Ashley Nesbit was once a sought-after hair stylist in Charlotte with a years-long resume and an enviable list of clients. After 16 years, she had surpassed the financial and growth milestones she once had set for herself and, by all accounts, had a thriving business.
But that success came with a hefty cost.“I was so tired all the time, and I felt like I was missing out on so much stuff,” the 37-year-old now recalls. “My health wasn’t good; I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was at work sometimes 12, 14 hours a day. Business was so good, but I wasn’t.”So in 2021, Nesbit walked away from her business, a victim of burnout.Nesbit’s experience is common among entrepreneurs, says Wesley Head, who leads small business lending at Aspire Community Capital, a Charlotte-based nonprofit that offers business support and financial resources to local business owners.
“A lot of entrepreneurs are wearing many hats,” he said. “They’re working from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep.”Some entrepreneurs juggle multiple roles, which can keep employment costs low, Head said, but can also hinder business growth or impact personal well-being over time.Last month, Jasmine Macon, owner of Beyond Amazing Donuts (B.A.D.), announced on Instagram that she would be closing her pastry company’s brick-and-mortar location in south Charlotte, citing “hints of restlessness” and “a sense of fatigue.”Jasmine Macon inside Beyond Amazing Donuts. 2023. (Photo courtesy of Beyond Amazing Donuts / Rico Marcelo Photography)“I’m ready to lean into what Jasmine Macon wants to do — to define this journey on my own terms,” she said in the post.QCity Metro was unable to interview Macon for this story.
Devin McDaniel, former owner of Derita Dairy Bar, said burnout played a role in her decision to leave the business in 2023. McDaniel opened had opened the restaurant with a family member in June 2020.“It was rough,” she said. “Sometimes I was on the grill because we didn’t have a chef or I had to run the place by myself because somebody called out. … It was a lot, and it started to affect how I was as a mom,” McDaniel said. She added that because she interacted with so many people at work, she sometimes found herself less interactive at home.Devin McDaniel stands outside Derita Dairy Bar. June 2021. (QCity Metro)The demands of running a restaurant with few employees took a toll on her, prompting her to seek a new path that aligned more closely with her personal interests—one that didn’t require being tied to a physical place.McDaniel turned her attention to West and Remount, a custom design and apparel company she created where she can leverage her marketing background to support other small businesses. She customizes apparel from her in-home studio and can take on as many—or as few—clients as she wants to.A new identityNesbit’s choice to leave her hairstyling business was a “shock” to nearly everyone around her, many of whom didn’t believe her at first, she said.
“They didn’t really know what to think. My family, everybody was like ‘What? You not doing hair?’”Ashley Nesbit with bottles from a line of products she developed for her clients. 2020. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Nesbit)Nesbit explained that her role as a hairstylist had become part of her identity. Most of her non-familial connections in Charlotte were the result of her business—a client here, a friend of a client there—, and many people, herself included, had a hard time separating her from her former career.Shortly after closing her business, Nesbit said she started to lose herself.“I was used to being behind the chair [all day], so now, I didn’t have that, and it was really a real identity crisis. It’s like I was so tied to my career that I didn’t know who I was without me doing hair,” she told QCity Metro. “But I had to put myself and my family, my mental health first.”The void pushed her to explore her passions beyond hairstyling, leading her to venture out more. She spent time exploring things she enjoyed but hadn’t had the time for, including eating at new restaurants or finding things to do around town. She began sharing videos of her explorations on social media.
It was the start of her content creator journey.Ashley Nesbit poses for a photo. (Photo courtesy of Ashley Nesbit)She initially shared the videos “just for fun,” but realized that people seemed interested and engaged. Before long, she said, as her following grew, restaurants and public relations companies began inviting her to openings and special events.Today, the full-time content creator has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and nearly 40,000 on TikTok. Her content focuses on various lifestyle aspects, emphasizing food and travel.She said her business savvy and marketing knowledge from her time as a hairstylist have aided her in building her brand as a content creator, and she’s grateful for how she has grown in a relatively short time.Nesbit said she still has to remind people that she no longer does hair, but she’s embracing her new career.
McDaniel had a similar experience.“Some people still associate me with Derita Dairy Bar and Grill,” she said. “And I just have to tell them what I’m doing now.”Avoiding burnoutHead said “overworking,” or taking on too many tasks alone, significantly contributes to burnout and is difficult to sustain.He advocated that entrepreneurs try to grow their teams and utilize delegation to share the workload. He also said that implementing technology to streamline processes can decrease the risk of burnout by making some tasks less labor-intensive.“And use the resources available to you, a lot of them, like some of [Aspire’s programs] are free,” he said.Freedom to chooseFor many people, the allure of entrepreneurship is rooted in a desire for flexibility and the ability to shape one’s own destiny.While this has always been true for Nesbit, she said it feels different now that her work is more on her terms.She told QCity Metro her daily routine now allows her to balance family life with her content creation.“I get up around six. I feed my dog … I pray, read my Bible. I talk to God. I go to the gym,” she said. “And then I can start working on my content, but I have an actual morning routine now that feels good. where I have time to do all that.”Her schedule is now based on family commitments and whether she has to film or post anything, but overall, her days are flexible.“The most rewarding thing is my freedom and me being able to share that with other people,” she said.
