Follow Your Heart

Growing up I thought in order for you to be successful you had to finish high school and secure a college degree. Trade schools were for lazy people. People who didn’t want to go to school for 4 years. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I discovered that wasn’t true. I started doing hair in 9th grade. I always liked the reaction I got after I’d do my friends or cousins hair. I liked to make other woman feel beautiful and good about themselves because sometimes society tends to try and tear us down. So after my plans to go to Delaware State University to be a radio talk show host fell through I decided to go to hair school.

One thing about me that I am just starting to get out of is completing a task. I am very quick to have an idea and start it but seeing it through, not so much. I started hair school in 2008. I was scheduled to finished hair school spring of 2010 and I dropped out in fall of 2009. At that particular time school just wasn’t paying the bills. I got a job and quit school. I still did hair as a side hustle. Same thing happened when I decided to do medial assistant school, only that I finished and didn’t take the state board exam, STUPID DECISION!

It wasn’t until I had my daughter that I realized that the tasks I start I need to complete because I didn’t want her to see my start and quit cycle and think that was okay. I had to be the example I was trying to set for her and for myself as well. So in 2018 I paid $600 to take a classic lash course. When I first started I hated it. I thought it was so tedious and too time consuming. However, my husband and my mom was on my back, constantly pushing me. My husband gave me $100 to purchase my lash bed. My sister, cousin and mother laid down to be my guinea pigs. But it was my sister, Autumn that really pushed me. She laid on that table for 2 ½ hours she got up to look in the mirror, told me what I had to fix and laid back down. She would do this every time she came to get her lashes done.

Of course, as time went on I started to get better and better. I later taught myself how to do different sets. In 2019 I decided to quit my job and enroll in school to be an Esthetician. That I finished and was licensed in 2020! I made a manual and started teaching other woman how to do lashes as well. In February of 2021, my cousin and I decided to go into business together and rented a studio suite. I have been booked up and slowed down. I have had sold out classes and one on one classes. I have had good days and bad days. However, as much as I love having a steady income from a 9-5 is as much as I love running my own business!

All too often we normalize what society thinks is right. However what’s right for one may not be right for the next. I am a living example of making mistakes to find your way. It’s the god’s honest truth that you have to do some soul searching to find what it is that you want to do with your life. Some people find out sooner than others and some people may never know. But what I want you all to do is take a chance on yourself. Always go for what you think is right for you and let the supporters support and move everyone else out your way!!!

X_____ Shakirah Amos-Sims CEO of Pink Presents Beauty Lab_____