TikTok, Meta, Entrepreneurship & STRESS!

I remember you. Or at least I guess I remember the woman I was when I first started talking to you 15 years ago, when I was that scared out of my mind entrepreneur, literally racing around, high energy, coming up with all these crazy ideas about seminars and speeches I would give. And during the course of the day, I would think of something I wanted to share with you. Something empowering, something inspiring. Because I could picture in my mind then the woman on the other side of this camera. A woman who was struggling, a woman who believed the world and adopted the less than status they tried to dictate to her. A woman who had no idea her value, how much she was needed and how much she was loved. So during the course of the day, I would come up with these messages. Kind of like people come up with messages now and they post on Facebook, you know, just that random thought. Why I'd come up with a random thought and race to my desk and turn on the camera and talk to you. And that's how I got here. Now, there's a very slim, next to none chance that you were there 15 years ago, but I'm still here doing the best I can in the midst of what seems like insanity to offer valuable content to you. So welcome. Today is going to be all over the map. I am shooting this video at quarter to six in the morning, my time. I usually do it the day before today, not today, but yesterday was not conducive to video shooting or editing or anything. But I'm here, so let's talk about it. Mishko Paganon quas. Hi everybody. My name is Sandy Boucher. I'm Red Thunderbolt, woman of the Loon clan, a proud member of Seine river first nation in Treaty 3 territory in Northern Ontario. And as I mentioned, I'm shooting this first thing in the morning. We are actually going to have morning coffee together. Check this out. I might not look like a care, but I absolutely do care. Of course, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I have that mug because of the cat. But I digress. As I mentioned in the opening, the world seems kind of insane right now. And unfortunately, so does my inner circle, my world. Change is a constant. I know that the delusion is thinking it isn't changes life. Change is most definitely the life of an entrepreneur. And if you look at the 6 o' clock news or any kind of news online, change is the reality of the world right now. And I, I am doing my best. I am giving myself some grace. I allowing myself to live and not just function. In other words, feel the changes that are happening. And I hope you're doing the same. I hope you're giving yourself grace. I hope you're realizing that you're doing the best you can. And if that means sometimes you don't do what you would like to do in a day and it has to be put off to the next day, that that's okay. And I hope you, you're okay with the fact that this video is going out a little bit later than the norm. But I am here and I will always be here for you. Well, as long as I can be, right? So today's going to be a whole bunch of random stuff that I want to touch on, updates I want to give, things I want to comment. Yeah. So let's jump into it. First off, I'd be willing to bet, well, unless, unless you're living some kind of life that I would be incredibly envious of. Many, many people are under a lot of stress of late. And I have always been and continue to be a huge advocate for entrepreneurship, especially for indigenous people or marginalized people. I have long said that entrepreneurship will force you to dance with every ghost. You have insecurities, a lack of confidence, lack of patience. All of that you're going to have to dance with and get over. The confident woman I am now 110% is because of my entrepreneurship journey. But the reality is this is not a journey for the faint of heart. Now I guess I've always assumed that means indigenous could easily do it because our lives are not for the faint of heart. And I realize that applies to a lot of people. Welcome to my channel Talk from an Indigenous perspective here, often to indigenous people or to non indigenous trying to understand indigenous people. But entrepreneurship isn't easy. Not only are you dancing with those ghosts, I would probably most closely relate entrepreneurship to parenting. If you want to be successful in business, you don't do it part time aside. Hustle, sure, that's different. But if you want this to be your career, it is not part time. In the same way that your brand new baby doesn't care if you're exhausted or your brand new baby doesn't or your toddler doesn't care. If you feel like being a parent today, that is the same as running a business. You got to show up, you got to deliver whether you feel like it or not. But it is not for the faint of heart. Entrepreneurship requires innovation. It requires quick action, but it also requires well thought out action. And often it requires some really tough conversations and some tough Decisions now, it can be incredibly stressful, in other words. So I don't know how you, how stress shows up for you. There's a conversation I'd love to have with a whole bunch of people. How do you know you're stressed? Like, how does it show up in your world? For those who have followed my work for a while, you know I have a permanent neck injury and I'm in some level of pain on a regular basis and have been since my mid-20s, since I had my accident. Now because of constant exercise, like I can say right now I'm at like a 2 out of 10 and that's probably, that's the best it gets. And I stay at a pretty constant too. But in the earlier days of my career, my entrepreneurship journey, running my own business, however you want to describe it, that's where stress would show up. Stress would. I would tighten my neck and end up in pain. When my neck starts hurting, it starts in my neck and then it feels like it moves up and suddenly my jaw hurts, my ear hurts. And then it turns into the most horrific massive migraine. And I haven't had one of those in years. Knock on some wood here. Knock on my desk. So that's how it used to show up. I know I have yet to have someone touch the back of my neck and not comment on oh my God, all the muscles are so tight back there. That's a result of my accident. I'm not going to go into the details, but that's a constant state. That is not how my stress shows up lately. And this I'd like to believe it's because I'm indigenous, but I that's probably pushing it. My stress shows up in my dreams and the dreams are always the worst case scenario or the dreams are like. But rather than trying to describe it, I'll just give you an example. During cash flow challenging times, when seminars have rebooked and the books aren't looking the way I would like them to, I'm in a dream of a younger me and my children starving when I'm facing a conflict. I could be in a war zone in my dream. So it takes the stress and magnifies it. And often that's when I realize I have to do something is because I realize I'm on my fifth, sixth, seventh nights of nightmares. So that's fun. I would be really interested. Please comment. How does stress show up for you? We all have stress. Whether you're an entrepreneurship or not, whether you're a parent or not, whether you're 60 years old like me or younger or whatever. Older. Whatever the case may be. How does stress show up for you? I've definitely had my share of nightmares of late. Going through some challenges in the business world. We're gonna be fine. I've Even the coldest winter eventually ends. The sun does come up eventually. It's not up yet, but yeah, I'd be interested in that to totally change the pace. Now, Daniel Smith, who is the premier of Alberta and I believe Alberta or Saskatchewan, I believe it's Alberta. I've mentioned her before because I've put her in the same camp as Trump and Polyv because that woman is scary af. She has an issue with trans people for some unknown reason. Why someone else's identity threatens her is beyond me. But anyone who is comfy outing children or forcing them to use their dead name, this woman is scary af. And I saw on the news, this is actually kind of funny. I saw on the news on the weekend that she had gone to Mar? A Lago, that she has met with Trump and. And it was hilarious because both my kids are adults now. And when I mentioned it to each of them, we all had the exact same reaction. It's so funny. Literally, the second I told them the news, their response was, of course she did. Which was exactly my response. Now, at first, yeah, I mean, I rolled my eyes. I was like, what? The actual fox. I now see in the news coverage that she went there to protect her province. She went there to try to talk him out of the tariffs on oil because that's what her province depends on. From the sounds of it, she didn't get anywhere. I'm certain she thought his kindred spirits that she could reach him. Donald Trump doesn't have kindred spirits. Donald Trump has Donald Trump and that's who he's out for for. So that was a little make your head explode. Next on my random list of things we're going to talk about today is TikTok. And yes, TikTok security risk. January 19th. We're like five days away from TikTok disappearing in the U.S. now, it's interesting because the U.S. different animal from Canada, contrary to what Donald Trump would like to believe. And Justin Trudeau is now getting crucified for many things, but one of the things is the way he handled the pandemic and put us in such a deficit. I will, for one, who in their right mind can criticize someone for how they handled the pandemic? How would you have done it? You wouldn't have done it wouldn't have the whatever to take the position and try to even take that on. So, I mean, easy to criticize from the cheap seats that that one rant warning, that one gets my blood boiling. But when I saw President Obama bragging about Canada because we lost so much per capita, so it's comparable. We lost so many less lives than the U.S. did because Canada spent the money to make sure we had food. And I will thank creator for Justin's decision to do that till the end of time. So but in the States that wasn't the case. There was some rescue dollars but it took a lot longer for it to show up and it was a lot less. So many had lost their income. Lockdown was. Lockdown was really fought against in the US because there wasn't the safety net to catch them. So keep that in mind. It wasn't that Canada was anti business, it was anti death. They wanted to keep us alive. So in the US with so many losing their jobs and losing their income and trying to figure out something and isolated and lonely, TikTok became the thing. And in the States they have the crater fund and TikTok influencers with large followings actually get paid to be on TikTok. In case you didn't know this, in case you're not from Canada. Canada, we don't get paid to be on Tick Tock. You could have as many followers as you flip and want. We don't earn an income. But as of January 19th, tick tock is not going to exist in the U.S. well, not true. It's going to be pulled. Apple and the App Store and, and wherever else you get. Your apps are not going to be able to have Tick Tock anymore. They're saying that if it's on your phone, it's probably going to stay there, but without updates, it's going to get really glitchy. It could be a security risk. So all of these people who have built an incredible career, an incredible income are, is they're about to lose that income and again, there's no safety net. This is a time in the U.S. where, you know, you hear the complaints about the loaf of bread, the price of the loaf of bread or the price of gas, and a whole bunch of people are about to lose their income. Again, I repeat, no safety net. So I'm interested to see what happens to TikTok in Canada. There are quite a few influencers. I'm on TikTok, but that's a technicality. I don't normally do things on there. I have to do that, I'm actually thinking of walking around with my phone and those little random ideas that I used to turn into a video, the ones I mentioned, the beginning of this video. Maybe I'll turn them into short TikToks. Because TikToks are short videos. I tend to talk longer than that, as you are well aware of. Speaking of posting on social media, my social media update. So I did my rant last week and yes, I left Meta, I left Facebook, I left Instagram, and I left Threads. And what I found really interesting, I have never even considered that or attempted it before when I went to leave Facebook. It takes a month before you're actually gone. I don't know if anyone can find anything of mine. I hope not, obviously, unless I'm tagged somewhere else or whatever. But I mean my. My pages, my personal page or my business page, because when I went to leave, they give you the notice that it's actually 30 days before your stuff disappears so you can reactivate. In other words, they don't make it easy for you to leave. Do I miss it? No. Which kind of surprised me. I did it first because of that random posting and then kind of like entrepreneurship. It made me dance with the why do I want to tell people how many steps I took today? And I'll be total transparency. I did that a couple times in my YouTube community and then I realized outside validation much that I can celebrate how many steps I get in a day. I don't need to tell the world about it. I share important stuff, I share funny stuff. All of that continues in my YouTube community, the community tab. So no, I don't miss it. I have signed on to another app that my adult children told me about which is more used in the gaming community. And no, I'm not going to name it. And it's very My brother's hand is kind of like icq. That's showing our age. If you don't know what that is, you might want to Google it. The rest of us are giggling. We know what it is. But I love it because it's a hundred percent private. Like there's just a group for me and my family and I get to talk to my grandkids and my adult kids and it's way more personal. It's not just a random post on some social media page. I love it. I absolutely love it. Could I have done that in a Facebook messenger group? Yes, but I'm not on Facebook anymore. The only downfall is I have one girlfriend that is out of province and she doesn't have an iPhone, so FaceTime is not an option. And I was actually going to down this was a surprise. I was going to download WhatsApp so that we could communicate because I know a lot of people use that for international communication only to discover it's part of the metaverse. So Facebook threads, Instagram, WhatsApp, those are all Zuckerberg. So, long story short, I did not download the app. So things are going well. I am enjoying. I am enjoying not having those apps on my phone. It just. It's like there's so much. So less interruptions in my world because, yeah, I could always not look at my phone or not look at that little number by the Facebook that tells me how many updates or mentions or whatever I've notifications I've missed. You don't ignore those. You see them and you look at them. So it becomes an interruption. I do not miss those. Next on my random list, the Peterson interview. A Polly of I will watch that and do a video on it. That is for me, watching that video is the definition of unsafe space. It's why we don't go in as indigenous people, why we don't go into certain places, because we know what we're going to hear there. It's why we don't stay on certain jobs, because we know what we're going to overhear and endure. And we know the emotional, you know, battle fatigue that we're going to experience. For me, I guess the closest, because I don't watch those, I don't inflict that on me on a regular basis. The closest I can relate it to is when the whole Buffy St. Marie stuff hit the fan and I wanted to make sure I handled the facts. So I saw the Fifth Estate video and I couldn't deny that it kind of reinforced every fear and every doubt I ever had about her. I know I'm gonna hear a lot of ugly in that interview, but I also want to know what people are referring to. So I'm gonna go watch it and I'll let you know. I was just thinking that interview might watching that might involve alcohol. I'll be fine. I'll be fine. Last but not least, I kind of wanted to lead us on a more positive note. I don't know about you. I have another question for you. I guess if I had to ask you, what was the best compliment you ever got? Not from like an intimate loved one, but what's the best compliment you ever got from a co worker, a colleague or something like a boss, supervisor, Whatever. And for me, it was always the fact. And that something I noticed in my younger career before I started my business, that as an indigenous woman who is known in the indigenous community in my city, when I would go work at some random non indigenous entity, Indigenous friends and colleagues would show up and ask me, so, what's this place? What are you doing here? And they were safe to walk in there because quote, unquote, Sandy won't lead us astray. It's also why I am so careful about who I work with, who I associate with. If you see me doing a joint event with someone, it's because I totally believe in their work. I do not do that randomly because I know that Indigenous who follow me know if I'm there, I'm saying it's a safe space. So I would never lead someone into a safe space. I had that happen, like I said, when I'm working at non indigenous entities. And actually recently over the Christmas break, I realized how many ribbon skirts I own. And that was like, okay, that's a little gluttonous, a little greedy and. But ribbon skirts can be incredibly expensive. So I've had them for a while, they're still in amazing shape. But I sold them at like half price. And a woman that purchased one of them happens to be non Indigenous, who also attends Mary many ceremonies and gatherings and wanted to be respectful. And she was concerned about whether she should buy one, but because I was the one selling it, in her words, I wouldn't lead her astray. Now, how absolutely awesome is that? I hope that's how you feel about this channel. So my thought, last thought, in case you've never realized this, I know I've mentioned it before. I just haven't mentioned it for a while. If there is one human experience, a common human experience, unfortunately, that really helps you understand the magnitude. For an Indigenous person to engage in reconciliation, that experience would be domestic violence. That experience would be. I'm going to use the scenario of a woman who has been assaulted by her partner, they have separated, and now she faces herself trying to figure out how to co parent with this individual who has hurt her. That's Indigenous reconciliation with Canada. That we have learned when we are separate, we can tend to be safer. That words cannot be counted on. There's a lot of empty promises, there's a lot of actions taken that continue to hurt us. But still we show up for the sake of this country, for the sake of our communities, and yes, for the sake of ourselves and our children. So if you wonder why Indigenous People are hesitant or indigenous communities are hesitant to work with Canadian entities. That's why. Because it's often that abuser, it's the people that, you know, steamroll over us, the bulldozers, the listen to us. But it goes in one ear and out the other and they don't pay attention to any of our concerns or wishes. So just I wanted to offer that insight. It's in my third book, a quiz to help you understand just how much this is like an abusive relationship. I've done that in seminar many times and people are blown away. One of the best comments I ever heard after that quiz was from a man, a male in the seminar who simply said like, wow, that explains a lot. And it's true. So that's what I'm working towards. That's back to the stress. That's the stress I'm under on a daily basis. It's why I don't listen to a lot of polyev because engaging in reconciliation comes with its own stress level. I don't tend to add to it. Is it worth the stress? 100%. Would I change my journey? Absolutely not. It's literally why I'm here. I believe that to the core of my being. And I will do this as absolutely long as I can, which means as long as I'm on the planet. So just thank you for showing up today. I apologize again for the late video and I apologize for the randomness. I haven't had enough coffee, but I hope you found value in it. And I'm. I would love to hear your answers to, you know, how does stress show up for you? Are you showing yourself, Grace? Are you under stress? Do you think the world's going insane right now? And how's your life? Hopefully not as insane until tomorrow. I love you. Take care. Bye. Bye.