Take pride in your work. Have an intrinsic set of expectations, an inner voice. Praise and compliments from the outside are nice, but you need to have an internal compass of the effort level and end result that you are proud of.
As a part of my series about “Grit: The Most Overlooked Ingredient of Success” I had the pleasure of interviewing Samantha Myers.
Samantha Myers and Judy Famigletti are the duo behind Let’s Dress Up, a fairy tale themed play space for kids in the heart of New York City. Samantha left a lengthy career in Financial Services in 2018 to be an entrepreneur and joined forces with Judy at Let’s Dress Up.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what events have drawn you to this specific career path.
After graduating from college at Tulane University, I read a book about the stock market and became intrigued. I got an entry level job in the Financial Services Industry and loved it. Twenty years later after various roles, a merger, countless restructurings, and a couple of moves I was burnt out and ready for a change. So I decided to answer that nagging voice in the back of my mind that told me I should own my own business and an entrepreneur was born.
Can you share your story about “Grit and Success”? First can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?
There were many difficult times over the course of my financial career. Plenty of disppointments, times where I was undervalued, overlooked or passed over for a promotion. I decided very early on to stay true to myself, be honest, speak my mind and work my tail off. That way if I got disappointed at least it wasn’t for lack of effort. I was solely in charge of how hard I worked. I set high expectations for myself and developed a strong sense of professionalism.
Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?
I think it starts with your upbringing and then grows over time. Finance was a great and challenging environment for me to hone those skills. And they happen to translate seamlessly to being an entrepreneur. At the end of the day, you have to look yourself in the mirror and be proud of your effort and how you handle yourself. Tomorrow is always another day, another opportunity.
So how did Grit lead to your eventual success? How did Grit turn things around?
The only reason we have been able to get through the last year at Let’s Dress Up is through sheer grit and perseverence. After we got past the initial shock at the severity of the COVID situation, it was time to get to work and control what we could control. We secured financing, negotiated with service providers, we made improvements at the store, we found new ways to market, we listened to webinars on SEO and Social Media Strategies. Quite simply, we hustled, we tried things and we kept moving. We never gave up and now we plan to come out even more successful on the other side.
Based on your experience, can you share 5 pieces of advice about how one can develop Grit? (Please share a story or example for each)
- Work hard. Period. Actions speak louder than words so get to work. Especially when you wear the many hats of a small business owner, sometimes the most important thing you can do is just get it done.
- Take pride in your work. Have an intrinsic set of expectations, an inner voice. Praise and compliments from the outside are nice, but you need to have an internal compass of the effort level and end result that you are proud of.
- No excuses. No one wants to hear that the dog ate your homework or it was someone else’s fault. Take responsibility.
- Build on small successes. Everything is a learning experience so celebrate the wins, even if they are small, then move up from there.
- Build confidence. As you learn more things and have more experiences, confidence will grow over time.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped you when things were tough? Can you share a story about that?
I have a small army of people including my parents, friends and a handful of colleagues who have helped shape me, encourage me, let me be myself, told me when I was being crazy, been a shoulder to cry on, or celebrate with and everything in between. I am truly grateful and I like to think I have tried to be the same for them. And now it is my own family, my husband and my young daughter that push me to believe in myself and aim even higher.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
We have used our business to bring smiles and magical experiences to our little customers faces. I am very proud that we have also made it a point to collaborate with and support other women and other small businesses. We believe strongly in collaborating and being a positive member of our local community.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Let’s Dress Up is a safe and fun place where kids can get back to being kids and having some fun. Which will in turn help parents get a break and relax knowing we are here for them.
What advice would you give to other executives or founders to help their employees to thrive?
You have to have honest and open dialogue. Welcome employee ideas, include them in the processes and encourage them to feel connected to the business. When everyone takes pride in the business the end result is a better product, a good culture and a stronger business.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Let kids be kids. Let them play, imagine and dream. Let’s put down the electronics for a minute and get back to basic, old school fun.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I have a lot, but here are two relating to this topic.
The difference in winning and losing is most often not quitting — Walt Disney.
Let your hustle be louder than your mouth.
Essentially, I like anything about taking action, not procrastinating, not being afraid to try things, etc, etc. I find them everywhere from past presidents to songs (and many of them end up as notes in my daughters lunchbox, the poor thing). It is the way I try to conduct every aspect of my life and I find it motivating to remind myself from time to time.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
@letsdressupnyc IG
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Samantha Myers of Let’s Dress Up: Five Ways To Develop More ‘Grit’ was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
