"I DID THIS To Build A BILLION DOLLAR Business!" | Jamie Kern Lima & Lewis Howes

I'm the person that literally in my heart and soul managed to go from Denny's waitress to billion dollar entrepreneur because I learned to believe in myself and believe I belong in the room and overcome rejection, overcome fear, but I am.

Still a work in progress, right?

I think you gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness. Really? Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got my good friend Jamie Kern Lima in the house. Good to see you. So good to be here. Very excited. Very excited. You have an amazing story. and you've done some incredible things as an entrepreneur. And one of the things that I love about your story is that you had a lot of rejection early on. So I want to dive into the topic about rejection first before I go more into your story. What do you think is the right way for people to look at rejection as a positive thing as opposed to something that is the end of their opportunity, end of their life, end of their moment for going after their dream? How did you look at your rejections as a good thing?

I love this question because honestly, I feel like people don't share this enough. And I feel like right now we see social media, we see everyone's highlight reel, we see all the outcomes. It's really why I wrote this book, to be honest, because if you Google my name, you see like, oh, Denny's Waitress to Billion Dollar Entrepreneur. And I get so many DMs, especially from women, Louis. So many DMs from people saying like, oh, did you get lucky? Or was that easy? Or did you have connections? And it's like, oh wow, if we don't share the rejections and the real story and the real journey, then I feel like people feel like they're alone. and their own rejection and their own pain and all that. So yeah, it was, my journey has been filled with hundreds of nos, tons of rejection, and I feel like figuring out how to not take it personal has been huge on the business side of things. Like it's always hurt, to be honest, it's always hurt. But also, I believe, and no matter if someone believes in God or the universe or whatever, When I look back at everything I've gone through, especially this last 10-year window, there's a famous saying, Rejection is God's protection. You could say rejections is the universe's protection, right? Whatever applies to each person listening, but I believe it. And it's, I mean...

So that person shouldn't have said yes to you. It wouldn't have been the right fit for you.

It wouldn't have been the right fit.

I mean... Or the right timing or whatever.

And what's hard, and here's the hardest thing, is so many people actually never step out of their comfort zone because they're so afraid of rejection. Because it freaking hurts. It sucks when it happens, right? And sometimes it doesn't make sense and it doesn't feel fair. And I remember, you know, gosh, one rejection out of hundreds in my journey. Because, you know, I thought I was going to be a news anchor and I'll talk to the host my whole career. I love other people's stories. I just want to interview you right now. It's like since the time I was a little girl, it's all I wanted to do. And I was working in my dream job as a news anchor, and I started getting this skin condition called rosacea, which is bright red. And there's like bumps and all kinds of stuff. And I thought I was going through this big setback in my career, and I would be anchoring the live news, and I'd hear from the producer in my ear, like, there's something on your face, there's something on your face. And I'd be live, and they were like, you need to wipe it off, you need to wipe it off.

And I knew-- and it'd probably get worse.

Yeah, it's like spreading up more. You're like, ah. I'm like, ah, and I knew there wasn't anything I could wipe off. And I started going through this season of self-doubt where I started thinking, okay, am I gonna lose my job? Am I gonna lose viewers? Is my boyfriend still gonna think I'm cute? All those thoughts that we tell ourselves. And I started thinking I was in this big setback, but what it was really was a setup for what I was supposed to do. And I think so often our setbacks are setups. It's just hard to see it at the time. And I started, you know, trying every makeup out there from the most expensive to the least to everything. I couldn't find anything that works. And I made this decision to literally leave my dream job. Like, I think sometimes knowing when to let go of a dream is as important as knowing when to go after one. And I feel like so many people are always like, just don't give up. Just don't quit. But I actually think that doesn't always apply. I think that the victory is knowing when to hear yourself and trust yourself and let go of a dream or step into one. But what I didn't know is stepping into that dream would be faced with three years of constant rejection. So from the moment I quit my job and my husband and I wrote our business plan and our honeymoon flight to South Africa, got back, dove all in, put everything we had into a product. And once we finally had a product that worked for me, I just thought like, oh, it's gonna sell. It's just gonna do well, right? And it was literally three years of every single beauty retailer, like all the ones I love and the ones I thought, oh my gosh, like I put them on a pedestal and I thought, oh, they're gonna love this because it works, you know? And so I would send it to Sephora and Ulta and QVC, all the places, and they all said, Like every one of them said no.

For three years.

For three years. We got down to under $1,000 in our bank account, which was our company and personal combined. Literally it was no after no. And I mean one no that stands out just to share this, because anyone listening part of your greatness community, like dealing with rejection, dealing with setbacks, dealing with, it's hard when you check in with your gut, you feel like you're supposed to be going after this dream or creating something or launching the podcast or creating the product or whatever. It's hard when you feel like it's the right thing, but then there's no proof of success around you.

No one's buying into it.

No one's buying into it and then your own self-doubt starts taking over, right? And when you have experts telling you they don't believe in what you're doing, that's hard. And I remember one moment in particular when we got interest from a private equity firm. And I was like, I was so so excited because we had had so many no's and I thought, okay, if they invest in us, and this was a big private equity firm, they invest in a lot of consumer product companies that we see at the grocery store. Sure. They're like household names, right? And they invest in a lot of them pre-revenue and then they become big companies. I'm like, oh, you know, if they invest in us, A, I won't go bankrupt. B, maybe they can use their leverage to get us into these stores that are telling us no, they don't want our product. And so we started the meeting process with the investors and went through the diligence phase and presented our product pipeline and showed our budgets. And I'll never forget the final meeting. And my husband, Paulo, who you know, he was there, and then the head investor was like three feet from me. And I thought it was going to be a yes. I was so excited. And he literally was like, Thank you. We want to congratulate you on your product. that it's awesome, we want to wish you the best, but it's a no. We're going to pass on investing in It Cosmetics. And I was like, okay, can you tell me why? Right? Because like feedback is usually, I mean feedback's usually a gift, not always. And I was like, can you tell me why? And he looked at me and he's literally three feet from me and he says, do you really want me to be honest with you? And I said, yes, please. And he says, I just don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. Right? And so this was a moment, when you said that, I don't think women will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight, it was this moment where I was looking at him, right? And it was almost like watching his lips move in slow motion. And I remember two big things from this. I remember my whole body flooded with a lifetime of body doubt and self-doubt.

And God doubt, you say?

Yeah, God doubt. but it felt like I was staring my fear straight in the eye. It was almost like it wasn't even about him in this moment. And I knew that two things. I remember that and I remember this moment in my gut that told me, even though I was in pain at the time and it hurt and this was a big rejection, I also felt this really strong moment of feeling like he's wrong. Like a knowing, like a deep knowing. but I also knew that if I was ever going to prove that, I would also have to truly believe it, you know what I mean? And it was tough. I went to my car and cried and didn't know what we were going to do. But one thing that-- and I did a lot of things wrong in my journey, and I share those in the book. But one thing that I did right was through all the rejections, I actually never took them personal. And with him-- and with him, I felt no anger toward him. and I had this big moment. So two big things happened. And then I wanted to, oh, I'm gonna tell you the full circle. The whole rejection is God's protection and rejection is the universe's protection. I have to tell you what happened. This is for anyone listening going through a setback or rejection right now. Because I have hundreds of stories like this now after building this company and hiring over a thousand employees and all the stuff that we've done on the way. Okay, so two things. One is when I was creating this company, right? and you know you hear about a lot of you've had people on your show talking about finding your why and finding your mission and all that kind of thing and everyone knows about that and or a lot of people have read about it and I think knowing your why is important for any goal or any dream. But two things happened when I created the brand and I was like why can't I find any product that works? Like I don't understand this. This is when I was working as a news anchor. I had this moment where I realized oh my gosh my whole life Even dating, even when I was a little girl growing up, all I ever saw was TV ads or magazine ads. I loved them. Like, I loved them and I always saw the models and I always like aspired to look that way, but they all always had flawless skin. I never saw anybody that had rosacea or any type of challenges. And I realized two things, that I always had aspired to look like them, but they also always made me feel not enough because You could have looked like them. Yeah, what was called beautiful, I didn't see myself in, right? And so I had this whole idea, which is part of why all the retailers were saying no in the early years. I had this idea to not just create products that work, but let me show models, all different people, every age, skin tone, skin challenge, gender identity, skin problems, like let me just show real people and prove this product works. Let me go on QVC and prove it live. Let me show my own rosacea. if people can see people that look like them, this just makes sense to me. But all the experts said it didn't. So back to me standing there with this investor saying, I don't think people will buy makeup from someone who looks like you with your body and your weight. After I went in my car and cried, like it's rejection always still hurts. I also just remember feeling like, wow, he's passing on investing in my business. He's making a business decision because of exactly why I'm starting this company. He's just as much, I don't want to call it a victim, but just as much impacted by the definition of beauty that's out there. And he's literally passing on investing in my company because of it. And so it drove my deep why for why I was building this company. and I took that rejection as fuel for like, oh, this has got to change, right? And for me, it was like, let me build a company where we show all types of beauty, where it wasn't even just about selling product, it wasn't about solving my own problems. And even though I want to help millions of women and all that, the real why was like, can I shift culture and beauty for every little girl out there who's about to start doubting herself? Right. And every grown person who still does. And so that drive fueled it. And not being afraid of rejection is so huge. And it's really huge for women because it prevents a lot of people from even trying. And it hurts. It always sucks. It never feels fun. But I got rejected so many times on this journey. And to finish this thought about how rejection is God's protection. So the day this dude tells me this, right? Fast forward six years, and the day that L'Oreal bought our business for $1.2 billion cash, it was all over, they had to announce it 'cause they're a public company. So it was on the Wall Street Journal homepage. It was everywhere. And I got an email from him. He email me. Wow, what did he say? I got an email. He said, congratulations. I'm so, so happy for you. I was wrong.

And-- had you stayed in touch in those six years?

Huh-. Not with him, with everyone else that rejected me though, I did often. So I was always like, it's going to be a yes, it's going to be a yes. With him, here's, and this was six years until this moment happened. But what I realized that day is when we talk about rejection is protection, I was so desperate in those moments when I wanted him to invest that we probably would have sold him the majority of the company for no money, because he didn't believe in us. Two things. We found out we would have been his most successful investment in his firm's history. But then also, because he didn't believe in us, and also we got a lot more rejection on the way, by the time that L'Oreal acquired our company, we were still the largest shareholders. So it was like, okay. So I was so glad he didn't believe in me then. But when rejection happens, it's not easy to see it in that moment. It always does hurt, but I always believe.

I was gonna ask you, do you feel like if anyone would have said yes or invested or whatever from him or anyone before that, do you think it would have been successful if people did believe in you?

I mean, there were definitely people along the way that did believe. There were. I just believe in the timing of things, and I believe in trusting our gut and going with our knowing. you know, with everything.

And what if he would have said, yeah, I'm going to give you a million dollars or whatever it is to invest and I'm going to take this much equity, do you think it would have been as successful of an exit or you think you would have been driven to serve more at a higher level with that support and with that backing or would it have made you more complacent in some ways during that process?

I don't know. I mean, I think the only thing that would have gotten in my way is if he owned the majority and wasn't a great partner. 'Cause I wasn't driven by the money. Like, I wasn't. I was driven by, you know, what I know I'm born capable of giving. And also just, I loved our mission. I knew what we were doing. We were shifting culture inside the beauty industry. And, you know, there were a lot of people that believed in us along the way. And, I mean, with L'Oreal, we got a champion inside of L'Oreal three years before we actually did the deal. And she kept wanting them to like, you know, she's like, Look at what this brand's doing. Look at what this brand's doing. We would do meetings and get, they'd end in no. So it was It was three years of that as well until they acquired us. But yeah, there were people that got it. And then a lot of us learned this lesson. Once we did get into all the retailers and started doing really well, then they all believe in you.

Of course, yeah. Once you get results.

Yeah. When you make people money, they like you.

Of course. They want to be a part of your success. You know what's interesting? There's a meme online of a kid of a little child learning to walk. and it says something like, you know, when a child is learning to walk, they fall over hundreds of times. And they hit their head and they scrape their knee and they, you know, they cry and these things, but at no point do they think maybe this walking thing isn't for me. They don't say, I'm just gonna crawl for the next 80 years of my life and just crawl everywhere. They eventually keep getting up and they learn to walk. They balance, they hold on to something.

Right? Yeah.

You've got kids and so you've seen this firsthand. They never stop trying to walk. Why do you think we as adults stop trying to walk into our dreams or into opportunities when we hit ourselves one time, we fall one time? Why do you think we stop when as kids we never did when we're learning to walk?

I think I've never answered this question before so I'm just going to pour it right out to you my like how I really feel about that. I think kids have a knowing inside, an instinct. They want to walk and they just think that they're going to figure it out. They see people around them walking and they just do it. It's like a knowing and nothing's telling them not to trust themselves. And I think that as we grow up, I think that everything around us starts to tell us not to trust ourselves. Like self-doubt is so huge. We get other and just to use my own example and some of the stories that I share for the first time ever in the book is like, It's like when you're in the spot of all the experts telling you they don't believe in you, or it could be other people's opinions telling you they don't believe in you. It could be literally no proof of your own dream or idea that it's going to be successful. In those first three years of this journey of it cosmetics, there was no proof. It was like no signs, other than when women were starting to post around before and afters and spread the word online, which was great.

You were getting some sales.

Yeah, we were doing like two to three orders a day on our website.

Were you doing like, you know, were you going and sharing, showing it in person at a live events? Were you doing QVC at this point?

No, not so QVC was our big, big, big first yes, and probably the scariest, probably the biggest life and business decision, business lesson I've ever learned.

When did that come? After three years?

Yeah, after three years.

So the first three years were you going to grocery stores and I tried everything. Going to fairgrounds.

Anything, yeah. Farmers market. We couldn't afford to advertise. Right. Any different beauty event, I mean we would, my friends and family would walk into any Ulta or Sephora and be like, and they knew they needed to get in, but they'd be like, can I talk to the manager? Do you carry IT Cosmetics? They're like, it what? They go, oh IT Cosmetics is so good, and they would try to hustle for us.

It's very Sarah Blakely-esque where her friends would go and like place orders and make it all sell out.

And it was that, it was just trying to hustle. And the other thing is all the no's, like every time Sephora or QVC or Ulta would say no, that was one thing is that I didn't take it personal, right? That was one, I did a lot of things wrong. That was one thing I did right. And the second they would say no, it hurt. It sucked, obviously. But it's like, okay, I would literally, Louis, I would decide to believe it's going to be a yes. And I behaved accordingly. I would say, okay, thank you. But one day it will be a yes. And I'm so excited for when that happens. What I would do is every time we get a press placement or we would be launching a new product or whatever, I would send that buyer who kept saying no. And I'd be like, Great news! We just got, you know, in this magazine or whatever. And one day when your customers get to try this in their store, they're gonna love it. I think they probably thought it was crazy, but I just decided to believe.

You've got to be relentless in following up, too.

Yeah.

Hope that they find out about you and you've got to constantly be following up the way you did, right?

Yeah.

They weren't, they're not gonna look at the magazine and see it. They're not gonna see your sales numbers unless you tell them over and over again.

Yeah, and I know you're big on LinkedIn and everything. I would literally scour LinkedIn for any person who worked at Sephora or Ulta or QVC. Find them and message them. Everything and then try to send them a sample. I mean, it was like everybody. It was And we couldn't afford to hire anybody. So we got so lean and so scrappy that in the early years, my middle name's Marie. And so Marie got her own email address. So Marie@cosmetics.com was like head of customer service. And I would pitch all the Good Morning America, I'd be like, Our founder's available for, you know what I mean? It was just like hustling and trying to figure it out. And every time I would check in with my gut though, no matter how many times I got knocked down, Even though there's no proof around me, I still kept feeling like this was what I was supposed to do. And I made the decision to trust it through those years of no proof around me. And that's the hard thing. And I feel like when you talk about why does a little kid keep trying to walk, but why do most of us just give up? I feel like that we don't, I feel like so many people either have never heard their own gut, or haven't heard it in a long time. And then sometimes we hear it and we don't trust ourselves, right? And instead of putting our own intuition on a pedestal, we put things like other people's opinions or what our partner is telling us to do or our own self-doubt or what the experts are saying or the lack of proof of success around us.

How do you think we learn to trust ourselves more?

I think that we have to want to. I think we have to make the decision that we need to want to. And that's hard because you know what? The truth is, it's way easier to stay in our comfort zone. It's way easier to make the circle around us happy and comfy and not fearful. It's way easy. And I think that chips away at our soul when we do that. I think every person knows, like I think we know deep down inside if we're created for more and we're supposed to give more, if we have more inside of us to give or to serve or to love or to live. I think we all know that deep down inside. and I think that if we don't do something about it, I think it chips away at our soul, and I think we end up literally talking ourselves out of our own truth, and literally never becoming the person we're born to be. I know that sounds dramatic, but I think it's true. And I think that's the easy route. So I think the first thing.