We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kristal Calloway. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kristal below.

Alright, Kristal thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Let me tell you any time a risk is involved, it can be the scariest place and decision one can make. I have quit a job of eighteen years that I didn’t find fulfillment in, and packed two suitcases to move two thousand miles away to find myself. Within the five and half years the lessons I learned in that risk are what led me to where I am today. I thought my whole life was going to spark there and I would be sitting on top of the world, happy, fulfilled, and living my best life. Taking that risk was supposed to be the greatest thing in my life, right? Wrong! As we all felt the pressure and change of the pandemic, I felt the pain of what success actually looked like to me, and was the risk worth it? I had uprooted my whole life to find who I truly was and what I wanted out of life only to land back in the beginning,

Yes, the risk of moving helped. I learned how to face and heal deep traumas. I was a people pleaser and I learned the value of “no”. I learned how to heal from within which helped me to lose eighty-pound over a three-year period. I learned to stop settling for what I thought would make me happy. The greatest lesson I learned was that no matter if you take the risk or not, there is no guarantee that you will land where you expect to. After five and half years, I had to move back temporarily to my home city. I was broke, broken, and felt as if I was a complete failure. I looked at all my boxes, all nine of them that I had accumulated over time, plus the two suitcases I left with, and wondered if the decision I made was the right one.

I would hear that saying in my head constantly, “no risk, no reward.” Well, I wasn’t seeing what the reward was as I was staring rock bottom in its face and asking, “how did I get here?” I worked hard, and I got back on my feet, but I never could reach a point where I felt that my decision was the right one. As I was crying, trying to work out how I was going to pay my bills and save money to reach a dream that I didn’t know if the dream was my own, something inside of me told me to take the time to finish my book.

I wrote a book during the pandemic that kept my mind off being unemployed, stuck in the house, and waiting to see what the unknown would bring. I had an editor go through and edit it. I just needed to complete the edits, find beta readers and then publish. Wait, that would mean another risk. I was now in a place where I wasn’t working yet again, I had no means and I didn’t know how I was going to get this book out. Listen, the risk is not the completion. Taking a risk is a step that consists of my other steps. If I could encourage one person, don’t expect the end result when taking the risk, just take the first step or leap. That is what will get you there. Don’t expect people to save you either. Another lesson I learned in risk-taking is, that it can be lonely. That is okay, trust me. It will help you to stay focused on the goal. Do I still have bills? Yes. Am I on the New York Times Best Selling? Not yet. But that is not the leap, the leap was for me to finish the book. That I did.

Take the risk. Meaning takes the first step. Do what you can do at that moment. Don’t look at the ending goal or what you hope will happen. Things are not going to happen right away, trust me. This is the most important, just because you took the risk, doesn’t mean that the reward will be handed to you. There is still more work and growth as you make more progress towards whatever the reason you took the risk. Just do it! As the Nike logo says. That is the most important.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I say I am a “writer” not an author. I hear people tell me in order to manifest what I want I must intentionally speak what I am. I realized in my healing and finding myself, that I am more than an author. The umbrella of a writer is acutely broad. In addition to my book, I wrote my first screenplay during the pandemic. Was it great? No. Do I think it was even good? No. As I type that I giggle, because I entered it into a contest, not because I thought I had a chance of winning, but because I wanted to “take another risk” in putting myself out there. I’m so shy about allowing people to see my writing or me if I am honest.

I also write poems, songs, short stories, and quotes. I am a writer. I never looked at it as a career. It was more a therapeutic tool for me to escape reality when I felt overwhelmed or in this current time, a friend that helps me not give up on myself. I remember in high school helping my friends with writing assignments for our graduation portfolios. I’m the friend people call for ideas on business names, mission statements, articles, or edits on their own writing.

I realized that I didn’t want to be just an author. My mind’s creativity expands beyond books. I am a storyteller, visionary, poet, educator, and creator. The thing I am most proud of is that I finally can believe all of that confidently without a doubt. I didn’t need to be on the New York Times’s Best Selling, have a movie made from a script, have thousand of followers on social media, or be rich to believe who I am. It is an immutable fact.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One thing I’ve learned is that life is a classroom. What I mean is, throughout our lives, we are given instructions, then comes the pop quizzes and final exams to see if we learned what we were supposed to in that season. In my case, I failed the pop quizzes and the final exam too often. I found myself repeating what I wouldn’t repair or learn. In order for us to go to the next level in school, we must pass the final right? Well, that is how I look at lessons.

The lesson I had to unlearn in my situation was that in order for me to fully change, grow and gain anything in this life, I had to be willing to ask for help. My pride would not allow me to ask for help for fear that I would constantly owe someone something. Without asking for help, how can we possibly learn or gain what we need? Even in the most vulnerable places, I had to learn the only way out of this situation was I had to open my mouth and heart to receive help.

I had to ask a friend if I could live with her because I was afraid to tell my parents that I had failed again. I was extremely embarrassed to tell my loved ones that I needed to come back home because the risk I took didn’t work out. The fear I had was my own. My parents understood and they said, “sometimes things don’t work out, it doesn’t mean you failed. At least you tried.” That was a lesson for me to embrace. Stop worrying about what other people think. If you have to pivot, pivot. If you need help, ask. Learn the lesson, so you don’t have to repeat it like I did.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One thing I am proud of is no matter how many times life or my own bad decisions have knocked me down, I don’t quit. I will continue no matter what. I refuse to settle. I quit a job that was paying me quite well due to my mental health. I couldn’t handle the stress and pressure of it anymore. Plus, it wasn’t fulfilling. People say, “work that job to fund your dreams.” If it is taking a toll on your mental health, you possibly won’t last to see your dreams, because it will drain you. I found myself putting my dreams on the back burner because I was overly tired, irritated, and uninspired. I’m not saying do it broke, but find something that you don’t mind doing in the meantime to help fund your dreams if that is the case.

I am jobless, living with my parents, I have no car and I have had to close both my bank accounts due to no money coming in. I have no job prospects and honestly, I’m not trying to go back into the same situation that had my mental health unravel. What I am doing is putting my energy into my Dark series books. Self-publishing and pushing through the thoughts to give up. Resilience doesn’t mean we are superhuman, it just means we can adjust, detour or pivot when change is necessary. We are allowed to “plot twist” the heck out of our own life stories.

Contact information:

Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Barbara MacFerrin barbaramacferrinphotography.com