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This week on The Starting Messy Podcast, I'm pulling back the curtain on something I don't usually get vulnerable about — the stuff that's actually gone right for me. I'm walking you through exactly how I took my Industry Unplugged retreat from an idea in my head to (nearly) sold out in under six months, and the three things that made it happen.

Here's the thing — I didn't wait until everything was perfect. I put out a waitlist before I had a venue, before I had dates, before my website was even done. And I'm breaking down why acting fast, before you talk yourself out of it, is one of the most important lessons I've learned in business.

I'm also getting into something I don't always say out loud: I believe in my ability to figure things out more than I've ever believed in anything. Not because I have all the answers — I don't — but because I trust myself to handle whatever comes. That's a muscle, and I'm telling you exactly how I built it.

And the third piece is the one that got me a little emotional to talk about — trust. I've spent the last decade showing up as the same person online, in the salon, and in my DMs. No performance, no bullshit. That's what filled this retreat, and it's the same thing that fills your chair.

If you're a hairstylist or salon owner who's tired of white-knuckling your way through growth and wants to actually trust yourself while you build something — this episode is for you.

In this episode:

• How I filled a waitlist before I had a single detail nailed down
• Why speed beats "perfect" every time
• The self-trust work that let me believe in something before it existed
• How a decade of showing up as myself built the trust that sold this out

In 2019, I was a year into running my own suite — thriving on paper, lonely in reality. I didn't have anyone around me who understood where I was trying to go, and that kind of isolation messes with your confidence more than people talk about. Then I found a retreat on Instagram, marketed as "summer camp for hairstylists," and something in me said go.

I flew alone for the first time. Slept in a room with strangers. Spent $6,000 I didn't feel ready to spend. And it changed the entire trajectory of my life — my friendships, my confidence, eventually this podcast, my own coaching business, and now my own retreat.

In this episode, I'm sharing what I'd go back and tell that scared version of me: the people you meet on a retreat become your expanders, your insecurities aren't exclusive to you, and the most impactful moments are never the Instagrammable ones — they're the unplanned conversations and the girlhood laughter at 1am. I'm also talking about what self-trust actually looks like when you build it through discomfort instead of reading about it.

If you're a hairstylist or salon owner who's felt isolated at the top of your own business, who's craving people who actually get your bigger vision, or who's been sitting on a retreat you're too scared to book — this episode is for you.

This is also where I'm telling you about Industry Unplugged — my own retreat, happening in Costa Rica in April 2027. It's everything I've loved and learned from a decade of retreats, built into one experience for stylists and salon owners ready to invest in themselves the way I finally did in 2019.

In this episode:

• Why isolation hits harder the more successful you get
• What an "expander" is and why you need people who have them
• The unglamorous truth about what actually changes you at a retreat
• How self-trust gets built through discomfort, not comfort

Misty is calling out something nobody warns you about: the decision to change is almost always harder than the change itself. She takes you inside two of her own — quitting drinking, which took a full year of stressing, questioning, and mourning the “party girl” identity before she ever said her last drink, and growing out her natural gray at 41, which meant two weeks of tears, research, and asking herself if she was willing to feel “ugly” before she felt the prettiest she's felt in years.

Then she brings it straight back to the chair. The same white-knuckle decision fatigue that shows up around quitting a habit shows up around raising your prices, changing your schedule, or finally breaking up with a client whose name on your book makes your stomach drop. Misty shares how she sat with a client relationship for a full year before making the call — and how the stress didn't lift when the situation changed, it lifted the moment she decided. Same story with the 2019 retreat she almost talked herself out of.

If you're a hairstylist or salon owner who's stuck circling a decision — pricing, boundaries, your schedule, or something bigger — this episode is your permission slip to stop needing certainty and start experimenting. Self-trust isn't built by getting it right. It's built by deciding.

hairstylist self-trust, hairstylist personal development podcast, hairstylist decision making, hairstylist burnout, salon owner mindset, hairstylist boundaries, breaking up with a client, raising your prices as a hairstylist