We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hind Haidar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hind , 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?
I am Lebanese. I come from some of the most resilient people on the planet. If Lebanon can get knocked down and rebuild itself to its glory dozens of times I can survive a setback and comeback stronger too.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am proud of our mission at The Cutting Room. We are an inclusive, sustainable, low-toxin salon. That means in all things we do we prioritize these things from building materials, to product choices, to cleaning supplies to how we price our services. We set ourselves apart by being a values based business. But that’s not all. We also create an exceptional experience for our clients and provide highly skilled artists who take continuing education to advance their skills and stay on top of trends!
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?
The first was to be a student and to master my craft. Be humble, learn, practice, be obsessed refine, and know it will take a long time to build your clientele. Advice for this phase be patient with yourself and as for confidence, fake it till you make it!
The second stay a student. There is always room to learn something new, when you stop learning you stop growing. Advice for this phase, try learning a new skill or pushing yourself to the next level- for me it has been opening a salon with employees a massive challenge with so much to learn, and mastering new tools such as a straight razor.
Three, mentor. Nothing solidifies knowledge like teaching it to others. Plus it makes it all new and exciting again. Young people bring so much passion to the field and it’s contagious and they have much to teach us as well. Advice for this stage: Stay open and try not to do things for them, see how they approach things first with trying to turn them into a copy of you.
What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?
I used to think so but no, I feel it’s best to focus on your strength and hire out our areas of incompetence. For me I hire out my bookkeeping, website management, social media and accounting. I don’t have the skills or the bandwidth and it won’t be done well if I do it. That way I can focus on my zones of excellence and genius which are doing hair, creativity, inspiration and educating my team and client and community relationships.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thecuttingroomco.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecuttingroomco?igsh=MWM4cmp2YnN0Y2g3aw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
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- Yelp: https://yelp.to/kTc-oeyIpY
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Image Credits
Mio Sisson III
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