Hey there, friend! It’s Jen Stevenson
So it has been a wild 2020 for many people. And a lot of people are asking me, “How did you get to this place?”and, ”How did you get started here?”
“Why are you doing what you’re doing?”
And I just want to share a little about myself and some of my experiences that have brought me to where I am today. I actually studied business. I started my career in real estate. It wasn’t necessarily on my radar, but my mother had been selling real estate for years and it was a natural progression. So I worked with her for about 5 years and learned so much from her and so many things; life skills. I was young and so, so many things that I was going to use in the future for home ownership and all the things, you know, that are going to come about as you go through your 20s and your 30s. And so that was awesome. I enjoyed that experience. I enjoyed working with my mother.
And then we got into 2008 and coincidentally I had gotten married and was going to go to school to be a hairstylist. I had always wanted to do that, but it was also that 2008 crash that real estate kind of took a big dive and my timing was good. I didn’t fully do it because of that, but it was a good transition. The manicures, the pedicures, the waxing, pampering people.
I was fortunate enough to be able to open a salon and spa in which we grew from the ground up. So the awesome part of it was the feel and the brand of what we wanted it to be as a team and what I felt for the business. And I’ve always brough a lot of energy and positivity to my environments and so I was really happy to share that and make it a place that people would feel good. They would come in and when they laughed, they had a smile on their face. They were just happy and were loved on while they were there.
And so with the salon and spa I would provide hair services, manicures, pedicures, and I absolutely love pampering my clients. That was my favorite part of it. And my biggest thing is I wanted people to feel good so I would always tell my clients, I said, “We don’t have hair because it looks good, we have hair because we need friendships and friendships with our stylists and to get away from the house and be with other women.”
So as I’ve been doing hair over the last 12 years, I would find myself with a wide variety of people from different walks of life but similar things going on. So with that I really came to enjoy helping my clients whether it be in their personal life, in work-related things. But just talking through stuff, being there for them, ideas, experiences that I had myself. Experiences I could relate to others that kind of had people feeling like, oh wow. I’m not the only one who’s been through this or I’m not the only one experiencing this. That was one of my big takeaways is sometimes we feel like we are alone. Like, completely alone or we’re the only one in the world experiencing what is going on. And so that’s why I think it’s so important to have the relationships that we have.
And I wanted to be able to take it even further with my podcasts and some of my courses and be able to be there for people and provide some of that strength, provide that community, especially with the year that we’ve been having.
And currently where we’re at we do have a higher population density. And so I know it’s been a little bit different through different places. Like, my family in Minnesota are in a smaller area, smaller town and so it’s been different for them with Covid. And we did finally have a family member who’s dealing with it right now. And so far, they’re good. It just makes it a little more real. I think we all have a different perspective. For myself personally, because I’ve been working in it other than the time frame when we weren’t allowed to work, I’m around it. But we’re doing all the safety protocol and we have ours masks and our clients have their masks and we take temperatures and we spray down the salon constantly.
And so I feel very safe in our environment but I think because I am in the public, I’ve been doing better. I have clients who have been at home and have been able to work from home. They maybe have children they’re homeschooling and they’re doing e-learner. They have less exposure and I think kind of the pattern I’m seeing is because they have less exposure, it’s actually more intense and kind of anxiety-ridden when they do go out in public.
So I felt like I’d had this huge calling to be able to help other women, be supportive, provide that positivity, those things that we all need. Sometimes we’re stronger than others. I always say that when you’re strong, be there to help others and that way when you’re not strong, others can be there for you. And so that’s why I’ve created this community to come together. I really want to focus on positivity, happiness, and again, a community and a place to come together.
In my upcoming podcast there’s going to be a few different topics we’re focusing on. Kind of an overall encapsulating touch on everything and then I’ll continue to go deeper into each of those topics. But we’re going to talk about dealing with change, not dwelling on the negative, creating goals that are achievable, positivity and gratefulness, avoiding negativity and worry, and taking care of our heath. I really want to be there for everyone right now. Because, like I said, as we’re going into a Level Orange, this is a level we haven’t been. We’ve been in the levels right after that, we’ve been to the next level that not too much changed. But, you know, it’s put a lot of businesses at 50 percent. This next level is going to change that again. And so something I’ve realized with this and feeling like this is my push and my time to be able to help others, it has created a lot of change for people. Not only am I being told I need to reduce my capacity and how many appointments I have in my salon, our community, our friends, you listening, we have this need to come together.
And so I am so excited to be here right now and to be able to continue this journey together. Because we’re not alone. I’m here for you and our group is here for you. So come join us. Again, everybody has good days, everybody has bad days. Let us be that foundation you lean on. Come in, hang out with me. I’m excited to keep going with all these topics and share ideas. And help people too if there’s things right now that these changes are coming up for you and you just need a little extra umph and push or you need some wisdom or whatever it might be, come on in and join us. Let us know how we can help and we’ll talk it out together.
All right. Make it an awesome day.