Winn Claybaugh

Be Nice Leadership & Culture To Run a Successful Beauty School

Co-Founder and Dean of Paul Mitchell Beauty Schools

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Hey everybody. Well, first of all, thank you Chris for that introduction.

The fact that you mentioned my mom as part of my introduction, that probably means more to me than anything else that you could have added because you’re exactly right. And I’ll tell you something, I’ve been in the school business for 38 years. And, soon into that journey of mine, my mom became one of my financial aid leaders and came to work for me.

She left another job, I recruited her away from that other job, and she came to work with me. And, she just barely retired. She’s 94 years old now, and she just barely retired a couple of years ago. So, what a wonderful journey. And I’m so, so grateful for this opportunity, which I do not take this for granted.

Even though I’m excited to be here today with all of you, I have to tell you, I’m also a bit nervous.

Like most of you, maybe, I’m at home. So I’ve got a green screen behind me, and my daughter’s 1,000 stuffed animals are behind that green screen. So ,the world that we now live in, which is amazing, and we can talk about that as well, but I’m excited about it, but I’m also very nervous. I get nervous every single time.

In fact, according to The Book of Lists, the number one fear is public speaking. Well, the number two fear is death by fire. So, you all know how I feel right now. And even though the Paul Mitchell name is attached to me and to my bio and to my experience, please know that I have a love for the entire beauty school industry.

And to me, it does not matter what your name is, what your brand is, what banner you stand under, I want to embrace everybody, and I do embrace everybody. I’m thrilled when I get the opportunity to speak at all kinds of industry events, and many of them have nothing to do with the Paul Mitchell company.

But I believe that as we work together, as we contribute together, because we’re all consumers, we consume. We consume tuition dollars, we consume oxygen, we consume water. We’re all consumers, and I want to be a contributor. And so I appreciate when somebody like Chris reaches out to me and says, “Hey, can you be a part of this?” Of course. I immediately say, “Yes.” I said yes to this, and I say yes to everything. So, thank you so much for this.

Very interesting times that we have been going through in the last year or so. Somebody once said to me that it was almost like with the pandemic and COVID, it’s almost like God sent everybody to their room. The entire planet, everybody just go to your room, take a time out.

And we all believe that everything happens for a reason. And I believe that the reason is always for our good. You see, things don’t happen to you, things happen for you. And we have a choice as we go through all of this, everything that we’ve been through.

There was a popular saying in the ‘60s that if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. And part of the problem can be that we have focused too much on the fear side of everything that’s been happening with the social unrest and the pandemic. We tend to focus more on the fear.

And by the way, fear has many faces. Fear has the face of anger. There’s a lot of people who are really, really angry right now. And I want to understand that, we need to look at that and understand that.

Fear also has the face of settling for less. And so you might have team members in your schools or future professionals, we call them future professionals.

Students who have settled for less, they have given up on their dream a little bit because they were thinking, “Gosh, this is not what I signed up for. What I signed up for was to get out of bed excited every single day and put on my best clothes. I would drive to that school, walk in that building. There would be great energy playing there, I got to hug a whole bunch of people. I would sit in that classroom with that wonderful teacher, that learning leader on the stage. And they had a model or a mannequin head, and I could duplicate the work that they were doing on the stage. And then of course, I got to go out to the clinic floor and work on that guest. I got to have that exchange with them and practice my skills in that area. And that’s what I signed up for.”

And then all of a sudden, a year ago, that was canceled. We all had to stay home, we were switched to distance learning, you’re learning to do finger waves on your dog right now. We do whatever it takes to make it work. So when you sign up for that fear side, of course, you’re not going to be part of the solution. Of course, you’re not going to come out of this ahead. If everything happens for a reason and the reason is always for our good, well, then let’s take a good look at that.

It’s always for our good. What we’re going through right now, you guys, this is just a bump in the road. This is not permanent.

And there’s a reason. And the reason is that you become stronger because of that. And we’ll touch on that today. See, the opposite of fear is love. And by the way, love has many faces as well. So can you imagine a school, a company with the motto of being mean?

And yet in the absence of a good, strong culture where people feel safe, where there are strong systems to teach a “be nice culture” will by default create a mean one.

My good friend CW tells the story that he’s in the airport waiting for this delayed flight. And all the passengers are patiently waiting for this delayed flight, except for this one man who for some reason was really upset over this delayed flight. And he was abusing the poor ticketing agent who obviously had no control over why this flight was delayed, but he was loud and mean and aggressive to this poor woman.

So my friend CW comes up to this abusive man and he says, “Excuse me, sir, but can I have your autograph?” And the abusive man stepped back and he said, “Why do you want my autograph?” And CW said, “Because I’ve never met the center of the universe before.”

How many of you can’t wait to use that sometime?

Did you know that 50% of people who quit their jobs did so to get away from their boss, did so to get away from a toxic culture, from toxic team members?

And by the way, those who quit are not the worst employees. They are the best employees, the best team members quit. Why? They know they deserve better.

See, your worst employees, they stick around. They know they are lucky to have a job, they are part of the problem. We call them spoons, they are just stirring things up. So let me ask you all, do you perhaps contribute to the reason why some people might be unhappy in your school?

And it’s a very fine line because, yes, students, future professionals, they are our number one customer. They are the reason why we exist.

And yet sometimes, school leaders, teachers, learning leaders can treat them as though they are at the bottom of the totem pole. It’s a very fine line between that customer service side of making sure our future professionals are well taken care of. And so do you sometimes become what we call “a resistor,” someone who brightens up a room by leaving? Do you sometimes act like the center of the universe when it comes to how you treat those future professionals, how you treat fellow coworkers in your school?

Okay. So there’s this joke: A school owner is giving a tour of her school, and the person asks, so how many people work here? And the school owner responds with, “Oh, about half work here.”

And the reason why that can happen in some schools is because people are not engaged. See, maybe they’re engaged with their time. Meaning people show up to work for one thing and one thing only, and that is to receive what? A paycheck. Got to pay the bills, so that’s why I’m here, I clocked in.

But they’re not engaged with their passion, with their creativity. And oftentimes, when people are not engaged, what do we want to do? We want to fire them.

You cannot fire your way into building a better team of people in your school.

And as much as we have reinvented and improved how we do business today because of organizations such as Axe and companies such as Oozle Media, absolutely we have improved how we do business today.

And yet some schools, some companies still operate by what I call an old school culture, an old school style of leadership. Now, old school leadership, listen up, old school leadership means that you dictate, you control, you and your team think it’s your job to police everybody.

You police your students, you’re just waiting to catch them doing something wrong. You catch them, they’re out of dress code, “A-ha, I caught you!”

If that’s what you expect of your people, if that’s what you’re looking for, what you focus on, what are you going to create? Exactly that. You set traps for people. And of course, they fall right into that trap and then you’re like, “Well, I was right, I knew it. I knew you would be late, I knew you would be out of dress code.”

Well, good for you, you were right. But where did that get you? That’s old school style of leadership and old school culture. So we talk about leadership not as a title because leadership is not a title.

Leadership is not a position.

In fact, I have seen this many times … Tell me if you agree with this. I have seen many times that sometimes it is that brand new team member who’s only worked in the school for a couple of months and they do more to create fun, passion, creativity, teamwork than that learning leader who’s been there for 20 years.

Oh, and by the way, to me, that brand new person who can create that passion, that creativity, that fun in your school, to me, that’s leadership. Because again, leadership is not a position, it is not a title.

First Definition of Leadership

I have two definitions of leadership that I’m going to share with you. First definition of leadership is someone who has influence over another human being. So based on that definition, raise your hand, who here is a leader? And if you didn’t raise your hand, you didn’t understand the definition because all of us have influence over other people.

Right now, you have influence over total strangers standing in line at the grocery store. Think about this. Nowadays when you go to the grocery store, first of all, is there a lot of fear at the grocery store? Of course, there is. Everybody’s in a mask, they’re trying to social distance.

And who knows that those people at the grocery store, who knows that they have lost their jobs, who knows that they can’t even pay their rent. Who knows that maybe they’ve lost loved ones to COVID. We don’t know what people are going through.

So yeah, there’s a lot of fear at the grocery store.

Well, let me ask you something. With those strangers at the grocery store, could you make their day? Yeah. Could you ruin their day? Yes. We all have influence, and that’s my first definition of a leader.

So by the way, I don’t care what your title is, what your position is in your school. I don’t care if you’re not the owner or you’re not the manager, all of us are leaders. Nobody here is let off the hook, all of us. And by the way, you were hired of course because of your resume and your skills and your experience and your certifications. Yeah, that’s how you got the job.

But, you were also hired because of your potential. People saw potential in you, and that’s why you were hired there. And that’s why we call you a leader.

Second Definition of Leadership

My second definition of leadership is someone who gets the job done along with the efforts of other people who gladly and confidently follow.

Now, there are a couple of parts to this statement. I know some leaders who do get the job done along with the efforts of other people, but those people don’t gladly and confidently follow them.

Why? Because again, some leaders, maybe even in your school, are trying to lead by old school style. They’re policing people, they don’t bring out the best in people. And we all know that that does not work.

See, just as you would like to dress up before you go to that job interview, if you’re trying to get the job, you would absolutely look the part during that interview. Well, maybe you don’t have the title of being a leader right now, maybe being a manager or a director is not your title right now.

I’m telling you, you need to act like a leader now. It’s so funny, in choosing a leader, people are like, “Well, how do you choose a good leader?” Well, they have followers. See, sometimes we give people the title, and they don’t have one follower. And I’m always thinking if I pulled that title away from that person, if they no longer were the boss, they no longer were the director, the leader, would people still follow them? And by the way, I’m not talking about social media following, I’m talking about true flesh and blood followers.

That’s a leader. See, leadership is about taking responsibility for yourself and for others.

It’s not about how many points you can score, it’s about how many points you can help the entire team score.

See, a good leader when things are going really good, a good leader gives credit to everybody else. A bad leader takes credit for themselves. Things are going good because of me, it’s all about me. So, you have a good leader when things are not going well, a good leader takes responsibility, I am responsible for that.

A bad leader blames everybody else, it’s your fault that enrollment is down, it’s your fault that the school is dirty. A good leader takes responsibility. In fact, I want all of you to repeat after me right now.

I am responsible.

Repeat that. Come on, one more time, really loud. I don’t care if you’re at your school or at home, repeat that: I am responsible.

And if you break that down, I am response able, I am able to choose my response to this situation. And we’re going to talk about exactly what that means.

See, it’s not about judgment. I am responsible, that’s not about guilt or blame, it’s about empowerment because you’re not a victim here. I don’t care your title, how long you’ve been in that school, you’re not helpless. Right?

See, the reason why all of us are here today is to be influenced. That’s why they have put together this wonderful, wonderful event for all of you, to be influenced. You are successful because of what you know, and you are unsuccessful because of what you don’t know. Cool that you can maybe in the chat room right now or as you’re networking with each other. Cool that you can brag about all the things that you are so good at in your school.

I’m glad that you have a good perception of yourself.

Yes, you want to be able to brag about yourself, but how aren’t you good? Where do you lack? What are your opportunities for growth?

That’s what I want you to share during this conference, share that with each other. Here is where I am weak, I’m weak in this area. Share that information with each other. Let that be the conversation because those are your opportunities for growth.

You see, if you are the smartest, most talented person working in your school, I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you because that means that you’re now going to be forced to work 12-hour days six days a week.

One of my favorite movies is Field of Dreams. What’s the main line, the main message in that movie?

Build it, and they will come.

Build it and they will come. Meaning, if we want to build a school, a company, a business where people want to come and work there, students want to sign up for that school, guests want to come in and get services in our school.

Well, then we have to be attractive. See, the meaning the word attractive means things will come to you. When you are attractive, things will come to you. You won’t have to go looking for a passionate team of people, they will find you.

You won’t have to go looking for a whole bunch of students, although we do recruit, we do what we can do, we need those leads, but they will find you. What we have to work on is our attractiveness. And by the way, what makes your school attractive is not your beautiful facility. Right?

What makes you attractive? I’m talking about your leadership style. Are you attractive as a leader? It’s your energy. Are you attractive to be around as a wonderful team member working in your school?

It’s so old school thinking to say, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” That is so small minded because collaboration is such a beautiful thing.

See, again, you need to learn how to rely on the talents and the brilliance of other people. But here’s the deal, you might be right. See, you might be right that you have to do everything yourself. And why might that be the case? Because sometimes, listen up everybody, sometimes you can be such a jerk to work with that nobody wants to help you out.

So, you’re right, you do have to do things yourself. And you may not be a jerk, but people can feel that you’re a jerk, and you need to own people’s perception of you. Before we get to this first one, let me explain this, “perception”.

So again, let’s say that I’m the boss in your school. And one day I wake up and I’m in a really good mood, but I also happen to be very busy that day. I have a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls I have to make. So I drive to the school, I park in the parking lot. I walk through the front doors of your school, walk right past all of the students, the future professionals, the team members, the clinic guests. I walk straight to my office, and I quickly closed the door.

Why? I have a lot of work I have to get done that day. What is the buzz in that building in about two minutes? “Winn is in a very bad mood, everybody lay low today, don’t go near the boss.”

Now, if there is that type of a feeling, that type of energy in your school, what’s going to happen to creativity, what’s going to happen to teamwork, what’s going to happen to product sales, to profitability? All of that is going to diminish.

Now, the manager in that school could come and knock on my door and say, “Winn, everybody out there thinks that you’re in a really bad mood.” And I could respond and say, “Well, I’m not in a bad mood. In fact, I happen to be in a really good mood. That’s their problem if they think I’m in a bad mood.”

Where’s that going to get me? Nowhere.

So again, great that you own the reality that you’re in a good mood every single day as you come to work, as you walk into your building every day glad that you own that reality. But if people don’t know that you’re in a good mood, you need to own people’s perception of you.

So, when I walk into one of my schools, I don’t go straight through an office. No. What do I do? I go to every square inch of that building. I go to every square inch of the clinic floor. I go to classrooms, I go to offices, I go to the break room, I go to the laundry room. And what am I doing? I’m connecting with as many people as I possibly can so that they all see me, they see that I’m in a great mood.

I’m sharing gratitude to them, the stuff I’m going to share with you here in a minute. So then they know, okay, “Winn is in the building, he’s in a great mood. He loves it that we’re here, he loves our contribution. Back to work, everybody.”

So here’s what I want to do. And Nancy, if you’re listening, if we can pop back and forth between my PowerPoint and me because it’s all about me right now, I want people to be able to see me in the face.

Why People Might Think You’re a Jerk

1. Never Have Fun at Work

Number one, why might people think that you’re a jerk? You may not be a jerk, but people might think that you’re a jerk. And let’s talk about that because you need to own this. Number one reason why people might think that you’re a jerk, well, because you never have fun in your school. You never have fun in your school.

I’ll tell you something, I love the culture in a school. I love the culture in my schools because we find any excuse to throw a party. Now, in some businesses, it’s the opposite of that.

Like in some businesses, in some schools, in some salons, in some stores, if you’re laughing or having fun at work, what does that mean? You’re not working. “Back to work, no fun around here.”

Can you imagine? You guys, study after study proves that when a team of people are laughing and having fun with each other, what happens to creativity? What happens to profits? All of that increases. And what happens to absenteeism? It diminishes.

People need to have fun.

To make this happen in my schools, we have what we call our golden rules. And golden rule number two says, always be in a great mood, fake it when necessary.

This is hanging poster size in every single one of my Paul Mitchell schools. Ask anybody, this is poster size, we all know this. If you go to my website, winnclaybaugh.com, you can download for free all of these different posters, blow them up and have them hanging. They’re not branded Paul Mitchell, they’re branded me. It’s all about me, right?

Hang these so that you have this conversation. You guys, come on, it’s our job to always be in a great mood. That student, that future professional, they are our number one customer. They are the reason why we’re here, we honor them, we serve them.

It’s our job to always be in a great mood. My good friend, Eric Fisher, I was on a clubhouse event with Eric Fisher last night. I love this guy, very successful salon and school owner.

And Eric says that there are two reasons why he will fire an employee from his company: The first reason is if they steal from him. The second reason is that they show up to work in a bad mood, he will fire them on the spot.

Now, he will rehire them five minutes later if they leave and come back in a good mood. See, I’m going to propose that the day each one of you decided to enter the beauty school industry and work in that school, on that day, you gave up the right to ever show up to your school in a bad mood. You gave up that right.

I remember once asking one of my employees Lois, “Hey, Lois, how are you doing today?” She was like, “I’m faking it all day long.” Nobody had any idea that Lois was not having a good day.

There are people, and maybe they’re working in your school right now, there are people that can have this much of a bad day and everybody knows about it. You guys, you got to be in a great mood every day.

2. Always Tired

The second reason why people might think that you’re a jerk, the second reason why there might not be collaboration in your school, and you need to own this, well, because you’re always tired. You’re always tired because, “Oh my gosh, running a school, it’s exhausting. Oh my gosh, it’s so much work.”

I think it’s a bad habit that some people have that when somebody asks them how they’re doing, their standard response is always, “I’m really tired, I’m tired.”

“How are you doing today?”
“Oh, I’m so tired.”

Come on, how many of you do this? It’s a really bad habit because if that’s how you always respond, “I’m really tired,” how are you going to feel every day? Really tired. Big surprise.

If you wake up in the morning and the first thought out of your head is, “Wow, why am I so tired this morning?” And that’s the first question you ask yourself. Within a minute, you will have the answer. Do you know why? Your brain is the most powerful search engine for you.

When you ask a question, it will immediately find the answer.

“Why am I so tired?”
“Well, you’re tired because of this, this, and this.”
“Why am I so stupid?”
“Well, you’re stupid because of this, this, and this.”

Meaning, when you ask yourself a bad question, what do you get back? A bad answer. First of all, how many of you talk to yourself? Yeah. And those that didn’t raise their hand are thinking, “No, I never talk to myself.”

You guys, we all talk to ourselves. And I don’t know about you guys, for me, it’s not just one voice. Oh, there’s a whole committee up here.

3. Always on Your Phone

The third reason why people might think that you’re a jerk, and you need to own people’s perception. The third reason, because you’re always on your phone, you’re always on your phone. Why is it that we think that that virtual person is more important than the person right in front of us?

You walk into a restaurant, there’s five people at dinner. What are they all doing? They’re all on their phones. I’m always thinking, why did you even bother? I was at dinner a while ago with this guy, and he was on his phone a lot.

And so I asked him, I said, “What are you doing?” He’s like, “Well, I’m posting to let people know that I’m at dinner with you.”

But I’m right here. Oh, and by the way, I took a shower to have dinner with you tonight. I left my family, I drove 20 minutes to have an experience with you, but you’re not available to have an experience with me. That virtual world is more important to you than I am right now.

You guys, would you all agree that we need better boundaries when it comes to this?

This doesn’t apply only to what happens in our schools in those four walls. I mean, this applies to our family lives, to our children, even to total strangers.

Because cell phones have replaced your camera, your alarm clock, your calculator. Don’t let cell phones replace your relationships, better boundaries. Because I live in southern California and I have a lot of famous friends who have won Emmy’s doing hair and makeup in the entertainment industry, I will ask them often to give my future professionals, my students, the opportunity to assist them.

And so they assist them at a TV show or on set of a movie premiere, whatever that is. And it usually goes pretty well. But on a rare occasion, what’s the number one complaint that I receive back from my famous friend about my student? “Winn, they were on their phone the whole time.”

I mean, what could have been a life-changing, career-changing opportunity for them, they weren’t available. Why? They were staring at this device. And I get it, we all need this. My phone is sitting right here. I’m sure if I ask all of you right now to grab your phone, it’s right there. You could grab it right now. It’s always available.

We need better boundaries.

You guys, you could be Mother Teresa. But if you are like this on your phone as you’re having an exchange with people, you blow it, you destroy relationships. And people think that you’re a jerk, and you need to own people’s perception of you.

My advice would be to talk about this as a team in your school. Talk about, “Hey, why don’t we come together and first of all come up with a plan of when it is appropriate and when it is not appropriate to be on our phones? Where should the phones be? Should they be in our locker, should they be in the car so that it’s not easily accessible?”

Unless you have a sick child at home where you have to have your phone close by for that reason. But otherwise who’s more important? The person in your building, especially the person right in front of you. And so maybe you hold each other accountable to this.

Maybe you have a code, “Hey, get off your phone, but you don’t say it so blunt.” Maybe it’s like, “Hey, surf’s up, surf’s up everybody. And what that means is get off your phone,” I don’t know. But just better boundaries, you guys. This one is huge, this one is huge.

4. Too Serious

The fourth reason why people might think that you’re a jerk, well, because you’re so serious all the time, you’re so serious. And I’ll tell you, this one applies to me because I’m naturally a pretty serious guy. I’m a pretty serious guy.

I know school owners listening to this, and why are we so serious? Well, because we deal with NACCAS and DOE, and we deal with financial aid, and we deal with gainful employment, and we deal … Oh my gosh, there’s so many non-sexy things that we have to deal with that just make us really, really serious.

Well, is that attractive? No, it’s not attractive. By the way, I have 90 nieces and nephews. I actually really do, they all live in Utah, go figure.

And I need to hang around little kids, I need to hang around little kids. Why? Because I’m too serious. And little kids teach me to be something different, little kids teach me to be silly and irresponsible. I mean, who influences you?

We all have mentors and leaders that influence us. And they are absolutely important, they play a role in our lives. Well, little kids influence me, little kids. You can walk into a kindergarten class filled with a bunch of five-year-olds.

And if you ask all those little kids, “Okay, how many of you are really good at art?” How many hands are going to go up? All of them. “Okay, how many of you are really good at playing a musical instrument?” How many hands? All of them.

Now, if I asked a room full of adults, “How many of you are really good at playing a musical instrument?” “Winn, here is the deal, I took piano lessons for like 15 years. But no, I’m just not good at that.”

You guys, we play small, we play small.

“No, I’m not good at that.”
“They don’t really need me.”
“I’m not going to show up.”
“No, I don’t have any experience for that.”
“I’m not going to volunteer.”

We play small, playing small on any level. Who does that serve? It serves no one. See, little kids, they play big. My daughter, you give her a gift, I have a nine-year-old daughter. You give her a gift, what does she want to play with? The box. I mean, she goes into the office and comes out a couple of hours later, these boxes turned into incredible things. Why? Boxes are cool? Why? They play big. Little kids, they play big. We, sometimes, we play small.

Little kids, they have their little imagination, little action figurines like, “Look, I’m Superman, I’m Batgirl.” They’re not like, “I’m loser man, ‘I’ll never amount to much’ man.” They play big. You guys, we need to play big, especially now when there’s so much fear on the planet.

Let’s become part of the solution, we’re not part of the problem. This is a bump in the road, you guys. We have power, we have influence. You don’t need a title to have power and influence.

You’re a human being, and we need to be part of the solution. And part of the solution is we respond to all of that fear, we respond with love. And part of being that loving individual is that you just show, just show up. Be present, be vulnerable.

And you don’t have to not be scared to show up. Yeah, we’re all scared on some level, but you just show up anyway.

Quit being so serious.

When you’re serious all the time, people think that you’re a jerk, and you need to own people’s perception of you.

5. Never Show Gratitude

And the fifth reason why people might think that you’re a jerk, well, because you never show gratitude. Which by the way, if you’re going to put a star next to any of these, maybe this is the one that you need to put a star next to.

You never show gratitude.

And by the way, this is a basic human need, for you to show love, appreciation, gratitude, to all the people in your life. This is oxygen for people, it’s a basic human need.

We know that little kids need it. I’ve seen my friend sending her little kids off to school. And as they are walking out the door, of course, she’s encouraging them, she’s praising them, acknowledging them.

She is saying things to them like, “Oh honey, you look so cute today. You are going to have so much fun at school, you’re going to make some new friends. You’re going to do so good on your assignments.” But then she turns to her husband, “Oh, bye, see you.”

What about him? Do we ever arrive at a point in life where we no longer need that praise, that encouragement? I don’t believe so. Now, can you imagine if she turned to him and said, “Honey, your ass in that suit looks so hot.” He’s going to have that incredible day as well. We need this every single day.

If a business leader, a school owner or leader said, “I’m just not really good at numbers. What would we say to them?” “Well, build a bridge and get over it.” If you want to be a success in business, you need to be really good at numbers. You need to be able to have intelligent conversations with your accountant on a regular basis, build a bridge and get over it.

And yet I have school owners, learning leaders, salon managers say to me, “You know, Winn, I’m just not really good at showing appreciation, I’m not really good at thanking people and showing my gratitude.”

My answer to them, build a bridge and get over it.

If you want to be a success in the school industry, a success in anything that you do, you need to be really good at showing gratitude and appreciation.

You could pay someone to clean your house, you can pay someone to mow your lawn.

You wouldn’t pay someone to kiss your kids good night, you wouldn’t pay someone to attend your daughter’s piano recital. Well, in the school, you can pay someone to clean your school, and I’m sure that you do. You could pay someone to help you with financial aid, and I’m sure that you do. But when it comes to each one of you showing gratitude, love, appreciation, it has to come from you.

Get out of your offices, you need to be out there. And some people say, “Gosh, Winn, how do you get out of your office? I’m too busy. You tell me that I have to wander around and thank people and show my love and appreciation. I’m too busy working in my office, how do you have time for that?”

And my response to that is, “Well, gosh, how do you have so much time to spend that work in the office? I’m too busy wandering around, I’m too busy showing my love and appreciation.”

It happens almost every single day, people ask me questions about how my company runs. And 90% of the time, literally 90% of the time, I’m like, “I don’t know, I don’t really know. But I know who knows, I know who knows.”

Like, “Dan, Dan is my IT guy. This guy is brilliant, he is incredible. He’s been with me so many years. I mean, IT for 110 schools. He travels from school to school, he works in the corporate office. He’s there taking phone call after phone call. Dan is incredible, people try to steal him from me all the time.”

Now, if you called Dan right now and said, “Hey, is Winn a jerk?” What do you think he’s going to tell you?

“No, Winn is not a jerk, Winn’s available. Winn shows his appreciation, Winn never too busy.”

I don’t have to be the smartest person in my school. I don’t have to be the prettiest, most talented person in my school. What do I need to be?

I need to follow this list that I just shared with all of you. This is the stuff that helps you become a better leader, and I’m talking to all of you. Let me just start to wrap things up here for you.

We always bring our school leaders together on a regular basis. It used to be, and it soon again will be in-person. Twice a year, we would bring all of our school owners and leaders together for a minimum of two and sometimes for four days at a time twice a year.

That’s the basic. In fact, we’re bringing all of our school leaders together in a couple of weeks virtually. And we always bring in incredible speakers. A couple of years ago, we brought in this speaker by the name of Sister Bonnie, a Catholic nun who decided to become a hairdresser so that she could do hair for the homeless.

So, get this, she gets permission from the Catholic Church to enroll in beauty school, graduates and opens up her salon, which she named The Pearly Gates Salon.

It was located in a tiny bathroom of a shower facility for the homeless in downtown Cincinnati. I flew out there and spent a couple of days with Sister Bonnie. And she showed me this little tiny bathroom where she cut hair for seven years and did 10,000 homeless people. And she said to me, “Winn, I am the only Catholic nun that can say I’ve been in the bathroom with 10,000 men and they all came out smiling.”

And then she said,

“My clients happen to be homeless, so of course, they don’t pay me anything for those services. Maybe your clients are paying you $10 or hundreds of dollars, but they’re homeless on the inside.”

Hearing that story reminded me of an experiment that I read about that happened in the early 1900s in an orphanage where they divided the infants into two different groups.

The first group of infants, they fed them and clothed them, and that was it.

The second group of infants, they fed them, clothed them, touched them, sang to them, read to them, cradled them. And they tried to reverse the process. And in some cases, it was too late, but some of the infants in the first group actually turned their face to the wall and died of a disease called marasmus. All marasmus means is a lack of touch.

I’m not a hairdresser, I’ve never been a hairdresser. But I can’t tell you how honored I feel every single day, especially in the school business to be able to touch people.

We touch people on so many different levels. Never underestimate the power of what it is that we all get to do. And just from my heart to yours, here’s the reason why I love the school business so much. I love working with students because students have what we call beginner’s luck. Beginner’s luck basically means that they don’t know it won’t work.

I can walk into my school with the stupidest idea, and they’re like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” And I love that energy because I need that energy in my own life. And I want to cultivate that and inspire that in my schools.

And here’s my belief about beauty school students, so bear with me on this.

Sometimes people who choose the arts and hairdressing, absolutely barbering, makeup, skin, all of this is part of the arts, sometimes they didn’t fit into traditional educational environments. So maybe they didn’t necessarily fit into, they weren’t the most popular people in high school, they didn’t fit into the college environment. And they love the arts, right?

Well, sometimes that can come with the fact that they have been beaten up a bit, that they come a bit broken. I’m always amazed that at such a young age, at 20 years old, they’ve already dealt with abuse, addiction, homelessness, self-harm, all kinds of life situations. And it’s our job, you guys, three basic human needs.

It’s our job to, first of all, create a culture, an environment where they feel safe, number two, where they feel like they belong. You know that 60% of people say no one has my back, and half of them are married. You guys, it’s our job to make sure that they feel like they belong. And the third basic human need, people need to feel that they have a purpose.

The best way I know how to explain this one is you could have two janitors working for an elementary school. One has the attitude, oh, by the way, they have the same salary, the same responsibilities, the same hours, the same boss, the same everything.

One has the attitude of “these little brats around here make a mess and it’s my job to clean it up, that’s what they pay me to do.” And the other janitor has the attitude of “it’s my job to create a clean learning environment for the next generation that’s going to save this planet.”

They have the same job. One gets a paycheck, and the other one has a purpose.

Find your purpose, help your people find their purpose of why all of us are so, so fortunate to be in the beauty school industry.

Oftentimes people ask me, “Hey, Winn how can I become a better leader?” And sometimes my answer is, “Quit smoking, fix your marriage, sign up for a cancer walk, join the gym.” Because if we’re not focused on those areas of our lives as well, we’re losing credibility as leaders. And that’s the role we play.

We are mentors, people are looking to us. Well, let’s be that place because they maybe didn’t find it in other places. Maybe they didn’t find that safety even in their own homes. But when they step into our school, we accept everybody, we love everybody, and we’re going to create a safe place where everybody belongs.

That’s my wish for all of you, that’s the goal and the intention that we have in our schools. And whatever I can do to support you in that journey, trust me, I’m available. Not just to my network, not just to my own schools, I’m available to all of you. Chris, to Oozle Media, I’m so grateful for this opportunity. I wish all of you the best, you guys. Thank you so, so much.