Episode 80
Ep 080: The Coffee Chat
In this week’s episode Blair + Theresa recap the month of June in their businesses and talk about lessons learned. This is a raw + honest morning chat, so come and have coffee with us this week.
About the Hosts:
Blair Kaplan Venables is an expert in social media marketing and the president of Blair Kaplan Communications, a British Columbia-based PR agency. She brings fifteen years of experience to her clients which include global wellness, entertainment and lifestyle brands. She is the creator of the Social Media Empowerment Pillars, has helped her customers grow their followers into the tens of thousands in just one month, win integrative marketing awards and more.
Blair is listed in USA Today as one of the top 10 conscious female leaders to watch in 2022 and Yahoo! listed Blair as a top ten social media expert to watch in 2021. She has spoken on national stages and her expertise has been featured in media outlets including Forbes, CBC Radio, Entrepreneur and Thrive Global. Blair is an international bestselling author and has recently published her second book, ‘The Global Resilience Project.’ She is the co-host of the Dissecting Success podcast and in her free time, you can find Blair growing The Global Resilience Project’s community where users share their stories of overcoming life’s most difficult moments.
Transcript
You ever wonder what success actually means? How do you get it? And how do you keep it?
Theresa Lambert:We all want it yet sometimes it feels only some of us get to have it. Hi, Teresa and Blair
Blair Kaplan Venables:here we are to badass entrepreneurs, best selling authors, coaches and business mentors who have had success, built success, questioned our own success and reclaimed it. Let's be real for a hot minute. 2020 has been a roller coaster ride, and many of us a start to wonder if the loser things that made them successful. So we got curious, Ron real about what success is truly about?
Theresa Lambert:Can you put it in a box?
Blair Kaplan Venables:How can you get it?
Theresa Lambert:Can people take it away? Or are you the one with the power?
Blair Kaplan Venables:Does it mean the same to all of us? Or are we the ones that create it?
Theresa Lambert:From PGA golf pros to doctors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and spiritual mentors. We get together to meet with successful people from around the globe to dissect success for vibrant conversations and interviews. Make sure you click the subscribe button on the app store because each week we will drop a new episode to bust through the myths around success and dissect its true meaning.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of dissecting success. It's me, Blair Kaplan Venables, and I'm here with the amazing phenomenal, beautiful soul, Teresa Lambert, and you're joining us for coffee chats, coffee chats, we're drinking our drinks, it's early in the morning, rolled out of bed, made a drink. Here we are, you can't see us. But we're in pajamas. Lala, it's coffee chats. So it's the end of June and it has been a roller coaster for the both of us. We have stuff going on in our personal lives. We have stuff going on in our business. I have stuff going on with my hair in this humidity. There's stuff going on. And when we were talking about what should we talk about, I said, Let's wake up. Have some coffee, do this in our pajamas and decompress. Talk about what June was like for us. So now you're listening to this is early July. Happy Summer break to all you teachers and students out there. Um, but yeah, June was a monster month, a monster month for me. And I think it's important to really talk about the month and what was going on, you know, what you saw and what was going on behind the scenes. I literally had the busiest month of my life. And I don't like to be busy. For me busy is extremely chaotic. And I normally set boundaries and saying no to the chaos. But sometimes when your gut says to do something, you do it and you lean into it. But now I need I need a few months of decompression. You know so why don't I I'll just start since I'm already talking about my month, I'm going to do a high level recap on what you saw. So what you saw was at the beginning of the month, I was a co author in a book called pursuit 365 that got published and it became a best selling book. I published the global Resilience Project book that's been three and a half years in the making, which is sharing stories of resilience from around the world. It is a legacy project for my late father that became an international bestseller. I also launched another book i co authored called pursuit sorry, a woman Gone Wild the wealth addition. So those three books launched in Oh yeah. And that became a best seller. So those three books launched in a week along with me hosting a masterclass for my empowerment program, and opening the doors to welcoming students into my first ever cohort of my empowerment program. So I did that in one week. And then I hopped on a plane to Vegas for the woman Gone Wild wealth addition book tour. Now, first of all, haven't ever done a media tour or book tour to this extent. I haven't done this much travel since before the pandemic since before all the grief. You know, my husband before the pandemic, my husband had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery like my life has been pretty much hanging out here. Here's in front of my computer or in Winnipeg with family.
Blair Kaplan Venables:And then so I went to Vegas for this monster media tour. And you know, we'll dive into this a little bit later in the episode, but I was in Vegas for a media tour spoke on stage to book signings networked flew from Las Vegas, Nevada to Winnipeg, Manitoba for my mom's unveiling. So like a little bit of family and I was supposed to go back to Kamloops but opportunity came up so I changed my flight. And instead of going back home to like, dump my suitcase and repack, I went to Los Angeles. I was in Los Angeles for part of the media tour, and then right from Los Angeles, I flew to New York for eight days where it was amazing also, and I ended up on a billboard in Times Square, which is, so far one of the highlights of my career in the publicity realm. And I just got back a couple days ago, I was gone for about three plus weeks. And I've had Miss flights, late flights, canceled flights, lost bags times to awesome moments, really sad grief II moments, moments of pride moments where I don't, I couldn't even identify the feeling. I walked a lot of steps. I was amongst a lot of people like the most amount of people I've been amongst many, many years. But it was such a cool experience. I've had to cancel meetings I took on last minute meetings, I had a lot of podcast recordings for my radical resilience podcasts, I had to reschedule. And I did a lot of learning. And I wouldn't trade my last month's experience for anything. But I am tired. I'm tired. And now I'm excited to get my feet in the dirt, feet in the grass feet in the sand. And now really start to water. Those seeds I planted really, really, you know, walk amongst that garden. And he'll reset my nervous system. And plot what's next. So that was like a high level of like, what happened in my June. Hey, Teresa.
Theresa Lambert:Well, it's much happened and you're doing it like made me like, like seven in the morning. And it made me spin Mike my head spin.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Me It's yeah, it wasn't really. At the same
Theresa Lambert:time, though. So much cool. shit went down. You know, like, I think this is a, this is the fun thing that sort of comes through for me as I was listening to you. And typing our show notes at the same time. Because that's literally the vibe of June 30. I was like, wow, like that is a lot. And it's also really cool to see, you know, so much of what you've worked so hard for and you've dedicated your your life to in the last year's, you know, came together in this whirlwind thing. And, you know, yeah, you you're tired. But it's got to be a satisfying, tired too. Yeah, like, it's
Blair Kaplan Venables:a really good, tired. It's so funny. Like, all I thought about was my bed. And like my air conditioning, because it was so hot in New York, like and I probably worked walked about 15 to 20,000 steps a day. And like, in my normal life, I don't maybe maybe I get 10,000. But like, it may be 5000. And all I thought about was my air conditioning. And remember, we just moved into this house in the fall. And the air conditioning unit, I think is the first event one ever invented. Like it's very archaic, but it works. And like, I know it's a privilege to have air conditioning at all. Like came home and I was like, why is the house so hot? After like a 20 hour travel day I was like, and like seems like it's not I'm like Shamy of the Iran annual fan on like it's supposed to be the code house is supposed to be really cold. And I got home I don't even know a couple days ago and like it just took us to last night to figure out that a breaker blew. And the error was
Theresa Lambert:funny. You say? Yeah, sorry.
Blair Kaplan Venables:I just woke up. I had a really good sleep last night because I slept in my bed. I wasn't hot. Anyways,
Theresa Lambert:I love that what I was gonna say is like you were hot in New York, but like we've had like four days of summer in June. So you're NBC. So whatever, and go to New York and all the places that were hot and warm, literally like, you know, I'm like, what? Some mornings I wake up and I'm like, am I actually putting on like a wool sweater? Like I've been golfing in puffy jackets in late June like it is crazy. Like, so maybe I was like laughing when you're like, oh, yeah, they I was not and I'm like most of us ended. He's going
Blair Kaplan Venables:sounds like you should come here this weekend. My sister's coming to town and the weather is going to be 30 above Celsius for you Canadians out there. I don't know what it is. But like it maybe anyway,
Theresa Lambert:maybe I should come to the loops for impromptu weekend. I'm gonna let you know I am. Yeah, man. I have some plans. But yeah, my June. What am I doing? I mean, my life has been like a big like
Theresa Lambert:shifting and changing and moving. But June was definitely a whirlwind. I was in the midst of launching strategic, which was my mastermind, which was exciting. And one thing that I did this June which honestly was a big lesson from Elon, I put all my eggs in one basket and it's something I said I'm not going to do moving forward and I put all my focus on strategic which was amazing. But my natural tendency and my natural way to show up is to be actually welcoming people into multiple different spaces every single month, leaving the flexibility open to talk about whatever I feel like talking about each day. While having a main focus for my launch, which was district Dziedzic mastermind, so that was one thing that I learned, but the launch went down. And I also navigated, you know, my ego wanting to implement new things at the same time that I was launching, instead of trusting myself and following through with a plan that I had made, I was making adjustments mid launching, I was trying new things that took me way longer. And honestly, that just doesn't work, right. And so a huge lesson. And this is something like for everybody listening is that when you have a process in your business that works for you. And my launch process works for me, I teach it to my clients, it works for them. Now I have a juicy new offer, where I actually create a custom launch plan strategy for you like we need, you tell me all the things about your offer you telling me all the things, your vibe, like everything, like I asked you a whole bunch of questions. And then I take what you've given me, and I literally create a full blown customized strategy that is for you, that takes your strengths into considerations that allows you to show up the way you want to show up. And then all you got to do is literally execute the plan and the strategy that I give you, and you're gonna get my support with Voxer through the entire launch. And it's a very juicy offer. And there's like a base fee that you pay, because you're gonna get the strategy, but the bulk of what you'll be paying me is actually commission based out of what you'll be earning. And I'm really, really excited about that, because that's a really cool offer. So this came out through June through my experience with launching for what I was seeing. So this is the cool thing when we when we go through months. And for me, this is what happens like I go through a wild month I try something I change things. And I it's almost like I need to mess it up. Like I need to mess my own process up and fall out of trust with my process for a few minutes. So that I get to learn how invaluable it is to have a plan and have a strategy that you can follow. So you don't always be like, oh, what I'm going to do today, or what am I going to do now. Because when we're in that trying energy, like when we're in that like trying to do something new energy when we're not really clear. And when we're falling out of that, like we just get, we just got like scattered like our energy isn't fully and our focus isn't fully then. So I went through that there was only you know, and then I noticed that at the beginning, like probably the first week of June and then I pivoted and I, I call this corrected and I went back into my process, which was great. And I welcome some beautiful women into the space, which is amazing. So that happened in June, that was a big learning for me. I also launched my podcast after pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing the styling date. I remember being at your house Blair. And I was like damn, like I gotta record some episodes. And I recorded two really really good ones at your place. And this podcast is so near and dear to my heart diaries of a six figure coach podcast you can check it out. It is a juicy podcast was short episodes like all the episodes have been around 10 To like, I think the longest was like 18 minutes. So now Sheldon juicy episodes, guests will be coming soon, of course, I'm going to have Blair Come join me as a guest. But dad finally launched as well last week. And that was a big push for me because I really like it's really close to my heart, this podcast and I really come from a place of very authentic, transparent, sharing, like the idea behind it was to not just give you tools and strategies and help you master the position of success, but to actually let you in on what happens behind the scenes on the emotional roller coaster that entrepreneurship has at building a coaching business have and the feedback has been phenomenal. And I got a lot of people who left review saying that it's literally like they feel like that they're listening to a friend talking to them in a coffee shop kind of like what happened with our pod, which is so so amazing. So I love that so that happened in June. I also stayed in I stayed at Blair's house in June. I stayed at a no I didn't stay at your house and you know I was gone. At the end of May I stayed at my friend Kathy's house who graciously offered me to stay at her place. I stayed at an Airbnb. I stayed at my old boss's mansion. I call it my stay in heaven and Vancouver, which was amazing. Shout out to you Michael, thank you so much for letting me stay. And then I finally moved into the place that I'm at and now Janas Blaze. For two months. I secured a storage locker I moved 16 years off my shit out of my home. And yeah, and I'm navigating, right now,
Theresa Lambert:a lack of communication that's coming new. As I'm trying to figure out how to how to separate and from my relationship, so there's that. And then a lot of bills have been going out this month, like a lot of big bills have been going out, including paying lawyers. And wow, like, I've like felt the fucking pressure this month, let me tell you, like, I have felt a lot of pressure this month. So that was June for me. So a lot of moving a lot of moving through a lot of surrendering a lot of readjusting a lot, of course, correcting a lot of sitting down dealing with money stuff. And like, now I have all this stuff like packed in boxes, I also realized I'm not 20 anymore. And for the last pieces that I need to pick up, I'm going to need some help to help me because my back was really bloody. So from carrying all that shit out. But I've got stuff to sell. 3d made me think about simplifying life selling things I don't need. It made me think about consumerism, it made me think about being more responsible with how we use things. I fell into old habits I hadn't been drinking for for quite some time. And then I've been drinking a lot more since I've gotten back into town. And I'm like, not feeling good. So yeah, like, it's been like, it's kind of feels like there was a lot of like, celebration. And a lot of heavy for me in June.
Blair Kaplan Venables:And, first of all, I want to acknowledge that you just shared some heavy stuff. So thank you for trusting the listeners trusting me trusting us with behind the veil, and thank you for sharing because it isn't all sunshine and rainbows in business. You just see the tip of the iceberg because in business, we still have a lot of business stuff to navigate that you don't see and a personal life. And you know, for you to be separating from your partner of 16 years. Well, building a successful six figure business and having a really hard June. It's hard.
Theresa Lambert:Yeah, but I mean, you know what, but but also one thing that I and I talk about this a lot, and I spoke about this a fair bit this month is to like, and I feel like I'm going to do a live on this later today. But like every day, I get up, and I choose to turn myself on, I choose to figure out, how can I show up in the most pleasurable, satisfying way. For my vision for me, for my clients, like for what I really want, like, every day, like I found a way to still show up with grace and poise and actual true ly authentic excitement about the things that I do. Getting to serve my clients. Like I had to Beth's like CEO strategic planning meeting yesterday, and everybody who was on the call, like, messaged me afterwards and being like, that was so amazing. Like, that was just what I needed to like refocus. And like It filled my cup to be so appreciated and valued. You know, and I think this is what you and I, what we as entrepreneurs as coaches as as creators get to do like we get to show up doing the things we love most and in return we receive so much forget to fucking money for a second. Because honestly, the money is the money and the money is amazing. And yes, I desire all the money to come to me, yes, please, More, please. But you cannot there's no money in the world that can give you that feeling of satisfaction and love and support and appreciation that you get when you're truly and fully and authentically supporting people in their business, in their health in their life. And they're like whatever, whatever it is, like that feeling of community and it's almost family, but like a sacred it's this sacred you know relationship and it's like, you know, even with you and I you know, like we have such a sacred relationship and such a strong bond and like that is fucking priceless. And that's what carries me through all this heavy shit that I'm going through like this is what helps me get up and show up and turn myself on like, this is what helps me still show up in my pride brilliance, rather than being completely down and it's not about being high vibe, but you still about showing up with confidence and showing up in my power, right? Like, that's what it is about for me, like, I still want to take a stand for me and for my clients and for what I believe in, like, regardless off the heavy regardless of the bullshit.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Well, it's like, there's always going to be heavy and bullshit, like, what are we, you know, we're not like the Carebears. Like, pouncing around the clouds. And sometimes the bullshit and the heaviness is harder than, you know, harder than sometimes. And the other times, and, you know, we're, I get it, like, I don't get it in the sense of where you are, where I am, but I, I've navigated some pretty heavy stuff. And I feel like this guilt, because I have a lot of amazing accolades right now. You know, and like publishing books, Best Selling Author, like billboard in Times Square, like all this amazing stuff. And like, I still have this deep like, I mean, obviously, my last two parents will three parents and a baby. And like, my dad only died four months ago. And like, the grief is strong, the grief is heavy, and it's like, I know, I, I will be leveraging all of this excitement to like, grow my business and acquire more media and keep spreading my mission. But at the same time, I just want to like, hide in my basement or in the woods. And so I will, I'll do both, and work with my energy. But I think what we need to know is what you need to know out there as entrepreneurs is that like, we can still succeed and like navigate hard stuff. Because success is what you define it it's not just the money, money's energy, we make money, we spend money, we make money, we spend money, I definitely went over budget this month with a couple personal things I paid for, and like a last minute trip to LA and all the travel like I have, this was a very, very expensive month, and very mentally hard month. But you know, I think showing up is success and showing up how you can and your capacity is success, saying no. And like canceling all your meetings, because you need a minute to like lie on the couch and cry that success. And when you have a purpose that fuels you like, Teresa, you do, and I do and we love what we do, and we get to do what we do. That is success, because everything else will follow the clients the money, the accolades, but also, I think it's okay to have also like this, these feelings of excitement and happiness, while also these other feelings of, you know, loss and sadness. And society shows us that it's not okay to exhibit both, but we can. And we, I do, and you do. And, yeah, it makes us just real and relatable. Because you know what, like, everyone has shit, like, everyone has shit. Some of it's bigger than others. Some of it happens at different times, and others, but it's so important to know that like, Yeah, you see all this stuff on the outside from both of me and Teresa, but we have heavy stuff going on. And we show up for our clients and we show up for ourselves when we can't and and sometimes showing up is not showing up at all.
Theresa Lambert:Yeah, and you know, one thing that I did yesterday and that one I that I would love to like give everybody listening because this is something that I can come back to again and again and that I feel aligned to that, that is an exercise that you can do for yourself. That is really powerful is is the way I approach what I do in my business every day, the way I show up in my business every day is in a way that makes me feel the way I desire to feel when I've accomplished my vision. So take a moment you can close your eyes if you want and just take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. And just breathe and like if you feel the vibe like put on some music take a moment and video Imagine your vision like what is your big vision like what do you really desire your life to be like your business to be like like what is it ultimately that you want to accomplish like reconnect with your why reconnect with what it is that you're really creating. And just stay in that space and just breathe and just like you know, let yourself go there for as long as feels good. Be 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes maybe you'll like two minutes, right like you choose to time your adventure. And when you're ready when you feel ready come out of the space. Open your eyes. Take your pen and write down how you feel how it would feel I have all this to hold all this to experience all this. And I did this yesterday, as we were planning Q free to just realign. And here's what I wrote. pleasure, love fun, supported, powerful, abundant, light, exquisite and satisfying. So, from that place, what you do is once you know those feelings, now you can think about what are the offers that I could be talking about, that I could be selling that make me feel one or more of these emotions? In what way can I show up every day, that makes me feel one or more of these emotions. And that is what I tap into. And that is how I plan my quarters, my months, what I'm doing. This is how I find the fucking audacity and courage and the ambition, quite frankly, and the discipline to get up and to show up, and you make it happen every day. This is how like I realigned to that. And some days like blessed that that is saying, You know what, I'm gonna take a break, I think I took like three or four days off my social media completely this month.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Heck, even last night, we actually got together to record her yesterday and we made the decision. This isn't the right energy for either of us. Let's wake up have a cup of matcha and coffee and bang, bang it out.
Theresa Lambert:And I was eating chocolate chips out of
Blair Kaplan Venables:eating chip bits, milk chocolate chip bits. And my mom's favorite cookie recipe. Was that one on the back of the chip bits. And over the pandemic. She would make it a lot for me and just feed me cookie dough in the bath. Yeah, like, sorry, I digress. Now I want chocolate chip pancakes.
Theresa Lambert:That's funny. But yeah, but yeah, like, here's the thing, right? Like once you know how you desire to feel like once you know how your vision is how that makes you feel aligned everything that you do, and create the journey in your business building the journey in your life. And make that in alignment of how it feels because those emotions are accessible to you now and if you show up with that intention every single day, imagine what's possible. Imagine what's gonna be like building your business. Imagine how much shit you can navigate quite frankly, like bland i. And still, when you show up, feel that feel that like because that is how I fucking want to feel. That's how I want to feel. And sometimes I'm going to cry on the fucking floor five times in my day and then hold myself and have a dance party and take a fucking breath and then show up and host a two hour meeting.
Blair Kaplan Venables:Yeah, girl, here here. You know what I raised my cup of joe. To you.
Theresa Lambert:Cheers Babe
Blair Kaplan Venables:cheers. You know what this sounds like? A beautiful spot to wrap up. Theresa. You had a really difficult and heavy June full of a lot of lessons. And you have me to walk alongside this journey with you. You have our listeners, you have your new podcast clients are going to drop in for both of us. I have a couple of spaces left for private coaching, which is super exciting. I'm starting a couple fun projects. I really am going to spend a lot of time we have a spot we're renting where we parked our camper in the woods off the grid. I'm going to set up a satellite dish but I really want this summer to be a creation summer a summer of paddleboarding and hiking and being amongst the nature and the trees and creating in between those moments when I feel really inspired. So when September comes when everyone's back online, I'm already ahead and I'm excited for you and everything that you're creating and all of our co creation. We're going to be announcing soon. You know what's going to be going on with our Mo momentum cohort. I just stuttered a little our momentum cohort three. Theresa's going to be launching all sorts of new things. She you know, her eggs are no longer an all in one basket. She you know, she tried something and she has lessons learned her cool new offers amazing. Like if I was just starting out, I would hire her. She's like, basically the queen of launching. And you know what? We're here every week. We're going to be here next week. You know, Episode 88 is my lucky number. So maybe eight is also my lucky number because it's eight times 10 So, thank you for tuning in to another episode of dissecting success. It's me Blair. It's Teresa we're here to fucking rock your world. kickstart your motivation. Let you know that if you need to cry on the floor five times in one day and then show up where you need to show up. That's okay. Because that happens to almost all of us. Teresa, I love you I'm so excited to walk along this business journey with you.
Theresa Lambert:Let's have a fucking blissful summer people Peace
Theresa Lambert:That's a wrap for another episode of dissecting success. enjoyed this episode. Make sure to subscribe to black Kaplan Venables and Teresa Lambert's podcast dissecting success on the