The Anxious Creative

I get nonstop questions about pricing as a self-employed service provider.

How do you know what to charge? How to raise your prices and tell your clients? How to deal when they don’t take it well?

Are you squirming just reading this?

This week, we’re getting right into it with my anxiety journey.

You probably know that anxiety is a big thing for me. I was always a shy, nervous kid, and those traits stayed with me through my teens and into adulthood as I developed full-blown anxiety.

Creativity and anxiety tend to come together, and sometimes it makes creativity feel like a curse.

And it doesn’t help that creative careers involve a lot of anxiety-inducing activities, like putting yourself out there and talking to people when you’d rather hide from everyone and just create stuff.

In this edition of The Anxious Creative, you’re going to learn all about overcoming the anxiety of building your clientele.

Today on this solo Dawn episode, I’m talking about why I decided slow down my business and specialize in hair painting.

Quick background: Like pretty much everything that’s changed my life and business, I got into hair styling kind of by accident. I took a class in high school, went to hair school after I graduated, and took some time to travel around and keep learning.

I’m so excited for you guys to hear from today’s guest, Sarayah!

She’s been in the industry for six years, and she’s only 22! Sarayah is from New Jersey and got started at 16 in a high school vocational program that allowed her to graduate with a high school diploma and a cosmetology license.

She started by sweeping and doing bowls in salons, then moved up to assisting. She decided to start an Instagram account and got some traction, and the salon that fired her as an assistant actually invited her back as a stylist. Nuts, right?

He’s back!

In this episode, I chat with my boyfriend Nick about one of my all-time favorite topics: communication.

Nick is a minister, which means he has to communicate a lot with staff, volunteers, and the people in his congregation. With lots of practice, trial, and error, he’s learned a thing or two about communicating.

Hey hey, it’s another super special Dawn episode! I’m having so much fun doing these solo episodes, and you guys seem to be loving them!

This episode is all about how my ego got in the way of my success.

Now, ego isn’t the most fun thing to talk about sometimes, so this gets kinda vulnerable.

It’s the Dawn show today! Just me for this episode, but trust me, it’s a good one.

You probably know that I have a mandatory paid consultation for new clients.

I implemented this a few years ago when my business was going through a growth spurt and I just couldn’t keep up with all the new clients.

I’m so excited for you guys to meet one of my favorite people ever, Constance Robbins!

Constance reached out to me on Instagram about three years ago and we were instant friends. (Wow, just realized I make a lot of friends on Instagram!)

Constance is a California girl and just opened a gorgeous, all-white, 1300 square foot salon. Pretty cool, right? She’s been a hairstylist for about 15 years and is a freaking badass colorist! (Check out her Instagram page, seriously).

A few weeks back, my American twin, Shirley Hagel had me on her podcast. I had such a fun time I just had to share it over here with you guys. We chat about how we randomly found each other, plus she asked me about parts of my career I’ve never shared online before, like working for Aveda..