Relaunch Your Social Media: Storytelling to Social Selling

Welcome, and so happy that you are listening in today. Because the story that we are going to dive into is one of resilience. We love the relaunch stories. We love gaining so much information that we can leverage in our own lives with the people that come and are vulnerable. And really let us know that they've gotten through it that there was a silver lining, and today you're going to hear from an incredible woman who has had one after another relaunches and still is in the spotlight still is wanting to bring her vision of how you can bounce back how you can have resilience into your life. But she also is an extremely successful businesswoman. And you're going to hear from her the tips, the strategies of social media and PR and bringing them all together even when you have the relaunches in life. So Blair Kaplan Venables is an expert in social media marketing. And she's the president of Blair Kaplan Communications, which is a British Columbia based PR agency. She brings 15 years of experience to our clients, including global wellness, entertainment and lifestyle brands. She's the creator of the social media empowerment pillars, which we are going to hear from her today about so they can directly help you immediately with your social media. And these allow her customers to grow their followers into 10s of 1000s in just one month, and again, you're gonna hear all about that. Us Today listed Blair as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders in 2022 and Yahoo's live Yahoo listed Blair as a top 10 social media expert to watch in 2021. She has spoken on national stages. Super cool right now because she has a new show that's going to be airing on Amazon Prime video called my story. And it's going to showcase Blair's life which you're going to hear today. And we're going to also get into what she is most passionate about, which is the global Resilience Project.

You're listening to the ReLaunch Podcast and I'm your host, Hilary DeCesare, best selling author, speaker and transformational coach widely recognized in the worlds of neuro psychology and business launches, which cultivated the one and only three HQ method helping midlife women. Yep, that's me to rebuild a life of purpose, possibility and inspiring business ventures. Each week, we'll be diving into the stories that brought upon the most inspirational relaunches while sharing the methods and the secrets that they learned along the way, so that you too can have not just an ordinary relaunch, but an extraordinary relaunch.

I gotta say big shout out to Blair, welcome to the relaunch show. So great to have you here.

I am so honored to be here. Like you don't even know I am just delighted that you are giving me a space to share my story to help other people heal. So thank you, Claire,

when you and I first talked, it was just it was lightning, right? It was just this like, oh my gosh, when can we get on a show as quickly as possible to go through what you're going through to incorporate it into the relaunch journey transition to transformation. And so I love always starting with Where do you think has your this very successful, dynamic woman that has so much to talk about, but what would you really say is the major relaunch that set everything like the snowball effect set everything in motion?

Some really great question, because there's been a lot of relaunches under this big major relaunch. And that's when I learned my father was terminally ill at the end of 2018.

You and I talked about this. This is like oh too familiar. So it's the end and share with us. It would always be something you know, if you're with your, you know, your it's your father, but for you, it was a different type of relationship that you had had when you were little Can you share more about, you know, wow, how this truly did impact you?

Yeah, so just a bit of a trigger warning what I'm about to share, it's very heavy. So if you feel like you need to step away and come back later, that's okay. I am not a trained therapist. I'm a trained human who's gone through a lot of stuff. So if you feel compelled to reach out and you want support in your community, I will help you. So I'm the daughter of a man who lived with addiction. I'm from Winnipeg, Manitoba, in Canada. And when I was seven years old, my parents divorced. My dad was a very successful diamond dealer and geologist, however, addiction to cocaine took over and he sold his business. He left the family and was deep into various drugs and deep addiction for 40 years. But as a kid, I was very close with him. And no one sat down and told me Oh, your dad loves you. He's just not Well, I thought my dad stopped loving me. And so he was in and out of my life promising he'd be at a birthday party and not showing up or picking me up for dinner and not showing up just I didn't know that it was addiction, and that he wasn't well, I thought he just was a bad father and didn't love me. And so as you can imagine, being a seven year old girl, like, I grew up with a lot of trust issues, abandonment issues, anger, anxiety, depression. But when I was in my 20s, I actually went to a personal development forum, and I went because it was a free trip to Vancouver. But in the end, it actually changed my life. Because during it was called the landmark forum. And during it, I can't remember the pivotal moment. But something happened that just switched in my brain. And I decided, I'm just going to forgive my dad and accept him for who he is, and whatever relationship you can give me.

But at this point, you knew that he had addiction, you were aware,

but I didn't understand addiction. I didn't understand it. So I forgave him. And we, you know, began this really beautiful journey. And I got a second chance and my dad started to come visit me because we lived in different parts of the country. And you got to walk me down the aisle with my mom, and I got to have my dad back, which was amazing, because

Blair, was he, at this point sober, was he still dealing with his own demons?

He dealt with his own demons isn't the rest of his entire life, and sometimes it was harm reduction. Sometimes he would maybe instead of using hard drugs, or smoking crack, he may have split me, you know, nicotine and vodka. So he never was completely sober. You know, I took him to his first meeting. I took him to his first meeting, as like an adult, like only a few years ago, so before COVID. But yeah, when I learned my dad was terminally ill in December of 2018, I felt like the rug was pulled from beneath my feet. And I didn't know do

you? How long had you had this now? new type of relationship with your dad before he was diagnosed?

2008 is when So 10 years, 10 years? Which is not long, like, I mean, I know I look very young, but very long

as 10 years you're really exploring and your, your relationship with your mom, is she encouraging you to have this relationship with your dad? Are you trying to share with her, you know, oh, I was.

I'm an open book. She knew every like, I mean, she was very, she was very impressed that he would come and visit me and like, we had to get to know each other. Like, I'll never forget, I was living in Vancouver in a downtown apartment. And he was staying with me and I look over and there's this man sleeping on my couch. And like, I don't know him. I don't know this man. And we, we got to he was very open about his addiction. And I got to learn right from Him about everything, and then took the knowledge I got from him and I, I taught myself about addiction. And I started to understand it at a level that my mom didn't or his parents or the family, because you don't know what you don't know. And, yeah, I'm just so grateful. It was very challenging. But as soon as I was able to just accept him for who he was, and realize I'm not in a Disney movie, or like, I'm not part of like the tanner family and full house that like this is these are the cards I'm dealt, and this is my dad, I'm going to just focus on the things that are really great about him.

And Blair, were you ever in a point where you were thinking like, wow, I have this type of addictive personality or addictive you know, I have things that are going on in my life. Are you starting to see that there are some similarities at all, or was that not part of this 10 year journey with

it? was definitely part of the 10 year journey. I am exactly like my father with my entrepreneurialism, my attitude like, don't tell me what to do. And I'm either all or nothing like, with food with substances. And so when I learned my father was terminally ill, I wasn't necessarily turning to alcohol, but I couldn't if I had a drink, I couldn't stop, and then I'd feel terrible. My anxiety would be bad because I was like, oh, no, my dad's dying. And I made a lot of bad decisions with alcohol. So the only way to not make those bad decisions and bad life choices was to cut out alcohol. So it's interesting, because in December, we learned my father was terminally ill. And I woke up to an apology letter from him on January 1 2019. And I haven't had a drink since.

Hmm. So he, he gets diagnosed, and then he sends you this incredible letter. And a lot more came out a bunch of different things we talked about, you know, my mom came when she was diagnosed, and live with me the last 14 months of her life. And I know you really helped your dad through this as well. Can you share a little bit about this time period when you're kind of going your hits a reckoning period?

Yeah, so um, since I was so shook, like, I just couldn't understand what was happening. I started sharing our story, to whoever would listen like out for coffee with a girlfriend or a group of friends or someone on the phone. And I was sharing our story of his addiction, my forgiveness of him and our resilience and our relationship. And our story was helping people like Blair, your story was so inspiring. I went and got a therapist, or, Hey, you inspired me to fix things with my mom before she passes away. And I was like, oh, like, we're changing people's lives. And I said, Dad, why don't we publish a book will gather stories of resilience from around the world. And will book end it with your story and my story. So when you're no longer here, we can connect continue on our legacy of helping people together. And he's like, Sure, meaning when I say we, it's like, it's me. Now my sister also. But I began a journey. And I started at the time it was called the I M resilient project, but I manifested a bunch of terrible things. Not really, but almost, we'll talk about that. But now it's called the Global Resilience Project. And in March of 2023, it turns four years old.

So great. So you were working on this. And then what happens? He ends up passing on

it well, well, not yet. So he was given a year and a half to two years left to live. But I'm just going to give a high level rundown of some of the major things that have happened between when he got diagnosed when he passed away, which was about three years. My father, my grandfather, who was like my dad passed away. That was sad, very sad. On the way home from the funeral, my husband and I got in a car accident and I got a concussion. I couldn't recover because I had to go and do work in Germany and as a thing. Couple months later, my husband had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery. So my husband almost died. We were struggling with fertility. I was told I probably couldn't get pregnant naturally. COVID that that happened? We were safe at home for a very long time. I got pregnant naturally, a year after Shane's heart attack, which was a miracle. But unfortunately, I had a miscarriage. But three weeks later, my father in law's suddenly died after a three week battle with cancer. And then we Yes, and then my mum died three months later, after a three week battle with cancer.

People are probably like, Oh,

I know and then not

even the relaunches there, right? I mean, and God, everything dad

was, yeah, my dad was a catalyst because in the same year of my mom passing, my dad passed 300 And like 60 days apart,

and your mom was you. There was no indication, she was

a dental hygienist. 62 no wrinkles bellybutton pierced like the cool mom. She wasn't feeling good. And the doctors were like, oh, maybe it's an ulcer. And she was getting all these different tests. And as soon as like she was working as a dental hygienist, and she didn't look good. I would zoom with her or FaceTime with her and she was gray. And by the time in January, when she got the results, that it's cancer, like it was at the end of January is like you have cancer but it's treatable. We'll manage it, we'll schedule a biopsy, but the data is scheduled to biopsy she had to get rushed to the hospital because a tumor was pressing on something to do with her lungs and vocal cords. And she was in the hospital for about a week came out for five days went back in and a couple days later passed away.

What kind of cancer was that?

Well it was undiagnosed because she died sorry, so fast. But the cells indicated pancreatic.

So this is, you know, outside of not having it been the same year I had mom and dad both pass within two and a half years and although my dad was definitely failing is getting older, never imagined my mom passing at 78 I thought for sure she led like all the other women in our family into their hundreds. And so for you, and this is, you know, you talk about those are so significant. And they were happening before you could fully kind of gain your strength back. I would really like to ask you about that time because so many people feel like, you know, with with life with relaunches, and when they start to hit and it's like, Whoa, I just need I need time to just build myself up before another one and then yet another hits another hits another around the corner. How? How did you? How did you get yourself through that process? Like what what what did you do? What did you lean on in order to not literally fall over and not be able to get up?

Well, there was some falling over and not getting up. But I eventually did. Compound grief is no joke. And it was like, and then a year and a half I lost three parents and a potential baby. So what did I do? Well, I'm really glad I chose sobriety before this all happened. And I made sure I took care of myself. And that looked different. Sometimes it was ordering cookie dough blizzards every day. Sometimes it was canceling plans and binging Netflix, there was a lot of crying, a lot of writing. And I also do things when I like I've been doing certain things over the last six years, that have helped me strengthen my resilience muscle that I believe helped me navigate this. And now that I've lost two parents, you know, back to back, what I know is that it took me about a full year to start to feel normal again, or whatever my new normal is.

Isn't that true? You know, people often say you have a broken arm or a broken leg. And we know you put a cast on and you give it time and it heals, you know, a broken heart. We sometimes you know, just assume that like okay, all right. I had a better night asleep. I should feel better. Right? Okay. All right. I know I have to keep going. People are telling me I gotta move on with my life. But you have to give yourself the time to heal that broken heart as well. Yeah. And when you as you said, I really liked how you described compound grief. Right? We call it the relaunched roller coaster where it's just like one after the next. And then you get into that spiral on the roller coaster words, the circles and it's like showing some you know, and when you talk about you know what you did? Can you can you really summarize and you said that right now you're helping others. And you know, there are people out there right now that are feeling like, wow, that's a lot and I'm right there with you. What what do you recommend? What is the process that you have put in, you know, really with your own life? And now you're helping people with their own resilience? What do you do?

Well, first of all, so the global Resilience Project, more from being just a book to being a global movement, to being a book, another book, a podcast, speaking around the world, being on shows like this, because we wanted to create a safe space for people to share their stories of resilience. Because when you share it helps you heal, whether it's to a journal or a therapist, or publicly through our community. But also we wanted to be a directory of when things get hard, you can come to our community and read stories of how people navigated similar situations to help you through that dark time we want to be that lighthouse in the storm.

So Blair, we do have to take a quick break. But when we come back, I want to hear more people don't want to share when you're feeling like you're at your worst when you're so when you're so just bombarded with life. So when we come back, everybody, we're gonna go there, and we're gonna hear more about what Blair is doing with Amazon. This episode is brought to you by my very own labor of love my most recent book relaunch. This book is a collection of my stories, other stories and is a motivational guide to living a new three h q lifestyle, sparking your heart to ignite your life. It's available for purchase via Amazon, get ready to try on the three h q method that I've been Using for years throughout my entire life reaching the next level in all areas, both professionally and personally, get your copy today at www dot the relaunch book.com Welcome back to you. And so, so glad that you're here because I think what we are talking about, if it's not happening right now to you, it will happen because it's life. And I'm here with Blair Kaplan. Venables and we are talking about resilience. We're talking about relaunches, we're talking about what do you do when things are just firing at you? And hey, you know, sometimes we don't think that we can, you know, you get knocked down and you get up again, sometimes we just don't think we can get back up. And then yet another thing happens, you're like I for sure can't get back up. But we just heard and if you didn't hear the the beginning of this conversation, please go back and listen, because Blair's story is it's it's really all about resilience. And Blair, you are mentioning that you as you are getting continuously knocked down, knocked down knocked down, you actually have a method, a process of five steps to help people when they really feel like they're they're at a point where you know what you have a glimmer, you know that I can't stay where I am. But can you walk us through? What do you suggest to people? How do you get them from where they are to where we know, they can go?

If it's alright with you, I'd like to start by defining what resilience actually is. So and it's very common, because online, it's different. This is my definition. And it makes sense. I used to say resilience is bouncing back from a challenging experience. But what are you bouncing back to because once you go through that, you're never going to be the same. And so resilience is the ability to bounce forward from a challenging experience. Because you're becoming a new version of yourself, you're becoming this like more grown up more sophisticated, you know, you came out of battle wounds, you have these scars, and you're never going to be the same. So bouncing for wisdom,

right? It's you know, you now are not just aware or understand, you know,

you know,

so I love that the ability to bounce forward and also be able to understand that you're going to not be the new normal, it's a totally new different,

right, and a relaunch, bounce forward, bounce forward relaunch. So there's five secrets that I like to talk about to strengthen your resilience muscle. So I believe everyone has a resilience muscle, and that just runs through then entire body. It's invisible, like it's not on a Grey's Anatomy map, or whatever. But this resilience muscle, it's like a muscle. So you can do things when life isn't hard to strengthen it. So when life gets challenging, you can move through your challenges more easily. Just like if you were to work out your biceps and triceps, and then you have to move a bed in a month, you're going to be stronger. But there's also things you can do while you're in the depths of those challenges. So I'm going to share those five secrets with you.

And I do want to say as you're about to go into these five, that you think about this from the perspective of I love the idea very similar to relaunch, and you gotta have something in your back pocket that you can lean into that, that helps you just to change your thought process from where you are. And yes, and I think both Blair and I are in agreement that these re launches these things life are really hard. You know, I mean, you can't just say okay, mom died, dad died, you know, all these big, big changes in your life. And yeah, I'm fine. Right, which is what we do, because below that surface, it's just waiting to erupt and it will run at the most inopportune time. So the five secrets to kind of working through and building up your resilience muscle.

Okay? So secret one, practice gratitude. And the science behind that I learned over six years ago from Sean Aiko, or you can watch his videos he has a book called The Happiness Advantage. But I watched this video and he said if you practice gratitude every day, at the exact same time, and you list three things that you're grateful for from the past 24 hours. You do this for at least 21 days. You start to see the world In a more positive way, like who doesn't want that? So I opened up my phone, I chose 9pm. And I called it the gratitude alarm. Six years later, still doing it. We did it the day, the day before my mum went to sleep for final time me my mum and sister did it. The day my dad passed away, he passed away on the Jewish show, he passed at sundown on Shabbat on the Sabbath. So then the family and I all got together at my aunt's house after and we did gratitude. And it's such an important practice to me and my husband and everyone in my life that I really think that is one of the most profound ways that I was able to navigate this because when it was really hard, when I was grieving and deep grief, I still did it. It was a non negotiable. And sometimes it was like, Oh, I'm grateful for Advil and that the day is over. And for my coffee. Right? It can be the little things.

But you know, you're saying something, which is, you know, people think, oh, gratitude. Yeah, yeah. But you know what, the more you can appreciate things, the more even the small things like you said, you know, sip of coffee or, but what happens is, the more your thoughts are around that, it's your subconscious is going to work to deliver more of that. That's the greatest part. So as you said, scientifically, and at you know, another thing I love about I always do this, I do it in the morning, I do it a lot, I have to say it's not like a certain time I do it. But I started with just just at night before I go to bed. And the reason I decided to choose that time was I wanted to make sure that I was setting my night time up for success. And the best way to do that is to not go to bed worried about the things that happened, that will then you know, resurface in the middle of the night. Instead, I'm like, Okay, I'm I'm so grateful that that happened. That's I want more of that tomorrow. And yeah, I really like this. And so just more of the gratitude, okay. And I

just want to say I do it at night too, because it's a great way to end the day, especially if the day is not as awesome as you wanted it to be your you know, you end your day on a positive note, like I go to bed early. So it's like, that's the end of my day.

We're wired, we're wired to revisit all the negatives, right? How many times can you have like a really great day, but that one thing happened? Yeah, right. One thing that didn't go well, and that's what you're like, ruminating about. So this is

if you're listening, open your phone, pick a time every day, it's gonna go off at that time label at the gratitude alarm and start doing this at least for 21 days, do it at dinner with your family, do it first thing in the morning, you know, do it at night, whatever works for you. So that's number one. Number two, get outside. This seems very simple. But back in the 80s, the term forest bathing was coined. But it's proven that when you're out amongst nature, whether it's like your backyard, or like a city park or the forest, like I'm lucky I live near the mountains. Being there, it's scientifically proven to reduce stress, reduce anxiety. And if you you know, if you're in a stressful moment, and you step outside, your mind will shift. And I know you might be thinking Blair I don't live near any nature. There is nature near you, I promise. But you can also bring the nature inside my office is covered in green plants. My office is covered in plants, I bring the nature to me, because I live in like Canada, which means there's lots of winter, I go outside in the snow, I put my feet in the grass in the mud in the sand. Like get outside, take your shoes off when it's not super cold and wintry. Put your bare feet on the ground and be connected ground yourself.

There this one is really big for me and my listeners know this that I do live right near wilderness in Colorado and I've got the beautiful rocky mountains behind me. But I like to think of it like dazzle and delight. And when you can get outside and you realize that the world is so much bigger than you so much bigger than you being in your office dealing with that one thing dealing with like I got to get this done and not done and you know, I'm working on a whole bunch of things. I like to sit there and go out and look for something that's going to dazzle and delight me like oh my god, where did that come from? That that flower that's blooming that has like 18,000 Petals or, you know, like, where did that where did that color come from? Or look at that tree and how many different you know leaves and the abundance I often am like it's my abundance journey to was. I just look I look because again, you put out there and it's the law of circular emotion as you continue to look for it, that's what's going to be bring back to you. And if you're looking for abundance in your life, if you're looking, you got to first see it in other places, and then it comes right back and it doesn't come back, you know, as a one to one it comes back like, ooh, so then you go back in your office, you know, like,

you're inspired and you're calm, you have a different mindset.

That's so good. I

love that. And I just want to say that I got into birdwatching during the pandemic, because I lived in a diff, I lived in Pemberton, British Columbia, which is like basically a very small mountain town. And we couldn't leave the town because we know COVID I would go on like three hour hikes, and go birdwatching and spot owls and eagles. And like, I got really into birding.

It's I love that. And here's the thing, as you just said, you know, start to be aware, like, Look, you were looking for birds. I mean, that's they were looking for start to, you know, you look for him, and you will find that.

Right. Okay, so the third secret is how you fuel your body and your mind, fuel. Right? What happens if you have a car and it runs out of gas? It dies, you might mess up your engine. Your body is so important. Your body is a luxury vehicle, you are a Lamborghini. And fueling your body is so important, especially when you're in between potential challenges. Because when life gets really hard, sometimes you just need to survive. And that's what I did for three years I survived. So let's talk about what that means. So fueling your body, up until the miscarriage I was going out in nature and hiking, but I was eating lots of vegetables, lots of fruit, drinking lots of water, if I wanted to treat I'd have a treat, but I was filling my body with healthy food, taking the vitamins I needed. I felt really, really good. Really good. However, back to being Jewish when my mom passed away, the part of the process is you have something called Shiva where you get together and you like honor the memory of you know, the loved one who has passed, but it was COVID. So it was just me and my sister and then my aunt, uncle and two cousins, there are six of us. And it's customary to send meals. Well, people were sending meals that probably could be 30 to 50 people, like for two weeks, two or three times a day, and lots of bagels I'm pretty sure a Jewish Haagen COVID is a bagel and I turned into like it turned into a bagel. Like I was surviving on whatever food was given to me eating a lot of ice cream and cookie dough blizzards. And that was survival mode. And now I'm back into survival mode. Now I'm back into nourishing my body moving my body like I'm out of the deep grief. But how I feel my body is so important, especially because when life gets really hard, sometimes that's not a priority. Now your mind. I love reality TV. Like I love the Real Housewives. I don't know what it is. But I like all sorts of shows. But I had to cut out anything that was toxic. So Real Housewives has a lot of fighting and drama and like bad behavior. The news is sometimes very intense and toxic, I made sure that I cut out things that would trigger me. So any TV shows that were like Grey's Anatomy is one of my favorite shows FBI like I didn't watch any of those shows. I didn't really watch much TV at all. In fact, I read a lot of books. I'm also with music, I love metal, I love hard rock and like I couldn't listen to certain music because it was just, I was not fueling me. So I've listened to a lot of binary beats and like Lo Fi like hip hop and just mellow music. So fueling your body and fueling your mind is so important. Because you don't want to stay in the place that you you know, you don't want to stay in that place of feeling bad.

This is this is so important. And I don't even know if you know, we have a program called the fired up entrepreneur. It's a business program to scale your business six to seven figures and beyond. And one of the things that I always say in everything is does this light you up? And if something doesn't, if something feels toxic, if they feel heavy, you need to assess the whys behind it. And that's, you know, your book. Well, even books music, yeah. Nature shows, it's so important to just, you know, it's such an easy assessment, hey, does this does this light me up? And, you know, you know, there's no, you know, no, kind of skirting the issue. You know, if it's good or bad, like, does it light you up or not? Because,

like, you know, like, you'll have that feeling of like, like totally, you know, if you feel like it's lighting you up, you feel open like your hearts open and if it's like not clench your jaw and you're like, you know, but it's a interesting you said that because you talked about I have a business and I didn't shut my business down, I am my business while navigating my mom dying. My dad dying, gave dying, the baby dying. I still worked. Because I chose I have a profession that lights me up. I show up, I show up because I love it. But that's a

conversation for Wait, wait, okay, so give us the fourth and the fifth. And then I do want to talk because I want people to go away with the steps and the juiciness of you know, bringing this all together.

Okay, so the fourth one is sleep and rest. People usually that's one of the first things people knock off because they want to fit more in and have stuff to do. And I don't have kids. So like, there's a disclaimer there. I prioritize my sleep, lack of sleep, makes your anxiety worse and anxiety triggers lack of sleep. It's a vicious cycle. So what can you do for your sleep hygiene? How much? How many hours do you need? Does that mean you need to go to bed at 10 o'clock to be up by 6am. And then there's also you know, rest, there's disconnecting from technology. Everyone's you know, active rest is important, going outside for a walk, listening to music, doing arts and crafts, using a different part of your brain, like rest the part of your brain that you always use, rest and sleep are so important. It's actually even part of fueling you. I need eight hours of sleep. I'm in bed between nine and 10. I'm up between five and six. non negotiable I believe parties if parties are here, people are here I go to bed. Like I ghost all the time. Nine, nine o'clock is my favorite time to get into bed, summer and winter.

Yeah, I think that's great. Okay, and then what would five be?

Tell your story? Don't keep it in, oh, get a journal for your thoughts out, no one has to see it. Get it out of you talk to yourself in front of a mirror. Maybe it's time to work with a counselor or a therapist.

So you're really saying tell your story. It's almost like if you've had these major relaunches, or, you know you've really had a lot of life, you know, hitting you, you're saying work through them,

work through it, process it, turn your turn your open wound into a scar. And we have our community the global Resilience Project, which is a safe space where you can share your story anonymously or not to help other people. And when I help other people I heal. And when you help other people with your story, you might continue on your healing

path too. So we have to take a quick break, but I do want everyone to know when we come back. It's how can you actually leverage what you've been through, and have it directly impact the growth of your business? We'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by my very own labor of love my most recent book relaunch. This book is a collection of my stories, other stories and as a motivational guide to living a new three h q lifestyle, sparking your heart to ignite your life. It's available for purchase via Amazon, get ready to try on the three h q method that I've been using for years throughout my entire life reaching the next level in all areas, both professionally and personally. Get your copy today at www dot the relaunch book.com Welcome back and I am here with Blair Kaplan Venables and we now are going to talk about how when you have massive amounts of relaunches, or you have even one I was about to say just I hate that word just because your relaunch is very individualized to you. And some people can have massive amounts, and they're like, you know, they've really built up that resilience and they get it other times. It's the small one, right? It's that straw that breaks the camel's back. It doesn't matter where you are on this journey. What Blair has been able to do is allow you to share the story, share what's going on with you, be vulnerable, show your resilience, and guess what it actually impacts it actually changes the trajectory of your business. So people are like, Hmm, how do I do this? I want 1000s of followers to hear my story and change or maybe they're like, I'm too scared to put it out there. So Blair, what do you recommend to people that have that have gone through something they've been showing their resilience and they have a business and as you said, right before we went on a break, you said hey, my business was what really was, you know, salvation for me. It lit me up through all of these things that were happening. So, let us now how do we do this? I'm super, super curious. Okay, so

a few disclaimers. One, I don't recommend sharing your story from a place of an open wound while you're still going through it, you can be open and share with your followers, your friends, but, and I was doing this from a place of a wound, like my dad was gonna die, and then all the other people died. But it's way easier to share from a place of a scar. So once you bounced forward, and you're through that challenge, that's when you want to share, but you can start talking about it if you want to let your people in, like I'm very vocal like about the miscarriage. people reach out to me Blair, you gave me a voice, you said exactly how I felt. And thank you for making for normalizing the conversation about grief because no one really talks about it. And I'm public about it. But you don't have to be as public as

me. I wrote a book on it. So I'm right there with you.

Yeah, that'll probably be my like, next next book, because so the other thing is that social media isn't a sales tool. It's a PR tool. It's a public relations tool. It's a place to build relationships, to let people in to show the good, the bad, the mass, the hard, the sad. Because people do business with people they like, know and trust. And guess what if you not all businesses, but most businesses, if you are an entrepreneur, there's a part of you and your business part of your heart is in your business. So when you take people in behind the scenes to get to know you, when you share your story, or little stories that make you who you are, you're building these relationships. And so when you do that, it's like you're talking to your besties. Like, I'm talking to you right now as if we're best friends, like, you know, and that's what people want. We want to feel included. We want to feel like we're part of something. Yeah. So this remember, like if you are public on social media, and you're you know, you want to be a thought leader, you want to be that leading industry expert, let people in.

But how much do we really need to lead people into? Have people feel connected? Because there are some and I must say I've seen seen quite a few that does it have kind of taken it to that extreme level? When is what is that that point? Where Enough is enough?

Yeah, I think it individually matters on a case by case basis. And a couple of things. Start small, dip your toe in, like maybe instead of just sharing all your polished like professional photos on your Instagram, maybe you do a day of like what it's like to live with you and you're walking the dog. And then you spill your coffee and then you like, for 10 hours are typing like let people in. It doesn't have to be the super hard stuff. But try it out, see, like, let people and like what's a day in the life of Blair like, and if that feels good, you can start adding more things in. So it doesn't have to be the deep, profound relaunches. But just people want to know what's behind the tip of the iceberg. Because there's so much work that goes into what you see on social media and to who you are and the business you're building. And if you let people in, they see all the blood, sweat and tears of building a business or your personal life. They see how hard you're working, and they start to see your value. And so

where do you recommend people do this? Are we talking about stories? Are we talking about posts on Instagram, Facebook? I mean, there's so many different places? What do you if people want to start small, right? Because, again, you start to hear about all the different places you're like,

Okay, so I'm going to maybe talk about the social media and power and pillars. But just before I do, wherever you are on social media, just be there be where your customers are, be where you want to be. If it's just Facebook, then share on Facebook, to the feed or to the story. If you'd like to share on Instagram or if you're big on Instagram do that.

How often are you suggesting we share

again, as well, my theory is post what you want, when you want, but you just said when

you want when you aren't what you want all of that good stuff. But people I know have a kind of a fear of putting it out there. So they might be like, I don't really want to do it.

So here's the thing. Every time you show up on social media, whether it's like commenting on a post, liking a post, making a post engaging on a story, anytime you're doing anything on social media besides lurking, which is just looking at people's posts, you're planting a seed. So do you want to have a flower pot or a field of flowers?

So that's good. Yeah, you're Yeah, that's really good. That makes a lot of sense. So we have to be we have to be putting ourselves out there and then spreading those seeds all around so that they grow that's, that's really good. So you mentioned the three pillars.

Yes. So the social media empowerment pillars are the seven pillars that you build out if you want to be seen as a thought leader on social media. So these are the seven sections that you should have in a social strategy to help get your story out there.

So the seven pillars, I'm not gonna go too deep into them. Okay, but I heard you say three pillars, and now they're seven is there's always seven. Oh, they're three. I just, I just totally didn't hear that three

times two plus one. Okay.

Okay, I think I follow that. Alright, so let's, let's hear these because I want everyone in their own mind to be going through and seeing how many, how many are you doing?

Right. So there should be an edutainment section as you attain, educating and entertaining. This is all things related to content. The second,

okay, but before we go through that really fast, and I know we're gonna have to go through these quickly, is that even if you are a you know, in the in business, in the world of business, that's what you primarily are doing, whether you're a coach consultant, whether you run a business, you're saying there still has to be an edutainment.

Yeah, so like educating and entertaining, not selling, this is the tell don't sell. Yep. Okay. So the next pillar is M for money. And for money, how much money do you want to make? Like, what are your money goals? And also, what kind of budget do you have for social media publicity marketing, that's important, the more money you spend on marketing, essentially, if you do it, right, the more money you make, if your money goals are to make 10 grand a month, three grand a month, 100 grand a month, your output has to be different. So it's important to know what your goals are for money.

And is there any set percentage that you recommend? If you're interested, and I'm seeing you nod your head now?

No. I mean, I don't have anything to recommend. Like, I know that I want to continuously make over five figures a month. Yeah, maybe eventually. Six? haven't reached that yet. So I'm in a trial and error phase. We

should talk about that girl. Okay. So got it. So we have to have the ability, you have to be willing to also spend the money. Yep. Right. Spend the money to make the money.

Yeah. And also like, if you're, if your dream is to like, be really philanthropic like me, I want to be really philanthropic. I need to make more money. And I

always say, You know what, it's not about you know, money money, per se, is if you're making huge impact in the world, then the money will follow.

That's beautiful. Beautiful. Okay, so the next pillar is p. So we're spelling out the word empower. The next. The next pillar is P for personas. Who are your clients? If you already are in business, think about a couple of your dream clients, the best clients who pay you keep hiring about you keep hiring you talking positive about you love working with you, you love working with them, you want to bring more of those people in? So write down those characteristics of those people who you know, where are they on social media go where they are? Talk to them post on social media for them first, and then you? The all about them? Yeah, all about them. The next one is other pillars. I mean, sorry, other players? Oh, is for other players? Competition? People aren't spending money with you? Who are they spending money with? Make a list of at least five other players do a deep dive, where are they on social media? What type of content? are they posting? Who's following them? Are they your ideal customers that are their followers? You know, what kind of engagement are they doing? Do a do a deep dive, you're gonna see where there's opportunity for you. And also, it's gonna give you an idea of what type of content that your customers are going to like. So it's a competitive analysis there. W is for wins. This is my favorite pillar. This is the publicity pillar. This is where you build out a thought leadership plan to be in the media. And also you focus on sharing your wins. We don't brag enough. I call it peacocking. You know, male peacocks stick their feathers out and they shimmy to attract mates. Peacock, share what you've acquired. Call

it humble bragging. Oh, yeah.

So I like to call a peacock. Yeah. So but like not just about you. What did you win for your client? Maybe it's a personal win. Like you just built your own shelf from Ikea by yourself for the first time. Maybe it's you landed a new client, maybe you helped your clients grow to 10,000 followers and under a month. We want to know how awesome you are and what you can do so we can send you business so we can share that content with our community and so we can be proud of you. Because if you're not sharing how awesome you are, how am

I supposed to know totally All right, we got to keep going here six

e engagement. Don't post Stan goes, do you have to have an engagement strategy you need to post you need to engage, you need to be a real person put the social back in social media. And then the last pillar is realistic goals. Personal professional and health set five year three year in one year, you can do 10 year if you're crazy, and you want to but like 25 years is good. And you want to do because layer this

has been so great as we're wrapping up, where can people stay connected with you?

Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm everywhere. But the best thing to do is go to my website Blair kaplan.ca, or the global resilience project.com.

And in the show notes, we are going to make sure that we list out these seven pillars so that everyone can come back to them really get involved in those, it's so I loved everything you said and digging into each one of them truly makes the most amount of sense of how you're going to get out there and socially be able to bring in more of the audience that you're really trying to attract by being open and resilient. You're doing such an incredible job. Thank you again, so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

And here's the thing, everyone. You know, one of the things that you just mentioned is you know that when not public when and I want to share something super exciting with the relaunch group here are her audience that are listeners out there that we were selected to be the book, relaunch spark your heart, ignite your life in the Grammys swag bag this weekend. So for those that haven't gotten their copy, head on over to Amazon, and you too can be reading the book that all of our great entertainers out there will be getting this weekend. So again, everyone, thank you for being here today for hearing another amazing relaunch, story hearing about resilience. My gosh, you now have steps to get through when things happen. And again, we are so interested in hearing what you're doing what relaunches Are you going through, head on over to our Instagram at the relaunch co.com and share, share what's happening, because there's others that need to hear your story as Blair said. So again, everyone thank you. And we are so excited to be back next week. And for now, live now. Love now, relaunch now. We'll be back again next week. Take care.