About the author
David Wagner
I was born in 1959 at the cusp of a new era in the world and I’ve always felt that newness impacting me in profound ways. I grew up on a farm and I took for granted the deep connection we had with the natural world. As I got older, I began to realize how many people had somehow missed the experience of that connection. On the farm I saw, and experienced, beauty in its most raw, and natural form. By the time I was a teenager I knew I wanted more: more creativity, more beauty, and more of that deeper connection I felt intuitively, the passionate feeling of aliveness.
Many of my interests came together simultaneously early in life. Creativity, beauty, and new modes of expression seemed to be exploding in me, and around me at the same time and I felt myself to be in the eye of the storm, so to speak. I had a strong sense of my own destiny, and I wanted to share that deeply magical experience with everyone. I was lucky enough to be part of an expansive vision of beauty and well-being that has changed all of us. Products in resonance with the natural world, haircuts that were sensual and cool, business structures that were supportive of the staff as well as the client’s needs, all seemed to come together and form the whole of what I was part of, and I loved what I was part of.
Creativity has been a very dimensional subject to me. It has never been restricted to just creating a great haircut. The subject of creativity quickly blossomed into the question of how to create a “great experience”, an experience that was not only meaningful, but perhaps life changing. From there I began to be interested in how to define and create “a great life”. It was no longer enough for products not to be toxic, but we began to ask ourselves, “How can our everyday choices, and the products we use, enhance the deeper well being of our lives”?
I have been passionately interested, not only in the whole picture of what it is possible to create within life, but in what it is possible to teach others to create. Both the Juut Artist’s Academy, a grad program for certified beauty professionals, and my Daymaker Project have been aspects of that interest. We have brought countless designers, healers, and creative business thinkers to the Academy to contribute to this program of advanced education for artists.
In 1986 I opened my first salon, there were three of us. I was a recognized artist in the beauty industry at the time and often asked to appear as a “featured guest” at hair and fashion shows. With the opening of my first salon I decided to shift the focus of my work from a “self-centered creativity”, to creativity centered more in wholeness. I wanted to see the beauty of the client come alive instead of just see “my creation” being worn by someone. When I saw the joy in the face of a client whose uniqueness was brought out by a haircut I coined the phrase “Daymaker”, I knew I wanted to see my creativity “make someone’s day”.
So I became a Daymaker, and although I had never heard of Quantum Physics, I did notice that the manner in which I focused my creative attention on a client could, and often did, change their lives; at times in deeply meaningful ways. I know now from exploring the subject of the Quantum perspective that we cannot turn our attention on any field of energy without changing it. I began to understand what that meant when I noticed that when cutting hair, my ability to care, could be felt and even seen. From that point on I began to consciously care about each client whose personal style I was helping to refine and express. I also began to develop methods for teaching others the value of doing the same.
My first salon with 3 artists was based on the Daymaker idea. Today Juut has more than 400 employees, as well as its Artist’s Academy that has hosted many highly creative speakers and teachers from all areas of life.
As an inspirational speaker myself I have tried to share what it means to bring the quality of caring not only into one’s work, but into one’s life as well. The Daymaker Project quickly leapt into the world outside of Juut when I self-published my book Life As A Daymaker, in 2001. In 2003 Jodere published the book and it hit the Los Angeles Times Best Seller’s List. To date it has sold over 500,000 copies. That year I had the opportunity to take a “mobile salon” fully stocked with beauty supplies, stylists, and estheticians, around the United States. Our plan was to continue the experiment of expressing the Daymaker perspective by sharing our talents and services with those whose lives had been impacted by illness or difficulty. It was also an opportunity to introduce my book to a larger audience. We worked in women’s shelters, The Ronald McDonald House, with the wives of solders who had just left for Iraq, with cancer patients in hospitals, and at AIDS Hospice Centers. We found that the capacity to “see” oneself as having beauty, and personal value, is integral to the ability to create a more fulfilling life for oneself. We also learned respect for the need for one’s beauty to be “authentic”, totally unique to oneself. We brought these experiences back to Juut with us and have continued our work with “wholeness centered” beauty, and community outreach.
Today we receive email from dozens of different countries, stories of how caring in simple, and small ways creates extraordinary experiences. In the summer of 2011 I was invited, together with my family, to speak with both large and small groups in Taiwan on the Daymaker experience. In return, I was able to hear some of the Daymaker stories first hand and meet so many people who had been touched by the idea of creative caring. Every year I have the wonderful opportunity of meeting tens of thousands of people through my speaking engagements, but these intimate experiences of sharing with some of the small groups in Taiwan gave me a deeply personal awareness of what it is possible to use our vision and hearts to create.
I love what I do. Fusing creativity, beauty, and new modes of expression is still the vision of my life and is expanding in amazing ways. I still love sharing that vision with those that I love. I have a great family. My wife and partner Charlie has brought her own talents of healing, and inspired beauty into our lives, and business. Living with two teenage girls, each becoming their own unique and gorgeous self, is an honor, although the homework is getting tougher.
I still scan magazines for a good haircut, go out of my way to find new artists of every kind who are inspiring, and still prefer a table in an outdoor café where I can watch people pass by, to the most exclusive dining room where personal expression might be more restrained.
The promise of the new creative era that I felt myself born into has been more than I dreamed possible, so I am beginning to dream dreams that reach even further out into possibility!
I guess I’m becoming a Dreammaker now.
Much Love
David