We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Nicholle Craig a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Nicholle , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
I always wanted to be an author. I started writing at the age of 14. I would get started and give up. One time even throwing a manuscript into the ocean because I thought it wasn’t good enough. Through the years life starting happening, kids, marriage, divorce you name it, I had been there. Always one to keep going, I decided to take another try at writing. It just so happened that a woman from my church was also writing a book. I wanted to get feedback from her journey. I asked her if she’d be willing to talk to me and she readily agreed,. She took me to lunch and explained the importance of having a book coach and gave me contact information on the coach that she used. She paid for our lunch, we prayed and she gave me a copy of her book. A few weeks later I contacted the book coach and began writing. A little over a year later Saving Nicholle, My Journey From Generational Curses To Curse Breaker was written and published. The book focused on my journey from childhood trauma to finding a better way through faith. The people that read the book thanked me for telling my truth and let me know that they now had courage to tell theirs. It was this knowledge that lead me to create The Saving Yourself Conference. A platform where women tell their testimonies of trauma and how they healed through faith. Through these Conferences women have left encouraged and inspired with many life transformations after realizing that there was hope through faith.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am 53 years old. I have 3 adult children, 14 grandchildren and 2 great grandchildren. The Saving Yourself Conference came from my book Saving Nicholle. Saving Nicholle is about my journey through my life including sexual trauma, teenage pregnancy, drug addiction and how it affected my children and how through forgiveness, healing is possible. I received so much positive feedback from readers saying how telling me telling my truth inspired them to say theirs. My book coach called me one day and we were talked about how people were impacted and she suggested holding conferences. I prayed about it and started planning. I wanted my guests to leave empowered, inspired and start on their healing journey. I decided to have women who have been through trauma tell their testimonies and how they healed through forgiveness and their faith. The first Conference was held in Ohio and there wasn’t a dry eye in the building. People were saying how good the Conference was. The impact was phenomenal. Since then I have had two more Conferences in Nashville Tn. I start off by telling my audience that you can’t save yourself by yourself but You must make the conscious decision to allow God into your life so that He can shape You into the woman that He has called You to be. I am most proud of how my daughters have taken a role in the Conferences, one is a speaker with a powerful testimony. One helps set up and one does my hair and makeup. Most recently two of my grandchildren who didn’t know my story were able to come to the conference and it really had an impact on their lives.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I was so close to finishing my book, Saving Nicholle My Journey From Generational Curses To Curse Breaker, then it all started going downhill. I needed to have a minor surgery that would keep me out of work, my marriage was really almost at its end, a relative had to come and live with me. Thing after thing after thing. However I kept going. I kept praying. I sent my final copy to be edited on the day before my surgery I was able to get my relative help. Unfortunately the marriage didn’t survive but I used forgiveness and what I learned from some of the very women that I provided a platform for and I forgave and healed and am now able to share my journey on divorce as well.
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
About a week before every conference, I get crazy!! I call it off, I try to change everything!! What I would call near death experiences, when things don’t go as planned, or not enough ticket sales, it always works for good in the end. There has not been a conference where lives weren’t changed.
Thank God for my team who stops me in my tracks and keeps me grounded. My church is also a very big support to me at these uncertain times, reminding me to get somewhere quiet and pray. Always, after every conference as the guests tell me how much being there has helped them. I finally calm down and am so humbled that God allowed me to make such an impact.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Savingnicholle.com
- Instagram: Savingnicholle
- Facebook: Nicholle Craig
Image Credits
The Saving Yourself Conference