Thank You Sarah

A few weeks back I stopped in to a local Great Clips Hair Salon to get my haircut, which seems to be an every other week habit I can’t seem to shake from my time spent in the United States Marine Corps. When it was my turn to sit in the chair I politely told the young lady named Sarah, “Finger trim on the top faded into a 2 on the sides please.” She understood the haircut lingo and began to cut my hair.

After several minutes of the typical small talk which exist between two strangers Sarah caught me off guard by asking me,

"So are you doing what you love?" "Did you go to school for what you do, are you at the spot where you’ve always dreamed about being?" Needless to say I was pleasantly shocked by her decision to amplify the conversation in such a manor. However, I had just left the club having one of those days where nothing seemed to go right. Looking back now I am rather disappointed in myself as I answered her questions in a similar fashion that a frog sitting on the edge of the pond might answer questions. My answers probably weren’t conversation stimulating and I have to imagine she couldn’t feel my passion for what I do which is normally radiated through my conversations and actions.  

After a lull in the conversation I decided to pose the same questions to her, “Are you doing what you love?” “Did you go to school for what you do, are you at the spot where you’ve always dreamed about being?” Without hesitation she said, “Yes, I am doing what I love every day!” I quickly fired back, “You seem very sure of your answer, why so?” She began to explain to me that her mother was a hair stylist and as she was growing up she was exposed to the services her mother provided to her clients. She spoke briefly about her attempts at other industries but had returned to being a hair stylist because it felt natural to her. I followed by making mention of something to the sorts of going with what is natural to you.

Sarah then posed a very interesting question to me which once again caught me off guard, “How do you feel after you get a haircut?” I jokingly told her, “It depends on how the haircut looks I suppose!” She smiled and said, “Suppose you got the exact haircut you wanted and you loved it!” To which my response was, “I’d feel really good and I’d leave the shop feeling very happy.” She then stopped cutting my hair and looked directly at me through the mirror, “That’s it! That is why I cut hair! I cut hair because I enjoy giving people that good feeling and the beautiful thing about it is you’ll leave here happy, yet you’ll continue to be happy as you look in the mirror every day and admire the haircut I gave you!”

I sat there astonished in my chair with a big grin on my face! I thought to myself, “Wow, this girl really gets it!” She’s not one of the world’s top hair stylist charging a ridiculous amount of money for the privileges of her services (although my haircut did look pretty damn good). She’s in the people business providing her clients/people with an experience!  

As I signed my credit card receipt I decided to leave her a well deserved tip not only for the extraordinary hair cut but for the extraordinary conversation she had imposed upon me. As I turned around to leave the shop I said to Sarah very proudly, “Thank you for the awesome experience today and best of luck to you in your future endeavors!”

In closing, take a moment to challenge yourself with the following:

“Are you doing what you love?” “Are you at the spot where you’ve always dreamed about being?”

If you said no, what are you waiting for?