The Steve Jobs of Hair – Vidal Sassoon Puts A Dent In The Universe
Like Steve Jobs and Apple, file Vidal Sassoon under visionary empire-builder!
Business
As revealed in the documentary Vidal Sassoon (2011) on Hulu, Sassoon is the first hair stylist to sell $1 billion of hair product after asking himself: “How can I make money while I sleep?” This feat requires both vision and business execution!
An authentic break with the status quo can lead to a real revolution! Sassoon has the charisma, vision and strength to make it happen. He invented the instantly-vogue, era-defining Five Point Cut in 1964, which ended up gracing all of Vogue’s publications at the time – and utterly changed the history of hair, fashion, photography, design and the individual’s identity!
He’s been putting a dent in the Universe for over 60 years!
Sassoon’s hair styles are based on architecture, including Bauhaus. His salon design was shockingly-different for the 1960s: massive front windows and an open-floor layout. The first worldwide hair academy. An International hair-care product empire. And his exacting standards of professionalism and style mean coming to work with dirty shoes gets you sent home.
He forever changed the relationship that hair style has with fashion, photography and film.
Health & Fitness
Sassoon’s charismatic personality has him literally dancing around his clients while cutting their hair. Proper eating, exercise, swimming, weightlifting, jump-rope, stretching, yoga and pilates have been a regular part of Sassoon’s life for over 60 years. Being a lifelong health-conscious fitness buff has kept him healthy, sharp-minded and physically nimble. At age 81 (as of the Vidal Sassoon Movie) he states, “a poor mind leads to a poor body; a poor body leads to a poor mind.”
Message to the Haters
To the naysayers he says…
When everybody tells you – when the doubters tell you – it can’t be done; you’ll go broke; or all kinds of tragedies will come your way… Nonsense. If you can get to the root of who you are, the gut of who you are, and make something happen from it, in whatever field, my sense is you’re going to surprise yourself.
–Vidal Sassoon
Like Steve Jobs and Apple, Vidal Sassoon never settled for the statues quo – and never let his clients dictate the dent he’s putting in the Universe. Never listening to what the client wants, Sassoon only cuts – designs – hair the way he envisions it!
The path to Sassoon’s success is filled with hard work, determination and an internal, lone decision-making process. The path of frustration can be the best pressure required to invent a new world!
Making Decisions
The worst decision he says he made was letting himself be convinced to sell his product line just after he got divorced from his first wife. The divorce threw his world upside down. And he cautions that an emotionally fragile state-of-mind is the worst time to make any business decisions.
This would have been the perfect time for a life coach to talk him out of selling.
Vidal Sassoon Movie
http://www.hulu.com/watch/584003
