This week’s episode is a little different — and more personal.

Recorded on our anniversary trip in Greece 🇬🇷, we took a moment to pause, reflect, and talk honestly about what it really takes to build a business — and a life — together.

💬 How do you find balance when your work and your purpose are so deeply connected?

💬 How do you give yourself space to think when you’re always in “go mode”?

From the quiet lessons of slowing down to the big realizations about what we truly need to succeed, this episode captures a moment of reflection — and a reminder that growth doesn’t always mean doing more.

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🎉For those in the DC, MD, VA area, we are having our last Hairpreneur Happy Hour of the Year on Monday, October 13th at STK Steakhouse. 

No Fee, No Pressure - Just show up, grab a bite and refreshment, and vibe with your fellow hairdressers!

Send us a DM to let us know you’ll be there! 

🗣️The other event coming up is our Virtual Hairpreneur Roundtable on October 15th 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT. This is a bi-monthly call for salon owners, stylists, barbers, and rising talent at any stage to ask big questions, get expert advice, and turn challenges into opportunities for growth.

Interested? Send us a DM to find out how to join!

The Hairdresser Strong Show is all about Salon Owners, Rising Stylists, and Seasoned Stylists sharing their experiences, successes, failures, and advice to inform, educate, and empower their Fellow Hairdresser. We won’t stop until we are all: Hairdresser Strong.

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Hey everybody, this is Robert, the host of the Hairdresser Strong show and I'm here with Sammy Heffron.

Hey.

Yeah, you might know Sammy because Sammy is my business partner and my wife and we are actually in the airport right now.

We are the end of a long trip to celebrate our 10 years together anniversary.

It also happens to be our five year anniversary as well.

So hopefully you can hear me.

Even though we have this stuff going on in the background.

We didn't drop an episode last week because we were on this trip and before Monday is over we wanted to drop this because we were thinking about it and there's been a lot of reflecting about our, our whole life on this trip.

Sammy, tell us a little bit about what you what what Taking time off from being an entrepreneur, working like crazy hours.

Miyan, tell us a little bit about what comes to mind when I say that.

The first thing is we didn't really take time off.

I would say that at least for me, I'm always sort of thinking about work in the background.

But I think day to day I'm almost glued to the computer or like in the office.

So being here in Greece, it was nice to be in a different environment and not have the, the like usual constant demands.

I had time to think about like how I want to approach certain things or how I want to think about my schedule on a day to day.

Like when is the best time to actually do my workouts or is me doing a workout at 1pm actually disrupting my workflow and like just thinking about things more critically instead of just going through the day to day, kind of just, I guess not intentionally.

That's what comes to mind.

So I, I love this because I too was thinking a lot about different stuff about like how I work and like what are the big picture items and.

But all I can think of is like the people who are listening to this right now who are like, shoot, if I was going to Greece, I would not be thinking about work.

I know the entrepreneurs listening right now, they probably can relate a little bit.

But you know, what do you have to say to all my, all the people in my life?

Like I had a bunch of clients and I had family members and friends saying do not talk about work, just focus on hanging out with each other.

And I was like, I feel was feeling bad as I was thinking about work and so I would try not to think about it and I would find myself just drifting over to these really big conversations and thoughts that I don't get to have or we don't get to have.

Because we're so like in the weeds with the daily grind.

What are your thoughts on that?

I would agree, especially because you still work in the salon.

So as most of you listening know, working in the salon can be pretty draining.

So if you're trying to do stuff before or after work, maybe you're not always in the mood.

So like, if those would actually be like the times when Robert and I would be able to talk about our work.

So I think being outside of that and not having our usual day schedule, I guess made it easier to think more open about stuff.

Yeah.

And I also, I think like for me, I think I really needed to get away from my day to day and I really needed to get out of my house.

I really needed to get away from my desk.

I didn't really get away from my phone, but it was just different.

Like I can't really do a lot on my phone that I need to do.

Like the work that I need to do is like I need to sit down in front of a computer and work on stuff.

But there's always like, are we.

Are we stepping outside of our business and working on our business instead of just working in our business?

And how is our life, how are our lives and our businesses intertwined?

I don't know about you all listening, but Sami and I's business is intertwined with our relationship and our lives because this is.

We started this whole thing because we're looking for a way to have a family and to be able to control our schedule.

And we also both like to help other people and we also both like education and.

And.

Etc.

So anyway, I don't.

I don't know about you all listening, but to go on a vacation with you, Sammy, and especially a long vacation.

I was really happy that you told me you wanted some days or at least a day to where you can do whatever you want and think about stuff for yourself.

I know we probably already talked about it, but could you just kind of talk about like why you wanted to have that day and what you were thinking about?

I guess I wanted to have that day because I never make the time for myself because I always put work first and then leave my personal stuff to the end of the day.

And then by the end of the day I'm just exhausted and keep pushing it and pushing it.

And then I don't know, all of a sudden it's like three months later and I still have this thing that I haven't thought about or done for myself.

So that was one of the reasons.

And what, what are some of the things that you did on that time off?

Like what is like one or two specific things that you took?

You know, maybe you'll inspire somebody else to take some time to think about your, your, your are their business, their life or how they work.

You know, sometimes I know I just like gonna repeat this, but we get so caught up with the day to day.

Is there anything specific that you'd like to share?

I guess the first thing that comes to mind is sort of what I already mention.

One of the things that's challenging for me is like finding a schedule.

I used to work in corporate office job and everything was sort of structured for me.

And now with our business, now everything's sort of like I can make the structure, but I haven't been able to figure out the best structure or schedule for myself.

So one of the things I did because I know that there's this like sleep chronotype, so there's like, I think it's like dolphin, lion, bear, something else, but basically I'm a dolphin.

So it kind of tells you like when are you most productive and when you should work out or the types of food you should eat or things like that.

And I really wanted to try to kind of incorporate myself into my schedule, not just think about, okay, these are the things I need to do.

Because that hasn't really been working very well.

We've been trying to do all sort of different iterations, like time blocking and this.

And I was like admin at this time of the day or this time of the day, it just never seemed right.

So for this trip I kind of wanted to like rethink it and try to incorporate more of like my personality or the things that works best for me and then make the schedule that way.

Okay, I like that.

I love that.

Well, one of the things that you said to me was that there are things that you want to work on and like things that you want to do in your, your main position, which is marketing and community engagement and, and events and specifically in the marketing and, and the, and the content creation and stuff like that.

Like so the result was we booked a time where you got, you blocked out your schedule so you can have like one day a week for most weeks to focus on doing the type of work that inspires you.

You also mentioned though, which I love.

I'm super excited to see what comes out.

I'm sure everybody listening is excited to see what, what comes of that.

But like one of the other things was you wanted time to work on stuff that didn't have anything to do with the business, didn't have anything to do with our relationship, and didn't have anything to do with me or our household.

It had to do just straight up with you.

Can you like, some of, like, what are some of the things that you're gonna do to work on work that you're gonna do in that personal development time?

Because I really thought that was awesome.

And, and like, and just to remind you, when we discussed you, you made room for yourself.

Because what everybody doesn't know is Sammy starts a little later than me and she goes later.

But that also means that her evenings usually are.

Can get soaked up and she can kind of like have like project creep where she.

You go, you go in into like you work longer and don't have a hard cut off.

So I'm making some room for like.

Like what?

Like an average person who goes to the office or goes to work and then they get off work and they're done by a certain time and they have their evening to like work on some of the things that they need to do for their.

For themselves.

What is like one or two of the things that you wanted to do working on.

On for yourself?

I guess think through why I feel bad when I'm not working.

Like, it's not okay to take a break because there's just so much stuff to do that I have to be constantly doing stuff.

And that was one of the things I was trying to understand more about why I feel that way and how I can kind of reframe to think about things as like, it's good enough.

Like, I'm not a doctor, I'm not on call.

I don't have to stay up till 11 doing like, I don't know, emails or whatever it is.

Like, I need to take a break.

And yeah, I think all those thoughts kind of lead me to like, well, if I'm not completing things or making progress, like, I'm a failure.

So that was one of the things I wanted to think through.

Yeah, that, that's, that's so good.

Empowering.

Especially I love how open you're being and vulnerable.

And I think that that's important for us, for us to do so.

On my end, I was spending time thinking specifically about what is the big picture for the business?

Like, what is the big, big goal and how can we get like where do we want to end up and how does, how do we want this to impact our lives?

And what I realized is there are A lot of different pieces missing.

Like, I noticed that I can get so bogged down with building things that like building solutions, building courses, building like we built the shadow program.

We built.

We're building a hairpreneur incubator which is going to have a business boot camp, a money boot camp, and an entrepreneur boot camp.

We're building a professionalism and etiquette course.

And that course is going to have an online version, it's going to have an in person version.

And well, we're building all these things and realizing that we're not doing a very good job getting the information out to people about these opportunities.

So that was really what I got to work on, is like.

Is like instead of so focused on creating this stuff, I got a chance to think about how we can get things out to people so we can make a big impact in their lives and thus also making a big impact in our business and taking us from being what started off as a passion project and now we're in the transition mode, transitioning into a business.

So just that big shift has taken a lot of brain power for me and I haven't had enough room or time to think big.

I've only had been able to think about, okay, what can I do now?

What is due now?

I have the next like two months and I can get this done in two months, but I'm not thinking about three years or five years.

You know, we're talking about having kids and it's like, I can't even.

We have to have a bigger plan if we're going to build a family.

So anyway, I.

Is there any.

Are there any last pieces of advice for anybody who hears this and.

And is thinking to themselves, wow, I can.

I can relate to some of that.

Or.

Or I hear that I have things that are not the same, but similar.

And so, you know, hopefully all you all listening got something out of this.

But at the end of the day, Sami and I decided to take two days to work on our own stuff and we met up for dinner, we had breakfast in the morning and watched the sunrise.

And then Sammy stayed in the villa and I went out to like the main patio area where they had like a pool and a guy serving.

We just so happen to have the entire place basically to ourselves, which is super dope.

So I got to sit in some silence.

You got to sit in some silence and just be with your own thoughts.

But anyway, so any pieces of advice or takeaways from the weekend that you'd like to share?

Whatever comes to Mind.

I guess if anything I said resonates with you, you can send us a dm.

And this is not a plug, but we do have an upcoming kind of like zoom call, and we call it Hamper Roundtable.

But it's basically just a place to share things you're going through, talk through problems, anything like that.

And it's open.

It's not supposed to be like a judgment kind of thing because we're all learning and growing and that's the kind of community we want to, I guess, foster because we're all new at something at some point in time.

So that's gonna be October 15th at 7:30 to 8:30.

You can email us, send us a DM text if you have our number, if you're interested in that.

But I guess it's just try to find other people that are going through the same things that you are so you don't feel as alone or crazy all the time.

That's right.

So the Hairpreneur Roundtable is a great time for everybody to get together virtually.

And that's on.

What'd you say?

The 15th.

We also on Monday, the 13th, which is this coming Monday.

We also have our Hairpreneur.

Was it this Monday?

It's the 13th.

13th.

Two days before the.

Oh, not.

Yeah, not today that you're listening to this, but Monday, one week from today that you're listening to this.

So the 13th of October is our Hairpreneur Happy Hour.

And that's going to be at STK, right, and where is that at?

In D.C. in D.C. massachusetts.

It's on Mass Avenue.

If you can't meet us in person, please hit us up and ask us for the details to get into the Hairpreneur or Entrepreneur Roundtable.

That'll be a chance for us all to discuss the things that are going on, our business and our lives and learn, share and grow together.

All right, well, thank you so much for joining me, Sammy.

Thank you all for listening and get.

You should expect to hear a pretty awesome episode the next next week.

So anyway, hopefully we'll see you at the Hairpreneur Incubator or, sorry, the Hairpreneur Roundtable or the Hairpreneur Happy Hour.

All right, Sammy, until next time.

All right, take care.