The Jamie Kern Lima Show
“This Speech Will Change Your Life!” COMMENCEMENT SPEECH “What Will You Do With The Power That Is YOU?” Jamie Kern Lima | Columbia University GSB 2025
Tue, 20 May 2025
Imagine if 1 tool, that’s a simple question to ask yourself each day, can transform your confidence, your self-belief, and your entire life! I am so excited for this episode with you today, as I am sharing the commencement speech I just gave at Columbia University GSB where I share how this one question I ask myself daily has changed everything in my life and it can for you too! One of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself, that has the potential to help you truly live your best life is this: What will you do, with the power that is, YOU? This question helped me believe that where I came from, and even my past mistakes, didn’t have to determine where I was going. And, along with my faith, helped me believe my dreams were possible, even on the days when it felt like nothing was going my way, or on the days when I was tempted to tell myself lies like I don’t have what it takes, I’m not enough, and big dreams like this don’t happen to people like me. What will you do with the power that is YOU? It’s one of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself, because, at it’s core, it’s a reminder that you hold so much power inside of you, and you do! I can’t wait for you to hear this episode and let me know how you’re going to start using this question in your life! Are You Ready to believe in YOU?🙌 jamiekernlima.com👈 Sign up for my FREE Inspirational Newsletter and get ready for your self-worth to soar!🩷 Also, please make sure to take 2 seconds and click the “Follow” button right here on this page to follow me and the podcast, I’m so grateful and thank you SO much! And whether you're joining me today for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kern Lima Show podcast family. And remember this episode is not just for you and me. Please share it with every single person that you know because it can change their life too. It’s such an honor to share this podcast together with you. And please note: I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Follow me here: Instagram: / jamiekernlima TikTok: / jamiekernlima Facebook: / jamiekernlimaofficial — Sign up for my inspirational newsletter for YOU at: jamiekernlima.com — Looking for my books on Amazon? Here they are! WORTHY: https://a.co/d/6MkvL2j Believe IT: https://a.co/d/7nYhkfb
Chapter 1: What is the empowering question for self-discovery?
Imagine if one tool that's a simple question to ask yourself every day can transform your confidence, your self-belief, and your entire life. I am so excited for this episode with you today as I'm sharing the commencement speech I just gave to Columbia University where I share how this one question I ask myself daily has changed everything in my life and it can for you too.
What will you do with the power that is you? It's one of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself because at its core, it's a reminder that you hold so much power inside of you and you do. I can't wait for you to hear this episode and let me know how you're going to start using this question in your life.
And whether today you're listening for yourself or because someone that you love shared this episode with you, I want to welcome you to the Jamie Kernley Michelle podcast family. Thank you so much for being here. And can you take two seconds and do me a favor? Just hit the follow button on the app that you're listening on. Thank you so much. It truly means so much to me.
You can also get inspiration into your inbox from me to you for free. You can join my newsletter community at jamiekernlima.com. Also, this incredible episode today, it's not just for you and me. Please share this with every single person that you know.
who might need some inspiration today, or perhaps a boost in their ability to trust the power inside of them, because this powerful tool and episode can truly impact my, yours, and their life too. Jamie Kern Lima is her name. Everybody needs Jamie Kern Lima in their life. Jamie Kern Lima. Jamie, you're so inspiring. Jamie Kern Lima. Class of 2025, congratulations!
When I think about today, I think about the word power. The power of the degree that you've earned, the power of everything you've learned inside and outside of the classroom at this incredible legendary institution that is Columbia Business School.
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Chapter 2: How can you harness your power effectively?
and the power of your real-world work and life experience that have gotten you to this very moment right here, and the immeasurable power of possibility that lies ahead in your future. The power of all of these is now stacked together in your favor as a platform to stand firmly on and as a springboard to launch from into your vision and into your dreams for what's ahead.
And today, perhaps more than any other day in your life so far, you're best positioned to ask yourself this purpose-defining question and to answer it with bold, uninhibited vision. What will you do with the power that is you? This question helped me believe that where I came from and even my past mistakes didn't have to determine where I was going.
And along with my faith helped me believe my dreams were possible.
Even on the days when it felt like nothing was going my way, or the days when I was tempted to tell myself lies, like I don't have what it takes, I'm not enough, and big dreams like this don't happen to people like me, and maybe I should just take that other job because it feels super safe, but it doesn't feel in alignment with what I was created for. What will you do with the power that is you?
It's one of the most empowering questions you can ask yourself because at its core, it's a reminder that you hold so much power inside of you and you do. I used to ask myself this question when I was waitressing tables at Denny's and had big dreams of launching a business but was also dealing with so much self-doubt.
I would lean on this question when I needed to believe I was worthy of launching a company in my living room And while later enduring hundreds and hundreds of no's and rejections for years, and I needed the strength to keep going. I would later lean on this question when I needed a north star of what came a rapidly scaling company during a hyper growth trajectory.
And I consulted this question when deciding to sell the business I started in my living room to L'Oreal in what became a billion dollar deal and their largest US acquisition to date. Go Columbia. What will you do with the power that is you? It's a privilege of a lifetime that you get to decide the answer to that question. And yet so many people end up not living their answer to that question.
It's so easy with all the pressure that comes with life and even with the privilege and power you've worked so hard to earn to lose touch with our power. To start to choose certainty over calling. To choose fulfilling other people's expectations over fulfilling our purpose.
play it safe, to check the box, to fit the mold, to succumb to the pressure of getting the right job, the pressure to pay off loans, the pressure to make your family proud, the pressure to exceed the curve, the pressure to win on paper even if it means losing yourself, the pressure of climbing the ladder even if your gut tells you it might be leaning against the wrong wall.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Jamie Kern Lima face in her journey?
A few years in, I was moving up in markets and loving it, but didn't realize my dreams were about to take a tumble and a massive detour. See, while anchoring the news live one day, I hear in my earpiece from the producer, there's something on your face. There's something on your face. You need to wipe it off. You need to wipe it off. I knew what it was.
I have a skin condition that's called rosacea. There's no cure for it. It gets really red and bumpy. And until that moment, I'd always been able to just cover it up with makeup, like, no big deal.
When I glanced down live on TV in that moment, it was during a commercial break, and I saw, like, if you imagine desert clay cracking and red coming through, that was what was happening under the hot HD lights. My rosacea was coming through on live television. I tried to cover it up, and for the first time ever, the makeup didn't work.
And this turned into a really long season of self-doubt where I'd be live on television every time thinking like, am I going to get fired? And every time I'd go on and hear in my earpiece, Jamie, it's still there, it's still there. I spent most of my paycheck just trying to find something that would work. Every product out there and nothing would. And then one day I felt this whisper.
Maybe you've had a whisper like this in your life. It was a whisper that said, if you cannot find anything that works for you, why don't you figure out how to create something that does? So my gut, my intuition, my knowing said, you can do this. You can start a business and figure out how to find the best chemist and make an amazing product that's probably going to help so many people if you do.
But my self-doubt said, oh, but you've got no money. You don't know anyone in the beauty industry. You are not qualified. I made the decision to dare to trust my gut, to trust my knowing over my self-doubt. I also leaned on my Columbia Business School network. I called every alumni in the database that I could find asking their advice.
And then my husband, Paolo, he's right over there, CBS class of 04 alum. He was working in investment. Yes. He's over here. He was working in investment banking, and he and I both decided to quit our jobs. We poured every penny we had into starting a company called IT Cosmetics in our living room.
What we did not know is from the moment we went all in, it would be more than three years before we could even afford to pay ourselves a single penny. It would be hundreds and hundreds of no's and rejections.
And during this journey, I realized even though there were thousands of beauty companies out there, a lot of them I loved, I had never seen a company showing women with skin issues, bright red bumpy skin or whatever it might be. And then I also realized from the time I was a little girl, I would watch those beauty ads, and I loved them. I always aspired to look like them.
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Chapter 4: How did Jamie transition from news anchoring to entrepreneurship?
But here's the thing and here's the key is every time that we would meditate or pray and get really, really still, like I get this feeling inside that said you're supposed to keep going. You're supposed to keep going." And I trusted that voice and trusted the power inside of me.
And I'm sharing this because my hope and prayer today is that you do that too, every single step of the way outside of this room, and to trust it over all the no's that might be happening all around you like they were for us. So after years of countless rejections and no's, it finally happened. We got one single yes that had the power to change everything. QVC finally gave us a yes.
Then I learned we would get one shot, one shot to go live on QVC to present our product in this ten minute window and either hit their sales goal or not come back. I learned we'd have to sell over 6,000 units of product. in a 10-minute window, live on air. Y'all, we were doing one to two orders a day on our website. Like, that's what we were doing. And we had to sell over 6,000 units.
And then I learned it's a consignment offer. What that meant is we would somehow have to figure out how to pay for, manufacture, ship in, pass regulatory compliance, pass QC, all of the inventory. Then I go live on air in 10 minutes, and if it doesn't sell, we take it all back and we're not paid. So you should never say yes to that, ever, right?
But we were so desperate, and we decided to say yes and go all in. The only problem was we were out of money. So we applied. We went to try and get an SBA loan. 22 banks said no, and they should have. And the 23rd bank, California Bank and Trust, gave us an SBA loan to cover that purchase order and a little bit more.
We hired third party consultants who are amazing at helping so many people sell their products. But they all said the same thing. They said, you need to use what they considered beautiful models to sell the products. And here's the thing, like, you know, I have skin issues. They wanted us to use everyone that had no skin issues, that were the same, you know, skin tone.
They all looked like they were barely 18. But I knew that doing that, doing what everyone else was doing, isn't what I was created for. And it's not what you're created for either. And I knew I'd rather play my heart out fully and try to change the beauty industry. Even if we sold nothing, I'd rather stand for something than sell a whole ton of product but stand for nothing.
So my one big shot came, and it literally took everything inside of me to dare to believe and to go for it. And in my one big shot, we were teetering on bankruptcy at the time. After years of hearing no's, we cast models of every age, one in her 70s who had hyperpigmentation, one in her 20s who was dealing with acne, models of every skin tone and skin challenge like me.
And I wiped my makeup off on live television, showed my bright red bumpy skin, and literally everything was on the line. And right as I was standing there in the QVC studios about to go live, I learned you are not even guaranteed the 10 minutes. They know by the second what's selling and who's ordering online and what's, you could be a minute or two in and think like, oh, I got eight minutes left.
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Chapter 5: What inspired Jamie to create IT Cosmetics?
So shortly after we launched on QVC, he became one of my greatest mentors and friends. He still is to this day, and he had been there decades at QVC. And shortly after we launched, he retired. And when he did, we hired him in a paid position on our advisory board. So the guy that rejected me was now working for me, right? Like, no one can tell you you're not the right fit.
And, you know, it's really such a lesson just to never take rejection personally and never take someone else's doubt about you personally and never let that doubt turn into doubt in your own head. Because the person who doubts you today might be calling you boss tomorrow. History isn't made by the ones who play it safe. So today I ask you, what is the true calling that has only your name on it?
What does the power inside of you tell you that you're destined for? Your calling might be to work in investment banking to become an MD or a partner or to start your own firm. Your calling might be to consult for five years then start an idea in your living room you haven't been able to shape.
Your calling might be to put one foot in front of the other in the best direction you know how until you hear that call that says, this is it. Your calling might be to dare to make the lowest salary in Columbia Business School history until you're on your path to making the highest.
You might not know what your calling is, but when you do know, I dare you to commit to trusting that calling, not the one you can do, the one you were created for. Because if you're like me, you didn't come this far to be impressive. You came this far to be impactful. And I believe your success won't come from being the smartest in the room.
It'll come from being the most aligned with who you truly are and with who you're born to be. And my hope and my prayer is you walk out of here today making the decision to unwaveringly fully trust yourself and trust the power that's inside of you right now, even when it scares you, even when no one else might get it, even when it might go against the curve.
Because the world doesn't need more MBAs who can analyze a case study. The world needs more of us MBAs who become the case study. And I wanna ask you to imagine what case study could one day be written about you. And imagine what would happen if you made the decision right now to fully believe that you have what it takes to make it happen, because you do.
Columbia Business School Class of 2025, what will you do with the power that is you? I cannot wait to cheer you on as you bravely, boldly live the answer. Thank you and congratulations Class of 2025! If you loved today's episode, please click on the follow or subscribe button for this show on the app you're listening to it on or watching it on.
And if it added value to your life, if you could please give it a rating or review, I'd be so grateful. And again, share it with everyone who you believe in. Share it with another person in your life who could benefit from it. Maybe someone you know is making a change in their career or in their marriage or in their health or just needs to say who they are is enough.
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