A U2 Tour

This past fall I had the extraordinary opportunity to follow the band U2 around the United States for 15 of their 20 North American tour dates.

Being a long time fan, I felt extremely fortunate to witness the world’s biggest band and the world’s biggest tour ever. I had the opportunity to reconnect with many relatives and old friends along the way as well as enjoy exposing some of the team at Blo to magic of U2’s live performances.

There were many unexpected serendipitous things that happened along the way — ranging from seeing the President in NYC to nightmare travel stories I won’t bore you with. However, the most gratifying part of the entire pilgrimage, like so many I’ve taken in my life, was what I found when I returned home. It was a Tuesday morning when I first walked back into the salon after being gone almost five weeks.

I walked in the door near my station and things were kind of quiet in the styling gallery. The music was playing as usual. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Elle (our Guest Services manager) greeted me at the front desk as I walked around the corner of the dividing wall.

“Good morning stranger! Did you have a nice trip?”

I dropped my briefcase and answered yes. I expected at this point I would be bombarded with issues regarding the business but it wasn’t the case at all. I looked up to the color table to see it was completely full. Tuesday’s are training days at Blo and so the entire table was filled with Associates applying their vision to the guests they were training on while our Director of Education Theresa was overseeing the entire event.

One of our newest Mentor’s, Melanie, was sitting in on the class to observe so that she could best prepare for when it came time for her to teach a class.

I walked by the table and said good morning to everyone and then walked in the back room to see if there were towels or dishes that needed to be done. So, many of you might be asking yourselves: “Why is Bryan mentioning this uneventful day in his inaugural musing on justblo.me?”

Well, I can’t tell you how gratifying it is to walk into Blo after being gone for five weeks only to see the standard and commitment of my teammates moving in a positive direction. To know that whatever arose during my absence was handled by my teammates and that they were continuing to take responsibility for themselves, the guests and each other is something I’m very proud of.

This in itself would be an amazing accomplishment for any small business but this team went one step further. They also successfully organized and pulled off an incredible photo shoot for a major fashion magazine. To be able to trust your brand to your team and know full well that each of them is as accountable to it as you are brings the greatest job satisfaction I could ever receive.

Many people ask me “Who runs the business when you’re gone?” My answer has always been the same. “We all do.”

There isn’t one person at Blo that does everything. It’s never been that way. We are a complete team and I’m grateful that each team member, including myself, has the opportunity regularly to be reminded of that.

I work at an extraordinary place with an extraordinary group of people without whom neither this web site nor anything else having to do with Blo would exist. What a great feeling that is.