Blakelee Paige Smith, NP + Aesthetic Injector

Can I be a little vulnerable for a minute?
I’ve recently experienced social media burnout and that’s a difficult thing to admit when I’m also incredibly grateful for this community, the opportunities I’ve been given, and the career I’ve worked so hard to build.

Honestly, sometimes juggling it all is just… a lot. I think there’s a conversation to be had about how much the expectations of healthcare professionals have changed, especially in aesthetic medicine. Somewhere along the way, being good at what we do stopped feeling like enough.

We’re expected to be providers, marketers, photo/videographers, and content creators that post more, share more, stay relevant, keep up with trends, and somehow satisfy an algorithm that never seems satisfied. Meanwhile, there’s an actual life happening outside these little squares on Instagram.

Most of the content you see here is created after midnight because it’s often the first moment I’ve had to sit down and despite that, lately I’ve caught myself feeling guilty I haven’t posted enough… as though everything else I’ve accomplished that day somehow wasn’t enough.

That’s the part I’ve been struggling with. I started sharing because I love educating, connecting with others, and hopefully contributing something meaningful to what I’ve dedicated 15 years of my life to, but sometimes I want to come home from a full day of doing a job I love and just be done working, but also recognize how fortunate I am to have the career I have. There are still moments when I look around and can’t believe I get to do what I do, but gratitude and exhaustion can coexist.

You can love your career and still feel overwhelmed, be proud of your growth and still need room to breathe, and appreciate every person following along yet still struggle with the pressure to constantly show up.

I don’t have some profound conclusion to this… I just wanted to say it out loud because maybe someone else is sitting at their computer after midnight, trying to squeeze one more thing into a day that was already full and maybe they need to hear that they’re not the only one.

Anyway, thanks for being along for the ride. Love yall. 🖤🤍

Getting to play your favorite sport every day as a profession is a dream come true… and so is this opportunity!

I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to join this faculty on October 20th for My Favorite “Sport”: From Clinical Confidence to Patient Demand, a virtual educational program centered around the very toxin that has been an integral part of my practice for years.

If you know me, you know I don’t teach products I don’t genuinely use, believe in, and reach for in my own treatment room. Dysport is truly my favorite neuromodulator, and getting the chance to educate other providers on the science, efficacy, reconstitution, consultation, and clinical application behind a product I use every single day is incredibly meaningful to me.

One of my favorite parts of this career has become taking the things I’ve learned through years of treating patients and turning them into practical education that another provider can take back to their own treatment room the very next day.

So yes, I love Pilates.
I’ll tolerate the Peloton.
I really love racing Porsches.
… But my favorite sport has been hiding in plain sight all along.

Dysport it is. 🏆
So grateful to be part of this one. See you October 20th. 🤍

I talked recently about how hard it was for me to find the “right” people.

For a long time, I watched other practices grow their teams while I kept wondering why I couldn’t seem to do the same. I interviewed and interviewed and, more than once, I wondered if maybe I was just too picky. Now I know I was simply waiting for the right fits. 🤍

Building a team isn’t just about finding people who can do the job. It’s finding people you genuinely love being around. People you trust when you aren’t in the room, people who care about your patients as deeply as you do, people who want to keep learning (not because someone is making them, but because they want to be better), and people you can laugh with, learn with, have hard conversations with, celebrate with, and grow alongside.

And somehow, I found that in these two. Watching Cassi continue to pour herself into becoming an exceptional aesthetician and watching Maddie begin this next chapter toward becoming a nurse and eventually stepping into aesthetics clinically has made me ridiculously proud, but even beyond what they do, I’m grateful for who they are.

There is something really special about realizing that the people beside you aren’t simply helping you build your dream anymore. It’s becoming OUR dream and now we get to do something that once felt almost impossible to me: grow again.

We’re adding to this little team. We’re entering what I’ve jokingly started calling Skin + Aesthetics 2.0. There are new people to welcome, new roles taking shape, bigger goals, more education, more opportunities, and a whole lot ahead of us that I don’t think any of us can fully see yet.

But the difference this time is that growth doesn’t feel scary because I know who I’m growing with and I would choose these two over and over again. 🤍

Here’s to the next chapter of Skin + Aesthetics. I have a feeling it’s going to be a really good one.

AN8, according to my very disorganized camera roll….

There will be more polished posts to come, but this one is just real life: blurry photos, random moments, my entire team, people I love and respect, a lot of learning, a lot of laughing, and a weekend I’m incredibly grateful for.

THANK YOU, Aesthetic Next | Medical Aesthetics Conference, for once again trusting me to step on your stages, teach in your workshops, and be part of something that continues to push our industry forward.

I also had the incredible honor of speaking for both Galderma / GAIN by Galderma USA and Hydrafacial, two relationships that mean SO much to me because what I teach for these companies isn’t something created for a stage… It’s what happens inside my practice every single day. These products, technologies and philosophies have genuinely helped shape my career, and getting to share even a small piece of that from the stage is something I’ll never take lightly.

But conferences like this are about so much more than speaking. They’re about getting to sit beside, learn from, laugh with, and reconnect with colleagues who have poured into me, challenged me, taught me, and helped shape the provider I am today. Some of the people in these photos have influenced my career in ways they probably don’t even realize.

And this year, I got to bring my whole team along for it. 🥹 The people who support me behind the scenes, keep our practice moving, believe in what we’re building, and make so much of what I get to do possible.

15 years into aesthetics, I think one of the greatest gifts is realizing I’m somehow still this excited about it. Still curious. Still learning. Still grateful. Still surrounded by people who make me better. And still occasionally terrible at taking organized photos. 😂

AN8, you were a really good one. 🤍

This is a super vulnerable post today because for years, I watched other practices announce another new employee. And another. And another.

For a while, I genuinely wondered if the problem was me.
Maybe I was too picky. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe I was too protective of my practice. So many people around me seemed to be figuring this part out faster than I was and I felt behind.

What I couldn’t see then was that it was all going to play out exactly the way it needed to. I wasn’t supposed to find two perfectly trained people who could walk through the door and immediately become my “dream team.” I was going to find two really, really good humans. Two people with integrity, kindness, intelligence, humility, work ethic, and an actual desire to be exceptional at what they do. They both already had strong foundations coming in and I would get the privilege of teaching the rest.

Cassi, getting to watch you grow into the provider you are becoming has been one of the most rewarding parts of owning this practice. And

Maddie, after two years of you being one of the people who has held me and this place up through some of the hardest parts, I don’t quite have words for what it means that I now get to stand beside you as you become a nurse and eventually teach you to do what I do.

You both are truly answered prayers and I’m so unbelievably proud of you. I hope you both surpass me. Actually, I expect you to. I hope you become smarter than me, more talented than me, better clinicians than me, and take everything I can possibly teach you and build on it in ways I never could. I can’t imagine a greater privilege as an educator than someday looking at the people I taught and realizing they’ve become better than me and maybe that’s the part of building a team I misunderstood for so long.

If you’re a practice owner watching everyone around you grow while you struggle to find your dream team, I hope this gives you a little hope.

Sometimes building something slowly feels an awful lot like failing while you’re in the middle of it until one day you look around and realize why it had to take so long.

Evidence-based when it matters, vibes-based when it doesn’t.

After 15 years in aesthetic medicine, I’ve collected enough observational data to confidently report these findings.

Sample size: unclear.
Statistical significance: probably not.
Confidence interval: extreeeeemely confident.
Peer review: my coworkers said “actually, yes.”
Funding: unfortunately, me.

I remain prepared to defend every conclusion presented here with absolutely no supporting literature and don’t even try to argue the conference outfit one.

Please also feel free to submit additional findings for consideration below. 👇

References:
1. Me
2. Things I have personally witnessed
3. Every aesthetic provider currently nodding
4. Trust me

No actual clinical recommendations were made in the production of this carousel. Thank you.

I thought success would feel more… finished.

At 18, I had a very tidy idea of how life was supposed to unfold. Work hard, collect the credentials, build the career, get married, have children, check the boxes in the culturally approved order and eventually arrive at a version of life where nothing felt missing.

By 25, I had developed my manual for what success looked like and now, at 37, some of those boxes filled and others didn’t. Some goals changed, some became bigger than I ever imagined, and some dreams still matter to me just as deeply as they did then.

I’m proud of what I’ve built and still very aware of what hasn’t happened yet. I’m grateful and still longing. I’m successful and still uncertain. I’m an introvert who occasionally ends up holding the microphone. And I am someone who finally reached the “full schedule” and still had to restock the treatment room that Tuesday.

I don’t think success is a finish line anymore… or at least for me, there isn’t one any longer. I think it’s becoming someone you can trust with the life you’re building. Someone reliable, ethical, discerning. Someone willing to say no. Someone willing to admit, “I don’t know.” Someone who understands that a meaningful life does not have to be a completed one.

Maybe success isn’t getting everything you thought you would have by now. Maybe it’s refusing to discount everything you’ve built simply because some parts haven’t arrived yet.

I think comparison really is the thief of joy and success continues to change identities.

Medicine has a way of humbling you. Every patient teaches you something. Every complication teaches you something. Every journal article, every conference, every mentor, every difficult consultation… they all shape how you think.

Some of the opinions I held early in my career have changed completely. Others have only become stronger with time. The five thoughts in this carousel aren’t meant to be controversial… they’re reflections of what more than 14 years of caring for patients, teaching providers, and continually questioning my own practice have taught me.

The beautiful thing about medicine is that we should never stop evolving. If you’re practicing the same way you did five years ago, despite new evidence, new technologies, and new understanding of anatomy and aging… you’re probably standing still.

Growth requires curiosity.
Curiosity requires humility.
And humility is one of the greatest strengths a clinician can have and I never want to lose it or stop learning and growing.

I’d love to hear yours. What’s one clinical opinion you’ve developed over time that newer-you would’ve disagreed with? Let’s have a conversation. Keep it respectful, evidence-based, and focused on making all of us better clinicians!