No Meds and In Bed | 033

preach what I practice, and it, to me, is such an important tool because if

you practice gratitude every single day at the exact same time, and you do

this for at least 21 days and you list three things you're grateful

for at the exact same at the same time every day and in more detail

as possible, your brain starts to rewire, to see the world a more positive way.

So why not biohack your brain? Why not do something that you can

easily do? When I heard this, I set an alarm in my phone. I was

like, 9pm Sounds like the perfect time to do this. Because it's the end of

my day, I can reflect on what I'm grateful for. And I've been doing it

almost every single day since my mom did it on her deathbed. We did it

the day my dad died. I did it, you know, when Shane was in the

hospital. We did it every night in the hospital. Me, his parents, Shane and his

roommate Gord, for three weeks. Like, there really is no excuse because

there's always something to be grateful for. And sometimes it's okay if your day is

really bad and. And you just reflect on, like, you're grateful that the day is

over. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of Resilient

AF with Blair and Alana. But no Alana today. Just me.

Solo. Here I am. What the heck is going

on? First of all, Alana is recovering from surgery. We

are sending her healing vibes. Let's see. I

asked her, like, exactly what. What I want to update you

on. So let me open up my phone

and give you an update from Alana before we dive in

to all the things that I want to share with you. It's all very

exciting. So she had. She's recovering from surgery. She's off

work for a few weeks. She had a hyster hysteroscopy,

tubal dye, and exploratory

lap. She's okay. Each day a bit better, mostly

uncomfortable. And it's the hardest part is showering without getting her incisions

wet. And she's also really sad to not be at Pilates. I think

that's one of the most things she was most sad about. And also

having to miss a friend's wedding. She says being off is weird.

I've just never had nothing to do. First few days I couldn't focus on anything,

but now I can focus on tv. So that's nice to binge and turn my

brain off and have visitors. She's more social now than usual. In

fact, I even said to her, you know, you've had more visitors in one

day than you do usually all month. So it's nice to see her

Winnipeg community rallying around her family and friends.

She also, like, blew up as a Survivor influencer right before

her surgery. So I'm looking forward to those coming back, those tiktoks.

But she had some stuff that went viral. She's been watching Survivor since the beginning.

She's like a Survivor super fan. Had a Survivor theme, bat mitzvah, has

had a couple cameos from Survivor contestants. Like, has a lot

of really, really weird memorabilia. So I love

this for her, that she's a Survivor influence.

She wants to be invited to the season 50 live finale. So if you're listening

and you have connections, keep that in mind. Alana tried for 40, but then Covid

happened. Update on her cats. Lenny's being Lenny and Molly's being Molly.

They're taking great care of her. And if anyone has any TV show recommendations,

please reach out to her. You can message us on Instagram or

you can comment under this, but. And her contact

information is in the show notes. So she has two more weeks off,

then she's coming to see me. And it's gonna be really exciting, I guess a

little update on what's going on in my life. Okay, a couple things. One,

I recently was in Utah speaking at an event called Mission

Driven. And this is Teddy, wants to say hi.

Could you say hi in the microphone for those who can't see us? Well,

my four month old kitten, Teddy. Okay, let's go back. Let's go back.

Richard Branson was speaking at this event in Utah called Mission

Driven. And I was invited to speak and I was keynote.

And it was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. I met some really cool people

from all around the world. And

to be able to speak to humans and thought leaders of that

caliber was absolutely a privilege. And I learned a lot. And

it was really cool meeting Richard Branson. I had 30

seconds with him, so I gave him one of our books. Can you imagine if

Richard Branson was reading your story of resilience? That's the type of, like, work

that we do, is we try to get our books into the hands of people

who are connected and influential. And, you know, I, I

got some takeaways from Richard's Q and A about

showing up, being philanthropic, being kind, creating a

really great work culture. I don't feel like anything was like super big

and like full of epiphanies. But it was really cool to know that

we are on the right track with the Global Resilience Project and with everything

that we're doing. And I think that, like,

one of the other big takeaways is that we're all just people. And

yes, he's a billionaire and he's, like, had a lot of

privilege because of his success, but essentially, like,

you don't need to be a billionaire to be a good human. Like,

you don't need to be a billionaire to be a good human. Like, you can

do good. You can. You don't even need money to be a good human. Like,

you can be kind, you can give back your time, you

can volunteer, you can donate, you can, you know, show up. You can

support the people in your life. Like, there's lots you can do to be a

good human. So that was really awesome. It

was really cool to be in Salt Lake. I. They have this thing in

Salt Lake, not Salt Lake. Where was it called? Park City

on Sundays. A market called Park Silly. And I went down there and I met

this really, really cool mother son

duo. And they have an Oracle deck called

the Sacred Web. And they gifted me this. And

it was just. It's a really beautiful deck. It's gender neutral. I've been working with

it. They're tarot cards. So really grateful for that.

And then, yeah, there's a couple other things that came out of that, but I'm

going to save that for later because I'm still doing some testing on a product.

But I think I found, like, a solution or

like a really helpful tool to, like, my ongoing planters

fasciitis. And like, I live in chronic pain and

this has helped me. So I'm going to wait till I do another update with

Alana and we'll. We'll talk about that.

The other thing is, for me, I'm doing something kind of

out of my comfort zone, but it's in my comfort zone, so it's kind of

weird. But I love speaking. I'm a motivational speaker. I've been

speaking since I started my business 17 years ago. Right. I used to do

workshops on social media and thought leadership. Since starting the Global

Resilience Project, I've been speaking about grief and resilience and how to strengthen

your resilience muscle using neuroscience. And I love it. I

love being on my podcast. I love being a guest on other people's podcasts, online

summits, real life summits on stages. And I will

travel around the world to speak. I will stop and speak to you at a

coffee shop. Like, I want to help people. And I was just at

this really great event. My friend Renee put it on, and it was in Kelowna

called the Pink Skirt Project, and she had a bunch of speakers and it was

targeted to women entrepreneurs. And the last two

speakers both talked about. And side note, they're both

speakers. Like, they both have podcasts and they both are speakers on

stages. They're very well known. They both spoke about how they went live every

single day on social media. It's like a tool that I have. It's a

stage in my pocket. And I was like, I'm gonna do that.

Every day is too much for me. I've tried. I've tried to do the

mornings, but my mornings kind of shift, and my mornings are really sacred to

me. And so I thought, why not? Habit stack. And

so we know that I practice gratitude every day at 9pm

and so I've decided to go live to do my gratitude.

Now, the question was, where do I go live? Where do I go live and

do this and for how long? And so I. Last week I did some

testing and I couldn't figure out how to go live on Instagram and TikTok at

the same time. And they're very different audiences. Like, I have a lot of followers

on Instagram, but not everyone comes online.

But TikTok, most people that come, I don't know, because they push you out to

the world of TikTok at very different companies, very different algorithms.

And so I went live on both last week, and that's just not sustainable.

So every week I'll just put out a schedule of what day I'm gonna go

live and where, and I'm gonna do my best to adhere to it. You know,

life happens. So last night I was live on

Instagram, and then tonight I'll be live on TikTok. And so I share all my

story, where I'm gonna go. But I'm Blair from Blairland on Tick Tock and

Instagram. I go live around 8:45pm Pacific, if I'm in the Pacific

time zone. But I think it's going to change depending on my activities. Like, next

week I have a couple concerts, probably won't go live.

So it was cool. Like, so last night I

forgot that I committed to going live and, like, got ready to go into bed,

and then I was like, oh, wait, I gotta go live. So I sat up

in the kitchen and it was a thunderstorm, and

I chatted about my weekend, which I'm gonna give you a recap on in a

second. And I went live. And it's actually really fun. Like, are starting to

come. My sister has been the most consistent on both platforms.

I have some people who keep coming back as repeat visitors, repeat watchers.

I then will post either snippets or the full event,

the full live on my feed, sharing what I'm grateful for from the

past 24 hours. Because this gratitude practice that I've been doing, I've been doing since

2016. I preach. I preach what I practice.

And it, to me is such an important tool because if you practice gratitude

every single day at the exact same time and you do this for at least

21 days and you list three things you're grateful for at the

exact same at the same time every day and in more detail as possible,

your brain starts to rewire, to see the world a more positive way. So why

not biohack your brain? Why not do something that you can, you know,

easily do? When I heard this, I set an alarm in my phone. I

was like, 9pm Sounds like the perfect time to do this because it's the end

of my day. I can reflect on what I'm grateful for. And I've been doing

it almost every single day since my mom did it on her deathbed. We did

it the day my dad died. I did it, you know, when Shane was in

the hospital. We did it every night in the hospital. Me, his parents, Shane and

his roommate Gord, for three weeks. Like, there really is no excuse because

there's always something to be grateful for. And sometimes it's okay if your day

is really bad and you just reflect on, like, you're grateful that the day is

over. You're grateful for hot coffee. You know, you're grateful for your bed, right?

So cheers. I'm drinking coffee for those of you who can't see.

So that's been really, like, humbling. I don't

like, as you can see, if you're watching this, like, I don't necessarily, like, have

to put on a full set of makeup. Like, last night my hair was wet

and I was in a robe. I show up as I am. I don't want

to pretend I'm someone I'm not. And on that

note, this weekend, I was someone I am very much so.

So we have a spot at a lake. We have a trailer parked out there.

And Shane went away this weekend for, like, one of his first vacations in a

very long time with a best friend. And it was my first time going to

the lake on my own. I went with Teddy, but she's useless

in the department of setting up and taking down. So there's lots to know because

this trailer is off the grid. There's no cell service, no

electricity, no WI fi. You know, there

are, you know, there is water, there's sewer. So I, you know,

there's tanks, there's buttons, there's things, knobs to turn on, propane,

generator this, generator that, generator, batteries, switches.

And I actually did, like, mostly really good setting it up and taking it down.

And like, I checked in with Shane because we do have WI fi. And like,

I've been doing this enough with him. I took notes last time I made videos

and the things I wasn't sure of. There was one thing I wasn't sure of.

I called him and it was fine. So it was a really interesting

weekend because I did something I've never done before. I

forgot my meds in Kamloops. Holy.

I've never forgot all my meds and. And

my vitamins. So I take. In the morning, I take an ADHD pill.

And that really helps my depression because I have depression. I also take

SSRIs. I take Zoloft, I take progesterone pills, which helps

me with my hormones because I have endometriosis.

And then I also have another medication,

actually, I'm on Ozempic, and I forgot that I was supposed to take that

shot on Friday. And then I also take a bunch of different

vitamins. I take a multivitamin. I have oil oregano

with me. I. I have high histamine. So I often

always have allergy pills. Luckily, I keep some at the lake

because I break out. I break out in hives. Like, I sometimes wake up just

head to toe covered in hives and I can't get that under control.

And I take magnesium at night, Ashwagandha.

So I have like, a regime. And I've never, like, raw

dogged life like this. Once

actually, once I had all my meds except for my ADHD pills. I had to

have three pills last for like two and a half weeks with my sister on

grief week and business trip. And that was terrible. And I was like, that's never

happening again. But really having none of my meds and coming off,

like, feeling extremely exhausted from travel and work and a really

busy winter and spring, I felt

very low and very depleted. So my goal this

weekend was to finish my book proposal. I'm working on a prescriptive memoir

on resilience. Very exciting stuff based on some of the research I

found and tools and whatnot. And so the

ADHD pills help me be productive and, like, give me, like,

the incentive to work. So I can say that I

definitely didn't get as much done as I wanted to get done

with the book. I got a lot done, but not as

much. But I, I did be

very productive in the sense that, like, I watched all of season two

of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders show. Very

like. So I feel very accomplished there. And did you watch it? And

then I started. You, me, her, you, me and her, I think it's called. And

there's a whole bunch of other things I wanted to watch. And so some of

the work I was doing on the. It was just like I had to pull,

pull data and stuff like that. I did. While watching some of it, I got

really, like, in like, a good groove on it. Shut the, you know, shut

Netflix off and did it. It was a rainier weekend, not a lot of sun.

I did get out, walked around on the beach and in the forest, and my

neighbors were there and I spent some time with them by the fire, and Teddy

was with me, and it was great. I did some word searches. I, you

know, I like to just look at the window and watch nature and sit outside

and watch nature. And I did that. It was really, really great. I slept

all three nights, 10 to 12 hours. I had a nap every day for a

few hours. I actually feel rejuvenated and rested, which is

absolutely amazing. And I wouldn't have been able to nap

so much if I didn't if I had my ADHD pills because I can't really

nap on them. So it is what it is. I will never

let that happen again. I can't believe I even let that happen. But that was

probably a sign of, like, my sheer exhaustion.

And so, yeah, I raw dogged my weekend. I was there Thursday to

Sunday. Sunday morning I woke up and I packed up and came home. I was

like, ready for my meds, ready to get back to

medication. And so I'm back on my meds, people.

Also, what else is going on? Okay, a couple cool things.

We are featured in Psychology Today. My friend Stephanie wrote about

how millennials are reshaping, like, grief and giving, you

know, basically, like, we are okay to admit that we're griefy and, like,

how we talk about it. And me being a vintage millennial who has experienced

a lot of grief, different types of grief. I

was honored that Stephanie wanted to share

this. So I'll put the link to the article in the show notes, it's all

over our social media. It's going to go on our website, my personal website,

theglobalresilienceproject.com but, like, to be in Psychology Today,

to me is like a business person being featured in Forbes. Like, for me,

there's a few publications that I would love. My work, my

research, our community to be featured in Psychology Today was the top

one. And, like, just so honored that Stephanie saw the

value in what we're doing and saw that what we're building. And to

me, it just kind of gave me more fuel to keep going because I often

reflect on what I'm doing. And it's a lot of work. It's a lot of

work to pave the way. And sometimes it's thankless work. And

I know I'm making a difference. And I also have this imposter syndrome that's.

That sneaks in. So it was just really what I needed to see this

weekend and read people's positive feedback about

it. So really, really proud of our community. Really, really grateful

to Stephanie. She's going to be in one of our upcoming books. Speaking

of books, we have two books right now that are accepting

authors. Stories of Resilience. One of them is Resilient AF

Skin Deep Stories. This is featuring tattoos, your

tattoos, and the stories of resilience that go behind

them. We've only a few spots left in that book. That book is

coming out in December, which means story submissions are due

soon because we have a whole editing and design process.

So if you are interested in that, please, please reach out. Blair,

Blair Kaplan, Ca. Or send me a message

on Instagram either to Global Resilience

Community or Blair from Blairland, let's get on a call. See, this is right for

you. And then the second book, which is Resilient AF

Stories of Resilience, Volume 3. This is any story of resilience.

Again, we're filling that one up pretty fast as well. That one's coming out at

decision that these are going to be the last two books that we are doing

in this format at this time because we have some other things we are

working on and we're going to regroup, but the price may go

up. The format is going to change. How

we do these books in the future might completely shift.

Might completely shift. So if you've been thinking about it,

you want to share your story with our community in this format, we want

to share your story. We want to put you up on a billboard in Times

Square. We want to hand your books out to celebrities and the media

at gifting lounges. You know, people like Richard Branson, you know,

people that are actors in movies and TV shows and agents

and people who write articles like Stephanie for

Psychology Today. So this is your chance.

And this is our official announcement that these are going to be the last two

books in this format for a while. And we're going to regroup and

come back. We're going to come back differently and we have

other projects we're working on, and we're going to share all of that when

it's time. So I'm

just looking at my notes because I don't want to miss anything. So, yes, we

want you to. We want you to be in these books. And so if you've

been thinking about it, this is your chance in this format

because, yeah, we need to take a break.

Because putting out five books in, like, three years or five books in a few

years. Well, actually, I. And then, plus, I wrote a book and I'm working on

another book. Like, that's a lot. And just so, you know, like, with these books,

like, we create this safe space for people to share their stories of resilience

because there's a whole science behind it. There's a science behind it. Sharing your story

helps you heal. It helps you process your emotions. But

also, when someone else reads your story, their brain synchronizes with

yours. And what happens is it is this phenomenon called neural coupling,

and this is needed to build empathy, and empathy is needed for

emotional resilience. It also helps other people get through their challenges.

This is one of their biggest formats on how we help people to strengthen their

resilience muscles. And so sharing your

story is so important. And that's why we exist. That's why we do these books.

And so is it time. Is it time for you to share your story in

one of our books? Like, we would love for you to do that.

So I think that's pretty good, you know, join me live.

I think you've heard enough. I think that's a lot. With a huge laundry

list of cool stuff that has happened.

We have some other cool things that are happening. A documentary we're going to be

featured in. We're filming in the winter. We're working on this other project

that I don't. I don't want to jinx. But, like, it's visual

and it's fun because it's. You know, Alan and I are having a lot of

fun working on it. And we are going to

be launching in September a

Gratitude Challenge, a free Gratitude Challenge, which is super

exciting. And so we're going to start talking more about

that over the summer. And this Gratitude Challenge is

something to help you build new habits and

rewire your brain. And it's because it's a tool that we want to

involve you with using and help you see the world in

a more positive way and help you to strengthen your resilience muscle.

So at the time of recording this, I started it at like 5:20am or whatever.

It's now 5:43. I'm gonna go for a hike and I'm going

to breathe in the forest,

breathe in nature, listen to the birds, watch the sun come up.

And just remember, it's okay to not be

okay. You don't have to go through life alone. You don't have to

go through challenges alone. You have us, the Global Resilience Project.

You will be okay. Just keep going, my friend. Just keep

ongoing. And you don't have to raw dog life. You can get medication,

you can have mental health support. And you have us, the Global

Resilience Project. And friends, just remember, you are

resilient AF.