This issue is about:
- Why trying to control everything is draining you, and what to do instead
- The hidden program running your money decisions, and how to find yours
- The talent you already have that could become your next income stream
- This week's action step, plus a first look at something coming soon
- A piece of barber history that dates back to 3500 BC
- This week's video: Why You're Afraid to Ask For Money
Mental Health System: Control the Controllable
Most of the stress that follows a barber home at the end of the day has nothing to do with hair. It comes from everything else on the list. The client who canceled last minute. The supply order that showed up wrong. The rent increase you saw coming but couldn't stop. The economy, the weather, what your competitor down the street is doing, what your spouse thinks about the hours you keep. None of that is yours to control, and yet most of us spend our energy trying to control it anyway.
Here's where it comes from. Most of us learned as kids that control meant safety. If you could predict what was coming, manage how people reacted to you, or keep things running a certain way, you felt steady. It worked sometimes, so you built a habit out of it, and that habit followed you into adulthood, into the chair, into the business. The problem is that the habit doesn't know the difference between a five-year-old trying to keep the peace at home and a grown man running a business with 17 different, ever changing, variables.
I train barbers to Control the Controllable. It's the practice of sorting your day into two piles. One pile is everything you actually have influence over: your skill, your attitude, your schedule, how you talk to a client, what you do with the next thirty minutes. The other pile is everything you don't: other people's choices, the economy, the past, what someone thinks of you. The work isn't pretending the second pile doesn't exist. The work is putting your energy where it can actually do something, and letting the rest go without the fight.
This matters because the fight is what's exhausting you. You can run a successful chair and still feel like you're losing, because you're spending half your energy on things that were never yours to win. When you learn to release what isn't yours, the energy you get back goes straight into what is yours. That's when you go from varsity league to pro league.
Answer these questions for yourself:
Do you feel more safe or less safe when things are in your control?
How old were you the first time you felt like you needed to take control?
Money System: Your Behavior Isn't Who You Are
Nobody sits you down as a kid and teaches you how to think about money. Instead, you absorb it. You watch how the adults around you talked about money, fought about money, hid money, hoarded it, spent it the second it arrived, or treated it like something dangerous to even discuss. You picked up on the tension in the room when bills came in, or the relief when a check showed up, or the silence when money was mentioned at all. None of that came with an explanation. It just became your behavior.
That's your money program. It got installed before you were old enough to question it, and it's been running in the background ever since. It's shaping how you price your services, how you talk to clients about money, whether you save or spend, and how you feel in your body when your bank account gets low or when it grows.
We tend to treat these patterns as identity. "I'm just bad with money." "I've always been a saver." "I don't like talking about prices, that's just who I am." But a program isn't your identity. It's a set of behaviors you learned, which means it's a set of behaviors you can examine, and change, if it's not serving you. Who you are is more about your values, not the subconscious programs that create your behaviors.
There isn't just one money program. There are different types, different patterns that show up depending on what you absorbed growing up and how you adapted to it. I'll talk more about them in upcoming issues. Some types over-give. Some types hoard. Some types avoid looking at numbers altogether. They're behaviors that made you feel safe at one point, but may not feel safe anymore.
If you want to find out which pattern you're running, I built a quiz for exactly this. It's quick, it's free, and it'll show you the type you're working with so you can start working on it instead of around it. Look for it at prosperousbarber.com/money-quiz soon.
Business System: The Talent You're Not Using Yet
Whether you know it or not, barbering is a profession. You went to school, got a license, and may even do continuing education to upskill. That makes you a professional. The question is whether you're running your business as professionally as you can.
One part of running a business is growth, and right now you're probably wondering how to grow yours, because your income is capping. Even with a full chair every week, you feel like you don't have enough money, and even when you have enough, you want more. So you start looking outside the chair for the answer. Some barbers pick up side hustles or take jobs that have nothing to do with barbering, hoping that extra effort somewhere else will close the gap.
You already have talents beyond cutting hair, and one of them is probably sitting closer to your business than you think. Maybe you're good with your hands and could create products. Maybe you're a natural teacher and could mentor newer barbers. Maybe you've got an eye for style that goes, or a way with people that could turn into private sessions, content, or community. You may already have an idea brewing. What you need is a way to think it through, so it becomes a real revenue stream instead of a side project that distracts you and burns you out.
You likely have more talent in your pinky finger than most people have in their whole body. Your wisdom is razor sharp, yet you're humble, so people have no idea how gifted you really are. Despite those gifts, you may be confused about how to turn one of them into a semi-passive or passive income stream that runs alongside your barber business. Helping barbers see this clearly is a gift of mine. If we spend some time together I can help you identify what you're already doing that could easily turn into a new stream of revenue.
Book a Clarity or Design Session
But before you book a session with me you should first give some thought to the questions I've asked you right in the issue and take the action I suggest below.
Take Action This Monday
If you made it this far, you're ready to take action. This week, think about when you first felt out of control, and how that might still be affecting your income today. I'll have a few solutions for you in the next issue.
In the meantime, think about those questions. The Barber Kick Start Session Bundle is coming soon. It's for the barber who isn't quite ready for a private session with me. It's a low cost way to get the mental health support you need as you stand behind the chair. It's a digital resource. You won't ket personal time with me, but I've poured my research and some of my resources into this starting kick.
The Prosperous Barber Journal is designed to give you free resources you can keep at your fingertips for the moments when stress overwhelms you. The Barber Kick Start Session is an easy way to access 3 of our most valuable and easy to use resources. So look out for it in an upcoming issue.
Did You Know?
Around 3500 BC in ancient Egypt, the barber was a priest. Cutting, styling, and shaving hair wasn't just grooming, it was believed to keep evil spirits away from the person in the chair. The Archdiocese probably doesn't know this but, the barber held a position of trust and a bit of mystique. The barber worked cutting hair as a ritual meant to protect the person sitting in front of them.
Before there were therapists, there were barbers. And before there were priests as we know them, there were barbers.
From the Chair
If this issue landed for you, subscribe to the Prosperous Barber Journal and share it with a barber you respect.
What this weeks podcast and while you're on YouTube, hit subscribe so you get all the gifts I giveaway. This week's video:
Why You're Afraid to Ask For Money
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See you sooner. Love you muchly.
Kiné
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