 Hey guys, this is Matt Beck from freesaloneducation.com here with American Salon at the IBS New York hair show And I've got Mark Bustos with me. This was a surprise interview. So thank you Gordon Miller for that But I'm really excited to Just go over because I know you have a huge message that you're delivering So I would love for if anybody in our audience doesn't understand your message yet for them to understand that because you're doing great things so I know you've told the story a hundred times. So what I want to do is I want you to tell me the important parts how How you decided to do what you're doing and then we'll start there and kind of you know move forward Okay, cool. Um, so basically I'm a hairstylist based out of New York City I've been doing hair for about 17 years since I was 14 years old Just a couple years ago. I was traveled out to the Philippines and I knew I wanted to give back somehow And hair styling is my passion I've never made a penny in my life that hasn't had to do with hair So I figure what better way to give back than and with what I do best and what I what I love to do so basically rented out a chair in a little barbershop in the province where my girlfriend's family is from actually and Just rented out a chair in the barbershop and had homeless kids come in all day And you know in America, thankfully you don't see many homeless kids walking around the streets But in developing third-world countries you do, right? So I figured let's let's get back to the kids out there and you know all day long We were cutting hair for for the homeless kids right off the street and you figure like how did you end up there? So so you went there for To visit when I went to go visit some family, okay? Both of our families are actually from the same province about 45 minutes away from each other, okay? So yeah, that's how long were you there doing that? It was just a one-day thing Okay, I planned on just doing it for one day and one day turned into every single week for for three years now Oh, wow. Yeah, that's so great So tell me so then you came back to New York and and you decided to Every Sunday, right? Yep. So if I have the message correct every Sunday You go out and you cut hair for homeless people All over New York City or you've been traveling to other cities as well, right? I'm traveling to other cities I just recently finished a trip cross-country from New York to LA Wow I did homeless haircuts across the country in 11 different cities in about two and a half weeks Yeah, my next big ish trip will be from Up the Pacific Coast from San Diego up to Vancouver. So I'll be in May coming up So and this is something I heard you speak at the Millennium experience Last year, right? Yeah, that last year. So I thought the coolest part about this story You're up in front of you know 500 to a thousand people and you're telling your story but the one thing that really got to me was that most people when they see a homeless person they they The the mindset isn't right like they don't look at them and say how could I help them? They look at them and just say how can I get away or you know, like it's just it's a whole the mindset is wrong So tell me what was different in your thought process and what made you say did it start with the kids? Was that like the big thing and you said, you know what? I want to do this for everyone or you know It started with the kids in the Philippines because like I said, you don't really see homeless kids in America And from the first kid that was sitting in my chair, I knew right away I was like wow like the feeling inside of me right now How could how could I stop like I can only I mean I have an eight-year-old son so I can only imagine like I Can't imagine him being homeless or any kids for that matter Yeah, to see that was probably pretty intense Yeah, exactly and you know what I what I've learned over time and doing haircut after haircut on the streets and even in the salon is that Whether I'm cutting a client in the salon or an individual out in the street, we all come from somewhere We all have a story. No, we're not all alcoholics and drug addicts There there are a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts that have a home, right? You don't have to be homeless to be an alcoholic exactly. Yeah, mental illness. You know, unfortunately there people Come across difficult situations in life and which land them out on the streets I'm not everybody is fortunate is as fortunate as I am having a home and growing up in a loving family You know not everybody has that growing up So, you know, I use social media as my platform to be able to give people a voice to show that they're from somewhere And to show that they have a story because it could be anybody it could be your grandfather or your father That can land on the streets and there's no telling when it's gonna happen. You know, it could really just happen to anybody So tell me your fate like so you go out every Sunday. So you meet tons of people So tell me like, you know Like an inspirational thing that like something that really moved you when you were out there, you know I've told this a million times before and I'm sure a lot of your viewers have probably heard it if they've heard my story But you know, the first person I reached out to in New York when I hit the streets I cut this guy's hair and he was he was really shy and soft-spoken But really nice and I was nervous to approach him at first because it was my first time doing it Something inside of me pulled me towards him and it wasn't me because Something just pulled me towards him and I just started talking and you know We walked into the park and ended up cutting his hair long story short when he was done with the haircut I handed him the hair the mirror. He looked into the mirror and he said, do you know anyone that's hiring? I want to get a job. I've never seen the guy since that day And right then and there I was like this is something I need to continue to do because even though people just say Oh, what's just a haircut gonna do? I mean any hairstylist can relate. It's never just a haircut Right now. It's always way more than that. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal when people get their haircut No matter what so tell me so you go out every every Sunday and you how many heads of hair do you cut? You know, it all depends. I wake up on Sunday morning and all that's when I'll decide what neighborhood I want to hit. Okay. I'm just like you wake up and you decide what you want to eat for breakfast You don't know three days before what you want for breakfast on Sunday morning Right, so I just go with my gut feeling on Sunday when I wake up Okay, I'll pick a different neighborhood because they're I mean again, unfortunately, they're everywhere. Yeah And it can range anywhere between if I'm if I'm prepared for it I'll approach a big group of people right and I'll be cutting hair all day, right? I bet Excuse me until the Sun goes down and that's usually like my cut-off point when the Sun goes down Okay, there's no more light. I do it outside in the daylight and the reason I do it outside So that people walking by can be inspired to do something not everybody has to be a hairstylist do something I mean, I just want to be able to inspire others to to look past what we are normally looking at You know and just be able to open our eyes and be able to help one another. Yeah And so it went like every Sunday when you're going out Do you see a lot of the same people like I like I feel like I would probably have tons of friends at that point Like they're probably looking forward to you coming because I I would think that that's a great part of their day Yeah, for sure. I mean I go down to the Bowery Every so often and I've become friends with a lot of the people down there And it's funny one day after I cut like 12 of them One of the older gentlemen pulled me to the side and he said hey Mark You know like if you ever need anything, you know, we're here for you your family now So if you ever need anything if we can ever do anything for you you come to us. That's great. That's pretty cool Yeah, that's awesome. So did you so now you're passing the message you're you know You have this right up in American salon like you're you're using social media What is the message that you would most like people to get from what you're doing? It's like I guarantee you're not saying everyone should go out and do exactly what I'm doing So what would you say, you know, you know, I have a lot of a lot of people that reach out to me email me Message me on social media saying hey, I want to be part of the movement. Where are you gonna be next week? I want to help you How can I do this? I'll fly out to New York just to meet you I want to hand out this and that with you. I'm like my answer is I don't need help. No, right I'm cool. I don't need help. There's a lot of people out there that need help Right the way you can help me is by going out there and doing it wherever you are. Yeah, I don't need any publicity around me I don't need any of that. I just I just want to be able to inspire people to just do good Wherever they are and it's beautiful to be part of an organization or a church or a group or whatever You want to be part of but at the end of the day if you want something done Just go out and do it because if you sit around and wait for someone it's not gonna happen Exactly. Yeah, and you're you're out there. You're doing it and and a lot of people like so What would be your advice like for anybody that's going out to do it because you say you go to different cities all the time Is it when you go to a new city? Is it nerve-wracking for you to are you getting like? like Just me to go up to anybody any person anywhere right now and talk to them About anything is a challenge for me Yeah, so Which is weird why I'm in the hair industry or why I'm having this talk here for some reason in front of a camera I'm fine in real life It's hard for me to go up to people so people that are like that you seem like maybe a little bit of a quieter person For sure. Yeah, I'm a pretty shy person to believe believe it or not Yeah, so what would you say like what what gets you to like? What's what's your one line when you walk up to somebody? The first thing I say when I go up to anybody is I want to do something nice for you today. Okay. That's it those simple words Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so all right So then and you're using the social media platform How how is social media kind of helped push this forward? Yeah, but social media is the largest free public space out there Yeah, you know originally I started doing haircuts out on the street because it's a public space And I want to inspire people in the public space, but like I said It's it's a it's the biggest public space out there and you can reach anybody in the world and that's what's happened I've been able to travel around the world because of the fact that Social media my story kind of just went viral through not only social media, but through through news and everything And you know what I've learned through my travels is that no matter where you travel to no matter no matter where you are on earth Giving and receiving a haircut is a universal language Even if you don't speak the same the same language, right? You don't have to be able to understand each other verbally because if you're an educated hairstylist you can understand What hairstyle works for that individual no matter where you are in the world and that's gonna put a smile on people's faces That's awesome. So I mean if you guys out there are not following Mark, then how can they follow you? you can find me at Mark Bustos on Both Instagram and Twitter. I really like to share everyone's stories on Instagram just to show that Everybody comes from somewhere and everyone has a story and yeah I just want to continue to inspire other people to just do good by one another. Well, you're doing it I mean like anyone I ever talked to it You're such a good person and you're doing things and you can tell like pre cameras pre anything like you're you're You want the message to be out there? There wasn't anything else like you know I sit down with people to talk to them all the time And there's usually some kind of agenda yours was very like I just want my message out there Yeah, exactly I mean I I've been doing here for a long time and I've always looked for success in the hair styling world and you know Now that I'm charging top dollar for a haircut. I just realized that like You're either I say this all the time, too Is that you're either expensive or you're free never cheap? That's where I found my success is that if you love what you do so much You're gonna be so good at it that you'll be able to do it for free and be happy doing it That's awesome. Awesome. Well, best of luck to you with everything that you're doing. It's awesome Definitely follow mark. You're gonna be inspired completely and let's help push this Movement and you know share your stuff that you're doing to help people out there as well mark. Thank you so much Thank you to American salon for hooking us up with this interview and this table at this great hair show IBS New York. Thank you guys so much for watching. We'll see you on the next video. Thanks