The Kayla Interview

What You Can Learn From A Woman On A Mission To Never Stop Reinventing Herself

Several months ago, Indie Beauty Network founder and president Donna Maria Coles Johnson interviewed me about how I have made so many transformations over the past few years of my life. As a wife and mother of three, change is a part of daily life, but in my case, the changes encompass far more than being a wife and mother. I have embraced the joys of reinventing myself time and time again whenever life and business called for it. Donna Maria encouraged me to share some of my reinvention journey with you.

dM: Kayla, tell me about a time in your life when you reinvented yourself?

Kayla: When we left Essential Wholesale's 2700 square foot space to move into our current space, we still had a year left on our lease of what was going to become empty space. Dennis had an idea to convert the vacant building into a store, which lead to the idea of a mini spa. Since I was in quite an ambitious phase of my life, I immediately jumped on the band wagon. Between being a wife, mother and business woman, I had felt separated from my creative side so I saw a mini-spa as an opportunity to give my artistic side a new creative outlet.

Converting an empty warehouse into a store front and mini-spa took an enormous amount of creativity, sweat and labor. In the end, the space was amazing. A local television station even did a feature on the design of the store.

The construction process was challenging, but it was fun to see our vision take shape one step at a time. Here's a pictue of the store front under construction.

         

The aromatherapy bar and store layout was amazing.

         

We had a soap bar.

         

We even hosted spa tea parties for little girls.

         

The layout was exquisite. The staff was great. The products were selling like gangbusters.

The store was a bottomless money pit that demanded constant time money and energy. We expanded, redeveloped and redesigned, and around the clock we worked. The spa was eating up our time and Essential Wholesale was suffering from our divided attention.

dM: How did you recover?

Kayla: It was a long, slow process.

We tried everything to stop the hemorrhaging. Finally, Dennis called a halt to it all. I was devastated because I had invested so much emotional energy into the creative side of the building, the products and into the lives of the people that worked for us. I had to lay everyone off, admit defeat and leave behind the piece of art I had made the building into. Mentally, spa was eating us alive. Emotionally, I was crushed.

With the spa closed, we put all of our focus into branding a product line. We launched a new look for the product and took it to tradeshows. I would describe the look as “one of those things you thought was a good idea at the time”. It was flashy, it was colorful and it was expensive. In reality, I think the stress we were under made us go a little extreme in our look. Buyers loved our product at tradeshows, they loved the concept of our product line, but they hated our look.

dM: So you traded one headache for another one?

Kayla: Yes. Our extreme packaging was a shiny, foil disaster.

      

On top of that, the product line itself was in chaos.There was no relationship between our packaging and the high quality of the product inside. We had not developed clear product lines, so customers were left guessing which cleanser to use with which toner.

We were mid-stream, getting notice from the press and enjoying serving thousands of loyal customers.
The products themselves were amazing, but we had packaged them inappropriately. We finally decided to end the product line too. To do this, we have to let go of history and wipe the slate clean.

dM: So you let both go ultimately?

Kayla: We had to. I could not believe we were starting over again. I dreamed up every creative way we could use up the packaging and not lose the money we had invested. There was no option but to scrap what we had, and to start from the beginning. We went back to square one and start fresh, new, licking our wounds and learning from our mistakes.

dM: Who helped you get through that?

Kayla: Our amazing team of employees. This time around, when we revamped the products, we surrounded ourselves with experts and leaned heavily on their advice and counsel. Laura Craig, Gina Henry and Alex Badcock helped us redefine the product line from the inside out. Laura (and esthetician) addressed the skin, Gina (our cosmetic formulator) addressed formulation and Alex (graphic artist) wrapped it all up beautifully. They shared our burden and made it bearable.

dM: How can you describe the desire you had to run a private label manufacturing company, and launch a retail store/mini-spa and a product line and be a wife and mom at the same time?

Kayla: I suffered from the “super woman complex”. I have been prone to think that I could and should do everything myself. I have learned from the experience to delegate, to entrust others with my dreams, my vision and my burdens. I thought Dennis and I could do it all. Besides, together, we started Essential Wholesale alone, homeschooling one child, with one child in a back pack and one in the belly. We worked around the clock for that dream because we had to. Our saving grace is that, when we had failed not once, but twice, we were surrounded by a team of people who chose to walk beside us.

What did you learn through the process?

Kayla: We did not open the spa with the intention of learning so many hard lessons. In failure, I was humbled. I learned to let go and embrace the experience and all that it taught me. I learned that failure in business is just that, business failure. it does not equal personal defeat. We embraced the opportunity to reinvent ourselves, and those opportunities come often after tremendous heartbreak.

I have learned that my creativity is mobile, and not tied to the location in which I create. My creativity is a gift that I can use as a Cosmetic Formulator and Aromatherapist, artistically and in writing. I don’t have to hold onto one piece, one building or one vision. It is an ever constant stream that can be tapped into in all aspects of life.

Business and life are both like a canvas. You can wipe it clean and start over again. If you are like me and your strokes are heavy, your canvas will show the evidence of what you have done before. Even a scarred canvas can become something new and beautiful. This reinvention was painful in so many ways: financially, physically and emotionally. I am so glad I went through it  I can better guide our customers at Essential Wholesale around the pitfalls and trap doors in this business. I can speak from the experience of failure and success, and the journey in between.

dM: How did the reinvention process change your life?

Kayla: The reinvention process changed my life in many ways.  I had created a “whole new me” many times in life. But this time was different. In the case of the spa, I had lost sight of the ultimate goal by only focusing on the playing field that I was on. The spa was the playing field; the employees, the building and the customers. The goal was to have a successful business. We were not even heading towards the goal, but I was so emotionally wrapped up in the playing field that I fought Dennis when it was time to let go.

I was like a drowning woman flapping frantically for something to stop me from drowning, all the while fighting against the rescue. When I surrendered to the rescue I was so relieved. The burden had been so extreme, that even the heavy task of laying people off and closing our doors was a massive relief. Closing the spa was the most logical move we had ever made. Even level headed, I still needed to a moment to grieve the failure, the broken relationships and let go. The night before the spa closed I wept privately, but by morning I was all business.

Our lives were changed dramatically in the process of the spa and product lines multiple false starts, wrong directions and new beginnings. Since we are a married couple that is in business together, we had to walk through this process without laying blame on each other. We had to fail together, change together, start over together and above all, put our relationship first. I had to let go of my misdirection and follow Dennis’ lead toward our mutual vision. We had done that once at the creation of Essential Wholesale from our previous business model, and it had worked. I had to again accept that my creativity can lead us down a lot of rabbit trails, but Dennis’ business sense can lead us back on the path to success. It was a refresher course in faith and trust. 

dM: Do you find that today, you reinvent yourself regularly?

Kayla: Yes, and it comes quite naturally. I grew up moving around the world every 2 to 5 years. I was born in Dallas, moved to Japan, to California, to Desoto, Texas, to Germany, to Duncanville, Texas and finally graduating High School in San Antonio, Texas. While growing up I had lived nine years overseas and nine years in America. I was adaptable. I reinvented myself with every move. Other than my family no one really witnessed the changes, the struggles or the overcoming of fears. I was in a new environment and could recreate myself in private.

I have always believed in facing my fears head on. For instance, when I decided to conquer my fear of the water I became a certified scuba diver. My teacher recognized my fear and challenged me, but my classmates were in the dark about it. What made the process of reinvention after the spa was so painful because it was out in the world for everyone to see.

I am extremely private while in pain, and every reinvention had been private, but this failure - this forced reinvention - was so very public. I resisted this reinvention because it meant publicly admitting failure; it meant that the business that others depended on for income was going to fold underneath them. I was humiliated by the thought of letting other people down and not meeting their expectations. One of the great lessons that I learned in this experience was to become vulnerable.The people that I laid off embraced me and faced their new jobless challenge. Many of them are still in my life. 

dM: What would you recommend to people who are undergoing a painful reinvention of some kind?

Kayla: The biggest piece of advice I can give to someone going through the process of reinvention is to not fight against it  Don’t hold onto an idea, a business or the way you did things before when they were not working. Sometimes you get side tracked and lose focus of your goal. Don’t beat yourself up, just allow yourself to refocus and change directions. There are times in business that you make mistakes. You can’t put your failures and mistakes in a bag and carry it around with you, occasionally using it to beat yourself up. You have to take a moment to have a pity party, then let go and get on with the business of starting over. 

dM: What's your philosophy on reinventing yourself?

Kayla: My philosophy is to be open to change. Be open to opportunities that come your way. Learn as much as you can from other peoples’ mistakes, whenever possible, by reading business magazines and books.  Equip yourself with the lessons of others, your own life lessons and a heavy dose of reality. More than anything don’t make any excuses that stop you from changing. For instance, if you wanted to lose weight you might say, “I’m too tired to exercise.” Until you start exercising you will remain too tired, but once you force yourself to do it, your energy will be boundless. People trip themselves up and are held back by the excuses that they invent and hold onto.

I recommend that people always be open to change in life and in business. I find that when I stop reading, I stop growing. I am constantly reading marriage books, parenting books, business books, health books, cookbooks and everything in between. I can’t accept the concept that I learned everything I ever needed to know in life, in Kindergarten. If you continue learning, you will continue growing and changing. 

dM: Who has influenced you in the process of growing, reinventing and expanding your horizons?

Kayla: When it comes to business growth I am inspired by my husband and business partner, Dennis.

      

He has always seen a very big picture. I was terrified in the beginning of our business because his vision was so huge.  I could only see the orders that were in front of me each day. He would talk about our future and it seemed so unrealistic when it was just the two of us barely making ends meet.  But I had the faith in him to follow his lead and put in the labor and hard work each day. 

In life I am inspired to change and grow in order to fulfill the potential that I believe God put in me. I am inspired regularly by ordinary people who face their challenges head on. Everyday we are all faced with enough tests to want to curl up in bed and hide. At times in all of our lives, we are up against great loss, failure, and defeat.

I admire the strength that people find, that they thought they never had in them, and use it to bravely face each day. I have always loved to read inspirational stories about people who overcame great struggles.  We all have those different struggles at different times in our lives. It is the people that don’t give up that I admire, even when it means completely reinventing yourself. I once read about an artist who lost the use of her arms, so she learned to paint with her feet.

Whatever the challenge, I have nothing but admiration and respect for ordinary people who keep moving forward, no matter what the challenges.

Comments

[Donna]

Your story is truly inspirational, I love it.

[Funlayo]

Kayla,
What an an inspiring and authentic journey. I can relate to much of what you have been through. I also find it encouraging that in business we can continue to 'Fail Forward' and still make the goal. This is my second visit to your story and I'm about to print it out so I can read it to my husband tonight

[Bailey]

Dear Kayla,

What a wondeful story. You are so inspirational to me personally because I've been through so much of what you are talking about. I'm actually going through a reinvention right now... or working on it slowly trying to become unstuck. Thank you for sharing your story.

Bailey

http://sbsproducts.com

[Kelli Parisian]

Kayla,
I want you to know how much I appreciate your being so authentic in sharing the bumps you've been through in business. In learning what others have gone through (especially people I respect and admire), that I don't feel alone, with some of the business choices I've made that haven't worked as planned. For me it was a extremely costly PR campaign, that I wasn't ready for, my second year in business. Kayla, you and Dennis continue to inspire me because I've witnessed how re-invented yourself and moved forward triumphantly!

[Donna Maria @ Indie Business]

Kayla: every time I read this story, I am inspired. It never gets old. I love the "shiny, foil disaster" reference. LOL!! But you know what moves me the most. "Dennis called a halt to it all." I know you were disappointed, but deep down inside, you knew he was right. Strong, decisive leadership is what makes propels a company forward. It's amazing what happens when we focus on our highest priorities and leave other things to those who have them as their highest priorities. As you say, failure in business does not have to mean personal defeat. It's not over until we ourselves say it's over. Way to hang in there and regroup, with fabulous results too! xoxo