
Grace Massoud
MTV Website Exclusive
Grace Massoud wrote this article in MTV website:
IT Cosmetics Founder Jamie Kern Lima sold her make up company for 1.2 billion dollars to L’Oréal becoming the first female CEO in L’Oréal’s history. Her journey to success and finding her purpose was a bumpy one, from Denny’s waitress to Television News Anchor to building an uber-popular makeup brand from scratch with her supporting husband.
After her rosacea, a skin condition ailing her with red bumps on her face, threatened her TV presenting career, she had an Aha! Moment and decided to create a makeup brand that would actually succeed in covering up the blotches. Thousands of makeup companies available out there had failed miserably to do the trick.
She quieted her mind that tried to talk her out of it, and she took the leap. She quit her job, her husband did as well, and they put all their savings into their project working one-hundred-hour weeks. How did she muster up the courage?
I’ll tell you how. She figured out what we all should know. There’s only one of us in the whole entire world. Even if you think it’s been done before, no one is going to do it the way you’re going to do it. Show up as your authentic self and that is the key to delivering some great and distinctive work.
Take that idea, that hurdle and turn it into a money-making scheme. This is the magic formula to finding what you are truly meant to be doing: What has just destroyed you or hurt you that you’ve made it through? How do you use that making it through to help someone who’s going through it?
Look for the setbacks in your life, therein lies the answer.
Jamie for instance defied the airbrushed models and artificial trend back in 2008 by using real people with real skin issues in her campaign. It was never done before. She was the precursor in the real beauty movement. Her idea was revolutionary and it was the reason behind her jaw-dropping success.
How exactly did she go about building this brand you may ask, well she was scrappy, she researched manufacturers, FDA approvals, went through hundreds of formula iterations till she got it just right. She sent her line to all the department stores, Sephora, QVC. No one wanted anything to do with it. She got rejected left and right, all the experts saying it wouldn’t work nor make any money, three whole years of hundreds of Nos. Friends and family were questioning their maverick move asking all sorts of questions and feeding the couple’s self-doubt. In such trying circumstances, your gut instincts are put to the test no matter how sturdy the stuff you’re made of. However, you must forge on and enhance that trust in your intuition, build that muscle over time by learning how to hear it and trust it. Pattern recognition in your past experiences is one way to do it, when you remember times when you trusted yourself and times when you didn’t.
You feel it when the person in front of you is good at the core. That right there is your gut talking.
IT Cosmetics Founder Jamie Kern Lima sold her make up company for 1.2 billion dollars to L’Oréal becoming the first female CEO in L’Oréal’s history. Her journey to success and finding her purpose was a bumpy one, from Denny’s waitress to Television News Anchor to building an uber-popular makeup brand from scratch with her supporting husband.
After her rosacea, a skin condition ailing her with red bumps on her face, threatened her TV presenting career, she had an Aha! Moment and decided to create a makeup brand that would actually succeed in covering up the blotches. Thousands of makeup companies available out there had failed miserably to do the trick.
She quieted her mind that tried to talk her out of it, and she took the leap. She quit her job, her husband did as well, and they put all their savings into their project working one-hundred-hour weeks. How did she muster up the courage?
I’ll tell you how. She figured out what we all should know. There’s only one of us in the whole entire world. Even if you think it’s been done before, no one is going to do it the way you’re going to do it. Show up as your authentic self and that is the key to delivering some great and distinctive work.
Take that idea, that hurdle and turn it into a money-making scheme. This is the magic formula to finding what you are truly meant to be doing: What has just destroyed you or hurt you that you’ve made it through? How do you use that making it through to help someone who’s going through it?
Look for the setbacks in your life, therein lies the answer.
Jamie for instance defied the airbrushed models and artificial trend back in 2008 by using real people with real skin issues in her campaign. It was never done before. She was the precursor in the real beauty movement. Her idea was revolutionary and it was the reason behind her jaw-dropping success.
How exactly did she go about building this brand you may ask, well she was scrappy, she researched manufacturers, FDA approvals, went through hundreds of formula iterations till she got it just right. She sent her line to all the department stores, Sephora, QVC. No one wanted anything to do with it. She got rejected left and right, all the experts saying it wouldn’t work nor make any money, three whole years of hundreds of Nos. Friends and family were questioning their maverick move asking all sorts of questions and feeding the couple’s self-doubt. In such trying circumstances, your gut instincts are put to the test no matter how sturdy the stuff you’re made of. However, you must forge on and enhance that trust in your intuition, build that muscle over time by learning how to hear it and trust it. Pattern recognition in your past experiences is one way to do it, when you remember times when you trusted yourself and times when you didn’t.
You feel it when the person in front of you is good at the core. That right there is your gut talking.