I cut Alice's hair on Sunday night. It started off as the standard few inches off the bottom but once I finished she asked for a fringe. When Alice was little she used to have a cute little bob with a fringe so I knew it would suit her but I don't think that she had fully understood the difference a fringe can make. There is a photo of me when I was about Alice's age, I have on an electric blue mohair jumper with a scottie dog on it and I’ve just had a very severe bob cut which frames my incredibly grumpy face like an angry upside down ‘U’. I hated that hair cut.
It scarred me so I asked Alice multiple times to confirm that a fringe was actually what she wanted. I did a little mock up using her existing hair folded back so she could get an idea of what it would look like. I explained to her that it would look quite different and I made sure that I was talking loudly so that there were others in the room that would witness her verbal confirmation - yes, she wanted a fringe.
I cut a very straight, very cute fringe and when she looked in the mirror (i.e. the iPhone camera) she burst into tears. She hated the fringe. I immediately laughed, which in hindsight probably wasn't the most empathic reaction, but I’d just spent the last ten minutes giving her every opportunity to back out and at times even suggestions that we don’t do it at all but here we were. There is no turning back in moments like these and it doesn’t matter how much I apologise or at least try to console her - Alice still had a fringe she hates.
Alice is a forgiving soul but that night she asked if Matt could read to her which was probably the most awful thing for me. I’d really upset her and even though it was by doing what she asked we had some mending to do. My approach the next day was encouraging Alice to rock the fringe. Wear it proudly. Despite how she felt about it, the fringe itself looked rad. She looked creative and edgy - not perhaps what an 8 year old who is just trying to fit in aspires to but I thought it looked cool.
It didn't matter how hard I tried to sell it, she refused to wear it down to school. I promised her that if she did that there would most likely be a string of girls who would be sporting cute fringes in a few weeks because she is a trend setter like her mum! I say this in the least arrogant way possible but there is something so attractive about confident people. Alice is a confident person and visual cues are some of the easiest things to emulate. New fringe? New you!
Alas, I’d comb it down each day this week and she’d immediately push it up giving it that early 90’s puff fringe vibe. I really wanted her to understand the power of owning it. Being confident even if you don’t really feel it on the inside. If Alice had rocked in with her fringe on Monday she would’ve got more compliments than anything else, I’m sure of it. She just needed to ‘fake it to you make it’ or the slightly softer version, ‘believe until you achieve’.
I forgot to mention that this week was school photo week which is like adding salt to the wound as we immortalised the fringe into our family history. We managed to negotiate that she could have K-Pop Demon Hunter style bun pigtails if she let me brush her fringe down and to the side. It was a hard sell but she worked it well adding in the terms that she’d have to walk to school rather than right her bike because the helmet would wreck her hair.
Alice has been desperate to walk the 1.7km to school alone as part of the new independent streak she's going through. She got her way and I’ll only find out once we get the school photos if I got my side of the arrangement or not. Touche Alice. Well played.
All this conversation about having confidence in yourself even if you don’t has landed perfectly this week. Often I’m saying what I need to hear to the kids and ‘believe before you achieve’ is relevant on the eve of my MC’ing debut at the Ballarat Begonia Festival tomorrow. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge that I have some butterflies in my stomach fluttering between being nervous and excited.
I have to keep reminding myself that I asked for this. I was the person who gave myself 12 months to become a professional speaker. In the next 7 days, I’ll spend three of them MC’ing the band stage at the Begonia festival. On Wednesday night I’m hosting a Q and A session with the amazing astronaut Dr Jeanette Epps as part of a Committee for Ballarat event. The Tech School is co-hosting the cocktail event which is expecting 150 guests. Ironically, this time next week, I’ll be in Cairns at the first session for the Global Speakers Summit. Today, I have very little experience as a professional speaker, by the time I get to Cairns, I’ll have stacks.
