Change, Is it Needed In Your Life?

Do you feel burnout or stagnant in your career? If you take a look at your life personal, business, life, or location are you happy with them all?

If you notice you just aren't as happy as you used to be take a hard look and see what you discover. I know I have had pivotal spots in my life the one decision made a huge direction change in my life.

Four years ago I took an extension class that relit the joy in my career, Three years ago I made another big decision and it changed my whole life. I chose to learn and grow to better my business, but I think I had an even bigger change. I chose to dig deep into my mindset so I can see things from a different light. I am just realizing how much those decisions have given me now.

Thank you for listening. Share this episode with a friend that you think would enjoy it.

I would love it if you took the time to leave a rating or review for the show.

Want me to go more in-depth about anything? Let me know.

Send an email with questions to skahrhoff@live.com.

Transcript

Shannon Kahrhoff: 0:01

Hello, welcome to Decoding Clients for Stylists. I'm Shannon Kahrhoff. This week I want to go over a little bit. It's not really about your clients, it's more about your personal wellbeing It affects your clientele big time, depending on how it affects your mood and just the joy you have coming to work. And it's huge because we take it for granted that our environment around us doesn't influence us that much. But whenever you have an amazing crew of people that work in your environment, in your space, it totally affects how you handle your day. If you walk in and everyone's bickering and arguing and, causing problems, it's gonna bring your energy down a little bit, unless you're really good at letting it roll off your back. But if you walk into a salon and it's bustling and it's happy, and everyone's laughing and enjoying their time at work. It's amazing how much different that it actually affects your mood, but it's not just your environment that affects you, it's your personal life. It's your mindset. It's where you are in your career. If you're feeling satisfied, if you have clients that aren't lighting you up anymore because you've let them take advantage of you a little bit or. You are just not finding the joy in your job anymore. Everyone is different. Me personally, I've hit multiple stages through my whole career, and I have my ups my downs. There's times I've researched colleges to look on what else I can go do because I'm just drained. There's just times that it takes everything out of you to survive your personal life, your career and everything else. But it all depends on how you handle it, how you adjust, how you evaluate your own self is key. I haven't always been the best at realizing it until I'm really miserable. And if you wait until it's that extreme, it's usually. Pretty bad by the time you realize it. And I've had, I've moved salons multiple times and I can't really say any of'em were bad. They actually helped me get to where I am now, and it's created who I am now with how I approach the owners of the salon, how I approach myself as the. Owner of my own business because I'm self-employed. I'm, I have a suite that I rent, but everything else is all on me. It's great. I love the freedom, I love the ability to choose my days and my times, and I don't have anyone making those decisions for me. But it can get exhausting at times if you let it I've been in this business for a long time. I started as an hourly stylist and I learned the difference from my first two salons from a good manager and a bad manager. I guess I should flip that, a god awful, horrible manager and a very good manager, and she was a good leader. She helped. Build camaraderie with her stylists there. She was very good at acknowledging whenever you were improving and doing better. She also pulled you aside whenever you were needing some improvements and different things that you needed to tweak. But she didn't trash you. She didn't insult you. She was very good. That was key in my career by understanding the difference between how a manager or. A salon owner can make you feel, depending on their attitude towards you, or lack of attitude towards you. I think my first three salons I worked at were chain salons and one of'em was in Arkansas when I was there for massage therapy. So it was interesting because there was really only three or four of us that worked at the salon at a time. It was a chain salon in the mall in Fayetteville, and it was just interesting. It was a different dynamic. The young lady who was the manager of the place, she was probably my age, maybe a little bit older. I'm not really sure if I ever asked her that information, but she didn't really seem like a manager other than she scheduled our hours. Anyway, this is not important. So through the years, I've realized that when I get into a struggle with something, it usually means I need to adjust something and sometimes it's adjusting the salon I work at. The first time I switched salons after I went rental was extreme. I had a bond with the owner. I knew that I would probably never speak to her again afterwards because it was a smaller town and. The drama in that salon was so extreme. By one person speaking to me in the morning, she usually dragged me right into her drama. And if she had a horrible day, it made my day a horrible thing.'cause she controlled the energy in that salon. So if she's all bubbly and happy, okay great, we're having a nice upbeat salon day that day. But more times than not, it was getting to the extreme negative. And everything was horrible. All of her clients were horrible and she just loved drama. Listen up, salon owners, whenever you have and you allow a stylist to control one person, control the energy in your whole salon, even if they're rental, you've got to stop it because that affected everyone in that salon. That salon was my home. That's where I got my confidence and my energy and a lot of my clientele, it was me and my friend that worked there. She used to be the owner until she sold it to this lady, and she wasn't a bad owner. She just let the friendship aspect overpower the environment so she wouldn't call this person out on her behavior because they were friends. And maybe my friend did it to me, who knows when she was the owner. But because of that environment, and then she let this friend control a situation that should not have been an issue at all. It was about raising the rent. She hadn't raised the rent the whole time since she owned the place it was due, she needed to raise the rent. But this one quote friend totally derailed her and she. Made a comment, which she probably regretted later of saying, if I don't have a rent increase, I'm gonna have to close a salon.'cause she was losing money in the salon and we were very well aware of it. But her quote friend didn't care. She was worried about her own bottom dollar and that was it. So I made an adjustment then. It was a stupid adjustment, but it was an adjustment. Someone we used to work with, my friend was talking to her saying she was opening a salon in town, and I went into panic mode when she said she's gonna have to close the salon and just drastically made a decision. It was like, okay, if you trust her, I trust you. Okay, let's go. So I went from the frying pan to the fire man. It was intense, but at that point I had to do it because I was a single mom. I can't afford not having a salon to walk into. So if I felt like if I didn't make that a, that jump, then I was going to shoot myself in the foot and not be able to do it. And my mental ability to endure that drama in the salon was not able to happen anymore. I was becoming angry, coming to work because of the drama that I had to walk into. We moved to this other salon and. She is a fun loving personality with a bit of the steady, so she's great at doing everything that sounded fun and exciting creating the salon, but as soon as she could check Mark, say, okay, it's done. Okay, I am out. It wasn't fun anymore running the business. She wanted everyone else to take responsibility for what she should be doing. And she let her mom manage the salon and it turned into communist state pretty much, except for we still had our own money. We paid them rent, but they had all control over us. Our thought they could have all control over us, and it became a very, again, angry situation and very draining. So again, I realized I was miserable. Lasted a whole nine months and. I couldn't handle it anymore, and I found with the help of a past coworker, found a dream salon. I still work there today. I had a few short years, through Covid time that I had to move to another one because of space. I'm in Illinois. Our governor's horrible and so many stupid restrictions, so I moved to a different salon that the owners owned, but. Had another owner with it. So it was odd, but it worked. I had a space, we had enough space between us that we didn't have to worry about the covid restrictions and things like that. I wound up staying there for quite a few years and then, outta desperation, I moved into a small room that I turned into a suite and. Survive there for a while. It was actually better having a very small room. It was better for my mental health and yeah, it was just better. So you have to constantly look at your situation on what's making you miserable. Why am I not happy? What's going on? How can I fix this in my realm of what's around me? So I jumped at this small little room to create my own and. Oh my gosh, my, I felt free. I had a door that I could close if the energy around me was too much and I didn't have to worry about anyone else's drama affecting me. And, then I realized I still wasn't happy there. But, I went to visit the salon that I'm at now and they offered me my own suite and it was big and I had my own shampoo bowl and it solved all my issues. That was a lucky draw that, they still respected me enough, for my work ethic and my abilities and invested in this room for me. So I have been happy there. There's been ups and downs a little bit with coworkers, but I have the ability to. Not have to be in the middle of it.'cause I have my own space, my suite, I have doors that I can close if I need to, and it's wonderful. But what I'm trying to get you to understand is I have made many turns in my career to keep me happy and that's just the location of where I'm working. I have made many changes with classes that I've taken. I can tell when I'm losing my. My fun drive with this career, whenever I'm stagnant, you have to pay attention to one. You feel like you've plateaued. Not every personality has this feeling. There's the steady and probably the rule maker that would be okay. Having this, the easygoing flow, everything is where they want it. They're comfortable enough and just keeping going with it. It's not always worth them, worth it for them to jump into change. Change is scary for those personalities, but I've learned that change is my main drive. There's always, I always feel like I have to have some kind of a challenge ahead of me to make me push through to have an adventure with everything. In 2021, I took my first extension class three years ago. This week actually, I took my first in-person extension class with Harper Ellis. And that was a game changer for me because not only did they teach me a great way to install hair and quality hair, but it's amazing because they taught me. How to run my business better, how to think in the right direction. And most people don't understand how important mindset is because you can convince yourself that it can be done or it can't be done depending on where your thinking is. And if you don't take that time to understand yourself, how you think and where, what position you're in at that time, you're just. Causing yourself problems. And I knew I had a major thinking problem because I was starting to struggle and I was starting to try and figure out how to boost my business up again.'cause I was done homeschooling my daughter. So it was time. I had more hours in the salon, but I needed to bring in the clientele. Now I had just been surrounded by older stylists. Who, older and younger stylists that like the whole idea of, having a full book and being stagnant, they were not in the realm of building clientele and expanding and stretching yourself and working hard. They were all to the point of working hard with what they have in their books, but not working hard at staying relevant and staying. On top of the new looks and styles and stuff like that. I'm not insulting them. I am not saying that is not a way for many people. I'm saying that's not what I wanted. I don't want to be the stylist that's comfortable doing the same thing from the 1990s. I want to do the most relevant current styles and. Keep learning the newest ways of applying color and haircuts. And to me that's the food for my soul because I love learning new things and staying on top of everything. I love going to classes and bringing it back to my clients. I'll say it this way, because the people that I had been working around were not excited about classes. They were excited about getting the hours for their classes to renew their license, and that was pretty much the drive. They didn't care what the class was about. They wanted to just check Mark. I'm sitting through a class, I got my hours. I can go get my license renewed, and I'm good to go. I wanted to find classes that excited me and could improve me because that's how I knew what kind of change I needed to go for. But if you go through this whole career and you think you go through class or you go through school, you get your license, you pass a state board exam, you're done. You're wrong. This career is always about staying on top of the education and the new trends and the new technology and the new products. Oh, I love new products. Just love it. But you have to understand where you are at the time. Most people that I see on social media, on the professional pages, they don't realize why they're burnt out. There's all these people, especially right now. Trying to figure out what to do next, what career can I go into to get steady income? To not have to deal with the clientele and not have to deal with hard days. We work with the public peeps and I think we are always gonna have that struggle because not only do we have to deal with our own emotions and personal issues, we stand and do the client's hair that are. In the same boat they are. They could be having a bad day or a bad moment in their life at that time, and we have to emotionally be able to hold up to that. We have to be able to deal with their ups and downs as much as our own. And that's hard. It's a struggle, but it is one of those things that you have to acknowledge that if your clients are having a lot of. Problems and a lot of challenges in their life. You need to force yourself to find a way to release all this emotion that they dump on us and move on. We can't carry that, the grief and the upset and everything with us because it will drag us down and create negativity. This is one of the changes that you have to focus on if you are getting. Emotionally drained by your day in, in your salon. There's something going on in there that you need to figure out. I chose extensions after COVID. I know I needed to have change. I had to light up myself with a new project, a new something that I could go hands on and. Dump myself into that. I can get some excitement and build, and just a two day class was the best thing in the world for me. At that time. I learned basic stuff, the first class that I did, but they did not even touch on the business. So a year or two later, all of a sudden I. Realized I really needed more help in the extension world, and I was searching and searching, and I kept coming across this company's name And so I started researching and I reached out to a friend who's, more experienced extensions and asked for her advice over it. And then I wound up making the big jump and took a class. Now the irony of the situation about that class is I flipped out over having to pay this much money for a class. It was an online class that you could learn your skills and do things, and then one day hands on and I was flipping out over this much money invested on it, and thank God I did. I got past my own doubts because that online class and that one day in. Fort Smith, Arkansas made a life change for me. It changed so many things, so many directions in my life. It opened up the possibilities and the mindset. It totally spun me on my heels by all of the knowledge and the information of how you rethink everything in this career. I wish I would've had this information at the beginning of my career. I probably would be so much better off, but. The amount of money I spent on that class that I had to go get a square loans for, which it was fine. It didn't take long to pay off, but it, I just almost spent that much money on my car in the last two weeks. Now she's an old car, but I love that baby, and I just spent that much money in two weeks that I spent on that class three years ago. The whole magic of it is I would not have that money to pay for my car repair. I probably have been, probably would've been stressed out. I would've been crying. I would've been hysterical, but I wrote a check. No big deal. I did not flip, and I didn't realize that until the cashier, as I was writing the check. I live in a small town, they still take checks, but. The cashier is a young college student. You can tell she's working on her assignments when I've, I go in and pay for it and she was like, oh my God. I would be so upset. I'd be crying. I would not be able to handle writing out this much money for a car repair. I was like, it's a lot cheaper than car payments. So how my think thinking process and my financial stability now has changed in three years is mind blowing. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't know myself and know I needed to make a change in something. And my change at that point was learning how to better understand the business side of extensions.'cause it's a whole new mindset. It's a luxury service. It and the idea of just little old me charging this much money for hair to be installed. It blew my mind at that time. I didn't feel like I deserved it. I didn't feel like someone would invest that much time and money on my services because who am I? I'm just a Podunk Shannon in this tiny little town where there's so many other more qualified people where could do their hair. But you know what? Once I got done with that training and understood where my profit level is, how to properly price myself to get to where I needed. And then I took two more classes last year and my belief lid went wide open. It was just amazing because again, I needed the mindset change and the ability to understand how to break down, how to create more out of my business.'cause I wanted more. I have the time. Why not change my mindset? Because I knew I was getting stagnant again. And if I get stagnant, I don't wanna get bored in my career. I want to enjoy every moment of my career and be able to make people happy and make them beautiful. I love watching someone playing with their new hair extensions in their hair, or when they're moved up right and tight to the scalp and that they can put it up in a ponytail. I love that they have that self-confidence in themselves because of this thing that I learned how to do. And I marketed myself enough to let them know, Hey, I do hair, I do extensions. But you've gotta understand when a big change is happening or needs to happen in your life. Because if you don't, you're gonna be one of those people who will be down the road looking for a new college course or a new job that the only training you have is doing hair, which. We know a lot of crap in this business. It's just the, understanding of why let yourself not grow unless it's really not for you. It's not for everyone. I remember in cosmetology school. Our first day they had us sit down in our desks in this tiny little room when we were overflowing. Wondering why they would start this many students at the beginning of the season or the of the class when we don't have enough desks to go around and walk through. They told us Mr. Merlin, spoke up and he was like, okay, look to your left. Look to your right. Remember those faces?'cause two of you guys aren't gonna be here by the end of graduation. And in a year, half of them will not be doing hair anymore. And in five years, not even half of them will be doing hair still. And that blew me away because What do you mean people aren't gonna follow through? They're not gonna stay in this career. They don't. You know how many people I went to cosmetology school with that don't do hair anymore and I bump into. One, she works in the same town I live in, so I get to see her bopping around. She has a salon, and I'm like, oh, okay. She's still doing hair. We're good. We're good. But it's crazy because I expected everyone to do this forever. But if you don't pay attention and you don't realize when you need to challenge yourself, you need to take a different route. You need to figure out a few things about yourself. Where are you gonna be? Who are you gonna become? I'm horrible at setting goals because the future always worried me. I can't guarantee I'm gonna be around in however long, so making plans for the future really terrified me. But a decision I made four years ago and then three years ago, has put me into a whole different realm of my business. My personal life, my financial life, it's just amazing. And because of those classes last year, I created this podcast and I don't know how it's affecting other people. I really have no idea. I've spoken to a few friends and clients that, and family that have listened, but I don't get that much feedback. So I'm hoping it's affecting some people. I know some people are excited about it. I'm excited about it, but. The ability to adjust and change in your life is the magic for me. I need that challenge and a direction to go fight for to keep me focused. So I went all over the place. I hope you like learning from stories because for me it makes it sink in how much one decision can affect everything. Or lack of decisions because if I would've stayed at the original salon, I have no idea where I'd be right now because I can guarantee I wouldn't have been around a coworker that did extensions and loved it, and I probably would not have made it through extensions without that coworker happily guiding me and helping me figure some things out. So one step goes to another. Also, you need to figure out what you want outta your life to know what kind of change you need. So if you're at an uncomfortable position, you're angry and frustrated at work, you don't know exactly what's wrong. That's when you need to sit down and you need to really look at your life. Look at your personal life. Is there something there that's uncomfortable that you need to tweak? Do you need to improve yourself? Is there something that you need to push yourself to become? Is it your business? Is your business getting stagnant? Are you not making enough money anymore with your clientele? You need to tweak different ideas and stuff like that. Do you need to look at your life, how you're living your life? How are you guiding everyone around you or accepting things around you? Your life can be a huge battleground if you let it, but if you stand strong and focus on the winds that you want in your life, you'll be more positive. You'll be more driven to figure out how to improve whatever you want. Or is it your location that needs to change the salon Are you tired of being commissioned and you wanna challenge yourself to being a suite owner? Do you wanna be a booth renter? What location change could make you feel better? Do you need to be around more people that like education that are doing new things? Because when you're around someone. In this career that loves to learn, that wants to challenge yourself, then they lift you up with their love of education and learning. And it's just key, honestly, to be careful who you surround yourself with because. With all the salons I've worked at, for the people that are happy where they're at, they don't wanna change anything. They aren't thinking about the future when their clients either fade away to other people or they pass away. You need to understand how to constantly have that flow of new clients coming in and keeping you fresh and a adapted to how to communicate and understand new clients. But also to keep your clientele fresh because you don't know what happens. I could have a bad day and my clients will just rush off. They'll go find someone else to go do it, to go do their hair. We're not. We're not so important that we can't be replaced. They might not have the same ability to find the emotional connection or the right color on their hair, but if they have to, they'll go find someone until they have the right, if there's something they're missing from you. So it's, think about those kind of things. Realize before it's too late what you can change. Do you need to go take a class on something that intrigues you? Is there something that you keep getting excited about whenever it pops up on Facebook? I know for a while I was searching at extensions. I was mesh integration. I was looking at wigs and toppers, and I was ready to go down a road to a company to learn about wigs and toppers and wonderful things. Then it fell into my lap with this company that I'm with, and. They've given me everything and guess what? Wigs are coming. I'm so excited about it because everything that I have been interested in is slowly coming to me from this company and I absolutely love it. Not to say I won't take that class down the road, but I will say every time I'm ready to schedule the class, something new gets gets announced with what I've been interested in. So I just have to be patient and learn what I need to learn Now. And master it. So I'm ready for the next uptick in my career. Because what's to say, what my career is gonna be? I, most people are looking at retirement at this age, counting down. I'm. Looking forward to more challenges and more excitement and more everything. I want more, and I hope everyone wants more, but is also willing to actually work for it. Go out there and do the work. Become the better person. Understand what lights you up and what direction you wanna go into. You can quit any time, but it's your life. You're the one who has to live it and understand it. So take that time, figure out where you are. If you're feeling stuck, unstick yourself some way. Somehow. Just figure it out. What could happen, what decision can you make that can better it for people that work in offices? Think about what age you are, what age you think you're gonna live to, and do you wanna feel the same way whenever? However many years you have to go. To me, life is too short. Are you gonna be happy working the same job or the same work environment your whole life? Or are you gonna go out there and challenge yourself and figure out how you can improve or how you can find a different position somewhere? I have no idea. I've never worked in an office, but I've heard a lot of people that are just putting up their time. Counting down the decades or the years until they can retire. You have your choice. You can figure it out yourself but. Me personally, I wanna work for the best I can be and make myself happy, as happy as I can be from day to day.'cause I don't like being miserable. I don't like seeing other people miserable. But we all have choices in this life. So choose wisely. Have a great day, and I'll see you next week.