NEVER "trust the process"
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Trust nobody. Not even me. You should be skeptical about everything that everybody is saying. Not because you don’t believe them, but so you learn more. You see it all the time: “Trust the process.” I’ve never enjoyed that phrase. It’s like they’re saying: “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about/doing.” Which, as an educator, doesn’t sit well with me. I’d prefer something like “Question and practice the process.” Because that’s the reality of the journey. That’s how you learn. To just “Trust the process.” Kinda says: “No need to question it. Just trust it.” It's lazy of you to trust and never question, and it’s ego-inflating for the educator. To say: “Trust me, I’ve got the answers.” You learn deeper when you ask questions that you genuinely care about the answers to. Which is the whole point of being a student. Learning. When you ask questions and apply the knowledge, you reveal your answers, and that’s when you begin to understand. A guiding tenet in my work as an educator is pattern recognition. I have no desire for “hacks” or “tricks,” which only tend to be good for high views online but low real-world efficacy. Regardless of some of the noise you see online, there are no magic bullets, secrets, or unknown skills for excellence. What I am interested in is the truth. When you look at how hair used to be cut before the rise of social media and if you happen to learn from some of the most successful haircutters in the world, if you listen to them talk on podcasts or read books about them, and they all have a similar underlying truth to their success, then those truths are probably worth paying attention to. The truths I’m talking about, of course, are the undisputable laws of haircutting. There are certain truths about cutting hair that simply cannot be denied. For example, if you overdirect the hair forward and cut it, more weight will be built towards the back. Like, when two lines meet, a corner is created, which results in weight falling somewhere within the haircut. Like, the higher the elevation of the hair, the more weight will be removed when cut. All of these cannot be denied. These truths always have and always will apply in haircutting. When I say “NEVER trust the process” what I mean is, don’t take every word as gospel, take the information given, question it, and apply it to come to your own conclusions. When you study this way, you will find that anything other than the basics is simply a distraction. When you see somebody doing something “creative,” you should ask, “Why is this important?” If development is your goal, if you want to become a better haircutter, you will experience much more success by focusing on the truths that never change. The 3 Shapes The 3 Techniques The 3 Mechanics Those 9 concepts alone will take you more than your life to learn. I’m not saying you can’t play around with learning. That would be silly. Of course, you should play around with hair. Test your creativity as much as possible, but what I’m saying is this: You’ll begin to recognise that anything “creative” that you practice will have multiple elements of those 9 concepts that I just mentioned. Because they’re the truths that never change. No matter which hair gooroo comes along to try and “put their spin on it,” they’re usually just muddying the waters rather than actually helping you. Anyway, I’m working on a quick ebook to explain those 9 elements for you in more detail. You can use it as your bible to refer back to whenever you like. When you watch haircut videos, use this ebook to refer back to and ask questions of the videos like: “Which technique has he used there?” “What is the result of that? Basically, you’ll be able to teach yourself. Now, I know you’re bursting out of the eyeballs to get your mitts on this ebook, but it isn’t ready yet; it will be soon. If you want, you can reply to this email with “YES” to let me know you’re interested. Oh, and by the way, these emails will come every Sunday from now on unless something tragic happens. Chat soon Nath |