HJ VOICENOTES

Founder of Windle London, Paul Windle is a ray of positivity – here he shares how there’s no better feeling than serving others and creating community

PAUL WINDLE

“THE SALON IS A PHYSICAL, SOCIABLE EXPERIENCE, WHICH IS INCREASINGLY RARE IN THIS DIGITAL, WORK-FROM-HOME WORLD.”

When a client has a positive experience in your chair there's no feeling like it - you experience an amazing sense of purpose and you both feel connected to the world.

From a client perspective, a lot of people are now working from home and on-screen all day. People are living in bubbles, inside their heads and through their devices. We are constantly comparing and measuring ourselves to what we see on social media. But a hairdressing salon is a unique, sociable place. When you get someone in your chair for a consultation and they suddenly put their phone down and they're chatting, you can see the transformation happening before you even touch their hair. In the salon a client gets to talk about themselves. You share a physical connection. It’s about the experience too – it’s not just about how they look when they leave, it’s how they feel.

The Dalai Lama has a concept called ‘wise selfish’. The premise being that our own wellbeing lies in everybody else’s welfare. In short, the best way to make yourself happy is to make others happy. I’ve had some of the most wonder ful moments with my clients in the chair, but I love being behind the reception desk too. As a hairdresser, you are never too good to be on the front desk welcoming clients. We’re lucky that we are situated in Covent Garden, and we have such interesting characters come in all the time. I get the opportunity to meet wonder ful strangers every day. Hosting as a salon owner is a lovely thing. We have a sociable waiting area full of books, tactile products and we’ve just introduced an arts area too where people can get creative while they’re waiting. We often see conversations spark up between clients who are strangers. The salon is a physical and sociable experience, which is increasingly rare in this digital, work-from-home world.

I’m in the salon six days a week – and so many of my high points of my day are while I’m here at work. We're social creatures. We really need to connect with each other to be happy. A hair salon is an amazing place for connection, and as hairdressers we can’t forget that. It’s one of the benefits of this industry and we must share this with the next generation of potential hairdressers.