The VIP Suite at IMAGE Studios with Matthew Landis

Changing Lives Without Burning Out: Elizabeth Faye and the Vitality Project

• IMAGE Studios • Season 5 • Episode 39

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Matthew sits down with globally recognized educator and founder of Hair Love University and The Vitality Project, Elizabeth Faye. Elizabeth shares her powerful journey from troubled teen and behind-the-chair stylist to trauma-informed life coach and wellness advocate for beauty and wellness pros. 

They dive into burnout, nervous system health, “trauma dumping” in the salon, why beauty and wellness professionals truly change lives, and simple, free daily practices, like breath work and meditation, that protect your energy and your business. 

Plus, get a sneak peek into the upcoming IMAGE Pro Academy Masterclass: “Burnout Proof Your Beauty and Wellness Business.”

Learn more about The Vitality Project and Hair Love University by following Elizabeth on Instagram at @heyelizabethfaye or check out her website: heyelizabethfay.com.

The VIP Suite is the official podcast of IMAGE Studios, created for independent beauty, health, and wellness professionals who want to grow their businesses and thrive in salon suite life. Hosted by Director of Education, Matthew Landis, each episode shares real success stories, marketing tips, and business strategies from top beauty entrepreneurs and wellness leaders.

Episodes are sponsored by GlossGenius, the all-in-one salon software. Learn more at glossgenius.com. Episodes are also sponsored by Elite Beauty Society, providing business and long-term career support to beauty & wellness professionals. Learn more at elitebeautyins.com/IMAGE.

Don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Connect with us on Instagram @imagestudios360 and visit imagestudios360.com for more information about IMAGE Studios luxury salon suites. New episodes drop every two week. Subscribe to hear how beauty and wellness professionals like you are building powerful, independent careers.

Matthew Landis:

Welcome back to season five of The VIP Suite at IMAGE Studios, the show where Salon Suite professionals stop playing small and start thinking like CEOs. I'm Matthew Landis, Director of Education for IMAGE Studios, a beauty and wellness industry veteran, former salon owner and business coach for independent pros who are ready to grow their numbers and their confidence. This season on The VIP Suite, we're going deeper, bigger conversations, smarter strategy. We'll talk about money, marketing, mindset, burnout, growth and what it actually takes to build a business that supports your life, not the other way around. If you're an independent beauty or wellness pro who wants clarity, confidence and momentum, you're in the right place. Let's get into it. Welcome back to The VIP Suite at IMAGE Studios. I'm Matthew Landis, Director of Education for IMAGE Studios, and today's guest is someone who has been a powerful voice for transformation in the beauty and wellness industry, not just technically, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Elizabeth Faye is a globally recognized educator, keynote speaker and founder of the Vitality Project and Hair Love University. Elizabeth is known for blending business strategy, nervous system science, trauma awareness and heart centered leadership through her work. She equips beauty and wellness professionals with the tools to prevent burnout, protect their energy and build businesses that support long term vitality, not just short term success. Elizabeth, welcome to the VIP Suite.

Elizabeth Faye:

What a beautiful introduction.

Matthew Landis:

Well, I'm so glad to have you here. You know I've been following you for so long. I've been watching what you do. I've been so inspired by you, and I am just so glad to know you, and I'm just so glad to be in your orbit. I can't tell you. I mean, I'm a huge fan.

Elizabeth Faye:

Oh, that means so much. Well, I love what y'all are doing over there, and I'm honored to be on your show today.

Matthew Landis:

And for those of our pros at IMAGE Studios that don't already know who you are, I'm so excited to introduce you to them and share the love that you have for this industry and for everyone in it. So for people who don't know your journey, how did this work find you?

Elizabeth Faye:

Yes, that's a great question. So I am a hairdresser, first and foremost, licensed cosmetologist, 10 years behind the chair, actively full time. Owned a salon for seven I was a Paul Mitchell, the school learning leader, which is a teacher for four years. And I've done everything from corporate education to independence. So any little corner of education ownership, I've owned a suite before, I've sat in as a beauty professional. And you know, this work found me, because what I do now you're like, how on earth are you doing what you're doing now, you know, and you started cutting hair. A hairdresser really was my first mentor. And I have a TED talk, you can drop it's five minutes long, and it it shares how a hairdresser literally changed my life and saved my life when I was young, and all the way to being a high school dropout and getting into the industry. And so I always felt a deep devotion to our industry. I always felt so grateful this industry gave me so much from someone who had to really fight for everything in her life growing up and was a single mom and had health issues and did drugs growing up and lived with different families like this industry provided me like like this ticket to whatever life I wanted to create. And so I've always felt like, just like, thank you. Like to every mentor, every teacher, every owner who hired me, like, I just was, like, super grateful to be in the industry. And so I shared that a lot as a teacher and as an artist, and I did education through the salons I worked for, and it grew into being a beauty school teacher and later workshops. And I did hair painting business and like personal development workshops for years. And I built a community when I was a single mom, and then that community turned into what we do at Hair Love University, which we do a lot of personal and professional development, but we do retreats, and so we did retreat work, and then that turned into courses, and it just grew over time, a podcast, and I became a business and life coach for beauty pros, and that's what I did. I would host retreats and events and share that message of like. What you do changes the world. So that's why we got to be good at business, or got to be good with ourselves and be healthy and and then I went through a health crisis. And so I was a life coach to a lot of people. Had a podcast, you know, got speaking. It grew over years. This is like, you know, slowly, and I went through a public health crisis because they have an audience and a community and a podcast. And I was coaching, and I was having anxiety and panic attacks and gaining a lot of weight, and I was inflamed, and my joints hurt and autoimmune and all these things started coming out. And my now husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, has struggled with depression on and off, and it was getting really bad, so we just went through, like, our life just exploded. Like I was sick, he was extremely depressed, and I have a son, and it just was this moment in my life that was like, nothing else matters if you don't have your health, like, nothing matters if I don't have my body. I was like, crap. I can't even work. Like, if I like, what am I going to do? And so it put us on a health and healing journey, forced honestly. And I'd always been into personal development and motivation and things like that, but never really gone on like a health and healing journey. And so, you know, my therapist started doing deeper work with me, and I started working with life coaches and doing trauma healing and really trying to figure out why I was sick, and it led me into a lot of deep, deep healing work, and I shared it as I was going through it never, never thinking deeper than life. Coaching work would be my work, and it radically changed our life so much I ended up going to school for all the things I do down now, somatics and NLP, and oh my gosh, behavior, science, like all sorts of different things that led to which makes so much sense, like if now that I see my life strung together like I've always been so heart led, so community driven. Wellness was always a part of our brand. We would hike and do yoga and meditate, but it was never quite to the level of work we do now. And so my retreat started turning into healing retreats and wellness experiences. And my keynotes were motivational or workplace wellness. And we just started advocating for beauty, professional wellness more and more. And then our programs really like I thought the work we were doing before was impactful. It was changing people's health and their wellness and impacting their finances and their family and their teams. And people were like, holy crap. We want, you know, more of this awareness in our teams and in our schools. And it just grew. And then we decided, after doing a lot of wellness work through shows and schools and programs and retreat to build an official program and an app. And that's how the vitality project came to be. And we had our curriculum in there directly for beauty and wellness pros, community coaching, all the best things we've done retreat, but just for that, and then the app, with the breath work and the meditations and the stretching and just taking care of the full mind, body, soul part, because the person behind the profession is what fuels everything. And if you don't have your health, you really don't have anything. It's your it's your wealth. So that's I got sick. I went through a lot of stuff, and I got sick. So that's how I got into it.

Matthew Landis:

And you came out the other side, and you realized that this is what we need. Yep, yep, I am, I am with you 100% and I think what's so interesting is because I started following you when it was mostly business and marketing, and then it this focus has shift shifted dramatically, because I started following you five or six years ago, and when we got back in touch recently, when I was like, holy cow, what I think is so fascinating is you had already built this infrastructure that was sort of waiting for this to happen. And that's what I find so fascinating from somebody on the outside, is, is wow, you, you had this whole thing built, and it was almost like it was waiting for this.

Elizabeth Faye:

I feel that way too, like, now, I haven't put it into words like that, or maybe seen it like that from the outside, but we've literally been like. This is what Hair Love was built for. This is what everything we built, community, our programs, our training, our certification. Like this was why all of those things happened in the 27 events and the just everything.

Matthew Landis:

It was like preparing. You were practicing and building and creating and opening up that space for this to become.

Elizabeth Faye:

Yeah, oh, that makes me want to cry.

Matthew Landis:

Well, it's very emotional for me, because I, you know, we talk about wellness in this industry. We ever since I began over 30 years ago, but, and I don't think anybody has gone this deep with it, and I that's what I find so fascinating and so beautiful, and it's something that we need so badly. And I think it is one thing that I see people struggling with in this industry, is the mental and emotional challenges that we deal with, and we we tend to, we talk about it, but it tends to be in this sort of jokey way.

Elizabeth Faye:

Yeah, yeah. We have means and, and I think we just assumed, like, constant hustle and a little bit of burnout is kind of like the status quo, you know, and, like, that's just kind of what comes with the job and that that has an impact on your health after years of doing that, and there's a lot of tools that we can get into for preventative health and preventing burnout and taking care of ourselves. Like, I'd love, you know, we work with schools as well. I'd love to see the next generation not need to, like, help, you know, like I've helped so many people heal, like autoimmune and all sorts of like anxiety and depression, like, things that are bigger as well as smaller things, just like mindset and more leadership. Like, that's great, too. I love to, like, preventatively, just like, have these as, like, basic skills and tools that we just do and they're normal, and they're things that just become habitual. That's what I My dream is, is, it's just like, oh yeah, of course we do that. Like, Duh, of course, we're healthy. Like, that's part of our job.

Matthew Landis:

I think people, I, you know, my impression is people want to do this stuff and they want to do this work, but there's always an excuse. And I would say probably the biggest one is I don't have time. Absolutely, absolutely, I'm too busy taking care of other people. What would you say to those people that say that, and how would you maybe assist them?

Elizabeth Faye:

Yes, I think that's a great question, and I want to first acknowledge that as right, is there some truth in that? Is that feel really real, of course, and I I'm a mom, I'm a wife, I have employees, I have a team, I have clients. So I get being busy 100% i i would say I have a full life of lots of things going on and lots of people I'm caring for. So I understand not feeling like there's space, and I I now because it's become habitual in my life. I probably have more responsibility in my life now, and I do not cheat on myself. And I think the place to start is education, which is why I always educate people in our tools. And you know, what is your nervous system? How does this affect you? How you know, how is your mind telling yourself these stories? How do we regulate emotions? How can we protect ourselves? Like foundational health, right, mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, I think, starting to understand that empowers us to even know what affects our mood or our body or our energy or our hormones, starting to understand those basic things is critical, and then creating, like my biggest goal with we're actually updating part of our program, and the app is going to Have a whole new facelift. It's going to be all fully our own tech, and it has literally fashion maneuvers in it, stretching chair, yoga, breath work, meditation. And my whole dream behind it is if I can get someone in a simple daily practice, I know what it will do for their life. I know what it will do for their body. I know what it will do for their energy, their mental health, their clients. And so that's always my intention. Beyond all the other things we do is if I can get someone in a daily practice, and we have to make it easy. So I ask you, like, show like, what can we find that's so easy we can't cheat on it, we can't miss it, that it can be implemented and become a habit? And that's where I always want someone to start if they're not doing it, you know, like they're like, I'm not really taking care of myself at all. Like I really am on the back burner. I'm like, What's the easiest way we can implement a simple practice in your life that it's easy not to miss during a walk, during a morning ritual, during a drive, during 10 minutes in between a client, like things you're already have to do. What's an example? Yeah, I love this. If you are someone who's already physically moving your body, you go on walks, you work out, you do something, starting to listen to meditations, visualizations or positive music, to help your subconscious mind, to help the psyche, to help yourself energetically. That could be something if you already drink coffee, cacao, tea, matcha, making sure what you're drinking in the morning a is fueling your body. And so sometimes I'll talk to people about, you know, not drinking caffeine on an empty stomach, and hijacking your cortisol and your hormones and putting your nervous system in fight or flight first thing, and maybe doing something a little gentler, and simply setting an intention, listening to a song, a simple meditation literally 10 minutes. Like, can you make five or 10 minutes for you? Or the easiest, like, if I can get a client in a daily breath work or meditation practice? Is I can guarantee it will change their lives, not because I'm magical, but because I know how their body works. And so if I can start to get them doing something that shifts the mind, shifts the body, shifts the nervous system, daily, great healing starts to take place in their life. And so like in your car, like literally, if it's you park before you come in. If you have children, a loved one, dogs, dinner, you got to cook whatever roommates. Can you stop for 10 minutes and and do a meditation like instead of just sitting there scrolling on Tiktok to zone out and disassociate, could you do a meditation? Could you in the morning do something like that? Those simple practices? I know it sounds like duh, but that is the beginning of someone starting to live in a different frequency and state in their life. to cry, it comes up, and that pressure gets released from your nervous system so you don't carry it, or you're sad, or you're angry or you're happy, and it makes space for, like, what I actually want to be in the world. And that's where I'm like, it's so simple, but like, it is it would change the world. Like, if it would prevent crime, it would prevent so much harm, so many things that go on if people had a meditation practice. And that's like the simplest foundational but to get someone in that practice takes time.

Matthew Landis:

I completely agree with you, and if you look at some of the most successful people in the world of all time, the one thing that a lot of them have in common is they all say they meditate, but what I hear from a lot of people is, I don't a don't have time to meditate. I can't think about nothing for I can't, I can't, I can't totally what would you say to those people that don't believe they can meditate?

Elizabeth Faye:

Yes, yes. So it's, it's because it's not a habit, and we are, we are finding our dopamine hit, so we're finding our regulation through other things that have also become habitual, because we've done them over and over again, right? And so it's creating a new neural pathway. It's creating a new pattern. It takes about 90 days to create a new neural pathway that becomes like a super highway, meaning, oh, this is comfortable. Oh, I know how to drive down this road. Oh, I know how to do this. So think of every time you do a positive practice, like a meditation for yourself, you start creating, like a faint line. And the more you go over and over and over that it truly becomes easier. And what I would recommend, because most people don't even how do I meditate? What is meditation? Am I doing it right? Right? Anytime you can get out of your head and into your body, you can get into a meditative state. So it doesn't have to be, you know, I think we think of this perfect position, which all those things. I mean, there is science to how you sit in the spine and all that. Forget that. Like, forget all that. Let's say, you know nothing. It doesn't matter. Anyways, I didn't know any of this crap. I was just sick. And I literally, I was just sick and was like, anything. Let's try anything. And I've tried many things that I teach many things, with one of the strongest tools that I feel like anyone could take and it's free to do, is anything that gets you out of your head into your body, if it's singing positive music, if it is dancing, if it is in your in a sauna, if it is journaling and getting into flow state, a lot of like meditation music will repeat, because it will put that Part of your mind into flow state where you get into a repetitive, if you like, to play certain music, things like that. Can drop us into kind of that, you know, if you get a massage, you're like, not asleep, not awake, you can kind of get into this, like in middle space. It can start to shift you into that more meditative space. And so anything can I get out of my head and into my body, that's what I would say. And I have tons of playlists on, you know, on streaming services. So find positive music you like, a guided track, like find something that can be your teacher and your guide could be on YouTube. Whether it's could be an R app, it could be another app, it could be anything to guide you and that make your intention. I want to drop into my body. My favorite is I want to drop into my heart. And when I tap into my heart, I'm tapped into this field of, oh my gosh. This is what I care about, or this is how I feel, or this is what I really am like, wanting to know. Or, you know, I come back to what I call, like, my sense of purpose in the world, that brings me back into my heart space. So when I'm really lost or I'm really frustrated or I'm really even, like, arguing with my husband, or I'm overwhelmed or they're stressed, or I'm going through hard things or just and feel disconnected from something, I want to connect to my heart, because it brings me back to like, there I am, there we are, we're we're back now, like, welcome home. And that's what a breath work meditation practice offers you at all moments, right? It takes this and often we can't meditate because we're not regulated. We're in fight, flight, freeze or fawn on a some low grade level that we are just high functioning in, and we are used to the world built to keep you in these modes. Algorithms are social media, right? Attention, attention, attention. And when you pull that in to intention, into you, you claim your power back. So I would say you can't afford not to truly because you become everyone's buying your attention, and you're like they're trying to grab you all the time. And if you don't come back into you, you just become a reflection of whatever's going on and everything else in your world, and you don't even know it. You know you're stressed and you don't know it, you're being bought and you don't know it, you're being hijacked and you don't know it, you're being projected fear on and you don't know it, and it makes clarity harder, creativity, harder, connection, conversations, decision, love, happiness, joy, sleep, all the basic things we need harder.

Matthew Landis:

You know, so interesting, too. Some of these things that could make our lives so much better are free, free breath, water, sleep, meditation. They don't cost anything, no, and we avoid them, or we have a hard time. Yeah, and I think, if you you know, I met it when I have trouble sleep, I usually sleep really well, but then I wake up at like four in the morning, and so I will meditate myself back to sleep. And you know, there's research that shows even if you just lay there with your eyes closed. It's almost as good as sleep, but yeah, meditation is free. You can do it in a lot of different ways and a lot of different places. Let's talk about the industry. Let's do it. You are here to help the industry. So you believe that beauty and wellness professionals change lives.

Elizabeth Faye:

I mean, I believe it's so much. I made a TED talk about it, which you can link. It's free. It actually went by, really fun. We also made a movie about it. We showcased our community. But like the impact that beauty pros have, and you know, it's called hairstyles change the world. But the bigger ideas beauty professionals and even the bigger ideas, can all of us as humans have a positive impact. And what can we notice from right our beauty and wellness pros of what they do, and that's what our TED talk. You can watch it. You'll see, but um, and so I believe that so deeply that I made those things, but I it really started for me, and the person who changed my life was a hairdresser. It was my first mentor. I was 12 years old. I don't know if you want me to tell the story or not, but yeah, please do. I grew up in Vegas, and I was a troubled kid, really punk kid. I had a lot of stuff going on that was really hard growing up, and I found myself cutting myself, doing drugs, running away, getting into all sorts of trouble, and I ended up living with a different family or being in a different school every year from 12 to 16 years old. And when I was 12, I really wanted to get kicked out of the current school I was in, and they had a rule that you couldn't have distracting hair. So I made my hair distracting shout out to Hot Topic, you know, bright colored hair, Manic Panic, yeah, sponsored by Manic Panic. And I came to school the next day, and I landed myself a seat in the principal's office and got expelled and was told not to come back until my hair was a natural color. And so I was sitting on the curb waiting for my dad to pick me up, and a woman tapped me on the shoulder and actually gave me a business card for a hairdresser, and it said Robert Chrome, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. You can Google that Robert cromons is a very famous platform artist in the Paul Mitchell world. Mandalay Bay is a big casino on the strip, and so that means big, famous salon and a famous casino on the strip, probably expensive. So I booked the appointment my cute dad, who's like a Mormon yoga teacher and a laborer, does like welding, like is like blue collar worker. He worked for the city and did something with welding in the ground every day. And he's like salt of the earth. Human takes me to this appointment that we definitely cannot afford, and I sit down in the chair and I tell the hairdresser everything about me. Of course, that's what we do. And he learned quickly I just needed some love, and I left enamored, and just like in love with hairdressing and the salon and the whole experience. And my dad was livid about the price, and so I had to earn the money, yes, color correction, yeah, yeah, at the Mandalay Bay. And then so I earned the money to pay him back. And then I was like, I'm coming back. And he's like, No, you're not. And I was like, yes, but I'll do whatever chores you want. So I earned the money to come back, and six months later, I brought like, a wad of cash to my hairdresser. And he's like, What the hell is this? So he learned my dad was mad, you know, and they made a deal that he would do my hair for free, if I would bring a report card with good grades on it. And he was my first tour, and he did that for me from 12 to 16 years old. And at 16, I dropped out of high school, and I came to the salon and said, I'm too stupid. I. Dropped out, and he said, How about a job? And I got to become an assistant. And so I I really shared that story, like, all the time, like, what we do is so impactful, like it literally shaped, maybe changed or saved my I mean, it definitely changed my life, but it could have saved my life, and it changed the trajectory of everything for me, and then I just knew my whole thing was he made me feel heard, seen and loved. If I do that for every person in my chair, I will always be successful, and I have kept that as my motto in our company, like if I make our school that hires us for vitality feel heard, seen and loved, we will always be taken care of. If we help the person who comes to our retreat feel heard, seen and loved. Obviously, deliver our service that we do, we're good, and we've done that with every partner, with every client, with every when I hired my first stylist at my salon, my assistants every thing I ever did, and it's been a great business plan. It's worked out so far. Wow.

Matthew Landis:

I want to repeat that: heard, scene, and loved, and you'll be successful. Yep. What do you think happens in the chair in the studio that people in outside of the industry don't really understand?

Elizabeth Faye:

Yeah, so I've like, psychoanalyze the crap out of this, actually, because I'm like, I do deep, deep healing with people now, and it's interesting as a hairdresser to see so many similarities and like, just like I have the context of, like, what people shared with me when I'm an educator and when I'm a stylist and a salon owner. And, you know, we do a lot of therapy for people. Um, I think there's, you know, a we're one of the only careers, besides medical professionals, who can touch your body so personally, so quickly, period. So there's like, this immediate consent, like consent, physically and emotionally, really quickly, that is just innate and happens like, you're touching someone's heart, their head, their hands, their face, like, I don't let anyone touch my face. Like you have to be like my lover, my son or my esthetician. Like, what the heck you know? And so, like, who's petting your hair? Like people who are like your grandma when you're little, or your partner, like your hairdresser. Like, it's just there's a lot of intimacy in the physical realm. And so there's all these barriers that we cross as beauty professionals, wellness professionals, almost immediately, very quickly. And there's this built in trust factor that comes in. It's also this space that people assume, you know, there's like this, I'm not going to tell anyone else. And so we share so mentally and emotionally so quickly. And there's no like even in therapy, sometimes we gate ourselves our life coaching with what we don't want someone to know about us or fix about us. Where, with your beauty professional, there's not that element, right? You're like, they're not my therapist. They don't have to fix me, but they're kind of my free therapist. And so we have that with our like, my nail tech walked me through my first divorce. Like, there's this innate, you know, trust that comes so much so I shared in my TED talk this one of my clients, who I did trauma work with, that actually worked for the government, shared that some of the first people they go to to find information when they're looking for a suspect is a barber or a beauty professional, like their hairdresser. When they need like, we're talking like people that don't want to be found, they go find their hairdresser. And I'm like, that speaks of volume that like, mic drop done, you know?

Matthew Landis:

Yeah, well, you know, I someone told me this once we what's interesting is we are a part of people's lives, but we're not a part of their life like we know everything about them. We know their kids, their husbands, we know all of this stuff, but we don't really hang out with them outside of the salon. So we are this really important part of their life, but we're not in their lives exactly such an interesting place to be. So when you talk about, how do you word this trauma informed?

Elizabeth Faye:

Yeah. So I'm a trauma informed life coach. So I'm trained on how to handle trauma, what that is, how to deal with it, and so I have a lens and perspective, you know, on different things, in training, in my certifications, yeah, when I'm life coaching people.

Matthew Landis:

What is trauma dumping?

Elizabeth Faye:

That's a great question. So this is the thing that you probably hear all the time in your profession, and people right are not doing this to be harmful. Of course, they're just sharing. You're there. You're their friend. You are their person. You are their safe space. You are they are laying down and relaxing. But it's when someone is sharing about things in their life that are challenging or hard or their lived experiences, and it's not in a clinical or professional setting, right, where you're like, I'm coming in for therapy or life coaching and sharing and working out, I'm just sharing. And it's not that our clients are doing that and it's a bad thing and that they're doing something wrong. It's. I think it's really important for us as beauty professionals to understand that that does take a toll on us, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, even the most resilient emotionally, you know, put together people and just having basic skills and tools to be able to have good emotional hygiene in our lives and understanding like you are impacted by that every single day, by being around people. And when we're not aware of that, we might not know I'm not having nothing to give our families. Maybe being exhausted, tired, brain fog, not sleeping well, disassociating. You know those things may be coming from the work that we do all the time and later can turn into burnout or anxiety that we're carrying, that energy transference that is happening every single day, and it's part of the job, and it can be a good part of the job we love that people share with us. But also trauma dumping does have an impact on us 100%

Matthew Landis:

Now you're teaching a class for us, a masterclass called "Burnout Proof Your Beauty and Wellness Business," you're going to be talking about some of these coping mechanisms, yes, or tools that we can handle. Do you mind sharing some of those with our podcast listeners? Totally, yeah. So if I've been trauma dumped on Yeah, I have been trauma dumped.

Elizabeth Faye:

What do I do? Yeah, I and I would say this should be like daily hygiene for you, because people are sharing all day long with you information. So we'll go into the nervous system and the science and things like that on our master class, and I'll show visuals and all of that. But I think some very simple things that you can do in your day to day life that are free 99 is to have a morning practice and have a practice after work. These can be very simple practices that allow you to move energy that you've been in all day. So emotions are energy in motion, and so we have energy transference. We're around other people, how they're feeling, their vibe, their energy, their frequency, right? We pick up on that, but there's actual like we can measure that and feel that. And so having a practice that protects you in the morning, where you get into your own energy before we just become this like cute little sponge that soaks up Tiktok and the news and our clients and their drama and all the things they have to do, and someone waiting and all of those things, and then having a practice at the end of the day that closes and releases that. And a simple one is some meditation and breath work. I'll go through some other practices that help you regulate, but those are simple, easy, free things you can do to just really have, like a container. And this is when I was in different trainings and certifications, I'd be in the room with therapist, and they're learning practices that they do all the time when they're holding space for people. And even we'll talk about what holding space is, and so that's not taking on everybody else's stuff, not fixing everyone no one's broken. Those simple practices are tools that therapists practice day in and day out, and we're doing that as well as being chemist as well as being service providers, as well as being influencers, as well as being the front desk and the retail sales person. And so these simple practices, I My dream is for you to make them habitual and just part of how you care for yourself, just like, hopefully you're eating lunch and drinking water, moving your body too, but like, just making them a normal practice in your life. So I think just really easy, start and finish your day with something that can help you protect your energy and then, like, close it off, because then maybe you're going home to social life, friends, family, kids, dogs, pets who need You more. And you know that feeling of like, oh my gosh, I have nothing else to get, or I don't want to hear anyone else talk those sorts of things are cues that we need to button up our energetics and emotions, because you have other people in your life, and you maybe want to have something else to give, even yourself, and not just collapse into the couch, like what a life is, that you just want to work and collapse. And I did that for years, until I got sick and burned out. And so I want you to see that well before you know we're burned out and in that flow. But if you are burned out, the same practice is important to practice.

Matthew Landis:

We're amazing people. I don't know how we do it all,

Elizabeth Faye:

Honestly, so much, like therapists couldn't even dream. Like, I mean, that was so much love. Like, yeah, doing a lot at the same time and and I when I was in, you know, and I'm always in different trainings and education, but I was like, Man, why were we not taught these basic skills like in beauty school? And you know, that's why I was like, I need to share this with my clients,

Matthew Landis:

absolutely, absolutely they should be. I hope they're teaching you work with beauty schools, teaching, yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Faye:

We're in about 50 locations right now and growing literally every day. So we have. Textbooks we're teaching. We teach teachers coaching skills as well them, trauma, informed facilitation, what to do when a client, a student, has anxiety. We teach the students, you know, emotional resilience and intelligence and communication and regulation and how to hold space. They're learning it from the jump, and then they'll come in, having these people skills and tools, you know, starting from school, which is going to also help sweet renter companies like you, or salons hiring, you know, young stylists or pros, and them being equipped to really be incredible a lot quicker. I see these challenges with people getting hired by salons. I hear the owners challenges, I hear the teachers and the students challenges, and then I hear the solo pros challenges. And then I hear, you know what our numbers are with people maybe not staying in the industry. And I'm like, if you don't think it's related to how people are doing, like we need all toxic environments have to change and die, and people are demanding it, and so it has to be this cultural systematic shift, and it starts in education and be empowered to do so. But like you said, I have so many people that are just like, it's just a lot. It's overwhelming. My anxiety was too much. My therapist. I had a girl, her therapist said her best thing for her mental health was to lead the industry. And I'm like, damn it, because it's such a good industry. It's so abundant, so much money changed, so many guys, I don't know where else you could get better everything. And these are skills that are easy to learn, easy to use, easy to have. They just need to be practiced and taught like, That's it, and the rest of the industry is phenomenal, and we can deal with all the changes and pivots

Matthew Landis:

as they come. Well, I'm thinking, when you're in school, you're learning this technical skill, and so you're doing this technical thing, this artistic thing, but you're doing it on a human being. And so it the wellness, taking care of yourself and learning these soft skills, they have to be equal to the technical aspect, because you are a human being working on another human being doing something technical. Yeah, and it all has to work in harmony with each other, or it doesn't work. And that's why I think this is absolutely essential. Okay, how does wellness connect to profitability.

Elizabeth Faye:

Oh, my goodness. Well, you said this on our podcast, that you are your greatest investment, and that's something you know, I know personally, like, when I got sick, I was like, crap. I literally like, what happens y'all? Like, if you get sick, how much money are you making? Like, this is just an honest conversation with us as professionals. Like, what happens if you're like me and you get arthritis in your hands and your wrist, because I spent years not caring about all the things that were inflaming me, you know, from food to stress to emotions like that. Those were my money makers. Like, that's a problem. And so it's it's wealth. What's protecting your future? It's future proofing your wealth now. It's preventing challenges in the future, and it's sustaining what you're currently building. And it's also like your health is your wealth. And so I think at the end of the day, what you said is the best thing is like you are your greatest asset. So anything you do that builds into you, like attending Matthew's trainings for business and education, learning other craft things, and also, like, remember to take space for that personal development, your health, your wellness, because that's what's fueling it all. So I think it should be something that you make just as important as the other things, and make space for but all the ways you invest into you, you're building up like this portfolio and asset that is you. And so every time you invest in any form of education, with your time, your energy, your money, I you know, it's like every time you meditate, you're putting coins in the piggy bank for a rainy day, something happens, and you need that emotional capacity you can hold it. You're like, I got this crap. Like I got it handled. I can handle this because I have a well of knowledge, emotional intelligence, capacity, friends, community, people, so it's putting money in a piggy bank, taking care of yourself for the future.

Matthew Landis:

All right, before we go, I want to do a quick, rapid fire round of questions. You ready? Yeah, one boundary that changed your life,

Elizabeth Faye:

ooh, evenings with my family, like, not letting that, like, start to really, like, eat, like I was just one here, one there, and, like, I started missing out on, like, basketball games and just things that matter to me, you know.

Matthew Landis:

Yeah, so saying no,

Elizabeth Faye:

saying no to certain hours, whatever your hours are, that matter. It's farmers market, Saturday mornings. Fine. That's your thing, you know, yeah,

Matthew Landis:

A daily ritual you never skip?

Elizabeth Faye:

Breath work. Breath work.

Matthew Landis:

Something you've outgrown?

Elizabeth Faye:

Oh, my goodness, so many things I. Yeah, I've outgrown like, needing to have, like, FOMO, to, like, be at like, certain things, whether it's like, friends or industry, like, I just, I just will go to the things I really want to go to and I don't care about the rest. Isn't that wonderful?

Matthew Landis:

Yeah, you know, that's one of the, you know, I'm, I'm getting older. We all are, but I'm in my 50s, and those are the things that I love about about getting older, is understanding what makes me happy and what doesn't. And yeah, yeah, yeah, that's key. Well, Elizabeth, this has been such an important conversation. I cannot wait for our master class on April 6. I'm really excited to do that with you. If someone listening realizes that they are tired or burned out, not just physically, but emotionally, what would you say to them right now?

Elizabeth Faye:

I would say it totally makes sense you feel that way, and to book an emotional date with yourself, which is just a time to kind of like, feel how you feel, and see kind of what's up in your body, and just like, literally with yourself, meditate, breathe, hang out, like, just in a little, little date I'm coming for you. You know, I love that.

Matthew Landis:

I love that an emotional date. So if people want to learn more about the vitality project, Hare love university or where should they go?

Elizabeth Faye:

Yeah, I think Instagram is a great place. I

have my personal:

@heyelizabethfaye. We have the Vitality Project and Hair Love University, and then you can kind of wander through, you know, all the things.

Matthew Landis:

Oh my gosh, I love you. I think you're just absolutely one of my favorite people. And I'm so glad that I've gotten to know you and that we connected, and I am just so excited to share this work with our pros and to spread the message that you're doing, because I think it's so important. So thank you for being here.

Elizabeth Faye:

Yeah, thanks for having me, and this is a beautiful conversation.

Matthew Landis:

Thanks, Elizabeth. Thank you for listening to The VIP Suite at IMAGE Studios. If you found value in today's episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review. It helps more independent beauty and wellness pros discover the show, to learn how you can be part of the IMAGE Studios collective, head to imagestudios360.com. You can also reach me directly at matthew@imagestudios360.com, and I will see you on the next episode of The VIP Suite at IMAGE Studios.