How we run our salon in our busiest season

February tried to take us out. Not in a dramatic way. In the quiet, sneaky way that happens when every weekend is booked, you’re living out of a suitcase, and you still need to show up for your team, your clients, and your family with a clear head.

Now that we’ve had a moment to zoom out, we’re reflecting on that season and what it taught us about leadership, pace, and staying grounded when everything feels full.

In this episode, we share a behind the scenes update from the Conscious Salon world while Tae’s away. From retreats we’ve locked in, to a live event idea we may have announced before securing a venue, to navigating the momentum of saying yes to opportunities that genuinely align with our values.

We also reflect on Salon Forum. The unexpected power of meeting inspiring people in real life. And a standout leadership moment where we watched someone handle disruption with total composure and what that taught us.

Then we take you to Tasmania. Hobart, Spring Bay Mill glamping, outdoor showers in wild weather, long lunches, near missed flights, and that very real feeling of being both grateful and completely exhausted.

If you are in the salon industry, running a small business, or moving through a busy season right now, this will feel very familiar. We talk about how to grow without losing yourself in the pace.

Most importantly, we break down the two simple anchors that helped us stay regulated through it all:
• A calendar that plans your whole life, not just work
• A daily mindful moment to reset before the day begins

If things have felt fast lately, this episode is your reminder to slow down, reset, and lead with more intention.

👉 Follow the show, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find tools that actually help.

To follow our journey:
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@the_conscious_salon

Transcript

Welcome Back Without Tae

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Alan Potty.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Good to be here, to be honest. Look at you, lady of luxury over there. She's got a whole lounge. I told you to lie down. The person on there needs to be tail missing. It's um it's giving um actually I feel like it what's brought you here today, Nikki.

Why We Owe You Updates

SPEAKER_00 0:23

If I lie down and talk about that, we'll be here for way too long. Um but we it's just us in the studio today. It's just us. We're missing Tay Tay. We are, which is devastating. Yep. But Tess, we wanted to jump on and do a little update because it's been a little while since we've spoken to our family, the people.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I realise I don't think we've updated you on anything this year.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Yeah, Tess was like, let's do a little update. And I was like, Oh, what are we updating on? And then Tess gave me a list of all the things we've done since we last updated, and I was like, oh, whoops. It's been a while. We have we've kept these guys out of the loop, which is not what we do here at the Conscious Salon.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

There's no gatekeeping.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

We like to keep you guys in the loop the good, the bad, the exceptionally hot. It's been a hot month. It's been a hot month, Feb.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah. And also pretty hot in Melbourne. There's been a lot of a lot of rain as well.

Retreats And A Live Event Idea

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Temperature-wise, also hot. But it's been a really expansive month for us personally, professionally. There's been a lot of travel. There's been oh my god, you traveled every month of the every week. Every week of the month. And we've also secured some pretty cool things for later in the year as well. A couple of retreats that we're running. We're now talking about doing a live event, which we talked about this morning in our founders' meeting. We do a founders' meeting every Monday.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

I would say talk was generous. It was mentioned. I was doing, I was still doing my makeup, so it was a real, real high level uh.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I was like, let's run this event. Um, was about to say the subject, but we won't say the subject. Let's run this event and um, you know, let's rope this person into doing it with us. And Des was like, yeah, cool. And then 20 minutes later, we're on a call and I announced it to everyone, and they were like, Oh, like, where is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

What's the date? I was like, oh nothing's confirmed, guys.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

It's like Nikki, you're all asking me what's the date and where is it gonna be?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, we'll keep hosting. No, we're used to being in so many events, she's like, she's booking and giving, yeah. I was like, Are you gonna set up a Zoom invitation as well? What's happening?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Like, is it online or in person? I was like, haha, in person it'll be for sure. But yeah, it was um a little bit like we we move quick, that's a bit too quick.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Like, we hadn't even locked it. And I was like, you said that you guys are finding out before the other guests and Taya. So Taya doesn't even know. That is absurd. I was like, I'm not even clear on what it is. I know.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Uh yeah, Catherine, she'll she'll have no idea. Like, can we please look at all these venues? Totally.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

She doesn't even know yet. No, but Nikki's getting it out anyway. So that that's that's in the pipeline. We'll let you guys know when we've got it a bit clearer. Um, but it's been a big couple of weeks, especially February was huge. February, I we changed the language around it in our house. We were calling it fuck off February or fucked up February because it was so busy. Fabulous February. It's also my son's first birthday in there, too. So that feels really expensive to be referring to it like that. But look, I think we're homebodies, Mick and I. So the idea of like we love being at home, like it's pretty hard to get us out of our home, actually. Like we're real turtles there. Anytime it's like, let's do a family event at our house, let's do this at our house. Let's do this. It's always at your place at our house. And I think we look, we are we're little, we're little um like hermit crabs. We don't like moving outside of it. So having an entire month of travelling. And I know I've run a book of February is only 28 days or 29 in a leap year. No. But it was lots of weekends. It was four weekends, guys. And it was for a lot of time for living out of a suitcase.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

I'm um we don't like traveling, but I just realize it's just dawned on me now. We travel a lot for work and like we choose to do that. And we both don't like traveling that much.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

But I do feel like it's different when it is like a couple of weeks in between, when it's every single weekend and you're coming home for like a couple of days and then you're going again. It it was a lot, but I'm really grateful for it. Huge opportunities, huge leveling up. We've met some incredible people.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, we're whinging about it. Thank you so much to the people who took us away. We're really depressed.

Salon Forum Wins And Connections

SPEAKER_01 4:29

But we did, we loved it. We went to the Salon Forum. That was fucking epic. So good. That was so great. Uh got some new besties there. Did declare that I wanted a few new ones. I did say I'm gonna be besties with Tabitha. I wouldn't say we're besties, but we did connect. And she did say, here's my email. I was like, give it to Nikki. The next day, I did get your email, and I said, Great, what did I say?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

I had emailed her. I had emailed her, let's read it together. I had emailed her that night, and I was like, Oh, yeah, you know, this is what we wanted to discuss. And then she came up to Tess and was like, now I got your email afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

She was like, Great job, I'm actioning. I was like, Yeah, I'm really good like that. Refresh my memory as to what I said. Um, but that was great because that was yeah, that was cool. So I will say that we're fast friends now.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

She hasn't responded to my last email. She's so insanely cool, and her presence is like, I would say she's like unfuckable with. And it was really interesting because she had a couple of challenging moments at the um at the conference when she was, you know, she was doing different keynote speeches and things like that. And there was a couple of things that I was like, wow, that would rattle most people. And the way that she handled it with so much composure and such, like she was she she is unfuckable. Why are you laughing? Because you're not saying what was that?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

She was effectively heckled by a drunk idiot. Oh God, God love her. It was so good, but yeah, she Nikki's Nikki's not wanting that. She was though, but she she was, but I was also like, you are playing into her stream. She well, that might be and that might not. We'll see what we'll see what comes of it. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? Get Tabitha on. She was lightly heckled, yes. And it was a fun heckle. It wasn't like it wasn't malicious, wasn't nasty. Yeah. It was just disruptive. It was yeah, just a little bit disruptive. You've had a couple of drinks, you get a bit confident, you think, oh, they'll love this. And then everyone's like, What are you doing? It was just like that. But she handled that amazingly. Yeah, she handled it like a champ. It was a beautiful leadership. It was great, but she has a you know, I'm gonna shout out Mama was there. A beautiful girlfriend, Sheridan.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Oh, Sheridan.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

And her fabulous manager, I'm giving him a shout out. Tom, another one of my best human alive. Stunning. We're catching up soon. Just decided that Saturday's another. Yep. We're locking it in. Tom and I kept doing the give me keys and I've heard enough. Give me keys from taking over.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

I I had no idea what you were when you first did that. You're like, give me your keys. I was like, what do you need the car keys for? No, but I just didn't I didn't clock to it. I didn't clock to it.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

It's okay. Tabitha, Dal, if you're watching, don't don't judge off this alone, okay?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

No, but I just I I didn't watch the the episodes like you did. Don't get me wrong, like love it.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Everyone's like, don't make your heroes.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

When you're like I met mine. When you're like, give me your keys or whatever, when you made that joke, I didn't understand right.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

It's like why? It's so good. Tom got it. He was like, I've heard enough, give me your keys. But so we're having a fabulous time with that. We didn't I didn't say that, I should have, but we did we did interact quite a bit, and that was fantastic. Made a new friend with Tom. Sheridan, always lovely to see. Sophie Hilton, another name I'm gonna drop. All these names I'm dropping all over the floor.

unknown 8:02

There you go, Jessica.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

Sophia Hilton, Sophia Hilton, fantastic, incredible, so great, and just a beautiful human. Like just a beautiful human. Like, and it's really interesting, really fabulous time there.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Jesse?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Jessica? Jessica.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

My new, my new best friend. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

You guys actually were best friends, and I was like, I was exceptionally left out, which was fine. Um, but you she is just a beautiful human. You had that with Sophia, really? Yeah, you you two are very loved. She's beautiful. Loz.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Oh my god, Loz.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Loz Main from Rumours of Truth. This has become a really fast twank fest, hasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Oh my god, me like famous. All these words tumbling out of my mouth, all these names. I can't keep them in.

Tasmania Glamping And Travel Chaos

SPEAKER_00 8:43

But the forum was it was really cool. And Nat, who is I think she's the general manager, I actually don't know what her title was. I thought she was the founder, and then when we met Cass, I was like, oh my god, who is this exceptionally beautiful man? Not a sentence I say very often, but breach. And then hearing, you know, I'm gonna be really honest. We get opportunities like this that that present to us quite often and we're really conscious of what we say yes and no to. And when Nat came in with this, we were so values aligned, and what we want for the industry and what they want for the industry is so unbelievably aligned that it was just a no-brainer to say yes to going to this. So we went to Tasmania and we went to a place called Spring Bay Mill. So it's like you you go to Hobart, we we landed in Hobart, we took Tay Tay along as well so that she could um bust out her best content. And we flew into Hobart. That was stunning. Did we mill million the flight on the way there or the way back? No, the way back. And then no, the way they're ample time. Perfect. That's my sort of vibe. But we drove into Hobart, stayed at Hobart the night, um, had a long lunch, which escalated quite quickly. For some of us, not for all of us. Nikki really escalated fast. Like But do you know what's funny? You and Taya, everyone had the same to drink. I just can't handle alcohol that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

It's the same, but it's a different speed. You are you're a thirsty girl. You knock them back. Throw them back. You throw them back. Which is like, but Nikki, I started getting an inkling. Look, we were all a bit tiddly, but I had a feeling you were a bit Oh, I came out of the bathroom and I was like, I'm on a boat. No, we wanted to commandeer a boat. I don't know if you remember that. There was a like ship at the harbour, and you were like, should we get on the boat?

SPEAKER_00 10:35

I was like, let's I was like, it'll be so funny if we got like some content on the boat. And Taylor Taylor was like, Yeah, let's do it. I was like, Yeah, see you guys. I know it wasn't it wasn't my smartest move. But anyway, we made it to the next morning. We went to Spring Bay Mill and we um picked up Jess Lewis on the way, and that was just amazing. That was great.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

She wanted to do um Hair of the Dog, which I absolutely was like, yeah, sis. Like, if I wasn't convinced that we were best friends, I am now.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Oh my gosh, it was like it's ignoring just thinking about her. But um, we got to Salon Forum and had a couple of days there, and the the property's really interesting, the retreat space, because we were glamping, which I'm like, I love a camp, so we were absolutely in our element. Um, it's and it was so beautiful. What's honey? I like glamping. Oh well, actually, yeah, well, we have one.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I'm not a huge glamper, I'm not a huge camper either, but it was fun.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Oh, by we I meant man tell.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

I was gonna say it's certainly not referring to me. I'm quite a brat. Tess is not a camper. No, but it was really cool and and it did make you sleep with a heater on, and I was really grateful for the heater. So it's like I'm I'm a bit cold. And also Tassie in itself is just beautiful. Stunning. Absolutely beautiful. But it was in the middle of nowhere, which was good for like the wilderness and like being in the middle of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

We did have an outdoor shower, but it was like blowing a gale false wind. So all the all the actual the shower head, all the water was blowing away. So you sort of had to stand in eyesight of the of the world.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Which I did, and I was like, enjoy the show, guys, because I need to have a rinse. That was very good. But we did, we almost missed the flight home, was the big one, but we got there, thankfully. Um, just because we were, you know, too busy saying goodbye to all of our famous lots of famous friends. Say goodbye to couldn't possibly have left without saying goodbye to them all. Make sure. They've all got my contacts.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

And shockingly, you have heard from none of them.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

I've heard from all of them. Actually, we have heard except for Tabitha. I'm waiting on, which I'll follow up today. You'll follow up today, Vima.

Helicopters And Team Christmas Party

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Of course. But it was a really cool opportunity, and I think it's being though that the this is where we really go back to values, and I think this is so important when you have those gut instincts telling you that the values are aligned and that you hear someone who's on the same mission as you it's just so important to listen to that. You know, so that was really cool. We also had our Christmas party in the mix.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

That was huge, yeah. I think that was the weekend before. That was great. We had um, where do we go for that?

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Oh, we flip the girl put the girls in the helicopter, they love that. We've charted two helicopters before. I've I have not been in a single helicopter ever in my life. Have you not?

SPEAKER_01 13:14

No, I've never been in a helicopter. I've been in two. Whoops. Cool. Didn't go on the last one, but that's yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Well, we've charted two private helicopters and I've not seen it.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

I did mark that up though for Nikki because Nikki, Nikki's a details girly. And so we thought it would be funny if when the girls were arriving, Nikki and I would be like decked out like um drivers. So we had like ties, you know, shirts had to be tucked in. So I was like, duh, we've had babies, so I feel like we don't need to tuck the shirt in if we don't want to. Um but we were in like the the penguin suits, effectively, to pick them up. We had gone, we'd gotten like the A-team on the iPad so that they knew that we were there to pick them up. Took it really seriously. Nikki had done champagne on arrival for the girls. Oh, so the big details that you'd gone to of getting their hand towels for them to I did like scented hand towels.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Like I'd I'd got um peppermint um essential oil and made cold refreshing towels for them so that when they got off the plane they could like wipe their hands or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I had to imagine because um I left out the front door when we got there. Nikki thought I was joking, so he kept saying, No, seriously, where are they? And I was like, I'm deadly serious, they're at the house. I know.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

What was the guy's name in the um flight place? It was like Ian or someone, I'm sure. Met with Ian. And he was like, Oh, it's happy hour in the um in the little like like find an airport or whatever. He was like, It's a happy hour. Do you want to come in? And there was like a sea of 80-year-olds.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

It was effectively like a gazebo, but then the second that Nikki and I got there, I was like, I feel like this is personal because he was like, Everyone, this is Nikki and Tess. Like they've got their um who coming and they were like, hey, and then one of them literally said, We're just gonna go and look at something else, which I was like, Okay, well, what's happening? It's kind of airport, it's not like it's like flooded with aeroplanes, it's also the airport, it's a gazebo that we were in and some football fields. It was like it was like a um, what's that thing when in club when we're in school and they have their the like classroom, they like plonk on um portable portable and a portable with a gazebo on a couple of football fields. That's what we're it was beautiful. Thanks for having us again, kind of and Roger, if you're listening, it's not your name.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

What was his name?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

I can't remember anyway. It was they clicked out of there like that. They wouldn't they did, it was definitely us. It was they were like hiding behind the car.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

I was like, what's what have we done? But it was pretty cool because we got our team, we we we like to do Christmas parties big, like on a big scale. And some of you guys would have seen on social media because we posted a couple of little videos, but basically our team were at the salon, they finished up with their clients, we FaceTimed them and said, go to our locker, pick up an envelope, open the envelope, and in there it's going to have something that has the next step in there. And then they opened it and it had we'd made these the amount of time and energy that we've spent on this project is like so ridiculous. We could have started another business, but we made them like um actual plane tickets. They actually looked real, they were great, they were like the detail that we went to.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

I wonder if any of them tried to use it.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

That would have been hilarious if they probably not. But um, they had a little ticket in there and it said like they're going to Marabon Airport and gonna get chartered by a helicopter. Um, and then we came and picked them up, so met them at the at the finish line, and they were all so excited. Like that's that's where I just think it's so priceless when they get it's beautiful, so yeah, yeah, you literally can't put a price on that. Um we can I certainly can. It was seven grand actually to fly that helicopter. So I guess you can put a price on it at the end of the day. 100%. But it's worth it. Just to give them an experience like that where they're just so excited, yeah, and they to give them opportunity that they may not have had before is sick.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

It's like one of our um newest girls, Ava, who oh bless her, she's so beautiful. But she was just oh she FaceTimed her sister and then got her on the front. She's like, Can you believe that this is my life? That's what she said. She's so beautiful. Sweet girl.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

She told me that her family said, Um, who do you work for? The FBI.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Effectively, yeah. So it's been great. But we had that, we had Yonah come out, of course. Um, he came out and delivered a delicious dinner. We had a beautiful weekend away. It was so nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

So we stayed in Dalesford. We had this beautiful house in Dalesford. That was incredible. That was the nicest house we've ever hired.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

I found it as well, guys. It's rarity that I find a really good one.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

And you've never found a single house. I've never looked, let's be honest. I've never looked. Catherine does all of our looking and then she puts them in phone.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

I don't know why I did. I think I was just really determined to I don't know why I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

I don't know. You just send it through well. Thank you, Jess. Everything okay? Right. Um, but yeah, we stayed in in Daleshood, which was just so beautiful and had two really nice intentional nights with our team. Um, and really beautiful quality time, which is what it's all about. And it was amazing.

Calendars Breathwork And Daily Anchors

SPEAKER_01 18:18

Wait, reason that I wanna thought would be interesting to do a bit of an update on this because yes, and then we've had our own personal things in between that as well. Like I'll um I had a whatever, I had a mixed music festival, so I had to bring the kids down and do all that, which was great. Well done, Dale. You've done a two- You're not listening anyway, don't worry about it. But we also had a couple and then something the weekend before. Every weekend had stuff, and when you look at our month of February, every single day has got something on it. There's not a day, actually no, there's one day that had nothing on it. Do you know what day it was? What day? River's birthday. River's birthday. Beautiful. Which we had just blanked. And to be fair, we actually arrived home that morning, I think at 3 a.m. I got through the door because we'd left straight from Tasmania to go back to that. And I thought this would be a good conversation because we were stretched pretty thin. We had a fair bit on, we had we had to be in a lot of places at once, we had a lot of meetings, things so forth that we had to get to. I want to give the people something tangible because as much as I'm loving just like sitting here and talking about all the fabulousness and all my famous.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

What are you gonna make tangible out of this?

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Well, how what is one thing that has been the most what needle moving like what how how have you like what would you put down like for the best thing month?

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Yeah. Good question. I'm gonna say I want to say two things, but I'm just gonna say one. A calendar. You can't be because I still having a calendar which includes my movement, my meal prep, literally where like travel time, every single thing. I was gonna say my movement in the morning, just having that hour to myself is so important to me when I feel overwhelmed because I literally feel like I can't hold space for anybody else until I've had an hour to myself, and I'm just like, no one fuck with me in that time. But having a calendar where I mark out every single minute of every single day that I have, it just keeps me going one day at a time. I think that's the Alcoholics Anonymous motto, but it applies here as well. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

All right, great. So yours is planning out the calendar, writing it all down. Alright, amazing. Mine was gonna be that that it should have gone first, but didn't, so that's all right lesson there. I would say outside of that, every single oh, I'm also gonna say two things, but I'll only say one. Which our dad would be very happy to say either, because he always says two things. Mindful moment every single day has been something that has been so important to me that mindful moment can change each day. But I've had that conscious time. And I'm gonna give a bit of an example as to what that is. Majority of it is I put on a song, I've shared this before. I put on I choose a song, I do three to five minutes, however long the song is, of intentional breath. It's not a breathwork journey, it's just literally choosing a type of breath style, whether it is infinity breath, evening out, just trying to make sure that there's no stop and start of my breath. Whether it is creating energy, holotropic breath, you know, really fast breathing to get to get some fuel into me, or whether that is really no bitter um four and six, breathing in for four and then out for six, really grounding myself down. Whatever breath I was needing in that day, I made sure that I did that every single day. Sometimes even just like when I was in the shower, in the bathroom. Small moments of that to really make sure that I was regulating myself. Sometimes it would be journaling. Actually, ever I always journal every night before bed. Journaling every night. Sometimes it would be literally just choosing to not pick up my phone straight away. And I know this is stuff that we bang on about constantly. Like we are repeating, repeat, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. We are the most predictable human beings on the planet. But it's because of these practices we're able to hold what we hold and be in all of these different places and show up no matter what is going on. No matter what is going on, no matter how like thinly stretched we are, we show up giving a hundred percent, always ready to go, like ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

When the reserves are low, those things go out the window. So as much as you say like it's predictable and consistent, yes, because when you when you are stretched thin, there's nowhere to go. Yeah. I think that's huge for people to anchor into something. So February's fuck off February's been big.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Fabulous February, we're now referring to it. We've reframed it and it's now fabulous February.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Fuck off February. Um Fabulous February, whatever you want to call it. But it that's a season that was really big for us, really, really busy. And I think this is great because other people listening are gonna go, Whoa, that's my March. That's my March, or that's gonna be my July. So that's what you're gonna anchor into.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yeah, so instead of um Manic March, we're gonna have mellow march. Magnificent March Mellow March. No, I like that better. Stunning.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

All right, great. Thank you guys so much for listening for another to what? Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the Conscious Hell Podcast. Love you guys. Stay conscious.