Tabatha Coffey: Intentional Awareness, Cosmetology School Legislation, and Why Your Body Is Running Your Business
She spent 11 years studying how the brain and body work. Then she went to Washington DC to fight for the industry. This conversation covers both.
Recorded live at ABS Chicago with co-host Geno Chapman, Corey sits down with Tabatha Coffey (@tabathacoffey) for a conversation that moves from Capitol Hill to Cambodia to the neuroscience of why hairdressers self-sabotage their own success. Tabatha is a certified neuroscience and somatic coach, a longtime industry advocate, and is currently touring with Keratin Complex across the US and Australia.
The Legislation That Could Close 90% of Cosmetology Schools
Tabatha just returned from DC with AACS and NIC, meeting with House and Senate offices about a Department of Education bill that could eliminate financial aid access for cosmetology students. The benchmarks compare the industry to four-year undergraduate degrees, which is not a fair comparison. The number being shared by school associations is stark: up to 90% of cosmetology schools could close within five years if this passes. Tabatha's role was to humanize the industry for government officials. She started every meeting with the same question. How do you feel about your hairdresser?
11 Years of Neuroscience and Somatic Coaching
When Tabatha stepped back from the show she went deep into two disciplines. Neuroscience coaching taught her how neural pathways form and change and how thought loops amplify stress. Somatic coaching added the body into the conversation. There is more information traveling from body to brain than brain to body. Sustainable change does not happen until the nervous system can hold it. When it cannot, people revert to what feels safe even when it is working against them.
Box Breathing and Regulation in Real Time
Tabatha's approach is practical. She teaches people to notice what is happening in their body before they react. Box breathing: inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. It works because it slows your physiology and gives your mind a task, which interrupts the thought loop driving the stress. A longer exhale than inhale activates the parasympathetic nervous system and calms the body faster.
Intentional Awareness
The through line of everything Tabatha teaches is awareness. Not retreats. Not complex frameworks. Just noticing where something lives in your body before you respond. For hairdressers this might be the client who never likes her hair. The conversation about raising prices. The moment your chest tightens. Once you can locate where you feel it, you can work with it instead of against it.
Keratin Complex Road Tour
Tabatha is on the road with Keratin Complex talking about how the industry and the consumer have both changed. Her system breaks service menus into three buckets to help hairdressers rethink pricing, booking conversations, and how to make more money without working more hours.
Find Tabatha at @tabathacoffey on all platforms. Follow Geno at @genochapman.
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2lLnEgr3UFY7lFDixapkrZ?si=36231da1a5264815
🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/your-day-off-hairdustry-a-podcast-about-the-hair-industry/id1327156219
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hairdustry
▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@hairdustry
This episode is brought to you by Serious Business. January 16-18, 2027 in New Orleans. seriousbuisness.net
