Influencer & Content Creator Hannah Palmer Shares Her Top Selfcare, Wellness, and Beauty Tips
An Interview With Maria Angelova
Treat yourself. There are so many ways you can spoil yourself, from a facial to a new pair of shoes, or even taking that class you’ve always wanted to take. Treating yourself reminds yourself that you are worthy of the things that make you feel good. And it helps you to see yourself in a more positive way.
At times it feels like wellness or elevating one’s well being, is diametrically opposed to high achievement and high performance in one’s career. The stress, mental energy, long hours, lack of restful sleep and preoccupation that result from a high-achievement life seem to directly inhibit wellness. And yet, in order to sustain the creativity, flexibility, mental acuity and resilience that are necessary for high performance, wellness and wellbeing of the mind, body and soul are also mandatory. So how do we achieve both? This is the question I’m hoping to answer through conversations with high-achieving leaders and influencers who are practicing their own philosophies about how to maintain their wellbeing.
As a part of our series about “Social Media Influencers Share Their Top Self Care, Wellness, and Beauty Tips, I had the pleasure of interviewing Hannah Palmer.
Hannah Palmer is a social media influencer and model who rose to fame primarily on Instagram within just the last five years. She has been featured in several advertisements for marketing campaigns and has used her platform to generate revenue by representing different brands and creating her own content. Building off her success, Hannah is setting her sights on expanding into the business world, while continuing the impressive growth of her modeling career.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory of how you came upon this career path and to where you are today?
Of course! My role as an influencer and model took off in 2017. It was after I had spent a year in college, I realized I could really turn my Instagram into something profitable and pursue something I was more passionate about. After about a year or two of the constant growth I decided to move to L.A., and that’s when it really exploded. Now I’ve reached a place in my career that I feel like I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do at the start, so I’m looking for the next big move.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have a very close friend who has a passion for photography, and they were enormously helpful, especially in my early days. They took most of my photos and videos. And of course, I have a very close support base with my family and a few really close friends, which has helped me stay grounded.
Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?
Really early on I was getting a little too revealing with my posts. My mom had to call me and say that to me. I was confusing women’s empowerment and control of my own body with just pure, blatant “thottyness.” It took me about a year to understand that you do not have to be completely nude to feel empowered in your own skin.
As an influencer, you have been blessed with great success in a career path that many have attempted, but eventually gave up on. In fact, perhaps most people who tried to follow a career path like yours did not succeed. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path but know that their dreams might be dashed?
My advice for new or aspiring influencers is to keep your focus, hustle and have a backup job. It doesn’t happen overnight for most influencers. It took me five years of working every day to get to where I am now, and at the start I wasn’t seeing a financial return from it. I was working minimum wage in the early stages. It takes time and a hell of a lot of effort, but if you have the patience and the drive you can make it.
Can you share with our readers some of the strategies you’ve used to build an engaged, loyal, and large online community?
Most of what I do isn’t interactive, unlike some influencers who build their success on the relationships they have with their fans. To help balance this out I engage in Instagram Live’s often, so that my fans know that they have a way to interact with me. It also helps to post content to multiple platforms, in my case five, so that you’re reaching your fans on their preferred platforms and in their preferred ways. Instagram users prefer the visual content, Twitter users prefer seeing me share my opinions.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of our interview. In my work, I focus on how one can thrive and care for oneself in three areas: body, mind, and heart. You are a busy person with a demanding schedule, can you share with our readers two self-care routines, practices or treatments that help your body thrive? (Kindly share a story or an example for each.)
I take self-care very seriously. I don’t know how I could do anything I do without taking care of myself. The traveling alone that this job demands is so intense on your body. Two things that I regularly do are IV’s and lymphatic drainage massages. Any way I can hydrate and detox my body, I will do it. Before I have a busy week, I’ll get an IV so that I can start hydrated and that gets me ready to go. It’s also great at the end of the week, but I prefer it beforehand so that I have the hydration throughout the week. I like to have a lymphatic massage at least once a month, although they’re good twice a month. I feel like, with so much travel and always being on your feet (especially in high heels), that to drain your body of toxins is such a great way to refresh yourself. I would rather stay on top of taking care of my body, rather than fall behind and enter recovery mode, which is much harder to do.
Can you share with us two routines that you use to help your mind or heart to thrive? (Kindly share a story or example for each.)
I have a fitness routine to stay on top of my physical body. I stopped working out to look good years ago and started working out to feel good. Having a strong, healthy body is important to me. I like to hike five times a week, for about an hour. Being out in nature and under the sun will do wonders for your mental health. And recently I started getting into weight training, which is great to tone and challenge myself to see how much stronger I can get. Yoga is another routine I like to practice every day because it’s great for your body, but it’s also great for your mind. It’s very calming and relaxing for me to just practice it for a little bit each day, by myself with my own thoughts.
Can you help articulate why self-care is so important for your mental wellness?
My mental wellness is determined by all the outside and inside factors in my life; is work going well? Is my health in good shape? Am I in good shape? All of these things are affected by how well my self-care is. I must take care of my body (both physically and mentally) because if I don’t, my physical and mental state might start to negatively affect my work, and I might start to internalize the negativity. It starts to weigh down my state of mind.
Can you share five ideas that anyone can use “to feel beautiful”?
Affirmations. I strongly believe the words that you say have a great deal of weight to them. Calling yourself stupid so many times, after a while you’ll start to believe it. I grew up with a very supportive mom who always reaffirmed me when I felt like I wasn’t smart enough or good enough, she never let me say I was stupid. Now I take that and use it toward myself.
Go outside. Like I said about hiking, there’s something about being in nature, mother nature will ground you. It reminds you that everything will be okay. People have been surviving on this earth for millions of years, you will too. It reminds you that there’s a larger world and that your problems and insecurities are not permanent or real.
Get off your phone. Everyone should know that social media is harmful. It’s important to detox your mind just like it is to detox your body. Taking a break from social media and experiencing the real world will help do that and help keep your perception of yourself more realistic and not spoiled by everyone you might be comparing yourself to online.
Treat yourself. There are so many ways you can spoil yourself, from a facial to a new pair of shoes, or even taking that class you’ve always wanted to take. Treating yourself reminds yourself that you are worthy of the things that make you feel good. And it helps you to see yourself in a more positive way.
Dress up. Even if you have no reason to. Take yourself out, give yourself a reason to get dressed up. It could be to take a cute selfie or to just feel cute. I love staying in my Pyjamas all day as much as the next person, but when I want to feel good or I need a pick me up, just getting dressed or going as far as getting dolled up helps me to do that.
Is there a particular resource, a practitioner, expert, book, or podcast that made a significant impact on you and helped you to thrive? Can you share a story about that with us?
The book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. The people in my life are the most important to me and making the right effort to love them helps our relationships grow. That book really helped me figure out how to love everyone in my life, whether it’s a parent, a sibling, a boyfriend, it showed me how to most effectively love them. And that extends to people I meet every day, getting to know how they show love and how to show them love helps build connections. I’ve had strained relationships with some of my family, where I couldn’t understand why they weren’t showing me love the way I needed them to, and why everything I did wasn’t showing them what they needed. This book taught me that we shared and required different kinds of love, and once I figured that out it changed our relationships for the better.
As an influencer, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
There are so many, but I would have to say the number one demographic I would most want to inspire change for is women of sexual abuse. A lot of issues in our society I think are connected to that overwhelming issue, so if I could have that effect, that’s where I would most want to create change right now.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you’d like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this. :-)
Yes and that person would be Kris Jenner. Do I even need to explain why?
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Instagram is my primary platform, where I post most often. But TikTok is a great way to get more video content that I make myself. Twitter is a great way to follow me too, it’s just not my primary platform for modeling.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Maria Angelova, MBA is a disruptor, author, motivational speaker, body-mind expert, Pilates teacher, and founder and CEO of Rebellious Intl. As a disruptor, Maria is on a mission to change the face of the wellness industry by shifting the self-care mindset for consumers and providers alike. As a mind-body coach, Maria’s superpower is alignment which helps clients create a strong body and a calm mind so they can live a life of freedom, happiness, and fulfillment. Prior to founding Rebellious Intl, Maria was a Finance Director and a professional with 17+ years of progressive corporate experience in the Telecommunications, Finance, and Insurance industries. Born in Bulgaria, Maria moved to the United States in 1992. She graduated summa cum laude from both Georgia State University (MBA, Finance) and the University of Georgia (BBA, Finance). Maria’s favorite job is being a mom. Maria enjoys learning, coaching, creating authentic connections, working out, Latin dancing, traveling, and spending time with her tribe. To contact Maria, email her at angelova@rebellious-intl.com. To schedule a free consultation, click here.
