Hairdressers DO Change Lives: A Beautiful Career

It's so incredible how one small event can change the entire mood of your day. Someone cuts you off on your way to the salon. The line at the Starbucks drive-thru was so long.

You show up to the salon angry. Your client feeds off your mood. Your co-workers pick up on it. It becomes toxic. It becomes viral.

It can sometimes be challenging to shift your perspective from negative to positive. But that shift can make all the difference.

I just finished watching (and rewatching) this incredibly inspiring video put together by Joy LaMay, one of the winners of the Vidal Sassoon Professional Beauty Education Scholarship Program, who shared how beauty changed her life, and how this industry has allowed her to grow, after spotting it on the Wella Education Facebook page. This video, that one small event, completely shifted the perspective on my day.

We can so easily get stuck in the day to day routine, showing up at the salon, formulating the color retouch, trimming up the same cut—and it can, dare I say, get a little monotonous? This video is a beautiful reminder of the power hairdressers have to change lives, to make a difference and is, quite frankly, the best industry to be a part of.

"I believe that you have to continually seek out opportunities to grow, because hair is not art that just sits around—it moves. It walks around, dances, and talks with people," LaMay says, "hair is the one accessory we never take off.”

LaMay looks at each client as an opportunity to change a life, and hair, she says, has that power. “I tell my clients they should be able to wake up and, in a few minutes, their hair is ready to go. And that same hair cut should also be able to look fabulous for some swank party. This is Vidal Sassoon's legacy... he tapped into something true, and that’s how he changed our industry."

I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge this beautiful, inspiring video, and encourage you to watch it—especially if you’re having “one of those days.” Remember, whether you let it anger you, or let it roll off you, you can't change the outcome. You still got cut off, the drive-thru line was still so long. But, you CAN change the way YOU allow it to affect your mood.