Today we’d like to introduce you to Cornelius Still.
Hi Cornelius, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Well, I have been cutting hair since I was 12 years old… I started cutting my own hair because I want satisfied with the results coming from my mom that was cutting my hair at the time lol Long story short I ended up going to prison at 16 years old.
While incarcerated, I would cut the other inmates’ hair for food and snacks but ultimately I was cutting hair to transcend the time. It became my passion and was therapeutic for me… I did 8 1/2 years, getting out at 25 y.o. For 6 months, I searched for jobs to no avail…
That’s when I remembered my passion and enrolled in Barber College at Tennessee College of Applied Technology… I got my barber’s license and it became life-changing!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road to becoming a successful barber was initially rough… The school was 15 long months because I was jobless and had to catch 2 buses to and from school every day…
My first year of being a professional barber was very tough. No one knew me and I didn’t have a body of work that people could see and be comfortable with. So no one would sit in my chair in the beginning. Every day, I wanted to quit but I didn’t have anything else to fall back on. And after experiencing every range of emotion I hung in there.
After that first year, I began to study Instagram and how I could build a brand there… Because I realize that the way people were choosing there barbers was changing and social media was responsible for this change.
So I began to focus on building a brand via social media and that took about a year. I did that successfully and my brand began to build my clientele!
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a Barber-Stylist… I particularly specialize in woman cuts and healthy hair care… I’m proud of the fact that when I started this work here in Memphis no one was doing it and I was discouraged by every barber that I work with from doing so because barber thought of women getting their hair cut as problematic.
It has been done and most thought it couldn’t be done… I’ve been cutting women’s hair successfully for the past five years and have totally transformed the looks of woman cuts here in Memphis… But I’m most proud of how I make women feel about themselves when they look in the mirror after I cut their hair.
What sets me apart from others is my approach. I approach this work from a scientific, artistic, and psychological perspective… I studied the science of hair… I’m an artist first so I fundamentally understand beauty and can see the beauty in every woman and can bring it out with the haircut.
When a woman cut her hair it’s deeply psychological… So I take all of these elements and customize the haircut to tailor fit each woman!
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you and any important lessons or epiphanies you can share with us?
Before Covid, I was already appointment only. I already had an online-based business. Cleanliness was important to me. So post-Covid these were the things that people were looking for and my business grew because of it…
So interestingly enough I didn’t have to adjust or change my business practice because I was ahead of the curve so I just stayed the course. Of of the most important lessons that I’ve learned from this crisis is to be prepared for adversity and opportunity.
Adversity in any industry will come so it’s very important to be forward-thinking in your business and to prepare for the unexpected as best as you can. And that’s where the opportunity will come from!
Contact Info:
- Website: Styleseat.com/limthemasterbarber
- Instagram: @limthemasterbarber
- Facebook: Cornelius Still Sr
