Believe, Achieve, Succeed: A Barber's Journey to Creative Freedom

WHY IS BELIEVING IN YOURSELF SO HARD?

Imagine learning something new like barbering, but with the immense pressure of everyone watching, it feels hard to start, to be consistent, to feel proud of your work when your feed is constantly filled with styles that are a trillion times better than yours.

How do we break free from this?

When I think about this topic, I’ve realized that the feeling doesn’t really go away because we are continuously evolving into more multi-faceted creatives. I felt it when I started barbering, I felt it when I became a videographer, I felt it as an educator, and now I’m feeling it again pursuing a career as a filmmaker.

If you're curious like me to build into a better version of yourself and maybe you already do have visions of seeing yourself in my shoes and travel and teach and become a full-time content creator. With going into any of those fields comes the pressure of first how we will feel about ourselves.

We know we WANT it. That’s the easy part, but can we get ourselves to believe we can do it, that we’re willing to go to bat every day for it? I’ll be honest, that’s what it takes. If you want to be good in this industry and aim for average, it’s SATURATED. If you want to be great, that lane isn’t as congested. The hardest part is breaking free from the mediocre level of any skill. Everyone eventually gets good at it, but being great takes a different beast from inside of you.

Who I am as a barber is further along than me being a filmmaker. Barbering is a physical task that doesn't always require a super creative end result. If someone wants a side part with a medium skin fade on the side, super tight edge up along sideburns, no front box hairline, and maybe trim hair down to 4 inches on top… for the most part, any barber should give you a similar style based on those details. Now, when someone wants a video to look and feel a certain way, there’s no blueprint to follow. It could go so many different ways depending on the experience of the editor, the type of work they are used to, and the level of mastery they’re at.

Do I believe that I can get better and not suck? Absolutely. Why? Because I’ve been able to push myself through barbering to get to a global level of acknowledgment and work. I understand that it takes building brick by brick and allowing yourself to get better through the repetition of practice and then you gotta outwork others and build more value that puts you in demand. When I fall into crazy video projects, I try to remind myself of the same lessons. Just allow myself to push through and learn faster by just going through the motions and trying to be aware of the process every single step. Since this thought process, when I got into it heavy last year, from just a year of hard relentless work, I could say I’ve learned about 3 years of skill crammed into the last 12 months.

Things take time to learn, we know this, BUT if you want to go quickly, you have to do it more often and that depends on each person and what they can handle. You will fall, you will spend your time and money towards that skill you want to build and when you do fall, just like Tim Grover talks about in his books, you can’t just fall and get back up and try again. You have to fall, you have to understand why you fell and where you could have improved and really have an honest dissection of it, then get back up and do it again. If you don’t, you will repeat the same fails and get extremely frustrated.

I share this because I’m years into the stuff that I’m doing and I’m finding areas of discomfort and new lessons to learn. Reminding you all that it will never get easier when you’re on the pursuit to become the best version of you in whatever that may be and it starts with you believing that you can do it. If you don’t believe it, the energy that's inside of you won’t allow you to push through.

Think of this scenario as an example and it’s something I got from some meditation practice a few years back that has really stuck with me. Energy is within us. Think about this. You meet someone for the first time and you guys hit it off and you find yourself not being able to put the phone down or text each other all day. You stay up late, you stay out all night, and if you think about it, it’s just a natural energy that consumes you to keep this activity up. You didn’t get that energy any other way than unlocking that within you because you were enjoying what was going on and you chose it without putting too much thought towards it. It’s like it just clicked on. So when you love something and you figure out why you do, there’s a natural energy that is unlocked to give you the momentum you need to get going. The hardest thing about unlocking this energy is knowing that you already have it. We think we need it from the outside world and whatnot, but when we rely on things outside of us, we don’t hold ourselves accountable to make it happen on our own call.

When I had pictured that situation in that meditation practice, it hasn’t left me since. Anything I don’t have natural energy towards, I try to think about it and ask myself why I’m not connecting. Am I focused on something different than my goal? Am I distracted by something else that’s disrupting what I wanted to do? The more questions you’re able to ask yourself, the closer you get to having more focus and control over the things in your life.

Meditation practice I did for about 2-3 years regularly that helped me reprogram my thought process to be more clear, to stay focused, to be more accountable and know that I do have the power to choose a better life by being aware of my daily actions.

We are not all blessed to have been born into great things, there are more times we come from tough lives and challenges. And many times, it was the best our families could have done, but the amazing part of being in the United States is that we live in a nation where we can build off of what we were given and grow from there. When I was a regular employee before barbering in regular corporate America, I followed someone else’s plan for whatever they had for me and I was building a skill that helped run their business. It still teaches you something regardless, but it wasn’t my dream job. It was just something I needed for that moment. When I finally chose the creative route, my whole world flipped upside down. Now, it’s not a matter of following what someone tells you but what are YOU going to create for yourself that makes you a better barber, creator, or educator?

In any situation, I think about one thing. If I get hired for a job, how do I become irreplaceable? I have to believe that before I even build the skill especially for new journeys. But even as a barber in a barbershop where I started, how do I not get fired and better yet, how do I become irreplaceable? I have to be willing to do the things that most people won’t. I took every client whether I knew how to cut their texture or not, I took all the kids that people ran to the back for, I started at opening and left late. I can’t magically wake up and be amazing at any job, but I know I can work my ass off and that’s what I did the first 2-3 years and by the time I left, I was the most expensively booked barber in the shop. I charged double of everyone and I only took appointments focusing on quality while everyone else was doing quick cuts or simply was too nervous to charge more. People value quality in any space. Things they can trust get a return. If they’re going to spend $40 to sit for 45-60 mins and the cut was super clean, no cuts on the skin, and they got in exactly on the dot of their appointment, they were willing to spend an extra $20 bucks with me.

Another situation, early editing days. I was editing for a celebrity and it was shooting AND editing for $500 a day with $50 revisions by the end of that term. It was kinda crazy talking about it now but I didn’t have a portfolio to say otherwise. I can’t use my barbering leverage in this case. I was NEW and that was the opportunity at that time and I needed the experience. To this day, depending on the job my editing (only) rates have grown from $$$-$$$$ per day for edits so I’m extremely happy and it feels like I'm getting closer to my worth that I would normally feel when I’m in the barbering space. But again, it takes time, effort, and believing in yourself and the process that you’ll get there. Embrace every experience. They all have something to teach you.

Let this week be filled with more CHOSEN energy and believe that you already got it in you. You just have to channel it towards things that you really want to see progress in.

Energy flows where attention goes.

Have a great week!

Sof!