Why I Became a Stylist-My Transformation

[MUSIC PLAYING] Did you know that you can have unshakable self-confidence? I'm Sherry Brazier. I'm an advanced certified style coach, personal wardrobe stylist, and seasoned hairstylist. I'm on a mission to teach women everywhere to see their true value and create self-confidence on the inside and then help you dress that way on the outside. Women, just like you, are creating strategies to dress your body shape stylishly. Tools you can use to help you love yourself and process disappointment and overwhelm, all while still looking put together when you leave the house. If you're ready to figure out your personal style and learn the tools to help you build and create more self-confidence, then you are in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, beautiful friends. Welcome to the Creeing and Shakeable Self-Components podcast. I'm your host and style bestie, Sherry Brazier. Today, I want to talk to you about my story and why I became a stylist and how I got here. I have had a couple of people recently ask me how I got here. I had one person that saw me in a photo album from about 10 to 12 years ago and did not know that it was me, did not recognize me and just asked me how I did what I did. How did I get here? And then a couple of days after that, I had another friend that said something to the effect of you've changed a lot. You've had a big transformation. Tell me how you did it. And so I just thought maybe it would be interesting for you to hear the story, how I got to where I am and where I was before here. I think it's-- I always like to hear people's stories. I always like to hear where people came from and how they learned the things that they learned and that process of how they got to be where they are and how they bettered themselves. And I enjoy hearing people's stories. And so I decided today that I would share my story. I also had two of my mentors and co-workers tell me that I needed to tell my story. And I have a big, big story. I don't know how you tell. I don't know how you don't have a big story in 10 years. Like there's so much stuff that happens to you in 10 years. So the thing that I decided to focus on was the word transformation and how I feel like that word fits into the last 10 years. And there's also a concept that I've been kind of toying around with that's reinvention. So transformation, reinvention, however, it sounds good to you. It's kind of the same thing, a little bit different, but kind of the same. I didn't want a style transformation. I didn't want to be a personal stylist. Or even know what a personal stylist was. I didn't want to be a life coach. I didn't even know what that was. Where my transformation began was wanting to make more money for my family, doing something that I loved and helping other people and still being able to be available to my kids. I have done hair for a long time. And I have enjoyed it the entire time that I've done it. But I always knew that I wouldn't be able to do it forever because it is hard on your body. And I had some physical problems, I guess you could say. Surface very, very early in my career, a year after I was finished with Cosmetology School. My shoulders started to give out on me. I was 19. And so I knew at that point that as much as I loved doing hair, it was going to be hard on my body. And I wouldn't be able to do it forever. But I wanted to do it for as long as I could, as long as my body held out for it. And so I pushed through and retop myself, how to hold my arms and my hands and how to cut hair so that I didn't hurt my shoulders anymore. I did several things and I started doing those things right at the very beginning. So I think that's why I was able to get as many years as I've gotten to be able to do hair. But I needed to make more money for my family and I knew that doing more hair wasn't the answer. And I knew I wanted to help people. I knew I wanted to do something that I loved. And I knew that I still wanted to be available to my kids and my family. And as I started learning what I needed to do to do that, I learned that I needed to tell people about the product that I had found that would help them. So I started to tell my friends about a product that I had found that was helping me. And immediately my friends and my family that are the closest to me joined and started using the product that I was selling. And I had some pretty rapid growth right at the very beginning. And after I had several of my friends and family by the product and start using it and start asking questions and wanting to know more and wanting to learn about the products and different things. I realized that I wanted to make sure that they were taking care of and that I could get them the help that they needed and support them in their purchases because they had purchased products for me and I wanted to make sure that they got what they paid for. And so I started learning about customer service and how to take care of people. And just, I mean, I had done it in my career doing hair but it was more of a one-on-one deal with my hair people and this was groups, like a big group of people. And I just kept adding to this group of people. And so my skill set, I was finding that my skill set needed to change. I needed to develop some skill sets that I didn't have. And I wanted to make sure that my customers and my clients were taking care of. And so this was when I found personal development. And the first thing that was presented to me by way of personal development, I'd never heard of personal development, personal development before. I'd never heard that term before. So I didn't know that that's what that was. And the very first thing that was presented to me in the personal development field was a personality assessment called Strengthsfinder. And this was the very first experience for me where the idea of each of us having a set of strengths and therefore also a set of weaknesses that could be collected into a personality assessment was even a thing. And the crazier thing for me was how accurate it was. It absolutely fascinated me how accurate it was. And I was geeking out. How did that happen? Like how could something that you ask some questions or whatever and how do they do that? How do they get it so accurate? It was fascinating to me. And I wanted to test it out on everyone I knew because I was like, if this is what I think it is, this is crazy. And so from then, I've just been obsessed with personality assessments. And that has directly led me to being so curious about people. I just love people. And I love learning about people and what makes them who they are. I'm just so curious. And I just love people. And I learned so much about myself during that Strengths finder's assessment. And then the personality assessments that I have done that it also helped me really learn more about other people as well. And it's helped me love them even more. So personal development is the study of you. And by studying you, you end up studying other people. And then you just understand more about people and what makes them tick. And I always say that you can't give what you don't have. And I want to give others love and kindness and empathy and understanding and compassion and connection. And so in order to be able to give that, I have to first have it for myself. It's much easier to focus on other people rather than ourselves, but focusing on you is required if you want to be able to give to people that you love. The oxygen mask has to go on you first. Personality assessments have helped me become aware of the things that I'm good at. My strengths and has helped me give myself permission to accept and acknowledge those things that I have that are strengths. I do have attributes that are helpful and admirable by others. And so do you. Owning those attributes and accepting that you can do some really cool stuff. You do really awesome things. And accepting that is like opening up the door to all of your dreams and a life full of happiness, joy and peace. So not long after I learned about the strengths finder, I was introduced to many other types of personality assessments. And over the years, I've taken parts of each assessment and applied them in my own life. I've also used them behind the chair doing hair and I've practiced just learning about people through these through the information that I've learned with these personality assessments. And I've applied them to my life. And now I share what I've learned in hopes that it will help you as much as it's helped me. I've been able to see how our personalities are represented in the way that we dress and the way that we act. And as I've helped hundreds now of people understand their personality, I've learned that we all have insecurities in doubt. And when our insecurities are tapped on, the doubt is always there. I've come to understand that it's not a bad thing. It's not a flaw in us that we have doubt. It simply means that we have come up against something that we don't have mastery in yet. And self-doubt is there to keep us safe. It's asking us to be cautious, to pay attention and giving us the opportunity to grow. And lots of people will say to me that they don't want to grow. They don't need to grow. But that's because we're afraid of what it will require us to do to accomplish it. I've been doing this personal development work on myself for ten years. And it has most definitely been a choice. I could have chosen to let the books, the Strengths Finder, collect dust on the bookshelf. I could have chosen to not explore it any further. But I wanted to learn. I wanted to improve my life. Not because it was a bad life, but because I wanted to have more. I wanted to create more. And I wanted to become more. I chose to explore and learn more. Maturity doesn't come with age. Maturity is a choice. Choose to grow. Choose to expand your experiences. Choose to expand your understanding of you. Choose to mature. During this time of going through this maturity, growing through this learning of my personality and what strengths I have and what my weaknesses are. And just learning about me and studying me, there's been a couple of things that I've learned that have been game changers for me in my life. And one of them is probably one of the biggest ones. It allowed me to not beat myself up because I wasn't good at the things that are not my strengths. And I had one day the Sepiphany that I was like, oh, wait a second. So if I understand what my weaknesses are and I understand what my strengths are, then I will find people that have my weaknesses as their strengths. And I will invite them into my world to support me. And then in turn, I will have strengths that they have as weaknesses and I can support them. And my mind just was kind of blown. We are all so worried about hiding the things that we're not good at. And covering up our weaknesses and pretending that we don't have them. And pretending that we're good at things that we're not good at. Because heaven forbid, we admit that we're not good at something. And that feels terrible. It feels terrible to me. Does it feel terrible to you? And so I decided, you know what? I'm just going to own the things I'm not good at. And I'm just going to say, you know what? I'm not good at that. But I know somebody who is really good at that. That's something that they're really good at. You should ask her. But you know what? I'm really good at this thing. So if you ever need something along those lines, I'm your girl. But this particular thing, that's not my thing. I'm not the greatest at it. And just be okay with not being good at everything. We are not supposed to be good at everything. We need each other. We are a community people. We need each other to support us and fill in the gaps. And I kind of look at it like Jenga. How you know you put in the little you stack up the things and you take the blocks out and it leaves little holes. And I think about that, that's who all of us are. We have these little holes and somebody else can put their strengths in that hole and make us a whole tower, make us a whole person, a whole when we get to have a whole experience. And that's what I have done for years now is look for people in my life to fill those gaps that I have. And it has served me really well. I was in a presidency. I was the the release of society president in my ward several years ago. And it was kind of my first real trial run of putting people into a presidency to support me who had the strengths that are my weaknesses. And telling everyone in my presidency what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. And telling each of them, I chose you because of your strengths. And I need you to live in your in your power. I need you to step up to the things that you're good at. And I that's why you're in this position. That's why I chose you to support me in this presidency because you have strengths that I don't have. And it was a really, really beautiful experience for all of us to have. And it just really solidified in me that I can take care of myself better when I am honest with myself about the things that I need help with and that aren't my strong suit. They're not my my strongest attribute. And so in my business right now, I have some people on my team. I've been looking for specific people with specific strengths and attributes to be on my team because I know what I am lacking in. And I know what is not my strength. And I know what attributes I need in a team member to help me build what I want to build and help me create what I want to create. And that also comes into my struggle with myself and my weight and some different health challenges and different things. And as I studied myself and as I learned about myself, I learned how to manage my brain and manage the things that were happening. in my mind and I started to do some things differently and Change some things so that I could put better things into my brain and into my mind so that then I could feel better and just over the years of doing this you know of course my hair clients are my guinea pigs and I realized one day that the things that that I was I don't know teaching Talking about in the salon with my clients was that there was a name for it that there was a term for it And that's when I learned about life coaching and I I was intrigued again again. I was intrigued at the possibilities and and the Curiosity of what this meant and so I started Getting curious about learning more and exploring life coaching and That's when I was really able to start Changing the experience in my mind from the way that it was To what it is now meaning I'm not a mean terrible person To myself anymore. I was a bully to myself and I'm not a bully to my self Any longer I give myself grace I admit when I Don't have the strengths to do things I admit when I need some time to recharge or To be with people or whatever that is I I pay attention to what my body is telling me that I need what my emotions are telling me that I need and all of that has Has helped me in becoming the person that I am today it has had a direct effect on my weight and and my ability to keep the weight that I lost off and It has a direct effect on My success that I'm having in my business and managing my emotions and my mind has been integral in processing the death of my father and processing just the newness of not having my parents alive that's that's been a really weird interesting painful concept to Get my head wrapped around and so managing my mind and having those tools and and having those practices of paying attention to what is happening in my mind has been really helpful in not spinning out in grief. Do I have grief? Absolutely. Do I cry and miss my parents and my dad and miss what what life we had and you know all of those things Yes, I do, but I don't resist it as much. I don't I'm not scared of it not scared of those emotions and I don't run away from them Or ignore them or pretend they're not there like I used to that's what I used to do is just pretend they weren't there and ignore them and maybe they'll go away that kind of thing so That brings me to becoming a stylist and that I've told the story before but that just kind of came as an accident. I was helping a friend with her hair and her and makeup and Getting dressed and stuff for an event that we were both going to and She we were walking to the event center where we were gonna have this event and she was like why are you not helping people with their style and Make up and hair and all of that. I don't understand why you're not a style coach. Why aren't you a personal stylist? What what's going on? And I hadn't even considered it Honestly, like I just really had not even considered it. I didn't even consider that that was a strength that I had I didn't consider that that was something that I was good at until she pointed it out and Because I have spent so many years in self-reflection and self-awareness When she said that I was like huh You think I'm gonna have to think about that for a minute and Everything in my body was screaming no you can't do that You don't know how you haven't been trained you don't know enough like my body was just screaming all of the things and I just listened and thought Hmm, I wonder what that would look like I'm just gonna keep my My mind open to the possibility of it and I thought about it for weeks Weeks it wasn't days it was weeks that I contemplated that And I talked to my friend a couple of times about how she thought that it looked and It took me some time to get my head wrapped around that and I think more than anything I was shocked I think I was I was shocked that she would think that I could do that and I had Learned that someone offers something to you and it shocks you Like that, you know someone offers that you have a strength and it shocks you That it's always a good idea to see where they're where they're right Where can you go into your life and to your experience Maybe even into your thoughts and find Where they're right So I spent weeks just sitting with it and asking myself questions about it and just really thinking about What I knew as as what would be considered a personal stylist and talking to my friend and Thought, you know what this is this is The path that I need to take to get the information that I have Out to people and as I opened up my Mind and my heart To the possibility that that could be something that I could do Ideas just started coming in and I ended up starting to work with a couple of my friends and realizing Oh hold on I have experience here that I did not realize I had with Self-image with body image with Negative self-talk all of those things I just I could hear it starting to come out of other people's mouths when I would work with them and Because I had spent a couple of years being kind to myself and not talking to myself like a bully I wouldn't allow other people to talk to themselves like that either when I was around and I just had a lot had lots of people say how impactful that was and It took me some time. It took me a good six months to consider and reconsider and the self doubt and the judgment and just oh so many things of insecurities and whatever that that came up for me to work through during that time and Even after that six months and I started working with a personal stylist and she was training me and she was teaching me so many things I still was just like I cannot believe that this is what I'm doing like I would have never guessed it. I just would never have guessed it I would never have have thought that I would have been a personal stylist and When I I went through some courses when I decided okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna help people here so I need to go learn some things What I'm sure I don't know everything and so I took a couple of courses and They taught me so much and I realized along the way that I didn't know the things that I learned But it was like I Remembered them only I didn't know them So I don't know how I could have remembered them, but it just felt obvious like oh, yeah, that makes total sense. Oh, that's what that's what it is Connections and you know connect the dots and things that just started just made sense to me and like oh, that's why Oh, that's why I it just clicked everything just started clicking and I was learning it really fast and my mentors were commenting and so I thought maybe I Maybe I do have the ability to do this Maybe I do have some things I could offer. And so just having that confidence builder with other clients and with mentorship and those kinds of things, I started to believe it myself. So that's when I created Style Mastery. It was out of necessity of working with clients and trying to teach them the things that I knew and help them to find the clothes that actually feel good on their bodies and look good on their bodies and make them look slimmer and make them look younger and put them in the right colors so that they feel more like themselves and it was fun and rewarding and that leads us to today. And all along the way, just intentionally looking into what are my strengths in this situation? What can I bring to the table? What can I bring as my strengths? And where do I need to be on the lookout and be aware for my weaknesses and how they're going to show up in this situation and how to manage them? And it just has been, I honestly really can't believe that this is where I am. I just, I would have never dreamed it. Which is why I always say to go into your imagination because even if I knew then to go into my imagination, I wouldn't have imagined this. I was too critical of myself. I was too, I had too much self doubt to even consider that this was a possibility. So that is how I got here. That's how I got to be a style coach. And I'm really proud of what I've done in Salon Astri. And it's really good information and the women that have come through it have been so incredibly grateful for the trainings and the community that is there. And having help putting words to their personal style, having color palettes that they can look at and they go, "Oh yeah, those are my colors. I like them." It's like they remember. It's like they're remembering just like I was. They're remembering what their favorite colors are for their style. And helping women know how to dress their body shape so that they can look and feel their best is the funnest. Helping them understand their body and what their body shape is telling them and then the clothes that work for those idiosyncrasies. Every single woman that I work with is blown away by that information. And every single one of them, "I wish I would have known this. I wish I would have known this." And I wish I would have known it too. I'm with you. I feel you. I feel you. Another thing that has been instrumental in my growth and that I've been able to bring over to my clients is having clothes that fit you correctly. No matter what size they are, it makes you feel like a million bucks. It just deletes so much drama from your head when you're in a pair of pants, when you're enclosed that actually fit you. So this is my work. This is what I am super passionate about because of the journey that I've been on. And we hear that a lot, you know, from influencers and mentors and coaches and whatever. It's, you know, I was there once. And now I'm here and I want you to get here as fast as you can. And, right? So that's just how we do it. But I would really love to help you get on your journey to happier, more joyful, and more peaceful life. And my style program is not just all about jeans and colors and what shirt should I wear and, you know, style. It's also about your mind and making sure that your mind is healthy and making sure that you have the tools to manage your mind. We do that kind of stuff too. So anyway, this podcast episode was just kind of to help you get to know me a little bit more and help you to understand where I've come from and things I've learned. And maybe the reasons I'm teaching you the things I'm teaching you and if you have any questions or maybe we have some similarities and you want to reach out, that would be awesome. You can reach me at [email protected]. And that's what I have for you guys this week. I'll talk to you next time. Hey there. Do you want help right now creating your own personal style? I got you. Go to my website right now at sharybracier.com and grab the style basics every woman should have in her closet guide. It's right on the front page of my website. Just put your name and your email address right there and I will send you a document that's a checklist of the basics that every woman needs in her closet. This will help you get started creating your own personal style now. It will give you the ideas of what you need to look for in your own closet. And then if you don't have those things, I'll tell you what to look for when you go shopping. So go to my website sharybracier.com and grab that guide now.