Building A Salon, Healing A Life + Resiliency with Erin Mills (Part 1)

What if the bravest move isn’t to push harder, but to let go? We sit down with visionary salon owner and mentor Erin Mills to explore how profound loss reshaped her purpose, how she built spaces where clients and teams feel safe and seen, and why she’s choosing to close her first salon to protect her health, values, and future. Erin opens up about navigating a male-dominated industry—being asked for the “owner” or “husband” while she was standing right there—and the daily realities of gender bias in service work, from tip disparities to trust gaps. Her answer wasn’t bitterness; it was building a brand rooted in care, transformation, and nervous-system calm.

The conversation moves from inspiration to infrastructure. Erin shares how rapid growth to 55+ team members and seven figures in revenue exposed a hard truth: grit is not a business model. She breaks down the difference between momentum and maturity, how scaling too close to your first location can cannibalize focus, and why systems, standards, and pricing structures must come before expansion. When survival energy became the operating system, boundaries slipped, hiring compromised, and the mission strained. That’s when the decision emerged—close one location, consolidate, and rebuild on process, not personality.

We also talk about burnout that shows up in the body, the unraveling many high-capacity women experience, and the courage it takes to separate self-worth from outcomes. Erin offers practical insights on client experience, accountability, marketing habits, and leading through a down economy without abandoning your values. It’s a frank, hopeful roadmap for anyone who feels stretched thin by their own success and needs permission to choose alignment over ego.

Subscribe to The Reignite Resilience Thinkletter

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Theme: Reignite Resilience
• 0:41 Hosts Banter And Weekly Check-In
• 2:37 Introducing Guest Erin Mills
• 4:52 Grief As A Catalyst For Purpose
• 6:55 Gender Bias In The Salon Industry
• 9:06 Vision, Impact, And Safe Spaces
• 11:01 Growth, Expansion, And Hard Lessons
• 13:16 Systems Over Sheer Grit
• 16:48 Survival Energy, Burnout, And Boundaries
• 19:13 The Courage To Close A Business
• 22:07 Economy, Culture, And Accountability
• 24:22 Failure, Ego, And Realignment
• 26:23 Letting Go, Intuition, And Next Steps