RESILIENT A.F.: Stories of Resilience Vol. 2 Launch Week | 011

Welcome back to another episode of Resilient

AF with Blair and Alana with me. Blair. And

Alana. Me. Oh. Took the

clock bridge. We did it. We made it. We made it to launch

week. It is January 21st.

Yeah. We just survived Blue Monday, which is actually just a myth, but

it's a a holiday where, you know, companies glob on to it.

And, you know, if you believe Blue Monday exists, we're here to help you through

it. This week, there is a new president taking

is it office? Taking office in America?

Right. Yeah. We're we're Canadian. So Yeah. The

what do they call it call it? Inauguration? Oh, the inauguration.

Happened. And right now, if

you head to Amazon, you may notice

that resilient AF, stories of resilience volume

2 is now available.

So exciting. Like, it's it's what's super

cool about this is, well, like, this is

not how it all started. Right? Like, it wasn't like, let's publish

anthologies. Let's create a book series. It was simply, you

of our father to share our story of his

addiction, my forgiveness of him, and our resilience. And since

then, I've published my own book, which was a practice book to learn how to

write a book and I know, like, overly ambitious. We published the Global

Resilience Project, was the first book and intended to be the only

book. We became a global movement with we had radical resilience, which

still exists, which is a podcast. Now we have this podcast. We have a clothing

line. We became a social enterprise, motivational speaking,

writing. You and I are collaborating and doing all these cool things.

Yeah. Then we published another book, Resilient

AF, Stories of Resilience. So what's cool is that the first

book, The Global Resilience Project, that took three and a half years to come

out because people kept dying. Yeah. Like There was a

lot of death. There's a lot of death, you know, and,

it's really hard to hold space for people, you know,

when you're just trying to survive. And I I wasn't sure if we were

gonna do another book, but then mom came to me in

a dream, and I was getting ready to publish a second book. And

so within I would yeah. Within a

year, this book was ready. And

Resilient AF Stories of Resilience came out

out, people were like, woah. How do I get in your next book? And so

we opened up submissions, and it took 10 months.

Yeah. About a math. 10 months. Less than a year. So we went from, like,

the first book taking three and a half years to under a year

to get out a book, which tells me people have stories they wanna

share. Mhmm. And everyone deserves to share their story.

Yeah. They do. It's it's really, really interesting. And, you know,

I think, like, I do believe everyone deserves to tell their stories. Some people

wanna remain anonymous. Some you know, you don't have to have your name shared. You

don't have to have your photo shared. What we do is we create this safe

space for people to share their stories. And, you know,

our first book had close to 70 stories and, you know, the last book

and the book that's out now around 50 stories. And what's really cool is that

we have authors who are in, like, 1 or our first or second book who

are now coming and sharing their story again in this book or our future

books. We're doing resilient AF skin deep stories. And, you know, if you're

listening to this, you're like, well, I wanna be involved. You know, if you have

a story to tell with a tattoo that goes along with it, that's a

good book for you. We have volume 3, which is gonna come out in 26,

and, like, we've create the space.

Yeah. Yeah. And what's what's interesting? You know, if you're new

here, hey. Welcome. If you've been following along for a

while, like, cool. Thanks for staying. You may notice a few episodes ago, we

interviewed Joe Exotic. Right? The Tiger King, Joe. Right. And that was

a kind of controversial because people are like, Blair, are you sure you

wanna be associated with him? And my

answer is he has a story he wants to tell.

Who am I to determine if his story is worth

sharing or not? Because we're all humans just making our

way through life. That's very

true. Very, very true. Yeah. And, you know, and it's interesting

because, like, not oh, my Siri's talking to me. She

says, mhmm. I love when Siri validates

me. You know, I share 1 or I share in the first book, I

shared a few stories. Last book and this book, I've shared a

story. Alana's yet to share, but maybe she's she's actually gonna share in skin deep

stories. Yes. You know? So tuned. Stay

tuned. It will be there. That and my arm.

You know what's really cool about, like, this whole process is, like, it's not

just you, like, our mental health director and podcast cohost or

me, like, the founder and, you know, all the things that I do. But we

have this really amazing team. We really do. It took me a

minute, and, like, I had this epiphany one day where I was like, I

I don't think we'd be here without our team. And so I just wanna give

a huge shout out. Yeah. They're fantastic.

Oh my goodness. Yeah. The book wouldn't

wouldn't be as beautiful and well read

and well written as it I mean, like, the

first and foremost, I wanna just acknowledge my medication

for ADHD because that

that really helped me become a better founder, a

better leader, a more productive human,

more organized person. But, you know, Patricia, she's our

project manager. She's also shared her story with us. She

keeps everything organized, and we have Catherine, who's our editor,

and, like, very, very diligent and

amazing and patient. You know, she goes back and forth with each of the

authors multiple times to make sure their

story is the best version that it can be. And we have Ruth

who I've been working with Ruth for a very long time, but

she's been a huge integral part in, being our graphic designer

and, like, not just for the books, but everything we do, our website and whatnot.

And she's brought the very beginning. Yeah. She's brought everything

to life. You know, so that's really important. And, also,

just shout out to Michelle, our podcast manager, because Yes. She

she makes this go. And reflecting, I was like, you know, they're not staff.

They're all contractors, but, like, we have such a solid

team. Yeah. We really, like, we really do.

And I just wanna say, like, I I acknowledge

I acknowledge that, you know, in together, we

heal. Together, we grow. But our team, they all have a

vested interest. Everyone cares about the mission and the goal. It's to

help people strengthen their resilience muscle. Right? And it

shows, like, and it shows that they care. And, also, you know,

neuroscience, science of the brain, you know,

states that sharing our stories essentially will help us be more resilient.

And what's cool is that Katherine, our editor,

actually has a background in social work and Alana, our mental health director, my

sister, our cohost. Mhmm. Same with you. I'm also a social

worker. Yeah. So I don't know. I think it's just really cool. There's lots of

really beautiful synergies there. And yeah. And so, like, the book

is out, Resilient AF, Stories of Resilience Volume 2.

And right now, you know, we're getting ready. I'm currently in New York.

While recording this, you're watching the video. It's in my office. But, like, when you're

listening to this Yes. I land in New York, today,

21st, and we are here for the week. And if you are in New York,

we are gonna be on a billboard in Times Square on Saturday,

21st. Bananas. Bananas. This shit is bananas.

It's very bananas. And then Yeah. Yes. Sunday, we're hosting a brunch. We're

celebrating all of our authors. And, you know, I don't wanna leave anyone out. This

is the first time we're doing a launch of this magnitude, and so we have

people flying in from all over. I have all of our authors from all three

books going up on the billboard, and so we have people coming in from Dubai,

Spain, all over North America. So super honored for everyone, you know, who's

come to New York. So if you're in New York and you're listening to this

and you wanna, like, hang out and see, you know, where we're at,

message us on Instagram, global resilience community, and we'll let you know the

location of our billboard, or you can just follow along. My

personal Instagram, Blair from Blairland or global resilience community, we're gonna

be documenting our entire trip because this is a really, really big deal. Like,

this is our 3rd book. We have 2 more we're gonna be working on. 1

more coming out at the end of the year, which is the tattoo book. Another

they're already starting to fill up. Yeah. And so they're just

crazy. What are you laughing at? I'm just thinking of something completely off

topic. Okay. Let's go there. Let's let's fight for it. I was

thinking about the last time we were in New York together. Oh, gosh. Tell

me about it because I probably don't remember. Oh, yeah. You do. It was

2013. When is it? When?

2013. Okay. I think it was the very first,

gov ball music festival on, I think,

Randall's Island. Randolph? Randall's? Whatever. It was on an island.

I don't know if it was, like, a real island or a community. Festival in

New York. Yes. Gov Ball. And

we bought this package with a hotel. It was a very nice, fancy

hotel. And the 1st day of the

music festival Oh my god. It was

raining so hard. Blair and I were not prepared. So It was like

a hurricane. It was like the residual of a hurricane from down south.

Something like that. No. No. It was. Oh, okay. But

Blair and I didn't, like, come prepared, so we went and bought

matching rain boots, and

then the music festival. And ponchos.

And ponchos, was so muddy

and, like, so rainy that the first day got canceled

right after I think of Monsters and Men, who I really wanted to see.

So I was selfishly, like, fine with it. And then, like, instead of

going out, Blair and I and TrueForm went back to the

hotel where full of mud covered in

mud. There was mud up to our knees in some parts of that festival. Like,

some stages had mud mud up to your knees. Yeah. It was

wild. And then we showered, and it was, like, 5,

maybe 6 PM and watched, like, ghost hunters and went to bed.

Why do you remember this? I don't know. I do have a

weird memory, but then, yeah, the next day was like the mudpocalypse. You could

see all these lost shoes everywhere. It was just a

very funny memory that popped in that I had to share. So

thank you for engaging with this. That was a great side quest.

Luckily, this time it it's January, and we're not going to a music festival. We're

gonna mostly be in Times Square, but maybe there'll be a blizzard. Who knows? I

mean, no dull moments. No dull moments. Luckily, we're Canadian

and can handle that. So, I mean, what's actually

really cool, though, and, like, I'll have more details on this

eventually. Today is not the day, but now that we've been collecting

podcast, all three of our books, What's really needed

now? We have all this we have information. We're collecting this information.

Mhmm. What are people's challenges? How did they get through it? What is

their advice? And just from, like, quick summary and,

like, you know, using my my assistant named Chat

gbt, I put some of this information into

Chat gbt. And what I really learned was that there's some common

threads. And the way our stories are laid out is that people share what

their challenges, they tell us their story, and then they share advice.

And the advice is usually on the page bumped out, so

it like, it's a call to action for you can actually just look at the

advice. And there's a common theme, and what's really cool is

that some of the themes that stand out the most is going through a

challenging time. What helped them get through it is,

getting support getting support from maybe

it's community mental health experts, state of

mind. They hit a rock bottom, and they shift the way they

think. And there's a common thread

of spirituality, a higher power. And

so I think that's really cool. So maybe you'll never read our books. Maybe you've

just, you know, gone to Amazon and bought 1. Maybe you go to our website

because we do believe every story deserves to get told. You know, the

stories from the first two books are on our website, the global resilience

project.com, and soon all the stories from this book will be up. And

so you can read the stories and read the advice, but it

it's really cool to see that that there's this common thread

where, you know, how people get through

their challenging times starts to get categorized together.

And so Shows the commonalities. Yeah. So if you are going through something

challenging and you're just don't know how you're gonna get through it,

take some of this away. You know? Have you reached out for help?

Do you have help? Is it, you know, within the community or mental health resources

or support? Do you have currently a

belief in a level of spirituality, something out there?

Doesn't have to necessarily be religion. Mhmm. Right? Doesn't have

to be God or whatever you determine God to be, but

whoever might be, maybe it's source or spirit.

And maybe it's just time you change the way

you think because you've hit a rock bottom, and what you've been doing isn't

working. And you don't have to do any of this alone.

But I I think it's really interesting because, you know, as someone

who's gone through lots of trauma and I'm not talking about, like, just, like,

all the grief, but, you know, I had

an abusive partner before I met my current husband, and I

fled. And he he lived with addiction, and he was verbally abusive. And he put

his hands on me, and I left. And I was homeless for 3 weeks. I

was couch surfing, and that was really scary. Like, I've been through stuff.

I've had other situations happen in business and in life.

Mhmm. And then navigating extreme loss and trauma, you know, my husband almost

dying and, you know, like, we suffered a miscarriage and, you

know, our parents dying in the same year, my father-in-law dying right

after the miscarriage before mom died. You know, I

can see how when I felt like I was stuck,

how actually all of those things eventually played into my

healing. What about

you? Yeah. That's yeah. I

mean, my, like, struggles have been while there's

similarities, they're also very

there's they're different in in some ways, and I'm not getting into them right now.

But, you know, it is the new year. And

in the past, I've been thinking about I've been thinking about, like, hey. Like,

what's worked for me and what hasn't worked? And,

I haven't shared a story yet. I mean, I am going to for skin

deep tattoos, but, I've been

re I refound my journal last week before the New

Year. I didn't wanna start it on January 1st because that feels very cliche. So

I started December 27th. But

using that as a process in an outlet, like, you know, I

obviously I have obviously. I have a therapist too,

that I've been going to for 7 years. But aside from

that, finding different tools to to kind of help you through

these difficult times. And these are tools that you might

use for a bit in one season of life, then you might drop them and

then come back to. And it's just having this openness

of welcoming whatever tool

comes to you, whether it's movement, whether it's writing, whether it's

therapy, whether it's whatever

else that you choose to use, sharing your story.

Yeah. Yeah. You know? And that's and it's important. And what you actually just said

about journaling like, I love journaling. Like, I

have a rule. I I mean, my rule for me is, like, like, it's part

of my morning routine, and I try to write at least 3 pages. And sometimes

it just, like, I like to document my dreams and how I'm feeling, and I

process things. And often I reflect on what what, you

know, how I'm feeling and what I can do to move through these

feelings if they're not enjoyable. And I

talk I I do like, I'm very big into goal setting, and I talk a

lot about in my journals, like, kinda how I'm feeling and how am I gonna

get to feeling where I want to be or doing what I wanna do. But,

you know, sharing your story doesn't

have to be, like, on a podcast like this or in a book. Like, it

can simply just be in a journal and processing. And it's really cool because I

ran this workshop at a retreat, and I

shared a bit of our story. And I walked people through a guided

writing exercise, which was, I'd say, like a writing meditation.

And a lady came to me and she's like,

Blair, I I'm not a writer, but I I can't stop writing. I'm like,

you're a writer. She's like, I just can't stop writing. I've

I've filled multiple notepads. Like, you know, the hotel gives you notepads?

Yeah. She's like, but I'm not a writer. I'm like, but you are a writer.

We are all writers. What does that mean you're not a writer? You know, like,

you're a writer. And then I got a message from her a week after the

retreat. She's like, Blair, I haven't stopped writing. Wow.

And I think there's a lot of power in that helping you, you know,

process. And there's lots of prompts out there, but picking up that pen and

just letting, you know, letting the words come out. Right? And

maybe it's talking about this is how I feel. This is where I feel it

in my body. This is what I think, you know, causes me to feel this

way. Whatever it might be, it's a first step

in sharing your story is is acknowledging the story.

Mhmm. So do you have anything else you wanna add

in about our launch week? Just

really excited to meet you in in New York in a

couple days from the day of this release. Nope. 3 days?

2 days? 2 days. Yeah. I'm excited to

to see this all unfold. It's Mhmm. I get, like, these pangs

of excitement. I'm not someone who's, like, excitable.

A lot of the time, I'm, like, pretty even keel until, like, certain spurts

happen. And so I've just been thinking about over the past few weeks, like,

wow. Like, how cool that our book is

gonna be and our authors are gonna be in a on a billboard

in Times Square. And how cool that people from all three books are coming

together to meet and that these people that we've been talking to online

for years now, we get to meet in person. It's very

exciting. It's so exciting. And we discovered a restaurant that I'm making a reservation

at called the Nokeria. Is that it? Yeah. Nokeria? Nokeria.

Like a Noki restaurant. And I love Noki, and they have, like, this Noki platter.

And I, like, literally saw it, and I started salivating. I'm like, okay. We gotta

go. So Mhmm. Yeah. I'm excited for that. The nokiria.

So Yeah. You know what? Fuck yeah. We

just, like, launched our 3rd book. Good for us. I

mean, high fives. I know you're not excitable, but be excited.

I am excited. I just don't express it and Yeah.

This is where we're different as sisters. Yeah. I'm an

internal excited excitable person.

Excitable. I love that. Anyways, to you out there listening,

thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in to another

episode. Thanks for buying our books. Thanks for supporting

us. Thanks for whatever you need to do to help us grow

to strengthen 888 people 88,000,000

peoples. 888,000,000 peoples resilience muscles. That's our goal. Our

goal is to reach the millions, to help empower them, to

use the tools that we have to strengthen resilience muscles

because we all have one. And if you wanna be in our book, amazing.

You know? Like, reach out. Let's talk. So let's see if your story is,

ready to be told, which, you know, if you feel like it's ready, then we'll

help tell it. And our book launches are in New York. They're all over

the world. They're online, and we do a billboard to launch. And we do

And it's starting off with launching this book, resilient AF,

stories of resilience volume 2. Thank you for tuning in to another

episode. Yeah. Alana, any final words? Woo

hoo. That's me being excited.

Oh, Alana. Mom and dad are proud of us. I know it.

Yeah. Are you wearing your necklace? I had to take it off for a

bath, but I was wearing it today. Oh, she has a proud of you necklace.

But I don't want a room for it. So it's it's one that I'm very

diligent of anytime I Yeah. Proud of you. Getting

water. Yeah. Well and you know what, everyone out there, we're

proud of you too. So thank you for tuning in. Remember, we are that lighthouse

in the storm. You don't have to go through the hard shit alone.

We're here to walk with you, alongside you, in front of

you as that lighthouse, that flashlight. And

remember, you are resilient AF.