We were lucky to catch up with Marlise Jimenez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Marlise, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

The term success can mean so many things. But, to me success means that you are fulfilled emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and are truly happy with the space that you’re in.

I used to think success meant, money, cars, status, you know, material things. But as I’ve grown older I’ve realized that none of those things contribute to my success as a human being. Don’t get me wrong, all of those things do make life sweeter, but they do not measure one’s success.

I’ve always struggled to see my self worth and recognize how far I’ve come. But more recently I’ve really felt so proud of who I am as a person, wife, mom, business owner, and friend and that to me is what makes me feel most successful.

So I guess what I’m saying is when you’re able to love what you do, who you are, and those around you, that is when you reach the true meaning of success. But it all starts with yourself.

Marlise, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

From a young age I have always felt different and that I didn’t quite fit in. I always knew I wanted to do something in the creative world, but felt like I needed to be in whatever line of work or career that my parents wanted me to be in. I wasn’t the strongest academically, so those unrealistic expectations quickly became the root cause of so many obstacles as an adolescent/teenager.

By the age of 16 I found myself addicted to methamphetamines. It was awful. I was trying to find myself in all the wrong places.

Shortly thereafter I found out I was pregnant with my daughter. I was terrified of course, but I knew I was going to have her and do my absolute best to raise her. I will forever be grateful for this little girl because she quite literally saved my life.

After a couple of rough years I got clean and stayed clean. I then decided it was time to really take care of me and do what made my heart happy! Now as a single mom at 19 I was working full time and thought this would be a perfect time to dive into the beauty world because I was thinking about this since a very young age. Unfortunately for me, adding 20 hours of cosmetology school on top of my 40-50 hrs of work and being a single mom to a 2 year old was just too much. So I dropped out. I was a beauty school dropout for 13 years.

During that time I had a long standing career in the hospitality industry, but I always thought about going back to school.

13 years later, now married, just had our son, my husband asked me what I wanted to do. At this point I always wanted to go back to school, but never thought I could because I felt that ship had sailed and I was too old. With the encouragement of my husband, I toured schools and the very next day I committed to a school and that was the beginning of my cosmetology journey. 6 years ago now and I’ve never been happier!

In the 6 years I’ve been licensed I have been independent and a business owner. This hasn’t always been easy, but I wouldn’t change it for anything!

Over the years I’ve really honed in my color skills when it comes to dimensional and brunette looks! As a natural almost black haired person, I have always struggled with my color. So I decided to make that my specialty!

I am most proud of the environment and community I’ve been able to create with both clients and colleagues. The overall vibe and energy in our space is welcoming, loving, accepting, and open. Just an awesome collective of supportive people.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Practice makes perfect!

No it doesn’t. Practice makes progress!

Perfection isn’t a thing. This is something I had to seriously unlearn. All my life this saying was imbedded in me. And because of my addictive personality and the fact that I’m a Virgo I would fixate on perfection.

Because of this, I would constantly be let down and disappointed with myself.

As I grew as a person I had to change my way of thinking and believe in order to really appreciate the small wins.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Covid.

Coming back after the Covid shutdown was one of the most difficult, challenging times in business for me and so many others.

Not only did my entire world get flipped upside down, but now I was expected to come back and be 1,000% when that was far from how I was feeling.

We attempted to come back with the same attitude and energy that I had before the shutdown, but that was unrealistic. Days were long, business was slow, I was exhausted both mentally and physically, my anxiety and mental health was severely suffering, and things were not going smoothly at all.

I had thought of leaving my field more than a handful of times during this time period, but I just couldn’t do it. So instead of trying to do things the old way, I decided to change things up.

We introduced mini services to cater to our clientele who wasn’t prepared to spend a large sum of money on their hair or spend a ton of time in the salon. This was a quick and easy service that gave you the updated look and boost you needed. We also introduced our seasonal emails. With this we really focus on mental health and practices our very own team use to better themselves and we share that along with expressing our gratitude and well wishes for our clients.

We also took this time to be patient with ourselves and everyone else. The world is in a strange place and needs a little extra love.

To avoid the anxious, exhausted versions of ourselves we really took the time to rest. We adjusted our schedules to what felt right and prioritized our mental health. This way we gave our very best to our clients.

We rearranged the studio to ensure proper spacing between guests and chose to mask long after others did to make sure this was a safe and comfortable environment for everyone.

My business looked very different than I ever thought it would, but we made it and here we are.

Contact Info:

• Website: Glossedstudio.com
• Instagram: Marlisestyles
• Facebook: Marlisestyles
• Yelp: Glossed Studio

Image Credits
Ryan Froese