The Secret No One Tells You About Success

No one tells you this when you publish your first book, but it’s not your cover, your story, or your ad strategy that determines if you’ll succeed.

Hi,

Have you ever met a human you had such an instant connection with that you wondered how your life ever existed before meeting them? It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s magic, and that’s exactly what happened when I met Heather Hildenbrand at our Writer MBA conference earlier this year.

I think we talked for like an hour the first night we met, and for hours over the next couple of days. We read all the same books. In fact, I last time I talked to her she had just finished a book I had recently finished, and I was just reading a book she had recently read.

What I love about Heather is that she can get totally woo-woo in her manifestation, but if you want to get practical she’s got you there, too. She has a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of how to match business and life strategies to manifestation, and how to help you heal from past wounds that are holding you back.

She is honestly one of my favorite people, and she’s hosting a free, 2-day LIVE workshop called the Happily Ever After Challenge on 10/24 and 10/27 at 12/pm PT / 3pm ET. where she’ll go deeper into how to shift your mindset, change your expectations, and create space for the more you’ve been asking for.

I literally can’t recommend Heather’s work enough. Her Manifest Your HEA book is brilliant. We just recorded a second episode with her for our

Six Figure Author Experiment

podcast, and hanging out with her is always a blast. If you have time, you should do it. Frankly, even if you don’t have time, you should make time.

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Hi, I’m Heather Hildenbrand. I write fantasy romance about Witches, Werewolves, and WTF, and I teach manifestation and mindset to authors who want to uplevel their success.

I’m also a friend of Russell’s—which is how I ended up owning not one but two pieces of wall art from a possum-themed art shop in New Orleans. (They’re cute, in a “why is this hanging in my house?” kind of way.)

But long before I was collecting questionable art on Russell’s recommendation, I was in the trenches of indie publishing.

I first published in 2011, during what we lovingly refer to now as the Gold Rush of self-publishing—back when Kindle Direct Publishing was brand new and the gates to the industry had just blown open. Readers wanted more books, and indie authors could finally give it to them.

That first year, I went from $20 a month in sales to $4,000 a month in just six months.

I was ecstatic. I realized: This could actually be my job.

And it was great—for a while.

Until it wasn’t.

Because the truth is, the road to success isn’t a straight shot. It’s a winding, messy, exhilarating, terrifying roller coaster of wins and wipeouts. I went from $4K months to $1,200 months and then plateaued somewhere in the middle for years. And no matter how hard I worked, it felt like the needle wasn’t moving.

No one tells you this when you publish your first book, but it’s not your cover, your story, or your ad strategy that determines if you’ll succeed.

It’s you.

When it comes to results, who you are as a human matters more than who you are as an author, a publisher, or even a CEO.

Your fears, doubts, insecurities, and self-sabotage patterns? They’re running the show—far more than your marketing plan or productivity hacks.

That truth took me a decade to figure out (apparently, I like taking the scenic route). But once I did, everything about my business—and honestly, my life—changed.

And now, you get the shortcut. The Cliffs notes. The TL;DR version of a decade’s worth of trial, error, and a few resume-dusting moments where I almost quit publishing altogether.

The Hardest Lesson I Learned

At some point, my career’s performance became directly tied to my sense of self-worth.

If sales were up, I was amazing.

If sales were down, I was a failure.

It sucked, but more than that—it was unsustainable.

If you’ve ever felt like no matter how hard you work, things just won’t click, I want you to know: It’s not your strategy that’s broken. It’s your beliefs about yourself.

(Dang, I really went for the jugular there. But if anyone can take it, it’s Russell’s people.)

Your beliefs are creating your results.

Your insecurities, fears, and expectations are quietly shaping your actions—and your outcomes—every single day.

Think about the thoughts that hum in the background of your brain:

• “I’m not good enough yet.”

• “Money’s hard to make.”

• “Success means hustling 24/7.”

• “The economy’s bad, so sales will probably drop.”

• “AI’s coming for all of us.”

Sound familiar?

These are the kinds of thoughts that feel like truth but are really just repeated ideas. (A belief is just a thought you keep thinking.) And the more you expect to struggle, the more evidence you’ll find for it.

You might call it woo woo. I call it science.

The Science Behind It (and Why It Matters)

In 1968, psychologist Robert Rosenthal ran a now-famous experiment that revealed something wild, namely that expectations literally shape performance. He gave an IQ test to a classroom of kids, then told their teachers that a few of them—randomly selected—were “intellectual bloomers.”

At the end of the year, those students scored significantly higher on the same test, even though they hadn’t actually been smarter to begin with.

It’s called the Pygmalion Effect, and it proves that our expectations—our beliefs about what’s possible—become self-fulfilling.

If other people’s expectations can change us that much, imagine what your own expectations about yourself are doing to your success.

So, let me ask: What do you really expect?

Not what you say you expect. Not what you tell people in your author group chat. What do you actually believe about yourself when no one’s watching?

Do you believe you’re destined for big success? That money flows easily? That readers love your work? Or does that still feel… far away? Maybe a little delusional?

When I finally achieved the goals I’d set way back in 2011—consistent sales, dream readers, total creative freedom—it wasn’t because I wrote faster or hustled harder. It was because I changed what I believed about myself.

The Beliefs That Changed Everything

Here are the beliefs that shifted everything in my author business—and that I want you to steal immediately:

• 💸 I make money even when I’m not working. → If you believe you must hustle to earn, you’ll always be trapped in that pattern.

• ✍️ I’m really good at this. → “This” meaning writing, marketing, managing my $$, and making smart business decisions.

• 🚀 My success is inevitable—even I can’t screw it up. → This one rewires your brain for resilience instead of fear.

• 🌞 Everything is always working out for me. → Because most of the time, it actually is—you just haven’t zoomed out far enough to see it yet.

Your brain listens to how you talk to yourself. And it’s wired to answer the questions you ask it. So if you constantly ask questions like, “Why doesn’t anyone buy my book?” or “What am I doing wrong?” your brain will find answers that confirm your worst fears.

Here’s how to flip the script:

💡 What’s my #3 or #4 income stream?

Look at your top five income sources from the past year. Skip #1 (you’ve obsessed over it enough). Focus on #3 or #4—the ones that make you money without much effort or even awareness. Now ask: what if I gave that area a little more love?

💡 If I had to make an extra $300 this month, what could I do?

This question forces creativity. Could you run a flash sale? Offer signed copies? Create a reader bundle? You have more options than you think.

Example: When I first did this exercise, I realized selling print books was my #4 income stream. This was before direct stores were a big thing. I created a Google form and offered every new release up for pre-order for a signed copy to my readers, my newsletter, my Facebook group. At the end of the year, I’d doubled my income for print sales without ever leaving my house to travel to a signing.

💡 What’s making me money when I’m not even trying?

This loosens the belief that income = effort. Find the evidence that abundance can be easy.

💡 What’s going well right now?

Your brain’s default setting is problem-solving, which means it constantly looks for what’s wrong. This question rewires it to start looking for what’s right. Now do more of that!

💡 How can I compare myself to myself?

Track your data. Measure progress only against your own past performance—not anyone else’s Instagram highlight reel.

Example: When I have a Bookbub, I record the sales and downloads for day 1 and 2 in my marketing calendar. Then, later, I can go back and compare that result to, say, Free Booksy or a cross-promo Bookfunnel campaign. Now I know which one offers the best ROI. So I know which one I want to do next time I run a sale. I only know this if I’m comparing me to me & tracking my data.

Better questions create better evidence.

Better evidence builds better beliefs.

And better beliefs lead to better results.

This is the Real Work

Changing your self-concept isn’t a one-and-done task. It’s an ongoing practice of catching yourself when you spiral into self-doubt, then choosing to see things differently.

But the good news? You can absolutely rewire your brain for success. You can shift from fear and hustle to trust and expansion.

And when you do, success becomes not only easier—but inevitable.

If this resonates, you’ll love what I’m teaching later this month.

Join Me for the Happily Ever After Challenge 💕

I’m hosting a free, 2-day LIVE workshop called the Happily Ever After Challenge—where I’ll go deeper into how to shift your mindset, change your expectations, and create space for the more you’ve been asking for.

It’s where we turn “I hope this works” into “Of course it’s working.”

If you’re ready to stop chasing success and start allowing it, come hang out with me live.

Because your happily ever after isn’t something you write once—it’s something you live, every day.

Let’s talk in the comments

• What belief has quietly been steering your results lately?

• If you had to make an extra $300 this month, what’s the easiest idea you’d try first?

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Photo by Mary Harris on Unsplash