Intro: Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick-ass career as a hair stylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen?
Maybe you’re struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe you know social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren’t seeing any results. Maybe you’ve already had some amazing success but are craving more. Maybe you’re ready to truly enjoy the freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer.
Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you’re ready to quit, just working in your business and start working on it, join us here, where we share real success stories from real stylists.
I’m Britt Seva, social media and marketing strategist just for hair stylists, and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.
Britt:
What is up you guys, and welcome back to The Thriving Stylist podcast. I’m your host Britt Seva. Really excited to be here with you today. Really excited to kick off a series of solo shows. I know we’ve been doing a lot of interviews lately, and I’m really excited to get back into the solo zone. You asked, we answered. I am so here for it. This week’s episode is inspired by you all and these are always my favorite episodes.
Recently I shared an Instagram video and a post that said “Pop quiz: The hardest part about this industry is A) building a clientele fully or B) hitting the comfort zone plateau.” Do you know what the answer is? It’s B. Building the clientele fully–depending on where you’re at in your business when you listen to this, this might actually sound false. But if you talk to a veteran stylist, they’ll tell you that once they actually figured out how to build a clientele, they were able to do it really strategically and now it’s predictable for them. Now they’re able to do that with some ease because they’ve learned how to do it.
B) hitting the comfort zone plateau is the most challenging part of 80% of your career in this industry. In fact, I can teach you how to build a clientele in a year or less. It doesn’t have to take a ton of time. It takes a really defined strategy and I have that in Thrivers Society. The comfort zone plateau is more of a mental game. I want to talk that through today. I want to talk about the risk of comfort zones and your other options.
I want to read to you a few of the comments that came in from this post because I think they’re so poignant. I actually want to start with a comment from Blended by Liz. Liz, shout out to you. Thank you so much for sparking this incredible conversation on my feed.
She said, “What about when you are EXHAUSTED (in all capital letters) from the grow, grow, grow, and you want to just hit cruise control for a while so that you can rest?” Then the feed fills below her. Blown Away Hair says, “I’m feeling this way right now too, mentally exhausted which makes me physically exhausted.” I get it. I have an episode, I believe it’s Episode Four, where I talk about the four cycles of business as a stylist and this is part of that cycle for sure. Let’s dive a little bit deeper onto the part of the cycle where it’s like a crash and burn, where you’re like, you know what, honestly, I don’t have any more to give and it’s very tempting to shift into the comfort zone.
Okay. Now the reason why I titled this episode, “The Risks of Comfort Zones” is because it is one of the most dangerous places you can be in business, and that’s not actually a Britt-ism. It is a smart business-ism. If you listen to any other business coach beyond our industry, they’ll tell you the same thing. Comfort zones are where businesses go to die unfortunately. It’s so upsetting and I have some great news on the flip side of that.
You don’t ever have to go to a comfort zone to find relief. Let me say that again. You don’t ever have to go to a comfort zone to find relief because actually it’s like a band-aid. You’re not actually healing the issue that forced you to go into that comfort zone. You’re just trying to create a quick fix so you don’t have to deal with the actual problem and get a little bit of easy pain.
If you’re somebody who is suffering from consistent pain, like you’ve got a long-term knee issue, and you’re like, “You know what? I pop two Advils in the morning, two at night, and I’m good to go.” That’s your habit and you do that every day for two years. Is that actually going to fix your knee? No, but you’re comfortable now. You’re not in pain anymore, but you’ve not actually fixed the problem. Who knows what’s going on in that knee? But until you actually fix the issue, you’re creating a short-term solution. I want to walk you through how to create long-term solutions so that you can get out of that exhaustion cycle so that you can get the rest that you need without slipping into a comfort zone.
I want to first look at the definition of “comfort zone”. Did you know that’s a definable term? So I want to break it down. The definition of comfort zone is: a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress. That sounds great. That sounds amazing. So I understand why we like to go there, but we have to break it down further because at the surface level, most things sound great. It’s until you start peeling the layers of the onion that you realize this is not really what I bargained for.
The key words in that phrase, which I’m going to read again: a place or situation where one feels safe or at ease and without stress. The keywords there are going to be “safe”, “at ease”, and “without stress”. So let’s look at the definition of all of those words. This is how we peel the onion.
The definition of safe: protected from, or not exposed, to danger or risk. Oh shoot. Are you already kind of seeing where I’m going with this? We’re going to dive into that a little bit deeper, but successful business isn’t built without risk. Risk is an important part of the recipe. If I was making you a smart business cocktail, there would be a sprig of risk coming out the side, a shot of risk in the center. Risk is a part of what good business is built from. There’s just no doubt about it.
Then we have the word “ease”. Ease is the absence of difficulty or effort. Now that sounds great, but who in their right mind would say, you know what we should do right now, is remove all of the difficulty and effort from our business?
How many of you know failing stylist, stylist who are really having a hard time? Often we look at them and we say they’re just not willing to put in the work. They like it because it’s easy. They don’t want the difficulty. They don’t want to put in the effort of marketing, so they choose ease. We look at those stylists and we say, “My gosh, if you would put in just a tiny touch more effort, you would have everything you ever wanted.” It’s frustrating. Yet when we choose comfort zone, you’re choosing to slip back into ease.
That’s where really good stylists ended up leaving the industry because they just decide it’s too what? It’s too hard. It’s not worth the effort anymore. I don’t want anyone to get to that place. That place will creep up on you really fast when you choose comfort zone. So we don’t want to do that.
Then the last piece of the definition was stress. I’m going to read this definition: being unable to cope with mental or emotional pressure. I got to tell you, Liz, when I was reading your comment, I think for you it’s the stress. You even mentioned, “When I’m in this place of the go go, go, grow, grow, grow, I’m feeling mentally exhausted which leads to physical exhaustion”, which is essentially what we’re reading as the definition of stress. I don’t want you to be stressed. I completely understand that. But let’s peel this onion just one more layer further, if you will.
So let’s talk about risk for a second, and let’s use the analogy of investing in the stock market to go there with it. Who makes it big in the stock market? Who just really gets into the stock market and kills it? When I first say that, some of you immediately said “the wealthy”. No, actually that’s not fully accurate. Do some wealthy people invest in the stock market and find massive success? Absolutely. But is that the absolute truth? No, of course not.
I’m an example of that not being the absolute truth. I made a very smart investment in the stock market like 15 years ago, a really long time ago when I was a kid in my very early twenties and I had a really teeny tiny company matched 401k savings plan. I had the wherewithal to say, “I don’t want this to just sit in the account. I’m going to invest it.” Do you know what stock I picked? It was a risky little stock. It was a stock at a very low price at a company that was shaky, and that company is one you might know now as Netflix. And that investment paid off for us very, very well. It’s what allowed us to buy our dream home.
I share that story because that was a really risky decision for me as a young woman in my early twenties, not certain if Netflix would pay off or it would crash and burn. I’ll be honest, I invested in 15 other companies that were a total loss. I totally lost it. But I did the one that made it right, and that was the risk. So when we choose to play it safe–had I chosen to play it safe and said, you know what? I’m going to let that money just sit in that 401k investment account and I’m going to save it, ‘cause that would have been the safe thing to do, but it wouldn’t have gotten me into my dream home.
Sometimes you have to have that little touch of risk. That’s where incredible life and incredible business is built from. I didn’t risk everything to make that happen, but it was a calculated risk. You need those calculated risks in your business and in your life to keep moving forward, right?
Let’s go back to that word “ease” again. Absence of effort sounds amazing. I love it. Like, trust me, I love being as effortless as possible whenever I can. But can you name one really great thing in life, like one killer thing, that doesn’t involve effort? Some of you said vacation.
Friends, I don’t know if you’ve taken a vacation recently with a family. For me, it doesn’t–it feels anything but effortless. If I’m taking the kids to a theme park, even if we’re going to Lake Tahoe, which is our happy place, the amount of packing and organizing and the lists and the shopping and the blah, blah. It’s certainly not effortless. It’s great when I get there, but the effort it took to get me to the Lake is what provided that great result in the end. So don’t get it twisted. Amazing things come when you’re willing to put in the effort. I understand we want the ease as much as we can, but you earn the ease by putting in the effort. Right? Okay.
Then we have stress and I don’t want anybody to feel stress. What I’ve come to find is that stress is a trigger, and the reason why stress often comes up is because there’s something lurking in our life or business or many things lurking in our life or business that are festering. They’re like festering wounds. Like I was talking about with the knee example, until we actually go in and resolve the pain, resolve the issue that is causing that stress, it’s always going to be there.
As we live life as humans, I don’t have a formula for reducing all of your stress. I certainly experienced stress on a daily basis. However, whenever I experience a stressful situation, I now take the time to reflect and say, wow, why did that make me feel this way and how do I make sure I don’t go back to that place? The more I can center around those triggers, the more stress-free life I can feel.
Okay. That was a really simplified explanation, so now I want to dive deeper into a three step process for reflecting on why you’re craving a comfort zone and how to make an alternative choice so that you get what you’re looking for. Like Liz, you’re like “I’m exhausted, friend. I can’t keep this pace any longer,” and girl, I don’t want you to. So don’t worry, we’re on the same page there. But I want to teach you how to get the life balance that you need without going to the comfort zone.
So step one: why are you seeking the comfort zone? What is it that’s making you say, I gotta hit cruise control for a minute. I got a pause right here. I’m going to stay comfy cozy. I’m not going to push, push, push. I’m not going to grow, grow, grow as you said in your comment. I’m just going to kick it right here for a second ‘cause it feels comfy. Why? You have To ask yourself this and I’m going to walk you through the exercise.
Is it because you’re craving safety? There’s some sort of danger lurking? When I say danger, it sounds like, Ooh spooky danger. Not always. Danger comes in the form of jealousy. Danger comes in the form of negative comments and feedback. If you are doing some sort of marketing and people are teasing you, that’s something I experienced in the salon that feels dangerous. That feels scary and messes with our psyche. It does a lot of really negative things. I get it. I understand.
Then what we do is we’re like, well, if people are gonna make fun of me for this, then I’m just not going to do it. I’m going to stay in my little comfort zone bubble here where there’s no judgment, but there’s also no risk and no reward. Right? One of the reasons we slip back in the comfort zone is the danger.
Here’s another danger: if I move salons, if I leave this salon where I’m comfortable, but I’m also unhappy. Uncomfortable here, I can’t really complain, but I feel held back. There’s a danger there, right?
Why are you choosing to stay in a mediocre place instead of going to the salon down the street that has a chair open to rent, and they’re asking you to work there, but you’re thinking about not doing it. Why? What if all my clients don’t follow me? What if my salon owner gets mad? Danger. Those are all really dangerous situations. So instead, we choose the comfort zone because we don’t have to walk the danger.
If danger is the reason you’re seeking the comfort zone, I want you to ask one of my favorite questions. If you’ve asked me for private coaching in the past, you may have even heard me ask you this. I always say, what is the worst that could happen? What is the absolute worst that can happen? You make the leap of faith. You go outside the comfort zone. What’s the worst? Often you’ll find peace in that answer, because even the worst case scenario is generally speaking something you can recover from.
I’ve gotten to a place in life where I’m willing to take any risk so long as I get to keep my marriage and my children. Anything else is pretty much fair game for me. I’ve done a lot of work around this though. When you get to a place in life where you’re like, honestly, what matters the most is my joy and my happiness and my time with those I love the most, it’s a very freeing feeling.
So I want you to check yourself. Am I choosing comfort zones for fear of danger? If I am, what’s the worst that could happen if I push out of the comfort zone?
Then let’s go to option number two, which is ease. That’s one of the definitions of comfort zone, ease. Is it that you don’t want to put in the effort? You’re tired, man. You’re so tired. Liz, I think that’s what it is for you. That’s not the same as lazy. I want to be super clear about that. Choosing ease and not wanting to put in the effort in this season of life because you are exhausted, I understand. But we need to recognize that. I’m choosing comfort zone because I am burnt out. I’m choosing comfort zone because I am tired. Fine, but let’s label it. Let’s call a spade a spade and decide why we’re making that decision.
Then we have number three, which is stress, mental or emotional pressure. Are you feeling that stress and you’re like, hands up. I can’t even take it anymore. Mental or emotional pressure is a real thing, and it causes us to want to retreat to the comfort zone. Forget it. I don’t even want to feel this pain anymore. I’m just going to go to a place where I don’t have to navigate it for a while and just be present. I understand that’s a coping mechanism, but we have to shift to step number two. Step number two is: how did you get there?
Once you’ve decided in step number one, why are you seeking the comfort zone? I walked you through the three options. It’s going to be one of the three, friends. If you’re like, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s any of those. Keep digging, keep going deeper. It is one of those things for sure. Keep digging.
So two, we ask ourselves how did you get there? Did you hit burnout? Are you lost? Are you like, you know what I’m hitting cruise control ‘cause I’m freaking lost. I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know what’s going to get me to the next step. I look around and all the options feel terrible. I get it, but let’s make note of it.
Are you scared? Are you like, Britt tells me I should do a price increase? I’m terrified. I am terrified of that. So instead I’m going to stay comfortable. I’m not going to upset my clients. I’m just going to stay where I’m at for a while. It feels better to me. It feels more comfortable. That’s your choice, but we need to reconcile why we’re making that decision.
What about a schedule change? I’m gonna ask this question to you, my friend, Liz, you say you’re tired. You’re exhausted. Okay. So have you cut a day off your schedule then? If you’re tired and exhausted, my first priority is giving you some time back.
This is going to lead into step number three, but I want you to think about the wealth pillars. If you’re in Thrivers Society, what are the pillars of wealth I talk about? Money, being one. Yes, but that’s only 25%.
Money makes our world go round. I’m a realist. I always say, we talk about money here like it’s something we want because, let’s keep it 100. You do. We all do. Money is the way that we are able to live our biggest, best life. It’s like the ticket to ride, right? If you use your money wisely, it opens opportunity for you to travel with your family and to live in a more comfortable home and buy a new backpack for your kids and the things that we would like to do. I get it. Money is one of them.
Love is one of them. When I talk about love, it means to me healthy relationships—in the salon, out of the salon, in the home, out of the home, with family, with friends, with everybody you interact with. Where the sum of the five people we spend the most time with. That better be a dang good group, because I want to be a good sum.
Then we have health. Our health wealth, man, we put that on the back burner. When I talk about health, yes, I mean physical fitness. But more than that, I mean emotional fitness, spiritual fitness. Are we healthy in the way we treat our bodies? When we’re in the salon behind the chair, are you working 12 hours a day?
Friends, we’re human, not a machine. We’re not made to work 12 hours a day. This is why we find stylists with carpal tunnel syndrome and shoulders blowing out and neck issues at 30 years old because you’re working your body at a pace it’s not able to sustain.
So we look at that health wealth. And when you say I’m thinking about going into a comfort zone or I’m exhausted, I ask myself, are you taking care of your health wealth? Are you taking care of wealth, pillar number four, which is time. For me, if I’m wealthy in time, I feel like the wealthiest woman in the world. You can keep the money, I want the time.
Time wealth to me is plenty of time with my loved ones, plenty of time for myself. I don’t feel overwhelmed. I don’t feel pulled in a million directions. That’s time wealth. You have an abundance of time and you’re investing it wisely.
So when we choose to go to a comfort zone, one of those things are all four of those things are likely out of alignment. So when I say, are you scared? I asked that question, are you choosing comfort zone because you’re a bit scared? You’re afraid of changing your schedule?
Well, if I don’t take clients on Fridays anymore, Miriam can’t come. Okay, well then Miriam will go see somebody else and you’ll have Fridays. You’ll get to do your yoga class or whatever it is you want to do on the Friday. That’s okay for Miriam. I’m certain that she’ll find somebody else and her life will go on. But for you, are you putting yourself first or are you so worried about Miriam that you’re allowing yourself to suffer?
I understand you’re like, Britt, you’re making it’s so simple. If I don’t work Fridays, what about my finances? What about your finances? In Thrivers Society, we figure out ways to work less and earn more. I’m not about working less, earning less. I’m about working less, earning more creating a luxury lifestyle for yourself. Are you doing those things or is the fear getting in the way? Or is the fact that you’re lost getting in the way you need a guide? How do we get here?
And then indicator number four in the, how did you get here? Question number one is why are you seeking the comfort zone? We walked through the three options. Now we’re on question number two: how did you get here?
Are you feeling mental or emotional pressure? I get that. Maybe you’re a single parent and you’re like, Britt, when you say the money will be okay–I don’t know that it will. I have experienced that emotional and mental pressure of like, am I going to be able to care for my family? Am I in an okay place for myself? These relationships that I’m experiencing are toxic. I have experienced that so huge where you throw your hands up and you’re like, forget it. I can’t even. I understand, but we have to get to the root of how did I get here? What was the breaking point that got me to this place? Okay?
Then question number three is, is my life wealthy and if not, where am I lacking? I just walked you through the four wealth pillars. They were money, love, health, and time. I talked about those just a second ago. Are you feeling wealthy in money? You have a great living, plenty of money in savings, plenty of money being saved for retirement, you can take a debt-free vacation. Great. I feel good about that. Awesome.
Are you wealthy and love healthy relationships? There’s nobody you interact with who brings you down or questions yourself? Happy with those you work with in the salon? Happy with those you work without at the salon? Okay. That’s great.
Are you abundant in health wealth? Are you taking your good care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? Are you checking all those boxes?
And then time wealth. Do you feel like you have enough time to rest? Do you feel like you have enough time to, to live the life that you want to be living? Or are you resentful when you pull up to the salon some days? Are you resentful of all the layers of your life right now? We have to reconcile all those things, friends, because until we do that, we can’t get ourselves out of the comfort zone.
Okay. So once we’ve walked through that exercise, you start to realize, oh wait, I don’t need to get out of the comfort zone. I don’t need to hit cruise control. I need to heal this underlying issue. I need to let go of the fear. I need to heal the mental or emotional pressure. I need to get the resources I’m looking for. I need to make a shift and change. I need to get over the danger aspect. We have to get clear on how we got here and then make a game plan for how to get out.
A really good, quick hack to making a plan to do that is a short list. If you’ve coached with me to any capacity, you’ve probably heard me walk you through this. Ask yourself right now, what brings me down? What’s brought me down in the last week or month? What’s made me feel low? What’s made me resentful to have to do it? Make a list of that. What do you want more of in your life? What do you want less of in your life?
Here’s one of my favorite questions. What makes you feel accomplished? Accomplishment is a really important feeling for us as human beings. What makes you feel accomplished, which is going to lead into, how do we get more of that in our life? What has to be cut out so that I can make room for more accomplishment?
Have you guys ever heard my purse analogy? The ladies listening to this will understand it. If you’re carrying a tiny purse, the purse is full. If you’re carrying a suitcase of a purse, like I do–I carry the suitcase purse. It’s outrageous. The thing is full. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to fill it to capacity, no matter what size it is. As soon as you want a bit more of anything, you have to clear some room. You have to clear the deck.
So when we say I want more free time. I am tired. Okay, make room for that. The more free time isn’t just going to land in your lap. You have to create a gap for it. Think about your plate at a beautiful, big family dinner, where you take a scoop of this and a scoop of that and a scoop of the other thing. Then before you know what the plate is overwhelming, and then you decide you want dessert. You’re going to have to eat some of the stuff on that plate. There’s no room on the plate for the pumpkin pie.
So you’re going to have to eat what’s there first. You have to clear some room if you want to bring more in. So what makes you feel accomplished? Then what can we let go of to let more of what does fill our tank, come into the fold?
Final question there: what would success look like to you? If you were to wake up in the morning, look around and be like, dang, this is it. This is success. What would that look and feel like?
I had a very poignant morning. It must’ve been early 2019. It was pre-pandemic and I woke up one day. I was booked to speak somewhere. I was going to speak on a stage. There were 600 people in the room. I woke up that morning in the hotel and I remember I got up and I looked out the window of this–I was probably on the 20th level of this hotel. This overwhelming feeling came over me of my gosh, this is success to me.
It wasn’t the speaking engagement. It actually wasn’t. It was the fact that I was confident enough to do it. It was the fact that I had come this far and was given these opportunities. It was the fact that my marriage was happy and healthy. My kids were happy and healthy. It was this moment of clarity of like, this is what success means to me. The impact is there, my relationships are good, and I’m spending my time where I want to spend it. Man, who can ask for anything more?
What would that moment look and feel like for you? Write that down. Then we ask ourselves backwards, am I taking the steps I need to take to make that my reality? So you can make that your reality without experiencing the burnout, but you can’t get into a comfort zone to do it. We’re going to have to push beyond.
One of the things, Liz, that you mentioned was you need more rest. I’d argue that you shouldn’t hit cruise control though, which is what a comfort zone is, right? It’s cruise control. You should schedule more rest. It doesn’t mean hit cruise control. It means, okay. So make more time to rest work. Work one less day behind the chair, take more scheduled vacations. You might need to take eight weeks of vacation this year. If you can’t afford it, then that doesn’t work for you.
How else can you create rest? What can you do to create more rest in your life and in your world? For those of you who are like, I’m in a place and space and business where I need all the money I can get, I can’t have that. Okay. Then, again, you need to push out of your comfort zone and it goes back to what do I need to do to create that vision of success? What are the steps I need to take to get there?
For Liz, she has, she said the money that she wants. She’s been pushing in the grow, grow, grow. Now she wants something different. So what do you need to do to create that? If you’re at a place in stage and business where you’re like, I need more money and I need it stat. That’s great. That’s not going to come from a comfort zone either. That’s going to come from strategic work.
It doesn’t have to be exhausting work. It has to be strategic work, systematized work. Can’t be shot in the dark throwing strategies at a dartboard work. It has to actually be a plan. That’s going to be the difference and that’s how you’re going to save yourself from the danger and the overwhelm and all the other things.
Kind of a closing thought here. I want you to think of what happens when you hit cruise control. You can look this up. Look at the dangers of driving on cruise control. There is a significantly increased risk of distracted driving, texting and driving, chatting it up with your friends while you’re driving, drowsiness, falling asleep at the wheel, speeding unsafely, being on autopilot.
These are not the things we want for our life and business. We don’t want our life or business to be distracted, drowsy, speeding, or on autopilot. I am certain that’s not what you want for your life. So why are you choosing cruise control? We can’t be choosing comfort zones.
Get in the driver’s seat with me, friend. It doesn’t have to be a stressful ride. It doesn’t have to be an exhausting ride. It has to be a ride with purpose. This is your lifetime. I’m here to help you create it, but let’s create it strategically instead of sitting in that passenger seat hoping we end up where we’re looking to go.
You guys so much love, happy business building, and I’ll see you on the next one.
