Today, I am so thrilled, like Chills thrilled, to welcome back one of our most popular experts that has ever appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast. And she also happens to be a very dear friend of mine. I'm talking about Jamie Kern-Lema. I call her the Professor of Purpose, because the last time she was here, she taught you how to discover your purpose. But today, Jamie is back, and she's here to reveal five lies that she had to confront in order to become who she was meant to be. And I know Jamie is going to tell you something, that these are the same five lies you're probably telling yourself right now. So let's tee up these five lies and one by one, knock them down and reveal the truth. You are capable of more than you could ever even imagine. So let me tell you a little bit about my dear friend Jamie. And I'm so excited that she's back because selfishly, she's such a close friend, and she lives on the West Coast, which makes me mad because I don't see her as much as I would like to. But the other reason why I'm really excited is because every time I sit down with Jamie, the conversation goes so deep, so fast, and I always walk away feeling like I personally have tapped into a deeper sense of purpose, a greater level of clarity.

And I know you will, too. Now, Jamie started her career as a waitress at Denny's and went on to build, launch, and sell a cosmetics company that she started in her living room and then sold it for $1.2 billion. Now, you've probably heard of the company that she founded, It Cosmetics. After selling it, she then became the first female CEO inside of L'Oréal in their 100-year history. She's one of the world's most successful entrepreneurs, a New York Times bestselling author. She's been named to the Forbes Richest Self Women's List. Her brand new book, Worth, is here. And what I'm really excited about is when she was here last time, and we will link to that episode so you can hear it, she took us on this wild, unbelievable Revealable ride, behind the scenes of the story of It Cosmetics. But today, Jamie is back, and she's here to reveal five lies, lies that keep you from believing in yourself, lies that destroy your confidence, lies that rob you of the life that you are meant to lead. And even though we are really good friends, I poured through her book and just had epiphany after epiphany, and I didn't realize these were the things that she was struggling with.

But she's here to get real with you and me. Please help me welcome Jamie Kern-Lema.

Mel, thank you so much for having me. I am so excited. This is going to be a powerful episode for everybody listening because these are lies that lead to self-doubt. And we're here to wake up some truths.

Well, and what I love, Jamie, is that when somebody meets you and they hear your resume and they see what you have built in your life, there is this moment where you go, Is she really telling ourselves these lies? For real? Come on. But I know that you dug deep to go behind the story that was in the headlines, the story that everybody tells about It Cosmetic and you doing the impossible, and you took a look at what did I actually have to dig through in order to keep going. And so before we get into the Five Lies and some of the amazing resources in your new best-selling Book, Worth. I would just love for the new listeners that are here with us that did not hear the story, could you just give us the thumbnail version of how It Cosmetic started and some of the highs and lows?

It all started with this season of setback in my life and major self-doubt. And what I know now, Mel, is for so many of us, our setbacks are actually setups for what we're supposed to do to live our best life. We just don't know it at the time, but I was working in what I thought was my dream job. I had done so many jobs, from waitressing at Denny's to bagging groceries in the grocery store to get my way into journalism. And eventually, I was anchoring the news. And I was live on the air one day, and I hear in my earpiece from the producer, There's something on your face. There's something. And I'm talking to millions of viewers live. He's like, There's something on your face. There's something on your face. You need to wipe it off. You need to wipe it off. And in the commercial break, I glanced down, and I see this bright red rosacea cracking through my makeup. If you imagine desert clay cracking. My makeup was cracking under the HD lights, and the red was coming through. And I have hereditary rosacea, which for me gets really bumpy, really bright red.

And so I'm trying to cover it during the commercial break, and it won't work. And that set off a moment where I spent all my paycheck trying to find makeup that would work, and nothing would work. And every time I'd go back and I'd be live on the air, I'd hear in my earpiece, It's still there. It's still there. It's still there. Oh, my God. And I went through this season of self-doubt where I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I'm in my dream job, but am I going to get fired? I'd be talking live on the air, and instead of engaging in the story, I'd be thinking, are viewers changing the channel? Am I costing the company ratings? And I started this big season of self-doubt. How old were you? Oh, gosh, 31.

Okay, so you're 31 years old. And just to bring you listening, in as Jamie's telling the story, I think we've all had a moment like that where maybe you're sitting in a meeting at work and you feel your face flush, or you are giving a presentation and you to stutter, or you are sitting in a meeting at school and you are there to advocate for your kid and you just can't find the words, or you're even in a relationship, and every day you wake up and you're like, Okay, today's the day I'm going to say this is not working, and I need you to change, and you just start to doubt yourself. Yeah. And so this is a universal experience. Yes. But You amplify this because you're on television in your dream job, and your rosacea is basically melting your makeup and now making its own appearance on the television with you. Yes. So what the hell do you do?

Well, I remember this moment, and I love the examples you just shared, because everyone has these moments where you get this gut feeling or this knowing. I remember thinking, This makes no sense. I cannot. There's thousands of makeup companies out there. Why does What if you can't find anything that works for me? And I got this moment, this knowing that said, Well, if you can't find anything that works for you, there's probably a whole lot of other people out there that can't find anything. What if you create something that works for you? It'll probably help a whole lot of people. And then I got this moment where I'm like, Okay, my entire life... Because I was like, This makes no sense that nothing works for me. Then I realized I've never seen a woman with bright red rosacea saying as a model for products, and Oh, that's true.

I just want to make sure that as you're listening, you understand something. So this was a time where you didn't see normal people in ads the way that you do now. Right. This This is a time where there would never be anybody on social media or in an advertisement or in a makeup advertisement that had no makeup on. We take it for granted because we see before and after, and we see people a more natural look. But that was not the case. Not the case. Over a decade ago. Yeah.

And I realized, Mel, I'm like, Okay, I've always loved beauty ads and commercials and magazines my whole life, but deep down inside, they always made me feel like I wasn't enough. And this moment happened, right? And you mentioned someone saying, I'm about to end a relationship, or whatever situation we're in. I had this moment, this gut feeling where I was like, wait a minute. What if I could figure out how to make a product and not I just make a product, but put real women as models every age, and shape, and size, and skin tone, and skin challenge, and try to shift that definition of beauty in the whole beauty industry for every little girl out there about to start doubting herself and every grown person who does. So I had this feeling like, what if? What if I could do it? And that was in my gut, in my knowing. But really fast, my head talked me out of it. My self doubt was like, oh, but you got no money. You don't know what you're doing. You're unqualified. You have no connections in the beauty industry. I sat in that place, and maybe a lot of viewers can connect with this, where you have this gut feeling or you're supposed to do something or go for it or tell the person you want to be more than just friends or put your idea out there.

But then your head is talking yourself out of it, and you're about to doubt yourself out of your own destiny. I sat in that place for a minute and I made the decision, Okay, I am going to trust my knowing. I'm going to take a risk, even though I was in what I thought was my dream job, even though I didn't know what the heck I was doing, I tapped. I tried to almost like, turn down the volume on my self-doubt, my thoughts and my mind, saying, You are not enough. Turn up the volume on that gut feeling And these are the moments that change our entire lives, right? When we make the decision to trust that gut feeling. And now, here's the thing. I launched the business.

Okay, now, I just have to ask you a question. Yes. You'd never made makeup before. No. No.

No.

So not knowing how isn't an excuse to not figure out how to do it. Yeah. Put us at the moment of that know versus the knowing, and how the heck, in a moment, when the, but, but, but, but, but, but, how do you discern whether that is legit fear, or it is just the self-doubt and a sense of unworthiness coming up. Yeah. And you have something deeper called a knowing. Professor Purpose in the House, people. Let's go.

Every single person listening right now. Every day, we get nos, right? We get nos in all different forms. We're not invited to the party. Someone doesn't include us. We don't know why we're not in the circle of mom standing around and we're feeling on the outside. But most of our most painful nos are the ones we're telling ourselves. The ones we're telling ourselves in the form of negative self-taught all day long. We all get nos all the time, and we tell ourselves nos. But inside, in our gut, if we get still, if we listen to our soul, we get a knowing, an intuition, a still small voice, a gut feeling. Every single moment in your life, in your friendships, in your joy, in your goals and dreams and ambitions, I believe smell, they come down to which one you listen to. Do you listen to the nos or do you listen to your knowing? And this is the most important thing because our self-doubt will lie to us all day long. It will lie to us all day long. And when we get still and ask ourselves, Is that the truth? And you tune into your gut, your gut will tell you the right answer.

I don't believe your gut is ever wrong. I believe that it either leads you to the next right step or the next right lesson.

Oh, so even if you, quote, trust your gut, and it blows up in your face, it was leading you to a lesson that you absolutely needed.

Exactly. And I believe our steps are ordered that way. And when we talk about the nos, the moment I decided to trust myself and listen to that knowing over the nos in my own head, et cetera, and launch this business. What a lot of people don't know because they just see the headline Fairytale, Oh, Denny's Waitress builds a billion-dollar Company. It was three years, hundreds and hundreds of nos. No after no after no after no. I would pray or meditate and be like, Why is this not working? Why is no one telling me that they believe in my dream? All these retail stores saying no. I had this vision for inclusivity in the beauty industry. I was saying, Let's have models every age and shape and size. I had this vision. I'm like, Let me show my bare face rosation, prove the product works. And these retail stores were mortified. They were mortified. There was thousands of makeup brands, but I entered that space fully authentically to who I was. No matter what your dream or your idea or your art you want to put out in the world or your podcast you want to launch.

If you are one of the brave ones willing to do it authentically to you, by definition, it has never been done before. It has never been done before.

Because?

Because there is not another you in existence, and there never will be. And nobody can compete with that. And I know one of our lies we're going to talk about is, You're not crazy, you're just first. But I'm going to go off on this-Go right there.

That's the first slide. You're not crazy, you're just first. Let's unpack that.

You want me to unpack that? Okay.

Go, go.

She's on a roll. Let's keep going. I'm fired up. This one lie, oh my gosh, Mel, it is life-changing. And this lie is called, You're not crazy, you're just first. So many of us think and believe the things that are different or odd or strange or quirky or wrong with us. And we should dim our own light, hide them from others, because we fear if we show up as who we truly are, then we'll be found out. People might not like us anymore. We might not be loved. And so we end up, so many of us, showing up as who we think other people want us to be.

We end up showing up as our representative, right?

Every day, a lot of people wake up in the morning and put on who they think they need to be uniform with their name on the Like a Denny's waitress uniform. Here I am in my role. Yes, in my role. Good daughter, good partner, good employee. I'm just going to keep showing up. The friend that gets invited, the mom that has it all together, whatever that role is. Exactly. So first of all, it is impossible to have a true connection with another human being if you are showing up as anything other than who you authentically are, whether it's with a friend or a partner or a customer. For everyone listening, who thinks like, Oh, if I'm me, I won't be loved, or if I'm really me, then I won't do well on social media, or I won't get the promotion, or I won't get the job, or whatever it might be, who you are deep down inside. And your authenticity is your superpower. And for anybody listening who has ever felt like that they're different or that they don't belong, growing up as a little girl, I was adopted. I have five families. Five families?

Five families. Can you explain that? Through divorces and then birth family I met later. Oh, got you. Okay. Yeah, five families. Marriage. So blessed. I would not change a thing. And also, growing up, I always felt like I didn't belong. I always... I would have these big ideas like, What if we could solve world hunger? And I was raised in an environment where no one had ever gone to college, and I would hear things like, Things like that don't happen to people like us, or, You're crazy. They would always call me crazy as a term of endearment. You're crazy for having these different ideas. Fast forward, I am in my late 20s, and I went to therapy. First person in any of my families that I'm aware of to go to therapy, and I literally asked my therapist, I said, Am I crazy? Because I go, I've been called this as a term of endearment my whole life. Hold on. As a term of endearment? Yeah. Talk about gaslighting yourself. Yeah. Right? And my therapist said to me, You're not crazy, but I'm really glad you're here. And she explained that when you are first in your family to maybe break a generational cycle or to actually show up as who you authentically are, to really share how you feel, to share your ideas, to not dim your light to fit in, that it often is met with confusion, resistance, with a feeling like you need to dim your light to belong.

And this moment, Mel, hit so bright like a light bulb that burst. I realized in that moment, I'm not crazy. I'm just first. I'm just first. You are the first ever you that has ever been in existence. And so when you show up as who you are, Do not be surprised. If not, everyone gets it. There's never been a you before. And it's not just that every one of us has unique fingerprints and irises of our eyes and tongueprints that are unique and heartbeats that are unique. You're the only one in existence who's the experiences you've had in life and feels emotions the way you feel and sees art and beauty the way that you do. When you are brave enough to be who you truly are, it's scary at first. But when you step into it and one step at a time, you start saying what you really mean, being who you truly are, it's how you start to live in alignment with your assignment in life. I go deep in this lie and worthy about how to unlearnt the lie that the things that are wrong with you, or odd, or strange, or different, are the things you should hide when in fact, they're the things most right with you.

There are so many moments in my life when I was going through rejection after rejection, or not being invited to the party, or retailers weren't believing in my brand and I was tempted to quit. I would remind myself, Okay, I'm doing this authentic to me. I'm not crazy. I'm just first. I'm just first. In any moment where you're tempted to feel like your idea isn't good enough or you shouldn't raise your hand and share how you really feel. So many of us can remember a moment in our childhood, in class, perhaps, when we knew the answer, but for the first time ever didn't raise our hand because we started to doubt, Am I right? Am I going to get made fun of? Am I going to fit in? And self-doubt starts to kick in. And before you know it, we're 55 and deciding, I think I'm not going to raise my hand on that Zoom call tomorrow, or I'm not going to go after that wild, bold idea because it might not work. And we start to live our lives hiding in plain sight. And we can be crushing things all around us that look good to everyone else, but we know we're not living the truest highest, fullest expression of ourselves.

And so for anyone who's ever felt like who they are isn't enough, it is a lie.

You are not crazy. You're just first. They wrote a poem, You're not crazy. You're just first. One thing about this, especially Especially in the context of a family system structure, when you feel like there's something wrong with you or when you get pushback from your family, the reframe from the lie, which is everybody telling you, You're crazy. You can't do that. People judging you. You even judging yourself. That reframe is so powerful because I've been really surprised by how difficult it is in my own life, but I know in your life, as you're listening, to break free of that fear of disappointing people in your family or what their expectations were for you. And so to think, Oh, I'm just the first one to go to college. I'm just the first I'm just the first one to not be an accountant. I'm just the first one to really prioritize healing. Well, I'm just the first one that's going to live my life differently than everybody in my family has done forever. And in so doing, I am setting up this lie, you're crazy, and calling it out for what it is and living in the truth, which is, no, I'm just first.

We all get nos all the time.

Is it a no, like, Hell no, or is it a knowing to keep going?

If we listen to our soul, we get a knowing, an intuition, a still small voice, a gut feeling.