Harlem Shake Original

Why I Love The Harlem Shake

March 11, 2013Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

 “Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”

Souza

 Harlem Shake Original

Here is the audio version of this post if you just want to listen. You’re welcome.

Why I Love The Harlem Shake

Dance Like Nobody Is Watching
I love the Harlem Shake. I just cannot get enough. All of them, the good, bad and the ugly. Why? Because it speaks to something that I believe is so important in today’s world; people dancing like nobody is watching.

There is so much we can learn from this latest YouTube craze. That people love watching others live with abandon. How much we all crave fun, play and creativity. How its many times the simplest of things that can have the most impact and resonate with a global audience on the web.

As I watch many people begin to bash this craze, I have thought a lot about why that would be? What could possibly be wrong with people having fun and sharing it with the world? Aren’t we supposed to live out loud. Share our art. Dance like nobody is watching?

Here is one of my fave salon versions from a good friend, amazing hairdresser and industry leader Fernando Romero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz69k6UL09M

What We Can Learn
When I see high school students get suspended from school for creating their own version of the Harlem Shake, it takes me back to my school days. And they were not pretty. I struggled with topics such as math, history, English, well OK, all of them. I was bored out of my mind, and it reflected in my grades. I was suspended myself two times before I reached the 7th grade.

What I saw in those suspended high school students was future artists, producers, directors, choreographers, and clothing stylists. I saw future leaders, managers, entrepreneurs. I saw a bunch of fearless young people having fun, and learning about themselves in the process. What could possibly be wrong with that?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Please share them in the comments or with me, I’m listening.

(shared with LOVE from Nina)

Contribute

Stop. Start.

February 18, 2013Nina KovnerGROW

“Blame is expensive, empathy is free.”

Joshua Fields Millburn, The Minimalists

 

Contribute

Here is the audio version of this post if you are not into reading. You’re welcome.
Stop. Start

Our Dirty Little Secret

I am proud to say I have been in the beauty and wellness biz my entire life, since my first day of beauty school. I love this industry, the people, the passion, and the ability to make another persons day better. But what I have witnessed over the last decade or so is actually not very beautiful at all. Something that many choose not to talk about. And that is lack of leadership, blaming others, insincere motives, hype and fluff and BS, lack of authenticity, insecurity, low self-esteem, mental health and addiction issues, short term thinking and expectations. Unfortunately the list could go on forever, but I will not waste any more words.

Blame is Lame

It seems so easy to blame everyone but ourselves for the state of our industry. But its lame. And not very productive. Let’s make a decision together, as an industry, to focus our energy on what we can do, to help small businesses learn to be better, to help people achieve their dreams and live their passion, to be a contributor, to be a hard working team member, to be honest with those who trust that we know better, and I mean really honest.

All the positive thinking, quotes and motivational seminars in the world will not get us there. Looking in the mirror will. And I mean all of us.

This may be a good start.

Stop. 

Complaining

  • Blaming…

    • The industry

    • The manufacturers

    • Diversion

    • The salons

    • The Hairdressers

    • The schools

    • The distributors

    • Your team

    • Your teammates

    • Your circumstances

    • Your location

Dropping the ball.

Start. 

Contributing

  • Caring

  • Taking responsibility

  • Following up

  • Leading with love

  • Discovering your why

  • Taking action on your ideas

  • Helping those in need

  • Looking in the mirror

  • Focusing on what you can control

  • Building people up

  • Making good art

  • Showing up

  • Sharing

  • Challenging the status quo

  • Changing the systems

  • Creating value.

 Your Choice. Choose wisely. (Particularly if you call yourself a “leader”, “expert”, “icon” or “guru”.)

A super big shout out of gratitude and love to Joshua Fields Millburn and Simon Sinek for inspiring me to create this post. You guys ROCK my world!

(shared with LOVE from Nina)

Passion Squared Instagram

Instagram 2.0

November 8, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE

“A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.”

Eudora Welty

 

Passion Squared Instagram
We are loving the evolution of Instagram and how our community has taken to it as the go-to app for engaging, sharing and connecting with the world. It’s no surprise though, as we are a creative and visual group of characters, and Instagram plays right into what we value most.

This week, Instagram introduced Web Profiles, where your page can be directly accessed on the web with your own unique URL.  Pretty cool, yes?  Why do we think its so cool?

1. It allows us to engage on the web, not just on the app, to like, comment and follow new users. Yes, there are several 3rd party apps that allow this already, but this is just kinda more official.

2. It helps our businesses become more discoverable on the web, just like other social platforms, the more we engage, the more discoverable we are.

3. Having our own URL allows us to share our Instagram page more easily among other platforms, as well as through our marketing and communications.

You can also edit your profile, revoke access to 3rd party apps, etc.

InstagramInstagram 

So how do you discover your profile?  Simply go to www.instagram.com/your Instagram name here

If your page is set to private, only those who you allow to follow you will be able to see your photos.  So you may want to double check your privacy settings on the app.  You cannot change those settings on your Web Profile.

So there you have it.  We will continue watching Web Profiles develop, as we sense this is only the beginning.

(shared with LOVE from your passionistas Nina + Gordon)

To Inifnity and Beyond

To Infinity and Beyond

October 3, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

“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

To Inifnity and Beyond

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.

(shared with LOVE from your passionista Nina)

Find + Love + Share = Curation

May 30, 2012Nina KovnerENGAGE, GROW

 “There is no delight in owning anything unshared”

Seneca

Curate: to pull together, sift through and select for presentation, as music or Web site content. Dictionary.com

Before there was the social and digital web, most of what we saw as news and inspiration was the result of choices made by a limited number of professional “editors”. Today, that number has increased exponentially as platforms like Facebook have given us all the ability to become “editors” by simply curating (sharing the content that we find and love) for our online friends and fans.

A great example of this shift can be found on YouTube -a social platform featuring “gazillions” (48 hours of content uploaded every minute) of videos that run the gamut from impossibly amateur and uninteresting to highly polished productions (and everything in between).

One of our recent fave video finds is “1950’s Womens Beauty Salon” from Glamour Daze, a YouTube channel with 2.5 million views! We found it while searching beauty salons on YouTube, were hooked from the opening line, “To women, a beauty salon is more than a feminine barber shop”, and immediately knew we to had to share…curation at its best!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfFvJVRcVaE&feature=youtu.be

We also found this super juicy video on “curation” from devour.com (awesome video curation site) that simply and beautifully describes what curation really means and why it’s important.

PS: This blog was inspired by our passion of curating; finding engaging and empowering content that we love and feel compelled share.

(shared with LOVE from your curating passionistas Nina + Gordon)