who listens to the ineffable non-words of clients who go to them to get their hair done, who go to get their head straight. I watch reel after reel of transformations, mesmerized not by the styles—which are, more often than not, too creative or edgy for my own soft conventional fallbacks—but for how they deliver the what were you hoping fors and the tell me about your hair or what do you like about that’s and the do you like your current shape and what do you usually do to get it out of your eyes and the many, many, many smiles and nods and amazings they use to punctuate the client’s words while they hold a comb in one hand and clap it periodically against the other. And, after a few tell me mores, the hairdresser from Portland, Oregon, who I’ve never met and who listens to what their clients don’t always know how to say, then tells the client what they’ll do, summarizing the previous conversation, mirroring back what the client said wanted and didn’t want, reiterating what will be done, translating the interaction into an actionable plan delivered so directly, so simply, I wonder if they know that I listen to their synthesis marveling at how, with every word, they are saying, I see you, I hear you, I am invested in understanding. And, even as I move on to the next cut and the next, I keep wishing that the hairdresser from Portland, Oregon, who I’ll likely never meet, could be bottled and spritzed onto doctors and teachers and parents and leaders. I wonder what the world would feel like if everyone were overflowing with tell me mores and why do you like thats and I hear you, I see you, I am invested in understanding.