EAST TEXAS UNFILTERED w/J. Chad Parker: Featuring Deidra "The Color Girl"

Deidra "The Color Girl" joins East Texas UNFILTERED with J. Chad Parker. She is one of the most sought after hair color professionals in East Texas. Deidra grew up in Corpus Christi and Rockwall. She got her hair done as a teenager, and it changed everything. She knew right then that she wanted to do hair the rest of her life.
Deidra found her way into the business the hard way. Her parents wanted her to finish college first. Her husband pushed her to chase the dream. She trained as a color specialist in Dallas, then moved to Tyler. She worked at a salon there for five years. When it closed, she opened Dolce Vita with her partner Julie in 2009. She built it on good product and skilled people.

This episode is about more than hair. Deidra talks about loyalty and hard work. She talks about the clients she has cared for over twenty years. For Deidra, service is a calling, and she still loves what she does. It is a strong East Texas conversation about craft, business, family, and taking care of people. Be sure to like and subscribe for more great East Texas content.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Like filters changed the game. Filters make my life horrific.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

I mean if somebody filters a picture of themselves or of anybody.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

Any Instagram picture that you see, I'm like, sweetie, that it's filtered. That it's not what her hair looks like. Let me show you what that looks like two weeks after the fact. A girl came in, she brought in a picture, and she was like, This is what I think I want my hair to look like. And it was not achievable. I blessed her heart, it was never gonna happen. One of the girls said, Your natural hair color isn't that light, the color that's on your hair already isn't that color, like this is not really achievable for you. And she looked her dead in the eyes and she said, But this is neat in this picture.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Was it an AI modification?

SPEAKER_03 0:45

Yes, yes, it was on her face. Okay. The level of expectation exponentially increased. The level of possibilities stay the same. You just have to close that gap and educate them as to why.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Welcome to another episode of East Texas Unfiltered. I'm your host, J. Chad Parker. Today we have someone who does more than hair. She's the color expert at Dolce Vita. Many of you know her, or you know her work. Beautiful women, luxurious women, wealthy women. They all know who Deidre is. Deidra, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Um, this is a different topic from where the podcast has been, but um, you're so popular, uh, especially with my wife and others. Thank you. I wanted to have you on the show. Um, you know, hair salons, you normally think people cut hair. You don't cut hair, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:44

No, I've only ever done color, specialized from the day I started doing hair.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

You know, I'm assuming you go to cosmetology school and somehow there's a mentorship or you learn, or how does that how do you learn how to do that?

SPEAKER_03 1:56

So um early on, I used to have my hair done at a Tony and Guy in Dallas. And when you went to that swan, they specialized. You saw somebody for color, you saw somebody for cut. And I knew if that's what I was gonna do, I only wanted to do color. And so I went to a specific academy that only taught hair. And we were we were required to learn both, but when you worked for the company afterwards, you had to specialize. So I knew that's what I wanted to do. And then it just so happens in hair school ends up, I was a terrible, terrible cutter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

It's funny you mentioned Tony and Guy. When I was growing up, I remember those bottles in my house. My mother would go to Dallas to get her hair colored.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

And it was somewhere in Dallas, and then she'd come back with these products that said Tony and Guy on them.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Yeah, Dallas was the flagship store in the U.S. Um, they were a European-based company, and Dallas was the first store. Park like Park Park Lane was the salon that everybody got their hair hair done at.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

I mean, is that what was that in North Park Mall or wherever?

SPEAKER_03 3:05

No, so they did have a North Park store, but um Park Lane is just sort of in the middle of Highland Park. It's in the middle of the mix. It was the first big store that everybody went to.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

And um It wasn't in Highland Park Village.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

No, no, no. It's um, what is that? It's off like um park in almost the toll way, Sherry Lane. Sherry Lane was the street it was on. And you had to have some money to open a place on Sherry Lane, and they had big European dollars, and when they came to the US, that's where the Moscow brothers chose to land.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Well, let's uh let's take you back before we get you back to the Tony and Guy Academy or whatever. But uh, where did you grow up?

SPEAKER_03 3:54

So I grew up in Corpus Christi until I was in eighth grade, and then I went to high school in Rockwall.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

All right. Your parents, um, where are your parents from?

SPEAKER_03 4:06

So my dad is from Corpus Christi, born and raised, and my mother is from a teeny town on the border called Sapata, but in the U.S.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

All right. Uh, and somehow they met each other along the way and in college.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

My mom um lived in an all gor girls like boarding home, and my dad's sister lived there as well, and she introduced her to my dad, and that was that was that.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Do they still live in Corpus Christie?

SPEAKER_03 4:37

No, my mom and dad are in um Dallas. Well, my mother's deceased, but they were in Dallas, and my dad has um a lake house here in Tyler, so he's back and forth.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

All right. So we'll get back to that if that brings us to any connection here with Tyler. But you uh graduated from high school in Corpus Christie?

SPEAKER_03 4:56

Rockwell.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Rockwell, my bad. I heard you say that. Okay. And do you go to college?

SPEAKER_03 5:01

So I did. I went toward Texas.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

And when you went there, did you go there to major in something that may uh lead to you running a hair salon later?

SPEAKER_03 5:10

No, no, no, no. I was a business major.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Um, kind of that kind of applies. You have to pay the bills, make it work.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Yeah, I don't think that um I knew I I wanted to do hair when I graduated from high school. That was that was not an option. Oh, you knew for my parents? Yeah, I knew that that's what I wanted to do. I had kind of floated it, and my mom was like, no.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Where'd you pick that up though? That that interest.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

I um I got my hair done at Tony and Guy in my freshman year of high school.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Okay, so your parents had money?

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Well, they I think my mom knew like for each of us. She had three daughters, and I think she chose to spend money in areas that she knew maybe you might need more help here. I I might need more help there. I had weird hair. I had like pretty ethnic hair that was unlike my mom's, my dad's, my sister's um curly, textured, I mean it looks frizzy.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

It looks very straight right now.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

I do I do a good blowout.

SPEAKER_02 6:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

Um, and I think she knew at your place or at the new place that opened up. Right. I think she knew like I I needed more help. And so um my oldest sister at the time worked at Neiman's and she said, Oh, there's this guy, Carlos. He's so great at Tony and Guy, go see Carlos. And I was like, Okay. And he was the first person he cut my hair that day, and he taught me how to blow dry and round brush hair. And I remember leaving, and it was the first time I was like, Oh my God, I have beautiful hair.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Because there was a way, a technique to get it done.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

Yeah, he was like, You have great hair. I know you think you have difficult hair.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

I may not.

SPEAKER_03 6:52

Your hair is not easy, you're never gonna be able to wash and go, but you have hair that you can do anything with. You're just gonna have to fix it in a way that other people don't. And he taught me how, and the the care that he gave me was so kind, but the feeling that I had when I left just changed my world. I knew that's what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

So, I mean, it's like a light went off, or or there was optimism hope, you know, for how you could look.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

And also as a young girl, I just felt I felt pretty and I felt like, oh my gosh, like this hair that I thought was so different from anybody else's, all of a sudden it's like, oh, oh, maybe I have something really great that I always saw as like a really a bad gene that I got. Like, how come my sisters don't have this? Nobody in my family has this weird hair.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

So they just had to find it. And they it looks like they found it, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah. And nobody at the time was blowing out hair. Like flat irons were just starting to become a thing.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Um the things that you got burnt with.

SPEAKER_03 7:53

Yeah, yeah. Those paddles. Yeah. Um, but Carlos was amazing. He was great. And then later on, a year later, was like, you should do some highlights. And I was like, that's it. The world is my oyster. I've gotten expensive. Let's do it all.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

And so you did highlights or you had them done to yourself.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

Yes, I had them done. And um I love the the lady Marianne who took care of me. Um, I was this young kid getting some really expensive services done that other people didn't, but but my mom knew I needed a little bit of education. She was supportive of that. Yeah, she she knew each of us had some strong suits and we each had some things that we're gonna, we were gonna have to work around. And my mom never sugarcoated any of it. But you needed to know where you were gonna spend more time and energy and where you could chill out, where you were really, really strong. And she was great at letting us know those things. And I think that's what what I do with my clients.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

And she saw that you needed um, I don't know if self-esteem is the right word, but it uh uh uh confidence, something.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

She knew that I didn't know how to fix my hair in a way that looked polished and and really good. And she didn't. She had naturally straight hair, as did my sisters, so she sought out a professional who could help me.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Well, I mean, that's that was uh that ended up being a real gift for you, but at the same time, something she didn't want you to do. She actually fueled the fire that made it happen.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Yeah, yeah. It came to came back to bite her later on.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

But you know, uh I mean, I really can't comment on men's hair, but for women's hair, you know, there is an aspect of beauty and self-esteem that takes them to the salon, wouldn't you say? The way they want to look.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that there's an age for women that we're trying to maximize what we're working with. And then there's an age-that's a good way to put it. There's an age where you get older and you're trying to minimize the loss of what you used to have.

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Like thickness of hair.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Thickness, color, volume, texture, as we get older, hormones change, we age, those things change, and um, it becomes more important that you're using products and things that enable you to harness the youth that you once had.

SPEAKER_02 10:23

You know, that's a far cry from, you know, I think about the old days, you know, my grandmother going to a beauty salon and you know, sitting under a hairdryer.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Right. And then coming out with this old lady, you know, haircut that everybody had. The curls that didn't move. Right. I mean, everybody, that was the haircut for the over 60 crowd way back when. And we've come a lot, you're you've come a long way from there.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

I mean, I still have ladies that sit in my chair and say, Deeira, do you do you think that at my age I I should I should be wearing my hair this long? And my answer is always like it's less about the age and more about the kind of hair that you have. Let's maximize what you're working with. If you have great volume, texture, density, yeah, you can wear it that way.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

But if it's real thin, it's hard to wear a lot. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

If it's thin, like let's work with something that that makes that works with what you have.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

Maybe the Dorothy Hamilton Bob.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

Or just like something more layered, something a little more fun, something chic and short.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

So how do you coordinate, you know, you know, your own thoughts about what a person should do with the hair you've just colored? Um is that your partner, Julie?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Um, yeah. So Julie is my business partner, but also there are other people. Um there cutters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Julie's specifically just a cut specialist. Steven is a cut specialist. Um so that's what Tony and Guy did really well as an academy. And it's something that you don't see with other schools. You you go to a cosmetology school and you're licensed to do all of these things.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

But nine months, you modeled yours after them. I've got this snaking suspicion.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Yes. Yes. Like I took what I thought that the company did really well and sort of tweaked that. Um, but we had to learn to do both, even though they knew we were going to specialize one way or the other. Because I can't coordinate color. Color should always exist to complement the cut. Cut is your foundation. So if you don't know how to cut hair, if you don't know the way that hair is gonna move and fall and lay, you you can't color hair efficiently, appropriately. So we always, if somebody comes in.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Do they come to you before or after the cut?

SPEAKER_03 12:53

So they'll come to me before, but if they're changing a style, if we're tweaking something, I will pull in the stylist and say, Hey, let's talk about this. And they'll let me understand what what they're gonna be doing, and then I tailor the the color to that.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

I mean, people think of color um initially as, well, I need to hide my gray hair, you know, but it's so far beyond that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

I mean, I think that um you know, like there's shades of I mean, you see people that go with a little blonde or some highlights or the you know, the I don't know if that's still a thing or if that's in style or not.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah, no, I I think that um there's there are hair styles that are hot and on the forefront, but at the end of the day, I think that we should always be choosing color based on what you're bringing in. If you have coarse textured hair, people come in and they're like, I want to be blonde. I'm like, that's gonna mess with your texture. It's just it's not gonna look at this.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

How will dyeing hair, blonde, mess with the texture of someone's hair?

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Um, it can definitely it'll the lighter we go, the more that your hair is gonna absorb color. Darker hair tends to look shinier, healthier, smoother. It's because dark hair reflects light, light hair, super blonde hair absorbs. So it's really, really difficult to see.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Is it dehydrating or is it over hydrating?

SPEAKER_03 14:25

It can be dehydrating when done poorly, but looks frizzy and dried out and you know sometimes that's because they the texture of hair that they already had to work with, you probably never should have been highlighting that hair. And sometimes it's because they used a product that was not the best product. And sometimes it's because their hair was just simply overprocessed.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

All right. And so someone I mean, I don't know. Do people come, I know you've got regular customers, of course, uh, regulars that come on a frequency of once a week, once a month. How often?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Um it depends. I mean, we have stylists who I mean, we have clients who have honestly, like, I don't think they own shampoo. They've they've not shampooed their hair, they just show up to your place for everything. Yeah, yeah. They get their hair blow-dried and it it wears for a few days, they come back. I mean, we have clients who require blowouts. And then I have clients who once a year they come and see me, and that is their birthday gift. That's the one thing that they do that is a huge extravagance for Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Because I mean, being at the top of the, you know, the women's color, cut, hair presentation, you know, you've got all of these things like Rose Festival, you've got these different parties, these different social events, you know, that are piled up on top of all your regulars where these people are always trying to come in. I would I would guess.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Um and so I'm assuming that I know you're busy uh more than you want to be.

SPEAKER_03 16:00

I I am at this age. Yes. I have a hard time saying no. And and I would have an easier time saying no if I had a lot of women that I wanted to say no to. But Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:12

I mean, you're fortunate that you enjoy the people that come in for most of them.

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Honestly, I ha I have a super loyal clientele, and the majority of my clients I have done for 20 plus years. Rebecca was one of my first clients.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

Like, that's my wife, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Yeah. I uh I remember talking about Dale's wedding.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

Dale's wedding with Rebecca. Rebecca and I were both getting married around the same time.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

That's a long time ago.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

I mean, a long time. Like those those people are very near and dear. And the majority of my clients have been with me and taking care of me for years. And I it's like breaking up with a friendship. It's really hard for me to understand that I'm about to be 46 and physically I cannot do what I've done forever. And I'm my own boss. I'm in charge of that.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

I know.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

I don't want to say no because you own the salon with your partner.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Like I love these women. I I can't imagine a world where any of them I'm not seeing on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_02 17:17

Well, you know, Dolce Vita is the name of the salon. Uh-huh. Did y'all start that from inception and create it out of thin air, or was it something that carried over from somebody else?

SPEAKER_03 17:27

Aaron Powell No, it was just um we we knew that our salon was closing. We had a really, really short window to open something, and the day our owner at Tony and Guy said, Hey, a month from now, we're gonna close. I had been here for five years, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Five years, where were you? Here or in Dallas?

SPEAKER_03 17:49

I was in here, moved from Dallas. I'd been in Tyler for five years, and the kind of hair I thought I was gonna be doing, I wasn't doing when I got here.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Where were you? Where was that store?

SPEAKER_03 18:04

Um, it was in the mall.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Okay, I knew I was.

SPEAKER_03 18:06

I was working in a Tony and Guy, we were at the mall, and um my idea of working for this company was Sherry Lane. I was gonna be working at this flat ship.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

That's not the clientele running through the mall.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Um, well, at the time, Tony and Guy outside of Sherry Lane, all of their salons were opened in a mall because that was that was a new concept. It did not age the way that they thought it was going to anywhere anywhere. But when I moved to Tyler, to me, I was like, wow, this isn't what I saw for myself. Like, and my parents were already not happy. And I I just felt like it was a a step in the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

All right, we gotta set this up. Your mom, you know, was very smart. She was a college graduate, validatorian, dedicated for her daughters to all go to college and b find a business successful tract, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:06

I mean, my mom went back to school with four kids and got two master's degrees.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

All right. So here is Deedra falling short of graduating from college at North Texas by 17 credits.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

And saying, hey, I told y'all when I was in high school I'm gonna do hair.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

I mean, it it didn't go, it didn't go quite like that. Didn't go quite like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

Um Okay, how did it go?

SPEAKER_03 19:29

I was I was dating Worth and Back back then? Yeah, I had started dating him. I was 23.

SPEAKER_02 19:36

And Okay, when did you where did you meet him?

SPEAKER_03 19:39

Um Worth Worth went to Rockwell High School. He graduated, he went to Baylor, he was playing golf and was figuring out.

SPEAKER_02 19:46

That's right, he did play golf for Baylor. I forgot that.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Yeah, and after after Baylor, he was playing on tours and going pro.

SPEAKER_02 19:55

Trying to, yeah, that's a tough one. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

He had some sponsors, he was trying to figure out what he was gonna do. I was in a standstill. I was not moving ahead. I was like year six of college. My parents were very, very upset, doing everything possible to just get away.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

I mean, what were you doing with yourself?

SPEAKER_03 20:13

I mean, a whole lot of nothing. Starting over, starting hoping that semester would go better, not finishing. Um, doing a lot of partying. Um I was being 23 in Dallas. I was living like a big life of bars and going out and being young.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

And any hair?

unknown 20:32

No.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Were you doing any hair? No. In that period of time, that six-year college plan you were on?

SPEAKER_03 20:37

No, no, no, no, not at all. And Worth just asked me one day, like really early on into dating. He was like, Well, we're we're gonna get married. And I was like, No, I'm not allowed. Like my parents do not think I'm mature enough for that. And he was like, Well, what do you want to do? And I said, Hair, and he was like, Well, then let's let's figure that out. And I was like, My my parents aren't gonna pay for that. They paid for six years of college, my apartment, my car. And he was like, You're an adult, Deedra. Like, let's figure out.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

So, what move did you make?

SPEAKER_03 21:09

So I um I applied to the academy and I found out I would they give me a little scholarship money because of my age and I had interviewed well.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

And And you looked apart, maybe.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

I mean, I think that they were used to most girls coming in and they were doing hair because they had to. They didn't have other options. Um, it was a short program. But at the time, the academy was really expensive. The price difference from that school versus others was significant. And I knew if I was gonna do that, I wanted to do it in a way that was big. I I wanted to do well. I was coming into it a little older. And um they said, Well, you can take out a loan for the rest.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

And did you do that?

SPEAKER_03 21:57

I mean, I never had a credit card, I never paid a bill on my On my own in my life, and I was like, yeah, okay, let's let's do that.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

So what's going on with mom and dad at at this moment where you're out here contemplating taking a loan, getting a scholarship, going into do Herodon Academy?

SPEAKER_03 22:14

So they were they were really upset. And and for me to do this, I knew I was gonna have to move back home. They were saying they were making it as difficult as a chance. Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

We're not paying for this.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

We're not paying for your apartment. We're not paying for anything. And Worth and I had a conversation, and he said it's a short period of time. Move home. And that was a negotiating for these two to just let me live in my bedroom. No kids are at home. They have like a four-bedroom house. I'm like, can I just come back to my high school room? That they did not want that for me. But I was so sure and and worth just was like, I want to marry you. We just got to get you to a finish line. Any finish line, whatever can get you there, let's do it. And so they they acquiesced, and the sweet man that I'm married to today knew like my follow-through where I was at that place in my life. I didn't trust that I could finish things anymore. I'd had such a tough time finishing school and I'd struggled.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

He knew you would do well in that academy.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

He drove me every single day. Every single day, picked me up, drove me to school, dropped me off, didn't leave me a car, so I couldn't leave, and would pick me up from school so that I could get there on time and I could finish.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

How long did that take?

SPEAKER_03 23:42

Nine months.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Okay. So you've kind of did you stay at home the whole time or did you get out with him or somebody?

SPEAKER_03 23:48

I stayed at home the whole time. And then probably in the seventh or eighth month of me being in school, Worth and I got engaged. And and at this point, we had maybe been dating or together for 10 months, 11 months.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Like Not that long. No.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Worth went to Baylor. He was on that quick Baptist plan of getting married. He was like, We're we're gonna get this thing done.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

The Baptist plan goes like this. I got me a college degree, now I gotta get me a wife.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Yep. And the first wife who uh really tried to lock him down, he wasn't feeling that. And unfortunately, he found this girl who didn't have all the components together, but like saw the plan. He saw the plan and was gonna make sure that I got there.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

All right. So you guys um I gotta mention my daughter, Kate. When you say, Would I want her to move back home? Uh the answer would be no.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Right? I mean, at 24? I mean You know Kate, my daughter.

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Kate and I have had a lot of talks.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

I mean, she's high maintenance.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

She is uh, you know Listen, that girl, Kate's gonna be Kate's gonna do big things. Kate uh what I love about doing hair specifically is this age of girls. This age of girls, that like that potential is huge, but their direction is challenged and they get lost in the well they're just they're living five years down the road, but not getting done steps one, two, and three to get there. And man, Kate was like a different kid. She came in, she was young, she wanted like Yeezys for Christmas that year. I'd never heard of them. Like the shoes. This chick was years ahead of her time, but she's just always Yeah, she's always acted like she was 21 when she was like 15. Literally, I was the same girl. Uh same girl. I couldn't wait in my mind. I was fully grown, but didn't have some key components. And like Kate just is going places. The experiences she's had, who she is, the understanding of self is there. Like, she's got she's got some issues with like on one hand, she's so far beyond where she is. And on the other hand, like time constraints are an issue that she can't kind of be bothered with.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

She uh she goes right up to Dolce Vita, gets all the treatment she wants and doesn't pay for them and knows that uh Danger will call Rebecca and say, hi.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

She will order product and be like, hey girl, I'm gonna be coming in. Can you get me this mask, this mask, this mask? I was like, and she has been that way since she was 12 years old. I didn't know anybody that age who called and made their own appointments. I mean, I have 20-year-olds who still have their mom's call. Kate was like, I was worried whether or not she had driven there. Yeah. Like at 12. I was like, did you drive yourself here? What's happened?

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Well, um, okay, so things are coming together. We're getting to the point where you and Wir are getting engaged, you're finishing up at Tony and Guy. And do they send you to Tyler or is this something that you volunteered for for whatever reason?

SPEAKER_03 27:06

No, neither. Neither. Um Worth worked for Halliburton.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

In Tyler at the time.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

No, he his dad was a VP in Dallas. And so we knew that he couldn't work under that same umbrella. So Tyler was the closest place to it. And he had never had a job outside of golf. Here we were. I've just finished hair school. I'm marrying somebody who's never had a job outside of golf.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

You kids are going places.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Yeah, yeah. And but Worth had a plan. And I was like, I don't know. I don't even have a savings account. Like, I'll do what you say. Um, so we came to Tyler, and I just I I hated Tyler for the first six months. I deeply hated Tyler, made him swear we would get back to Dallas. As soon as we could. And seven years later, he said, Hey, guess what? I got a transfer, we're going back to Dallas. And I was like, Oh, I'm actually gonna stay here. Like, we'll make it work, I'll do the back and forth. But the the people in Tyler that I met, they just changed my world in a way that that I needed at that time. The Dallas life, my girlfriends from there, the world that I was living, that was not gonna jive with like a young, kind of married couple. And what I found here, the women, the love, I just I just love Tyler. I would, I would have a hard time ever leaving this place.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

I mean, it I mean, I've I asked my wife that before, you know, about you that you just you you put a lot of effort into staying here when it would be so easy not to be here.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Yeah, I mean, I've I've done the back and forth. I like to joke that I'm bi-coastal. Um, I live in Dallas and I have had a separate separate place here and done the back and forth for I think twelve, twelve years now.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

I mean, that's a long time.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

Yeah, yeah. But I just Tyler, so Tyler was a unique market. I could never work anywhere else and not work weekends. What is so unique about Tyler is that this is a community where women and families still put families first. Most of my clients couldn't come in on the weekends because that was family time. Their husbands weren't working. They needed to come in Monday through Friday, eight to five, while their husband's at work, their kids are at school, and that is what I built my business on. Anywhere else that I move, my hours are Saturdays for sure, late nights Monday, late nights Tuesday through Friday. I'm doing working women, all of my girlfriends in Dallas, everybody is double-income families in the Metroplex. Tyler, women build their lives around spouses and children, and they're getting their personal stuff done in between those hours. So once I'd seen that world, I wasn't working weekends very early on. I I feel like I see my husband more in this business model than I ever would doing hair in Dallas. So if I ever left Tyler, it would not be to do hair. I would be done with that game.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Yeah, I figured so. Well, the idea you heard Tony and Guy was closing down in the mall, and I'm assuming you'd met Julie at this point.

SPEAKER_03 30:35

Yeah. So Julie and I worked together at Tony and Guy. We worked with Steven, who was from New York, um, and had moved back to Tyler, and he came in to the mix at the salon. There was a girl, Julie, uh, a girl, Lindsay, that worked with us. And I think he our owner said we're closing in like four weeks.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

And so what do you what do you think when you hear that?

SPEAKER_03 30:56

I had already thought, like, I knew at that point I had been in Tyler for five years, and I knew like I could do this better.

SPEAKER_02 31:02

Because you have all the customers that are coming just for you.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Well, so the owner of the salon and I, like the way that that company is built is like you have your top, your top cutter, who's the owner of the salon. He was a specialist, but he only cut. And I was doing the color. I was the educator, I was doing all of those things. And because he couldn't do that, he would send me back to Dallas with corporate to go do my education. I had started having to color to educate for the salon. So I had a better understanding of the fundamentals of the business end of things and how they were run, um, which to the credit of the owner of the salon, he was an older gentleman, and it it changed my life that I got to see that end of things.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

The business side?

SPEAKER_03 31:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Like I could have my own salon because I know how to do it.

SPEAKER_03 31:57

Well, so the people when I would go back for education, when I would go to corporate meetings, those were meetings for the owners of fan franchises. But our owner didn't, he didn't like the social socialization of that. He he he wasn't into that world. He was like a a more private.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

He sent you instead?

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Yeah. Yeah. Really early.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

You got to say as if you were a franchise owner.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

Yeah, yeah. And and pretty early on, I was like, well, that's that's what I want to do. I mean, this isn't, I had topped out five years into being in Tyler, working at the salon. I knew I was making what I was gonna be making forever because we were a commission-based salon. And what I was making for the company was a lot of money. What I was taking home was not so much money.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

And um, I mean, that's the story of every entrepreneur, right? You work somewhere, you learn the business, then you set out on your own, and you know, you you you rape the benefits for yourself.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Yeah. And when I moved here, the kind of color that was going on um in Tyler, I did a ton of corrective color. There was a lot of bad color being.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Corrective color, meaning somebody else did a poor job, you were fixing it.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Yes. And once you do those people, they they'll stay with you for the rest of their lives. Once somebody's had their hair ruined, they will never Especially women. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Right?

SPEAKER_03 33:21

Yeah, you get a bad cut, you're like six, 12 weeks out of a fix. You get bad color, you're two years away from having it fixed.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

Really? You can't just recolor it.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

I mean, no, we're talking like ladies come in with like cracked scalps, wearing wigs, like melted hair, things that are catastrophic. The things that I saw when I first moved here, I was literally mind-blown by.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

And you say there's a lot of opportunity here.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Yeah. Immediately I was like, oh, oh, this is great. So five years into m moving somewhere where I didn't know a soul, I had a fully booked schedule. I had a very healthy clientele, I had a loyal clientele, and I had the energy to know, like, I understood kind of how to do it. And when he said we were closing, but he was gonna open somewhere else over here. I was like, Yeah, let's go. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 34:22

And where did he want to open up?

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Was that he was gonna open across the street and he was gonna open a salon that ran very similarly. That the the structure of it was still compartmentalized to some degree, but commission-based.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Did you go with him?

SPEAKER_03 34:39

No.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

Okay. So when does this idea of what became Dolce Vita come come on?

SPEAKER_03 34:44

The the day he told us that. I was like, hey, I've been looking at this place.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

In Berkfeld?

SPEAKER_03 34:50

Yeah. I wasn't from here, and I used to shop at Spinout. There were all the boutiques in there, and I just loved the nostalgia of that center.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

And there was another hair place or not?

SPEAKER_03 35:02

No. They had I remember talking to um Julius at the time, and he said we've never ever let a salon come in here. And why not? Julie and I went and met with him, and we were like, no, no, no, this is what we want to do, though. It's not gonna be like you think. We're not trying to like, this is not like a chop shop. It's gonna be like high-end. We're gonna do yeah, we're gonna do a more like specific clientele. This is gonna work.

SPEAKER_02 35:31

This is gonna work for the Bergfell Center's clientele. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

I was like, the people who shop here and live in this era in this older Tyler. Yes, and I love the azalea district. I just I loved all things about that. And he said, okay, okay, I think we can do this. And so we knew we had four weeks to close. We signed a lease and like got busy with the build out. We worked out of this little little house in the azalea district.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Until you got ready.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

I think we had we hired somebody, we knew the build-out was gonna take maybe three months. So we we needed to be somewhere for two months in between while the salon was being finished.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

You still had to make money.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

And the women, your clients, still wanted to come.

SPEAKER_03 36:22

Well, and we the one thing we knew was like the owner of the salon, the Tony and guy in Tyler, um, it was it was a real heartache. He had been done dirty. He had run the salon for 10 years, and the company was saying, We're not, we're not gonna renew your ability to own a franchise. We're changing directions. And and this was his future. And so he was scrambling also, but he was scrambling in a way that he continued, he wanted to continue this format, but I knew it was gonna take him longer to get up and running. Like, this is my strong suit is like you are not gonna out hustle me.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

He didn't have the color girl.

SPEAKER_03 37:03

Well, and and if you're gonna choose, the reality is, regardless of who is better, women are more fearful of having a bad color that takes a long time to recover than a bad cut. And so, like, the race was on. And I knew I was gonna do something with Julie moving forward where we wanted people to make money. We didn't want to be in the situation we were in. Julie was the manager at the salon. She had done, she had a very healthy clientele, but neither of us were making any money. And we wanted to create a world where people essentially ran their own business and we wanted to only work with people that were like work horses. We wanted to work with people that were hungry, that wanted a good lifestyle, and that wanted to do hair at a high level.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Would they just rent a chair or rent a spot kind of thing? Yes. That's what you hear about, you know. Except um You would control, though, the quality of the person that you allowed to rent.

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Well, and also unlike other rental salons, um, I'm a I'm a reasonably controlling person. So I don't we don't allow the people that work in the salon to choose the color lines or the product lines that they carry or use. Like we control that, we order that. So we sort of run like a commission-based salon where we provide all of the goods that you're gonna use and we provide the retail that you're gonna use, and then you take care of your clients. But the one thing that I knew at that point was that hairstylists are cheap and they're not financially savvy, and you cannot trust somebody who is running their own business to use good products.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Yeah, that's what I'm about to say.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

And even though skill is important, I would say half of the end result of really great color, half of it is using a really, really great product. And the other half is skill. And I use we use a really expensive, really great color line, and we have changed over the years to always be ahead of what everybody else is using.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

So you know, and that's smart because you've controlled the things that could really uh go outside your control. Yeah. I mean, like if you control the products, you've got a certain level of consistency and quality that will come to you to the color chair.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Yes. And the one thing we all know in the service world now is like nobody wants to work. I also wanted to create an environment where like each of our clients that were coming in, you had to earn that client and earn their business every single time they sat in your chair because they saw the level of work that was being done to the left and right of you. And if you got lazy and you weren't taking care of them, they already knew what products everybody was using. It was very easy to switch if you did not consistently earn that business back. Like I wanted to provide a salon that service was at the forefront of the business.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Do you ever have people that uh don't have a cutter with you but come to you exclusively for color? Yeah, yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

I mean, it's people who are super loyal to whoever's cutting their hair. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 40:34

Yeah, I mean, I wonder, because you know, like I would think that some people have their favorites, maybe if they'd been there a long time, but the color person's not as good where that cutter is. Yeah. And then Deedris over here, my designated color girl, everybody's trying to get their hair colored.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Absolutely. But but all day, every day, like I'm gonna steal you. I'm gonna steal you from that person. I can I can guarantee you I can put you in the chair of somebody that can do what they're doing for you better.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

And you're talking about the cutter.

SPEAKER_03 41:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Anyone who's working in your salon, you're saying that cutter with our procedure products it's gonna be better than where you are.

SPEAKER_03 41:14

Not anybody, but a specific person. I mean, I don't refer to just this person or just that person.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

There's multiple cutters.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Yeah. And for for every haircut and every hairstyle that somebody's wanting, there's we all have a niche. Each and every one of us has a niche that we're exceptional in.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Cutters. The cutters. You might recommend one of your clients, look, I want you to go to this cutter because this person is better at that hair, that style, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

Yeah. We are all great friends.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

I mean, you're full service.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

The majority of us have worked together for since the day we opened, 16 plus years. But we're a really vetted salon. Everyone's done hair for probably close to 20 plus years.

SPEAKER_02 41:56

Because in your 2009, according to sign. Yeah. Is that right?

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

That's when it opened.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

And nobody was year one in hair when we opened. Right. The people that we opened with, they are still there. And then we've added, but we're never looking to hire. So if if we bring you in, it's because you're exceptional in a way that fits a niche that we need.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

And um if they're that good, you know about them. Yeah. Is the hair business kind of, you know, a small where you know for sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Around Tyler, specifically the city. There's only so many hair places, salons, you know, you kind of know who's where.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Yeah. I think Tyler has a lot of hair people that are like names and they charge a lot of money. And when I moved here, there were a lot of people that, like, oh, I go to so-and-so, I go to so-and-so. It it was because they charged whatever, but like the hair world changed with balayage with the pandemic. There are all these young girls that charge a lot of money. They're not great. They're charging that because they're gonna see you one time, they're never gonna see you again, and they're gonna maximize what they charge you for. And and that's their value.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Like, you know, the history of Tyler on the hair salon. I remember as a kid, Fenton's. I don't know if you've ever heard of Fenton.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

You know, I mean, Mr. Fenton, and there was a bunch of chairs in there. Right. I mean, it was kind of like an old Tyler Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

I've heard of it. I've never been. No. I heard because it was probably closed, but I think I think pretty reasonably iconic for me to have heard of. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 43:33

I mean, just you know, that was kind of the a big place where people went. Um and I just think of that, you know, going there. Um and how much the it's changed from the the way that was. I mean, I don't even I don't know. I guess they colored back then, did they?

SPEAKER_03 43:49

I'm sure. I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

I mean, I just think that um how long has is color really been a thing?

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Oh, I mean before perms, before the eighties, before Perms, but you know, in the 80s, perms were big business, and what people were paying for perms in the 80s, that was so I do color, but really color is referred to as chemical, like um perms, color straighteners, all of those things fall into that category. And in the 80s, perms were such big business. When people think back, people were paying 200 plus dollars for a perm. Back then, that was Yes, that was a ton of money, man. That was a ton of money. And it's sustained for a decade.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

But things are nobody wants a perm anymore, do they?

SPEAKER_03 44:43

I mean, in in the 23 years I've done hair, I have done one perm total. Total. We don't do it in the salon. It's not something that I would recommend. I mean, the technology behind it, the perms you would get today, whether in a salon or at home, are the exact same perms and the solution and the chemical makeup that you were buying back then because there's no money in it. So nobody's dumped money into improving the technology behind that.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Well, what about hot haircuts and styles today? I mean, I'm assuming they change over time, but I mean, what's hot right now? I mean, does my wife got the latest, or is she, you know, still in the 80s?

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Uh no, no, no, definitely not. I think Rebecca's um I think what's I think what's hot and what's in is what works with what you have. And I I think that trends come and go, classic, beautiful, high-end chic hair is healthy, polished, shiny, good hair. And for everybody, that's something different that look is gonna last a lifetime. But I remember somebody saying the number one distinguishing factor of youth for women when it pertains to men, what men see on women as youth is shine in hair. And it kind of like blew my mind. But when you see a lady with just really dehydrated, dry blonde hair, you're like, whoa.

SPEAKER_01 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

You know, like it's just like, oh man, that looks rough.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

It looks rough. Get a makeover, girl. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 46:30

It's like, do you have conditioner?

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Right. I mean, that seems like that would be a simple fix.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

Yeah, I think it means Texas blonde is big. Everybody sh everybody can't have blonde. Just because this looks good on this model, it's not for you. Like, I think that is something that I really, really listen, all day, every day I do hair that sits in my chair that is not what I would choose.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

At the end of the day, have you had women just be determined to go blonde and you thought, no, that's that's not really what you should do?

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I will say um I'm different. There are lots of hair people out there that will say, I I would never do that. I don't want my name on that. I don't want my name on that, and people thinking I do that. Listen, I do things that I don't like every day. At the end of the day, who is to say that my taste is better than yours? What I care most about is that when you leave, you have the hair that you like. I will let you know I wouldn't do it. I'm gonna take pause. I'm gonna give you the reasons why. But if that's how you feel good, that matters more to me. I do give a lot of direction. I give a lot of suggestion. I let you know why we shouldn't do it. But if that is your jam, my job is to give you what you want and to do it in the healthiest, safest, best way possible. And so I try to try to hit that mark.

SPEAKER_02 48:02

I mean, I can see you. You're obviously you're a communicator and you do have a lot of energy and enthusiasm. So I can see why um your sessions take so long.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

I'm not your fast girl. I am not sure.

SPEAKER_02 48:16

I'm not like, I mean, can you please uh show up at the so-and-so? You're there until nine o'clock and like, what are you doing? Yeah. Who are you talking to?

SPEAKER_03 48:23

There are faster hair people out there. If that's your jam, I'm not your girl. I'm super nuanced and I'm very particular and like it it it takes what it takes. I'm not in charge of it. You can rush. There are hairdressers all day that are gonna throw you under heat because they have a schedule that they need to pertain to.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

Don't you have a schedule?

SPEAKER_03 48:43

I do, but the color takes what it takes and we adjust as is necessary.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

But what do you mean? When you color them, don't you set them off to the side and they sit down over there for a while?

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Right. So if you're if you're a different kind of hairstylist, like or colorist, like you'll bring some heat over because you have this time parameter. Um, I have done the majority of my clients long enough that I know whose hair takes longer to process, whose hair is going to take longer to foil, whose hair is gonna take longer to like maybe we have to tone the things that we do, and and that's factored in. And the pricing is to to some degree factored around it. But what it takes to be done well and to my standard is what it takes. Um, I think I could have done a better job of maximizing the dollars and the profit according to that. But I care more about meeting my standard and their standard of excellence than I do the money. But if you are looking for a quick in, quick out chick, I am not your girl. Everybody has a niche. My niche is healthy blonde hair that I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Are you blond mostly blonde?

SPEAKER_03 50:04

I do a lot of blondes, I do a lot of coppers. Um, I do a lot of color correction, but I can assure you if there's one brunettes don't come in? I do. I do, but but a brunette is like um their color's already there. It it it's a world that like a lot of people can compete in. It's an easy world. It's really hard to see a brunette that has like um hair that you're like, do you color your hair? You see a brunette, you're like, why is this chick's hair jet black and witchy? Like it's witchy, and that is aging like nobody's business. Like to do a nuanced, good, good brunette that looks natural, that's my jam. Like that's where I earn my money in a different way than everybody else. I never am gonna walk to the back and choose one tube of color and that's what you're getting. Like when you sit in my chair, everybody's formula is custom, it is different. I carry a line that is highly, highly customizable. And if you do not know how to mix hair color, if you don't know what you're doing, you will never, ever be able to use it. And like that's a world that I chose specifically because I don't, I don't want to compete with other people, but I know when you leave my chair, you will never, ever get that look again. And it's not based on on just how good I am at putting a root color on, but that's a custom formula.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

You don't have a formula for your your repeat customers where you kind of know the color that you're going to apply when they come?

SPEAKER_03 51:45

I I mean, I do, but if you look at anybody's history, there's a formula from 2009 that is going to change 27 times between the color.

SPEAKER_02 51:55

What causes those changes in hair coloring?

SPEAKER_03 51:58

Styles, if you want to be warmer summer, winter, fall, maybe you want to be more blonde, you want to be more ashy. Sometimes it's it's the fashion of what's in, what's not. Um, a lot of times it's like what doesn't work. And and great formulas are like we're talking five grams difference of this color versus that color to hit a point of perfection. And I am perfectionistic to a degree that all of that stuff is taken and there's a record of it. And also, if somebody comes to me, I don't work weekends. If you have a job or a life change and you need to do that, and you sit in anybody's chair in my salon, I want you to be taken care of. You've taken care of me for years. I want them to have that history and the exact formula that we've taken two years to figure out. And I want you to get the same level of service with them that you get with me because you've earned that.

SPEAKER_02 53:02

Does that really exist anywhere else in Tyler that you're aware of?

SPEAKER_03 53:05

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

To that level.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

I I mean, everybody that we work with, everybody's great, everybody's professional, everybody's good. There's we live in a world where there are enough hair people out there that you could choose if you're basing your business on price or whatever. You're not going to find harder working stylists. We have girls that come in at 5:30 in the morning. We have girls that will show up at your house on Christmas Day to blow dry your hair. I have like the world's best shampoo person, this our guy, Steven, that would knock your socks off. I have a young girl, Zoe, who's new and like I brought in, she's young. We never hire people. But this chick and what she brings to the table with like balayage, teasy lights, new youthful color. It's a world none of us can do. We have such a stacked clientele. None of us have the ability to take on these clients that require four, five-hour sessions. And I found a girl that is gonna do it in a way that like blows you away.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

At the salon.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

Yeah. And the fact that she came in, I was not looking. She came in and I could tell she was such a workhorse and she had enough gumption. Takes a lot to be 20 years old and walk in because the staff of 20-year hairstylists.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

And the customer.

SPEAKER_03 54:38

Yeah. And be like, you know what? Make space for me, guys. And like, that's who this chick is.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

You know, I think you'd have to have somewhat thick skin or be very confident in what you were doing in order to do women's hair.

SPEAKER_03 54:53

I mean, you have to know women.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Right. I mean, because them being upset about what's happened or what's going on or what it looks like. I mean, right. I mean, that's Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:02

I mean, that I was like a really, a really And some women and some people We have an erotic high maintenance clientele. We have a a a faction of those women.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Right. Some people just complain no matter what.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

That that gets my goat, though. That's the problem. Like that's the lady. I know I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. Everything in me says, like, don't win this woman over. She's gonna make your life horrible forever. But like I just I I can't help it. Like you're the one that I want to double down and be like, not today.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Not today. It sounds like you almost provide a service that's free, that is the customization. Because I think of uh color or chemical like construction, and I think of um, you know, the customization like interior design, like in a way. Right. Like like you remind me so much of uh Angie Reed, um, because you know, the reason she's at the top of the market as a woman in a traditionally male-dominated industry is because what she brings is an obsession to um the decor and design, which she almost gives you for free in the construction that she does.

SPEAKER_03 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

And I don't know if you know her uh or have heard of her.

SPEAKER_03 56:14

I've heard I've heard of Angie for sure.

SPEAKER_02 56:16

Angie's very uh she's very strong-willed.

SPEAKER_03 56:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:19

She's very uh, you know, she's got her opinions, how things should be.

SPEAKER_03 56:23

Uh-huh. I mean, people say that I'm I'm um extra and also intense.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

Yeah, that's her.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

For sure. I mean, I I like things done right, I like things done a certain way, but I love women and I love the world that Tyler women live in where they're always looking to level up. Like the small gains for women here is like everything. That's who I am to my core, and I always think there's a smarter, better way to do something. And it's who I am to my core.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

Well, from 2009 until 2026, I mean, how how do you judge the progress, you know, and the evolution of Dolce Vita to this point in Tyler, of this market?

SPEAKER_03 57:13

I mean, I think I think for me, when we're talking in terms of value, it's relationships. It's it's it's relationships, it's history with the same people.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

It's um But you have to have talent in order to have those relationships.

SPEAKER_03 57:30

Yeah, for sure. For sure. But I mean, I think that there are people who choose to open salons and they are profit-based, financial-based. If I wanted to do that, I'd I'd be running a commission-based salon. I wanted to build relationships and I wanted to do something at a level that we could all be proud of. And and I have girls that make a lot more money than other girls.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Like You mean at Dolce Vita? Yeah, yeah. Inside the salon. Like that is a discrepancy.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

You are your own business. And if you want to raise, go out and get you some girls, you're gonna earn it. If you want to make less and you want to work less, that's up to you. I'm not gonna manage people. I provide like a bar of excellence, and then you're gonna earn what you're willing to work for. And it is not the same for everybody.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

Is that volume? Is that just number of clients?

SPEAKER_03 58:27

Not necessarily. Sometimes it's quality, sometimes it's pricing. It's years of experience. Um, but for everybody inside of the salon, the business that they've crafted and developed is different. And I think that that is what we've provided a world for while maintaining a level of consistency in service that is required and always doubling down. Like I love when we bring in a young girl. If we brought in Zoe, she's beautiful, she's young, she's hungry, she's talented. All these old dogs double down. Everybody works harder because there's this new girl, this shiny new object.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

And she's gonna be working hard. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

She's she's hustling, man. And everybody levels up. It's like we, it's easy to get to a place where like you lay back and you're like, oh, I've done, I've done my time. I've done my time. I should live in an easy world. But I live in a world where I require that level of challenge. And if I'm gonna bring it to my table, I'm definitely gonna drop it in the laps of everybody that I work with. And we are all better for it, and our clients are better served. But I'll do it sturdy that way till the day we die.

SPEAKER_02 59:40

I mean, do you have people, you know, because this sounds like a very intimidating place?

SPEAKER_03 59:47

Um No, no, we're family for the same.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

I know. I mean, as far as if I was a woman on the street or I'm a woman that who'd never been there, and I decided, you know, I want to go in here and I want to, you know, I want to have my hair done and colored in a way that I've never had my hair done and colored. I mean, um can people just walk in or call and make an appointment and come in? How does that work with somebody like you?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:12

Absolutely. Like I've never ever been in a place where I said, like, oh, I'm not taking new clients.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

I mean, because some people get there, don't they?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:19

Yes, they do. I I love because we always have somebody new, there's always somebody to feed. And I will always have clients that are changing in their place of life. And to me, it is a courtesy and a sign of trust that if I can't take care of you in the time frame which works for you, they will go to one of the girls. Yes, yes, they will go to one of the girls that works for me and they know that I'm okay with it. And they know that person is gonna take great care of them and they have a formula that works for them. And then the relationship you two have, you let her give you something new and change in the way that she's willing to open your doors. Sometimes you just want that new car scent. It's not about something I'm not doing, but certainly I have clients who want something that is not my jam. And after one or two times, and I know I'm not hitting the nail on the head that I'll say, you know what, why don't you try Megan? Why why don't you try this girl?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:20

Have you had some role in training these other girls on color or are the or are they come with their own knowledge?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:27

Um both. I mean, they definitely come with their own knowledge, but I I think that because I was an educator for the company for a long time, I'm always open to showing you how, and specifically with Zoe, our new girl. She's ultra old, ultra, ultra talented with color, but Julie has specifically worked with her over the past year to really educate her on cuts and to help like elevate that end of her game. I don't think that she had been really given like hands-on time and knowledge and corrective criticism and the nuanced like guide to how to do that just a little bit better. And those things matter in the long run.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

And I guess, you know, it's harder for men, you know, to to visualize this. Like, you know, how would how would that color off just a little bit where you can barely tell, you know, matter to Man, men are the men are the pickiest of clients.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:32

Men are the pickiest of clients.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

Right. I mean, I've never been able to be a client.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

So I mean, I I I dread, I dreadful.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:38

Do they color too?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:39

Um, they do. They do. I mean, men do color, but like men that have cuts in our salon, they are wildly picky. I mean, they're not going to a barbershop. So they're they're in that salon for a reason. They want something different and elevated, and they are super particular about what they want. Oh, I would say for Julie, she does. Julie probably does, I mean, at least a 50-50 mix. She might, she may do more men's hair than women. Julie is um, and Steven. Steven has been with us for a long time. I would say like both of those two, they do men's haircuts, fancy hair, fashion forward hair, difficult hair, super styled guys' hair at a higher level than I think you're gonna find anywhere else in Thailand.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:37

You know, I never thought of Dulce Vita as that. I always just I guess I was so hyper focused on you because of Rebecca. And, you know, I that's all I ever thought of it is is, you know, a color, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

No, I love, I'd love to take all the credit. No, I think that we have like a team of people that are everybody is truly, truly phenomenal. I don't think, I don't think that any one person is stronger than the other, but everybody is ridiculously strong in their niche, and it is so hyper particular that truly I think like if you're somebody that can't get taken care of in that salon, you're not gonna get taken care of anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:21

It sounds like everybody is so, you know, uh conscientious, detail-oriented that it just kind of elevates everybody else. It doesn't allow for somebody to kind of slip. I mean, that's the intention.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:33

I think that because of the business that we run, we're not when somebody leaves, if they get a bad service, it's I didn't like Dolce Vita Salon. The reality is if they get a bad service, they didn't like their service from me, from Megan, from Catherine, from Julie, Stephen, Autumn, whomever it is. But it's all of our names on the line. So like you are expected to tow the line. And if there's a bad review, you've trashed all of the people that you work with and everything that we've worked for and earned for 16, almost 17 years. And and we are actually great friends with each other outside of there. We've worked together for almost two decades, all of us. There's a lot of like there's we're well-oiled machine, but also like we're pretty brutal with each other. We're real honest. If somebody's not doing what they need to do, if somebody's like dropping the ball, like we hold each other accountable. Everybody's mature and adult. We police each other. But the reality is like everybody that works there, their level of requirement and necessity and expertise is like really high. If you are not that person, you're you're just we're not for you. And that's okay. That's okay. But we're a specific fit.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:55

Okay. Uh, here is the the doorway into beautiful. Oh yeah. You've talked about uh what goes on in there. You've also told me off camera before that you also uh and I think people can understand from the way you talk, your enthusiasm, your knowledge, that you you want to help uh primarily women, because that's who gets colored in other ways. Yeah. And you mentioned a business 903 Essentials, kind of a med spa, longevity. I don't know what you want to call it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

Shout out, Janice.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

Yes. Uh because, you know, I mean, she's right next door.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:28

Yeah. I mean, I'm I'm 46. I think that as I've gotten older, my clientele has gotten older. And um we're we're all trying to do our best out here. We're all trying to age gracefully, age well, but certainly science has changed. And um I I I think that you can only, your hair is only gonna look as good as you, your body is. I I'm uh a wild advocate for like mental health. I'm a huge, huge counseling junkie. I've done it for 20 years. Every single one of my clients knows. I speak very openly and honestly about it. Like, I don't understand a world that you go to a gym five, six times a week and you can't go to a counselor once a month, once every two weeks. You want to look good on the outside, but like you're just not right on the inside.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

People are, you know, they're shy. They're they're uh, you know, they're not as forthcoming with the way they really feel.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:33

Yeah. I mean, I'm a hot mess. I throw it all out there. All of my clients know that. I'm very open and honest about who I am. I'm an evolution and process, but also I think that um I think that doing hair changed the the world for me. I I lived in a world where I was highly personally judgmental and I thought everything that I did, there was so much shame behind it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

And then you started talking to all your clients.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:59

Yes. And and I did so because I wanted to tell on myself, because I was like, oh my gosh, punish me.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:05

And then they told you about themselves.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

And all I received was grace. And it changed my life. And I don't struggle with judgment, and I don't struggle with getting judgment. I don't struggle from give giving judgment. But what I have seen in this unique place that changed my life was just an exceptional amount of love and kindness and knowledge from women who had been married longer, who had businesses. A lot of my clients own their own businesses. And the sharing of information and the power that is behind that will change your world. And I live to tell people what I'm doing. The things that I'm doing with my face, putting in my body, like taking whatever I like to say if they make it, I take it. I'll try anything once and then let's see if it works. But if it does, I'm definitely out there sharing it. And Janice was a longtime client. She opened 903 Essentials. A huge portion of our business is taken care of by her, and she provides exceptional service. And Janice is the same way. She didn't have to work. She was at home for a while, but she went back to school. She got her nurse practitioner license, and she is super passionate about what she does, and she does it at a level that is bar none. And so we work together very, very closely.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:32

You know, when you think about the uh beauty chair, you think about the gossip you must hear. Tyler is a uh is a brutal town. It always has been. Wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

Wild.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:43

You know, I mean, and I say that having lived here my entire life, uh at times having been the the object of of discussions and gossip. Right. I mean, you Yeah, I've heard some things.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

I've heard some things. I mean, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:59

I mean you uh you know how it feels, you know how it is. And and I but I do think w what it does and along the lines of what you've said is it it makes you feel for people who are going through things because you know that loving side of Tyler, there's that rough side of Tyler.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:19

Right? I mean, yeah let's not sugarcoat that Tyler, if if you're down, if something's going wrong, a lot of people are gonna know about it.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:28

Yeah. I mean, I think Tyler can definitely pigeonhold people if along the way, in a long life of many years, if you had one slip-up, I think it's really hard for a lot of people to not think about you in terms of that one time in your life.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:46

I mean, right. I mean, it doesn't matter if you're 18, 26.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:50

That's really unfair.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:51

Right. I mean, I'm I'm almost 59. And I'm sure that if you played the flashcard game with people, and it was and it was uh Chad Parker, you know, there would be a few different things and there would be a lot of similarities maybe that were blurted out, right? That might not reflect anything near what exists today.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:13

Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

You know, and I'm sure you through the years, you've heard all kind of stuff, uh, and you've probably counseled people as well who've been the object of that gossip.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:24

Yeah. I mean, I think I think that that's what is um what what's really nice about what I do. I think I don't struggle. I don't think in terms of judgment. And so it never occurs to me that somebody else would be judging me. So I am telling you whatever's on my mind, whatever the struggle is, in hopes that you will give me information and guidance and help that I need at that moment. And so there's a lot of clients that I have and I've taken care of over the years that have probably told me things that they wouldn't tell their best, best friend. Right. But because they know things about me that lower that bar of how I look at them. And there's a level of safety and security there that they know I'm not judging because they know how tenderly they they've treated me in my low moments. Um, and so it's unfortunate to me that sometimes women struggle to give each other the grace that they often need. And I think we would all be better served if we were in a place where you could extend the olive branch first and then receive. And that's what service is. So it's easy for me. The level of kindness and compassion that I get is easy because I'm taking care of you already. I don't always see that with women and how they treat each other outside of that. But the level, the people that I know, even women that are like that have reputations, the version of them that I know is just it's so kind, it's so loving. And regardless of what anybody else says, like you'll never change my mind. Aaron Ross Powell Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

And that's a good that's a good way to say it. You've said it the way it probably needs to be said is that the women, or you can substitute people, but the women or whoever uh that have reputations, you know, um are real people and you see the real person. Yes. And, you know, I just you've been doing this a long time because I I can specifically speak to, you know, uh how enjoyable it was for my wife uh way back when to go, you know, to the day she had with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:41

And it was, you know, it was it was visibly a better day uh when she came back than when she left.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:48

And and I think it had to do with, you know, just some real interaction between people, women, right, that was um that maybe relieved a burden, um, you know, made everything feel more normal.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:04

Uh, you know, than what you might sit and think without anyone else to talk to.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:09

Yeah. I mean, I think that um over the years, your wife specifically, Rebecca, is somebody that um I don't know, because I'm not from Tyler, I don't have preconceived notions of who somebody is or who they aren't. But I remember not that long ago, somebody said, Oh, oh, I feel like she's pretty quiet. And I was like, What? What are you talking about? And like the version that people Oh, she didn't ever say anything. Yeah, the version of my clients that people will will try to tell me that they are. I'm like, no, that's just like wildly inaccurate of the version of them that I know. I think Rebecca and I have really, really honest, comfortable, open conversation. She probably knows more about me than some of my best friends. And like I I have a special place of like love and admiration for Rebecca. But I think that a lot of the women that I do, because they've been judged unfairly or pigeonheld because of something that happened or didn't happen or whatever, they may be a specific person that you're gonna have to go 90% of the way to meet them in a place that is comfortable. And then you can back your way into a 50-50 place where you're both comfortable and open and honest. But I think that there's a lot of people that struggle to see somebody in in a way that's like, well, maybe you got a snapshot of them. Like, what are you basing who they are on? And because I throw so much out there, like it's just always created a world that was very comfortable for women to be honest about who they are. And we all struggle. Everybody needs support and kindness and help. I don't live in a world where, like, you come in and my only job is for you to leave feeling better. And I feel better for the people. These are women, I'm not giving them that service. They are often taking care of me on this side of the chair when I'm like, oh, let's not talk about you today. I've got some shit to discuss. I need you to help me. And they've always taken care of me.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:32

I mean, you're, you know, you almost provide a service within a service. I mean, you're you're kind of a counselor, a friend, a confidant, as well as uh, you know, Deja the Color Girl, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:42

Yeah. I mean, I have like I I have really, really great relationships with the ladies that I've taken care of over the years, but certainly I have like special people along the way that there's a different level of connection. And Rebecca is one of those people. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

That's true in everything. I mean, there's a lot of people that you come across that you generally like or whatever. But then there's a subset of people who somehow there's a chemistry or connection, you know, that you just feel you feel more connected, or or I do. Yeah. And that that's not a very large group of people for me, but I know exactly what you're saying. And but you mean a lot. You're special to a lot of women in Tyler. Um and I think there's probably uh a lot more hair walking around out there that people don't realize that you have a role in.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:32

Yeah. No. I mean, I like I like to um I like to take care of the people that take care of me.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:38

Aaron Powell You don't charge enough, I always say, for what you really are. And that has to do with how much you just like it, like the people. You're a slow worker, so you don't jam, you don't have enough time during the day.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:51

I want I I think that um if I wasn't if I wasn't married, if I didn't have the support that I do, if I didn't have um the choices that I I do have, business would look very different for me. And I recognize that it does for other people out of necessity. Um but I want to enjoy what I do when I do it. And if and I want to take care of the people that I do. And so if that means that this price structure stays in a certain place so that I can provide that level of service to the people that I want to take care of, that is personal to me, and I'm able to make those choices because it doesn't hurt the people that work for me. They're their own businesses, they control their own pricing, but I have a level of choice.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:43

It doesn't matter. If you make less, it doesn't affect anybody else in the salon.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:46

No, no. And and what feels like good value to me is important for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:54

I mean, the most exciting thing about your week, I would seem would be after all these relationships have been developed over the years, it'd be like, I get to go see these friends of mine that I haven't seen, but I get to see this one this week, this one a month from now. And I continually get to see these people, which of course in my life does not happen at all.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:11

Yes. Yes, literally. Literally, you would have to have like repeat injured like people that are constantly getting in wrecks and horrible. And that I liked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:20

And that I liked.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:21

No, I mean that's that's why I couldn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

Good friends I don't see with regularity that live away from here or whatever that you see with your clients on a weekly, monthly basis.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:33

I think doing hair for this song is honestly. I'm at a place where like I don't want to be friends with some of my actual friends that I've been friends with forever because I'm like, oh, I've got these friends. Like this world of clients. Like, I I mean, I think that there's a I I love my clients. I love, I love my clients. We have really, really good, close relationships.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:59

Well, as we get older, you know, different things are more important, right? Relationship being one of them. Yeah. Knowing that, hey, I won't be living here forever. Right. Uh and um, you know, how much money is enough versus the quality of life friendships or whatever at the time. You know, and so, you know, uh it seems like, you know, you've really um you've kind of evolved, maybe, uh, in a good way. You started off with a good idea from Tony and Guy, knowing what you wanted.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:30

Most people, like you said, might have gone into this and out of necessity because the lifestyle or needed to make money. Right. I mean, you had the great fortune of kind of building what you wanted to build in Dolce Vita.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:44

Yeah. I think Julie and I both wanted to build a business where the business was sustainable, but what you took home and what you made was based on the level of work and effort that you wanted to put in. And that's different for everybody. And I'm not, I'm not mad at somebody that wants to have an evolving career where they want to work at a lower level because they're older, but there's still a space for them. Like that is for you to judge and work-life balance. These things, I think hairdressers burn out really quickly because they're not given like a world where the way that that world works for them, they're in charge of. I control the things that create quality control, they control how and to what degree they want to work and how much they're going to charge, and the kind of clientele and business they want to cater to. That's on you. And for everybody, that's personal. And I don't think there's any wrong choices in that. My choices are specific to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:54

I mean, when you when people look at you um and say, well, she looks glamorous, and this this That's what they always say. And this um, you know, this job sounds very high-end and glamorous, but the reality is it's physically demanding. You are on your feet moving your arms, doing something, right? I mean, how many hours a day?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:18

I mean, I work, I work a crazy load because I only work four days a week. But I mean, I had my first disc replacement surgery at 40.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:25

You're Tuesday through Friday. Generally, what time to what time do you use?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:29

I uh probably 12 to 7:38 on Tuesdays, and um the other days, like nine to nine, give or take, um, depending on what I have going on, how I'm booked. Uh those can extend.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:49

They can shorten, but I mean, it's just a general you can expect something in this neighborhood of work hours m basically Tuesday through Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:58

And then you drive home to Dallas on Friday.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:01

Yes. Yes. So I mean that's so like I think this Friday I got home at um probably nine. That was like a really, really early night. I think the week before I got home at 11 um on Fridays. Like uh I just I I struggled to say no to the people that I want to see. I want to see my girlfriend. And if she needs to come in and it's gonna be late, I want to see my girlfriend. I want to catch up. I know what we talked about last time. Like, I am a more is better person. I could get addicted to literally anything.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

I'm putting myself uh in worse shoes. I'm putting you in Rebecca's shoes. And I'm saying, hey, man, I want to see you more than that. Or hey, you know, um, you know, that's a small window Friday night uh to Tuesday morning.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:54

Right? It's like, you know, uh especially if financially we don't have to do this. Right. So what is it do you think that binds you uh to that salon uh even even this long?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:07

Um I mean The people? Yeah, relationships. It's mine. I think that I think I had I had parents and kept from a family with sisters that are superstars, parents that gave me every opportunity to achieve anything and everything that I wanted. There was a high level of support, there was a high level of excellence that was modeled and support given for you to do that. And I had a slow start. I had a rough go of figuring out my way, certainly a different path than my siblings had taken. And um I mean, you're you've done it. Yeah, yeah. But I think that um I I think that my way and what feels right and good for me is just more. More is better. I always want more love. I always want more hair. I want more clients, I want more of the good things. And service is a calling. Like I have a true service heart. It is hard for me to not take care of somebody. It feels like guilt.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:23

Thomas is gonna miss you, Deedra. I mean, there's gonna be a day, you know, where you know I remember Rebecca's sister, Jennifer. She did nails.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:36

And so, you know, she had a clientele and all that. I mean, I remember when she left, you know, people were scrambling around trying to find somebody because you get so used to a certain person taking care of you. Um For sure. But you set your own pricing, but in this business, the salon it is tips. Is that a thing still?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:56

Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, we're um we're a heavily, I think because of the level service that we provide, we get well taken care of.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:05

Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Can you tell a cheap person versus a good tipper? You know, I mean, are there traits about them that that you can almost guess you're gonna get a good tip versus I'm not gonna get a good one?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:16

No. Um I would say some of some of our some of our more most affluent clients are are probably some of the poorer tippers.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:24

That's true in everything. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I can't stand working for rich people. Yeah. Right? I mean, the guy might not ever pay me.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:30

You know what? I I I would like to judge it. I respect it. I respect it. I I kind of love somebody that has a lot of money that I'm like, and look at you watching your pennies. Like, I'm like, I can't, I don't know that I would be that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:42

I think I would be I'm saying look at you and your lack of awareness, not knowing how hard that other person works and how much they need it, and they can't wait 30 or 60 days to get paid.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:53

Well, maybe, I mean, I don't know how they earn their money. Maybe they maybe they paid their dues, but I know that my pricing is set on what I believe my service is worth, and the tip should be based on the extra that.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:08

No wonder you're talking so much. No wonder, Rebecca.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:11

No life. No wonder. You know what the problem is? No, I need to make people feel sorrier for me. I'm like, let me tell you about all the services that I've been getting done lately. I've been having microneedle RF.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:20

I'm like, that I get paid for them.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:22

Yeah. No, I I mean, I need I need to pretend to be living in like a tighter box, but like I do think that I'm somebody that has like some choices that not all hairdressers have, and I appreciate it. But also, I mean, I I I don't I don't need to live in a world where like that dictates my life because I have a great, great husband who's financially savvy and has laid some good foundation for us. Worth has changed my life and my world, but certainly every year I get older, I recognize like the groundwork I could never ever do. What I do today in the way that I value and have the ability to say yes to people in a way that matters to me without that man, and the level of financial comfort that he has provided and takes care of me in. It gives me a lot of choices.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:19

Translation. Everybody who goes to you is getting a very good deal that they would not get someplace else with similar quality.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:27

Literally, coupons all day, every day. All day, every day. Those coupons are built in. You don't have to cut them or clip them or bring them in. They're there.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:37

Um well, what do you think? Um does AI ever come in and help uh match the color, develop the color scheme? Does that is there any place for that? Are you have you seen that yet?

SPEAKER_03 1:28:52

Oh my gosh, I have the best story. So, like a girl came in this week, she brought in a picture for one of the other girls, and she was like, This is what I think I want my hair to look like. And it was a picture of hair. Did she sound like that? Yeah, yeah. She was younger. This is what, and it was not achievable. It was like, bless her heart, it was never gonna happen. And one of the girls said, Well, your your natural hair color isn't that light. The the color that's on your hair already isn't that color. Like, this is not really achievable for you. And she looked her dead in the eyes and she said, But this is me in this picture.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:35

And was it an AI modification? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:38

Okay, it was fake hair on her face. Okay. And I was like, But is it like what's happening here? Like, filters changed the game. Filters make my life horrific. People are like, oh, I like this color in this picture. And I was like, well, let me just get this overhead light and turn it up real quick, but that's not what her hair looks like. I mean, it's just I mean when somebody filters a picture of themselves on their iPhone, or or of anybody, of any any Instagram picture that you see, I'm like, sweetie, that is filtered. That is not what her hair looks like. Let me show you what that looks like two weeks after the fact. Like the the level of expectation exponentially increased, and the level of possibilities stay the same. So you just have to close that gap and explain to people like that's not possible and educate them as to why.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:36

Do you ever stay at the lake house that you talked about? Do you and Worth ever live there or you know, where maybe he's off and not as busy and something, and because of the proximity to your work?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:46

I mean, yeah, we do we will occasionally on the weekends or if my family's coming out there, but no, I mean, I miss I miss my home.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:53

Oh, I hear I hear you.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:54

I miss my dog, I miss my home, I miss my family, my friends that are there. Um, I am in the process of learning to say no more. I'm I'm I'm getting to that age where I need to tweak some things and where I I need to prioritize my home life, my husband. Uh I don't have the energy that I used to have. And now when I go home, where it's been waiting for me all week long. Yeah. And I don't it's it seems like a lot of work to have fun with my husband. And I'm grateful to have a husband that wants to have fun, and I'm in a place where you just want to sit down.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:36

You you've been standing all day.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:38

Yes, but I I do I do need to take care of the people who have taken care of me.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:43

You've got to force yourself. I've had to force my wife. Okay. Because I mean, if you let her, she'll do everything all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:50

Aaron Powell, oh, Rebecca's like, she she's a wild woman. I I literally can't wrap my mind around how she does it.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:56

I'm like, you know, and it but again, I'm very fortunate. Uh I'm very fortunate my son has come back to work at the law firm because she doesn't trust many people. And so this has provided an outlet for her to do less.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:10

Yes. And and actually Rebecca sent me um a message, I think, two weeks ago. And it really it was this catalyst. It was this catalyst. I got the text message and I was like, me too. Like I always think about where Rebecca and I were when I met her and that we were in this similar stage of life. And I was like, man, if Rebecca can do everything that she does, I have for years said, like, my brain cannot comprehend how you get it all done. If she's saying she needs to do less, I was like, me too, girl. And last night I got a message from my husband that was like about saying no, learning how to say no. Worth is very kind that he understands that's a struggle for me and there's guilt behind it. But he's in a different place where his expectations and requirements of me saying no are different. And um I think that that helps me get to a place of like better health. Yeah. I'm gonna make some changes. I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:13

I mean most of we rarely fight, but uh they're all related to this place here. Okay, like you don't have to do that. Why are you doing that? Yeah. Why do you keep doing that? Why do you think you gotta finish that today? That'll be here tomorrow. You know, it's like, but it's uh you know, you when you're married to somebody that long, you come to understand this is the way they're wired. Well, and I think And getting them unwired is tough.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:38

We talked about the fact that Rebecca and I probably come from similar family histories where Yeah, you sound like you need to slow down. The the I think that there wasn't um I think we both came from homes where your lifestyle was gonna be what you made of it. And um there wasn't inherited wealth or money sitting there for you. And I think both Rebecca and I are naturally people that are driven. Like there's a really big part of my personal esteem that is related to how hard I work. And and I need to transition the way that I value what I bring to the table.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:23

Okay, I'm gonna get so much heat from my wife for even making her part of the show, but I'm gonna get even more heat from the people of Tyler, the women of Tyler specifically, as I talk you off this cliff of working less.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:35

No, I mean it's happening. It's happening. Like I I love my husband and I do want to take better care of him and the family, like and the friends that I have. My life outside of the salon has started to feel like obligation and work. And I want to have enough energy left to enjoy the people that have been there for me forever and to be able to really spend time with them with good energy. And and I am in a fortunate position where I'm my own boss. Nobody did it to me. Some people are in these positions because they have no choice. I'm my own boss. I created my own like situation, I'm my own worst enemy. I think it's hardest to give your permission, yourself permission to say no when you have the ability to do so.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:26

You like Dallas? Do you see yourself living living your life out there or do you see your you and worse someplace else?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:34

Um I think I think I see us in Dallas for the foreseeable future, but I like change, I like travel. Um I I I enjoy doing different things. Um I don't I don't I don't know what what the future looks like. I feel like I could be in all honesty, at this age at 46, 20 years into marriage. I think anywhere worth and I are together would be good. And and 20 years in, like change sounds fun, change sounds good. I like, I like new is invigorating. And so I think it's hard to stay fresh when everything's the same. Yeah. So I do I do like change.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:22

Well, maybe maybe you could quit work early enough to uh visit us in Dallas. Um, I mean I mean you only live, you know, about uh five miles.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:32

I don't think I'm that I don't I don't I don't think I have that many years left in the tank where I'm actually behind the chair doing hair. I I I don't see myself at 50 doing hair how I am now. That that's a for sure no.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:47

Well, ladies and gentlemen, uh you heard it here first. Um there's not that much time left for Deetra, who I've coined the color girl, but you see how interesting she is, you see how vibrant, uh, how full of life she is, how much fun she would be would you know would be to be with. And so I understand why my wife goes and understand uh why so many of Tyler love you. And I thank you for being on the show, Deetra. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:14

Oh, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.