Holly O'NeillAccording to Oprah, “failure is another stepping stone to greatness.” In failure, we learn to succeed. This International Women’s Day, Irish women in the beauty business share their biggest failures and what they learned.“The idea for The Clean Beauty Edit came very organically, as a result of my own personal health journey, and my gut feeling all along has been that this is the path that I am meant to be on.
“For me, it always comes back to production, it’s single-handedly the most stressful part of the business, whether it’s delays, defaults or freight logistics. When I think of my biggest failure, I laugh because I probably have way bigger ones awaiting me down the line as the brand continues to grow but definitely one that caused me a lot of stress was a product default we had on a batch of items.
“What I have realised in business is that issues will always arise but it is totally about how you deal with them. I think I’ve actually somewhat mastered that and, ironically, some of the best outcomes come from having had failures or issues along the way.”Sinéad Mooney, yoga and meditation teacher and trainer,“It’s an interesting challenge to look at failures/bumps in the road.
“The yoga studios here didn’t know me, students hadn’t taken my classes, I went from teaching packed classes of 50 yogis in the sunshine to knocking on doors in the rain. I chose to perceive my challenges simply as necessary obstacles on a path I knew I wanted. “I ended up having to buy my way out of that lease as the premises wasn’t working for us. It was difficult to admit that I had made a hasty decision. Once I could accept that I did, I was able to move on and work at fixing the problem.
“Besides this, my biggest failures haven’t been drastic events rather they perniciously evolve through unlearned lessons and repeated mistakes. They’re the type of failures when I really want to kick myself! “I think some feel guilty for talking about margin, negotiating deals and working towards the bottom line, but at the end of the day, we have humans to pay and they have mortgages. You can help people to feel better with a product you make and sell, and provide jobs while doing it. What I’ve learned is to do it all with pride.”Pestle & Mortar Cosmetics