Difficult clients are part of the wedding industry, but what if the way you respond to them has more to do with your nervous system than you think? In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin sits down with Wealth Capacity Strategist and Bookkeeper, Hailey Fernelius of Hailey Ann Co., to explore how stress responses can influence the clients you attract and the decisions you make.

Hailey shares how the four survival patterns (fight, flight, fawn, and freeze) show up in business, why burnout often starts long before you notice it, and how simple shifts can help you build a healthier, more sustainable business.

If you've ever struggled with people-pleasing, over-delivering, or setting boundaries, this episode offers practical insights to help you work with more confidence and clarity.

Hailey Fernelius is a Wealth Capacity Strategist who combines nervous system science with bookkeeping to help entrepreneurs align their brain, body, and bank account. She helps business owners break free from limiting patterns and build businesses that support the life they truly want.

Highlights:

• How fight, flight, fawn, and freeze show up in business
• Why boundaries lead to better client relationships
• The connection between burnout and difficult clients
• Using financial data instead of fear to make decisions
• Practical ways to regulate your nervous system
• Building a business that aligns with your goals

Connect with Hailey:

Website

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Facebook

LinkedIn

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

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TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business here. Today I'm with Hailey Fernelius. Did I say it right? I hope so. Okay,

You did.

good. Whew, I was a little nervous on that. With Hailey Ann Co. And we're talking about why your nervous system is the real reason you keep attracting difficult clients. And like I was telling Hailey before we jumped on, I had a few difficult clients in the last

Several months and I'm really excited to jump in on this topic. But before we do, Hailey, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?

Yeah, so I started actually as a wedding assistant. That's how I kind of got into the wedding industry. Absolutely loved it. Found out that I'm really great at the operations end of wedding management,

Mm.

not the design wedding planner side. And then I decided I wanted to travel. And I knew with traveling with weddings, you have to book them out several years in advance. It was gonna be quite difficult. And I was like, well, I know I'm good at the back end.

Let's start with bookkeeping. So I started doing bookkeeping for wedding professionals. And throughout my travels and throughout my time as a bookkeeper, I was like, I I know my numbers. I know what's going on within your accounts. I know that this is a slow season. I know this is a growth season. I know this is post-COVID boom. Like that's when everyone

Yeah.

was like, oh my gosh, yay, the wedding industry is finally back. The post-COVID boom. Yeah.

Yeah, and then wah wah wah

And

My clients weren't seeing it. They were still telling me these stories of hustle and scarcity and struggle and attracting these difficult clients. And they didn't understand that it was part of their nervous system. And so I was like, I

Mm.

can give you all the evidence and data that I can find. I had a client that was like, My leads are down. I don't have as many leads. And I was like, no, actually your leads are exactly the same as last year. And she was like, No, they're not. And I was like, No, they are.

Numbers don't lie.

Numbers don't lie.

It's it's the story you're telling yourself about the numbers. It's your nervous system that's

Mm.

telling you that something is different or that something is wrong. But the data is telling me, nope, things are exactly the same. Things are great. You are successful. You're growing. And so that's when I kind of got into the wealth capacity side, the nervous system side, where I can tell you all the numbers, but you're not gonna believe it.

Until we rewrite the stories in your body. So I'm super excited to jump into this topic with you.

yeah, me

too. All right. So you gave us a little bit of a quick version, but like who are you helping? You know, what led you to combine this with bookkeeping and business strategy? Like how did we get Hailey here to you know to that point?

It's like a butterfly effect of my life.

Okay.

It's just like all the things that have compounded over my journey. But it really is that I help female entrepreneurs mostly. And I again I started in the wedding industry. And for a lot of us, we've never been taught about our nervous system. Or if we've been taught about fight, flight, fawn, and freeze, we've heard about it in terms of romantic relationships, not

Okay.

in terms of our relationship to money or our relationship to our business or our relationship to our clients.

and so it's been this fun sort of journey of figuring out what your money trauma is, what your relationship with your clients is, and people don't realize I say brain, body, and bank account. I try to get them all aligned for you. Cause if one is misaligned, you're gonna see these struggles that no one's really fond of. Yeah, the three B's.

I was gonna say the three Bs. I like that. Yeah.

Yeah. Those are the important ones. All right. So why is your nervous system the real reason you're attracting difficult clients? Like and what do you really mean by that?

Yeah, so fight, flight, fawn, and freeze are the four survival patterns. So someone

Okay.

who is a fighter is someone who moves very quickly, and I like to say they're willing to throw money at any problem. They're willing to throw time, money, anything at the problem to see what sticks. They

Mm.

just want to do. They're doers. Someone who is stuck in flight is someone who looks busy.

But they're actually busy because they're avoiding the thing that they don't want to do. Someone who's fawn is someone who cares so much about what everybody else thinks that they actually prevent themselves from doing anything because they think it will upset somebody within their community. And then

Hmm. Okay.

somebody who's stuck in freeze is somebody who's so terrified of being seen a certain way or doing the wrong thing that they do nothing instead.

And so each type is meant to help you survive. It's your body saying something is dangerous, something is not safe. And so this is how we've decided we're going to survive. So when we're talking about difficult clients, let's say we take a fight archetype, they probably love a difficult client. They're probably like,

Mm-hmm.

I can change this client's mind, or I can make this client see things differently. And they take it as kind of like, yeah, yeah, they kind of take it as a fun challenge. Whereas

Not gonna take their BS? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

if you take somebody who's

you know, survival pattern is freeze and you get a difficult client, you probably overexplain. You probably, you know, over-deliver. You you get pushed

Hmm.

around. You probably did it for a cheaper price. You probably, you know, your deliverables are probably through the roof. And you feel like you're kind of getting bullied by your client because you just want them to be happy. And you're like, no conflict. I should just be happy I have a client.

Do whatever I yeah, do whatever what I gotta do to make happy. Okay.

Yes. Same with

Fawn. Fawn just wants to make them happy. And then with flight, it's more like, okay, what can I do to keep myself busy so I'm not available to this client? What's the bare minimum I can do to keep the client but also keep myself busy so I don't think too much about them?

What if you identify with multiple of those? Is that an

or Okay.

Yeah, you can.

Okay. Cause I was like in my head, I'm like, okay, I identified with at least two, maybe three of those. So I was like, all right. So I'm not crazy. Okay.

No, no, no. So most people have a dominant archetype. And then it can also

change in different situations. So you could

Hmm.

be a fawn archetype when it comes to difficult clients, and you could be a fight archetype when it comes to sending invoices or money management. So it can also

okay.

change depending on the situation.

All right. let's like jump into it. So how does the nervous system patterns actually show up in the wedding business day to day, you think?

Yeah, so for the wedding business, it really is about what I've noticed, especially with wedding planners, and let's talk about like wedding days specifically. You're working 13 hours. So you're exhausted. You've got all

Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

this planning that went in beforehand. You've got the family there. You've got the mother-in-law in your ear. You've got the mother of the bride in your ear. You've got the bride who's like, no, this isn't exactly right. You've got the photographer who maybe showed up late. Like, there's so many things going on. And so wedding planners tend to be fighters.

They have to. They have

Mm.

to keep moving. They can't freeze. So when that happens and you've got a difficult client, you just have to keep moving. But if you're not a fight archetype, if you are a freeze archetype, wedding days can be extremely exhausting for you. You can

Mm.

push through it, but what tends to happen is then your nervous system crashes after. So that big crash, not just of exhaustion that you've worked a hard day, but like if you need two or three days.

after the wedding day to be by yourself, to not talk to anybody,

okay. Okay.

to really like rest, you probably have a different survival pattern than fight. And you really have to push through to make it work.

So crazy. All right. So what

Yeah.

are some common behaviors or decisions that signal someone is operating from like stress or survival?

So my big thing is tension. So if you think

about a difficult client and you literally feel your shoulders raise, or for some people they lock their jaw. Some

Okay.

people they only breathe in the top part of their chest. They don't fully expand their lungs. And for some people, their hips get really tight. So when you

Okay.

think about something stressful, when you think about a difficult client, do you want to get up and walk around?

Do you feel the need to either like pop your shoulders or do you feel yourself curving in, like,

Okay.

okay? Cause that's your body trying to protect your middle. So when when it's something that has to do with your chest or your diaphragm and you notice that your posture shrinks, your

Okay.

body is literally trying to protect your heart. And

Okay.

then if you notice that your jaw locks, your body is literally trying to stop you from saying something.

that it thinks will be dangerous and like

talking back

to a client or saying something controversial. So if you think about where you hold the tension in your body, that's gonna give you a big clue.

Right. I don't have that problem saying something controversial. So

That's good.

all right. Why do high achieving business owners often continue attracting, misaligned or draining clients, even when becoming successful?

Yeah. So this has to do with the story that you're saying about yourself. So if you attract a difficult client, you think that that means something's wrong with your messaging, or you think that that

Okay.

means that there's something that you need to push through, that you need to work through, that you need to prove to somebody that you can handle difficult situations. When the reality is what your nervous system's probably trying to teach you is how to say no. So for the fight archetype.

You don't have to take on every challenge. Not every

Okay.

challenging client is worth your time. For Fawn Archetype, if you have to go so far out of your comfort zone to make somebody else happy, you need to learn to say no. So for these

difficult clients, and I'm sure people are listening and they're like, Hailey, I'm in the beginning of my business. I don't have the luxury of saying no. And I hear that a lot. And

Yeah. Yeah. I remember those

days. Yeah.

Yeah, and it's

true, but I want to challenge you and I want you to know if you continue to build your business with clients that you don't actually enjoy working with that you consider difficult clients, you're going to continue to attract difficult clients

Mm.

because that's who you've been targeting. If all you're getting is difficult clients, that means you're targeting difficult clients. So when you start saying no to those difficult clients,

That's when your nervous system, when the universe, whatever you want to believe in, God, spirit, universe, that's when you start proving to yourself I'm worthy of clients that I actually want. I can say no to clients who don't align. And again, there are really challenging clients that you should say no

Yeah.

to. And there are kind of difficult clients where you're like, I can manage this, but it's not my fave.

Yeah. Okay. And is there a way other than saying no, is there other things that a business owner can do to like prevent themselves from taking on difficult clients? Or is no it? Like no.

Yeah.

Yeah. So you have to decide what's worth it to you. So for some people, they increase the price for difficult clients. If they know based

on an inquiry that the client is going to be difficult, they quote them a higher price. For some people, it's worth it to take on a difficult client as long as they're gonna get paid well to do

Mm-hmm.

it. If that's not the case, then you can either just say no.

Or you can set really clear boundaries. So those are

Okay.

kind of the three ways to do it. Either you're willing to betray your boundaries for the right amount of money, either you're willing

to maintain your boundaries. Yeah.

Money talks, so

Or you're willing to just say no to the project altogether.

Yeah, makes sense. Okay. I like that. Yeah. There was someone growing up, when I was starting my business, we would get subcontracted out to work for another guy that had a very successful business in the city. So he would use us as like a subcontractor to take on his overflow work. And every once in a while he goes, you're gonna get paid a little bit more for this one because I put a little FU tax on there. And that was because they're gonna be a pain and this is why and

You would go in there like ready to know that it's gonna be a little bit difficult, but you were making more money. So I get it. I get it. All right. So how does people pleasing over like over accommodating connect to difficult client experiences?

Yeah, so this is somebody who's probably in fawn or freeze who's willing to

Okay.

like overgive. You think for whatever reason we're taught from a young age the law of reciprocity. If I'm kind, someone will be kind back. And that's what Fawn and Freeze really believe. They believe if I go above and beyond, then this person will be happy. I'll get the testimonial that I want. I'll get, you know, the client reviews that I want, I'll get the photos from from the wedding that I want.

Whatever it is, whatever you believe the end goal is that you'll receive

Mm-hmm.

from overgiving. Very rarely that's actually the case if you're working with a difficult

yeah.

client. And I'm sure anyone listening has been like, Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way. You know, I I really felt for this couple. I knew they had a tight budget. She was really difficult. Her mom was really difficult, but I really wanted her to have the best wedding day possible.

And you get to the wedding day, they don't like anything, they're upset with the choices they made, they're upset with the timeline, and then they get really frustrated. Like I know for one of my weddings, the bride booked the wrong day. All of our communication had the wrong day, and they showed up.

Holy cow.

They showed up the day prior to the day that they had booked, paid for, everything. And the mother was so mean. We

We were able to pull it. I don't know how we did it, but we were able to pull it together. The food obviously came out late because like it was for the wrong day. And

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

they were so mean. They didn't tip. They were so rude to the staff the whole night. They said that we had embarrassed them and their family.

Meanwhile everyone went over

Yeah. But all of our community, we had the right documentation. We w everything had been booked for the day, the next day.

But they were so rude, and all we could do was our best. And in that situation,

we could have said no. We could have said, No, your wedding's tomorrow. Like, sorry.

Wow. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

but no, we did our best, and we're proud of what we were able to do, but we still did not get the testimonial, we did not get the praise, we did not get you know what we had hoped to get. What you hope when you spend months, if not years, helping plan a

Yeah.

wedding.

Or j

And you get to the

end and you've done all this extra work and you get nothing for it.

Or

it's just even a simple appreciation that you're able to pull it off. I mean, that's like that's

Yeah.

a difficult situation. I've never heard of that situation.

So like the

Yeah.

like how do you mess that up? Like it's I don't know. That's

And it

and the bride was just like, oops, sorry, yeah, it's today. Like no like, oh my god, I can't believe oh my gosh, that none of that. It was just like No, it was please

Yeah. My bad, I yeah, any of that. Wow.

figure it out. Not even please, just figure it out.

Yeah, we paid you your problem now.

Yeah, all these

people are showing up, so you better figure something out.

It's so weird. All right. You were

Mm-hmm.

talking about boundaries earlier. So what role does boundaries play in the types of clients someone attracts?

Yeah, so it depends on again your messaging. And I think this starts a lot with marketing and you

Okay.

know it who do you really want to serve? Cause again, for like fawn and freeze archetypes, they probably have it in their ethos that they want to be an affordable option. They want people to know that they can have a beautiful wedding no matter what their budget is. And so then when they get a difficult client that has a really tight budget but has, you know, astronomical expectations.

They want to make it work because it's part of their ethos that that

Mm.

that they want beautiful weddings to be affordable. But that's where the boundary comes in of you are the expert. And yes, it is part of your ethos that you want affordable weddings. But in this day and age, you also know what exactly that looks like. And if your bride's expectation is a 50K price point at a 10K budget, it's not necessarily your responsibility.

To come up with all of the budget cuts on your end,

Yeah.

it's your responsibility to tell them the reality of the situation and what's possible. You're not the mean person, you're not the bad guy. And someone may

Yeah.

come along and say that they can do it cheaper, and that just means that that client wasn't for you. They were looking for the cheapest option, not the best option for their price point.

I think the hardest thing to learn as a business owner is that not every client is for you and that's okay.

Yeah.

because, again, we're in a service, you know, business type business and we want to please and service people, but but not every th like I I remember, you know, ten, fifteen years ago working a wedding going, This I what am I even doing here? Like how did I get here? I don't connect with the client, I don't connect with the venue, like I I just

Don't what am I doing? You know, so it's you having boundaries, I think, really I mean, even in in the com like, what about like in the, you know, the planning process, having good boundaries, you know, like when I can meet or how accessible I'm gonna be, all that. Does that attract you think clients or keep them away if you're more difficult or you have boundaries, or will it attract a different type of client?

It definitely attracts a different type of client. I worked for

Okay.

a wedding planning business company that had it in the contract that they could only contact them twice a week. They could only send two emails a week

until they got within, I think, three

A certain

months of the wedding. And then they had a mother of the bride that emailed them every single day. And

Mm.

so when they would receive the emails, they would send a notification that said,

Per the contract, you know, we receive two emails per week. We will read your emails twice a week and respond to them on those two days.

that's gotta piss that lady off.

Yeah, but it was in the contract and it was signed by her daughter, and

Yeah. Yeah.

it was what it was. And it did make her angry, but at the end of the day, it was.

contract between the bride and the company, not the company and the mother of the bride. And so if the mother of the bride wasn't able it it's still on the company owners, it's your responsibility to abide by your boundaries. And even

Yeah, no. Yeah.

if it makes someone angry, it's there for a reason.

Yeah. Well, and and

that's where I think when I had my difficult client where I came in, is I was booked with the couple, never dealt with the mother of the of the groom. And then all of a sudden she shows up and had different expectations of what was supposed to happen. And now all of a sudden I'm a horrible person because and I'm like, no, this is the time they told me every you know, you know what I'm saying? So it's like so I can see how that can totally, you know, and the couple was very like meek and very

Like they let the parents come in and bully every- but I'm like, Where were you guys during the whole planning process? Never met with you once. You know, like this would have been helpful information a month ago, you know, like

Yeah.

you know, kind of thing. So and I would have been able to accommodate all this a month ago. So yeah, it's so good.

Yeah. And in those situations

you have to know you did the best with what you had. Cause people

Yeah.

like that, people who come in and they try to bulldoze at the end, their goal is to make you feel like you did something wrong. And again, when you

Yeah.

when you're in the service industry, we all have a little bit of fawn in us. We all want everyone to like the work

Yeah.

that we do. But we also have to remind ourselves if we're not given all the information, I've done the best I can do with what I had. Yeah.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's exactly how I but I was still mad, but anyway, that's

a whole nother story. You get upset

Yeah.

about it, but all right, all right. So Hailey, how can stress or burnout affect pricing, communication, client expectations without someone like even realizing that it's happening?

Yeah, it tends to be a slow burn. For a lot of us,

we we're like, okay, I'll do it this one time. I'll give a discount this one time. And then you give the discount and then that ends up being the client that needs the most from you, that takes the most energy, and then you're not getting the compensation that you were hoping to get from it. And then you do your bookkeeping and you realize, actually I lost money on this wedding because of all the extras that I've given.

And then you start to get bitter. And then once you get bitter about one client, you tend to find patterns within other clients. And that bitterness tends to just kind of spiral and continue. And that's why you see it. You see a lot of wedding professionals really hit the ground running and they love the job and they love doing it. And then once they've been in it for five or ten years, I don't know if you've ever been to a wed- and then you start talking to the photographer and they're a little bitter. You start talking to the DJ and they're a little bitter, and you're like, ooh.

You know, maybe this industry isn't as great as everybody says it is. No, it is. But you

It is.

you've been betraying your own boundaries, you've been betraying your own energy, and the only person responsible for that is you. And so if you

Yeah.

feel like you're getting to that area, again, find out where the stress is living in your body. When you think about these difficult clients, when you think about, you know, the time that you over-delivered and didn't get paid for it, where do you feel it in your body?

That's when I introduce somatics. We release that tension in that area of the body, and then we tell you a new story that you're willing to believe. Because for a lot of people,

Yeah.

they believe, well, this is just how it is. Well, this is just the wedding industry. Well, this is just

Yeah.

clients. Well, this is just, well, that's not true. I have plenty of stories of beautiful clients who nothing went wrong. And or if something did go wrong, they didn't throw a temper tantrum about it. And

Then I have stories of clients who everything went perfect and they still weren't happy. But it's all up to us to manage ourselves. Yeah.

Yeah. And I well and we tend to fixate on the on those type of you know, the

problem ones and we forget the hundred that were perfect, we only remember the one or two that went wrong and we get so stuck in the so I I see we're telling a different story, like you know, that's a pretty good percentage, you know. One out of, you know, a hundred are upset. That's not really a bad percentage. So yeah.

Mm-hmm. And reminding

yourself of the evidence that you already have. I know I'm a good wedding planner. I know I'm a good business owner. This person

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

was upset and I did everything I could.

Yeah. You mentioned like you know, talking at like when we eat. I had a photographer one time. We were working at a very busy, predominant venue. and the photographer was just talking smack over and over and over again about the venue. Like the lighting's not right, this doesn't happen. And then the wedding planner comes in and she's like kissing the wedding planners, you know what, and being all friendly and nice. And as soon as the wedding planner

From the venue walked out, then it was back to this place and then finally at the videographer and I like looked at her and I go, Why are you even working here? If you I'm like, you remove yourself from the equation and don't work. She goes, Well, this place is so booked. And I'm like, But if you don't like it, don't work here. You know, like find a new place that makes you happy, that you can get your good photos or do what you want to do. But it just was such a like such a real moment. the videographer and I were both like looking at ourselves like.

We like it here, but don't ruin our, you know, moment. You know, like we we enjoy it here, but I don't know what your problem is. So it made it made us

Yeah. And see when we

don't honor our own energy, we tend to take it from others. So like you loved that you know, or you enjoyed

Yeah. Yeah.

that venue, but now that they're bringing that energy, you're like, Okay, well now I feel heavier. Now I feel like

Yeah.

I don't wanna be here anymore.

No, yeah, I get it. All right, Hailey, you come from a bookkeeping and financial background. So how does money patterns connect to our nervous system like regulations?

Yeah. So for a lot of people who take on difficult clients, like like we talked about earlier, you might be in the beginning stages of your business and you're like, no, I just need to take on any client. I need revenue. I need testimonials. Like, I just have to suck it up. Okay, well, you've sucked it up and you're now five, 10 years into your business, and you're still saying the story, Well, I don't know when my next client's gonna come. I just have to take everyone because what if we hit another COVID? What if, you know.

Yeah.

And then you live in this scarcity mindset of I have to keep hustling. I'm not allowed to rest until the world tells me to, until something

Mm.

so bad happens that I have to rest. And that doesn't always look like COVID. It can look like a chronic illness within yourself. It can look like a a really traumatic family, you know, something happening, someone passing away, an injury happening somewhere else, having to move, something.

I believe in the universe, but again, whatever you believe in, God, universe source. I believe that if you don't manage your own rest, the universe will put you in a situation where you have to. And

Mm.

that's when it gets worse. I can't tell you how many stories I've heard of millionaires who busted their butts working tooth and nail to the bone. And then as soon as they got the revenue that they wanted, their body crashed.

And they had

a chronic illness, they were bedridden for months, they were terrified for their business. So what I try to do is I try to show you you are growing, you are scaling, you do have clients, revenue is coming in. And so when I when I give you your numbers, I'm not your grandfather's bookkeeper. That's what I always say. I'm not just gonna give you the numbers

No

and then leave you be because a lot of professionals, a lot of creative professionals like yourself.

You can manage the budget for a wedding. You can understand the invoices and all of that. But as soon as you're asked to sit down with your own budget, your own money, you tend to start telling yourself stories. Well, I would be successful if I was making a million dollars. Well, I'm not successful until I have 10 recurring clients. Well, and so you look at the numbers and you see them as a judgment. When I come

Mm.

in, I look at the numbers and I find the best possible angle. I'm not trying to sugarcoat.

your business or your life. I don't want my clients to fail because they were naive about their numbers, but I also

Yeah.

don't want you to fail because you're so judgmental of yourself that you can't see the milestones you have hit and the revenue you are generating and the people you have helped because you're so focused

Mm-hmm.

on a goalpost that you keep moving every time you reach it.

Yeah, no, yeah. Yeah, you like reach

it and then you keep pushing it out further and further and yeah. Yeah, you're constantly

Yeah. So like

I have a client, she just started last year and she made a great amount of money her first year. And then we've come into this second year. She made great money the first few months. And then in March, she did a little bit less. Her revenue just

Mm-hmm.

wasn't as high. But I know her, I know her nervous system, and I knew she was going to see a dip in revenue, not as a natural ebb and flow to business, but as a failure that she did not surpass.

The months prior. So instead

Mm.

of saying that, I said, my gosh, your revenue is up 6,000% this March than from last March. That's

Mm.

the information I started with. And she was like, my God, really? And I was Yeah, last March you made $700 in your business. Yeah, because it was her first year. And this

wow. Yeah, that makes sense.

year you've made X, Y, and Z. And

Yeah.

she was like, oh my gosh. And then when I told her what the actual revenue was.

She wasn't focused on the fact that it was less than the revenue from the month prior. She was focused on the fact that it was up six thousand percent from the year prior.

And I think looking

back at previous years, previous months are a good dictator. Cause not every month is going to be cr you know, incrementally better because like you said, there's ebb and flows and you know, like every wedding business has, you know, across the country, across the world has different seasons, you know,

No.

so they're you know, some people only do weddings six months out of year in their in their market and some people go year round and you know, so like looking month to month, I think like you said is is a good way to do it.

I would imagine. So I'm not an expert,

Yeah. It is.

but I just think it's always a good way to look look at

it.

Yeah.

So

do you think the business owners that went through COVID are they like struggling or a little bit more guarded, I guess it is, or you know, I don't know.

You again, it depends on your your nervous system archetype. Again, the fighters are like, I I made it through, I'll make it through again. The

Yeah. Okay.

fawn is like, oh my god, that was so hard, I never want to do that again. Please, please don't tell me anything bad because then they start to think they're gonna go back to COVID times.

I think to be an entrepreneur, you just have to be extremely resilient. You have to regulate your nervous system. You have to understand your numbers. You have to understand the ebbs and flows of business. And just like you said, there are certain states, certain areas of the world where you can only operate six months out of the year. Like the weather is just not compatible for weddings.

Mm. Yeah.

You know, and then there are some places where it's very temperate and you can operate the full year and not comparing yourself.

To somebody who's not in your situation, who's not in your area. Because I've seen that too, where they're like, well, this New York wedding planner does X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, girl, you're in Hawaii. Like

Yeah.

you're, you're not gonna, you're not gonna pull the same numbers as New York. You don't have the same climate as New York. And vice versa. You

Yeah.

might be really busy for three months out of the year in Hawaii. Like crazy busy. And New York's never gonna see that. So

Yeah. Yeah.

That's my advice as well.

No,

yeah. No. And I I was the WIPA national president for four years and that was the greatest education I got from there. It's just learning, oh, not every market is the same across this country. I mean, just even across our country, it's so different. And even like even the Colorado market, they were like busy during the winter because everyone wanted those beautiful aspen snow. You know what I'm saying? Like so there's different ebbs and flow. And then the summer it's it's busy, but not a it's a different kind of you know what I'm saying? So

It just it's really yeah, that was the greatest education I got. So all right. Yeah, you just or

The more information you have.

or you just appreciate. You're like, okay. Like in Phoenix, yeah. When it's cool and not a hundred and twenty degrees outside. Yeah, no one wants to get married in hundred and twenty degree weather. But in

Yeah.

the winter, they're in in Arizona, that's a great place to get married. So

Yeah.

All right. So Hailey, what's the difference between building a business from fear versus building a business from alignment and clarity?

You're gonna burn out. If you build the

Okay.

business from fear, you're gonna burn out. You're gonna get sick. You're going to have strained relationships with your friends and family. And it's just

Mm.

never gonna feel right. What I've noticed with a lot of, you know, the entrepreneurs that I work with, they get into programs where they're like, okay, but this person says X, Y, and Z that they can help me do da-da-da-da-da.

And then they get in the program and they're like, oh my God, this person wants me to wake up at 4 a.m. every day. They want me to do this, they want me to do that. Like, I don't wake up at 4 a.m., I have kids, or I don't wake up at 4 a.m., I don't have kids, you know, like whatever it is. And so when you build a business with somebody else's blueprint, with somebody else's idea of what worked for them, it's never gonna work for you. And I'm not saying that you

Yeah.

shouldn't get guidance and that you shouldn't get mentorship and that you shouldn't be inspired.

By somebody else's story. But what I am saying is again, if you are a fight archetype and you're trying to teach someone who's a freeze archetype, you're gonna burn the freeze out so fast.

The freeze cannot keep up with a fight. They they don't they don't respond the same way. What motivates a fight person is a challenge, is movement. What motivates a freeze person is feeling safe to be themselves. So if you're if you're it it just doesn't match. And so

Yeah, I know.

But that makes sense. Yeah.

What I'm finding, yeah, what I'm finding

is you have to know yourself so well to know when a strategy is not for you. And it's not that that strategy is bad, it's not that it doesn't work, it's not that there is evidence that it doesn't work, it's that there's evidence that it doesn't work for you. And that's okay.

No.

Yeah, no. And it's back to not every client is for you, you know, so it's probably you're not for everyone. You know, like when it comes to business advice and coaching and it's funny because I I've been to different conferences and someone will go, That speaker is horrible. And I'm like, That speaker is great. What do you talk- you know, but it's the same

Yeah.

probably the same thing. It's I'm digesting different information that this person's saying than what the person next to me was, you know. So that's that's a good point. So

Yeah. And

it also matters how you want your life to look. Cause I was speaking to a client and she has a fear of visibility. So she's really good at what she does, but she doesn't necessarily want to market herself. She just wants referrals. And whenever I talk to her about it, I I was really trying to get to the root of why she doesn't want to be visible. She's a huge Taylor Swift fan.

And she sees all of the security that Taylor Swift has to go through. And like for her last concert, Taylor Swift had to be wheeled in what looked like a janitor's, you know,

Yeah.

whatever. And she was hiding inside. And so what I found is she was idolizing Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift's life, Taylor Swift's money, all of that. But then saw that what came with that was being scared for her own safety, was having to

Yeah.

spend so much money just to feel safe. And so now she doesn't.

Want the level of success she says she wants because she's afraid. Yeah, it's

geez. Yeah.

it's crazy when you think about it. And then, you know, there's the story. I don't know if you've heard the story of the fisherman. So there was a fisherman and a businessman came into town and was like, if you fished more and you sold more fish, you'd have more money. And if you had more money, you could buy another boat. And if you bought another boat, you could make more money and you could travel more. And then once you did that, you could spend more time with your wife and kids.

And the fisherman was like, I fish just enough to support my family. And then I come home halfway through the day and I spend it with my wife and my kids. So why would I do all of this extra work to have

Yeah.

something that I can have now? And

Yeah.

it depends on the type of business you want to build. Do you want a wedding empire where you have a hundred employees and you operate across the entire US? Or do you want to operate in your small town and you just want to do the best you can?

by yourself 'cause those are two very different businesses.

Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent

and different yeah, goals and different personalities, I'm sure, and there's yeah, everything.

Yes.

The whole the whole everything. It just is what it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, so knowing yourself, that's my biggest thing. Know yourself,

know what you want, know your energy,

Yeah.

and follow that.

All right, Hailey, is is there a way like wedding pros can start recognizing when they're making decisions from anxiety instead of confidence?

Yeah, if you feel that sort of closing in, if you feel that tension, you're not making it out of confidence. If you feel excited, if you feel expanded, if you're like, oh my God, I cannot wait to do this,

Yeah.

then then that's the right thing.

That makes sense though. It just yeah, it did the way it goes. So

Mm-hmm.

all right, Hailey, what are some practical ways someone can regulate themselves before reacting to client situations? You know, like I I've heard people take time, I'll get I'm gonna let this marinate, you know, and we'll deal with it tomorrow. Or I'm gonna auto send this email to go out at five o'clock so the client will get it and I'm already away from my desk-, you know, like what are some ways we can do to regulate ourselves?

Yeah. So it again, it depends on your type. Again, some people send the email and they're like, Yep, we're good. For me, I'm all about movement. So again,

Mm-hmm.

figuring out where you're holding that tension. So if you're holding tension in your jaw, giving yourself a little jaw massage before you go to say the thing. Like if you're scared to say something to a client and your jaw feels tight and you are like, my god, I have a headache because my jaw is so tight.

Massage your jaw first, think about what you want to say, think about what feels good, think about your boundaries. And then once you've released that tension, then go do the thing. Because if you do the thing while you're still tense, you're probably gonna look back on it later and be like, it would have been better if I would have. Or I I was I was a little angry or I was a little reactive. Maybe I should have just taken a moment. and then if it's your shoulders.

I love doing like shoulder circles. I'm also big on it takes less than two minutes to release tension in your body. It takes less than two minutes to regulate your nervous system. But when you tell yourself, I can't rest until I get X, Y, and Z done, you tend to do worse at whatever X, Y, and Z is. If you would

He is

have just taken the two minutes to move your body, even if it's just getting up and dancing to your favorite song. I don't care if it's ugly dancing. I don't care if you're just rolling around.

Mm-hmm.

I don't care if you're jumping around. Shake it out.

dance for a few seconds, sing, be loud, scream into a pillow, whatever it is that you're not,

Release.

yeah, whatever it is you're avoiding, release it and then go do the thing.

Yeah, that's good advice. All right. So

Yeah.

how does improving internal capacity ultimately improve client experience and business growth?

Yeah. I think the best way I can explain it is think about when you were a kid and like your parents forced you to do something that you really didn't want to do. Like let's say you were cleaning, let's say you hate vacuuming, and then you finish vacuuming and you realize you completely skip that corner, the patterns all crazy- my dad was like very much it needed to be in straight lines. Yeah.

I I I'm a pattern person too with a guy. Yes.

So if you really don't want to do it, the pattern sucks. You finish it and you're like, actually, I can't believe I wasted time doing it wrong.

Cause now I hate the way it looks. Whereas if you were like, oh my God, I love vacuuming. I love when the lines are all perfectly straight. And then you go at it, you get it done, and then you're like, I love the way this looks. Like I did

Mm-hmm.

so good. That's the difference. It's truly about the energy that you bring to it. So if you don't like a client, if you don't like what you're doing, you're going to finish it. You're not gonna feel like you succeeded. You're not gonna feel the relief. You're not gonna feel proud of what you did.

And then you're gonna start second guessing yourself. And that's when imposter syndrome comes. And then you're like, Am I doing what I should be doing? Whereas if you love what you're doing, if you say yes to the right opportunities, if you say no to the wrong clients, if you come at it with a, oh my gosh, I'm so grateful that I get to do this, your whole business is gonna change, your whole life is gonna change.

Yeah, it makes sense. It's funny,

my wife recently got a Roomba and it was doing perfect lines and then all of a sudden it went like cut through and I'm like, What is it doing? It had like all these perfect lines and I'm like standing there and I'm like, Your machine's gone crazy. I'm like, it had per

Yeah.

all it had to do is back out and it was fine. Anyway. But it's the

That's funny.

little things in life that we we worry about. So

Yeah.

All right,

Hailey, we're getting to the end here. So one last question. For someone who's constantly dealing with difficult clients or like feeling emotionally drained by their business, where should they start?

Start with your nervous system, start with regulating,

Okay.

start with doing things. For a lot of people, doing the deep work of figuring out why is a lot to ask when you're already exhausted and when you're already

Mm.

burnt out. So just start moving your body in weird ways. Massage your jaw, move your arms, shake around, do some weird squats that release tension like in your hips.

Figure out where the tension is in your body and then just start focusing on that area of your body every day until you feel that release and until you feel better and until you're like, okay, this is what I'm worried about. okay, this is what I'm avoiding.

Mm-hmm.

movement. What I've found for a lot of entrepreneurs is we think we have to be stuck at our desk. We think we have to be, we have to solve the problem from here. We have to sit down, we have to focus.

And then we tell ourselves it's a motivation problem. It's not a motivation problem. It's a tension problem. It's a stress problem. It's a movement problem. It's a belief problem. and taking two minutes, I promise you guys, two minutes

Mm-hmm. It's all it is.

to move and to just release and to feel a little bit better is going to change how you look at your business and how you operate within your business.

No, and I love it. Just two minutes and life's better.

Just two minutes. Yeah. It can be that simple.

All right. So Hailey, where can our listeners learn more from you and connect with you?

Yeah, so I do host a free event every single month. It's called Somatic Wealth. We go through the nervous system archetypes and we go through movements. So if you want to learn more about your nervous system, if you want to learn more movements, I highly encourage you to come. It's very conversational. I'm not lecturing you. We have a lot of fun. We like to laugh.

And then you can find me on Instagram, @haileyannco, or my email is [email protected]. I do free coffee chats. I love to hear stories. I love to hear how you've built your business and what you want your life to be. And so I try to be as accessible as possible.

Well, and we will have all of Hailey's information in the show notes as well as the email blast that goes out with Hailey's episode. so Hailey, we can't thank you enough for being here. Such great information. I think it'll be very by the time this releases, I think it'll be very timely for a lot of wedding business owners that are a little stressed out and like trying to, and I I think hopefully it'll be eye-opening. All right. Of course. Yeah,

Yeah. well thank you for having me, Kevin. This has been so fun.

it was a lot of fun. So thank you so much. We'll see you next time on another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business.

Thanks.