We recently connected with Seth Garrington and have shared our conversation below.
Seth, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
For me it was a slow build over time. I spent a lot of my life worrying about what other people felt about me. I worried about how I was being perceived, and before coming out I spent a lot of time wondering how I identified. After I came out and started expressing myself, I realized people treat you differently if you are confident in yourself. Each time I tried something new and explored myself, if you go out into the world with your head up and even faking it until you make it, people are receptive. And I’ve had many experiences in my life where people have told me “I wish i could express myself like you.” and I am always so stern about anyone can. Life is too short not to have fun decorating your avatar, is what I always say lol. That gives me more motivation to keep being myself.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
By day I am a hair colorist at Gene Juarez in South Lake union. I spent my entire childhood coloring my
hair each and every color so I love being able to provide custom hair colors for my clients that bridge the gap of their biggest goals and also what will serve them. I’m a social butterfly, so I love being able to combine the actual work I do with getting to meet people from all walks of life and all stories, and being able to be part of their confidence journeys.
I am also an educator for K18 hair!
When I’m not at work, i’m doing anything and everything creative. Makeup, wigs, sewing, crafting… name a crafty skill and I have probably done it. I’m currently on a clothing no buy (all of 2024 😉 ) and trying to alter/upcycle all of my clothing so that I wear it. It’s been super fun!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Picking only three is hard! When I think the traits that have helped me get where I am today, the first one I think of is determination. You could say stubborn.. but when I want to do something or accomplish something I will try every which way to figure out how to do it.
I think another skill that has helped me is to try to have an objective outlook on situations. In my job, you have to be a really quick thinker and a problem solver and in every avenue it has benefitted me having such an objective viewpoint on situations and approaching most situations with logic.
My last trait that I feel was most impactful is truly being as genuine you as possible. Times of my lift where I acted or said things that I felt were going to be perceived a certain way, never flourish into long lasting and genuine connections. If you navigate life TRULY as genuine as possible, the people who serve you and fill your bucket will follow. And then you truly love every aspect of your life, when you do what you love and become surrounded by those you love.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I personally think it’s better to focus equal energy on both your strengths and what you would love to improve on. I always say I know a little bit about everything. I think it’s so fun to have skills that vary across different topics. And the more things you try to learn, you realize there’s pattern recognition and skills/knowledge transfer over from
thing to thing you would have NEVER known could have. It’s a scary thing to focus energy on something you don’t believe you’re good at, but when you realize you can achieve more than you could have imagined, it becomes very empowering for the next thing.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/simplysethh
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-garrington-71544a226?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@simplysethh?_t=8qLfE4WQVGV&_r=1
Image Credits
Seth Garrington
Miguel Gaona
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
