My 100th Episode: GRATEFUL AF

Holy sht. We made it to 100!

No script. No video. No filter. Just me, a microphone, and a random Monday when I realized I needed to pause and actually acknowledge this insane milestone. In this episode, I'm taking you behind the curtain, scrolling back through 401 weeks of Instagram posts, reading the very first caption that started it all, and getting real about what it's actually taken to get here.

Less than 1% of podcasts ever reach 100 episodes. Most don't make it past episode 3. And yet, here we are.

If you've been here since day one, welcome back. If this is your first time, welcome home. Either way, I'm spilling everything: the origin story, the dry spells, the tears, the wins, the evolution from a tiny mastermind to a global ecosystem, and why I still feel like I'm just getting started.

Plus, I'm asking YOU: what do you want from the next 100 episodes? Because I can't do this without you.

Let's go.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Most podcasts don't survive, but we did.
• It all started with one Instagram post.
• Soul Tribe has evolved into a full ecosystem.
• Delegation made the business stronger.
• The podcast had "dry spells" and that's okay.
• The next 100 episodes depend on YOU.

🎯 Resources Mentioned

• Stylist Soul Tribe Jumpstart – 12-week coaching container for beauty professionals
• Stylist Soul Tribe Mastermind – Monthly calls with your tribe
• Board of Support – Meet the 5 longtime members now leading calls
• Marketplace – Where members' big magic ideas are featured (Traveling Hairstylist,
  SEO services, social media management, virtual assistance, bookkeeping,
  and more)
• Book: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert – The book that sparked the original idea

This summer I'm hosting the Summer Specialization Series: three live virtual panels on the specialties that are really taking off in the industry right now.

June 29 — Hair Loss, Extensions, and Enhancements
 July 27 — Curly Hair
 August 31 — Scalp Health and Head Spas

Grab your spot here: https://stylistsoultribe.mykajabi.com/2026-summer-series

Connect with Lisa Huff

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• YouTube

Transcript

1:37

Hello, friends. Welcome back to Stylist Soul Tribe Conversations. if you can't tell by the title of this podcast, this is my 100th podcast episode. Holy shit. So I am going voice only. I'm not doing a video for this because I'm not, like, cute and camera ready today. But I was like, I'm just gonna take a second. I'm not gonna follow a script. I'm not gonna do anything like that. I'm just gonna take a second. I'm gonna hit record, and I'm gonna document my thought process on my 100th podcast episode. I need to tell a little bit of story. Let me back up and tell you how I realized that this was happening. about a month ago, a month and a half ago, I was at X Club Retreat, with Britt Siva. And we were in a breakout room about education. And the room was mostly aspiring educators, but there was a conversation happening about podcasts briefly, and someone, like, raised their hand and made... shared a statistic about podcast episodes and how, like, less than 1% or some crazy number ever make it to 100 episodes. And I'm like, "Well, wow, 100 episodes is a lot." I, I knew that, like, after even, like, three episodes, 80% of podcasts stop. there are so many people who make episode- or make a podcast, put out a few episodes, and then never do anything with it again. And I was like, "I wonder how many episodes I'm at." And I was sitting in that room, and I pulled it up, and I remember I was at, like, I don't know, 85 or something. I was like, "Oh, shit, like, that's coming up soon. 100 episodes is coming up soon. I should make note of that and acknowledge it, and not just have the 100th episode be some random piece of content, and instead have it be, like, a milestone episode." So hello. Thank you so much for being here, whether this is the first episode of mine that you've listened to or the 100th. I'm so happy that you are here with me. like I said, this episode is a little bit different. I am recording this just spur of the moment. It's a random Monday. BOS is leading my calls right now. My husband's upstairs home with strep throat. Kids are watching movies, hanging out. I think we're gonna go see Toy Story 5 in a little bit, me and the kids. And I was just like, "I wanna record a podcast episode." So it's very, laid back episode today, but I just kind of wanna check in with you all and, like I said, commemorate this milestone. I did pull up the statistic to fact check it. Majority of podcasts don't make it past episode three, and almost all of the ones that are, that do are gone by episode 20. So again, I think acknowledging that this is 100 episodes and, like, pausing and patting myself on the back for that is really important, and I am really happy to be doing that let's go back in time a little bit, because like I said, if this is episode one that you listen to or episode 100, let's talk about how we even got here. so why does this podcast even exist? Well, if you don't know, I started Stylist Soul Tribe, which has become an online ecosystem for beauty professionals. I started it back in 2018. November of 2018. I made a post in November of 2018, and at the time, my studio suite business, my hairstyling business in Lincoln, Illinois, small town Lincoln, Illinois, was booming. So prior to 2018, in about 2016, I was working at SmartStyle inside of Walmart. If you don't know my story, here's the origin story. It- by 2018, I was in my own studio suite working, probably five, six, sometimes seven days a week, eight, nine, 10, 12-hour days. I was working my booty off, and in 2018 it was probably at the peak and the height of busyness, I would call it. and all the while, I was screaming on social media. I was sharing all of my thoughts, my entire journey on social media, and I was growing a little bit of a following on social media. And so in 2018, I had what I call my big magic moment, 'Cause I read the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and I had this idea pop into my head, and I was like, "I would like to be in a mastermind." I listen to these podcasts, and I read these books, and I was really into, like, personal growth and development, and all of these people talked about being in a mastermind, or they were going to this mastermind event, or they were, you know, growing their business with the help of this mastermind. And I did some research back then, and it seemed to me the only masterminds that I could find were for, like, seven-figure authors or six-figure online business coaches, and at the time, I was just a hairstylist, working my tail off, booked and busy, grinding. And I was addicted to and obsessed with business, and I wanted to talk about business more and more and more and more and more. It's like I could not get enough of it. And so I put out a post in 2018, and I said, "I wanna start a mastermind." You know what? Pause. I'm actually gonna find the post and read the caption,. Holy crap. That took a long time to scroll back. Uh, if you haven't scrolled back that far on your Instagram in a long time, I highly recommend it. Wow. A lot has happened. Okay, so November 25th, 2018. It's a mirror selfie of me in my studio suite, and the caption says, "Do you have a tribe? You need one. It is so important to surround yourself with people that add value to your life, people that have your back when you start to doubt yourself, A soul family, others that are tuned into your frequency, i'm opening back up my Stylish Soul Tribes in early January." Okay, wait. Is this not the first one? "If you're not yet on the waitlist to be part of my next season, you're missing out. Click the link in my bio to join the waitlist." Okay, let me actually keep scrolling back because I don't think that that is the initial launch actually, this one from October 16, 2018 says, "When women support women, incredible things happen. The final details of my coaching program are set in stone and laid out on my website. You will find the link for all of the info in my bio. I was overwhelmed by the outpour of interest when I announced this idea last week. What I thought would be me getting lucky to find five interested women, I was shocked when over 20 incredible females expressed interest. Starting November 1st, the doors to join this program will close and our masterminds will really begin. You'll be added to a secret Facebook page with your soul tribe, and our monthly coaching calls and accountability practice will start. If you're ready to commit to propelling your business forward by finding a tribe of your best girlfriend soulmates, then click the link in my bio to sign up. Yeah, and I'm looking at the comments, and a lot of the OGs are commenting on this. So let me go back a little bit further and see if I can find the original post, 'cause I swear... Oh, here's the original one. Okay this is October 11th of 2018. And it says, "Guys, I've got some big news. I'm feeling so excited and inspired by this next venture that I am taking on. I have worked hard and hustled for the last two and a half years to grow my business into what it is today. I am not the same person that I was three years ago. Two years ago, I was working inside of Walmart doing walk-in clients that drained me and left me feeling uninspired. And to look back on just the past two years, I can't believe how far I've come. I built an entire clientele from nothing. I left the corporate salon that I had felt held back by. I became a studio suite owner. I juggled taxes and business systems. I've learned how to set very important boundaries. I've done a lot of personal growth and development. I've built a connected community on social media. I've worked with many major brands in our industry. I've learned systems to put in place to keep my business running like a well-oiled machine. It's work, but with a plan and guidance and accountability, it can be done by every stylist. that is why I want to take what I'm so grateful to absorb thus far and give back to this industry. Between my coaching experience, the dozens of books and countless podcasts I've consumed, late nights, trial and error, I feel that I have a pretty good tool belt to help other stylists trying to take their career to the next level. If you keep up with my Insta story, you have probably seen that I am taking a group of five hairstylists for one-on-one business coaching. My vision is a small group of incredibly, driven ladies to join a mastermind that has scheduled monthly group video calls. I wanna work out all of your goals, struggles, dreams, fears, and work through every roadblock with you. I currently have four incredible women lined up, and I'm happy to take on one more. Wait, I, like, could actually cry reading this. Oh my God. There's 283 likes, 45 comments. Dude, Instagram engagement is not what it used to be. I'm looking at who was in these original comments. Anna. Anna works for me now. She's on my team. She commented 401 weeks ago, "Congrats. I'd love to be part of a mastermind group. Are you taking local stylists or stylists from anywhere?" And I said, "Anywhere, DM me." Chelsea has come and gone, Anissa has gone, come and gone. wow. That's actually crazy. so that's how Soul Tribe got here today. That was in October of 2018. In 2023, Soul Tribe had grown a lot. So 2018 it launched. By 2023, Soul Tribe had grown a lot, and I remember feeling like these conversations are so good and they're all behind a paywall, that I would like to start a podcast where I have a longer form medium to share bigger conversations with the industry that isn't behind a paywall. Like I was having so many incredible coaching calls, you know, mastermind calls, retreat conversations, experiences that I was like, these are too long and too complex to live on an Instagram post. I want a long form medium to share the conversations that are happening behind the scenes in Soul Tribe right now with the greater industry. That was my intention back in 2023. It is now June of 2026, and we are 100 episodes in, which is crazy. So what has these 100 episodes consisted of? So much, so much. I'm actually probably gonna do a little bit of scrolling back through that too, but I knew when I wanted to launch this podcast, I knew the first guest that I have- had to have on was my original mentor, Britt Siva, the one and only. I was her first guest on her podcast in early of 2018, which is part of my growth and why I was growing a following of hairstylists, and I knew I needed to have her come on in a format where I could thank her for what she has been for me. and so she was my first guest. I did a couple solo episodes. She was my first guest. And then I have had my very best friends, Kristin Soesman, Hunter Donia. I have had countless Soul Tribe members. I have had new people. I have created so many new connections based on this podcast, and I love that I have this as a tool for when there's someone else in the industry doing something really cool, rather than just like trying to DM back and forth and get to know them, I can have them come on my podcast. I can interview them for 20 minutes to an hour, really get to know them, and I've created so many new connections and friendships and relationships in this industry thanks to this podcast, which is so fucking cool. We have done a mix of true, like, tactical business strategy. I've done some p- very personal, vulnerable podcast episodes. I've done solo, you know, deep dives about why washing the ditch- dishes is a spiritual practice. I have done, I- we've shared real stories with real stylists from all over the globe. but the thread that connects them all is, like I said, they were conversations that were happening behind the scenes that I just thought should be shared with the rest of the industry. Now, like I said, from that original Instagram post back in 2018, Soul Tribe has evolved so much. Like, it's, like, actually tripping me out to think about what started as a post of, like, "Can I get five people together?" to, "There's 20 people interested. We're gonna start on the first of the year," to launch after launch after launch, retreat after retreat, falling down, messing up, skidding my knees, getting back up, dusting them off. All the while, though, when I go back and read that original caption, I'm like, "That's still what I'm doing." What started as, like, the intention of just wanting to help and connect and hold intentional space for beauty professionals, that's still what it is today. However, it's evolved so much. So it started as a mastermind, which is still what it is. However, it has, especially in the last year and a half, really evolved beyond just a mastermind. so it's grown into what I now call a full ecosystem. So most people who find me now go through Stylist Soul Tribe Jumpstart, which is a front-end offer. like I said, this is about a year and a half old, and I've had roughly 40 stylists go through it in the past year or so. And this is a 12-week coaching container where you get one-on-one support from me. I build you a custom roadmap, a 12-week roadmap based on where you are now, where it is you wanna go, what the focus needs to be. We meet every single week for 12 weeks in a small group, and then once that 12 weeks is over, then people move into the mastermind. So my thought and my intention is you get really close touch, direct coaching. You get it- quick results, transformation, and then from there you go from weekly calls into monthly calls, and that's when you move into mastermind, I really love Jump Start. I really, challenged myself and went a different direction last year. I, I launched this last year, and I have really, like, grown as a coach so much since doing Jump Start. I'm actually doing a fun project, which hopefully you guys will get to see bits and pieces of this coming out soon, where I'm doing a in-person Jump Start experience. I'm coming into a salon, and I am coaching the owner and a couple of her renters and service providers in their businesses, and we're filming the entire thing. So we're gonna have, like, some really, exciting coming, content coming out with that soon. and that's something that I am in the middle of right now. We're like three, four weeks in right now to the 12 weeks we also now have the Intensive, which is very similar to Jumpstart. Intensive's been around for probably, like, three years now. and it's very similar to Jumpstart, but it's for existing Soul Tribe members. So if somebody's been in Soul Tribe for three, four, five years, and they're used to meeting monthly with their tribe, but they want to be a little bit more focused and intentional, it is a 12-week high-touch focused sprint, where same thing, I give you a personalized roadmap, and you work through the 12 weeks, and then we have biweekly calls, two-hour calls, where me and the rest of the Intensive group really supports you during those 12 weeks of coaching. Another really fun thing that we have added to the Soul Tribe ecosystem is the Board of Support. Board of Support was born, like, two years ago, I would say. It was also a big, magic id- idea of mine. There are five longtime Stylist Soul Tribe members that serve on the Board of Support, and they now lead about half of the mastermind calls. So mastermind calls take place once a month, and there's 20 tribes. And so every other month, I lead the mastermind calls, and every other month, Board of Support leads the mastermind calls. And I transitioned into this slowly, 'cause obviously, me cutting my workload by 50% was intentional and necessary for Soul Tribe to grow and evolve, but it was something I was really nervous was gonna, like, lose the magic or lose the touch. And I've really learned about just delegation and the fact that I don't know everything, and sometimes having other brains at the table rather than me can be a gift to members, rather than taking from members' experiences. So I've been really, really loving how we have Board of Support set up these days. it frees up a little bit of my time to continue to be the visionary of Stylist Soul Tribe, and our members really love having that fresh, new perspective and just, like, fresh energy in their group every other month with the Board of Support we've also launched Marketplace, which takes place behind the scenes inside of Stylist Soul Tribe. So Marketplace is where I can shout other people's big, magic ideas from the rooftops. So obviously, I am creator of big ideas. I am a creator of new projects, new ideas, new things. And when I'm your business coach, I typically push people to do that themselves. So Marketplace is where Soul Tribe members' big magic ideas live. So people who have thought about things that elevate our industry, our fresh, revolutionary new ideas are featured on Marketplace. So for example, I always use Alicia. You guys know Alicia if you've been listening to the podcast for a while. She, created the Traveling Hairstylists, which is a, alternative service for hairstylists that need to go on maternity leave, medical leave, anything like that where they have to step away from their behind-the-chair business for over a month. The Traveling Hairstylist comes in, they learn from you, they train under you. They basically become you while you're gone so that your clients can still get serviced, still get your booth rent paid. there's lots of different ways that it can be set up so that it makes sense, and the stylists get to keep their clientele rather than risking losing their clientele while they're gone. we also have Alona Zylkowski. She's been on the podcast before. She does Google business, subscription service for people, so she updates. Many, many Soul Tribe members use her services. She, keeps people's Google business up to date. She keeps their SEO popping and great, and it's leading to lots of stylists inside of Soul Tribe getting 10, 12, 20 new guest requests from Google on a regular basis laurel Guadarrama is doing, social media management for a lot of Soul Tribe members. So her and her team come in and completely take over your social media. They keep your profile posted, regularly posted, up to date, bringing in new clients. We have Afton Hassler, who does virtual assistant work for hairstylists. We have Jess Hanley, who does bookkeeping for hairstylists. We have so many, like I said, big magic ideas that were born inside of Stylist Soul Tribe featured on Marketplace, and it just makes me so happy that that's the place and space where we can do that because I am obsessed with when my coaching students have big ideas that I wanna shout it from the rooftop, but I didn't want Soul Tribe to be a place where we were just, like, selling shit all the time. So Marketplace is, like, the, the key to that, lock that I, wanted to create and have a space to really, shine a light on all the big magic that has been created inside of Soul Tribe., We've grown a lot in the last eight years. We- I've grown a lot in the last three years since this podcast launched. And, if you do the math on when the podcast launched to how long, it takes to hit 100 episodes, there's been some dry spells, I have to, I have to say. When I first launched the podcast, I was like, "I'm gonna post every single week. I'm not gonna be one of those people who starts a podcast and it just fizzles out." But to be so real with you, like, I have clearly a lot of plates spinning. And especially within the last, I would say, like, year and a half when I was really focusing on Jumpstart and growing Soul Tribe in that way, there has been times where this podcast has taken a little bit of a back burner. I've been somewhat consistent, but I would almost love to, like, take this moment of this milestone of 100 episodes to just check in with those of you that are still listening. I got my Buzzsprout email this morning, and it said I've had 73, you know, listens in the last week. And I'm like, "Who are those people?" Like, are those mostly Soul Tribe members? Are those other people? And those of you that are listening and have been listening, please, please, please, please, please tell me what it is about Stylish Soul Tribe Conversations that you've loved. Is there things that I used to do, you know, years ago when I launched this podcast that you wish I would bring back? Do you like s- these solo episodes where I'm just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, literally blabbing? Do you like, co-hosted episodes where we stick to a specific topic? Do you like interview episodes? Do you like really strategic business advice? Do you like some of the, like, the spiritual woo woo? What do you guys like? So, like, if you're listening to this, please, would you take a second to either leave me a fresh new review or update a review if you've done it in the past? And tell me, what have you liked over these past 100 episodes? What would you like the next 100 episodes to look like? Give me some, feedback, some enfor- positive enforcement, reinforcement. Tell me what it is you would like me to continue doing with this place and space. Because I can't believe how much we've grown in the last three years since this podcast launched. I really can't believe how much Soul Tribe has grown in the last eight years since I made that original post on Instagram. And I honestly still feel like I'm just getting started. So like, I would love feedback and thoughts on what direction you guys really enjoy and where you feel like the biggest impact is being made for you so I can continue to follow that and lean into that thank you so much for being here and listening to episode 100. thank you extra, extra, extra lot if you've listened to all 100. Thank you if you've listened to episode 100, and you listened to episodes one, two, and three, and that's it. Thank you if you found me on episode 63, and you, you know, have stuck around since then. Regardless, it is not lost on me and still really bizarre and strange to me the fact that there is somebody in another state maybe four months from now listening to my voice while they're out on a walk. Like, that is just so insane to me still. The internet is so trippy and so crazy and so bizarre. Um, so thank you so fucking much for being here, for listening, for being a part of Stylist Soul Tribe Conversations, for being a part of Stylist Soul Tribe if you are. This has truly been my life's work. My kids have grown from infants to teenagers, in the period of time that I have been growing this and building this, and it's insane. What a ride it's been. So, thanks for letting me just sloppily blab into my microphone on this random Monday. And, please leave me a review with your thoughts, your feedback. And I love you guys. Cheers to episode 100. Here's to 100 more. I couldn't do it with- without all of you. I mean it. Okay. I'm grateful as fuck. Bye.