Blair Kaplan Venables didn’t start her career talking about grief. She started it shaping narratives, building brands, and helping people and companies be seen, trusted, and remembered.
Long before “social media strategist” was a job title, Blair was already doing the work. Trained in Public Relations and fueled by instinct, curiosity, and a healthy dose of entrepreneurial audacity, she launched her own PR agency at 23, during a recession, and built it into a respected communications firm working with global lifestyle, wellness, and entertainment brands. She helped companies grow audiences into the tens of thousands, win marketing awards, and tell stories that actually landed. She taught marketing at post-secondary institutions, spoke on national stages, and became known as someone who could translate chaos into clarity and attention into impact.
And then life cracked her open.
Loss. Trauma. Anticipatory grief. Sudden grief. The kind of experiences that do not care about your résumé or your perfectly planned strategy. The kind that forces you to sit still long enough to feel everything.
What Blair discovered in that season is that the same skills she used in public relations, listening deeply, asking better questions, holding complexity, crafting meaning, were the very skills people needed when their lives fell apart. Grief did not need fixing. It needed navigation. Resilience was not about “bouncing back.” It was about learning how to move forward when you are changed forever.
Today, Blair is a Grief and Resilience Expert, Coach, Speaker, and Writer, and the Founder of The Global Resilience Project. She is the creator of the Navigating Grief Framework, a practical, human-centred approach to strengthening the resilience muscle using neuroscience, storytelling, and nervous-system-aware tools. Her work supports high performers, leaders, and everyday humans navigating loss, transition, burnout, and identity shifts.
Blair and her sister are cohosts of the RESILIENT A.F. with Blair and Alana podcast and creators of The Global Resilience Project’s clothing line. Blair also offers a Grief and Resilience Expert training program focused on the Navigating Grief Framework.
Blair is a multiple-time bestselling author, podcast host, and sought-after keynote speaker whose work has been featured in outlets such as Forbes, USA Today, CBC Radio, Thrive Global, and more. She speaks to rooms full of executives, therapists, entrepreneurs, and grievers with the same grounded truth: you are not broken, you are responding to something that mattered.
At her core, Blair is still a storyteller. The difference now is that she tells the stories that help people feel less alone, regulate their nervous systems, and trust themselves again.
When she is not working, you will find her in nature, on a trail, near water, or planning her next adventure. She lives in British Columbia, Canada, still a city girl at heart, now happily grounded in the mountains, proof that reinvention does not mean erasing who you were. It means letting every chapter inform the next one.
This work is not theoretical for Blair. It is lived. And it is an honour she does not take lightly.
Oh yah, she still coaches entrepreneurs who want to be seen as thought leaders, which is very fulfilling for her.
I can help you if…
- You are high-functioning on the outside, but privately falling apart. You are getting through the day, showing up for work, and doing what needs to be done, yet everything inside you feels fragile, heavy, or numb and you are exhausted from holding it together.
- You have experienced a loss that changed you, and everyone expects you to “be back to normal.” Whether your loss was a death, a diagnosis, a divorce, a miscarriage, an identity shift, or the life you thought you were going to have, you know you are not the same and you do not want to pretend you are.
- You are tired of being told to be positive, move on, or look for the silver lining. You do not need fixing, bypassing, or platitudes. You want space to tell the truth, feel what is real, and learn how to carry your grief without being swallowed by it.
- You want structure and support without being pathologized. You are not looking for endless venting or rigid rules. You want practical tools, neuroscience-backed practices, and compassionate guidance that helps you strengthen your resilience muscle at your own pace.
- You feel stuck between who you were and who you are becoming. You sense that something new is emerging, but you are unsure how to move forward while honoring what you have lost. You want help navigating the in-between without rushing the process.
- You want to function again without abandoning yourself. You want to sleep, focus, work, connect, and feel moments of peace again, not by overriding your nervous system, but by learning how to work with it and rebuild trust in yourself.
- You are an entrepreneur who wants to be seen as a thought leader, be featured in the media and who wants to be "business famous."
“Blair clearly knows a ton about social media, but it’s her enthusiasm that sets her apart. Too many speakers just speak, Blair gets you going in a Nike Just-Do-It kind of way. She puts you behind the wheel and shows you concrete ways to get to the goal line. Her high-energy approach is infectious, empowering and our conference-goers massively appreciated her ideas and advice.”
