Rejection to billion-dollar success: Jamie Kern Lima shares work trip at UVU commencement

OREM — Utah Valley College graduates have been welcomed into the 2024 ceremony Thursday with cheers and screams from household and pals calling out names and leaping up and all the way down to get their family members’ consideration in a crowd of a whole lot.

UVU President Astrid Tuminez strolled down the road of graduates, waving pompoms excessive within the air, to sign that lengthy examine hours, homework assignments and sophistication lectures have been over — it was time to have a good time.

The graduating class consisted of 10,197 graduates, who took with them 12,489 levels and certificates.

Coming from varied backgrounds, graduates’ ages ranged from 16 to 71 and comprised 26 out of Utah’s 29 counties, 48 states and territories, and 42 nations.

“That represents braveness and risk-taking and perception in your self and what you may grow to be,” Tuminez mentioned. “Not solely will we educate essentially the most Utahns, UVU graduates essentially the most Utahns within the state. Our legislators can be so joyful to listen to that.”

Creating an unstoppable mindset

Earlier than creating what would finally grow to be the biggest luxurious make-up model within the nation, graduation speaker Jamie Kern Lima skilled years of failures and rejections. At Thursday’s ceremony, she shared her entrepreneurial journey as this yr’s honorary doctorate of enterprise recipient.

In her speech, she invited the graduates to ask themselves three questions.

“These three questions helped me go from working as a struggling waitress (with) nonstop self-doubt, to believing I used to be worthy of launching an organization in my front room, overcoming a whole lot of ‘nos’ and rejections for years, and finally constructing that firm to over 1,000 workers, promoting it to L’Oreal in a billion-dollar deal and changing into the primary girl to carry a CEO title of a model of their greater than 100-year historical past,” Lima mentioned.

Years earlier than promoting her product on over 1,000 reside reveals on the televised buying channel QVC, the corporate’s director of magnificence merchandising, Allen Burke, known as her and instructed her it was a unanimous “no” from the entire board.

Just a few years later into her magnificence firm’s journey, Lima mentioned she was contacted by a well known investor, and all the things was moving into the correct path till their remaining assembly when she was handed one other rejection:

“He mentioned, ‘Would you like me to be actually sincere with you?’ And I mentioned, ‘Sure, please.’ And he is actually 3 toes in entrance of me, and he says, ‘I simply do not suppose ladies will purchase make-up from somebody who seems such as you together with your physique and your weight,'” she recalled.

She defined that listening to these phrases was like going through her largest fears straight within the eye.

“His painful rejection echoed in my thoughts typically, and I needed to deliberately reassign its that means. I might inform myself again and again (that) rejection is God’s safety. And I am unable to wait to see what superb issues are forward that can be so a lot better than if that investor had mentioned sure,” she mentioned.

Six years later, she mentioned she lastly bought the prospect to promote her product on QVC and bought out her total stock within the 10-minute phase.

After she acquired the L’Oreal deal, she mentioned she acquired one other name from Burke, this time to congratulate her and admit he was fallacious.

“He finally retired from QVC after working there for many years. And when he did, we employed him in a paid place on our advisory board,” Lima mentioned. “So the man that rejected me was now working for me.”

“Another person’s doubts about you might be no indication of your potential success. It isn’t. And I actually need these phrases to take root with you endlessly,” she instructed the UVU graduates.

“They may name you underestimated till they name you unstoppable. And I do know this as a result of I’ve lived it,” Lima added. “Folks would possibly name you ‘rejected,’ after which in the future, they only would possibly find yourself calling you ‘boss.'”