Female Founder Failure: O Magazine
As a woman entrepreneur who encourages other female founders to look at their failures as opportunities in disguise, I felt that I should share a recent failure of my own. Back in May I traveled to New York and met the book editor of O Magazine. I was SO excited, and the fact that they had me come for a 30 minute interview about Elegant Entrepreneur had me full of hope and anxiously awaiting the October issue of Oprah’s magazine.
While grocery shopping I saw it….the OCTOBER ISSUE was out! I purchased a copy, and waited until I was hope to look through it. Shaking with excitement I flipped through page after glossy page of editorials, beauty product suggestions, and finally reached the Reading Room section. Page one…nothing, page two….no there, page three…nada, and as I flipped to page four I realized that Elegant Entrepeneur was not one of the 20 books suggested for Autumn reading. I cried. Tears poured down my face as all of the excitement and anticipation that had been building for months deflated.
I asked myself, “why am I so upset about this?” After some introspection I had my answer. Sure the prestige of being on Oprah’s book list would have been very exciting, but prestige and fame are not the reason I wrote my book. I wrote Elegant Entrepreneur to help women without business backgrounds start and grow successful companies. I saw O Magazine as a tremendous vehicle to share my book with millions of women, and get them into the world of entrepreneurship and defining success on their own terms. That was why I was so disappointed.
One of my favorite quotes is from Beau Taplin. “She was unstoppable. Not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them.” I remembered that I am unstoppable and will not let this setback keep me from finding the next way to tell women about my book and the wonderful life they can achieve as female founders.
