“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”
Melody Beattie
Today is my Dad’s birthday. It will be the first time in 45 years that I cannot pick up the phone to call him, or give him the super special poems, CD’s or handmade cards I found so much joy in making for my #1 guy. Instead, I dedicate this post to him, and hope that since he got to heaven 10 months ago, that he made sure they got an Internet connection. Cause if anyone could make it happen, it’s my Dad.
So what does this have to do with gratitude you ask? One of the gazillions of lessons I have learned on my amazing, difficult and crazy journey, is about focusing on gratitude. And when I do, it makes dealing with the hard stuff a way easier. The quote above has incredibly deep meaning to me, so much so, that I tattooed on my arm, just in case I forget to be grateful. It happens.
So many of us get stuck in all the craziness that life throws our way. Each of you take in so much everyday, listening to your clients and team mates troubles, and sometimes we absorb that energy, sound familiar? The awesome news is we have a choice of what we get to do with the crazy, and when we choose to focus on gratitude, its amazing what can happen. Try it, I dare you!
One thing I was taught several years ago is when I get into a dark, sad place, which for me, is more often than I think people know, is to get out a piece of paper, or phone or whatever, and write 5 things I am grateful for. Even in the toughest of days, we can all find 5 things. Here is my list for today.
Nina’s Gratitude List
1. The 45 years I got to spend with my awesome Dad. I cherish each moment and memory, even the not so pleasant ones.
2. The love and support of my family and friends, no matter which decisions I make for myself, they’ve always got my back.
3. My unconditional loving dogs, Faith + Zen, without them, my life would be beige.
4. The journey I have been on learning how to match my outsides to my insides.
5. For Passion Squared (and my biz soul mate Gordon) which allows me to share my passion with the people I love.
Now it’s your turn. What 5 things are you grateful for today? If you are feeling courageous, jump on over to our Facebook page and share your list on our wall, or click here to share it just with us. Or text it to a friend. Just make one. It works.
(shared with LOVE + GRATITUDE from your passionista Nina)
PS: Happy Birthday Dad, I love you infinity and beyond.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
One of the greatest gifts of working in the beauty biz is the beautiful people who touch our hearts and minds each day. And while you spend most of your time helping others feel beautiful, we just wanted to take this moment to remind you, that you are beautiful too.
Your passion, commitment, compassion and talent make our world a more beautiful place. Your healing hands and hearts help bring so much warmth and happiness to people around the world.
So if you have one of those days, we all do, when you are not sure of yourselves or feeling down, just remember, we love you. You are beautiful.
Share this post with your friends, family, teammates and loved ones, you just never know whose day you are going to make better by letting them know they are beautiful too.
(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina + Gordon)
It seems every few months, our community is falling in love with a new social platform, and right now, its without a doubt Instagram. Are we surprised? Absolutely not. Instagram was made for creative, passionate people, it was made for you. Awesome.
Fun Facts
Everyday, in the US, 7.3M people are jumping on Instagram to share their “day in the life” moments. That’s more than who access Twitter everyday via mobile. Wow.
Normal is the most popular filter, at 45% of all photos shared, which seems so funny to us, why would you use Instagram if you are not going to put a super cool filter on your pics? Hmmm. Kelvin is the least popular film, kinda makes sense as its the last option. Poor Kelvin.
Top 100 Hashtags
1. #love (we heart)
39. #hair (big opportunity)
65. #awesome (we are totally guilty of using this one a bit too much, but hey, its awesome)
87. #foodporn (awesome, lol)
96. #nails (wow)
98. #beauty (double wow)
Out of the Top 100 people/brands followed on Instagram, with Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber being #1 and #2, there is an account called “hairpost” with almost 800,000 followers. Another confirmation on how in love the world is with hair and beauty on the social web.
These are a few of the cool stylists and salons we are following. Who are your faves to follow?
Are you using Instagram to share your passion and talents with the world? To become more discoverable on the web? Post your username on our Facebook page, we want to follow you.
If you are looking to better understand the social platforms and how they can help you ignite your passion and live your dream, click here. We look forward to hearing from you.
(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina + Gordon)
PS: Fun facts discovered on WEBSTAGRAM, thank you, we heart you.
“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
Harriet Tubman
PASSION
pas·sion n.
A powerful emotion, such as love, joy.
Intense, driving, or overmastering feeling or conviction.
Boundless enthusiasm.
SQUARED
squared v.
To raise (a number or quantity) to the second power.
We all understand what passion means, quite frankly, I think our industry invented the word. One of the gazillion awesome things about hairdressers (you) is the beautiful passion that you have for your art, clients, team mates, community and business. But what does Squared mean?
True Story
I will never forget the day, many years ago, when my incredibly awesome mentor and hero, John Paul DeJoria, said to me “I would rather have a passionate bitch working for me than someone who doesn’t care.” I love that man, always have, always will. I took it as a compliment. And he meant it as one. I have always stayed true to my beliefs. My passion has served me well. Yes, at times it gets me into trouble, but I will always be me, and if at times, people see that as being a “passionate bitch”, so be it. I care. And that means more than anything.
Do I Have to Do Math?
Squared has many meanings. The math one is what trips me up sometimes, and when I’m tripped up, I call Gordon (which I did last night), and he clears it all up. But this is not about a math lesson, this is about understanding the power of taking our passion and multiplying it via the social web.
Social Squared
The social platforms we play on are allowing us to share our passion like never before. And big stuff, big changes and shifts can happen when people around the world have the ability to connect and engage. In the old days (10 years ago), we did not have the ability like we have today to engage people and share with people. Today, we can get online and educate and inspire the world. This is powerful stuff.
How are you using social platforms to share your passion? To live your dream? To make your dent in the universe? Click here or hop on over to our Facebook page to share your story. We want to hear from you.
“We are massively underestimating this culture shift… We are in the era of the humanization of business. We’re living by small town rules again.”
Gary Vaynerchuk
Watch Gary Vee as he passionately shares his thoughts on the social revolution and what it means for our businesses. Listen at your own risk, lots of f-bombs and passion inside.
What excites us most about the social web for salons is most salons have always acted by “small town rules”. Salons and hairdressers are social by nature. Many of you have always cared deeply about your clients, your team and your community. A big first step is to take all of those values and principles you practice every day and apply them to the web. Ta-Da!
The social web is…
1. About people.
2. About listening.
3. About caring and loving.
4. About building relationships.
5. About meaningful conversations.
6. About giving a sh#t!
7. About authenticity.
8. About saying thank you.
9. About providing valuable + engaging content.
10. About building and growing word of mouth, referrals, organic discovery and your business.
The social web is not…
1. About selling.
2. About spamming.
3. About self-promotion.
4. About collecting likes and fans like baseball cards.
5. About asking people (over and over) to like and follow you.
6. About getting before you give.
7. About hype.
8. About bragging.
9. About posting just to post.
10. About outsourcing. (Can you really outsource listening to your clients? Think about it.)
Now you may be saying, wait a minute, I have to make money to pay my bills and I have to sell more stuff to do that. We understand, trust us, we have lots of bills too. With the new social economy and the connected consumer, you must first deliver value on your social pages, just like you do in your salon every day. You have to earn the business in the social space, not expect it because you have a website and Facebook page.
The first step is to understand, practice and consistently execute Steps 1-9 on the first list.
It takes time, but it is well worth it when you build an engaged community that loves you, what you stand for, the results you provide and they become raving fans on the web which turns into word of mouth and referrals! How awesome is that?
If you are looking for help to better understand the power of the social web and how it can help you grow, click here. We look forward to hearing from you and growing with you.
PS: This blog post was inspired by two of our social + digital heroes, author of The Thank You Economy Gary Vaynerchuk and author of The End Of Business As Usual Brian Solis. A big shout out of thanks to these two leaders who speak their truth, how refreshing.
(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina + Gordon)
