It's about 12:30 pm in the afternoon and I am tapping away at my keyboard sipping a water and listening to Brazilian Bossa Nova. It's been a rather calm morning and looks like it's going to be quite the busy afternoon.
When I last left you at the end of last volume, I was on my journey of being solo and disconnecting from obligation to friends and expectations and what I can tell you is that when I checked my Facebook inbox, I had a great deal of messages asking me if I was alright. The true story to all this is that I needed time to think about what my next goal in life is going to be. Owning a small salon and being a public figure in my demographic is nice, but as the natural progression of things takes place, I of course, want more professionally.
Last month, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my mentors, Ms. Joan Rivers and we had a delightful little talk while I did her hair. He last words to me were "dump the boyfriend and move to LA."
Firstly, there's no boyfriend. But what I took this as was to dump all my yearnings for one particular person. As the month went on, I was in very little contact with one of the most important people to me. It gave me time to think about expanding my business into a much larger space and think about hiring a staff and making some waves HAPPEN in this community.
Also, my five year plan is to launch a kick-ass staff, an education facility for other hairdressers and start traveling to LA for work on bigger projects throughout the year.
I have to tell you, Joan really inspired me that day. Not just that day, but for many years now. In the bar, I want to emulate her comedy. With my friends, I want to be as worldly and classy as she is, but behind the scenes, she's alot like me. She's quiet, hilariously quiet at that, and has exquisite manners and does not desire to talk to multiple people for too long.
Like Joan, I love meeting people and familiar faces, but also like Joan, I like to curl up with a book and write.
Like Joan, I like the spotlight to be on me, but also like Joan, I don't like be around large crowds of strangers.
I think if Greta Garbo would have been alive, she would have enjoyed Ms. Rivers' humor.
One thing I love about Joan is her philanthropy and charity work and as my assistant pointed out, I have always been involved in charity work. I tend to be very quiet about my causes as I was taught by my rabbi not to bring attention to charitable contributions because it would not be considered giving from my heart, but for public recognition.
As usual, my mother has been my main confidante these past few weeks, but even at that, we have had our distance and she has noticed the difference in my outlook on business, love and friendships. I'm a bit more muted and even though I get hurt by the actions of others, I have to be honest in saying: I think they are completely oblivious to the fact that they have hurt me.
In the last few weeks, I have taken one of my interns and brought her on board as my color assistant and style associate. She is amazing and compliments the salon very very well.
I've had many a lonely walk and lonely drink these past five weeks by myself and have allowed my close friends and others to move on to other projects and crowds. They're not fired, but I feel that they need a change from some of the monotony of hanging with me.
I love to talk about business or make inappropriate jokes while sipping the same cocktail. Not everyone is about that all the time. A lot of the time, I like to just go for a cocktail as a solo act, reply to your tweets, read the Huffington Post and NY Times on my phone and look at my email. I'm not a fan of obnoxious drunks or people displaying "liquid courage" anymore.
For me, a typical day starts very early, includes working out, meditating and breakfast out. As soon as my feet hit the salon, I'm obsessed with giving my clients the best experience and tending to outside business, phone calls and emails that need my attention as a business man should prioritize them. A late dinner follows as well late tweets and reading a book by my rabbi and an old movie playing in the background.
This summer could be pretty calm and reclusive. More than most.
Slowly, I am either "growing up" as they say or as I view it: refocusing my attentions to what really matters.... just like Joan and Greta would do.
Thanks for the inspiration ladies,
Josh
