How to stop your past dictating your future (& let go of your inner critic) with Chris Appleton

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2:01Grace Beverley: what is up i'm grace beverly and welcome back to working hard the podcast shape guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice what is up and welcome back to working hard today's episode is all about reinvention, confidence, and creating a comeback. Not the kind that looks good on the outside, but the kind that actually changes how you see yourself. I'm joined by Chris Appleton, the celebrity hairstylist. He's worked with some of the most famous and successful women in the world, like Kim Kardashian, JLo, and Ariana Grande.

2:35Grace Beverley: But behind all the glamour, he's been on a much bigger journey of reinvention and self-discovery. In this conversation, we talk about insecurity, self-doubt, identity, and how to stop letting your past, your background, or your inner critic dictate your future. If you feel like you're on the edge of a new chapter, or wanting a big change in your life but you're unsure how to step into it, this episode is for you. Before we get into it though, please make sure you're following the podcast so a new episode lands on your feed every Monday. Let's get into it.

3:07Grace Beverley: Chris Appleton, are you currently more working hard or hardly working?

3:11Chris Appleton: I am working hard.

3:13Grace Beverley: Is that your only setting?

3:15Chris Appleton: No, I'm better at hardly working now i enjoy my quiet time i think it's really important to have quality of life um for a long time i probably didn't think that but you you know i think experiencing burnout and just maybe having a great career but not a personal life was something i wanted to change but it didn't really change until i was in my 40s i think you know i'm proud of my career but it took a lot and i realized i got to a place where do you think you're gonna get enough money and enough success and everything's going to be okay. And it wasn't, you know, and that was the sort of sad reality.

3:47Chris Appleton: So I think there was a part of me that wanted to find a peace, um, when I'm alone and when I'm on my own to be able to enjoy the life I built and created. Whereas sometimes your automatic go-to is to just keep going, keep going, keep pushing. Um, but I think it's really good to be able to be present and sit with yourself. So I'm good at hardly working at times, you know, it might just be a weekend or a few days of the week, but I don't know. I think I've created a life now where I want to enjoy it you know and it's also nice to reflect on what you've come from and how you built and how you've gone through the years and just be present with that rather than running from it and I think for a lot of my life I was running from things but when you have your running shoes on you know it's it it can be beneficial I'm not gonna say I regret that because I think for a long time in my life I needed to have them on to get to where I've got in my career but i also got to a point in my life like i said where i wanted to enjoy the world i'd

4:42Grace Beverley: created yeah and i think that's i think what you mentioned there about like running from where you came from actually is such a defining factor in so many successful people who i've spoken to stories because i think that you know it's easy to say oh what motivates you and where did your desire to do xyz come from and i think for so many people who put in extraordinary effort in comparison to like the rest of the population it is escapism for a lot of people like you you you hear that healing that comes later in their journey that allows them to build that balance when we sort of realize oh shit like i'm going to be working for like 40 50 years i need to pace myself at some point i need to be able to chill out i need to be able to be able to sit with myself where i'm not going 100 miles per hour but the thing that really seems to connect so many people who are very successful and have that almost unlimited drive actually seems to be rather than it being drive it's like that element of escapism and I want to talk about that a little bit in terms of your roots could you tell

5:44Chris Appleton: me a little bit about what your early life looked like my early life was um in Leicester in the Midlands I think probably as a kid I'm one of five kids I think I felt maybe the odd one I was the middle kid just because my brothers kind of did boys things my sisters did girls things and I kind I just was, I didn't learn the way they learn. I didn't act the way they acted. Um, so I was dyslexic at school, but no one recognized that. It wasn't really a thing back then that people were aware of. And even if it was a thing, I don't think people knew how to deal with it. So I think from a young age, I was told it was stupid.

6:20Chris Appleton: You know, I was told that I wasn't good enough or put in a special needs class and you carry that with you, you know, you carry that with you throughout your life, not feeling good enough. And then also, cause I did hair at a young age I started doing my mom's hair around the age of nine just because I really enjoyed the way it made her look and feel um like I say we were we were really poor as kids our family was not blessed financially and it was a struggle so doing my mom's hair there was some sort of part of it where I wanted to make her look glamorous because that was far from what life was and so when she looks in the mirror I you know try and make her look like glamorous like a hot the people on the tv and um I saw her react to it which I thought was really powerful and change and she's not seen herself like that before.

7:01Chris Appleton: So I think at a young age, I decided I wanted to do hair. I really enjoyed the idea of making someone look and feel good, but also I was good at it. So I was like, well, I'm going to be the best at it. I'm going to focus and be the best at this. So doing hair at a young age, getting a job in a salon was different. So again, I was different at school because I had a job and I was doing hair. So very quickly, guys would call me gay. and you know i was like it was before i'd really thought about sexuality or was just sort of getting into developing as a as a kid like you do but i very quickly learned that was bad and that was wrong so i think i took these two i guess it was trauma really you know it was really it was i was really bullied for it wasn't a nice experience it was a bad one so these two big things that seem to carry me throughout my life these weights of being told i was stupid or gay i thought well I'm neither of those things.

7:55Chris Appleton: I'm going to prove everyone I'm not. And I'm going to prove I'm neither of these things. So I didn't look left or right. I just got really headstrong on building a career, you know, and living a normal life like society told me was normal. But that caught up with me later on in life. And I think what I really realized is I abandoned myself at a young age. I think from a young age, I kind of really left a version of myself because I didn't let it develop I didn't let myself grow it just kind of became what I felt was normal and what fitted in but it didn't really get me very far yeah and you've spoken a lot as well

8:33Grace Beverley: about understanding which parts of you are made for yourself and which parts of you were actually made for others like designed to please others or impress others or whatever it might be at what point did you start to really notice that those things weren't one and the same and that you perhaps weren't living authentically with who you actually were i think i've done a lot in my life

8:54Chris Appleton: i mean i'd say when i came out 26 27 it was like a time where i realized what was i doing before i didn't really understand it and the brain is really powerful you were it was not as i was consciously thinking of being gay or thinking about guys or i was really happy until i wasn't and i was really kind of felt like i had it together until i didn't and then that was the harsh reality of trying to deal with it was trying to understand what I'd been doing all these years and I think like I say in that moment I realized that I didn't really realize the extent of it coming out was really hard because I was dealing with not only the way I felt but really the way everyone else felt about it and you know when people think they know who you are and then something's different they want to know like well you must have always known and I really didn't I didn't have the answers that took a lot of work and a lot of therapy to figure out what had happened and why I had never evolved or developed as a kid as most people should or have the freedom to.

9:49Chris Appleton: I don't know, it took years of understanding it. Like I think maybe surface level I understood what was going on and that carried me through my career and my life. But I think probably internally I was very unhappy and detached from myself. I wasn't really being authentic. I wasn't really living my most authentic life. I think there was parts of me that healed. but then I think I found myself in situations or relationships or friendships that were just really unhealthy so I seem to have like a great career but my personal life I didn't seem to have much success with because I was kind of getting people in my life that I shouldn't you know and I should have very quickly put boundaries in place I didn't ever knew I could but that really just comes down to self-love and you know coming back to myself going back to that little kid that I abandoned.

10:36Chris Appleton: I kind of, like I say, became a version of myself for other people rather than being authentically myself.

10:41Grace Beverley: Yeah. And I think what's particularly interesting as well about your story is the fact that you obviously have received a lot of bullying and a lot of kind of putting you into a certain box that you didn't even know whether you fit in yet. And it wasn't, you know, your immediate reaction was to rebel against that, as is the reality for a lot of people in lots of different ways, whatever that like bullying or kind of name calling or being put in a box might look like. I think what's really interesting is that you worked really hard to build yourself this quote unquote perfect life that you saw that you were kind of meant to aspire to.

11:19Grace Beverley: So building a family with a wife and two kids and like seeing that as how do I make it really clear that I'm able to achieve these things that other people want from me. And I think we don't necessarily stop to question what out of those expectations is appropriate for our own lives and what do we actually want and I think that to get to your mid-20s I mean I look at that and I was obviously looking into your story and I immediately was like oh he was so young like he was so young but I also think probably at the time you probably felt like you you'd kind of ruined your life to some extent or you'd decided your life and you'd kind of like Like your path was decided for you.

11:59Grace Beverley: I think there'll be so many people listening to this who are 26 thinking that about something in their life, whether it is their career, whether it is their relationship, whether it is their family, whatever it might be. And I think yours is such a good example of how things are only decided until you decide they're not. And actually the fact that you were able to reinvent what a good life meant to you outside of that.

12:24Chris Appleton: I think a lot of people live lives that are not their own. I think we live lives that are inherited to us. Yeah, a lot of people don't live their own life. A lot of people live lives that were inherited from, you know, parents, brothers, sisters, friends. We kind of take parts of that and kind of have it as our own, you know. It could be as small as someone as a kid saying like, oh, you know, you need bangs because you have a big forehead. Or you're the quiet one, your sister's the confident one. or you know you're the chubby one or whatever these things are like everyone has their own journey and their own story but we carry these sort of traumas throughout our whole life and they weigh on us and i think the power of the book and why i wrote your roots don't define you is to sort of show people that you can really find your own journey and it's never too late to reinvent yourself and find out who you are the sad part is a lot of people think their lives are normal.

13:19Chris Appleton: So a lot of people don't even know, I didn't know that there was anything wrong with me until I really had to stop and look in the mirror. That's like when I came out, I think something felt wrong. And I think when something feels wrong, it usually is. And I really had to stop and take a look and be like, have I decided to be this or am I sort of pretending to be a version of myself that, or am I fearful of actually like investigating who I truly am and how I really feel and the decisions I've made, are they mine or are they to please other people. And the truth is there were to please other people.

13:51Chris Appleton: And I think it took a lot of understanding, but a lot of people go through their lives, not living the life they've chosen. They've really sort of lived in parts of their life that people have passed down to them. And it's not always good. It's not always healthy. And like I say, most of us, I would say like, oh, my childhood was normal. But in actual fact, now I've really done the work and not today, my childhood wasn't normal at all, like far from it. There's no regrets and there's no, I don't want to like delete my past. I think for a long time, I felt ashamed of it. And I wanted to hide it i'm really proud of all those parts because all those parts have made me who i am now um and all of it as a whole whereas i think before i used to try and separate the past you know like now i've had some success this is who i am like delete everything else whereas in actual facts all those parts are you know me and they're all part of the growth and honestly getting to a better place is growth it takes time it's like trying to lose weight at the gym you don't go once or twice and see a difference.

14:44Chris Appleton: It takes weeks, months, years, and then you get to a place where you change your body and people go, wow, you look great. And you're like, yeah, actually it's been quite a journey. I think a lot of people, if they do want to change something, you're not going to have the instant answer. It took me years to figure out. And the work can be really difficult. But once you see yourself, once you stop and look at yourself in the mirror, and I encourage people to do this in the book, I use by example, like we look in the mirror maybe be 10 or 12 times a day. You know, you're brushing your hair, brushing your teeth, but not many people really stop and look and see themselves.

15:18Chris Appleton: And I think there's a part in the book that we talk about looking at yourself and seeing if you really aligned with what reflects back to you, how you present yourself, your image, but also how you feel on the inside. And there's a moment where people sit in a stylist's chair where they say like, you know, your hairdresser's like a therapist. And I think there's an element of that about sitting in a chair and looking in the mirror, because there's that quiet time where you're waiting for your stylist to come over and you're kind of just looking staring at yourself and most people kind of start tearing themselves apart and they're like oh my god this lighting i look so old or my god these gray roots or you know i look so tired and the amount of people that are like lifting their face and you know it's kind of just something we do yeah everyone you know oh you know is this lighting bad but i think there's a moment of vulnerability where you're sitting and really looking at yourself there's a moment of like you know possible change and you know that you know like you could feel different about your image and i think if you have a good stylist and a good relationship the possibilities are quite endless of opening up to you know evolving your image because your image really is your identity it's something you're carrying out to the world it says something about who you are um how you feel even people that say like i don't care about my hair i don't care what you're also saying something with that you know that you are making a statement whether you like it or not if you think of anyone like think of marilyn monroe like you know she had that bombshell blonde or you know um you think about the kardashians and over that rich dark you know colored hair um or chapel rome with her red head you know that it becomes like part of your identity and people will kind of not stereotype but to an extent make a judgment on you from first impressions and you know the way you look so a lot of it is external for sure but it really is the internal because once you kind of figure that out, that's when I think it's really, um, the journey is really complete of like being in, being aligned on the inside and on the outside.

17:12Chris Appleton: And I think a lot of people maybe have it more external and probably a lot of people think the book is about external and there is elements of that for sure. But the real beauty is the internal stuff. Cause I think once you have that figured out is when you find peace in your life and when you can enjoy the life you've created. And I think a lot of people create lives and they're not really present in them and they're not really happy in them truly you know and that's the sad reality of it and life is really short we're lucky to be here and i think sometimes people wait for these moments to be reminded by losing a lost one or maybe you know being faced with mortality and you know having a cancer scare or some something that makes them feel vulnerable where they kind of stop and look but otherwise i think we can generally sort of think our life is fine and that's why again i at writing the book about a chapter called the word fine and the danger of fine is it's just kind of pacifying uh not acknowledging who you are like you know how do you feel today you might have had a terrible day you say i'm fine or someone treats you really badly oh it's fine it's just the way they are or you know it's not really you know how's your haircut it probably looks like it's fine how's your marriage it's fine it's just a way of sort of saying don't look at me let's not talk about it let's just carry on it's kind of almost a bit of avoidance so i think again like i encourage people to sort of really open up conversation which i think is healthy why do you feel like

18:32Grace Beverley: so many people even hearing your story and hearing the fact that you redefined everything from when you were 26 why do you think so many people feel like it's too late to change their life even when statistically it's so clear that it's not yeah i mean if you go anyone over the age of 30

18:46Chris Appleton: thinks it's too late, too old, too set in their ways. The truth of it is, it's never too late to reinvent yourself. It's the mindset. And I think it's never too late to change not only your image, but your life. And sometimes you can start with a haircut, but a lot of the time it starts with looking, like I say, with alignment of when you look in the mirror, are you happy with what you see? Are you happy with the way you portray yourself to the world? Are you happy with your job you're in or your marriage and sometimes you really have to stop and just acknowledge that maybe you're not and you don't need to necessarily know what's next because i think that's the scary part is some people find it overwhelming with change and like wow you know if i leave this relationship i'm gonna have to separate and we've got the house we've got the kids there's all these like things that pull up and i've seen people in situations where you know the kids grow up and you know they do get more financially secure and they still are stuck in this situation of you know fearful of change i don't know because there's been moments where i've said to my friends like your family don't need you they've got their own family now they've grown up why are you still feeling like and it's almost like not an excuse but that the ways to stay stuck and i think sometimes you just have to start with like acknowledging that something's off something doesn't feel right and start the journey of change.

20:09Chris Appleton: And, you know, instead of sitting at work bitching about your job, maybe acknowledging that you're in a job that you're unhappy in and finding what you really do find interesting and maybe working towards creating that life. Maybe find someone to look up to. I think envy is really scary. I think we live in a world now where it's very easy to be envious. You know, they say now that we learn in a day what they learn today. in a whole lifetime 100 years ago because we're so stimulated now by social media like the phones listening to you ai like there's information everywhere you can find out whatever i mean the amount of times i talk to judge gpt it tells me things i don't need to know you know tiktoks i'm seeing things and places that i just never even knew about all that you could do and i think there's an element of um being over uh sort of stimulated and i think it's just really important to be able to sit with yourself and and like i say feel good on the inside a lot of people don't i think envy can be really dangerous and i try and use envies instead of feeling bad and being negative towards that thing actually looking at what that person is what you aspire about their life what what is it i like oh it's the fact that they have that great job or how did they get that job and i use them as like a role model i call myself spongebob square plan sometimes like i'm just like a sponge i just absorb everything everyone i'm around i'm just absorb the information anyone i look up to in business or you know in i don't know the way they look with their body or i just try and say how have they done it and i use them all almost as an idol but the opposite of that is to be jealous and think oh well fuck you you know you're you're you're you're not that great or oh you take steroids or you know um well you're probably not really that happy i don't know sometimes i saw someone write a comment on instagram the other day they wish someone got cancer in their eye and i was like that person must be really sad but i think it It comes from like envy and jealousy and it can get really dark.

22:03Grace Beverley: Yeah, I think that when you notice jealousy crop up again and again in your own life, as in like you feeling jealous or envious, I actually don't know the difference. I think that can, as you say, be a really powerful tool in working out what you actually want from your life. I think that looking at something and working out like why does it make you feel shit? And of course, there are many things that you can't necessarily control that might make you feel shit about someone else's life when you're going through something. or you're just having a harder time or you were just never in that situation.

22:33Grace Beverley: It's going to be much harder for you to get there. But it is a powerful tool to be able to kind of like reassess and cement, okay, what does that person have that you want and how can you get closer to getting it? I think that's something a lot of us... Exactly. I think that's something that a lot of us are missing, particularly with social media use, as you say, where it is the path of least resistance to feel unhappy about that person rather than to feel inspired by that person. And, you know, of course, there are many differences that will mean that for some people it'll be 10 times harder to get to whatever route.

23:09Grace Beverley: But using it with jealousy and having apathy towards it where you essentially then don't do anything isn't helpful either. And I think what you were saying before, I really think sunk cost fallacy is one of the most powerful things to feel. And I think that even if you're very aware of it, so many people, again, will not do anything about it because it feels hard. Like when you think I've been working to be a doctor for five years, I know it's not what I want to do, but I've been working to do that. I've spent a lot of money on it. And therefore, I must do this for the rest of my life. Like that five years is gone anyway.

23:46Grace Beverley: Like, yeah, maybe you want to get qualified to be able to open up some doors for yourself. but beyond that point like does it make sense you're doing something for 40 years because you've already done five years of it same with any relationship same with anything in your life that feels worth changing it's so easy to think oh well because i've already spent x amount of time investing in this relationship or this job or whatever it might be that i now have to do this for the rest of my life and i think that one of the most powerful contextualizations and arguments against that is just realizing, like seeing other people's stories like yours and seeing that that so obviously doesn't have to be the case.

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26:01Grace Beverley: And I think as part of that, you know, it's really easy to look at your career, where it is now, and think like he's done incredible things, he's got to this level. But obviously, we know that that's taken a very long time to build. And it wasn't, it didn't just jump to this point. Could you tell me what you feel the biggest turning points were in your career that really led to you getting to this height?

26:26Chris Appleton: Yeah, I mean, I think people with success always want to know like, what's the shortcut? I don't know if there is one. I mean, I started doing hair when I was 13, I'm 42. So I guess, yeah, I did. I did all right. But it took a long time and it was never really one big thing. It was just lots of little milestones. I don't know, like every win I got, I used as a leap board and every failure I got, which was way more than the wins. I just kind of dusted myself and carried on. I think for me, I used a lot of sadness in my life to motivate me to get away and get out. That really motivated me to try and get to a better place.

27:00Chris Appleton: And I think some of the way, I mean, you know, moving to America was really big and I'd say I moved from my job, which I did, but I think really I was trying to run away from a version of myself that I didn't really want to be around or see people. You know, I didn't want people to see, but very ashamed and I felt very scared and they're really, I don't know, living with that shame I couldn't seem to sort of function. So I think moving to America was like, there was a freedom to people not knowing who I was and being able to introduce myself just as Chris and, you know, being accepted as that and not be labeled, you know, or my past followed me.

27:33Chris Appleton: So I think really the journey of success is very long. And I think even when you get success, you lose it very quick, especially in today's society, people are famous for five minutes all the time. You know, you're looking at you and then a week later they forgot about it or this is trending and then the next week something else is trending and i think it's just constantly about kind of continuing your journey and i think one of the most important things with me was probably using social media i know people have like mixed opinions about it but for me social media was a really powerful tool to be recognized just with the type of work i do and making sure my social media looked um um i guess like a portfolio of like the work i do and that's when j-lo's team reached out and i moved to america and she asked if i was available to her hair for a vegas show and i i remember thinking how does jennifer lopez know i am like i'm just this guy from you know the midlands and social media you know she saw it people look so i think making sure you're setting yourself up also to be seen because people do see people always looking around for the younger and newer or you know or just want to change and i think it's about making sure that you're ready for that um i think the other parts was i just learned every part of my craft like i learned every skill of hair like i wanted to be the best today and i don't know i mean we will have our strengths and weaknesses but i think then when i did get presented with opportunities i could handle them because i'd done the work you know it wasn't as i was going in blind trying to figure out how to do a ponytail i knew how to do the best ponytail i went to fashion week and watched how the best people did it and you know like i say i was like a sponge or you know i knew how to braid because i went to you know the braid shops and sat there and watched them braid and would practice for you know nights on my own or i knew how to color hair i got a color degree with l 'oreal back in the day like i knew the science of hair and so then when i was presented with these um jobs i

29:29Grace Beverley: could do them and i could do it well yeah and i think that's a i mean it's a powerful lesson in kind of both making your own luck but making sure that when the luck comes you're positioned to take

29:38Chris Appleton: you've got to know your craft or whatever it is you're doing like get get passionate about it you know and and and you know it's like i love doing tv stuff like i i do stuff on the drew barrymore show and the today show and um you know i'd like to do more tv work but people love to label people like you know people love to say well it's just a hairdresser but you know you kind of always reinventing yourself and growing and people don't always want to see you grow people love to put people in boxes and you just have to stand strong and just keep working towards your goals and evolving but you shouldn't carry that label and accept it and be like yeah they're right you know because you're never going to get anywhere i think you really do have to have strong shoulders i think you have to have people around you that can support you and pick you up when you need it and give you that pep talk and help you sort of say you can do this we all need that sometimes you know we all need that friend that can say i believe in you even when we don't believe in ourselves um and put one foot in front of the other and how did you feel like you were ready

30:33Grace Beverley: to go to the States? Because that is a huge leap, particularly like you were going from Leicester all the way up to the States. Did you have like a job lined up? Was it something where you felt like there was some sort of guaranteed success?

30:44Chris Appleton: No, I think I was, I wasn't ready. I don't know if I've ever been ready for anything. I don't know. I think moving to America was absolutely, but my career, you know, getting an email from JLo's team isn't something you get every day. So I knew it was an opportunity awaiting for me. And I did want to take the opportunity and see if I could take it and, you know, take the challenge of, could I do Hollywood stars? Like I aspired to do when I was a kid doing my mom's hair. Could I, they're now asking for me, could I do that? Could I withstand the job? But a lot of it in my personal life. And, you know, I think a lot of people with careers, like I have to acknowledge where they're at in their personal life.

31:20Chris Appleton: I ignored mine for a long time, but it wasn't a happy place to be. And I think, you know, I have to be honest and say that I was running away from a version of myself coming out as gay was really hard later on in life. And I felt very ashamed and I was trying to run away from that. And for many years, it was fine until I'd returned to the UK and I'd literally have panic attacks and I didn't understand why. And it's because I had like post-traumatic stress. Like I was going back to a version of myself that I abandoned. I kept abandoning these versions of myself rather than understanding that all of these parts of me made me whole.

31:49Chris Appleton: and you know knowing that now makes me walk in a room and for the first time in my life feel confident and feel secure in what I do um doesn't mean I don't have my triggers and I'm not in doubt sometimes but I think I can definitely be way more present and do the best job I can whereas I think for a lot of years it was it was just running off anxiety and uh fear and shame and although although they're fuel and it did work and I don't have any regrets because I had a great career and have a great career. There's a sadness I feel about the quality of my life. And I think quality of life is really important.

32:26Chris Appleton: And, you know, that will affect, like I say, your friendships and your relationships. And I think for me, like I said before, life is short and I want to have a happy life. I want to have a life. My goal at the end of my life is to have a life that, you know, I can look back at the memories, not the dreams I once had. I want to push myself to challenge myself to feel uncomfortable. And I kind of embrace those moments because we all have them. It doesn't matter how much success or how much money you get. Everyone has that sort of moment of reinvention and needing to move on to the next goalpost because we're aging.

32:59Chris Appleton: I am not 21 anymore and I'm not going to try and do what I was doing when I was 21. So my career right now is changing and evolving and I'm not resisting that. I like that. I think it's great to keep moving. I think a lot of people get stuck. You know, a lot of people get stuck with the same hairstyle their whole lives but that also reflects in the rest of their life it reflects in the marriage they're in or the relationship they're in it affects their their friend groups that are maybe unhealthy and they could have moved on or or let some people go or put boundaries in place financial decisions um it affects everything it's not just you know being stuck with that haircut it usually bleeds into a lot of different areas of our lives and i realized that when people sat in the in my chair that's Stylist Jen.

33:41Chris Appleton: That's why I wrote the book because I've worked with everyone now. I work with women that come to the salon every week for a blowout. I've worked with models on a runway or cancer patients that lost their hair or some of the most famous women in the world. But universally, we're all human. We all have these emotions at different volumes and at different times in our life. But life is life for everyone. No one gets a get out of jail free card. And I think it's about having techniques to be able to handle them and to be able to share more stories and conversations where maybe people think like, oh, your life looks perfect, but showing the reality of it.

34:18Chris Appleton: Well, it's not. But, you know, this is how I went about, you know, my journey. And also, like I say, some of the stories in the book are about some of the people I work with and watching the world they've created, which I've been so inspired by.

34:30Grace Beverley: And there's a chapter in your book where you talk about the fact that you are the message and the messenger in the marketing of you. What do you feel most people can change about the way they're kind of presenting their message or the marketing of themselves to the world?

34:44Chris Appleton: I just think know truly who you are. I think that's such a powerful thing. I think it's about selling the sizzle, not the sausage. It's like, what is it? When I was in a salon, there would be three people charging, I don't know, like a hundred pounds, for example, for a haircut. Okay. And we're all available and we all have the three o 'clock appointment available. So a client walks in, why are you going to pick me? Like, why is a client going to be loyal to me and give me harmony and come back consistently for me and i would watch about how people sort of behaved in the salon and i noticed a lot of people would go and stand behind the client and say okay what are we doing today same as usual and there's a kind of detachment there with that and the client would be like oh sure yeah you know yeah same as usual so i used to sit with the client and i'd face them and have more that face-to-face sort of conversation and talk about like where they're at with their hairstyle, and also where they're thin from the past, but also what they've always aspired to have hair like, or what their sort of hair idols were.

35:46Chris Appleton: And I'd open up conversations where people would say things like, well, you know, I've always, you know, I love, I don't know, Jennifer Anderson, but I know I can't be blonde. I know I can't, you know, go lighter. And I'd say, why is that? And they're like, well, I just, I know I can't. You know, and it was interesting that probably someone once said like, oh, you, you were brunette you you only suit brown and they carry this kind of one thought that someone once had their whole lives but we do that about all areas of our lives like that's i could say the type of relationship you have to get into or the job or the way you spend your money or the way you save or don't or you you can't yeah i don't know your relationship around alcohol and we're all kind of susceptible as kids of absorbing this information and carrying it for our lives and i think really i noticed when people sat in my chair the power of change and how when you kind of acknowledged and show people that they could change and they could evolve and it wasn't scary i mean it was so powerful to see how people grew and evolve and how loyal they would be um so i think you know in the clients that i work with now i still kind of just do that i just show that genuine interest and that connection and that's my my selling point is i think i i i think i do good hair you know i don't think i'm arrogant in saying that i think i do good hair i'm not i'm sure i do bad hair sometimes as well but also like my work i know the thing that i do is change i love to reinvent people that's something that's always inspired me so i think you can see that in my in my work on my instagram there's always something different i like to do a different look um and then i remember kim kardashian once saying to me like i can tell when you've done jlo's hair and i said how can you tell compared to someone else she said it's the finish you get on the hair you get this really kind of polished finish even if it's a messy style you get like a luxness to the hat so again like I try and incorporate that as as my brand and as the message if you work with me this is this is what I'm about so I think most people if they book me know that they're maybe gonna you know they want to do something different they want to create a look or create an image or an identity and that's my that's my brand that's who I am so I think the most important part of business as well is knowing what your brand is and then showing that and in the book you talk about

37:55Grace Beverley: seeing your kind of internal voice as like a personal hater yeah can you talk to me a little

38:00Chris Appleton: bit about that yeah i mean i think it's no one speaks more poorly to themselves than yourself you know it's just true like i'll tell you some of the things i say about myself i don't know like you look in the mirror and like maybe the lighting's but you're like fucking hard i look so old like jesus i look so tired or like my god i look fat my face is so puffy or um i gotta work out harder or you know got these wrinkles like i'm aging or i saw some great hair fucking a like i know you just kind of you can tear yourself apart that hater voice most people can relate to like i look fat or i've heard it all like one boob is bigger than the other like most of the time i used to hear it when people sat in the salon chair and like i say it was that time where you're sitting in the mirror you're like is the lighting bad in here you know this looks awful blah blah and i think that hater and that voice is something that's very prominent to a lot of people but we kind of just ignore it's kind of like oh it's just the way i speak to myself no one no one else is hearing it it's like a inside you know conversation dialogue and the way to break that and to realize how toxic that is is to sort of really go back to looking at yourself as a child and maybe going back to a younger version of yourself and i did this in therapy i remember my therapist saying I want to kind of go back to like a younger version of yourself so I remember like one of the youngest memories I had was like about six years old and I remember being in my bedroom in Leicester and it was kind of raining outside and I was looking outside the window and my therapist was like how do you think that little boy felt and I thought well I remember I think he felt quite sad and he's like why is that I think I just felt different I felt alone I felt like I wasn't understood and the real part that a lot of people would find benefit of getting into is he said well what would you say to that little kid and i'm like well if it was some kid or my kid or anyone really i'd be like oh my god you're great you can have a great life you're gonna you know the thing that makes you different now is going to be your superpower when you're older like you'd big that kid up there's a kid here now that felt sad i couldn't comfort them and be like you're amazing look at you you say you're so good you know you'd give them the love that they were asking for.

40:14Chris Appleton: And he said, well, why don't you try and say that to him? And so I did. And then I felt so broken after, and I was really upset. I was crying a lot. And I guess there was like a hypnosis part to it, but really there was just more a realization of how mean I'd been to myself my whole life and how I really abandoned myself. I think that was the part where I realized I abandoned myself as a kid. That was the moment where I realized, oh my god i never let this kid develop his feelings discuss his fears um or just just develop in any way i just left him and i became a version of myself that i thought i should become and i think in going back to sort of the younger version of myself i can then be kinder and turn that voice down so the hater voice is always there but now i can recognize it and recognize it's unhealthy and i can be like i'm doing that thing i do so you can turn the volume down and I can come back to myself as an adult, you know, and I can kind of be like, you know, I'm actually, you know, not that old.

41:16Chris Appleton: And, you know, also the smile lines on my face show that I laugh a lot and you can start spinning it in a different way. Like you would, if a friend said that, like a friend said, Oh my God, you know, I'm looking old, but baby, you're great. You're kidding me. Oh, I've got these smile lines. Yeah, but you're always laughing. And I love that about you. You know, you start to be kinder to yourself and it's really powerful. And I think a lot of people could benefit from that. I think a lot of people are really mean to themselves. But it's a secret. No one knows because no one hears the voices.

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42:17Grace Beverley: And why do you have such an issue with the word fine?

42:21Chris Appleton: Because it's shit. I hate it. It's just such an excuse. You know, you might be in the most worst situation i don't like a relationship a marriage um and they talk to you like shit or treat you like shit or they've been sleeping with someone else behind your back and you know people say oh how's things with your partner oh it's fine it's good it's fine it fine is this kind of like facade for me that we can use a lot in our lives to excuse change um acknowledging what really is going on in our lives. And that doesn't mean that, you know, to a stranger, you're going to open up like your deepest, darkest secrets.

43:01Chris Appleton: But sometimes we also say, fine, I don't know, another example is like a family member that's really toxic and you're like, they treat you like shit or they speak to you really poorly or, you know, you're like, oh, it's fine. It's just who they are. It's fine because this happened to them when they were a kid and that's, but a lot of times it's not fine. A lot of time it might just be like, maybe this is not fine maybe i need to put a boundary in place of you can behave this way just don't do it around me you know if you're going to behave that way i need you to do it from a distance you have to separate yourself from that person and that can be about so many different things in your you know how's your how's your drinking these days that's fine you know and you're raging out alcoholic drinking you know way more than you need to i think sometimes fine is just a facade to say don't look at me don't let's not acknowledge it let's not change or snail evolve so i think fine can just be a really dangerous word i mean if someone said to me if i got dressed and i said what do you think and they said it's fine i'm just gonna get changed like i don't want to go through my life being fine you know i want to i want to you know feel something i want to have some sort of response so i think that the chapter and i say fine is shit you know in some contexts it's fine but in general it's fine it's fine it's just very middle of the road sometimes and i think it's sitting on the fence and sometimes i think i'm more about action

44:20Grace Beverley: and making a decision yeah and it's like it kind of feels like in the way you're describing it it's like a catch-all phrase for things being it's like the lowest acceptable level of okay and actually we've taken that as an acceptable level rather than you know this this good is the enemy of

44:37Chris Appleton: great thing i mean ask yourself is it fine is your marriage fine like is your in a relationship with a whole fine is your eyesight fine or are you struggling to see shit you know what I mean yes that's why I'm wearing glasses it's just like either your hairdresser cuts all your hair off and you're like how is it it's fine thank you it's fine you know it's just this kind of like I'm not going to acknowledge how I feel yeah and I think that's a really dangerous place to be when

44:59Grace Beverley: done too often you've spent the most recent years of your career working with some of the most confident women in the world what would you say are the biggest things you've learned from that experience?

45:11Chris Appleton: I think the idea of celebrity is sensationalized. And I think, you know, we think that celebrities are super humans and don't have the lives we live. But the harsh reality of it is, is we're all living and breathing the same air and we all go through highs and lows in our life. And I think a lot of it is about how you, you know, evolve throughout your life and how you take the falls and pick yourself up and move back on and not just give up and not just accept that things are fine. I think a lot of successful people don't accept just fine. They want to get to a place of achievement and they want to do well.

45:49Chris Appleton: And I think to do that, there's a lot of consistency involved, a lot of hard work, a lot of failure, a lot of no's. I've had way more no's in my life than I've had yes's. And I've had way more losses than I've had wins. But after a few wins, people only seem to recognize that and think you're happy altogether and the harsh reality of it is and if you see the journey it's not and they're there you know the work is for everyone to do but not everyone wants to necessarily you know commit and you know that's why they think it's satisfied yeah and then and then that can lead to like i say like the envy chapter about people feeling envious and think oh well they're not that great you know instead of actually being well done you i see how hard it got to get there kind of inspired by your story and your journey and kind of woke me up a little bit it made me feel like i want to kind of do something like that might not be on that level but just you know take elements from so i think it's very easy to go on a downward spiral with it whereas you know when you actually know the reality of what it takes to get to you know success or whatever you know we like to label it as it's usually a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice before we end i'd like to ask you some

46:56Grace Beverley: specific quick fire hair questions obviously for obvious reasons so firstly asking for a friend um what would you recommend to people who struggle to find like hair inspiration on the day-to-day like they maybe go back to the same hairstyles over and over again even if they don't necessarily feel they suit them how would you recommend they get out of that i think for me i i love pictures

47:19Chris Appleton: and i look like looking at like you know things that just make you horny you know that you just look and you're like look oh i don't know for whatever reason you might be on pinterest i mean oh my god that picture her hair's gorgeous like i don't know it might be way off from where you're at right now but just i would just take as many pictures and look about usually then you can find like a common theme like a lot of them are a lighter base color or a lot of them are more layered or a lot of them have these curtains like what is it like that you like about these kind of you know looks because i think pictures for me just help you kind of tell the story that's what you do it you know you're telling the story so i think pinterest instagram uh tiktok just save whatever you see that you like and then try and find out what it is you like about it and

48:05Grace Beverley: you'll find a common theme i can i tell you about my recent thing that's actually changed my life with interest is i've made myself a hair menu so i go to the i go back back to the same styles over and over because i'm like i don't have very long to get ready in the morning before coming to the office and all that and so i just you know go to the same things over and over i've created myself a pinterest hair menu which is like a board but it's split up then into like things you would do with like a blow dry versus unstyled hair versus slick for a greasy hair day all of that and it's actually changed my life that's great validation from you as leader of hair congratulations i'm very proud of you thank you sounds great thank you very much it's very organized my pinterest

48:42Chris Appleton: is a mess i don't know how to i don't have to use it i just screenshot stuff but then i had to save

48:47Grace Beverley: them i can give you a little lesson that that's definitely not how you use it i mean everybody

48:50Chris Appleton: screenshots properly it's always like got all this stuff around there but yeah screen pinterest is great um just find things that you know catch your eye yeah and uh you like i say you'll probably

49:02Grace Beverley: find a theme and what about go-to products that make curls stay as someone whose hair does not

49:08Chris Appleton: like to hold for two seconds oh really because what you mean naturally curly hair or to curly hair curly line to make it stay yeah the second one oh i i love clovis style and steroids it's a great texturizing spray i love it because it has heat protection in so a lot of the times with curls when they're too when your hair's too soft if it's just been washed washed day you do it and the hair's very slippy a lot of people like the hair when it's a bit dirty sometimes it kind of grips better colorwell styloids gives the hair this kind of lived in texture gives it some grit but it's not sticky or stiff and it really holds the curls and then the ultimate flex is the texas hold on hairspray because it's just a really strong old hairspray that keeps it in place and i love products the nicest thing about all of them is though is they're all kind of brushable and once you're done if you want to brush it out your hair's back to hair it's not like some of these hard like hairsprays that are on the market where once you spray it it's like you're gonna tear your hair

50:02Grace Beverley: apart like i've had to make my husband get in the shower with me to wash my hair after some red carpets that's not that healthy absolutely not is he's literally like why did they put in here no literally my it's like a swim cap on that just a question so i'm using it correctly um with the style on steroids does that mean if it's got heat protectant in you'd recommend spraying it also before you do the heat like before you'd curl it as well as after yeah before so style on steroids

50:29Chris Appleton: i would use during the curling before you take your section and spread the style of steroids curl it and then use the texas old or mafta just to lock it all in right i'll report back what would you say is the biggest red flag in a hair routine um i think maybe washing your hair like it's laundry i think people are so rough and aggressive with their scalp and i think scalp care is really important scalp is a continuation of your skin and i see you guys like doing skincare routines they're insane yeah i mean the products that people do and the rolling at this you know i am relatively good like i use a serum and a moisturizer i use a nice facial wash but some people skin routines like 10 regimen like night and day routine but your scalp is a continuation of your skin and so by you know using scalp treatments that can be a game changer because a lot of people lose density of hair and it's usually because the quality of the scalp is really poor a lot of people go fine around the hairline so i use um the color wow youth juice it's basically like a serum that you put on every night um and it has collagen in it as well which you lose collagen every year after the age of 25 i think you lose one percent collagen every year is just basically a decline of like you know the looks so your hair will come through drier the quality there isn't as good whereas using this not only is it going to encourage hair growth when you see the quality and the hair growth come through but also just the quality of the hair is a lot better so i think scalp care is really important and it's probably one of the biggest red flags that a lot of people don't acknowledge especially if they've lost hair density or you know the quality there isn't good um scalp care is really important perfect we'll be writing all of these

52:07Grace Beverley: down, re-listening to them and taking them on board. Thank you. And to end, I'm going to ask you what I ask everyone, which is what is the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

52:17Chris Appleton: Best piece of advice I've ever received? Yeah, Brina.

52:23Grace Beverley: It's a really good piece of advice, which we have talked about on this podcast before. Very important, because they're doing a contract for you anyway. So you might as well do your own contract, although they don't hold us heavily in the UK. Just to flag. Have you got a Brina? Yeah, of course I do.

52:37Chris Appleton: Really?

52:37Grace Beverley: Yeah.

52:38Chris Appleton: Really?

52:38Grace Beverley: Yeah.

52:39Chris Appleton: Really.

52:39Grace Beverley: Of course.

52:40Chris Appleton: How can that go down?

52:41Grace Beverley: Absolutely fine.

52:42Chris Appleton: Yeah, because if they're saying they don't want it, then it's a problem.

52:44Grace Beverley: Well, exactly. Yeah. Also, like, you both come into the marriage with assets and, like, it's important to design your own contract. Like, it shouldn't, like, you might as well design the contract when you're both feeling nice and happy with each other. I'm a child of divorce. Oh, really? Like, yeah. But also, like, it's aimed to protect you both. Although in the UK, it literally doesn't stand up as soon as something changes in the marriage. So like if you had a child, if you, I don't know, moved into a new home, it doesn't like whatever stood for the previous home doesn't actually stand for that home.

53:15Grace Beverley: So you've got to resign it all the time.

53:17Chris Appleton: What's your toxic trait?

53:19Grace Beverley: Oh, how long do you have?

53:21Chris Appleton: I have noticed one.

53:23Grace Beverley: Toxic trait.

53:24Chris Appleton: Do you know it?

53:25Grace Beverley: Oh, I have so many to choose from. Really? Yeah.

53:28Chris Appleton: You don't seem like it. You seem so nice.

53:30Grace Beverley: Oh, thanks. No, I'm quite nice. That's not one of my toxic traits. um i in relationships okay in relationships what would your past partners probably all have said to you at some point oh that's a very good question let me think about this for a second because i wanted to deliver you a clear and accurate answer that none of my exes will message me about and say is incorrect um i like to communicate about everything like i think that well i don't i don't think it's a toxic trait um i think someone some men will say it is well i like to like talk talk through everything like i think it's really maybe important well exactly that's probably the answer is that i have no toxic traits and they have many yes glad we click that up yeah

54:16Chris Appleton: what's yours uh i know it's changed because i think it used to be wanting to sort of fix people help people and i think that's not always healthy in a relationship although it comes from a good place but it's like maybe what i did as a kid i'd do my mom's hair make her feel good like that's kind of what i do as a job make people feel good like a broken bird type like make people feel their best but you know in relationships you can't overextend yourself where you're because people are who they are and like people don't change that much yeah and you know i think there's an element as well of overextending yourself in a situation where you think love is enough and like everything will be fixed and it's not it's that's the harsh reality of it i think one thing

54:58Grace Beverley: I thought was a toxic trait before that I've actually just realized just means you're pouring things into the wrong people is like I am a very high effort person and I will come to everything with like high effort so I will help you prepare for everything I will help you in your career like as you said I will do whatever to make your life better yeah I expect the same in return and I have very high expectations in terms of what I expect you're actually a high achiever though and a high

55:21Chris Appleton: performer and you obviously like that in all areas of your life which is great but yeah I think that

55:26Grace Beverley: you then have to have someone who matches that back otherwise maybe you pick us off like you

55:31Chris Appleton: pick like oh right right people because like the problem is like once i've done once i've kind of done the work of knowing like what was good for me what i was actually attracted to rather than past like traumatic experiences that i've like been drawn towards probably from seeing things in my childhood where i'm like oh this is normal realizing it's actually not that oh yeah um breaking those patterns and those cycles i think now like i realize the pool of people that i would actually date is very small whereas i was always just in a relationship i go from relationship relationship whereas now i'm like oh it's like being an alcoholic and drinking a lot and then doing the 12-step program and you're like oh i'm still attracted to the things i want i'm like that's a wine looks good but i'm like it's not i know where that goes yeah so i'm not going to yeah so once you know that i'm like the pool of people is actually quite small you know rather rather than just putting someone in to fill the gap.

56:23Chris Appleton: But again, that's like a lot of the work I did on myself. Like I used to find it easier to be with someone than to be alone.

56:28Grace Beverley: Yeah.

56:29Chris Appleton: And now I really enjoy my alone time and I actually very much value it. And I'm like, if someone's going to come into my life, I want it to be a better place, you know, not just a place where it's, you know, being pulled and you're overextending yourself.

56:42Grace Beverley: Yeah. No, I think that's completely right. I think in order to choose the right partner for your future, you have to heal the things that made you, well gave you your toxic traits in childhood like boy did i love an avoidant man and i have not got an avoidant husband so i consider that a win um i'm anxious avoidant the best of both worlds really yeah yeah so if you're avoidant i'll be anxious if you're anxious i'll be avoidant yeah

57:03Chris Appleton: most people like i think i've done that though most people like tend to become one yeah yeah

57:08Grace Beverley: um but i think i'm secure now yeah same um well apparently in in the right relationship you can

57:14Chris Appleton: you should both move towards secure yeah although you because communication is really the you know key to get into a good place it's like hey you know like i know you don't like looking at your phone but when i text you it just means a lot to me when you speak back and it's like well i'll make an effort to let you know that like hey i'm busy but i will go back to you in a bit i'm just letting you know you know and it's kind of like conversations where you both feel heard and respected that oh they need their space and yeah i need to be you know reassured but you can kind of come into the middle and find middle ground with it i think that's great for both of you yeah like my daughter and her boyfriend he's definitely more avoidant she's more anxious but they like do therapy and they're so they're great they like they have couples therapy they're very healthy oh yeah i love it they're so good because like they really love each other and they want you to understand one another and like you know he would just be one way which was just kind of like what he grew up around I guess where it comes from you know like of like switching down and not wanting to talk about it whereas Kitty my daughter she loves to talk she's like me she wants to sort of understand a situation talk about it not to sweep it under the rug and move on and I think they've both seen the value in each other's qualities and kind of you know wanted to sort of understand one another and I think that's so healthy so I think you can be with an avoidant and an anxious attachment but you've got to have communication you've got to both do the work which often it's the actual story of the work and then a I'll see you later Anasta Belista

58:44Grace Beverley: Well thank you so much for joining me

58:45Chris Appleton: Oh thank you so much for having me It's been amazing It's such a lovely time