Toni Reece: Hi there. This is Toni Reece, and welcome to Berks County Living’s Get Inspired! Project. Today I have Mindy Burgess with me. Hi, Mindy.
Mindy Burgess: Good morning, Toni. How are you?
Toni: I’m great. Happy Birthday!
Mindy: Thank you very much.
Toni: My goodness, what a way to start the day, right?
Mindy: I know; it’s fantastic.
Toni: Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Mindy: I grew up in Berks County. I grew up right outside of Morgantown, Pennsylvania. I graduated from Twin Valley High School in 2004. I’ve been doing hair for almost 10 years now. I love it. I can truly say that I love my job. I’ve been working in a salon for almost 10 years, and I purchased my own business in 2010.
I own Salon EveLeila in Kenhorst, Pennsylvania. I started with about five employees, and I now have 10, so we’ve been growing at a very fast rate the last four years, and I’m very excited about that. We have plans to relocate in late spring/early summer of this year. We’re currently working on a renovation project for that. I’m really excited about that.
We do hair and nails, and we are also a bridal salon. We just recently partnered with Stokesay Castle as one of their preferred vendors. We do a lot of weddings there, as well as their bridal show every year.
Toni: Congratulations! My goodness, there’s a lot going on there. Way to go! Let’s go into the Project. What does inspiration mean to you?
Mindy: I feel that you can't accomplish much without finding something that inspires you. It’s really what gets me going every day. I feel to do my job I have to have a lot of inspiration. Whether it be finding inspiration in a book, music, a certain person … I get a lot of inspiration from movies. I feel like that’s what keeps you going.
I know for me, I’ll go out for a run one morning, and I’ll run by someone’s house and I’ll see something, whether it be the color of their front door or their garden, and immediately it sparks an idea in my head, and I feel that I have to run home and quick do something, and take that inspiration and put it to good use.
I think that to accomplish your goals in life, you have to find that one something that you love so much, you care about it, and you want to make something of it in order to accomplish your goals. I feel that if there’s something in life you want to accomplish, you have to have that inspiration to push you to do it.
Toni: Is inspiration always obvious to you?
Mindy: For me, I feel like it is, because I can find something good in everything. I love to watch people do something they love. That inspires me. I like to watch people accomplish their goals in life. That inspires me. I’m just a very enthusiastic person. I think that comes with it as well. You have to have the enthusiasm and the energy. Positive energy is another big thing for me. I think that inspiration and positive energy coincide. You can accomplish anything if you have a positive outlook on it.
Toni: How do you put that into practice here in Berks County?
Mindy: Of course a lot of my business, and I like to do a lot of charity events. We do things like that. I love doing things for other people. I feed off of that. I do get a lot of inspiration from helping others. I think there’s a lot of cool things in Berks County to get into, a lot of new adventures. I just enjoy trying new things.
We do a lot for the Berks County Sheriff’s Department for the K9 Unit. I like to do a lot of fundraising for them. We’ve done a couple things for them. I like to do fundraisers for the Jarett Yoder Memorial Fund. It’s a fund that my friend has set up for her husband who has passed away. I do a big fundraiser for that every year. She inspires me every day, his wife, Heather. She’s inspired me to put together this big fundraiser every year.
I am a strong supporter of our military, so I’m inspired by them. Around the holidays and throughout the year, I’ll collect items through the salon and ship boxes overseas to our troops who are serving overseas. They inspire me to do things like that for them. I just love to do things for others, I really do.
Toni: It sounds so amazing, the examples that you have given.
Mindy: Thank you.
Toni: Things that inspire you … and you said earlier what inspiration means to you is that you can be on a run and you can see something in a garden that inspires you, but inspires you to do something. You take that inspired action, you apply positive energy to it, and enthusiasm, and you get things done.
Mindy: Yes. I love to get things done. If I see something and I want it, I will go and get it, and that to me is inspiration. I get inspired when I see something and say, “I really want to do that,” and I go and I do it.
Toni: When was the last time you were inspired?
Mindy: The last time I was inspired was actually just yesterday. I started this hobby where I take old furniture and I refinish it. I’m in the process of refinishing old dressers for new salon stations, so yesterday I was going through some of my old things I have at my house, because we just recently moved, and I found my old childhood toy chest.
I whipped out my paint. I was looking at a few photos online. I saw some really neat, bright colors that I liked for a possibility for another project I was doing, and I just started painting, and I finished it within two hours. I just redid the piece because I felt like it. I just got into it. I definitely felt inspired yesterday to be a little creative and tap into my artsy side.
Toni: You went right for it and completed it.
Mindy: I did it.
Toni: There you go! Who in Berks County who inspires you, Mindy?
Mindy: There are so many people. Definitely my family and friends, of course. I’d have to say my employees definitely inspire me. They work hard every day and they make what I do well worth it every day.
It probably starts back with my grandparents. They had eight kids, and they owned a diner as my mom and her brothers and sisters were growing up. Almost all of them worked at the diner. They somehow raised eight kids and ran a family business. My uncle actually I believe was inspired by my grandparents, and he currently owns a restaurant out in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. I worked for him starting at the age of 13, and I just watched him take nothing and grow it to where it is today. He worked so hard, and I got to witness that entire time for him.
When I was contemplating about someday owning my own business and then when the opportunity arose, I thought of him and thought, “If he can do it, I’m sure I can figure this out, and I’ll have his support, along with my entire family.” He definitely inspired me to become an entrepreneur.
Of course my mom is very inspiring. I actually named my business after my mom and my grandmother, because they’re two very inspiring women to me.
Toni: What do you want your legacy to be?
Mindy: I would just want people to remember my positive attitude on life. Like I said, I think a positive attitude can get you anywhere and can get you anything. Just that I was always a lot of fun, I loved to laugh, and I worked super hard every day. I’m a very committed person, so once I commit to something I follow through with it, and I would want people to remember that. Just that I enjoyed life, just doing what I loved to do every day, and taking advantage of every moment. I’m a very adventurous person.
Toni: Thank you so much for showing up for the Get Inspired! Project. It’s been a pleasure.
Mindy: Thank you so much, Toni.
