We were lucky to catch up with Vernon Jackson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Vernon, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Here’s my story in video https://youtu.be/1XuL6JvzcHQ

Here it is in text

My whole story is this story of the reluctant leader. In high school people teachers and my mom would ask what do you want to do? I never really had an answer. I had things that I enjoyed doing for fun but it didn’t mean I enjoyed doing them for business. Or for money. In fact one of my hardest struggles was allowing myself to get paid for the things I actually enjoyed doing like drawing, speaking and poetry. A challenge that carried into my early twenties. I just knew on one hand
I had to work to survive and on the other
I had natural gifts and talents that I couldn’t live without using and I didn’t want to entertain the idea that they could both be used and work in harmony.
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Forecasting my life was never a strong suit of mine. Nor even a focus. I was just trying figure out what was happening in my now.

The picture of my future started being built with direction by people who saw further with my gifts then I seen for them myself. A picture that I never had a tangible view of outside of snippets of it being seen in famous people and people living life ahead of me. So I began walking this journey not really knowing where I was going but following the faith of the people I trusted around me.

Whether it was my cosmetology teacher that convinced me to join the field or mentors that encouraged me to go into speaking and performing spoken word. Or working with children in volunteer roles. Things that I enjoyed doing in and of themselves… but had no desire to do them for money. To me at the time love/passion and business were different and we’re not to be blended.

Those lines started to bleed and come together when I realized i didn’t like what I was doing in business and wanted to spend more time doing what I loved. I Hated working for other people so I started allowing myself to be paid for what I loved to replace what I didn’t like in places I hated.

When I was around say 27, for a time I found a balance. I was getting paid for poetry and getting paid very well working in my friends barbershop cutting hair. I had found the recipe of my life. I was living and making a great living as an artist in poetry/ writing/ speaking and cutting hair. I was successfully self employed. Bills were paid, had a nice car, traveled but it still wasn’t enough. I was comfortable with my life and what I was doing for a living but I wasn’t fulfilled and still felt like something was missing and that I was working harder than I had too.

Approaching 30 I remember it vividly. I was doing a haircut on a guy and out of no where, mid fade I started talking to God. I said dad idk about this. If this is all I’m gonna be doing for a long time then idk how long I’m going to last.

Lol meanwhile the guy I was cutting had no idea just how over his haircut I was lol

It was like even though I didn’t have a plan for my life, I didn’t want cutting hair to be what I spent my time doing. As much fun that I had with the social part of it, cutting hair can be tedious and you can’t go on autopilot. You create every haircut into art from scratch and that can be tiring.

I was comfortable renting my space. In fact as my popularity grew I had client ask me when was I going to open up my own shop and I proudly would say that that wasn’t for me.

Then there was cutting kids hair let’s just say it wasn’t my favorite thing to do. Which was crazy because people who knew me or seen me in life seen just how much I loved children and they loved me. So it would make sense that I’d love cutting kids hair right?? It was wrong. so wrong. I loved kids In the volunteer ways but not the work ways.

My dilemma was also trying to be Superman. Hearing all the bad stories from parents I wanted to be the exception. But I ended up in my own way sharing the same narrative.

The love I had with volunteering with children was that I wasn’t tethered to time. I was tethered to grace and having fun and loving on them.

The challenge I had with cutting their hair was that I was tethered to time and money. Cutting their hair in a time for a prices that my time was worth. So when parents would have high expectations for their kids cut and I was too insecure to tell them it wouldn’t work, on top of the child crying, screaming snotting everywhere, sweating and not sitting still it, it made life in those moments extremely unpleasant.

And cutting the hair of children with different needs such as with autism or Down syndrome wasn’t any easier. In fact it was two times worse! Parents wouldn’t specify or inform me before hand that their child had different needs and what they were and would make me extremely late by trying to figure out how to work with them and manage their episodes and meltdowns. I was left in the dark.

I had absolutely no patience. I ran a tight schedule and the appointments would end tragically. The family would leave upset. My schedule was pushed back. So not only was I upset with the service and my experience but now I’m running 20-30min behind.

I wanted to stop cutting kids hair all together But I just couldn’t bring it to myself to not cut their hair anymore. Just couldn’t do it. I remember one parent in particular. A single mother who had 4 child and two of her 2 boys were autistic and I’d regularly be impatient with cutting their hair because I lacked the patience and the desire to actually do it. And it showed in my work.

It was experiences like these that kept happening that the mission in cutting the children with different needs hair during a designated time started to develop and chase me and I avoided it.

While it was chasing me I was chasing everything I wanted to do and doing it how I wanted to do them and they all were successful just enough and I enjoyed them but I just wasn’t fulfilled… fully! Still something was missing.

One day in the shop while my friend still owned it I was talking with my colleague at the time. Trying to get a feel on what his plan was. Was he planning on leaving or staying? He said he was in process of considering buying a shop.

It was at this moment ( reluctantly) I said let’s buy this one! It just made sense to do so.

As I mentioned earlier It wasn’t in my plan to be an owner but but as I also mentioned I wasn’t good at forecasting my future. After consideration we decided and pulled the trigger on the opportunity.

Two years into ownership I was hanging out with my friend who’s a speech pathologist. While I was with her at her job she had a visitor from a young man who was 18 and was on the spectrum.

I told her of this thing that’s been on my heart for years to set time aside to cut special needs kids hair as a focus during designated times.

Immediately she said “you should do it !”

Idk what it was about that moment, that conversation but it was enough to have me make the first step. Immediately I started creating a flyer. But I arrived at hard but important line. What should I call it. The term Gifted was on my heart but it was typically reserved for children with out of this world talent and IQs. I said to myself that these kids are Gifted too just in a different way so I called it

The Gifted event!

I wanted to reshape the way the public sees and addressed them and the way they seen and addressed themselves.

After I chose the name it was time to figure out the frequency. I chose one of my off days. The 3rd Monday of each month at regular hours kids rates. Giving the child 30 minutes of time instead of 15 minutes in a quiet barbershop.

Then it was time to share.
I put the flyer out and the first gifted event had three families. The second had five and the 3rd had 8 and have been booked ever since.

Started at one day a month to two to now 5. Seeing what started as 8 gifted kids to now at almost 50+ a month. Raising over $100k and not only being able to gift haircuts to the children but experiences for the parents as well.

The truth is
When I started i really had no clue what the Gifted event could become. How everyone involved would be in the position not just to give.. but to receive and the children are at the center of it.

Now in my life I’m Not cutting hair making a living but now I’m cutting hair making a difference.

The public gift the gift of the haircuts through their donations and in return receive the feels through my videos knowing they contributed to the families experience

The families give their full selves to the development and creating a healthy environment tailored to their child. Doing everything they can to create a normal life for them and in return they receive a service that has been high as a stressful experience that most could never find help with and they get it for free! The gratitude and tears in the families faces make it so worth it.

Where i was once reluctant as a leader… I now lean in!

My gift that I give is through accepting them for who and how they are, affirming them through the process , being patient and intentional with them as they become comfortable. In their own time and Not mine. On top of giving the service.

In return I get to witness it all and share with the world that which makes my heart feel full and I’m compensated beyond my wildest dreams to leave me complete room to have no worries or care about being tethered to time and price to allow me to be invested into loving them fully and deeply

Gifted softens people’s hearts and reshapes and opens people’s minds to receive what it looks like and feels like to love and be loved at a human level.

While showing that even though mechanically and emotionally the children are different but their also Brilliant and beautiful

That parent that I mentioned earlier with the four children reached out to me to tell me that although she was happy for me and the growth of the program, she was disappointed that she and her children hadn’t experienced the same energy.
I told her that her experience was totally valid. But back then I was doing my job and now I’m doing my mission.

People ask what’s next for gifted? What’s the plan?

All though I know that there is so much more coming through now my non profit Gifted alliance, the gifted event and Noble barber and beauty

I’m no better at forecasting my life to tell you what’s next but I’m open to the surprise of the journey for a little while longer

The best Gifts are surprises

Vernon, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I have a program called The Gifted Event in which I give free haircuts to boys with different needs. My program is designed to 1 create a safe environment for the family that they no longer have to apologize

2 acclimate the children to the haircut process building trust and faith into the process itself

3 putting the families into
The position to receive when they’ve only given so much of themselves.

The programs is ran off of donations/ public sponsorship.

What I find special about what I do is the impact that my content has on the hearts and minds of people all over the world.

I recently launched my online haircutting instructional course. Also launched our t shirts and now doing girls cuts.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?**

Competency and understanding of your skill
Consistency
Having a heart to enjoy the process

Have you ever had to pivot?

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded? **

I’d say going on in on your strengths. Learn what you need where you’re challenging the pay someone to do it better than you. But at least you know what it takes so you know when someone is trying to play you

Contact Info:

• Youtube: @thebest1period
• Other: To donate and sponsor a cut visit thegiftedevent.com TikTok @thegiftedeventofficial