Rear View Mirror

Rear View Mirror

In the first episode of Chats Behind the Chair, Deborah and Janey take a look back at where it all began.

Deborah shares the story behind the podcast, her journey through the hair and makeup industry, and some of the lessons learned along the way.

This episode sets the scene for the series — honest conversations, real stories, and the moments behind the chair that shape both the people working in the industry and the clients they connect with.

It is a conversation about hindsight, growth, confidence, communication and the value of looking back so we can move forward with more understanding.

Follow or subscribe to Chats Behind the Chair wherever you listen to podcasts, and join us for honest conversations that inspire, strengthen and support.

You can also follow along on Instagram at @chatsbehindthechair

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

So I see hairdressers, we're the forefront of what was happening on people's lives. We obviously have an amazing craft, but that's just part of it. People share all of their life's experiences with us. So she started telling her friends that Daughter wanted to be a hairdresser, and their comments was, it's a cop-out. You know, that's not really a career.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Welcome to Chats Behind the Chair. I'm Janie. Join Deborah and I as we step into the real conversations behind the chair. The human moments, the emotions, and the stories that shape this industry. Chats Behind the Chair goes beyond hairdressing. It offers tools for growth, inspiration, and support for the everyday moments behind the chair. In this first episode, we're taking you back to where it all began. How Chats Behind the Chair came to life, Deborah's journey into hairdressing and the steps that led her to opening her own salon and some of the challenges along the way. Deborah, the first episode of Chats Behind the Chair. Very exciting, Janie. So I want to know what does Rare Vision Mirror mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I guess, Janie, Rare Vision Mirror is all about looking back. It's some of the hindsight of um I had over 35 years in industry in the hair and makeup, and some of the things I would have done differently looking back. So I want to play those lessons forward. And also the insights of all the things I learned through this amazing journey of this industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Industry is amazing. So you obviously cut and you colour hair, but hairdressers do so much more than that. What do you see as the real role of a hairdresser?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Well, we have literally thousands of conversations. We're present with people. You know, we have our skill, which is, you know, our our craft, but there's so much more level of relationships with people. People share incredible things with us. So it's a platform where we have lots of conversations. It's an amazing industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And what a privilege to hold space for all those people.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Absolutely. You have relationships for years with people. Generations.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, I bet. Was there a particular moment where you were like, okay, this podcast needs to happen?

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Well, it was interesting because I over the last couple of years I've had two mums come to me with both of them. They had 18-year-old daughters wanting to get into the industry. So two years ago, I spent some time with one of the teenagers. I hosted her cut for a day, and then I got her into another salon, and then she ended up getting an apprenticeship. And then I had another mum about six months ago come, and she had a daughter also struggling to get into the industry. So I spent some time with her and it was really cool. I got really excited about, you know, looking back at the all the opportunities that can be offered in the industry, in the trades. And her mum actually came to me and she said it was so crazy because she was started talking to all her friends about, you know, her daughter wanted to do hairdressing. And some of the feedback was it's a cop-out, it's not really a career. Isn't that crazy? Oh my goodness. It's insane. That was the moment.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

That was the catalyst.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

That was the catalyst. Because I sort of really started thinking about this deeply. And, you know, my part, my industry, I've I went into the film industry, I did incredible things overseas, I traveled. You see people that have gone into different pathways into sales. There's so many different aspects to work in in their trades. And there's so many opportunities, isn't there? Oh, incredible for mums that, you know, go off and have children come back, open businesses. And so many people that worked with me those years ago have gone onto other pathways and different careers, but they would all acknowledge that starting off in the trades in the hairdressing, make up, beauty have has given them incredible foundation to what they've ended up doing. Like me in sales.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

You know, it's just thinkantistic. And it also gives you such amazing skills to deal with people. Absolutely. Fantastic people skills. So why do you think hairdressing isn't always seen as a serious career path?

SPEAKER_01 4:03

I just think, you know, for years I've sort of watched where the kids seem to be really channelled to university. And there's a lot of creatives like myself that we weren't set up to go to university. Some of us just are. It's just not not our path. Even high school, you know, we struggle at high school. We're socialites, we're, you know, like not necessarily into the traditional school system. So, and um, I had a really interesting experience for years ago. I was asked to go and speak at with a hundred teenagers at Stadium in Vicargo, and these kids were from 14 schools. So it was a really interesting situation. So I was curious with these teenagers. So I said to them, guys, okay, I want to ask you all a question. I have had a salon at that stage, it was 23 years, and we did all the cool stuff. We worked on lots of commercials, probably over 150 commercials, fashion shows, which would involve, you know, sometimes 900 tickets over two nights, really cool events. We did lots of photo sessions, all the cool stuff you could possibly want to do in our industry. So, how many? How many young people or anybody came up to the salon, rang up to ask about the career, maybe a holiday job in school holidays.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

So you're talking about how many people came up to the salon asking for a job? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Oh, work experience. Oh, it was interesting, Janie. So the hands started going up. And one boy said, you know, 200. Then it was 300. Then there was one girl that put up a hand and said 3,000. Oh, okay. That's a lot. Okay, that's a lot. So bearing in mind, I never really wanted to advertise. I wanted to get someone that was interested in our career. So anyway, I, in the reality, it was 10. 10 people over how many years? 23 years. A year three years. Really? Sometimes I'd be wandering around asking people, do they know a teenager that could have come on board for summer holidays? It was difficult to find someone. Why do you think that is? I don't know. I have no idea. So anyway, it was interesting. Uh, you know, because I said to them why I said, guys, the reality is some people watch things happen and they watch other people's lives play out in their social media. You know, they literally, literally watch people. Some people make things happen. They ask for help. They actually make a decision to get off and do something. You know, they they want to create their lives. And other people actually end up wondering what happened.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

You know, I wonder what what happened, you know, how it would have happened.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Maybe I could have been a hairdresser.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

Exactly. But the beauty thing of our industry is, you know, like I had one of my team members approach me. She was 25. She was from a retail background. And she decided she wanted to be a hairdresser, and she went from strength to strength. You know, naturally she already had great people skills. She was from retail background. And she went on to opening her own business. She did a bridal, beautiful work with a freelance business. You know, and it's just you can get into our industry at any time of life, and that's the beauty of our industries in any trait.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And I think it's you have to have that passion. You have to want to be there. And that would have been the thing with you. You would have wanted people who were generally interested and wanted to be there.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It was actually cool. About three months after I did that talk to the hundred teenagers, I was wandering around town and I went into a fashion shop, and this young lady said to me, she said, Are you that lady that you spoke to us at in the Cargill Stadium? I'm like, Yes. And she said, I got this job because of what you said. It's really cool. I used to do a lot of programs in high schools. And the thing is, you know, they're not often taught how to go and how to approach. In fact, one of the last people that came into my salon, I was busy with two clients. She came in, she was in school uniform, and she asked to speak to the manager. So I went up to her and I said, Look, the reality is I can't speak now, but would you please make an appointment with my receptionist? Look like you're going out for lunch. Come in with something like a CV where I can ring someone that you've maybe did some babysitting or maybe, I don't know, some gardening. And I want you to come in and I'll I'll spend time with you, do a little bit of research about my business, go online, see what we do. And then I ended up employing her and then I, you know, so it's not rocket science, but a lot of teenagers aren't taught the basic skills, how to apply, you know, what you want to do, you know, and just make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

To how to present yourself and how to go in, be open and interested in someone else's business is so key. So you ran collective for over 20 years and it was an institution, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

It's funny because when I still today I will meet people and they say it's a collective was an institution. And to be honest, Janie, you know, when I look back at that word, it's like to me, that's like a van turning out with a a jacket with no white sleeves. It's a white coat and I'm being taken away. There was some crazy days. The reality was that, you know, I went in, I opened a salon without a lot of business experience. Well, what happened was I'd I was overseas, I'd done a film and make art course in England, and then I was working in industry. I'd been working in Greece for a while, and I came back and I literally I tripped down a stair and staircase and broke my elbow, which was pretty devastating because with my surgeon he said to me that I would never hairdress again and I wouldn't straighten my elbow.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Okay, that's a problem being a hairdresser.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Big problem. It was major. So I came back to recover and I ended up about nine months later opening collective. I just decided I'm going to do it and never had another problem with my elbow, which is great. But I also, I guess I'd worked in about six different salons through my career. And I wanted to base my salon on, you know, I really like her platform for growth and for creatives, but I didn't have any real business experience apart from actually really just working in salons.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

And how did that go for you in the business?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Well, it's, you know, like any new business, you put all your heart and passion into establishing a clientele. And, you know, we are good at our craft, we're technicians and someone that wants to open a salon. We're an entrepreneur. So you have a vision and a dream. But there was a stage I remember, and I built a quite a big team. We had like eight stylists on board, and it was a big salon. And then I remember we had quite a big rent increase because I took on a large space. And I remember I had a real I had a belief system that I didn't want to ever really talk to my team about money. And where did that belief come from? I think one of the first salons I worked in, my boss constantly talked about not having enough money. Always like, couldn't afford this, couldn't afford that, couldn't increase our wages. So I made a conscious decision never really to do that with my own team. And I think that's a general problem sometimes with a lot of tradies. We don't like to share our challenges or our struggles. So, anyway, we can become very good actresses and actors. And I was very good. So anyway, I just sat my team down and I said, guys, we're putting our prices up. And I remember it was pretty crazy because they always sort of sat there and went, no, well, maybe if you paint the salon again and you add some more services, because we really like our clients. And you know, we don't want to, you know, increase our prices, so we don't want to.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

It's not happening. So they were calling the shots basically.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And it was it was crazy. But I kind of remember after that meeting went, Whoa, what happened? What happened then? So anyway, I decided to confide in my rep. And my rep was someone that would come in every sort of month and we would share a chat, you know, have a chat, a bit like a hairdresser in a client. You know, you're not really involved in their world, but someone as a platform. So he suggested that I went on this course and I thought, right, you know, it's a big deal to take a day off when you're, you know, you make your money by actually doing your physical trade. So I went along to this course and initially it wasn't a he wasn't a hairdresser. So I was a little bit So your walls were up.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

You're like, what does he know about the industry? I was a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

But he did this one tool which just shifted everything. It was a very it was a cool personality test. And I did this test and I worked out what my personality was. And then I went back with my team and I did this exercise. So what we're gonna do, Janie, is the next podcast, which is back the truck up, we're gonna dive into that, all those shapes. And to the personality test. Yes. Interesting. So go on collective courses under Chats Behind the Chair, and there's five different shapes. And all I want you to do is choose which shape that you like. Which shape you're drawn to. Yes. Just jumps out at you. Okay. And I went back into the cell and I used to share this tool with lots of other people. Obviously, you know, as a platform, we're always talking and sharing challenges with clients. And it was an excellent t tool just to sort of, you know, even your partner and your children, what what you know, who's on your team, why we're all different, and where our strengths sit and then also our weaknesses.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yes. So how did doing that personality test, how did that change things for you?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Well, I got everyone to f I f figured out who was on my team from the shapes and completely gave a whole understanding of what they needed and what I needed, how to communicate challenges. So yeah, it was a very valuable tool. And then after that, I ended up training in NLP, which stands for neural science. It's all about the mind in language programming, all about communication tools. And when I did that, it gave me a whole new set of tools to help. You know, I used to run a lot of courses. I ran courses for men, uh, for women, and also I did a lot of work with teenagers. And it just got really interested in the mind in my twenties because I worked at a modeling agency and I used to do all the hero makeup sessions for each person coming into the courses. Some people would be really underweight and yet they thought they needed to lose weight. Isn't that crazy? The perception people have of themselves. It's the same when people come into the salon, you know, they'll see features of themselves that we just don't see because it's their belief systems and it's, you know, how they treat themselves. So I was really interested in the mind at that age, and then to then train in an LP just sort of really got me understanding, you know, how we all how we think and how we're all different, you know, how we see our own worlds. So that gave me a great set of skills to help in my business, but then also to transfer it a lot with clients.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

And help your clients as well. So, how do you hope this podcast helps hairdressers that are listening?

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Well, often we come up with, you know, people share so much with us on a daily basis. We have some really challenging conversations. On roadside assist, I'm gonna delve into some of the conversations I've had, which were profound. Sometimes we take a lot of people's problems in our own shoulders, which can be hard, really, really hard. And so I'm gonna share in this podcast some really amazing communication tools. We're not taught to communicate.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

No, we're not. And it's such a valuable tool that we use every single day. It is the glue that keeps us together. Yes, in every aspect of our life.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah. And often, you know, when we have teams like I had eight or nine staff, you know, it's not even when we've got an issue, but if we've got team members have an issue with each other. So there's sometimes conflict that we don't know how to deal with. And so I want to share, and these podcasts I want to be a tool for hairdressers because I want to invite some really skilled people in that I know and some invited guests in their own professions to have some conversation with you and me, Janie. Because, you know, I want there'll be certain podcasts that hopefully the hairdresser will be able to say, look, we'll listen to this podcast. This could be really helpful to you. We all struggle in the trades, and I'm talking builders, plumbers, we're all in the same fields, we're on all on the same journey. You know, we've got team members, we've got a craft. So I see this podcast being, you know, who knows where it's going to go, Janie. It's pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

It's a great platform for growth in every aspect of your life, not just hai dressing. So, Deborah, can we go back to the start? Can you let me know what happened with the teenagers?

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Well, the first teenager, I remember when I first met her because I was getting so excited about the industry. I ended up writing her a poem called Growth.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Oh, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah. So I sent that to her, and now she's now fully in her apprenticeship. She's working with an incredible company in Dunedin. It's a fantastic company. So she's going from strength to strength. And I ended up writing so many other poems, which I'm going to share as a resource, you know, throughout the podcast on our social media sites, to share all those resources with people. And the other one, now she's in an apprenticeship. She's been there about six months. And I saw her recently and just totally like her confidence is building. And that is the beauty of apprenticeships is that no one has confidence. You know, my background, I was from a farm. So I was pretty confident on you know, motorbikes and you know feeding the land. Yeah, the chucks. Exactly. And I went into a city when I was 16, and I had to start hairdressing then at that time. And I was so unconfident. And the great thing about trades is you build, if you do a good job, you'll get feedback. And it's just you learn as you earn um and you grow through that journey. And so so many people I remember when they'd come into my salon, they'd go, You're so lucky. Luck has got nothing to do with it. It's all about acknowledging at every point, if you come up with a challenge, how you can overcome that, hurdle that challenge and learn. It's all about learning and getting amazing mentors around you to really make your life how you want it to be.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

And it's also Rear Vision Mirror, life doesn't make sense until you look back and connect the dots, right?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, it's hindsight. You know, I just want to play it forward. I want to share some some of my lessons. And I had some good lessons. The thing is, if you don't learn your lessons, you'll just get that experience back of relationships with people. You'll get the same challenges that will come up again if you had don't learn how to address and deal with the issues at the time.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

So, Deborah, if someone's young and they're listening right now and they're thinking that maybe they want to be a hairdresser, what would you want them to hear?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

What I'd say is get some work experience. Ask for help. The school system doesn't seem to really necessarily do that for a lot of teenagers. As I said, 10 people in 23 years is not rocket science. There's not a lot of effort that you have to make. Ask for a holiday job. Just go and get some experience. I went and worked in a salon for free one day when I was 15 to get some experience. What's expected of me? You know, what do I need to do to impress these people? It's just getting those basics of knowledge. And, you know, when you look at if you Google the happiest people in their jobs, hairdressing, beauty therapy, and gardeners are the happiest people in their jobs. And what do you think that is? It's just the relationships. You know, the relationships that you form, the connections, all the things you learn in it, you know, you're making people feel good. So our job is so unique. We spend between half an hour and four hours with people. Although I can't think of any other jobs where we have that space, we have that platform to share and be present with people.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

And be connected, which is such a beautiful thing. And that's been the first episode of Chats Behind the Chair. Until next time. Thank you. Well, thanks for joining us on Chats Behind the Chair. If you could do us one favor, we would love for you to share this episode with a friend who you think might enjoy it. Have a fantastic week, and we look forward to catching you back here soon on Chats Behind the Chair.