Jamie Kern Lima (0:00)

Imagine if one tool that's a simple question to ask yourself every day can transform your confidence, your self belief and your entire life. I am so excited for this episode with you today as I'm sharing the commencement speech I just gave to Columbia University where I share how this one question I ask myself daily has changed everything in my life. And it can for you too. What will you do with the power that is you? It's one of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself because at its core, it's a reminder that you hold so much power inside of you. And you do. I can't wait for you to hear this episode and let me know how you're gonna start using this question in your life and whether today you're listening for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you. And I wanna welcome you to the Jamie Kern Lima Show Podcast family. Thank you so much for being here. And can you take two seconds and do me a favor, just hit the follow button on the app that you're listening on. Thank you so much. It truly means so much to me. You can also get inspiration into your inbox from me to you for free. You can join my newsletter community@jamiekernlima.com Also, this incredible episode today, it's not just for you and me. Please share this with every single that you know who might need some inspiration today. Or perhaps a boost in their ability to trust the power inside of them. Because this powerful tool and episode can truly impact my yours and their life too. Jamie Kern Lima is her name.

Columbia University Speaker (1:46)

Everybody needs Jamie Kern Lima in their life. Jamie Kern Lima Jamie, you're so inspiring. Jamie Kern LUMA, Class of 2025 Congratulations. When I think about today, I think about the word power. The power of the degree that you've earned. The power of everything you've learned inside and outside of the classroom at this incredible legendary institution that is Columbia Business School. And the power of your real world work and life experience that have gotten you to this very moment right here. And the immeasurable power of possibility that lies ahead in your future. The power of all of these is now stacked together in your favor as a platform to stand firmly on and as a springboard to launch from into your vision and into your dreams for what's ahead. And today, perhaps more than any other day in your life so far, you're best positioned to ask yourself this purpose defining question and to answer it with bold, uninhibited vision. What will you do with the power that is you? This question helped me believe that where I came from and even my past mistakes didn't have to determine where I was going and along with my faith helped me believe my dreams were possible. Even on the days when it felt like nothing was going my way, or the days when I was tempted to tell myself lies like I don't have what it takes, I'm not enough and big dreams like this don't happen to people like me and maybe I should just take that other job because it feels super safe, but it doesn't feel in alignment with what I was created for what will you do with the power that is you? It's one of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself because at its core it's a reminder that you hold so much power inside of you. And you do. I used to ask myself this question when I was waitressing tables at Denny's and had big dreams of launching a business but was also dealing with so much self doubt. I would lean on this question when I needed to believe I was worthy of launching a company in my living room. And while later enduring hundreds and hundreds of no's and rejections for years and I needed the strength to keep going, I would later lean on this question when I needed a North Star of what came a rapidly scaling company during a hyper growth trajectory. And I consulted this question when deciding to sell the business I started in my living room to l' Oreal in what became a billion dollar deal and their largest US acquisition date. Go Columbia. What will you do with the power that is you? It's a privilege of a lifetime that you get to decide the answer to that question and yet so many people end up not living their answer to that question. It's so easy with all the pressure that comes with life and even with the privilege and power you've worked so hard to earn. To lose touch with our power. To start. To choose certainty over calling. To choose fulfilling other people's expectations over fulfilling our purpose. To play it safe. To check the box to fit the mold. To succumb to the pressure of getting the right job. The pressure to pay off loans, the pressure to make your family proud. The pressure to exceed the curve. The pressure to win on paper even if it means losing yourself. The pressure of climbing the ladder even if your gut tells you might be leaning against the wrong wall. My challenge today is to dare to trust the knowing and the power that's in inside of only you. The one that guides you not to what you can do, but to what you were created for. Because pressure never stops. But the real pain doesn't come from pressure. It comes from regret, from ignoring your gut, from silencing the whisper inside, from doubting the power that's inside of you, from not answering the call that has only your name on it. Stories are one of the most powerful ways to unite us together, and I want to share a story that I hope you can lean on when you face challenges ahead that are inevitable of anyone Going after Big dreams When I got into Columbia Business School, my mom cried. Neither of my parents attended college, and they knew without saying I would be the first to change the course of history for my family. When B school started, I quickly discovered I was learning as much from the alumni I would meet and as much from my fellow students as I did also inside the classroom. And so to try to amplify that, I began interviewing them for the school paper. Bottom line, I loved it so much and I started to get this whisper or this knowing that said I'm supposed to go into journalism as as my first career out of B school, and I made the decision to trust it. In 2004, when the average starting salary of a Columbia MBA was six figures, I took a job for $23,500 working in a small town in Washington State anchoring the news. I'm pretty sure I destroyed the curve and said yes to one of the lowest starting salaries in the history of Columbia Business School. A few years in, I was moving up in markets and loving it, but didn't realize my dreams were about to take a tumble and a massive detour. See, while anchoring the news live one day, I hear in my earpiece from the producer, there's something on your face. There's something on your face. You need to wipe it off. You need to wipe it off. I knew what it was. I have a skin condition that's called rosacea. There's no cure for it. It gets really red and bumpy and until that moment, I'd always been able to just cover it up with makeup. No big deal. When I glanced down live on TV in that moment, it was during a commercial break and I saw if you imagine desert clay cracking and red coming through, that was what was happening under the hot HD lights. My rosacea was coming through in live television. I tried to cover it up and for the first time ever, the makeup didn't work. And this turned into a really long season of self doubt where I'd be live on television every time thinking, like, am I going to get fired? And every time I go on and hear in my earpiece. Jamie, it's still there. It's still there. I spent most of my paycheck just trying to find something that would work every product out there and nothing would. And then one day I felt this whisper. Maybe you've had a whisper like this in your life. It was a whisper that said, if you cannot find anything that works for you, why don't you figure out how to create something that does? So my gut, my intuition, my knowing said, you can do this. You can start a business and figure out how to find the best chemist and make an amazing product. It's probably going to help so many people if you do. But my self doubt said, oh, but you've got no money. You don't know anyone in the beauty industry. You are not qualified. I made the decision to dare to trust my gut, to trust my knowing over my self doubt. I also leaned on my Columbia Business School network. I called every alumni in the database that I could find, asking their advice. And then my husband, Paulo, he's right over there. CBS Class of 04 alum, he was working in investment. Yes, he's over here. He was working in investment banking. And he and I both decided to quit our jobs. We poured every penny we had into starting a company called IT Cosmetics in our living room. What we did not know is from the moment we went all in, it would be more than three years before we could even afford to pay ourselves a single penny. It would be hundreds and hundreds of no's and rejections. And during this journey, you know, I realized even though there were thousands of beauty companies out there, a lot of them I loved. I had never seen a company showing women with skin issues, you know, bright red, bumpy skin or whatever it might be. And then I also realized from the time I was a little girl, I would watch those beauty ads and I loved them. I always aspired to look like them, but deep down inside, they always made me feel like I wasn't enough. So when we launched IT Cosmetics, we had this huge, wild, crazy vision to literally change the beauty industry and to instead of using airbrushed, photoshopped images and models, you know, we wanted to use real people like me, every age and shape and size and skin tone and skin challenge and call them beautiful and mean it. But it wasn't being done at the time and no one thought it would work, especially all the experts. Every single retail store said no. And so many of them said, if you have any shot at selling products in our store, you have to use images of unattainable aspiration, they'd always say those words, which means you can't even look like that because it's not real, right? And it's like everyone was doing that at the time. But I wanted to change that for every little girl out there who's about to see those ads and start doubting herself and every grown woman and person who still does. But literally no one thought it would work. And it is scary to trust yourself, right? Especially when no one around you seems to think that you're right. And after a few years of non stop no's, literally we had no money left. There was a huge moment that happened. I'd always dreamed of us going on qvc, which is a live television shopping channel. It's broadcast to 100 million homes across the country. And when you have a product, QVC is a huge deal because they can sell more there in 10 minutes than in most national store chains across the entire country in a year. So it's massive. And I got word that the head of QVC Beauty, who's a legend, a guy named Alan Burke, he wanted to have a call with me. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, I've been sending them so many samples for years and right now, as we're down to no money left, I have no idea how we're gonna keep going. Like, this is it. This could change everything. And I remember when I got the call, I was so pumped up, I was like pacing around our office, which was our living room, power posing, trying to tell myself, okay, they'll be lucky to have us. And when I answered the call, he said, hello, Jamie, this is Alan Burke with qvc. And he said, listen, I wanted to call you myself and let you know that we've received your samples, all of them. And I've had a meeting with the entire buying team and it is unanimous that you are not the right fit for QVC or for our customers. And I remember in that moment, well, the truth is, tears started streaming down my face. But I went into re pitching again. I'm like, oh, but Alan, I am the right fit. And he thanked me for loving QVC and said, it's a no. I wanted it to be a yes so bad at the time. And we had been getting so many rejections for years and I really had hoped that this would be it, but it wasn't. So we kept going. And barely keeping the company alive, we continued to get rejection after rejection. In fact, one potential investor from a really well known private equity firm, we were both Hoping this would be our saving grace. He loved our product. And we did meeting after meeting after meeting, went to the diligence phase, you guys. The very end of it, the final meeting, he says, congratulations, you should be so proud of this product. But it's a no. We're gonna pass on investing in cosmetics. And when I asked him why, I remember he got really quiet and he says, you want me to be really honest with you? And he said, I just don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. That one I cried in bed for three days after. But here's the thing, and here's the key is every time that we would meditate or pray and get really, really still, like, I get this feeling inside that said, you're supposed to keep going. You're supposed to keep going. And I trusted that voice and trusted the power inside of me. And I'm sharing this because my hope and prayer today is that you do that too. Every single step of the way, outside of this room, and to trust it over all the nos that might be happening all around you like they were for us. So after years of countless rejections and nos, it finally happened. We got one single yes that had the power to change everything. QVC finally gave us a yes. Then I learned we would get one shot, one shot to go live on QVC to present our product in this 10 minute window and either hit their sales goal or not come back. I learned we'd have to sell over 6000 units of product in a 10 minute window. Live on air, y' all. We were doing one to two orders a day on our website. That's what we were doing. And we had to sell over 6,000 units. And then I learned it's a consignment offer. What that meant is we would somehow have to figure out how to pay for manufacture, ship in, pass regulatory compliance, pass qc, all of the inventory. Then I go live on air in 10 minutes. If it doesn't sell, we take it all back and we're not paid. So you should never say yes to that, ever, right? But we were so desperate and we decided to say yes and go all in. The only problem was we were out of money. So we applied. We went to try and get an SBA loan. 22 banks said no, and they should have. And the 23rd bank, California bank and Trust, gave us an SBA loan to cover that purchase order and a little bit more. We hired third party consultants who are amazing at helping so many people sell their products. But they all said the same thing. They said, you need to use what they considered beautiful models to sell the products. And here's the thing, like, you know, I have skin issues. They wanted us to use everyone that had no skin issues, that were the same, you know, skin tone. They all looked like they were barely 18. But I knew that doing that, doing what everyone else was doing isn't what I was created for. And it's not what you're created for either. And I knew I'd rather play my heart out fully and try to change the beauty industry. Even if we sold nothing, I'd rather stand for something than sell a whole ton of product, but stand for nothing. So my one big shock came, and it literally took everything inside of me to dare to believe and to go for it. And in my one big shot, we were teetering on bankruptcy at the time, after years of hearing no's, we cast models of every age. One in her 70s who had hyperpigmentation, one in her 20s who was dealing with acne. Models of every skin tone and skin challenge, like me. And I wiped my makeup off on live television, showed my bright red, bumpy skin, and literally everything was on the line. And right as I was standing there.