#123: Christina Flach - More Than Makeup
More Than Makeup: Leading with Kindness, Discipline, and Purpose
Featuring Christina Flach | Tales of Leadership Podcast Ep. 123
At first glance, makeup and leadership may appear to have little in common. One focuses on appearance, while the other focuses on influence. In Episode 123 of Tales of Leadership, however, celebrity makeup artist, entrepreneur, beauty expert, mother, and philanthropist Christina Flach demonstrates that both are ultimately about helping people become more confident versions of themselves.
Christina is the founder and CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup and a beauty expert on NBC’s California Live. Throughout her career, she has worked with celebrities, major brands, photographers, television crews, and professionals across the beauty and entertainment industries. However, the most powerful part of her story is not the names on her client list. It is the way she makes people feel.
Her journey began when her mother was diagnosed with stage-four brain cancer. Before her mother went out one evening, Christina offered to do her makeup. She had limited products and experience, but she helped her mother look and feel like herself again. That experience remained with Christina and became a guiding principle throughout her career: looking good matters, but helping someone feel confident, comfortable, and seen matters even more.
Leadership Is About Inspiration, Not Control
Christina defines leadership as helping people become the best versions of themselves. That requires leaders to guide, encourage, and create the conditions for others to perform, but it does not require them to control every decision. When Christina hires someone for social media, marketing, or another specialty, she does not want to micromanage that person. She wants to provide direction, give them the necessary resources, and allow them to use the talent she hired them for.
In the military, we call this mission command. Leaders provide a clear task, purpose, and desired end state while allowing their people the freedom to determine how to accomplish the mission. This does not mean the leader becomes uninvolved. It means the leader establishes trust, maintains shared understanding, and resists the temptation to take control simply because someone approaches a problem differently.
Christina made an important observation during our conversation: the more people attempt to control everything around them, the more control they often lose. Plans change, people respond differently than expected, and the environment shifts. Life gets a vote. Purposeful Accountable Leaders understand that leadership is not about making people dependent upon them. It is about creating clarity, building confidence, and empowering people to act. Leadership becomes stronger when control gives way to trust.
Stay Open to the Path You Did Not Plan
Christina never expected to become a television beauty expert. She was comfortable working behind the camera, not standing in front of it. When the opportunity appeared, however, she remained open to a path she had not planned. That willingness created an entirely new dimension in her career and helped her develop confidence in an unfamiliar environment.
Leaders often become so attached to their original plans that they fail to recognize better opportunities developing around them. We convince ourselves that success must look exactly as we imagined it. When the path changes, we assume something has gone wrong. Christina sees those moments differently. She does not view every unexpected outcome as a failure. She views it as a lesson, a redirection, or an invitation to consider another possibility.
She has even removed the word “try” from much of her vocabulary because she believes it can create room for half-commitment. Her point is not that every plan will unfold perfectly. It is that meaningful goals require deliberate action, sustained focus, and commitment. A PAL does not confuse adaptability with a lack of determination. The destination can remain clear even when the route changes. You can remain committed to the mission without becoming attached to only one way of accomplishing it.
Hire for Character, Then Give People Room to Lead
As Pretty Girl Makeup grew, Christina experienced one of the most difficult transitions for any entrepreneur: moving from doing everything herself to building a team. At first, she hired people who said the right things but could not execute. Instead of reducing her workload, those hires created more work. She learned that enthusiasm during an interview does not always translate into discipline, accountability, or consistent performance.
Christina now takes more time to understand a potential team member’s work ethic, experience, motivation, and employment history. One of the questions she asks is what the individual learned from a previous job. Their answer reveals a great deal. When someone explains that every problem was another person’s fault, Christina sees a warning sign. She wants people who can admit mistakes, learn from experience, and accept responsibility for their actions.
This is tactical patience in hiring. Leaders should not fill a position simply because there is an immediate vacancy. The wrong person can damage trust, increase friction, and pull energy away from the mission. The right person strengthens the culture and expands what the organization can accomplish.
Once Christina identifies the right person, she gives them room to work. She welcomes ideas, listens to recommendations, and willingly gives others credit. Strong leaders do not hire talented people and then prevent them from using their talents. They hire for character and accountability, provide clear intent, and allow people to do what they do best.
Leave Your Ego Outside the Room
The beauty and entertainment industries are constantly changing. Trends shift, schedules move, conditions become uncomfortable, and competition remains high. Christina has stayed successful because she does not enter an assignment believing everything must revolve around her. She arrives on time, remains positive, helps the people around her, and treats the photographer, camera operator, sound technician, client, and crew as members of the same team.
Most importantly, she does not allow ego to make her difficult to work with. Talent may help someone earn an opportunity, but attitude often determines whether that person is invited back. Christina understands that professionalism involves more than technical competence. It includes gratitude, flexibility, emotional control, teamwork, and the ability to make the environment better for others.
Being positive does not mean pretending that difficult conditions are enjoyable. Christina described working outside in cold, rainy weather where every minute seemed to last an hour. She still chose to make the best of it, remain professional, and find reasons to laugh with the people around her.
Leadership is often revealed in ordinary moments of discomfort. People remember who complained, who created unnecessary friction, and who helped the team continue moving forward. Competence may open the door, but humility, professionalism, and attitude determine whether people want to work with you again.
Self-Care Is a Leadership Responsibility
Christina begins her days with disciplined routines. She drinks water, prepares green juice, exercises, practices gratitude, and intentionally cares for her physical and mental health. Her message is clear: self-care is not selfish.
When leaders neglect themselves, the effects rarely remain isolated. Exhaustion influences patience. Poor health affects decision-making. Stress changes how we communicate. A leader who is constantly depleted eventually begins taking energy from the people around them. Christina views self-care as filling the tank so she can give more to her family, clients, team, and community.
I call this being a RAD leader: routine, accountable, and disciplined in your actions. Leadership begins with learning to lead yourself. Before we can consistently lead a family, team, organization, or community, we must develop the routines that allow us to show up with energy and purpose.
Discipline becomes even more important during difficult seasons. Christina explained that on hard days, she begins with something she can control: making her bed, drinking water, exercising, or completing another small part of her routine. One action creates momentum for the next.
She also understands that these habits influence her children. They have watched her work hard, care for herself, treat people kindly, and remain disciplined. Her daughter once explained that Christina’s example had been more impactful than any lecture she had given. That is leadership through deeds, not words. The example you consistently live will always be more powerful than the advice you occasionally give.
Turn Pain Into Purpose
Christina’s story includes extraordinary success, but it also includes profound loss. She experienced her mother’s battle with brain cancer, the death of one of her twin sons, and the loss of her husband to sepsis. Those experiences could have caused her to withdraw from the world. Instead, she chose to keep moving for her children and to transform part of that pain into service.
Christina explained that her children needed her. If she completely fell apart, their pain would become even heavier. That did not mean she ignored grief or pretended every day was easy. It meant she made a deliberate choice to continue showing up. She described happiness and helping others as choices. We cannot always choose what happens to us, but we retain influence over what we do next.
Education and nutrition became meaningful areas of service for Christina and her family. They helped establish educational funds at Northern Light School in Oakland, California, to support children who otherwise might not have access to the same opportunities. Her son Ben has also participated in raising money through golf. Christina shared that he raised $75,000 during one event—enough, she explained, to help seven children attend private school for a year.
To Ben, he had spent the day golfing and meeting people. To Christina, he had helped change the direction of seven lives, their families, and potentially their communities. This is what happens when pain becomes purpose. The hardship does not disappear, but it begins creating something beyond itself.
Purposeful Accountable Leaders do not allow their wounds to become permission to wound others. They search for ways to transform hard-earned lessons into service, compassion, and impact. Pain will become part of your story, but you still have a voice in what that pain produces.
Build Momentum Through Small Wins
Large goals can become overwhelming when we stare only at the final outcome. Christina’s approach is to begin with one controllable action. Make the bed. Drink the water. Complete the workout. Express gratitude. Handle the next responsibility. Each completed action creates momentum.
In the military, we often focus on the next 50-meter target. You may not be able to solve the entire problem immediately, but you can identify the next action required to move forward. The same principle applies to leadership, health, business, grief, parenting, and personal development. The major objective is accomplished through a series of smaller, deliberate actions.
Discipline is not the absence of difficult emotions. It is the ability to continue taking purposeful action while those emotions are present. Some days require significant progress. Other days require you to make the bed, complete the next task, and trust that tomorrow will offer another opportunity.
Small wins may appear insignificant when considered individually, but over time they create direction, confidence, and momentum. Small, disciplined actions create the momentum required to accomplish goals that once appeared impossible.
Kindness Separates Good Leaders From Great Ones
During the final segment of the episode, I asked Christina what separates a good leader from a great leader. Her answer was one word: kindness.
People are willing to work hard for leaders who treat them with dignity. Kindness does not eliminate standards, accountability, or difficult conversations. It changes how those standards are communicated and how people are treated while pursuing them.
Christina also encouraged listeners to ask questions and seek guidance. Throughout her career, she has worked with highly accomplished people, but she has learned that many successful individuals genuinely want to help others. The barrier is often our own fear. We convince ourselves that someone is too important, too busy, or too successful to approach. As a result, we never ask the question that could change our direction.
Christina tries to provide that same support to others. She shared the story of Ivy, a teenager who came to her for a makeup lesson. During their conversation, Christina encouraged Ivy to dream bigger and believe more was possible. A few weeks later, Ivy called to explain that the conversation had given her enough confidence to apply for a study-abroad art program in Prague. She was accepted.
Ivy believed Christina had given her a life-changing gift. Christina believed Ivy had given that gift back by showing her what one encouraging conversation could produce. Leaders may never fully understand the impact of a kind word, a thoughtful question, or a moment of genuine encouragement. You do not need a title to change someone’s life. Sometimes you only need to help them see what is already possible within themselves.
Be Kinder to Yourself and Dream Bigger
When asked what advice she would give her younger self, Christina offered two lessons: be kinder to yourself and dream bigger. Earlier in life, she was extremely hard on herself. Looking back, she recognizes that many of the accomplishments, experiences, and opportunities she now has would have seemed unimaginable to her younger self.
High standards can produce growth, but constant self-criticism eventually becomes destructive. Leaders must learn the difference between holding themselves accountable and tearing themselves down. You can acknowledge a mistake without deciding you are a failure. You can identify an area for improvement without denying every strength you possess. You can remain humble while still believing that your life and leadership can have a greater impact.
Dreaming bigger is not arrogance. It is the willingness to believe that your current circumstances do not represent the limit of what is possible. Give yourself the same patience, encouragement, and belief that you would give to someone you are responsible for leading.
Final Thoughts
Episode 123 is about far more than makeup. It is about creating confidence in others, listening without an agenda, reading the room, hiring people of character, letting go of unnecessary control, and remaining open when life takes you down an unexpected path.
It is about building disciplined routines so you can serve others from a place of strength. It is about understanding that your children, team, and community are always watching the example you set. Most importantly, it is about choosing what your pain will produce.
Christina Flach’s leadership is not defined only by the celebrities she has worked with, the brands she has represented, or the television appearances she has made. It is defined by how she makes people feel. People may forget the details of a project, conversation, or event, but they will remember whether you listened. They will remember whether you were kind. They will remember whether you gave them confidence. They will remember whether your presence made the room better.
That is the heart of purposeful and accountable leadership. Every day is a gift. Don’t waste yours.
After Action Review (AAR)
Where am I trying to control people instead of providing clear intent, building trust, and allowing them to lead?
Which daily routine helps me show up as the best version of myself, and what habit do I need to restore or strengthen?
How can I transform one hardship, loss, or difficult lesson from my life into meaningful service for someone else?
Key Takeaways
1. Leadership is about inspiration, not control. The leader’s responsibility is to establish clarity, purpose, and trust so people can confidently use their abilities without being micromanaged.
2. Adaptability does not weaken commitment. Leaders can remain committed to the mission while staying open to unexpected opportunities, new information, and a different path forward.
3. Character matters more than impressive words. Hire people who demonstrate accountability, humility, work ethic, and the ability to learn from previous experiences.
4. Listening is a leadership skill. Leaders build trust when they listen without an agenda, read the room, and respond to what their people actually need.
5. Ego creates unnecessary friction. Talent may create an opportunity, but humility, professionalism, gratitude, and teamwork determine whether people want to work with you again.
6. Self-care is a leadership responsibility. Strong routines help leaders preserve the physical energy, emotional discipline, and mental clarity required to serve others well.
7. Your example is always teaching. Families and teams are influenced more deeply by the behaviors leaders consistently model than by the instructions they occasionally give.
8. Pain can become purpose. Leaders cannot always control what happens to them, but they can choose to transform hardship into service, compassion, and meaningful impact.
9. Small wins create powerful momentum. Large goals become manageable when leaders focus on the next controllable action and consistently complete one meaningful step at a time.
10. Kindness separates good leaders from great ones. Kindness does not lower standards; it allows leaders to uphold those standards while treating people with dignity, encouragement, and respect.
Tales of Leadership Mission: To develop Purposeful Accountable Leaders (PAL)
by arming you with the tools required to lead with purpose, integrity, and accountability.
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Christina Flach is a celebrity makeup artist, beauty expert, philanthropist, and founder and CEO of Pretty Girl Makeup. She has worked with celebrities, luxury brands, major retailers, and leading publications, including Vogue, Time, People, and Elle. Beyond her successful career, Christina is a devoted single mother of four who actively supports sepsis awareness and educational initiatives. In this episode of Tales of Leadership, she shares how resilience, confidence, service, and purpose helped her overcome life’s greatest challenges while continuing to inspire women to recognize that true beauty begins from within.