As women, many of us are juggling a lot in our daily lives and are simply trying to find the right balance within it all. Brittanny Craig, a Professional Color Pure Aveda Hair Designer, is here with us today sharing her message of passion and commitment. Brittney inspires us to stay focused on our dreams & the importance of never giving up on them. She is a powerhouse of a woman that built her career while raising four children. She shares valuable wisdom about life's curve balls that often get thrown our way and how we can use them as learning experiences. Brittanny says you're never too old to go after what is important to you and there are so many others along that same journey that we should never feel alone. Listen in and be inspired to go after your own dreams as well!
Today on the show, we have a message of passion and commitment. We'll be talking about following your dreams and the importance of never giving up on them. I'd like to welcome Brittanny Craig who is, indeed, a very smart woman. She is a powerhouse of a woman and has some very valuable wisdom to share with us. She is an Aveda Color Pure Professional hair designer. We are going to be discussing the evolution of her career, how she got started and where she is today.
Hey Brittanny, welcome to the show today.
Thank you.
I'm really, really excited to have Brittanny on the show because Brittanny is my hairdresser, and she is the best hairdresser absolutely ever. But Brittanny's going to be talking to us today about her journey from where she started out after she finished school and going into her career and having children and then into this fabulous career as an Aveda Color Pure professional. So, Brittanny, just ... Can you give us a little insight into, basically, how did you even become a hairdresser? Where did that ... How did that happen for you?
Well, actually, my mother was a hairstylist for 35 years. And my childhood toys were mannequin heads and perm rods and cones and brushes and all that good stuff. And I piddled around with it all through high school, and it never crossed my mind that I would become a hairstylist. It just was something that was in our house and we did. I actually was going to go to school to become an interpreter for the deaf and-
Oh, wow.
Yeah. Yeah. I did sign language all through high school and actually interpreted it for a girl my senior year in high school and was going to go to school and then I had to drop out of college because my mom was having some health issues. And I put that to the side., then an opportunity came up for me to go to cosmetology school, and I said, "Well, I know it, so why not?" and that's where it started.
So, you just ... It was just kind of like ... So, in other words, life led you, and through circumstance, to start?
Right, right. Yeah. It just happened, and it was something that I knew that I felt comfortable with and I said, "Okay. I can probably do really well at this," and it wasn't an overreaching, overstretching, overstressed situation that I was already kind of in, so it was a way for me to engage myself, better myself in a way that was more feasible than going away to a four-year college because my mom, at the time, needed me to be there [crosstalk 00:04:04]-
So, you had to make some clear decisions at a very young age about what was going to be best for you and your family?
Yes.
That's awesome. So, once you went into ... So, you went to school and you became a hairdresser and now, I know you have four beautiful children, so can you explain a little bit to us, like did you work when your children were young? How long did you work for? Can you explain a little bit of that to us?
So, I started when ... Actually, I had my oldest child the year I graduated from cosmetology. So, I started-
Oh, my God.
Right? So, I graduated from cosmetology school, I was super, super blessed to have my mom be in the same city that I was in, and she was so gracious to help me with watching Madison, and then as more children came along, she was able to help me. So, by the time I had my third child, she was getting ready to move, and I was still doing hair part-time, but the childcare issues come about. Then when I got pregnant with my fourth child, I decided to take time off and stayed home for five years with all the kids until everybody started back into school.
I want us to be clear. So, you basically went to cosmetology school, had a few children-
Just a few.
And while you had the few children, you worked, you worked part-time, so you-
I worked full-time.
Oh, you worked full-time-
I worked full-time-
And your mom took care of the kids?
And my mom helped take care of the kids. So, I worked full-time for five years and then worked part-time for about a year and a half, two years, and then decided to stay home, but if any other hairstylist would be listening to this, they know that you can never get rid of all of your clients if you stay home. They say, "I will come to your kitchen and you can cut my hair," and I did do a little bit of that while I was saying at home, and it was great. It helped to have a little bit of money on the side and everything. But it was important for me to stay home. I had four children from the age of five to newborn and so it was just important for me to be able to stay home. And my mom not being available to watch to watch the kids for me and if anyone knows how much childcare costs, it was unrealistic for me to work and have childcare for three children that were still at home and my oldest being in kindergarten.
Wow, that's amazing. Did you enjoy that time that you had with your kids when you were a stay at home mom?
Oh, absolutely. I loved it. Loved every minute of it. It's kind of a genetic disposition for our family to be creative. That's just where things that are, my husband's very creative. The kids were very creative, you know, growing up, I let them do basically everything with me from cooking to cleaning. We were together all the time, you know, and it was really good for them. They knew how to express themselves, but yet, you know, going and doing and being out in. I never stopped doing any in particular thing because they were with me, you know, we would go to church on a regular basis all the time.
Or if I had shopping to do, or if we had an outing to go to or people just knew that if you got me, you got four kids too.
Oh, I love that.
So, it was so great to be able to stay home with them and to be able to, I don't want to say educate them, but it was educating them because it was always such a surprise to me when my kids started school. I remember my oldest child's kindergarten teacher and she always commented about how, you know, oh she already knows her abcs or she knows the colors or she knows this or that or the other. I think, you know, any parent, you try to set your child up for success. But it was just interaction, you know, that we were constantly interacting with me or with, you know ... My kids love to cook.
That's one thing that that I think is that they see as special, you know, from the time that they were really, really tiny. You know, I actually made them their own little oven mitts and they had oven mitts that went up to their elbows and little aprons and they would be in the kitchen with me and they love to bake. My son until he was about 10 or 11 years old would still, if I took cookies out of the oven and he didn't have the opportunity to do it, he would be mad at me. Like mom, What are you doing? That's my job kind of thing. Yeah.
That's adorable.
So it's just really fine to have the time with them and then them seeing how life worked, you know?
And the reason, I guess I'm asking you this, because I think a lot of women struggle with this in the modern world, especially career women that then want to have families. And you hear all this controversy of how women should have children and then stay at home and be dedicated parents until they've left home, you know, like at 18 or whatever. And then there's all the bits in between. Then there's the women that have children and they work all the time. And I like the way it seems that you've done it. It's like you were there for your kids when they were little, but then once they all went to school, then you went back into your career, which is another piece of the conversation that we're having, but I just wanted to see what your perspective was for that with women, where there's that guilt feeling that we have when we're mothers and then we go back to work. You have any sort of like wisdom to share with us about that?
Well, I think it's very different for every single person and and I want to preface this with that I don't think anyone should feel judged about what your choice is and what choices you make. For me, it was very easy for me to work when my kids were very little, especially with my first three because my mom was there and I have the best mom in the world. She's amazing and she was so gracious to help me with that and for me to be able to still have my career and be a mom and at the same time. But then it became ... She wasn't there anymore and I needed to have some sort of support and you know, I feel like that women need to not feel like you have to do it all on your own. You don't have to be the supermom.
Yeah, right. I know because there's this fine line, you see women like pulling their hair out and they have kids and their careers and then you know, like the fried women.
They're fried and they feel like the supermom is their kid is dressed to the nines everywhere they go. They never have a spot of dirt on them. Their hair is always nice. If it's a girl, she's got a nice big pink bow in her hair and you know, they're just super well behaved and that's just not the case. You know, kids are going to be kids. That's what they do. You know, they don't know how to interact sometimes in a situation and they don't know that they shouldn't say something when you know you're in public.
I mean, my kids were the kids that, and I have three girls and one boy, and they were the rough and tough Tom boys. You know, when they were little, they were all the ones that wanted to go out in the yard and roll in mud. My third daughter would do anything in a dress. She wanted to have a dress on the entire time. It didn't matter what time of year it was. It didn't matter what she was doing. She'd go play in a mud puddle and she was going to do it in a dress.
I love that.
So it's just putting yourself in a space of knowing that, you know what, it's okay that my kid's dirty right now. They're building immunities. You know, it's okay if you you go out and their shoes aren't put on the right feet, it's okay if their shirt doesn't match their pants. The world is not going to stop revolving over that and no one is really going to judge you for that. They're going to be like, you know what, you made it out of the house today and guess what? You had a shower. Bonus. You got to take a shower today. And it is, because it becomes crazy especially when you have kids that are really close together.
My kids were very close together. There's only five years and two months between my oldest and my youngest. So it was Bam, Bam, Bam.
Wow.
So it's just very interesting to me when when mothers puts this pressure on themselves to make sure that their kids look perfect, that they look perfect or their house looks perfect. You know, my house has never been a house that was perfect at all. You know, it's very lived in and there's something always going on. We are normally like Noah's Ark because currently we have two dogs, a turtle, a python. We used to have a rabbit but we don't have that anymore. We have eight outdoor feral cats that we've decided to feed and they have made our yard their home and there's something constantly all of time.
Well, I do know everyone. I know Brittanny quite well and I do know her children and her children are growing up. And two of them are in college or one is in college and one of them is out of high school, but they're amazing kids. So that's why I wanted to talk to you about this just a little bit before we move into that, because you really have very like wonderful kids. I mean I've met them. You can have conversation with them. They are kind, they talk to you like actually they can have a conversation with an adult in the modern world, which is pretty amazing.
Yeah. Well, I mean, that was one thing when they were little that was my pet peeve is, we didn't do the baby talk thing. It drives me batty. I just couldn't handle it.
Baby talk, is that where you kind of go, oh, goo goo ga ga?
Right. I just can't handle it. I couldn't handle it. And so like when they were little, I'm just like, they're a person, just talk to them like you would talk to anyone else and you know, they'll understand and we have to make sure that they're going to be able to function in a world, you know? So I guess it was one of my pet peeves and you know, no judgment on anybody who he does that, that's totally fine. But that was just my thing. And they are, they are great kids. They are going to do well. And it's amazing how for people from the same gene pool, you know, turn out so differently, and you just have to go with it.
As a parent you have to go with what you know. Everybody's going to go in a different direction and no matter how much alike you think they are or aren't, you know, they are each their own person and the only thing you can do is hope that you've trained them to be a profitable, a productive member of society that you know is caring and just and wants wants to do something with their life and be able to touch other people.
I know that you've done a really great job. So I feel like there's something to that, given how you had your career in the beginning and then you've told us the story. So can you then explain how you did the transition from this full-time stay at home mom baking and doing all these wonderful things with your kids, to then going back into your career because-
Yes, and this is a really funny story because the decision for me to go back to work evolves around my son and his need to go to preschool. None of my girls went to preschool and I was at home making a, what was it? I think it was ... I was making a dog bed for my sister in law and we were sitting there and I'm ironing material and I'm cutting foam and doing all these things to make this dog bed. And Gabe was there with me. He was the only one at home. Everybody had gone back to school and I had bought a new iron and a brand new pair of pair of sewing sheers. Gabe was my kid that he would just go anywhere with me. He would sleep anywhere, he would do anything. He was such a good baby and he was always good when we went out, when I had, you know, even with the girls, but when he was by himself he was fine.
He never caused any problems or anything like that. But you could tell he was getting fidgety being the only one at home. And I was pitting material on this dog bed and all of a sudden I hear, oh, mama! And I turned around and there was a flame going up in the air and he had taken my brand new sewing sheers and cut the cord to the iron that was plugged in.
Oh No.
A flame went up in the air. Luckily the scissors had rubber handles on it, so he didn't get shocked.
Oh my God.
I called my husband and I said, well, first thing I'm going to have to buy a new iron and a new pair of sewing sheers because it literally melted a hole in my sewing sheers.
Wow.
I said, Gabe needs to go to preschool. So I started looking for preschools and started looking for work to go back to work.
What I think is cool is just how you knew that he needed to be in a school environment and interacting with his little peers and having ... Because just being with mom was not quite right.
No. He was like, where's all my playmates? He was like, I have an instant playmate and they're all gone, you know? So he just, he needed that and it was great for him. It was absolutely fantastic for him and then I started looking for work.
So how did you do ... You went back ... So how did you go from, like I said, stay at home mom, obviously now we know why you went back to work, but how did you step back into it? Because I think a lot of women, I know myself, as I was a stay at home mom and then sort of moving back into my career a later time. But I know women goes through this where we have this like fear because we feel, I mean I'm not going to speak for all women out there, but I pretty much know most women I talk to, there's that uncertainty whether they still can go back into the workforce. Am I still trained? Do I know enough? Do I have to go back to school again? You know, though, did you have that like anxiety or stress at all?
Oh, I was petrified. I was absolutely petrified and I actually did have to take my state boards again.
Oh you did?
I did.
Wow.
I had been licensed for 10 years, a little over 10 years I think, and when licensing was done originally you just paid a fee every year. No big deal. You pay your fee. If it lapsed, you paid a little bit extra and they'd reinstate your license and it was no big deal. When I decided that I was going to go back to work, I knew that my license had lapsed from the year prior and so I was like, it's fine. I'll just call the state board. I know that we have to have continuing education now. I'll see if I need to attend some classes then that's fine. Go ahead and do that and then I can get my license reinstated.
So I spent from November, wait, no, October of that year and I can't remember exactly, I'm wanting to say it was like 2007 from then to mid December, back and forth with North Carolina State Board. What do I do? I don't know. Do I need to take classes? I don't think so. So they just kept bantering back and forth with me while they closed for two weeks and I said, so can we just deal with this come the new year, it'll be fine. They said, absolutely, that'd be great.
I'm feeling like there's going to be a [inaudible 00:21:35] here.
So I called back the week after New Year', so it was the second full week of January and I call back and I said, hi, my name is Brittanny Craig. I need to speak with so-and-so. We've been talking about my licensing issue and so I get on the phone with this woman, I wish I remembered her name.
And she goes, Oh, I'm so sorry you're going to have to retake your state boards. I said, excuse me? I said, we've been talking about this for three months now. You trying to find me an answer? And then she goes, oh, well as of January One everyone has to retake their tests. I was livid. I was so upset. Luckily, I had a very good friend that we went to church with that at the time, she was the director of Haywood community college and she was on the North Carolina State Board for cosmetology. So I gave Deborah a call and she says, I'm going to see what I can do. I had judged hair competitions for her. I had done all kinds of stuff. She was trying to recruit me to become a teacher, and so I was like waiting, waiting, waiting. She calls me back a couple of days later and she's like, Brittanny, I can't do anything.
She goes, I can't pull any strings. You're just going to have to take the test over again. What I can do is I can give you a state board kit. She says, come out to the school. I'll give you everything you need to take this test again and just go knock it out. So after ten years of being licensed, I had to go take my state board again. So that was the first like gut wrenching-
What a hurting.
... Thing. Yeah, to be able to go back and I'm like, 10 years, rules have changed. Sanitation rules have changed, what you have to actually do on the state board has changed and everything but it was good. I felt really good because I went back and I actually made a 96 on the exam, which was really good. I only made an 87 on the written exam, but I made a 96 on the practical. And so it was fine. You know, it was just more of like, oh my gosh, yeah I'm going to have to do this not right out of school, you know?
No, I know, but also, what's amazing to me is that you didn't give up. Even when you got the, you're going to have to take these boards again. even though they had messed up and they could have told you in I guess December or November. Oh thank you for just letting me lapse, but oh well that's a government thing, I think. Right?
Right.
But the fact that you kept going, because I think that's when a lot of people would give up.
It is, it was very difficult and it was, you know, I was super fortunate to have Deborah on my side because I mean that would have been to get everything for that kit that I needed, I mean it would have been six, seven, $800 for me to have all of that stuff that you get in cosmetology school. But you know, two years after you're out of cosmetology school, it's all to pot because you've bought everything else new. You know, because, and so it was difficult. It was challenging.
But you made it.
But I made it. It was okay. And then I started looking for salons and spaces and that was even more gut wrenching.
Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
So I had looked at a couple different places and pedaled around working, you know, just putting my feelers out and seeing what I needed to do. I mean, I had a clientele when I stopped working that was booked six weeks out and I had given all of that up, so I was like starting completely fresh, no clientele whatsoever.
Oh, that must've been really scary.
It was.
So you had to start all over again?
It was like, okay, I have to start all over again. All over again. I mean, I had like three clients that, it wasn't even ... Not to say that those people aren't fabulous, because they are, but it was like I had nothing to bring with me. So I got word that this Aveda Salon was hiring and I'd never worked with Aveda products ever. Before I'd used a Redken and Goldwell Matrix and stuff and couple other lines. I piddled with Paul Mitchell a little bit. So I was like, okay, but I knew what Aveda was. So I did have that. I went over to interview and this wasn't even to do a practical to do like a haircut interview. It was just for me to talk to the owner and manager of the salon. I pulled up in the parking lot and I literally sat in my car for 30 minutes wanting to throw up.
Oh my God.
Because it was just like, what do I ... I've not been in this world for five years. I have not been, you know, trained like some of these people probably have been trained because I knew Aveda was very big in education and things like that. I just had my skill that I knew I had where it was five years ago. Five years prior. So the good thing is, is the interview went well because I'm with Aveda still.
That's amazing.
Yeah. I've been with them for 12 years. So it's been a really, really, really amazing journey with that.
I know and you have this ... I mean, the thing I know about Brittanny is I met her when she was at this first salon and I have a funny story just to add to that. My daughter actually found Brittanny and I was from Florida originally, so I was looking for a hairdresser in the Asheville area, but I was very nervous because, you know, I came from the film business doing makeup and hair. And I was a trained hairdresser and I was paranoid because my hair is like fine. I was really paranoid and so my daughter was the Guinea pig and she went to have her hair done with Brittanny and I really liked it. I was like, oh, that's pretty good. The color looks great, the whole thing. So then one day I went to see her and I was like, now I'm really fussy.
I can't remember if I let you color at first or whether I let you cut it out. I know. I don't think I let you did both.
I can't remember. I can't remember.
She was allowed to do one of the tasks of my hair and after that it was okay, she passed the test. So this is what hairdressers go through.
Right, and now you don't have to fly to Miami every four months.
No, and I love Brittanny, and I've been with her ever since. And I'm just like, she's the best hairdresser ever and my hair just looks fabulous and I love to flip it. Is it flip it or flick it or whatever we do as girl is. But anyway, but I just think that also from, I remember with the pictures of your kids, you had all the little pictures and they were all little.
Yeah. Really little.
And now I come to the salon, they're all like growing up. But I just wonder how then once you got to work in the salon, I mean how did it take time to build that clientele and how did you keep going? Because now you're at this higher level innovator and what does it take for you to get there? I mean-
It took a lot of work because I started back again with no clientele. And I worked five days a week and worked a split shift actually on Tuesdays and Thursdays working, having a two hour break so that I could go pick up the kids, meet my husband in the parking deck behind work and he would pick them up from me. So I would leave work, I would work from 8:30 until 2 and then I would leave, go pick up the kids from school, come back to work, swap the kids out in the parking lot and come back to work from four until eight to every Tuesday and Thursday because you have to work evenings, you have to build a clientele. I worked every Saturday. For any hairdresser out there who thinks that you can't work Saturdays, the only way that's going to happen is if you have a super big clientele and you've coached them into doing that.
If you want to create a business for new stylists, you have to work those days that people are available. You just have to, so I worked Tuesday through Saturday for ... It took me two years to build up my clientele where I was pleased with it. And within two years, a myself and one other stylist in the salon where the top producers.
Wow.
Yeah, we were bringing in roughly 50% of the salons income, the two of us.
That's amazing.
So we were really busy and I was super fortunate. I was super, super blessed and I still have the majority of those clients with me today and they are amazing. I absolutely love them.
Yeah, I love them.
You are one of them. Yeah. So it just takes a lot of hard work, you know? Luckily my husband and I were able to work out our work schedule so that it was okay and you just do it, you know, you just do what you have to do.
I get the comment all the time of, I don't see how you do everything that you do. I don't see how you do this with the kids. I don't see how you even have a time to sit down and breathe or whatever and you know, you just, you do what you have to do with the kids, when it comes to what they need from you or ... And there's always within reason, there's plenty and plenty and plenty of times that I've said no, you know, whether it be something that the kids want to do or if it's to a guest as well, you know sometimes. And when you give those parameters, you have to give yourself space to-
Is it like having boundaries to yourself?
Right. Well it's having boundaries at the appropriate time. You know, I went through that two years and it was grueling and it was exhausting and it took a lot of time. But you made it work, working a split shift and you know, figuring out who needs to pick up when and where.
So it's like you ... So what I hear you saying is that to like be successful because I know you are successful and I've been on the journey with you from that ... I guess I met you right at the beginning when you were just starting back out. Although I had no idea everyone, I had no idea but now I know 10 years later something like that. Anyway, so, but one of the things I see with you is this incredible dedication and I have always been amazed at your dedication to yourself and your career and your dedication to your children and your family and your husband because we've not really talked about your husband. Right? There's a whole story there with him, which I would love to talk about one day but I didn't have time today.
And I see like how your kids are and how well adjusted and grounded they are and how smart they are on all levels. Like you know they're intellectually smart but they're smart as human beings. That's how I see it.
Street smart. Street smart.
And then I see how you've carved your success with Aveda and what it's taken for you to get there. I just wondered if there was just something before we end that you would just leave our audience with today. Like the women out there that are maybe uncertain about going back into a career or should they work or they're having those doubts of, I'm just a mother, which is the, you know, I know that's the not the right thing to say, but that is sometimes how we feel. It's the most honorable job. But I feel that then we think, oh, you know what, I don't have ... Like you didn't have your, what is it, your license or whatever it was, you had to get all of a sudden and you had to go back and study and take exams. So, okay. So what I'm trying to get to is what message would you leave all the wonderful women out there that may have a little self doubt or uncertainty from being a mother and maybe moving into a new career or an old career that they once had?
Right. I would say the first step is the worst. Like the just taking like the first physical step that you take towards whatever goal you have is going to be the most, and I know I said this before, but gut wrenching, but that's what we feel. Like somebody's literally reaching into us and trying to rip something out because either you feel like you're not worthy to do the job or that you're not ready to do whatever you're setting out to do or that someone's going to judge you for what you want to do. You know, there's tons and tons and tons of jobs in this world. The one thing that I have told my kids and I feel like that my husband and I have really taught our kids well, is that it takes hard work and you have to put yourself out there and you have to take the step and you know the worst thing that you think is going to happen to you is failure.
That is not the worst thing at all. Failing teaches you, success teaches you nothing.
Wow.
Failure teaches you what you don't want to do again and that allows you to move on and move further. If you're successful at everything, you never learn anything. So you know, working hard to achieve your goals, whatever those goals are is important. Don't let anyone tell you that they're not. It doesn't matter if you want to learn how to lay brick, if you want to learn how to lay brick and that's important to you because you have a project that you want to do, then that's what you need to learn how to do, and you need to know that it's important. Or if it's you wanting to go back and getting a different degree then go back and do it. People, I'm too old to do this or I'm too old to do that.
No, you're not. Absolutely not. You're never too old to do anything. You know? One of my goals was to become a professional by the time I was 40. And it happened in 39, six months before I turned forty. You know? And it was just really, really great. It was definitely ... I was nervous as all get out. There's always something. The unknown is what makes you nervous. And as soon as you step into it and we've all done it, you go, oh, well that wasn't horrible. You know, maybe I could do this now. Or maybe I could do this now. So I just encourage everyone to step out, have a team of people around you that can encourage you because that's super, super, super important. You never need to do anything alone and if you feel like you are doing something alone, I promise you you're not, I promise.
Yeah. Wow. Well thank you Brittanny. That is like what an awesome message to leave all our fabulous audience today and thanks for coming on the show.