Believe It
‘Believe It’ is amazing – definitely in my top two or three business books of all time. And it’s getting a ton of press right now so you may have heard of it if you’re into business books. It came out toward the end of February, and I think it’s already at number one on the New York Times Bestseller Business list.
There are so many awesome gems to get from this book. The author is Jamie Kern Lima, and she’s the founder of It Cosmetics. If you don’t know It Cosmetics (I didn’t until fairly recently) it’s a makeup company that she started in her living room. A lot of people have and are starting companies in their living room – however, not many end up like this one. She tells us the story of why she started It and it goes from there.
A Little Background on Jamie
Jamie actually was a local television reporter at a TV station somewhere in one of the Midwest states, I believe. She had a recurring problem with her skin and was always experimenting with cosmetics so that she would look good on camera. However, she never found something that would work, and stay working, while she was “on the scene” or in front of the bright studio lights.
The cost of embarrassing moments for her was huge, as you can imagine. This led her to toy around with some cosmetics and try to create something that actually works and stays in place. So that’s how she founded It Cosmetics. The book goes through how hard it was to start her cosmetics company, with a lot of doors shutting in her face. Jamie was basically being told she wasn’t good enough, or pretty enough, to be successful in that industry. She barely kept it together for years (but she did!) until finally she had a breakthrough.
Spoiler Alert: It Cosmetics just sold last year to L’Oreal, which I believe is the biggest makeup company in the world, for over $1 billion dollars. Even she can’t believe she gets to say that. She is also the first-ever female CEO under the L’Oreal brand.
This is an amazing story about how Jamie did it and she takes you through the whole journey as well as some of the important lessons she learned along the way. I’m going to walk through a few of those lessons with you now…
#1: Know Your Why
The first lesson I want to highlight is in Chapter 19 where she attributes one main thing to her success. It’s that she always knew, and actively thought of, her ‘why’. Simon Sinek made knowing your ‘why’ pretty popular. Loosely paraphrased, he says… “People don’t buy what you do or make, people buy why you do it.”
Jamie writes…
“A lot of people set goals and even have a goal-setting journal, but I’ve learned that for me, that isn’t enough. I believe you have to attach a why to any goal. That ‘why’ has to be so meaningful to you that no matter how hard things get, your belief in your why is powerful enough to withstand the hard times.”
A lot of this book is about all the doors that got slammed in Jamie’s face. Some are heart-wrenching, and some make sense, but she just kept going. I swear, when I was halfway through the book and reading about her like nineteenth big rejection, even I was thinking, ‘why aren’t you hanging up the towel by now?’
The thing was, she was so much stronger than all of the rejections that she was getting. And that is because her “why” was/is so strong.
#2 How to Address Fear
Another part that I really like is the way she addresses fear.
She says this: “Playing it safe, would have meant putting fear on a pedestal instead of love. And like everything in life, when we let fear or other people’s opinions govern our own decisions, it often comes at the price of everything that actually matters.”
I thought that was really great.
#3: Our Own Life Microphones
As a quick aside about ‘other people’ and their influence in our lives, I’m thinking about someone I admire, Bob Goff. I first learned about Bob Goff through Don Miller of Business Made Simple and listened to Bob speak on the podcast. He is quite inspirational and I now enjoy following him on Instagram. Jamie was lucky enough to get to know Bob and this is what she writes about him…
“Bob taught me that we all have a microphone that we control in our own lives, and we get to choose the people we allow to speak into that microphone, and at what volume. We’re able to decide who to let speak into our lives, or who we hand our microphone to. It can change everything.”
I’ve read and learned a lot about how you ‘are’ the five people that are closest to you or that you spend the most time with. You become them, or at least parts of them, so be careful how you choose your friends, is the lesson there. In my years I’ve learned that you definitely are who you hang out with. So I love this about the microphone analogy, especially as you get older.
It makes more sense to think of it that way and who you get to turn the volume up on – the people that really love you and just spark you up. The less positive people sometimes still have to be in your life for whatever reason. It could be family, or colleagues – you may just want to turn their volume down a notch or two. They really shouldn’t be speaking for you. I think it’s a great metaphor.
#4: Lessons from an Idol
And then another quick story. Jamie met Meg Whitman, one of her idols. Meg is pretty well known as the CEO of Hewlett Packard, as well as several other very large companies. She’s also the Forbes-mentioned second richest woman in America. Jamie was obviously super excited to meet her. She goes through this whole story about how nervous she was in wanting to “blurt out” this question as she may not get another chance to ask it… and this is what happened.
Jaime asks:
“Meg, I have a question, and I might not ever get the shot again, so I’m gonna ask it. I’ve been blown away lately by how among many women, almost everyone has one thing in common. They’ve spent energy worrying about and being insecure about their body weight, or appearance. In fact, almost all of the incredibly successful executives I know, and other hugely successful women lawyers, CEOs etc. all admit that they often measure their self worth on any given day, by what dress size they fit into. Have you ever felt this way, or do you ever worry about these things?”
And this was Meg’s answer.
“No.”
“Something had to give. And with everything in my life I had to decide what had to give. I have kids, I have a career, I couldn’t keep my house the way Martha Stewart would. Things just have to give. And that wasn’t something I chose to worry about.”
How I Applied This Lesson Financially
Oh my god, I love that this extremely successful woman said this. I actually had made a similar deduction in my own life, years ago, when it came to finances. I remember just being worried about everything all the time. Worrying is really kind of a useless emotion because it’s not going to get you anywhere or get you anything. I couldn’t stand it. Maybe it’s Catholic guilt but I just worried about everything, especially money and finances. I finally remember deciding, “well, I can’t just keep worrying about everything all the time so instead, I’m going to focus all that energy on just making money and not worry about paying my bills.”
Here’s what I mean… (and I didn’t know if it was going to work but I tried it). I ended up setting all of my bills on autopay. And then I knew what amount that I needed in the account to cover those bills. So all my energy was just focused into making sure that I was able to put money in my account. Those bills were automatically going out anyway no matter what. So the transference of that worry energy just over to one side (money-making) really, really made a big difference in my life.
I know my analogy is a little different but it definitely worked for me. I’ve been telling people that since I came to that realization years ago and I think it works for some of them as well.
#5 REALLY Believe In Yourself
So the last thing I’m going to read is her closing paragraph which honestly is probably the best closing paragraph of any book I may have ever read. Or maybe it’s just speaking to me right now in my life. It brought me to tears.
Jamie concludes her story with this…
“It’s truly an honor to share with you some of my life’s greatest lessons in this book. Lessons I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way. To believe in the power of your own intuition. To believe that you’re more powerful than your opposition, including mean girls, and that balance is a lie. To believe in the power of your own microphone, and in knowing how to use it, who to give it to and who you need to turn the volume down on. To believe in the power of your WHY, and that your own authenticity is your superpower. To believe people when they show you who they truly are, believe in being brave and believe that haters are just confused supporters.
To believe in the power of living your values, and to value the power of asking for what you need. To believe that life isn’t meant to do alone, and to know that where you come from doesn’t determine where you’re going. To believe in giving what you need most, then watching in awe as it comes to you in full force. To believe in miracles, believe you are more than enough, and of course, believe in Oprah!!!”
Lol – She says that because she actually gets to meet Oprah one-on-one and she talks about that in the book – it’s such a great story. So again, here we go. Jamie Kern Lima – Believe It. If you don’t already have this book, get it, it’s fantastic. You can thank me later. 🙂
