Where do you get Your Life Advice?

Have you ever thought of where you get the everyday principles you live your life with?

We get advice from everyone we meet. From parents, family, friends, teachers, Doctors, strangers, books, to seminars. How do you choose which to guide your life path?

You pick and choose what you want in your life. You can let go of some of the lessons that you no longer want.  

Ask yourself if this is what you want?

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: 0:02

Hello, welcome to Decoding Yourself for stylists. I'm Shannon Kahrhoff. I'm switching up the name a little bit. My first season I chose to decode clients for stylists because I wanted you to understand how to understand yourself to relate better to your clients. I gave you a lot of advice and suggestions on how to create a good relationship with your clients on how to understand and build conversation and trust with each other by simple things of understanding the personality codes of everyone. I want to tweak it a little bit now. I want to help you understand yourself and guide you to figure out what you really want as a stylist, as a business person that is what you want. So I'm going to tweak the name and create a little bit more variety in it. As you can tell, for the last few episodes, it has been more about working on yourself, figuring out some of the things that you actually want. This is all from my own perspective of how I look at things. Looking back have done things and how I've messed up and how I am trying to create a better atmosphere and better understanding of myself and what I really want out of this career. So this episode I want to go over. Where do you get your advice? I was just at a mega flea market in the town that I work at, they have this amazing thing people donate year round, and the people that organize it and put it together is just amazing. I love it because it's like the most. Amazing experiment ever because you have things that are old antiques that the younger generation don't want anymore. No one values. And then you have some of the newer gadgets and kitchen things that are out there that didn't work for someone. It wasn't right for them. So you can pretty much find anything your mind could imagine in this flea market area. And we were looking for stuff for my daughter's wedding. She has this vision of something of old world charm and she was in heaven finding all of these glorious goodies. So we're going through the objects last night and I'm realizing. That there's little bits here and little bits here, and these are objects of someone's life that they chose not to have in their home anymore or whatever. So I'm looking at it and it occurs to me that this is kind of like the advice we get from everyone in our life. We have advice given to us, solicited or unsolicited, nonstop from birth. We have it from our parents, our grandparents, from all the family that were around. Teachers in school. We have friends that influence of our friendships through school coworkers. Once we get older, our doctors, you think about the doctors influence us. Strangers got plenty of that through my life. Professors in college, they're trying to teach you what they know from their life path. From books, you read books and it tells you how it worked for them. The author. In seminars. If you go to seminars, they're trying to educate you on some item. Now, how do you choose what to take action on? That is a moment by moment decision. So you think about it, our whole life are decisions and habits that we have created that have been suggested or modeled by people in our life continuously. So think about things. What have you learned from your parents? What are some of the things that you have done in your life because your siblings have given you crap about something or reminded you of a bad habit that you had, or if you had great ones, they built you up and told you how successful and how the positive in your life is a wonderful gift. So think about it. I know when I was in cosmetology school, our professors were trying to teach us how to pass a test, teaching us how to be successful with work ethic and organization and cleanliness, and trying to help us understand how to get our foot in the door into different salons. And gee, they pretty much tried to get us to understand so many different things that were subtle things because they couldn't focus a lot of time on it. But what did we actually take out of it? Everyone is different. I know I've had multiple people that I graduated cosmetology school with in this area. Most of the classmates that graduated, I don't think most of them do hair anymore. They went to other careers, but I know. Okay. I don't know that many, but I know a few of them of us are still going strong, building our salon business and going from there. But I know that I've learned quite a bit from the salon owners that I've worked with as being a rental stylist and not much of it was successful thinking. They were talking about the struggles and the mindset and the finances that were so hard to keep track of and to stay on top of. So, most of my career was honestly built with the negativity mindset of stylists. It was hard, it wasn't worth it. You have to give up time away from your family. Most jobs do. But ours was different. It was either the mornings or the evenings, and it's just a different thinking process. But you know what I realized? I never wanted to do the path of everyone else. It's gonna sound bad, so bad. I'm, I'm, no, I'm gonna be judged by their stylists. I dodged for years the idea of being trapped in my career with a tight schedule, six to eight weeks out. That terrified me because I literally feel trapped in my job. I love my clients. I love talking to'em one-on-one, but I can't figure out how to get past being successful as a stylist, knowing I'm booked out, knowing that when my clients call in for an evening or a weekend, I have to say, I'm sorry, I don't have a. A Saturday appointment open until eight to 10 weeks out. That's just how it is. And evenings, they're getting pretty rare right now. So it's a mindset I have to figure out how to change because I have dodged that normal thinking of success for so many years. I did not want to be. Tightly scheduled. I love having an open book and being able to fill it in whenever I needed to. It's not saying that I didn't have a complete book. My schedule was full, but it was more they called when they needed it, and I love that. It was a versatility I could take a day off when I wanted to, two, three weeks out if I really needed to. There's usually one evening that I could, you know, it was fine. Well, I got stuck in this trap of being successful. Great. I love it. I do love the financial stability of it, and I know that my clients love me. Great. This is wonderful, but I've had my mind set on this for so long. I have to adjust again, and it's okay. I'm learning, I'm growing. No other stylist really understands how I feel about this. Because it's not the normal perspective of this. They want security. They want to make sure that they're locked in, they are set up in place, that they can look at their book and say, yes, I am highly sought after I'm successful. This is great, and that's fantastic, but I've always kind of did my business on my own, my own way. I knew I never wanted to own a salon because I don't wanna have to take care of other people. I want to be able to just focus on myself and my clients, and I'm good. I don't wanna have to deal with the, the issues of owning a full salon. So think about your life. We get it from everywhere. Solicited, unsolicited, but how do you choose what you want in your own life? If you don't think about it much, you're just gonna follow the path. Most people go down, right? Every, it's worked for so many people. Why not? Let's do it. Everyone. Go find a job, make sure you have good benefits, and you're hourly and you have your wonderful vacation leave. Great. And so many people are happy that way because they have what they want. Security. They have everything they wanted. Fantastic. But why do you want that? Why do you think that was the route you had to go? Because it was expected of you. This was what was taught. Understood. So what makes a difference between people that want to own their own business and create their own? Way of making money. There's so many people out there that they don't want a traditional nine to five job or 11 to seven. You know, it's sometimes the people that create different habits and patterns are different. They don't know where they fit. You have to be a very strong personality to not falter when people question you or give you this helpful advice of saying, don't you need to go get a nine to five job with benefits and retirement and all this wonderful security. So think about it. Our life is like a flea market. We got all this advice and information and objects around us. So we have something from grandma. We put it in our basket. We get something from our mom and our dad, we put it in our basket. We have advice from teachers. Go get good grades, go to college, get a degree, and go get a nice, safe, secure job. We have friends. We have all this information. So you put a champagne glass in your basket. This is one advice. You have a cooking pot. You put that in there, and you have all of these objects from your life. All these different perspectives and advice. How do you listen to which one you wanna choose? Do you question it or is it just internalized and turn it into what you want to turn your life into? I don't know. I think everyone has a different way of looking at their life, and smart people can get into the path of their life that they want. Some people fall into it on accident. Some people have sought out this life pattern all on their own. They don't have good family and friends that actually taught them how to be successful. You might have habits that you have to run from hide, from, heal from. I know that most of my family members didn't go to college. They worked Jobs factory office. Some of them were teachers, but most of'em worked for the government actually. It's one of those things that you have to really understand. What did you learn? Who taught it to you, and why did you take it to heart and live by it? How did you create your habits and your mindset? I know that I'm a different person because I was in a leadership development for years. I learned how to think differently than how I was raised. I learned there's perspectives and there's different ways to handle my finances, to be smart about my money and to not live beyond my means. Now, not saying it's wrong, I'm telling you there are so many different ways. There are so many different ways to live your life, but you also have to understand who taught you this? Why did they do their life like this? And what habits did you create in your own life to go beyond? I've learned through my life as a stylist, and as a rental stylist, that I had to work the hours that I could make as much money, as money as I could in those hours. I know that I only have so many hours a day that I can earn money. Because I had to take care of my child. I had to sleep. I had other things I had to keep track of. So when a no-show client happens, I'm out those two hours of finances because they chose something else over their time in the salon. Sometimes it's an emergency, sometimes it's not. This is your, my understanding at that time. You work hard sometimes you're the consistent life you thought you had was going to sustain you, but I had a very limited thinking belief system of my salon life. I thought I was a small town stylist, so I had to be treated like a small time stylist. You had to be competitive with your finances and go from there. Well, guess what? I learned differently. I learned the value of my experience, my different mindset of thinking, and I didn't have to treat myself like someone that hadn't gone to a class, learned anything else in the last five, 10 years. It's no big deal. It's how you run your own life that matters. You don't have to be. Comparable to anyone. I am my own person. I focus on things differently. That makes me happy. I'm a detail oriented person, but I live my personal life. Very disorganized because that's my balance. But you, it is one of these things that I always walked my own path. I did not at all walk the paved path that everyone else. Does, because it never felt right to me. I sometimes my life just led itself, one twist here, one twist there, and I rolled with it. I adapted. I created different things that I needed to be sustainable, to be where I wanted to be today. Understand it all as it went. Heck no. I created the life that I needed in the circumstances that I had. But now it's time to understand why I'm choosing different things. Yes. Of my flea market of life, of all the advice I have been given. I resisted so much stuff. I resisted feeling like I had to give my all 24/7 to my career. I resisted the advice to put my daughter in school. From grade school, high school to homeschooler. That was the hardest path I ever had to do because no one at all was on my side. I had to ignore everyone's helpful advice and understand that I will put in the work that I need to create the habits I need for my daughter, to succeed. Was it easy? Heck no. But you know what? That aisle in the flea market of advice, I had to block it out. I had to keep walking, proving to myself and only myself that I can do this. I got this. It's okay. Yes, I had to deviate my path many times to figure out what worked for me and my daughter. Those were the only two people that really had to survive and to thrive in this experiment of life. And we worked. She did great. But you have to understand there's times that you're gonna have to work hard to fight the expected of your life because everyone has expectations for you. What are your expectations that you want out of this? What hard decisions are you gonna have to do to stay on the path that feels right for you? Just because some wonderful, rich person is telling you this is how it worked worked for them, doesn't mean it's a hundred percent what you need for yourself. You have to pick and choose on what part of the education that they're teaching is right for you. And guess what? Sometimes none of it is for you, and this is okay. You have to really understand what you want out of life. And where you wanna go. You can fall into this rabbit hole of understanding all this stuff and be so excited about it. You can be so proud of being a part of this education, but knowing deep down in your heart something's off. Why is something off? Why do I, why am I so stressed figuring this stuff out? Because I love this information. I think it's great for everyone that wants to go that far, but guess what? I can take the information out of it that I need for me. What pertains to me and my business. Just because it's great for someone who wants that doesn't mean it's bad for me. I just don't need to take it that far. But the thinking, the mindset, the habits that you're working on, those are the key to get you where you want. You have to understand what key habits you want and need in your life to get you farther than you are right now. And yes, learning new things can be eye-opening and great and wonderful, but if you're not in the space and the abilities to change your life right now, if you have so much stuff going in your life, it's going great, or you're trying to just hang on by your fingernails, nails, then take a moment, breathe, figure out what in your life isn't resonating with you, what isn't working? What. Is extra? There is stuff that we keep in our lives that are just extra. They aren't pushing us farther in our career or our life. It's almost holding us back. But you can't understand that unless you pause. Look deep into what you're doing day to day, what you're thinking and your mindset on why you're doing something. And if that's old thinking, go put it away in the flea market. Go get rid of it. Let it be for someone else. Not as far down the path for you, but we are in the flea market of life. So go look around, find someone that has something that you are hungry for you next advance into your career, the next skill in your career, and then in figure it out if they're an educator. If they are someone proud with where they are and analytical enough to figure out what change for them to get to this next stage, then go for it. Ask them. Most successful people are thrilled to answer questions for people that are hungry for more, that are ready to make a change in their life, because most of the time they were in that moment at one time too. And they had to ask that hard question to themself and to this person who's getting there because everything is learnable. You have to change your habits, your beliefs, your process of everything. It could be a small thing, put the remote down or pick up a book that's not an easy read. It might be something to teach you your mindset, because holy cow, when you figure out how to open your mind and let yourself believe that there is more out there than what you have right now, it is liberating. It is wonderful. It is amazing knowing that you don't have to stay in the exact spot that you are at that moment. There's so much more. That glass ceiling that everyone talks about, that you're this age and you can't move up in the company anymore because you're not old enough, you don't have enough experience. Do you know how many people somehow break that glass ceiling and soar up? They might have to move companies, they might have to do other things, but it's out there. You just have to do the hard work. But believe your belief is a whole big thing because when you believe you're worth more, you actually can do more. You can create different things in your life that actually propel you forward. It creates this hunger in you to go above and beyond to understand that there is value with. Learning more and becoming more you believe that it's possible. It's amazing what happens when you let yourself want more than what you are satisfied with for in now than, watch what you're picking up in life. Who it's coming from and look at the results they've had in their life. Just because they're great at giving advice doesn't mean that it's good for everyone because they might be a big talk, but creating nothing. I wouldn't take advice from me 10 years ago. Because of where I was at, how little my mindset was and how much growth I needed to go, I was good at a certain point and certain things. My skills were pretty good as a stylist, so I would listen to myself there because I created systems for myself on how to become more and be more consistent with myself. But business mindset, no. I learned business mindset with my education program, but it wasn't directed at this career because no one understands this career unless you're in it, because it's such a unique mindset, a work habit, and it's hard to explain to someone who doesn't have the day-to-day understanding of what we are going through. Anything's possible. So pick and choose what you want to work for to get the result you want. So many people forget to ask what they really want out of the things they're working towards. I was horrible at goal setting because I was worried that if I set a goal. I would falter and how would I feel if I, if I lost every time I set a goal. But, you know, I've learned this many times that when you set a goal, you're more focused on the direction you're going, and you stay focused day to day on what you're doing. If you keep your goal in front of you, if you don't, you forget. You fall back into old habits and you're not pushing yourself to grow and change. And it's a little harder to move forward in your life when you forget why you're pushing yourself to become more. So keep in mind what results you want, and if it's just making more money that works. Figure out what amount of money you want, create and get a plan. Figure out how to put it to action. But be careful what advice you get and how long you hold onto it. Because with our flea market of advice, you can put the old advice that no longer works for you back in the flea market, and then you could find a different bit that actually works for where you are right now and where you wanna go. I hope this makes sense because it made so much sense in my mind, so I'm hoping that I actually explained it well. Go figure out what kind of flea market item you wanna add into your thinking process and your goal process to become more, do more, and expect more. Have a great week. I'll see you next week. Thanks.