Success Starts With You: Align Your Life & Your Business Will Follow

Success in the beauty industry doesn’t start with better marketing, higher prices, or posting more on Instagram.

It starts with you.

In this episode of The Rooted Chair, we’re talking about why aligning your life is the foundation of building a profitable, sustainable salon career.

As hairstylists, the physical and mental demand of long hours behind the chair requires more than talent. It requires stability, discipline, boundaries, and intentional self-investment.

Inside this episode, I share:

• Why it’s not too late to set intentions for 2026
 • How your inner world shapes your outer business results
 • The connection between personal finances and business confidence
 • How mental health impacts pricing, boundaries, and burnout
 • Why we attract clients who reflect our internal standards
 • How sobriety brought clarity and alignment to my life and business
 • The power of routine, coaching, therapy, and continued education

If you want dream clients, consistent income, and a grounded career behind the chair, you don’t chase success.

You become aligned with it.

When your life is structured, your business becomes smoother.
 When your mindset is clear, your pricing feels confident.
 When your inner world is stable, your outer world follows.

Success starts with you.

The Rooted Chair is for hairstylists who want elevated clientele, financial clarity, emotional strength, and long-term sustainability in the beauty industry.

Subscribe and share with a stylist who’s ready to align in 2026.

Thanks for listening to The Rooted Chair!

Follow Krysti on Instagram: @styledbykrystilacy

Website: https://www.styledbykrysti.com

Book an appointment or explore more: styledbykrysti.glossgenius.com
Have a topic request or want to be a guest? DM me on IG or email hairbykrysti84@gmail.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the Rooted Chair Podcast. I am your host, Christy Lacey. I'm an independent hairstylist at the Palm Collective Salon in Mount Vernon, Washington. If this is your first time joining me, welcome and thank you. If you are returning, thank you for coming back. This is my first episode of 2026. I know that it is the creeping up on the end of February, um, but I'm so glad to be here and I'm glad that you're here. I did have all of the intentions and plans to start this on January 1st, but I actually decided to wait. Um, I decided to wait until at least the Chinese New Year came, which was February 17th. Um, because to be honest, here in the Northern Hemisphere where we live and in the upper left of Washington State, um is where my where my current where I live, um, the new year of January 1st, it is only two weeks after the winter solstice. So for us, winter is literally just starting. Um, and for me personally, the first two weeks of January were still as busy as December. So that holiday rush had not let up yet, which doesn't make it feel like the new year. And to be quite honest, when winter starts for me personally, I really am the type of person that thinks like, well, winter is for like going inward and reflecting and um stillness and quiet. And to me, it's like January, like all of January is like planting the seeds, you know, for for the year ahead, which makes it feel more to me like, oh yeah, once the Chinese New Year comes, we're only a month out till this, till spring, um, the spring um equinox. So it just seemed a little, it seems more authentic to me. So I'm kicking off my new year now in February, um, because now is where I've kind of like slowed down and and I've got the time to focus and I've been able to sit and marinate on all that I want um for my business and for my personal life and for this podcast. So welcome. Um, if you're listening now and I just rambled all of that and you're thinking, oh, well, I'm behind, or I didn't set any goals this year for 2026, or I've already set all these New Year's resolutions and intentions, and I've already fallen off the wagon. Well, guess what? You are not too late. It's not too late to set intentions, it's not too late to realign, and it's definitely not too late to build the kind of life that supports your business instead of draining it. Because here's what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about how our inner world creates our outer world. And that leads to what this whole uh episode is about, and that is that success starts with you. As stylists, we are constantly focused on the outer world. Our work is visual, our branding is visual, our Instagram is visual, our numbers are measurable, our schedules are packed, but the truth is your business will never outgrow the stability of your life. You can't build a grounded, profitable, sustainable career on a chaotic personal foundation. And maybe you're saying, well, my personal life is totally chaotic and a hot mess, and my business is thriving. Okay, well, maybe maybe what I'm trying to say is that if you if your personal life is all the things that are positive and and aligned, then your business is going to only grow by uh substantial amounts, if that's true. And I say that with love because I've personally lived this. And I've lived the my nervous system being fried, my sleep being off, my finances being stressful, my mental health being neglected. And when that happened, and when that has happened to me, my business has felt heavier than it needs to be. And I think for most of us, that is true. When your personal life is feeling so heavy, it's going to leak over into your business life, which leads me to where the success starts with you, not your booking link, not your price increases, not the next balayage class, but with you, with you from the inside out. And that also leads to it being the mindset, and this is so important to me. So, as you know in previous episodes, or if you know me personally, that I've been a licensed hairstylist for 20 years now. I did leave and take a break, and then I came back to being a stylist starting brand new a year and a half ago, and I started at a different salon that I'm at now, and that salon was definitely not in alignment with me. But at the time when I entered that salon and I was like, here we go, I'm gonna do this again, I'm starting this again. I'm now 41. So I am I'm doing this all over again. At the time, it was um, I was like, I'm gonna have the best of the best clients, I'm gonna make the most money, I'm gonna do it all, I'm gonna set my boundaries, I'm gonna everything that didn't work before I left, I was like, I'm gonna do it. And so I essentially, in some elements, I felt like I set myself up for failing because I just looked at it as strictly only on the business side. And I even coming back with years of experience, I did not implement the importance of my personal life being in alignment so my business life could thrive, so the success could be unlimited, and that the success it realizing that it starts with me, just like your success starts with you. So when I share this, this is lived experience of me and and me being honest that my inner world didn't match the level that I wanted my outer world to match. Um and so it it I wasn't where I had dreamed to be, and my success that I thought was just gonna happen right off the bat. It wasn't happening, and I was frustrated and I was thinking, like, oh, maybe I'm not cut out for this, or maybe I need to take another class, or maybe I need to hustle harder, maybe I need to whatever the XYZ is, and and that's when it really dawned on me that oh no, it's not like that, it's that I need to remember that our inner world creates our outer world. So you have to remember and you have to think beyond uh raising your prices, taking another class, posting more, marketing harder, and you have to realize that the real shifts happen by aligning your personal life. So if you're like, what the heck? And if the and and hopefully this doesn't sound too preachy, but I say this is like uh to put to be inspiring and to be uplifting that okay, like what do you want? If you if you have set goals and you lost track of them, this is a perfect time to get them back in alignment. If you haven't set any goals for 2026, then now is the time to do it. If you are like you hit the ground running at the beginning of the new year and you're doing it, then awesome, good job. I give you an air high five. Um, if you need some help on figuring it out, well then maybe this is the exact podcast that you needed to hear today because this is just something that's like passionate and heavy on my heart because I saw the the personal changes within my own life and my own business. And so if I could see these changes happen so quickly from just the littlest detail shifts, the littlest shifts, the littlest mind uh set shifts, then that means it can happen for everyone. And as a hairstylist, I am a hairstylist, I want every single one of us hairstylists to be so profitable. I want us to hit all of our goals. We all became hairstylists because A, we're not just artists, but we all because of the flexibility, right? Because of the unlimited money potential, because of uh maybe being your own boss, maybe not, whatever it is, there's a common denominator for hairstylists in general. And with that, is that we can be as successful as we want to be, but the success starts with you. So that's when so this past year, once I shifted and I moved to a new salon, the Palm Collective, which I love it so much, I cannot say enough great things. I am so blessed to have Ashley and Rochelle as the salon owners, as the team. They just hired on a new um stylist, and I know they picked it with so much intention. I'm just so excited for this year ahead with our team. So that was the first shift I made, and that was a business shift, but that also affects your personal life. So I'm not saying like go to your salon and quit your salon today, but I am saying really evaluate where you are and see first of all and firsthand if that salon aligns with you. Is it meeting all that you want? Are you a commissioned salon? Is and if you are, if you're a stylist, and if you are, is it hitting all your check boxes? Are you a booth renter if you are? Are you hitting all the all your check boxes that you need to be the best stylist? You can be the most profitable stylist, you can be whatever your dream is. Is that in alignment? I say if you're not in alignment at the salon you're at, then ladies and gentlemen, figure it out. You've got you get this one life, and you get this chance to make this career, the career of your dreams, be somewhere that supports you a hundred percent. There are millions of salons out there, so definitely make sure that you feel so happy where you are because it's only gonna help everything else in your personal life fall into alignment when you're not feeling dreaded, the dreadful feeling of heading into your salon. And as I say that, I also want you to remember no matter what, that you do not need to apologize to anybody for any changes that you make that are bettering yourself or your business, okay? So, in this last year, for me to realize when this that the success starts for me, that my inner world creates my outer world, that's when I decided that I was going to get serious about my physical health. Now I've always been active, and I don't know about everybody else out there or what you do, and to everybody's level of activity is different. So maybe while some of you are hardcore uh gym rats and you love it, and you're there seven days a week, or you're doing lifting programs, or you're doing CrossFit, or you do spin, or or you're a swimmer, or um whatever it may be. You do dancing, um, you're a runner, you play club sport, you don't. Maybe you walk every day, whatever that is, your physical health, find what it is because that is so important. So important. The stamina of a hairstylist to be on our feet all day long. That is that it that's that takes from you. And so the best thing you can do for yourself is to make sure that you are as physically healthy as you can be. I'm not saying that you need to be um trying to strive to be like a bodybuilder or anything, I'm saying find what it is that keeps you in good physical health. And if that means that you want to be in the best physical health of your life, then by all means do it. But if not, do something that keeps you so healthy. So I've always loved to work out. I kind of drifted away. I think we we can all go through the ebb and flow of life, and depending on life's demands, uh, I have two kids. Even if you don't have two kids, everybody has things that pull them in all different directions in their life, depending on where they are. Maybe you're single, maybe you're dating, maybe you're taking, maybe you're uh taking care of your parents, maybe you're older, maybe you're um who who knows, but we all have stuff going on in our lives, and so I definitely put my physical health on the back burner for a while, and I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna get back to it, I'm gonna get back to it. And I just started feeling crappier and crappier and down. And and for me personally, if I'm not moving my body, it's almost like I feel depressed because you're not getting those good uh dopamine hits that are released when you work out, and it really matters, even walking. Sure, I'm pretty sure you see everywhere like get your 10,000 steps in a day, get what you know. Well, I don't know, wear your weighted vest, do this, do that, whatever. Honestly, if you do nothing else in your day for movement, go walk, walk on a treadmill, walk outside. I don't care, but getting your physical health in alignment is going to literally help you move mountains. So, I personally I hired um a trainer to do group coaching, and I get all there, and she has an app, and her name's Alicia Erickson, and so she's local-ish to where we are. Um, I personally live in Anacortis, but she's local in Snohomish, and she's online. I found her online, and she speaks to everything that I speak to from perimenopause to um needing to for from hormones to weight training to nutrition, anyways. I she she speaks to me, she might not speak to all of you, but I say find somebody and you don't have to hire them. But I knew that for me to to hit the goals and to be the healthiest that I want to be for 2026 and the rest of my life, that I needed some sort of mentor, and a mentor is not above or below any of us, whether it's a health mentor, a business mentor, a financial mentor, uh, whatever that is. So that this is what I did to help for for myself to become even more successful is to get serious about my physical health. I was like, I'm gonna start working with a trainer who can give me some guidance. And I may not need her forever, but to help set the foundation down. So these things, you might be like, What are you? You're talking about health. This all matters, it all will reflect into your business. Um, I personally have been doing therapy, talk therapy. Now it might not be for everybody. Um, I think we could all use it, even if you don't have um mass trauma in your life or some big event. We talk to clients all day long, every day, whether you're out at the salon for six hours a day or 12 hours a day, you have a physical body in your chair at all times that you're doing hair and you're hearing their stories, and we love it. I love it. I love to hear like you see the reels, and it is so it is so true to me when you sit that it's like the hairstylist like at home, like folding her laundry, and it's like, I wonder, oh, my hairstylist just like does my hair and goes on about her day, and it shows the hairstylist sitting there thinking, like, oh, I wonder how my client's doctor's appointment went, I wonder how the marriage went, I wonder how the grief is from the loss they had, I wonder how their new baby is. Like, that's real life. We get all of that. We we it's all we absorb all of that. So I think even having a therapist that you can release that, so you're not carrying that with you because I think without even knowing, we some of those um clients they stick to us, and it's not a bad thing. But so I I went to therapy. Sure, I have my own personal things. I'm the first one to talk about that. I have my own personal issues to work through. Um, so I get to work through that, and then I have somewhere other than my husband um and the fellow status that I work with that I can release anything that was shared upon me, so I don't keep carrying that, and that moves into the mental health part, like what you you your physical health and your diet and your nutrition is not the only part that matters, it's also your mental health, and I would hope that you've heard this before, but this is really laying the foundation for yourself to set yourself up for success to in your personal life and then into your business life. Um, so that is something huge. I I got really, really intentional about finances and and making sure all loose ends were cleaned up because I had goals that I wanted to hit. And I think that it is important to feel good about your personal finances, especially if you're a booth renter because you're running and manage, you're your own money manager, um, you're you're doing all of it. So if you can have good personal financial habits, then you're setting yourself up for good business financial habits. And I do think the two go hand in hand. And I had um financial goals that I wanted to hit. Um, and so I was like, last year I I bought a new car that I had needed, and so I was in my mind, I was like, I've got to make sure that all my personal finances are are fine so I can afford to buy this new car, but by doing that, it set myself up to be even more um strict and responsible with my business finances, and there are so many people out there that um that work specifically on that, and there's this a couple podcast um hosts that there's podcasts that I love to listen to, and but the one that's coming to my mind right now, um, her name is Misty Jane, and it's the Starting Messy podcast. She is a hairstylist who now is a financial money coach for beauty professionals for hairstylists, and she is so insightful and so great, and she shares her story about her own money story and how it pulled her to being a um money coach, money um mentor for the uh for beauty professionals specifically, and I hands down recommend listening to her podcast. If you feel like your finances have loose ends, like you don't need to have shame around it. Like now's the time to figure it out. Or if you're like I'm underwater or whatever, listen to her, the Starty Messi podcast. I think I got that right. Um, and she's incredible, incredible. And it goes back to um, I literally have somebody that I love to look at as inspiration, as a mentor, or anything for all these areas because I think it's helpful. So I I when I was really trying to um align my finances, I loved listening to her, right? Because you like to listen to things that can relate to you to where you are in your life. Um I have podcast um hosts that I listen to for my mental health that I love to listen to, that in mindset um like mindset coaching that I'm happy to share. I listen to the high vibe life podcast. Um, I think she's incredible about the mindset. Um and uh her name's uh I think it's Mora, and and she's a public speaker and it's about manifestation and a mindset master. So she's really great for mental health. Um, she also talks about like her life and and being sober for 25 years and transforming her own life and how she's helped tens of thousands of women break through and achieve massive levels of wealth, joy, and freedom. So um I'm just sharing these as we talk about how there's so many resources out there, right? Um, for for business, I like to listen to Brit Seva. I just took a masterclass from her. She off she has um her coaching program opened right now. I believe it's only until March 6th. If you want to jump in on that, uh check her out. But she has the Thriving Stylist podcast and she is a hairstylist in the past. Her daughter is a hairstylist now, um, but she coaches um for business coaching for hairstylist specifically, and she's got a ton of great stuff in there. But I would think even if you look at her thing, she's gonna tell you in some of her podcasts like to clean up your personal life because the success also starts with you. So um, these are just a few. Since I'm talking about podcasts, I have another guy that I listened to, or another stylist. It his name is Hunter, and he's the modern hairstylist. And um he speaks on the on being a business owner hairstylist with um without the overwhelm and reclaiming your time and your freedom and your energy while working behind the chair. So all these particular To setting your foundation up. And so, anyways, little side note, those are some favorite uh podcast listeners I have a or podcast that I listen to that can pertain to helping all these areas of your life, right? Um, so besides the physical health, the the mental health, the financial health, um, it also made me realize, like, okay, so how how else can you clean up your personal life to help benefit your business life? And for me, it's the it's always been things like um building a morning routine. I've always had a morning routine, but when I got strategic about it and I made it almost a non-negotiable, there are days uh that I do not get my morning routine in. Um, actually, today is one of them. I've got a sick husband and a sick kid, and my son was up throwing up all night long. He's on day three of a fever. So sleep was non-existent um last night. So when I finally was able to go to sleep this morning, I did not get to go to sleep until between 4 a.m. and 7:30 from being up all night. If you're a parent, then you know what I'm talking about. So sure, on those mornings, then my typical morning routine did not happen as planned. But unless it's one-offs like that, my morning routine is non-negotiable. And does that mean I have to wake up a little bit earlier to achieve it? Yes, it does. I'm not saying that you need to wake up at 3 a.m., but I'm saying if you build a good, healthier or healthy morning routine before you start your work day, I think it is life-changing. And everybody's morning routine looks different. For me, my morning routine, when I first wake up, besides going to the bathroom and brushing my teeth, I drink a big glass of water, and then of course I have my coffee following. And when after I pour my coffee and I let my dogs out and let them back in, I sit in meditation every single morning. Um, and that meditation can be 10 minutes or that meditation can be an hour. Sure, it depends on how much time I have and what's going on, and it also depends just like on if I if it takes that long for me to get into the flow, or maybe once I'm in meditation, I just sit there. So, but meditation is a non-negotiable for me. I've been doing um, I've been using meditation every morning now since I think I'm on four or five years. That alone has been life-changing for me. But even when I was say, like when I went back to being a hairstylist, I was doing the meditation. Um, but not everything else was in alignment. But that has been one thing that has always helped me. But when I started aligning the rest of my life, it only benefited, right, with the meditation. So maybe some people, maybe you don't do meditation, maybe you sit in prayer, maybe you do morning devotions, um, maybe just sitting quiet. I don't know what that is. But I think finding a good morning routine after I do the morning routine, sure, I have kids to get ready for school. I try to get some movement in at home, whether I do yoga, I have I'm trying to create a small little home gym slowly. You know, it's it's it's an investment. So a little bit of the time, or I walk my dogs, or if I can go for a run, I try to do something right to move my body, to clear my head, to start my day in a good spot. Um, when I do not get those in, I know it. And I I'll be like, oh, I could I feel more irritable, or it just like that time is so important, right? Um, another thing is set clear boundaries, setting clear boundaries with my time. I definitely have an ADD, ADHD brain. Um, and time management is something that has always been a struggle for me, but trying to set some boundaries um with my time is always beneficial for me. Um every when every everything didn't just everything has shifted since changing all these in my personal life, which is totally making my business life thrive on a whole new level. None of this just happened overnight, but steadily with these little changes, I have become uh calmer. I've not not that I wasn't calm, but even uh more patient, more calm behind the chair. I stopped feeling frantic about money when I came up with a game plan and strategies. I'm not saying if your finances are totally inside out and upside down, don't feel bad about it. You will get it under control one day, one step at a time. But I'm not, once I started really having goals and structure around my personal finances, it has made the anxiety around finances go so much smoother for me. Um, I learned to stop saying yes to things that drained me. I don't have to say yes to people in my personal life, nor do I have to say yes to my clients if it feels out of alignment with me, and nor do you. I um and by doing that, then I realized I started attracting clients who felt more aligned with me, which then you are bringing in more revenue, you're bringing in more joy. Um, it's like the key to success. My business uh hasn't just grown and isn't continuing to grow just because I am hustling harder. It's growing because I am stabilizing myself internally and personally. It's growing because I am realizing and I'm constantly aware of my inner world and how it is creating my outer world. I'm growing because I see that the structure in my personal life also matters and reflects in my booking and the consistency with clients. I can see that the more confident I get, then the better things feel at work. Like the more confident I am in my pricing, the more confident I am in my skill, the more confident, right? The two go hand in hand. Um when I started to become more disciplined in everything in my life, from my physical health, mental health, financial health, then all of the rest of it follows, right? In my work, it mirrors that. So that's what I mean when I say the success starts with you. It's not a bunch of fluff, it's it also is mindset, and mindset is so, so huge. Um, and by changing your mindset and changing, I mean, changing my I could talk about mindset forever. I think it's so huge. I also am huge on the power of manifestation, and I don't mean like, oh, I hope that I get a million dollars in my hand today, you have to take action and do it. But the mindset is the first place to start, and then everything else can follow. Your mind is so powerful. So the mind is powerful in the sense that I, as soon as you say, I'm gonna clean up this in my personal life, and you start working on it, you it it's gonna happen unless you're not, you know, unless you just say that and you walk away. But by by focusing on your mindset and realizing that the success for your business starts with you, that you realize, like, okay, that you also are gonna work on that's it's nervous system work, it's financial responsibility, it's discipline, it's emotional maturity, and realizing that you cannot build a grounded six-figure career on a chaotic inner life. I I don't think. I mean, yes, I'm sure you can, but imagine how much richer you're gonna be if everything is in full alignment. I share all this as someone who has had to learn it. Maybe you could say learn it the uh the hard way, but I had to learn it from my own personal experience, which makes me feel so excited to just share all this with all of you. So I could go on and on and on about how your business becoming the business of your dreams isn't about just grinding harder in 2026, but as you've gotten the point, it's about aligning so much deeper. And alignment looks different for everyone. So while I sat here and shared about how for me to align my personal life with my business life, for me personally, that meant things like morning routine, protecting my sleep, moving my body, eating in a way that fuels me, saying no to things that drain me. Um, I would another thing that I didn't mention was choosing, continuing, continue, choosing, continued education intentionally. That's something too. Uh, and finding mentors, um, all of that, it it that that is what works for me. But maybe what alignment for you in your personal life, maybe that's different. Maybe you don't need to work on as many things, or uh maybe there's other things you need to work on. But the point is is just what are those things? Because it's really gonna matter, right? Are you in a relationship that's totally draining you of everything and taking all of your attention and all of your energy and focus away from your business? Like, is that something you need to work on? Is that you know, is that it? Are you um in a living situation that you need to change? Are you in whatever it is, right? Like, if there's something out of alignment, get it in alignment. If you're like, I've already got all of these things done, um, well, then maybe you're ahead of the game. So chuck it in the bucket if you need to. So as I move on to the next one, so if you do one thing this year, let it be aligning your life to better your business. And remember that your inner world creates your outer world. Um, another thing that I worked on and that I can say um to everyone that I think is so important also for um your success, starting with you, is personal development. I know I said it, I first of all love personal development. Those are mainly the books I listen to, that's mainly the podcast I listen to. It's it just fuels my soul. I always want to to strive to reach the highest and best version of myself personally and business-wise. Um and and I think personal development can help in so many ways. Uh, it can help in so many ways in your hairstylist business. Um, you don't need to spend every penny on programs. I'm not asking you to do that, but choose something, one area, one shift, one habit, one coach, um something, I think, to to help with your personal development, right? There are so many different um talk hosts and books and podcasts. I always go back to um, I don't know if any of you did the beach body, if you were did any of their workouts or was a beachbody coach or whatever. Um, long story. I was like, oh, back in the day, I was like, I'm gonna be a beach body coach, and it didn't last at all. But the one thing that when I sat in on a on a mentor class was that they all it's like recommended, required uh that you every coach of theirs is working on personal development every single day, and they would like share books and all these things, and there's something to that, and then as I listen to uh very successful business people um podcasts, the number one of the number one denominators that they all say they do is work on personal development, and I think that that is a key to success, and I think that by working on your personal development, you are helping align everything else in your personal life. Um, and I I just I'm a thing, I'm a sucker for it. So, I mean, and if you're like no way, then okay. But I do think that the most um elevated stylist and six-figure plus stylist that I have met, um, I they don't just work on their craft, they work on themselves. And go and look on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, where whatever platform that you follow, your InspO stylist. And I would bet money that they somewhere in all of their posts, they show how they work on themselves because that is them. They already know, they already know the key to success of that how it starts with them and with them personally to go into their business world. If you listen to them, they I feel like you would see that they say, like, your habits show up in your income, your discipline shows up in your bookings, your mindset shows up in your pricing, your boundaries show up in your schedule. Um, so back to let this year be the year of aligning your personal life to better your business life. Um, so I want us all to be clearly as successful as we each want to be. If we all, if you are dreaming of making six figures, if you're dreaming of owning your own salon, if you're dreaming of whatever it is, be having full books, if you're dreaming of a steady paycheck, whatever it is, then I I do hope that something out of this podcast, you know, helps you um to to achieve that and to get there. I hope that if I have done anything, I've at least planted the seed for your mindset to change, to inspire you to make sure that your personal life is aligning um up so your business life can thrive. You know, as hairstylists, the industry is a demanding industry. I mean, think about like we're on our feet six to 12 hours a day. We hold emotional space for our clients, um, we're constantly making creative decisions, we're managing time pressure, we're socializing nonstop, we're managing expectations, we're performers. I think on this level, like we're athletes, we're therapists, we're we're artists, and that alone can take a toll, right? So dis decision fatigue is real, uh, cortisol is real, burnout is real. And if we don't actively invest in our physical mental health, uh, then the cre that alone can make our career can slowly drain us. Um, that's why for me, I made my own personal decisions in my own life to invest in myself. And I hope to inspire you to do the same, right? So um what for me too, like that's why it was so important for me this last year to get a health coach and a trainer and a therapist and a business mentor and do continuing ed and take master classes. Um, because for me that helped me get in alignment. Uh, but that doesn't mean that that's what is going that's not what you need, but what I, you know, like I said, whatever it is, um, do do the do the damn thing to feel so good about yourself. So as you think about how the success starts with you, also remember we attract what we are, not what we post, not uh what we say we want, not what's written in our bio, what we are. Uh, if you are feeling chaotic internally, you will attract chaotic clients. I really am a firm believer in that that you know, energy, what's the whole like energy flow or energy goes that, you know, the flow, the flow go, the energy quote. I totally, totally just flew out, so I cannot remember it now. But anyways, um, all that to say, like if you are chaotic internally, you'll attract chaotic clients, right? If you feel uh empowered internally, you will attract empowered clients. I I think that that that is a true thing. Um, if you're constantly uh discounting yourself, you will attract clients who question your prices, right? You get where I'm going with that. If you're exhausted and resentful, you'll attract energy that drains you. But if you're grounded, you attract grounded. If you're structured, I believe you'll you will attract respect. If you value your time, your clients will value your time. If you invest in yourself, you will attract clients who invest in themselves. Um, I don't your dream client isn't something you chase. Your dream client is something you become aligned with. And this is where the inner work matters because the stylists who want high-end clients, low maintenance, respectful guests, women who pre-book, women who trust, women who value artistry, or men, all that to say, um, I really think that you will get there much quicker and much smoother when you become the version of yourself who embodies that same energy. If if you um if you want polished clients, then practice that in your life. If you want calm, practice calm. If you want confident, practice confident. Clear, you see. If you want um all the things, if you are practicing financial responsibility, I think then you that will show up in your business life. Emotional stability, that'll show up in your business life. Intentional, then that will show up. We attract who we are, and when you elevate your inner world, your dream client rises to meet you. The success, I think, is literally that easy when everything falls into alignment. The inner world creates the outer world, and that includes our clientele. If you want different clients this year, become the version of you that naturally attracts them. So I will stand behind my words of the success starts for starts with you. You don't build a dream clientele, you become the person they're looking for. It's not too late. 2026 is still wide open. To me, we've just begun. Set one intention, clean up one area, invest in one part of yourself because when your life aligns, your business follows. For this year on the Rooted Chair Podcast. I'm not just going to be talking about hair on here. We're going to be talking about building rooted careers and rooted lives. Thank you all for tuning in today. If this podcast resonated with you at all, feel free to um comment to me, DM me on Instagram. You can find me at styled by Christy Lacey on Instagram. I will have my contact info and my email info in the show notes below. I hope that this resonated with some of you. And if it did, please share this with your favorite stylist out there. Um, the best way for me to grow is for you to share me with your favorite people. Thank you again for tuning in. And until next time, stay mooted, real, and radiant. Cheers.