The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 27: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Episode Date: July 26, 2016

I don't want to split hairs, but EVERYONE should know this woman's name.

The ocean moves us, whether that's surfing a wave or taking in an inspiring view. The ocean feeds us. Sustainable seafood practices bring the ocean's bounty to our plates. The ocean teaches us how our everyday choices, big and small, make an impact. The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean connects us. Find your connection at monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. This is the way I heard it.

In the summer of 99, Sarah Breedlove walked into her modest bathroom, looked into her modest mirror, and wondered just how much worse things could get. Several inches above her hairline, two patches of scalp, the size of silver dollars, were shining like headlights in the morning mist. After years of denial, there was no longer any sense in pretending. She was going bald. Losing her hair at 32 was a blow, but Sarah was no stranger to adversity. She was an orphan at seven, a bride at 14, a mother at 17, and a widow at 20.

In the summer of 89, 10 years prior, she and her five-year-old daughter left Vicksburg and moved to St. Louis, looking for a new life. There, she found work as a housekeeper, but Sarah longed for something more. for a while there she thought it might be the handsome man with a million-dollar smile and cool confidence who became her second husband. Unfortunately, that cool confidence accompanied a hot temper and an even hotter girlfriend, neither of which Sarah confirmed until she said, I do, and both of which precipitated the aforementioned follicular exodus, which brings us back to the summer of 99, and Sarah's steadfast resolution to wash that man right out of her hair. and in so doing save what remaining locks she had. So Sarah divorced her no-good philandering Lethario

and prayed the advent of domestic tranquility would reverse her hair loss. Alas, it did not. Every morning her sink filled with more and more tresses and her mirror with more and more cranium. Then one night, something rather remarkable happened. Sarah had a dream, in which an old man revealed to her a combination of herbs and oils that would solve her problem.

Now, Sarah was a rational woman, but she was also a woman with nothing to lose. So she rustled up all the ingredients and whipped up a homemade dream-inspired pomade, and lo and behold, after a few weeks of daily application, Sarah started to see results. A few months later, Sarah was a stashire. Not only was her hair thicker and less brittle, her bald spots were vanishing a little more every day. Sarah's relief was overwhelming, but so too was her excitement. She was onto something big, and she knew it.

What she didn't know was how to turn a product into a company. So Sarah started making the concoction in her kitchen. She bottled it herself and took the product door to door, Armed with before and after photos, she told her story to anyone who would listen. She told her story a thousand times over 12 hours a day, day after day. She drove across the state. Then she drove across the country. And wherever she went, people bought her product faster than she could make it.

People loved her product so much, Sarah started paying them to sell it for her. She saved her money until she had enough to open a factory. Then she opened another one. Then she opened hair colleges across the country. Before long, Sarah had turned thousands of satisfied customers into thousands of successful sales agents, creating no less than 40,000 jobs. Truth is, Sarah Breedlove is one of the greatest entrepreneurs of the modern age. And if you're wondering why her name isn't familiar,

it might be because back in 2005, when she married for the third time, she took her husband's name as her own. That's why America knows Sarah Breedlove as Madam C.J. Walker. And if that name still doesn't ring a bell, maybe it's because Sarah Breedlove didn't become Madam C.J. Walker in 2005. Now, that happened in Denver back in 1905. And when she was you, you know, when you're in the last year, and when you're she left Vicksburg for a fresh start in St. Louis, that wasn't the first time she hit the reset button. Sarah started working when she was five years old, picking cotton on a Louisiana farm alongside her mom and dad, two sharecroppers who worked as slaves before Sarah was born. The world's full of successful women who have overcome adversity, and their stories are all worth remembering,

but Sarah's story should never be forgotten. Because long before Estee Lauder or Mary Kay or Avon, there was, once upon a time, an impossibly poor woman who did other people's laundry, a woman with bald spots and bad luck with men who looked into the mirror one day and decided to become somebody else. Madam C.J. Walker, the first self-made female millionaire in American history

and the daughter of slaves. Something to remember next time the odds seem too long, or the work seems too hard, where you just feel like pulling your hair out. Anyway, that's the way I heard it. If you're a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility and your machinery isn't working right, Granger knows you need to understand what's wrong as soon as possible.

So when a conveyor motor falters, Granger offers diagnostic tools like calibration kits and multimeters to help you identify and fix the problem. With Granger, you can be confident you have everything you need to keep your facility running smoothly. Call 1-800 Granger, clickgranger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done.

The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean teaches us how our choices impact even the deepest places. The ocean connects us. Visit monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects. Thank you.