also putting together a business framework. We were at a place where I thought, do I keep churning an effort or do I just put the book on the shelf and say, that was a nice ride and if someone asked me about it, I'll bring it up again. And just figuring out was there a fork in the road? And you were able to help me put such a meaningful business framework together that I could get excited about and think, okay, in the few hours that I have each week to really devote to this business, I could get excited about doing this. This is who I'm created to be in this season of life. And this is the message that I have to give the world. And I remember thinking, I think I even said it to you that day because I know you meet with all kinds of clients and nonfiction authors that have topics that range from all, I mean, such a wide variety of topics and how you are able to understand each unique person and the message and the audience and their world truly blew me away. I felt like you knew the world that I needed to speak to. You knew who needed to hear my message. You understood it, and you put yourself there in such a powerful way. And we're able to make big strategic suggestions and recommendations. And then the business framework that you put together afterwards, a 60 plus page, customized document with Google Docs with little drop downs where I can click started or not started or in progress or completed.

[00:27:20.270] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
This is complete button, girl. I like complete buttons.

[00:27:25.310] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
I'm all about it. I've created new Google Documents since then now, and I'm like, get that drop down in there. That was awesome. To take the whole day and put it in. It was worth every penny that I spent. I can't wait to get the next one on the books to do the next step. I had a lot of takeaways from the day. I don't want to sound cheesy, so I mean this with all sincerity. It was a life changing experience.

[00:27:52.710] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Oh, my gosh. Okay, so that makes my day. I have shared in my current book, Make Your Author emPact, that author impact is really hard to quantify and qualify and know. And so to hear stuff like that, knowing that what you're doing has changed somebody, I think at the end of the day, that's as humans, that is at the heart of something we would love. That's a part of a legacy, something that I think, whether we can articulate that or not, we want to do. And so thank you just for saying that. That means so much. But it was truly a joy part of the process that we go through or I go through, over here as every author that comes through our pipeline. I read the books. Like, I read them, and I take notes and highlight and pull out stuff and get excited about it. And even if some of the books touch me intimately and some are a bit more transactional on my end because it's not something that maybe I understand completely, the book talks to me. I know it sounds really silly, but the book tells me from the marketing lens, like, what is it?

[00:28:56.190] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
What the value is and where I could go. And I very clearly remember reading your book going, oh, my gosh, I know what she needs to do, because I need it. I need you to do this for me. I'm selfish over here, Shannon. I need you to go down that path for me. But I think when we're really close to it, we can't see what our key differentiator is. And, I mean, you have beautiful and overwhelming life stories and experiences that have shaped you to be beautifully, wonderfully, fearfully made for exactly what you're supposed to be doing now. And just having you come with such an open mind to our experience, I think, was a win win. I had a ball. I can't wait for our next time together too. But I had even more fun seeing your flame be reignited, and it's living proof that a book always has life in it. Your story always has life. It does not have a shelf life. It always has life. It will not go out of style. It will not mold and you have to toss in the garbage. It's not a banana, people.

[00:30:07.560] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
It's not a banana. It is something that you can breathe into. And sometimes you need help to see that because you're too close. And other times you just need someone to tell you to stop feeling like you have to do all the things to free up the mental space to do the right thing.

[00:30:25.910] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
So well said. I remember when I first got there and you told me that you showed me how you had read through the book and you had your notes and you had underlined, and your husband had taken that and had put into the Google document different topics for blog posts, or you'd already typed out good quotes that I could use for social media. I just felt very understood. I felt very clean. And you knew me. You knew the book, you knew the message. You were very intuitive to all of that, and you did. You lit the flame.

[00:30:59.330] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Well. Well is a good word to say because wellness is at the heart of you. And wellness is about your story. And wellness is something that our world needs. Every woman, every person needs a reminder that as we head into (we're recording this in December prior to the new year) but as we head into the new year, whenever you hear this and you feel like you need to get healthy, you need to get focused, maybe all you need is to be well. And the first step in that journey is actually, Shannon, what I think you did was making the confirmation that you're ready to be well. You're ready to do this. You're ready to listen. You're ready to move forward. You are ready to make an impact. You have to own that. That awareness is the first step of being able to change anything. And so you are doing beautiful stuff. You are headed down a beautiful path. A divine, appointment inspired journey that is continuing to be shaped among that, but allowing me the opportunity to be a part of it is something like truly, I will never forget. And I'm just so dang on grateful for not only your friendship, but our ability and for my ability to learn from you as you navigate this.

[00:32:14.160] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
I can't wait to see where you go, girl. Your author impact is going far and wide, and the world needs this.

[00:32:22.910] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
You've got me started on the next book. I've been sitting down and starting to write on the next book, which I had thought would be several years down the road but it became clear as we met what the next step was. And that's what I wanted. I knew that there's a lot of possibilities. I'm not doing the right thing currently. There's another next step that I just couldn't grasp. And I am so thankful that our paths crossed in some different and unique ways, and it's going to move forward.

[00:32:53.480] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
I love it. I was listening to on Facebook how they have those reels now of TikTok stuff. Okay, so I'm not very cool to be in the TikTok space, but I do enjoy a reel or two in Facebook. And there's a comedian that I follow, and she had this funny joke. She said, do you know why people in their 20s are skinny? And I'm like, Why? She goes, well, they haven't developed their gut yet, which is why their intuition is not as good as the older you get, because they don't have their gut to rely on. And I'm not saying that for either you or I, but I'm saying it as a reminder that if your intuition is telling you that maybe there's something like I have found, if it's really hard to do the next step, I think it's because the next step is not ready yet. I think it's because there is something that needs to happen before that next step. That's your intuition, that's God, that's your gut, call it whatever you want, saying, Why can't I move forward? Am I holding back? Am I the problem? Am I a gatekeeper? Have I created a limiting belief or a glass ceiling for myself?

[00:34:00.660] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Or is there literally something that is needed to get to this next place? And until that happens, the next place may not open. So anyways, that's a good reminder of that.

[00:34:12.210] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
And our intuition is parallel between what we teach in our book as far as how to identify stressors and move past them. I see parallels between what I do with women and helping them be well when they're ready and when they're hungry, and then what you also do with helping people along the journey when we're starting to get stuck, we need an extra counselor out there to help us evaluate what's going on, make the changes, and move on. But if we aren't willing to evaluate, if we're not willing to do the work and make the changes, if we don't really truly want to be well, we're going to stay in the same spot. But for those people that are ready, like when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. That quote that comes. And there are counselors and experts and coaches that are available when someone's ready.

[00:35:09.730] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
To take the next step.

[00:35:10.530] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
And I'm thrilled that I did with you.

[00:35:14.050] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Thank you for being here today. And I am just excited for people to read your book, for people to follow you. You have big things coming, and I can't wait to watch them. So people should have their binoculars on and be watching you closely, because this girl is going somewhere. And it's because you have seen and had an experience of something that I don't believe happened on purpose. A very unfortunate, horrific experience on purpose. But you have determined that it can happen for purpose, and you have refined yourself, your family, and your life through it, because God was forging you and framing and molding you so that you could help others. And that's what impact is all about. So thank you for coming on today for sharing a little bit about your author impact and how we were able to see part of it. I'm just so excited and proud of you, my friend.

[00:36:06.450] - Shannon Carroll, Author of One Thing Remains
Thank you, Stephanie. And when I think of you, another word that comes to mind is just a cheerleader. And for authors, sometimes we can feel kind of lonely and out there, like no one understands us. And I really found in you someone who believed in me and believed in our story and was able to cheer us on. Thank you.

[00:36:24.010] - Stephanie Feger, emPower PR Group
Go, Shannon. That's my best cheerleading. But no, thank you. You're so sweet. You're so sweet.