Description
In this episode of The Daymakers Podcast, hosts Larry Foster and Daved Dolce sit down with Elizabeth Faye — hairstylist, educator, and founder of Hair Love University — for a powerful conversation about purpose, healing, and freedom in the beauty industry.
Elizabeth shares her journey from salon burnout to creating a movement that empowers beauty professionals to live authentically and build careers they love.
This inspiring discussion dives into what it means to lead with heart, embrace your story, and find balance between creativity and well-being.
Find Elizabeth on Social Media:
https://www.instagram.com/heyelizabethfaye/
Show Notes
– Elizabeth’s path from stylist to educator and entrepreneur
– The mental and emotional side of beauty work
– Building a community rooted in growth and authenticity
– How to find purpose and freedom in your career
– Advice for students and professionals navigating change
Links:
YouTube: https://youtu.be/RD8crBFS0nQ
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4J4c1bTkxEa3FaLYJYRXWd?si=484e20d87feb45bc
Transcript:
We are here to make people feel good about themselves.
We really have to feel like we are a day maker for the guest.
“You’ve made my day.”
How great is that when you hear those words from your guest?
Hi, welcome to Treasure University’s The Day Maker podcast.
So, I’m really excited today because I’m here with Daved Dolce.
Hello.
And usually we do these independently.
This is the first one we get to do together, and I can’t think of a better person for us to do it with than Elizabeth Day.
Yes.
So, Elizabeth Day, we met probably about 2 years ago now and it’s been a huge bond ever since.
And we’re- couldn’t be any more thrilled to have her as our first guest together.
I’m so excited to be on your podcast.
I absolutely love and adore you both, and I’m so proud to be partnered with an organization that cares so much about the artists, about their people, about their teachers.
Um, so like I said, I’m Elizabeth Day.
I am a licensed cosmetologist.
I was actively behind the chair.
I had a really, really successful career for a little over a decade.
I was a beauty school teacher for 4 years, um, at a Paul Mitchell school, and I’ve been able to sit in a lot of different roles.
I’ve been able to be a booth renter, a suite owner, a commission salon owner, a booth rental salon owner.
So I did the salon owner journey for 7 years, but really what got me into this industry was mentorship.
I had a hairdresser who mentored me at 12 years old, and I was your stereotypical troubled teen from Vegas.
Um, I grew up in Las Vegas and had
It would take a whole other podcast.
I had a wild childhood.
As I’m sure many of you listening have had a wild childhood and all of us- Yes.
And all of us here today.
Um, but I was a troubled teen.
I ran away, self-harm, drugs, all sorts of different things I found myself- just trying to find myself in, really.
And I ended up finding myself in a hairdresser’s chair because I had actually turned my hair into a distraction.
Back then you couldn’t have, um, like, rainbow colored hair or, like, you know, just different colors or certain haircuts.
And so I knew that that would get me expelled.
And so I ended up doing my own hair and getting expelled, and I had a woman hand me a business card for a hairdresser, and that hairdresser became my mentor, through being a pre-teen and a teenager.
And, um, that hairdresser ended up actually doing my hair for good grades on a report card, and it became this, like, trading, you know, experience, but it really was a mentorship experience.
I don’t think I realized it at that age, I just knew I had to go back to the salon.
I knew I had to, um, do whatever I could, which was huge for me as someone who didn’t really believe, like, that it was worth doing anything, um, for myself.
That motivated me, um, and that- that changed really and shaped my entire life.
Um, I have told this story so many times.
It still makes me emotional because it’s such a beautiful catalyst and, like, how powerful it is what we do as beauty professionals and wellness professionals.
You know, it’s so much bigger than a service.
Um, and that hairdresser became my mentor at 16, and my career, you know, all the different phases.
Um, but I ended up, through education, you know, I was a educator in schools, um, different corporate companies independently.
I was an assistant to educators, you know, kind of moved through the ranks from the bottom up over the years, and I really found myself, um, doing a lot of speaking, like business and life coaching and mentorship through beauty.
Um, as a teacher really is where it started, as a beauty school teacher.
I found myself really drawn to helping people more with the personal/professional development, and I ended up sharing my story a lot online, and before Instagram on Facebook, and then when we thought Instagram was just a picture app.
And so I just, like, really kind of kept sharing my story, and I got into education through speaking at different beauty schools, um, local, and then a salon would ask to have me come in, and I started developing curriculums, um, and writing everything I was learning, and I ended up building
Kind of like you would build a hair clientele, I ended up building an education clientele.
So I would get brought into different schools and salons, and then corporate companies kind of found me eventually, and, um, I became, like, a full-on business coach.
And, um, my business coaching was successful because of the life coaching element.
And so I started, like, you know, getting additional trainings and certifications to better my skill set in that way, um, and I ended up having a health crisis long into my career when I was
All the things on paper looked really good and really successful, and, um, it really flipped my world upside down.
It was years of just burnout, not prioritizing my health, being like, “Later, later, later.”
And, um, you know, hairdressing helped me be a single mom and build all these things, um, but I didn’t pause to take care of myself and I was constantly, you know, playing therapist in the chair for other people and doing that as a coach and a salon owner and a teacher, um, and it ended up leading to arthritis, shoulder injuries, chronic migraines.
I was having panic attacks, um, constant anxiety.
Um, I looked a lot different than I do now.
lost about 100 pounds.
I just, like, didn’t prioritize, like, stillness, meditation, my mind, my heart.
Like, any of those things, I thought, “I’ll do it later.”
Um, you know when you could have a million problems, but when your health is a problem, you have one problem?
Right.
And it forced us to pause our life.
And for those who know, um, my husband is my partner in life and business and all the things, um, he had years of severe mental health, depression, suicidal ideation, and we both kind of had our crumble at the same time.
And that’s really what deepened our path.
And then I ended up going to school for trauma informed work and somatics and the inner child, and-
all these other things.
And I just kept blending it with my current body of work, my speaking, my workshops, the retreats.
I was already doing a lot of things and had a big education brand.
And our results were just, like, if I thought they were really good before, they were just on another level, and it just grew from there really.
Like, people were having, not just like, “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.
Oh my gosh, this is life changing.
This is transformational.
Like, this will stick with me the rest of my life.”
And so we kept, you know, um, blending, you know, science-backed modalities with all of these things and really curating, like, a curriculum for our industry.
And that’s eventually what led to the Vitality Project, was schools being like, “Elizabeth, this is what you do.
Would this help us?”
I’m like, “Oh, absolutely,” and corporate running programs with it in our community and our salons being like, “How do we take it home?”
And so we wanted Vitality Project to be something that could be in other companies, that could be in other organizations, that someone could have ownership and make that part of their culture.
Um, and we wanted to make it as easy as possible.
So the windiest road-
of all time-
but just a really heart-like path, you know?
I know.
But I love that story, you know?
I think it’s incredible because what we do does make a difference, but I think we do not take care of ourselves.
So I think what you’re doing is right on point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And we get to then do the thing that changes more lives.
Right.
But we gotta take care of our own life.
Like, we gotta come first.
We gotta be that, that point, um, of, you know, our highest priority so we can be of service and give from overflow and change lives and all the things that we wanna do, make people feel beautiful and connected and all of that.
And so yeah, it starts with us.
I didn’t even think about how to take care of myself or that I wasn’t taking my ca- taking care of myself until we saw you in premiere and you did that panel with Michelle and Kim, and I was just like, “This is amazing.
We don’t.
We take care of other people.
We don’t take care of ourselves.”
Yeah.
So getting to meet you and see that, we said that was the only class that we needed to take for the whole time-
we were there.
It was crazy.
So we’re talking about the Vitality Project.
I know all about it, but just in a nutshell, what is the Vitality Project?
That’s great.
We are the industry’s first workplace wellness program, so we are an education system for wellness, um, really preventing burnout, helping people recover from burnout, but helping with the mental, emotional, and physical side of our health and wellbeing.
Um, I’ll share a little story.
So I was leaving Prosper U of Ed.
Mm-hmm.
And it’s a industry event for schools, and they do, like, business programs or- Yeah.
I mean, obviously you know who they are.
But they’re amazing.
So I was at that event doing a trauma-informed train the trainer for teachers.
And I’m in the airport, and I’m about to leave, and I see this young woman and she has a Pivot Point backpack and it said Eric Fisher school name.
And I love Eric Fisher.
They’re one of our schools.
He’s, like, an incredible mentor, friend, all the things.
So I asked her, I’m like, “Oh, are you a cosmetologist, an esthetician, like, a barber, like, nails?
What’s your, you know, career p- choice?”
And she’s like, “Oh yeah, I went to beauty school and I loved it,” and she said incredible things about the school, which they are an incredible school.
And, and then she kinda got quiet.
I was like, “Are you still in the industry?”
She’s like, “No.
I left,” and I asked, “Why?”
And she said, “My mental and emotional health.”
At this point I think someone’s punking me.
I’m like, “Is this a staged-” This is crazy.
“first.
Like-” Yeah.
“I know I’m on the right path, I get it.”
But, like, I was like, “This is, like, too crazy.”
And I’m wearing my Vitalya, I had just left doing, like, a teacher training.
And I’m like, “May I ask more, if you don’t mind?”
Mm-hmm.
And she’s like, “Oh, totally.”
And she’s like, “Honestly, I loved school.
It was the best school in town.
I got a job at the best, like, salon in town.”
Like, check, check, check, all the things, uh, that she should do.
And she’s like, “I had no idea how much more went into hairdressing and being a beauty professional than just doing the thing.”
I was like, “Yeah.
It’s a very impactful career.
Like, we change lives.”
And she’s like, “Yeah, but we do a lot more than that.”
And I was like, “I know.”
Mm-hmm.
And she’s like, “I started, like, waking up exhausted and burnt out.
Then I’d go to the salon, and I just felt like I couldn’t catch, I couldn’t catch my breath.
I just
I would just follow these stories and connections and this and that, and people were telling me all these things that”
Especially right now in the world.
I mean there’s enough to talk about, about any topic you could think of.
Oh, yes.
There’s enough to complain about, all of those things.
You have to think beauty and wellness professionals are like healing, connecting, making them feel beautiful, listening, holding space, all of that, and then teachers are doing that plus teaching adult learners to then do that.
And she’s like, “And then I would go home and I had nothing left to give.
And then I started dreaming about my clients, and that’s when my therapist told me, ‘This is too hard on your mental and emotional health, you need to leave the industry.'” And, you know, I’m like, dang it, because I know what a fruitful, life-changing industry this is.
And that problem is super solvable.
Like, that’s just having soft skills and wellness skills to take care of your own health.
And, but it’s like, I work with literally tens of thousands of adults.
I would say 95% of them don’t have these skills.
I didn’t have these skills- No, right?
until, I’m a mom, I’m running a business.
Yeah.
I didn’t have them till I got sick.
And so, um, she’s like, “What do you do?”
And I was like, “I’m a hairdresser, but I help people with that.”
And she was like, “Oh, that’s very needed.”
I was like, “I know,” and I was like, “It’s a beautiful career.”
So that’s what I do, I help people with that part of the career, and help set them up to really have a long, successful career, ’cause there’s so much money to be made, there’s so many lives to be changed, so many opportunities.
Like look what you’ve done with your career.
Look what you’ve done with your career.
Yeah.
Like, education, you could be a director, you could be in sales for s- like, schools, you could be in sales for products, you could own salons, spas.
Oh my gosh, like, the list goes on.
And so, it, you know what’s cool about
You all were first at the doctor, like I know you know that, but just anyone listening, like Tricoci said yes to this program before it was alive.
Like, that speaks to your company in ways that I don’t know what else can speak to that.
Like, that’s just like, you were like, “Yes.
Yes, to my people, yes to their wellness-” Mm-hmm.
” yes to their career longevity, yes to their mental and emotional health.”
Like, I don’t even think you’d seen the full curriculum yet, and you were like, “Yes.
Whatever you’re doing, yes.”
And so just the way that you have advocated for your people, it’s r- you know, there’s a lot of incredible beauty schools, but like, you are the cream of the crop.
And that is something that’s so incredible, and your students may not even know how lucky they are, because you don’t go to- Talking about it, right.
find your own beauty school, you go to one.
But like, it really becomes this, like, Harvard of beauty, this like experience where you get to go somewhere elevated, and you leave resourced with business skills, with the craft, of course, um, but also with the soft skills, the people skills, the wellness skills, to have that career longevity and that personal development, that truly sets someone up for so much success, from profit to purpose to people to
So, I just want to like applaud you.
I think that that’s something like anyone looking into the organization should know that that’s like 5 stars, Michelin star, all of those things.
Like, that’s a big deal, and that’s a really good symbol of a top tier school.
Thank you, thank you.
Yeah.
So, when you started the Vitality Project, and I know you’re into salons and everything, did you ever imagine that you’d be bringing this into schools eventually, or was that an aha moment that you had?
“Wait, schools need this.”
Yes.
So it did start in our community with Salon and Spa, that was the initial concept, even before it had the name Vitality Project.
People were like, “We want the Hair Love brand, the Elizabeth Day, whatever this is, in our locations.”
Um, it was actually Pivot Point who came to us, and I had a few friends who owned schools, and I had teachers being sent to our healing retreats, and they’re like, “Please bring something back.”
And I would do teacher trainings, and what I would see is
I love doing a teacher training.
I’m doing one this weekend.
I do them as part of my living, you know, what I do.
But it doesn’t stay forever.
A, you don’t remember and retain everything, you can’t.
Um, you’re gonna have new team come in and out.
This is like with anything.
So it doesn’t stay, the principles in an organization, for maybe more than 6 months, 12 months, and even then, it’s not as like ingrained.
So that’s when we started being like, “How do we build something, you know, where we really can like work and partner with someone, that it can like stay and stick?”
And curriculum development’s what we’d d- have done for years.
And so Pivot Point came to us and brought this up and said, “This is what you do, you’re the best at it, we’re hoping schools come to us.”
And I said, “Me too.”
And they were like, “Let’s do this together.”
And so we started developing it from there.
So, it was really our community coming to us, being like, “This is a need.”
I was getting hired for things, um, and I’ve always, I have had thousands of clients say to me, “I wish I would’ve had these skills in beauty school.”
Yeah.
And so it’s been a thought for years, like pre-COVID, of like, what if you had this in the beginning, and I wasn’t helping people heal and stay, you know, like, fix their nervous systems and their mental health and all these different things at 50 or at 40 or at 30 years old, and they could’ve had this in the beginning of their career.
Like, oh my gosh, they would’ve like, A, never even known about any of the problems.
They just like would’ve just like kept being successful.
And when the problems came up, they would’ve had a toolkit.
And so it’s like you said, you’re like, “I didn’t even know, maybe that’s why I’m tired, maybe that’s why I have brain fog.”
Yeah.
Like, when I was in a lot of my trauma-informed certifications, I’d be in the room with doctors, therapists, massage therapists, um, you know, holistic healers, nurses, you know, trauma therapists, kind of the gamut, life coaches, and they would teach us tools, you know, of course to help other people with trauma, but then how to not take it home.
That skill set alone is deeply ingrained in Vitality and a lot of our other products.
That is a game changer, just that.
And I remember being like, every beauty professional and teacher should know that, because we are told things that therapists are told, as beauty professionals.
Yeah.
And that’s a beautiful reason why people love and feel close with their beauty school teachers and their hairdressers and barbers and nail techs.
Like, my nail tech walked me through my divorce as a single mom.
Like, the whole thing.
She was very underpaid for that.
Yeah.
I’m probably under-resourced, but my point is like-
what if you just had skill sets to not take it all home to your family?
Well, it’s huge.
What effect to your mental health or your sleep, you know?
Huge.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
And, you know, we did sign on right from the beginning ’cause we believe in it.
I mean, the thing that’s a little bit different about Tricoci is we are very people-centered and we’re really focused on the people.
And we did see an issue with students dropping for mental health reasons and sometimes students don’t understand that school is not the obstacle.
It’s a means to get over all those other obstacles in your life.
Mm-hmm.
So what you brought to the table actually helps us with that.
So tell us about any kind of lessons within the program that you really tried to drive home with the students.
Yeah.
I love that.
Well, and you are very people-centered, which is why we’re partnered together.
That’s like the heartbeat of what you do as well.
While I work here
What I do and that’s
Yeah.
That’s why we all do what we do, is like people are the best part of the job and can be the hardest part of a job.
And so when we have skillsets to really help with that, we get to enjoy the best part of the job.
Um, some of the lessons, one of them is really, uh, you know, this sounds very simple but tapping into motivation and inspiration, like your personal why and understanding.
Motivation has 2 components to it, it’s desire and believability.
And so as people when we can connect to what is our desire, why do I do what I do?
Like, that’s why I share my story of how this changed lives to remind people why are crafts so special and impactful and sacred and the influence we really have and there’s that.
We also do a lot with the, the brain and the body.
And so the body we teach you about understanding your nervous system and what that shows up like.
You know, what are those things that you’ll notice before you’re getting into burnout?
What are the cues?
What are the bumper rails that you can see?
Because you are a caregiver in this industry.
You’re nurturing people.
You’re making them feel beautiful.
You’re listening to them.
You’re ser- it’s a service-based industry.
You’re giving a service all day long.
And so really understanding how we co-regulate when we’re dysregulated, you know, when someone trauma dumps, what are those things and how can we easily navigate those things, that we don’t need to bring it home to our kids or our loved ones or just for our own mental health?
So really, the true science of what that is, how it works, and then what to do with it.
Mm-hmm.
And so, you know, we don’t want anyone to just know what to do and not why.
And so we actually, like, literally teach you the science of how that works and then skillsets that are free to use, you can use at any point in your day very easily.
And we have like a private, kind of like an app or a podcast called Vitality On Demand.
So you have that in your pocket at all times, you know, pre-work, post-work, um, even up to 2 years.
So if it takes you longer than 2 years, um, to go through school, which is almost never the case, like, you would have it through that but most people are through their school in how long?
Uh, usually 10 months.
Yeah.
10 months.
So you have this program for 2 years which is incredible in the beginning of your career as well.
Um, but you have that app with you all the time to be able to use.
Um, we also teach you, you know, how your brain works.
And so how the brain and body just speak together.
Mm-hmm.
And being able to handle and have the communication skills for when those things come up for yourself, your self-talk, all of those things, and also with your clients.
And so those are just some of the modalities, um, that are taught but really from a holistic, scientifically backed standpoint, you are gonna learn how to take care of yourself from your mental health, your physical health, your emotional health, from noticing triggers, being able to, uh, prevent emotional overwhelm, handling stress.
Like, of course life is stressful but, like, you’re also gonna deal with everyone else’s in these spaces.
How not to make it your own and being able to manage that in a healthy way.
So I would say it’s, like, you get your fun school h- you know, school kit when you go to hair school or beauty school or become a nail tech, barber, et cetera, um, this is like your wellness toolkit but you get to have it the rest of your life.
I love it because I originally started over 30 years as a massage therapist and that was, you know, one of the core things we w- were taught- Absolutely.
was how to ground ourselves, how to breathe, all those things.
And so when Daved and our team went to see you speak at that premiere show, they came back and it was just like awakening for me.
Yeah.
And we’ve seen plenty of success stories from it but tell us from your perspective, as you’ve traveled around the schools, what have you seen that makes you think, yes, what they did is exactly- Yeah.
what was needed?
Yeah.
Oh, so many.
Um, you know, a lot of them are personal stories.
Like, they’re just like, “I was going through blank in my personal life.”
Mm-hmm.
“And, um, this gave me the tools to be able to navigate it.”
And so I think a lot of it’s like, you know, our personal life comes with us everywhere we go and learning how to healthily manage that, compartmentalize but be with it and not ignore it, but also be able to show up for ourselves.
Like, being
You know, people telling me, like, really hard things, like, “I’m going through divorce,” or, “Someone’s dying in my family,” or, “Sometimes I don’t know how I’m gonna pay the bills and I’m on student loans,” or, “I’m a single mom.”
Like, those real just like
That’s real life and that- It is.
is very common in school because you’re starting your life over, whether it’s a second career, you’re super young and you’re starting.
And most of the time, you’re starting from nothing and then you’re, like, building this life.
And so to hear, like, the real struggles of life and then being able to have something that anchors you and gives
takes your personal power back, you know?
Like that really, really excites me.
Um, from the teachers’ standpoint, them feeling not out of their depths.
Like I think that that’s really cool that the teachers are able to meet students where they’re at and really, like, honestly, like, bring all their teacher skillsets, but help them navigate the stresses of being an adult learner, being overwhelmed, learning something new is super vulnerable, and being able to do that.
But a lot of teachers love what they do so much.
They live for changing lives.
But there’s a lot going on in a classroom, you know?
And so being able for them to live more in the, “I love what I do, this helps me change lives,” and, like, come back to that.
Like, our teachers are so important in our schools, and we have the best teachers, and to hear them just like, “This makes me love my job more,” like, I know the ripple effect to them, to the student, to then their future career.
Like, I just
That’s a cool tidal wave, you know?
That’s awesome.
My favorite question to ask when we wrap these up is, what does being a daymaker mean to Elizabeth Fay?
Hmm.
I love that.
I think just being able to help someone feel heard, seen and loved, like, in whatever small moment that is.
That’s amazing.
I love that.
Well, thank you so, so much.
I look forward to a weekend with you.
Sure.
Um, I know you’re touring our schools.
We’re very proud to have you here and be a part of our Tracoci family.
So again, thank you so, so much.
Hmm.
Thanks for having me.
You’re very welcome.