PODCAST SHOWNOTES

Nicole Otchy: There's a question that does something to stylists mentally and emotionally that I want to talk about today and it's not because it's like a particularly hard question, or because it's something that you can't just answer on the spot. It's because when someone asks you this question, it immediately puts the majority of the stylists I've talked to about this in a place of feeling like they have to justify things. And you've probably gotten this question before. It's when someone with a normal job, maybe even a job that specifically society deems successful, so let's say someone in finance, for example, someone that has a salary, a steady paycheck asks you how your personal styling business is going. And all of a sudden there's a knot in your stomach and your jaw and your shoulders immediately tighten. Today we're talking about the feeling that you are waiting to feel, while you wonder exactly when your business is going to take off and why I'm going to argue today that it's already available to you.

This is The Six Figure Personal Stylist Podcast and I am Nicole Otchy. This is the show for personal stylists building world-class businesses and setting the standard in their industry. We're talking all things profitable growth, thought leadership and real client transformations, because the best stylists don't just edit closets, they shape culture.

So one of the stylists in my established client program recently said, I want to feel calm in my body, when someone asks me how my business is going. That is a good marker of how I think I will finally feel successful. And I knew exactly what she meant, because I can go immediately back to those years, when I was struggling to hit my income goals and incredibly avoidant of basically any type of emotional discomfort. When someone asks the question and something inside you tightens up, you start to calculate in your head, how you're going to answer it. How much you're going to say, what you're not going to say, how enthusiastic you're going to seem, how much can you seem like everything's great without being a liar, if you will. How are you going to make it sound like enough? And underneath all of that ruminating and panicking and knot in your stomach, even though it only happens in like a split second, underneath it, there is this assumption that if there was a bigger number in your bank account, if months were consistent in your income, if you had a wait list of clients, this is a big one here, the question wouldn't do this to you anymore. But that feeling of calm that you want, that feeling of legitimacy that you are searching for, has nothing to do with your bank account. And I know because I have been there.

I want to share the story that I shared with my clients on this call, when my client said that that feeling of calm in a conversation is what she was thinking would be a good marker of her knowing that like she had arrived, if you will. The summer before the pandemic, or maybe it was even the summer before that, I had just signed a $36,000 contract with ECCO Shoes and it was just a few weeks before we ended up going to the Jersey Shore with my husband's family and I was at a family event and somebody in my husband's family, I'm not going to say who, came up to us, not someone I know very well, and said something like, how's the little business going? How's the little styling business going? And, you know, I'm used to this sort of behavior, we'll just say it was from a man, because it felt like a very like, hey there, little lady with your little styling business. So that's why I'm making it clear, it was not a woman that said this to me, because it like has a kind of vibe. I'm sure many of you get it that are listening. And I used to get this a lot, especially at family events. And I would always be super uncomfortable about it, specifically around family events and any place I was with my husband, who is a neuroscientist. My husband quickly, in this conversation, shot in and was like, oh, she just signed this big deal. And I was like, shut up, shut up.

But I remember sitting there and holding my drink and thinking, I thought that this would be the moment where I would feel above this knot in my stomach. I would be above this feeling of having to explain to someone who literally does not understand anything about what I do, who couldn't be further away from my target market, who doesn't share my values, who doesn't know my mission, who doesn't know that I care about women being visible in their work, so they can make more money, so that they can have financial freedom for them and their kids. Like it wasn't, you know, for me, the more meaningful my job was and even is now, the less it's easy sometimes to explain it to people. And honestly, the truth is the person on the other side of that, most people don't speak to you, I hope, in this sort of condescending way about what you do. But whether someone's saying it like that, or they're just saying, so how's business going? I've seen your social media. It hits the same often, if you are not in a good emotional place.

Now, when I signed that deal, I had already had a very successful year. But there were years, where I didn't make $36,000 as a stylist, you know, a long time ago. And that really had stayed with me. One month of work, that it just felt crazy. I didn't even have like 3,000 Instagram followers. And I would continue to get experiences like that. But no matter how big the paychecks got, no matter how much money I had, it never really made me feel more, quote, legitimate. And that's because outside things don't rewrite your story. You have to rewrite the story about meaning and you have to learn how to validate yourself, just like you can get your clients the most incredible wardrobe that makes them look absolutely incredible. But if they're sitting around waiting for people to give them compliments at the office, who really don't care about their clothes at all and couldn't even be paid to notice, basically. You're waiting for them to validate them. They're going to be waiting a long time, right? And that quote, confidence in that new wardrobe isn't going to ever show up. And so they're going to feel like it was a bad investment.

The same thing is true of your business. If you have a belief about yourself that you can't make money, that this isn't legitimate, or, and here's the bigger one that I noticed, there is an unconscious belief that if you are successful, it will be more threatening to the status quo for the people around you. And I honestly think for me, that was a lot of what kept me under earning. And now I'm positive. It's what keeps so many of the stylists I work with, who are quote, doing the right things. They're showing up, they're doing this, they're doing that. Their pricing is technically good enough to get them where they want to go. But no matter what they do, it just kind of never hits. It's always when I dig more, if I choose to, or if we have a relationship where that's plausible, it's always because them being successful would jeopardize the status quo, in the relationships, in their own mind of them and the most important people around them, without question. It just is. And it takes years for some people. I've had clients come back years later and tell me that that was the case, but they just couldn't see it. And I could not see it. I could not see it for years. I really don't think I could see it until I left where I grew up and moved to New York. And now I look back and it just like all makes so much sense. But the issue here is that when someone asks you that question, how is your business going? And everything tightens up and you're starting to do that calculation and you're starting to wonder. It's never about that person's assumption of you. It's that that person's question held up a mirror and it doesn't reflect back the actual reality of your business. It reflects back to you your self-concept within the business.

The truth is that people that ask that question are actually just like not even that interested. And usually when you answer like it's going well, they're on to the next thing. And so that calm that you are waiting for, is not an outcome that you're going to engineer, or you're going to strategize your way to. It is a skill. It's not a feeling. It's something that you build over time and it has nothing to do with what is in your bank account, with whether you have a wait list, or if somebody asks how business is going. Almost every stylist I work with, when I ask them what success looks like, tells me that it is having a styling studio, or a wait list, or achieving a certain number, or having an assistant. And underneath all of it, I can feel what they actually are describing. The moment that they finally feel like they're legitimate enough to stop bracing for whatever's going to happen, whether it's other people judging them, them having to confront that this failed, being able to say that, you know, they turned a corner and they're successful. But almost no one that I work with, is able to describe to me what a regular day in this quote unquote successful life in successful business is going to look like. Like what is the version of you who has a quote successful business going to be doing on a Tuesday morning at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday?

How are they going to handle Monday morning, when they wake up to a text from a client that is unhappy? Because those things are still going to happen. They describe what they want to have, but almost no one ever can describe to me how they are going to handle the moments that come up inside of it. Because the bigger your business gets, the more complicated it gets. The more you have the money to hire help, the more people you have to manage. And if you're struggling to manage your clients just, you know, virtually and like staying on track, why would you think that adding more people to that equation is going to make you feel more in charge? If anything, more success can make you feel more out of control. When you think that that is going to be the solution, what you're really saying is, I'm going to feel sure of myself. I'm going to feel confident in myself. And nothing in the bank account is going to be able to dictate the way you act when you're confident. Only doing the reps now are.

The thing about milestones in your business is that the target moves. It always moves. I can tell you as someone who has hit a lot of my milestones early, I don't feel calmer about it. I feel like, crap, now what, some days. I mean, right? They're good things. They're great things. But with every great thing that happens, with bigger programs, with taking on people that I employ, with having more people that help me. The more responsibility I feel every day, the bigger my calls get, the more polished I feel like I have to have. And none of that goes away when the number goes up. Like we tend to think like, oh, when I, you know, make 10K a month, your life's going to be different, but you're still going to be sitting on the couch, or running around the mall, or doing whatever it is you have to do to deliver the client work. It's not going to change. So why are you not addressing the way you feel in the work you're doing, when you're not making that much, or when you're not making what you want, so that it can become a habit to feel a certain way? Because it's a lot easier to make money when you feel good about stuff than it is when you're miserable. If you think that misery just turns off, then you're playing the same game that your clients do, when they think that, you know, if they get a new wardrobe, they'll stop hating their thighs, when they've been hating their thighs for 40 years. It's going to take reps. It's going to take practice of them talking to themselves differently, of noticing their collarbones instead of their thighs, every time they get dressed, of realizing that actually the size of their thighs has not dictated in any way, shape, or form for the majority of them, what has happened in their life, what has been available to them, what opportunities they have.

I'm not saying those things don't ever matter, but I'm saying when you zoom out to these things and you think the quality of your life is going to be determined by something that in reality most people can't even see, they don't even see the money in your bank account. Only you can see it, but also only you can dictate how you feel. Then the question becomes why do outside things, things that are external markers, why would they be the thing that made you feel more self-assured in your business? Because other people can see them. But other people don't care about your waitlist and other people don't care about your 10K months and other people don't care about how successful your business is. People only care about themselves. So you will always look for validation from people that even if they love you, even if they care about you, they can't validate you the way you want, because it's not their business. They have no understanding of what you do. And so why are you unintentionally likely outsourcing it to other people? Because then you don't have to be responsible for the outcome.

The stylists that I have watched get to where they are, are the ones who have not avoided the hard moments. Someday I would love to be able to have like almost like a fly-on-the-wall conversation with some of my clients and have you hear the conversations that we have, because the ones that I have worked with for a long time, some of whom you've heard on this podcast, some of whom you haven't, some of whom are just, you know, messaging me on Instagram to share their hard moments and their wins and their losses and all of the things that happen, that destabilize you but also that make you in a good way, but destabilize you in a hard way. They don't wait for the conditions to be perfect. They are seeking and constantly going for the hard thing. They're not people that sit in comfort. They're people that are okay with being wrong publicly. They do the thing without being in their head about it being perfect. Even though they are subject to perfectionist tendencies, just like we all are, they do it anyway. And so the thing that you are wanting, that feeling of security, is actually on the other side of discomfort. It's not on the other side of the bank account looking a certain way, or getting all these Instagram followers, or whatever it is you think. Because those are not the moments that build a new identity.

And I don't think you want to be constantly. I mean, some people are just like constantly in a victim mindset and that like nothing's working. Right. But then when you push them, they haven't really done the things they know they need to do. So I'm not saying you're going to constantly court discomfort, but I'm saying you're also not going to look away from it. You're going to notice it, when it shows up and you're going to say, OK, this is the next thing. And you're not going to look towards comfort, instead of facing the next thing that you need to be molded into the person for whom… Not that like 10K or 20K or 30K or 50K months make you feel amazing, but that they don't actually make you feel anything either way. That seems to be the secret to me. Because if you are obsessed with a certain amount of money, then it becomes very hard to be bad at something new, when that may not make you as much, when you try something new in your business, which you're going to have to do to grow.

So this idea that somebody asking you a question and you being able to say, I have a wait list or I make this much money, which most of you are never going to say, is an absolute fantasy that you are indulging in, so that you don't have to think about what the hard thing is that's next for you. That calm feeling in your body, when someone asks you how your business is going, you can start to feel right now. Not by hitting a number, but by deciding that no one else gets to determine what it means to be successful in your business. Not your husband's uncle, not the woman in a safe corporate cushy job, not the person who doesn't understand what you do and quite frankly is just waiting for an opportunity to talk about what they do.

Here's the question I want you to ask yourself. What are you a stand for in the work that you do? Because when you know that, when you really know that, right, then your social media numbers don't matter. The fact that you're going to have good days and bad days come with the territory. It is what it is. The goal here is not to shy away from your goals, or shy away from the things that you want. You're allowed to have all of the things you want, but it's to not think and not fall for the fantasy that one day, one day, everything is going to be perfect. And all of the problems will go away and you will wake up and feel legitimate, because legitimacy and feeling successful is an inside job. And you know this, because you work with clients and say the same things. What will make you feel that feeling of calm that you're looking for is learning how to trust yourself to handle whatever comes up in your business. And that never comes from indulging in fantasies of success that you think one thing outside of you will rewrite the narrative you have in your business. It just won't.

My question that I want to leave you with, is what can you do today, to start changing your relationship with your business and start deciding what your own internal markers of legitimacy are, whether things go well or not. And that question, what are you a stand for, is a very good place to start. Because when you think about, at your core, why you do this, why it matters, you are willing to endure a lot more for the things that you value, not for the hit list. Not for the recognition that's fleeting, but for the things that actually drive you and get you up every day and get you in the game with your clients. That's all for today. I'll talk to you next time.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me. It turns out that social proof is actually pretty important. So if you could help me out, I'd so appreciate it. If you just had a quick free moment and could leave me a rating or review on the podcast app, that would be killer. And even better, if you wanted to share this episode on Instagram and tag me, that would totally make my day. And it would bring so much more awareness to the podcast and would help other stylists, just like you, who are looking to build lucrative styling business. Because the better each of us does, the better all of us do.

Thanks for hanging out with me and I'll chat with you next time.