Today on the show, we have a message of passion and commitment. We'll be talking about following your dreams and the importance of never giving up on them. I'd like to welcome Brittanny Craig who is, indeed, a very smart woman. She is a powerhouse of a woman and has some very valuable wisdom to share with us. She is an Aveda Color Pure Professional hair designer. We are going to be discussing the evolution of her career, how she got started and where she is today.

Hey Brittanny, welcome to the show today.

Thank you.

I'm really, really excited to have Brittanny on the show because Brittanny is my hairdresser, and she is the best hairdresser absolutely ever. But Brittanny's going to be talking to us today about her journey from where she started out after she finished school and going into her career and having children and then into this fabulous career as an Aveda Color Pure professional. So, Brittanny, just ... Can you give us a little insight into, basically, how did you even become a hairdresser? Where did that ... How did that happen for you?

Well, actually, my mother was a hairstylist for 35 years. And my childhood toys were mannequin heads and perm rods and cones and brushes and all that good stuff. And I piddled around with it all through high school, and it never crossed my mind that I would become a hairstylist. It just was something that was in our house and we did. I actually was going to go to school to become an interpreter for the deaf and-

Oh, wow.

Yeah. Yeah. I did sign language all through high school and actually interpreted it for a girl my senior year in high school and was going to go to school and then I had to drop out of college because my mom was having some health issues. And I put that to the side., then an opportunity came up for me to go to cosmetology school, and I said, "Well, I know it, so why not?" and that's where it started.

So, you just ... It was just kind of like ... So, in other words, life led you, and through circumstance, to start?

Right, right. Yeah. It just happened, and it was something that I knew that I felt comfortable with and I said, "Okay. I can probably do really well at this," and it wasn't an overreaching, overstretching, overstressed situation that I was already kind of in, so it was a way for me to engage myself, better myself in a way that was more feasible than going away to a four-year college because my mom, at the time, needed me to be there [crosstalk 00:04:04 ]-

So, you had to make some clear decisions at a very young age about what was going to be best for you and your family?

Yes.

That's awesome. So, once you went into ... So, you went to school and you became a hairdresser and now, I know you have four beautiful children, so can you explain a little bit to us, like did you work when your children were young? How long did you work for? Can you explain a little bit of that to us?

So, I started when ... Actually, I had my oldest child the year I graduated from cosmetology. So, I started-

Oh, my God.

Right? So, I graduated from cosmetology school, I was super, super blessed to have my mom be in the same city that I was in, and she was so gracious to help me with watching Madison, and then as more children came along, she was able to help me. So, by the time I had my third child, she was getting ready to move, and I was still doing hair part-time, but the childcare issues come about. Then when I got pregnant with my fourth child, I decided to take time off and stayed home for five years with all the kids until everybody started back into school.

I want us to be clear. So, you basically went to cosmetology school, had a few children-

Just a few.

And while you had the few children, you worked, you worked part-time, so you-

I worked full-time.

Oh, you worked full-time-

I worked full-time-

And your mom took care of the kids?

And my mom helped take care of the kids. So, I worked full-time for five years and then worked part-time for about a year and a half, two years, and then decided to stay home, but if any other hairstylist would be listening to this, they know that you can never get rid of all of your clients if you stay home. They say, "I will come to your kitchen and you can cut my hair," and I did do a little bit of that while I was saying at home, and it was great. It helped to have a little bit of money on the side and everything. But it was important for me to stay home. I had four children from the age of five to newborn and so it was just important for me to be able to stay home. And my mom not being available to watch to watch the kids for me and if anyone knows how much childcare costs, it was unrealistic for me to work and have childcare for three children that were still at home and my oldest being in kindergarten.

Wow, that's amazing. Did you enjoy that time that you had with your kids when you were a stay at home mom?

Oh, absolutely. I loved it. Loved every minute of it. It's kind of a genetic disposition for our family to be creative. That's just where things that are, my husband's very creative. The kids were very creative, you know, growing up, I let them do basically everything with me from cooking to cleaning. We were together all the time, you know, and it was really good for them. They knew how to express themselves, but yet, you know, going and doing and being out in. I never stopped doing any in particular thing because they were with me, you know, we would go to church on a regular basis all the time.

Or if I had shopping to do, or if we had an outing to go to or people just knew that if you got me, you got four kids too.

Oh, I love that.

So, it was so great to be able to stay home with them and to be able to, I don't want to say educate them, but it was educating them because it was always such a surprise to me when my kids started school. I remember my oldest child's kindergarten teacher and she always commented about how, you know, oh she already knows her abcs or she knows the colors or she knows this or that or the other. I think, you know, any parent, you try to set your child up for success. But it was just interaction, you know, that we were constantly interacting with me or with, you know ... My kids love to cook.

That's one thing that that I think is that they see as special, you know, from the time that they were really, really tiny. You know, I actually made them their own little oven mitts and they had oven mitts that went up to their elbows and little aprons and they would be in the kitchen with me and they love to bake. My son until he was about 10 or 11 years old would still, if I took cookies out of the oven and he didn't have the opportunity to do it, he would be mad at me. Like mom, What are you doing? That's my job kind of thing. Yeah.

That's adorable.

So it's just really fine to have the time with them and then them seeing how life worked, you know?

And the reason, I guess I'm asking you this, because I think a lot of women struggle with this in the modern world, especially career women that then want to have families. And you hear all this controversy of how women should have children and then stay at home and be dedicated parents until they've left home, you know, like at 18 or whatever. And then there's all the bits in between. Then there's the women that have children and they work all the time. And I like the way it seems that you've done it. It's like you were there for your kids when they were little, but then once they all went to school, then you went back into your career, which is another piece of the conversation that we're having, but I just wanted to see what your perspective was for that with women, where there's that guilt feeling that we have when we're mothers and then we go back to work. You have any sort of like wisdom to share with us about that?

Well, I think it's very different for every single person and and I want to preface this with that I don't think anyone should feel judged about what your choice is and what choices you make. For me, it was very easy for me to work when my kids were very little, especially with my first three because my mom was there and I have the best mom in the world. She's amazing and she was so gracious to help me with that and for me to be able to still have my career and be a mom and at the same time. But then it became ... She wasn't there anymore and I needed to have some sort of support and you know, I feel like that women need to not feel like you have to do it all on your own. You don't have to be the supermom.

Yeah, right. I know because there's this fine line, you see women like pulling their hair out and they have kids and their careers and then you know, like the fried women.

They're fried and they feel like the supermom is their kid is dressed to the nines everywhere they go. They never have a spot of dirt on them. Their hair is always nice. If it's a girl, she's got a nice big pink bow in her hair and you know, they're just super well behaved and that's just not the case. You know, kids are going to be kids. That's what they do. You know, they don't know how to interact sometimes in a situation and they don't know that they shouldn't say something when you know you're in public.

I mean, my kids were the kids that, and I have three girls and one boy, and they were the rough and tough Tom boys. You know, when they were little, they were all the ones that wanted to go out in the yard and roll in mud. My third daughter would do anything in a dress. She wanted to have a dress on the entire time. It didn't matter what time of year it was. It didn't matter what she was doing. She'd go play in a mud puddle and she was going to do it in a dress.

I love that.

So it's just putting yourself in a sp