What can Vidal Sassoon teach us about success

A few days ago, I was watching a BBC documentary titled “A cut above,” about one of the most successful hairdressers in the world, Vidal Sassoon. During the show, one of the personal stories Vidal shared with the viewers was about how his career was almost a stillbirth. His prospects seemed limited—Vidal’s family was rather poor and he could not learn any trades.

But then suddenly, his mother told him that she had a premonition about him being a hairdresser. So one day she walked Vidal by the hand to a small hair salon owned by Adolph Cohen to see if Vidal could start his apprenticeship as a hairdresser there. The man said yes but he also said that he would need to charge them a hundred guineas.

“Which was an impossible figure,” said Vidal. “My mother said, ‘we don’t have a hundred buttons.’ “I was kind of smiling,” said Vidal, “because I was relieved I was not going to be a hairdresser.” “So I went to the door, I opened it for my mother and ushered her through, and I doffed the cap.” He (Adolf Cohen) followed us out and said: ‘You seem to have rather good manners young man—start Monday.’ And he looked at my mother and said: ‘Let’s forget the fee.’ So my apprenticeship cost nothing.”

My 2¢:
Upon hearing this story I had to pause the film because I was all chocked up.
Emotion is the mother of action.
Want big results? Think small. How small? As small as a tip of a hat.
Dec 13, 2011