Carolyn Wilson

I attribute my success to my upbringing. We didn't have a lot growing up with my mom and 7 kids. We had to share everything - clothing, food, all of it. My mom couldn't buy us cars like other parents did. I wanted to make sure I had a better life than I did growing up. My mom died when I was young, and at that age, you don't have a husband, you don't have a mother, you don't have a father, so it's all on you. I'm so thankful for my siblings because we're really close. The seven of us are very close, and I think my mom dying so young made us realize all we had was each other. Even to this day, we are very close. I wanted a better life, so I went out there and gave it 100%. I had to prove people wrong who told me I wouldn't be nothing, that I wouldn't be successful. Even in cosmetology school, the teacher told me I needed to give my seat up to somebody else because I wasn't serious about it. I was young, 18 and 19, still out partying and coming to school tired, but I knew I wanted to do hair. I knew this was something I was in for the long haul. When I opened my salon and became successful, I became a person who could look back at people and say, look, you don't have to be what somebody said you would be. I came from the hood just like you, from a single parent just like you, from people telling me I wasn't going to be nothing because I was growing up in this Black neighborhood that's low income with a single parent of seven children. But look, I'm a business owner. I don't live in the hood anymore. I drive what I want to drive. I did this because I did not listen to these people telling me I can't be this. That's what made me dig back into the community and tell people, hey, look, I'm a brown girl. If I can do it, anybody can do it.

The best career advice I ever received is that I cannot please everybody. Once I learned that I'm not the stylist for everybody, everything changed for me. I used to think I had to do everybody's hair, that I had to please everybody. I would tell myself, girl, you know if you don't know how to do nothing else, you can do hair. But I thought I had to be the person for everyone. Once I learned to say, you know, I'm not the person for you, you may need to find another stylist, that's when I became just okay with my career. That's when I became okay with knowing the fact that I know I can do this. If I can't do nothing else, I can do this. I just may not be that one for you. I tell people that hair is a ministry. It's not just someone doing your hair. You gotta think about your head, that's your crown. I don't want anybody in your head. And I tell them, even if you don't come to me, make sure you go to somebody that you're comfortable knowing that they're taking care of your crown. It's more than just doing hair, it's a ministry.

The advice I would give is to know the business side of the hair industry. Don't just go into it for the money. Don't just go into it to do hair. Make sure you know the business side of it. Get all the education you can on the business side of the hair industry, because you don't have a company to fall back on for your retirement. You don't have a company to fall back on for your insurance. So make sure that you get all the education on the business side as you can before stepping into hair. It's more than hair. A lot of times, people step into it and it's just hair. People who do hair make a lot of money, so they go into it just wanting to make money, not thinking about when you retire, what do you do? You gotta make sure you pay your taxes so you can have Social Security. All of this stuff is only on you. You're not gonna get a check from a company. So all this money that you're receiving, you gotta pay taxes because you gotta pay into Social Security. You need to start your own IRA, you need to start your own 401K. There's a lot that you need to think about versus just doing hair and making money.

I think right now, the biggest challenge is what my retirement is going to look like. I am at an age where I'm starting to think about the exit plan. Even though I've been putting money into an IRA my whole career, that exit plan is kind of scary when you've been self-employed your entire life. If I'm being 100% honest, it is scary. Think about it - when you retire, you've been giving money to your company to put up for you. My company is me. I gotta put up my own money for me. So now, looking back, even though I've been doing it pretty much my whole career, it's still like, okay, did I store up enough? Am I gonna be okay when I exit this? Am I gonna be financially stable to live like I'm living now when I retire? I don't want to do hair when I'm 70 or 80. That's not my plan for my life. I want to still be able to go, do, travel, do what I'm doing now at a younger age. I see people who do hair until they have to stop, like they'll have strokes or medically have to stop, and I don't want to be that girl. I want to give it up while I'm able to still go live and move about like I want to. So it's scary to think about, have I done the right thing to be able to do that? As far as opportunities, because I am out in the community, I've had opportunities like being nominated for Remarkable Woman of the Year. I've had the opportunity to meet and work with so many different senators, council people, and mayors. I am the president of my sorority chapter right now, so that gives me the opportunity to bring people in, give scholarships, and do different things. I've had the opportunity to do quite a few things because of my career and having that open door where I can be in and out of the salon if I need to. If I need to do an interview at noon or be somewhere at 3 or 5, I don't have to ask a boss. I can just mark my schedule. I've had the opportunity to do a lot outside of the salon.

I think the most important thing to me is, first and foremost, my relationship with God. I get up every day and do my meditation with God, because He is the one who sustained me. That's my first and foremost, my time spent with Him. But I do have an only child, a daughter who's grown now, and everything I do, I try to make sure that it's aligned with what will make her proud of me. I never want her to look and say, Ma, why did you do that? Or, I never want nobody to know that you're my mother. I always want to make sure that what I do, she can say, I can take this in my career because my mother did it. Or I can promote this in my life because my mom did it. I know that I can make it and be on my own without the help of the state or city because my mom did it. I need to work hard because my mom did it. I need to give back to my community because my mom did it. To me, the most important thing right now is to make my daughter proud and make sure she's okay in life. Make sure she's set up better than I was coming up - financially, professionally, all of it. And I have to say, she's doing pretty well for herself. I'm proud of her.