Community Highlights: Meet Carrie Severson of Carrie Severson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Carrie Severson.

Hi Carrie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Carrie Severson started her professional writing journey as a 19-year-old college student. Since then she’s written for national magazines and online platforms, published books, and even turned her love of storytelling into a publishing business.

She’s not just a writer, though. She’s taken the stage as a professional speaker more than 300 times over the last two decades. And when her books started gaining traction, she became an advocate committed to transforming pain into purpose and burnout into belonging.

She first experienced burnout in 2012 when she created and ran a nonprofit for girls that grew nationally. She wrote about her experience with burnout in her first memoir, Unapologetically Enough, which led to burnout recovery keynotes for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and healthcare networks nationwide.

She is also the author of The Enoughness Method and Burnout Recovery Affirmation Cards, and is the host of the podcast, I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes.

She experienced firsthand caregiving burnout in 2024 when she stepped out of her career to care for her husband, who was struggling with head-and-neck cancer. Now that she’s got her feet back underneath her, she’s sharing her insights from caregiving and how burnout impacts caregivers. She lives in Arizona with her husband and their ginormous bloodhound, Huckleberry.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
NO with big capital letters. Entrepreneurship is never a smooth road. The biggest struggle I’ve faced over the years is learning how to manage my own energy and stay out of burnout. It’s so hard. I launched a nonprofit in 2011 and ran it for eight years. I grew that nationally and burned out hard, before burnout was a buzz word and everyone was talking about it.

I wrote about my experience in my first book, Unapologetically Enough. And the feedback from that book has been wonderful.

It put me in the common circle many entrepreneurs find themselves in. I’m still writing and speaking about my experience and sharing tips and tools for others to move out of burnout, which is my subject matter. But now, I coach other entrepreneurs on how to write their own books and get speaking gigs. Nothing really smooth about that.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I do two types of business day in and day out. As an author and a public speaker, I’m all about burnout recovery and reaching audiences where they’re at—in their offices or homes. I’m on stages, virtually or in person, sharing my story of burnout as a caregiver and an entrepreneur, and what I’ve learned about recovery and retraining the nervous system. I have keynotes, half-day seminars, and workshops, and I go into businesses or partner with associations. My current keynote is called Saving Lives & Doing Dishes, and it seems to hit home, particularly with women who find themselves overwhelmed with everyday life at home, with family, and then with work.

When I’m not leading others in burnout recovery work, I’m working with leaders who want to write and publish their own stories. I ghostwrite books, act as a book coach, and even run a hybrid publishing house myself.

If readers are too busy to write their own books, get a hold of me and I’ll do it for them! And, if they are leading a team of burnouts, get a hold of me to help shift them!

What matters most to you? Why?
My faith. I’m rooted in it and have to be. Caregiving creates such trauma in the body. There’s so much anxiety I’m still working through and it’s a work in progress. Just like burnout recovery. I lean on my faith, our time in church together (CCV), and our community. When my husband was diagnosed with cancer, I was so angry at God. He and I had just moved into our new home six weeks before Gavin woke up with a huge lump on his neck. Six weeks later, he was told he had cancer, and it had already spread. I’ve had to do a lot of talking to God, healing with God, and rebuilding my relationship with Him so I could go where I was meant to go once my time as a caregiver ended.

When we are in alignment with what we are created to do, meant to do in the world, and when we are using the gifts God gave us, things seem to move forward with a bit more ease.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://carrieseverson.com/home/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorcarrieseverson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carrieseverson.storyteller
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carrieseverson/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@authorcarrieseverson