We Almost Walked Away from Our Business (Here’s What Saved It)

Every successful business has challenges behind the scenes. This episode is about one of ours.

For the first time, we're sharing how close we came to walking away—not just from our business, but from our partnership as sisters.

What looked strong on the outside was carrying pressure, frustration, and patterns we didn't fully understand. It wasn't until we committed to doing the work together that things began to change.

In this honest and vulnerable conversation, we unpack the lessons that transformed the way we communicate, navigate conflict, and lead both our business and our relationship.

Whether you're working with family, leading a team, managing a partnership, or simply trying to improve an important relationship in your life, this episode will give you practical tools and powerful mindset shifts you can apply immediately.

Inside this episode:

✨ The hidden pressure that can build when you work closely with someone you love
💭 Why conflict is rarely about who's right and who's wrong
🔄 How opposite conflict styles can create ongoing tension and misunderstanding
🧠 The mindset shift that changed everything: seeking to understand before being understood
⚡ The "Auto vs Manual" framework and how it transformed our communication
🚩 The warning signs most people ignore until it's too late
🛠️ Why waiting for things to get bad is one of the biggest mistakes you can make
🤝 How we rebuilt trust, respect, and connection when things felt stretched too far
🌿 The role emotional responsibility plays in leadership and relationships
❤️ What to do when the other person isn't meeting you halfway

This isn't just a conversation about therapy. It's a conversation about growth, self-awareness, leadership, and the courage to work on the relationships that matter most.

If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it.

Join Us Live This September

If you're a salon owner ready to step away from the day-to-day and work on your business instead of constantly working in it, we'd love to see you at Off the Floor.

Hosted by The Conscious Salon and Salon Society, Off the Floor is an intimate two-day event designed to help you build stronger leadership, gain financial clarity, improve your marketing, and create the systems that give you more freedom as a business owner.

📍 QT Gold Coast
📅 7–8 September 2026
🎟️ Strictly limited to 36 salon owners

Learn more and secure your ticket:
https://the-conscious-salon.circle.so/off-the-floor 

To follow our journey:
Instagram @aheadhair_
@the_conscious_salon

Transcript

Sponsor And Quick Catch-Up

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode of the Conscious Ellen Podcast is brought to you by CPR Hair. Welcome back to the Conscious Salon podcast. Good. Just us. It feels so weird to be just us without Taylor or just us without a guest, but it's just not.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Love you, Jaden. Yeah, I was going to say he's he's at it, he's off.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

But we're back with another episode of the Conscious Alan potty. We are. Tess, it's been a moment and we're going to really reveal ourselves today and talk about.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

It sounds like we're getting nude, we're not. Sorry, everyone. Sorry, Jaden. Keeping our clothes behind today.

Why We Started Therapy Together

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Um, Tess, we're gonna talk today about going to therapy. And we're gonna reveal ourselves a little bit with talking about where we're at. Yeah. So let's just dive straight in. I recently shared on Instagram that you and I are seeing a therapist.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

We're seeing like a um a She's a relationships and sex therapist, which might be a bit um controversial as sisters.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

We're not seeing her for sex therapy, but we are seeing her for relationship therapy. And she mostly works with couples. I don't actually know if she ever works with family members, but she definitely works with couples.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Um she may or may not branch out after dealing with us. We'll I guess we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Exactly. But it has been life-changing for us, and we recently at our private client retreat, we talked about the fact that we were in therapy, and a lot of the girls were really surprised, surprised to hear that we were in therapy and surprised to hear this other side to our dynamic and how we're working on our dynamic at the moment.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

I think um probably one of the biggest questions that Nick and I get asked. I would say, like, so quickly.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I know what you're gonna say. People like, do you guys fight? Yeah, do you guys fight? People ask us that literally every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Every day. And obviously, we fight. Like, we're sisters who have three businesses together who you know also share our families.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Like whenever women ask us, do you fight? I'm like, Did you grow up with brothers? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Or even in the child. Exactly. But I feel with this, you know, we have so many layers to our dynamic. We're business owners, we're, you know, family members, we're um like best mates as well, we're effectively like joined at the hip. It's pretty rare that we go longer than a couple of hours without communicating or being around each other. So naturally, with that, there comes conflict.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

You know that scene in the Kardashians where Courtney and Kim are like hitting the shit out of each other, and then they go to a family function like the next day or whatever, and they're like talking and having fun. Nothing is more relatable than that moment. That's us.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I was like, when people were like shocked at that, I was like, what? Like, was that unusual? It's a regular dynamic. It is, but I feel with this, and excuse me. Why we wanted to talk about this today is because although you know what we put out is definitely who we are and how we show up, there's also the other part that we do keep more private, which because obviously it'd be pretty stupid to put us in like huge conflict and when we're like we should do a poll on Instagram.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Who's right, Nikki or Tess and air our dirty laundry?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

No, Dale, because you wouldn't be able to handle the results. No, but with this, there are moments where like we are human beings at the at the end of the day, and we are having a human experience and we are learning how to navigate all of these things: motherhood, business ownership, um, you know, entrepreneurship, expansion, you know, holding space for ourselves, for our clients, so many different levels that we have to our life. Naturally, and this I absolutely know to be true, the people that we tend to like be our authentic selves with, or the people that we will feel comfortable to release some of that pressure or tension is either it's the people that are closest to us. And so for you and for me, it's our partners and each other. So either Mick's gonna be my punching bag or Nick is gonna be my punching bag. And for you, it's either me or Pete. And I feel with this, we've been able to track pretty well, especially when we had the salon. We'd like have arguments and things like that where we'd have, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I feel like it was easier in the salon because it was more public. Like, I just want to be super real right now.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

I feel like because we Tess and I, our therapist brought this in actually. The therapist told us in our first session through our different um, what is it, the styles, like through our different emotional processing styles and like conflict resolution styles, she said on paper, you guys are completely incompatible. That was actually really hard

Sisters Who Work Together Still Fight

SPEAKER_00 4:45

to hear, like, whoa, someone's saying that we're incompatible on paper. And when you look at your conflict resolution style and my conflict resolution style, they're completely different. So Tess is are you okay if I show this?

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Nope. So Tess is no, I've said no.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Tess is the type of person who like I will What's mine called? Let's see if she's been listening. Yours is you're the you're wanting to connect in that moment, you want to reconnect. So Tess's thing is like this fear for lack of a better word, like fear of someone abandoning her. So she goes into the mode of being like, oh my gosh, hang on, wait, come back, come back, we've got to resolve it, we've got to resolve it. And she'll try in that moment to connect and resolve. And I'm a person who walks away. So when things get too hard, it's like fight, flight, freeze. I'm flight. So I'm out of it. You need to process, you need space to decompress. I need time and space to process and decompress. So immediately the therapist brought in that we are completely incompatible. And that was really interesting to hear of like, wow, actually on paper, our styles of how to resolve conflict is it we don't recognize or respect each other's styles. So, how can we get better at understanding and respecting each other's styles and actually saying that and saying, yes, I understand and respect your style, but actually putting that into play when you're in a conflict are two completely different things because when you're dysregulated in a conflict under pressure, it's very hard to be like, oh hang on, let's just go back to that thing that we learned about each other's different styles. But this work that we've done with our therapist has been completely transformational and life-changing.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

It started when we first were like working together. We were able to like have conflicts, and as you said, it was in a public place. So the conflict wasn't really that deep. I felt it was quite surface level. You'd have a couple of blow-ups here and there. Taya would probably argue that it wasn't it was public. But we were able to navigate through it. Then when we started doing conscious, that obviously added in another parameter. Sorry, prior to that, we had the podcast, so that added in another element. Then we had the um podcast. Sorry, then we've had conscious, can I speak? Ahead, podcast, conscious. Those three things now have become a big part of our foundation. Um so we're really good at creating together. We're really good at um having ideas, and the way that we work in terms of our work ethic is pretty similar. We're both like ready to go, we're happy to like do the work and we get get shit done. You then add in different elements of um parenting, um, raising families together, having friendships together, um managing finances together. Yeah, it starts getting the conflicts start building, building, building. And what we were what actually pushed us to start doing therapy was because we had spent so much time, I think being able to, you know, push things to the side or let things go or whatever. And then a stacking effect started occurring where we weren't able to, whether it was like um bounce back from when we'd blow out at each other or like some of the things, whether it was what we were saying or the actions or the choices, that with band started getting really, really weak. And I would almost say it went from being like a stretchy elastic where we could really pull it out and pull it back and have quite a bit of um, I guess, bounce to it. It was becoming really tightly and like starting to tear apart. And also within this dynamic dynamic that we have, we also have a lot of um estrangement in our family. There are people that have and like close people have cut each other off. Like I'm talking actually, siblings who have done this. So this was a really big, I think, issue that we started realizing that we when we started entering therapy, and we we have worked with quite a few therapists over the years, and we'd be like, oh yeah, we've gotten what we need out of that, or we we've got the idea now,

Our Clash Of Conflict Styles

SPEAKER_01 8:40

we'll grant Channel on our own. What I felt was different this time was we were heading down a path where it was like, okay, we need to make a choice of either we're gonna be sisters or we're gonna be business partners. And the two can't can exist together anymore because we're either gonna be good sisters to each other or good business partners. We can't be both. And it was getting the resistance in the band to completely gone. So when we reached out to our therapist Eliza, one of the biggest things I felt was different this time was it no longer became about who was right. We weren't going in there to be like, I want this person to tell the other that she's wrong and that she's doing a bad thing, and that if she just did this, then she's gonna get, then we'll get to that. Which I would say had been our mentality before. Well, I know I can speak on my behalf, actually. I would go into sessions and be like, therapist agreed with me today. Like, stunning. And when she's agreed with you, I'd be like, Well, I don't love working with her anymore. And this is a dynamic that kept playing out. What I found this time in that we're both aware of the patterns and behaviors that already exist in our family, of that estrangement is not unusual. We're aware of the fact that we don't have the same ability to just bounce back and snap back the way that we once could. And that if we don't improve this, you know, our kids are watching this. So they're gonna start learning from us. And they're the three of them are siblings within each other. Granted, one's a cousin, cousin brother, but we go with that. So we need to start setting a standard for them about how we treat each other, how we work together, and having really clear, safe boundaries. And I felt like this is the first time we entered into a therapy where we weren't looking to win. Because I think what the biggest lesson has been in this is that we've learnt that if one of us win on our own, we lose. Because you can't I can't get to where I want to get to with you as a sister or a business partner if I win, because that means that you don't. So then how can we have that level out? And you might be sitting there thinking, how does this tie into bringing this into the podcast? The biggest shift that I've seen with this, and the biggest thing that I know to be true, is that we're not um on our own with this, we're not unique with our experience with this. This is something that I know and I hear people talk about actually, I think if every person took a moment now to actually sit in truth and actually do a bit of self-evaluation at their dynamics and their partners and their relationships and their friendships. Any any relationship that is of of importance to you, I think if you were really sitting in like assessment with that, there would be someone amongst that who was very close to you that is constantly your villain. The one that is doing the wrong thing, not doing right by you, X, Y, Z. And it's easy to sit there and keep saying how much they don't do and you know, I'm not happy because of this person and X all the things that come up. But what I've known to be true in this point, it wasn't about either of us winning. It wasn't about one being a victim and one being a villain. It was about us going in and learning how to understand each other better. And as you're doing this self-assessment when you're looking at your own relationships, I want to ask you guys do you want to get to a point of understanding this person better? Because the biggest thing that's come out of therapy since we've been in it is that for me it's not about Nikki hearing me and hearing that either I'm right or she's right. It's about how can I every session, we've got a session tonight, every session I go in with the intention of I want to understand her rather than being understood. And I feel like this is one of the things that is missed so much, and when people start entering into therapy or however they do it, they want to go in so that someone else can tell their significant other or person that they're doing the wrong thing. And if you're going in with that mentality, you will already lose. And I truly believe this is the only change because Eliza's not really telling us. I mean, she's fucking amazing. We absolutely adore her. But what she's telling us isn't new information. It's just because we are now walking into it.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

It's a different perspective. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

But it has been one of the most because we were really at that point of being like, cool, we need to make a choice. We're either gonna keep our businesses and we need to like separate as sisters.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

I think a lot of people will be really surprised to hear this because we work so well together.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

We work so, so well together, and when it's good, it's great. And then there's two really strong um I want to say opinionated, but I'm not gonna say opinionated, assertive women who, you know, it it is. We're like two fiery sort of women, and you put that into a sister dynamic and then put a lot of time together and a lot of pressure together. And it could be a complete recipe for disaster, but yeah, I think that it was at a point where we were ready to walk away from everything that we had last year, and our clients were so shocked hearing this at the retreat, like they all had no idea. And they would have obviously would have never seen that version of us. And the thing is that we

Auto Versus Manual In Arguments

SPEAKER_00 14:30

can work really well together, like really, really well when we have the ability to go, okay, put that aside, let's get our professional hat on, we'll do the work that we need to do, and then um, you know, I'll tell you a dickhead later on.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

And then not speak for however long.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

Exactly. But I think the biggest thing that we've had is that perspective shift and and being able to see each other and therapy being it's like one of the biggest things that I recommend people to do now when they come to us and the amount of women that have come to us recently and said, I'm having trouble in my relationship, or I'm having trouble with my sister or my family member or my mum. There's like so much mum wounding that happens around us that people are coming to us and saying this, and one of the first things that we say is that having this different perspective has completely changed our lives. Can I share one thing that I've learned in therapy that's been life-changing? Yeah. So, one thing that our therapist brought in is this ideology of are you in manual or are you in auto? Oh my god, I could cry just saying it. And what's happened is because Tess and I have had 35 years or 30, yeah, 35 years of being one particular way together, we are so automated in that response. It's kind of like if you're driving a car and something jumps out at you, you'd slam the brake on it. It's like an automatic response. And we're so automated with the way that we treat each other and the way that we go into conflict that when we were learning a new routine or a new way of being, we had to switch into manual. And we actually had to use the phrase, am I in auto at the moment? Do I need to switch into manual? And it was this little phrasing of like these little habits that we would initially have of when someone brought in that negative energy, the other person would jump onto it, and then we'd start nitpicking, and then we'd start to, you know, share resentment that we'd built up, and then it would just blow up into this huge thing. And it really is that has been literally life-changing in terms of understanding that hang on, it's a it's an automated response that I'm about to have. And if I want to change this behaviour, I actually have to switch into manual and go from one thing to another. I feel like I have to explain my neck because I have had the sorest neck, I've got a frozen neck. I know, but I feel like people watching on YouTube are like, I've forgotten the place to lean D on. No, but I said I said to Pete this morning, though. I was like, I'm I'm podcasting today and I've got a frozen neck. I've got a really sore neck. I can't move my head, I can't turn my head left to right. And I said to Pete, and I'm podcasting this morning, and he said, it could be worse. You could be going to the Australian Open. It's so sore.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

But my point is that nothing like breaking up a serious conversation with a bit of humour.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

With the therapy, like the auto and manual.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I think with that, why that's been so and like look, it is, and it can be a bit clunky at the beginning. Like even when we were starting, it doesn't feel like super expansive when you're really pissed off and someone's like, um, are you in auto? Are you in manual? Like it can't be challenging. However, now it's become such a thing where we can just hear auto manual and we can flip in and out of it. It is really though, above everything else. And I think this is the thing that people wait too long to go to these like places, whether it's for yourself, whether it's for your relationship, whether it's for, you know, your sibling, whoever it doesn't matter, whoever it is. Don't get to the point where you're like, it's this or the end, which we did. We did. Because even with that we've taken it's taken us quite a bit of work to get to where we're at now. But it how much better it would have been had we have gotten there so much faster. Had we have just like, because we know, like, you know, we knew the last fit therapist we finished up with, we were like a bit early, but we've gotten what we need, or whatever it was, whatever the reason was, we were too busy or whatever it is. And now I think more than ever, especially when I think about how we've shown up with this therapy, we've gone into this at a time where we really don't have the freedom and flexibility in this season. You know, you you know, like we've had a lot of things happening, and we are still prioritizing that above potential where we're giving

Three Practical Tips And Don’t Wait

SPEAKER_01 18:40

up at the minute. We're giving up dinner and connective time with our families tonight. And we have been together all day after facilitating retreat last week, after um, like we have so many hours, like people that this would be the easiest thing for us to negotiate and push out and just be like, you know what, we don't need this much. We're not we're not in conflict. We'd actually, I feel like well, unless you you may have difference. I have no notes. I'm going into this being like I've got no notes either.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

And the smug part of the second one in a row, can I the smug part of me can't wait to go in and say, Um, Eliza, your star students have done really well for the past month.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

But I feel with this, the point with this, it doesn't mean that things don't come up. And sometimes, like where I can see things have changed and shifted for us so many times prior to this, is that we've constantly been looking for that. I'll be happy when. I'll be happy when she admits that she fucked up, or um, you know, we get back on the same page, or blah, blah, blah, blah. We're like holding hands off until the sunset. What I feel has happened in this time is that we know it's gonna be ongoing work. This is something we need to keep committing to. And if we don't show up tonight, even though we're in a good place, even though we've had all these pressures, even though we don't have the time, um, you know, flexibility that we once did in this moment. I'm very conscious of how I'm speaking with that. It's a commitment and it's a and it's making sure that even though it's all looking good, I'm not gonna risk this falling out of the bandwagon because we've got 35 years behind us of bad habits and bad treatment versus six months of better treatment and learning new things. And I think of the easy.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Well, we're not gonna skip like a car service just because the car hasn't shit itself yet.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Totally. Gotta book mine in. Thanks for reminding me.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

I was like speaking to my boyfriend Pete, who hasn't had a bus service in five years, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yeah, that's yeah, that's yeah. Take Pete, we're gonna book a service together. But I think with this, if I can give, I'm gonna give three three practical teas for anyone that's like pracky tease for anyone that's like listening to us and be like, oh this might be me, I don't know, blah blah blah blah. First, first practice, if you're thinking this might be me, it probably is. So pick up the phone and start doing some moving around. Like looking around for what who is best for you. Ours is online, so she's great. You can do it from anywhere. The second thing do not go into this situation wanting to win. If you're going into this as a dynamic. Don't go in for an ego metric. Don't go in for someone to be like, she's right and you're wrong. Really make sure that you're going in because your intention is I want to understand the other person. I don't care if I'm hurt. I need to understand that person because then you'll start having that connection. Third thing, I want you to tell what you've said about um you go. Well, I'm gonna pretty much share it on your behalf now.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Why is words?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

If you are going in with a partner and that person decides that they don't want to do that, they don't do it, or they say, I'm not going tonight. Go to the therapy anyway and make that therapy be about you. I'm here, so-and-so isn't. Help me work with this dynamic.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Yeah. You go whether your partner or your sibling wants to or not. You go, and if they don't want to come, you go and you say to the therapist, help me because the person won't come. What do I do?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

And bonus tip, don't wait for it to get to desire to a disaster. If you're thinking about it, go now.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Yeah. I think it's great. This is gonna help a lot of people. And I hope so. I think it's also really important to see that we we will always share what's happening, you know, where when appropriate to do so, obviously. But we'll always share. Um, but looking at how we can always do the work in every aspect of our life, not just business, rather than looking at what else we need to do. Beautiful. Guys, thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Conscious Silent Potty. Love you guys, stay conscious.