How to Haircut

I was surprised he didn’t recognize me and even more surprised with his honesty.

As I sat down in his chair, he continued to stare at me intensely and repeated, “nope, I don’t remember you”.

That rarely happens to me these days. It was a new feeling, and slightly unpleasant.

Determined to see if he would remember me, I brought out stories that are uniquely mine, like how I live in Portugal.

Again, he did not remember.

The scene was Wayne’s barber shop in central London. It has been a place I had frequented earlier in the year.

Wayne seemed particularly upbeat and in a happy mood that day. Without the distraction of my phone, my attention moved to him. Instead of trying to see if he remembered me, my attention shifted to learn more about him.

“How long have you been cutting hair, Wayne?”, I asked.

“How old are you Kunal?”, he responded back.

We both knew where this was going.

Once I shared with him my age, he responded back with the expected “longer than you’ve been alive my friend”.

As I sat there, silently watching him shorten, trim and clean up the hair on my head, the wheels inside my head began turning round and round.

Bundled into this one fact that he’d been cutting hair longer than I’d been alive, I knew there were many lessons about life for me to learn from Wayne.

For example…

My attention span has been getting noticeably shorter. I’m finding it more difficult these days to sit and watch an entire movie. Definitely not in silence. Definitely not alone. Definitely not without my phone.

And here was Wayne, in the same profession, for over 40 years. When asked when he will retire, his response was a jolly “I genuinely love coming into work everyday, I wake up in the morning and look forward to it”.

My businesses have at times struggled with winning and keeping clients, having to compete in rapidly changing technology industries where every few years required me to reinvent the product or service.

And here was Wayne, with the original recurring revenue model, telling me about his clients who have been with him for 20 years. I’ve rarely heard of a technology company keeping a client for 20 years, let alone many clients.

My interests are most often related to ‘personal interests’, that is people or things that have some direct influence on my life.

And here was Wayne, having many ‘impersonal interests’ that have no bearing on his life. He talked about his hometown, his three-week vacation, his opinion on politics and other seemingly random things.

My desire for speed and efficiency in life and business can often lead to suboptimal outcomes. ‘Progress over perfection’ has been my mantra.

And here was Wayne, his attention to detail, his focus, his patience clear in sight. He was fully present, not rushing, not distracted. He was in his element, doing what he did for the love of it, not for the sake of finishing it and moving on.

My life is full of connections that at times can feel superficial or transactional. Each week, dozens and sometimes hundreds of people reach out to me asking for something of me. I have to filter everything and in the process, filter myself.

And here was Wayne, building a connection with me that went beyond superficial niceties. The infamous ‘therapist chair’ that is often the barbershop. The stability, presence and genuineness of how he shows up for whomever sits in his chair is inspiring.

I began to further appreciate the value of authentic human connection. The world today in theory is more connected than ever, yet ironically at times feels more disconnected than ever.

Listening to and watching Wayne, I realized that while technology continues to introduce change seemingly everywhere, the core of what made businesses and relationships last was the same: consistency and genuine care.

It's easy for me to get caught up in the race for success and forget about the simple joy of doing something well. Wayne showed me that it's often the simplest things that bring the most satisfaction.

As I stood up from Wayne's chair, I felt lighter, not just because of the weight of the hair that had been cut, but due to gaining some additional clarity on how to live.

Curious to see if he’ll remember me next time, I handed him a copy of my newly published book, How to Live. He received it with so much joy and enthusiasm that I felt warm and fuzzy inside.

“Maybe the next edition will have a chapter about you Wayne”, were my parting words to him as I walked out, with a smile on my face and a skip in my step.

And that is how I learned to haircut.