Speaker 1: Our next guest created a cosmetics company. After a lot
Speaker 1: of hard work and staying true to her brand, it
Speaker 1: took off. She sold it to Loreal became excuse me,
Speaker 1: the first female CEO of a Loreal brand in the
Speaker 1: company's long history. She'd be the first to tell you
Speaker 1: it was a journey and often not easy. She's written
Speaker 1: about it in a new book, Believe It, How to
Speaker 1: Go from Underestimated to Unstoppable. So great to be talking
Speaker 1: once again with Jamie kurn Lima. She's on the phone
Speaker 1: in Palm Beach, Florida. Jamie is so great to have
Speaker 1: you here with us. How are you And tell me
Speaker 1: about your past year. It sounds like it's been an
Speaker 1: interesting one and a busy one, Carol, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me. Yeah, this has been it's been
Speaker 1: a journey. First ever book, and I just, you know,
Speaker 1: after hearing from so many entrepreneurs and so many people
Speaker 1: out there that would send me messages on Instagram and say,
Speaker 1: you know, oh wow, congrats on going from Dunnie's waitress
Speaker 1: to selling your company for over a billion dollars, like
Speaker 1: did you just get lucky? Or you know, did you
Speaker 1: have actions? And then they would share with me how
Speaker 1: they're you know, struggling and and having uh not having
Speaker 1: traction in their own businesses. And it kind of made
Speaker 1: me realize that when you just see the highlight reel
Speaker 1: that's out there everywhere, UM, people feel alone in their
Speaker 1: own seasons of rejection and setbacks. And so I just
Speaker 1: decided um to literally share it, like first time ever,
Speaker 1: share all the stories behind the stories of the real
Speaker 1: the real stuff that happened, and kind of like starting
Speaker 1: my business from my living room and going through three
Speaker 1: years of hearing no um and how to turn those
Speaker 1: nose into yeses, and how to believe in yourself when
Speaker 1: no one else is believing in you, and and how
Speaker 1: I turned that into a company with over a thousand
Speaker 1: employees and and then went to the acquisition process and
Speaker 1: everything else. But it's really really all the stuff people
Speaker 1: typically never share. I just decided let me share it
Speaker 1: all because I don't know, I think we all are
Speaker 1: stronger together when we do that. Well, can I just
Speaker 1: say it's so you because you're you're very um upfront
Speaker 1: about everything, and I feel like, you know, we often
Speaker 1: talk about stocks, and we've been talking about a lot
Speaker 1: about some of the trades that just seem to just
Speaker 1: go up and up and up. Nothing's ever up in
Speaker 1: a straight line, right. There's a lot of things that
Speaker 1: we have to get through. There's down periods. But just
Speaker 1: like you when you were on QVC to show how
Speaker 1: your makeup line worked, you took off your own makeup
Speaker 1: to show, uh, and you bared yourself before was really
Speaker 1: in vogue for people to maybe do something like that.
Speaker 1: And I feel like you're very kind of out out
Speaker 1: front and center. Tell me about that and how you
Speaker 1: want to kind of send that as a message to people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the power of authenticity and of
Speaker 1: hearing our own gut and it is huge. I think,
Speaker 1: whether we're talking about stocks or talking about if we're
Speaker 1: supposed to go after our own dream or like go
Speaker 1: of a dream, I think too many people like start
Speaker 1: to second guess their own gut and sometimes their own
Speaker 1: common sense, and they start to get distracted by what's
Speaker 1: hot right now and what everyone else doing. And and
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny growing at cosmetics and you know,
Speaker 1: I was trying to do something really different because it
Speaker 1: made sense in my gut. Right, for so many years
Speaker 1: in my industry and the industry I was in it
Speaker 1: has always been done a certain way. Makeup companiesn't always
Speaker 1: sold beauty products using super you know, flawless images of
Speaker 1: in a way unattainable beauty. And I just in my gut,
Speaker 1: I was like, and this is before anyone was doing this.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, you know, how are women supposed to
Speaker 1: know a problem or men and supposed to know a
Speaker 1: product is going to work for them if they don't
Speaker 1: see someone who looks like them using it, right? And
Speaker 1: here's the sting, Carol, And this is what I'd say
Speaker 1: to any entrepreneur, anyone looking at is this business or
Speaker 1: that business, or this stock or that stock a good investment?
Speaker 1: Is like, take it back to the fundamentals of of
Speaker 1: of gut instinct in the sense of, you know, I,
Speaker 1: for three years look pulled by every retailer. No one
Speaker 1: will buy makeup from someone who looks like you, or
Speaker 1: who's going to use models the way you are planning
Speaker 1: to do it. And it was three years of rejection.
Speaker 1: And you know, we got done under a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in our bank accountant. Sometimes in life, when that happens
Speaker 1: to us, we're tempted to go, let me change what
Speaker 1: I'm doing because it's not working. But every time I
Speaker 1: kept checking with my gut, I'm like, no, this is
Speaker 1: what I'm supposed to be doing. And I made the
Speaker 1: decision to trust my gut, and you know, FoST forward
Speaker 1: a decade, we are now the largest beauty brand in
Speaker 1: the country. Jammy, what did you learn about this process?
Speaker 1: Writing a book from someone who created a company probably
Speaker 1: learned a lot along the way. What did kind of
Speaker 1: writing it down going through it again? What did that
Speaker 1: teach you? I mean, I think the biggest thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, how I build could billion dollar company was
Speaker 1: always remembering it's not about me, remembering it's about doing
Speaker 1: something bigger than myself. And I had to remember that
Speaker 1: and writing this book because it is scary. It is
Speaker 1: scary and vulnerable and all those things to share all
Speaker 1: of the things I did wrong building this business and
Speaker 1: then all of the things I did right. Um, but
Speaker 1: also just the real vulnerability that I think we all
Speaker 1: face as entrepreneurs or as people in business where um,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes we we don't listen to our gut
Speaker 1: and we regret it. Sometimes we are tempted, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: to to have everything we believe in on the line,
Speaker 1: have other people telling us what to do and how
Speaker 1: do we decide what to do? Like I I was
Speaker 1: the first time ever care all where um, I would
Speaker 1: say probably ninety five per cent of the stories in
Speaker 1: the book, um, and I wrote I was doing a
Speaker 1: word of it myself, all eighty thousand words, and our
Speaker 1: stories are never shared before. But I had to make
Speaker 1: it bigger than myself. I think at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, that's how we all know that what we're
Speaker 1: doing in this world and our time on this earth matters.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, I just this is passed with
Speaker 1: the things I wish I had known that would have
Speaker 1: saved me so much money, so much time crying myself
Speaker 1: to sleep at night. Um. And the things I did
Speaker 1: right in terms of, you know, handling so many rejections
Speaker 1: and so many people telling me my idea wasn't gonna work. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's a lot of you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of I think universal lessons for everyone in business on
Speaker 1: you know I talked about, well wait, wait, wait, hang
Speaker 1: on a second, what's one what's one thing that you
Speaker 1: wish you had known when you started the process of
Speaker 1: creating your company, or what's one one really big lesson
Speaker 1: that you learned, because we talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs about the things that they learned. I'm just curious
Speaker 1: what what stood out for you that was a game
Speaker 1: changer if you had maybe known it earlier. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think that knowing and so many in the
Speaker 1: book champions aren't made when the game is easy, and
Speaker 1: uh that would have helped me, uh process a lot
Speaker 1: of a hard time sooner. Um. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the big ones is I believe your gut is more
Speaker 1: powerful than anyone else's advice. And when I look back
Speaker 1: and here's actually let me just say this one, this
Speaker 1: one is big. I believe that when you are doing
Speaker 1: something new or novel, you shouldn't or or authentic. If
Speaker 1: you're doing something authentic to you, even if it's been
Speaker 1: done before. If you're doing something authentic to you, by
Speaker 1: definition it's novel, it's never been done before. When you're
Speaker 1: doing something new or novel, don't be surprised when even
Speaker 1: experts or even visionaries don't think it's gonna work and
Speaker 1: don't believe in it, because at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: a lot of people can't see something happening if they
Speaker 1: don't have uh. That social proof in their mind that
Speaker 1: tells them subconsciously it's gonna work because it's never been
Speaker 1: done before. And how do I realize that her? I
Speaker 1: want to save myself a lot of nights trying myself
Speaker 1: to sleep. Like, what I've learned, Carol, is that in business,
Speaker 1: as entrepreneurs, as creators, as ideators, we have to get
Speaker 1: really good at cheering for ourselves, because most people cheer
Speaker 1: for you after you've made it. Right, It's so easy. Right,
Speaker 1: It's like this club thing after you you've made it.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost like high school all over again, and
Speaker 1: like popularity. Hey, one thing I want to go through
Speaker 1: because you only have a couple of minutes left here,
Speaker 1: A couple of things I just want to quickly go through. Um,
Speaker 1: the way you wove wove through the story of how
Speaker 1: you watched over when you were younger, you wanted to
Speaker 1: be a talk show host and ultimately you get a
Speaker 1: chance to meet her and you you walk us through
Speaker 1: that story. Um, it's one of those like pinch me moments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I remember being nine year old little girl.
Speaker 1: I would watch her in my living room and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember this moment Carol, but
Speaker 1: she said it wasn't in a Barbara Walters interview and
Speaker 1: she said, I always knew I was dead since for greatness,
Speaker 1: and I remembered took a lot of flats for it
Speaker 1: in the press. But I remember being a nine year
Speaker 1: old little girl hearing that and feeling like me too,
Speaker 1: Like I had that feeling at that and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of us have that feeling like we have
Speaker 1: something to give the world or stub or create. I
Speaker 1: always had that feeling, and so she's always kind of
Speaker 1: been my mentor from as far my whole life. And
Speaker 1: I am crazy story, wild story. I hear the whole
Speaker 1: thing in the book. Just just give us like a second,
Speaker 1: and I want everybody to go read it in its entirety,
Speaker 1: but just give us a second quickly. Thing. Well, I
Speaker 1: met her and it was the craziest day, and I
Speaker 1: share how I met her. I then got a phone
Speaker 1: call Um inviting me to lunch at her house. It
Speaker 1: was just she and I have spent three hours with her,
Speaker 1: and I she was the very first person to read
Speaker 1: this book, and I wanted her blessing on the stories
Speaker 1: I share in the book, because I share a lot
Speaker 1: and I really would never do that about her blessing.
Speaker 1: But I sure how I believe in the power of prayer.
Speaker 1: I believe in the power of believing in ourselves. I
Speaker 1: believe in manifesting and uh. And I also talk a
Speaker 1: lot about you know, really Carol at the heart and soul.
Speaker 1: This book us for every woman and every man who
Speaker 1: struggles with self doubt and wants to learn how to
Speaker 1: go if I'm not believing in themselves to believing in
Speaker 1: them to Jamie, I've got to jump I've got to
Speaker 1: jump in. And I know You've got lots of stories,
Speaker 1: but that means everybody's going to go read the book
Speaker 1: because there's there's lots of great stuff in there. Jamie, Jamie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Good luck Jamie current Lima. She's
Speaker 1: with us her new book, Believe It. Check it out.
Speaker 1: It's out now.