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