Have you ever witnessed a transformation that's both skin-deep and soul-deep? Nicole Lancaster's journey from the counters of Estee Lauder to the serene sanctity of her own spa is a testament to the metamorphosis that comes with true empowerment. As we chat with this beacon of inspiration, you'll discover how the beauty industry can become a platform for personal growth and entrepreneurism. Nicole doesn't just beautify; she educates, instilling in other estheticians the vital business acumen they need to flourish. Her story is one of a single mother's tenacity, carving out a life of flexibility and financial security, and it’s one that will ignite a fire within you, whether you're a beauty buff or a burgeoning business owner.
Sometimes, the most defining moments come from the toughest decisions—like when to put your wellbeing and family above a thriving enterprise. Nicole and I share our poignant experiences of bidding farewell to the businesses we love for the sake of health, happiness, and fresh horizons. We tackle the dance with self-doubt, discovering how to mute the inner critic and amplify a voice of self-compassion. Our conversation is a balm for anyone grappling with change, serving as a reminder that the bravest thing you can sometimes do is let go.
As our talk unfurls, it's the celebration of sisterhood that emerges as the golden thread weaving through our lives. We honor the priceless worth of authentic friendships—those who stand by us through thick and thin, who lift us up when we’re down, and who share in our triumphs and trials with an unwavering support. From the psychological salve of self-care rituals to the profound trust we place in our intuition, this episode is an ode to the powerful connections and inner wisdom that guide us to our fullest potential. Join Nicole and me as we unveil the stories that will resonate with anyone ready to embrace their power, enfolded in the support of genuine camaraderie.
About Tabitha Tabitha MacDonald is an intuitive transformation coach dedicated to helping you overcome pain by helping you gently rewire your mind so that you can let go of painful emotional triggers so that you can finally create the life you desire. To work with Tabitha, please visit Mindful Love online. https://www.
About Tabitha Tabitha MacDonald is an intuitive transformation coach dedicated to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, freedom and purpose they truly desire.
Have you ever witnessed a transformation that's both skin-deep and soul-deep? Nicole Lancaster's journey from the counters of Estee Lauder to the serene sanctity of her own spa is a testament to the metamorphosis that comes with true empowerment. As we chat with this beacon of inspiration, you'll discover how the beauty industry can become a platform for personal growth and entrepreneurism. Nicole doesn't just beautify; she educates, instilling in other estheticians the vital business acumen they need to flourish. Her story is one of a single mother's tenacity, carving out a life of flexibility and financial security, and it’s one that will ignite a fire within you, whether you're a beauty buff or a burgeoning business owner.
Sometimes, the most defining moments come from the toughest decisions—like when to put your wellbeing and family above a thriving enterprise. Nicole and I share our poignant experiences of bidding farewell to the businesses we love for the sake of health, happiness, and fresh horizons. We tackle the dance with self-doubt, discovering how to mute the inner critic and amplify a voice of self-compassion. Our conversation is a balm for anyone grappling with change, serving as a reminder that the bravest thing you can sometimes do is let go.
As our talk unfurls, it's the celebration of sisterhood that emerges as the golden thread weaving through our lives. We honor the priceless worth of authentic friendships—those who stand by us through thick and thin, who lift us up when we’re down, and who share in our triumphs and trials with an unwavering support. From the psychological salve of self-care rituals to the profound trust we place in our intuition, this episode is an ode to the powerful connections and inner wisdom that guide us to our fullest potential. Join Nicole and me as we unveil the stories that will resonate with anyone ready to embrace their power, enfolded in the support of genuine camaraderie.
About Tabitha Tabitha MacDonald is an intuitive transformation coach dedicated to helping you overcome pain by helping you gently rewire your mind so that you can let go of painful emotional triggers so that you can finally create the life you desire. To work with Tabitha, please visit Mindful Love online. https://www.
About Tabitha Tabitha MacDonald is an intuitive transformation coach dedicated to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, freedom and purpose they truly desire.
Welcome to the Mindful Love Podcast. My name is Tabitha McDonald, I am your host and I am very excited to have the lovely Nicole Lancaster on the show today. Nicole is a celebrated beauty entrepreneur, aesthetic speaker, educator and activist. She has a dynamic presence in the beauty industry for over 20 years. Her extensive journey includes 12 years as a licensed esthetician and eight years as a small business owner. Nicole's expertise is further evidenced by her roles in managing med spas and serving as a lead esthetician. Nicole, welcome to the podcast. I'm so grateful you're here today.
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on your podcast.
Speaker 1:
Is there anything I left out that you would like to say about yourself or what you do?
Speaker 2:
No, I think that's it. I have just been in the beauty industry for a really long time. I have owned my own beauty brands. I've owned my own skincare brands, my own spa. Now I just focus on helping other estheticians become successful business women because we are taught beauty and we're taught services, but we aren't taught business. We're told to go out and get our own spaces and do our own thing to make the most money, but we're not taught how to. That's what I specialize in now. I teach other estheticians how to have their own successful business.
Speaker 1:
I love that. As a massage therapist and owner of a massage center, that was something I found that most new people in the service industry. They have this passion, they want to go do what they do, but then they have this struggle of, well, how do I run my business? Because they don't really teach that. I mean, I remember the business process of my massage school.
Speaker 1:
They were a joke. Luckily, I came from a corporate background so I was able to bring that into it. How did you really develop that skill? Was it something that you studied? Was it the business side of it?
Speaker 2:
One of my first real career jobs in the industry. I was a business manager for Estee Lauder. Back in the day I just applied for a position and the cool beauty brand was Mac, which I didn't know. Estee Lauder owned Mac. Estee Lauder owns. It's a $56 billion beauty brand. It owns most of your major beauty brands Estee Lauder owns. I was like, let me work for this older brand until I can get it under my belt and become a makeup artist for Mac. I became a business manager for Estee Lauder.
Speaker 2:
Estee Lauder really invests in their education and their managers because they understand the concept If you can get people to sell for you, your business is going to grow. That's what they did during the recession in 2008. They reinvested into education, which taught me so much about beauty. It taught me about booking clients and creating a client's tell, because I wasn't an esthetician yet I didn't know anything about that. It taught me about bottom lines and team building and average unit sales. We would have events where we would sell $40,000, $50,000 in products in one day. It really set up the business aspect for me. I just had such a love for skin that once I had that business side set up and I was creating a relationship with people. I just really wanted to take it a step further and become an esthetician. That's what I did. I ended up becoming just a makeup artist for Estee Lauder and doing their events and going to aesthetic school, getting my laser license, getting my skin license. Then I became an esthetician.
Speaker 1:
That's amazing. Did you start your own spa right out of aesthetician school, or did you work?
Speaker 2:
for somebody else. First, I didn't. I had my laser license and in the state of Florida you have to be under a doctor. I went straight into med spas. My education was a year long and it was a medical esthetician program. That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to work in med spas. I wanted to work for doctors.
Speaker 2:
I started in a med spa, the second med spa I worked for. I became their lead esthetician and we needed a manager. One day I just came to my resume and this is my biggest piece of advice for anyone in the spa industry when it comes to your resume. We can all list all these services that we do. You can list the tissue and raking, all the massage. Estheticians can list microdermabrasions and facials all we want.
Speaker 2:
But we're small business owners. They want to see how you can make them money. If you are a service provider in the spa industry, make sure you're putting any little sales goals, any little celebratory things like your client retention rate, your product sales, anything you can put on there to make it look like you can make someone money. That's exactly what I did. I took my resume to the owners again and I said hey, I know we have the manager position open. I'd love for it to be considered. In my early 20s, I started managing medical spas. I got pregnant in 2016. I was a single mom and I needed to open up my own business. I needed to have flexibility to be with my child and have my own space. That's when I ended up going solo as an esthetician.
Speaker 1:
I love your story. I'm feeling like now I know why we met at BBD, because it's so similar to my story. I opened Soma because I was getting a divorce and I needed to make money as a single mom. Everyone was like, well, you're going to be poor. Now I'm like I am not going to be poor. I started Soma and it was that drive of being a single mom and wanting my kids to have a better life and also have flexibility. I love that you teach women how to do that. I'm guessing it's mostly women that you work with, or I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:
It is mostly women. I'm a little bit of a feminist, just the fact that I have had so many struggles as a woman and as a young woman in leadership roles. I'm even written off by older women. I was a manager at a young age. I was managing women in their 40s, 50s, 60s who didn't necessarily take me seriously or who had licenses like ARMPs so higher level licenses of mine who just didn't necessarily take me seriously. I think it's very important for women just to have the opportunities and women to just be educated in business, because nothing bad happens when women make more money and we aren't necessarily taught it or taken quite a serious. My feminism is kind of in the way of success for women. So, yes, I mostly teach women, not that I, you know, count them out or say no, I won't help men, it's just that's what happens to be. My clientele and my students are primarily women.
Speaker 1:
I love you so much more right now, like I swear to your chintered spirits that was my mission at SOMO was I want to provide outstanding customer care and also help single moms learn that they can make money, too, doing what they love. Like I love it because that, I think, is a real, like it's a driving force, like it gets you through the bad days right when your mission is bigger than you. I think, like that's what always been for me, but I love that.
Speaker 2:
And I feel like sometimes I'm even like you know, we all struggle especially if you own your own business with imposter syndrome and I've had days where I just like haven't felt like I was being successful and I've had women sending messages or just conversations. They're like, wow, you're such an inspiration. And I like pause for a moment and I think in my head like girl, you are like, why are you even allowing these imposter syndrome thoughts? Like people find you inspirational because you are. You know, you've gone from nothing and created something and you're empowering other women to do the same. So I love it.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. I love that, oh my gosh. And we do need women lifting other women up, like that's what our world needs right now. Because, just like you said, sometimes the other generations grew up in a different era where there wasn't as many opportunities, so they learned to stomp on each other for the like scraps that were available in leadership, and so the more women we have lifting each other up and supporting each other in their growth, the better of a world we're going to have, because everybody wins.
Speaker 1:
You're right, everybody wins, and it's just a cultural shift that we have to make as a society.
Speaker 2:
Exactly, I'm such a girls girl that you know there's no mean girls here. Because why life's so hard already? Why do we need to be mean to each other? We're not going to gate, keep anything Like. Let's all just be successful together.
Speaker 1:
It's great A world a culture where we're all successful is so much more empowering, and that is like a big passion of mine is empowering women to realize what they're capable of when they get out of their own way, and I just love I love talking to other people who feel passionate about that as well. So, all right. So let's look at heartbreak, because heartbreak is something that I talk a lot about, and it's not just being dumped or, you know, losing a relationship. I think heartbreak is bigger than that. So what heartbreak has impacted your life that you can think of like a big heartbreak? And it could be any kind of disappointment or something where you're like I broke my heart.
Speaker 2:
So I think when I was younger. You know you get in that romantic heartbreak where you feel like your body is just going to stop working. You know, I feel like we've all had those experiences. I would say my last romantic heartbreak, what got me out of it, was probably yoga. I am an anxiety girl and if I sat there, you know, thinking about every little thing, I would have dropped myself crazy. So having those moments of disconnecting my mind, focusing on my breath, I think that really helped calm any anxieties and I have to say like a million percent when I was young that was my best. I was like, wow, I got over him quick, like good for you, girl. You know that didn't hurt quite as bad as it had in the past. So I think that was a really big growing point for me.
Speaker 2:
I would say, in business, the business heartbreak to me feels different. It's not that where you feel like you can't breathe, you can't eat, you can't sleep, which I feel like all of us have gone through a romantic. It was kind of just changing in air. So I have been a small business owner for eight years. I've been doing services or managing some type of spa presence for 12. And in that time you really build up a clientele, and November of 2023, so last year I ended up stopping my services and not seeing clients anymore, and there were quite a few reasons for it. But you create such a big relationship with these people. They feel like your friends. They feel you know all their intimate secrets. They know a lot of mine. I see them on an every two weeks basis. It's an energetic exchange because I'm touching them, I'm talking to them. You know they're doing the same with me.
Speaker 2:
So that, I think, was hard for me. I was extremely excited because I'm sure, as you know, as a service provider, it's hard on your body to do it for so long, and I was booked back to back from morning to evening. I didn't have time for lunches. I had narrowed myself down to like three days I think three or four days and just really packed clients in. It was very, very hard on my bodies. So I was excited to be able to take that time. I was excited for new change and to be able to focus on my mentorship and all the asceticians I would help be successful, a big piece of me that I have worked on and that I have learned to work on and I think we've talked about this before is that when I try to please everyone else, I end up letting myself down.
Speaker 2:
And so I knew when I had stopped doing services that was one of my biggest anxieties, because it was going into holiday season and I knew they had parties. I knew they had events, but I also knew I wanted to spend the holiday season with my child and I had like a surgery coming up like I had all these things where I needed my body to rest, I needed to feel healthy, I needed not be in pain. So that felt like a heartbreak for me was letting go of that business. But it was different because it also came with excitement. It was, oh, this is like the last time I'm ever gonna see this person, or oh, this is the last time that I'm ever gonna do this service. I don't even need any of these products anymore. But it was weird. It was like an excitement on the individual as well. I wasn't quite as distraught as like a romantic heartbreak in the past, but it was kind of exciting. I just kind of the way I got through it was just telling myself that the reasons I'm doing I kept going over the reasons why I was doing it on my head and I kept reminding myself that every year I tell myself I'm gonna stop doing as many services or I'm gonna focus on me and feel better.
Speaker 2:
And every year I don't. And every year my body hurts more, my time is less with my child, like every year, it just gets more of what I didn't have a passion for anymore. So whenever I would start to feel sad or like oh, no, like, can I bring that email back and say, hey, I just kidding, see you Saturday for your appointment. I mean, I know I can't, but every time I had that feeling it was just reminding myself of my reasons why, and my bigger goal in life and how that service and that aspect of my business and that brand that I owned no longer served the bigger goal purpose. It took time away from my goals that I was working towards, versus helping me achieve those goals.
Speaker 1:
I love that you just said that, because that is something I struggle with so often, cause I have my brick and mortar but I'm building my online business and I do feel like I straddle two worlds with that, and it is heartbreaking because there's this sense of duty to the people that you've been serving and then also duty to the people that you are going to serve right. It's a big heartbreak and it's also something you built, and so let me know that that's hard.
Speaker 2:
And when you've done it for so many years, there's an income right, there's a really good stream of income that you have to be brave enough to say, all right, like this is okay, I can do this, I want to do it. I've been seeing for years that I will do it, but I haven't let go because this is my income. I'm scared of the future, I'm scared of what can happen, but I have to trust that if I can build something to this success with this brand, that I can recreate it, even though it's something new for me, even though it's a brand new avenue that I'm taking. I've never I've been toward people one-on-one, but never on a consistent basis and never to the scale. So I had to be able to trust myself that if I could do it once, I could absolutely do it again, and that's what I've been doing in this process.
Speaker 1:
Oh, my gosh, I love that. I love that so much because it is an active faith, and I think it's harder, when you already have a successful business, to go oh no, I want something bigger. Because then there's also that like oh, am I being greedy? Like I already built something way bigger than I ever thought humanly possible, and now I want to go even further. Like it's like oh, and then there's that worth right. Who do? I think I have to go even beyond that. So that's a challenge, I think, for a lot of female entrepreneurs especially.
Speaker 2:
Well, I think we've talked about this before too. I don't allow myself to have those thoughts anymore about like, oh, who am I? What will people think? I say this all the time and the first time we met I said this in our group study Nobody can say anything to me that I haven't said to myself. I have been a horrible, horrible friend to myself. I have called myself dumb, fat, unworthy, like, whatever we can say, whatever nasty, mean things somebody could say about somebody. I've said to myself, and I'm sure a lot of women have.
Speaker 2:
So this point in my life, as I'm building this new brand, I don't care. Like you can't say crap to me because I've already said it to myself probably 500 times, so your opinion of me it's invalid. Because, like I've already said it and my opinion is so much more value to me than yours, Like you can't really say anything to me anymore because I've said it to myself so many times over the years. You just can't say it to me anymore. And I think that's the mindset I get in now when I go to do something. I no longer think what are people gonna say, Because I've had so much more success when I didn't care.
Speaker 1:
So let me ask you a question. This is the burning question in my head and probably a lot of people's heads, because I work with a lot of people who have that mean girl in their head.
Speaker 2:
And.
Speaker 1:
I don't really have her as much anymore. Sometimes she sneaks in and I'm not paying attention. How did you bridge, how did you get over to the like nice friend group in your head instead of the group of mean girls that used to live there?
Speaker 2:
You know it took a lot, a lot of self love and a lot of work Growing up. I was bullied. I have hips, I have thighs and people. In the 90s we know like the standard of beauty was stick thin, it was blonde, it was not the type of woman that I am, so I would bullied a lot growing up.
Speaker 2:
I have a daughter now and I'll be damned if she's gonna have the same exact conversations with herself that I have had with myself. So I think having raising a child and trying not to give her the same exact narrative that I gave to myself, I think it's been a big help. So what I do is I will look in the mirror and I will say to myself and this is me also kind of like dating her, so she thinks I'm really cool with you, but I'll be like girl, you look good today. You know like I just throw that out there to myself Anytime I start to like have any doubts, like, oh my God, your guys look thick and I'm like girl, that is it. You know Picking them up, I'm so happy I need to record you and put you in my head all day.
Speaker 2:
I love it. My daughter will walk by and be like, mommy, your booty looks thick. I'm like, yes, it does. Thank you, girl, you know, Because it is. Life is just so hard. Why do we have to be so hard ourselves? So I think, if you can find anything little trick yourself, lie to yourself. You hate your teeth. Just look at your teeth and be like, oh, my God, those are some great teeth. And eventually you're gonna love your teeth, right? Because we're changing the narrative in our head. And that's just my secret. That's just what I do. I'm like you're smart, you can do this, and that's I lie to myself. I lie to myself when I don't believe it, but apparently my subconscious knows that it's true. So I just had started telling myself these things and I just really learned to love and trust myself.
Speaker 1:
I love that you said that you lie to yourself, because all beliefs are lies, even the ones that you're not capable. We get to choose the lie that we believe and that's the end of it, like, we just get to choose. We get to choose to believe that we're not smart enough or that we get to choose to believe that we're smart enough and more smart than we've ever given ourselves credit for. So I love that example, especially because the word lie is built into belief. Our beliefs are actually built on lies and we can choose whatever one we want. I love that. Whatever one we want, it's our choice. I love that. I love that example. Okay, so if you have a bad day because we all have bad days what gets you through those days where you're kind of like, ugh, I don't want to do this today.
Speaker 2:
You know, I think it depends on my level of bad day. We've all had those bad days where nothing goes right and I haven't now taught myself that, instead of everything being just soul crushing, world crushing, like you know, the world's gonna end because everything's going wrong. Today I have just taught myself and again, this is just me trying to reprogram my own brain in my own crazy way but when something wrong happens or I have a bad day and it seems like a series of wrong things, I'm like, well, of course it is Like I'm having a bad day. Why would this go right? It's just another hard thing and I try to just stop process through it. I try to just allow myself to have that hard experience. If it's a really really, really hard day.
Speaker 2:
Sometimes I'm like you know what I'll try again tomorrow. I'm gonna binge Netflix. Right now, I'm gonna sit on the couch, I may have a gossip line and heat up a frozen pizza and we'll just lie again tomorrow. But that's generally how I do it. I generally just am not shocked. I'm not like, damn, I haven't applied tire now. I'm just like, well, you know, it's that day, Like, if it's gonna happen, it is definitely today that it's gonna happen. So and then I try to celebrate any little win. So if there's something that happened, I'm trying to find the good in it to celebrate that, so I'm not just catching all the bad stuff. I'm like, oh, that's a great win, like somebody signed up for my membership today. Like you know, the sky was falling earlier. Somebody signed up for my membership. It's probably gonna fall again later on, but at least there was one great thing that happened in the middle of the chaos.
Speaker 2:
But I give myself grace. I give myself and I'm not shaming myself and I'm bashing myself for sitting on the couch doing nothing. I give myself some grace and just allow myself to feel it and you know, rest, physically rest I love that.
Speaker 1:
We do as a society, do not allow ourselves to rest, and rest is so important. Actually, when I'm having a bad day, think of you now and I'm like it's a Netflix night. Nicole said it was a gray. It's a Netflix night.
Speaker 2:
So funny. Well, I mean again 80s and 90s. Our parents are boomers, I don't mind it, I don't know if yours are, but it was the work, right, it was work, work, work. Nine to five. I'm a small business owner so I can work, you know, until two o'clock in the morning on my laptop. It doesn't have to be a sequence of hours. I don't have to just run myself ragged and not give myself time to rest. And that's something that I had to work on because I felt like I was lazy, doing nothing, and I'm like, girl, this is self-care, like you're going to crash if you don't. And so now I just see myself when I give myself that grace and that time to do nothing, I'm like you're resting your body and it's self-care. Enjoy, enjoy. Watching Undercover Billionaire.
Speaker 1:
Ah, that's the world. I would turn it into I'm researching. That's why I'm watching. Yes, I'm researching. I always have to justify it. I'm so, it's so bad. I'm like always working in my mind Okay, I love that. Okay, so what would you tell your younger self now if you could give her words of hope and inspiration?
Speaker 2:
Thank you. Ooh, I don't necessarily know.
Speaker 1:
I want to talk. I want to actually think about the girl that was being bullied. Because my daughter was bullied. I was bullied. Bullying almost destroyed her life and almost destroyed my life. Any younger girls here that have been bullied? I would just love like for me. I want to go back and say, oh my God, you just wait, you have no. Like I was called Big Mac, I was called a giraffe. I had rocks thrown at me. I just want to like go, stay at the bus stop and hold her and be like you have no idea how amazing you're going to turn out. It's all going to be. People are so nasty they're so they can be. Yeah, it's really yeah, but like so what would you go back and tell your younger self, like the one who was being bullied now, like I don't necessarily think that I would tell her anything about me in the future.
Speaker 2:
What I tell girls now it's a none of it matters. None of it matters. Their opinion doesn't matter. I school doesn't matter, middle school doesn't matter. Like people suck sometimes, and they suck because they have their own things going on and it's not fair to you but they project onto you but none of it matters. Who cares? Who cares? You know like there I did this really fun thing one time where I took the yearbook and looked up all the popular kids on the arrest records website and I want to say like 70% of them had been arrested and that just made me feel amazing and like so.
Speaker 1:
I thought I would say quite better.
Speaker 2:
One of them is not one of them. Several of them were multiple and I was like, see, and you were like popular and cute, and you were such a jerk, like you know, and I was not, yeah, so I think that's what I would say it's just like none of it matters. Just do you make your friendships, but make friendships of people who make you feel good, and this I mean my daughter's in second grade, and the mean girl thing already starts and she knows that people who make you feel bad are not your true friends. Many friends with people who make you feel good, because that's generally as adults and as just humans in life, I think that we want to be around people who make us feel great, not people who make us feel bad. So that would be my advice too Just find people who make you feel good. Who cares if they're the nerds or the jocks or like whatever they are, who cares, and many people's opinions of you just who cares?
Speaker 1:
It doesn't matter. Yeah, it's so interesting, having raised a teenage daughter. It's so much harder when they're in it because they care, and it's like I know right now you think it's the end of the world. I promise you it's not. It's like really holding them through it and not making them feel bad about their experience. And it was a really interesting to walk my daughter through it because we had to pull her out of high school. The bullying was so bad and so to walk her through that. I was like, oh man, this is taking a whole new level of strength as a mom, because I'm telling you it's not going to matter in the future, but it matters right now. How do I?
Speaker 1:
get you through it in a way that is empowering later in life.
Speaker 2:
Also, who's raising these children? I swear to God, if Lava came home to me and told me she was throwing rocks at someone rocks, no man, no man.
Speaker 1:
I grew up in the 80s, so we were a bunch of unsupervised kids.
Speaker 2:
We were. However, if my parents found out I was yeah, we came home in dark, right, they were like, yeah, I'm home. But if my parents found out I was throwing rocks at people, I would have been, that's when spanking was still big. I would have been snatched by my hair and spanked for throwing rock at someone.
Speaker 1:
You know I don't like talking too much about my daughter's experience because it's hers, but I will say a lot of the moms of the kids that were bullying her thought she deserved it, and their daughters, their behaviors were justified. And it was gross, gross. Yeah, it was gross, gross. It was like wow, you literally just destroyed her life without even a thought of it and now you know you don't even, you don't even care, and I would be mortified if that was my child.
Speaker 2:
So right, I would. Every incarnation is going to be fun.
Speaker 1:
I know, I know I'm so envious and in gratitude for, like I'm so grateful, grateful, grateful, grateful that my daughter comes to me. I'm grateful that my daughter talks to me. I am grateful that we're not dealing with you know her hiding it. I'm grateful that we're not dealing with the other side, which is what a lot of parents had to have to deal with. Yeah, they're bullied. I'm grateful that I raised a strong woman who has so much self-worth and she knows she can go through really hard times and survive it and I know that anytime she's struggling now she calls me and she listens Doesn't always take action on what.
Speaker 1:
I say I'm a beautiful wisdom as her mother, but most of the time she listens and that's all I could ask for is like I feel very blessed in how it turned out for us. So, yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah, and all we can do is raise women who don't do that to others, and I think that's combat bullying. To be honest, exactly, yeah, especially because I think your looks are yours, like it's so, I mean, cruel to bully people based on their looks, and that's why I love having a beauty person on, because I think that, as we're going through heartbreak and disappointment, sometimes we stop taking care of ourselves, right, like we don't do our hair or make up or care about what we look like. And I love to hear your perspective on that, because for me, when I'm having a bad day, I just throw my mascara on and I immediately feel better and I'm like it's like my wand of magic and I just I do, I'm going to need to feel powerful, so like.
Speaker 1:
so talk to me about why it's so important to like, prioritize your lifestyle and beauty and those things that a lot of people may be poo poo for lack of a better firm.
Speaker 2:
Well, I think that my job is very psychological for people and I think, like I said earlier, I stopped seeing clients. I think it was so hard for them because they were like, oh no, this is what I do to make myself feel beautiful. This is the hour we have Quiet to myself, that I can come and just focus on me. It's not always easy for people to get back in the habit of, you know, cleaning their face Bare minimum. You should be washing your face tonight With an actual, real cleanser. Get some actual, real skincare. Let me take you can start Exactly. You can start little. You don't have to invest in hundreds of thousands of dollars in skincare, but do a little bit for yourself, just so your skin feels flowy, it feels radiant. I can always tell when my clients are struggling. I can always tell. I can always tell it reflects on their skin, it reflects on their hair. They're doing lash extensions. It definitely reflects on their lash extensions.
Speaker 2:
Some of the things that I do if I am in a rut and I just need to feel beautiful and powerful and Add that bitch Sorry if I've noticed cuss on it, but you know, as that person like when I sometimes it's just as little as putting on a sexy pair of underwear and, like some you know Chanel fragrance to go to grocery store and I'm like, girl, you're sexy today. You know you, you update. It's not like full booty, it's like lacy and tiny, you know just little things like that that make me feel beautiful and powerful. I'm a postpartum was something to that I think a lot of us and get in this space of I'm Someone's mother now and we lose ourselves. I was a single mom and I could not be a single mom and a bridge tool 24-7, because then I just felt like you know, then I just completely lost myself. So I would let Laila watch Sesame Street for 30 minutes.
Speaker 2:
Why did my makeup or my hair Like I never necessarily had both done on the same day, but I, I gave myself a little bit of time for me just to feel better about myself, because we can hide behind that. Oh, I'm a mother now, so I don't need to dress the way I used to dress, I don't need to do my hair or makeup like I used to, but we lose a part of ourself, we lose our identity of who we are. So even just doing little things, like you said, throwing on some mascara, not, I mean, I don't do my hair makeup every day, but you know I'll do this if I. I call myself a bridge tool. You know this, and it's not that I'm like you, you're such a bridge troll. It's like I can fully understand that like I look, like I have no brows, I've got great dark circles. You know you should be throwing money at me to pass.
Speaker 2:
I Accept it, and not in a self-deprecating way, it's just, that's just what it is. But if I've done that for a few days and I'm like, let me just spruce myself up a little bit and I put on a full face of makeup, I look in the mirror and I say, there you are. Because that's how I remember presenting myself to the world every day, when I was working every day or at the beauty counter every day. So even just finding yourself again, whether it's, you know, getting your hair done you want to get your nails done. Get your nails done. But even something just so small putting on lip gloss and brushing your hair or washing your hair which is sometimes hard when you're in that that bad mental space Any little thing that you yourself feel better, just putting on a nice fragrance to sleep in, or beautiful body lotion Just really helps you feel, or, like I said, even just a sexy pair of panties to go grocery shopping.
Speaker 1:
I love that I used to so long time with my first job and I remember first day on the job I was like I'm gonna nail this job because I'm an avid believer that if what you wear underneath your clothing matters, yeah, if you've got whole gross underwear on your there's every time you go to the bathroom. You're gonna feel like you're not worthy, right? So like, throw out the gross underwear and go invest in some new ones. It's worth it.
Speaker 2:
What was that thing from Greece? When the girls like I can't die and my mother's underwear, that's what I always think of now, like oh my god, what if I get a car accident today?
Speaker 1:
I am not wearing cute underwear, you know, but oh my god, that was one of the best lessons I learned from my friend, sadie in high school. She's like Tabitha you have to make sure that you have cute brown underwear on. What if we're in a car accident and a hot Fireman cuts your clothes off and finds these gross underwear? No like. And that was like what changed my whole perspective forever. So I'll be forever. Sorry, sadie, for that lifelong advice. Okay, so Let me see here. Let's think about, oh, synchronized cities. I love synchronized cities and I love when I follow my synchronized cities and they're like yeah, that was, that was something that was my intuition calling, that was me in alignment, what's like one that you can think of, where you were really guided to do something and you felt like the universe had your back.
Speaker 2:
So I am a numbers person. I will see the same repetitive three or four numbers All the time. Right now it's one which is a new one for me. It's ones and twos. Twos were big for me.
Speaker 2:
I was in a relationship of four years, which was four years way too long. But right after I had my daughter's, just about a year, and I met this person and I was living at home, I had this fresh baby and I didn't fully love myself at that point because I was in this totally new situation. I was just starting my spa, so I wasn't making a lot of money. So I think I think subconsciously, they didn't feel worthy. So I met this person who on paper, was successful, handsome, seemed like a great person, played it for a very long time and Red flags sort of pop it up and I was like, well, maybe he just needs time, maybe you know, you know how we do. So it was three times three years. I Lived with him. He had, I mean, he even bought a house for us, but it should have been a red flag that I wasn't on the house. But of course it was like, well, this is still a great gesture. So we're living there, we're living at the family unit. My daughter has now called this person daddy for years. It's a whole family thing which it's very hard as women to break up our family dynamics. But she was getting to that age that she now saw and understood and she was like my little people and in my head I was like if a man ever spoke to my daughter like this, it would be the end. But right now I'm teaching her that this is okay, that this is what love looks like, that this is what she should accept from our relationship and it's not.
Speaker 2:
So we got on this big fight and I left and I was staying with my parents. He just came home and like things were gone not everything, but things were gone. And I was staying with my parents and my friend and I went to go look at places to rent. We're looking at things. We started seeing like 1111, 1111. I was like man, this is weird. So we get like on the back of this, we're in the apartment complex and we get in the back of this golf cart and I was like, hey, man, what time is it? And she's like it's 111. I was like no, it's not. She's a gattet, like you know. I had it fully made my decision if I was leaving, if I was staying. So we go up the stairs and we go into this apartment and apparently the power had went out and on the oven, on the stove, the number, the time was flashing, and the time flashing was 1111.
Speaker 2:
And that's the moment that I really knew like, okay, I'm a numbers person, these are my angels. They're like girl in order for you to grow, you have to let go. This is not serving you, it's holding you back. And I realized that every time I would leave, this is one of the situations where he would change and he's doing better and he wants to get back together. And so, of course, we try again or at least, of course I do. I respect anyone who does not.
Speaker 2:
It never works out, and I kept realizing all the moments when I'm making my business, all the moments when making my life, all the strides and excitement, it's gone. When this person's near me, it's no longer there. I'm no longer happy, I no longer have the excitement. It's not there. So this was the final time I decided and I realized the numbers are telling me, the angels are telling me you've got this, this is for you, this is how you grow, let go.
Speaker 2:
So now, all day long I see nothing but repetitive numbers in everything in phone calls and bank statements and bank accounts, house numbers. I can't do anything but see my numbers. But it's not like I see repetitive numbers. It's I receive a certain number over and over and over again. It's not like I see all of them, it's all you see, ones or two. Right now it's the ones. Which is weird, it seems like. However I change in life, my numbers change with me too, and I always just smile. You know like I'm having a hard day, I'll smile and be like this, is it? You're doing what you're supposed to do. Your angels are saying go for it.
Speaker 1:
And that's just kind of how I follow it now I love the whole body chills on that one. I love it because I think a lot of people don't know how their guides talk to them, and when we learn how they talk to us, then we have that confirmation. When we're in doubt, when we're scared, we don't know if it's the right decision, and I love that. And I'm a numbers person too. I see two, two, two all the time for healthy relationships, which is what we saw when I met you. And then I see one 11, 11, 11, 11. I think a lot of people have their number system in place and I love it. Like I love that you can see that and then you know to trust it and act on it, even though there's some doubt. Right, there's like, oh, is this the right choice? Or and that's just kind of a nudge from the other side going, hey, you're protected and safe and it's all. Everything is always happening for you, not to you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and I'm sure that my angels are sick of me. I am so sure that my angels are like girl, if you don't just do it, like, what else can we do? We have done so much. We put you in so many situations, like at this point. Just listen to us. We can't burn the house down Like right, like just go, just like I love it. I love it right now yeah.
Speaker 2:
There's a time where my angels are like girl you're, you're doing the most, you're doing too much. We've been saying, we've been showing you signs, you know, for years now. Please listen. And every time I do it turns out perfect, it turns out great.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, oh my gosh. There's never a time, I think, where I regretted listening to my intuition, like it's it's been the biggest tool and advocate for me when I felt very alone. So I mean, I just think, like developing intuition is probably the greatest gift that you can give yourself at any. It doesn't matter if you work for someone, if you're an entrepreneur, or if you, you know, want to use it for your love or your children or whatever. Like it's the best muscle that we can really work out and strengthen. I love that. Okay, so and for fun, let's say that you were deserted on a desert island. What is one bro book that you would bring with you to keep you company?
Speaker 2:
Oh, I read this question and I was like a reader. I don't read only because it puts me to sleep. I can get through like two sentences and I'm like I don't know. If I did have to have a book, I think I would hope for it to be like a little spicy and just like get me through my days If I'm there alone.
Speaker 1:
I love it. That's not the novel. I love it. I love it, that's all I could think of.
Speaker 2:
I don't want to be depressed Like. I don't want to be like a true crime where I'm like depressed on you know, an island by myself, like let's make a little spicy where I can fantasize about like the man washing ashore or something you know. That's probably what it would be like a romance novel.
Speaker 1:
I was listening to this comedian online and she was saying that there's this whole new realm of women's saucy novels where it's like and then he came home and he changed the garbage disposal. That wasn't working. He leaned, it was like where's that word porn? I'll take that.
Speaker 2:
Like listen, they need to read that. They need to read that and just understand it.
Speaker 1:
No, it's so true. Oh my gosh. Well, this has been so much fun. I am so glad that you came on today and that you shared so much of your story with my listeners. Tell them how they can find you, because you have a new podcast which I'm very excited about. I listened to it today great advice for spot owners and anyone. Really it's good business advice. I think it's very inspiring. So tell everyone where they can find you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so we just launched our beauty business podcast. It's called Spa Boss Talks. It's everywhere you can get your podcast and it's just business advice, for it's directed towards spot owners and estheticians, but it really can help anyone in business. Our first episode was with an aesthetic bookkeeper where she just talked about small business owning and write-offs and all the fun stuff that you can do, especially in the beginning of the year when we start doing our taxes. I am on Instagram and TikTok as estina coal and then you can go to beautybabesonlinecom and that is our website. All of our information and programs.
Speaker 1:
Nice. Oh, thank you so much for being on today and for sharing your story.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
I appreciate you and I really appreciate our friendship. Actually, how Nicole and I met was by chance at BBD, which is business by design, which is an entrepreneurial program that we both belong to, and it was what was about 80% women there at that conference, right yeah.
Speaker 2:
Super.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, we met on the WhatsApp group, right, amber met you and got on your group and then was like I met this group of women and I think we should go have dinner with, and I'm like, oh, I trust our like, we flow together really well. And so I was like, all right, let's go. And then you picked that really beautiful restaurant for us to go experience the first night and I was like, oh, this is amazing, this is going to be fun. And then we just be really good buddies and now we have a accountability group that helps each other stay on track for our goals this year.
Speaker 2:
And I told you I never do anything like that because I'm kind of an introvert, but I knew I didn't want to go there and I knew I alone, like I didn't want to go there, I didn't want to just keep going up to my hotel room not talking to anyone or being quiet. So I started that WhatsApp group, just like kind of for myself, to be honest, and it just turned into beautiful friendships that we now meet every week. So I was telling Layla, my daughter, today, like you just have to get uncomfy, to grow, to get something new. And that's exactly what I did and it's just, it's helped me so much. You have helped my business so much. Your mindset, your reporting helped me so much. So I'm just so grateful and appreciative of our friendship and our group and I just I love it. I'm just a value in. Thank you so much for having me here.
Speaker 1:
I just I can't say enough about the value of having friends like girlfriends and good girlfriends like like minded girlfriends yeah, girlfriends, you know girlfriends who are, you know, going to call you on your stuff when you're not doing what you say you're going to do, but then are also there to, like you know, wipe off your snout when you're crying, a lot Like right, right, good, and then you get to be yourself with right Like that. You just get to be who you are without feeling like you have to be someone that you aren't. I love authentic relationships. That's my thing Exactly. I love it. Oh, okay, I'm going to post all your links in the show notes and I just really again thank you so much and so grateful for your friendship and for what you're doing for business owners. I just think it's really inspiring and I'm just, I'm really impressed by who you are. Thank you so much, thank you everyone. Thank you for listening today.