The Creative Ego

The greatest part of an artist's development, in my mind, is the abolition of ego.  The desire to dominate others, in business and in life, is an empty idea.  Ego does not, and has never resided in the present.  The present moment is the only true reality for a creative person, rendering the ego, and all egotism false reality, merely a reflection of a created persona as opposed to the real, true persona hiding behind the ego, and its subsequent behaviours.

Development as a hairstylist is about purity, and intention.  Ego is money hungry, ego is impure in its intent, ego is obsessed with its public perception, in business and personal affairs.

Purity requires less thought and effort, and the results can be staggering.
Intention is purposeful, and precise, and arrives easily to the mind.

The most extraordinary people I have met in my journey as a hairstylist have been completely ordinary, and real. 

The most successful people I have encountered in my line of work are those who are 100% committed to their art without obsessing over success.

The most accomplished financially rarely speak of money.

The most important to their craft are always, always the most humble.

Most importantly, the ones with the greatest knowledge base are exclusively the stylists who give the most to others.


Remove the distractions, the enigmas, and the illusions that support the ego and we are left with the ability to rediscover why we wanted to be hair artists all those years ago, when our intentions were pure, and our dedication to the craft immeasureable.

Best,

Paul

How to Effectively Predict Hair Trends

Remember the days when your clientele took their cue from the world of fashion? Me too.

This brings me back to the first salon I worked in as an apprentice and Junior Stylist. We serviced a high-end fashion savvy client base, and they were constantly fighting over the selection of European high fashion magazines we kept in abundance in our Technical Area.

These mags were always dog-eared, and had multiple pages torn out, as clients created their seasonal look from our magazines.

Wow have things ever changed in the last decade....I now observe my own salon magazines, and it is amazing what I see. I have 6 month old copies of high-fashion magazines that have barely been opened. On the other side of the equation, the Celebrity-oriented magazines are generally unreadable within a week of purchase.

There is an interesting insight here, our clientele take more personal fashion influence from celebrities than models.

There are so many crossover celebs that have become nothing short of iconic in the world of hair. They are the trump card for hairstylist.

Your clients are looking to these people for style ideas, and as stylists, accepting this and exploiting this connecting will build our repective businesses astronomically.

Nowadays, celebrity is high fashion. Now go make some money.

Best,

Paul