From the time bestselling author and founder of Soul Seed Amber Swenor was a small child, she knew she would write a book that helps people change their lives. She even took notes toward that goal.
“This was long before I had walked my own journey of transformation or knew exactly what the book would be about,” Swenor says. “All I knew was that I was meant to do it.”
But a history of trauma threatened to block Swenor’s dream from coming true. To bring her vision to fruition, she first needed to heal herself.
Starting a business with no safety net
“As a sensitive child growing up in a hard-working Midwestern family with a lineage of unresolved trauma, I felt a lot of pain in growing up,” Swenor says. “I was intuitive, empathic, and had an awareness that was beyond my years. I was also extremely driven, hard-working, and determined to create something better.”
From 2011 to 2015, Swenor worked as an advertising sales representative at a TV station. During this time, she realized she had a strong skill set for brand strategy and messaging, but knew she was meant for something different.
“Having come from a background where there was a lot of struggle and mindset of lack around money, it was scary to leave a job where I had worked very hard to build myself a consistent commission-based income,” she says. “But when I thought about my life one year out, I asked myself: ‘Will I look back and be happy I stayed, or will I regret and always wonder what could have been?’ It was a leap of self-trust and intuitive guidance that compelled me forward.”
Aspiring entrepreneurs are traditionally advised to have a startup runway before leaving their jobs, but Swenor didn’t have one when she did so in 2015.
Business doesn’t always go as planned
“I went all-in building my first company, Strategic Partners Marketing,” Swenor remembers. “It focused initially on a huge gap and clear market need for strategic marketing and brand strategy, especially for small businesses.”
Swenor was passionate about serving small businesses but also knew the agency would be a stepping stone toward her true mission in life. “I told myself I would focus on building that business for five years, grow it, then sell it, and use the sale money to launch the thing that I felt I was truly meant to do in this world — to guide and facilitate people in their personal evolution and transformation,” she says.
In some ways, Swenor’s business went to plan even faster than she realized it would. “A few years into my business, we were creating great success,” she says. “Many clients were renewing, I was building a team, and a lot of women started coming to me for business coaching, asking how I was doing it.”
In 2017, Swenor started testing out transformational coaching and business strategy frameworks, lessons, and models. “I started offering one-on-one and group coaching and retreats, and my clients were experiencing amazing results,” she says. “To my surprise, the biggest results they reported weren’t just linked to their business success. They said things like, ‘This work has been life-changing.’ ‘It’s helped me see myself in a new light as someone worthy of leading my company — someone who is worthy of love and success.’”
That’s when Swenor understood that her business had opened a pathway to delivering on her true mission: helping people step into their authenticity and bring their visions into reality. “I have a savvy head for business, but my greatest growth and success came when I went deep into my own personal transformation work,” she says. “That’s where the true magic has been found, for both me, and for the clients that I support today.”
Unleash Your Inner Rockstar
“It was important to me to create the book that I could authentically stand behind and feel at peace with,” Swenor says. “For me, that meant making a lot of investments not only in the book itself but also in my own healing and growth so I could become the person capable of teaching these lessons and standing in my own authenticity; so that I could become ‘Unleashed’.”
Swenor worked on her book, entitled “Unleashed: The Been-There, Rocked-That Guide to Radical Authenticity in Life and Business,” on and off from 2018 until until 2022. It gives readers practical steps in breaking free from obstacles and fears while telling raw personal stories from her own background, including her experience as a frontwoman for the heavy metal band Morningstar.
In short, “Unleashed” introduces readers to their own inner rockstar. “Becoming unleashed is about finding your own sense of authenticity and personal freedom by coming home to who you truly are,” Swenor explains. “The who you are when you’re free of conditioning, labels, and chains of expectation. It’s not always easy to show up this way, and even when we uncover this level of personal truth and alignment, it’s not always easy to stay there.”
Similarly, the process of writing “Unleashed” was far from easy.
The Making of ‘Unleashed’
“At many turns, I was confronted with old stories and wounds while writing the book,” Swenor remembers. “Sometimes, I’d need to pause and spend weeks or months working through an old issue I thought had already been worked through long before!
“Whenever I felt doubt or pulled back, I had to keep checking in to see if I was coming from a healed place of a genuine desire to help others and tell my experience authentically, or if I was coming from ego, trying to look good. Was I watering down my message for fear of offending others? Or was I coming from my truth, authenticity, and honesty? The only way to write this book on radical authenticity was to embody it myself! With everything I wrote, I intended it to come from a place of clear energy and do good in the world while releasing attachment to how it would be perceived by others.”
Upon its release in 2022, “Unleashed” rocked onto the USA Today bestseller list, as well as the bestseller lists for Amazon, The Wall Street Journal, and Barnes & Noble. The Independent Book Publishers Association also named it the Most Inspirational Book of 2023.
Soul-centered visionary leadership
Swenor provides a living example of soul-centered visionary leadership. True to form for someone who’s always looking to help others, she ended the interview with a question of her own: “What does greater Unleashed harmony look like for you in your life?”
The “Unleashed” audiobook will be released in June 2024. “It will feature some exclusive content and a sneak peek of a new Morningstar song that was inspired by the concept of the book,” Swenor says. Get on the audiobook waitlist here to receive a special offer: https://www.soul-seed.com/audiobook.
As for a follow up to Unleashed? Swenor says it’s in the works. As she puts it: “Unleashed is just one step in the journey to living an all-out-rebel-icious life.”
Discussion about this post