The behind the scenes story of The Social Bolt + Becoming a Messaging + Marketing Wizard
After last week’s incredible milestone 250th episode, I had a mid-week freak out about what I should record for episode 251.
Because NGL, I had absolutely nothing planned.
Now I can obviously, quite easily come up with an idea but how do you follow episode 250?
Enter Karen – who slid into my DMs and suggested I record a personal episode about my background and who I am now.
Which is a great idea (thanks Karen) because not everyone has been here since Day 1 and next month is my 7th business birthday. Yes, I’ve been around for awhile!
And you might not know the Tahryn + The Social Bolt lore. So that’s what I’m going to share with you on today’s episode of the How I Do Content Podcast. My backstory and how I ended up here, running a business and being the messaging + marketing wizard I am today.
So buckle up and let’s begin.
The farm life
Now I was born to Moira + Vernon Bolt. A teacher and sheep + crop farmer from a small country town called Corrigin about 3 hours east of Perth in Western Australia.
Corrigin is famous for 2 things: the dog cemetery + holding the The “Dogs in a Ute” world record for the largest continuous convoy of dogs in utes. Google it.
So I grew up on my family’s farm with my 3 siblings (an older brother, a younger sister and younger brother). From kindy to year 7 I attended the local primary school.
Now even though there was a high school at Corrigin (up to year 10 at least), my parents decided they were going to send all of us to private boarding school for years 8 to 12.
They wanted all of us to have a really good education and to experience opportunities that country kids just don’t get.
What my Dad taught me:
From my dad, I learnt the importance of work ethic and resilience. You have to be slightly crazy to be a farmer. You can do everything right (prepare the soil, plant your crops at the right time, have the perfect growing conditions) and still your entire year of work can be destroyed in an instant by frost or hail or fire or locust.
And I used to say to my Dad – “How do you do it? It’s so frustrating when the season started off so well and then ends shit.” He would laugh and say “Well, Tahryn, there’s no point worrying about the things you can’t control. Focus on what you can, and hopefully it works out. But if it doesn’t, you get up and try again.”
What my Mum taught me:
From my mum, I learnt that you can do anything you put your mind to if you believe in yourself. She would tell me this on repeat. And I think it worked, because I’ve always had this mindset that if I want to do something, I can make it happen.
But you have to decide to do it and then actually do something about it. There’s no “I wish I could do that…” No bitch – there’s only “I’m doing this and here’s how.”
This is the secret to how I started my business. I wanted to stay at home every day with Ned. To do that, I needed a job that would allow me to stay home. Starting a business gave me that. Did I know how to run a business? No. But I knew I’d figure it out because remember – you can do anything you put your mind to if you believe in yourself.
Boarding School Life
I attended PLC in Perth as a boarder and whilst I have some amazing lifelong friends from that experience, there’s also a lot of other stuff that comes up for me from this time in my life.
Where my independence started
The boarding school experience was vastly different for boys + girls. For boys it was more like a hotel experience where their every need was taken care for them. But I remember before going to boarding school, my Mum teaching me how to wash, iron, and mend my clothes. My brothers didn’t have to do that. Because that’s just what girls are meant to do right?
So this was not only the beginning of a strong feminist streak, it was also the beginning of me becoming the highly independent one. The one who can do everything for themselves and rarely asks for help.
A traumatic start
The start of my boarding school journey will forever be tied to a traumatic experience. A couple of weeks before I was due to check into my new home for the next four years, my Dad fell through the roof of one of the farm sheds and landed on the concrete floor, breaking his back and smashing the bones in his forearm. He was very lucky to survive, let alone walk again.
So while I was moving into the boarding house for the first time, my dad was moving into a rehab facility to recover and learn how to walk again. I was 12 years old and I had to be strong and brave while living with new people and a new school. It was a lot – but I got through it…just.
The pressure of an ambitious year group
My year at PLC was highly touted as an extremely intelligent and ambitious group of young women. And while yes, it is amazing to be amongst people like that, as a teenage girl it also puts a massive amount of pressure on you to live up to the standard. And it fucks with your self-esteem when you feel like you’re not as good as people around you.
It’s the same in business. It’s hard not to compare yourself to what other people are doing. And it’s brutal at times.
I really believed if I didn’t get a certain mark in my TEE exams and my first preference for uni placements, I was a failure. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I felt like if I just got 98 and into UWA for physiotherapy, I’d be good enough.
By the end of year 12, my year group topped the state TEE table for highest ranking school. And me – well, I didn’t reach my goal TEE score, and I didn’t get accepted into physiotherapy at UWA. And at the time, it destroyed me. Any confidence or self-belief I had was gone.
I would love to go back and tell 17-year-old me (even though she probably wouldn’t listen) that it really doesn’t fucking matter. In fact, not getting into UWA and becoming a physio was the best thing that could ever happen to you. But you’re going to have to suffer a little first.
The Dark Years
There was quite the fallout for me following the end of high school. Mentally, I was not in a great place. I wasn’t very nice to myself. Plus I was also navigating some complicated friendships, and it all took a toll on my mental health. This is the first time I sought help, and I started taking antidepressants.
Honestly, the year after high school ended, I don’t remember much. I deferred from uni for 12 months and while lots of my friends were overseas on their gap year, I stayed home and tried to do my best every day.
How I accidentally found marketing
12 months later, I started uni for the first time. I got into ECU for Sports Science, and in the first week, I changed my major to Sports Management instead. The reason for my quick change of heart? One of my first units was sports massage. In that moment where everyone had to pair up, strip down and learn how to massage parts of their partner’s body in a room all together – I thought to myself FUCK NO. I don’t want to touch anyone or for anyone to touch me.
Like I said, not getting into UWA to study physio was a blessing, I just didn’t know it at the time.
And if I hadn’t bombed my TEE, got into my second preference and then changed majors – I never would’ve found marketing. Because one of the units in Sports Management was in fact marketing, and it was my favourite and best subject by a mile.
I LOVED it; however, when I graduated with a Bachelor of Sports Management in 2007, I was at a crossroads in my life. I wasn’t happy, and I wasn’t ready to dive straight into a big girl job. Plus, getting a job in the Sports Management field can be difficult because there’s not really a clear pathway and the opportunities are limited in Perth.
I knew I needed to do something. And that something ended up leading me to the love of my life – but there’s a bit more before we get to that part of the story.
The move back to the country
After I graduated and was figuring out what the fuck I was going to do, my Mum called me and said, “Shelley (our family friend) told me that Hayley (Shelley’s daughter) is trying to find someone to cover her admin job at CBH (Australia’s largest grain exporter) for a few weeks while she’s on holiday. Would you be interested?”
This meant going back to Corrigin because the job was there. And at this point, I was like why not? I can go home for a month or so, do the job, make a bit of money (CBH pays well) and then decide what I’m going to do with the rest of my life later. I just needed something easy. I needed a little win.
So I said yes, and I moved back to Corrigin with the intention of staying there for a short time. I ended up staying for 9 years.
Corrigin was where I found myself again. I had stability and safety – a job that paid well, I could travel and I had a strong group of friends. I was happy. I started to feel like myself again and enjoy my life.
Knowing I wanted something different
But it got to a point where all my friends started to enter that stage of life where you get married, have kids and settle into the family life on the farm.
And I’ve always known I never wanted to have children. Which is really hard when you’ve grown up in a small country town where that is considered the normal and natural progression of your life. When my friends were planning weddings and baby showers, I was thinking about my dreams and what I wanted to achieve in my life, beyond just settling down because that’s what everyone else was doing.
I always felt like there was something more for me, something beyond Corrigin and working in the same job for another 40 years.
I ignored that feeling for longer than I care to admit, but as a result of this avoidant behaviour, I decided the time was right to get the dog I always wanted.
The story of Tahryn & Ned
Ever since I saw Dr Katrina Warren and Toby on Harry’s Practice in the 90’s and I knew I wanted a border collie one day.
And I decided it was time to make that happen – because a dog is always the best medicine.
I told my mum my plans, and of course, my mum, being the person she is, when you tell her you want to do something, she springs into action and is your biggest cheerleader. So Moira was on a mission to find me a border collie.
And she didn’t mess around. Now she’s not the most technology-savvy person but she knows how to Google and would you believe that quite literally the next day I got a phone call from my mum while I was at work, excitedly telling me “I found you a dog!”
When I got home she excitedly told me about Ned. From the same breeder as her dog Bella, Ned was a former show dog who wasn’t cut for the bright lights of show dog world. They decided to find him a home with a human who would love him and not subject him to big crowds of humans and other dogs.
The fact that he was an introvert and named after Ned Stark from Game of Thrones was enough for me to know he was meant to be mine.
That weekend I met him for the first time and a couple of weeks later he came home with me.
Ned was and will always be my soulmate and the love of my life. He healed my heart more than I ever thought was possible. And this gave me everything I needed to finally make the decision to quit my job, pack up our life in Corrigin and move back to Perth so I could go back to uni and study marketing.
The back to uni years
I don’t know why I thought going back to uni at 31 years of age was a good idea but I knew I wanted to study marketing.
So for the next 2 years, I busted my butt to get really good marks so I could graduate with distinction and get a really great, fun, well-paying marketing job on the other side.
I did graduate with distinction, but finding that unicorn marketing job was a challenge, unless you had a zillion years of experience and the skills of at least 3 different marketing specialties. The way companies + businesses misunderstand the role of marketing is a fucking joke still to this day.
Creating my own job
I wasn’t going to settle for being paid peanuts for a glorified admin role. I mean I didn’t pack up Ned and my life to move to Perth for another admin role.
And I thought to myself “I wish I could find a job where I could stay at home every single day with Ned.”
But remember what I told you about wishing? We don’t wish, we make it happen.
So I decided if I couldn’t find a marketing job, I’d create my fucking own.
And in June 2019, I went full time in my business the Social Bolt.
The Social Bolt Era
I started the Social Bolt as a virtual assistant and social media manager, offering services for both, but I quickly learned that I didn’t want to stay doing this.
I have said many times before, virtual assistants and social media managers have the toughest jobs. People expect so much but are willing to pay so little. I laugh now at how little I charged at the start because I was scared I wouldn’t get any clients.
However, a benefit of being 34 and a little older when I started my business, is that I was unwilling to undercharge for long, plus my coach soon sorted my prices and my mindset out.
When everything vanished overnight
I was fully booked within 4 months of going full-time in my business and I was working with some incredible clients. And then 2020 happened and my client roster suddenly resembled a desert – tumbleweeds and all.
This was only 9 months after going full time in my business and here I was back to where I started. No clients and no idea where my money was going to come from. I felt utterly shattered that everything I had worked so hard to build had vanished and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
However because I have always focused on building a standout brand that’s authentically me, that helped me to actually bounce back better than before.
Why personal brand matters now more than ever
Right now I see so many people losing what makes them magic simply because they’re outsourcing their voice (and everything else) to AI in the name of productivity and not getting left behind.
Because while everyone else becomes robot clones of each other, I believe the people who will continue to win (always), will be those who leverage their personal brand to make it a truly memorable experience for everyone who comes into contact with them. That is going to stand out amongst the sea of robots. Trust me.
The expansive years
Now because I leveraged my personal brand and used the extra time I had on my hands wisely – the years following were really expansive and fruitful for myself and my business.
I launched my first digital product followed shortly after by my first group program The School of Content Wizardry. Then followed my second group program, Become a Launch Wizard. I launched this podcast and hit #1 on the marketing charts on Apple Podcasts. I used my voice as a guest on multiple podcasts and I even left my house to speak on stage one time. I was asked to be a support coach in my coach’s mastermind and then several other masterminds. I launched my own mastermind. And I continued to make sales from every single offer I launched (no matter what it was).
Before I knew it, I was 4 years into business, thinking wow, I can’t believe this is my life.
The worst 2 years of my life
And then, well the worst 2 years of my life happened. Some family stuff happened, and of course, the worst day of my life when Ned died.
In those 2 years, I really lost myself. I felt like I was 17 again and just doing what I needed to, to get through every day. But this time I was also running a business that is my livelihood. I don’t have a partner to support me financially, emotionally or clean and cook for me.
Being that very independent and self-sufficient person means I often try and manage everything myself.
I don’t want to be a burden to others so I keep everything to myself. But it’s something I’ve had to work on for years especially since starting my business – both asking for help and receiving help when I need it.
Losing Ned made me consider letting my business go. He was afterall, the reason I started The Social Bolt and he was such a big part of my brand and my identity. His pawprints are all over this business.
And even though it’s been nearly 2 years since I saw him, I’ll never stop missing him. And I’ll always be grateful I got to spend so much time with him because I started my business.
The rebuilding era
The last 2 years I’ve spent rebuilding my mental health and also finding out who I am now and what I want my life and business to look like. And NGL, it’s been a slow slog.
But I’m proud of myself because I prioritised myself, I asked for help when I needed it. I made the hard decisions and the changes that needed to be made.
And a lot of people and business owners aren’t prepared to do that because it is uncomfortable.
But as my Mum always told me – you can do anything you put your mind to if you believe in yourself.
And I think after everything, I owe it to myself to believe in me.
What’s next for me + The Social Bolt
The business side
All roads lead to Micro Messaging. I’m going to give my brand a little refresh / uplevel. And I’m going to open up some consulting spots. But nothing too crazy.
And hopefully I get left behind by the fucking morons telling me I’m going to get left behind / replaced by AI. Insert massive eye roll here.
The personal side
Enjoy my life with Maggie. Do the thing I love. Spend time with the people who make me happy. And not be too obsessed with trying to control the things I can’t control.
And there you have it – the behind the scenes story of how I ended up here, running a business and being the messaging + marketing wizard I am today.
Want More?
Instagram: @thesocialbolt
Watch my 13 minute One Offer, 5 Angles here
Join the Micro Messaging Waitlist here
