#345: The SECRETS To Building A Career WORTH Having & A Life WORTH Living with Amy Errett Founder & CEO of Madison Reed

I decided a long time ago I was never going to do anything I didn't want to do anymore. Never. I decided a long time ago that I was never going to work for anybody else, period. Full stop. By the way, I suck at working for other people. How's that? My zone of genius is to be honest enough about myself to realize that when I do that, I don't perform well. I'm getting up every morning saying, the best genius in you is to not work for other people. The best genius in you is to create cultures that are aspirational, that are nice to people. Kindness is free.

I'm on this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity and set you up for a better tomorrow.

Fasten your seatbelts. I'm ready for my close up.

Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited you're back here with me this week. All right. You're gonna love my guest because I already love her. I already know her. I love having people I already know on the show. Today we've got Amy Ehrett. She founded Madison reed with over 30 years of business and operating expertise as a four time entrepreneur, venture capitalist and social mission visionary. She created Madison Reed based on her strong belief that women deserve more. Heck yeah, they do. Not just from their hair color, but from their lives. She believes this so deeply she named the company after her daughter, Madison Reed. Prior to founding Madison Reed, Amy was a general partner at Maveron, a venture capital firm. Co founded Get Ready for It by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and focused on investments in consumer facing companies. She also previously served as chief asset gathering officer at E Trade where she ran a $200 million business. She's been featured on Fast Company's first ever Queer 50 list of LGBTQ women and non binary innovators in business and tech in 2020. 2021, 22, 23 along with Inc. Magazine's 2021 Female Founders 100 list. Recently named an Entrepreneur of the Year in 20 award winner by Ernst and Young. Today, in addition to being the founder and CEO of Madison Reed, Amy is also a venture partner at True Ventures focusing on investments in direct to consumer startups. When Amy founded Madison Reed in 2013, she disrupted an industry that lacked innovation for decades. She understood that for years women had to choose between traditional box color or hours. And hundreds of dollars in the salon set out to change the industry forever. Her mission, to provide an empowering new option. Gorgeous, high quality, smart 8 free leaping bunny, certified hair color with ingredients you can feel good about. Under Amy's leadership, Madison Reed has changed the typical trajectory for hair colors in an industry where historically they have not always been set up for financial success. Madison Reed colors can earn up to three times the industry average, plus full time benefits, opportunities for career growth within the company. Madison Reed is also also an omnichannel business, serving customers via Amazon, ulta, Target, Madison re.com or at one of our 87 hair color bars across the U.S. amy, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you, Heather. Geez. I want you to be with me all the time because it sounded like, you know, that was all good stuff, but every single day it feels like I'm still, you know, chugging along. But thank you for the kind words and I'm, oh my gosh.

Well, I'm so grateful we got the opportunity to meet in real life, which is always such a blessing, and get the chance to work together. And it was, it was amazing for me because I got to be at one of your locations with you, meeting your employees, meeting customers in real time. And it was so cool to see the relationship that your employees, your customers all have with you. I mean, you got to be feeling really good about what you created right now.

Yeah, it's awesome. So first of all, it was great that you joined us. It was really meaningful to Madison Reed and to me personally to have your expertise and your energy and all the things that you do that are amazing. I feel good about what we've accomplished. We're hoping to change stylists lives as much as we're hoping to change the lives of all of our guests with, as you said, great ingredients. And confidence is the new beautiful as we talk about it at Madison Reed. And that also goes to our team members. And I think innovation in companies these days has to have equality between how you look at your guests, slash customers, slash clients, whatever you choose to call them. And then how do you treat your team members? Because they go hand in hand. And each of us knows that when you talk to, let's say, customer service at a company where people don't like working there, let's just say credit card company, I'll just use something, you know, that we probably all know. When people don't like working there, it's clear that your own relationship as a customer feels different. And so for us, the team's experience equals our guests experience. And in our world of stylists, you know, this has been a career path that's been difficult for many people to choose, you know.

So it's interesting that you brought that up, that you said credit card when you said that immediately in my mind my mind went to American Express, who has been my credit card forever. However, you know, there's other credit card companies I've worked with, but when you said that, immediately my mind went to. They treat me incredible. They're always alerting me that there's a problem. I don't have to alert them. If there is a problem, they fix it immediately. They ask questions later. It's so true that when people like what they're doing and they treat their customers right, it comes through so loud and clear. However, I've had experiences with other creditor companies or whatever where it didn't feel that same way. How does a company number one know that that's going on, that they could be off track and rectify or create an environment like what you've created?

Well, I think first of all one needs to have the pulse on the team members morale. So I think that we use this tool called Glint G L I N T. There's many of them out there, Culture amp. There's a number of them and they're really focused on pulsing and surveying your team members to find out what's really going on. So we do this every six weeks in the company where we go out to every team member and it's an anonymous survey and it's asking a whole bunch of questions that are ranked from 1 being not a good answer to number 10 being a great yes, I'm happy. And then there's comment sections and we pulse every six weeks some similar questions. But we add in things like can you be authentic with your leader? Do you feel like you're getting developmental time? Are you hitting career aspirations? Can you be your authentic self? Like these are questions we're always probing and people will tell you if they trust. They will also tell you if they believe it's anonymous, if in any way they think what you're trying to do is find out what they exactly are saying. And so we get hundreds of comments and then we go through every six weeks what the topics are, how did we score? Not just as a company, by team, by department. Every department leader gets their results. Every department leader then reviews their results with our people team. And if there's certain scores that keep showing up, the people team does stay interviews because we're trying to understand what's really going on as a gift to people, not as punitive, not as blaming or penalty. And what we find is that most of these issues are just about basic two things. One, do people feel like they're being seen for their value? Does somebody see them? Does somebody appreciate them? And then the second thing is, can they authentically bring their full selves to work? And is that okay? Because there's safety and security.

Why do you feel so important, Amy? Because I feel like so many leaders don't put that much importance on people bringing their full selves to work.

So I think the world has changed, Heather. I really do. I think that what a modern human being desires is to be fully seen, and that means seen for who they are in their authentic self. And so I know for the people that we hire at Madison Reed, they don't want to work somewhere where they're not their full selves, where they don't build a community and have friendships and be able to tell people, like, who they love and, you know, kind of if they have problems in their life, get support or be able to say, I have these issues, and this is why I'm behaving this way. We spend a lot of time in the company working on Dynamics, and I know that seems odd, but most of the time at work, when things don't work, it isn't always strategy. It's execution of human interactions. And what I find is, if people have a story about each other, for instance, I think you're going to say this in a meeting, and that irritates the crap out of. And you think I'm going to say this even before I open my mouth. What are the chances we're going to work well together?

Not. Not good.

So we spend also not just the time on Glint and Feedback. We do sessions about working through conflict and teaching people a conflict model and working on human relationships and trust. So that when I say to you that really hurts me or I'm irritated, it's not because I expect you to change something you're doing. It's because I expect you to have this one important thing in life that I think is the missing link to human beings, which is called empathy. And I am convinced that empathy is the greatest gift that you could give yourself. First, because I am a tough critic of Amy Eric, let me tell you, and probably the toughest critic, right? Which most of us are. And by the way, women, we tend to be really tough critics of ourselves first. And then sometimes I can be a tough critic of other people. And I don't know, you know, what's that saying? Like, you know, you never know what someone's really going through. Like, I Don't know what happened to you yesterday, and maybe that's a bad day and I should reach out to understand you rather than just judge you, right?

Oh, it's so good. The way that you're talking is so the antithesis of traditional leadership. It's sad, right? You know this because of your background, because of the companies you work with and led prior to your own, that that model just keeps being replicated and replicated because it's what's worked, you know, for a long time. And again, I understand I was in a traditional business, radio business, very old business. So it was just. That's just the way it was done. And no one ever thought to innovate. However, when I look at you, I look at how you reimagined a traditional industry and that was your launch point for success for your current company. But then you're reimagining leadership. There's always risk, Amy, whenever you reimagine something, right? Like, how did you navigate that saying, I'm going to go and do this differently and I'm just going to see how that that works out.

So the first thing is that I always tell people that culture is not something you write down two years after you're in business because it's in your to do list, right? Culture is the soul of what a company is, right? Like the things that a founder imagines about what they aspire for their business is culture, right? Like, it's not. My culture is not just my culture is, will I ever use bad ingredients? Will I ever deviate from the 8 free formula? Is integrity important to us? Like that is culture, right? Like, how do you do the business you do? And part of that is how do you do the business you do with the most important element, which is called your team. So to me, what was really important was in the first two weeks we were in business, we literally had no hair color. I did not know how to make hair color. But I sat in a room with three other people and we put our cultural values on a wall with little sub bullet points, which we still have. And those were the same five cultural values that we have today. And here's why. For me, number one, it's the guidepost of who to hire and not to hire. We do interviewing for, you know, as I always call it, there's like skill and will. Okay, so skill is like, I need to hire a company controller. Can this person have the skills to be a CPA and a controller? That's skill. But what about will? Why would I hire One controller versus another controller. Well, I would hire somebody who's a controller because they have obviously the skill, but the will means that they want to work in a place where the five values we have speak to them, motivate them, give them mission and purpose, right? So the issue for me was always, could I. Could I show that a good business worked from the content of hair color, but in the context of running a company differently, which then translates into how our guests feel about the brand? And we talk about things all the time. Like, we talk about the fact that this is female founded. Why not? Because it's just a marketing thing. Because it's true. There is female energy in this business. It is a business that's predicated on, like, I want. Let me give you a real example. And this every, you know, you know, you're a business person. So there's a lot of times every day where you think, oh, my gosh, that's not good. Really? Oh, my God, right? Like, that's just the nature of being on this journey, right? The, what I call the oh, boy, you know, moment. Like, oh, that's not good, right? It's the way it goes. As I say, we just earn the right to get further along with the oh woes, right? Like, the bigger you get, they just were different. There's more of them, but they're different. So the other day, I was in a hair color bar, and we were giving one of our team members an award. That was a surprise. This person didn't know that this was coming. And they are one of four people that have gotten into a certain level of skill and sales and accolades, right? And what we do is we stop everything and there's guests in there, and I go and I give them a jacket, a Madison Reed jacket. And this is a person who has really improved and worked hard and is now one of four people in the whole company that's ever gotten this. This is a big deal, right? So we stop everything. There's a ton of guests, and I have this bag, and I call this person up. The person's still clutching their iPad because they got a timer with people's hair on it. And they're that unbelievably dedicated that they're looking at me like, wait. And I say, you can hand the iPad to the manager. They'll take care of your guests right now. And so I start going through what they've done, blah, blah, blah, and I hand her this bag that has the jacket. And here's what she blurts out to me. Amy, you have no idea what's happened to me. This is the first time my life, anyone's ever seen me. Now, this is not words I've ever used with her. She said, thank you for believing in me and seeing me. It's changed my life. My kids can have a role model where I work hard, I have medical benefits, I can afford a life. Thank you for believing in me and loving me because it's made me believe in me, myself. Now, this was unprompted. Okay? It doesn't always go like that. Every guest in the hair color where doesn't even really know what's going on, but just stands up with hair color on and caps on their heads and starts screaming for this team member, you know, cheering, going nuts. She's crying. People are crying. Later on, I'm walking by, they're like, what was your word about? They didn't. It was just the human emotion of something so basic, which is a thank you, a recognition, being seen for talents. This person will never be the same again because this company really wants to invest in the best of people. It doesn't always work out, Heather. Sometimes it's misguided. Sometimes people aren't capable of doing that. That's okay. But I live for the moments where they are capable because as business people, I always think about this like, I don't want to get into politics because this isn't political, right? But if we as civic leaders, that's what I consider myself. I'm a civic leader. I'm a servant leader. If we believe that we're going to look to our government, whatever that is, to fix all the problems of human beings in the US that's pretty much a long shot, right? So what is my job and what's my team's job? My job is to create opportunities that people work hard, get rewarded, have great lives, have their kids have great lives, have medical coverage and can earn their way to start to do what I really think is important in this country. We have to repair the ability for human beings to be successful. We have to invest in the possibility that human beings can make great things happen. Those are the things that happened when my grandparents came to this country. I'm a poor kid that grew up in a working, working class family. Those are the opportunities I was given by education and a lot of things that people aren't given in this company. You come in, you got a clean shot, and we're going to give you a shot. We're not going to hand it to you. You work hard, we are going to make your dreams come true, that is. And if we do that, every guest is happy, everybody's hair looks great, every confidence is built and we create a world where people are earning their way, which is what is critical. If somebody handed me this company tomorrow, I wouldn't have the kind of gratitude I have today for having struggled. And what makes human beings great? The fire we go through. Not all the good stuff all the time.

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You showed up. You took the chance. You showed up. You invest in your people. You made that trip to present this jacket too, by the way. That's something a lot of leaders, right? People don't always want to take the time, make the extra effort. You do that for your people and clearly it's translating to them. However, from a business standpoint and a question for you. I'm interested to know when you you came about this industry differently than everybody else was doing it. You decided to spend money where people weren't spending it on their employees. You decided to give them insurance to make sure that you were setting them up to make much three times the average in your industry financially. And I know you're a very smart one financially. When you look at the numbers, how are you so sure the ROI will be there like that payoff will be there to take a chance like that? Because I'm sure other people are saying to you, why, if it's not broken, why are you trying to fix it?

Two reasons. I think we've been smart enough to run the math about what that person can generate in revenue if it goes well. And then we're smart enough to run the math about what that person costs us, even with fully loaded benefits. And there's a profit in there. And we're smart enough to make our own product so we have a huge advantage in our cost of goods, right? It's the same tube of color that you buy in a box atalto or madisonreid.com or, you know, other retail locations. So the point of the matter is we have some competitive advantage. And in addition to it, we've been pretty smart about our investments of build out of stores that look like a million bucks, but they're not. And we've been pretty smart about forming in our STORMS memberships which ensure Us to get people coming back from a retention basis. We've built a business model that's predicated on what we give people to be able to be afforded within the profit margin of the business. Not by a ton, but our belief system is we're in a business where I have to invest in that human being making another human being feel beautiful. So if that human being is very miserable at their job, then I didn't do what was good for the business. And then there's a whole second piece of it. And here's what it is. I decided a long time ago I was never going to do anything I didn't want to do anymore. Never. Never. Now, there's some days I wake up and I'm like, oh, geez, I got.

To do that, right?

It's not what I call a full body yes. I am in the full body yes club, you know, which is whenever anybody asks me to a social thing, let's say, right, and if it's not a full body yes, I say no. Because I know myself well enough that when it gets closer to the time I have to go and I'm resentful. It's sort of like, oh, no one did that to me. I did it to myself. I am 100% responsible. I decided a long time ago that I was never going to work for anybody else, period, Full stop. By the way, I suck at working for other people. How's that? And so because I suck at that, why would I make choices in my life that made me miserable? And by the way, the other people miserable because I can be a pain in the ass. So number one, I decided that I was not going to work for other people. Not good. Now that may be obnoxious and people might be listening to this and going like, oh, wow. Well, I would ask you all this is what I talk about people's own of genius. My zone of genius is to be honest enough about myself to realize that when I do that, I don't perform well. I can't fix me. I don't want to fix me. I actually like me, love me. It's taken me a long, long time to say this. Not perfectly. Trust me. I am a self critic. Every day in my head it's going, amy. But I've come to a place in my life where I like me enough that I'm not going to try to get up every morning and say, you're completely screwed up. Fix yourself. I'm getting up every morning saying, the best genius in you is to not work for Other people. The best genius in you is to create cultures that are aspirational, that are nice to people. Kindness is free. And I like to live in a world and create a world where people smile and they have joy and they have love, which is two of our values. And they come to work with a little spring in their step. Not every day, but some days, a lot of days. And I like to live in a world where paying it forward towards human beings being treated fairly, lovingly is the world. That does not mean that I do not have to make very hard decisions sometimes. I'm a business person. I'm a capitalist. That's the truth. But I want to do it in a way that is so transparently authentic that if something's happening, I expect to just be told the truth and tell people the truth. Not playing games, not bullshit. So my point is that, like, I just decided I wasn't going to do it anymore, and because I wasn't going to do it anymore, I had to go create it. And we've created, and it's not perfect. And there's lots of things that could get better. It all looks perfectly shiny exterior. Like, it's all great. It's going great. Well, I got to tell you, we have every problem known to human beings that are all the predictable problems that come with the kind of growth that we have experienced. We weren't prepared for it. So some of you that are out there that have gone to a Madison Reed hair color bar, many of you have had a great experience. Some of you are like, oh, Amy, I want to write you right after this and tell you what I didn't like. Please do, because I want to hear all the things that work and don't work, by the way, because the only way we could fix them is to be honest enough that they exist. Right? So, yeah. So, like, that's why I created this culture. It's an experiment, Heather. There's no guarantee that there's some rainbow at the end, and it all gets put in a package, and it's all beautiful. It's all going to work. No. And in fact, part of my life journey right now, I have a life coach, and part of my journey is trying to understand would I be okay no matter what happens.

What does that mean?

That means, like, all of us have stumbles in life. My company's doing great, so nobody get freaked out that their hair color is going away. It's not. But founders often get caught in this thing, which is it's in your bloodstream, and so you don't know who you are without it. Right. You are what your company is, and your company is what you are. And often that's the kiss of death for a company, because if a founder is just fixed on the way it's going to be and the company far exceeds what the founder's capabilities might be, how many companies have you seen where you're like, oh, somebody else should run that now. So there might be a day where that could be true and will Amy be okay? The definitive decision is yes, but that doesn't come easily. I have an ego that doesn't come without my own pain or my own revelations of things. So I am in a process to start to understand. This was an experiment. This experiment has a brand. People know the brand. It's gotten kind of big hair color. Madison Reed. 45% of people know that right now, out of nowhere. Right. But I need to be thoughtful about what's best for Madison Reed. And right now, I think it's best that I'm still the CEO and founder, but maybe someday it won't be. And what would I be as a human being if I. This is the thing I always ask people. You know, one of my greatest fears, people listening could probably relate to this. I walk into a cocktail party and somebody says, oh, what do you do? Many people have this fear. And let's say I wasn't running Madison Reed anymore, Who would I be?

Oh, listen, that lands with me because when I got fired and I associated myself with my title, my team, and I get it, it's a real thing. And it's hard at first when you go through that shift. But you know what that shift really is, in my opinion, from getting your confidence from external things versus finding it within. Because once you find it within, you're not going to lose it.

Yes. So my journey right now is an inside job, as I call it. That's my journey. It's an inside job. It's a understanding that, okay, externally, we did this thing, a lot of the DNA is built, and now the journey is to figure out how I could best serve the company, keep serving the company, make sure that our team members are well taken care of. And, you know, all I'm saying to the listeners is, on the surface, it looks like anybody has their act together. Right. Like somebody running. So, oh, they got their act together. No, life is a journey. I have struggles like everybody else does, and I'm in my own journey of, you know, I got the Madison Reed tmrs we call hers just, you know, college you know, there's a lot of things that change in different sort of times in your life. So I'm just trying to. I'm working on my presence, as I call it. Can I be present in every moment in life?

Oh, my gosh, this is so good. What propelled you to hire a coach? Because it is interesting looking at you from the outside looking in. You have massive business success, you have massive personal success.

You've done the work.

Why, at this point in time, would you go out and hire a coach?

Because I think life is worth living to its fullest. And I, like everybody else, have. I got. I stuff. I got stories about myself. I have the same. You know, I'm confident, but there's times, there's voices in my head are like, whoa, I was a big swing kid, right? Like, I have all the same anxieties. And I'm human. I'm a mere mortal, right? I'm a human being, and I got all the same stuff. And so I decided that my life is worth living. And that means I want my eyes wide open. Every single day, I want to wake up. So I started meditation practice. I started a journaling practice. I started a consciousness practice. I started to get in touch with. Do I believe in spirituality? What does that mean? Is there something bigger than me? I'm not talking about religious. I'm talking about, is there something that. When I walk out in my backyard and I see trees, why does that make Amy happy? Why does nature speak to me? Why do I like to get on a golf course and feel like I'm challenged? And why do I like to fly fishing? Why being with my family gives me joy? Like, what is the essence of my life, right? And same with you, Heather. And this is why birds of a feather flock together. You and I get out, is because we put a lot of energy out in the world. Every day we put it out. So then what does it mean about what we take in? And so I started to feel, like about a year and a half ago, two years ago, like, I felt more depleted than I felt. It was like, a lot of energy. And like, oh, what does that mean? What's going on? What part of that do I own? Right? And so I just went on a journey, and I've been in something called YPO for years, Young President's Organization that helped me think about my own consciousness. I started to realize, like, just a lot of things that when you're a hard driver and many of the people listening and you are, it's sort of like, all about the prize it's keep going, keep going. Right? Well, you know, I look at my mom, you know, I have an aunt that's really older. My mom's the youngest, she's the oldest. And I look at them and I think what's going to matter at the end? What is going to matter? Is it going to be that I hit this number this year or is it going to be that I made other people feel great and paid attention and that my kid can have a be a happy, productive person in the world and that I had some impact? Yeah, I think it's that as the.

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A couple of years ago was when your company started skyrocketing, correct?

Yes. Yes.

It's interesting that that's the moment most people get caught up in that growth trajectory. Right? Like that's, that's the really exciting fun time. But it's interesting to me you decided to look in at that point in time. I wonder why that was.

Because the pressure of when something really starts to multiply becomes greater. So what's really true is that things scale. Like in the beginning you're just like, do I have something? Is something here? Does anybody want to look at us? You really felt that way in the beginning? Yeah, I've been doing this nine years. So for the first five we did well and our growth was good. But then it was like, whoa. Was like a rock. It was like we were selling back to hair color every five seconds for months. So it's like supply chain keeping tubes cup. Like, everything exploded and the world was exploding around us. So there was a. The truth was there was a existential set of moments for me, which were like, we were flourishing. I want you to hear this. Like, this seems very heavy. We were flourishing in a time when people were dying. That is. That doesn't feel right. Like, I went. You know, people are like, whoa, your company's doing great. And I don't want to talk about it, because that had nothing. That was great. But I. Friends die of COVID I had people whose lives I had people working for me who had little tiny kids. They couldn't go to school anymore, or kids, and they had to work, and they didn't know how to be on zoom or not be on zoom. And kids lost year. My. My kid never finished 11th grade and lost almost all of her senior year.

Right.

Like, I look at that, and I think they're at the other end of the house in a room, and social development is completely screwed up. Right? So I. We were flourishing in this time of agony. And so it was very confusing for me. It was like, oh, am I supposed to be happy or scared or sad? And I felt all those things. And so we came out of it, and the company still kept growing. We put some infrastructure around it. And then I started to feel like something in this changed me. And I think it was just this existential experience, whatever that is, middle age, whatever you want to call it, where all of a sudden I realized, like, oh, all those aspirations that you have, like, everything's great, your business is doing great. It's all great. And then you realize, oh, that's not 100% of the deal. That's just that. That doesn't really define Amy. What defines Amy? So I've just gone through some funny stuff, and it's been great, and it's been good for the company. We've done this stuff well before. I was going through it. It's been hard. I had a session with my coach very early this morning. There was lots of tears. There's lots of stuff that I'm uncovering, and it's good stuff. It's not bad stuff. But I was always so busy, Heather in my life, proving the next thing and making the next goal. And by the way, I sucked at celebrating any of it.

How about now?

Oh, yeah, Last night. Good exam. Today's my wedding anniversary, and so I'm actually going to a concert tonight and stopping work at 3:45. And last night saw a bunch of friends and I Don't drink during the week. And I let myself have a cocktail. And that sounds ridiculous, but I'm trying on a different way to be. And here's the thing. Each of us has a pattern of what we attribute. I'd ask you to think about it and listeners to think about it. There's something in your life that you've established that, oh, that's the reason why I'm successful.

Right?

Yeah. It's because I drive hard. It's because I'm a killer. It's right. Like whatever that is. Right. Everybody's got a different one. Some people are peacemakers and that everyone's got a different personality. Take the Enneagram test, by the way. E N N E A G R A M. And that'll give you insight about what you are driven by. And so I used to think that the only reason I was really successful is because I was just on it, like constant 24, seven intense. Right? Yeah, you too. You're an eight, just like me. It's called the Challenger. We are the Ever Ready Bunnies. People must say to you, heather, all the time, do you ever sleep? Oh, my God, you're just on all the time. And you are. But inside you, the reason you think you're successful is because you just have to be on like that. That's your secret. That's your magic. Right? What would it happen? What would happen if half of that was really true? What would happen if you were great just because you're great and you're smart and you're motivated, but you could dial it back a little bit and still have. Be great and still have energy for you? What would happen?

That sounds scary. That sounds risky.

Ah, there you go. Yeah. So that's me. I've been focused on being on top of it. And then what happens is you get to the next thing, everyone goes, oh, my God, your business. And the voice in your head is, oh, man, you've not seen anything yet. Versus wow. Yeah, thanks. Wow. I like really accomplished something and all the people around me. Because what happens is I am a hard driver. So that means I drive everybody else hard around me. Right? And then I don't spend long enough to celebrate and sit with the fact that life is worth living. You don't get yesterday back, I will never get today back. And man, I gotta make it count. And I'm going to make it count. And I'm just starting in a certain way, making my life count in a completely different way. Yes, my work is important and I love it, but I am invested in lots of other ways to make my life count.

Amy, you're an amazing human. Like, you just when I'm around you, like, I just know. Right. I know it. However, I haven't seen you in a few months. I see a big difference in you today. Do you know that?

I hope it's true. I. Yeah, I think I'm evolving in a way that doesn't. Like, here's the thing, it's like, again, if I could tell you, like, oh, Heather, take this pill, and you could still be successful and driven, but you could, like, breathe and have a little bit of perspective. Like, it's very hard when you drive hard to have perspective because you're always chasing the next thing. A therapist once said this thing to me, and at that moment, and I was in therapy, I'm not in therapy now. I have a life coach. It's just another form of therapy. Let's just be honest. It's just another way to act like you're not screwed up, but you really are. Yeah, exactly. We're here. What we are, which is so beautiful. We're just human. Which I find to be a very powerful statement. Just human. Just flawed. Right. A therapist once said to me, you know, Amy, it's really interesting, like, you're living this life and it's. It's kind of a weird thing to say. You're living this life for some caring when this happens and this happens and this happens. And I'm just going to ask you a question. You can leave my office today and just. I'm going to say something really, like, shockingly awful. And you just walk off this step and, you know, and curb. And just get hit by a bus. What happened to the carrot? Was any of it worth it? Was the experience that you had just today, or was it only going to be worthwhile when the carrot happens? And I was like, oh. And then I immediately stopped therapy, you see, because she asked me a question that I didn't want to deal with. Right. I wasn't ready. And so I'm. I'm getting ready. Er, I'm not ready yet, but I'm getting readier. And I think it's resulting in me being a better CEO and a better spouse and a better. Hopefully a better mom and maybe a better friend than a better sibling, maybe. But I'm just. And you know what? Most of all, I think it's resulting in me being a better me. To me, because life is worth living. That's my. That's what I believe. And I'm going to. I've been living, and I'm gonna really live.

This is awful that I'm asking you this, because I'm so here for everything you're saying, and I agree with you. And, like, I need to be taking, like, applying what you're teaching right now to my life 100. Okay. And I know you're right. I also know my fear. Like, this is a big fear thing. I know.

You get me.

You got it. However, let's look back at your career in the success you had. Would you ever have been as successful as you are if you weren't the driver? That's my question.

I don't know. But it could be possible because you're driving. Heather, I'm just going to ask you to say this. Peter, I've spent time with you. The driving didn't change how smart you are. The driving didn't change that you follow your life based on this. One thing that you know is always your North Star, which is your intuition and your gut. When I say, Heather, did the driving help you know, when you had a full body? Yes. To something or not? No. Did the driving driver help you? Have people have you be likable? No. So when I go down all those things. Yeah. Did I out hustle people? Was I the earliest one in and the latest one? Yeah. And did that help me? Sure. But after a while, here's the question I have. Does that playbook work for you anymore? Is that doing it for you?

No.

No.

Right. So it is completely possible and absolutely probable that all the things that you attached to that to the action. As I say all the time, life gets to be an interesting thing. You either get addicted to actions or outcomes. And I'm into outcomes. So I know sometimes I'm doing 20 steps where I could have just done two and I could get the same outcome. Why did I have to put myself through all that stuff when I just got to the place that I need to get to? And that's the inside job part. So, you know, it's more that. Sure, it's scary as hell. And my team laughs. They actually laugh because now I can go up. There I go again. I'm going into that place where I'm revving it up 70 times. Which, by the way, the revving up may work for me, but what about all the people around me where it makes them crazy? Like, why are you doing this? I love you. You could just take a chill pill and a deep breath and we'll get to the same place. But now you. You're revving it up to a level where I'm not functioning. Like, what's our impact on other people? Does that. Like, so it's. But here's the thing. Like, I'm in this space where I'm really like loving my warts. Like, I'm in my space where I'm like, yeah, I'm scared a lot. Oh, wow. That doesn't feel scary to say anymore. I'm scared a lot. Life is scary. There are no guarantees. So most of us just do and we deny, right?

That is so powerful. I'm so proud of you. Like, I am just, I am so proud of what you built, what you're doing. Like this inner reflection. This is game changing stuff. And for everyone listening, like, guys, this is, this is the real stuff. It's like layers, right? Like when you go through life, you're like, okay, now I'm getting there. I'm actually getting it all right now I'm feeling good about who I am now it's actually inside. Okay, now I'm. Now I'm like going to show up as this best version of me. And I'm owning that for me, like, I got fired and I had a crappy upbringing and my background, you know, I'm shining a light on instead of hiding from it now. Like, and I know you have your own things that you have, right? And it's like, all right, that's next level. All right, we're doing it. And then you get here and now you're questioning like this whole thing, which is. Yeah, it just. You keep pulling this onion back and there's always another layer.

That's the best part of. That's what I'm talking about, is life is worth living. It's worth living to look at yourself and it. And God, imagine if we could just wake up and have self acceptance every day, you know, not like living in some crazy narcissistic, like everything I do. No, like, you could be like, wow, could I have a sense of humor that I do that thing again? Like, I do things and I now go, here it comes. It's coming over me. It's actually funny. There I go again, right? Like, I can feel it, that feeling. Like I'm gonna dive into the details when I don't really need to be in the details. But somehow I've convinced myself that if I'm the details, I'm in control. And if I'm in control, nuts, right? And so, so my point is if you. Here's what I really think the takeaway is if I could do that for myself, then I have the ability to look at others and do it for them. That's the takeaway, right? So, like, you know, my wife, you know, if you leave a wet towel on the bed one more time, after 23 years, I am going to go nuts. Right? I'm just using that. She actually doesn't wet out. There are plenty of other things that happen. Hair color in the bathroom, like, all sorts of stuff that drive me crazy. Right? And I am sure that I drive her crazy. But imagine if I had the capacity to look at myself that way and be forgiving, what that could do for the quality of all of my relationships at life. I had very odd, like, not the greatest relationships with my early self and my upbringing. I've gotten to a place where I actually fully am forgiving at this point in my life. Am I going to carry. Who am I torturing?

Me?

It's like, what? What? At this place in my life, who am I? Who's it serving anymore? It's a story. It's just a story I have. And, gosh, isn't it great? If we just could realize that all these things are little stories that got put in our head sometime. I don't know when. For me, it was like four or five when a couple things happened, and there's just been a story, and I've been playing it out all these years. I don't want to play it out anymore. I'm done. Not 100%, but when I understand the stories and they're just stories again, I have this thing where I look back a lot and regret, and that is something I'm working on. But I don't want to feel that way anymore. I want to look forward, and I want to feel like, oh, my God, I got all this left in my life, and I just want to live it differently. And I am grateful for Madison Reed. Like, this company is such a. I have such gratitude for what I'm doing. Who gets to do these things? I am a grateful, fortunate, lucky person that I am in this moment in life, sitting here right now and being with you and meeting. Meeting you, Heather, meeting wonderful people that actually have an impact positively in my life. So thank you. And that I have time to sort of, you know, have some more fun, have less denial and more fun.

Well, I'm so grateful for you. I'm sitting over here crying.

You're just making.

You're going to make me a better mother today. Because, like, everything you just walked me through is me with my kid when I'm stressed. And you know, it just gave. You shifted my perspective in such a big way. I'm so grateful for you. Everybody listening is so grateful for you. Everyone's going to want to find you. How do they find you? How do they find your products?

A, E. The initials Amy or A E at Madison. M A D I, s o n-not underscore-readre.com and www.madison-read.com online or do that or you know, get online or your phone. We have 87 nationwide locations come in. We'd love to do your hair. We're in every Ulta store. Ulta.com we're on Amazon. Right. And there'll be more. More common of some fun things that we have that we're going to announce about where we'll be. So yeah, come and let us, you know, a tree formula. We're good at what we do. We care products, awesome money back guarantee. I want every woman that's listening to this. This isn't you rock. You are the. We are the moms, the wives, the friends, the right, the workers, the keeping the parents together.

The.

You know, like we're super human. And you come so low on your own food chain. I know. I have. Please invert that. Put yourself up there a little bit. Your life is worth living. And I just love when women decide to really go for it like you have. I'm proud to be your friend, Heather.

I'm proud to be your friend. And right back at you guys. Follow Amy. Buy Madison Reed products. I use them. They're amazing. And everybody rocks, just like Amy said. But Amy, you really do. Thank you so much for being here.

You're welcome. Thank you. I'm gonna make it my offer again.

I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're going to hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.