– Episode 200Trevor Sorbie

Episode 200: Transcript

[00:00:00] Antony W: Welcome to the Grow My Salon Business podcast where we focus on the business side of hairdressing I’m your host Antony Whitaker and I’ll be talking to thought leaders in the hairdressing industry discussing insightful provocative and inspiring ideas that matter So get ready to learn get ready to be challenged get ready to be inspired and most importantly get ready to grow your salon business

[00:00:26] Antony W.: Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. I’m your host, Anthony Whitaker, and as always, it’s great to have you here with us today. Now at the time of recording, I was still getting over a bad cough, so my apologies for any impact that that’s had on the editing of this recording. So with that said, onward, today’s show. The words icon and legend are totally overused in hairdressing. And the problem that it creates is that when you really do meet someone regarded as a genuine icon or legend in the hairdressing industry, then there are no superlatives left to aptly describe their status. Now, having said that, today’s guest would never call himself an icon or a legend anyway, and it’s that humility. Combined with decades at the top creatively that have earned him the respect of hairdressers everywhere. My guest today is the one and only Mr. Trevor Sorbie. Trevor started his career working in his father’s barbershop in Paisley in Scotland, but went on to become one of the biggest names in the world of hairdressing and along the way won four British Hairdresser of the Year Awards

[00:01:34] Antony W.:, was awarded a doctorate from a Scottish university and was made a member of the British Empire from her Majesty, the queen. Now, this is a slightly longer episode than normal, but then it’s not every day that you get to speak with Trevor Sorbie and reflect on his brilliant career. So rather than split it into two episodes or edit it down, enjoy the opportunity to listen  to a real industry icon and the wisdom that he shares of a lifetime in this industry. In today’s podcast, we will discuss the importance of nurture and creativity, the art of being a great onstage presenter, and the wisdom that comes with age and lots more. So without further ado, welcome to the show, Mr. Trevor Sorbie.

[00:02:22] Trevor S.: Hi there. I’m, uh, pleased to see you after so many years, Antony. It’s great.

[00:02:29] Antony W.: Yeah, it is a long time. That’s actually what I’m going to talk about right now because, you know, I’ve, seen you, but I haven’t met you face to face for probably 23 years now. And the last time was when I interviewed you, and that was in the year 2000. And you are probably not going to remember this, but I came to your salon in Floral Street and, uh, I said to the receptionist, I’m here to see Trevor. And, uh, she said, take a seat over here. And I took a seat and I was sat there and I was looking into the salon and I saw this guy that was, the salon was busy and I saw this guy sweeping the floor and I was just sort of vaguely aware of this guy sweeping the floor. And then he turned around and it was you. And I remember sitting there thinking, oh my God. You know, I don’t know how often you do that, but, uh, it sort of stuck with me as being representative of who Trevor Sorbie, the man really is. So, so what, what I wanted to do was start by asking you was how important was your upbringing and the humility that you have as a person in making you a success in this industry? [00:03:40] Antony W.: Because here you are at that point in your career, multi awarded hairdresser, very globally successful hairdresser, and you are sweeping the floor. And I just thought that was a amazing to see. So, uh, yeah.

[00:03:53] Trevor S.: Well, I, I think I’ve worked at Vidal Sassoon for six years. I worked for Toni and Guy. I worked for John Frieda, and I’ve had a wonderful experience in all of them. But I learned things in all of them, and I always thought that people that are, have their name above the door, it’s like, that’s your pinnacle to get to in people’s minds. But, but I also know that you can’t go over that name because that name won’t allow you because he’s the main man or woman. Now I’ve, in all my time that I’ve walked around salons with, you know, Anthony Mascolo, John Frieda, Nikki Clark, Vidal, the, the whole lot have all seen a, a way that they conduct themselves in the salon. And I think what impressed me most was Vidal Sassoon. He came into my shop one day, I had no idea he was coming. He just walked in. Hi Trevor. I went, hi. How, hi. Don’t believe. I mean it really, it was exciting. And he went around, all the clients, he introduced himself, hi, my name’s Vidal Sassoon, you know you’re in a very good salon here and I’m sure they will be looking after you.

[00:05:23] Trevor S.: He went around all the juniors. He introduced himself even to the cleaners. And I just thought, what a humble, lovely man. when he left, I I, I said to myself, if I could be half the man that he is humble giving. himself to people that he’s never met. I just thought it was a wonderful thing and I decided even before then, to be honest, but I decided there’s only one way to steer a ship. And that is by leadership. If I can sweep the floor, you can sweep the floor. If I can shampoo a client, which I do, you can shampoo, help them on with their coat, make them coffees.

[00:06:13] Trevor S.: I go around my salon. I, I’m very restricted now to how often I can go cause I have an illness. But when I go, um, and I can’t cut hair anymore, uh, I’ve gone through cancer treatment and one of the side effects is I’ve lost the use of my fingers. So I can’t, and as you know, when you do hair, you, you feel hair, hair is, is the material that you feel quality of it, the thickness, the curl, everything. And I can’t do that anymore. But what I do is I go around and I obviously say, excuse me, when you say hello to my staff member. Um, and then I start talking to them and I sit down for  5, 10, 15 minutes chatting away and they say, are you Trevor? So I go, yeah, yeah. How long have you been coming here? Oh, I’ve been coming here 25 years. God, it’s like ships in the valley, isn’t it? We just keep missing each other and we get down and have such friendly chats  and,  I’ve restarted reading Vidal Sassoon autobiography years ago. He signed his book to me and I was in the other night, and this, well, I’m talking like three nights ago now.

[00:07:33] Trevor S.: I saw his book in my rack of books. I thought, I’m going to read that again. And I started reading it and, there was one point where he was saying that a woman came in and sort of said, oh, I would like my hair sort of bouffant and big and whatever, he would turn around and say, Madam. He said, um, I’ve got a very good friend down the road that does exactly that type of hairdressing. Unfortunately, we don’t, but let me make a phone call and I’ll get you booked in there. And he turned clients away. I loved that. I loved that. Not somebody out and he didn’t kick them out. He to a place that would cater for her needs, and I that bravery he did it, he was so focused, client said, said to me recently, how, how did you become famous? I said, I, well, I don’t know.

[00:08:33] Trevor S.: He says, well, you must know. I said, No, I don’t. I said, I have never planned this. Nothing I’ve ever done is a plan. What’s happened is I’ve just fallen into what I think is a combination of a passion, a focus, uh, a dream to come true. I never worried about money. I never got up to make money. I got up to be a better hairdresser and to treat staff like I would want to be treated. My, I’ve got Nathan, who’s my head color. She’s 26 years, he’s been with me. I’ve got Tiziano, who’s been 22 years. I’ve got Joe, she’s there 21. I keep my staff and I’ll tell you why I have to, well, I treat them like I want to be treated, number one. Number two, I have to inject. an ethos in them that is a, it’s a discipline. It’s a discipline that everyone has to adhere to, and that is simply quality of work. If a superstar or wannabe, superstar came to work for me, he’d last five minutes. I don’t want anyone walking around and sort of like, oh, look at me. You know, one of these sort of hairdressers that you like to dislike. he wouldn’t last five minutes with me. Ego driven. Me, me, me, has no place in my salon

[00:10:01] Antony W.: Okay, so a lot of people probably don’t know that you started off as a barber in your dad’s barber shop in Paisley. Small City is a, I’m not even sure if it’s a city. You know, it’s a, right, so it’s a town in Scotland, and that was your entrance into this industry. So what I wanted to ask you was, How did that contribute? I mean, you are talking about Vidal and his humility, but how did that upbringing, that you had, that entrance into this industry of five years working in your dad’s barbershop in Paisley, how did that help you Stay grounded because you are, you are a very humble, open, you know, presence. There’s no heirs and graces about you. There never seems to have been in all the time that, I’ve seen you on the, on the world stage of hairdressing. You’ve always been this very natural, grounded, open, honest guy. So, yeah. I mean, a lot of that obviously comes from your background, your upbringing,

[00:10:57] Trevor S.: Well, when you land in Paisley, you’re actually landing, um, in Glasgow airport. So I’m six miles from Glasgow airport. That’s probably a better reference for people that are listening to this. I lived in a, uh, like  a block of flats in Scotland. They call it a tenement building. I shared those flats with other couples. There was an outside toilet, uh, everyone used every Friday night. There was a big tin bath that my mum and dad brought out, filled with water, and me and my brother  had that at Christmas time. I remember we had mince, um, and potatoes. That was our Christmas lunch. we had one present. I got the car inside the box and my brother got the box. But we shared that. It, it was modest to say the least. Um, we lived in We lived in an area where there was a, at the bottom of the street, a gang of thugs, and they were always trying to get me and my brother, into a fight. My brother always stood in front of me and says, you know, you got to get through me first to get to him. And he meant it as well. So, you know, we never really got into hard knuckles, but the, the fear was always there when I was walking down that street then. I, got bullied at school. again, it was a tough school and I had to. Join a gang to stay alive. You know, you don’t want to be the odd man out.

[00:12:34] Trevor S.: And you’ve got these crowded kids that are all praising this one guy who’s, he’s a complete bully. And I felt it was, it was healthier to join the gang. And they’re not. And I messed around with them and didn’t get into too much trouble. But then I, I’ll tell you something, uh, Antony, when I was about 15, 16? and this is the only time that I think I can, if you like, pat myself in the back, I never was one of them.  I felt special and I don’t know in which way I felt special. I just felt I didn’t fit in to the environment I was living in. And I decided that, uh, I would. Move out of, well, when I got bullied, I went to work for my father. He said, what do you want to do, son? I says, well, I wanted to do art, but I’m not staying there any longer. So he said, come in the barber shop and see how you get on. And uh, I did washing hair, sweeping floor and after five years, I actually got fed up because, uh, the only customers I was doing were people that worked at Ford Motor Company you know, factory workers and all they wanted was short back in size. No hairstyling just cut it off. And most of them were drunk anyway when they came, and so they couldn’t even appreciate what I did. but um, then I gave up hairdressing. Uh, it bored me.

[00:14:00] Trevor S.: So I went back to my parents, I says, look, I’ll go back into hairdressing, but I want to do ladies, it’s more interesting. It’s perming, coloring, and styling. I said that would, I think quench my thirst for hairdressing. So they sent me to a college in London, in Baker Street called the Richard Henry School of Hairdressing. And, I did a six month course. It cost a hundred pounds, which was a lot of money for my parents, uh, in those days. And uh, the last day when I actually left, I was saying goodbye to all my friends that I’d met, and I said goodbye to the principal of the college. And he said, Trevor, once I, I have a word with you. I said, yeah. He said, Trevor, I see something specially new. And I think you should go to a really good salon. I said, do you really? I said, what do you see? He says, you’re different and you don’t see yourself as different. You don’t see yourself as special.

[00:14:58] Trevor S.: And certainly not that age. I went to Vidal Sassoon, I didn’t stay there long because I was training, I was living in a place called Harlow in Essex. It took two hours to get to work, two hours to get back. They weren’t paying me. Um, and I left. And then I went to suburban salon called Enri, or Henry’s, if you like. And, uh, I

learned a lot there. It was roller setting. It was, uh, perming, coloring 30 clients a day. That taught me a lot about just not using scissors. It taught me how to style hair, how to wave hair. And I was working with two girls that were fantastic hairdressers. Absolutely, and I moved from there to a place called Selfridges. It was in a big department store. Stayed there for a while and then I was at the age where I was about 20 and fashion was becoming important to me and I wanted to look good and, you know, meet girls and all of that stuff. So I went back to Sassoon and I got a job there and within 18 months I became an artistic director at the Grove House Salon. And that’s where they used to put all the, if you like, the potential. Let’s say the stars of tomorrow. Darryl, Ben and Howard, Roger, Christopher. They were sort of in that salon and, and they put me in there. And, um, then I started really getting into a serious note. You know, Antony, in life there’s things that you know you can’t do, and there’s things you know it’s possible to do. I could never jump out of an airplane with a parachute on. I could never do a bungee jump. I couldn’t

[00:16:58] Trevor S.: Swim to the bottom of the sea. There’s just so many things I know I couldn’t do. It’s not in me. But what I used to do, I used to stand on that salon floor. I never sat in a staff room listening to all the rubbish and politics and backbiting that goes on in every staff room. At some point, I used to stand on that floor and just watch these guys working. they all worked in their own little ways, you know, they all had their own style, but the results were just like, oh my God, I want to be like that. I

want to be like that. I’m going to be like that. This is doable. I, I know I can push myself harder. And that’s when it really set into me that that was my future.

[00:17:46] Antony W.: Listening to, to how you’ve been talking about that with, you know, from the barbershop to, uh, working in that salon with those two women out in the suburbs or whatever, and then back into Sassoon. And then you also mentioned that you’d worked with Toni Guy at some point, you’d worked with John Frieda, you’d done, some editorial session work, et cetera. How much of that was about you finding your own style of work? Because interestingly, you know, Sassoon have a style of work. Toni and Guy had a style of work, and, and Trevor Sorbie has always been renowned for being able to do everything. You, you cut hair, you dress hair, you raise hair. You know, it’s sort of like, I’m not going to be pigeonholed here. I’m going to learn to work with hair and use whatever tools that I need to, to create the looks I want. Talk to me about how important that was for you, because I, I really think that was one of the things that set you apart, particularly in that era, in the, in the sort of eighties and nineties when I was in London, um, you know, as a hairdresser.

[00:18:50] Trevor S.: you know, Variety is the spice of life. You know, you work for Toni and Guy, they were doing sort of nice haircuts, but the round brushing, they’re  used to the round brush who was fantastic and I learned to use round brushes. Um, John Frieda, beautiful hairdresser I saw every Saturday when I was working there. Two twins came in, red hair down to just past his shoulders every week they came in. I never saw him do the same hairstyle twice. Every Saturday he’d do something different just by platting or just putting one piece up or, and I, I. God, he, you know, he’s, he’s got a bucket load of ideas that he can just turn to working with Nikki Clark, his beautiful editorial stuff, how he got sort, lovely waves in the hair, obviously when they’re in front of a camera and the wind’s blowing and stuff that he makes it magical. A beautiful hairdresser. Um, an Anthony Mascolo well, he was my assistant when I joined, and I used to watch him have a sketchbook and he would like draw hairstyles and even then I thought, this guy’s going to be good. He’s into it.

[00:20:06] Trevor S.: And I took bits out of everywhere I went and I sort of put, mashed that into my way of working to be able to put hair up, to be able to cut with a razor, to be able to blow dry and make it look like she’d walked out from a salon in Paris. Or whatever. And I always thought, if I’m going to do this job, I’m going to learn everything I can about it. I wasn’t interested in perming and I actually wasn’t interested in color. It was styling. That’s where my heart and soul was. But when you’re working with great, perms and great colorists, we rec connected. They knew exactly what I wanted. So, um, yeah. Um, and I just turned that into my own,

[00:20:58] Antony W.: When did you know it was time to open your own salon?

[00:21:02] Trevor S.: well, I didn’t really have that on the list. Um, this is why I say I didn’t plan anything. And one day a guy called Grant Pete, he had eight shops in the suburbs and he was trying to do the Vidal Sassoon thing, but in the suburbs. And he opened a shop in Covent Garden it was desolate in Covent Garden, but he wanted to have a West End, address. And, he said, Trevor, how would you like your own shop? And I said, well, yeah. I said, well, 50 50, my name above the door. He went, you got a deal. So I went into an empty shop. No clients, no people really passing at that time. The shop, it was desolate area. But slowly and surely. But what happened? What happened was interesting because I was in a very, very creative, I had some burning in me where I wanted to. I wanted this is me in a nutshell. I’m not interested in what I know, Anthony. I’m much more interested in what I don’t know and I want to know what I don’t know. And I used to dream up like hairs.

[00:22:11] Trevor S.: I’ll give you the best example. Punk, right in the eighties. Spiky, you know, safety pins, dirty look, anti-establishment. I loved that. Not because I’d wear it, I loved it went warm opposite to what was really happening in the mainstream. And I thought, right, what’s the opposite of good taste? Bad taste? What’s the opposite of being accepted? Not being accepted? I’m going to do something that is all of that. I

had an oriental guy, you may have seen the picture. And instead of using e, everything at that time was still, you know, hard lines, very systems orientated and I decided to turn it all upside down. So instead of cutting hair with a scissors and getting a blunt hand, I cut it with a razor. So I had a thin wispy end instead of hair coming down, I put it out and I blow dried it all out straight. Then I thought, what’s the opposite of a good color? A bad color? Let’s do a regrowth. Let’s just tick. Let’s just bleach the ends and leave the roots. And when it is finished, it looked amazing. We called it the Wolf Man. And you may have seen the picture. I can get it to you.

[00:23:37] Antony W.: I’ve got it here mate. Don’t worry.

[00:23:39] Trevor S.: All right, thank you. But that was who, where I was up here. Now, the people who were come, people walked past my shop. They, and I had that in my front window. By the way, people that walked past my shop, they looked at it, one of two things they thought to themselves, I ain’t going in there for, that’s not me. And the others came in. People like, um, Grace Jones, um, Paul McCartney. Um, Vivian came in. Vivian Westwood, um, just a load of new

[00:24:20] Trevor S.: Music, people. I was starting to create a noise in that time. There was people coming through the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Mary Quant, there was a, a new wave of youth coming through, very strongly photographers, David Bailey, et cetera. And I was sort of getting in that groove of being different, being original, being youthful. And bottom line was three months after I opened my, my business partner, I said, Trev, if you don’t make some money, we’re going to have to close the doors. I went, why? I says, we’re getting some really good people in there. He says, yeah, and you’re doing all the hair for nothing as well just to get a name. But I went, yeah, well, you know, the rest will follow. Hopefully. Anyway, I was pushed into having to put a nice soft haircut in the window and trying, and the punters came in and it built up really well.

[00:25:16] Antony W.: So, so how long was he your business partner for?

[00:25:20] Trevor S.: Up until I sold the company, which is what, four years.

[00:25:24] Antony W.: Oh wow. Okay. So all that time through, he was so.

[00:25:28] Trevor S.: Yeah.

[00:25:29] Antony W.: Like silent business partners. I, I’d heard the name, but like he ha he obviously kept a very low profile and that was probably the way that he liked it and that you liked it, et cetera. So I’d sort of assumed that maybe that was something that, petered out years and years ago, but right. Up until three or four years ago, right.

[00:25:48] Trevor S.: I mean, it wasn’t a good relationship. I hated him and he hated me because he was, he was solely into making money, and I solely into my craft. [00:26:00] And we would butt heads many times. I said, grant, you know, I need to, I need 3000 pounds to buy these dresses. Well, why can’t you go to Sarah or Mark and Spencer are like, shut up Grant. You don’t understand. Yeah, I do understand. I said, no, you don’t. And we never used to speak that much to each other. It was like a horrible relationship.

[00:26:23] Antony W.: But what he looked after all the business side. All the backend, that he paid all the.

[00:26:26] Trevor S.: See what I, yeah, what I didn’t know after about 15 years of being together, his dream. And I, he didn’t tell me this until like 15 years into our partnership. He says, I’ve always seen you with the product line, Trevor. I went, really? He says, yeah. He said, that’s where I’m heading. And I thought, oh,

[00:26:48] Antony W.: But you had a product line at one stage, didn’t you?

[00:26:51] Trevor S.: Yeah, we had a 10, we had a 10 year, um, contract with Boots.

[00:26:56] Antony W.: Right. Okay. But, and then you sold it to Redken, didn’t you? At  some stage.

[00:27:00] Trevor S.: Yeah. Yeah. what actually happened? Um, I, we didn’t create the product line. It created us. I was at the New York Beauty Show and I just invented scrunch drying, and I was right at the back of the massive, um, Jacobs Center, whatever it’s called. And uh, the only way you could find me is if you got lost. But I got a crowd of people, a lot of people just around me and there was no other stands near me. I was right at the back, but I held this crowd cause they’re all always doing, show them how to scrunch. And in that room, four men were standing there with suits and they were just looking at me and I thought, well, they, they’re not your hairdressers. I can tell that. But I didn’t know who they were anyway, finished the demonstrations for the day and they came up to me and he said, uh, Mr. Sorbie, how would you like your name on a bottle? I went, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why not? You know, not really thinking anything, but yeah, why not? And um, they said we’d be interested in, um, investing in you for a product line.

[00:28:11] Trevor S.: Right. You have to skip along a bit, but we developed a bottle at, won an award, the shake of the bottle actually. And it was my job to go around America and, and sell the ship, uh, which I did for, cuz I was contracted. And, um, it became my job really to spend half my time in America and half my time in the Uk. Uh, it was very demanding, but then, but then it got sold to a, another guy, ruffler was the company that bought it first. Ruffler sold it to a guy whose name I would’ve definitely changed my name if it was his name was, um, Hans Fira.

[00:28:57] Antony W.: yeah, you would change

[00:28:58] Trevor S.: And he, and he, and he acted  like  one. He then sold it to Redken [00:29:03] Antony W.: Right.

[00:29:04] Trevor S.: uh, L’Oreal bought Redken, L’Oreal bought Trevor Sorbie and Redken, and I thought, well, great. I’m now with the company and L’Oreal didn’t want me. And I said, why? Why don’t you want me? He said, Trevor, we, we just bought a company worth, you know, worth 300 million. Your company’s worth $14 million. It would take us a lifetime to get you up to where this company is. We don’t need you. We’re going to put all our energies into regular. I understood that. So from there, we were sold to a guy called Charlie Hall and he was good to work with. Lovely man. Unfortunately, he died in a hotel one night, um, from a heart attack, but that got then sold on to a company called, um, It was in Florida, I can’t remember offhand. And we had to take them to court in the end cause they weren’t, they were fiddling and not paying royalties and that. Anyway, we got the com, we got all our rights back and um, we could go worldwide with our rights, but we didn’t spend one penny of our money in that. And having said that, I had a company, it’s worth multi-millions and not one penny  ever came outta my pocket for the salon or for the products. I had a free ride financially. But somehow through good business sense and all of that, we built up a multimillion pound company. And that’s the whole story. I mean.

[00:30:43] Antony W.: Yeah, I knew bits of it, but I didn’t know all the, you know, the, the end result there. Well, if, if you were a young hairdresser listening to this now, and you were thinking to yourself, I want to have my own product company, which a lot of people do, they want to start their own line. What one, what one bit of advice would you give them?

[00:31:00] Trevor S.: Don’t,

[00:31:02] Antony W.: Yeah, I mean, for, for every huge success story, there’s a lot that fall by the wayside, isn’t there? It’s like, I don’t know what, I don’t know what percentage survive, but, you know, is it, is it one in 20, one in 50, whatever, you know?

[00:31:16] Trevor S.: Firstly, you have to build a reputation, you know? You’ve got to have some outside awareness. At the time I was doing television, morning programs, makeover programs, I was on television quite a lot. So, the general public in this country knew me cause they see me. And when I came out to do a makeup, well, Trevor Sorbie, well what’s the name on the bottle? Trevor Sobie. We made a 10 year contract with Boots and I had to fulfill that and, um, I did. it’s not easy because it’s packaging, it, it’s formulas, it’s meetings, it’s Oh, it takes 80% of your time up. And that’s what I hated about it. I was dragging me away from what I do best.

[00:32:05] Antony W.: your, was your business partner involved in that side of it or.

[00:32:09] Trevor S.: Hundred percent.

[00:32:09] Antony W.: Okay.

[00:32:10] Trevor S.: A hundred percent. Yeah. Uh, that was his baby, if you like. I, I just went along for the ride, basically. Uh, but I had to work it, you know, I had to do demonstrations all over the country and, uh, they flogged me.to death, but, you know, I, I was up for it. You know, I look, even though money’s not my motivation, I’m not completely stupid, you know, I want to live well. Um, and I knew that products make good money and I, I do have to say, if you really want to make the big money, it is products. I’m talking big money, you know, even if you have 10 salons and you’re doing well, and you’ll make quite a lot of money if you have 10 salons, but you’ll never make the money that, you know, John Freida has sold out for 300 million, 20 million Toni and guy sold for 40. Um, Yeah. Charles Worthington, I think got 50 million. You can’t, you can’t make that in salons

[00:33:10] Antony W.: no, definitely, definitely. Um, I know you said that you sold your salons, uh, about four years ago. Um, and yet there are Trevor Sorbie salons. They seem to be expanding. How many of them are there now and, and what sort of involvement do you have?

[00:33:26] Trevor S.: Right. Firstly, I’ll tell you why I sold, that’s the most important part of this. My business partner, partner was fell. He was older than me. He wanted out, he wanted to retire. He had no mortgage. He had a bow and everything. He just wanted a happy life. So I was what, 70. My first wife got my house, my second wife got my pension. on paper, I’m worth money,  but I can’t buy a bag of sugar with this bit of paper. Look, this is what I’m worth. No cash mate. So at my age, no financial security as such. Only on paper I decided that, you know, and I’m realizing my age and, uh, thinking, well, maybe this is the time. So I went along with it. Now, I disliked business meant generally because only because of what I’ve been through. Um, and I know there’s good guys out there. Their motivation is money. But what’s more important to me is how a businessman treats an artist. Uh, I’m not a machine. I can’t deliver. Things like instantly I have to work hard at what I do to create what I show. Um, and this guy from Dubai came along. He, and he has a consortium. He’s got a big portfolio of beauty, um, outlets, mainly, uh, reconstructions, Botox.

[00:35:03] Trevor S.: big money stuff. and he wanted to open a prestigious name in London. So he went round all the big names and he stopped at me and he went for it. And I said, look, his name is Imad. And I said, Imad. I says, look, I’m interested in selling. I says, but I’ve heard many businesses that sell, they change dramatically cuz they want their own systems and they want to do what they want to do. And I said, that’s my fear. I said, I understand that the accounts and all the business side will have to be your all your thing, and I’m not actually interested in that anyway. But the one thing that has to stay, and I said I’m willing to break the deal if this doesn’t, if you don’t commit to this, what happens inside those sounds stays exactly as it is. That’s what’s made this company what’s inside those four walls. He said, Trevor, if I’d wanted to buy a McDonald’s, I would’ve.

[00:36:08] Trevor S.: I said, good answer. And he said to me, what do you see the future of Trevor Sorbie? I said, I can tell you that right now. I don’t have to think about it. Bearing in mind he’s a businessman. I said, you know, There’s a guy, he’s no longer with us. His name’s Vidal Sassoon But his name is still alive. His salons are still running. Even though he’s not with us, he is with us still. And reputation. I want to do that. I, I won’t see my dream because I’ll be dead, but that’s my dream, to live beyond  [00:36:46] Antony W.: Yeah. Yeah. Legacy.

[00:36:48] Trevor S.: And he liked that answer and I think that’s what clinch to deal with, to be.

[00:36:52] Antony W.: So, so how many salons are in there?

[00:36:55] Trevor S.: Right. There’s six in in England. Yeah. There’s, Brighton, which I’m going to later after this, uh, Covent Garden, Manchester, Bristol, and Richmond. And there’s three, franchises in China and there’s, uh, Trevor will be in Dubai, 10 altogether.

[00:37:15] Antony W.: fantastic. So who now is overall creative director of the brand?

[00:37:20] Trevor S.: Okay.

[00:37:22] Antony W.: So you’re still involved actively in that side of the company.

[00:37:25] Trevor S.: yeah. yeah. They said to me, Trevor, um, look, do you want to stay on or do you want to jump ship? I said, well, I didn’t really want to sell, but I’d love to stay in. So they said, would you sign a three year contract? I went, yeah, yeah, no problem.

[00:37:41] Antony W.: Yeah.

[00:37:41] Trevor S.: So I signed that, and then after that, there’s been no contracts, but they’re keeping me on. It’s like, it’s just now a given that I’m, I’m part of the team, but I’m head of the creative,

[00:37:55] Antony W.: Good. Oh, that’s, that’s brilliant. But you, you’ve always been known as someone, you know, Trevor Sorbie Salon has been known as being an incubator for great talent. So over the years you’ve had like the Vivian Mackinder, Antoinette Beers, Angela Seminara, Sally Brooks, Eugene souleiman, Tom Connell. I mean, that’s a phenomenal legacy to have produced, you know, through the, the, the House of Trevor Sorbie to have names like that, that have come through and gone out the other end. What is it that, that has made them special and, and what did you do to bring out the very best in them?

[00:38:36] Trevor S.: Well, firstly, for people to get to know you or want to get to know you and want to work for you, you have to impress them. Now, that is through the world of magazines, videos, um, any PR that you do that’s spread your name and the right people. See what they see. And they’re the ones you attract. The serious guys, not to somebody who wants a job. Somebody wants a career. They’re the sort of people I, and  here’s, here’s, this is the way I think, right? And this is how I grow my people. yeah. They see me do techniques, they learn that stuff. But, you know, we’re always moving on anyways. So we’re always trying to invent. But most importantly, I, I spend more of my time not developing the stylists because they already have got what I’m about to tell you right now as stylists. Um, a young junior came in the other day, uh, well, two weeks ago, and he, he was so nervous to meet me and all of that. I said, listen mate, can I teach you something? I said, this is what it’s all about. Okay? I

said, no, listen to this little story. I’ve got a little seed in my hand. I’m going to put it in the ground and I’m going to cover it in soil and then give it some water.

[00:40:09] Trevor S.: You go back to it in a couple of weeks and you’ll see a little thing sprout out, well, a little bit more water. And then after a couple of months you’ll see a little stalk and you’ll go, wow, it’s great. Now you’re starting to have a feeling for this. Now you start to look, nurture this plant and so on. And all of a sudden a leaf will come out and then it’ll grow high and le and then one day you’ll see a bud at the end of this stalk, and it’ll start to open up like a flower and all that care from when you planted that seed and nurtured it all the way up and you saw it grow. And then look at that beautiful flower you did that you made that happen. And that’s what it’s about. It you, the dream is this, but the staircase is a long one and it’s step by step. I always said, yeah, I want to be one of those top boys, but what I’m going to do is set, set myself a goal and not make it easy.

[00:41:13] Trevor S.: Reach that goal, right? I’ll make another one. I’ll reach that goal and so on. And I climb the ladder and before you know where you are, you’re looking down and think, wow. Come up. And you just keep on going until you want to stop or when you’ve had  enough or whatever. I wasn’t ready to stop. I wanted to be that

[00:41:32] Antony W.: Yeah. Yeah, that was beautifully said that that was such a good analogy. Well, one of the things I wanted to ask you about is when you’ve had people like that, you know, the calibre of those hairdressers sort of come through your business and then they leave. How do you react to that? Because a, a lot of salon owners, they feel that they’ve invested time in building and developing people and, and then when someone leaves, they get really upset by it. Now, I know that you are only human. I’m sure you’ve had your moments, but you, generally speaking, you are very positive about that. I’ve heard you talk about that before and say how they’ve reached the point where they have to move on now to continue their growth. Talk to me about that.

[00:42:14] Trevor S.: Right. In any business, and you talk about even corporate world, what you do is you work to a point where you are actually training, training somebody to take that job cause you are moving on for that person to be replaced, there’s got to be someone that can slot into it. So it’s, I’m teaching him, but he’s teaching him. And, um, we, I, we, we know we spot talent like that. You can see it, you, you feel it in people and you’re pushing them, them up the ladder. I’m pushing them up the ladder and, uh, we are still doing our thing up here, but we start to see people really sort of make the move to put that x-ray in. And you can say, this is a possible art director in there somewhere.

[00:43:09] Trevor S.: And they make their position, they make it. But you can only work with the right mentality, the right to degree of commitment, um, and treat them well. And, you know, sh have in-house soiree do things, keep, keep the excitement inside the company. Um, and you’ll see people grow quicker than others, you know. And you can spot the winners as you, as you go. But, but having said that, Angelo Seminara, for example, with me, 15 years, and he said, Trevor, he said, uh, I hate to say this, but uh, I’m going to have to leave you. I said, good. I said, because you. No, because you are better than me now. And I always said, if I see somebody better than me, they should fly. And he went off and he got big major contracts and make a lot of money. And we, he’s my best friend. He was, he was, he’s my best man at my wedding. Um, he, and he calls me his father because his father died. I was with him when his father

[00:44:31] Trevor S.: died, and he says, you’re my new father. And it’s that strong.  It’s that powerful. And Antoinette and Vivian, I still see them as, we have lots of wonderful experiences that we share together. And all of those ladies and guys I’ve talked about talk well of me when they speak about Trevor Sorbie. They, they, I’ve never heard a bad word. So that’s kind, it really, I mean, just.

[00:45:02] Antony W.: How, how much of it, when you, when you see those people as, as youngsters, when they start off with you, when you, when you look at creativity, how much of it is a gift a, a natural, inbuilt thing, and how much of it is just plain hard work?

[00:45:21] Trevor S.: It is a combination. Firstly, um, lots of people come and you think, The, the heart’s not in it. You can spot it and they, they come and go but when you, I can tell a good hairdresser not by even seeing what he does, just by listening to him or her, I can feel that, that energy, that passion, that want, that thirst that I had in my body. Um, and then you, you take them on, but you monitor them, you know, and sometimes that passion can go the wrong way. They just, I don’t know. Things happen in their life that is unavoidable and it changes the dynamics of where they’re at. It’s hard to pin it down to any one thing, but when people are, when people want to be me, I can make them me. But they, that’s got to be a big one. And I can spot that, and I spotted it in all the names that you’ve mentioned.

[00:46:29] Antony W.: Okay. I heard you say once that. You said, I’m not a good teacher. I’m not good at teaching people how to, how to physically do it. he said, what I do is I teach people how to think. And I thought, wow, that’s really insightful. so tell me what you mean by that.

[00:46:50] Trevor S.: Right. I’m not a good teacher because teaching is another skill altogether. Now, the, one of the best teachers that I know is Vivienne  McKinder, she dissects her haircut like an orange. She would take one section, that and so on. She’ll cut it down in such descriptive, simple way, I can’t do that. I’m like, well, look, if somebody says, well, why are you doing that? I’m like, Well, it’s right. Yeah, but how do you know? I said, because I feel it. That’s me teaching. I don’t know why I’m doing it. I know it’s right. You know? That’s why I’m not good. Having said that, when I go on stage, that’s when I’m a good teacher because I invent a hair hairstyle and I make it look so easy and it’s different. You would never have seen it before, and people go, well, I can do that. Difference is they didn’t think of the

[00:47:52] Trevor S.: idea I did. But so I never go on and show them things that are impossible. And, you know, I’m not one of these hairdressers that builds a skyscraper on somebody’s head and I’m dressed like a rockstar. And so, right there you go. Look how gray I am. I bet you couldn’t do that. And it’s condescending to an audience. When somebody does something that’s, it will never be used in any way, shape or  form. I give them things that can be used. And that’s harder than, than what you think to do just a simple thing and, and know that the audience could have a real go at that and get it probably on their first go. I break it up, I use humor and I don’t tell jokes. I tell funny things that happen to me whilst I was, whatever I was doing in life at that moment. I show them things that they can do by themselves. I, I changed the mood as they go along.

[00:48:59] Antony W.: Did that, come naturally? Trev did you. Were you, does that just, or did you work at that? Were you trained to be like that?

[00:49:06] Trevor S.: no, I’ll tell you exactly how that happened. I have suffered from depression, over the years and one year I went right down and I mean, I, I did a show in, Boston and Vivian was, and my team were with me and, I was, the show was at seven o’clock. I was still in bed at four o’clock under the covers and, just couldn’t do the show in my head. And I said, I phone Viv. I said, Viv, you’ve got to carry this show. I can’t do it. She’s, look, can you get here? I said, yeah, I’ll get there. So I went and, Viv did the show. Basically, I was at the back of the stage. I did a little haircut, said few words, couldn’t wait to get off. And that night I sitting at having dinner, Vivian said to me, Trevor, you look like an old man right now. My face was dropped. I was white, you  know? Anyway, I got myself out of it. And then one day I said to Redken, I want to do a show in Sacramento and I want to do a one man show. Well, all by yourself. Yeah. I’m going to stand on a stage and do one haircut after another, after another for one hour. And that was a do or die show. If it worked, I’d get back in the ring. If it didn’t, I would’ve quit hairdressing. I had to put myself into that danger zone. That win or lose. It was clear in my head.

[00:50:38] Trevor S.: It worked and that was the start of me doing one man shows. Now when you say, Come and see every Vidal Sassoon show, you’ll see four, five styles up there. You, uh, Toni & Guy, they’re all the same. They all have their team on stage. Now, this is where, this is where it goes wrong for me to do that. You start, the cameraman goes in on the first head and they start at the bottom, whatever, and then they go into the second edge. What am I doing here, blah, blah, third edge. So come back to the first. Well, I’ve completed that. I know you saw was the start of it, but it’s completed now. And now we’re moving on to the next part. And you see a couple of sections been taken there, and then it’s over anyway. You never see any one person do a whole haircut, and I think that’s not teaching correctly. When I go on stage, I do a complete head. It’s from start to finish. Sometimes I’ll do half a haircut and I’ll say, look, this is what I’m going for. This is what I’m taking it from. Big, long length of hair. And that’s a time purposes cause I believe if you’re doing that symmetrical haircut, for example, once you’ve seen one side.

[00:51:51] Antony W.: Seen both. Yeah.

[00:51:52] Trevor S.: Now you’re starting  to bore people cause you are only repeating yourself. So I used to cut in on ways of saving  time, but still keeping it tight. And I wouldn’t do a two haircuts in a row. I’d do a haircut and then a hair up. And then I’d do something else that was, changed the mood

[00:52:11] Antony W.: Yeah. I once heard you say that the audience owes you nothing. You owe them everything and that’s why you’re there. Leave the ego alone. Get rid of the ego and give all of yourself to the audience. And, and when I, when I listened to that, you were on another podcast, I stopped it and rewound it and I stopped it and I rewound it about three or four times because it is, it’s exactly what I believe. It’s 100% what you should be doing. And when, and you do that masterfully. Um, just talk to us a little bit about that before we move on.

[00:52:45] Trevor S.: I do my homework and every show, Antony, every show to me is the first show. I don’t care how many times I’ve done the same show. I don’t care how many standing invasions I’ve had when I’m doing this show, I’m doing it. And you have to give it the same guts, the same energy, the same excitement every time as if it’s your first. Because if you’re going out and say, well, I, uh, I can do this, but you know, I don’t have to try to, I’m not going to push myself so hard today. No. You push yourself as far as you can go. Never let that rope slack.

[00:53:25] Antony W.: You know, before you were talking about the episode in the hotel room, you said you were under the covers, you know, you just couldn’t get outta bed. You, you were like, and not in a good space. What advice would you give to someone else listening this about dealing with that pressure? To live up to a reputation and constantly produce because it is pressure and you know, you, you sort of willingly put yourself in that position, but there’s, there’s no rule book and sometimes it all becomes too much because you’re only human. So, so how would you, what would you say to someone about how you deal with that? So that either doesn’t happen or when that is happening that this is what you need to do.

[00:54:08] Trevor S.: Yeah, right. Um, firstly I have ritual. I’m usually working in the hotel with the ballrooms in the same place. I go upstairs and get myself ready and, uh, start pumping my head a bit, and then I go into the bathroom and I look in the mirror hard at myself. So, right, you, I going to have a word with you. if you don’t come off that stage, I don’t want to see you again. I want you to go out there and smash it. Do you hear me? Smash it and then whack around her face. Now go fucking get them. Now, having said that, I did a show cause I suffer so much with nerves. I did a show in Madrid and I was having a panic attack backstage. And when I have a panic attack, it’s not  funny. My body’s shaking. I mean I can’t talk and I’m all over the place. And, um, one of the ladies was, she said, Trev, you can’t go on. I said, I will go on. She said, no, look, the team are here. they’ll take it, they can do it. You know, they can’t. I said, no. They came to see me to meet, they’re going to see. I walked out on that stage, very slight. I’ve got this on film. I walked out on stage quite sort of unsure of myself. I stood there in front of the audience and I started, I went into one, they complete. Now the audience thought I was laughing and joking. And Oh yeah. And I, I went to grab the chair and I stumbled and a little fell. I said, look, sorry here. Really? I said, I’m not feeling very good at the moment, but please stay with me. My assistant came out and he held me, and the strangest thing happened.

[00:56:02] Trevor S.: I said, come on. Let’s get, bring out the first model. Come on. And my model came out, and the minute I started touching her hair, it went, as soon as I attached her hair, it just went into a calm scene. And I did one of my best shows that day. Uh, I can’t explain anymore what happened to me than that, but thank God the hair put me into where I wanted to be.

[00:56:34] Antony W.: Wow. Amazing. So Trevor, one thing I haven’t mentioned so far is, about my new hair. A lot of our listeners will be aware of the fact that you’ve been, you know, very involved, over the years in, uh, project that you called My New Hair that you started where you, were cutting wigs voluntarily for cancer patients and that you were training hairdressers all over, all over the UK, was that even wider or field than just the UK.

[00:57:02] Trevor S.: Oh yeah. Uh, we’ve been to, uh, Dubai. We’ve been to Canada. Um, the idea is to take it as global as we can in the town that we have.

[00:57:13] Antony W.: Okay. What was that story you were going to tell me about that? Because I know before we started recording, you said, oh, I’ve got, I’ve got a story about my new hair that, the listeners would be interested in. What was that?

[00:57:24] Trevor S.: I’ll preface it first. Um, when my sister-in-law got cancer, she said she was going to lose her hair. I said, well, I’ll get, I’ll get you a wig. Jackie and I did and put it on, it looked like a wig and I cut it in there. At that time I was doing a lot of television stuff and the word got out and I got inundated with clients that wanted me to look after So I went to L’Oreal and they gave me their space at their academy and uh, we company gave me weeks free of charge. And we talked, we’ve talked over a. Well, 1500 people. Now. Now, but there was one day that it, oh God, if there was 20 minutes of my life that I’ll never forget in hairdressing it was these 20 minutes I was doing some, voluntary work in a hospice, and, uh, this lady nurse came up behind me and said, um, trev, there’s a lady downstairs.

[00:58:16] Trevor S.: She’s getting married at three o’clock. I went, all right. She said, she’s got a wig. And she’s like, you to cut it out? Okay, fine. No problem. She said, but it may not happen. I said, why? They said, well, she may die before three o’clock. Well, I took my breath away cause I’ve never seen a dead person or anyone that close to being dead. So I said, come on, Trev brave it. So right Donna went private room knocking the door. Hope yeah, Tina, it’s your lucky day, Trev’s in town. I’m going to make you look fantastic on your big day. She was lying on the bed in her dress, in her wedding dress. Daughter was on the end of the bed. There was streamers, cards and everything around. Now, I had no idea what I was going to say. I, I didn’t know what the atmosphere was going to be like or anything. In those 20 minutes, Anthony, I had one of the best times of my life I was with a lady. We were laughing, we were joking, we were taking a piss out of different things. I wasn’t in a room with a woman dying. I was in a room with a woman getting married. I left after 20 minutes. I said, Tina, enjoy your day. Go for it. And uh, I left room and I stood outside the door and I thought, hang on a second, I’ve just done something that no nurse, no medical professional could have done. I made. The very back end of her life.

[00:59:47] Trevor S.: So pleasurable. I enjoyed it. She enjoyed it. She got married that day, but past the next. Um, but I, I did a wonderful thing, and I felt so good about myself. And that’s the thing, when you give, you get it back. And that’s what all hairdresser do anyway when they’ve finished a client. If they’re happy, it makes you happy. Well, this was an extreme version of that, but uh, I went out there and this I thought, I like me, I like me.

[01:00:23] Antony W.: That’s a beautiful story. Yeah. that’s a unique thing that hairdressers have to, to offer that. As you just said, doctors and nurses can’t do it like [01:00:32] Trevor S.: No.

[01:00:33] Antony W.: A hairdresser and, and you being that, you know, that human that can give her some joy in her, in her last hours on this earth is this very special gift. What, what, um, if you had, uh, you know, you are at the back end of your career, what would you look back on and say,  these are my career highlights. What are the, what are the top three?

[01:00:55] Trevor S.: Um, it’s hard. Um,

[01:00:58] Antony W.: Let me, let me put the words into your mouth. I, I’m thinking one of them has got to be getting an m b from the Majesty, the Queen. That, that’s got to be one of them. Surely.

[01:01:08] Trevor S.: Yeah, yeah. No, a hundred percent right. And that was the one I would’ve said. First, uh, after that. I mean, winning hairdressers of the Year four times, which hasn’t been superseded yet, um, was definitely probably number two. Um, yeah. No, in the, it’s got nothing to do with hairdressing. This one, cuz I’ve, this is right up to today. The best thing that’s happened to me since I gave up because I can’t do it. When I was 14, I wanted to be an artist to paint and, uh, I never did it because I went into hairdressing, never picked a, a pencil up in 60 odd years. And when I sold the company, I actually went  down again. Real rock bottom. And I heard stories about people like when they retire, they’re dead within a year. There’s no reason for them to get up in the morning. And that, um, so one day I’ve got it. I I can send these pictures to you. I drew three bananas and, uh, they looked like three dicks. Next day I tried to draw a glass and that that was rubbish, and that was rubbish. Three years later, what I’m doing now, I did an ink drawing of Karl Lagerfeld and somebody bought it for 400 pounds. but here’s the point. Every single day I’m in there practicing, practicing, practicing.

[01:02:43] Trevor S.: I’m doing exactly what I did in hairdressing. I never do a drawing that I know I  can do. I do, I draw and I think, oh, I don’t think I can do that. But I do it and I get it and I’m go and, and I’ve taught myself, and that’s my new passion. I’m still into hair, but now I’ve got something else that gets me out of bed and stimulates this. The brain, you know, that’s the organ that I work by and the heart

[01:03:19] Antony W.: Good. That’s fantastic. Um, we mentioned the queen, uh, before we started recording. we were talking about you, you meeting the queen. I mean, that is you know, you said where you grew up and how you grew up, you know, and, shared like a bath and a tin bath and a, a tenement. And I mean, going from that to standing in front of the queen is a huge, I mean, I don’t even know how to put words around that. What, what is that moment like, you know, young Trev standing in front of a Majesty the Queen. I mean, that is, that just must be mind blowing. I can’t get my head around it. Just, just tell us how that was and then tell us about that subsequent meeting you had, which just blew me away.

[01:04:03] Trevor S.: Yeah. Well, I was living on my own a time I split up and, uh, I, I’ve always got a fear of the mail and I used to let the mailbox, three weeks I wouldn’t open in the mail.

[01:04:17] Antony W.: Yeah.

[01:04:17] Trevor S.: Big pile of stuff. One day there was a brown envelope. It had a stamp on it, didn’t recognize it, opened it up and it said, we can’t think of the word for word, but we would like to, um, honor you with, uh, an mb uh, from the Queen. And if you accept, we can you make that happen? I, wow. Whoa. I mean, you can’t put certain things into words.

[01:04:48] Antony W.: Yeah. How long ago was this, Trevor?

[01:04:52] Trevor S.: 2004

[01:04:53] Antony W.:. So your mom and dad were no longer alive.

[01:04:56] Trevor S.: No.

[01:04:57] Antony W.: That’s a shame. That would’ve been an Amazing.

[01:04:59] Trevor S.: Years before. They never saw any of my success, unfortunately.

[01:05:04] Trevor S.: Got a lot to tell. I’ve got a lot to tell them when I get out there. But, yeah, um, I went to the palace and, I was so nervous. I even forgot my past to show security so that they had to do a security check. I mean, if you’re going to see England and Germany play football, you don’t leave your bloody ticket, do you? Well, that’s, that’s the equivalent. I left my ticket at home and I did a security check, and then I went and I, I was dressed in top hat and tails. I thought, no, I’m going to give my queen full respect. And, uh, where I was in a room and there’s a hundred people at every investiture, and they’re there for different things that they’ve done, be it charity or whatever.  And, uh, you get spoken to by a guy in regalia and that, and, uh, he said, um. It gives you the rules. Uh, women must curtsey and when you watch it, I was right at the back cause I was on my own and I saw these women ducking up and down look practicing their curtsy and, and the gentleman have to bow. I saw these guys sort of bow so we’re all practicing cause we’re all shit scared. Anyway, you get lined up and uh, you go in one at a time and, um, he says it is my turn.

[01:06:29] Trevor S.: Ladies and gentlemen, uh, please welcome Mr. Trevor Sorbie for his contributions to hairdressing walk up. Stop, bow, go up, shift pins and needle on you. Um, she said, I understand you do some rather strange hairstyles, Mr. Soy. I said, well, you, yeah, I don’t answer that. Um, I said, well, you, you might say, I try and invent new ideas and try and push the barriers out. And, you know, I’m always experiment. Experiment. Said, oh, very good. She said, I’ve seen you on television. You’re very good at what you do. I said, oh, thank you very much. And then she said, we must have a chat one day. I went, yeah. And then, then to get rid of you, she takes her hand and she goes A little nudge. Right. Bugger off.

[01:07:32] Trevor S.: You’ve had Your 30 seconds and off you go and you have to back off. You don’t turn your back on it and off you go. And I’ve got this great bit of footage cuz they film it all for you. And I’m walking down, I’ve got my medal, I’m walking down and you just see me go. Love that. And uh, that was it. Two weeks later I get a call from Buckingham Palace and I entered a private area with all the family photos and everything and uh, I was in there for about 45 minutes talking cause she wanted me to be a hairdresser. And, um, uh, I can’t even remember what we were talking about, but she was lovely.

[01:08:14] Trevor S.: I mean, such a lovely kind and what a brain. I mean she was really, you know, there was no, she had plenty of, uh, Power left in her

[01:08:24] Antony W.: So what you had, you had 45 minutes with her, in her, in her own state rooms. Whatever. They referred to chatting about hair, and she was asking you to be her Hairdresser?

[01:08:35] Trevor S.: Yeah.

[01:08:37] Trevor S.: Yeah. Well, I mean, it wasn’t just about her

[01:08:41] Trevor S.: Cause she, I said, um, I’m a Formula One fan. Uh, do do you, do you like motor racing? And she went, no, I thought, right, okay. We changed the subject. It was a definite no. Yeah. And then at one, at one point, you know, she’s got eight corgis all lying, they’re all fat and they’re all asleep. So, um, I’m standing there chatting to her and I felt something rub against my leg. And I thought, I said, I saw it was a dog. And I said to myself, God, don’t shag my leg in front of your mum or pee up me for God sake, which he didn’t. But, uh, it is just one is I tell, I’ll tell you one thing. We, we do employ the queen’s hairdresser. Actually. He got reinstated and he told me a funny story. I thought it was really good. Um, he was shampooing her hair and, uh, she had a gown on, but her skirt was sort of showing and a, a bubble, you know, froth bubble went over her and landed on her skirt. It was showing, um, and you went round and you know how you sort of, um, If you’ve got a bit of material, you put, you put, you put your hand underneath it and you sort of do that. And he did that with his skirt and he said himself only to himself, but it’s been a long time since he’s had a hand up. So yeah, he told me that back in the staff room. I pissed myself laughing.

[01:10:18] Antony W.: Oh my God.

[01:10:19] Trevor S.: Imagine it. yeah. yeah. No, I mean,

[01:10:24] Antony W.: So you never did her hair. you basic basically you couldn’t do it and,

[01:10:29] Trevor S.: No, I couldn’t do it. Um, you know, you’d have to have gone to Australia with a, you had to go to America, you had to drop. Everything and you know, I was in full flow in business and that just wouldn’t happen. But the thing is, and this is the way I see things in life, Anthony. I think we’re here for a period. That period is, can be as long as short as it nature will allow. And I think that if you, if you walked down a road and said to anyone, how would you like to be successful? They’d go, yeah, okay, well, why aren’t you? Because most people like the idea but not prepared to put in what it takes. I if in the end of your life you say, I, I was successful, and you went to a

bank manager and said, I’m really successful. He’d say, how much money have you got? And he’d judge you on.

[01:11:34] Trevor S.: Money. Now, I don’t think on that level what I think the greatest wealth is the journey. And if you can say at the end of this life that you came from here, you did that, you achieved this, you went on to that, that happened. If you can say that your life was successful, you are wealthy beyond wealth, and that is what if, God forbid, you know, I’m on the back end. I’ve got a serious disease. If I had to leave this earth tomorrow, I’d say, okay, time’s up. But boy did I have Fun while I was here,

[01:12:21] Antony W.: Yeah.

[01:12:21] Trevor S.: I can take that up to my mom and  dad and tell ’em all about it.  That is what how I want to end.

[01:12:29] Antony W.: Good.

[01:12:30] Trevor S.: My life.

[01:12:30] Antony W.: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I get it. That’s a, and that’s a, that’s a great place to end it, you know,

[01:12:37] Trevor S.: Yeah.

[01:12:37] Antony W.: that feeling of success and what success really means

[01:12:40] Trevor S.: Yeah.

[01:12:41] Antony W.: so,

[01:12:42] Trevor S.: doesn’t worry. Dying doesn’t worry. It doesn’t bother me. The only thing I don’t want is to die in pain, but I don’t mind

[01:12:49] Trevor S.: dying because done everything I ever more than what I ever thought I

[01:12:54] Trevor S.: could do. So to go beyond your wildest

[01:12:57] Antony W.: Yeah. Well I know, yeah, I know you’ve been battling this for a while. I mean, it’s in incredible that you are as fit and healthy and you know, mentally focused and alert is what you are, which is brilliant. [01:13:08] Trevor S.: I’ve had five cancers in three years,

[01:13:10] Antony W.: Yeah.

[01:13:12] Trevor S.: you know, and, uh, even to your viewers. Right now, this bottle I’m holding

[01:13:17] Trevor S.: up is full of chemotherapy, and that’s attached to my body right now. And when this interview is over, that’s been taken out and then I’ve got another one to do in two weeks. So what I’m saying to you is this, and this is, this, is this connects to hairdressing.

[01:13:39] Trevor S.: When you are positive, when you know within yourself that it’s possible to do whatever you want. I’m a person that can prove that that can happen. Be it in hairdressing, be it fighting. Can cancer, yeah, I’ve got cancer in here. Not in here, not at, oh, it doesn’t exist in my head. I don’t wake up, say, oh, I’m going to die.

[01:14:06] Trevor S.: Oh, poor me. No way. You can hear it in my voice. I’m full of life and I’ll continue to be like that until my day comes.

[01:14:15] Antony W.: Okay, well, we need to, uh, start wrapping up. Unfortunately, I could sit here and keep talking to you for ages, but I know you’ve got places to get to as well. If I can just ask you one, one last thing here. What’s the biggest, and you might’ve already answered it, what, what’s the biggest lesson that you’ve learnt in life? [01:14:35] Antony W.: Not necessarily hairdressing, like just as you know, as you allude to you are at the back end of your career,

[01:14:43] Antony W.: at the back end of your life. And if you’re looking back at it going, well, the number one thing that I would say is the most important thing, what would it be?

[01:14:51] Trevor S.: very simple. Be the nicest person you can be.

[01:14:57] Trevor S.: Don’t hold hatred in your body that’s negative. that can materialize into horrible things that can fester, um, respect everybody. Religion, color, everything that a human being is and treat people like you want to be treated yourself

[01:15:23] Trevor S.: The people I have most respect for on this earth, and obviously because I’ve experienced a lot of it, is the medical profession.

[01:15:33] Trevor S.: I think that is the most wonderful advancement in life. Um, and it’s there to help people get well. The science that’s learned is ongoing. It’s amazing. You know, I spoke to my surgeon and um, the other week and I said, if this happened to me five years ago, what I’ve got now, I said, what would’ve happened?

[01:16:00] Trevor S.: He said, you’d be dead.

[01:16:01] Antony W.: Wow.

[01:16:02] Trevor S.: He said, in five years we have, we have def, we have pushed on through science, through breakthroughs. Chemotherapy, for example, was one fits everybody. It wasn’t, one just for you or one for you? A different one for this person, it was a bottle of poison.

[01:16:26] Trevor S.: And if it works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. And invariably it didn’t. And that’s why people fear chemotherapy cuz they think it’s, you get the same bottle as the next person. It’s not, it, it’s, it’s a cocktail that’s designed for you. And in five years they’ve designed a, a chemotherapy that’s kept me alive for five years and ongoing. That is a wonderful thing. But, you know, people we have to be responsible

for

[01:16:56] Trevor S.: ourselves and we, somebody said, and now this may really affect people’s thinking and I don’t mean to upset anyone, but. Everyone has a belief and I have my beliefs and you can’t knock my belief and I won’t knock anyone else’s belief.

[01:17:15] Trevor S.: But when we talk about religion, you talk about God. Well, I’ve never seen God and and uh, find it a little bit hard to understand how someone can be so majorly powerful and yet we can’t see him or know him, or I believe God is in all of us. And I believe I am God. I’m God to myself. I’m responsible for myself.

[01:17:46] Trevor S.: My actions are mine, and the way I conduct my life will be the way I would imagine if there was such a person as God, he’d be pleased with me.

[01:17:59] Antony W.: [01:18:00] Well, Trevor, I think that’s beautifully said and it’s the perfect place to start to wrap up. I just want to finish off with a heartfelt thank you, not just from me, but from generations of hairdressers the world over that have been influenced by. Your decades in this industry of being a real icon and a legend in the hairdressing industry.

[01:18:22] Antony W.: And I hate using those words, but when you are, when you are talk because they’re overused, but when you’re talking to Trevor Sorbie, uh, then, then what else can you use? You know, there, there’s, there’s no more superlatives left to describe the contribution that you’ve made to the industry, the world over. So, uh, thank you, for all you’ve given the industry.

[01:18:41] Antony W.: Uh, any final words before we wrap up?

[01:18:43] Trevor S.: Well, I’ll repeat what I said. If you want something enough, you can do it. it’s not easy, but if you really want it that bad, you can succeed. Take me as an example. That little kid from Scotland did all

[01:18:58] Antony W.: So, Exactly. Okay. Well if you are listening to this podcast with Trevor Sorbie and have enjoyed it, do me a favour, take a screenshot on your phone and share it to your Instagram stories and don’t forget to subscribe and leave us a rating review on the Apple Podcast app. So to wrap up, Trevor Sorbie, thank you for being on this week’s Grow My Salon Business Podcast.

[01:19:22] Trevor S.: Oh, Antony, thank you so much for asking me. I enjoyed every second. Uh, I just want to say to your viewers that none of this was scripted. I didn’t know what questions you were going to ask me. Everything I said came from the heart and it was there. The reason, whatever I’ve said, I hope some of those words stick with you and, uh, helps you in your future career.

[01:19:46] Trevor S.: So, um, I hope it’s been valuable to all of you in some way.

[01:19:50] Antony W.: Thanks, Trev.

[01:19:51] Trevor S.: All right, mate, stay looking young.

[01:19:53] Antony W.: Yeah, you too.

[01:19:56] Antony W: Thank you for listening to today’s podcast If you’d like to connect  with us you’ll find us at Grow My Salon business.com or on Facebook and Instagram at Grow My Salon business And if you enjoy tuning into our podcast make sure that you subscribe like and share it with your friends Until next time this is Antony Whitaker wishing you continued success