We’re 10 days out from opening our fourth location.
The next month will be marked by a vacillation between excitement and fear, annoyance and joy. There will be early mornings, persevering through all the things that still need to be done, stewing on the things we already know we got wrong, and worrying about the mistakes that are bound to show up yet. These weeks require deep breathing practice and reminding ourselves why we’re doing this, why we started this in the first place and why we’re determined to grow.
More of a good thing isn’t necessarily better. It’s more schedules to manage, more insurance to get, more licenses to renew, more bills to pay, more appointments to facilitate. It’s certainly more complicated. It’s setting a long farmhouse table and making dinner many as opposed to dinner for two. So why are we doing this?
Here’s the thing: the very, very, very hardest thing about what we do at Refinery House is not hair. It’s not managing appointments. It’s not trying to convince clients to book with us. The very hardest thing about what we do is creating safe places for clients to come to and staff to work at, and Aly and I knew from day one that we couldn’t do that alone.
From day one, we’ve been bent on replacing ourselves. Creating a work environment that our influence, vision and love could run through, but wouldn’t solely be dependent on us. One that enabled our gifts to be used by enabling the people around us to use theirs. You’ve seen us working on developing hair stylists, but less obviously, we’ve been working on developing leaders; leaders we hope will one day be running this company in greater and greater capacities. Leaders, managers and employees that we hope continue to benefit from the success of what we’re creating together in real and tangible ways, like profit sharing and education opportunities. We’re after freedom for ourselves, but we’re also after freedom for our team and our clients.
Freedom to learn, accepting that mistakes are part of that.
Freedom to explore, believing our best ideas are yet to come.
Freedom to rest, finding a rhythm that enables us to live and not just work.
Freedom to do good, releasing ourselves to care about multiple bottom lines.
So yes, Refinery is growing. With that comes some stress and sleepless nights, but it also comes with hope for the future of being in a thing together with people who care about us and each other. With people who are also after the freedom that comes from becoming better and better at being who we already are.
xo Heidi and Aly