As I walked out of the usual hair salon after receiving the most thorough haircut yesterday, I realized that I learned something very important, and I had to share it here with the world.

Since the beginning of this year, I decided to stay with an asian hair salon that knows how to cut my kind of hair. My hair is probably twice as thick and heavy, and 10x as straight as european hair. For the longest time I’ve wondered why I can’t get it to what I want until I realized that most “professionals” have no clue how my hair is different.

The Start

Here I am, sitting in the chair, starting to tell Jean (later learned her name) how I want to cut my hair:

“I liked to have 1 on the side, and shorter on the back, and leave the front entirely.”

Immediately, she fired back and said, “Your hair is straight and thick, and that will not look nice. that will be not good.”

There’s definitely a language barrier, and she definitely didn’t mean to offend me, but this is what went through my head:

*in my head* hmm..I’m pretty sure I know my hair is straight and thick because it’s on my head, and what looks good or not is really up to me.

So I continued with my request. She was frustrated, tired and annoyed that I didn’t listen to her recommendation.

Conflict

After multiple small requests and reiterating my “want”, she replied each time with a frustrated, quick “OK”, and essentially ignored everything that I said.

At this point, she already started the operation and there was no turning back.

*in my head* well there goes my hair. I need to find a hat shop so I can wear hats for about a month.

However, I didn’t give up on my requests. I started smiling more as I pushed for the best result possible, and began to say “thank you” for every little thing she did that went my way.

Transformation

Slowly but surely, her attitude began to change. She began to smile more. She became more thorough with her technique and watched out for tiny details everywhere on my head.

I began to smile even more since things began to look better and more “thank you” went her way.

Result

In the end, after she finished, she went back to edit at least 5 times as if she was taking care of her own hair. Both of us were amazed and surprised how great it came out.

Lesson — 1

It was truly amazing how a smile and a quick “Thank You” can entirely flip the situation. I quickly realize that this pertains to all aspects of life including business, teamwork, relationships and more.

Smile MORE! Say more “Thank You’s”!