Booked & Busy Isn’t the Goal: Redefining Success with Cheri Doren

What if being “booked and busy” isn’t actually the definition of success we’ve been sold?

In this episode, I’m joined by Cheri Doren, creator of the Defined Stylist Method, behind-the-chair stylist, salon owner, and educator with nearly four decades in the beauty industry. Cheri shares her honest journey through burnout, people-pleasing, financial pressure, and identity loss, and how those experiences shaped the way she now mentors stylists.

We talk about the realities of hustle culture behind the chair, how early salon environments can either build or break confidence, and why so many stylists end up trapped in careers that look successful on the outside but feel unsustainable on the inside.

This conversation is reflective, grounding, and deeply validating for any stylist who has ever felt exhausted, overwhelmed, or unsure if this pace is really what they signed up for.

In this episode, we cover:

Why “booked and busy” isn’t the same as fulfilled or sustainable

How toxic or unstructured salon environments impact confidence and longevity

The moment burnout becomes impossible to ignore

When client relationships cross into identity and emotional exhaustion

Why curating your clientele can be an act of self-respect

The role mentorship plays in preventing burnout before it starts

Cheri’s concept of “personal culture” and intentional career design

Redefining success in a way that actually supports your life

Whether you’re early in your career and want to avoid burnout altogether, or deep in it and craving a way out, this episode offers perspective, permission, and a reminder that there is another way.

Connect with Cheri Doren:

Website: https://www.thedefinedstylistmethod.com

Cheri also shares long-form education, storytelling, and burnout recovery content on Instagram and YouTube, all linked through her website.

Connect with Lisa Huff

• Instagram
• Facebook
• YouTube

Transcript

Audio Only - All Participants 0:04

Hello friends. Welcome back to Stylists Whole Tribe Conversations. I am joined today by Sherry Dorin, the creator of the Defined Stylist Method. She is a behind the chair hair stylist, a salon owner, and educator with nearly four decades of experience in the beauty industry. She teaches stylists to redefine their own version. Success, reconnect with who they are and create careers that truly support their lives. Sherry, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to have you on and get to know you a little bit more. I'm so excited that you asked me to be on. Oh, amazing. So I send out messages to my followers on Instagram. Somewhat frequently. It's kind of a new part of my, marketing strategy honestly. so when I get new followers, I message my old followers. When people engage in my content, I just say like, Hey, how's business going? How's life going? It's really a great way for me to get feedback, that I can use for content. Obviously sometimes that leads to coaching clients and sometimes it leads me to where we're at today. so I messaged Sherry and she was telling me about her business that she has created and how now she is helping other stylists, and I was like. Well, I would love to get to know you a little bit more and have you on the podcast. And she sent me this big, long paragraph about, how passionate she was about helping stylists. And she's like, Lisa, I need to warn you. I'm passionate about this. I can go on and on and on. I'm like, well, then that is a perfect fit for the podcast. So let's talk Sherry. Introduce yourself, unpack. Tell me a little bit about your story when you got into the industry. I have a couple notes of talking about burnout, emotional and physical exhaustion, financial insecurity. I'd love to hear how that was woven into your story, and how that created the sherry that we have today that is now so passionate about helping other people. So, yes, Lisa, even in my text messages, I'm super wordy. Super long, so I like it. Well, so I went to beauty school when I was 16, when I was still in high school, and I had my diploma, or excuse me, I had my, license actually before I had my diploma. Incredible. At that time, it was really hard to break into the industry as so young. there wasn't a whole lot of salons or like the budget kind of places that you could go work. Like Super Cuts was just getting started. This is 40 years ago almost. those kind of places were just getting started and they weren't really a fit for me anyway. So I Can you real quick, sorry. This is where we're gonna rabbit hole. Can you paint delay of the land then?'cause I, for context, I'm 33, so this was. Before my lifetime. Yes. So was it just like, your neighborhood hairstylist and they worked alone? Was it commission salons? What was the lay of the industry? Oh gosh. When you came in, gosh, so I'm actually originally from la so this was in Los Angeles County and so it's a big area and yeah, and you'd have to assume they're like up and coming with the direction that things are going. Yeah, yeah. So it's at the forefront of everything, but yes, there were commission salons, but it was mostly mom and pop type places. You know, like a few stylists, mostly I would think Booth rental back then. I know that the salon that finally ended up hiring me at 17, she had, been a successful stylist with her daughter. And they had opened up their own salon first in their area of a really high-end salon. so we were in a shopping center and it had so much walk-in business that I don't think she had really envisioned hiring very many people, but she had so much business that she kind of couldn't help it. when I came in, she looked at this, 17-year-old girl and thought, yeah, what the heck? Give her a try. So that's my first job that I got. the. Thing about that salon was she hadn't ever really envisioned herself, as a boss. And so her way of being a boss was being very controlling. And the girls did range from ages, 17 to maybe 25. So she probably did have to keep kind of a tighter hand on us, but it became. Very, um, oh gosh, what would be the word I would say just very controlling and dysfunctional. Maybe? Dysfunctional. Yeah. Very toxic. Okay. she, I always, I call that salon when I teach, I call it the morgue and it's where my personality went to die. I've always been the very kind of extra Yeah. Very confident person. And there she looked down on that and wow. It was really hard and she actually thought that being snobby was being professional. Well, I'm not snobby, so it was a very hard fit for me, but being so young, I. Went with it because I really, truly felt I couldn't go anywhere else. no one else had given me even, hardly an interview. You know, when I would show up, they would, you know, I'd fill out a resume, they'd show up, I'd show up for the interview, they'd take one look at me at 17 years old, say, oh, no, hun. Oh. In a few years. So this, well, I have to imagine it's 17 two, and with this woman's behavior, it's sounding like just her personality type it it, I'm guessing it almost fell into like a child parent role. It kind of sounds like Absolutely. Absolutely. So like you being so young and someone taking a chance on you, I would have to assume being in that situation, you kind of almost like fall into place and try to make. Mom happy or whatever, you know? Interesting. As what I, yeah. As what I now call myself a recovering lifelong people pleaser. Yeah. That's exactly where I went in. That's where it started. Yeah. Absolutely. The one thing though that I always have been grateful for her was that she was very into advanced education. And that was not the norm at the time. You literally, there was shows, you would go to a hair show, you would see people on a stage, they would do all these wild techniques that you could never take back to the salon. And she really sought out true, real. Advanced education and that's where I found my love for that. and so I learned to be my hairdressing skills. She was excellent at teaching. She was excellent at. Mentoring in that way. What she wasn't excellent in was leaders supporting you as a stylist, supporting you as a person. And so everything that I did was looked, I felt like it was looked down upon, it was made fun of. It was belittled and broke your spirit a little bit. It did break my spirit a lot. Mm-hmm. And so after a while I got married and I had a baby. And when I was pregnant with my second child. Actually my first child is your age? Lisa and 33. And my baby, my son is 31. And so I was pregnant with my son and I thought, I have got to get outta here. I'm literally dying. Yeah. I literally am dying. So I had, the problem was where I had gotten this job was way, way, way out of town, like 50 miles out of town. Yeah. So to go to the bigger town, no. That had any type of salon that I would wanna work at. How many clients are gonna follow you to that? Was this a commission setup back then, or No, it was, first we started out commission and then we went to booth ramp. Okay. So you were independent when you were leaving, but moving 15 miles, I had a fantastic clientele. I was so just broken that I felt like I have no choice. If I'm going to survive at all, I'm going to have to leave. So I did. I moved 50 miles, lost 70% of my clientele. Had this brand new baby, had an 18 month old. I always joke that every time I got pregnant, my husband got laid off. And he's in construction, and so it was just a really hard time. And so I took again, the first job that said, sure. Come on. And I always call this salon the circus because it was. I love these analogies. This is good. The opposite. Yeah. Of where I had been. It was literally anything goes. You paid your rent, you got to do anything you want. It was a huge salon compared to like a seven person salon. It was like 25 people, and it was so much fun. Was just the biggest relief. And the owners and several of the other seasoned stylists really took me under their wing and they grew my confidence. Hmm. Back. Really? Yeah. Your personality came back. My spark came back. Yeah. To be honest with you, I probably would've left the industry had I not met these women. So I did learn at that salon the importance of mentorship, of the importance of what a supportive environment felt like, but. There was absolutely no structure and there was absolutely no foundation. Mm-hmm. And again, I'm all of like 22, 23 years old. Yeah. And I am, it was so much fun, Lisa, that I was way more interested in getting into the backroom to go chat with the other stylist Than really take care of my clients. Yeah. I feel like now looking back, it's because it didn't have any structure at all. Totally. I went from, as you said, being completely parented To, being thrown out into the world in your young twenties. I wasn't taking my business very serious. That you were just focused on life then, right? Yeah. you probably almost rejected that major structure because you were so burnt by It Yeah. Correct. So I really floundered and my clientele didn't grow like the first clientele had. Mm-hmm. And I started to really think, well, you know, it's just the environment I'm in. my husband and I, by then, Los Angeles was getting kind of crazy. We actually lived in a town outside of LA called Lancaster, and it was getting really crazy. And it was getting unsafe. We had these two little babies. we just did not want to raise them in that environment. So we started looking at places to move and as I mentioned, my husband's a contractor and so he had done a job through a client in California, up in Oregon. And he called me one night and he said, you know what, Sherry, I think this is exactly what we're looking for. Wow.'cause he was up there working and I said. Let's go. At this time I think I'm 26. Yeah. I was 26, 27. And I'm like, sure. Yeah, that sounds great. Wow. So I fly up, we rent a house, we drive back home, we put our house on the market, we pack up our babies, and in two months for one. Wow. Because. I can take my business anywhere. Yeah. And he could start his business up here. So we moved to Cove, Oregon. Wow. Which is a town of, at the time it was about 450 people. Wow. So I went from LA County directly insane to. Yeah, exactly. Same. And you loved that? Or was there like some culture shock? No, I, oh, I literally, I've been here 27 years now. 28. Yeah. And I'm still in culture shock, Lisa. Wow. it, it was as if it was. As if the rug completely got pulled out from under me. I bet. but I wanted something different so bad that I thought, you know what? I'm gonna make this work. You ran to the furthest different thing that you could find. Yeah. And then at that age, I don't know if you were anything like me, I'd be like, well, I'm not going back now. I'm not gonna go back with my tail between my legs. I'm gonna make this work. Yeah. You have no idea. Everybody in California's like, oh, you'll be back. You'll be back. And I thought, oh, really? Hold my beer and watch this shit. I'm not coming back. Love. So I'm determined. Love it. To, make it. So I move up here to this literally town that is kind of back in time and I try to get another job, get my license, try to go to the salons. I was gonna say, was there salons in this tiny town? Not in my tiny little town. It's kind of a village outside of a larger town, but even the larger town only has about 20,000 people. Wow. In my county, the entire population is like 25,000 people. Okay. And so we have like the bigger town and then we have like little satellite like towns I always call villages. I'm in central Illinois and it's a similar layout to what you're describing? Yes. So coming from like the LA area where everything's just urban sprawl. Totally. To me, this was just like. Literally nothing out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. So I go into the larger town and I, I, again, I interview, I, I look at different salons. Once again, it's like nobody wants me, none of these places are, I feel like they're gonna be a fit for me. So through many things that just kind of fell together and obviously needed to have, or divine intervention, whatever you wanna say. I was offered a storefront, the empty storefront that had been empty for years and years and years and to open a beauty parlor. Wow. That's how back, and you knew nobody in the town. I knew. Just like maybe five to 10 people. Wow. Including the owner of the storefront. So again, being young, naive and Sure. What the hell kind of mentality, not really knowing, knowing I loved hair. Mm-hmm. But not really knowing. What to do in life and like if nobody's gonna hire me, something's gotta happen. Eight years old and being such a people pleaser and being such a, you know, always looking outside for validation. I took it, I took all of this personally when I was 17. I took that personally that I couldn't get a job. Not that it was, that I was 17 and fresh out of beauty school. It was something that was wrong with me. Totally. I go to the circus salon and my clientele doesn't grow again. Oh, it's out here. It's not, what am I doing? You know, it was always like either outside of myself was the issue. Took a defense mechanism also, that I took it very personally that okay, I wasn't successful, except I never looked at myself hard enough to say, but why? Is it this working because I had grown two pretty successful, well, one very successful clientele and I was on the way in the circus Salon two, growing another successful clientele, but it just felt so uneven and so like the rug was always being pulled out from under me, and I was so insecure all the time. So I, my husband talks me into opening up this salon in this little tiny town that hadn't had a new business for 47 years. And I am like, sure, let's do that. I'm such a little dichotomy, right? Uhhuh like, oh, I have no security myself. But then I have all this like chutzpah. Yeah, sure. Let's do that. Yeah. So I do. And, we have no money. So I borrowed$3,000 from my dad and put the rest on a credit card. Wow. And I opened up my salon. You at least had a contractor. I'm sure that helped. I did have a contractor that was very, that was the one thing. Yeah. So then what year was it that that salon opened? That part opened? That was in 1998. Okay. And are you still working in that same yes I am. Yes. I'm same storefront, same location? Yes. Okay. thank you for painting that picture. So Now, I would love to know from 1998. To who you are today, where did the burnout come in? Where did, I'd love to hear some of the, like hindsight being 2020 mistakes. just, yeah, your perspective from that. Okay. So when I did open up the salon, I brought, you know, my. Southern California wardrobe. My look. Yeah. Everything. And they literally had never seen anything quite like me. I showed up in all dressed head to toe black. Were they drawn to it or did they reject it? I, I think, yes, they were drawn to it. I believe that, yes, they were drawn to me because for one, I think I was quite the novelty for one, to just have somebody new in town that had opened up this business. the other that I was from Southern California. The perception was that I was high-end. Just, yeah. And that's where all the trends start. She's, we gotta go to this lady who knows all the trends. exactly. they wrote an article about me, the, in the county. They wrote an article about my salon. That's what news it was. Wow. And so I. Have never seen so many people pile into a place in my life. Wow. It was unbelievable. Incredible. I was booked solid for several months. Whoa. The first few months. Wow. I always tell the story that I had, when I bought product to open the salon, I had ordered$500 in color. Mm-hmm. And I had ordered, I thought, you know what? I better get some perms. Mm-hmm. So I got six boxes of perm. Yeah. By the first month. I was ordering perms by the case. Wow. And I had$495 still left of hair color. Was there other stylists, or was it just you literally like, oh no, just me. Wow. Just literally like going back in time. PERM Central. Perm Central. Perm Central. That's what you gotta call this salon. We were kind of 10 years or so out of that in California. But there, here I had to get my beauty school book back out to learn how to like kind of remind myself how to do shampoo and sex. Wow. Because I immediately had 10 weekly little grandma ladies who were coming in on Thursday and Friday mornings. Incredible. It was. Such I was meeting hundred, you know, hundreds of people in a week because people would just come in to say Hi. Yeah, who are you? Shake my hand. I'm so glad you're here. Wow. It was unbelievable the attention I got and it was really sad, you know, like, really like, oh my God, my ego just totally, I bet, exploded. Yeah, it was great, but it was. It was so, I don't even know. It was like disconcerting how much attention I was getting. I bet. Yeah. Well, and like you said, coming into this being so deeply insecure and so wounded in all those different directions, then you pour this gasoline on that fire. That has to be an interesting psyche. Yes, yes, for sure. Formulation happening inside. Mm-hmm. Interesting. You nailed okay. Yeah, you absolutely nailed it. So those first few years were literally a blur and because I had was so insecure, I. I took everybody, it didn't matter if they were a fit or not. If I liked doing like the shampoo and sets like the perms, it didn't matter if I liked doing the work or not, or even liked the client or we were even a connection, I still took them. Yeah. And I took them and I took them and I started working more and more and more. And there was a point in time where I was working over 60 hours a week Nonstop. Yeah. It was nonstop. And I had two little kids. My husband was building his business, which I was helping with. Mm-hmm. It was just crazy. But what I realized in that first few years was. The impact I started having on people. I guess the impact I started realizing that I had on people. I had this woman who came into my salon and I never had that kind. This is the kind of hairstylist I wanna be, you know? Yeah. This is the kind of brand I wanna be. We didn't think about that kind of Stuff. Yeah. Lisa, we just did hair if, you know, it was all about having butts in the chair. Yeah. You know, you've heard that too. I'm sure. In like a one-stop shop. We, the more services we can give them, the better. The more people we can serve, the better. Where obviously it's a very different kind of landscape now, but I feel like even when I started that was more so, oh, I think so, yeah. Approach. I think just now are we starting to have the conversation where it's not healthy? You know, I used to say that the ugliest thing you could ever see was a hairdresser eating. Lunch because we're literally just like shoving in in our mouths. Mm-hmm. And I used to take pride in the fact that I didn't pee all day. And take a lunch all day and never take a break, and was double booked all day long. And now we wonder why we're all burned out. Well, that's why. And that was the culture that. I grew up in as a hairstylist. Can I ask you, when do you think the ego trip started to shift and the burnout started to set in? I'm wondering what year,'cause you can probably ride that high for a while. What year did you, would you say you started to feel that? Or was it a span of time or like when you, when do you think that started to shift? I can tell you exactly when it was. Okay. it was 12 years in. Okay. I worked that way for 12 years. And when I turned, I was 40 and I got so sick with pneumonia that I ended up in the hospital for a week, and I realized then that I can't keep doing this. Mm-hmm. I, and I, and I'll tell you what, Lisa, one of the things that I have really looked back on in this time was coming out of such an insecure place, coming from such a. People pleaser place. That being loved, like that, being wanted, like that being. Where people couldn't live without you. Mm-hmm. It was such, it fed my ego so much and it became my identity. It was a thrill. Yeah. That it was a thrill. And then I hit physical burnout, like not mental so much, but absolute physical burnout. Mm-hmm. And I always used to joke how my life was on a hamster wheel and I just couldn't jump off, or that I was a clown in the circus with the plate spinning. Mm-hmm. And I felt like if one drop my life would fall apart. Mm-hmm. Ending up in the hospital with pneumonia. Those are all the plates dropped. The hamster wheel completely stopped and I thought, Sherry, you just cannot keep this up. But I had this thriving business and I was making so much money these people, I fell in love with them. They fell in love with me, but It was grind and hustle and never being able to breathe. And it took, you know, that extreme toll on me. Yeah. And it sounds like you really resonated with that identity for a while. And then when you got sick it was like, oh, it was fun. Like, oh, this seems fun and this seems cool, but mm-hmm. it reminds me of like when COVID happened or, when people go on maternity leave and then you have this backlog of people I ending up in the hospital, you probably had people like, when are you, I mean, obviously we want you to get better, but also like, can you get me in? And then, and I think every. Most hairstylists who get to that point of complete, like what you think the goal is, being so booked and busy has that moment where it's like, this isn't as cool as I thought it once would be. So how did you start to make that shift? Well, it was kind of easy after the pneumonia, of course, like you said, I did have a backlog and, you know, maybe this wasn't the the coolest way to go about it, but if I had a client that I didn't really care for. Even if they'd have been one of the first that, you know, I missed, like, the first Tuesday I should have done their hair or whatever. I put'em at the back of the line. I started, I called all the people that I really resonated with, that I liked doing their hair, that I liked, that they brought that good energy to me. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I put them at the front of the line and the ones that. I didn't, I put'em in the back. I mean, do you have any regrets on that?'cause you say that's not a cool way, but that's what I wanna coach to. I think it was cool for me, but I don't know if it was that cool for the customer, but what it did was it really easily cleaned house because Totally. You know, some by then it was like, say they gotta find a new stylist. Exactly. And a lot of'em did. I also started cutting back my hours a little bit, because of being sick, because of being basically weak, I couldn't take mm-hmm. You know, as many. Yeah. That was the first time that I thought, you know, Sherry, maybe you need to get some help in here. maybe you need to get another stylist. Maybe you need to let go of the control and this to everyone. Yeah. Incessant need to have everyone want you Totally. and so that was the first time that I thought, you know what? I think I'm gonna hire some someone. Hmm. And then another kind of life changing hap event happened not too long after that. So I cleaned house pretty good and I was much better. It was a lot more balanced. but those old kind of, you know, that. That, like I said, that training where if you're not booked and busy Yeah. There's even a, a, you know, a whole movement in our industry called Booked and Busy. And it kind of bothers me because booked and busy isn't always happy and fulfilled. Mm-hmm. Totally. Or successful. Anyway, my dad got diagnosed with a brain tumor and so I called all my clients because I had to rush'em over to Portland to OHSU. And I had a few clients that said to me, well, well, when can you get me in? Yeah. my dad has a brain tumor. Yeah. Was the epiphany that I It'll make you jaded. It really will. Understandably so. But it's those things where these people feel like they're your friends. And I think all hairstylists are hesitant to say this,'cause we do genuinely love our clients so much. But then you have those moments where you're like, no, this is a professional relationship. I need to treat it as that. It's still a, I call it a commercial friendship. and you do fall in love with some of them. Truly, truly fall in love with someone. But at the end of the day, you have to remember even the ones that you fall in love with. Still is a transactional relationship. You gotta look out for yourself first. Yeah. Yeah, we do. Yeah. So the fact that, you know, just a few year years before I had been in the hospital for a week with pneumonia and been out for a month and plus. Then my dad, who ends up with a brain tumor, this is not like, oh, my dad has a cold Tumor. This is tumor life altering and you wanna know when you're gonna get your hair done. Yes. So that was a huge epiphany for me. that's really when I started going, you know what? I gotta really change some things here. So. That's when I decided to bring on, some more, another stylist into the salon. So that's when I decided I needed to get some help into the salon. Yeah. Because I, I actually counted, counted up how much I was refusing in a month, you know, like how much that would've brought into the salon. I was like, oh my God, this is somebody's full clientele. Yeah. And so I decided, okay, well. Being in control for all those years, for 18 years before I brought somebody else in. I wanted to be able to kind of control the next person that I brought in. Now, isn't that ironic? Mm-hmm. Seeing where I started from, but, but also you did grow with that. I did. So how do you do that and keep the good parts and take out the toxic parts? Exactly. Yeah. So that's what I decided was I wanted to take. Parts of the circus and parts of the morgue. Mm-hmm. And meld them together and really mentor the next person and the next kind of generation. Totally. And so I. Hired a girl that I had been, I had actually been asked to mentor her from her boyfriend that went to school with my kids and through beauty school. And I thought she was adorable. So I offered her, Hey, do you wanna come to work for me? And she was surprised because I'd always said, I'm a one woman show. Yeah. Not gonna hire anybody. Mm-hmm. But I'd gotten to the point where I was so. Just fried once again, you know, and, and the burnout. Lisa, sure. The burnout hit with the pneumonia, you know, and oh, I really need to change. But it was a good five year process. Sounds like it never left. It never left. And all of that kind of old baggage surfaced and I had so much crap to work through. So I wasn't burned out that entire five years, but I definitely need, it took probably about that long to re kind of recover, to figure out what I Bearings again. Yeah, exactly. So I hired this young woman and she's great, she's adorable, and I really want to mentor her, not just here, here's a job. Mm-hmm. So I put her on commission. And she builds this little clientele. Her life took a little different turn and so she ended up moving. Yeah. And I needed somebody else. So I hire another girl. Out of beauty school. She's fantastic. she wants that mentorship too. You know, you've gotta find people who actually want that mentorship. That's the hard part. And what I realized in doing this was. I have a lot to share. I have a lot to give. I do have like a philosophy of how you should run a hair salon. I never thought I did. Until I started doing it. And it was like, I, as I said, I wanted to take parts of the morgue mm-hmm. And parts of the circus meld it together to make a beautiful environment for my stylist. Yeah. And it was fantastic. And then I hired a massage therapist and it's been a great thing. Amazing. But in that time, and as I had, I never trained anyone before. Never. The way I run my business. I never really even thought of it that way. Mm-hmm. until I did get someone and then you're like, well, I'll be damned. I kind of know what I'm doing here. Totally. And then both of the stylists that I've had have gone into. Making fantastic money and building great clienteles and yeah, the one she moved her life took a turn and you know, she moved, but she, I know that I made her life better in the time. And seeing that your mentorship was a launchpad that. Brought success to both of them when you had the experience of so early starting out and it breaking you a little bit, learning in some ways. okay, so that's when you were like, okay, I have a lot to share. And I know that feeling. obviously I'm a lot younger than you, but I still do know that feeling when you learn something and you learn something. Well, For me, what I found is the way those client relationships hit in the beginning of the thrill of it. after you do it for so many years, it starts to lose its touch that it had in the beginning and then it feels like a much bigger service to be building the next. Or helping other people build that for themselves. so I know that feeling so well and that pull towards mentorship. So can you explain to us what you have set up currently, how you mentor people today, what kind of system, strategies, frameworks that you like to teach to and what that kind of looks like. here's what I feel like is really lacking in our industry, The season hair stylist. I think that you, your generation, you have kind of grown up with that job shadowing, that mentorship and that looking toward We didn't, And so a lot of my generation, I feel, without throwing us under the bus, I think we gate keep a little bit, I think we aren't as open to sharing. The strategies. You know, there's a scarcity for sure. We had to pay our dues. You have to pay yours. You know what, Lisa? I don't want my girls to have to pay my stylists, whether they're girls or guys or whatever. I don't want them to have to pay their dues. Why should they have to go through hell? And all of the insecurity and all the things that I did, why couldn't I elevate them from that level and take them and launch them to another level So that they can, again, bring our industry up. From that, because then imagine four more generations from now, how beautiful of a space it gonna be. Exactly. How beautiful when we can just see how much it's grown. So I think that then, that's the thing. I feel like a lot of seasoned stylists, when I first put the defined stylist method together, I actually had envisioned it for burned out seasoned hair stylists. But what I've realized is that I need to take it where you guys, I wanna mentor you so you didn't burn out in the first place. So my system is to, I wanna support the stylist where they're at. Yeah. And if, whatever they're feeling heaviest with at that moment, you know, whatever it is. Is it your finances? Is it the lack of boundaries? Is it you know that you have a hard time communicating? And how do you figure that out? So I break it down into small micro. Well, there's micro habits stacking, I talked about that too. But it's basically boiling it down, taking your heaviest problem and boiling it down to why does it feel heavy? What is it that is bothering me over this? Like your finances. That's easy. You're broke, you're sick of being broke. You don't wanna be broke anymore. But like say you are in the wrong salon, except you're making fantastic money. Hmm. And there's really no other salon that you feel like going that you could go to. Yeah. What do you do in that moment? You know, do you stay? Do you try to elevate the salon? You know? How do you even know in the first place? What the problem is, you know, you might think it's bitchy girls, or you might think it's mm-hmm. You know, whatever the structure of the salon, I, as I told you earlier, I've always kind of, I've taken everything personally in one way. That, oh, it's my fault. But then on the other hand, I was a big blame. Blamed the salon, blame the environment. You know, blame the town I lived in. Blame the whoever. But what you have to realize is that every step of your life, whether it's finances, what a salon you're at, the way you keep your house, it's up to you. No one's gonna come in and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. But what I find is when something is so daunting and so big, or like every part of your life feels kind of chaotic. Yeah. So in my salon, I actually talked to my stylist, and this is where the Defined Stylist method came out of is who are you totally. On a daily basis, who are you personally? Because if you don't know what your personal culture is, that's what I call it, your personal culture, right? Doesn't that sound beautiful? Mm-hmm. I think that's so cool to think of our lives as the culture that we are living. Yeah. The community that we are in is the culture of our, our family. A family culture. I just love that it's a, it's a, it's basically saying you're living life with intention and I'd wanna just exactly say, hearing what you're saying is so refreshing to me.'cause I, I would say it's like my core values as I, and this was established from a young age and it's something I've carried with me, is I. Really don't like a victim mentality. And that's what I'm hearing you saying. Mm-hmm. Is you and your self-awareness is so refreshing. And, I think when it comes to coaching as someone who coaches a lot of people, you need to have that in order to be coachable. That's, that has to be step one. Mm-hmm. and so I think through your lived experience, it became very clear to you that that's, and when I even hear you say culture just now, it's the intention. Taking a step back, having self-awareness, really digging in and unpacking and not self-reflecting. And then once you've sorted all of that out, now we can lead from a place with intention and choose where what we build and what we wrote now. So I love the personal culture. I wanted to chime in on that'cause I was really resonating with what you're saying. Yeah, I think so. And so, you know, having that personal, I'm telling you Lisa, I don't think most people really figure out who they are. I'm now 55 years old. I don't think you really figure yourself out until you're in your forties. A lot of you're ever evolving. If you do before that. Kudos to you. I went through life until I was about 40 years old, just flying by the seat of my pants with whatever somebody threw at me, you know? Totally. Here, Sherry, here's a salon to work at when you're 17. Sure. I'll stay until I literally couldn't bear it anymore. Here, Sherry, now you're gonna do this. You're not really gonna. Move to a salon purposely, you're just gonna find another salon that'll take you just kind of reacting to warm life rounds. okay, LA's getting dangerous. Well let's move to, you know, Oregon, let's buy, you know, put a salon in this place because somebody offered it to me. You know, I never really like, consciously thought like, Hey, this is how I wanna live. And I think a lot of us go through life that way. Yeah. And then you get into your forties or your fifties and you're like, well. This isn't the life I ordered, this isn't what I had envisioned myself doing. But then you're in that hamster wheel, you're spinning those plates, whatever it is that you do that, you know your analogy that you use. Yeah. And then you're old and dead and gone. You know what I mean? And that's not what life is supposed to be like and have regrets. And so I, I agree. I when you can catch that and notice that, and I, that's why I'm such a huge fan of mentorship and I was blessed and, and I think it's the time that I was, Alive and raised mentorship. Yes. From a very early age is a really big part of my story. Yeah. and I agree. I think that it just changes the game so much. And I do think that that was lacking for a long time or there was a very unhealthy, relationships and mentorship. Right. Spaces where I think we've evolved a long way. But honestly, who knows? Hindsight is always 20, 20 years and years from now, we're probably gonna look back at this. and as humans, we just kind of evolve and get better, but I relate. Heavily to that. And I understand your desire because you have a lot of, hindsight and a lot of, wisdom to share. So I, I love that you're feeling called to do that and you're showing up so consistently doing that. Well, and that's what I think that also, I feel like that a lot of people that are in the education space mm-hmm. Are young. Yeah. And which is great. Totally. I'm so glad to see that. Embracing that mentorship. When I go into beauty schools and teach, I cannot believe the hunger in these Yeah. Their kids basically. Totally. To me, they're definitely kids because they're younger than my own kids. Yeah. By many. By a lot. Totally. And the hunger in them, but also the. The enthusiasm for that mentorship. Yeah. The want of that. And just like the stylists that I have mentored and my massage therapists, they're, they're hungry for that. Yeah. They want your input. They want to hear that. Where I think my generation, we really kind of butted about against that. If somebody was trying to help you, They maybe went about it in such a harsh way that you didn't even realize that that is what they were doing, but Totally. You know, do you, does that make sense of what I'm, yeah. Yeah. So you wanna take the, that experience and kind of grow and learn from there. Mm-hmm. so if somebody is listening and they want to check you out, where can people find you and what's kind of like your favorite? Corner of the industry when it comes to mentorship. Like who exactly do you really love helping? And then how can they find you if they're listening to this? I love helping the defined stylist method. I have my website. The defined stylist method.com. I'm on Instagram. I do YouTube videos. I talk a lot about burnout. I tell a lot of stories. I'm a big storyteller. I think that a lot of times when you tell a story about your own life, it helps to resonate, you know, or to help kind of anchor that to, someone's life. They're like, oh, I can relate to that. Oh, I felt like that. You know, and I think on my YouTube especially, I can be kind of vulnerable and I think that that's impactful, but what I really want to do is. So I wanna help people not hit burnout in the beginning. But the ones that are burned out, I wanna help lift you out of that. I've lifted myself out of it to a fulfilling Life. I talk about, just recently, last year was very crazy. I was redoing my program and I was launching a workshop for just specifically four beauty schools. I had a lot going on in my personal life. A lot going on just with the salon, everything. And I hit that wall again, but this time when I hit that burnout, like, oh my God, I am overwhelmed. You can recognize that I'm starting to break down. I stopped and I recognized it and I gave myself grace. I cut out some things and I still was able to get. All of my things done. And I didn't burn out, so I really real time tested it in my own life. And what I teach, I know is impactful because I had it. I wasn't even trying to live the defined stylist method way, but yet I did. And I didn't crash. as I said, I'm 55 years old and I'm just. Getting all of this figured out. And if I can help anyone, you know, at any age, but If I can help someone younger, never hit that into to begin with. That's my biggest goal. And that's my, my, I guess my mission. Yeah. Of this whole thing that I've taken on the defined stylist method, my, you know, mentoring in my own salon, going to beauty schools and teaching them from, you know, right out of the gate. Is that I never want people to feel like I felt. And I want them to feel like I feel now. Totally. And I wanna el have them at that elevated level. I want them to be, you know, I, I imagine life as a spiral staircase. And you make these consi, what is it? Cir, you know the circle that goes up the spiral staircase and you end up back. At the starting place, right? Yeah. But you're a, you're a floor hire. Mm. Maybe you're a floor hire. Yeah. I don't want you guys, I don't want anyone that I teach to have ever been in the basement. I want to elevate you where you're at least at the ground floor, if not higher than that. Totally. So that you can have that level of success. That personal foundation, that level of success that you are craving. Yeah. Whatever that looks like for you. I think that the beauty industry, you know, we really stress this six figure lifestyle or this, you know, having the most perfect salon with this perfect build out or going out on your own. Don't work commission after you've been a few in a few years, you know, whatever it is. Whatever narratives. Yeah. But we all, that's not everybody's idea of success. Totally. So they need to figure out who they are. And the younger you do that, the better you're gonna live, right? The better you're gonna be in the long run. Yeah. So that's my mission and that's my passion. That's my love. I told you I can go on and on and on. I have such a heart for our industry. we are in the most amazing industry. I think. I agree. Even burning out all the things I have been through, I still think it is the best decision I ever made. Yeah. When I was 12 years old. Walking into the guidance counselor's office at the high school from my junior high and saying, I hear you can go to beauty school for free during high school. Can I? Can I sign up? And he's like, well, you need to wait till you're 16, Sherry, but you betcha. Yeah. And so I think it's the best decision I ever made, and it saddens me when people go to beauty school or. They do hair for a few years and they just, they have such a love for the craft, but they can't handle It's other them more. Yeah. And they burn out and then they go, you know, and they go be a bank teller, you know? I know, I know. It's just like, oh, I could not, could not relate more and I can tell it is oozing out of you, and so it feels such a, yeah. A pleasure and an honor to get to hear you speak and you're an excellent storyteller. So thank you much for telling those stories. Um, and like I said, this podcast, I love to put it out and obviously help the industry'cause I'm also equally obsessed with the industry. Like if you actually look at all the options that are out there. Almost none has as much upside and opportunity. Yeah. With such little stakes to enter. Yeah. so I could not agree more. And I use this podcast kind of selfishly, as I said this before, we hit record as a way to just connect and get to know people. And it's. Stories like these, like we could not have had this conversation in Instagram. Dms and I, love just kind of collecting internet friends as I go and hearing different experiences. And, I just am, I just wanna say thank you for sharing your heart and kind of opening up and sharing everything with us. I know I've learned a lot. I'm feeling incredibly inspired and I'm sure that everybody listening is feeling the same way as well. Oh, thank you so much. That's very nice to hear. I mean it. Thank you. Yeah. So I will put all of Sherry's information in the show notes, all of her links to everything. I definitely wanna check out your YouTube,'cause I have not stalked that yet. But I love that you're showing up there. And when you say vulnerable, that always makes my ears perk up. I wanna hear what's happening over there. That's amazing. I'll tell you what, YouTube, any, any of this, and I'll say, I'm Jen, I'm Gen X. So we're kind of that silent generation. Nobody really talks about. They talk about boomers and millennials and kind of leave us alone. Yeah. And to put yourself out as. You know someone who, oh, I do. I'm not going to lie. I do like the spotlight. I like being extra, but I like being extra in a controlled environment like my salon. Totally. I love being me in that environment to put yourself out into the universe. Like this has been really scary. And I'll tell you what, some of my stuff, I just did a video on it not very long ago about how cringe some of it is. And how I don't care. I simply don't care. and that's really what it takes to be able to do it. And I think it kind of takes one to know one. So as same as you, like I said, I'm over here collecting friends. I am here and I understand the, it's, it's a whole nother level doing this internet thing, and it comes with a whole nother set of confusion and troubleshooting. Fear in imposter syndrome and all of that. So again, I truly mean that, that I'm so grateful that we have gotten to connect and I would love to continue to stay in touch and supporting you all the while. Okay. That'd be wonderful. I am so excited because you're really the first educator that's. reached out to me and yeah. And I think that that's a good start to kick off 2026 and I'm sure there's gonna be many more. I'm manifesting that for you. I think that's amazing. Alright, well thank you again, Sherry. Thank you so much everybody, for listening. Like I said, check out the show notes for all of the information about all of the things we talked about. and I will talk to you all next week. Bye.