Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Larry Mcdaniel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Larry, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

I don’t take risks ! I take LEAPS OF FAITH! When I first started doing hair at the age of 19 I never thought of my “life long journey in hairdressing”. At the age of 19 I was not aware of my youth and how lucky I was to be starting my hairdressing career so young. Going to beauty school felt risky because it was choice not to go to college… university was something I spoke about all through my academic focused life in school. When the time came to go to college let’s just say “ I wasn’t in the mood “. I felt free at the age of 18 as a legal adult I took a year off to express myself and found deep down that college was not an interest of mine. I decided to take the leap and go to beauty school!! The community college I attended had a beauty program that was full and had no room for me….. I decided I was not going to give up and searched around and found a private beauty school called Paul Mitchell The School. This school was very expensive and out of my budget , but I was young wild and free and broke so I got loans and went anyway…. I fell in love with hairdressing there in a Sassoon haircutting class they had us take. MY career has been full of “risks” with “hair looks”, opportunities, and opening my own commercial space… moments that required me to really just have faith in myself and surrender as things came along. Constantly moving forward and seeing things through feels risky but if you meet it with faith in yourself ,and for me a higher power as well, holding to the sense of knowing I can do anything and to not be afraid or sitting inside a paralyzing state of feeling the “risk”. I often tell myself … “what have you got to lose if it doesn’t work out” , weigh it out , and either move forward or not. In the end I always find that there was not a risk but fear….. DO NOT BE AFRAID to grow… to put the work in. If there is a positive opportunity in there for you to have, then take it … have faith in yourself and you can do so much and when you look back you will realize you are capable of things you couldn’t even imagine… Sometimes I pinch myself when I think about the great opportunities I have taken, relationships I have built and amazing people in my industry ,way more impressive than myself ,that even know my name… And know of me because of my hairdressing on top of it all . Leaps of faith have led me to life changing experiences and growing points that I would not have had of I ran from the “risky” feeling. This risk feeling never goes away for me by the way… I have just developed a wisdom to know the difference when it shows up…. And lean into faith, most of the time, I find that there was no “risk” at all… just fear. The antidote to this fear is faith for me… when I lean into my faith I am always pleasantly surprised.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I went to Beauty School to avoid going to college. There in beauty school I fell in love with doing hair, I have a large umbrella of hairdressing techniques from , haircutting to coloring and chemical services, extensions for salon as well as “Session work” on set .. with fashion photo shoots, advertisement, music videos and cinematic film experience. I am great at navigating hair solutions and the looks people would like to achieve.. whether its for hair reparative reasons also for haircolor correction to reaching texture, style and hair look goals… on and off set… there are so many ways!!! I am constantly discovering new ones as time goes on.. And I LOVE DOING HAIR!!!!…

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

THE PANDEMIC…… this time was a constant pivot… but left me for the better. Before the Pandemic I was only doing session work… but when all productions came to a halt I decided I had to keep working so I went back to “behind the chair hairdressing” It felt like my session , production career life was over. I chose to work and do hair anyway I could, I built a clientele large enough to open my salon and things started to pick up in the freelance world and I began to be called for bookings on shoots again… this time around I built a solid salon foundation to stand on and learned a valuable lesson not to place all of my eggs in one basket. As well as the reality that there is always hair to be done !!!! THERE IS ALWAYS WORK TO BE DONE !!!! KEEP GOING !!!! YOU WILL FIGURE IT OUT!!!! NEVER EVER GIVE UP !!! THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY !!! ENJOY IT !!! HAPPINESS IS A HABIT!!!

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

I have rebuilt my clientele several times over the years as I moved around a ton. My favorite source of clientele is referral based clientele.

Referrals always bring the love !
Referrals usually have seen your work and want your work !
Referrals are usually super loyal in my experience
Referral based clientele feels special and higher end… Might feel like it takes more time to build … but it’s worth it.
Besides all I do is hair so what else am i gonna do!!! I LOVE DOING HAIR !!!

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.LDMHAIRINC.com (salon site) Www.ldmhair.com (freelance website)
• Instagram: @ldmhair

Image Credits

Photographer David LaChapelle

Photographer Adam Nagy