Lessons

Lesson Info

What does it mean to be a BITCH?

Hi, everyone! How are you? (audience murmuring) So I'm assuming you're all here because you wanna be a bitch like me? (audience laughing) Is that why we're all here? Yes. You wanna grow up to be a bitch like this bitch? (audience laughing) Well, welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so excited to do this class. I will tell you straight off the bat, I'm a little nervous. But that's good, it that means I care, so I don't mind. I'll calm down hopefully soon. I'm not joking about the bitch thing. You all know that everyone calls me a bitch, right? We all know that. I've written about it, I talk about it. But it's a really big point of my life, and it was a really big turning point for me. So when I first went on TV, I was on a competitive show, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I stood out because I had a big mouth, right? I stood up for what I believed in. I wouldn't take any rubbish from anyone. I was passionate about my craft. If I thought that someone was demeaning the profession that ...

I love, I had an opinion about that. Got kicked off. Went home. Went back to my salon. Show came on. And I was in the mall one day. I was actually in Nordstrom looking at shoes, because I like a good pair of shoes, and a woman looked across and she went, "Oh, my God, you're that bitch from TV." (audience laughing) I was like, um, yeah, yeah, hey, guess I am. Then it happened again. Then it happened again. Then it happened again. So it was something that kept happening all the time. I went down the rabbit hole of going online. Reading the blogs. Reading what the people were saying in the media. Some were great, some weren't. Then I went on all these chat rooms where people started talking about me, and I read every single word that every single person said about me. And it was devastating. Some of them were just absolutely ridiculous. Some of them were warranted. I could understand someone thinking that way about me because they didn't know me. But it just felt like everyone was judging me, and the more they were judging me, I was judging myself. And I started to second-guess myself, and I started to wonder if I was really this monster that people were saying that I was because of their perception of me. Which is what prompted to me to come up with my acronym for bitch. It really made me sit down. It was not a good place for me to go in, to read all of these blogs. I mean, people are really pretty ugly. They really are. And a computer sometimes, when people are sitting behind with no filter and no set of eyes looking at them, they feel they have the right to say anything they want about anyone. And to read all of these things and just feel it all made me sit down and ask myself some really big questions. Like, who am I? Like, if I had to sit there and go, hey, I'm Tabatha, who am I? Who is Tabatha? Am I really that person that people are calling me, this bitch, and saying that I'm mean and I'm tough and I'm an alien and I'm all of these things that they were saying, is part of that true? Like, is that what I'm putting out to world? Shit, do my staff think that? Do my clients think that? I don't think so! I have a great business! You know, but it started that tailspin of emotion and the thought process that started happening for me. So I sat down and came up with my acronym for bitch, which is: brave, intelligent, tenacious, creative, and honest. And I believe I am all of those things. I'm more, but I'm those things. And when I stopped and looked at what was the catalyst for people calling me that name, where did it come from. We don't need to get into the "It's what they call girls. "They don't call boys that." We don't need to go there, but we all know that. It really is for someone, especially a female, that is strong and has an opinion and stands up for herself and is courageous and speaks her mind. And that's the word that we're labeled with. And it can be a really hurtful, ugly, horrible word. We've started to use it now in a fun way and in a pop-culturey way, and we do it with our friends. "Hey, bitch, how are you? "Bitchin' shoes!" You know, we use it in a throwaway way. And that's just to deflect from the fact that that word hurts when someone says that to you. But in that moment, that was 10 years ago that happened, so that was 10 years ago. My life from today, the road back 10 years ago is, I don't even feel like I'm the same person. And we will talk more about that today and the journey I've been through, and the evolution that I've gone through personally in my business and my opinion of myself. But that was really a catalyst of a journey for me of looking at that narrative, looking at what people thought of me, looking at the perception that people had of me. Not just because I was on TV, because at that point, I didn't know I would continue to be on TV. I thought it was a one-time deal. I was a one-hit wonder, right? That was my mind. I went on this show. It was a competition show. I got kicked off. I went home with my T-shirt and went back to the real world. Right? I didn't realize this was going to continue. But it allowed me to take a step back to look at myself, look at what I was putting out there, and really look at who do I want people to know that Tabatha Coffey really is. And most of all, who do I want to know that Tabatha Coffey is. Because at the end of the day, it's my opinion of myself that really matters more about anyone else's opinion. Cool? So I'm excited about today's class. It's a lot. You'll be sick of me by the end of it and sick of my voice and my silly accent. I've really tried to put into this class the way that I move through my life and talk about a lot of the big things that have happened for me and how I've dealt with them. The setbacks that I've had and how I've gotten through them. What I have learned about myself, in business and in personal life, that has made me, I believe, a better business owner and a better boss, definitely a better human being, and much more comfortable and settled and strong within myself. The perception that a lot of you probably have of me, and part of it is right, that I am just this ball-breaking, tough-as-nails, hard, go-at-it person all the time. And you probably think that nothing gets to me, yeah? I'm a human being, right? Everything that gets to you gets to me, in my own way because it's my story. It's my life. All the stuff that you go through, I go through, too. I just choose sometimes not to put it out there because when you're in the public eye, you're in the public eye. And a lot of the stuff I go through is pretty crappy, and I don't want it out there until I wanna put it out there. It doesn't mean that I don't have road bumps, and cliffs that I fall off, and days where I can't get out of bed, and I wonder if I'm gonna keep going, and what the F am I here for, and am I doing the right thing? I go through all of those things just like all of you do. I do it in a little bit of a different way. Some of you may do it the same as I do. Some of you may not. But that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about. Because for me, being bold is living your best self, is being really honest with yourself, and taking a chance and being courageous and going for it. And being resilient is being able to hit the speed bumps and sometimes the walls and not just kind of go the easy way up and over it. I like to tear the wall down, 'cause I don't want the wall to come back again. Because if I try and sweep it away somewhere, we know what happens when you do that. It just surfaces somewhere else, right? And you've gotta beat through it again. And that's really tedious, really hard, and really silly. We have the choice to just tear it down and move through it. How I've made the choices to change my career, what to do. And what I've learned from myself and also the thousands of people that I've worked with, the commonalities that I've found in all of these businesses I go in that are struggling to take over or work with them. There's so much that you don't get to see about what really goes on in the conversations I have and the common roadblocks that I find to people not being able to change, and how to overcome them and how to work through those. So I'm very excited about today. I want it to be interactive. Obviously there was a questionnaire about you, so I know all about you. So thank you for sharing. I love that. My commitment to all of you today is, I asked you to be honest with me and to be vulnerable. I am going to be vulnerable with you as well, right? I will answer any question you have. I will tell you anything I've gone through to help you and maybe help a light bulb go off for you. I will tell stories, not to talk about myself, to share my experience with you because you may be going through something similar. You may learn from what I have to tell you. And that's what today's all about, okay? I invite you to be really honest, really vulnerable. That's what we're here for is to have a conversation and try and move the needle, right? And to change what you're feeling stuck about, to see how we can change that, to see where we can make space for something different to happen, so it's not the same repetitive stuff over and over again, and break out of what you're doing, okay? Part of being here on a long day like this is, we only take in 5%. I invite you to listen and be present. Some things may not apply to you, and that's okay. You may find that some things, "Ah, I'm good with that. "I've got that, I don't need that." And that's great, right? You don't need that. That's totally fine. Some of you may already be sitting here going, "What the hell am I doin' here," right? And that's okay as well. But if you really are present and engaged and just keep an open mind, you will find the nuggets where you need the nuggets. You will find what you need from this to look at something in a different way, to maybe get to know yourself a little bit better, because we don't take the time to do that anymore, right? We're rushing to the success instead of sometimes checking in and saying, how do I feel about that? Am I still good with this? Right? So be open, right? Be all here. If you're not all here, I would pretty much guarantee you that you're not all there in your life either. Because how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you don't wanna really show up today and be really present with me and be really all in, then you're probably not showing up for yourself in many other areas of your life. That's just how it works. And if you do know me or know anything about me, you know that I hate discounting. Hate it in your business. Definitely hate it in your hair salon or your beauty business. It just kills us. I hate discounting in life as well. I just don't like it. So don't discount yourself all this experience. And discounting shows up in a lot of ways, right? Closing down, "I've heard it all before. "Oh my God, I already know that. "What are you talking about?" That's the way we discount things when we close it down. And that discounting, it cheapens you. It cheapens the experience. And it doesn't keep you open to the reason why you're here today and what you could potentially learn, right? So no discounting. Tabatha doesn't allow it. It doesn't work for her. So with all of that said, who's excited? (audience clapping) Are we good? Good. You guys have to know that I speak to hairdressers all the time. I know I've got some hairdressers here, right? Some beauty industry people here. I know that, right? (audience clapping) So you guys, hairdressers are "Aaaaaaah!" Right? That's how we roll in hair world. So every now and then, all quiet faces looking at me, I know your intent, and I just asked you to be all in, but when you're all just looking at me like that, I need a little love. Mama needs a little love (audience laughing) every now and then.