EPISODE 6 — WHEN IT ALL STOPS - The Red Room 🎙️

Sometimes stopping shows you what success has been costing you.

“Welcome to Chapter Six: When It All Stops.This chapter changed my life.COVID stopped everything.Three salons. A team. A family. Years of building.Suddenly I couldn't control what happened next.But underneath the fear, something else happened.For the first time in years, the hamster wheel stopped.And when it did, I had to face a question I had avoided for a very long time:I had built success—but did I actually like the life I'd built around it?That question has shaped almost everything I've created since.Sometimes your next chapter doesn't begin by doing more.Sometimes it begins when you finally stop long enough to hear yourself.Welcome to When It All Stops.”

Welcome to The RED ROOM.A space for Resilient, Empowered and Driven women who are ready to have the conversations that often happen behind closed doors.

I’m Carla Chatburn — founder, franchisor, mentor, wife and mum — and after more than two decades in business, I’ve learned that success is never just about what you build.It’s about who you become while building it.Here in The RED ROOM, we talk about the real stuff here is your free IP

And that’s another conversation from The RED ROOM.

A room for Resilient, Empowered and Driven women — where we share the stories behind the success, not just the highlight reel.If something from today’s conversation stayed with you, don’t just listen to it — do something with it. https://info.confidentbeautytherapist.co.uk/

Chapter 6 When It All Stops When COVID hit, it was a transition that I didn't think anyone was ready for. I became very, very aware that there were so many people suffering in the world and there wasn't anything I could do about it. Businesses were closing, people were losing their jobs, losing their lives, overwhelm kicked in and my brain went into overdrive. I had so much responsibility in terms of my team, my family, my businesses. But at the same time, I had so little control. I had to close three salons down and find a way of keeping 20 people on my payroll.

Myself and my team had spent nearly 20 years building up something special. I couldn't just make people redundant, but I had no idea how I was going to do this. I had to make sure everyone's mental health was looked after and keep their spirits up high. I had to manage the finances, learn all new laws and regulations, all while keeping a brave face. I had to study how to manage money and make sure my outgoings were getting paid and basically keep the businesses afloat and out of debt. It was probably one of the most traumatising experiences I'd ever had to go through.

No one could see how tough it was behind the scenes, but it changed everything for me. My biggest learning. Before COVID, I'd done a lot of work on what my strengths and weaknesses were. I was kind of on a roll in terms of self-development and growth, and it was brilliant. I was working with a coach, I had a great team and a secure future. But I was still on that hamster wheel working 12 hours a day, and I was hyper-focused, almost obsessed with success. But with COVID, I had no option but to get off that hamster wheel.

And it was the first time I really analysed what my success actually meant. And it was such a pivotal experience. On paper, I'd become a success. This dizzy blonde that had come from an underprivileged background who had dyslexia, who didn't know what the word strategy meant, who had tables of men laugh at her and underestimate her, had done everything she set out to achieve. You'd think I'd be on top of the world, but in reality, I was so sad. I worked so many hours and so focused on business growth that I didn't stop to look after myself.

I put everyone's needs before my own. I never had family time. I very rarely saw my children, and I became that person I never wanted to be. I had lost track of what success meant to me. It doesn't matter how much money you've got in the bank if you've not got the time and emotional happiness to enjoy the experiences that life brings you. What's the point? Is that success? On paper I had everything I thought was possible. But I wasn't living and I had no life. I went through a really strange time of resenting my success and wealth, and I developed depression and anxiety.

But because I'd never experienced those before, or really talked about it, I didn't know what was happening to me. When you were so out of control of your own thoughts and emotions, it's like your body starts shutting down and your brain goes into fight or flight. The moment everything stopped was the moment I realized I was truly burnt out. I never realized how many people experience this, especially women. How much we have to juggle our career, our families, and everything else. And we do it on our own because it feels like we have more to prove.

Now that I've experienced it, I see it everywhere. I begin to see that even though I prioritise external self-care, I moisturize, I get my brows done, I have massages and waxes, I work in the self-care industry, I never took time for self-care internally. I never gave myself a pat on the back and told myself, well done. I had quite a lot of negative self-talk and I never took time off. Never ever took time off. I was so hard on myself and I felt that I had to continue to learn to find ways to do better.

I suppose it was that need for external validation, that drive to prove everyone wrong. But actually, what I really needed to do was to use this time to stop and reflect. So after I went through a couple of crying moments, I was like, right, come on, you can do this. And started working with my coach and used this time to look back over the last 20 years and see if we could create something positive out of something so difficult. Look in the mirror. When you stop and write down how many things you've achieved, it will be a pivotal moment for you.

How many courses have you been on? How many clients have you helped? How many workshops or events have you hosted? Don't underestimate your knowledge. You're an expert in psychology, chemistry, biology. There's a lot more science involved in beauty than people think. What skills do you have? What knowledge do you have? You've got to be an artist, a therapist, a business person, and a human being with a life too. It's not easy. One of my key drivers is to prove people wrong about the beauty industry.

People think it's an easy way to make a living and that all we do is file nails. And I just want to scream at them. But being in this industry is so much harder than what people think. It was during COVID that the government finally announced that we had our own personalised sector, the self-care sector. I couldn't have been more prouder to be a beauty therapist. Our workers officially become recognised as people with unique qualifications who have the right to be seen professionally. So many men and women relied on our services, and when it was taken away during COVID, I think people's values and opinions changed on the industry.

So many people will go to see you for their mental health more than the beauty treatment itself. If people struggle with body dysmorphia or mental health or have anxiety, not being able to see that one person for such a long time can be so debilitating. I remember I had clients ringing me up in absolute floods of tears because nobody was there to wax their beards or control their acne. Our work is so important and we do so much more than shape brows and file nails. So take time to reflect on just how important the work is to you and how hard you've worked and the impact you make.

Your achievements matter. When I stopped and reflected, I asked myself, what do I want to do now? Where do I want to take the salons? And what's important to me? I realized by then my goals had changed and I was ready to give back 20 years of experience and knowledge and expertise. That was a massive moment for me. I really, really like going to work and I like having a purpose. But I also like being able to watch others succeed too. So even though Covid gave me zero finances for two years and also very little profit, it gave me the time and space to think about other ways to achieve my goals, and more importantly, realize my purpose.

I discovered that I had the knowledge and a new mindset structure to help educate others. And that's when the confident beauty therapist training program was born. Here is something that I could focus my time on because this is where my purpose was. The business pivoted and we began focusing on something that could support other beauty therapists in the future. Even in the most difficult times when we could have cried and buried our heads, we built something positive. What is real success? Coming from an underprivileged background, success to me was money.

That was the goal to never struggle for money. And if I wanted something, I would have the opportunity to go and buy it. So for my entire journey, the goal was to have financial wealth for 20 years. And I worked for it. When COVID hit, I realised for the first time on paper I was a millionaire. And I felt frightened and ashamed. I had the belief that millionaires were greedy and that people who wanted money had poor values. I can't believe how ashamed I felt for wanting to work for money. So I went and took a money mindset program to figure it out.

Remember, like I said before, if something makes you feel uncomfortable, go and explore it and understand it. And you can see what it teaches you. On this course, we unpicked all the things I was taught as a child and found that all my beliefs about money came from other people. They weren't my values. I had the choice to create my own values about money. You have the choice to create your own values, and it's really important you make your own story. We all value other people's opinions and we all want to please certain people in our lives.

However, they are living their own stories and it's not your job to live their story. We're easily influenced by the things that people say or see. So if we're not careful, we can very, very easily get wires crossed. Misconceptions and misunderstanding is very easily done. It's really important to go and look for the evidence before you make these decisions. Think carefully about what you choose to value and what's important to you, not what's important to anybody else. If something's important to you and has value to you that you really like, then take that value with you.

But if they hold values you disagree with, then question and explore that. My mindset and knowledge is very different to what my friends, work colleagues, and husband have, and that's okay. There's so much knowledge out there, and some people choose to be more self-aware than others, and some people are just really happy in their bubble, not knowing what they don't know, and that is okay too. As we grow, our goals can change, as we change, and I realized that I had reached a stage in my life where time was of more value to me than money.

And I never valued time like that before. For me, my destination of success and wealth changed. It was about self-care internally as well as externally. It's about looking after our minds and looking for new and different ways to help people. This book came from a pivotal time in my life, and that's why for me it was the worst but also the happiest time of my life. If you experience hardship, a challenge that you think you'll never come out of, just remember this. There will always be a way out of it and a way to create something positive from it.

Core beauty tips. Number one, take real time for internal self-care. It might be a bath, meditation, or a walk. When things get overwhelming, find a way that works to help you calm your internal nervous system. Number two, it's okay to feel overwhelmed. It's okay to be fearful. What I've learned is that if you're always worried about the future, you're anxious. If you're always living in the past, it's depression. But being in the present is the best place to be. It's all that you can do now and it's the only thing you have control over.

So what can you do today? Number three, fill your cup first. Trying to pour from an empty cup is just impossible. So fill your cup first. Stay healthy and look after yourself internally so you can drive your business forward, whether it's for you, your team or for your future. Number four. Celebrate the small wins. If you wait for the big win, you could be waiting for years and years and years. And before you know it, 20 years have gone by. For me, the small wins and getting those reviews from a client and knowing how much you've made a difference to someone's day, they are the best wins.

Stay connected to your core values, and I think that's the biggest win. Number five, it's so important that you look after your mind. Stop giving yourself negative self-talk. Look at the good things that you can do. Don't focus on the bad. It's all about your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. So if you've got a negative thought, you need to find out why you feel like this. Explore the behavior because our behaviors shape the direction that we go.