How Personal Growth Becomes Your Greatest Business Strategy- From Service Provider to Visionary CEO

There comes a point in every entrepreneur's journey when working harder stops producing better results. The business may continue to grow, but if the woman behind it isn't growing too, success can begin to feel surprisingly empty.

In this episode, we're sitting down with Shonna Dexter CEO of Recreating Rays whose definition of success has transformed over the years. What started as a side hustle in her basement while balancing a full-time corporate career eventually became a thriving, multi location company. But the biggest milestones weren't measured in revenue—they were measured in self-awareness, healing, and learning how to lead differently.

In this episode we talk about the pivotal shift from being an exceptional service provider to becoming a true CEO, building systems and a team that no longer depend on you being everywhere at once. Along the way, she shares how sobriety brought clarity, how a late ADHD diagnosis helped explain years of hyperfocus and burnout, and how navigating perimenopause challenged her to rethink the pace at which she wanted to build.

Rather than chasing more hustle, she began pursuing something far more valuable: time affluence. Together, we explore why protecting your energy is just as important as protecting your profit, how nervous system regulation has become a leadership tool, and why sustainable growth requires creating a business that supports your life instead of consuming it.

This conversation is ultimately about creating more than a beautiful business. It's about creating a business that gives you freedom, preserves your identity, strengthens your relationships, and opens doors for other women to grow alongside you.

Because sometimes the greatest business strategy isn't another marketing plan or pricing change.

Sometimes it's becoming the woman your next level of business has been waiting for.

Lets connect on Instagram and keep the conversation going!

Connect with Shonna @shonna.dexter, @sunlesslegacy & @recreatingrays

Connect with me: @creatingmorethanpretty

Transcript

Welcome And Show Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Creating More Than Pretty, the podcast for entrepreneurs building beautiful businesses from the inside out. This is a space for creative professionals who know that their work is about more than aesthetics, more than trends, more than what looks good on the surface. Here we are peeling back the layers of what it really looks like to build businesses that feel aligned, sustainable, and deeply fulfilling while still creating exceptional experiences and meaningful results for the people that you serve. Be ready to hear real, unfiltered conversations about business, branding, and the balance of it all. Together, we'll be talking about growth, purpose, and the beauty that comes from building something meaningful inside and out. Because behind every woman in business, there's a story of late nights, bold moves, self-doubt, and unstoppable drive. No matter where you are on your journey, the space is for you. So go ahead and grab your coffee or water and your notebook and let's get into it. I'm Dina, and this is Creating More Than Pretty.

Meet Shauna And Her Studios

SPEAKER_00 1:16

All right, guys, we are here with another real conversation with a woman building a beautiful business both inside and out. So this is someone who is very well known in the sunless industry. My dear friend Shauna is here today to um share quite a bit with you. So, Shauna, for those that are not in the sunless industry or do not know who you are, will you just give us a little creep, uh quick brief rundown of who you are, what you do, and where you do it?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Sure. So thank you for having me, first of all. My name is Shauna Dexter. I am the founder of Recreating Race Free Tan Studios in uh the Kansas City metro area. We have two brick and mortar locations, um, one on each side of the state line. So one in Oletha, Kansas, and one in Lee Summit, Missouri. Uh, I started building my business as a side gig 15 years ago this year, uh, while working around 50-hour a week corporate job. I would come home in the evenings and tan. And um, you know, like most people who get started in any beauty business, you are in love with providing the service, but most of us don't know squat about running a business, and I was no different. Um, so everything I know I've learned along the way. I did have a marketing degree in college and I worked in communications. However, you know, even from the time I graduated college in the early 2000s to starting my business in 2011, the world of marketing changed so much. And then over the last 15 years, the world of marketing has changed like way more than even during that time. So it's constantly evolving. Nothing I know did I learn in college, nothing could have prepared me for this journey. And um, it's really just a story of working probably too much, probably too hard for a very long time, but it did get me to my ultimate goal, which is, you know, the way I live my life today, with time freedom, um, being the true visionary and CEO of my business. I don't work inside my inside the daily operations of my business anymore. I have management staff who, you know, have taken the reins and I have handed them over happily. And I trust them to just run with things. They have earned that trust over the course of many years. But we are just continually growing 15 years later to continue to grow year over year over year is such a blessing. And but really, the last six months have changed my life a whole lot, lit a new fire in me that did not exist, that had slowly been dimmed. I feel over the last probably three to six months, I feel again like I did early in my business. I feel excited about my business. Um, and that had really demmed over the course of 15 years of doing the same thing and working so hard. But now I'm ready. Like I feel a new excitement within me. And there have been some catalysts to that, but we'll talk about all that.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, yeah. You have quite a story. I mean, 15 years is a lot of time to unpack, and there's a lot of um wins, lessons, losses all along the way. I mean, um, yeah, so you are gonna bring a wealth of

Redefining Success Beyond Money

SPEAKER_00 5:16

information. I want to jump in and ask you, so what does um what does success look like now versus six years ago? Because let's just split your timeline in half. So between zero to six years, um, you hit the nail on the head when you said you started your business because you were excited, it it made you feel good, things like that. We're also providing a service that makes other women feel good. So what shifted from zero to say six years? And then I also want to jump in from six years to present time. Um, and here's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah, so I was I would say actually it's like zero to nine years are kind of the defining point when I um eventually quit drinking. So everything pre-January 1, 2020 for me was just grind and hustle. And post-January 1, 2020, and then post-COVID has been all about refining who I am as a leader and um who I am without my business as much as that, because my business is still, of course, a very large part of my identity. But if we're talking about the first nine years, it was success was just like be able to pay the bills, be for, you know, first success marker, um, be able to leave my full-time job, right? That was the dream. The dream was to someday work for myself. And I did that in about two and a half years. I did get beat down in the first year. I had to tuck my tail between my legs, go back to working a more corporate-style job, just part-time while building my business. Learned so many lessons along that um journey with hiring a business coach and really digging in and excuse me, at that point figuring out the things I didn't know about being a business owner. I was a great service provider. But like I said, I didn't know anything about owning a business or strategically growing a business. So I hired my own coach, and that really changed a lot for me. He made me look at things so differently. Um at the same time, I launch a national association, I build a national event for spray tan artists. I have two growing businesses side by side, and both growing pretty rapidly, and me not being a leader, someone who knew how to give up control of anything at that point. So it was a mess. It was bad. It was everything that success does not look like today for me. But back then it was more money, um, which felt like more stability, but really frankly, wasn't more stability when looking back. But it just felt like if I can make more money, I am going to be more successful. And everything was about money. Everything was about creating financial success.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

And so the first nine years were all about financial success. How do I get out of this corporate grind? But I just traded the corporate grind for a grind created by myself. And it was completely different with no stability, you know, and no uh health insurance and no 401k and no paid time off and all of those things. But I wasn't working for the man anymore. So that was what the first nine years were about. And then, you know, the the next six years have been completely different from that.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

What would be the main thing you would say? So you took those nine years per se. You gathered all your ducks, you made a lot of errors, you made a lot of success, monetary success. And then what, besides your sobriety, what was um the thing within your heart that made you realize success wasn't money? I mean, it is a point of it is like um a part of the but where what else defined that for you to be able to move forward?

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, we have to have some sort of financial success, right? To be able to create what success looks like for me today. Right. So I had to go through that period. I had to grind, I had to hustle, I had to do all those things and learn all those lessons in order to get to the point where today's success looks like time affluence.

Building For Time Affluence

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Um, and I think, you know, I wish I remember exactly what year it was, but I don't. But I know and I have a very vivid memory of driving down the road in my car and just like spacing out like I always do, and thinking about, you know, I'm an only child, and I want to be able to be a caregiver for my parents when the time comes. And my parents are now both in their late 70s, but at the time they were probably late 60s, early 70s. But seeing that on the horizon and knowing that that could be a possibility for me down the road, I can't be working 50, 60 hours a week and be able to take my mom to a doctor's appointment. I can't be the person working inside my business every single day. Yeah, that's financially very beneficial, right? To be the person providing the services and not paying other people to do it. Okay, yeah, you're gonna make more money doing that. Um but I really took this giant step back and said, no, I want time affluence. Like that is what being rich is to me now. And how am I gonna get there? How am I going to change my business model from one that depends on me to do services to one that does not rely on me to do services or even be involved in operations and be the guiding force, be the CEO, um, but get to wake up every single day and not have to go to an office or go to into my business or even cover shifts that are not picked up. Right. So the intentionality around that came as a moment of clarity of, you know, I want to be able to be there for my parents as they have been there for me. They were the initial investors of $5,000 for me to start my business. And I want to reap the rewards of this financial success to be able to trade that for time. And so after COVID, really is when I had this just epiphany of this is how I'm gonna build my business. When we come back from COVID, I am switching lanes and I'm switching gears, and this is the perfect time to do it. And it was, and it everything aligned. But um, you know, pre-COVID, pre-January one, 2020, when Shauna quit drinking, success was financial, period. Now I will happily give away more money to gain more time.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

I love that. I love that. That is, and that um it looks like that could be, I'm not gonna speak for everybody, but a goal for a lot of women doing what we do. Because as a mom, I can hear you say the same thing as taking care of your parents. Some of us would say we want that time to take care of our children or our grandchildren or wouldn't have you, yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's kind of that same thing. So that is a great goal to have in mind. You know, there's plenty of other ones, but that is one. So you have really narrowed your focus and been very intentional. So you've created a business now 15 years later that aligns with what you want at this moment. Because again, right, five years from now, yeah, exactly. One year from now, Shana versus five years is is going to be a different, which you know, hey, we'll do this again like we did four years ago. Um what changed to really hone in on that alignment you would say the last six months? What because that that was what you the timeline you had said just a few minutes ago. What can you tell us has changed?

Perimenopause And Losing Your Drive

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, so um, you know, the end of 2024. Okay, I'm I will turn 49 years old this month. So a year and a half ago, I really started to feel what I did not know at the time, but the hormonal perimenopausal shift. And it was, I'm not gonna sugarcoat this. It sucked. Yeah, it was horrible. And it was just the beginning of when people were starting to talk about it online. Um, I'm really grateful for a couple of friends who are a little bit older than me and started sharing resources with me, just saying, hey, I know that this is coming down the pipeline for you, and it has been pure hell for me. And I want to share my experience with you personally. And so I started educating myself. And when I found out, like, holy moly, like this is like puberty in reverse, right? And yeah, if you can go back to, you know, those puberty years, those uh like middle school years, and think about what a mental head case you were. Yeah, go ahead and amplify that for what carry menopause is.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

And own a business and have aging parents and some children.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Like there's so because you've got responsibility piled on top of it, right? Yep. Um, and so it was the end of 2024, and I started like having hot flashes, which is what everybody thinks of quote, menopause, perimenopause, whatever. Right. But prior to that, you know, really in the summer is when it started with the brain fog and just this intense like apathy. I didn't care about anything. And to not care about my business for the first time, I was like, what is wrong? What is happening here? Do I really just I wanted to just like okay, let's just sell this baby and move on. And I just want to sit on this couch every day. And that was so different for me. That is just not who I have been for all these years leading up to that, right? For the 12 years or 13 years prior to that. And but it was just such a slow progression that I almost didn't recognize it. Looking back now, it's very easy to see. But in the time when you're living, it's just so slow. And these tiny symptoms start to pile on top of each other. So by early 2025, I had a functional med doctor I was seeing. I had my hormones tested, and I started hormone replacement. And that was a huge thing for me. But still, by last summer, the summer of 2025, I still have a lot of the apathy and just this like zero drive, zero desire. All these things I know I should be doing, and I literally cannot force myself to do them, whether it be work-related, personal, cleaning my house, like anything, workouts, eating, like I was just not interested in much of anything in my life, and all these things that I had cared about so much for so long, just meh whatever, nothing matters. That is really a depressing feeling. It's sad. And to recognize that in yourself, and even though my hormones are quote now balanced, I still just have this extreme apathy, and I still just have this complete inability to do anything. Anything um, I ended up going to see a new therapist because I was like, this is you know, there's something wrong here.

ADHD Realization And Dopamine

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Um, and so I went to see a new therapist. And within 15 minutes of sitting down, like I had taken all these notes, and so I'm literally just reading her the notes off my um phone of all the things that have like kind of happened over the last year or so and that I've really noticed changing. And within 15 minutes at the beginning of that appointment, she looked at me and she said, Have you ever been diagnosed with ADHD? And I was like, Ha ha ha, we always joke that Shauna has a squirrel brain, Shauna has, you know, undiagnosed ADHD, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, No, like I can't diagnose you. I'm not a psychologist, so I cannot diagnose you. She's like, but you have this, and 100% you have dealt with this your entire life, based on everything you've told me from elementary school to today, being 48 years old. She's like, you have it, and your brain is working against you every single day. And then when you go hit perimenopause and you start having all these hormonal shifts, then it's like a dumpster fire, literally, of um, you know, cortisol and dopamine or lack thereof. When you have ADHD, you have zero dopamine. And now I've removed all of the dopamine sources in my life. A la alcohol, um, food was a big dopamine source for me for a long time. Uh, my phone became my dopamine source, which is a big problem for a lot of people. Yeah. But uh, when she said that to me, it changed my life. Within a week, I was visiting a psychologist. I was having an ADHD assessment done. And before I walked out of the door that day, the psychologist she said, you know, I can't give you an official diagnosis right now. I have to go through all of this testing and create a report, but you have ADHD. And I was like, when I started really digging into what ADHD truly is, I was like, uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:33

That's me. Yeah, right. That's what you're saying.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

My entire life, but I thought ADHD was like the boy in elementary school who can't sit still and is disrupting the class all the time. And for me, my ADHD was very much internal. It was very much in my head. It was ruminating thoughts in a brain that never stopped and had 800 tabs open at a time. And that creates nervous system burnout, and that creates a nervous system that is literally on fire 24 hours a day when you're unmedicated or you don't have the tools to be able to um counteract those things. And I had never had the tools. And now I can look at it and be like, you know, they told me like true ADHD is inherited, it's genetic. And I was like, oh yeah, my dad for sure has this. Like, we're we're the ADHD buddies over here, but we just didn't have a name for it, you know. And so getting diagnosed and then digging into the nervous system work over the last six months. I have changed more in the last six months than I have in the last six years prior. And I always said that like 2020 was my turning point. 2020 was I quit drinking in January, and by March, our business was shut down. Mid March, our business was shut down. And COVID was, you know, everywhere. And I've always said that, you know, 2020 was such a big change year for me, but 2025 was much bigger in literally, really the last three months of 2025. So wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

So I'm just going to kind of recap what she said because that that is a lot. And that is the perks of growing as a woman, however, also the perks of having a business and uncovering yourself or peeling back the layers of who you truly are and the twists, turns, emotional baggage, and everything that goes with it, because it does play a role in what we do and how we do it. So you um from 2020 to 2026 now, you did a big shift along with this last six months of the shift. You're very blessed in the essence that you built the business to have somebody else or a team to run it. Because imagining having to be in that day-to-day operations or being that service provider and having to either hold back and not share your shit with everybody else because you're getting dumped on, meaning, you know, people and then other of it can be.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Emotional, you're doing emotional labor and not trying to be the emotional labor of the clients.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yes, yes, yes. Otherwise, sometimes we do find ourselves, you you remember, and anybody who's a service provider can resonate that sometimes you share just to get through the appointment because it helps them, but it's also helping yourself. Anyhow, you you know have you built your business to get to where it's at, let's just say um the end of 2025. And so that took a lot of work, a lot of um self self-growth. But now you find yourself in that season to now unpack something else that very menopause brings you a new awareness that you have ADHD. Um that allows you now, what I've heard you say is to really focus better. So not that you were never not focused. Clearly, you were focused to be successful in essence. Here we are 15 years later and a great business. But that alignment with how you feel internally and externally is also a reflection of how your business is or has been in the last six months. So I want to unpack that real quick in like one or two brief little snippets of what you can say as a business owner, a woman who has gone through all of this success now in the last six months is gonna look very different than it did six years and then six years before, which you did touch on that. What are one or two things that you can say has really, you know, created that alignment for your business and yourself to feel good? And now your business is going forward in a different, not necessarily a different direction, that's the wrong choice of words, but growing in a different manner because its steward, its leader, like we talked about, we are the steward of our ship, its leader now has a better sense of alignment. What's one or two things you can tell me? And that, like you said, that pivotal six-month

Nervous System Tools For Leadership

SPEAKER_00 25:14

window.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

First of all, Dima, you know me. I do not do anything quickly. I do not, I'm again, I'm an over-sharer and over-explainer. Um, but you know, really learning about my nervous system, it was an ambiguous thing to me prior to six months ago. I didn't really under, like I knew what a nervous system was, but I didn't understand how it works. I didn't understand that every experience I've had in my life is stored in my nervous system. And it's constantly scanning the environment and saying safe or unsafe. We are safe or unsafe in this moment. And as someone who struggled with anxiety and depression and then turned to alcohol to help numb those things. Um and really the all that was doing was pouring gasoline on a fire. Um, you know, digging in and learning everything I have about regulating exercises and how to control my thoughts, not go down these extreme rabbit holes. Because the reason I'm successful, I quote, successful, right, or have been from day one in my business is an ADHD trait, and that is hyperfixation. When something is new, novel, or exciting to me, you can't stop me. I am all in and I will not stop learning. And that's why it was so I was able to build a business was because I was never gonna know everything there was to know about owning my own business. And so it was exciting. It was fun to learn all these new things, and now today I got to a point, you know, six months ago where I was like, well, I didn't care about anything new. Like, whatever. My business is growing every year. I don't have to do anything. Great. And could it have grown much faster, much you know, steadier? Um, could we have done a lot of things different if I had known about this? Everything that I've learned in the last six months? Yes. And that's what excites me now, right? That's what gives me excitement now in this journey is like, oh wow, like I understand myself on a completely different level. I have better tools to bring myself down in those moments where I start to spiral and think, you know, we are one bad tan away from everyone hating us and we're gonna end up in a van by the river. Um, because literally everything I own is on the line for my business. And so there's a stress, a daily stress that you have to live with and you have to learn how to control if you are gonna do things like that to grow your business. If you're gonna take on that, if you're gonna um hire staff and just trust other people to control the day-to-day. Right. So today it's nervous system regulation and being a good leader for the first time. Because frankly, the leader I've been in the past has been fly by the seat of your pants, throw everything at the wall, see what sticks, and mess things up in the studio or change things just to make it, quote, new, novel, and exciting for me. Um and now I have a better understanding that, you know, that's not a great way to run a business.

unknown 28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Well, I mean, it's not a great way, however, it affords you the capability to continue to move forward. Yes, it may not be like you said, you could have been scatterbrain, and I'm sure there's a lot of women resonating absolutely with that because you know, you even said just a few minutes ago that, you know, new novel differences.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

New novel and exciting.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Yeah, new novel and exciting. So that allowed you until you know to continue to move forward until you got to that perimenopause ADHD. You didn't know what was going on. Thank you, hormones, which and then let me tell you if you're gonna have a whole conversation box. Yes, and we probably should because if you're listening and you're under, I'll just say 40 or 45, you got it coming. And that's it's it's good too. Like there was some things like yes, so many beautiful things. So again, that's another podcast episode, too. Yes, but so I applaud you, number one, because if you don't know Shauna, Shauna's so um welcoming and so sharing and become so vulnerable to have these conversations, which are conversations that women need to have, I feel like, especially a woman who owns a business that is trying to grow a business, that works in a service-based business, creating a business that is more than pretty. So we're, you know, we are creating more than pretty. We're creating, you know, beautiful lives for ourselves, for our family, for a client. So I love that you you brought that all to a little nutshell this last six months. And I know you have lots to come and things to go forth, but it it also sounds like you had you had to go through those steps. And we we have to go through those hard seasons. We do, even in life and in business and all those

Creating Opportunities For Other Women

SPEAKER_00 30:41

things. So I want to ask you one question um that if you could answer, what does creating more than pretty look like to you? Or as I say that, like when I, you know, we were discussing the podcast name. What does that feel like or look like to you?

SPEAKER_01 31:01

For me today, it's creating um opportunities for others.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

And so um for a long time, I was the person in the business doing all the things and quote creating the pretty, right? I was the person providing the service. Yeah. And I made my first hire in 2016. So a long time ago. Yeah. Um, a decade now, I've had staff members and I've been able to create a business that has steadily grown and given other people opportunities to do something that they love and enjoy. And that is so incredibly rewarding for me. But it creates a whole new level of stress. It does when you when you're responsible for other people's livelihoods, that that's stressful. Um, you learn to live with it. And you know, the heart always changes, the stress, what causes the stress changes throughout the journey of your business. But creating more than pretty is creating opportunities for women specifically to work inside my business now that I created. And now they have the opportunity to create their own version of life and success within those walls and within the confines of recreating race. And that is incredibly rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Yeah. What a blessing, right? To be able to do that. And you know, for those who aren't afforded that or don't even want to take that aspect on, um, I'm gonna say one thing. There's no manual, which you and I talked about this before, and we'll continue to talk about. Like, we're all just figuring it out. We're literally all just figuring it out on the day-to-day. So uh Shauna is the most, in my opinion, inspiring person. You're one of the most inspiring friends I have. I love you so much. I look up to a lot of the things, and I love your wisdom and I love that you're willing to share because that's so important in today's society. Because again, um building a business that looks good on the outside is one thing, but building a business that feels good on the inside is a whole nother thing. And that's what this show is about. So I want to say thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being here. I will obviously list all your information in the show notes, but will you please tell everybody where they can find you?

Where To Find Shauna Online

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Sure. So um my personal slash uh coaching account, I am a business mentor now for spray tanning professionals in particular. Um, that is Shauna.dexter. So it's S-H-O-N-N-A.dexter. And then I am the creator of Sunless Legacy, which is my uh group mentoring program for Sunless Professionals. And that is at Sunless Legacy and then recreating raise at recreating rays. Um that's my that's my baby.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

Yeah, so yep, exactly. So now you have another baby as well. So your personal, your um mentor group, and then your spray tan studio. So yep, I um and what a great all three of them. I'm blessed to be a part of all three of those for the most part. One day I'll come get that spray tan from you at or one of your girls at your studio. It's coming up. It won't be me. I know it won't somebody else. So well, thank you, Shauna. It has been an honor and catch up with you again soon. Thanks, Dee. You're welcome.

Closing Reflection And Share Request

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Before I close, I want to leave you with this. Beautiful businesses aren't built by doing more, they're built by doing what actually matters. The boundaries you set, the standards you hold, and the way you care for yourself behind the scenes. Creating more than pretty means honoring that woman behind the work, not just the outcome she delivers. If this conversation resonated with you, please be sure to follow the show, plus leave me a review. And most importantly, be sure to share it with a woman who's building something meaningful and remind her she's allowed to do it her way. See you next time.