CEO, THU BEAUTY ACADEMY,

NGUYỄN LÊ XUÂN THU

DON’T LET FAILURE DRAG YOU DOWN!

Nguyen Le Xuan Thu is an internationally acclaimed aesthetic tattoo spraying expert and esteemed judge in domestic and international contests. She is also CEO of Thu Beauty Salon and Thu Beauty Academy and has proven that beauty-making is a serious field of work with its own merits and not merely a hobby that can be taken lightly.

Before her return to Vietnam and the following business start-up, Mrs. Nguyen Le Xuan Thu spent several years abroad working as a hairstylist and fashion designer. It was in 2014 when it crossed her mind during a conversation to pursue a professional beauty-making career. Setting out with zero professional training, she started taking training courses, from basic to master levels, given by famous experts in the field, while trying to earn prestigious certificates in this area. Thu Beauty Academy, the brainchild she’d been nurturing since returning to Vietnam, officially went into operation at the end of 2016, marking a milestone on her relentless journey to pursue a professional beauty-making career. 

Anyone who has worked in business knows that drawing a perfect picture and bringing it to life are two very different things, with the latter being nearly impossible due to the unexpected hardships along the way. For Mrs. Xuan Thu it was no exception. Having lived overseas for so long, she encountered several obstacles and difficulties trying to establish a business in a rather unfamiliar market and with very limited connections. Sweat, tears and shocking financial losses in the early days made her realize that the harsh competition and constantly shifting supply-demand balance of the industry might have been her greatest obstacles.

“After stumbling for a while, I learned the hard way that there was more to running a business than mere professional techniques,” she said. “A business owner must be able to multi-task and get the hold of every step in the procedure in order to realize how to get the business going and keep it sustainable.

“Thanks to such self-enlightenment and encouragement from those around me, I lifted myself up and kept moving forward. Success is about trial and error, so failure is an inevitable experience that helps you to see where you are standing and what to do next.

“If not for such difficulties and hardships, I wouldn’t be so confident to say that I’m quite successful in pursuing a career I’m passionate about.”

Currently the owner of two major beauty salons in Ho Chi Minh City, Mrs. Xuan Thu is also a frequent guest and performer in several aesthetic tattoo spraying shows all over the world, as well as a judge in major competitions in the field. Just last May, she took a trip to Russia to perform the LineStokes technique, one of the latest tattoo spraying techniques that she has introduced to the domestic market. More than a business owner, she is a professional performing artist who uses her influence to share her expertise and bring about innovation to those who share the same passion.

“Just as any artist practices intensively to perfect their performance, I also want to appear on stage with a masterful and flawless demonstration, especially in front of an audience so eager to learn from me with a hope to someday become an expert in beauty-making,” she said. “Therefore, I have been practicing relentlessly with very high expectations, honing not only my technical dexterity but also my way of speech, method of expression, and professional performing style.

“Over time, this training style has also served as a most effective way to improve myself. And the result was obvious, with more and more people contacting me after every performance to take professional training courses at Thu Beauty Academy.”

Not only fulfilling its business purpose, Mrs. Xuan Thu’s institution also serves to realize her passion of providing the industry with highly-skilled workers, who in turn enjoy better career opportunities to improve their lives and, to a greater extent, start their own businesses like she once did.

The Vietnamese beauty-making industry, by nature, is a highly competitive and ever-shifting one.

“Though living and working in an area whose customers are mostly women, I possess characteristics that are quite masculine, not being dazzled by the shiny façade of things, but rather peering into their true, core values,” she said. “I believe that the greatest way to earn the confidence of both my customers and trainees is to keep doing my best and let my ‘products’ speak for themselves.

“The fact that many of my students have returned, after completing their course, to express their thanks may very well be the most convincing evidence for the values that I stand for, in such a way that no amount of money can ever buy.”

Her greatest concern in business is the failure to help her students complete their course. Not only does she provide them with all of her current knowledge, she also keeps herself constantly up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques in beauty-making, improving her mastery as well as bringing about the most updated training courses.

Naturally, as a business grows, so do one’s financial ambitions. But the greatest ambition for Mrs. Xuan Thu is to practice her craft, to create beautiful designs and perform them with the highest finesse and latest techniques. She has even, at times, stayed up all night just to perfect a new draft, with all the enthusiasm and diligence of an eager beginner.

“Practice makes perfect,” she reflected. “Therefore, besides a natural eye for aesthetics, those who practice the craft must also keep improving their hands’ flexibility and dexterity.

“Weighing the restless nights and countless “redoes” over a single action against the success I have today, I’d say that the result is well worth the effort. All that glitters is not gold, the road to success might seem to be a bed of roses, but hidden beneath it are the thorns that make it not so easy to tread.

“Every career journey is full of failures and stumbles, so you need to have faith and keep your passion aflame. Because as long as it remains, you shall always find a reason to rise again and advance further.”

When asked about whether she applied her business management methods in her personal life, Mrs. Xuan Thu took a while to respond, her eyes began brimming with tears.

“I have been working since the very young age of 8 and, as such, have had too much a taste of hardship and unfair treatment,” she said. “Those who are close to me would know well how much effort I have exerted to become who I am today.

“Therefore, now that I’ve become a business owner, I know better than anyone how the workers that are my employees feel, and I treat them like family, with sincerity and sympathy, and protect them instead of pressuring them under protocols and regulations.

“I believe the most simple and honest approach would reach the heart the fastest and stay there the longest. I give advice, not scolding, so that they can be better; I give sharing, not orders, so that we create a stronger bond. And in addition, I give deserving benefits to reward the passion and effort they have exerted as my companions.

“I believe that they will some day achieve and take pride in the success that I have today.”

More often than not, the Businesswomen Magazine would ask its interview guest whether they would make a different career choice if provided with such a choice. And Mrs. Xuan Thu, as did many others, proclaimed her unwavering career choice. Bearing in mind that failure is the mother of success, she claimed that all the failures have only helped her grow stronger, and not at all dissuaded her into another career path.

“The first step is always the most difficult, just as a baby cannot learn to flip, crawl and finally walk without tripping, hurting him or herself, or even bleeding,” she said. “When you have decided upon some great dream, also imagine how severe the damage of failure would cause to you and brace yourself for it.

“Early success might not always be a blessing, because the taste of failure afterwards would only become more bitter to swallow, so much so that one might never recover from it. In contrast, having experienced countless failures as I have, one would have the confidence to swiftly resolve any problem.

“You may allow yourself to feel down for a while, but always remember to fight harder so that all of the sacrifices you have made will not have been made in vain.”