Part 2: The Career Story I Never Wanted to Tell Until Now

What if losing everything was the best thing that ever happened to you? This is PART 2 of my journey to where I am today.

I’m continuing the story behind my journey - from rock bottom, toxic relationships, and nearly $300,000 in debt… to building multiple 6 and 7-figure businesses, selling my salon, and creating a life I actually love.

This episode highlights the reality of small business, resilience, and what it really takes to succeed when everything feels like it’s falling apart.

If you’re a salon owner, small business owner, or entrepreneur stuck in the messy middle - you can avoid the mistakes I made, just by listening.

Tune in to hear about:

✅How I went from $300K in debt to financially free
✅The harsh truth about running a salon business
✅Why toxic relationships can hold you back in business
✅The moment everything changed after hitting rock bottom
✅How I rebuilt my business into a 7-figure success
✅The power of becoming a solo operator (independent stylist)
✅How to attract better clients and charge premium prices
✅Why systems, leadership, and boundaries are everything

Key moments:

00:00:00 Intro
00:00:40 Rock Bottom
00:04:20 Staff Walkout
00:09:20 The Plot Twist Month
00:12:00 Solo Operator Era
00:12:40 The $300K Debt Breakdown
00:15:20 Creative Colorist Evolution
00:18:00 Debt Free and Focused
00:21:00 Coaching Business Launch
00:22:00 The Million Dollar Salon
00:26:20 Domestic Violence and Cancer
00:29:00 Selling the Salon
00:31:40 Going All In on Coaching

This episode also covers rebranding lessons learned the hard way, the power of removing your safety net, and why small businesses are only for the brave.

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👉Find out more about how we can work together:

https://iconiccoaching.com.au/coaching/

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👉Here’s how to connect:

https://www.instagram.com/tellmeaboutit__podcast
https://iconiccoaching.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Today's F, as I'm sure you would have guessed, is part two of my career story. So if you haven't listened to part one, go back and listen to that first because this might not actually make that much sense. This is absolutely the sequel, and you really do need to understand the chaos and energy and carnage that came from everything prior to this next part of the story that I'm gonna take you through. So let's just crack on in, shall we? This podcast is being recorded on Gubby Gubby Land. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this land, our country, and elders past and present. I am Kate Muir, and thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Tell Me About It. So I didn't speak much about this in the previous episode, but this is going to show you just how rock bottom things got from there. So the morning that I had my motorbike accident, I was riding with my boyfriend at the time and also my best friend Boxy. And when I had my accident, my boyfriend of about 18 months ditched me and took off. My bestie got off his bike so quickly that he actually dropped it on the bitumen road and sprinted to me to make sure that I was okay and stayed there and nurtured me and um held my leg up because I had a broken knee and a fractured pelvis. So he like literally held my body still. And like even a random dude driving past literally stopped, parked his ute so that nobody else would run into me or hit me or something. Because I'm in the middle of the road at this point. This other car's gone into the barricade, like there's just shit everywhere. So all these people help me more than my boyfriend is. My boyfriend did. Sorry. So the boyfriend told me while I was laying in the middle of the road on my back, if you've ever been in a situation like that where you've been in an accident, you kind of lose your marbles a little bit. You're on adrenaline, you're trying to work out what the fuck just happened. Like it all happens like lightning fast. And he said something along the lines of like, What the fuck did you do? Like, we have so much to do today, like basically hating on me because I'd been in an accident because a car hit me. Like, I wasn't already feeling like an absolute piece of dirt, feeling the worst I've ever felt in my life. Absolute, my entire body was in pain. Like I got hit on my left side and it was just, it was like horrific. What a pure and utter piece of shit he was. But that wasn't the worst thing that he did too. So he also then booked a spontaneous overseas holiday leaving two days later. He hadn't even visited me in hospital. He just ditched me because he didn't want to look after me and be there for me. Now, like I said, we've been together for 18 months at this point. We didn't live together. I lived alone in a little unit, um, just me and my dog Jed. Can you actually imagine ditching your partner while they're in hospital? Like, when I speak about this sometimes, you know, people can often be like, oh my God, why did you date someone like that? When you grow up in an environment where you're belittled, lied to, bullied, probed, prodded, just baited, and told negative things kind of constantly and like constantly being compared, your acceptance of people's shitty behavior becomes pretty high because that's how you've always been showed love by the people that are supposed to love you. This is why you often allow, and I'm not saying that you're totally responsible. This is why you allow people to bully you. This is why you allow a lot of these people and a lot of a lot of these behaviors in your life. I definitely know that I had a best friend right through high school. We'll just call her C. I learned through therapy years later that she was my biggest bully. And I actually look back on a time back on a time when I was at high school and talking to my parents about being bullied, and they're like, Well, who's bullying you? And I blamed it on this girl named Cassie because that is what my friend C told me to do because she was the one who was bullying me. And like, it's just crazy that that's kind of what you accept because that's what you're used to being around. Like, that's the environment that you're used to. Like, it's why you accept bullying and meanness. It's why you seek crazy people in relationships, or like you seek that chaos, like you're always looking for that. And it's why some of your friends are usually kind of assholes. And I think through therapy and also with age and with maturity, you learn what really isn't okay and what is actually normal. And you get better at pinpointing it or spotting it when it's actually happening to you. But the abuse cycle was real, and I was well in the depths of it with him and with other people that I had around me in my life at that time. But more on that kind of a human later. We'll come back to him because he was a piece of shit, but it gets worse. It gets worse. So remember last episode when I said my staff basically ran my business into the ground while I was recovering from my motorbike accident. And I said, nobody stepped up, nobody took extra hours, nobody gave a damn about keeping the ship afloat while I was in the hospital. Yeah, well, about a year-ish after I got back on my feet, like literally back on my feet, those same four renters and two apprentices all left together to open their own salon. And the way they left, the two apprentices were all right, they resigned in person, whatever, I'll forgive them. They're fine. They were young and dumb, I get it. Um, but the four renters, the way they left was like high school bullying at its finest. And this was women by women in their 30s and 40s, way older than me. It was a Thursday night, and I was sitting just getting my end of week done. It was a long weekend. I remember it was Anzac Day weekend. We always went riding at Phillip Island with my friends, always on Anzac Day weekend. We'd make a weekend out of it. It was fucking fab. And so it's Thursday night. Um, I was going away for the long weekend, and I'm sitting there getting my work done, finishing my tracking for the week, doing all the things that I used to do. And one of them came up to me and she's like, Well, what are you still doing here? And I was like, Okay, I'm just finishing some things on my computer because I'm going away this weekend. Remember, I'm racing this weekend. And this was also the first time I had been to the track following my accident. So this was a really scary time for me. I'd been on the road a few times, I'd done a few short trips, but after something like an accident, whether it's a car or a pushbike or anything, like it takes some time to get your confidence back. And it takes some time to really like trust yourself and get comfortable with that. And so I live, feeling like shit. I was like, wow, that was really bitchy. Whatever I left. I'm literally halfway to Melbourne at this stage. And the same one rings me and goes, Hey, what are you doing? Can we come around? And I was like, No, I'm literally halfway to Melbourne. I'll be back on Monday. Talk to you then, whatever. And she was like, I really, really need you to come back. And I was with a friend, and he was like, Hey, I'll just drive you back. Don't worry about it. Anyways, shout D, you are you're still one of my best friends to this day, and you are fucking amazing to this. And I know you listen to every episode of my podcast. So I know that that weekend when I had a bit of a breakdown and a bit of a teary, you were right there for me, giving me a hug and making sure that I felt okay. But anyways, we went back and I walked up to my salon, and the four of them were standing at the front of my salon, and they all basically threw their keys at me and they're like, We're not coming back, we're going elsewhere, um, we're not giving any notice, whatever. And three of them stood there with their face down at their feet, looking at their feet while one of them spoke on their behalf. And anytime I asked questions or just said, you know, where are you going? Do you want me to let your clients know? Like, what do you want me to do? They were just fucking rude bitches. And then I had my dog with me at the time too. And I walked into the salon and I looked at it, and they left rubbish everywhere. It was basically trashed. They'd taken things that weren't theirs. There was a pair of scissors that had gone missing. There were so many things that they did. And I just thought, you fucking assholes. Absolute assholes. And what, like all of you couldn't have a private conversation with me or just tell me during the day when I was there. You've instead asked me to leave so that you can do this sneakily, and then you've asked me to come back. And you've done it on a weekend when you know I've got my first track day straight after, and you know that was very scary for me and very overwhelming for me. Like you planned that. Fucking assholes. Anyways, at the time I was devastated and I felt like the universe was kicking me while I was already down. I felt like I'd lost everything. And I was just tired of losing at this point. I was so tired of building things up, only to watch other people come in and shit all over it. And look, in the midst of all that happening, I have now given up my lease on my great little unit that I had, moved into a house with a dickhead boyfriend. I'm trying to sort out my endo and my raging pain and my fertility issues, which I'd had since I was a teenager, by the way. This wasn't a new thing. But it had gotten really bad at this point. And now I look back on it, I'm like, okay, energetically, I wasn't in a good place that obviously shows up as a woman in all your fertility places. But I was going through the process of scans and blood tests and everything. And I actually discovered that my disgusting pig of a boyfriend who I'd been with for a long time, the one who ditched me to go overseas, gave me an S T D. And there's only one way to get an S T D when you're in a relationship. So my friends, being the absolute kings and queens that they were, found out by trawling through his emails that I had the password to that he cheated on me with many women, men and women. He was going to swingers' clubs, he was doing all these things, and look, he was living a completely second life, had two phones, all of it, lying about where he was and things like that. And now, look, I'm not here to yuck anyone's yum. I'm bisexual, I'm very proudly open about that. But why the fuck do you keep a relationship with someone who doesn't share the same interests as you? Like he was a very inferior man, and I look back on that now, I was like, God, he was so weak. So maybe he got a lot out of making me feel small, or maybe he had a cheating kink or something like that. Who bloody knows? But, you know, I mean, the man was 30 living at home with his parents when we moved in together. So maybe that should have been red flag number one. But, you know, I was insecure back then. I didn't value myself back then. I was working in a really horrible working environment. There was so much going on. So I thought it was normal. So now I'm at fucking rock bottom. Told you it gets worse. And so I guess here's the plot twist that nobody saw coming, including me. This was the most amazing thing. One month after the staff left, because they left on the last week of April. So it was the end of May, and I was catching up with my account because I always caught up with my account at the end of May. And it was a month after I dumped the boyfriend because that happened a couple days later. This was for the first time in years, and I mean, like in the three to four years I've been in business at this stage, I was able to make all payments on all of my debts. I actually paid off my stock bills in full, and I made a profit at the same time, in the same month, and it felt like a fucking miracle. All of my ex's friends that he'd been friends with since high school dropped in like a sack of shit, which was glorious to watch happen in real time. And all of a sudden, I'm working five days a week instead of seven. My workload had halved because I wasn't deep cleaning on weekends and answering 900 phone calls a day and managing all my renters' late payments and all the stuff discounts that were happening. I was seeing better quality clients. It was actually crazy. The amount of clients that used to come in and be like, oh, I just never really liked coming here. I loved you so much, but like I never liked coming here because there was always so much going on and the girls were always bitching to each other. And I was like, fuck, I was so blissfully unaware of that stuff. So I started getting better quality clients. So many of my clients came back from my second salon and the ones that had left me in the first salon. My grocery bill had gone from about 500 a month to about 40. My colour bill had gone from 4,000 a month to less than 750. My power bill had also reduced by 60%. It was crazy. Like my costs had plummeted overnight. And all those clients were being undercharged in my absence. Now they're being charged properly and they're paying proper prices because I was the one at the till. The phone was being answered properly because I was the one answering it for myself. The vibe in the cellar did a complete 180 because it was just a little on me there. And I was like, well, don't get any worse than this. Can't get any lower than rock bottom. I think for the first time in what felt like forever, it was like I could go to work. I wasn't scared to go to work. I wasn't having anxiety attacks before work. I wasn't stressed about what chaos and foul moods I was going to walk into. I wasn't dreading walking through the door and having to walk on eggshells. And, you know, I felt like I really owned my business. I was free. I was genuinely, truly magnificently free. And it was the fucking best. Tell me that motorbike accident wasn't the biggest shove from the universe ever. I should have dumped the boyfriend. I needed to level up my business. I needed to get rid of one of my businesses. And I needed to change. Like I was not okay. I did that month and I became an independent solo operator in a commercial space. I call them indies nowadays. For years after that. And honestly, I absolutely fucking loved it. It was so uncomplicated. No staff dramas, no personality clashes, no theft, no undercharging, no one else's problems becoming my fucking problems. Just me, my clients, and the work that I loved doing. So I worked like an absolute Trojan for a few years. No days off, really, no holidays, no slowing down. I was a woman on a mission, and that mission was getting out of debt. And I did it. I paid off every single cent of that almost $300,000 debt. Every single cent. Every bit. So I want to break down a little bit about what that debt actually consisted of because I think it's important to understand the scale of what I was dealing with. So I had $65,000 in credit card debt across multiple cards, all maxed out. So if you're wondering how it got that high, when I first took out the card, I believe I took a $10,000 one. And I'm pretty sure I did that when it was like I was getting my house or something was, I was refinancing, something was happening. I can't remember what it was. But basically the banks just kept upping my limit. And then they sent me another credit card. So one of them was personal, one of them was work. And basically, they would just keep putting the limit up. So all of a sudden there's more cash there. And when there was more cash there, I spent it because I had bad money habits. I also had $90,000 in business loans that I had accumulated over the years of bad decisions, stupid sell-ons, and emergencies. And I will talk to you guys about that in another episode about my actual process of how I got out of debt because I think it's you guys would learn so much from that. I had $130,000 in ATO tax debt because when you're barely surviving, paying tax bill tends to fall to the bottom of the priority list. And my perception of that now has completely changed. Obviously, I pay my tax as it comes in. It's a very good feeling. More tax, more profit. But back then I was just like, yeah, it's fine. And the ATO was pretty lazy. They didn't really chase any. I had $10,000-ish doll in overdue bills to suppliers, landlords, and everyone I owed money to, bit cash. I also had, and I don't talk about this one much, $20,000 in vendor finance payments for a third salon that I bought. So I had sold my second salon at this stage, but it was my third salon. So the story here goes. So during this time, I met someone who I dated for a few months. And he was a country boy, and his sister Becca was a hairdresser and wanted to buy a salon in her area and wanted a business partner. So I went 50-50 with her. And the plan was always that I would stay silent. I would help her with the books because clearly I was so good at that back then. Not. And long story short, it was only owned a couple of months because a few months after we bought into it together, I broke up with her brother and she absorbed my half, took on my half of the vendor finance. I got no cost, I got no money back out of it, but it was no loss to me either. Like I just got to walk away. And I don't speak about this a lot because she's a legend and I still talk to her now. Um, she doesn't own the salon anymore. She ended up selling it a couple years ago, but um she was really good to me through that time and her brother was awful. So she just like let me out and was like, no, that's fair. Like, I understand. But all of that debt was gone. Gone, all of it paid in full. Um, and how I that, like I said, is an episode for another day, but I am recording that at the moment, so stay tuned. So while I was in the trenches of paying off that absolute mountain of debt, something else really important was happening. I was completely transforming the type of work that I was doing behind the chair. So when I first started out, I was doing what most hairdressers do: basic services for basic prices. I was offering tint and trim packages for under 100 bucks, spray tans for 30 bucks, eyebrow waxing, facial waxing, those sorts of things, like really cheap, really high volume, quick turnover work. Nothing special, nothing creative, nothing that set my soul on fire. And it didn't even pay the bills and it didn't feed my passion at all. Um, during this solo era, solo era, I made a conscious decision to evolve. I invested so much into my educational learning. I upskilled hard. I pushed myself creatively harder than I ever thought that I would. And I repositioned myself in the market as a creative colorist rather than just another hairdresser offering the same services as everybody else. And it worked. It really, really, really worked. I became known as the leading creative colourist in my area, and people were traveling from everywhere to see me. Um, specifically, I even had two sisters that flew in from Sydney every six weeks to see me. By this stage, social media is a thing. My Instagram's popping off with transformations and colour work that got people really excited. And I built that business on my own to the point where it was it was making $300,000 in revenue per year. Um, and that was on my own. $315,000 it made uh in my last financial year on my own. No team, no head, no overheads, just me. And so, more importantly than the money, I was doing the work that I actually loved with clients who were genuinely cool. Like I had the fucking sickest clients. My clientele transformed along with my services. I was attracting creative, interesting, fun people who valued what I did and were happy to pay good money for it. Beyond the sell-on, I was also building a reputation in the wider industry as well. So I was doing photo shoots that got published in magazines, I was working fashion weeks and seeing my work walk down runways. I was winning awards, I was creating editorial content. Like even locally, I got always got asked to do all the bridal hair and everything like that. I was competing in hair competitions, I was winning, I was doing platform work, I was getting on stage at industry events, I was just doing so much fun shit, and I was teaching. I was living literally my absolute best hair life. After all the struggle and all the trauma and all the debt, I had finally found my groove and I had finally figured out who I was as a creative. And also, I was really coming of age as a business person, and that felt pretty bloody awesome. So I became laser focused on three things my business, my career, and myself. Nothing else, no distractions, no drama, just growth. So with my newfound debt and debt-free status, I threw everything into growing my original salon, but this time I did it differently. This time I'd learnt from everything that I had done previously. I started by hiring a PA, like an assistant slash receptionist, to help with all the administrative stuff, life tasks, back end of business stuff that was eating up my time so that I could focus on just doing the hair, which was what I absolutely loved at that time. Then I brought on an apprentice to train up the next generation, then a couple of seniors, including one that I sponsored, then another apprentice. And before I knew it, my little salon was cracking a million dollars in revenue every single year with six staff. A million dollars from a tiny little arcade salon that had been turning over 150 grand when I bought it as a 19-year-old kid. What? It was so fucking cool. I rebranded from the old-fashioned Chelsea lane, which had never really suited the business, if we're being honest, to raw edge hairdressing. The name actually was named by one of my clients, which I thought was really cute. I thought it was really special. It felt more fitting for the creative, edgy, modern talent that we had become. And the really important part was I finally stopped working myself into the ground after years of no shit 80-hour work weeks spread across five, six, seven days. I cut down to 40 hours over four days, and I had a life again. I built a relationship, I got married, I had friends, like great friendships flourishing. I had a life outside of work, I had a space to breathe, and I think as a and like I was able to exist as a human being rather than just a business running machine. The secret, but systemizing everything and delegating the workload properly, creating documented processes for everything, client booking, stock ordering, training, cleaning, social media, you name it. I hired people that I could actually trust, and then I actually trusted them to do their jobs. I set up accountability structures and just ways of doing things that were fair but firm. And I led the way. None of this do as I say, not as I do shit. I was the leader. Basically, I did all the things that I should have done from the start, but was too young and inexperienced to know that I needed to do. And my peers started to notice. Other salon owners saw what I'd built and how much work I'd put in to get there. They saw my transformation from chaotic mess to successful systemized business owner. They started asking questions, lots of questions. And I was being asked to participate on industry panels. I was getting featured in media from a business perspective opposed to creative. People were reaching out for advice and really valuing my input. And I wasn't just a salon owner anymore. I was becoming someone that other salon owners looked up to for guidance. And this is where the idea to launch into coaching evolved. My mentor at the time was like, you need to go and do this. Carissa Hill, one of my number one supporters. I love you so much. You're now one of my best friends. Pushed me so fucking hard to go and do this. She was my marketing mentor and she was just a fucking fab. Um, still is. Anyway, in February 2017, I officially launched Summit Salon Coach with five clients, two clinic owners and three salon owners. Five people who believed in me enough to pay me to help them with their businesses. And I was over the fucking moon. This felt like my calling. Everything I'd been through, all the mistakes, all the failures, all the lessons learned the hard way, suddenly had a purpose. I could use my experience to help other people avoid the pitfalls that I'd fallen into. I could help them build successful businesses without the decade of trauma I had to endure to get to the other side. Within a year, I was actively working with 21 clients. By the end of my first year as a business coach, I generated over $348,000 in revenue from a brand new business in its first 12 months. While I was leaning heavily into COVID, Coaching, my cellum was simultaneously going through its biggest growth phase ever. The success of one fed into the success of the other. And that often happens. A lot of things will like move together and in the same direction. I was practicing what I preached. My cellum was living proof that my methods worked. I made the decision to upsize. I moved from a teeny 55-meter square hidden arcade salon that cost me $1,500 a month into a gorgeous 150-meter square main street frontage, which cost me more than four times that $6,600 a month. We went from being in this like little tucked away corner where nobody could find us. Literally, we had to walk out to the car park to find people, to us being impossible to miss on the main corner of the best street next to the supermarket, next to Baker's Delight, which was deadly. It was just, it was impossible to miss. So the new space had 16 chairs, five basins, an entire dedicated storage room, a colour bar, colour tables, a proper reception area, a comfortable waiting space for clients. It was fucking epic. And I paid cash to fit that out. Dead a bloody dream, hey. Within six months of that move, I had literally tripled my team and tripled my revenue. At this point, I was completely off the floor. I wasn't doing any client work at all anymore. My selling was fully managed by people I trusted, and I had dedicated admin staff in my coaching business as well. So it was crazy. I never believed in location, location, location until that happened. And then I'm like, it changed everything. So there was actually a bit of a hiccup with my name change, and I really want you guys to learn from this. Turns out there's another selling called Royage that I hadn't actually known about because they had absolutely zero online presence. I also had my name legally registered with ASIC. So their owner sent me a legal letter on Christmas Eve, whatever kind of weird legal tactic that is. Um, me being me, I completely missed it in the Bermuda Triangle that is my email. Um, I feel no shame about the mess that is my email, even though my staff hate me now for it. A second legal letter and a court threat came a few months later, where they basically said they'd been established for way longer than me, and I just made the decision to rebrand. I would not want anyone to ever think that I copied them. I pride myself on being original, reading the market, and doing things for myself. And even if it was an accident, I didn't want that to be something that was going to be my story. So Raw Edge then became Huntress Hair Religion, which honestly was a blessing in disguise. Like that name was so much more fitting for our new space, our new team, and our new vibe. Like our salon was full of huntresses. It was amazing. Like I was just employing these really powerful, amazing people. I also opened a barbershop shortly after that rebrand, and I called it Hunter Barbershop, and I manifested the fuck out of that business. So I had a girl in my team who was allergic to life, um, but especially allergic to colour. And I mean like her hair, her hands would blow up in welts. So she was just a cutter, and then she sort of had a conversation. She's like, Look, I'm thinking about leaving because I think I actually want to just go into barbering, um, unless that's an option for me to do it here. And I said, Well, actually, I've been thinking about opening a barber shop. My mum was a barber. Um, I always think it's interesting. Barbering had just become this really trending thing. There was no barbers in my area. I thought this is a great opportunity. And I put on my manifestation board that I wanted like on my vibe board, I call it, that I wanted like a cool, like industrial type shop with like big windows. And what do you know? A few months later, the dream shop 50 meters down the road, Art Deco arched window is brick walls, fucking cool space came available. So the single little barber chair in the back of my salon had gotten way too busy, and we moved into Hunter barber shop. And it was close enough to manage together, but far enough to have its own identity, and it was such a cool space with its like own really distinct vibe. And I never worked on the floor of my barber shop. That was never the plan. I never needed to. I did some of the apprentice training and the general education, but Hunter was fully managed from day one. I had one barber managing the floor, like the operations, the people, the whatever. And then I had one manager handling all the behind-the-scenes stuff. So that behind-the-scenes manager laws, she still works for me now. So she'd gone from managing the salon to then managing my barbershop to then managing my coaching business and managing me. So and I took Hunter in its first six months, we generated a hundred grand. And then by the end of year two, we were exceeding, sorry, so the first six months because we opened in June. So from June to December, we did a hundred grand. And then that following calendar year, we did over 500k. Not bad for a business I never actually worked in. So while this period was a huge time of growth and success for me professionally, it was also one of the most challenging times of my personal life. Um, shortly after I opened Hunter Barbershop, I actually left my domestic violence marriage. I finally extracted myself from the relationship that had been damaging to me for years. Uh, later that same year, I actually received the devastating health news that a tumour in my breast was cancerous. Now I've had quite a few cystin tumours in my breasts. Um, this one was, yeah, a cancerous one. It was a stage one lobular carcinoma. And I only told three people in my life about that. It wasn't my doctor's words when I was told about it. And FYI, my abusive husband, didn't even come to the appointment with me. This was one of the many reasons I broke up with him. Hey, doctor said to me, you know, this is this is the the type that you want. It's just one that we cut out. You don't need any further treatment, you're only 28, like you'll be fine. And I was like, this is great. So the reason I didn't tell a lot of people is that I didn't really think that I needed to. I didn't want sympathy. I didn't want pity. I didn't want people going, oh my god, that's so sad, and asking me lots of questions. I just wanted to get it over and done with. So I had the tumor cut out, a left breast augmentation because obviously they took out a lot of tissue, and they and then I moved on with my life, never for it to come back ever again, nearly 10 years later. So I didn't have a fight like a lot of people had when they go through breast cancer or any kind of cancer. I had a really easy one. I was only 28 when all this went down. I'd survived the toxic apprenticeship, two failing businesses, a motorbike accident, almost 300 grand a day, a domestic violence relationship, and cancer, which I also had cervical cancer twice when I was in my early 20s. So this all happened before I was 30. It's pretty wild to kind of think about, really. But I do think there's a saying that's like it's always darkest before the dawn. And I think that's like so profoundly true of every chapter in my life. Because in the years that followed these incredibly difficult life events, my business boomed and my life got better. I feel like often when we have these horrible things go wrong, you know, it's because it's the universe is pushing us and it's trying to move us and it's trying to get us to look deeper and within ourselves and really work out what it is that we want to do. So my staff were thriving and achieving incredible things. I was so proud of every single one of them. My cell and a barbershop were bustling, busy, full of clients, full of energy. My coaching business was absolutely booming. I had three staff in my coaching business as well, and word was just spreading about the results my clients were getting. We never did any paid advertising up until this year. So after nine incredible years and nine months of owning Huntress, I made a big decision. I was done owning a hairdressing salon. I didn't have passion for it anymore. The fire in me had gone out. I didn't love the way I didn't love it the way that I used to. And I knew that it wasn't fair to the business or my team, that I my heart wasn't in it anymore. I honestly needed to drop something for my life. I was tired. I was fucking tired. I had a commercial office for my coaching business. I had a barber shop, I had a salon, and I was like living my now best single life, and I decided that something had to give, and that thing was my salon. So I sold Huntress when it was doing really well, um, which is always a really good time to sell. You obviously want to ride the gravy train while you can, but I sold it for over half a million dollars, and I sold it to someone who I knew would love it and nurture it the way I deserve because she worked for me for a long time. And look, even though I knew and still know now that it was the best time to sell and it was right in my heart of hearts, it felt like losing a limb. Like I owned that business for nine years, nine months, and 27 days. So I um I I just it was really odd. You can imagine how much 20 plus stuff actually takes up in your time, and it is a bloody lot. It was my identity, it was my baby, it was what I knew for 10 years, and it was a thing that I built from nothing, destroyed through my own incompetence, and then rebuilt into something even better. I realized that I needed to remove the safety net to make the other things work. As long as the cellum was there, making me such a great income, I would always have that to fall back on. And I needed to force myself to go all in on the barbershop and all in on coaching. Twelve months after selling a huntress, I made the dream move to the Sunshine Coast. And this was in the midst of the pandemic, as I call it. And the love of my life, my beautiful Rottwheeler Jed, had just passed away, which anyone knows the loss of a pet is just so fucking painful. And especially like the first one that you have, like the one that was there. Like he was the most consistent relationship I've ever had in my entire life, even now. Like he was all I knew for nine years, and he was the best thing ever. He showed me what true unconditional love is, and he was just there for. He was what got me through the really dark days. I was grieving so hard, the world was a chaos. I knew there was no time like the present to move and to make the fresh start. And as soon as I moved to Queensland, my coaching business flourished. My career expanded in ways that I never expected. And it was in middle 2021, so in the second year of Rona, which my barber shop was in Victoria. So it was a really, really hard year. I decided to sell Hunter Barber Shop and I went all in on coaching. Same thing. Barbershop was an absolute cash cow. Absolutely loved that business. Loved my staff in there. But I lost a couple of them to construction throughout Rona and I just didn't feel passionately about it anymore. I wanted to cut ties with my home state and move to my new place and just be balls to the wall all in here up in Queensland. I sold it and I went all in. And today I work with over 80 clients across the world. I am now married to the greatest human on the planet, my ride or die cam. I'm living in a beautiful house without two dogs. I travel the world not only personally, but running events, speaking in businesses, and just living the life. And for the rest of it, I work for my home off my home office and it's pretty fucking dreamy. This life is fucking awesome. And look, is coaching something I'll do forever? I can't really answer that. I don't think you ever can, but for now, I love it. And me and my girl squad with Loz Alan Beck working for me and our fucking beasts of clients that are just the freaking best. For now, that makes me really happy. And as long as it makes me happy, I'll stick to it. I am blessed. I'm so fucking blessed. And I'm grateful for everything I have in my life. But I am not lucky. Luck had nothing to do with any of this. Every single thing I have, I work for. Every single obstacle I overcame. Every single failure I learned from. And I'm still learning today. I learned so much from my clients. I learned from my husband. I learned from my friends. And I think that it's a really important distinction to make for anybody who is in business, which is like, you're not lucky. It's not luck. Nothing you have is luck. And don't let somebody tell you that it is. What you have is hard work. You can be blessed, but you don't have to be lucky. So there you have it. My complete career story from beginning to now, from beginning to selling my barbershop anyway, from basin bitch at 13 to multiple seven-figure business owner to here we are, coaching, living in the sunny coast. This journey was not linear, and I don't think it ever is for anybody. It was not pretty, it was not easy. There were times when I wanted to give up, times I almost did give up. There were moments when I could see or couldn't see really any way forward or even any way through when debt felt insurmountable and it was, and when the challenges felt absolutely endless, but I kept going. The only secret there is really is you just have to keep going. And the thing I want you to take away from my story is that small business is not for the faint of heart. It's not a get-rich quick scheme, it's not an easy path to freedom and flexibility. It's hard, it's relentless, it's terrifying. And anyone who tries to sell you the dream that's going to be quick and easy and very, very, you know, lucrative quickly, it's MLM, babe. Don't do that shit. Small business is only for the brave. It's for the patient. It's for the overcomers. And if you're in the messy middle right now, if you're drowning in debt, if your team is driving you fucking crazy, if you feel like you're completely winging it, if you hate your marriage, your partner, whatever, if you're wondering how you're possibly gonna make it through, I want you to know that I have been exactly where you are, exactly where you are, and so have so many of my clients. And there is nothing in there that I've never seen or dealt with or heard before. And it does get better. If you want to expedite that process to getting better faster, I'm your girl, but just know that you are amazing and the best things came from the hardest work, yeah. So thanks for tuning in to Tell Me About a podcast. I will see you next.