Meryl Hayton found herself with a broken wrist, a former brick and mortar business, no money and no clear plan of what to do next.
Then, walking as fast as she could with her arm in a cast, she decided she couldn’t wait any longer. She closed the book and reached out to a coach offering a training that felt like something that she wanted to do.
“I just knew I had to do it,” Hayton said.
Hayton’s story is for anyone weighing a midlife reinvention while fear does most of the talking. Maybe you’re afraid of the money. Maybe you’re wondering who you’ll be once the work that has defined you is gone. Maybe the people who have supported you for years make leaving feel impossible.
This conversation explores a tension many of us know well: how do we make a big change when the path isn’t clear and the fear is loud? Hayton closed a longtime business, trained in yoga and energy healing, and moved to the beach. None of it happened quickly or neatly. Her answer isn’t one brave leap. It’s a chain of small decisions, each one guided by her intuition, that added up to a different life.
A career change after 50 can take longer than you expect
Each person featured on The Art of Imperfect Adulting picks a category for their topic. Hayton picked spirituality and inner growth as the category for her story. She could have chosen career reinvention or lifestyle and home. She said she weighed those options in her own mind before deciding they weren’t the real reason behind her choices.
“I made the decisions I made because I was following my intuition,” Hayton said. She described the process as “learning how to follow my intuition,” and that learning ran straight into fear.
Money, identity and loyalty
Closing the salon took a very long time, Hayton said, because she was afraid. She lived in “an incredible amount of fear” about money and about identity, wondering “who was I going to be without doing nails.”
Then there were the clients. Most had supported her for 10 to more than 20 years, and Hayton calls herself “very, very loyal.” Saying goodbye to them was hard. “It was very hard for me to do,” she said.
Her body sending a message
Her body was making its own argument. The salon world, as Hayton describes it, runs without breaks. “You work yourself to the bone,” she said. She was talking about change for a few years before she even became a yoga teacher, and the reason was blunt: “my body was burnt out.”
Fear, in her telling, wasn’t a single obstacle. Money, identity, loyalty and a tired body were all pulling in the same direction, and every one of them said stay. That helps explain why the change took years rather than weeks.
Starting with self-care
Ask Hayton where her path began and she doesn’t point to a big decision. She points to a practical one.
“It was because I needed to do something different physically for my body,” she said. Years of repetitive motion and sitting in the salon had taken their toll. Hayton had been a gym rat who took the hardest cardio classes, but that wasn’t what her body needed. She needed proper self-care, and yoga was where it began.
Signing up for a yoga class as a student is about as small as a first step gets. Nothing about it announced a career change.
She Followed Breadcrumbs
One of her yoga teachers heard Hayton say she wanted out of the salon, or at least fewer hours, and suggested teacher training. “I thought she was nuts,” Hayton said. She called the program anyway. In 2012 she earned her 200 hours, started teaching and cut back at the salon.
From there, each step suggested the next. Over roughly five years she completed another 300 hours of training. During that program, she opened a catalog from the Kripalu Center in Massachusetts right to an Intro to Mind-Body Medicine class, where she first learned about EFT tapping, or Emotional Freedom Technique. Her yoga teacher asked what else she wanted to learn. Hayton said she wanted to bring self-development, worthiness, self-love and acceptance into her classes. Her teacher helped her build a workshop called “I Am Enough,” which blended yoga, mantra, chanting, meditation and tapping. Hayton still teaches a version of it.
Hayton never described a master plan. “I just kept following the little breadcrumbs,” she said. By 2017 she knew she wanted to close the salon.
When the timing falls apart
The plan for after the salon was loose. Hayton wasn’t even an energy healer yet. She brought some clients to her home and figured “in a few months I’m going to have this coaching business, whatever that means.”
“That’s not exactly how it happens,” she said.
The logistics were plain. In her last month, she called nail salons nearby, told them she was closing and sold some products. She kept only what she needed for the clients coming to her home. She still does her own nails, and nobody else’s.
A month after closing, she fell and broke her wrist. She needed people to help her do everything at home. The practitioner training she’d planned to take was a big investment, and she wasn’t earning money. Then came the treadmill moment. She had already missed the first session, but the coach told her to jump in because the sessions were recorded. Hayton finished the six-month online program while her wrist healed. During those months she let go of doing nails completely and returned to teaching more yoga. She taught wherever she could: studios, other venues, private clients and online classes, roughly four or five classes a week, along with workshops.
The timing couldn’t have been worse on paper, and she moved forward anyway. Hayton wants listeners to know that none of this was easy. What kept her going, she said, was inner drive. “I had the drive within to keep going and figuring it out.”
Deciding to Relocate
Hayton has visited the Jersey Shore her entire life, first as a baby, then through summer rentals and day trips. Living there was “a total dream” she “never ever thought could happen.”
That changed during a Zoom session with her marketing coach, who was looking at the beach on screen. Hayton mentioned that she would love to live like that. “Well, why can’t you?” the coach asked. “I came up with the list of excuses about why I couldn’t,” Hayton said.
The coach didn’t ask for a leap. She suggested Hayton rent an Airbnb, even for a short time, and put the dream and the action together. Hayton started looking in December 2020. By July 2021 she was renting in the town where she lives now, a town she had never visited before. She moved in December 2021.
I wanted to understand the sequence, so I asked whether closing the salon, the training and the move were separate choices. “So you would say these are all different decisions? Each one of these is their own decisions that sort of cascades through to creating the life that you have today?” I asked.
“Yes,” Hayton said.
Seen that way, the story stops looking like one giant reinvention. Closing the salon was one decision. Training in yoga and energy healing was another. Moving to the shore was a third. None of them required Hayton to see the whole road ahead.
Lessons From Starting Over
Hayton now lives a five-minute walk from the beach. She describes herself as an inner peace specialist, an advanced certified EFT practitioner, a Reiki practitioner and a registered yoga teacher. Her business is mostly coaching and energy healing, with private clients and workshops, and she teaches one yoga class a week.
The bigger change, she said, is in how she lives. “I live life from a trusting energy,” Hayton said. “I used to live in a lot of fear, a lot of worry, and a lot of doubt,” she said, adding that she has let go of many layers of it. “So I’m a lot lighter as a person, and my life is a lot more fun.”
Put the pieces side by side and a pattern shows up. Fear about money, identity and loyal clients made leaving slow. A tired body and a practical need to feel better started the first step. From there, following her intuition meant taking the next small step, then the next, even when the timing was bad and the plan was loose. Hayton was clear that the road wasn’t easy. She was just as clear that she kept going.
Back on that treadmill, Hayton didn’t have the whole road mapped out. She had a cast on her arm, no income and a firm sense of what she had to do next. That’s the thread running through her story.
“You do have a choice to stay stuck where you’re at, or you have the choice to take the leap to really what you want to do or be,” Hayton said.
For anyone facing a career change after 50, or any midlife reinvention, Hayton’s message is that the choice is yours, and it can start small.
This article was inspired by an interview with Meryl Hayton and Amy Stone on The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast. https://imperfect-adulting.captivate.fm/listen or https://www.youtube.com/@imperfectadulting To hear more compelling conversations like this one and receive special offers from our guests directly to your inbox, join our email community today.
Career Reinvention in your 50s: Interview Transcript Meryl Hayton with Amy Stone | The Art of Imperfect Adulting | September 2026
Amy Stone [00:00:00]:
This is The Art of Imperfect Adulting. I’m your host, Amy Stone.
Amy Stone [00:00:05]:
I share stories from real people who have already been through some hard stuff.
Meryl Hayton [00:00:10]:
Why?
Amy Stone [00:00:10]:
So that you don’t feel alone while you’re busy figuring out your own life.
Amy Stone [00:00:15]:
Let’s do this. Hello, friends. My guest today is Meryl Hayton. Welcome to the show, Meryl.
Meryl Hayton [00:00:27]:
Thank you for having me.
Amy Stone [00:00:28]:
Yes, absolutely. All right, so I start all of my conversations with the same 2 warm-up questions. The first one is, what part of the world do you call home, and what’s something you love about being there?
Meryl Hayton [00:00:43]:
Oh, I live at the beach in New Jersey, so it’s an amazing place to live. It has, um, culture and music and I’m a 5-minute walk from the beach. I can bike to a lot of action and activity, but I also— where I live is quiet, so it’s a perfect place to live.
Amy Stone [00:01:05]:
That is a ringing endorsement. I love it. I love it. My next question is a subtle way to ask how old you are. Which of the social generation descriptions is the best match for you? Silent Generation, Baby Boomer, Gen X, Millennial, or Gen Z?
Meryl Hayton [00:01:24]:
I’m 57. I have no problem telling my age.
Amy Stone [00:01:26]:
Very good. All right. Absolutely. All right. Very good.
Meryl Hayton [00:01:30]:
Okay.
Amy Stone [00:01:30]:
So today we are going to talk about a time in your life when you actually made, I think, a lot of changes at the same time, Meryl. You closed a business and you moved. And to tell the truth, that’s pretty much all I know about the story so far. The audience and I are going to get to know you together. Something the audience of my show doesn’t know unless they’ve been a guest is that I actually have all of my prospective guests tell me what category of conversation they think that their interview will fall into. You selected spirituality and inner growth. What’s interesting to me about this is that you actually could have chosen career reinvention or lifestyle and home. Those two are options on the list.
Meryl Hayton [00:02:14]:
Right.
Amy Stone [00:02:14]:
So the first question I have is, If you remember, or what you think today, why do you think that spirituality and inner growth is the best category for this conversation?
Meryl Hayton [00:02:24]:
Um, and I went through that exact— like, exactly what you’re asking me. I went through that in my mind and said, yeah, I could pick these, but that’s not really why I made the decisions I made. I made the decisions I made because I was following my intuition Or not following my intuition, right? And learning how to follow my intuition. So that’s really why I chose this category.
Amy Stone [00:02:53]:
I think that’s a perfect answer. All right, so let’s back up and talk about what your life was like before you did all of these things. I know because you told me that you owned a nail salon for 28 years, and I want to go back in time All the way to the start of that and ask, how did you choose that as your business all those years ago?
Meryl Hayton [00:03:17]:
So growing up, I was creative and I liked to play with my nails. You know, my babysitting money went to buying nail stuff, and that’s what I, you know, loved doing on a Saturday afternoon with the TV on. I had all the stuff laid out on my bed and I just wanted to play and, you know, do my nails. And I thought that that would be like a second career. But really, you know, I was brought up in a business-minded accounting type of a family. Go to college, you know, go for business administration, get the corporate job, blah, blah, blah.
Amy Stone [00:03:58]:
Right.
Meryl Hayton [00:03:58]:
And all the time I was like, I don’t really feel that, but okay, I’m being led that way. And unfortunately, when I was 17, my father died home alone with me. It was very sudden. He had a heart attack. And he was definitely the one that was— would, you know, push more than my mother about that. He was a CPA. He was very smart. He was always pushing reading and scholastics and all that. And I was like, yeah, you know, I just wanna be like, do the creative stuff. But, um, so, you know, when I graduated high school, I did, um, I went to college for a little while, and, um, we were struggling a little bit financially since my father had passed. So I got a couple of jobs and ended up going to school at night. And then I did get a corporate job in accounting, and I did work there for 6 years. But at my 4-year mark, I said, You know, can I go for this promotion? Should I go back to college or should I go to cosmetology school like I really wanted to? And I made the decision. And I remember standing in the kitchen with my mother and I said, Mom, I called William Paterson, which was where I was going to college. I called William Paterson and I got my deposit back for the fall semester minus like a $50 fee. And I’m going to take it and go to cosmetology school. And she looked at me like— and she literally said, What white Jewish woman is going to make money doing nails? I mean, verbatim. I have said that line a thousand times. And I was already doing— oh, go ahead. No.
Amy Stone [00:05:46]:
So I think this is really interesting. I think that— so 17, how old were you? Were you 17 or 18 when you graduated from high school?
Meryl Hayton [00:05:56]:
18. 18.
Amy Stone [00:05:58]:
So you were really— this was a huge change in your life. This was— you were in grief. Your family was grieving. Big change right before you went to college.
Meryl Hayton [00:06:07]:
Mm-hmm.
Amy Stone [00:06:09]:
You had always liked being creative, and it sounds like cosmetology and nails was something you enjoyed and had some interest in as a side hustle, or as just something you enjoyed. How much of an impact do you think it was, since you mentioned that your dad was the one who was big into go to college, get the business degree, how much of an impact looking back all these decades later Do you think that the timing of him and the grieving and the memory and the, you know, all of that had with you saying, all right, fine, I’m gonna go to college like my dad wanted me to, instead of, you know, he wasn’t there for you to argue with him and say, you know, I’d really rather go to cosmetology school?
Meryl Hayton [00:06:55]:
Huge impact. I, in my 40s, I’ll say in my early 40s, Right around the time when I became a yoga teacher, um, I did have this like enlightenment thought of my dad passing actually kind of let me live the life I really wanted to.
Amy Stone [00:07:23]:
Okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:07:26]:
In a way. Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:07:27]:
Because if he hadn’t, you think you would have stayed?
Meryl Hayton [00:07:32]:
Definitely.
Amy Stone [00:07:33]:
It’s very interesting. There is this whole thing, right? Like a lot of us, there’s waves of it, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, you know, and these sort of check-ins with who we are. But there is this sort of cycle where, and this is not a judgment, we don’t know what we want to do forever when we’re 20. And so a lot of people do fine-tune that, and it’s funny how it does Sometimes it cycles back to, you know, hey, I’m going to reset to what I was really into when I was younger. But you reset just 4 years after starting school for the first time. You go to cosmetology school. So, and then you, you start your own nail salon and you run a brick-and-mortar business for 28 years. Do I have that right?
Meryl Hayton [00:08:19]:
Yeah, I started at 21, working part-time while still in the corporate job. I did that for 2 more years, and then I left corporate completely, and I worked for someone for, um, a couple of years.
Amy Stone [00:08:37]:
Okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:08:39]:
Um, not full-time, like part-time and 1 year full-time, and then I wanted to really be on my own. So, um, yeah, from You know, 21, I was still kind of doing it a little part-time for myself. And then by 24, I had my own, um, you know, it was like renting space, right?
Amy Stone [00:09:00]:
No, absolutely.
Meryl Hayton [00:09:01]:
Doing my own thing. And then eventually I had a few employees and it was a small business, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was good for maybe 20 of those, you know, 30 years or so.
Amy Stone [00:09:14]:
So I just wanna pause and focus on the fact that I think it’s a massive achievement to run a brick-and-mortar business for 20 years. And so I just wanted to make sure I touched on that because I, as a person, am very impressed by that. It’s something you did and you lived it. So I think it’s easy when we do things to be like, oh, it’s this little thing. But that is a big deal. You did it. And so I wanted to— when I was coming up with the questions, I thought to myself, I thought, you know what, I wanna make sure That I say this because it takes a lot of work to run a small business. It takes a very hard— a lot of work to, you know, pay the rent and to get the clientele and to do all that, to have the employees, to figure it out.
Amy Stone [00:09:56]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:09:57]:
And so I wanted to make sure I said that. But at some point you do decide to close the business, and my first question about that is how long ago did you do this? How long ago did you close down the nail salon?
Meryl Hayton [00:10:11]:
2018, so 8 years ago.
Amy Stone [00:10:13]:
All right, so it’s been 8 years. So 2018, I was curious because I didn’t know the year. I was curious about if there were any other things going on in the world or in your life that were leading up to making your decision at that point to close the business.
Meryl Hayton [00:10:29]:
Yeah, oh sure. Um, well, in 2012 I became a yoga teacher because I was practicing yoga for many, many years at that time. Um, like more than 10 years by that time. And I was doing that because of the repetitive motion and all the years of sitting in the salon.
Amy Stone [00:10:50]:
Mm-hmm.
Meryl Hayton [00:10:51]:
I needed to do something to help my body and my mind and everything feel better because I was the type that would, you know, I was a gym rat. I would do all the hardcore type classes and the hard cardio and that’s not really what my body needed. I needed to really learn the proper self-care for myself. So yoga was the start of that for me. And I was inspired by one of my teachers to become a teacher because she knew, she heard me talk about, I want to get out of the salon somehow, I want to cut down my hours. And she says, I think you should become a yoga teacher. And I thought she was nuts. And I called the the, you know, the teacher of the teacher training program.
Amy Stone [00:11:34]:
Yeah.
Meryl Hayton [00:11:35]:
And, um, and I said, yeah, maybe that does sound good to me. And I joined the training and, um, I got my 200 hours. And then I did immediately, I started to teach yoga and I cut down in the salon. And that started me on this— it was another, um, 5-year journey for me to my next level of yoga teacher training. So I did another 300 hours, but within that time I did a lot of other training for yoga, and I knew in 2017 I wanted to close my business. So I took the, you know, okay, I’m gonna— what’s gonna happen in this next year? And I took some time and I studied. I mean, I had been not practicing, but going for energy healing for myself and getting massages and, um, you know. Practicing yoga, teaching yoga, you know. I was like really building my spiritual practice, and I was, um, surrounded by a lot of spiritual people. I was very lucky to be surrounded by a lot of spiritual people at that time— shamans, friends, you know, teaching me a lot about spirituality and pushing books and podcasts and all the things my way. And, uh, I found, um, in a catalog, um, a mind-body medicine practitioner. And I said, oh, that’s interesting. How can I get trained in that? And I just started researching it. And then I don’t know where you are in the world, Amy. Where do you live?
Amy Stone [00:13:06]:
I am due south of you in South Florida.
Meryl Hayton [00:13:09]:
Oh, in South Florida. Oh. Um, so there’s a yoga center for, um, meditation and health in Massachusetts called the Kripalu Center.
Amy Stone [00:13:20]:
Yeah, in the Berkshires.
Amy Stone [00:13:21]:
Sure. Yep.
Meryl Hayton [00:13:22]:
And I got their catalog and I opened the catalog right to an Intro to Mind-Body Medicine class. And I said, oh, well, I guess I’m going to take that. And I was in this, my 300-hour yoga teacher training, and I knew I was gonna close in a year. And I said, oh, all this is just lining up for me. And I went to take the class and she taught, part of her class was she talked about EFT tapping, Emotional Freedom Technique. So that’s where I was first introduced to it. And then I was like, um, and my yoga teacher at the time, she specifically said, like, I know why you’re here, you know, taking this training, you know, to, um, advance your education in yoga and the traditions and all that, but what else do you really want to learn? And I said, I really want to learn how to bring in self-development and worthiness and self-love and acceptance into my yoga classes and work around those themes. So this was perfect for me. And she said, oh, we’re going to put a workshop together for you. So my first ever workshop was called I Am Enough. And I did a little yoga, a little mantra, a little chanting, meditation, some tapping. And it— and I still teach that, I Am Enough. I still sometimes teach that today. It’s morphed into something different, but, um, yeah. So that’s what I learned. And I took this course, and then I was like, okay, I’m, I’m And then I had a whole nother awakening at that point, which we’ll get into.
Amy Stone [00:14:57]:
Very good. That is a good segue. That is a good segue. That’s very good. So it sounds to me like you were definitely on a bit of a personal journey, discovery, and leaning into yourself. One of the things listening to you describe that, that I was reminded of is, because it’s not— it seems sometimes you might think that yoga training is like spiritual boot camp, spin instructor training or like just an easy certification. But yoga training is a big investment in time and effort.
Meryl Hayton [00:15:27]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:15:28]:
And I’ve known many people who have gone through that, but it takes a long time, it’s financially expensive, and you did several layers of that. So that is a piece of this for sure. At some point you decide to move from where you were in northern New Jersey to Central Jersey on the shore. So the question I had, which is not like— so walk me through how this happened. Was it while you were shutting down the salon or did you— was it— did one come before the other? How did those 2 things line up in sequence?
Meryl Hayton [00:16:00]:
Yeah. So in 2018, literally, I mean, it’s like my anniversary just passed. It was August 31st that I closed. Um, and I did bring some clients to my home. And I thought, oh, you know, in a few months I’m going to have this coaching business, whatever that means. Energy heal— I don’t— I wasn’t even an energy healer yet, but, you know, I just thought I was going to have this business. And that’s not exactly how it happens. Um, but, uh, uh, yeah, so after a month I fell and I broke my wrist and I couldn’t work at all. I mean, even for a few weeks I couldn’t drive. I needed people to come help me do everything in my house. I, you know, Yeah. Um, so I wasn’t even able to teach yoga for a few weeks, but the coach that taught the class that I took a year before at Kripalu was doing this practitioner training, um, that I was planning on taking, but it was a very big investment, and now I’m not making any money, right? But I just knew I had to do it. And, um, I was walking on the treadmill reading this book Um, I wish I could remember the name of the book right now, but it was about— it was about money. Um, you know, like attracting money or something. And with my, you know, arm in a cast, I’m, you know, walking as fast as I can, and, you know, and I’m reading this book, and I said, I have to close this book right now and reach out to, um, the coach. And I knew I had already missed the first session that they had. And she says, absolutely, jump in. It’s recorded. You know, you didn’t miss much, right? So I do. I jump in. It’s like a 6-month training that I did online. And while I did that, I, you know, rehabbed and I completely let go of doing nails and, you know, got back into teaching more yoga. And then, I mean, I came down to the Jersey Shore my entire life from when I was a baby. Until I moved here. Every summer— I didn’t live here at the summer, but I would rent places, or my family did, or we did day trips. And so I was very familiar with the shore. I love the beach, um, and the ocean, and it was a total dream of mine and that I never ever thought could happen. And I was working with a marketing business coach, and she was doing her sessions with me on Zoom looking at the beach. And I said, oh boy, you know, would love to do that. And she says, well, why can’t you? You know, and I came up with the list of excuses about why I couldn’t. And she said, she said, you know, why don’t you just rent any Airbnb, even if it’s for a short period of time, and just, you know, put the dream and the action together of being down there and moving down there. And I said, okay, I’ll do that. And, um, I would say, let’s see, I started doing that December of 2020.
Amy Stone [00:19:06]:
So, okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:19:07]:
I was already 2 years in, and I started getting my certifications in EFT tapping during this time, doing a lot more of my own healing work and still teaching a lot of yoga, leading workshops, and all that was what I was doing. And then December of 2020, I just started looking for the Airbnbs down here And in July of 2021, I was renting an Airbnb down here in the town where I’m living now, and I had never ever come to this specific town. Never came to this town. I was nearby this town, never came to the town. Um, and I came here and I said, oh my, I, I had no idea that what I was missing out on. And, um, Yeah, so 6 months later, I was moved in December of 2021, moved into where I’m living now, and it’s been an amazing journey. I’m totally living my dream I never thought could happen. I am in a beautiful relationship with a man I never thought I would ever meet. We’ve been together for a year, and, um, yeah, life just keeps getting better and better.
Amy Stone [00:20:13]:
That is a beautiful story. That is a beautiful story. So The reason that I wanted to ask that about the move and the connection was because I was trying to figure out, I was trying to figure out the timeframe and the sequence of it and how it sort of went and whether or not they were one decision or two decisions or a bunch of little decisions. So let’s see if I understand. So you had the salon, it was good, but you had another passion and so you knew that you wanted to lean more into the mind-body connection, energy healing, and yoga. And you had a plan to make that change. Then you had a physical injury, the breaking of your wrist. Was it winter when you broke your wrist? I’m just curious. Did you like slip on the ice?
Meryl Hayton [00:21:07]:
No, it was the end of September. So only a month after I closed my salon.
Amy Stone [00:21:11]:
Oh, so you closed your salon, you were working at home. Okay, so you closed your salon. That’s an independent decision. And so at that point, you were sort of working from home and doing yoga with— were you doing yoga lessons in other people’s studios and on your own? Is that what— is that happening? Everywhere.
Meryl Hayton [00:21:30]:
Everywhere you can. I worked at studios. I worked at places. I saw clients privately. I did online classes. Yeah, like, you know, 4 or 5 classes or so a week. And then I was doing these workshops.
Amy Stone [00:21:42]:
Okay. And then the dream of being at the Jersey Shore Or the affinity for the Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore is really beautiful if anybody has not been there. Connects to positive childhood and associations from your whole life, but you lean into your intuition with the support of a marketing coach and you begin to spend more time there and then you commit to being there full-time. Is that how that worked?
Meryl Hayton [00:22:11]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:22:12]:
All right. So you would say these are all different decisions? Each one of these is their own decisions that sort of cascades through to creating the life that you have today?
Meryl Hayton [00:22:20]:
Yes.
Amy Stone [00:22:21]:
All right.
Amy Stone [00:22:22]:
That’s what it sounds like to me too. I just didn’t want to assume because it’s very good. Okay. So when you— I just thought that that might be helpful for people to understand in the audience. How long, just for people, this is another question that’s not— It’s only sort of related, but I was curious about how long would you say that it actually took you to close down the nail salon business that you’d had for over 2 decades? How long was it from the idea like, hey, I don’t really want to be doing this anymore, I think I want to do something else, to when you had your final nail client? How long was that process?
Meryl Hayton [00:22:59]:
Oh, a very long time. Because I was afraid. I lived in an incredible amount of fear, um, around money and fear of, you know, I mean, that’s really what it came down to, you know. It’s like fear around money and, you know, who was I going to be without doing nails and letting go of the clients, saying, you know, goodbye to people who had supported me for— most of my clients had supported me for 10 to over 20 years people were with me, and I am, you know, very, very loyal. So it was very hard for me to do.
Amy Stone [00:23:43]:
I believe it.
Meryl Hayton [00:23:44]:
And I would say, um, I probably was talking about change a few years before I even became a yoga teacher.
Amy Stone [00:23:54]:
Okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:23:54]:
And that because I was burnt out, you know, my body was burnt out. And I just didn’t know what else to do or where to— what, you know, and I just kept following the little breadcrumbs, you know, following the path.
Amy Stone [00:24:08]:
And I didn’t, um, I don’t think that I’d ever thought about— I can remember when I learned many, many years ago, um, a friend of mine who was a massage therapist was telling me how physical that job was, and I had just never thought about it. The second you think about it, you realize it. I don’t think I realized until talking to you But how physical the nail salon job would be. But of course, you’re sitting in a low chair for some of that. You’re leaning over a small workspace. The repetitive motion you mentioned and then the fine motor skills. I can understand that. And then the logistics. One of the reasons that I brought this up is I just have this instinct that it’s going to be helpful to somebody out there. Because for people who are patrons of businesses, you don’t realize necessarily how long it takes. To start it up or to close it down? Because there’s also a logistics side of it. Do you still have like all the— do you have like a closet somewhere that just has all of the stuff for doing people’s nails? Or was there a season where you were getting rid of the inventory and doing all this stuff?
Meryl Hayton [00:25:16]:
The last month that I had the salon, I just called the local nail places that were near me and I just said, I’m closing my business. You know, come here, this is what I have. And I just sold some products, and then I only kept what I knew I needed for the people who were coming to my house. And, you know, and I still have my stuff. Like, this is, this is my office, but I literally can take my computer, which I’m actually going to do tonight. I’m going to take my computer off of here. I’m going to put all my nail stuff on. I only do my own nails, nobody else’s. And that, that’s actually what I’m doing tonight.
Amy Stone [00:25:51]:
I was wondering, I wasn’t going to ask you during the interview, but I was in the back of my head. I was very curious if you still do your own nails. I would have assumed that you would.
Meryl Hayton [00:25:59]:
Yes.
Amy Stone [00:26:00]:
But that is very, very good. Okay, so, and I was just helpful, I was thinking in my head that in my own life, sometimes when people see me make a decision, they think they may not understand exactly what I’m doing, but that’s because they don’t know that there was another reason, there was something else going on, which is why I made a decision. Like, so sometimes when you move, people are like, oh, why would you do that? Or you’ll go on a trip and they’re like, why would you go there? Because they don’t know, well, I might have family there or I grew up there or whatever it is. And so that’s the reason I’m picking those questions apart for the people, for me and the people in the audience to understand. All right. So, yeah.
Meryl Hayton [00:26:41]:
Well, if I can, I just wanted to share one thing, you know, else about the salon world. You know, it’s just kind of known that You work yourself to the bone. You don’t schedule any breaks. You shovel in. Hold on, I gotta go to the bathroom. You run to the bathroom, you come back, right? You maybe you take a sip of your water, you know, you run into the kitchen. I’m just gonna go take a bite of my food, right? You run into the kitchen and you shovel in a bite here. That’s like the salon world.
Amy Stone [00:27:13]:
Yeah.
Meryl Hayton [00:27:13]:
And my body could— I could not take that anymore. So when I first started to wake up about that, Right. And I started to just schedule myself a lunch break and take longer times to do my clients, you know, just to make it a little easier so I didn’t have to rush so much between, because that in and of itself is just constant tension in your body. So there was a lot that I had to, you know, rewire and let go of.
Amy Stone [00:27:43]:
Yeah.
Amy Stone [00:27:44]:
No, I, I’m hearing you tell it, it makes Complete sense. All right, so today you are you. So you are an inner peace specialist. Did you come up with that title, or is that from? Okay, so I didn’t know if it was something from the training. So inner peace specialist, advanced certified emotional freedom techniques EFT practitioner, Reiki practitioner, and a registered yoga teacher. So when you moved to the shore, was the plan to go all in on this business, or was it something where you were also doing? Like changing your lifestyle for working less, semi-retirement, anything like that?
Meryl Hayton [00:28:24]:
Um, I had— was already, um, my certifications in tapping, um, I already had like level 1 and 2 done, and I was accredited also, which was a long process. Um, I was already— I already had all that when I moved down here. And I already had my business going.
Amy Stone [00:28:48]:
Okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:28:48]:
Um, yeah, so I was seeing clients privately, I was teaching workshops, I was, you know, a vendor at events doing free workshops, and, you know, like doing all the things, all the marketing, you know, all the things. Um, and, uh, I took a break for— from teaching yoga for about a year, and then I went back to it. And I only teach one yoga class a week. That’s a very, very Tiny part of my business. It’s mostly coaching and energy healing.
Amy Stone [00:29:19]:
Okay, and so when you moved, it was really just doing that from a different location. It was. All right, very good. Okay, so let’s talk about this. We’ve talked a lot about what life was like when you were running the salon, the things that influenced your decision to make this change. What has changed in your daily life as a result of closing the salon, getting the certifications, and moving to? a new location?
Meryl Hayton [00:29:45]:
Um, I, I just live life from a much different energy now. I live life from a trusting energy. I’m always supported and guided and protected. Um, there’s, uh, my boyfriend started this— well, he didn’t start it, but he told me he learned this— there’s always parking spaces. And I mean, literally everywhere we go, there’s always a parking space, no matter how crowded, you know, any place is. Uh, you think you’re gonna go to, um, you know, we’re gonna go to a concert, there’s never gonna be parking. Most people might think that, right? But we think, nope, there’s always a parking space and we always get a parking space. So my mindset and my energy is completely different from the person who I was. Um, like I said, I used to live in a lot of fear, a lot of worry, and a lot of doubt. And I have let go of so many layers of that. So I’m a lot lighter as a person, and my life is a lot more fun. Um, and just richer. My life is a lot richer. I have tons of friends down here. Not that I didn’t have friends where I lived, but there’s just a lot more to do down here. It’s a lot more active and Yeah, it’s just my life is just so much better.
Amy Stone [00:31:13]:
Okay, so following up on that question, it’s still the same sort of question, but I’m going to ask you a deeper layer of it. All of the sort of coach trainings that I’ve done have had a very much an introspective part of it. It’s like you’re learning about how to do the thing, but you always apply it to— I always apply it to myself. So Of these changes of mindset and shedding the layers and moving through your day-to-day life in different energy, do you think that some of that would have happened if you had done some of the trainings but stayed in the salon business and stayed in Northern Jersey? Or do you think that it— so that’s actually, that’s the question. Do you think that with the trainings you might have experienced, you would have experienced a shift if you had kept the same salon job? Or is it Part and parcel with moving?
Meryl Hayton [00:32:09]:
I don’t think that it would have been as good as it is.
Amy Stone [00:32:16]:
Okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:32:18]:
I think that I would have had a lot of shifts. Okay. You know, in mindset and energy if I stayed in the salon. Sure. But yeah, it wouldn’t have been as good as living here. Yeah. No way. It’s now Yeah, I felt very like, you know, trapped by land where I lived. And, you know, there’s just such a sense of freedom, more freedom living down here, being— I’m a 5-minute walk to the water, you know, the ocean and the sand. And, you know, I just— yeah, there’s nothing better than that.
Amy Stone [00:32:53]:
It’s not a great question, I will admit that. But it’s that— it’s trying to figure out, you know, there’s that saying where people are like, wherever you go, there you are. And so there’s always the question of Like what are the things that are actually making the difference? So that was the reason I asked, but it’s impossible to answer when you do— they always say only change one thing at a time so you know what’s making the difference, but I have a lot of trouble applying that in my own life. When I want to make changes, even if I’m trying to do one thing at a time, the reality is I’m doing several things all at the same time. It’s hard to figure out what sometimes works. All right, so— You could have done all of this and never shared your story about it. This is the question behind the story in a lot of the conversations that I have with my guests. What is— how would you describe the reason that you like to share your story about making these changes, discovering how to lean more into your intuition? And the other side of that question is, what are you hoping that people who are listening and watching this will feel or learn from your story?
Meryl Hayton [00:33:58]:
Um, well, what I hope that people will be inspired to do is to take chances, because you really do have a choice, right? You do have a choice to stay stuck where you’re at, or you have the choice to take the leap to really what you want to do or be. Um, and, you know, and why I want to share my story is because I think it’s like you said, like just having this podcast, it’s important for people to know that it wasn’t some, I woke up one day and my life was just easy and, you know, oh yeah, I’m just going to close this. It was like some, you know, easy journey of getting here. It wasn’t. But I had the drive within to keep going and figuring it out. So You know, yeah.
Amy Stone [00:34:53]:
And the way— so what would you say is the very first thing? If you were to go back and think about the beginning, what do you think the very first decision you might have made to get you on this path? Do you think it was to go to a yoga class, or was it maybe take the yoga certification? What would you say is the first decision that you made?
Meryl Hayton [00:35:11]:
It was because I needed to do something different physically for my body. That’s why.
Amy Stone [00:35:18]:
That’s why. And so signing up to do the yoga class as a student. All right, the first little step. All right, that is a good answer. All right, so we’re gonna begin to wrap up this conversation, even though I could quiz you for hours and hours on how you did this. I enjoy talking to you. People in the audience can find information about you and how to connect with you at your website, which is merylhayton.com. And the information for that, including a special offer I’m gonna mention in a second, is in the show description or the show notes wherever you’re listening or watching. to the episode. I also encourage everybody in the audience to visit imperfectadulting.com and get yourself onto the email list, because then the links for how to connect with the guests and find their special offers just comes right into your inbox, and it’s very, very nice. Meryl, you gave us a special offer for the audience, which is the Clearing Method Workbook, a self-care guide to happier, healthier relationships and more joy in your life. Who doesn’t want more joy? It’s a $47 value, but the link in the show description, in the show notes, makes the I wanna thank you very much for that generous offer for the people in the audience. You ready to do the final 2 questions and wrap this up?
Meryl Hayton [00:36:29]:
I’m ready.
Amy Stone [00:36:31]:
All right, let’s do it. All right, number 1, show and tell. Can you share with us— this is just a personal recommendation— a book, a TV show, a podcast, a movie, something that you would recommend to somebody else that they might enjoy? And I give bonus points, bonus imaginary points and gold stars if the suggestion comes from another woman creator. Just because I like to, you know, share the wealth of women who are out there doing cool things.
Meryl Hayton [00:36:57]:
Well, I do love Julia Louise Dreyfus.
Amy Stone [00:37:04]:
Okay.
Meryl Hayton [00:37:05]:
She has a great podcast and it’s funny.
Amy Stone [00:37:09]:
She’s funny. She’s very funny.
Meryl Hayton [00:37:11]:
She’s funny.
Amy Stone [00:37:15]:
Wise Woman? Is that something with wise in it?
Meryl Hayton [00:37:17]:
It’s called Wiser Than Me.
Amy Stone [00:37:19]:
Wiser Than Me. Julia Louise Dreyfus.
Meryl Hayton [00:37:21]:
Yes. Um, all the people that she interviews are older than her, which is on purpose. And she does— it’s, you know, the podcast is only audio, but she’s actually videotaping it. So she’s telling you what she’s seeing sometimes with the person she’s talking to.
Amy Stone [00:37:42]:
Yeah.
Meryl Hayton [00:37:42]:
And then at the end— well, she always starts with something funny and personal that has to do with the person who she’s bringing on. And then at the end, she brings her mother on, like the guest goes off camera and then the mother comes on and then they have this really cute conversation. Her mother is adorable.
Amy Stone [00:38:02]:
That is very—
Meryl Hayton [00:38:03]:
I highly recommend those.
Amy Stone [00:38:04]:
That is an excellent suggestion. I love it. That is an excellent suggestion. Next one up, I call this final section unsupervised online shopping inspired by my friend Julia. who thought she was ordering one set of canned soup and ordered 6 by accident. What is the most recent thing that you bought online?
Meryl Hayton [00:38:23]:
I do cacao ceremonies, you know, either here at my place or out, and I bought these really cute little wooden cups.
Amy Stone [00:38:37]:
Okay. For the cacao ceremonies.
Meryl Hayton [00:38:41]:
So is that like a cacao ceremony?
Amy Stone [00:38:43]:
Is that like a tea ceremony? Tell me more about what a cacao ceremony is. I don’t think I know what that is.
Meryl Hayton [00:38:47]:
So I buy ceremonial cacao, which is the cocoa, you know, sourced cocoa bean. And, um, it’s from Guatemala and it is sourced by hand with, um, families and farms and it creates sustainability for them also in Guatemala. You know, it’s a big source of their income. And it’s sourced with love. And like I said, it’s sourced by hand from beginning to end. And it comes in like a 1-pound block. And you can buy them in 3 blocks, you know, however many you want. And then you cut it. And I have a special scale that I weigh it. And I usually do 30 grams per person for each cup. And then I do coconut milk, water. You can find recipes online. I add a little cinnamon and cardamom, a little pinch of salt and a little maple syrup. And I brew it for about an hour and a half and it gets really thick. It’s so good. And then we drink it as we’re setting intentions.
Amy Stone [00:40:01]:
Very nice.
Meryl Hayton [00:40:02]:
And the cacao itself is a vasodilator, so it opens up your blood vessels to your heart. And it’s supposed to be that you’re not only drinking the energy from how it was sourced, but you’re creating your own energy with the cacao as you’re setting intentions and opening up your heart and, and your energy with it.
Amy Stone [00:40:22]:
That is, that is spectacular. Once upon a time, a friend of mine had a— we were on a road trip And we were in the store and he picked up a— it was cocoa, not cacao, but he picked up a chocolate bar for this— we were in the road trip, we’re all trapped in the car together and he picked it up and it was 90% cocoa. And this is my first experience with not having milk chocolate or Cadbury. So he passes it around, this is delicious, and so on and so forth. And we were all in the car and we were like, not actually what we were expecting, not as delicious. And I was thinking about that when you talked about the maple syrup.
Meryl Hayton [00:41:00]:
Yeah, it is bitter.
Amy Stone [00:41:02]:
It is bitter. It is bitter. This has been a real pleasure, Meryl. I want to say thank you very much for being my guest today on the show.
Meryl Hayton [00:41:09]:
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Amy Stone [00:41:13]:
Thank you for joining me today.
Amy Stone [00:41:16]:
I hope you enjoyed the show.
Amy Stone [00:41:18]:
Before I go, I want to encourage you to become a bigger part of the conversation. Please subscribe wherever you’re listening or watching the show. That helps my stats. A request from the bottom of my indie creator heart is to please tell your friends about the show. That is the real way new people discover it. If you feel motivated, I would love it if you rated the show or wrote a review on whatever platform you are using. Please be sure to head over to imperfectadulting.com and sign up for the email community. I call this the Village. You’ll get some free stuff right away, and you’ll begin to get the weekly emails that I send. This includes the links for special offers from any guests on the show and cool stuff I put together for the community. There’s a lot more going on than just this show, and the only way to find out is to get the emails. Plus, you’re busy. You don’t have time or desire to follow every single tidbit on social media, and you don’t have to because I’m happy to send it to you. If you have a story you’d like to share with the audience, I have an open application for guests. Guess where you’ll find it? That’s right, on the website and in the emails. And that’s a wrap for this episode. Until next time, remember that the journey is the destination. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that, not me. Well, until just now. I did just say it. But what I want you to hear today is that if your adulting journey isn’t going the way you expected, that just may not mean you’re lost. It may mean that you’re just on your way. And now the fine print. The Art of Imperfect Adulting podcast and streaming video show is a copyrighted work created and produced by Amy Stone at Amy Says So. The music was written and produced by Todd Thompson at Dharma Bomb Studios. All rights are reserved. Anything expressed on this show is offered as entertainment. And the views of the guests may not always represent the ideas and viewpoints of the host. That’s me. Amy Stone does not intend to hold myself herself out to provide professional advice or recommendations of any kind. In the end, you and you alone need to make those kinds of decisions based on your personal and individual situation, needs, circumstances, and comfort level. Yeah, it’s a little weird for me to talk about myself in the third person. But you get the idea. This is Amy Stone, signing off.