ANDREA CRISP
“
If we’re holding onto the old, we don’t get the new.”
What It Really Means to Let Go and Step Into Alignment
There are moments in life and business where the most aligned thing you can do… is let go.
In this deeply personal final episode of The CourageCast, Andrea Crisp reflects on nearly nine years of growth, storytelling, and courageous leadership. But more than a reflection, this episode is a lived experience of transition—of releasing something meaningful in order to step fully into what’s next.
This conversation explores the intersection of intuitive leadership, nervous system regulation, and embodiment, especially in seasons of change.
The Hidden Work of Evolution
Growth isn’t always loud. Sometimes it looks like grief.
As Andrea shares, closing this chapter wasn’t just strategic—it was emotional. Letting go of something that has been “so good” can bring up resistance, hesitation, and even a desire to stay in the familiar.
“There’s a part of me that has always had a really tough time letting go… especially something that’s been so good to me.”
This is where nervous system safety becomes essential. The unknown can feel destabilizing—but it’s also where expansion lives.
Why Alignment Requires Letting Go
You cannot step into your next level while gripping your past identity.
This episode gently but clearly highlights that embodiment isn’t just about becoming—it’s about releasing.
“If we’re holding onto old things, we don’t get the new thing.”
Whether in business, relationships, or creative expression, evolution asks something of you:
To release control
To trust your inner knowing
To move forward without guarantees
This is the real work of spiritual entrepreneurship.
From Courage to Trust: A New Era of Leadership
Courage started the journey—but it’s not the destination.
What unfolds next is a deeper layer: trust. Self-trust. Divine trust. The kind of grounded knowing that doesn’t need to force or prove.
“We’re not letting go of courage… but it’s time to truly know what is for us.”
This is the shift from performing bravery to embodying alignment.
An Invitation Into Your Own Next Chapter
If you’re in a season where something feels complete—even if it’s still “working”—this episode is your permission slip.
You don’t need to wait for things to fall apart to choose something new.
You can honor what was… and still move forward.
“We evolve. And in that evolution, we have to say goodbye.”
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Hello, and welcome to the CourageCast. I can't believe this is the last time I'm going to say that.
Oh, feels a bit bittersweet. My name is Andrea Crisp, and I'm your host.
And as this era of the podcast comes to a close, I want us to take a moment to look back.
When I first decided to record this series, I knew I wanted to share my own personal journey of
moving from courage to alignment in real time. And it has been quite the personal season for me.
I have been stretched. I have felt challenged to grow. I have felt the loss of something that I
held very dear to me, which is obviously this podcast. and also held space for a really beautiful
anticipation of what comes next. And we've been in this series where I wanted to kind of chronicle
in real time what was happening for me in this season. But if you haven't listened to the previous
episodes, I'm going to recap them for you. So we went on a little bit of a journey to name the
things that no longer service and that are... just quite frankly, out of alignment.
We uncovered patterns that have kept us playing small. We talked about leading from presence and
not from performance. We talked about the identity shifts that are required for our next iteration.
We talked about faith. We talked about trust. And of course, a new way of leadership.
But I also want to share something a little bit more personal. Because over the past eight and a
half years, which is crazy to think that I've been recording this podcast,
I've experienced some of the most profound growth of my life.
I think when I look back at how I have been able to shift and change and you've been with me the
whole way through, I've honestly seen myself change in ways I never thought that I would.
I witnessed my own courage to share my own stories alongside, of course, the guests that I had on
the show. I've shared about my struggles, my fears, my faith deconstruction, my own personal
lessons along the way, usually after the fact. And I truly feel like the woman who started this
podcast back in 2017 would be so proud of the woman I am today.
And yet... is still so much more. And I look back at each of the guest conversations,
I was actually perusing through some of the images of the women who had been on the show and men as
well. And stories that they shared about how they lived out courage in their own lives.
There were Olympians on the show, two in fact. both Canadian Olympians.
There were actors, award-winning musicians, authors,
news anchors, pastors, speakers, coaches, healers, and even, yes,
a reality TV personality. I know, right? Crazy. So we've had quite the ride.
And now it's time for us to move in a new direction. Now, these beautiful conversations were meant
to encourage and inspire you to take brave steps in your own life. That was the whole point of
starting The Courage Cast. When I started the show, I really felt like I wanted to step into
bravery myself and I wanted to give you an opportunity to feel inspired to do the same.
And to help you when life felt a bit uncertain. And to help you connect more to your own sense of
courage. So if you have listened for one episode, or you've listened to many of the episodes,
I want to thank you for being a part of this journey for being with me on this,
this beautiful, incredible ride. And I hope you'll be sticking around for the next era of the
podcast. Because in a few weeks, we're going to be revealing the new name of the podcast.
We're going to be sharing a bit more about what's coming as we move forward. And it was funny
because today, as I was getting ready to record this episode, I'm going to be doing some video
podcasting in the future. So I thought, you know what, maybe today's the day that I'm going to try
the video. And as I was like recording the video, and I thought to myself,
oh my gosh, this is too much. I cannot record the last episode and also do video at the same time.
I was like, this is just stretching me beyond my capacity. But it's funny. Because that's exactly
what's happening. I feel like it's time to increase our capacity. It's time to really dive deeper
and to do the work that allows us to show up as the most aligned version of ourselves.
And you might be wondering what the new name of the podcast is going to be.
And I'm going to reveal that in a couple weeks.
I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. It's going to be pretty beautiful. But I wanted to share a
couple fun facts with you before we kind of say, I guess,
so long to the CourageCast. First of all, if you didn't know,
the CourageCast was actually born out of a mastermind that I was a part of with incredible women
from a church that I was attending back in 2017. Alyssa,
Danny, Chelsea, and Ruth. And I talked about this podcast and the vision for it for months and
months and months. They helped me come up with absolutely everything that I was going to be putting
out, which was incredible. I felt so supported in that season.
And I think we even masterminded the name and Shane, who is Alyssa's husband, came up with the name
The Courage Cast. And I loved it. I still love it to this day. And it's actually, I'm kind of sad
that it's not going to be the show's name anymore. And I think I hesitated to change the name for a
long time because I loved it so much. And I guess that's a good thing, right? But it was time for
some... energy. It was time for my own new iteration of my own life.
And of course, moving the business in a different direction, as well as a podcast. And so it was
time. And from the very, very beginning, I have worked alongside my dear friend,
Stephen Curley, who has done all of the production. the original music, which if you listen to the
podcast and you hear these beautiful tunes playing, that's all original. He has written everything
and has put it into the podcast. It's like my literal favorite part of this whole thing.
I think I've said that before, but it really is. It's like, I feel like it has given it so much
more depth and it just has been so beautiful.
So thank you to Steven for the original music and he's going to be staying along for the ride,
hopefully. And, you know, just for a few fun facts, I want to share with you some of the things
that you may not know. So I actually just looked up the stats because I'm not really big on stats
particularly, but I thought for today's episode, that might be a little bit fun to kind of share a
few things that maybe I don't. a lot. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that we've had over 130
,000 downloads in the past. Well, there's over 400 episodes now,
399 regular episodes, which will be today's 399. And we've been listened to in 36 countries,
which is wow. Ranked, the last time I checked, the top 2% globally.
And we also ranked in the top 100 in self-improvement in Canada.
And I've had really like such an array of guests,
but I thought I want to share a couple of them. The one that I was the most nervous for was
somebody I really, really looked up to and was just so excited to talk to Dr.
Carolyn Leaf, who is a neuroscience
person who's been on many, many podcasts, and she's got her own podcasts and books. And oh,
gosh, like she's just absolutely phenomenal. She's been on all of the major platforms. And I was
privileged enough to have her on the Courage cast. So Dr. Kaelin Leaf was on the show.
She actually did two episodes with me. The guest that most people talked about,
especially friends of mine was John Acuff. And he is an author.
And man, people just went nuts over my interview with John. And the most downloaded episode,
I looked at that up today was Ruth Chu Simons. And that was closer to the beginning of the podcast.
And gosh, we had a beautiful conversation. She is such an incredible influencer.
And she's in the faith space.
chat. She's the most downloaded episode here on the show. And then,
of course, I got to talk to friends, I got to talk to people who I just absolutely found incredibly
inspiring. There was a woman on here that was a reality TV show participant from Survivor.
There were two Canadian Olympians, one of them a gold medalist. And I talked to Juno award winning
artists and Grammy nominated artists. I talked to people in business,
people in ministry, people who had podcasts and books and friends.
I think I've said that before. Just a lot of really, really amazing people.
And I'm still going to have guests. as we move forward, but I'm also going to be focusing a little
bit more niched into what we're going to be talking about. So I'm excited about that.
But if I would say anything to someone who is starting a podcast,
I was thinking about like, should I like share, you know, hey, you should do this as a podcast or
this. And I was like, no, I think I'll share like what I would have wanted someone to tell me. And
I think the biggest thing is let it be fun and not to take yourself so seriously with it.
And I think that is such a great reminder for almost anything that we do. When it's fun,
you... enjoy it more and you really want to be doing it. And I can honestly say of all of the
things that I have done over the years, the podcast has been the one thing I've never been willing
to let go because I loved it so much. It's like one of my favorite things to do.
There were times it was challenging and it was, you know, hard to, you know, come up with topics or
conversations. Like it wasn't always like super easy. And in fact, at the beginning when I
recorded, I would record in a condo that had the next door neighbors doing their...
renovations and it was banging all the time and there's noise in the hallway and there were sirens
going off and I had to record a couple of episodes in the parking garage. I mean,
it was just crazy. There was one particular episode that none of my audio turned out and so I had
to re-record my audio and I had to listen back and write down everything I said and then record
it. It was nuts. I should have just literally recorded the whole episode again. But anyways, I
digress. I would say don't worry about getting it perfect. If you're looking to do something new,
don't worry about perfection. Just do it. Bring on guests that light you up. There were some guests
that I had on the show that I was like, you know, I don't really like this is not that interesting
to me. And that was definitely towards the beginning. After that,
I kind of made up my mind that I was only going to have people on that I really, really wanted to
talk to. And the more relaxed you are, the better. And these are all things that I need to know and
to hear because when I'm actually going to be starting to do some video podcasting,
this is definitely something that I'm going to have to remember because I'm going to have to
remember to not take myself so seriously and to relax, to not... that it has to be perfect all of
the time, and just really to enjoy myself. And honestly,
like, as I'm just sitting here, thinking about the time that I have spent with a Courage Cast,
I asked myself, not that long ago, like, why is it that you want?
Why did you feel like you needed to kind of prolong this, this journey?
And, and really kind of like, have like, you know, almost 10 episodes of like saying goodbye to the
podcast. Like it seems like a little bit overkill, not gonna lie.
But even as I sit here today, I think there's a part of me that has always had a really tough time
letting go. And letting go something especially that has been so good to me and so good for me.
And I know it's so funny because I'm gonna turn the mic on. I'm going to do all the same things
that I did before. I'm going to talk about a lot of similar topics. I'm going to probably have a
very similar format to what I had. So why is it hard to say goodbye to something now?
And I think the one thing that comes to me is that in everything that we do in life,
we evolve. We have to say goodbye and let go of things so that we can really step into what is
meant for us in that next season of our lives and that's with anything absolutely anything you
could say that about relationships even if you stay in relationships you have to say goodbye to old
ways of being in a relationship with a person In order to have a new way of being in relationship
with that person. You can say that about your job. You can say that about your business.
You can say that about, you know, anything that you do creatively. So much of what we do creatively
is allowing what is meant to come through to come through so that we can be in that creative
process. And if we're holding. on to old things, then we don't get the new thing.
And for me, I want to say the past year, especially as I've been processing and getting ready to
shift into something new in my business and maybe changing the name of the podcast and all that
kind of stuff, there was a lot of grieving for me of letting go and maybe a little bit of
hesitation also to let go. Thinking that gosh if I let go of this then what right like once you say
goodbye to something once you walk away from it the you're standing in the unknown you really don't
know what comes next and there is this element of control that we can have when we're in the middle
of something and we're thinking to ourselves you know what this is something I know,
it's familiar, it's the known. And I can live in that.
Whereas the unknown is a lot more uncertainty. It's a lot more of a guessing game,
you know, who knows what's going to happen when you step into the next season of your life,
or the next iteration of your business, or the next level of your embodiment.
Who knows? What I do know, is that it takes courage.
It takes courage to let go. It takes courage to step in.
And we're not letting go of courage. We're never going to let go of courage.
But it's time for us to really truly know, beyond a shadow of a doubt,
what is for us. And even if that means something new,
even if that means that we are kind of standing on the edge of this brand new possibility,
right? This endless possibility of what could manifest in our lives,
what we can actually call in. And that is what I have been feeling.
And so it has actually taken me the past, I guess, nine episodes of recording some of the things
like to actually
walk myself through the process of letting go and talking about it in real time.
And even today, as I'm recording this right now, as I'm recording,
it's in the evening on Thursday evening on March 26, 2026.
And I am saying farewell to the Courage Cast. Almost nine years of something incredibly beautifully
powerful. that held so much meaning for me.
But I'm also welcoming in something that could be even greater and something that my soul has been
calling me into. And not just a podcast name, but an iteration of me that has been waiting to step
forward. has been waiting to show herself,
to be seen, to be fully known, not just by you,
but by me.
So my hope for our next part of this journey together is that we grow together.
We continue to evolve, that we continue to step in,
that we continue to allow ourselves to move in the most incredible calling that you have,
that I have, that we have as a collective, and allow ourselves to truly,
truly be who we were called to be.
Friend, gosh, what a ride. I'm grateful. So,
so grateful. When we start the next episode, it's going to be a new name.
It's going to be new era. I'm really excited about that. So thanks for being with me.
Until next time. Remember, you have everything you need to live bravely.
And if you like this episode of the Courage Cast, make sure to like, follow and subscribe so you
don't miss an episode. Original music in production by Stephen Crilly.
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