#217 Estée Lauder

What I learned from rereading Estée Lauder: A Success Story by Estée Lauder. Watch Runnin' Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love by Bill Gurley. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ----[21:14] I sometimes wonder if I had set my heart on selling tassels, cars, furniture, or anything else but beauty, would I have risen to the top of a profession? Somehow I doubt it. I believed in my product. I loved my product. [32:07] Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever became a success without taking chances.[39:24] I was single-minded in the pursuit of my dream.[44:38] Despite all the naysayers, there was never a single moment when I considered giving up. That was simply not a viable alternative.[55:59] We took the money we had planned to use on advertising and invested it instead in enough material to give away large quantities of our products. [1:02:20] Never underestimate the value of an ally. Today they call it networking—this sharing between colleagues. It is one of the most powerful tools in the business. [1:12:22] It's not enough to have the most wonderful product in the world. You must be able to sell it.[1:15:03] Love your career or else find another. [1:19:05] Visualize. If in your mind's eye you see a successful venture, a deal made, a profit accomplished, it has a superb chance of actually happening. Projecting your mind into a successful situation is the most powerful means to achieve goals. If you spend time with pictures of failure in your mind, you will orchestrate failure. Countless times, before the event, I have pictured a heroic sale to a large department store every step of the way and the picture in my mind became a reality. I've visualized success, then created the reality from the image. Great athletes, business people, inventors, and achievers from all walks of life seem to know this secret.[1:21:34] I've always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. I kept my eye on the target. I've never allowed my eye to leave the particular target of the moment. ---- Founders Notes gives you the ability to tap into the collective knowledge of history's greatest entrepreneurs on demand. Use it to supplement the decisions you make in your work. Get access to Founders Notes here. ---- “I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — Gareth Be like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00David Senra?

  You never realize that you're making a memory at the moment something's actually happening. Stranger still, the strongest memories are those you never dreamed would survive and would be inextricably linked to your future. Momentous happenings can lie buried in the past, while tiny, needle-sharp, split seconds sometimes stay with you forever. They happen in a moment, and they tug at your memory endlessly. They live always just below your consciousness. I remember the woman at the Florence Morris Beauty Salon, where I had my first cosmetics concession. She was thoughtless and cruel, and will always remain that way in my mind. Maybe she was a catalyst for good in the end.

• 0:41David Senra?

  Maybe I wouldn't have become Estee Lauder if it hadn't been for her. At the moment she was cast in my memory, to last there forever, I despised her. Simply thinking about that incident brings back a twinge of pain. She was having her hair combed, and she was lovely. I was very young and vulnerable, and I loved beauty. I felt I wanted to make contact with her in some small way. "What a beautiful blouse you're wearing," I complimented her. "It's so elegant. Do you mind if I ask where you bought it?" She smiled. "What difference could it possibly make?" she answered, looking straight into my eyes. "You could never afford it." I walked away, heart pounding, face burning.

• 1:24David Senra?

  Never, never, never will anyone say that to me again, I promised myself. Someday, I will have whatever I want. That is an excerpt from the book that I just reread, and the one I'm going to talk to you about today, which is the autobiography of Estee Lauder. It's called "Estee: A Success Story Written by Estee Lauder." Okay, so the first time I read this book was about a year and a half ago, and it's originally Founder's Number 136. And the reason I decided to reread it right now actually has something to do with, one, my favorite talk on YouTube, and a lot of people that listen to this podcast. So I'm just going to explain this real quick, and then I'll jump into the book. So I've mentioned this talk over and over again, probably at least 10 times on the podcast throughout the years. It's by an investor called Bill Gurley.

• 2:06David Senra?

  And it's called Runnin Down a Dream: How to Succeed and Thrive in a Career You Love. I will definitely link to the YouTube video. I highly recommend. I don't, I probably watched it 10 times. It's had a big influence on how I approach specifically founders. And in the talk, Bill tells the story of five people that went to extreme lengths to run down a dream, to actually succeed at getting their dream job, getting their dream job, excuse me. And those people are Danny Meyer. I actually read Danny Meyer's autobiography. This is actually before I saw Bill's talk. It's Founder's Number 20. It's a fantastic autobiography. He's recommended to a friend of mine who's a restaurateur. I've mentioned that a couple of times on the podcast as well. It's called Setting the Table. And there's just a ton

• 2:47David Senra?

  of lessons that Danny applied to building out his restaurants and later on, I guess, after the book. He had founded Shake Shack, but I think when he published the book, they only had maybe a handful. There might only been one Shake Shack or just a handful. It definitely wasn't public and definitely wasn't the size, nearly the size that it is now. But anyways, it's a fantastic book. And if you want to learn more about that, that's back on Founder's 20. So it's Danny Meyer, Bobby Knight, the basketball coach, Bob Dylan, Sam Hincky, and Katrina Lake. And so there's something that Bill said in that talk that I took as a personal challenge and use as a North Star. And again, the entire talk is him observing how people have gone to extreme lengths. He talks about, listen, you've got one life to live. Most people pick one career path. Like, why not go and

• 3:29David Senra?

  actually do something you love? And he talks about how rare that is, the ability to do that. And so there's a bunch that jump out to me, but this is the thing that really influenced how I approached founders. So he says, be obsessive about learning in your field. Hone your craft constantly. Remember, he's talking about the traits of the five people that he's profiling. And I'm sure he's worked with a ton of other founders and investors as well that share these traits. Be obsessive in your field and you'll see how this ties together. And I'll explain why I'm doing Estee Lauder, because she has all these traits. She ran down a dream. She is one of, by far, one of the most formidable individuals I have ever come across. I've mentioned it multiple times on the podcast. I think modern day entrepreneurs sleep on Estee Lauder. I don't think I've ever met another entrepreneur that has actually read this book. And it's a shame.

• 4:13David Senra?

  It's only 220 pages. I dropped everything recently and read it in 24 hours, reread it in 24 hours. Her approach to her business could be applied to anything that you really love. I think I've mentioned on the podcast before, if there was some way to reincarnate SA Lauren, bring it back today, she'd be kicking entrepreneurs' ass up and down the court to this day. She's a person well worth studying, reading about, listening to podcasts about whatever the case may be. So this is what Bill says. Be obsessed about learning in your field. Hone your craft. And you'll see today that she did this. I mean, she was obsessed with beauty. She writes the book. So she discovers her true passion. I think she's around 12 years old at the time. She writes the book when she's 79 years old. She is still obsessed about the same thing. So be obsessed about learning in your field.

• 4:57David Senra?

  Hone your craft constantly. Understand everything you possibly can about your craft. Consider it an obligation. Hold yourself accountable. Keep learning over time. Study the history. Know the pioneers. Strive to know. Now, this is a really important part for what I'm about to tell you next. Strive to know more than anyone else about your particular craft. You should be the most knowledgeable person. It is possible to gather more information than someone else. He's like, and that's a really important point. You don't have to be a genius to gather more information. This is applicable to everybody. So he says, the good news, if you're going to research something, this is your lucky day. Information is freely available on the internet. The bad news, you have, and this is what really motivated me and held me accountable.

• 5:41David Senra?

  You have zero excuse for not being the most knowledgeable person in any subject you want. The information is right there at your fingertips. And so he's delivering this talk to the University of Texas MBA program. And the example he uses in his speech is esports. And he talks about, you know, over a specific period, I can't remember, maybe it was like six months, you can get to the top five if you really on the ball. I think within like two years, you should be the most knowledgeable person. And, you know, he's challenging you. He's like, come on, this is doable. You can just go out and gather more information than somebody else can in two years. You can definitely do that. And so this talk, along with reading Paul Graham's essay, I mean, all of Paul Graham's essays are fantastic, but Paul Graham has an essay called "How to Do What You Love."

• 6:25David Senra?

  I think Bill's talk on YouTube and Paul's essay on his website work really well together. They were really helpful to me, is what I'm saying. So let me bring to how I decided to do this book. Bill, who's obviously really well-known in the entrepreneur or startup investment community, winds up sending out a tweet a couple of days ago. He says, "Listen, LazyWeb, who are some of the world's expert on biographies? I'm looking for someone that is top 1% in number of biographies read." And here's the crazy part, because remember, it's Bill's talk that really focused. Okay, I have no, like, there's no excuses. You have to do this. Like, you're not serious if you can't just go out and collect more information.

• 7:05David Senra?

  And so you go through that thread, and I'm pretty sure the only person mentioned more than one time is my name in this podcast. I don't even know how many times, but it's a lot, which is mind-blowing to me, because this is literally the person that helped me, helped crystallize my thinking, just because he decided to publish this fantastic talk. And I don't even remember where I discovered it, but it's absolutely amazing. And so anyways, that led Bill to, I was able to exchange some messages with Bill because he wanted, he was researching, he's expanding on the ideas, this methodology that he discusses in the talk. And that's why, again, I'm going to link to the talk. I'd watch it as soon as you can, I'd watch it over and over again. I just want to give you the, like, his five-point methodology.

• 7:47David Senra?

  And again, the way he connects this with five life stories is just absolutely fantastic. And I think if you watch it, you'll be able to get inspiration from, and hopefully run down a dream. I think that's the holy grail, not to have a job, but to have a calling, a mission, something that you absolutely love to do. And so his five-point methodology is pick a career about which you have an immense passion. Now, remember all these, because I'm going to tie this into Estee Lauder, because one of the people I sent to, I let Bill know about, based on like the books and the research I've done, is Estee Lauder. She fits his methodology exactly. And you'll see how that, if you're able to steer your life into a career where you actually, where you have, let me just go through it, because then you just have a massive advantage.

• 8:30David Senra?

  He's a fantastic line, he's got a great, a bunch of great lines in the talk. But one of my favorite, he talks about that you can't fake this. And you'll see this one as we go through Estee's story today. But he says, if you run it, he talks about if you're running at something and you actually don't care about it, like it's going to be obvious that you're faking it. If you run at these things and don't have a passion for them, you're going to burn out eventually. This is very similar to what Steve Jobs told us, that half, his opinion is half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. And that one way to, like, most people give up, the one way to avoid giving up is that you actually love it. Because the reason you should love it is because it's going to be really difficult and you're going to be tempted many times throughout your career to give up, just like Steve was.

• 9:14David Senra?

  But the fact is, he loved what he was doing more than anything else in the world. He's actually, the example, I talked about this a few podcasts ago, I don't remember what episode, but it really struck me, I was at dinner one time and I was like, wow, there's a saying that you love what you do, and then there's like, there's levels to saying how much you love what you do. And at the most extreme level, I think I referenced Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett. I was like, because how much would you, when Steve Jobs was alive, how much would you have given him? How much money would you, like, how much money would you have to give him for him to stop working at Apple? How much money would you have to give Warren Buffett to stop working at Berkshire Hathaway? And the answer, of course, is there's no money, there's no amount in the world that would have stopped them. They love what they do, it was not about the money. So anyways, he says, if you run at those things, don't have a passion for them, you're

• 9:59David Senra?

  going to burn out eventually. It's not going to be where you want to be. The last point, you just can't fake it. Somebody else is sitting in some other MBA program that has a deep passion for whatever career path you're going down, and they're going to smoke you if you don't have it yourself. So number one, pick a career about what you have in a passion. Number two, be obsessive about learning in your field. And so that's funny, because in the talk, and Danny, towards the very end of the talk, he talks about Danny Meyer, uses this phrase, professional research constantly. I think it's an interesting phrase. Do you go home at night and study for yourself? I mean, I consider founders, professional research. I've stole that idea from Danny. In the past, you've heard me talk about personal, develop a personal curriculum. I think I've used personal research and development. Danny's words are better than that.

• 10:44David Senra?

  Professional research. Do you go home at night and study for yourself to improve your own skill set? And this is the most important part, what Bill says about, and what he learned, obviously, from Danny, his own life, most people don't do that. And that last part, most people don't do that. If you've ever seen the movie Seven, it's with Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, if I'm not mistaken. There's a scene in that movie I've never forgot. And it's Morgan Freeman is let into a library late at night by the security guards. He's doing research and the security guards are just upstairs. They're all sitting there instead of reading or taking advantage of the time that they have when they're just in an empty library at night. They just sit there, sit around and play poker. And Morgan puts his hat down and says, gentlemen, I'll never understand you.

• 11:25David Senra?

  All these books, the world of knowledge at your fingertips, and what do you do? You sit around and play poker all night. What Morgan says in the movie and Bill says in the talk, most people don't do that. It's the exact same idea. So be obsessed about learning your field is number two. Number three, develop mentors in your field. And so I say for people that are just getting started or don't have any mentors, use books, obviously, reading biographies. These people can act as mentors in historical contexts. I think the maxim that Charlie Munger uses for that is he says he makes friends with the eminent dead. Number four, embrace peer relationships in your field. And number five, always be gracious and pay it forward. Okay, so I'm going to jump into the book. I will point out to you where I think the parts where Este fits this methodology.

• 12:09David Senra?

  There's just a ton, like, there's just a ton to learn from her. She talks about, this is very fascinating, because one of the things is like you have to know the history of your industry. And she points out that she can build a business around things that are just not changing. She points out that beauty is an ancient industry. This is kind of an echo of the idea, one of my favorite ideas from Jeff Bezos about this idea is like, everybody talks about, oh, what's going to change in the next 10 years? He's like, you should ask the opposite question. What's not going to change in the next 10 years? Because those are the things that you can build a business around. And then when you invest time and energy, like, since they're going to be around for 10 years, you can actually get like return on that investment. So in Amazon's case, he's like, I ask myself, you know, in 10 years from now, I knew that

• 12:52David Senra?

  my customers would want, today and 10 years from now, they're going to want a wide selection of products, they're going to want low prices and fast deliveries. Like, no customer 10 years from now is going to come to me and say, hey, Jeff, I wish you delivered the packages a little slower. Hey, Jeff, I wish you raised your prices. So he says, I invested a lot of time and energy. In those principles. So it says, "Beauty has always commanded attention. In a perfect world, we'd all be judged by the sweetness of our souls. But in our less than perfect world, the woman who looks pretty has a distinct advantage. Beauty secrets have been passed on from mother to daughter through the ages. Primitive women painted their faces with berry juice. Nero's Roman beauties whitened their faces with chalk. From Cleopatra's fabled

• 13:36David Senra?

  milk bath to the ancient Egyptians' pot of black coal, from the rouge flapper cheeks of the 1920s, you can clearly see she studied the history of her industry. That's the point of this. All the way to Estee Lauder's Soft Magic. Women have always enhanced their God-given looks. It has always been so. It will always be so." And so on the very next page, we see another echo of another Jeff Bezos idea, this idea that missionaries make better products. "Beauty, for her, was a mission. It was not just a product." An interesting point. "Beauty is the best incentive to self-respect. You may have great inner resource, but they don't show up as confidence when you don't feel pretty. People

• 14:18David Senra?

  are more apt to believe you and like you when you look fine. And when the world approves, self-respect is just a little easier. The pursuit of beauty is honorable." And she goes on about this for quite a while. This is more on the history of beauty and its universal appeal, which again, this is just the way to think about this. This is the foundation which she built her business, or her empire, is a better way to put it. "Beauty is a fine invention. The art of inventing beauty, which is what she does, transcends class, intellect, age, profession, geography, virtually every cultural and economic barrier. There isn't a culture in the world that hasn't powdered, perfumed, and prettied its women. Love has been planted, wars won, and empires built on beauty. I should know. I'm an authority

• 15:00David Senra?

  on all three. Love, wars, and empires have been woven into my personal tapestry for decades. I've been selling beauty ever since I could recognize her."

• 15:11David Senra?

  So now she gets into the fact that one of her very first memories was about her mother's beauty. The first beauty I ever recognized was my mother Rose. My mother came to my father with six children, was 10 years older than he was. One can imagine just how beautiful she was. I adored my mother's hairbrush, her hand cream, and her gloves. My mother's skin remained soft and supple until the day she died. When she did die, did die at age 88, she was still beautiful and still certain of her appeal. If I'm not mistaken, Estee Lauder lives to 95 or 97 years old. Remember, we're reading the words of when she's 79. So she is, at this point, been obsessed with beauty for, what, 65, 67 years, something like that.

• 15:54David Senra?

  She's been working, she doesn't found her company until she's 40, but she works almost for free. She's constantly building, creating creams ever since she's a teenager and just giving them away for free. So, really, the book is a culmination of 50 years, of her 50-year obsession. So it says, "This is really, really smart what her mom does." Her mom instills confidence in her, which is going to be really important, because think about the time in which Estee is building her business. She wants to start building her business in the 1930s. This is extremely rare. And in fact, she has to delay, and I'll tell you more about this later, but she has to delay her dream because society's expectations and her family's expectations of hers, "No, you're not going to start a business. You get married right away.

• 16:35David Senra?

  You leave our house, you go from our house to your husband's house, and you have children and you support your husband." And so, not only is it difficult to start a business, but also especially difficult for a woman to start a business back then. So she needs that confidence, and you can tell from her writing, she definitely has that confidence. And she says, so she's talking about what her mom, the lesson, one of the earliest memories and earliest lessons that her mom taught her. "The secret she'd whisper is to imagine yourself the most important person in the room, the person everyone else is waiting to see. If you imagine it vividly enough, you will become that person." And so that's something that Este is going to repeat several times in the book. The fact that it's very important to do the work, to trust your own judgment, to build up

• 17:19David Senra?

  confidence yourself, because there's going to be a ton of times throughout your career that the external world is going to try to get you to doubt. And you know, even there's some crazy lines in the book. Like she says, "My friends and family tried to dissuade me every day." And so we'll go into more of that. Let's go back to more early memories, though, because this is another example that you should pick a career that you have an immense passion about. "My very first memories of my mother's scent, her aura of freshness, the perfume of her presence. My first sensation of joy was being allowed to reach up and touch her skin. Her hair didn't escape my attention either. As soon as I was old enough to hold a brush, I would give her no peace. Este, you've already brushed my hair three times today. I can still hear her complaining gently. My older sister Renee submitted to getting her face patted with my mother's cream.

• 18:03David Senra?

  My beautiful sister-in-law Fanny was perpetually saint-like in her submission to my treatment." So think about how crazy this is. She's a young girl, very, very young at this point, and she's describing what she's going to spend her entire career doing. And so this is, I know I left myself as she was on this page, as she was born for this business. "All this annoyed my father considerably. 'Stop fiddling with other people's faces,' he'd say. 'But that is what I like to do, touch other people's faces. No matter who they were, touch them and make them pretty.'" Check this out, this is wild. "Before I'm finished, I will set, I'm certain, the world's record for face touching. As soon as school was over, I'd run home and then start on faces and hair." So I was even wrong. She's even younger. She's eight.

• 18:46David Senra?

  Even at eight years old, being fashionable, being feminine, being different was a, this is a French word that I don't know how to pronounce. Raison d'être. Raison d'être, which means the most important reason or purpose for someone or someone's existence, was the raison d'être for me. Even then, I knew." So her father owns a hardware store. They have a gang of kids, there's like 10 kids or something like that, and they're all having to work in the family business as well. And so she's taking lessons that she learns in the hardware store, and she'll apply them to her business, the Este Lauder business, later. It says, "My father's hardware store was my first venture into merchandising. I loved to help him arrange his wares. My special job was creating window displays that would attract customers. How I loved to make those windows appealing."

• 19:31David Senra?

  She'd work on gift wrapping by covering a hammer or a set of nails with extravagant bows and papers, which really did seem to delight his customers. And this is something she talks about over and over again. She's obsessed with packaging to an extreme degree. Wait till I tell you what she does. She spends weeks debating just the color of the jars that hold her creams in. She'll go to extreme levels of detail. Again, this is not a job. This is a mission, a love affair, is one way to think about for her. So she says, packaging, this is the first time she mentions packaging in the book, but she talks about it a lot. So she says, "Packaging required special thought. You could make a thing wonderful by changing its outward appearance. Little did I think I'd be doing the same thing,

• 20:16David Senra?

  multiplied a billionfold in not too many years. There may be a big difference between lipstick and dry goods, between fragrance and doorknobs." See how she's talking about what she learned in the hardware store and applying it to later on. "But just about everything has to be sold aggressively. I honed my techniques as I played with the wares at my father's store. I wedded my appetite for the merry ring of a cash register. I learned early that being a perfectionist and providing quality was the only way to do business. I knew it. I felt it." And so now we have Este talking about the advantage that you have if you actually love what you do, because so few people actually do that. Go back to what Bill says, if you're faking it, you're going to get smoked by somebody that's not faking it.

• 21:00David Senra?

  So she says, "I want to paint a picture of the young girl I was, a girl caught up, memorized by pretty things and pretty people. Thinking about my childhood now reveals such early patterns. My drive and persistence were always there." And we're going to talk a lot about that today. "My drive and persistence were always there, and those qualities are essential for building a successful business. Still, I sometimes wonder, if I had set my heart on selling tassels, cars, furniture, or anything else but beauty, would I have risen to the top of my profession? Somehow, I doubt it. I believed in my product. I loved my product. A person has to love her harvest if she expects others to love it too. And beauty was such a bountiful harvest. How could I have known this at 12? I don't understand it.

• 21:45David Senra?

  I just did." And so, something's going to happen when she's in high school that I think is a combination of a bunch of these ideas. She picks a career about which she has an immense passion. She's obsessive about learning in her field, but she also develops mentors in her field. And that mentor is going to be her Uncle John, who's going to hold her dream job. "When I dreamed in my private universe, I dreamed of being a skin specialist in making women beautiful. In every life, there's a moment, an event or a realization that changes that life evocably. If the change is to be a happy one, one must be able to recognize that moment and seize it without delay. Rose Kennedy once told me that good luck is something you make and bad luck is something you endure. A very wise observation indeed. People do

• 22:27David Senra?

  make their luck by daring to follow their instincts, taking risks, and embracing every possibility. My shining moment came in the form of a quiet man who also loved touching faces. My Uncle John Schatz, I don't know how to pronounce his last name, he was a skin specialist. What glories those words contrast up. He captured my imagination and interest as no one else has ever had. I was smitten with Uncle John. He understood me. What's more, he produced miracles. I watched as he created a secret formula, a magic cream potion, which he filled in vials and jars and any other handy container." So, her first experience in the beauty industry is actually going to be selling and giving

• 23:10David Senra?

  away and demonstrating his products. "It was a precious velvety cream, this potion, one that magically made you sweetly scented, made your face feel like silk, made any passing imperfection be gone by evening. I recognized in my Uncle John my true path. He produced his glorious cream in our home, working happily over a gas stove. I watched and learned, hypnotized. It was a mystery to me. My education was just starting. 'Listen to me, este,' said Uncle John. 'Just try my cream.' Try it. I was devoted to it." I loved his creams, loved his potions, loved my Uncle John. You don't speak this way, if it's just a job. This is the story of a bewitchment.

• 23:53David Senra?

  I was irrevocably bewitched by the power to create beauty. Uncle John had worlds to teach me. We constructed a laboratory of sorts in the tiny stable behind my house. Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams quite seriously? To teach her secrets? I could think of nothing else. After school, I'd run home to practice. There's that word we've been talking a lot about in the last few podcasts. I still can't get out of my mind how much Michael Jordan was obsessed with practice. I don't think that idea is ever going to leave me. After school, I'd run home to practice being a scientist. I began to value myself so much more. Remember, she talks about the importance of, and started with her mother. Somebody can jumpstart it, but you've got to develop this on your own.

• 24:36David Senra?

  The fact that you have faith in your abilities and self-confidence. Many more dreams are destroyed by a lack of self-confidence than by overconfidence. So it says, "I began to value myself so much more. Trust my instincts, trust my uniqueness. With my uncle, I was preoccupied with research into possibilities. Mine. Trusting oneself does not always come naturally. I learned when young, the practice sticks. Today, there is no one who can intimidate me because of a title, or a skill, or fame. I do what's right for me." And we'll see later in the book, I mean, it's rather remarkable. Even when she's just starting out, she's experiencing a bit of success.

• 25:16David Senra?

  She winds up meeting other beauty company founder and CEOs, most of which are males at the time. They're rather patronizing to her and they're like, "Oh, you don't know what you're doing. Let me buy your business." And she'd clap back. She's like, "No, you're not buying my business, I'm buying yours." And she says, "I never for once thought about selling. Like, this is not going to happen." If I was to be a scientist with Uncle John, I needed live subjects on whom to experiment. So this is all about honing your craft, about the importance of practicing. I didn't have a single friend who wasn't slathered in our creams. If someone had a slight redness under her nose that was sure to emerge into a sensitive blemish the next day, she'd come to visit. I'd treat her to a cream pack and voila, vaseline-proofed skin. Friends of friends of friends appeared.

• 26:00David Senra?

  I devised a name for my uncle's cream, Super Rich All-Purposed Cream. This is the first thing she sells, if I'm not mistaken. My reputation among my peers at high school grew by leaps and bounds. I gave away gallons of cream to friends. So that's another thing that Bill says in his talk. Let me see if I can find that quote real quick. So towards the end, this is about 50 minutes into the talk. He says, "All five of them," he says, "out of all five people that he profiled, I don't think a single one of them started what they were doing for money. They were chasing a passion and a dream that allowed them to want to study." And then a few minutes later, at 1:04 into the talk, he says, "You could be passionate about doing a startup and not about the vertical. I've worked with founders," he wouldn't name them, that was really funny. He says, "I've worked with founders that have done that. They usually sell instead of keep going.

• 26:45David Senra?

  Optimally, you want it all to line up. Having a passion makes a difference if you want to go all the way." And the reason I bring that up with Este is the fact she, for like two decades, she gave away most of her products. She's clearly not doing this for money. And then she builds, I mean, her empire that she builds is insane. She's going to start in 1946, I think, the first year, if I recall correctly. They do $50,000 in revenue. Most of it is ate up by expenses. And you fast forward, I think the last, I think Este Lauder right now is doing $18 billion a year in revenue. They employ 50,000 people. Her son, who's going to work in the family businesses from a really early age, he's 88 years old today.

• 27:29David Senra?

  He has a net worth of like $25 or $30 billion or some craziness, all from what's happening in this book. It's just remarkable. All really, if you think about it, from what she's doing, the experience, she's laying the foundation of this gigantic empire by giving away creams to people in high school. "I gave away gallons. Deep inside, I knew I had found something that mattered much more than popularity. My moment had come, and I was not about to miss seizing it. Uncle John loved me, I loved him, and my future was being written in a jar of snow cream." So she winds up getting married rather young. And this is where she has to, she delays her dream, but her obsession grows. So it says, "Love interfered, it really did, and postponed my dreams of being a skin specialist." Like I said earlier, her family expected her, "Go straight from my house to your husband's

• 28:11David Senra?

  house, you support him, you have a kid, he's the one that's supposed to be doing the business, he's gonna start a business, it's gonna fail." They wind up getting divorced, then remarried, and then she joins, he joins her in her business. So it says, "We were struggling so hard to be independent, and sometimes, things were not easy, times were very lean. We had a beautiful son and I spent my days mothering, and all the time, all the time." She writes that twice, that's on me repeating it. "And all the time, all the time, I was mothering my zeal for experimenting with my uncle's creams, improving on them, adding to them. I was forever experimenting on myself and on anyone else who came within range. Good was not good enough, I could always make it better. I knew now that obsession is the word for my zeal.

• 28:56David Senra?

  It was never quiet in the house, there was always a great audible sense of industry, especially in the kitchen where I cooked for my family, and during every possible spare moment, cooked up little pots of cream for faces. I always felt most alive when I was dabbling in the practice," there's that word again, "when I was dabbling in the practice cream. I felt as though I was conduct-" This is, you do not talk about this this way if it's a job, check this out. "I felt as though I was conducting a secret, absorbing experiment, a real adventure." This is, this is not a business, this is a passion. Remember, she's not trying to sell these creams, she's giving away, she's eventually gonna sell some, she recruits some of her first customers out of the beauty salon that

• 29:41David Senra?

  she goes to. But for many, many years, she's making this, and she's doing this just as a labor of love. And so this is about recruiting some of her first customers, and then this is where we see the Estee Lauder empire, the one I just described to you, insane size and profits, is, starts at one counter. Many of the young women who came to the Floris Morris Beauty Salon to get their hair done would come to my home for a quick beauty lesson. I loved sharing what I knew and creating excitement about skin. One day, Mrs. Morris said to me, "What do you do to keep your skin looking so fresh and lovely?" It would turn out to be a question of great moment for me. So, this is obviously the-- I don't know if I'm clear. This is the owner of the salon. I don't know if you could tell just by matching the last names. "It would turn out to be a question of great moment for me. I didn't have to be asked twice.

• 30:26David Senra?

  The next time I come, I'll say, 'I'll bring you some of my products.'" My heart was pounding. So she comes back. She says, "Would you mind?" This is so funny because she does this all the time. Oh, geez. Oh, man, I would not want to compete with her. "Would you mind leaving them with me?" she asked, as I offered her my four products. "I'm so busy now. I'll try them when I have time." I knew better. "Just let me show you how they work, Miss Morris," I said. "Give me five minutes and you'll see the right way to use them." Nothing could have induced me to leave my bounty without a demonstration. Remember what we learned from Claude Hopkins, David Ogilvie, Albert Lasker? There's not a better selling technique. These are, you know, some of the most successful and knowledgeable people in the advertising industry. You could argue that Claude Hopkins is the most successful

• 31:08David Senra?

  copywriter of all time. I said, "Nothing beats product demonstration. There's no words, nothing you can do than just demoing the product." I showed Mrs. Morris a mirror. She was a raving beauty. Silence. She was thinking. So not taking no for an answer is extremely important, right? She's like, "No, no, I'm not leaving this. We're going to do it right now." And she does this over and over again. She does this with buyers of-- there's examples in the book where she does this. Department store buyers with, like, what are they called? Like editors of beauty magazines. She's a bulldog. She's relentless. I showed her-- so I skipped over the demonstration, telling you what happened. I showed her a mirror. She was a raving beauty. Silence. She was thinking. "Do you think you would be interested in running the beauty concession at my new salon?" she asked. I didn't hesitate for a second. Up until that point, I'd been giving

• 31:52David Senra?

  away my products. This was my first chance at a real business. I would have a small counter in her store. I would pay her rent. Whatever I sold would be mine to keep. No partners. I never had partners. I would risk the rent, but it worked. This is one of my favorite sentences in the entire book. "I would start the business I always dreamed about. Risk-taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever became a success without taking chances. Risk-taking is the cornerstone of empires." Is a fantastic maxim.

• 32:20David Senra?

  So this is also one of my favorite ideas that I learned when I, the first time I read the book about a year and a half ago. She calls it the sales technique of the century. Again, I would say Claude Hopkins had figured this out as well, Albert Lasker, a bunch of advertising people, but this is fantastic. Now, the big secret, I would give, she was the first, Este was the first one to use this technique in the beauty industry. Now you see all of them use it. Now, the big secret, I would give the woman a sample of whatever she did not buy as a gift. It might be a few teaspoons of powder in a wax envelope. Perhaps I'd shave off a bit of lipstick and tell her to apply it to her fingers. Perhaps in another envelope, I would give her a bit of glow. I don't know what that is. The point was this, a woman would never leave empty-handed. That's her point. I did not, oh, this is

• 33:02David Senra?

  such a good idea, too. I did not have an advertising budget. She's going to talk about this later. I did not, maybe she talks about it now. Let me not jump ahead. I did not have an advertising department. I did not have a copywriter, but I had a woman's intuition. I just knew, even though I had not yet named the technique, that a gift with purchase was very appealing. In those days, I would even give a gift without a purchase. The idea was to convince a woman to try the product. Having tried it at her leisure in her own home and seeing how fresh and lovely it made her look, she would be faithful forever. Of that, I had not with single doubt. And so you see this, I think this is a well-known idea now, just in case it's not, I would say that you see it in, there's a, this is a shining example of these ideas that we come across, that you and I come across over

• 33:47David Senra?

  and over again. They're used by founders that don't know each other, that lived in different times, different cultures, different countries, different periods of history, and yet they all still arrive at the same idea, the same conclusion, that is like flashing red lights, hey, this is an idea I need to use. So we see that. Demonstrations, demonstrating your product as much as you can is actually the best sales tool, the best way to convince somebody that there's actually value in the product. The reason I say, this is one of my favorite ideas, I wasn't, I guess it's going to happen later in the book, but she's, you know, she's starting the company. Her and her husband do not have a lot of money. So they're like, okay, well, do we spend money on advertising? And Este makes the wise idea. She's just like, I'm going to take what I was going to spend on advertising, and I'm going to produce more products, and I'm going to give away those products.

• 34:33David Senra?

  And so now, her products are selling. She has the ability to hire some of her first employees. She's insane about the level. I love that quote by Steve Jobs. Be a yardstick of quality. Most people are not used to an environment where excellence is demanded. I'm doing that off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure it's similar to that. She was the same way. She interviewed like 40 people just to figure out what one salesperson she wants to hire. She says, "I made it my business to check with each of them each day to make sure..." She's talking about the salespeople. "...to make certain she was selling as I would. A devoted clientele was developing, not to my surprise, of course. My products were the finest. The beauty salon atmosphere was perfect. Women were already in the self-improvement mood. Why should they go home..." This is actually really smart.

• 35:14David Senra?

  "Why should they go home with beautiful hair and then a tired, lifeless face? It made sense to sell a total beauty package. Word spread. Business moved gradually but steadily." And that's the biggest thing where you, again, where I think Steve picked up on and other people picked up on, why you have to really, really love it because building a business from a strong foundation, as we've seen over and over in these books, takes a long time. Even in her case, she says she does $50,000 in 1946. 11 years later, she's doing $800,000. Not bad by any means, but it's, you know, her business was founded 75 years ago. It took her 75 years to get to 18 or 16 or 14 billion or whatever the number is. But there's just no way that she's going to give up.

• 35:59David Senra?

  And so she never interrupted that compounding. And so she says, "Word spread. Business moved gradually but steadily. I worked every day from 9, when I arrived to polish my jars..." Remember, she's working at the counter in the beauty salon. "...to 6 in the evening. I never lunched. I felt I had to be there for every woman, or I would surely lose her." So not only is she giving away her products, but her main sales method was a product demonstration. And so she talks about, you know, "I love touching faces." She's not just touching the face. She's like applying the creams, wiping it off, doing all this other stuff. "I cleansed, creamed, colored, talked, talked, talked, talked. I worked like a charm, and the interest in my line grew." And so she's doing this.

• 36:39David Senra?

  That's what I mean. You're just, you're gonna get smoked if you don't, if you're competing with somebody that actually loves what you're pretending to love, because she's doing this in her store. She doesn't just do this in the store. If she sees you on the train, she'll talk to you. If she's in the elevator, the street. She's going on vacation. Look what, look what happens here. Quite by accident, I discovered my eager audience, there's, I discovered an eager audience waiting for me in the fine hotels on Long Island. During a short vacation, I would make up a few women at poolside. Just randomly approaching people that are out there sunbathing next to the pool. Their response was electric. In the next few years, I'd spend some weeks at hotels on what might be dubbed working vacations. Many women would gather and ask me to teach them about skincare and cosmetics. It was

• 37:24David Senra?

  fun for them and profitable for me. Women, women wanted to learn. So before I continue this thought, when she starts off this section, quite by accident, the note of myself is by accident, my ass. She's obsessed. Imagine competing with her. One summer after another, I pushed myself, lauding creams, making up women, selling beauty. In the winters, I'd visit these eager ladies at their homes, where they're, where with, where with a bridge game as a backdrop, I'd make up their friends and sell more creams. The mood at these sessions was exhilarating for me as for them. I didn't need bread to eat, but I worked as though I did. From pure love of the venture. For me, teaching about beauty was and is an emotional experience. I brought them charisma and knowledge about their possibilities. They

• 38:07David Senra?

  gave me a sense of success. I felt flush with excitement after each session. Pure theater. In the end, that's what it was. This rendering of beauty. Pure theater for me. Now, the traits that she's demonstrating, the fact she's obsessed, she works constantly, she's in love, she's single-minded in her pursuit, which she mentions multiple times, those also can have downsides. And so she's obsessed with her business to the detriment of her marriage. And so this is where she gets divorced. Now, I already told you to get remarried, and she has a lot to talk about that, but. Let's get to the divorce part first. Now I shall speak of a great time, great deal of pain, great confusion. It's difficult for me to speak on it. I'm always reluctant to diverge intimate family matters, but I determined to be candid in this book, so I shall.

• 38:52David Senra?

  I'm a visceral person by nature. I act on instinct, quickly, without pondering possible disaster and without indulging in deep introspection. This quality can work well in the business world, where instinct counts and where one must be able to risk and take immediate action. But that same quality can be an irritant in personal relationships. I was moving steadily forward and all the progress brought with it, a great deal of activity that neither interested in it nor, in many ways, included Joe. When he wanted to talk, I'd usually be off in another world, thinking, projecting, planning my thoughts on a dozen different projects, my mind a whirl. I was busy building a business. I was single-minded in the pursuit of my dream. And so to make matters worse, as her business is starting to grow a little bit, his business is not succeeding.

• 39:37David Senra?

  So they wind up getting divorced. They stay divorced for four years. She goes into details and she's like, "I had no experience. I went straight from my mother's house to my husband's house. I had no chance to be young and to actually date and to do other things." And she was still obsessed with building her business the whole time. Business itself was the purest romance for me. So there's a note I left myself, I leave on multiple pages, that that is not how you speak, or the idea, maybe not in these exact words, but that's not how you speak if it's just a job. She winds up fixing her, she considers this her greatest mistake. She fixes her mistake and they're married for 50-plus years. And so they wind up reconciling. She says, "We were never to be separated for longer than a few days ever again.

• 40:18David Senra?

  We always, till the day he died, which was the blackest, saddest day of my life, had each other to hold, to talk to." And so this is what she talks about divorce. Now, keep in mind, she's writing these words. This book was published in 1985. I have the hardcover version. Each time I hold it in my hand, the, like, it's solid red. It doesn't have a dust cover. So like, right now, my finger, my fingertips are, like, all the, it's so old that the book, whatever the material is, is coming off of my fingertips. So all of my fingertips right now are completely red. So this is what she has to say about divorce. I would imagine the divorce rate's higher today. I don't know, but I would imagine. "I feel compelled to tell you what I've learned about divorce. It is far too easy to say goodbye in America.

• 41:03David Senra?

  In so many cases, when women marry again, they only change the face, not the problems. Too many divorced friends find that their second husband, or even their third husband, has more faults than their first husband." Who looked, who looked, now they're talking about, um, they're referencing the first husband. "So the third husband has more faults than the first husband, who looks better and better on someone else's arm. I always try to talk people out of divorcing. People divorce these days as fast as they change their hair color. So Joe and I were remarried, this time forever, but with a few changes. We decided that Joe would give up his business and come into mine, where we would be equal partners in every sense of the word. We would work together." And so she talks about, it's very important to have a partner or people working with you that have different skills than you do.

• 41:48David Senra?

  She's obsessed with sales. She travels all over the country. She's selling people one by one for decades, selling buyers, selling everybody she can. Really, the, and that's extremely important, because a lot of people like developing products. This is something we learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger, where he says, like, you know, whether it's a book, a movie, it doesn't matter. Everything has to be sold, like, you should sell aggressively. So when he came into the movie industry, people, you know, a lot of actors, like, "I like making movies, it's an art and everything else." He's like, "Oh, yeah, that's one part." But now, he was super aggressive in how he sold his product. And it was like, he talks about, you know, very different from most actors, and I think the people he worked with saw it as a massive advantage. And Arnold says something that I love, where he talks about, "Listen, if you have a product,

• 42:31David Senra?

  and you think that product is going to make somebody's life better, then you have an obligation to learn how to sell it. They get to see a great movie, I get to make more money. That's a fantastic exchange." Another great quote that I've never forgot comes from Peter Thiel's book Zero to One. Where he says, "Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation." The converse is not true. I think that is screaming at us at how important sales are. Este would agree with that, too. I mean, obviously, she thinks her products are the best in the world, but she knows they're not going to sell themselves. She mentions that multiple times in the book. Let me repeat that quote, though. "Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation." The converse is not true.

• 43:13David Senra?

  So she spends the time, sales, developing product packaging, products, everything else. Jo was very helpful with managing, with the finances. She would spend every last dollar. It's kind of, it's not exactly the same, but there's a parallel between the way Walt Disney was with his, Walt Disney and his partner was his brother Roy? I think his brother's Roy. I'm going off memory, so I'm not mistaken. But his brother was the one that, you know, always had to deal with the financial consequences of Walt saying, like, "I'm spending every last dollar on quality." There was an exchange in one of the biographies of Disney, it's fantastic, where he's just like, "What is this going to cost?" And he's like, "We're innovating. I'll tell you what it costs when we're done." So there's, I don't know, it just makes me laugh.

• 43:57David Senra?

  So my point is, Este had a really strong skill set, and her husband and her partner had a strong skill set in areas where Este was not as strong, by her own admissions. So, going back, she's, this whole chapter I'm in, by the way, is all about the importance of word of mouth. She calls it the "tell a woman" campaign. Nothing happened fast, so think about word of mouth as her base. It's really probably the only distribution channel that makes a durable company. It does not happen that way. I cried more than I ate. There was constant work, constant attention to detail, lost hours of sleep, worries, heartache. So euphoria and terror, it's a great way to think about this, we're in the terror part. And there's obviously euphoria mixed in. Friends and, this is so wild. Friends and family didn't let a day go by without discouraging us, despite all the naysayers. So they're like, "Este, what are you doing this for?

• 44:42David Senra?

  Stay home with your son." Despite all the naysayers, there was not a single moment when I ever considered giving up. That was simply not a viable alternative. I had a secret weapon. There were, in those days before television and high gloss advertising, only two key ways to communicate a message quickly. They were the telephone and the telegraph. I had a third. It was potent. Tell a woman. Women were telling women. They were selling my cream before they ever got to my salon. Tell a woman was the word of mouth campaign that launched Estee Lauder cosmetics. And more about the importance of practice, every day I touched 50 faces. Okay, so this is what I meant about, she talks about product packaging all the time,

• 45:25David Senra?

  is very important to her, in the book on Johnny Ive and Sam Walton, I'm looking at my bookshelf right now, on Johnny Ive and Steve Jobs, rather, they talk about the amount of detail they both put into the packaging of Apple's products. So this is not, nothing, like this is something that's very common. The new jars would be a decision of detail that could affect my entire business. I knew I had to make the right decision. First of all, I reasoned, where would my jars sit? In every woman's bathroom, naturally. Second, I knew that I wanted every woman to remember whose cream it was that was making her so, look so fresh and lovely. The name would have to be embedded right on the jar. Needless to say, the jar had to be beautiful. And this was the hard part. It could not clash with my customers' bathroom decor.

• 46:08David Senra?

  Having obtained sample jars, my research consisted of matching the few colors to which I had narrowed my choices to wa- oh, this is so, so crazy. So she's got a bunch of sample jars. Now, her research says, I'm going to match these colors to which I had narrowed my choices to wallpapers in every guest bathroom I could manage to visit. I would fill my evening purse with a few small sample jars. Every time I went to a friend's home or a restaurant, I'd excuse myself from the company, visit the bathroom, and match my jars against a vast array of wallpapers. This is why Bill says, like, if you're gonna compete, like, I'm gonna use that line again, like, if you were faking it in that other part, you're gonna get smoked. There were silver bathrooms, purple bathrooms, black and white bathrooms, brown bathrooms,

• 46:52David Senra?

  gold bathrooms, pink bathrooms, red bathrooms. Which color would look wonderful in any bathroom? I deliberated for weeks. I spent an inordinate amount of time freshening up. People must have been worried about my long absences from the company. I knew that women would not buy my cosmetics in garish containers that offended their bathroom decor. I wanted them to be proud to display my products. The jars had to send a message of luxury and harmony. They had to be unique. A great package does not copy or study, it invents. And so this whole time, she's just still working in counters. She's going to try, this is where she breaks through to get, how she breaks into Saks Fifth Avenue, and she does it from the ground up. A lot of genius stuff she does in this book. This is one example of that.

• 47:36David Senra?

  This is where she really feels is the beginning of her company. And so let's go into this. My customers asked me repeatedly, do you have a counter at Saks Fifth Avenue where I could charge? The answer was no. I knew I would soon have to transform that into a solid yes. Saks then and now represents one of the most elegant and finest of shopping places. I resolved to break the rules that sheltered this traditional and exclusive store from experimental merchandisers who would sell their souls to sell from Saks. So that's, you can consider what she is at the time. She's not well-known. And so she says, my name was not exactly known there. The Tell a Woman campaign had already resulted in hundreds of phone calls from women asking for my products. So this is what I meant about how she breaks in from the ground up. The store was beginning to wonder about me.

• 48:20David Senra?

  And it's important that she gets in there because what, I don't know if that's obviously using the words that she uses, because this is a different time where she's describing, but the people that were buying at the beauty salon, it had to be an impulse purchase because she could only accept cash. Credit cards were not widely used at this point, but you had department stores and other places where if you have an account with them, they'll let you charge and you can actually pay later. So that'd be a huge increase in sales for Este, or for anybody that has their products in Saks for that matter. The store was beginning to wonder about me. The enthusiastic phone calls from my own clients were having an effect. The cosmetic buyer at Saks acceded to my millionth request. Remember, she's a bulldog, she's relentless.

• 49:04David Senra?

  He gave me a small order of approximately $800 worth of merchandising. Check how she responds to this. Well, actually, she's going to talk about that first. She's talking about getting ready for this. "We decided to send my own customers and all the people with charge accounts at Saks a small elegant white printed card with gold lettering that read, 'Saks Fifth Avenue is now proud to present the Estee Lauder line of cosmetics, now available at our cosmetics department.' Did we have 100 wonderful treatment products? No, we had four. Four, we only had four products, but they were made of pure gold. Breaking that, this is what I meant, breaking that first mammoth barrier was perhaps the single most exciting moment I have ever known. Think about how crazy that is. Think about how much life experience she had since this time.

• 49:48David Senra?

  She's now 79, unbelievably wealthy. Estee Lauder is still a private company. It doesn't go public till after she passes away. She's got homes all over the world. She's world famous. And she's saying the most exciting moment she's ever known in her life was an $800 purchase by Saks Fifth Avenue. Fortunately, our confidence equaled our excitement because we had to have enough faith in our work to invest all of our savings. Our first home base was a former, so this is their, you can think of this like a makeshift manufacturing, I guess, a factory, if you want to think about that. Our first home base was a former restaurant on Central Park West. We had to pay six months, six months' rent in advance. We swallowed hard and signed. On the restaurant's gas burners, we cooked our creams. We did everything's ourselves.

• 50:31David Senra?

  Every bit of work was done by hand, four hands, Joes and mind. We stayed up all nights, we stayed up for, stayed up all night for nights on end, snatching sleeps and fits and starts.

• 50:44David Senra?

  All the people to whom I'd given samples, all the people who'd been telling other people, all those people had been telling other people, all the people, all of these people appeared on opening day at Saks Fifth Avenue. In two days, we sold out. The fun was about to start. And with that came the endless work, the endless traveling, the endless streams, rivers, tides, torrents, oceans of words I would utter in praise of the products I knew were the cream of the crop. I was a woman with a mission. I had to show as many women as I could reach not only how to be beautiful, but how to stay beautiful. On the way, I hoped in my, I hoped in my secret heart to find fame and fortune. It was 1946. And so this is the official beginning of Estee Lauder cosmetics. She is 40 years old.

• 51:30David Senra?

  Okay, so now she goes on the road. She's starting to expand her business as much as she can. She's selling, she's trying to get as many department stores as possible to hold, to stock and sell her merchandise. And she tells this great story about never underestimating your customer's desire. And, well, let's go right to Este. "It was 101 degrees in the shade in downtown San Antonio, Texas, and I was making my first personal appearance at the Este Lauder counter in the Frost Brothers department store. Slowly, a woman was making her way towards us. She was short, swarthy, and definitely out of her element. She stopped directly in front of the counter. Then she pointed to one jar and looked up expectantly. I was about to assist her when the salesperson tapped me on the shoulder. 'Not her, Mrs. Lauder.

• 52:15David Senra?

  Don't waste your time. She's not going to buy anything. I know her type.'" You can already see where the story's going, right? "I remember whirling around. 'Since when do you know how much money she has in her pocketbook?'" I asked. So, she's actually working with somebody that doesn't speak English and Este doesn't speak Spanish. But again, she goes back, remember what she said at the beginning of the book, that it's just an ancient industry. Every single culture, for history, forever, has been interested in beauty. So, she says, "I went to work." I'm just gonna skip over. She does the cleansing oil, the cream, you know, her basic product demonstration. "And then I handed her a mirror. She stared and stared and then smiled. She couldn't speak English, and I couldn't speak Spanish.

• 52:57David Senra?

  Still, at that moment, I felt such a bond with that woman as she and I both marveled at the miracles of makeup. You know the ending to this story before I write it. She bought two of everything I used on her face, and the next day, her relatives did the same. I never forgot her. She symbolized so much for me. Never be patronizing. Never underestimate any woman's desire for beauty. That proud woman embodies my whole philosophy." There's a great story, the title of my self in this page is Do It Yourself, Daniel Ludwig. There's a great story. I think it's founder's number 68. It's this book. It's a really hard to find book. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I paid over a hundred dollars for it. And it's called Invisible Billionaire, the biography of Daniel Ludwig.

• 53:42David Senra?

  The name is, it's a biography of Daniel Ludwig. I can't remember the subtitle, but it's, the name is Invisible Billionaire. And Daniel made billions of dollars without anybody knowing who he was back in like the 60s and 70s and I guess 50s too. And he was in shipping and did all kinds of crazy stuff. But anyways, there's a story in the book I never forgot because even after he was a multi billionaire, they tell a story, he catches a flight from New York City to Panama. He goes down to this little, he's thinking about building a refinery down there, spends the day, goes to like a little shop next to a bay, gets a fishing line and some heavy lures, if I remember correctly, measures out the fishing line, rents a small boat, spends the entire day putting around the bay, checking to make

• 54:25David Senra?

  sure the depths on the nautical chart that his engineers are going to use are accurate. And the reason he did that is because two previous projects, one in the, I don't know how to pronounce it, Aronco River, somewhere in South America, and in Grand Bahama Island. He had trusted the word of experts saying that he could get his supertakers down there. Both cases, one ran aground because it was too heavy and the other had something to do with like not being able to dredge into the limestone. And so what he learned is like sometimes you have to do it yourself. And so he had learned from that mistake because those two mistakes cost him a lot of time and money. And even though he's a multi billionaire at the time, he's flying down and going around in a little boat, making sure, okay, I'm going to do it. Estes was using the same tactics very early on. I would open each

• 55:10David Senra?

  store myself. I might have to travel by bus, train, or donkey, but I'd be there for a week to train the salespeople, to set out the merchandise attractively, to create their aura. So she goes back to talking more about the free sample sales technique that she pioneered in the beauty industry. No doubt of myself on this page, I already talked to you about Claude Hopkins agrees. And there's two podcasts in the archive on Claude Hopkins, if you haven't checked them out. One is Scientific Advertising, which is the book he wrote that sold 8 million copies. And then I also read his autobiography called My Life in Advertising. I think that's founder's number 170. "The reason to appear at my counter was the gift to the customer, the free something that would sell everything else. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? I'd have to agree. It was simple.

• 55:51David Senra?

  Most good ideas sparkle in simplicity, so much so that everyone wonders why no one ever did that before. The sample was the most honest way to do business. You could give people a product a try. If they like its quality, they buy it. They haven't been lured in by an advertisement, but convinced by the product itself." This is what I mentioned earlier. "We took the money we had planned to use on advertising and invested instead in enough material to give away large quantities of our products. It was so simple that our competitors sneered when they heard what we were doing. Today, even the banks are copying us." So now she talks about the single most important trait to have. This is not going to come as a surprise to you. Estee Lauder, Ray Kroc of McDonald's, Steve Jobs, John D Rockefeller, everybody says the same things, persistence.

• 56:35David Senra?

  Business is not something to be lightly tried on, flippantly modeled. It's not a distraction, not an affair, not a momentary fling. Business marries you. You sleep with it, eat with it, think about it much of your time. It is, in a very real sense, an act of love. If it isn't an act of love, it's merely work and not business. What makes a successful businesswoman? Is it talent? Well, perhaps, although I've known many enormously successful people who were not gifted in any outstanding way, not blessed with a particular talent. Is it then intelligence? Certainly, intelligence helps, but it's not necessarily education or the kind of intellectual reasoning needed to graduate from the Wharton School of Business that are essential. How many of your grandfathers came here from one or another old country and made a mark

• 57:20David Senra?

  in America without the language, money, or contacts? What then is the mystical ingredient? It's persistence. It's that certain little spirit that compels you to stick it out, just when you're at your most tired. It's that quality that forces you to persevere. Find the route around the stone wall. It's the immovable stubbornness that will not allow you to cave in when everyone says, "Give up." Just before we decided to commit ourselves to cosmetics full-time, our accountant and lawyer took us out to dinner. They had something grave to tell us. "Don't do it," was the advice. "The mortality rate in the cosmetics industry is high,

• 58:02David Senra?

  and you'll rule the day you invested your savings and your time to do this impossible business." I hate when people give this advice. It's just another way to say, which I think is the worst advice that any human can give to somebody else. Be realistic. Makes me want to vomit. So it says, "The mortality rate in the cosmetics industry is high. You'll rule the day you invested your savings and your time into this impossible business." "Don't do it." We did it. Mark Train once said something like, "Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. But the really great make you feel that you too can become great." Our first-year sales amounted to about $50,000. Expenses ate up just about every dime. No matter. Forward. And then Este has another great trait, where she takes something that other people see as a disadvantage

• 58:46David Senra?

  and flips it to her advantage. And so she's talking about the fact that she started her business, quote-unquote, "late," which I think the numbers, if I'm not mistaken, are actually support her. Like, you have-- it's much more likely for an entrepreneur in their 40s to succeed than it is in, like, a young person. Doesn't mean, obviously, you can't succeed as a young person. But this idea that somehow, like, there's like a window, and if the window closes, it's too late. I'm pretty sure the data I've seen on this is the exact opposite. And so she takes-- she flips this trait, or this-- the fact that she was older, that some people think, "Oh, you have a disadvantage." She's like, "No, you're actually mistaken. It's an advantage." "I started late. I didn't have the time for waiting, nor I guessed the disposition. By the way, it's never too late to start a business. Women of a certain age are seasoned enough

• 59:31David Senra?

  to bypass certain frivolities-- you know that word I'm trying to pronounce-- certain temptations. They can focus on their interests more steadily than their youthful counterparts. It takes a certain tunnel vision, the ability to look directly ahead until the daylight is in sight." Older women are not quite as easily distracted. Women are usually more successful when, believe it or not, they have an advantage of years. And so let's go back to this thing that I've mentioned a couple of times, that if you're on the train with her, you're in the elevator, you're getting a product demonstration. And the note I left myself is, how many people are willing to put in this type of effort? Recruiting customers one by one. In the early days, I spent an endless amount of time riding the rails. The sound of train wheels became background music to my dreams. That's just good writing.

• 1:00:15David Senra?

  As I traveled around the country to be present at each Estee Lauder counter opening, I met women who would, one day, be my customers. At least I hoped they would be. To that end, I never stopped talking to people. Not ever. So she talks about, she sees this woman on the train. "You know, I'd love to make up your face," I told her. "And show you a cream that'll make it lovely to touch." "Oh, no, thank you," she said. "Soap and water is just fine for my daily life." Nonsense. She looked, so she does a product demonstration, almost against her will. But she looked at herself, she couldn't believe it. "I gave her a little bit of everything to take home." She still writes me. How crazy is that? And then this is, she talks about, you know, "I talked to everybody in an elevator," going on and on. "To this day, I still receive mail from women I met all over the world,

• 1:00:59David Senra?

  met, touched, and made up during spontaneous moments." And so she also does this not only with customers, but also with influential people, with people that work in her industry, people that could be helpful to her. One note left on this page, one word, relentless. "To this point," the point was to keep thinking, keep placing the products in the public eye, keep devising new ways of capturing the consumer's attention. During the week I usually spent at an opening promotion, I made in my business, never to leave a town, without seeing every beauty editor of every magazine and newspaper. I bought them samples, made their faces, gave them beauty advice. I promoted beauty. I made friends. Everywhere, I made friends. There is no such," oh, this is fantastic. "There is no such thing as bad times," I kept telling myself. "There is no such thing as bad business.

• 1:01:44David Senra?

  Business is there if you go after it." Oh, this is a fantastic idea, too. Give your full effort, always, everywhere. "No community was too small for my attention. My absolute full efforts. I had ridden, for instance, on a bus for six hours to open a small store in Corpus Christi, Texas. The store's clientele was modest in size and economics. No matter."

• 1:02:09David Senra?

  So another thing that Bill talks about in his talk is the fact that you develop peer relationships, not only in your field, but you can also learn from fields adjacent to your own. And the way Este would describe that same idea is never underestimate the value of an ally. Here's an example of that. Never underestimate the value of an ally. So she's talking about somebody she met in the beauty industry that worked for other companies. Her name is Helen Blake. You know, she would say to me quite casually during a phone call, "I think you might give Ms. Pope, the merchandise manager from Woodward, a call. I was with her yesterday and she mentioned that I look wonderful. I told her it was due to your cosmetics. And, well, I think she'd like to know more about you." That instant, I would call Ms. Pope, "If you don't do important things when you think

• 1:02:52David Senra?

  of them, you probably never will and may lose out. Today, they call this networking, the sharing between business colleagues. It is one of the most powerful tools in the business." So in this next, a few pages later in this paragraph, she compares two ideas that I think is fantastic. "Relentlessly resourceful," which comes from another Paul Graham essay. I think that's the clearest description of how he would describe the art of entrepreneurship. "Relentlessly resourceful and seeing your goal in your mind helps you see it in person. We've seen that over and over again. Make the most of what you have. I operated full time on that precept. If you can't have everything you think you deserve at the moment, you would do well to surround yourself with symbols of your ideals. In that small office," her very first office, "I surrounded myself with touches of the good life, the lovely and

• 1:03:37David Senra?

  intricately tapestried life of my imagination, an imagination that has always been, I'm proud to say, large enough to admit any possibility." So one of the craziest stories I've ever heard in studying the history of entrepreneurship is the fact that Coco Chanel, when she was a young entrepreneur, she mistakenly gave away 90% of her perfume company. Two decades later, she fights to get it back. I covered that. I think it's Founder's Number 199. But anyway, she signs the deal where she gets 2% of all sales of Coco Chanel Number 5 or any perfume. But Coco Chanel Number 5 winds up becoming one of the most successful commercial products of all time. I think she signs the deal in 1947, if I recall correctly, that pays her, what she says is, "Okay, I'm going to get 2% of all sales for the rest of my life and you have to pay every single of

• 1:04:21David Senra?

  my living expenses, large or small." Right? One of the craziest deals in history. Makes her the richest woman in the world at the time, if I'm not mistaken. She pays like $25 million a year, every year, till the day she dies. If you adjust for, if you translate that contract into today's dollars, that'd be the equivalent if somebody paid you $300 million a year and paid for every single one of your living expenses, so it's insane. So, Estee Lauder studied the pioneers in her history, industries, a lot of which she didn't actually like. She has some, you know, they're, they're, they didn't really get along, but she, she never says anything bad about Coco Chanel. She quotes her at least twice in this book, so she's very aware of her.

• 1:05:02David Senra?

  And she doesn't say so, but I think that one of Estee's most successful products, which I'm about to tell you the story of now, is this thing called Youth Do. And her answer to how I can get more women to buy perfume for themselves is genius, which I'm going to share to you. But I have a feeling that Coco's success with Chanel number five influenced, influenced Estee Lauder. So it says, she's talking about perfume, for most parts, like, somebody buys it, they don't, it's not something, at this point, that you'd buy for yourself. It's usually like a gift. So how do I convince women to buy their own perfume? How could I get the American woman to buy her own perfume? I would not call it perfume. I would call it Youth Do, a bath oil that dubbed as a skin perfume. That would be acceptable to buy because it was feminine, all-American, and very girl

• 1:05:46David Senra?

  next door to take baths, wasn't it? And so think about the difference in size of bath oil, how many ounces you would sell compared to the size of like a perfume or a cologne. We created a mini-revolution in the whole world, as I saw it took on a fresher, more stimulating aspect. Instead of using their French perfumes by the drop behind the ear, women were using Youth Do by the bottle in their bath water. It doesn't take a graduate school of business to figure out that that meant sales, beautiful sales. In 1953, Youth Do did about 50,000 worth of business for us. In 1984, that figure was over $150 million. That is just one of her products. That is crazy. In 1953, 53, Youth Do did 50,000 worth.

• 1:06:30David Senra?

  30 years later, it was doing 150 million a year. I think the legendary Chanel put it best, "Perfume," she said, "is the unseen but unforgettable and ultimate fashion accessory. It heralds a woman's arrival and prolongs her departure." Coco has a lot of great quotes. If you're ever interested, just Google Coco Chanel quotes. She was gifted with words. One of my favorite quotes that she's ever said was, "I decided who I wanted to be, and that's who I am." And if you know her story, if you listen to that podcast or read her biography, she goes from, I mean, she's dead on. "I decided who I wanted to be, and that's who I am." She transformed herself from orphan to the richest woman in the world. So this is a little bit about learning from, I'm fast forwarding in the story, obviously, learning from the mistakes of other beauty company founders. They're all gone now.

• 1:07:14David Senra?

  The people who founded the great companies of beauty, only I am left. Revson was replaced by this gentleman named Michael. Elizabeth Arden left her company in turmoil when she died. So they're all dead. So she, I don't know if I'm being clear. She's describing what happens after the company founders die. So Revson was replaced by this other guy running the company. Elizabeth Arden left her company in turmoil when she died in 1966 without having her set of affairs in order. When Helena Rubenstein died in 1965, Colgate Palmolive took the reins. Charles of the Rich is now owned by Squibb. These are all, some of these companies I've never heard of. Jermaine Montell by Beckham, Max Factor by Beatrice. And this is the reason I'm telling you all this. Don't worry about remembering the names.

• 1:07:57David Senra?

  This is the whole, the main point. "The personal love and involvement are gone. They're companies now, not a family's heart and soul. It won't happen to Estee Lauder." Okay, so I need to, she's, at this point in the company's history, she starts to expand. She's just in the United States. She's going to expand to Europe, and then she's going to expand to Canada. I'm going to tell you great ideas or just crazy ideas about both experiences. This is how she does it. She always shot for the top. So she wanted to be, if she's going to break into a new market, she wanted to be in the very best retailer in that country. In America, she thought that was Saks. In London, she thinks that's Harrods. I would start with the finest store in London, which was Harrods. And if I did that, all the other great stores would follow.

• 1:08:42David Senra?

  So she talks to the buyer. "Simply not interested was the unmistakable message." This is going to take a few years for her to do this. So, okay, no one's not even wanting to talk to me. A little media, so what is she doing? Well, if I'm here, a little media attention was called for. I visited the beauty editors of various magazines. This is in London. She would do the same thing, give them gifts, give advice, make them up, okay? Yes, they'd be happy to write a piece about my products. What store in London would be carrying them? My products are not available in London, had to be my reply. Well, she answered, I'll write a piece saying that Estee Lauder's cosmetics will be coming soon. Again, I went to Harrods. Again, the answer was no. There was no space at this time, there was no call for my products, this wasn't the right time of year, maybe another time, et cetera, et cetera.

• 1:09:27David Senra?

  I stayed in England for a month, visiting every beauty editor to make my name known. I was getting write-ups, but no Harrods order. It was looking very bleak. The next year, I went back to London and Harrods. So now she talks to the same buyers, a year later. She was not quite as hostile, but she says, let me tell you, I have no room here, as I told you before, she said, but perhaps I could take a tiny order and put it in with the general toiletries. It won't be next to the good cosmetics, that you'll have to understand, Miss Lauder. So, she has a tiny order, not in a place she wants, it's not a victory yet. I visited every one of those beauty editors again, to remind them of me. Another round of make-ups, another round of samples. Do you think you might write another piece? I asked, now that we're in London at Harrods. The articles appeared, customers also appeared, I was on my way.

• 1:10:10David Senra?

  Women began, remember how it's kind of like going up from the, from getting, getting the demand from, like, from the ground up? Just how she did with sex, if you really think about it. Customers also appeared, I was on my way. Women began asking for, women began asking for Estee Lauder, that's why I just said what I said to you. The Harrods buyer was reluctant to notice, but she had no choice. In the flush of a good week's sales, I summoned up the courage to ask if she could give me a more important counter. Oh, no, she said. Other counter space is definitely not available. About six months later, I made my third trip to London. Well, we seem to have many London women asking for your products, she grudgingly admitted. I think we'll give you a small spot at a more prestigious counter. And that was how Estee Lauder came to Europe. So this is about how she gets into Canada.

• 1:10:55David Senra?

  She's good. She does everything I'm about to tell you. She did after being told no. She's talking to the buyer. You need a bath oil, I told him. She said, no, no, no, no, no. Women would love to come into a department store instead of a drugstore to buy it. Look, buy it on consignment. If you sell it, fine. If you don't, you've lost nothing. Oh, OK, he said, but send me just a few bottles and only the oil. So as I was wrapping the bath oil to send from New York to Canada, I decided to put in a few more creams with a note. Take these on consignment also. You certainly wouldn't want to have to say no to any woman who asks if there's anything else in this line, right? And then this is her response. What about our exclusives with the other company? What about my lack of space? What about, what about, what about? He sputtered when I spoke to him later. Look, you must go with the trend. With the world, I said.

• 1:11:38David Senra?

  Everyone is using this bath oil and these creams in America. You don't have to pay me for them until you sell them. Oh, OK, he said in resignation. When I came to make my personal appearance at the opening of the Estee Lauder in Canada, my sales department sent everything. The bath oil, the cologne, the youth do cream, and so on and so forth. And little boxes of powder I could give away as gifts. We sold out of everything. The buyer came down to see me after three or four days. How did you do it? Never mind how I did it. I'm sending you more. You don't sell cosmetics, he responded. You sell yourself. We opened in Canada. Now, do you see what I mentioned earlier? Like, if you could, if she could be reincarnated, if she could be brought back, how difficult it would be to just to compete with somebody like this? It's crazy.

• 1:12:22David Senra?

  So her main message of the book, though, I would say, is be determined and sell. Something she repeats over and over again. Let's get a little bit into that. It's not enough to have the most wonderful product in the world. You must be able to sell it. One woman with definitive ideas, pride in her product, and a hands-on approach can lay the foundation of a strong business. Creating the finest perfume in the world is an accomplishment. Making people aware of its existence, let alone getting them to try it, is sometimes harder to do than creating the product in the first place. And so this is what, this again, is her obsession, her ongoing obsession with the quality of her products' packaging and where she feels. And she actually makes a really good point here about, OK, the selling is probably, and

• 1:13:06David Senra?

  getting them to try it's probably even harder than making it, right? And so she gets the packaging as a way to induce them to try it. The whole process is simplified. If the perfume is offered in a spectacular egg, she's talking about the packaging of this particular product, that looked as if it had been wrought in the workshop of Peter Carl Faberge. So think what a Faberge egg looks like, okay? Packaging in no way, and this is the reason behind her, her thinking behind this, I should say. Packaging in no way dupes the customer or enhances the integrity of the product. If the product is disappointing, the customer will keep the container, which costs a considerable sum to make, and never return for more perfume, no matter what it, what it comes in. If the product is excellent, the customer will buy it again and even faster

• 1:13:48David Senra?

  if it comes in yet another wonderful package that delights the eye. Both have to be the best, the product and the package. So this is also something that you and I have talked about, that everybody has to develop their own philosophy on business. It should match you and it should be unique to you. She's giving you the same advice. Each business person must find a style, that voice that grows clearer and louder with each success and failure. Observing your own and your competitors' successes and failures makes your inner business voice more sure and vivid. During the acquisition binges of the 1970s, we saw business firms becoming conglomerates. There was pressure for us to do the same. The lauder inner voice said, no. Stick to what you know best and don't change it lightly. Today, the same firms are spinning off the subsidiaries

• 1:14:32David Senra?

  because they weakened instead of strengthened their original product. Another way to think about this, they, they lost their focus, right? The voice grows stronger with each success. Each observed failure. All one has to do is listen and watch. Business is a magnificent obsession. I've never been bored a day in my life, partly because of a true, partly because as a true business addict, it's never been enough to have steady work. I had to love what I was doing. And this next sentence that Este is about to tell us is a main point in Bill Gurley's talk, Runnin Down a Dream, which I hope I can convince you to watch. Love your career or find another. Soup, glue, or beauty can all be packaged in jars, tubes, and bottles, and vended like any other commodity.

• 1:15:16David Senra?

  The big difference lies in the vendor. You, not the items to be vended. Even excellent glues, soups, and beauty products can die in the marketplace if the vendor isn't passionate and clever. Develop your style. Our unique style has come from years of trial and error. Truths have emerged that work for us. Let me share them with you. So that's what the entire book is about. She calls these maxims "lotterisms", but our style came from years of trial and error. Truths have emerged that work for us. Again, somebody spent 50 years of their life studying, being obsessed about their business, about their craft. They put down their best ideas and their worst mistakes, and most people won't even bother to pick up the book.

• 1:16:01David Senra?

  Let's go back to Morgan Freeman. And you can see the scene. Just Google "Seven Library Scene, Morgan Freeman". I've watched it on YouTube several times. "Gentlemen, I'll never understand you. All these books, the world of knowledge at your fingertips, and what do you do? You play poker all night." Couple of "lotterisms", there's a bunch, obviously. Pick up the book if you want to read all of them. "Keep your image straight in your mind. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to sell the top-of-the-line, finest-quality products to the best outlets, rather than through drugstores and discount stores." And so we have. "We don't do dungarees. We don't do tablecloths. We do the best skin products available today, the best makeup and fragrance products." Another one. "Keep an eye on the competition. This doesn't mean copying them, as I've made clear.

• 1:16:44David Senra?

  Being interested in other people's ideas for the purpose of saying, 'We can do it better', is not copying. Innovation doesn't mean inventing the wheel each time. Innovation can mean a whole new way of looking at old things." She's gonna say, "Learn to say no. Steve Jobs told us focus is saying no." "Saying yes all the time stems from a childish desire to please and be loved by all the time. Executives must say no to inferior products and ideas."

• 1:17:11David Senra?

  Trust your instincts. I've discovered that pondering facts and other people's judgments usually leads me down the wrong path. Common sense, instinct, trust that part of yourself, whatever you call it. Another lauterism. Act tough. What other calls tough, I call persistent. If you know you're correct, you must be firm and not bow to pressure. Too often, women are taught as little girls that sweetness is more valuable than persistence or stubbornness. Little boys, on the other hand, are taught to win. Persistence and being tough can make for success. I can't count the number of little plaques that Ronald, that's one of her sons, has given out that read, "It can be done." I agree. Anything can be done if you're certain it's right and you stay firm.

• 1:17:53David Senra?

  I want to bring this up because she mentions it multiple times and I've seen it in a lot of these biographies. The power of visualization. This is the idea that seeing it in your mind helps you see it in person. Bob Noyce, founder of Intel, Edwin Land, Polaroid, Steve Jobs did this, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Estee Lauder, they all did this. Edwin Land and Steve Jobs, there's a famous story that John Sculley talks about where they go to meet, this is in the 1980s. Steve Jobs is obsessed with Edwin Land and he winds up being his hero. That's why I've done five, I've read five, no, I've read six books on Edwin Land. I've done five podcasts on him. One of those podcasts has two books. But anyways, they tell the story about Edwin Land's in his 70s at this point, Steve Jobs

• 1:18:34David Senra?

  is what, he's gotta be 20, maybe, maybe 30, something, late 20s, somewhere around there. And so they both tell the story of seeing their, in their mind, the full, the fully-formed version of their product and then working backwards from that and just galvanizing their entire organization, the scientists, engineers, designers, everybody in their organization, to get as close to that image they had in their mind with as few compromises as possible. Very fascinating story. So anyways, this is Este. Visualize if in your mind's eyes, you see a successful venture, a deal made, a profit accomplished, it has a superb chance of actually happening. Projecting your mind into a successful

• 1:19:19David Senra?

  situation is the most powerful means to achieve goals. If you spend time with pictures of failure in your mind, you will orchestrate failure countless times. Before the event, I have pictured a heroic sail to a large department store every step of the way, and the picture in my mind became a reality. I've visualized success, then created the reality from that image. Great athletes, business people, inventors, and achievers from all walks of life seem to know this secret. And then this is, "The hard work is all worth it. Imagine how good this would feel." Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe what hard work and prayer have brought me. They've taken me from carrying a tiny bottle of cream in my purse on the off-chance I'd

• 1:20:02David Senra?

  meet a woman who needed a quick lift to seeing a streamlined white streak as I drive along the Long Island Expressway, 33 miles due east of Manhattan. That streak is my factory. And as my car approaches, my name gets larger and larger. It is a thrill that will never diminish for me. My name, not in lights as the little girl from Queens dreaming of being an actress hoped to see, but my name on a working monument to beauty.

• 1:20:31David Senra?

  And then this is Este, once again, on the importance of wishes, dreams, and victories. First comes the wish. Then you must have the heart to have the dream. Then you work, and work. From where you sit, you can probably reach out with comparative ease and touch a life of serenity and peace. You can wait for things to happen and not get too sad when they don't. That's fine for some, but not for me. Serenity is pleasant, but it lacks the ecstasy of achievement. I've insisted on the long stretch rather than the gentle reach. I celebrate this sweet country where the work ethic and the beauty ethic walk hand in hand. Living the American dream has been intense, difficult work, but I couldn't

• 1:21:13David Senra?

  have hoped for a more satisfying life. I believe that potential is unlimited. Success depends on daring to act on dreams. How far do you want to go? Go the distance. Within each person is the potential to build an empire of her wishes. And don't allow anyone to say you can't have it all. You can. You can have it all if you're willing to work. I always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. My whole life has been about fulfilling dreams. I kept my eye on the target. Whatever that target was, I never allowed my eye to leave the particular target of the moment.

• 1:21:54David Senra?

  Whatever your target is, big or small, grand or simple, ambitious or personal, I've always believed that success comes from not letting your eyes stray from that target. Anyone who wants to achieve a dream must stay strong, focused, and steady. She must expect and demand perfection and never settle for mediocrity. If you push yourself beyond the furthest place you think you can go, you'll be able to achieve your heart's dream. And that is where I'll leave it for the full story. Pick up the book. It's really hard to find. Sometimes it's sold out. I've seen it on sale for over like $500 before, which is crazy. But I'll leave a link if you buy the book using the link. If you can find the book using that link, you'll be supporting the podcast at the same time.

• 1:22:38David Senra?

  So if you're interested in that, the links are always down there below. I will also leave links to that talk. Really think it's worth, I highly recommend spending an hour listening to it. I think you'll enjoy it. That is where we at? 217 books down, 1,000 to go, and I'll talk to you again soon.