We recently connected with Dj Wilke and have shared our conversation below.
Dj , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a difficult situation, and I have had my fair share of challenges in life. Being raised by not one but two parents in the service, our family moved quite often! You learn to adapt to change and open your mind to new opportunities and perspectives. I lost my mom when she was 35. I was only 10 and now that I am quickly approaching 35, I realize she hadn’t even begun to experience life. So I am trying to live my best life because she would have given anything to make me happy. I’m also not ashamed to admit that I’m a recovering addict, and I’m thankful for that experience because it made me who I am. More recently i lost my best friend in the entire world, she was the best part of my life! My sweet girl Bella was my constant from 19. There through everything, marriage, divorce, school, school again…. You catch my drift. I didn’t think I would recover from any of this! Especially losing Bella. But I have to continue to be resilient and continue to succeed and become better for their legacy!
Please tell our readers about what you do, what you feel is most exciting or special about it, as well as anything else you’d like folks to know about your brand/art/etc. If relevant, please also tell our readers about anything new (events, product/service launches, expansion, etc)
Hair By DJW is my brand and while hair service are all that I provide, I believe that when you. Have, courage, generosity, and kindness everyone wins. ANYTHING is possible with a little. Bit of vision, a goal, and a plan. Besides a perm (because it’s the one service I won’t do) you won’t hear a “no, you can’t have that.” you might hear well let’s come up with a plan and it may be requiring some patients or lots of money or both. Now, if you are bald or don’t have enough hair for your desired looks, we can find you a really good wig or extensions are a thing as well.
In Addition to all of that, I care immensely about the future of this beautiful planet that we live on. Did you know that the beauty industry is responsibility for 850lbs of waste per minute? That’s a lot of waste! So I will be partnering up with Terra Cycle’s Salon Cycle to become a green salon. I will also be converting as many products as possible Into glass bottles, hopefully pushing people to bring them back and refill them since, since I offer refills on as many products as possible. The customer saves about 50%, and the land fills are no longer going to be flowing with waste from myself or my clients. We only have one planet, let’s work on keeping it as healthy as possible.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The most important thing that someone would need to have to be able to succeed and has the most impact is the ability to not give up and to push through, because when you are in school, real world life will hit you, and you will question all of your life choices, but DON’T give up! All will work out the way it is supposed to. You should also probably have a little bit of business knowledge, now you don’t have to have a business degree like I got first because my dad told me I needed to have some real degree or else I am going to be eating canned beans the rest of my life! There ar free business building classes all the time. Take advantage of the free stuff, ALL OF IT!!!!! And you have to have a passion for some part of the beauty industry, it may not be the same as what got you into the field, and that’s okay. You just have to love what you do, because some days you will have to do it just because you love it, and do some stuff for free, especially in the beginning.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
My number one challenge that I face in a daily basis, and that I will always work on is over sharing or feeling like I need to fill dead air with my voice, because I get nervous that the client is bored. I try to remind myself that not everyone likes to talk when I am feeling like I need to fill the air with my voice. I have gotten pretty good at rereading body language and taking little hints like, if when I am speaking and the client responds with, “mhmm”, “yea,” or “that’s nice,” and don’t offer anything else, they probably don’t want to talk. So I have a tv in my space that I offer them to catch up on a show or some magazines with the current gossip.
Contact Info:
- Website: Www.hairbydjw.com
- Instagram: @hairbydjw
- Facebook: Www.facebook.com/hairbydjwilke
- Other: Bonfire.com/store/hairbydjw
Image Credits
Models:Sarah Ceti, Janice Hooper, Karen Bruning, Nena Stemler, Britany Douglas, Melissa Smith, Marleigh Anderson Photographer: Gabrielle Mappone, David Wilke
