EP # 193 - The Art of Hair Sculpting: Building an International Brand Through Social Media with Lina Waled

Join Maggie Perotin as she interviews Lina Waled, an innovative haircutting specialist who transformed her career from a psychology graduate to an international hair artist and content creator. In this episode, discover how following your creative intuition can lead to unexpected success and business growth.

Key Highlights:
• Lina's unique journey from a psychology degree to becoming a sought-after hairstylist
• How she developed her signature razor-cutting technique and "sculpted hair" concept
• Strategic approach to content creation across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok
• Tips for relocating a service-based business internationally
• Managing creative entrepreneurship while maintaining focus on business goals

Topics Covered:
[00:00:00] - Introduction and Lina's background
[00:02:00] - The story behind becoming a hairstylist
[00:04:00] - Developing unique razor-cutting techniques
[00:08:00] - Content creation strategy across different platforms
[00:12:00] - Relocating from Canada to Dubai
[00:15:00] - Managing creativity and business focus
[00:19:00] - The importance of business coaching and support

Key Takeaways:

• Different social media platforms require different approaches:

• YouTube: Long-form, detailed tutorials
• Instagram: Professional business presence and client booking
• TikTok: Casual, personal connection content

• Success strategies for creative entrepreneurs:

• Brain dumping for idea management
• Creating systems for focus
• Regular journaling and planning
• Strategic experimentation

Featured Guest: Lina Waled (@linadoeshair)
Haircutting specialist and content creator based in Dubai, known for her innovative razor-cutting technique and viral hair content.

Resources Mentioned:
• Instagram: @linadoeshair
• Diamond Effect Group Coaching Program

Follow Lina on Instagram @linadoeshair to see her amazing hair transformations and content creation strategies in action.

Transcript

Maggie Perotin: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to Diamond Effect podcast. Today I have a great guest, one of my clients in the Diamond Effect group, Lina. Lina, thank you so much for doing it with me and if you could introduce yourself to everybody, that would be awesome. 

Lina Waled: Thanks for having me. I'm Lina. I'm a haircutting specialist.

I currently live in Dubai. I was born here, but I am Canadian. I've been back and forth between the UAE and Dubai and Canada pretty much my whole life. And I decided to relocate recently and really level up my business. And that's how Maggie and I got connected. 

Maggie Perotin: Awesome. So yeah, let's talk a little bit about your backstory because I remember when we met you were still in Canada.

I'm pretty sure when you joined Diamond Effect Group you were in Canada and then you were moving into, in Dubai. But tell me a little bit more about your story, how you became the hairstylist content creator. You're such an amazing content creator. So share, let's start there. 

Lina Waled: Thank you. [00:01:00] It's a long journey.

It's really fun. People ask me, how did you start? I'm like where do you really want to start? Because as a creative, the ideas are always coming. And it's a matter of just following a bunch of things and experimenting with so many things. And then sometimes they pop off and sometimes they don't.

And the things that pop off and they work, I just keep doing them. And when I get, I'm really good with feedback. If somebody tells me that something's working, I'll be like, okay, that's a sign. I'll just keep going. Okay. So how I became a hairstylist, I used to cut my own hair when I was younger because I had it butchered so many times by hairstylists.

So I learned how to cut my own hair, but I never thought to be a hairstylist. I was actually a makeup artist and I have a degree in psychology. I never actually wanted to be a shrink to the detriment of my parents. They were very disappointed, but I've always been creative. I always loved the idea of business and doing my own thing.

And then, I went through a really bad breakup and I just asked for a sign. And this is where I was like, I'm not even I don't know what I [00:02:00] believe in, but I need a sign. I need to know what to do. And I saw, I went to the library and I saw a book. It was like a beauty book. And inside was this hairstylist talking about hair.

And there was a really beautiful model with really beautiful hair. And I was like, Oh, I want to do that. And I was like, okay. So I flipped the page and then suddenly it's just like this light bulb came through this like insane moment of clarity. That's I think I just talked to myself into actually wanting to do this.

So I was like, okay, let me look up hair schools. I immediately looked up, hair schools. There was one down the street, literally like 15 minutes away and they were taking students within two weeks. So I was like, I signed up, became a hairstylist, turns out I was really good at cutting.

And I just, you know, the rest is history, started working and it's been good. Yeah. 

Maggie Perotin: And you know what? I just, expand on that a little bit, because we talked about it, was it like last week or two weeks ago, where I asked you like, because you have this unique skill set of cutting with the, what is it called?

Not [00:03:00] scissors, but the razor. The razor you Yeah, and you do such amazing cuts with the razor. And I asked her, like, how did you learn to do that? If you can share that story? 

Lina Waled: Okay, and I remember saying, I don't know, I just picked up a razor one day, and I knew what to do. But the more I think about it, and you made me think about this is that my back, I heard someone say it's like painting or drawing or sketching.

And there is definitely a correlation because I can see Shadows and light in the hair. So instead of creating color, I can literally pick up the razor and create. shadows and depth and movement within the hair. And what clients keep telling me is that I can create movement in their hair that other stylists don't do.

So I go into the hair and I'm sculpting it and I'm creating like, it's like a 3d painting with the razor. Yeah, but the technical obviously was taking [00:04:00] classes on it and, taking models and putting out a model call and doing a lot of free hair just to test it and then getting feedback and constantly improving.

Maggie Perotin: And that's how sculpted hair was born. 

Lina Waled: Sculpted hair 2026 it's going to be like an actual thing like this year it's on. 

Maggie Perotin: Awesome. So now let's talk about the other side of your creativity, which is really creating content, right? You have a lot of followers, YouTube, IG, TikTok, wherever you go, you just go viral.

So and I love that about you because I learned from you as much as you learned from me, especially in content creation and that marketing area. So talk about that. What is your recipe, if there is one, to when you enter in your platform and so on, to get the following, the engagement and really build community around what you do?

Lina Waled: Okay. It's a bit of a loaded question because there's [00:05:00] so many different platforms and I've started on so many and quit so many different platforms. Before TikTok, there was YouTube and I'm someone who I think I as an introvert, I don't think I ever had the space to really say what I want to say. So YouTube was perfect.

It's like your little corner of the internet where you can just turn on a camera and talk and nobody will judge you for it. You can just delete comments if you don't like them. So it was nice. For me to express myself through YouTube, but with YouTube, I did delete a lot of videos before I decided on what I wanted to do.

I started doing hair cutting videos during COVID and then that took off and it was making me a little bit of money and I was like, Oh, this is working. This is nice. And I found that I really enjoyed being on camera and I really enjoyed expressing myself and talking about what I know, and ultimately it comes down to just.

people. If I help one person, then I've done my job. And I think this is so important if you want to do anything because platforms [00:06:00] change all the time, right? Like we, we saw Instagram go up and then down and then up again. And now it's pretty dead. Unless like you're very niche and you know exactly what you're doing.

TikTok, same thing up and down. It was like a dance app and during COVID and then With the ban it went away. We're not seeing the same things as before then it turned political and it's just You have to stay true to who you are and try to adapt to the platforms, but at the same time keep your message Alive like he know what you're doing.

And so I'm actually back on tick tock now because I'm like, I'm rethinking my strategy and who I want to be. And someone told me like, you have the right to speak. It's such a small mindset shift. Not that I never thought I didn't have the right but it's Let me just say it and not think too much about how I look and how I'm saying it or who's gonna see it and that's ultimately content creation clients and followers can tell when you're enjoying what you're [00:07:00] doing.

They can 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, so that's the thing that a couple of things you said that it's important is a don't be scared to experiment. As you said, you've done so many videos and some of them you deleted, some of them not, but like just putting things out there and then looking at what's working and doing more of what's working, right?

So that's one. Two, being yourself and just being consistent with your message and who you are through the platforms while also understanding the platform and playing to, to whatever it is about, right? Because it's both ways. And then since they have fun, right? Because if you hate it and if you're like, Oh my God, like I can't do it.

Then your audience will feel it. But if you have fun, they will feel connected to that. So I love that. So let's just take the three main ones, like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Right now, as you see it, what are maybe like the main differences between them?

Just. For people to know [00:08:00] like what you're saying. 

Lina Waled: So for youtube, I love long form content if you're creating a tutorial Or you want to dive deep into a subject just yesterday I was watching a whole 40 minute tutorial on how to do your nails And I was grossed in it. I want to know all the details. I loved her voice.

It's really good for tutorials. So I have hair tutorials on their hair cutting tutorials and you can speed it up, but I think people go to YouTube now for that long form kind of deeper connection and they will subscribe because they want more of that. There is always going to be a need for long form content.

Yeah. Yeah. And people watch it on TV as well. If you don't have a Netflix account, you're going to pull up YouTube. . Save money. So it, it's also an entertainment, with the cost of living going up. People are gonna save on subscriptions and they're gonna go to YouTube to watch somebody do something.

. So YouTube's great for that. If you wanna share that. TikTok, I'm still trying to figure it out. [00:09:00] I think it's still great for short form content. It's definitely very much one-on-one, it feels when you just, somebody FaceTimes you and you're the best friend. And you're like, oh, hey, and it's shaking and you just put it up and you're like, yeah, I'm just cooking, but talk to me.

So I will do that. I'll just keep scrolling through TikTok and just you're taking in so much information. They're little bite sized things. Yeah, so it's really good for that then you've got instagram for me instagram is For now, it's like the it's the one for me because as a small business Aesthetically and as far as an interface, it's very user friendly.

It's very clean You can read comments and and subscribe and do so many different things with Instagram and it's just cleaner and for small businesses, it's wonderful. TikTok is great too, but you have a lot of like younger clientele or like younger followers there. Instagram is very much like a millennial one.

So if you're looking for, you could probably do B2B on [00:10:00] Instagram. You could probably, if you're doing your B2B business and I'm a B2C. But I can definitely do a B to B as well. Like with my academy, I can sell it, my courses and things on Instagram. So I love it. I get all my bookings through Instagram and, run ads.

And it's this very good because maybe with Facebook, they have a lot of data on people and do the targeting on Instagram if you're running ads. So far I love Instagrams where I live. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah, definitely. And we talk about it on a regular basis. It's definitely the key way for you to book clients, especially like when you moved, right?

So we can actually talk about your move now because that's the thing, you were in Canada and you've Yeah. Yeah. You've created a clientele, but now you're moving location as a hairstylist. You are dependent on your location, right? So now how do you don't know anybody, how do you create clientele?

So Instagram was, instrumental in that. But let's talk about your move. So [00:11:00] What prompted you? And what do you need? How do you move? Okay, I'm leaving what I've built here to build something in a brand new country that you knew a little bit ahead of time, but still, it's not like you had a huge network of people there, right?

Lina Waled: Yeah, my network is all pretty much gone. All my friends are either like married with kids and they're in their own bubble or they left, they moved away. So I remember talking to you when I was trying to make a decision. It was our 15 minute free consultation and you were highly recommended. And after our call, there was a clarity about what you said that Just like it, it made so much sense.

I think I was too much in my feelings and you were just very logical about it. You're like, just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should. And I remember you said this about me, like wanting to do a million different things. And then, you said you wouldn't know until you try. And it's it's something clicked.

And I also talked to some friends and I was like, I have to leave. But the thing is, it wasn't that easy. [00:12:00] I was like really unhappy for a very, very long time. So this wasn't like an overnight issue. I maybe I don't know if you believe in astrology. I'm a taurus. I'm an earth sign. I like to be rooted in one place.

I don't like to move. And I want it. I wanted to really create a home. But after COVID, our industry in Ontario was not doing well. And I kept thinking that I was going to be able to catch up financially and, maybe get some new clients, but I never felt the same, excitement as I did before. And I just felt okay, it's time for me to leave.

Cause even when I started here, I was like, maybe I could go back to Dubai because everyone loves their. here. So it was a long, like a long, many years that I was thinking about leaving. Then I would try again. And it just, it didn't work for a while. I decided to stay a little bit longer. I would have moved earlier to be fair, to be honest.

But I decided to work on my portfolio because I couldn't control the weather cause I hated the weather. I couldn't control the inflation. I couldn't control [00:13:00] my clients. I can't, there's things you cannot control. So the only thing that I could control was my skill. Let me build a portfolio so that no matter where I go in the world, I can get a job and I know I'm good at it.

And I know people like it. So I got a bunch of models. I charged them half price for their haircuts and I nailed every single one. And I was like, Hey, that's a sign. They love their hair. So I built this portfolio and then the rest of it was just courage. The rest of it was like, I have to dig into my savings.

I don't know what I'm doing. But I'm going to go. And because I keep thinking about it, I was turning 40. So I was 39 and I was like, there's no way I'm, celebrating my 40th birthday in Canada. I need to celebrate it in Dubai. I need to have a big party. It was just like that kind of motivation that just, 

Maggie Perotin: I love it because it's really like having the dream, like the, your inner self was pulling you, right?

Like I always talk [00:14:00] about it listen to your intuition, right? If there is something that's not going away, no matter what you do, listen to it. So you listen to it, but not just like hooray, let's go without any preparation. But as you say okay. What I could control is up level my skill and really build a portfolio, right?

And then yeah, it always takes courage and that belief in yourself that you can do it because in the beginning when we start something, we have no idea if it's going to work out and so on. It was the same with my business, right? When I started my business on the side, I was like, I have no idea if it's going to work out.

I don't even know if I 100 percent believe it, but until I try, I will never know, right? So I love that. Let's move on now to being creative. So you're in Dubai, you're doing great. Now you're very creative. And what I find with creative people, my husband is one of them.

And with my clients, do you guys have amazing ideas, but they're popping your head all the time. And that's easy to get [00:15:00] distracted. And maybe fall, of course, especially if you have goals. And you're like, I want to achieve certain goals, right? So what helps you Yes. Focus and keep going while still, entertaining at least some of those ideas because I know that for your brain, you need that, right?

You can't completely turn it off and say, Oh, well, I'm just going to ignore the creative calling. So what do you do? What helps you? 

Lina Waled: It's a gift and a curse. And it's taken a lot of Like mental stamina over the years, because when I was younger, I was just popping off, right? Everywhere, all at once, everything happening all at once.

And then I learned brain dumping where you just get a piece of paper and you just write down everything and half the time what's swimming around in my mind is very easy to do. It takes five minutes. And could lead to really big results like it could be something as small as changing the SEO on my website so the way I think my creative brain works is I see the end result and I don't know [00:16:00] the Steps there, right?

Example, I want more clients. I can see people like clicking on the website They're looking for me. And so I get stressed but then when I write it down, I'm like, oh All I have to do is just change the SEO Give it a little bit of time and then I do that and then I'm like, Oh that's all. So brain dumping is really important for me.

I journal almost every day. I have a lot of post-its and I just write down my ideas as they come. And then when I'm done, I just rip them off. So it's like you're, you compartmentalize them as much as I can. The big ones, that's when I come to you and we do a little bit of brainstorming.

Sometimes I ask chat GBT. Sometimes I don't really ask too many people outside of my circle because they might shoot it down. They might not know what I'm saying. It might be hard for me to articulate what I'm trying to say. So really writing it down and thinking about it and then putting my phone on do not disturb.

Going for a walk is really, really helpful. Like taking my phone with me and I [00:17:00] have an idea in my head and I have all this energy coming through. Okay, let me go for a walk. I take my phone with me. I open the notes app and then it just comes and then it comes that Oh, let me message that person. And then it happens.

So it really, it's a relationship that I'm still working on. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. No, I love it because that's the thing, like for creativity to flourish, we need to create that space, right? To walking, brain dumping or whatever is that, but, and then when you write it down and you start. So I love how you're thinking through stuff once it's written or talking through people.

But as you say, people, hey, who understand, your goals support that are not going to bring down your ideas just because, they have their sets of beliefs or whatever, or they're not trained in helping people like a coach is trained in helping people knows what to do. Then that also helps.

So I love how you're creating little systems and habits to help you that. And as you say, it's I truly believe whatever systems and habits we [00:18:00] have, it's always work in progress. Like it's always evolving because we're evolving, right? Our situation change, our life changes. So we're always just should at least be adapting that.

It works for us not. Against us, or what not. And that's something that you've really, helped me hone in on, is that, one of the things that I've taken from our group, is that we are a work in progress, and we're constantly evolving, and what you want to do now may change.

Lina Waled: Next year. And that's okay. Like I used to be very fixed in okay, this needs to work. But again, experimenting is really important. And then have your own philosophy, like experiment. And then as you get better at whatever it is you're doing, the more you do something, the more you're going to come up with your own philosophy, be it about life or relationships or money or your career, like you have to have your own ideas about it.

And then you can be all in. And then when you're all in, it becomes easy. You don't have to fight it. It just [00:19:00] comes. 

Maggie Perotin: Yes. That's very powerful because you're right? When we get to learn something really well, when we master skillset, then we do develop our own philosophies. Because we always suggest, no matter what we learn, we'll always adjust it to our situation, the way we think and so on.

And that's why how I think we develop those philosophies. And as you say, then you become an expert. And then it's just easy, right? It's not struggle anymore to do it. So let's talk about like, why did you join Diamond Effect Group? Because in a way you can say Hey, you're great at marketing.

Like you're great at content creation. There's not much I can teach you there in that aspect. So I would want to know, or for either people who might be thinking about it, like. Why did you join? 

Lina Waled: I joined because I think I told you this in our first call because you really calmed down my nerves and you speak so logically that you, I've been with coaches in the past and I don't want to put anyone down, but I [00:20:00] have felt anxious with some coaches in the past because they were very much like type a go go.

And I'm not like that. I'm very thoughtful. I take my time. I think things through, but then when I'm in it, I go all in. Whereas with you, you're like, okay, you have this idea. What do you do now? I remember the time I told you I had a dream that I was charging 7, 000 for a haircut after asking for a sign.

I'm like, Oh, what do I need to do? Should I quit? And then I got a dream that was like, you're actually going to start charging 7, 000 for a haircut. And you're like, okay, make a vision board about it. Like you actually bring. My ideas into reality and the most important thing I think is if I decide to quit on something or change my mind change my route, you're also going to help me do that.

You don't go back and say, but you said you wanted to do this. You're like, okay, let's move forward. And then you hold me accountable in terms of like finances. And now you're asking like, how much are we making per month? And that really also keeps me accountable. I'm like, [00:21:00] okay, I need to report this to Maggie.

So it's not just all up in the air as a creative person. Yeah, I have clients. Okay. But are we making money? The logical part I think is what was missing because I've quit a lot of things. I've started an Academy and I quit. I started a podcast and I quit.

YouTube kept going and I was like, Oh, this is too much work. And you're like, okay, that's fine. Let's move forward. Yeah. So that really helps. 

Maggie Perotin: That's awesome. And, because I believe that, if as my client, you want to do something or change something like this is your decision and so I can help you, of course I can ask certain questions to make sure that this decision is rooted in something deeper than just a whim.

Oh, I'm scared of continuing and I don't want to do it, but if it's still aligned with your long term goals and we're just changing a short term strategy to get there. Why not, right? Especially in entrepreneurship, you need to try a lot of things, going back to experimenting , to figure out what are the things that [00:22:00] work for me, what are the things that will get me where I want to go long term, the fastest.

Okay, that's awesome. So now, is there anything else? So go ahead. 

Lina Waled: Yeah, I was saying it's a safe space because I think as a middle child, I was ignored and like I, a lot of people just don't believe in what I have to say, having that safe space to talk to other people who are also very creative and ambitious and they want to reach where they want to go is, I look forward to our calls every single week because I look back at my mindset before I was looping around a lot.

I have diaries, like I have a big box of diaries. I was looping around. Yeah. Yeah. Over and over. Then once we started our coaching, I've just gone up and my faith has gone up in myself. My confidence has gone up and it's these little tiny, small incremental. Changes that we don't notice.

It's like going to the gym. You don't notice the first time you go, but over time I feel very [00:23:00] confident and very safe in knowing that I have a business coach that I can, if I ever run into a problem, I can come back to you and you can help me because you are not, you don't have an investment in my business.

Like you're just. You're an outsider. And that really helps. Yeah, you're not pushing me outside of my comfort zone because I've had a coach that pushed me outside of my comfort zone, and it didn't feel right. So yeah, it's very safe. 

Maggie Perotin: Yeah. And that's For me going outside of the comfort zone I guess I have a strategy around it where I will never push a client to the point where it paralyzes them, right?

Because if you push too much, and that, because it happens to me too, right? If I try to go too far, too fast, or too much, it actually has the, opposite effect. Whereas, when you take it step by step, and by comfort zone, okay, I want to do something. I have a goal and I'm not opposed to that way.

I'm just scared because I've never [00:24:00] done it, right? So how can we get there but in a way that feels motivating, in a way that I can do it rather than freeze up, right? Sometimes it's, I remember one of our members, who was scared of social media. And we both that's the benefit of the group, that you get to mastermind, right?

And we Step by step, week after week, month after month, we're helping her to then actually not only go from scared to I'm not even posting my picture on social media to post a picture on social media, but start enjoying the whole process, start enjoying being present and getting pretty good at it.

But you need to give yourself a chance, but how you do it is important. Because as you say, sometimes when you push too hard and when you try a route that doesn't work for you will just freeze and never do it. And then you never know if that's something that's actually going to work for you.

Lina Waled: That's it. You can really drown yourself and feel like you can have a [00:25:00] mini trauma. Yeah, we don't want to. That's what I like. I just realized you actually do that you push me but not too much. 

Maggie Perotin: Awesome. So is there anything else that maybe we haven't covered that you would want to say whether it's about your journey or whatever we talked about before we're finished.

Lina Waled: Let me think. Not really, but No, I think, I feel like we covered everything. 

Maggie Perotin: Okay. Great. So thank you so much for doing it. But before we go, let people know how they can find you, how they can follow you. I highly recommend you follow Lina, even just for the content creation and learning from her how to be present on online.

Lina Waled: So I live on Instagram that's usually I'm on it all the time answering messages. So at Lina does hair. That's where they can find me. 

Maggie Perotin: Nina that's here and we will link it up in the show notes. You will be, you will easily find it from the show notes. Okay. Thank you so much, Nina. Thank you for doing it with me and thank you everybody [00:26:00] for watching.

Thanks.