Going Gray as a Business Owner

Smart Gets Paid Podcast Transcript
Episode 24

Intro (00:02):
You're listening to the Smart Gets Paid podcast with me, Leah Neaderthal. I help women land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in Corporate Marketing and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about a thousand times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it. And I created a sales approach that feels comfortable, makes you feel confident, and works consistently. And now I teach women how to land higher paying clients in their B2B consulting and coaching businesses. So whether your client contracts are $2,000 or $200,000, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love and get paid more than you ever imagined. Then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Welcome to Smart Gets Paid.

Leah (00:54):
Hey, there, Leah here. And thanks for joining me for this episode. So how are you, how are you doing this week? I hope that wherever you are, you're doing great and feeling great. And if you just wrapped up the Jewish high holidays like I did, then I hope you have a sweet and Happy New Year. So back at the beginning of the pandemic, when we all started doing our calls on zoom at home, and if you were a parent, you didn't have any childcare. There were a lot of kids on zoom calls, right? My son was about six months old at the time, and he was on a lot of zoom calls with me. Sometimes he was sleeping. Sometimes I was giving him a bottle and sometimes he just needed to be held. And I remember one time I was like, sorry, you know, my son is on the call and my marketing person who has four kids of her own said, of course, no problem.

Leah (01:45):
And then she goes, I mean, I guess now we don't all have to pretend that we don't have kids anymore. Because up to that point, we totally did have to sort of pretend that we didn't have kids while we were doing our work. You know, all of us did, if you were working on your business or working with clients, there was this expectation that unless your brand was about being like a mompreneur or whatever, or your brand was about kids, then the expectation was that your kids like didn't intrude on your working space. You know, they didn't make themselves visible. You know, like God forbid someone sees what really goes on in your life, outside the frame. And, you know, thankfully I think one of the very few benefits of how the world has changed due to the pandemic is that we don't have that expectation that we sort of hide a major part of ourselves for some sort of, you know, societal expectation anymore.

Leah (02:41):
And that has really relieved or sort of freed up a lot of women business owners who are parents to just sort of be more of themselves, you know? And I think the same thing goes for something else that affects nearly every woman business owner, which is going gray. And, you know, I hesitate to say every single woman business owner, and like a few years ago, I would have written every single woman and women business owner. But a few years ago, my now sister-in-law came into my life and her grandmother who's in her nineties still does not have a single gray hair. So I stand corrected and I'll say that going gray is something that will happen to nearly every woman, but in light of just what we're talking about here, you know, going gray has had this same sort of phenomenon with kids in that we've just either decided or had to just sort of stop pretending like we have to hide.

Leah (03:35):
And so a lot of women have decided in the pandemic to stop coloring their hair and wear their natural gray hair, myself included. Like my marketing person was like, I guess we don't have to pretend like we don't have kids anymore. And I think with this, it's like, I guess we don't have to pretend that we don't have gray hair anymore. You know, like God forbid a woman ages, right? So late last year I started publicly going gray, which I chronicled in my newsletter and my LinkedIn posts. And if you were in my orbit at that time, you probably remember that along the way of that journey, I was actually blonde for a little bit. And now I'm like this salt and pepper gray, which you can see on my website smartgetspaid.com. And as I tell you, I've written newsletters for years and posted content for years about topics related to selling, you know, like pricing mindset, sales, conversations, all things related to selling.

Leah (04:31):
But when I started talking about going gray, I got more comments, more responses. It resonated with women more than anything else I've ever talked about. And so I decided to invite you all to talk about it too. I decided to host a fireside chat about it, and I invited two women to join me. A client of mine, Meg McKean, whose own journey to go gray actually inspired mine. And my colorist, Yvonne Daley, who helped me on my own journey because, you know, I'm just too impatient to sort of wait for it to grow out. Right, so Yvonne helped me actually go from the dyed brown that I had been doing for years to gray. Well, okay. So to blonde, then to gray, and we did that in a matter of weeks and I invited you to join us and ask questions and just sort of talk about your thoughts and fears around going gray and the point wasn't to tell you to go gray, right?

Leah (05:25):
I'm not going to do that, but simply to hold space to talk about going gray and how it can affect us, not just as women, but also as women business owners. And that conversation is what you're going to hear today. Going gray as a business owner, the Fireside Chat. So even if you are nowhere near going gray, or you're thinking about going gray or you're in the process of going gray, or you've gone gray, this is a really important conversation about what it means for us as women and as business owners. This call actually inspired a whole series, which we call the Fireside Chat series, where we talk about topics that aren't about business, but which affect every woman business owner. Since then, I've hosted one about food and body issues, and my team and I are planning more coming up. So I want to thank Meg McKean and Yvonne daily for allowing me to share this conversation with you.

Leah (06:14):
And I also want to send a very special thank you to the women who asked questions and spoke up, who allowed me to share their words with you anonymously. So I hope you enjoy this conversation. And like always at the end, I'll come back and pull out a lesson that you can apply to your business. This episode is sponsored by the One-Hour LinkedIn Profile Power Up, my free guide to help you turn your LinkedIn profile into a powerful tool, to get your ideal clients, finding you on LinkedIn, you can get your copy smartgetspaid.com/profile. So when you're running a B2B consulting coaching or service-based business, your clients are on LinkedIn, but the challenge is how do you actually get them to find you? Well, it starts with your LinkedIn profile, but most business owners, LinkedIn profiles just sort of sit there, not doing anything for their business. Fortunately, there are seven simple steps that you can take to turn your profile into a powerful tool, to get you in front of your ideal clients on LinkedIn and get them coming to you for your expertise. And they only take about an hour. So grab your copy of the One Hour at LinkedIn Profile Power Up today and start turning your LinkedIn profile into a powerful tool to get your ideal clients coming to you using LinkedIn. Get yours today smartgetspaid.com/profile.

Leah (07:30):
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our first Fireside Chat. You guys, we have so many amazing people here. Thank you so much for joining today's Fireside Chat. So you guys are here for a really fun experiment. Several months ago, I started talking about my own journey to go gray, go all gray, stop dying my hair. And of all the things I've talked about, pricing, messaging, confidence, selling, building a business, this was the topic that people sparked to the most because this is something that every woman at one point or another is going to go through. And some of us started earlier than others. But what came through in the conversations and the feedback I was getting was this topic on going gray, when you are a business owner and you are the face of your business, it just has a little bit more weight to it. It's a bigger decision, or it's not so black and white.

Leah (08:34):
See what I did there. So I thought let's get everybody here and talk about it because nobody's talking about this, what it's like for us, for women like us. So it put together a Fireside Chat. This is the first one of these I'm doing. And my hope is that you guys enjoy this format. If you'd like this, and enjoy the discussion, we will do more of these on topics that are not purely about business, but certainly, affect us as business owners. So thank you for being here for this first inaugural one. So my name is Leah Neaderthal, I'm a sales coach and the founder of Smart Gets Paid. I teach women how to land more clients in their B2B consulting and coaching business, how to get paid more and how to get more yeses. And I'm joined here with two amazing women, Meg McKean, and Yvonne Daily.

Leah (09:25):
So Meg is a sales coach specifically for women in insurance. It's a tough business out there. It's tough for women. Meg is all about empowering and teaching women, how to build their book and grow and thrive in the industry. Yvonne is a master colorist. She is a colorist to the stars. She does color and does wigs and all this for people you know. She is also a Master Educator for a line called Mizani and she happens to be the colorist, my colorist who helped me do this. So I'm so glad to have her here to talk more about the actual color part of this discussion because you can't talk about going gray without talking about the actual going gray. So thank you guys, both for being here. So I want to open the discussion with just talking about, well, my first question is for Meg. So when did you start to go gray?

Meg McKean (10:24):
I'm just going to go for it, Leah, right around the time. Right around the time I got engaged to my now ex-husband, maybe there's a correlation. I don't know. No, I'm not kidding. I was like 21, I was young. The first time I found the first gray sparkling in the light at the gym while I was getting ready to go to work. There it was and they don't stop once they start. It's a really funny thing.

Leah (10:48):
No. And you guys, tell us in the chat when you remember finding your first gray, so Meg you're 21, you were in the gym. What did you think?

Meg McKean (10:58):
The gray wasn't a surprise, right? I come from a long line of beautiful silver-haired women so I knew that it was coming. I wasn't emotionally ready for it, which led to the decision to start coloring it. I wasn't in the personal development space at 21 to really understand the difference and so I started to color it from that point forward.

Leah (11:24):
Yeah. I mean, I was a little bit later than you, but sort of like mid to late twenties. I do think that there are relationship implications, you know, like a going gray, especially if it's a relationship that is now not a relationship. And I was in the same situation. You know, you can't separate the, you know, what's going on in your life and how you're feeling from how that plays out in your body. But I was in my mid to late twenties, I believe that is when this started happening for me. And so how long did you color it?

Meg McKean (11:59):
20 years? I would say in the beginning it was more periodic, you know, I would try highlights. I would try different color tones, that sort of thing. And then in the last 10, it was out of necessity, every three weeks. I did it myself because of the cost and the time. It was every three weeks and it was a commitment. It was a root touch-up as needed, which towards the end, it was every three weeks. Yeah. I have so many thoughts about this, Leah, I just have to say thank you for having this discussion. I'm looking at the amazing cast of characters that we have in here, so many women I know in so many different ways and to see us all here, talking about this topic, which to your point, Leah touches every one of us in some way.

Meg McKean (12:49):
I want to honor Amy, in the chat. Amy's a friend of mine, we have roots in the insurance industry. She shared that she had gone gray while she was losing her mom. One of the things, I'm just going to go for it. You didn't ask this question, but when I made my decision, I did research because that's what I do. I want to know how this works? And so I started down the rabbit hole and I was like, well, I could shave my head, I could color it, which is the path that Leah went or is going. I could let it go cold turkey, so to speak, which is what I've ended up doing. But I also learned many, many women go gray after a medical. They lose their hair right, chemotherapy, or another reason. And so this isn't something that our bodies just signal us it's time. And so I want to honor that mine was absolutely a choice and it's not a choice that a lot of women have. So I think it's really important to remember that.

Leah (13:49):
I love the chat! The chat is popping and you guys I love what you're sharing here. Yvonne, do you see this as well in your work? You know, tell me how this plays out for you when you're with your clients.

Yvonne Daily (14:03):
So I just find the more we move through life and like, as the years go on, that's 2021 now, the narrative is definitely changing in regards to what is acceptable or what will empower women or what women choose. And when I was much younger, I have been doing this for almost, I think, 21 years or so now, so when I was younger, one of the first things I would ask in the consultation when I meet someone new is, what is your profession? And it was asking what your profession was just to see if the plan that you had for your hair was amenable to that profession. So if you were a DJ and you wanted pink hair, cool. Whereas like anybody who had a kind of a corporate job or whatever situation they were in, they would be having to cover their grays because of their profession in a way.

Yvonne Daily (14:49):
And now when I think about hair color and what women do, I live in New York City, so there is a bit more of a flare here. There is a bit more of a variance in what hair color can be and what it can look like, especially when you're in a big city. The conversation has changed, obviously, especially with someone who like Leah, who wanted to go gray. And then also the pandemic has really changed what color it is. People were trying to do hair color at home and such, and then when we're slowly coming out of it. When salons started opening back up, everything went into a full-color correction because people were trying to get their hair color that they did at home fixed or changed. But then also what's beautiful to see when I'm just even walking around my own neighborhood.

Yvonne Daily (15:33):
You just see women who were like, that's it, I'm going to go gray. You can see women with gray hair down to here, different levels of it. My parents live in an apartment building with a little bit of an older age to all the tenants. And I would say half the women that live in that building all went gray when the pandemic happened because they just found it was empowering for them. And then they said, well, it was almost like a chore, I would have to go get my hair color done. And then even though I'm a hairstylist and it would sound counterintuitive to my financial game, I am so all about whatever the woman wants to do, and I will help you on that journey. And I just love that women have the feeling and that they want to, you know, live in themselves, like live your own truth. That's what your hair looks like. And a lot of the time I'll say to people like you're not sitting there and you're like, oh, I have to change my eye color. I want to change this, that, and the third about me, it's like, it's what you're genetically born with. So why not work with it?

Leah (16:28):
Exactly. And I think that you're right, that I think it's part of sort of a broader look at the things that we have been doing sorta for ourselves, but like to ourselves, as women, to sort of keep up with the standards that are expected of us. You know, like you said, the corporate standard or what have you. And it's like, if I can do my work and run my life and I could do it for the first six months wearing sweat pants every day, why do I need to sort of go back to hold myself to this other standard, right, like professionalism or what have you. And I think that you're, you're right about what's expected in particular industries, but there's so much, there are so many other pressures and expectations on us that might tell us that, you know, I definitely heard like you're too young to go gray. Meg, I don't know if you heard that. Like I, but it, but it's such a chore in terms of like, it's all sort of, you know, Meg, you said like, so many thoughts and I had so many thoughts as well and they're all sort of connected, but tell me, you know, did anybody tell you, oh, you're too young. You shouldn't do this.

Meg McKean (17:44):
I have no idea what they said and what they're saying behind my back. But I will say that I made the decision and I didn't look back. And what I learned through that process was people will respond in whatever way you give them permission or space to do it. So if I had walked around saying, oh, I hate it, it's uncomfortable, I don't know, I'm not sure then they would've given me a lot of feedback. Like, well, you could always color it, you can always change your mind, but it wasn't that I walked around saying, Hey, look at my three inches of silver roots, don't I look great. But it was more like, it's a journey, it's 1% of my life. If I live to be a hundred, I've done hard things before, just a lot of self-talk and affirmation and staying committed to the goal or the outcome and being okay with that messy, clumsy, awkward in-between space, which is something really powerful as women.

Meg McKean (18:44):
When you see another woman, I've had more women in the last year, even in a pandemic, even just out taking a six-foot distant walk around the neighborhood, approach me and say, “Oh my gosh, I love your hair” in the middle of growing it out, right? Like in the middle of the most awkward phase. And so they wouldn't have sought me out to pay me that compliment had I had my normal jet black chin-length bob, right, that I've had for the last 12 years. So it really is. It's empowering individually, but it's also an amazing connection point for us as women.

Leah (19:22):
Oh my God, you're so right. I was walking to my office the other day and I passed a woman who was sitting outside at a bodega with her dog. And she said as I passed, ``love your gray? Is that pandemic gray?” And she also had sort of shoulder-length brown hair that she had maybe three more inches of color to sort of grow out. We got to talking about going gray and all the process and after about five minutes, she said, “Well, where are you going? I'll walk you there.” It turns out she was going to the same bagel place I was going to. And Yvonne, this is in Brooklyn, like people don't do this. You know, people just do not. I am from Nashville, Tennessee, people do this in Nashville, Tennessee. They do not do it in Brooklyn. So she ended up walking me to the office, we had such a lovely conversation on this topic that never would have happened, ever. And you know, my mom said, you know you come from a long line of women with beautiful silver hair. And my mom, when she goes gray or silver, she gets so many more compliments on her hair from people, you know? Cause it's striking!

Meg McKean (20:38):
Yvonne made the point earlier about, and I don't like to use the word natural, like do whatever you want to do, honestly, like color your hair until you're 95. Like whatever, I have no skin in the game either way. I have green eyes and I love my green eyes honestly, they're one of my favorite features. When I stopped coloring my hair, my green eyes just popped out of my eye sockets. And I was like, all along, I wear green, I wear purple. Like I try to do all the things to make my eyes look green. And I'm like, oh goodness, they were there all along. Right. I've way over complicated this. So I think it's to your point Yvonne, our bodies are doing what they're doing and this isn't about aging.

Meg McKean (21:22):
Although that's huge, I'm seeing some great commentary in the chat. One of the things I remind myself, I'm 42. I made the decision in the fall of 2019, I was just 41 at the time. I'm still 42, like it's a perception, it's an outward appearance, but I'm still very youthful. And I still, you know, I'm not ready to give up, like start wearing moo moos and you know, let myself go. What I think is the fear as women is that the gray hair is just a sign of many things that, you know, the whole house of cards is going to come crashing down. And that's not it at all in my experience.

Leah (22:02):
So I want to come back to that, but I want to also kick it to Yvonne because you know, you work in beauty, you work behind the camera and in fashion and is this common? Are there other ways that going gray can bring out somebody's natural features? You know, what would you expect to see in yourself in the mirror when you go gray?

Yvonne Daily (22:25):
So that's a really good question. I work in a lot of print imagery and then with a lot of certain celebrities and such a lot of the times they're wearing wigs. So in that aspect of my life, I'm not catering to the everyday woman. So I don't see a lot of that in my editorial work or runway and things like that. But when I cater to the everyday woman, it's also a huge conversation of how that can happen. And, and the biggest thing when you're talking about somebody's hair color is what is their skin tone and what is their eye color? Because if someone comes into me and says like, oh, well I want jet black hair. If they have a certain skin tone, that might make them look very sallow, so it's just something to consider. Basically, all of hair color and beauty is color theory.

Yvonne Daily (23:11):
So once you know the color wheel or the color chart, and you know, what will compliment you. I actually don't have naturally red hair. My hair is jet black, but I color it red because I'm super, super Irish, I was born there, I have neon blue eyes. And I know that if I color my hair red, it's just going to be the most complimentary to my skin tone and my eye color. So I have tried different hair colors when I was younger, before I was a hairstylist. So for the last, like, I think 12 years I've been coloring my hair red. I personally don't have any gray hair, which is ironic. I am 40 years old. I just don't have any yet but as soon as I get gray hair, it's going to be on and popping. And I just can't wait for that day cause I would love to have a big silver main. But I don't know if that's going to happen for me considering my genetics and such, but there was just one other thing I'd love to address. I've had a few questions there in regards to the color journey you will go through. And then there are certain, obviously social media people that are very popular for doing gray hair, but we'll probably just loop back to that because I don't want to not acknowledge those questions because I'm sure people have questions if they want to do it themselves.

Leah (24:19):
Yes, totally. So I'm seeing your questions. You guys, we're going to save some questions for a little bit later and of course talk about the how of it. So if you have a question, hold on to it, I will, I will prompt all the questions later. And if you already posted a question, scroll back up and just copy it so that you can paste it down later. So before we get into the how, Meg you touched on this, the house of cards, you know, once you go gray, once you stop calling your hair, what is, what is the house of cards? What did you think it would mean or say about you if you did this?

Meg McKean (24:54):
Yeah, so great. great commentary in the chat. I know there are several of us with roots in insurance, in financial services, in the greater corporate world. And maybe we still are there in some cases. I never would have considered this when I was in a traditional kind of nine to five corporate role. And not that I probably would have received a bunch of negative feedback, but because I wasn't even in that headspace, I was playing a completely different game. And so this decision to stop coloring my hair has been a part of a much bigger journey that I've been on personally and professionally to figure out who I am, what I want the next chapter of my story to read and how I want to show up in the world. And so this is just one more sort of iteration of that, that process. And so definitely wasn't on my radar then, I do think about, you know, if I ever went back to corporate, are some of these very legitimate things that are coming up in the chat, would they be real? Would I, you know, be the subject of age ageism and age discrimination, would I be written off as a candidate? I hope not, but I don't know that for sure.

Leah (26:11):
Well also Meg, you know, we say that now we're sort of unemployable because having run our own businesses for a while, we are sort of unemployable, but it's an interesting sort of mental exercise. What would this look like for me if I went back into corporate?

Meg McKean (26:24):
Yeah. And you know, there's something really powerful in a way for all of us who have made the decision to embrace the gray and those of us who are even pondering it to show up here and to think out loud in this space. The perception won't change until we change what people see. Right? So for someone like Leah, someone like me, my clients work for big insurance organizations. So for me to come in and facilitate and present and do my thing, they are now seeing a woman who's embracing her silver hair, on a stage, in a group and it's okay, it's not a thing. And so I'm not wearing this on my shoulders, trust me, but it is a really interesting byproduct. I didn't know women who had embraced their silver in the corporate world, but now by virtue of the way that we're working in connecting with people in that world, we're able to have, you know, an impact. And that feels really good in the broader sense.

Leah (27:26):
Absolutely. I didn't know women in any sort of online entrepreneur, you know, air quotes, right, like online entrepreneur environment, I didn't know women who ran consulting businesses who were gray. It's really because everything that comes from the broader world, all this sort of stigma I've seen in the chat about the stigma, right, expectations that we bring into our business. And it doesn't go away because that's all stuff that we've learned throughout our whole lives. And it really does just take seeing one person, one woman, you know, so hopefully, you know, we're chipping away at it. You know the trend is happening externally, but it sort of seems like a concept and so you see one person, one woman who can say this is who I am, you know. Tell us in the chat, where you are pondering gray or going gray or already gone gray.

Leah (28:18):
Tell us in the chat, if you are pondering, going or done gone. Tell us that in the chat, Kate has gone, gone, pondering, gone, pondering, been gone, half and half. All right. Tracy, completely white, concerned about the halfway to gray processing. Let's talk about the “how” of it. Carrie mentioned being concerned about halfway to gray processing. So there are a few ways to do this. Yvonne, this is where I turn to you. When somebody comes to you and says, I want to do this, how do you know whether they should or would you recommend, you know, doing a transition like I did or do you allow it to happen naturally. I mean, how do you advise on that?

Yvonne Daily (29:10):
So obviously any good hairstylists that you're going to approach about going gray or thinking about letting either your hair color grow out or decolorizing your hair is basically what I did with Leah. You have to have a shared reality. The first thing would be like the hair's current condition. So there is a huge difference in regards to hair colors that people put on their hair, whether they are professional or if they're bought in a pharmacy. And then you definitely have to be super, super honest about your hair history. What have you done to your hair? Have you ever had a keratin treatment, any chemical processing that you've had on your hair and then what color you have on your hair? Has it been a box dye is what a stylist will call something from the pharmacy or that you can purchase yourself. Then the next thing to consider would be your desired end result.

Yvonne Daily (30:00):
So you both have to have an honest conversation in regards to, am I going to fully transition into just having gray hair? Am I going to gradually de-colorize my hair out with some highlights? Are we going to do it via haircuts? And then do the color thing further in the future once I have more of a root. And then the timing that it's going to take to achieve this. So social media has been a little dishonest in a way, so there is a very famous person on Instagram right now. “With all of these, I'm taking people gray”. But that's not done in one day, he'll say like, okay, this person came in, I did an eight-hour process with them and they're wearing the same shirt. I kind of want to call BS on some of those times when I look at it, because I can tell just from being a stylist, and then this is something within the hair community that we all talk about.

Yvonne Daily (30:50):
We don't know if we believe this guy truly, but then there are other people that will be very open and honest, but there is definitely going to be timing to achieve it. Usually, it can not be done in one session, it's going to be multiple, multiple sessions. And then you have to have a conversation about cost. So the stylist will definitely have to be very open and honest in regards to what processes you will need due to the hair and how much those processes will cost. So you can have a budget of, I want to spend this much money in this session, and then they can let you know what you can achieve in that session. Things can happen that you can't expect. So we're not magicians, we are beauticians, even though that's an old school word, but it's very hard to lighten hair and then like, know exactly what's going to happen to the hair.

Yvonne Daily (31:36):
So every stylist that you speak with, if they want to embark on this journey with you, please only go to a stylist that says, I need to do a test strand. You basically put a lightener on the hair, you let it lift in one little section and then the stylists then can assess from there what your hair is, and how honest the client is. A lot of times boxed dye is a huge thing to get rid of so I can go into that. Box dye is very comparable to dye that is used for fabric and carpets and things like textiles. So when you put that on the hair and then you try to lighten it out, what actual Lightener or bleach, I keep saying lightener, that's what I would call it, but bleach is the generic term.

Yvonne Daily (32:21):
You can chemically burn the hair, you can break the disulfide bonds in the hair. So if you don't tell your stylists that you have boxed dye on your hair, you can give yourself a chemical cut, so all your hair can just literally burn off. So there are all those things just to reiterate. I would say there's kind of like six things that you want to talk to your stylist about. But at the end of the day, you just have to have a huge shared reality. It's something that you both have to agree on, you have to have a plan and you have to be very, very honest.

Leah (32:48):
Okay. There's so much there that we need to unpack. Not least of which is that box dye is the same day as dying a rug, that is concerning to me. But I think that your comment about shared reality is a really important one, because let me just tell you guys how this went for me. This has been sort of well-documented in, you know, newsletters and what have you. But if you happened to miss this saga that Yvonne and I went on together. Yvonne, you were super upfront with me, this is not going to be one time, but basically everything you said here, anything you've seen on social media is the highlight real and not reality. And it is a process. So in our first session, Yvonne basically did the de-colorization process. She stripped out all of the color that was in my hair, we were together for 12 hours, I was in the chair for 12 hours that day.

Leah (33:40):
And I walked out as a blonde. You guys, I've never been a blonde, ever in my life, but when you dye your hair and then you take out all the dye, that's what you're left with. Right? And in fact, after I think towards the end of that process, you Yvonne, you tried to put like a silver glaze, but it didn't take, my hair was like, we are done. We are done for the day. I'm not taking on any more color and so I went home as a blonde, which was kind of fun. And I think I let the hair recover for a few weeks and used a sort of a bond builder to sort of make it strong again. When I went back for my second session, I think we tried to lighten it once more because I found out you guys, I found out so much about hair chemistry.

Leah (34:28):
Yvonne knows everything about all things like the molecular level of hair. It was really fun, but we tried to go a little bit lighter thinking that the lighter you go, the, the more, a new color this time being silver would show up on the hair. Well, my sad hair that was still so, you know, sad from before, Yvonne, when you applied the silver gloss, this time something happened, but it happened as lavender, which is sort of the underlying molecular color of this product. So I walked out a little bit of lavender, which was so lucky that I live in Brooklyn because that is totally fine, nobody bats an eye. So again, you know, I had to allow my hair to recover, we did one more time? Didn’t we, no we did three more sessions. What happened that last time? Remind me.

Yvonne Daily (35:27):
So the last time we just did another, the thing was I can Facetime you all you want or talk to you, but I had to actually see and touch your hair. So once I saw and touched your hair, I was like, we could go a little bit lighter, one more time, but also a dynamic within your hair is that you have texture, you have curly hair. So her curls were a little sad in her own words.

Leah (35:49):
Very sad

Yvonne Daily (35:50):
Yeah. And then outside of what I do, editorial-wise and things like that, I teach other hairstylists how to take care of curls, waves, and coils. I pretty much only do texture in my life outside of a salon so I just knew that if we pushed her hair a little bit more with lightening it, she was gonna lose the texture that she's used to. So that's a huge dynamic if you've curly hair, that's a huge component in it. And once she got her hair cut, obviously her hair popped up and did a little bit better, but we just glossed you that last time. And then I almost got you to the silver that we agreed upon, or the look that we were looking for. And then with a product that was the maintenance aspect, you were able to finally achieve the tone you wanted, but that's why you were such a great candidate.

Yvonne Daily (36:40):
When I'm going to do something like this, I will speak to the client, but it's not like I'm going to do it for just anybody. And I said that to you multiple times, like, you're so awesome, this is why I'm doing this with you. But I wouldn't just do this with anybody. Because when you're a hairstylist, the hardest thing that you can do is to decolorize someone's hair and make it gray. That is, there's nothing harder, but you were good, you did all your homework, you did all of your maintenance. So I got your hair health up to where I needed it to be.

Leah (37:08):
Type A+ overachiever over here.

Yvonne Daily (37:10):
That's what I was like, whatever I tell her she's going to do. So I know that we'll get that shared reality in the end.

Leah (37:16):
Nobody has ever accused me of being a bad student on anything. But what's really funny about this is that I started down this path because, and I have above shoulder length, little Bob or whatever. I didn't have super long hair, but I knew that I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to wait that long, what's that line from When Harry met Sally, it's like, once you make a decision, you like want it to happen right away. That was me. And I mean, no opinions about anybody else and growing their hair out but I'm just super impatient. Now, even though, you know, I have, I've sort of found this tone and I use something that I just said, deposit a little bit of color to keep it up. Well, the rest is growing out, my curls are actually, you guys can't tell it on here, but like they're wrecked.

Leah (38:03):
Yvonne, my curls are still pretty sad, I used to have little Shirley temple ringlets now I have beachy waves, right? And so the lesson here, I'm going to have to wait for it to grow out anyway because I'm waiting for the processed part, the damaged part to grow out. So, you know, it ends up being six one way, half a dozen the other, but, you know. Meg, you took the other route, which is just stopping cold Turkey and letting nature take its course. How has that been for you? It's been none of the things I thought it would be.

Meg McKean (38:35):
and all sorts of other unexpected little wisdom nuggets. I want to share, Yvonne, thank you for the lesson. I think the science of all of this is really important. And I had a consultation with my stylist who wanted to do it because it's not every day that someone walks into your salon and wants to go through this process. So for her, she was like, yes, this is going to be great. And we had the initial consultation and it didn't feel right to me and I'm learning to trust my instinct and did my own sort of exercise. But what happened before that meeting with my stylist, I think is important. Especially as women, as we think about where we are in our lives and on our overall journeys. Pre-pandemic, I was fortunate to spend several weeks in Italy.

Meg McKean (39:26):
So two weeks on my own and then my boyfriend, at the time, met me and we went to Paris and it was amazing. When you're gone for more than three weeks and you color your hair every three weeks, it means you either have to travel with hair dye or you don't dye it. So when he met me in Paris, he saw my roots, which he had never seen before, because I hadn't been able to touch them up. Also important to note, we're no longer together, he’s 17 years older than me and bald. So here I am continuing to keep up appearances as like the young thing on his arm and he's not, let's just say that. So Europe happens, our relationship, we get back to Chicago. My grandmother passed away, pretty unexpectedly, the original silver sister in my family and I go to her funeral and I see her beautifully there

Meg McKean(40:22):
and she just had beautiful white hair. It turned very white and downy as she got older. So I've had this experience with my boyfriend. He and I ended up breaking up right around the same time, a lot was happening. And for me, all of those things factored into my decision to stop coloring my hair. I didn't know the last time I colored it, that it would be the last time. And that's the thing about this, that I think we can remember as women, you can make the decision whenever you want to, you can bail whenever you want to, you can try it for six months and decide it's not for you and go back assuming, right, that all works for your body and your situation. It doesn't have to be forever. Right? And so having that out has been really helpful for me, as I figured out, is this the right thing for me?

Meg McKean (41:15):
I had the out, but I never, ever, ever one time was tempted to take it to be completely transparent. I shared a post on LinkedIn and full disclosure, Leah is my business coach. So we are connected in another way beyond our gray hair journey. But I shared this on LinkedIn, some of the lessons I learned now at the end of my transition, and one of them, kids are really honest. I remember taking my hat off on the subway in Chicago and this little girl pointing at my little skunk situation. “Mommy, what's wrong with that lady's hair.” Well, it's just, you know, gray hair transition, welcome to the party. So all these little like touch points, right? These checkpoints through the process, let you know if it's right for you or not. And so like I'm anybody on here that knows me, knows I'm a believer in instinct and believer in leaning into feeling what's right for you and your situation. And that was really the guide for me through this process. So I did all the research. I looked at all my options, shaving our head, not an option for me. I'm not knocking it. Monica pointing. She did it. I love it for me. I knew I would eventually stop coloring my hair. I just didn't know when. And that’s when it appeared for me and you know, it's, it's part of the journey. It's part of the story.

Leah (42:38):
Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. This is awesome. So you guys, I want to open it up to you. Tell me, you know, what questions do you have? What are you even sort of, even if it's not a fully formed question, you know, your, your thoughts, your, your insights into your own journey, right? And you can raise your hand in the chat, but we'd love to hear from you. Who is sort of in this process and has learned something about themselves that they want to share. Let's see, Kate, I'd like to hear your opinion of overtone grade depositing. What you're looking at me, Yvonne. Yes.

Yvonne Daily (43:15):
Well, it's in her hair. Yeah, love it, Overtone. I did a job with overtone one time, got the whole product line and it's the best thing for maintenance, in my opinion. Otherwise, the thing that I was letting Lean know, if you get your hair to colorize and then you get a gloss, you're essentially depositing that gray until the blonde palette, but that's going to fade over time. So I knew that we weren't gonna see each other that month. And I was like, try the overtone, try the deep conditioner will help your curls. And then she's achieved the tone that she likes. So then she's completely free from going back to the, you know, quote-unquote salon or coming to see me. So I'm all about it. Love Overtone.

Leah (43:55):
I love it. Love it, love it. Because when, after my third session with you Yvonne, I was a little bit gray, but I was, it looked kind of like, hay color. You know, if I'm being totally honest after maybe a week or so. And I, and when you sent the link to overtone, it really got to like the grayness, the sort of silver that I wanted. And so it was like a godsend. So I do it once a week. Now, I think you asked the silver, which one do you use? I use it like the middle one. Maybe it's called vibrant, something like that. But pro-tip, or at least amateur tip for me, they say use it as a conditioner, right? Like after you wash your hair. Cause what, put her on leave for three to five minutes.

Leah (44:38):
That didn't work for me. It didn't seem to make a difference, but when you put it on dry, which is one of their other uses, when you put it on dry for three to five minutes, it's just like a nice touch-up, you know, it's great. But again, it's ironic, like now I'm going to be doing this for the next probably year, as I wait for everything to grow out. Annalise asked, Is anyone tempted to leave their hair gray on top, shading down on the bottom. Do you mean like on purpose?

Guest 1 (45:12):
I’m sort of enjoying it and when I see everybody else who did the same thing I did, which I just stopped when we got locked at home, I really appreciate seeing their gray on top. Yeah, exactly. Mine's very similar.

Leah (45:27):
I mean, it's a look, if you want to go for it, Meg's rocking it right now. A lot of people are.

Meg McKean (45:33):
It’s the ombre look, it’s very in right now. I mean, if that feels right for you, why not? I mean, you can do a million other things with your hair so if you want to keep coloring the tips, go for it. I support that fully.

Leah (45:51):
Somebody once told me hair isn't the outfit you wear every day. So think about how much you would spend on a pair of jeans or your favorite article of clothing, you know, why not give the same care to your hair?

Yvonne Daily (46:04):
It's the crown you never take off so you wear that crown every single day.

Leah (46:09):
Really good point.

Guest 2 (46:11):
Hi, thanks. I am just now starting to do all this. So I had about maybe four months of growth and it's going to be so pretty. I just absolutely love it. And I'm in love with all of you who've already transitioned. You've got your gray and your black together, I think it is so incredibly beautiful. But as a person in the public eye, this I cannot do in the public eye, unfortunately, and for what I do. And thankfully I'm in this space right now where I am no longer on national TV and so I have this opportunity, but I've decided I don't want to do that anymore. And I feel like there's so much power in that. And I just want to thank all of you who have taken that time to do a transition because it is so incredibly empowering to me.

Guest 2 (46:56):
And I had just started this transition. Like, what can, what could I do with my hair? But it is anybody having, you guys have any tips for just kind of, cause I feel this is the right thing to do and I'm going down the right road. I truly want to be able to do this as quickly as possible. So maybe Yvonne, it goes to you. I've had the same stylist, she's amazing. We have tried the same process that you did with Leah and because of being on air, we had to color it back up. So I didn't have an opportunity to do those different phases.

Yvonne Daily (47:30):
So the only recommendation I'd have for you is if you're open to wearing a wig. If you get yourself a darker wig and then you could wear that when you were on film. Because most of the celebrities that I do, somebody is not going from black to blonde two weeks later, she's wearing a wig. So if you look at anybody in the public eye, singers or actors and such, all of those things happen with wigs and then that's why most, the everyday woman has this delusional reality in regards to what a hair stylist can do. That would be my recommendation for you.

Leah (48:07):
I learned a lot about wigs when I was hanging out with Yvonne. I want to just quickly end on Lisa's question because I think this is such an important one. Meg, maybe you and I can briefly take a stab at this. Can you speak to the emotional journey and your changing self concept? I'm struggling with wellness vs illness, dynamic and useful you versus aging, et cetera. You want to briefly talk about that maybe for a minute and then I'll jump in as well.

Meg McKean (48:31):
I want to honor the question and then saying it out loud because that's a really important part of the journey. And I also want to say, it's not just hair as women. It's not just hair. And so it's very easy to dismiss someone when they're having these feelings and going back and forth. I was the gal with the jet black bob. It was a thing, my hair was absolutely a part of my identity and yes, it's the crown I wore every day, but it was, it's so much more than that. And so I don't think we can ever speak to the significance of it enough and it's not shallow. And it's, you're not for having these questions and voicing the concerns one way or the other does not make you vain. And I am not more brave or strong or whatever, because I chose to embrace my gray.

Meg McKean (49:23):
It's exceptionally personal and where it comes from is exceptionally personal. You're on your journey. And you're going to know when it's right for you. And I don't have the answer. Part of my process in that critical six weeks before I made the decision to stop coloring, I remember pulling up to a stop sign in my neighborhood in Chicago, there was an assisted living facility and I looked out at this table and there were a couple of elderly men and a couple of older women. And only one of them had jet black hair. And I smiled thinking, of course she colors her hair because nobody at that stage of life has, you know, naturally Jet, highly unlikely. And I smiled thinking like, this is the, this is the deal. This is the place in the world that I'm in. And this is the moment in time that I'm in.

Meg McKean (50:11):
And so for me, it was a choice to embrace it, but it's not a judgment if you don't. So I would keep asking yourself questions when you say I can't do it, is it that you can't, or you won't. It's that you don't know how, or you don't have enough information. Can you give yourself tools and avant, if you will, to help ease the transition, can you show up in an environment like this and start to work through some of the fear, the concern that you have it's yeah. It's way more than hair. Thank you for that. And I'm going to stop talking cause you gave me a microphone and I can't shut up.

Leah (50:42):
No, you're so right though. It is more than hair, this is always more than hair. I mean, when you're talking about, you know, illness versus wellness, this all came about because all my hair fell out and it was sort of postpartum hair loss that ran right into COVID quarantines, stress hair loss and it was just a lot of hair loss. I went to a dermatologist and a hair specialist, sorry, two dermatologists to find out if there was something wrong with me. When I found out that there wasn't something wrong with me, that this is just a stress related hair shedding event, which is very common. And a lot of women have experienced during COVID. She said you can dye your hair if you want, you know, nothing's going to be wrong with that. But at that point I had made the decision that I chose not to.

Leah (51:31):
Right. If I am well, right, and we are sort of lucky to be, well, how am I going to be well, how am I going to live now? The journey and the emotional journey has been surprising. And I see we're over time and I appreciate it if you guys stick around with us for just a couple more minutes, but the emotional journey has been totally surprising. I thought I would feel a little embarrassed. I thought I would feel less than myself. I thought I would, of course, lose all my clients, loose my platform. My business would evaporate and everything I'd built would disappear because who am I now? Right. My hair is, you know, Meg said, your hair is a part of you. I joked that like my hair is my whole personality.

Leah (52:16):
Right? And so what has surprised me is the way I feel empowered. I don't feel embarrassed. I feel proud, you can see it in my headshots. I posted a comparison on LinkedIn. I feel more myself in this. And so the journey may surprise you in ways that will keep revealing themselves. So you guys, we are right at the top of the hour. I want to thank you all for joining us for this conversation. I want to thank Meg and Yvonne for sharing your experience, your sharing your expertise, and being part of this conversation. Thank you so much. And I hope you have a great rest of your afternoon.

Leah (52:59):
So there's so much goodness here. And I want to try to pull out one thing that you can apply to your business. So you heard me say earlier that when I decided to go gray, I was worried that, you know, all my clients would leave me. My business would die, and on and on and on. And that's because on some level I was worried that I no longer looked, you know, young and spry. And like what people thought a business owner should look like, or maybe what, on some level I thought it was what a business owner should look like, but obviously my clients didn't all leave me. My business didn't die and in fact the opposite happened and it reminded me of something I learned a few years ago. And I guess I just needed to remind myself, which is that there's no one way to look like a business owner.

Leah (53:41):
And I know that at first glance, that might be like, okay, duh, that's so obvious. But you know that when you actually start running a business, you actually get into it. It's actually not as obvious as it sounds, because you start sort of looking around at the other women in your space or other business owners. And that doubt creeps in because you start to think, you have to sort of keep up with everybody else or really, if they're doing well and they look like that, then maybe I need to look like that too. I remember when I started my coaching business, I looked around at other sales coaches and some of the other women in my space. And what I saw made me sort of panic a little. I saw a lot of women standing on stage wearing bodycon dresses, you know, like these super tight dresses.

Leah (54:23):
I saw super high heels. I saw a lot of cleavage makeup, just a lot of glam. And I was like, oh my God, is this what I need to do to be a sales coach? Is this how I need to look? Because that's not my style at all. I'm more jeans and t-shirts, I wear tennis shoes. Most of the time, I'm 5’ 2”, but like, I'm all about flats. I'm not into heels that much. My makeup style can probably best be described as the way Michael Kors described it on an old episode of project runway, he called it t-shirt makeup, you know, like a little blush, a little under eye concealer, maybe mascara, if I'm feeling like it. And even that's like a big maybe. So at first I tried to glam it up a little bit, but I realized like, this is not me.

Leah (55:08):
And so when I did my first headshots, I didn't wear a dress or put on any more makeup than I normally would. I dressed just like myself. I wore jeans, actually a white tank top and a leather jacket. And I decided that if someone wants the glam, if that speaks to them and that's what they want, that is awesome. But they might not like me and my style and that's okay. And realizing that actually felt good. And I bring this up because I hear this from a lot of the women I talk to who are wondering if they have to sort of be a certain way or show up a certain way or even write a certain way. Because we look around us and we think that if someone else is doing it that way, then it must be the right way. But if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I'll always tell you to be yourself. You know, we just talked about that in the previous episode. If you haven't listened to it, just rewind one after this and listen to episode 23. So if you're looking around and wondering if you can wear a certain thing or look a certain way or write a certain thing, the answer is yes. If there are other people in your space who are doing something or saying a certain thing, you don't have to align with them. The only person you need to be aligned with is yourself.

Leah (56:19):
Hey, thanks for hanging out with me. If you liked this episode, take a second and click the subscribe button, wherever you're listening to your podcasts and you'll be notified as soon as I release a new episode. And if you're listening on Apple podcast, I’d so appreciate it if you took two seconds and left a rating or review this tells Apple podcasts “hey, there's good stuff in here” and they'll recommend it to other listeners who might benefit from these lessons for their business. So please take a second and add a rating or a review, thanks. So that's it for now. I'll see you next time on the Smart Gets Paid podcast, learn more about Smart Gets Paid programs and coaching and smartgetspaid.com.