Deborah, with her thirty years of being an entrepreneur and creating over seven companies,
knows exactly what it means to accept the mission. When you make that
decision, when you accept the mission to become a solopreneur, to take yourself
and your talents to market, then you embrace a life of not only unlimited
possibilities, but also the unknown. It's an elixir of fear and bravery that
only someone who's taken the leap really understands. On our show, deb digs
deep with her guests to highlight what you the listener wants to know, the
stories, the wise and the hows to navigate the journey to success. Get
ready to hear from some of the most incredible mission takers from Generation Z to
boomers. So sit up, perk up, and get ready to be blown
away. Now Here is your host, Deborah Drummond. All Right, you
guys, you know it's coming welcome here today. And if you're like,
hey, you Fubby, knowing my guest and Blair, maybe you're gonna cry
a little bit, but you're going to definitely be inspired. And excuse my
voice. We've been doing these incredible, incredible, incredible Summits, and I've
been talking to a lot of cool, funky, resilient women. And you
know what, you guys know that you're the best podcasts guests and hosts and
listeners ever. I know that because you tell me. You call me and
tell me I loved it. It was Sue. Sue called me a couple
of weeks. She goes, I just want to tell you you have the
best podcast. I'm like, thank you, she goes, I listened to
every day while I'm doing my yoga, and I'm like, good to know,
good to know. But anyways, I love it. But you know
what, you guys also are you are the most resilient podcast guests and hosts
and listeners. And that is absolutely the word that I'm going to use to
describe Blair today. Look at you don't take on the mission and stay on
the mission with a little something, like a little something, you know,
like guitar hits the road at some point, then you're like, oh my
gosh, I gotta go listen to that podcast because there's a bunch of crazies
just like me that we're talking about the story. So look at Blair is
so cool. We're so happy to have her time today. I mean she's
got TV stuff going on. She's been like New York Times Square, her
book's been up on the screen. I mean she's doing She's going to be
speaking at the show up Stand Up and Speak Up Summit and she and if
I remember correctly, her title is going to be something like stop playing the
slot machine, you know slot, stop playing the social media slot machine.
So that's gonna be fun. You haven't, you know, thought about it
by now. Blair's pretty adventurous. So Darling, thank you so much for
coming on to the show. Ian Do share do do do? Share your
story a little bit with us, because resilience is the name of your game.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. This is so fun,
especially because you and I go way back to where it all started.
Actually, it isn't that funny. I mean, you guys, just so
you knew you may i'd ever hear me talk about my a Roma therapy company.
I owned two home party companies for seventeen years and started the first a
Roman Therapy home party company thirty years ago. When people were like a Roma,
what what did it smell like? And when me and Blair got introduced,
someone introduced me to her. She's like, you should talk to Blair
but being in the book, and I'm like, I know her, but
I know. I was like, I know her from my recent experiences.
Then she reminded me, how many years ago did you come to my house?
Yeah, so I'll slide it into the story, deb Yeah. Yeah,
so there's like two parts. Well, there's many parts. There's thirty
eight years worth of story here. A bit of a trigger, sorry,
a content warning. I talk about some heavy stuff, addiction, death,
everything in between. If you feel like it's hard, pause this, walk
away, do what you need to do. If you need support, reach
out to me and I'll help you find the support you need in the area
you live. So I just want to put that out there. I'm not
a professional therapist. I'm a professional human who's gone through hard stuff. I'm
going to give you the high level because we don't have endless hours. But
I'm the daughter of a man who lived with addiction and a child of divorce.
My father was in and out of my life, broke my heart.
I didn't understand. I thought he stopped loving me. This is like the
really high Cole's Notes version, literally high, no pun intended. There and
then in my twenties, like so, I had a lot of anger and
rage and you know, depression, anxiety, didn't respect myself, low self
esteem. In my twenties, I was given the tools from Landmark Forum to
forgive my dad. I didn't know I was going to do that. Something
just clicked and I decided to accept my dad for who he was and we
had a beautiful conversation and our new relationship started. And that was in my
early twenties, and so we got to know each other. He came to
visit me in BC, all the way from Winnipeg, multiple times, he
got to walk me down the aisle. But at the end of two and
eighteen, we learned he was terminally ill. He had COPD and lung cancer,
and I felt like my world was just completely rocked. I started sharing
our story of his addiction, my forgiveness, our resilience, and it was
helping people. It was inspiring people to fix relationships, get therapy, seek
sobriety or harm reduction. And so we decided that it would be great to
gather stories of resilience from around the world and put them in a book and
book end it with my dad's story. And my story so that when he's
no longer here, we have a piece that's a legacy piece to help people
still like you know, for eternity, and that four years ago started a
March twenty nineteen. Unfortunately, from starting that project until now, my life
got really hard. I had to learn how to flex my resilience muscle.
We all have one. And like my grandfather, who was like my father,
passed away. On the way home from his funeral, my husband and
I got in a car accident and I got a concussion. A few months
later, my husband almost died. He had a heart attack and quadruple bypass
surgery a few months later was COVID. We struggled this whole time with fertility
and was told I probably couldn't get pregnant naturally. Unfortunately, well, fortunately
I got pregnant naturally about a year after the heart attack. Unfortunately, we
miscarried. Was very devastating. Three weeks after the miscarriage, my father in
law suddenly died after a three week battle with cancer. Three months later,
my mother suddenly died after a three month a three week battle with cancer.
And then not even a year later, in the same year as my mom
passing my dad passed, I had a choice. I could give up or
I couldn't push through and bounce forward and keep going. And that's what I've
done. And over the four years, while navigating all of this and running
my business, which is how I'm at Devin, I'll talk about that in
a second, I built a community called the Global Resilience Project, and it's
a safe space for people to share stories of resilience. And we do it
through a podcast called Radical Resilience and our books, the Global Resilience Projects,
social media online, and I'm an international motivational speaker, and I've decided that
my life's work is to turn my pain into purpose. We don't have children,
and I went through all of this for you know, not for a
reason. These are just the cards I'm dealt. But I'm taking what I've
learned to help empower people to share their stories. So that's the Global Resilience
Project, and I think I was able to grow it the way I have
is because my backgrounds in public relations and social media and how I met deb
which is like the parallel is. At twenty three, I left my job
at Lululemon Athletica and started a PR company and simultaneously accidentally started a coup on
company because I wanted free yoga and I couldn't figure it out, and so
I started a coup on book and it was called Living Free Vancouver, and
then it evolved to be online, and then it was across Canada, and
like, don't start a coupon company, just pay for yoga. That's the
lesson there. But I was somehow connected. I think I met you at
a b and I or I met you at an event, or someone introduced
me and I showed up to your house on the bus to talk to you
about having coupons in my book, and maybe you did. I don't even
know, because there's it's been a lifetime. That was about fifteen years ago.
So I'm also the CEO and president of Blair Kaplan Communications. I specialize
in social media strategization, strategy implementation, social media education, and helping you
become a thought leader. So that's a high level of who I am.
That is the high level. But I mean, there's so much to unpack
there, but not because you're so good at communication that you can follow that
story and I absolutely see where you are today, right And so okay,
So clearly it's not about are you resilient. You are resilient, and who
would have known? Who would have known? So you like when you say
you talk about your app your pain turned into purpose. So before the book,
before you know, before all these things that came into play, Um,
what was your like did you did you take care of yourself well?
Were you a self care person? Were you always a self care person?
I mean what I hear through there is you've created this incredible self care community
for people since you've had to become resilient. But before that, that was
that on your radar. Yeah. I've always been someone who like balanced a
fine line of like loving to party but also going to yoga, you know,
like hiking and being in nature. So I've always been physically active in
some capacity. But when I learned my father, who lived with addiction,
was going to die, I understand I just decided that I couldn't navigate his
end of life with anything that was going to like increase my anxiety or depression,
and alcohol was that and alcohol was also a bridge to bad decisions.
So I decided, Okay, January first, I'll be so I didn't know
for how long. I just that was the decision. And I woke up
actually that day to an apology letter from my dad for being an addict and
like screwing me up, like abandoning me. And it was a really beautiful
letter. And I haven't had a drink since. So that was a proactive
approach. But also a couple of things. One, I define resilience as
the ability to bounce forward. And two I realized we all have a resilience
muscle. It's like this invisible muscle that runs like head to toe, and
so we are all resilient, and there's things you can do to make it
stronger when especially when you're not in a challenge, so that when you're in
a challenge, you can move through your challenge a bit faster or a bit
easier. And so just doing things like there's things I was doing proactively that
I didn't realize was preparing me for this dark night of the soul. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a mix. So what do you suggest? I mean?
There's I mean, we have people that listen to the show because they
want to be entrepreneurs, they want to understand that looks like how you navigate.
There's people that just come and get inspired because you know, honestly,
is there a better show on inspiration and motivation? Like you can listen to
a no offense Oprah Love you like love them all? You know, I
listened to him in the morning. Thanks Bernie, Thanks that and they talk
about it because they've had it. But I mean, the one thing that
I love about entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, whatever you are, you know, an
entrepreneur, they can't say now, whatever you are is there there seems to
be a bucket of resilience and then somehow they find another one and somehow,
like you can push an entrepreneur pretty because they're so locked into their dream.
How do you navigate that? Now? I mean, you've had a lot
of and you've had to be resilient, but look at what you just described
was beyond resilience. Yeah, So what do you do for your personhood and
what do you do for then? What do you do for your company?
And what do you do for you? Well? I had to learn to
set boundaries when my mom passed away. I let a lot of things drop
off and I was in survival mode. I did what I needed to do,
and I was lucky because I had a bit of financial support through my
mom passing that allowed me to I couldn't fully go on bereavement. I had
to work, and the clients I kept on understood my deliverables took a bit
longer, and I was very open. I don't hide my feelings. I'm
very honest, and if someone wants to come into my world and there's something
going on, I'll say, like, I'm going to do a great job,
but it might take me this length of time. And I can only
work with people who understand that, and I only want to work with people
who understand that. But yeah, like being an entrepreneur, you don't get
bereavement. And what I really learned was that I didn't really set up systems
and processes that allowed me to pass things off, especially because people hire me
for my ideas and that's not something I can farm out. But I can
farm out the execute. I'm not farmed out, that's a bad term,
but I can hire to execute the vision. And so what that really taught
me was I don't need to do it all alone. And I've started bringing
on more, you know, team members like an OBM, an online business
manager, and a VA and I have a graphic designer. I'm leaning on
a lot more. For I think like I can make website updates or I
can delegate that, and so I'm really like loosening the reins. But also
I've been doing social media and PR for fifteen years. I'm thinking about maybe
I should retire and be a full time motivational speaker. And so I'm thirty
eight, and so I'm I'm I'm not retiring anytime soon. Don't worry clients
out there, and if you want to work with me, I have capacity
to IMpower. But you know, I saw a whole lifetime ahead of me.
So maybe in the next decade or like within the next decade, there's
a big transition happening because I see myself standing on stages around the world,
being flown around the world to empower people to strengthen their resilience muscle well,
and I think that's the that's the beauty and the opportunity, and that's the
and this. So I was just talking to I had this conversation with this
really cool chick, you'll meet her. She's speaking and she's like, I'm
a financial therapist. And I'm like, oh, that's a really interesting way
to put it. And I go, tell me what you do, because
you know, I'm vetting all these incredibles. The Incredibles was called the Incredibles
for the Summits. And she's like, and so she's starting to talk,
and she goes, you know, what I really do is I'm that person
that people lean on when they have their tower moment. And she's continuing to
talk and da da dad, and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
So she finishes talking and I go, you do tarot. She goes,
I'm like, you said tower moment, and if you know anything about the
tower or the tarot, it's when everything comes crushing out right. And so
we just had that conversation and she's like, well, yeah, really,
what I work with people is when they have that financial experience, like you
had a different experience, right, it wasn't financial crash, but she you
know, she says, when I work with people like that, I you
know, we dig through that spiritual awakening together. And I was like,
what an interesting perspective. It was just a really nice way to take off
these glasses and put on different glasses to go and what is it? Because
what you learned from your experience was your where some of the holes were or
what you needed to patch or what you know, what letting go is.
And I think there's a big one for entrepreneurs, particularly solopreneurs. Right when
you're used to wearing so many hats, you don't necessarily see when you're in
it, what could be going here, what could be going there? Because
I think we're really locked into we got this, I got this, Like
especially when you're in survival mode, which a lot of people are in their
world of entrepreneurship because it's other financial survival. They don't see the duplication process
and what you just finished talking about, how when you get to the other
side, like where you are, that you can actually start to make plans
three years, five years, five years and take those inches forward and right.
Yeah, And I think also what really like social media is my expertise.
Like I'm known as a pioneer in it. People call me all sorts
of things like maybe and guru and I whatever. You can call me whatever
you want, just don't call me after nine pm because I'm in bed.
And what I really learned is because I always show up, especially Instagram,
Like I show up and I let people in, Like I'm not posting a
million times a day, but you know, I let people into what's going
on the good and the bad, and you know what, that actually helped
my business grow because people saw that I'm a real human then what goes on
behind the scenes, and people were then welcomed into my world and it allowed
that human to human connection because the problem with social media is entrepreneurs and businesses
just show this polished image, but we want to know what's going on behind
the scenes. Like let me into your life. I want to see all
the hard work you're putting in to that polished image. And when you do
that, people respect you more and you build that like known trust. And
that was something that really like really switched for me because I was doing it
anyways, but I was really able to like look at how my business was
growing, and when my mum died, I had the most financially successful year
in my business to date. And I was like, well, there's a
correlation, like because I was doing less work charging my rates, but showing
up, showing up fully And that's the thing is like people, and if
you don't show up, you don't show up. But showing up is half
the battle in anything you do, going to yoga, showing up and getting
on your mat is half the work, right, Doing the yoga is the
other half. So where are you showing up for yourself? Where are you
showing up for your clients? And social media is a place to show up.
And every time you show up, you're planting a seed, whether you
tell a story, you like something, you engage, you follow. Do
you want a flower pot or do you want a field? Right? Very
good point. And I think that we're seeing a lot more people becoming transparent.
We're seeing a lot of people becoming more authentic. It's interesting. It's
that having to do it all to having to let people in. And that
was clearly one of the things that you learned. So when you talk about
doing motivational speaking, right, so cool, that is so cool. I
mean it's just such an extension. And I think that's what happens. I
mean, I'm listening listening to you talk, and that's what happened after you
do what you do, like all of a sudden doors open that you didn't
know. It's funny, like you can't forecast some of the stuff, right,
You can't forecast. You start a social media company, you get into
branding, you get into doing a book. Next thing. You know,
people want to hear what you have to say, and sometimes you get these
ideas or other other things step into your world. Right, So what is
that like for you? Because you know there's there's there's two thoughts to it.
Some people are like, you know, just stay on your path,
do one thing, and or if you go over here, this is going
to suffer. Like what do you think? I don't know. I mean,
like I'm kind of a risk taker, you know, I learned that
life is short. Three parents died in their sixties. I've always just done
what I wanted and figured out how to make it happen, whether that means
making five dollars stretch two weeks or like taking on too much work. Like
I've always just followed my intuition and my gut and it's led me down some
really interesting paths that we're not linear. But yeah, I don't know,
I mean, can you reframe reframe the question? Yeah? Sure, It's
like yeah, no, no, no, Because there's when you've built something
and it's working and you're grooving yep, and at one point this is what
you wanted and you're in it, and you're getting phone calls and you're on
stages. Yeah, and you're on TV and your books there all of a
sudden, oh maybe so maybe I'm gonna go off in this direction. Maybe
I'm going to add this new division. Maybe I'm going to open up a
country. And you're like, yeah, yeah, So I think like having
a plan and a dream and everything is great, but you also have to
be okay with like the plan to change. Like I did not think I
was going to be a thirty seven year old, sober, childless, parentless
birdwatcher living in Kamloops, But here I am, and so like also like
growing up, I loved when I got chosen to speak at assemblies at school.
I loved writing, and when I was picked to be published in the
yearbook. In my diaries, I would write, well, I would be
published one day, who knows. But I forgot about all those dreams.
I just you know, life happened. And then I was like, I'm
going to be a psychologist, and I was like started that path and I
was like, I'm too messed up for that. Then I went into PR.
I'm like this is perfect. And then you know, now I'm a
public speaker and I do PR and I've written books and I think, like,
if you have a plan, you can follow it. But how many
people do you know that spent tons of money, like hundreds of thousands of
dollars on universe see because their mom told them to go to school to be
a lawyer, and they spent X amount of years going to be a lawyer,
and then they go and then now they're working eighty hours a week,
they're miserable, they're in so much debt, and they quit and become a
dogwalker. Like plans can change. And you know, when I was young,
my stamina was a lot different. So I can't do it all.
I know that. And I like free time, like I like reading,
I like lying in the grass and looking at the clouds. I like traveling.
I like my friends and family. I don't want to work all the
time. But when I was in my twenties, I did. I worked.
I hustled and look where I got me. And like that's fine,
that's great. I love where I am. But I think, you know,
depending, I don't know how the nature of social media is going to
be when it's time to retire. Maybe it's I stay on and I bring
on a team. I don't know, maybe all of a sudden like Oprah
Drew Barrymore hear of me and pick me up, and my speaking career,
you know, goes to the moon tomorrow. I just need to be prepared
to be up like I'm unprepared. I'm prepared to be unprepared, like I
don't know what's going to happen. I have a business manager who's helping book
me. I hustle, and you know, where do I want to speak?
Who do I need to speak to? You know, some opportunities are
great. I just had a meeting today and it's going to put me in
front of one hundred and fifty people. I just, you know, recorded
a segment on an Amazon Prime TV show. I just spoke in Winnipeg in
front of fifteen hundred kids, and eighty thousand are going to watch the stream
the recording. I want to help people, so I'm going to say yes
two opportunities that get me in front of people that are going to help me
empower eighty eight million people plus and more. So. No, I mean
it's very you know, it's very Branson right. When someone asks you to
do something, just say yes and figure it out. Like that's my whole
life. That's like literally my whole life, and that is the life of
an entrepreneur. That is the life of someone who takes on the mission.
I always talk about how the mission changes, it changes form, and that
can be scary. Like, you know, as an entrepreneur, I've been
one for a while. We've obviously been doing this. We've been We've done
a couple of rounds. You know, we've done a couple of rounds,
and it does change, and it's interesting where it can go. I was
talking to a woman the other day. She's like, there's that side that
you know, go for it. Branson figured it out later what have you?
And she goes, it's really interesting, she goes for me. I'm
at a place in my world where she goes. Every time a door opens,
I ask myself, Now, there's many doors, do I walk through
this one? And I was like, oh, that's good, girl,
that's good because people like yourself, people like myself, people have been around
for a while. There's many doors at them. And she's like, yeah,
I just go, m do I walk through this one? And when
I said to her, as I said, the cool thing about walking through
that one, this one, all of them, is you find out really
quickly once you're seasoned. Whether it was a good door to walk through,
yeah, or if it was like instead of a front door, it's about
it's like it has about the basement door or a backdoord. No, And
like you have to learn a lot of stuff the hard way. Like I
learn a lot of shit the hard way, so you don't have to,
and like that's how you kind of learn sometimes by going through those not so
awesome doors. There is no roadmap, there is no blueprint. And if
you want to be an innovative entrepreneur and a thought leader, you need to
do things differently. Thought leaders do things differently. So do you want to
just make money and get by or do you want to be seen as an
industry expert or a thought leader? Then if that's the case, you got
to do things a lot differently. Yeah, absolutely, So Look, that's
that's that's kind of answer a couple of questions from the crowd that's not here,
shall we? Okay? I always I hear them. I hear them
on my head. You do a podcast, you know the deal? Okay?
So people Look, there's also when people say social media, it always
depends where people are at and they're starting to pick their platforms, which is
great because everyone thought they had to be on fifteen right and be really good
at fifteen and people are too. As you say, ask the people to
support them in their business so they have exposure. So if someone's in that
social media world and they're not quite getting to where they want to go with
it yet, or they have expectations like I've been on you know, Facebook
or having on Instagram for three months or six months, like, what's some
of your indestry industry brilliance that you can share with people to actually help build
themselves as a thought leader on social media. Yeah, a couple just pointers.
One tell don't sell super simple. People don't want to be sold to.
Tell stories. How did you get to where you're going? What did
you want to be when you're younger? How are you solving problems? How
are you helping people? Stories of your customers, stories of your colleagues,
stories of your family, stories of when you scraped your knee when you're eight.
Tell stories that will build relationships. Yes, you can sell here and
there, but people don't want to be sold to on social media, Okay,
And then also come up with a plan that's easy for you to follow.
If you know that you three days a week, is easy for you
to post and post three days a week, and maybe you come up with
themes. Maybe it's Monday, Wednesday, Friday, motivation, Monday, moody
Monday, like mummy Monday, depending on your industry, like what your whistle
Wednesday, like wine Wednesdays, I'm sober, so like I don't know,
win Wednesdays, like a win you know, Friday, Back Friday, behind
the scene, flashback Friday. Doesn't have to be looking alliteration or anything,
but come up with a theme, and then it makes it easier for you
to do that. And if you can batch your content. Yesterday I spend
an hour batching all my content for the Global Resilience Project, and I have
a whole months of worth of content all scheduled. I'm scheduled until May first,
right right, right right. And if you don't know what she means
by that, you're just gonna have to call her and ask what. Yeah,
you don't have to have a discovery call with me. Yeah, I
think that that's important. I think that we forget about stories. And even
every time I hear it, even when you just said it, I was
like, oh, yeah, that's right, that's right. You know,
like I've been talking thinking about this summit, and I'm like, okay,
I'm gonna go. I'm having an issue with Facebook now I can't see to
get my lives to go. But anyways, that's a different problem. It
was just today I had issues too. It's fixed now, always it okay,
because it was like the other day I was trying to go live and
they must have been doing an update. So at one o'clock I did it
and it worked. Okay, well, let's hope that it works. But
I was taking that too, like you know, saying who's on, Say
who's coming on as a speaker. But I think a nice little story.
It is true. I you hear it all the time. I do it,
and then I think sometimes we fall out of that, we fall out
of telling stories. But so good, yeah, so good. So you
have a resilience project. So people like, so what does what does that
look like? There's a book, there's a podcast. So this is the
first book for those of you who can see can people see me? They
can see you? And there's some that are listening, some that are viewing.
Okay, so this is the first book. It's a beautiful car fee
table style book. And for those of you just listening, go to the
Global Resilience Project dot com. It started off as a book, but since
starting that, we also launched a podcast called Radical Resilience. You know,
like I said, I've been speaking around the world about resilience in different capacities.
You know, business life was strengthening your resilience muscle. And we share
stories on our website and social media, and we've just opened up and decided
to do a second book. So we're our goals to have one hundred and
twenty five people one hundred and twenty five stories of resilience in book number two.
And you know, we also actually launched a merch line. And the
merch line's funny, like it's cheeky and it's kind of has dark humor.
I saw it, I was like, whoa, Yeah. So my sister
is a therapist, Alanna, and she's part of the project with me.
She is our mental health director, and so the merch line is hers like
she grew up loving graphic tas And we need to fund the project. You
know, it's funded right now for my business and out of pocket, but
we need to turn it into a business to make money, and so the
merch line helps us. And so we have a shirt that says good Grief,
and a portion of that shirt gets donated to Camp Aaron, which is
a camp for supporting kids who've lost loved ones. We have shirts that say
Resilient af which I should be wearing one right now, but it's not behind
me for them in a romper, and you know, anyone could wear that
because we're all resilient. We have mugs with our logo. We have,
you know, mugs that say good mornings spelt mourning, and then we have
a very cheeky line and it's the Dead Parents Society and it's a nice embroider
like emblem and it's the club that no one wants to join. And if
you've never lost your parents, you probably think it's a little tacky, but
guess what, people who've lost their parents get it. And I hope you
never have to get it, but you will one day. Unfortunately, we're
all going to lose our parents and it sucks. I just lost mine,
all very close together, and so I'm part of the club that no one
wants to join. And we made shirts no no, no, I saw
that I looked at it. I don't know you sent me something and I
was looking. I was like, oh, there's merchant. I was like,
oh wow, very cool, Like morning is m O you are?
And morning wow? Yeah, good morning. Right, Um, there's a
gentleman I need to hook you up with. His name is Tony Lynch and
he actually has a grief conference. You guys would be such a great brid
o. I would love to meet him, Like I my sister told me,
like, I never win things. I want something in grade five because
I'm nice. I want the menshe ward like you know. But yeah,
but I don't win. I'm always a bridesmaid, never a bride. I'm
always the runner up. But my sister told me, you win the grief
Olympics, So oh fantastic. Well, I'll hook you up. I'm gonna
be speaking at his summit. I'm gonna be talking about what it's like to
be an entrepreneur and you have to work through, like have to get up
and do your work as you're grieving, as you're hurting as because we know,
grief isn't a thirty sixteen ninety day right, And no, I would
love to meet him. I like, grief is literally that's been my life
for four years, and not just grieving people who've passed, but grieving the
idea of being a mom, grieving the life that I no longer have,
you know, just like there's other parts of grief that come along with losing
someone, you know, grieving parts of myself that don't exist anymore, and
grieving who I thought I was going to be. And I don't know,
it's it's interesting. It is interesting life. Life is interesting. So look,
I know we're getting to wrap up time. We've talked about a lot
of really cool stuff. Blair. Thank you for being transparent. If you
had to give some advice out there about wanting to run a business, because
I'm sure after people listen to us half the time they're like, no,
thanks, that's crazy. I'm crazy, right because you're like myself. Like
I said, we're entrepreneurs, which is an entrepreneur that can't say no or
doesn't want to say no, doesn't want to get to not say no.
How about that we get to choose to say yes. You choose to say
yes. But you know, what would you say would you say to someone
that's just kind of looking to embark in this in this interesting decision in the
interesting decision world. Yeah, get a mentor, find a mentor. You'll
save yourself a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of
headache, a lot of stress, a lot of tears. Find a coach,
find a mentor, don't do it alone. Yeah, straight up,
that's really good. Okay, we are going to switch a little bit.
You've shared a lot of things about you. Is there something cute, something
we don't know about you? Something off the cuff. I mean, you're
an off the cuff girl. I speak Hebrew, all right, right?
Oh, not only do I speak Hebrew, but I'm gonna tell you I
fun fact. I used to have a little I used to love roller skating.
Oh okay, but until I broke my arm, I haven't been roller
skating since when I was eight or nine. You know what there used to
be I love ruller skating and I and we're a little bit different in age,
right, we're a little different in age. But they used to have
roller skanning rights. Yep, that's where my moneys were. Okay, So
we used to roller skate and try to roll or skate backwards. To Linda
Rothstad, I loved, I loved like my birthday parties were always at Saints
Roller Rink in Winnipeg, and yeah, I loved it. And I'll never
forget when my parents divorced, Like my dad should have never like, like
my mom was a saint for letting me stay at my dad's. All I
ever wanted was to sleep at my dad's house. But like now I know
why she shouldn't have let me. But so my dad, my first sleepover,
my only sleepover, Dad's like, what do you want to do?
I'm like, I want to roller skate? So me, him and his
like then girlfriend, we all went to this like midnight skate and like the
first lap around, I broke my arm and like I remember lying on the
couch with my arm in a cast, looking at the ceiling thinging like this
is the best day ever I got to be with my dad And my mom
said that was Like I was, like, I think that was the last
time I ever went roller skating and the last I've ever slept at my nas.
Yeah. The pleasure, the pleasure trauma stories. Okay, look I
have one last question for you, but before we do, we've talked about
a lot of different things that you do and you share and you have gifts
and talents, and so where can people I mean, it's all in the
show notes. This is going to be the most like amazing show notes,
fun show notes, hashtag everything show notes. But if someone's interested in learning
more about your resilience project, if someone's going to be an author in your
book, and I'm super grateful to say that I'm going to be in your
book, and I'm very and I am actually talking about something in Blair's book.
I have never publicly announced, never publicly announced, right, So that's
that this will be this will be a breakthrough book moment for me. Very
interesting. So, so you have a book, you have this merchandise that
people can purchase and support, you have services. Where can they find you?
Girl? Okay? Well, the Global Resilience Project dot com or blair
Kaplan dot ca. Those are the two main websites. Ye you know,
we're always growing and evolving the community. So if you're on social, we're
Global Resilience Community on Facebook and Instagram and Blair from Blair Land on Instagram and
you'll find me everywhere. I'm easy to find. I'm the only Blair Kaplin
venables. So nice, nice, okay, And it's in the show notes
as well. You guys, so you know what to do. Look before
we before we ask this last question, if you want to sit where Blair
is sitting and you want to have a conversation, you want to share your
story. You want to share about your business, how you got into it,
why you stay in it, or how it leaped you into the next
you know, into your next place of fame. I just say, a
next place of fame. Whether whether you become famous or not, it's your
next place of fame. Right one rolls into the other. You know how
to reach me. It's deva devdaman dot com. You guys know, for
those of you that love and Adora and follow us, you know the question
that I'm going to ask. What we're gonna like, maybe throw a little
bit. It's not to do Blair with this incredible project that myself and Korean
are going to be doing. We're walking across Ireland. We're doing eight marathons
in eight days. We didn't sit down at the boardroom and figure that one
out. That one came very divinely and it's to help raise money for the
music community, because music, we believe is such a powerful healer and it's
given so freely by artists, and you know what, ninety percent of artists
cannot pay their rent. And there's just something not cool about that, that
equation. So we're going to help and change that. So I need to
ask you, if you're on your way to a disk island and it's you
and you, and you're one little suitcase and you've got enough room to slide
in an album, what is the album you're going to pack and take with
you that you could not imagine not listening to for the rest of your days.
For sure, Red Aunt Chili Pepper's album and maybe one of their best
ofs, But does that even kind of do a best of? You can
do it best you can do. I'm gonna do the best of like they're
my favorite band. I'm going to see them on Wednesday. So again,
oh wow, very cool? Is gonna say? I think they're touring right
now. Yeah, I'll be in Vancouver. Okay, that's right, I
saw Okay, well what you're gonna be Yeah, okay, okay, you
need to do a little text. Maybe I'll go down and see Wednesday night.
Wednesday, I got floor seats. I just saw them in Seattle,
like they're my favorite. So yes, Red Hot Chili Pepper's best of If
not, it's a tie between Blood Sugar, Sex Magic and Californication. Okay,
okay, well you know what, I am literally a fifteen minute walk
from where you're going to be seeing them. I matchine you're gonna be going
to Rogers Arena, and maybe I'll check out and see if there's any tickets
my scalpers. Oh yeah, it's actually at the stadium, app the football
stadium, so I don't even think it's sold out. Yeah, it's there's
a BC place, Oh BC place, Okay, yeah, BC place,
gonna say Rogers or VC place. Well, that's interesting, that's interesting,
that's cool. Good, it's got a good acoustics in there. Okay,
So Red Hot Chili Pepper as it is. So you guys look reach out
to Blair. If anything that she said has grabbed your soul, you guys
know what to do. We want you to send out this podcast to as
many people as you think needs to hear what was said here today. Blair.
We cannot wait to have you on stage. You are going to be
on stage very soon. So if you guys look at just pm me DMME
devadev drummond dot com. Go there, look up the bands, look up
the stand up, speak up and show up. You're going to be seeing
Blair is going to be speaking. You're speaking August eighth. You're speaking August
eighth, right, April eighth, but also August eight, because yeah,
it's gonna say you're coming up this month in April, um, but you're
also coming up on August eighth. But this this may not be seen by
April, but this one is definitely going to be seen by because I know
because she wanted oh eight, like oh right, yeah right, So you're
gonna be seeing her all over the place. Anyways, it was such a
pleasure to have you hang on for a few minutes. We're going to see
good bye to our lovely guests. Are our lovely listeners today? Why can't
I talk lovely listeners? And we've got an extra special question for you,
So you guys, you know what, thank you so much for what you
do, really really honestly appreciate you. Appreciate the subscribe and until we talk
in a few days, you'd be well and stay great. So buy for down