Early on in my life I heard a quote: “If you are not scared, you are not dreaming big enough.” I don’t remember who said it to me, or where I was even at in my life, but this quote has always resonated with me. When I first started True North Beauty it was a passion project, a side hustle from my full-time corporate job. Now, it is a growing start-up and I am dreaming bigger and working harder to turn it into a well-known national skincare and lifestyle brand!
Since starting TNB, one of my early on goals has been to make it to the Indie Beauty Expo, an expo where potential buyers and beauty insiders come from far and wide to look at new and upcoming beauty products. This is something that I have been planning for 3 years and this year I finally decided to do this! Of course it the idea of taking TNB to IBE seemed super scary to me at first. Not only are we investing an inordinate amount of money and time to attend, we are presenting our products and brand to a highly influential group of people and their reaction will shape the future of True North Beauty!
Going to IBE is in NYC this August is truly an all-in moment for us. This is the most vulnerable I have ever felt. I feel like I'm on a roller coaster every day with high moments of immeasurable confidence and exhilaration about what we are about to experience. Followed by low moments of paralyzing self-doubt, questioning if this is the right choice for the company and thinking about all of the implications: If we are successful there are a whole host of new challenges we face and the talk of becoming a national skincare brand becomes closer to being real and that's pretty scary. If we are not successful, what next?
I do not know how this will turn out, but what I do know is that we have prepared for this moment and we are ready. We have an amazing team in place, we have launched new product lines, we are selling in physical stores in 3 states, and we have even more satisfied customers than ever! However, even with all of those great things in place, it still is scary to put yourself out there for elite members of your industry to judge you. But, no matter how scary it seems to go to IBE, I have to keep asking myself: “If not this year, then when?” What if I don’t do it now, then how can I be certain that I will do it next year? I can’t. So that is why I had to look to my word for the year: Trust. I think back to that word and say it every time my mind starts to wonder to "what if" and I remind myself to trust the journey!
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