My new book: An Esthetician’s Journey to Success

Having to stay close to home in the early months of 2020 allowed the time to write a book that has been inside me for a very long time. For this I am very grateful. In An Esthetician’s Journey to Success, I share valuable insights and lessons from my 33 year career in the beauty industry. My wish is that my stories encourage you to push through fear when opportunity knocks at your door. I hope that my experiences inspire you to let the excitement of what the future can bring be much bigger than the fear of the moment. MY wish is that by the time you finish reading my esthetic journey, you will be ready to take a leap of faith in your own career!

Here is a condensed snippet of the introduction:

I can still hear his voice in my head as clearly as if it was yesterday “Shelley, you’ve gone from job to job to job. I can only hope that you find what makes you happy before I leave this earth”. I was 27 years old at the time and that was my Father, whom I adored, having a heart to heart with his youngest Daughter. He was concerned that I would never find my career path and settle in. His generation found a job at a very early age and stayed there for the rest of their lives. So, his youngest Daughter was causing him much anxiety.

My first paying job was a professional dancer at the age of 16. I traveled with a Circus up the West Coast of the United States and into Canada. I also danced on Princess Cruises in Alaska and Mexico. I did all of this during high school. I graduated early and headed to Hollywood to become the next big thing. Yeah, me and a thousand other beautiful, young talented girls! Dancing jobs were far and few in between so I got a job as the head hostess at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. I saw a lot of Movie Stars and I also saw a lot of strange things! I believe that if my parents had known half the stuff I saw in Hollywood, they would have hopped in their car and driven down there to drag me home! I made it almost a full year before calling to ask (no, actually beg) to come home. I was definitely not cut out for that world. When I got settled back home, I got a job as a workout instructor but that didn’t seem like much of a career so I tried cosmetology school. Hated it and quickly became a beauty school drop out! My next job was a bank teller and my cash box rarely balanced at the end of the day. I was always over. That meant I was making money for the bank. That was a good thing, right? Well, the bank clients didn’t much like it and neither did the bank president, so I moved on (okay, I was asked to move on!). I worked a short time in the accounting department at a Honda dealership. Got myself a really nice car out of that job! Next was a position on the order desk at Wonder Bread. That was my first experience with computers. I was a fast learner and did very well there. I worked data input half of the day and then took orders from the drivers the second half of the day. It was a fun office, but again, I couldn’t see myself as a Wonder Bread worker for the rest of my life. So, I interviewed for a position at Cost Plus Imports in their corporate office. I got the job and became the accounts payable gal. It was a really good paying job and the people were great but I sat in a cubicle by myself all day. I was 27 years old at that time and I just couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life in a cubicle on a daily basis and then heading out to happy hour every day with my coworkers. So, I quit. Oh, I forgot to mention that there was a home study interior decorating course in that timeline somewhere! That’s when my Dad sat me down for that heart to heart.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the very next job I got (33 years ago) would be the one that started my esthetic career. There were still some twists and turns to come before completely settling in to what would become my life passion. This book is all about that journey.

Purchase your signed copy here: https://old.shelleyhancock.com/estheticians-journey-to-success/