Television viewers laughed and borrowed Geraldine’s slogan and in my youth I thought that that was the truth about people. I thought “What you see is what you get!”

After having been in the beauty industry for decades, I am acutely aware of the time and money spent on cutting, coloring, perming, straightening, injecting, and even permanently removing what we think has to be changed to give us that “what you get” look. Therefore, many times we are not who we appear to be and what we see is but a small glimpse of the self that is not visible to the eye.

Not to say that I don’t approve and appreciate the process of “beautifying” oneself, because I do. Besides I believe that as humans, we take pleasure in the progression of personal improvement. We love seeing beauty and we love feeling beautiful. Unfortunately, often when we look at ourselves in our mirror, having accomplished the current standard of beautiful, we think that that is who we are, and we begin to live our lives from that perspective, ignoring the rest of ourselves… the inner beautiful self.

According to the newest personal growth research, what really sustains our health and happiness, gives us hope and confidence, and establishes long-term remarkable and beautiful lives, is not only what we accomplish and become outwardly, but what we learn and anchor within ourselves. Ideally, growing ourselves from the inside out and finding pleasure in what we see ourselves being, keeps us living beautiful lives.

Here is what Helen Keller, who could not see or hear said about beauty and living a remarkable life:

“I who am blind can give one hint to those who see—one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird, the mighty strains of an orchestra, as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel, as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense; glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact with Nature provides”

So you see, we are all beautiful on the inside.  Let’s promise to remember Geraldine and always demonstrate our inner beauty to the rest of the world through our every thought, word, and action, making sure that how the rest of the universe “sees” us, is really what “they are getting”.

When I arrived at the conference, I was disappointed to learn that, although I had pre-registered for the latest cutting techniques, I was given only business courses to attend. After being unsuccessful at changing my course schedule, I surrendered to two days of learning how to better run my small studio salon…thinking, “There must be some reason why I need to attend these business courses. I can only hope to get at least one pearl of wisdom for my time.” (Okay, so I was a little disappointed!)

The first morning’s presentation was an outstanding fashion show of era hairstyles beginning with the 1920’s. With a wide range of wardrobe changes, including jewelry, shoes, accessories, makeup, and music to set the tone, dozens of models walked and danced the runway wearing hairstyles and outfits for every decade up to the present. Hairstyle after hairstyle from the eras of Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Lucile Ball, Mary Tyler Moore, and Farrah Fawcett up to Victoria Beckham reminded all of us what a tremendous influence the beauty industry has had on our lives. After all, currently the beauty industry has become a 36 billion dollar a year enterprise.

The fashion show continued with a quick peek at the newest looks, more fashions, more music, and a rousing standing ovation that lasted for several minutes at the end of the presentation. Thank goodness, we had an hour for lunch after that to calm ourselves down.

That same afternoon, I attended my first business class and enjoyed a husband and wife team, owners of a number of hair salons and cosmetology schools on the East Coast. Their presentation, although three hours long, was to the point…”Beauty is big business and should be treated as a business.”

It was on the second day in the afternoon class that I received my pearl of wisdom. Kelsey Spears, a 70-year-old gentleman from England who entered the beauty industry in his forties as a trainer, not a stylist, gave me something to really think about.

“Any business that you are engaged in, no matter what it is, is about solving problems. That’s all anyone does at a job. We solve people’s problems. And if you are very successful, you’re going to be solving a lot of people’s problems!”

It was like a light went on in my mind.

Mr. Spears continued, “If you are wishing that you didn’t have so many problems and that they would all go away, your business would then go away. What would you do if you weren’t solving someone’s problem? You certainly wouldn’t be in business.”

There he said it again! As long as I am in business, working and doing a job, I will have problems to solve. Somehow I felt good about having problems, and if that wasn’t enough, he continued to add to the pearl.

“The trick is to know what problem is yours to solve. For example, when a woman comes into the salon with a hair problem, you can, no doubt, solve her hair problem. If she has extenuating problems that cause her to be late, cranky, unreasonable, or otherwise difficult to work with, that is not your problem…and that is where stress is created! Taking on problems that are not yours to solve causes unnecessary stress.”

I thought of all of the years in which I have stressed myself, not only in my salon with clients’ problems but also in my personal life, taking on people’s problems that were not really mine to solve or even attempt to solve. Most of these situations simply weren’t my business, and, in most cases, many of the problems that were brought to me where not even their problems. Hummmm…

I am sharing this Pearl of Wisdom because one of my life goals is to simplify my life. I’d like to have less stuff to carry around with me – and that includes stress. These two new insights have given me a new perspective on problems – and perhaps a way to ease my mind when confronted with them! I hope a light has gone off in your mind too!

Something to think about!