Hey.

Hey.

Welcome to your day off.

My name is Corey, and today I get to sit with one of my oldest friends in the industry, one, certainly one that I admire, who also has a podcast of his own.

Today we are.

We're talking to Robert Lawrence Hughes and a little backstory, and I wish Tony was here to kind of like back it up.

But.

But we've known Rob for about 20 years, and a few years ago, he.

He started a podcast, which I think is.

Is fascinating.

First off, I'm a big fan of podcasting, and I'm a big fan of podcasters, and then we certainly like to help out certainly with podcast as we can.

So Robert's coming in, and then he brought on a guest as well.

So I'm excited to talk to both him and his guest today.

But, Rob, buddy, what's up, man?

Hey, what's up, Corey?

How you doing?

I'm doing pretty amazing, man.

I'm happy for the guests that you came in.

But, you know, anybody that's listening, a little backstory, or not backstory, but a little whatever, is that Robert is going to release this podcast on his network, and we're going to release it certainly on our network, and that's why you're listening in.

But, But Robert, give us the.

Give us the two seconds or give us the elevator pitch of Hairdress Strong.

So the Hairdresser Strong show started off as a.

As an attempt to bridge the expectation gap between salon owners and rising stylists and cosmetology students.

And we've sent, We've continued with that as our core, with an evolution to becoming the place where you can learn how people achieve success in various forms, whether it's.

Whether it's a salon owner, a suite renter, a product line, a tool line, an app, a conference, or whatever.

We've interviewed somebody who's done it, multiple people who have done it, and so you can go and check that out.

If that's something you want to do, then we hope that you can start your journey off with us at the Hairdresser Strong show.

Dude, I love that.

I love what you're up to, and I love the conversations that you've had.

And, you know, it's just really neat.

I mean, you know, a.

As a friend and then.

And to kind of watch that you've lived in this space.

And, you know, with.

It's funny because with.

With a lot of podcasts and I'm sure you see this, like, there's so many podcasts that are started, but very few that are Ended, you know, so it's always neat to kind of see like, you know, you're in the grind of the podcast as well because it's been a few years.

Yeah, yeah, we, I was just looking.

We have closing in on 250 interviews and January will be four years since we started, so.

Yeah.

And then a big like, you know, thanks to you for helping, helping us out along the way.

It's been a big help.

I recommend everybody out there, if you want success, find community, because that is really is the answer.

I believe I, I believe, I believe that as well.

I was actually watching, I saw like a, I think it was a tick tocker or maybe not tick talk for long, but it's either a TikTok or a, an Instagram meme today.

But it was this company that started.

Rob, I have to send it to you.

But their community first, before commerce is kind of, there is kind of their, their tag and, and what it is is it's like this, they call it a third place.

So it's not your workspace, it's not your home, but it's a third place where you can kind of like there's some run clubs that are doing it, there's some coffee houses that are doing it.

It's kind of, to me, as I was watching, it's kind of the old bookstore, like model, you know, it's like place where people can gather.

But, but more than a bookstore, it's more community based as opposed to just going and hanging out, you know, or a library kind of thing.

But I kind of remember, you know, pre Amazon where you know, you would just go to a bookstore and you would hang out with your, your friends and stuff and you know, again, community before commerce.

I found it very interesting.

I don't know how it works for us, you know, even if it's supposed to work for us.

But, but, but it was interesting and when I saw it this morning, I go, I bet you Robert, like would be interested in this.

Yeah, that sounds, I love that, that sounds so good.

Yeah, we, we, we love to bring, get people together in person and I don't know, I feel like that's kind of a great, great segue into introducing our guest.

Well, I think, well, certainly us at Hairdustry, you guys over at Hairdresser Strong, and our guests today, we've all done in person events and that'll be interesting conversation.

Let's get in.

Yeah.

So today we have Deborah Neal Baker, who's a 47 year industry veteran.

She started off an esthetician and got into sales.

And now she is a principal and the chief energy officer at Neil Corporation, where they host.

They do a number of things.

The one thing that I'm excited about that's coming up is the serious business.

We were there last year.

It was super awesome.

So I'm super excited to see and very inspirational.

So I'm super excited to have Deborah did a chance to talk to you today.

Very excited.

I'm very happy to be here with you guys.

Thank you for inviting me.

Of course, man.

Thank you.

Well, I think this is.

This is a proper time to give a big shout out to Gordon Miller because he kind of put us all together and you know, what a great.

What a great advocate for.

For the entire industry.

You know, We.

I just love Gordon so much.

He has so much to offer, and every day is offering something like.

I don't even know how he keeps up with.

With the content that he's putting out.

You know, it's just.

He's just amazing.

We.

I get his newsletter every Monday and literally it's.

It's, you know, the.

The one piece of email that.

That I'm happy to get so I can kind of like, browse through and see what.

See what his thinking is.

So Robbie brought up serious business.

How long has that been?

First off, tell us a little bit about serious business and how long has it been around?

It's been.

This will be our 26th year in January.

Nice.

It's a.

It was really.

It's a conference, a gathering, a symposium.

I don't know.

It's.

We started out, we.

It was developed as a result of thinking about.

We had always done a lot of hair shows and lots of education, lots of technical education.

And we thought, you know, really what we thought we needed as well as the industry, the salon owners and professionals, we needed more business acumen.

And instead of just listening to ourselves, we designed an event where we brought in a lot of speakers, authors, teachers from outside of our industry, along with industry people.

So it was really.

It was really the brainchild of my late husband, Edwin.

And it's funny, he was.

He was part of tia, the Salon Association.

This was like going way back, right?

You guys are even too young to remember any of this.

And they had an event and they.

It was very popular with a certain group of people.

And then they shut it down and Edwin was like, okay, this.

We, you know, so we've been doing it for 26 years and it's.

It's intended to expose, evoke, and evolve our thinking.

That's our mantra, tagline.

And also it's a neutral.

That's the other thing that we, you know, we're committed to is that, you know, because so often we get stuck in our, you know, I'm, you know, it's kind of an example with you guys and me.

I've not really met you before.

I may not.

And it's because we get, you know, we get the blinders on and we're in our, you know, manufacturer, brand, all of that.

And we decided this was going to be nothing about product, nothing about.

It was all about development, leadership development and business development.

So that's how it came to, Came about.

That's pretty, it's pretty amazing to kind of be able to work outside of the, I don't know, the brands.

You know, like, we've, we certainly are in that, you know, within our event space stuff.

You know, we're working, we're working with the brands.

But, but it's interesting that you've.

That, that you've been able to kind of create that.

Have you seen a difference in, in the last, you said 26 years, 27 years, have you seen a difference in, in how people are attending events or, or has there been any differences or.

In that time and, and I mean, industry wide, not just like, not just like how the, how the event has evolved, but have you seen stuff about.

Just.

Gordon and I talked about that on a podcast I do with him about events.

And there's so many, there's lots of options now and we're really talking about that.

The intention of the event, whatever.

The intention of the event, whether it's, you know, true technical education or business development, whatever, is that the intention of the event and the intention of the person choosing what events they're going to go to?

I really do have always.

Serious business has always been one of those where it started out as primarily salon owners and managers.

But then what happened is we noticed that the salon owners and managers would go back to the salons and it's hard to, you know, regurgitate all of that information and all that inspiration and ideas and thinking.

So they started bringing more of their staff, encouraging more of their staff to come.

So, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a mix, but it's certainly for us.

And that, you know, kind of a conference has become more of a.

And it's, it's also kind of a training ground for the salon owners and managers will bring their leadership, you know, and it goes back to what we were, you guys were talking about earlier about community.

You can't do it by yourself, you know, you, you know, so that's what, what I've noticed with our event and hair shows, like real hair shows that I've, you know, that kind of has waned.

I, I think from my observation, you know, like, I mean, we're connected with Aveda and they have Congress, which is a huge hair show, but they only do it every other year because, you know, so.

I don't know what.

I mean, you tell me.

You're.

You're probably.

What do you see happening?

I have a question on that.

Corey, what do you think?

And Premiere, you've been going every year for a while.

Have you seen big events, attendance go down?

Or is it.

I don't.

I, you know, I don't know.

You know, because first off, let's be clear, like, you know, like, pre pandemic event space and post pandemic are just different spaces now.

And with that, you know, there was like two or three super light years, both at Premier and at abs.

But I have noticed like the last two years that, you know, it seems like attendance is back.

I remember to 2abs ago, it was a Monday morning and coincidentally, ironically, whatever, you know, I'm sitting on the main floor there with, with Gordon Miller.

And on Monday morning, we both commented that, oh, my gosh, this feels like Saturday.

It feels like the big events are back.

You know, now that could also, you know, that could be polluted as well, considering the two years before that, you know, that same hallway was empty.

You know, so to see anybody could feel like a big.

Could feel like a big show or not.

And, you know, I just trust in those.

But, you know, even Rob, even with those big shows, you know, I, that I think they're really good for what they are.

But.

And you know, they are.

They are the brand side of our industry.

And I think we can all agree that we need the brand side of our industry.

You know, do I find that it's a great place to learn?

No, you know, I think, I think that it's even, even though there's some great classrooms set up there, I know when I walk to, when I walk the show floor, when I get off the show floor, it takes me a good 30 or 40 minutes to kind of like settle in.

So even if I'm sitting in a class that's.

That's 45 minutes long, you know, it could be 30 minutes before I'm actually settled in my seat to be able to, to be in a space to learn I don't know if it's ADD or any acronym that you want to put on it, but I just know that, that that's my experience and certainly we're our event space and yours, Robby, is different than that.

You know, our, our event space is, is, you know, we jump in with kind of the learn.

And I know that your space is more conference style, but I'd even like to get into that.

I mean I think that there's so many different.

And I love the idea of conference styles.

It's not what I do, but I love attending those.

Even when we were in Robbie, even when we were in Chicago, that was more conference kind of style with some real wins in there.

But what are you thinking, Rob?

Well, I guess I just have another question just to curiosity make sure I'm talking about this and have all the information.

Deborah, what does Neil do other events?

Can you just tell us like a elevator pitch on what exactly all that Neil is involved in and does.

Well, it's.

It would be the longest elevator pitch because we've been around for over 75 years.

We're into the or a third generation family business.

So we've been in the industry.

It's over 75 years.

So we.

And what we offer, I mean we've been through all kinds of, you know, we were a multi.

Well we started out as like stores.

We had stores that hairdressers went and bought it bought.

And then we did a major shift and we did multi line district distribution.

We were the first ones to decide to be what they call a concept distributor and just have one line and.

But we've always done lots of education.

No matter who we were connected to.

I mean we were.

And it's so funny to even say we were Redken's first million dollar distributor like 45 years ago.

I mean but.

But so you know, we've always been.

Education has always been at the core of what we're about.

And of course it was technical education, hair shows and you know, we still do.

We.

We don't produce hair shows like we did as often.

We just don't.

We're a little more focused on real, you know, hands on education and.

But we do, I mean we do it all.

I.

What?

I don't know.

We.

This last year we did hundreds of events, everything from insulin to small gatherings.

I mean it's.

And you know, we do elevate too.

I mean, I don't know if you.

An elevate is kind of a.

It's a hair gathering.

It's a hair jam.

And it, again, is neutral.

It's not.

I mean, it's really a.

Tatum.

My stepson is the only hairdresser in the family, and he.

It was his.

It's his baby.

And he.

Wait a second.

Wait a second.

We got to do that again.

So Tatum's your stepson?

Yeah.

That's fascinating to me.

No, I've known Tatum for years.

I mean, there you go.

There you go.

I think we met in 2018.

I didn't realize.

Whoa.

That's so cool.

Yeah, yeah, Tatum's.

Tatum's my.

My stepson.

And he.

Like I said, we.

And my.

My late husband, Michael Baker, was a hairdresser for all of his life.

And he.

We really kind of talked Tatum into becoming a hairdresser.

And.

And it.

At first he was like, okay, I'll go.

I'll go.

Give it a shot.

And, you know, and he ended up in New York at the Aveda Institute, and they went to work for.

Oh, gosh, I just had.

His events are really cool, though.

Like.

Oh, his.

Yeah, it is a jam.

It's a jam.

It's music.

It's really.

No talking, which.

They're just up there jamming.

And it's all.

It's hairdressers from every segment, every brand.

It doesn't matter.

And they all come together.

And yeah, Tatum has done a really.

So really for us, serious business and elevate are our two completely neutral events.

And when you say neutral, you're saying without brands or.

What do you mean by brands?

No brands.

Yeah.

I mean, we got a.

You know, and in the beginning, that was hard to do because our brand relationships were like, you know, felt like, should have them there.

And we're like, no, this is a different.

You know, we're doing this differently.

We want to.

We want everybody to come together so.

From the event space.

So, like, all your costs are covered by.

By the ticket sales.

Is that.

Is that the.

That.

That's the only, like, thing that you're selling?

We have.

Well, we.

We have a small.

You know, I say small.

Small exhibit area because when you're talking about these big shows like Premiere, those are kind of almost like shopping events.

Yeah.

Right.

And so we don't really have that.

We.

The people that are.

The vendors that are in the exhibit area are more business oriented, like software, and it's not.

It's not shampoo, and it's not that group of.

So it's more business resources.

So.

But, yeah, our ticket sales.

That's right.

We, you know, definitely have Done this just, it's a, it's a gift.

But it's a gift to us too because, you know, we, we create something that we all need.

I mean, we, we have about 800 employees at Neal Corporation, and you know, we own 18 Aveda Institutes and we have our own corporate salons in, in and around New Orleans.

So we, you know, we're, we've been all in and for, for our life, for our entire life cycle.

So.

So have you noticed we, so I, I, I'm getting to interview Steve Reese from Pivot Point.

And I know, I know Corey interviewed him and they were talking.

There's this research that they have about events.

Have you had a chance.

Are you familiar with what I'm talking about?

I've heard of.

I don't know anything about it, so please tell me.

Okay, well, I'll, the, I'll just share.

I mean, and Corey will probably have more.

But the piece that I, that is sticking into my head right now is.

Well, there's two pieces.

The, the expectation of higher value from, from, from attendees is, was one of the things that stuck out.

Like they want a lot for a little or they want more for what they historically paid for.

That's kind of what my, how I got it.

And then the other one was that people are, are looking for things that are local or closer or they don't want to travel as much.

And I don't know.

Have you seen anything?

I mean, our, the event that we host is a local event.

We don't, we don't fly people in.

We work with the DMV people in the dmv.

There's so much incredible talent here.

So we just kind of do something for the local industry.

But, but I like, love serious business.

Like, I'll be going every year.

Like, I went one year and I want to go every single year.

So I feel like that is a little bit of maybe and there's nothing else quite like it, but nonetheless, that research.

Have you seen anything, any of that impacting what you're doing in any of the events?

I guess no.

I mean, we have, we do lots of local, you know, events, but, and most of those are technical events, you know, technical training and, but with serious business, you know, where our attendees.

It hasn't really, it hasn't really grown that much in numbers.

You know, it ends up being, I think the, the highest attended year we had was we had like 1800, which was, you know, but we really always kind of are around 1200 people.

And it doesn't seem it doesn't.

It kind of stays in that.

In that.

In that spot.

But I think that, again, it goes back to the intention.

I think that people that come to that kind of event are very intentional about what they're coming for and, you know, the value.

And maybe there's less expectation around some of these huge, you know, events like Premier they're going for.

It's kind of an experience like, I don't know, it's very, very different.

But I have noticed that.

I mean, our attendance hasn't really grown a lot, but it stays right kind of where it is.

And it's.

For me, for what we're doing, I think that 1200, 1500 people is enough.

It's enough.

I think it's enough.

I think it's enough.

Now, my stepson who runs the company, he might disagree with me, but there's something about that number of people.

We do it in a.

We do it in a theater.

The general session is all in a theater, which is a different experience.

And then we do breakout.

So I.

I think that it's kind of like when a salon expands, sometimes they lose a little bit of their.

You know, so I'd like to keep it kind of where it is because we don't.

Listen, I'll be completely honest.

We don't do it to make money.

We, in fact, we don't usually have to see a profit.

We do it as if we break even.

That's, you know, because we're really doing it for a different intention, a different reason.

You know, that makes complete sense to me.

So with, With.

With that, can you actually, since I'm the only one that hasn't been to serious business, can you kind of break down like.

Like what it is?

Like, if I'm attending, like what, Because I'm coming next year, so what.

What's my expectation?

What am I going to see?

And, And Rob, if you want to jump in here as well, by all means, but I give the floor to you, Deb.

Okay, well, first of all, I have a thing about expectation.

I would advise you to let go of expectations and come with an open mind and open heart and get into the.

I mean, of course, that's my philosophy about life, basically.

Do you.

Do you know that unfulfilled expectation causes more stress on humans and upset than really anything else?

So we walk around with all these expectations, but serious business is, like I said earlier, we bring.

And it's.

It's all about personal development leading to business development, and there's business development addressed there, too.

But we've always had a philosophy that all business development is sourced and personal development, which is also leadership development.

And it's, it's really.

I think that now that there's so much awareness about mental health.

Well, we've always, We've always been highly aware of the value of working.

We call it working on yourself.

I mean, if you can't lead your own life, it's kind of hard to lead a business and lead other people.

So, you know, what you'll find at Serious Business is a mix of speakers in general session.

We try to cover the whole person, you know, you know, everything from, you know, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual.

I mean, the whole, the whole gambit.

And that's where we bring in a lot of outside speakers.

I mean, we've had like, Brene Brown and Black Girl.

I mean, we had so many.

Mel Robbins was.

We had her a few years ago.

We've always kind of had a lot of energy around trying to find people that haven't quite.

They're on their way, but they haven't quite gotten there.

So they're really more.

They're really open.

And like, when we had Mel Robbins, she was just starting out as a speaker.

And so we always laugh.

We try to get them before they're $80,000, of course.

That's really cool.

It's cool for two reasons.

A, that.

Well, I have two comments.

I guess not too cool.

It's cool that.

That you're looking outside of the industry.

I think so.

So often, so many times.

And I'm a bazillion percent guilty of it.

Like, we look inside of the industry, but there, but there's just a.

It's very interesting to me and I would love to get your perspective and Rob's perspective about it that, like, we have a hard time looking outside of the industry or that we believe that the hair business is a different type of business than just business.

You know, like, like we like to, like, we, we like to pretend like this is different.

The, the business side of our industry is different than any other business.

It's a little bit different, don't you think?

I mean, I, I think.

No, no, no.

I.

Well, no, I'm.

I mean, it's.

It's unique.

It's.

I call it special.

I call it special because.

No, no, no, no, don't get me wrong.

But, but spreadsheets work the way the spreadsheets work, right?

So that part of the business is the business.

We are unique in the social aspect.

We are unique in the community aspect.

We are unique in and we have the opportunity, it's not even about being unique.

We have the opportunity to affect community.

We have the opportunity to affect a lot.

However, what I'm talking about is specifically what your software is telling you.

You know what, you know that.

But we like to pretend like it's something different.

You know, I mean even before we got on we talked a little bit about hustle culture and really like, and I put my two cents in when it comes to that is that I'm just fearful that those that aren't willing to hustle are going to get walked over by those that want to hustle.

I just think that that's like a basic, it's just a basic business thing.

Now that doesn't mean it has to be toxic to you.

You know, I think that the mental health side of it, if it's, if it's not, if it's not serving you, then you know, just have a different conversation with you.

But I think just to put like a stamp on hustle culture sucks or hustle culture isn't it?

I mean hustle culture might not be for you and that's fine, but just understand that it's a different game, you know, like, like and you're gonna, and.

You'Re probably gonna have a different outcome.

Yeah, I mean I think that, that, I think that that's it and I'm fair for those that, that are, that are doubling down on lack of hustle culture may get left behind.

But anyways, Aside from those 2 cents, again, I think it's neat that you're bringing outside people in and that business is business when it comes to, you know, a spreadsheet.

Yeah, well, businesses, business is business and it's really.

Businesses really isn't business really just a bunch of people coming together.

So I mean the, you know, that's why at core at source we think that the well being, the evolution of the individual salon owner and manager, those are key to having the business results that you're talking about.

Without, without, without that you're not going to have very great data, you know.

So I always say if you can't, if you can't learn to, can't lead your own life, you're going to have a challenge, you know, having others, you know, follow you and listen.

So it's.

And we do have, and at serious business we do have business.

The breakouts main stage is kind of the why and the what if.

And then the breakouts are more the what and the how.

So they go deeper into the breakouts and oftentimes like this year, we have a lot of the main stage speakers are then also doing breakouts.

So they, you know, take a higher level look at what their ideas are on main stage and then they go deeper in the breakouts.

But people always, I mean, if people walk away with, with the feeling and thinking that they can do it, that's always been kind of, yeah, I can do this.

But you know, that's always been kind of our, that's what we want to create.

People realizing that they can do it and are inspired to do it.

Yeah, I was, you know, I was thinking like between the two of you, which y'all are both talking about, the thought that comes to my mind is we go into the schools now we're going into the high school cosmetology programs and talking to the students about, we don't actually talk to them about the craft at all.

We talk to them about the fact that the first, like it doesn't, like if you're getting into this industry, then you, and you're going to be working behind the chair.

It's important that you understand some basic level of business and some basic level of money and finance.

It could be, it could be very low level, but you have to have it.

And the school system, our school system does not, does not deliver that, that type of information.

Like I think that everybody should know what compound interest is, cash flow, opportunity cost.

I think that if you don't understand what the importance of a six month or three month or whatever, emergency fund, etc, and so like even at the most basic level, but like we talk, we tell the students like it does, even you, you want to go into business early on, straight out of school or as soon as possible.

And we tell them that the first business they're building, they are going straight into business even when they go and work for somebody else.

Because the first business they're building is their book of business.

And in order to build your book of business, you have to have basic business understanding, you have to have etiquette understanding, customer service, what are the new trends in consumer behavior, et cetera.

And I would say like that that's one of the things that I liked about serious businesses.

I felt like you were getting some and some of it might be more advanced than for like your rising stylist, but not if they're part of a company that the owner is going to serious business.

So like seeing some people together that of different ranges within the same was really cool because, because that's what we try to do with everything that we do is, you know, make good on the business, finance, money, financial literacy, financial education, but also just, you know, how do you be successful in this industry?

And I think I love the.

I love the idea of keeping the mental health aspect kind of always there because it wasn't.

Hasn't always been there.

And I would say that 26 years ago is a little ahead of the time because I think it took.

I think it took Covid for us all to catch the mental health piece to everything now because it's like we all have kind of woken up to the fact that that's a huge piece.

And I think that's where the hustle culture gets a bad rap is because I think it's attached to burnout.

And so I think it's time to just redefine.

Redefine.

There you go.

I like that.

Robert.

I think that we should, you know, words have energy, they have vibration.

Maybe we should that instead of calling it Hustle, which has now has this, you know, we should call it something else.

You know, I thought you were going.

To come with, like, what we should call it now.

I thought you were going to come with, like, we should be calling it, but you left us out to dry there, Devin.

Yes, sorry about that.

No worries.

Talking about, I know that people, you know, there's a charge on.

I don't want to be part of that hustle culture.

But, but, you know, like we said earlier, when you.

With mental health, part of mental health is you've got to get yourself into action.

And, you know, you can call it hustle if you want to, but it's.

It'S, you know, I was talking to Ambrosia.

If you don't know Ambrosia, she's, she's a great follower.

She has a podcast as Ambrosia Carey, and we were chatting about it and she said, I'm no longer using balance.

I'm not looking for work life balance.

What I'm looking for is work life harmony.

And I thought that, that, that, that just kind of switched everything.

And like, when I go, oh, you know what?

That makes more sense.

It's like, how do we make this work and how do we make it?

I'll use the word serve again, but how do we make it?

How do we make both of them serve me?

So again, I, I give you permission that if you're not.

Again, if you're against hustle culture, find some kind of harmony.

What is going to serve you or how is it going to serve you?

And if it's not serving you, then it's not for you, you know, and that's fine too.

I always think balance is bullshit, but.

I think we, I think we just got the title of the podcast.

I mean, it's really, you know, balance is like this, right?

So it's not never a steady state.

It can never be.

It's never equal.

So, you know, I thank you so much.

Like, I, I go to the salon to work a day behind the chair.

My day is way out of balance that day.

And then I go into this and then I go and I'm working in the office on our startup, making no money, but I'm grinding.

I'm like putting in some of these hours.

And then it's like, okay, well, that's not balanced there either.

You know, it kind of makes, it's kind of like the concept of multitasking.

I heard, my wife told me that she was in some sort of like, me talk.

There was, she was listening to someone talk about it and she said they were saying that there's no such thing as multitasking.

You, you can't multitask.

When you multitask, you're just giving more energy.

You're never giving the same amount of energy to anything.

And it's called task flipping.

The ability to jump between tasks is the actual power that we call multitasking.

But we need to stop calling it multitasking.

And I kind of like, that's the vibe I'm getting from here as well.

It's funny, there's a, there's a book that, from, I don't know, probably 30 years ago, it's called power versus force.

It's an old book and it actually measures.

They have, they've measured the vibration of words.

It's very interesting.

I'm a word person.

I love to.

There's a thought that all learning is in making distinctions.

So I always like to make all these distinctions with words.

And I like, okay, well, and I get really tired.

I get bored with using the same language.

I'm, I'm, I'm currently bored with even culture.

I mean, wait, I get bored with, I get bored, I've gotten bored of purpose, passion.

I mean, look, it's all, I, I, I'm not saying, I'm just, I'm just.

It'S so you're wordsmithing.

Like, like we need a different word, you know, it's just wordsworthy.

I, I, I totally, I totally get that.

Well, I'm gonna pre apologize because my vocabulary is about 100 words, so I probably Gotten to our limits.

So now it's just like more words that I'm the, the more of the same words that, that's going around and around and around.

Yeah, it's, it's, it.

This is an interesting conversation.

You know, by itself, I think, you know, just, just how, how we position ourselves as an industry.

I want, I also kind of want to.

Rob, you brought up a great point that I don't think we talk enough about and certainly like young hairstylists don't talk enough about.

And this.

And back to your point earlier too, Deb, is that we are a different industry because even though you're a W employee, you're still building a business.

And I think that we need to be, we need to be responsible for that.

Like.

And by the way, what a unique situation that we've all been in in the industry that you have a four foot by four foot box that is your business that you get to make mistakes in when it comes to your business.

You get to learn stuff in your business without it costing you really anything.

And the salon, in the salon or the salon owner's responsibility is to help you through that is to guide you through where the mistakes were made.

You know, I think that I've said it on the podcast and I think serious business might be the solution to this is that I think the biggest, one of the biggest.

This is not everybody, but I think we've all seen it is that I think one of the biggest holdbacks for us as an industry is that we're hairstylists that want to open a salon where we need to be leaders that want to open a salon.

And I think that we're always about a decade behind leadership skills before we are salon ownership skills.

And, and I think that, that I, I think if we could.

I think every, not every.

Let me back up.

Lots of toxic situations within a salon end.

When you want to be a leader in a salon and not be a hair stylist that owns a salon.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because the, the, the, the most successful salon owners are, are usually damn good leaders.

I think that's it.

I mean, you know, your business is, your business is determined about, you know, how long people stay with you or how, you know, how you're building your business.

I don't know.

I just.

Again, when you hear so many.

And by the way, I've been incredibly fortunate because I've always had great leaders in my, in my, in my industry path.

I remember Robert, you'll relate to this because we worked at the salon together.

But, like, when Tabitha's takeover came on, this, you know, came on, like, everything that she was teaching was just static, status quo for us.

Like, I didn't, like, I'm watching the show and I'm like, what do you mean?

Like, I didn't realize, because I was a young stylist and stuff, I didn't realize that that was unique.

Well, you.

You put yourself.

I mean, you put yourself in the right situations.

So it's really, it's really your.

Your ability to make good decisions, which is really a whole other conversation.

Right.

You know, the quality of our business and life is really about the quality of our decisions.

Deborah, do you know Reg Laws?

I don't.

He.

He.

He's a.

He's a local salon owner here in D.C.

and he had.

I mean, at one point, I think he had like 15 or 16 salons.

But.

But Robbie and I both came up in that.

In that world.

And there you go.

And I'm super, like, I'm super grateful for.

To him for that.

Because, because again, the, the best, the best example that I can get is watching Tabitha's takeover and everything that she was teaching was just status quo for us.

Like, I didn't realize that there was other salons that weren't doing that kind of stuff.

Robbie.

Well, you know, I.

This, this is a conversation that brushes up against something that Sammy and I are working on right now.

And because, okay, so I have worked at great salons with great people, great owners, and I'm now managing a salon.

And we came from a salon that we found out that they were shaving a fraction of a percent off of our income for every couple years.

And, like, you know, we could discuss responsibility, but the important thing is that we realized that we could not trust.

And our.

The.

Our owner and I worked at other salons where I saw people get kicked out, their stuff thrown out and the doors locked and said, you know, like, in front of the clients and stuff.

So, like, I've had.

I've had quite the spectrum of experiences and, and when we think about.

And I, I'm sorry to.

I feel like I'm kind of taking us on a little bit of a.

Term, but, like, let's go, let's go, let's go.

I'm excited.

I love to go down rabbit holes.

This current, this, this, this topic is like, I have a theory that the toxicity has, you know, historically, prior to social media, it was like we were kind of all siloed off.

We didn't really understand the opportunities and all the other players in the game very well because it was really like a who do you know kind of thing.

And then like Google had Google Maps and was listening businesses and then, and then like we could like look and see what other players are on there, but we had no insight into what was going on.

And so we're picking places based off of what either someone says and if you need to switch salons, how much time are you taking to look at all the salons that you see or you jump in ship and going into another ship and hoping that it's going to be good.

But, but like, no, historically I haven't seen it to be a typical behavior of a hairdresser to go and like vet the style, the salons before they go and work for them.

Now, now it.

I feel like that is kind of what we were talking about.

That was what I, I felt like part of what we were talking about.

And then I went straight to the students in school and then it's like thinking about, like, how are they going to have success?

Yes, we need, they need to be educated.

But the reality is like they think they know what they're getting into and they walk and then they go.

And then they're.

But it's the same thing.

It's like now that we have all this information, we're making these decisions for where we're going to go work based off of who has the coolest social media, which does not translate into a good leadership, good boss, strong culture, mentorship training.

That is actually training like the amount of students that have called me crying, saying, like, oh my gosh, I, you know, they said they'd train me and I'd be on the floor in three months.

But three months went by, I haven't had one class and the owner told me, I've been teaching you this whole time.

Aren't you watching?

You know what I mean?

So like, gotta go below the surface.

Who's below?

Social media is really the surface.

There's nothing wrong with it.

It's just you got to go below the surface if you.

And making.

And making decisions like that.

So, yeah, sorry, I just.

But then it goes back to.

It goes down to.

It's like that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your decisions.

And then the quality.

What determines the quality of your decisions, it's the quality of your thinking.

So the thinking is what we have always been the most like, obsessed with.

My, My late husband was so obsessed that, I mean, we did a critical thinking.

We went out to California twice a year for seven years to be part of a critical thinking group.

And this was 30 years ago.

So we've always been all about, you know, how do we evolve our thinking?

And, you know, we worked on our values.

We did values work 40 years ago.

And before, you know, we were, we were basically just to.

Just to, you know, give you an example of why we are the way we are today or who we are as Neil.

We.

My late husband was really an old hippie, and I was one of those in between generations where I wanted to be a hippie, but I was too young.

I was, I came along too late.

So we were what we called workshop junkies.

We went to every.

And they called it self help.

We went to every personal development thing that we.

And we would.

We just started bringing it back to the company.

So, you know, it's.

But that it goes back to the leadership.

Leadership and being.

And we felt responsible for our, the people that worked with us.

Do you find.

I mean, I, you know, speaking from my experience, is that, you know, my, my thinking didn't get better.

I think thinking is directly related to age, you know, and certainly, you know, being a male, like, like, you know, Until I was 25 or 26, you.

Know, you guys are a little, yeah, you're a little, A little slower to.

Oh, yeah, no, yeah, yeah.

I don't think, I don't think there's any doubt in that, but, you know, till 25 or 26, you know, like, we're like all like, fired up and, you know, until our testosterone starts to drop a little bit, like, like, there is no thinking, you know, or, or not the right kind of thinking, you know, so until like that kind of.

It slows down.

But it was really, for me, it was almost like until my late 30s and, or, or, or, or early 40s where I started to realize how.

This is such a weird use of words, but I'll give it to you.

Thank you, Deborah.

Is that how important my own critical think, meaning being critical of myself?

Thinking is where I was so scared to be.

Critical of myself because, you know, of all my other insecurities.

But I had to drop some of those insecurities before I could really think clearly.

Now, sobriety and all that stuff help, however, you know, that, that, that's kind of where everything started to slow down for me and I could actually start to witness my life from an outsider as opposed to an insider, you know, so I'm curious.

Well, I don't know.

Let's, let's, let's hash that out.

Rob, you've got the floor.

Insider versus that.

Sorry.

I was.

Yeah, yeah, I was all over the place with everything.

I was saying that.

I was saying that it took me till like almost my 40s to become an outside observer of my life as opposed to internal observer of my life.

And for me the internal one is where a lot of my insecurities lived.

It was like working to impress others without really like, you know, just.

I just was.

I was able to turn the camera around and like look at my life and look at my.

And my actions and my responsibilities.

Yeah, I mean I just feel like one.

I, I always envision myself a certain way and.

And the more as time goes on, I'm constantly a reflector.

Like I, I mean even on, from one day to the next, I'll sit and think about every conversation I had and oh my gosh, how stupid was I when I said that?

Oh my gosh, I hope they don't remember that I said that.

You know, stuff like that.

I've always been like that.

But it's always, it's never really.

It's only slowly started to impact my decision making in a big way.

It's.

I guess it was really slow.

I think like having like self awareness is really important but, but man, I.

This kind.

This is, this, this.

We've gone down it.

We've gone down a rabbit hole.

That's going to be really hard to come back out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think this is, I think this.

I think you should probably save this for another because it's so deep, but it's so important.

Yeah, I think, I think ultimately.

Sorry, I.

I think ultimately if.

If what?

I.

I feel like I got some really good advice when I was young and that was to.

And I was an apprentice and I was told to let the experts be the experts, but stand over their shoulder and ask them questions what they're doing.

So the next expert you work with, you know how to talk to them and the lingo.

You never tried to do everything yourself.

And also I had a mentor within the first year I was on the, on the floor.

He walked in and got a haircut.

He thought he loved all my ideas and he offered to be my mentor.

And he said ask people questions.

People ask people for help because people want to help you because everybody had someone help them.

So I guess that would be my response to that and not to say that I don't run away in my own beliefs about what I think is reality because I.

There has been so many points of my life where I'VE looked back and said, oh my gosh, my, my thought of reality.

Like, I always thought I was a busy person and now that we have a real startup where we're like building this platform and we're busy, like, I never knew, I realized I never knew what busy was.

And so that means that all of my beliefs back and going back and on hustle culture and work ethic and everything, I, they, I need to reimagine them all, you know, so that's, look.

I mean, how, how much of what we thought we knew.

I'm not just talking about our industry, I'm talking about general that we think we know to be true ends up not being true.

I mean it's, you know, because if I could call on something else, I would call it on our belief systems.

That's why, I mean I, you know, because we get, we get stuck in what we believe to be so.

And a lot of times it's not so.

And even if it was thought to be so at the time, a few years from now we'll look back and like, do you believe that that's what we thought?

Was that really so, you know, I think and all of this conversation is all what I, I love.

And it's probably that's why things like serious business for me are just an expression of.

And bringing that to other people.

Because you said it, Robert.

I mean, being self aware and reflective, which is, you know, and I say self aware and reflective.

I don't mean like reflective in a depressing way, a depressed way, because that's what we, you know, that's what we tend to do as humans.

So anyway, it's, you know, it's all kind of complicated, but it, so all of this is developmental.

I mean, you guys both, you, you, you're both married.

Yes.

Yep.

And have children.

I have grandchildren.

So yeah.

Well, me and they, I haven't.

But I think that I compare.

Oh, I'll tell you somebody you should start following and recommend.

Dr.

Becky Kennedy.

She, they're calling her the, the new doctor doctor not Seuss.

Anyway, what she, she teaches, she talks about parenting.

But leading is parenting and parenting is leading.

So being having a partner, there's probably two things that are the most developmental for a human being.

Marriage and parenting.

You will get developed, you know.

So, you know, I think of our salon owners and leading their staff is.

It's a, it's a parenting role to a great deal.

I'm going to take us back a little bit is that.

And only because I have a real I have an opinion about this.

Is that what I've realized is that change isn't what's new.

Right?

Like, because change to me is exciting.

You know, it's being on cloud nine in a new relationship.

It's a.

Change is exciting.

The hard part is always getting.

Leaving a belief system that you once had.

That's always been, that's always been the hardest part of change, you know, but if you can kind of like, recognize that, like, oh, that was an old belief system.

As I've gotten older, I've.

I'm trying to disconnect with.

Not disconnect.

That's.

That's the wrong word.

Recognize that this is just a belief system and I don't have to be connected to ever forever for it.

Over the last two years, part of my practice is not to be connected to any outcome that I don't either manifest or control.

So if it's, if, you know, like, try to remove.

Now I'm a terrible, like, friend now because I don't care about sports anymore, which was a big part of my life and stuff.

Because, because.

And this is just a byproduct of it.

It wasn't like, it wasn't intentional to not be like a, a sports fan or a team fan, I should say, because I'm still a fan of sport.

I.

To like, watch sport and recognize.

And I kind of see the, the, the.

The actors in sport as artists now.

Like, I kind of see, like.

But it's not because I'm not connected to win or loss.

You know, I can, like, oh, that was an awesome play by, you know, this person who last year would have hated because he was on a different team.

Now I'm terrible in that sense.

But, but as.

As talk about mental health, being able to remove any connection to outcome or certainly I'm trying to do that has been just absolutely glorious.

You know, certainly it's liberating not to have expectations, you know, of others.

Right.

Like, or to believe.

So believe to the point where you have a position.

And look, isn't that kind of the.

You know, it's kind of where our country and our world is, is we get, we're getting.

We've got a position about our beliefs.

Well, because somebody else benefits from it.

And that's why, like, I, I'm trying to.

I'm trying to strongly stay disconnected from, you know, other belief systems and because to be honest, you can't even source your own belief system if you're believing somebody else's or if you're believing what You've been told because it's, it's this, you know, general belief system.

What if we think rather than believe?

Well, I mean I, I think that beliefs that you think as I think, I, I think that, I mean belief.

We all have to have belief systems because ultimately it's what protects us.

You know, it doesn't always serve us, but it's what protects us.

And it's just being old enough and understand enough that, that it's just a belief system system, you know, like, like, like, I mean.

Here, never mind.

I'm gonna throw it to you, Robbie.

Go ahead.

So I, I'm thinking about how when I was an employee and I was like, I always had these really strong opinions and as I started to study business because I decided to go learn, study business part time as I, the more I studied business, the more I changed the way I talk to my bosses and, and I thought I understood their perspective until I became a manager and I'm like, oh my gosh, no wonder they like all these people are talking to these people this way.

And so it's like, it's like aha, eye opening.

It's like, okay, there's like a dilemma between the employees not feeling valued enough and they deserve more and the managers and owners not feeling appreciated or valued enough in the trends in business don't help with loyalty being at an all time low.

The desire of all the students that we talk to in all the schools we go to, they want to work in a salon for one to three years at 80% and only 10% want to stay working in a salon after three years.

However, this all ties into like pick making how you make your decisions and, and you know, if you have higher quality decision making process, then perhaps you would have greater success in a salon and people might not be wanting to leave as much.

That's a different.

You know, I have a question.

I don't want to like be the one that kind of changes the topic, but you probably need to though.

I think it's related.

I think it's related everything.

I think it's all related.

But like from your vantage point, what are the trends in business and customer behavior?

And like I was looking at the serious business and like looking, trying to figure out like what, what the topics were going to be about and stuff like, because like I feel like last year was, was like customer experience was a big, big piece about it of it and that was the big piece and then the, the text, the tech side of AI but like you know, high customer experiences Are you.

Do you see any, anything else that's bubbling up in the world?

I mean, I think that I, I think and Gordon is gonna be, you know, we've got a couple people that are going to be speaking and doing breakouts on.

I think that the technology and AI and the potential of AI.

I think that.

But it goes back to.

You have to be open.

And I think that we're going to see.

I don't know when or how it's going to affect us, but I do, I do think that, I mean, look how much like podcasting and social media and all that has had an influence.

So as far as like a theme, it was, it was really, it was a challenge this year, but not because it was like when I looked around the world and what in our industry and what is the, what's being called for?

And that's why evolve.

We have to continue to evolve.

And, and so the speakers this year, they're going to be, they are, they're going to address their own about their thoughts on evolving and whether it's, you know, the leadership evolving, your leadership and.

But it's, it for me, it's.

The theme is more back to.

Or to reinforce the need for each of us, us, each of us to really have a commitment to work on ourselves.

Because, you know, I use the Ram Dass as a quote that I just, that kind of inspired me around this theme is that you can do nothing for me and then work on yourself and I can do nothing for you but to work on myself.

Have just be better members of society, be better members for each other.

I mean, that has to happen when.

You'Re better for yourself.

Yeah.

Sense.

That's all.

That's awesome.

Deborah, how can people find a serious business and give us all, give us all the details, the dates and all that.

Okay, well, I mean, follow us on social media.

Serious Business.

If you Google, if you look at that, you'll find our websites, our social media, everything, you know, but you know, it's January 12th and 13th in New Orleans.

We've got tickets for sale and I think I've talked a lot about serious business, but as far as the details, I would recommend you just go to the website Serious Business or.

And follow us on social media.

You're going to get everything.

You're going to get a lot more details there than you're going to get from me.

Fair enough.

Fair enough.

Robert, how can people find you?

How can they find Hairdresser Strong?

You can check us out@hairdresserstrong.com and our Instagram handle is the HairdresserStrong show and Feel.

Come over, check us out and we'd love to hear from you and tune in and subscribe.

You can subscribe on, you know, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

Same look up for us.

Look up Hairstreet or your day off podcast.

We're on all the, all the podcast outlets.

There were also hairstry on.

On Instagram.

Yeah.

Thank you guys so much for sitting down and again, thank you for Gordon for kind of like putting this, putting this together.

I really appreciate it.

I love open and honest conversations and I fel.

Like we, we kind of did that, you know, so I appreciate that.

Thank you guys very, I appreciate the.

Opportunity and, and please you guys come and introduce yourself.

I mean let's connect it physically connected.

Serious business.

Okay.

Because now we've established a relate.

We have a relationship that is awesome.

We'll, we'll, we will definitely connect.

Robert Hughes and Deborah Neal, thank you very, very much for joining us on day off off and the hair stroke.

Bye Bye.

Thank you.