– Episode 254 – Part 2Tracey Woodward

Episode 254 – Part 2: Transcript

GMSB 254

[00:00:03] Antony Whitaker: Hey, it’s Antony here and welcome to today’s podcast. And if you’re watching this on YouTube and you find this video inspiring, then make sure you hit the like or thumbs up button. It’s a small thing that you can do that goes a long way for me. And if you like this type of content, let me know in the comments below the video and make sure that you like and subscribe.

[00:00:23] Antony Whitaker: And if you’re listening on your favorite podcast app, then leave us a review or share the podcast with those that you know will benefit from our message. So with that said, on with today’s show. Today’s episode is the second half of the podcast and is a follow on from last week’s episode with Tracey Woodward.

[00:00:41] Antony Whitaker: Tracey is full of wisdom and lessons from a life and business career that are well lived. When we finished recording this episode she said to me, I think the important message for people to take away is let’s not be victims of the inevitable. So in today’s show, amongst other things, we discuss why in business you need to be inventive and think outside of the box and the need to take control of your health and the importance of giving back.

[00:01:12] Antony Whitaker: So Tracey, if we can just pick up where we left off in the previous episode. So for any of our listeners who didn’t listen to last week’s episode, I recommend that you do, because this is very much the second half of my interview with Tracey Woodward. So Tracey, let me just start by asking you about what was your sort of segue into the hairdressing industry because you’re predominantly more about beauty brands, but then, you know, you sort of segued into working with Aveda and Urban Retreat, et cetera. So, so talk to us about that part of your journey.

[00:01:43] Tracey Woodward: Okay. So, um, well, where, where my career, where my love of, uh, hairdressing and beauty and wellness kind of got deeper. I suppose I went into hairdressing was after I left uh, Donna Karan. So I went from Travel Retail to Donna Karan to Aveda, where I absolutely knew nothing about.

[00:02:01] Tracey Woodward: The fact that I love to blow dry and product. So, you know, um, from, from that sense, this business, I was the national sales manager for salon division and titles have never really bothered me. You know, as a brand manager at Donna Karan, I managed the whole business. So I joined as a sales manager at the salon division, selling in wholesale to salons.

[00:02:22] Tracey Woodward: I had a team of 18 regional business managers in the end. I think I had about 10 in the beginning. That was where I, you know, I cut my teeth going into salons, seeing salons on a, you know, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on an annual basis to understand where they were at and what they needed to build.

[00:02:41] Tracey Woodward: And obviously selling them a lifestyle concept because Aveda wasn’t just about shampoos and conditioners. And in the early days we didn’t have the hair colour. Um, and then that was really, really interesting to me to understand that a lot of these businesses, you know, weren’t making the money or weren’t spending the money to reinvest in their business accordingly.

[00:03:00] Tracey Woodward: So, you know, they would have the nice car and the fabulous suits, um, and maybe not have the ability to pay their VAT bill or pay their Aveda account. So, you know, I’ve never, I think, on, In my entire career, I’d never repossessed product from anybody. Um, but we did it a few times, um, at, at, at Aveda.

[00:03:19] Tracey Woodward: But I had a really great team that brought in value added services that looked at educating, you know, juniors and hairdressers on how to sell products. In most instances, retail was 20 percent of the, the, the salon owner’s business whilst they carried Aveda because Story to tell and the Aveda story was really, really current.

[00:03:40] Tracey Woodward: Fast forward to us opening the urban retreats in Leeds and, and, and, um, and London. And then obviously me, um, taking on, I wasn’t the managing director, but I ran the business. There was no managing director. I work closely with George Hammer and I work closely with Ruby Hammer and we brought in brilliant talent.

[00:03:58] Tracey Woodward: You know, we’ve Antoinette Beenders joined us. David Adams joined us from a colourist perspective, and then we raised the bar again to what hair should really be, because we wanted Aveda to be the biggest retailer of hair in the UK. So, you know, hair products, hair experiences, hair services. And that’s a, you know, that’s a, that’s a big goal when you think that, um, you know, the L’Oreal’s and the Wella’s had been around forever and we just arrived in the UK, you know, a year in, um, but we grew the business through QVC, we grew the business through retail, and then we made the brand very aspirational within the salon business, but.

[00:04:37] Antony Whitaker: Right. So, so let me just ask you that a question about this because your background up until that point, you know, working, you know, in, uh, in retail was quite different to the hairdressing industry model of retail and that you had professional retail. And. You have, uh, you know, consumer driven retail and there’s supermarkets, et cetera.

[00:05:00] Antony Whitaker: Um, now Aveda, when they came on the scene, they were very different about that in that they went, we’ve got one product and we will have different routes to market. We, we use sort of, was that just a natural fit for you? Or were you sort of instrumental in developing that different model to take product to market?

[00:05:19] Tracey Woodward: think as a collective, we were instrumental. You know, we had a great team of people working together to say, okay, so how do we change the verticals of a brand? Where are we going to get? We have limited resources from a PR perspective, even though we have a fantastic PR machine. You know, Millie Kendall was running the PR with the fabulous Mina Kira.

[00:05:37] Tracey Woodward: So we had the vehicles to drive, but we know that you can’t be on the page every day. So what we had to do was make this brand aspirational. We brought hairdressers and the training team onto QVC to talk about the products, how to look after your hair. We drove consumers into hair salons. I mean, QVC was the best advert ever for, you know, advertiser for our brand.

[00:06:01] Tracey Woodward: And we drove people into salons to experience. And that’s why we saw, you know, a huge surge in business and performance. Um, but we’re also dependent on the hairdressers using our products, being well trained to sell our products or so, you know, making sure that they were being used at the backwash. So we pushed for as many lifestyle salons as possible, which is a concept.

[00:06:22] Tracey Woodward: We call them concept salons. Um, and we had quite a few. But, but we still, you know, We considered ourselves a luxury brand within that environment that, you know, was in Harvey Nichols was, you know, a more than a million pound account in Harvey Nichols, you know, that launched in, in the salons in Harvey Nichols.

[00:06:39] Tracey Woodward: And again, this was the first kind of real brand taking over a salon. So we took, you know, we launched when Harvey Nichols of Leeds opened, and then we launched in the Urban Retreat. You know, and we wore, I think that we were first to market and a lot of things that have, you know, are the backbone of the salons today, you know, it’s, it’s inspired people to think differently and to see the value of retail and, and, and what services looks like.

[00:07:07] Tracey Woodward: Um, and I think it’s been a really, it was a really interesting journey for me because it was all about more so. It was about being in people’s businesses, you know, understanding what’s going on, listening to them, supporting them. I mean, eventually, obviously, I had, you know, I went from being the national sales manager for salon division where we had hair and beauty and some salons had hair and beauty and some salons were just beauty.

[00:07:30] Tracey Woodward: To, you know, looking after the QVC team, to looking after the retail team, to running the whole company. Um, obviously my workload changed significantly, and then launching hair colour. But what we had is we had some real masters of, of hairdressing that inspired the hairdressers. And what my team had to do was to help the salons build a business.

[00:07:52] Tracey Woodward: So I kind of got, you know, again, learning on the way, you know, from my background, I’ve always, I haven’t said yes to every job and thought I’ll have to learn on the way, but I certainly had to learn about mindset and people and the approach to business, and I think that’s when I realized that, you know, retail consultants are, you know, a person support, you know.

[00:08:14] Tracey Woodward: A hairdresser is a human therapist, first and foremost. Yeah, they have to have a lot of tenacity and drive and resilience to succeed.

[00:08:23] Antony Whitaker: let me jump in there and ask you about that. Because all of a sudden you’re dealing with salon owners of small businesses. What’s the, what were the big differences that you, you sort of noticed with dealing with these owners of, of small salons? I mean, a lot of the people listening to this won’t understand what urban retreat is.

[00:08:42] Antony Whitaker: So I’ll get you to explain that. Um, but you were looking after both urban retreat, looking after Aveda, but also dealing with individual little salons. Dotted around the country that we’re carrying the product. What was some of the ahas? I know these are generalizations to make about the hairdressing industry from a business perspective that you would pick up on.

[00:09:04] Tracey Woodward: Yeah, I think the AHAs were that a lot of them were very insular, that they didn’t look outside of their business for opportunity. There wasn’t, you know, they weren’t great networkers. So they needed that support of engagement. Um, they often didn’t have enough money in their month to do what they needed to do.

[00:09:22] Tracey Woodward: Um, but they also wore the pillar of most communities that they were involved in, you know, and it was how can you help them be the best version of themselves, not just as an individual from a business perspective, but also, you know, from a community perspective. And it was really interesting. To see that.

[00:09:43] Tracey Woodward: You know, a hairdresser is a show person most of the time, but equally has their own fears and anxieties and struggles. And, and I think that what, what we did as a brand is we made people feel like they belonged with us. We were all aligned. We were together, you know, we would bring them to social events.

[00:10:02] Tracey Woodward: We would do as much as we possibly could to talk about the brand as a community, as you know, I mean, Horst Rechelbacher he used to call my team, the Jehovah witnesses, it was about self care before self care had even started.

[00:10:14] Antony Whitaker: yeah.

[00:10:16] Tracey Woodward: bringing emotional support as well as business support as well as product support.

[00:10:20] Antony Whitaker: yeah, I mean, I’ve been in the industry for a long time and I’ve worked with lots of different brands, including Aveda and I’ve sat down with Horst and had a meal with him and had some one to one time with him, an incredible individual. And, In my, my sort of reinvention of myself where I’ve become more of a business coach over the last 20 years, I get to see the inside of a lot of people’s salons on a spreadsheet.

[00:10:44] Antony Whitaker: And there’s one of the things that has often stood out to me, and you’ve already alluded to it, and that is the retail component of an Aveda salon in terms of their business is I’m going to suggest to you pretty much every time I have a coaching client, that’s Aveda. It’s pretty much every time that a higher percentage of their revenue is coming from retail.

[00:11:07] Antony Whitaker: And I often look at that and I think to myself, so what is the secret sauce with Aveda? Now, my, My take on it is that Aveda Horst, right from the beginning, even before the Estee Lauder days, uh, uh, before Estee Lauder, you know, bought Horst out, is that Horst understood the power.

[00:11:30] Antony Whitaker: Of creating a buying environment and not just a selling environment, whereas a lot of other product companies, I’ll sell hairdressers their products. And then the salon owner and the manufacturer is trying to get hairdressers to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. Now, I’m not saying that Aveda don’t do that. But I am saying that I think they have been the masters forever, uh, of creating a buying environment in that you walk into a salon that happens to stock Aveda and whether it’s a point of sale, the, uh, the shelf talkers, the, the smell, As soon as you walk in the door, that you’re sort of enveloped into this.

[00:12:08] Antony Whitaker: Oh, what can I buy today? Whereas most salons, you do not think that when you walk into them. So give me your, give me your take on that as someone who’s really worked heavily within the brand.

[00:12:19] Tracey Woodward: I think that, and to be honest Antony, I think that the UK can take full responsibility to making that happen.

[00:12:27] Tracey Woodward: And I think that what we did in the UK was we made it a shopping experience. You know, we didn’t sell in. You know twos and threes of products or even ones we put together a whole order and supporting that with education to help people to understand the importance of sell through connection.

[00:12:45] Tracey Woodward: We really, um, again, a Horst creative value added service, scalp massage, a finishing touch makeup, the hand and arm massage. We really embraced all of those, techniques and approach to the consumer. And I think that, you know, we, we went into department stores and quite easily became, you know, the top five selling brand within the stores that we partnered with, um, in days when, you know, the Estee Lauder brands and the other brands were really, really big and we went up against them.

[00:13:13] Tracey Woodward: And I think that what we did in the nineties is we, we really harnessed Aveda as a lifestyle brand and I don’t think that there were many brands doing that then and we talked about it in that way.

[00:13:26] Tracey Woodward: It was, we were hugely successful. And I think that what we taught salons here was that this is easy money. If you are supporting and guiding and believing in what these products can do and how they can make your consumer feel.

[00:13:43] Tracey Woodward: And I think that that was very, very rich. Or, um, for salon owners in the UK and Ireland. And because that’s obviously the distribution that we had, because I think that you’re right. You know, most, uh, brands teach you how to sell. They, you know, they, they. sell into you. They don’t teach you. They, they sell into you a package, right?

[00:14:06] Tracey Woodward: And they, and they give you a promotion to sell through, but they don’t tell you how to articulate that. They don’t tell you that, you know, always give you the features and benefits. They don’t motivate your team necessarily to sell through, you know, and we always came with a selling to sell through strategy.

[00:14:20] Tracey Woodward: So strategically thinking, we were always, it’s not about selling it in, it’s about giving the customer the things that they need, the products that they need, the service that they need, and actually selling through.

[00:14:31] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. We could talk about that for the rest of this podcast, but in the interest of time, we need to move on. But I, I I’ve touched on, and you’ve touched on urban retreat. Can you just give us a little insight into what urban retreat is? Cause a lot of people have no idea what we’re talking about.

[00:14:48] Tracey Woodward: Yep. So Urban Retreat started out as being an Aveda concept salon. So we, again, we believed that if we was going to sell to salons, we would have to have one or two salons that showed you how we did it. We would lead by example.

[00:15:02] Tracey Woodward: When we sold to Estee Lauder, they did not want to keep the salons with the exception to the flagship at Holburn. So they obviously took that business. It made complete sense. It’s where the education center was. It was. Beautifully designed, you know, that it was, it was a fantastic building. So it really epitomized the Aveda of the future as well as the Aveda of the past,

[00:15:22] Tracey Woodward: It was spectacular. And I’m sure you would have seen it as well.

[00:15:26] Antony Whitaker: Yeah.

[00:15:27] Tracey Woodward: It’s like amazing in the heart of London. It was the first big, you know, uh, hairdressing brand to say, look at this space and look what we can do. It was exceptional, exemplary. And so, so we kept the salon. So when the salons left Harvey Nichols and moved to Harrods, it was no longer a flagship Aveda salon.

[00:15:50] Tracey Woodward: It was Urban Retreat in its own right. So we had more than 300 brands. We launched the first Creme de la Mer beauty rooms. We had, you know, Sisley, we had, um, GHD, we had Moroccan Oil, we had Aveda, you know, we had L’Oreal, we have Kerastase. We were the best, we were the Highest retailer and purchaser of, uh, Kerastase as one account in Europe.

[00:16:14] Tracey Woodward: this was 20 square feet. You know, this was. Multi, multi multimillion pound business, you know, way past the 15 million mark. And, and you know, it went from five, five to to 15 and it had 225 members of staff.

[00:16:31] Tracey Woodward: It had 45 styling stations, 27 beauty rooms, manicure, pedicure, a small medi spa, a cafe. Eventually we opened a body clinic, you know, we’re into self care and wellness back in 2012 when, you know, even 2010 when people weren’t even thinking about, you know, shape changing through fitness, diet, nutrition, we had a beauty area, which is about holistic health.

[00:16:54] Tracey Woodward: So, yeah, it was a big operation and it was on the top floor of Harrods.

[00:16:59] Antony Whitaker: yeah. And were you directly involved in running that on a day-to-day basis, or were you once removed?

[00:17:04] Tracey Woodward: Yeah, no, so I went to, I went after I left Aveda, um, because I didn’t want to go back to Estée Lauder. I’d started my career there. So, um, I decided to kind of step away and I joined, um, Paul Taylor at Modern Organic Products and we built that brand up significantly. And then it was sold to L’Oreal in a, in a short two year, two and a half year window.

[00:17:25] Tracey Woodward: Um, and then I went back to Urban Retreat in 2006 and we exponentially grew that business from that from that day on and at that time we had an urban retreat in Manchester and an urban retreat in London and I helped George so I was, you know, a shareholder and part of the Vicky Euler Wigs. I had a whole kind of other, you know, side of the business, uh, going and ran urban retreat

[00:17:49] Antony Whitaker: so, did you just say that MOP, Modern Organic Products, was sold, you just said it was sold to L’Oreal, you didn’t mean to say that, did you?

[00:17:57] Tracey Woodward: No, I never meant to say that. Revlon,

[00:17:59] Antony Whitaker: Revlon, yeah, no, that’s, good, I’m glad, I’m glad I corrected you there. Um, so, okay. Wow. Um, see, there’s so much, there’s so many things we can, we can dip in and out of here.

[00:18:10] Antony Whitaker: Um, and for the people who started listening to, uh, and I’m sure that everybody has listened to the first episode, the person that’s talking now with the business acumen and the responsibilities, et cetera, is just a totally different person to the person that we listened to in episode one. So what I want to ask you about is, was there a point In your professional career where you stopped feeling like you’re faking it until you make it.

[00:18:38] Antony Whitaker: And you actually realized that you’re good at building and running a business. Was there a moment where that sort of happened or did it just sort of this gradual evolvement happen?

[00:18:49] Tracey Woodward: No, it wasn’t gradual at all, Antony. I, I spent a lot of years, um, in fear. I was terrified that people would discover that, you know, I didn’t learn to read and write until I was 15. I was terrified that people would say, you know, Oh, I, I know your family, you know, your brother’s an addict and a kind of thief and, and your mom does, you know, dodgy deals.

[00:19:11] Tracey Woodward: Um, I, I kept thinking all of that was going to come out and haunt me. And I think that I, I, I had imposter syndrome for sure. It’s like, why do I, you know, I don’t deserve to be here. I don’t necessarily deserve to be recognized. I was winning, winning awards. I’d been on, I was on the board of cosmetic executive women and I just thought, you know what, I, I just need to unload the fact that, you know, I was a delinquent, you know, that I didn’t go to school, that I didn’t learn to read and write, um, and until, you know, someone took the time out I mean that I could be so much more if I did and so I thought how do I overcome that and, and I just thought the only way to get rid of this, the only way to release shame is to actually talk about it.

[00:19:57] Tracey Woodward: Talk about the things that have happened to you in the past. Um, you let it out and, and it’s, it’s a bit like manifesting, it’s a bit like manifesting in my belief. If you are full of shame and fear, you need to tell somebody. Right? You need to, and if you can, you need to tell more than one person, because it lightens the load.

[00:20:15] Tracey Woodward: By nature, I believe that human connection is the most powerful, most powerful, enriching way to live. Right? So vulnerability, speaking from the heart, in my opinion, you know, telling people where you’re at, rather than them trying to guess what you’re saying, or to read your body language, or to pull out of you?

[00:20:33] Tracey Woodward: What’s not quite right. I feel like wouldn’t the world be a beautiful place if we could just say what we think and feel most of the time. And so I decided to join some charity. So I joined Action for Children first, and then I was invited to the board of, uh, Of, um, the, the women’s leadership group for the princess trust.

[00:20:56] Tracey Woodward: And, you know, we raised a lot of money, a lot of awareness, and then at cosmetic executive women, I went to Caroline Neville, who was previously one of my amazing mentors and is still a very dear friend today. And I told her about my life. And I said, I want to, I want to do a mentoring event at CW and I want to talk about it.

[00:21:17] Tracey Woodward: And if anything comes out of that any other way, I want to let people know that you don’t have to, you know, have all the answers or all of the ability initially, but you do have to believe in yourself and you do have to ask for help.

[00:21:33] Antony Whitaker: So,

[00:21:34] Tracey Woodward: And so I started the journey. You know,

[00:21:38] Antony Whitaker: I’m going to come back to that in a minute, but I was going to ask you this anyway, and this seems like the perfect time to ask it is, this is a funny way of putting it, but was You know, was part of your upbringing and the challenges that you had as a, as a kid growing up, was that helpful in a way, when you got more into business, because you didn’t have a formal education, you were inventive, you were creative, you were street smart, and you knew that you had to get.

[00:22:09] Antony Whitaker: Scrappy and think outside the box, because that was what survival was all about. So as opposed to having a degree, going to university, studying all the stuff, you had this different sort of education in life. So that’s what I’m asking you about. Was it helpful that you could get scrappy, so to speak, and think outside the box of different ways to solve problems?

[00:22:30] Antony Whitaker: Mm.

[00:22:32] Tracey Woodward: so. I think, I think if I had gone to school, my life would have been very, very different. I don’t think that I would have become this hotshot lawyer, which my daughter will probably become. I don’t think that I would, I don’t think that I would have gone on to university and become, you know, uh, a successful business woman.

[00:22:50] Tracey Woodward: Um, I think that actually not knowing and, and learning on the way, what has been the key to my success, because I feel that Yeah. When everybody’s thinking like that, I’m thinking like that. That’s just a difference. And that’s why I can help strategically build brands because sometimes the obvious isn’t obvious, you know, and, and, and I think because I always think, you know, uh, laterally, uh, I can, I can find solutions.

[00:23:19] Tracey Woodward: And I think that. And I’m not saying that people, um, you know, other people have more integrity than me, but I feel like I am a bit more of an open book. So, uh, I can have those conversations and, and actually I don’t follow a pattern. So I would never, again, I’ve never taken a role for money, Antony. I’ve never kind of said, Oh, that’s a brilliant job.

[00:23:40] Tracey Woodward: That’s going to pay me, you know, 200, 000 a year and half a million this and X amount of shares. It’s like, will I enjoy doing it? Can I add value? Will I be able to make a difference?

[00:23:52] Antony Whitaker: So let me jump in there. Every time you go to breathe, I jump in. That’s the only way I’m going to get a question in here, right? I think that’s the nicest possible way. So what is your message? Because, uh, you know, there’s, there’s a hairdresser. Listen to this, a young woman in her twenties. I don’t know who she is.

[00:24:12] Antony Whitaker: It’s just a caricature of what I’m saying. And she’s thinking to herself at some level, or he, I thinking to himself. Well, it’s all very well for you, but I. Have come from this upbringing that upbringing didn’t get a good education, you know, a list of a mile a mile long, but that probably couldn’t match your list of reasons why you can’t succeed.

[00:24:36] Antony Whitaker: So I’m trying to extract what’s the lesson that you would say to that young person about. Listen, don’t give up. Anything’s possible. You know, I don’t want to put the words in your mouth, but what would you say to them based on your life experience?

[00:24:51] Tracey Woodward: Go to the next largest town and go to the salon that you want to be like and see what they do and have discussions and build opportunity and look and observe. The subconscious mind holds onto more than you ever thought possible. And so, you know, it’s, you know, it’s about. It’s not about manifesting it, it’s about understanding.

[00:25:16] Tracey Woodward: Understand what it takes to build something, be observant. You know, I don’t care if you have to sit outside in your car every morning and watch the staff going in, look at their mood, look at how they behave. Whatever it is that you have to do that you feel you need to learn, you can learn in, in, in, in people watching.

[00:25:32] Tracey Woodward: You can learn in engaging. You can learn, if there is a favorite restaurant that you go to and you love everything that they do, what can you learn from that? What can you learn from the fact that the hostess knows your name, that they greet you, that they take you to your favorite table, you know, there is so much that we can learn around us to fuel who we want to be and what we want to do.

[00:25:56] Tracey Woodward: Nothing, everything old is new again. Everything is constantly being reinvented and improved. So, and from a salon perspective, how are you going to make people feel? Because how you make people feel will be the reason why they come back. So, you know, don’t think that, you know, you don’t have enough money to have the brand that you want today. How are you going to make the… How are you going to make your clients feel?

[00:26:19] Antony Whitaker: Okay. Um, I think that, that life, your life, this podcast, uh, the series of podcasts and two of them, they’re sort of broken into three parts and we’re about to start talking about the third part. I think the first, the first part was your upbringing, your early life. The second part was very much about your professional career with all these different brands that you’ve been working with.

[00:26:44] Antony Whitaker: And now the third part is about the direction that your life’s gone. And now, so I suppose the best way to introduce that is to say that, you know, life throws all of us some unexpected challenges. And once you’ve got Sort of business and money under control. Um, what sort of followed on from that? Because you, you obviously, you were very much into fashion and beauty and health.

[00:27:08] Antony Whitaker: And there was this sort of segue into self care and health and mental health and your personal health, et cetera. So talk to us about that.

[00:27:16] Tracey Woodward: Well, I suppose after leaving I went to Marks and Spencer’s Beauty. I’d always wanted to work for Marks and Spencer’s, by the way. I just figured it would be on the till, you know, swiping the avacodo I never thought that I would be developing them. that which was an absolute joy and and the team were amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed those changes and from the Marks and Spencer’s beauty concept I was picking up other projects, helping brands to develop, you know, where they were going, what they were doing, strategically thinking, people were paying me money to come in and mentor them and look at That the creation of their brand.

[00:27:51] Tracey Woodward: And then I thought, I want to understand how the private equity sector works. What makes them choose to buy a brand or invest? And so I reached out to a few and I signed up with Unilever investments and did a few little things with them. I worked with Blue Gem investments where I, you know, did a sale process.

[00:28:08] Tracey Woodward: They acquired QMS. Um, I worked with B& B investments, which was an investment fund that was, uh, was, uh, funded by Walgreens Boots Alliance. And that’s how I went on to be the CEO of Aromatherapy Associates. So I kind of took this portfolio career and then since then I’ve gone on and I’ve worked with brands that I’ve, you know, I’ve either done equity, uh, or made some investment into.

[00:28:32] Tracey Woodward: And that’s where I’m at today. And I’ve got quite a few of those and that’s what pays me an income, which obviously also has. Um, you know, a kickback once the brands sell and, and, and I’ve, and I’ve lost a couple along the way, um, where I’ve lost money and time and effort. Um, and, and that’s been, you know, interesting equally, I suppose the self care bit came from being at the urban retreat, running a successful business and not feeling myself and then watching my mom at 65, you know, die of cancer, um, and, and spending that time with her.

[00:29:07] Tracey Woodward: Yeah. Um, While she died, basically, you know, from the 5th of June to the 9th of August. And it was the hardest time of my life.

[00:29:16] Antony Whitaker: Um,

[00:29:17] Tracey Woodward: you know, still today I get very emotional about it. But the fact of the matter is that, you know, equally I looked at my mum and I thought, Shit, you know, she’s 65, you know, I’m,

[00:29:28] Tracey Woodward: I’m in my forties, you know, this, this could be me. And that’s when the alarm signals kind of went on to start, you know, losing weight, getting healthy. I mean, if you look at pictures of me today at 58, and you look at pictures of me at 48, you’d think they were the wrong way around. So taking control of my health was, was on the basis.

[00:29:48] Tracey Woodward: Well, I was inspired by my mom to do that. Otherwise my life would have been the same. So my, you know, my mom was, you know, as much as we were like friends, she was definitely an inspiration to me in many different ways. So I, I took control of my health. I brought in a dear friend that helped me nutritionally get on track.

[00:30:06] Tracey Woodward: Um, I started going on retreats, I started fasting and that’s when I got curious about the wellness sector. So obviously, you know, being involved with that and then strategically. Working with different brands along the way has been very, very exciting. But what I do know today is that nothing is more important than your health.

[00:30:24] Tracey Woodward: And I do not mind dying at any point, right? I just want my health span and my lifespan to run as closely together as possible. I don’t mind having a short-term illness and popping off. Um, you know, but I don’t want to be sick for a very, very long time. And I fear that a lot of the population Globally are heading that way based on the data, you know, through how they choose to sleep, eat, manage stress, you know, exercise or not.

[00:30:48] Tracey Woodward: So, so that has been, you know, I’m a big advocate of that and I’m a big ambassador of, you know, self-care is your health care. And so start today if you can, you know, I’ve lost 30 kilos in weight, I’ve built muscle, I’ve beat cancer. You know, I truly, and I actually have intuitively been able to manage my, you know, my health better.

[00:31:07] Tracey Woodward: I’m not, I’ve never really been a big drinker. I’ve never taken drugs. I’m too terrified on the basis of my, you know, my heritage. And it would be too terrified to even step into that. Um, I, you know, I, I, I don’t, I don’t eat ultra processed food. So there’s lots of things that I’ve changed last year. I didn’t feel well.

[00:31:25] Tracey Woodward: I felt, is it my liver? Is it my gallbladder? Is there something going on? Because again, I think back to the different things that happened to my mum. And, um, in, I went for a random scan that was, I was booked in for, um, it wasn’t me asking for the scan at a health retreat, Palazzo, uh, Palazzo Fuggi, um, which is in Fuggi in just outside Rome.

[00:31:51] Tracey Woodward: And she said to me, there is something going on in your womb. You need to go and get this checked. So that’s, this was it. Um, and I said, it’s funny because I haven’t felt great and, and I, but I don’t know what it is. And I was writing an article for the, so I’d done at that point, I think I’d done five retreats, like every quarter, a different retreat.

[00:32:12] Tracey Woodward: So blood tests, you know, no inflammation in my body. My best. Metabolic syndrome was good, you know, all, all of the different things that, that would be alarming, um, if they’d have been incorrect, but they were all okay. They were all within reason on the basis of my weight, my height, my age, et cetera. Um, so.

[00:32:31] Tracey Woodward: I went to, my doctor rang me and said, you know, there are some abnormalities here. Um, you know, I think that we should recheck it. And I said, well, just to let you know, you know, I’ve had three generations of women before me die of, of, of cancer, and all of them have had gynecological issues at some point or another in relation to cancer.

[00:32:50] Tracey Woodward: My mum had a hysterectomy at at 37, so she said, no problem, we’ll get you on a fast track. And within, you know, seven weeks. I was diagnosed with cancer of the womb and the specs, um, and the possibility of it being in my lymph nodes and in my bowel, based on the MRI and the CT scans. So, I got my life in order as best I can, rewrote my wills, did all the usual things, and on the 21st of October, I had a radical hysterectomy.

[00:33:19] Tracey Woodward: I was 6 hours on the operating table. And, um, you know, in fear of what was next. Um, I mean, thankfully I didn’t need chemo or, or, or radiotherapy afterwards. And now I am, you know, clear of cancer, but obviously monitored for the next five years. Again, other people may choose to do this differently. I chose to train for my surgery.

[00:33:45] Tracey Woodward: I chose to build muscle and get fit. To get mentally fit, to be, you know, to put, you know, all of my, all of my woes to rest and just focus on, uh, I took time out from doing it, you know, I limited my workload. Um, I probably lost a bit of income in doing so, but. I was fighting for my life, Antony. And, and that’s, you know, and I, and I, I just thought, well, if I’m going in, if I’m going to die, I’m going to be the best-looking corpse in the mortuary.

[00:34:15] Tracey Woodward: And I’m also going to give myself a fighting chance by being resilient. You know, I don’t even think about an open coffin or anything, but when I think about it, I probably did subconsciously thinking, you know, I’m going to make sure my hair’s blow dried. I did say to my, to my lash expert, because I have these tiny blonde lashes, that if, if I die, you have to come and put lashes on me.

[00:34:38] Tracey Woodward: So, you know, that I brought humour into it. I did a hike with one of my dearest friends just before I went into surgery. I went out dancing with my friends. I, I trained three times a week. I, you know, did all my usual meditating, my intermittent fasting. You know, I did all the things that I needed to do in the same way that I would run a brand, in the same way that

[00:35:00] Antony Whitaker: so there was a very real chance that you wouldn’t have survived that operation.

[00:35:03] Tracey Woodward: Well, I think that it was, it was the fear of, I was on the operating table for six hours, my heart dropped to 37. And I think, I don’t know, did I create that through the, I was terrified going in. I knew that I didn’t always react well to anesthetic as a child. So, so it wasn’t that I wouldn’t survive the operation.

[00:35:23] Tracey Woodward: It was what was the outcome going to be once they removed those lymph nodes, once they took the lumps from my bowel, once they performed the radical hysterectomy. Um, She’s, you know, part of your vagina, your cervix and everything in, in, inside. So, you know, your whole, your feminine reproductive system.

[00:35:38] Tracey Woodward: So in my mind, you know, I’m now a wombless virgin and, you know, I’m ready to be, I felt like I had to train for it because that is how I’ve always lived my life. Believe that success comes. In any situation, as choosing, if you choose to be the athlete in your own life, what does it take to get you where you want to be?

[00:36:05] Tracey Woodward: And I wanted to survive, so I had to give myself the best chance possible. And so all I would say to anybody that says, what do I want to do? Is, you know, write it down. Learn, discover, and know that you have the capability to be the athlete in your own life, to lead. But it requires training in whatever you choose to do.

[00:36:28] Tracey Woodward: So whether you’re a salon owner, or a business person, or a window cleaner, you, you know, you’ve got to do what it takes to be the best, because if you do any less than that, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

[00:36:40] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. So you go all in with everything. I think that’s a, that’s apparent with everything we’ve spoken about. You are all in you, you don’t, you don’t do things by halves. If you’re going to, you know, do anything, whether it’s work, whether it’s shoplifting, whether it’s, yeah, whatever it is, you go the full nine yards, so good on you too.

[00:36:59] Antony Whitaker: Okay. Um, you, you just mentioned you ran off a little bit of a checklist there about, you said, I did my intermittent fasting. I did my meditating. You did all these things. How much In this, you know, this phase of your life has spirituality sort of kicked in. Uh, I know you are off to India shortly. You told me the other day, you know, so, you know, meditating and fasting and all these sorts of things.

[00:37:23] Antony Whitaker: How, how much help have you sort of found those things to be not just for your physical and mental health, but just, well, yeah, for your physical and mental health and for you as a, as a, as a being,

[00:37:36] Tracey Woodward: I think to be the best version of yourself, you have to connect with your darkest corners. whatever they are. You have to understand what is bringing you fear. You have to understand what is creating anxiety. I think from a very young age, I never used to speak to a God, but I always used, I, I believe that I had these guides.

[00:37:54] Tracey Woodward: You know, I had some kind of, you know, beautiful Irish soul tell me at a very young age is that, you know, if you’re ever in need of help, you know, just reach out to, to, to your, guides. They’re listening to you. So I think I’ve always. Kind of, you know, spoke out loud about that and I think that working with Donna Karan and Aveda definitely got me into spirituality.

[00:38:16] Tracey Woodward: Horst, as you know, is a very spiritual man. Donna Karan, most definitely. And again, you know, I latched onto the things that they did and believed and talked about and made them some of my, um, you know, uh, mantras. I’ve cold water showered for more than 30 years. I only wash my face in the morning with cold water.

[00:38:33] Tracey Woodward: I meditate every morning. I try to stretch every morning. I, um, I body brush and face brush. I’ve brushed my face with a tiny little hand brush, a little wooden hand brush or a toothbrush for 30 years, every single day, you know, like a man would shave, I brush my face. I mean, I know a man doesn’t shave up here, but now I do everywhere.

[00:38:56] Tracey Woodward: And so, you know, I’ve done, I’ve done all of these little rituals, which I consider self-care. I’ve, you know, remember when you have lack of food in your life, I appreciate every mouthful of food I eat. And if it’s not good for me, I mean, I’ve eaten cheeseburgers and I’ve eaten, you know, buttermilk chicken and I’ve done all of those things.

[00:39:15] Tracey Woodward: Now I kind of, my, my, my tastes have changed, but you know, I’ve always kind of made that process of trying to, and my second husband was a cordon bleu chef, so he taught me how to cook. So the cooking has got better since, you know, since my late thirties, but previous to that, I would still always cook for my son, um, even though he’d say it wasn’t always that good.

[00:39:37] Tracey Woodward: But, you know, I believed in food because I’d had lack of food. So, you know, that was a big part of my life. So, yeah, I think that all of these elements always existed. It’s just that probably now as I’m aging, I’m leaning into them more. I went to Buchinger Wilhelmi because I’d, I read an article a very long time ago on the benefits of fasting and, and, and combating type 2 diabetes.

[00:40:01] Tracey Woodward: And one of my, I was telling one of my girlfriends and she said, you need to go to Buchinger Wilhelmi I’m going to send you. And

[00:40:06] Antony Whitaker: so, so, so, sorry. What, what, what is that?

[00:40:08] Tracey Woodward:  Buchinger Wilhelmi is the oldest fasting clinic in, in probably, you know, in, in the world. It’s 120 years old and they, and they do that in fasting. And I took myself off there and I told people this is what I was going to do.

[00:40:22] Tracey Woodward: And I had a girlfriend say, Oh, you know, I work with those guys. I can send you a reduced rate. And then somebody else said, Oh, you can write an article for me whilst you’re there. And so, you know, all of these things happen because you’re out there talking about what you want to do next.

[00:40:36] Tracey Woodward: You know, if you want to change your life, the best thing you can do is tell 10 people that you trust. Yeah. If you’re a new job, talk about it, you know, not necessarily with your boss, you know, talk about it with other people because you know, that is the art of manifestation, you’re saying it out loud and if you don’t have the confidence to talk about it initially, then talk to your guides, talk to, you know, talk to, it might be seem like you’re talking to nobody,

[00:41:00] Antony Whitaker: Yeah.

[00:41:01] Tracey Woodward: Me, I feel like I’m talking to somebody, but you know, Say it out loud. You know, I learned that, you know, from my cosmic shopping list that I kept as soon as I learned how to read and write, I realized that that was a manifestation. But what I realized is when you write things down, it’s one thing. When you think it’s one, when you write it down, it’s another.

[00:41:20] Tracey Woodward: And when you say it out loud, you’ve got more chance of it happening. Nature, people. Help other people.

[00:41:27] Antony Whitaker: Mmm.

[00:41:29] Antony Whitaker: that’s good.

[00:41:30] Tracey Woodward: people will help you. And that’s the other thing about owning a small business. You have to kind of talk about things that you want to change and things that you want to do to get improvement.

[00:41:39] Tracey Woodward: Never be ashamed of saying, you know, this is where I want to go. I want to be the best, you know, the best at this, the best in this town, the best in this city, the best in this country. And, you know, Put some goals in and, and, and landmark and celebrate those successes. You know, it’s so important that we, that we do that.

[00:41:58] Tracey Woodward: You know, we, we don’t know how long we’re here for. We don’t know, you know, what is going to happen to us next, but if we can practice being the best person we possibly can of ourselves every single day, creating opportunities for ourselves and others, that’s a life well lived.

[00:42:15] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, exactly Listen before we before we wrap up Well, there’s two things. I want to ask you so I’ve got to be quick with both of them The first one is I read somewhere you’ve done a fast for 23 days Is that at the place you just mentioned before right? So it’s under a controlled environment

[00:42:33] Tracey Woodward: medical environment and saying your blood pressure’s a bit low, do you think you should eat? And I was like, no, I’ll keep going for another day. I’ll keep going for another day. I truly believe, because when I had my biopsies, the cancer was not evident in my lymph nodes or in my bowel, but I truly believe that fast.

[00:42:49] Tracey Woodward: Wiped out because you know, cancer needs sugar, right? It needs, it needs bad food to survive and it needs lots of stress. You take that away and science says that and there’s lots of white papers writing about it. I believe those 23 days saved my life.

[00:43:06] Antony Whitaker: well, okay, that’s fantastic. Um, I’ll, I’ll put the link for that place or the name of that place in the show notes, because I know people will be going, well, that’s very interesting. Let me find out more about that.

[00:43:16] Tracey Woodward: They do boxes that you can, you buy into and fast and they ship out to, ship out to you. It’s a brilliant resort. And then the other place that discovered the cancer was Palazzo, Palazzo Fuggi in Italy. And again, you know, holidays now are changing, right? People are going on retreats to discover more about their health and wellness.

[00:43:34] Tracey Woodward: It’s, it’s like a, it’s a health check. It’s like putting your car in for an MOT and knowing where you stand. Because, you know, we have to work outside of the realms of the pharmaceutical sector as well. Because pills don’t fix things.

[00:43:49] Antony Whitaker: yeah, very important to acknowledge that. Okay. Um, I know you’ve touched on this already, That you do a lot of work now with like the Prince’s Trust and women’s leadership groups and that sort of stuff. And I also read somewhere that you do some outreach sessions with children that have had a sort of a similar, you know, life experience or journey to you.

[00:44:09] Antony Whitaker: I mean, I think that’s, you know, That giving back part of your life is an incredibly valuable thing to do. Can you just talk to us about that before we wrap up?

[00:44:18] Tracey Woodward: Well, I’m not with the Prince’s Trust anymore, and I kind of held back. I’ve held back on charity. I am with two charities still today. One is 18 Keys, which is homeless women. So it’s, it’s raising funds to build a property and, and to refurbish a property and prove a concept, because there are more homeless women living on the streets today than ever before.

[00:44:37] Tracey Woodward: So if anybody wants to help that charity, that is brilliant. That’s 18 Keys. And this is happening in every city in, in, in the world. You know, there are more and more women living on the streets. And if you live on the streets, By the time you’re 42, so as a woman, and it’s, it’s a scary, scary time. So that’s my focus now fundraising for them.

[00:45:01] Tracey Woodward: And I’m one of their, I sit on their advisory board. The other charity that I’m an ambassador for now is their world. Which is a charity that denies no child and education, and that’s Sarah Brown’s charity, and that’s a global charity that takes no funding from government anywhere in the world, so that it cannot and will not deny a child, um, an education.

[00:45:23] Tracey Woodward: It goes into war, war torn areas. and builds schools, supports children and sponsors children throughout their lives. So constantly, you know, dependent on corporations and, um, and sponsors and supporters of the charity. So fundraising is essential to do that because there’s, there’s, there’s no external funds coming from any government.

[00:45:44] Tracey Woodward: Um, and the reason why Sarah did that is because she wants to be able to go wherever they are needed. Um,

[00:45:52] Antony Whitaker: Okay. All right. Well, I’ll make sure we put all those links in the show notes for today’s podcast. Um, can I ask you just one thing? If you had to just suggest one resource for people that’s had an impact on your life, it might be a book, A movie, a place, I don’t know, whatever. Well, where would you send people if you said, listen, just read this.

[00:46:13] Antony Whitaker: It changed my life or, you know, do this. It changed my life. What would it be?

[00:46:18] Tracey Woodward: I’d say kind of. Read Who Moved My Cheese, which is like a very simple, easy book.

[00:46:23] Antony Whitaker: yeah. I’ve read that.

[00:46:25] Tracey Woodward: Always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always got. And actually that is, that is the book summed up in, in one

[00:46:32] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:46:33] Tracey Woodward: So, um, I think it’s a brilliant book and I think it’s good to share with, with younger people. Um, If you want to succeed, get a mentor, get someone that is going to help you think differently, um, share with them, you know, your biggest fears, your greatest aspirations, um, and find your tribe, find your community.

[00:46:58] Tracey Woodward: It’s never been more important than it is today. And it terrifies me when I see. You know, I think the big that we face is dopamine depletion, you know, because we are so ingrained in social media and what that that brings to us, you know, how people perceive us, how we’re liked, you know, and I think that people are spending way too much time on their phones.

[00:47:23] Tracey Woodward: And not enough time learning and experiencing. We know that, you know, lack of dopamine and hormones is, is, is connected to so many cognitive functions in the brain. And I feel like we’re dumbing, we’re dumbing the human beings down right now. What we need to do is to get creative. We need to dance. We need to find our purpose.

[00:47:45] Tracey Woodward: We need to create our calm. We need to celebrate and, and, and source our peace, which you’ll probably find in nature. And we need to love ourselves. We need to look in the mirror and like what we see. And we have to, we all have an opportunity to enrich our own lives whilst enriching somebody else’s.

[00:48:02] Antony Whitaker: Well, that is a perfect place to wrap up. I mean, I know we could keep talking for ages. You’ve got so much wisdom and you’re so generous, uh, in sharing your wisdom. So. Sort of openly and honestly. So, uh, lemme just finish up by saying, if you’re listening to this podcast with Tracey and have enjoyed it as much as I did, then do me a favour and share it with people that you know would also, uh, enjoy it and pass it along.

[00:48:26] Antony Whitaker: And don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a rating and review on the Apple Podcast app. So. To wrap up, Tracey Woodward, thank you so much for being on this week’s episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast and sharing all your life experience so openly and honestly. It’s very much appreciated.

[00:48:42] Tracey Woodward: That is a joy to have been with you. Thank you, Antony, for the opportunity. Really, I’m very grateful.

[00:48:47] Antony Whitaker: Cheers. Pleasure. Thank you.