BLOG SPOT. "OPPORTUNITY" with Lance Liufau

This one is for the younger generation that is just getting into the barbering industry. Even though it can relate to all, but I specifically want to speak to the new barbers, that have newly found their love for cutting hair.

So, you have gone through the stage of cutting your friends hair in the garage or at school, past the stage of trialling your skills out on your younger siblings. Now you want to move onto something bigger and better and really take this seriously and enter an apprenticeship or sign up to a barber school.

If you are at this point and you are taking that leap, I want to applaud you for getting to this point. But what I am going tell you next is something that I learnt for myself throughout the 18 and a half years I have been in the barbering industry.

What I want to make you aware of is the many avenues of opportunity there are within this amazing world that you are/have entered called barbering. I also want to let you know that as of right now, your main goal and focus is to learn the trade. Learn as much as you can with every second of the day, that you are working or studying.

Please do not steer away from that right now. I am not telling you this so it can distract you from what is important right now, but I am telling you this so that you prepare yourself for the coming years, mentally and physically for what is out there waiting for you. If you so choose to go down one of these avenues.

Some of you may know already but when I first started cutting hair, I never wanted to be a barber. In fact, I hated getting haircuts myself, let alone giving haircuts to other people. But as fate played out for me, I was given an opportunity to start my journey in barbering. At the time I had nothing to lose because I had just gotten fired from a warehousing job and I wasn’t doing much with my time.

In fact, I was spending most of my days hanging out at the local barbershop which my cousin and his mate owned, and I fell in love with the environment. Which I am sure many of you fell in love with before you decided you wanted to cut hair. Anyway, my girlfriend who is now my wife and the mother of my children and my brother who now cuts alongside me almost every day, told me that I had nothing to lose and to just give it a go.

So, I dived in head first and I have now been in it for almost 20 years. But don’t think that I haven’t had my doubts and times where I wanted to try something else, because I have. I was about 2 and half years in and I decided I wanted to try youth work out. I lasted about 7 months before I got back in the barbershop part time, then another 4 months later I was back behind the barber chair full time. But at least I gave it a go, even though it didn’t work out. I knew that barbering was where I wanted to be.

Fast forward a few years and I had been in the industry for about 6 years. I came to a point in my career where I felt that I was given a gift of being able to cut hair, and I wasn’t meant to keep it to myself. In fact, I came to a realisation where I believed that I was meant to share my knowledge with as many people as I could. To help others learn and up skill so they could support themselves and their families.

This is where my passion for education began to grow, this passion still exists within me right now. Hence the reason why I am a part of the very first Australia/New Zealand BaByliss Education Team and also an educator for both HairCo Australia and Barber Education Australia.

This is just one of the many avenues of opportunity that is waiting for you in the coming years as you grow as a person and as a barber. With the use of social media, many more paths have opened up so please don’t limit yourself. Because there is a big wide world out there, and fortunately for us, our profession is essential no matter where you live in the world.

As I always sign off, Never Stop Learning, Stay On Your Grind & Keep It Top Shelf.

@lance_topshelfbarber