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What Jamie Kern Lima Hopes Women Entrepreneurs Learn From Her New Book


As part of Forbes Ask the Expert, associate editor at Forbes and the editor of ForbesWomen, Maggie McGrath spoke to Jamie Kern Lima, the founder of IT Cosmetics, a listee on Forbes’s Richest Self-Made Women’s list and author of the new book, Believe It.

“It was a long process,” Ms. Lima shared on her experience in writing her book. “I wrote every single word myself 80,000 words, for every entrepreneur out there, for every person dealing with all the other side of it, the side of running a business that a lot of people don’t talk about, which is like our own self-doubt. How do we handle rejection? And how are we resilient when other people literally look at us and tell us we’re not going to make it? Or we’re not enough? Or we’re not getting traction in our business? And believe it’s the first time I ever share all the stories behind the stories of what you do on your own journey? When they read the book, I hope everyone else believes it feels less alone, more enough, more fired up to handle rejection and get through it and step into the possibility of all their own dreams. So I’m excited. Feels good that it’s out there!”

Key Takeaways From Their Conversation

Dealing with Fear and Comparison: The topic of second-guessing yourself and not caring about what other people think was a theme in their conversation and one Ms. Lima hones in on in her book.

In Believe It, Ms. Lima shares an anecdote about being in a New York City gift shop when a friend of hers spotted, “… this poster-sized photo of a squirrel with giant balls. She yelled across the store, ‘This is us! Jamie, this is us. We’re like this squirrel. Fearless. We’ve got big balls like this squirrel.”

Ms. Lima explained, “The squirrel is inside this book. This squirrel has helped me make some of the most important business decisions on just going for it.”

She shared that her entrepreneurial journey went through what it means to deal with comparison and competition. After years of rejection and being told “no” repeatedly, when she finally got a “yes,” and her business started gaining traction, not everyone was happy or supportive about it. “I sometimes think in life, friends or our own family see our success through the lens of their own fear,” Lima said. “It sucks when people aren’t kind, and they’re not rooting for us. And they make you feel like you don’t belong or you’re excluded. You can be the most badass entrepreneur in the world, but it still hurts your feelings.”

Ms. Lima added that when it comes to competition, the only one we should compete with is the person we’re born capable of becoming. You have to stay true to that through-line of authenticity in your business, as your most significant threat to your business isn’t what the competition’s doing. It’s if you let it influence your own decisions. She encourages you to stay true to yourself and be the squirrel – fearless!

The Importance of Trusting Your Authentic Self: “I do believe that when you learn how to hear yourself and trust yourself, that is one of the most critical things to success,” Ms. Lima shared. “A big part of ‘believe it, is how to do that? I just think I had to go through the journey of learning to believe that my own success was real and was possible.”

She went on to say that for every entrepreneur who has an idea, protecting it is essential. If it’s authentic to you, and if your brand DNA is original, no one can mess with you if they can try to copy you all they want.

Owning Your Power: In their conversation, Ms. McGrath disclosed that when Forbes came out with the richest self-made women list, Ms. Lima was at first hesitant to embrace that title. She asked Ms. Lima if she could speak to the importance of women owning their power, even if it’s in the uncomfortable area of talking about wealth and money.

“As women, so many of us are learned to like play it small, and call it being humble, and call it humility,” Lima explained. “We learn to bond over problems like, ‘Oh, my pants don’t fit. My house is a mess. I’m a hot mess.’ We learned to dim our light to get belonging. I realized I was dimming my light and calling it being humble and thinking that was the right thing to do. And so it was a big mindset shift for me. And I talked a lot about that in the book, especially as women.”

Going From Underestimated to Unstoppable

On the Believe It Website, it says, “If you’ve ever doubted yourself or felt truly underestimated, this book will inspire a new kind of belief and confidence in you and your dream. Now that the book has been released, Ms. Lima shared that she’s starting to hear back from people, especially women and entrepreneurs that are letting her know that this intention is resonating. “I hope that by the end of the book, they found themselves rooting for themselves,” Ms. Lima stated. “That’s what makes me cry – that’s why I wrote this book.”





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