We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alexis Angsten a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alexis, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I have been a hairstylist over 16 years now and I would say I have been able to make a full time living at it for the past 10 years. When you first start your career as a hairstylist you are “green” as in you really don’t know anything. You learned enough in beauty school to be able to pass your boards and get licensed. You learn the basics, enough to get out there and start working on clients but you truly know nothing. When I say you know nothing, I mean how to interact with your clients. How to make their hair exactly what they’re asking for. How to show confidence not cockiness. How to have the right consultation before you start doing their hair. So you really have to be humble and willing to learn from all the other stylists around you. This job is self motivating and what you put into it is what you will get out of it. Being driven and wanting to succeed wasn’t the issue, it was the fear of failing. So for the first 5 years I worked a second job as server or bartender at restaurants. This was a great source of income. I was good at it, it came naturally and I knew the customers would come and what I had to do to get a good tip. This is also a job of what you put into it you get back so I think that definitely helped me in my hair career. The problem was I put more effort into working in the restaurant than I did to my hair business because that is what paid the bills. I eventually realized that and decided to quit serving and put 100% into my hair career. I was never going to reach all the goals I had set until I did that. It was scary and hard at times but failure wasn’t a option. After that first year it got better because it was my main focus. I could take training courses. I was available from open to close at my salon for potential new clients. When I got a new referral I could get them in at the time and day they needed. Things started to take off and the fear went away. Looking back, I do think if I have quit serving sooner it could have helped achieve my goals quicker. There is a certain lifestyle that comes along with working in bars. After my shift I would go out with friends and stay out all night. I think that definitely slowed me down because I wasn’t my best when I got to the salon next day. So had I left earlier I think I could have been more focused on what I wanted long term for my career and life. But with that said I also don’t live my life in regret. I try to learn from each thing I experience and make it better. I’m glad I went through everything I did when I started this journey. These are the experiences that push me to work harder, set more goals and achieve them!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I knew from a young age I wanted to do something creative and artistic for a career but I wasn’t sure what. I started a jewelry business when I was 8 years old and sold to my parents friends and adults at church. That was the start of me realizing I wanted to work for myself and sell something I created. I was always trying to come up with different ways I could earn money. All four years of high school I took photography classes and loved it so I decided that would be a good path for me. After graduating high school I started at ASU in August 2005 as a photography major. I quickly learned it would not be until my junior year at ASU would I be taking any photography classes. There was no mention of business classes, anything about working for myself and running a small business. This made absolutely no sense to me and I knew this wasn’t the path for me. I unenrolled in December 2005, moved back home and went back to the drawing board. I kept asking myself what am I going to do. I wanted a career that I could be with people, be creative, be artistic, make people happy, have the potential to make a good living and always be able to grow. I soon discovered beauty schools. To be honest this hadn’t even crossed my mind. I grew up with three older sisters and was always very girly. I started going to a salon as soon as I could and absolutely loved getting my hair done. Styling my friends hair came naturally and I loved it. So ya why wouldn’t I make this my career, duh! I toured a few different beauty schools and knew right away this was it. I enrolled at Earl’s Beauty of Academy in September on 2006. By November 2007 I was a licensed Cosmetologist.

I worked at a few different salons before I found my current salon, Canyon Falls Spa and Salon. On March 1st, 2011 I started as commission stylist. I had a small clientele. I had only been doing hair three years at that point so I knew it would take time to get a full clientele and be booked out for months. I made this my focus and set goals for myself like, how much money I want to be making by a certain age. I set life goals with my now Husband. Like when we wanted to buy a home and have children. I would set income goals for wanting a certain amount by a certain age.I work hard to live a nice life so the harder I worked the more I would reach those goals. There is no better motivation than that! Like I said, the beauty of this job is it’s up to me what I want I make of it.

I think something that sets me apart is I am always willing to learn in every way. I can handle being told I can do something different or better and take advice from people who have been there before. You cannot grow as a person and hair stylist unless you can take constructive criticism. I looked up to many of the “veteran” stylists I worked with and soaked up any and all knowledge and advice they would give me. This helped me improve my skill, how I carry myself, and how to reach those goals I was setting. The more knowledge I can get the more successful I can be. A reason I chose Canyon Falls was because they offered commission and rental for stylists. I knew long term switching to a renter was a goal. That is a way to make more money and be my own boss. This is what I knew I ultimately wanted. On May 9th, 2017 I switched from a commission stylist to rental stylist at Canyon Falls. This was a huge, exciting and terrifying step but I knew it was time. After 6 years I had built up a loyal, full clientele! With the room for more of course.

A big factor to me growing my clientele as quickly as I did is my skill in hair extension services. I took two trainings through Canyon Falls, One being a master certification course in five hair extension methods. I was in love immediately. This was going to set me apart from others. This is a huge add on service in so many different ways. It’s a tedious time consuming service so not a lot of stylists want to do it. I fell in love with one particular method using I-tip hair with plastic tubes called shrinkies. I took this method and the training I had received and made it my own. I made it a custom service to be done with color and highlighting services. Cutting and blending the extensions in with the natural hair is not really taught in the training so this was something I knew I needed to master in order to make my hair extension business grow. It took some mistakes and learning new techniques but I did it. My biggest goal is for my clients to come back and tell me “no one ever believes I have hair extensions”. If I hear this I know I did my job!

Even after 12 years of doing extensions I am just as happy with the hair extension transformation as I was from day one. To give women the hair they have always wanted in a few hours is beyond rewarding. Seeing the smile on their face when they see their hair dramatically change is why I love this job. It’s so cool to create my art on someone. My clients are my walking canvases. The even cooler part is I never do the same thing twice. Each clients gets that custom service to the look and style they are wanting.

I’m very proud of how far I’ve come in the past 16 years being a hairdresser. This job is beyond rewarding but also very challenging in many ways. Mentally, physically and emotionally challenging every day. I am lucky to have a amazing partner in life, my husband Peter. Having him by my side, supporting every decision I make has helped me get where I am today. Being a hair dresser has taught me so much about myself as a stylist, person, wife, daughter and mother to my amazing son. This is so much more then my career and just something that pays the bills. It’s my passion! It’s my way to provide a beautiful and rewarding life to my family.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A few years into doing hair extensions I learned a hard lesson. Let me explain, hair extensions come in a variety of lengths ranging from 14 inches to 26 inches. They are human hair but they are cut to a specific length. Once those extensions are installed they need to be cut and blended into the clients natural hair. But this is a very different cutting technique then cutting someone’s hair who is attached to their head and will continue to grow back. So one day I installed my clients 14 inch hair extensions. We ordered 14 inch because that was the amount of added length she was looking for. Once they were installed I started the cutting process of blending them in with her hair. When cutting the layers it starts to get shorter and the length will then need to be trimmed to make even around the perimeter of the hair. After I was done cutting I ended up cutting so much they had lost most of their length and my client was unhappy, rightfully so. In that moment I realized I obviously messed up, unintentionally but I messed up for sure. Now to back up, when I took both hair extension trainings cutting and blending the extensions was not really taught. So in that moment I realized I needed to perfect this and that was what was going to set me apart from other hair stylists who do extensions. Back to the story, the client was upset and wanted her hair redone. She was getting hair extensions for more length and the length was gone. I apologized and told her I would make it right. Thankfully at this time I was working as a commission stylist for Canyon Falls and had a wonderful boss who understood mistakes happen and I was human. I approached him and explained the situation and he ordered new hair for the client at no cost for her or me. I rescheduled her and redid the install at no cost to her. This was frustrating for multiple reasons. One being, I had to redo a long, costly service for free. I was losing time and money. I also lost the salon money because we had to purchase new hair for her and while I was redoing her hair I couldn’t be working on another paying client. I was also now at risk for losing this client. I took this entire moment as a learning experience. I try to take everything in life as learning experience. It’s the only way to grow. One way I learned from this was perfecting how to cut and blend the hair with the natural hair. I also learned to order the hair longer than the desired length to make sure I had extra length to work with once I did the cutting. I came up with my own technique of how to do this and told myself I would never make that mistake again. Now years later, one of the biggest compliments I get from my clients is that no one ever believes that they have extensions. That is because the hair is so blended in by being cut correctly. I want the hair to look as natural as possible.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Life goals are what drive my journey. We have one life and I believe we must make the best of it. Achieve as much as we can. Grow as much as we can. Learn all we can learn. Experience as much as we can. Each experience we go through helps us grow as a person. I am fortunate enough to have a job that I absolute love. Yes it is work, a lot of work but I enjoy every part of it. Even the hard parts. I am my own boss and it is up to me what I want to make of it. That is what drives me. When I see successful people I think to myself “I want that! How do I achieve that?” When I meet people who have accomplished so much in life and make a nice comfortable living, I ask them how they did it. I soak up every bit of advice they are willing to share. You can never stop learning and growing in life and what a beautiful thing that is. I will never get to a point in life where I say “ya know, this is good, I’m content with where I’m at” No Way! Why? Why would I not want more. We live in the greatest country in the world full of endless opportunities.

Each year I do this job I learn this more and more. I have learned so much about myself and people. Your life is what you make of it and why wouldn’t you want to make the most of it. I’ve learned I’m human and I will make mistakes. I’ve learned our life experiences can make us or break us. I don’t want to ever look back in life and wish I had done more. I heard a saying one time that stuck with me; Do something you love and you will never work a day in your life. I tell myself this everyday.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @alexisangstenhair
• Other: Email- [email protected]

Image Credits
@kaitl_woods_photo