Interview with Australia's Lipstick Queen...Poppy King

The big question has always been "what is true success". Is it lots of money in the bank, beautiful homes and treasures, wonderful friendships or a life full of purpose. Some of the most successful people don't always feel so, some rise quickly and fall and then find the strength to get up again and there are some who look like they have reached the top but feel like they are at the bottom. Isn't there always more we can accomplish, higher mountains we can climb and more dreams we can pursue? From the many inspirational women I have recently had the pleasure of interviewing I can see that success is deeply personal and there is no one size fits all. We must be true to ourselves in finding our own definition and moving to the beat of our own drum.

Poppy King is one Australian woman who has been on everybody's lips....no pun intended :-)
With her successful rise to the top fresh out of high school and only 18 years old, she single handedly built an empire turning over more than $6 million a year as Australian women flocked to buy her long wearing, rich-toned matte lipsticks and became known as the Lipstick Queen of Australia.

The Queen currently lives in New York but surely will always call Australia home....Step inside into the world of Poppy King as she shares with you the secrets to her success and what it truly takes to get to the top if in fact there is such a place...

Where were you born?

Melbourne - Australia

Where did you grow up?
Melbourne

Current city?
New York

Date of birth?
05/24/72

Favourite fashion brand - why?
I don’t have a favorite brand, my favorite is vintage and thrift store finds because what you find and what you like in these stores is unique and personal to you and your imagination.

Favourite designer - why?
Azzedine Alaia because of his understanding and respect for women’s bodies and his expertise, he celebrates sexiness without making it trashy.

How do these fashion brands/designers empower you as a woman?
The vintage empowers my imagination by taking a garment out of context the find you it and imagining it in a different scenario…Alaia empowers my sense of celebrating the curves and sensuality of being female.

Favourite charity?
I have a few. Charities involving children, women’s empowerment, disaster relief and animals.

Favourite model and -why?
Don’t have one. I don’t take enough interest in models to know :-)

Favourite holiday spot – why?
New York City!!! I love this place for work and those times when you can just enjoy the city with nothing you HAVE to do.

Favourite resort/place to stay -?
Fire Island…I have a summer share there in a ramshackle old beach house that I love.

Things you love and cant live without?
People, art, music, books and patting dogs.

How did you start out?
I started out by realizing that there were no matte lipsticks on the market and that if I could find somewhere to make matte lipsticks for me was sure I could sell them to women who were looking for them to. I really thought about it very simply and that was my best asset because it allowed me to just to solve each piece of the puzzle step and step and ultimately get my own lipstick to market.

What do you love most about what you do?
The women I meet in stores or through being my customers. I find the experience of being a woman fascinating and love having the excuse of (lipstick) to connect with other women abut how they find being female.

What do you feel is your calling and how do you achieve it through what you do?
My calling is to give women the dignity that the beauty industry strips from them every day by treating them like idiots who can only be scared and intimidated into buying product rather than inspired to be themselves. Everything that the beauty industry puts out is about being better than what you are and I want you and me to celebrate what you ARE right now. I do this by only ever using graphic art to promote my products and NEVER using models, celebrities or standardized ideas of beauty to promote what I do or what you should be.

What other professions have you tried and when and how did you know that this was your calling?
Other than waitressing….this is all I have known and all I ever done since I was 18 and started my first brand. I have also written a book Lessons of a Lipstick Queen; Finding and Developing the Great Idea that Can Change your Life…so I guess I have also been an author too! Both of these professions feel like my calling because they satisfy my soul.

What inspired you to become a creator of lipstick? Did you always know what you wanted to do?
I never knew what I wanted to do and was in fact quite lost when I stumbled onto the idea and then the way to go about creating my own lipstick brand. I always knew however that I wanted to do things differently to institutions and whatever I did I wanted to focus on individuals rather than systems. These motivations inspired me to create lipsticks that were different to the very glittery, pink and peach lipsticks of the time.

How did you go about achieving such a level of success at such a young age? We want the secrets….
The secret is so simple it is almost dumb…the secret is that I just TRIED. I decided to see if I could find a factory to make the lipsticks that I wanted and I did. Most people never ever take the first tiny step and just try something.

What do you believe is the reason you are where you are today?
My willingness to try and my ability to get more invested in the trying rather than the results. The results are almost irrelevant in a way…it is the trying that means everything.

What is success to you?
Trying and taking initiative and never setting out to gain at someone else expense. Anyone can be successful if they are ruthless but success coming from concern is beautiful.

What have been some of your greatest successes?
The internal demons I have fought, the fears, the sadness, the disappointments that I have dealt with along the way and allowed them to make me stronger and more generous not less so.

What have been some of your greatest failures and how did you overcome them?
I have had very public failures at times such as my first business going into Chapter 11 back in 1998 so that was for sure a failure. I overcame it by making sure I learnt from it and not wallowed in the loss. It is still a daily challenge to deal with the wounds of that but it is the most worthwhile challenge I can take on because it is about never ever giving up on your spirit.

What has your success enabled you to do? What other goals and dreams has it allowed you to pursue?
It has allowed me to meet so many women that I otherwise never would have met and has allowed me to come into contact with people so far from just my own tiny little life. It has allowed me to travel, to observe, to contemplate and to search all of which I consider luxuries and privileges.

Was success a choice or something that just happened? What conscious decision did you make to get to where you are today?
Success is a choice. It is how you CHOOSE to deal with the setbacks that make you a success. I make a conscious decision to learn from every setback, try to forgive myself and others and move on to a higher plane from there.

What do you believe contributed mostly to you achieving success and becoming the lipstick queen in Australia?
My authenticity. I have never lied or attempted to trick and fool my customers and have always tried to offer them inspiration and truth.

Who are your role models and what inspires you about them?
The role model I think of most is Rosa Parks. The woman who refused to move from her seat during the time of segregation between black and white people in the USA. Can you fathom the courage of her convictions and her willingness to go on such a difficult path to force people to look at the truth? She is the biggest role model to me although I wasn’t even born when she did this.

What do you attribute to your success and having reached being at the top of your game?
I attribute my success to never focusing too much on the destination and more on the journey hence I don’t believe I am at the top of my game, there is no such thing, there is just life and the continuation of learning how to appreciate that more all the time.

Have you had a mentor along the way and who inspires you most and why?
My true mentorship comes mainly from the customers I meet because they inspire me to keep telling my truth.

Who would you most like to meet and why?
I try to gain some insight from everyone I meet even if it is insight into what I don’t want to buy into.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learnt along the way?
That there is never any perfect way to do anything there is only trying your best and so much of what ends ups happening is timing and variables you can’t control, all you can ever control is your efforts.

What difficulties and challenges have you faced to get to where you are and how did you turn them around?
I have been misunderstood so many times along the way by people who assume I am something that I am not, that I am super human when really I am as human and vulnerable as the next person. I am learning all the time that that is their problem and not mine and to turn that around is learning how to let other people’s expectations never cripple my sense of self.

If you could say one thing to women out there to inspire them on their journey to success what would it be?
That women are the backbone of this entire world and that we have been told we are the weaker sex when really we are anything but and don’t ever believe you need men’s permission to be successful.

Do you have a favourite quote you would like to share with us and what it means to you?
My favorite quote is from a documentary about Francis Ford Coppola and what he went through to make the film Apocalypse Now. His wife said “He had to fear a little, die a little and go insane a little to come out the other side.” The reason I love this is because it identifies that success is filled with darkness as well as light.

x Poppy King

Behind the Scenes....Interviews with Inspirational Women

Mahalia Barnes - Singer & Daughter of Jimmy Barnes

Stayed tuned for interviews with some of Australia's leading women who will share their journey with you..... find out how they have reached the top, how they keep the balance in their lives as mothers, partners, business women and the secrets to achieving business success and personal fulfillment through living their purpose.

We'll be bringing you interviews with Mahalia Barnes as well as......

Erika Heynatz - Actress, Model, Singer
Poppy King - Lipstick Queen
Marie Hatzis - Creator/Designer Hussy & Madame Marie

JUST DO IT.....

How amazing is it when you can create a life that is truly your own in every sense of the word. It makes me question the many people who believe that life happens to them and that they believe they are helpless to have the very best life possible...the privileged life! As I continue on my journey and working through the obstacles, challenges and beliefs which hold me back from having it all, I see that this is the beautiful part of the path we travel to getting to where we want to be.

What does it take to get there? Are there some who are destined for it and some who are not? I am discovering and meeting many great and successful people who have shown me that hard work is really part of the process and that sitting around praying for the life we want is not the solution. I have often read about people who sit and pray and wonder why God has not answered their prayers...

There is a story about the man who was drowning in a storm a helicopter flies by and tries to help him, he answers "no thank you I'm just waiting for God to help me" Next a boat comes along and he says the same thing, he finally drowned and in heaven he asks God why he let him die.... God replied "I sent you a helicopter and a boat what else did you want". I love this story as it so clearly demonstrates what many are doing, they are praying for the salvation, they are praying for a different life, they pray for the strength to get through the darkest of times but when the help comes in the various forms they do not recognise it and then become angry that God was somehow not there for them!

This saddens me a little because help IS ALWAYS there....I have learned that the "help" from above comes to us in many forms and it is for us to be open and receptive enough to see and recognise it when it comes. I have been amazed at the miracles that have come my way and I now see them every day in every way and the solutions which manifest before my eyes.

It takes some time to develop the ability to see the blessings each and every day, to listen to the voice of God which speaks through others and to recognise the solutions when they are in front of us in whatever form they come. So creating a life that we love is about acting, we can sit and pray and wait and wonder why nothing is happening but the key is to hear, to see and TO ACT. To JUST DO IT!!!

I remember reading that "God can only do for us what he can do through us"....this made me realise that the many books I've read which have been teaching how to manifest tell us that we should look at images of what we want, write out goals, create a dream board and then wait for it to manifest. Somehow they forgot a very important step and that is to TO ACT, to allow God to work through you in guiding and directing you to take the right action which will lead YOU to co-create the life you want. It's a partnership and we are simply a vehicle through which our best life will manifest through us and for that to happen we must be the ones who do with the guidance of the creator whispering in our ear with WHAT we need to do. the HOW is our job. It is then for us to get up of our little bottoms and JUST DO IT!!!

The beautiful side of life...

This week I have been pleasantly surprised at the love, generosity and kindness of people. When you are confronted daily by angry bus drivers, con artists and people who simply dont care you can be led to believe that most of the world is really like this! This past year has taught me much about my intuition and knowing who to let into my world and who doesn't make it past the door bell. I have often been told that I am too trusting....I used to talk to everyone I would meet and believe that everyone was a good person even if they did bad things! Today I am much wiser and the lessons that have come my way have taught me to wait, be still and observe.... an old friend once told me "people don't always tell you who they are but eventually they SHOW you who they are"....and how true that is!

Through the many lessons that have come thick and fast for the past few years I now am grateful for the true and real friendships that I have in my life. The people who care about where I have come from, where I am going and supporting me in getting there and enjoying the journey by my side. The friends who value me not for what I can do for them but for who they are when they are with me and that is much more important!

"People don't remember what you did but they will remember how you made them feel" and these days every interaction I have I do with a smile, with warmth, with love, with friendship and what I find is that the more you give the more you get back. This week has been a testament to that as the support I have received from my various circle of people who I call friends has been incredible as I begin my new chapter!

The essence of what I want to share through this story is that there are beautiful, kind and generous people in the world even if some days all you see is the opposite.

Wealthy Woman.....5 Money Secrets

When it comes to manifesting - money seems to be the biggest issue. I don't have to tell you that household debt is at a record high.

Personal bankruptcies have doubled in the last decade. Never before in history have people had so much stuff and so little freedom.

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.” - Will Smith, The 5 Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me

What Is The Key To Being Wealthy?

Studies show that wealth has nothing to do with luck, education or intelligence. It is the simple fact that wealthy people understand the principles of accumulating wealth and how to put them into effect.

The other day I came across a wonderful book, The 5 Lessons A Millionaire Taught Me. It's one of these books you don't put aside even if you feel hungry, the phone rings or you miss a date. I like to share this powerful information with you - here it is in a nutshell.

Become Wealthy By Following These 5 Lessons

If you follow the 5 lessons below, your life will change and you will become wealthy. These lessons are very simple; however, they require your commitment and a change in how you presently deal with money. It requires a change in your current model of thought.

Lesson 1: Decide To Be Wealthy

Make a decision today to be wealthy. Write down this goal, and either pin it on your board or carry the paper with you at all times. Take a look at your goal every day: Today I decide to be wealthy.

Your conscious decision to make a choice is the beginning of all your journeys. The moment you make a decision your consciousness will automatically start working on the solution to create that reality.

Lesson 2: Take Responsibility For Your Money

If you don't control your money, your money will control you! Controlling your money simply means that you need to know how much money you have, where you spend it and where it comes from. Take a piece of paper and write these three items down as precisely as possible.

Make this list as detailed as you can. Get a feeling of what your money is doing. The entire point of this exercise is to make your money work for you (you control your money)—and not the opposite (your money controls you).

Lesson3: Keep A Portion of Everything You Earn

Wealthy people pay themselves first, and then pay the bills! From time to time you hear stories about celebrities going bankrupt or having to wait tables. What happened? They obviously never saved a portion of their income and put it aside. If they had, they would still be wealthy.

Take at least 10% of your income every month and put it aside. Never ever touch this money for anything other than for investment purposed to make this money work for you. Don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Lesson 4: Win In The Margins

Always strive to improve your income and watch your costs. Reduce the money you spend. Do you really need that electric sock dispenser? Drive a more economical car and move into a smaller house with less expensive rent or mortgage. Replace the common belief that consuming for its own sake is a necessary part of your life with something that is more balanced.

Accumulating possessions will not make you happy! More stuff reduces your free attention, and you’ll have less attention left to focus on building your wealth.

Lesson 5: Give back

Would you like to live in a society where everybody has more than enough, where everybody is mostly focused on helping and supporting others? I bet you do. If everybody focuses only on themselves, our society would soon starve to death and be split into winners and losers.

If everybody focuses on giving back and on contributing to a better society, we would all have more than enough happiness. Peace and abundance would be the common ground.

Understand that we are not truly separate from one another; we are all depend on each other. The very things we all need the most—like fresh air, healthy food and loving hearts—are the things we most depend on others. The more we understand that this is a cooperative process and not an individual, separate one, the more we will reap the benefits from it.

Sharing your wealth and time is love made visible.

Catch up with the Girls....

I have often found that asking your closest friends for some honest feedback doesnt always produce the answers you were hoping to hear or even those that can help you on your path. As we journey through life it is important that we have the people around us that will not only tell us what we want to hear but will also remind us of the blind spots that we cannot see.

There are times that friends simply are unable to provide us with the feedback in fear that will upset us or we may not be on the same level regarding a particular issue we are facing. Many years ago I realised that no one person can be everything to us and so its important to have a variety of people around us who can support our growth.

I have started a womens' business group and today I met with two amazing women who are on their path to building their own empires. We got together, chatted over a coffee and were able to share our stories, challenges and greatness with each other. We have all been to networking events in the past but found that the dreaded question of "So what do you do" didnt leave us with a connection to each other but just a whole lot of facts about what the other person did for a living. What I realised is that just like on a date with a man it's not that useful to find out what someone does but we all desire to find out who someone is! That is what brings us together and that is what creates a true bond.

Many years I go I read the book "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill. They dedicated a chapter which talks about forming a MASTER MIND group because as we all know, who we associate with is who we will ultimately become. The Master Mind Group also allows you to be with people who are on the same path, they are on the road to success and instead of seeing the glass as empty they see it as very full. Now these are the people we all want to be around, positive, vibrant, full of spirit and who can provide us with honest feedback about where we are going and what we ourselves cannot see.

Today I walked away from our catch up and realised that success is a choice and that surrounding yourself with people who support your growth is the key! So thank you to the wonderful women who joined me this morning!!!

Whats in a name....

They say that your name can determine your destiny and that the wrong name can have a negative impact on your future.

Some of the worlds most famous celebrities have changed their names. Marilyn Monroe was born Norma Jean Baker, Carmen Electra was Tara Leigh Patrick and our golden girl Jennifer Aniston was Miss Anastassakis... You have to wonder if she would have made it in Hollywood or married Brad Pitt being an Anastassakis!
Our name vibrates at a certain frequency and can attract or repel the life we so desire. We may wonder why certain things continue to happen to us and some believe that by changing your name you can bring about greater success.

I have recently come across the The Kabalarian Philosophy™ which teaches constructive living based on an understanding of the physical, mental, and spiritual laws. These principles provide the key to understanding how to control life to bring into reality the happiness, mental freedom, and personal success that everyone seeks.

Your name creates your mind--its plan or blueprint; your likes and dislikes, ambitions and capabilities, whether practical or inspirational, the types of experiences your attract, your destiny, and your degree of success. Your life is influenced as well, by your upbringing, home conditions, education, and environments. All of these things produce what we call, "personality."

Language, of which name is a part, is the keyboard for the instrument of life and every human symphony. Each letter in any alphabet is a symbol for a quality of intelligence. Its mathematical position determines its quality. When letters are put together in a name, a chord of intelligence is created.

For example, each key when played on a piano represents a degree of sound energy. The keys follow a mathematical pattern. When the piano is played, the sounds become harmonious or discordant (depending upon the knowledge of the pianist) and chords played become symphonies and music of every description.

In giving a name, we are playing the language keyboard. Names create the basis of each person's intelligence. In giving names we can create discordant and/or harmonious conditions for our children. All our happiness and sorrows, hopes and despairs, health and sicknesses, successes and failures are instilled in us by our individual names and nicknames.

A prominent person stated recently, "I love my life and everything in it, but will I ever be happy?" His name reveals why he is at the pinnacle of success yet suffers with moods of depression and unhappiness.

The Kabalarian Philosophy, with over eighty years of experience, teaches a universal principle of life; a complete knowledge of human mind--how it is created, how it can be balanced to awaken the spiritual nature within humankind--and offers the solution to human problems. The Kabalarian Philosophy teaches an active and constructive theory of life in every phase--physical health, mental well being, and spiritual ideals. The teachings stress the importance of mind and thought, how thought is a creative power building, moulding, and shaping our lives. As we think, so we become--a reflection of the names given at birth.

If you're thinking about changing your name and your destiny, get your free name report until April 30th.....

Where do I start???

With the many new projects on top of bringing the world of Private Access to life, I feel that I have neglected my writing. But what I realised is that creativity cannot be forced and that focussing on to many things at once doesn't work!!! In this wonderful high tech world of ours we can talk on the phone, email, go shopping, read a book and exercise all at once....oh my head is spinning already!

I received a wonderful email yesterday which hit the nail on the head. It was titiled "Where do I start"....exactly what I was thinking when it appeared in my inbox...funny that!!

It is often in the quest to achieve, that we try to juggle too many balls at the same time and instead of mastering the art of juggling we seem to be doing many things at once but not getting anywhere with any of them!

It's hard enough to be successful in one field and there you are doing five things at once! Say you're juggling one ball. There's a good chance you're not going to drop that. If you're juggling two, that should be a little harder. Three, a lot of people can't do it. What about five? How many do you think can do that? Almost no one, right?

Most people feel OBLIGATED to try and do more than one thing at a time thinking it will bring them more money. The trick is to do first thing first, one thing at a time, and once you have mastered that one thing, move onto the next. This is how you create multiple streams of income. Trying to do it all at once is a big no no.

So today I decided that I will of course continue to write and blog but instead of stressing myself over the fact that it's not every day, I will be much kinder to myself and blog twice a week or when the creative force works through me! Often we think that the world will come to an end of that there are people who are counting on us to do as much as possible... What I found is that we're not much use and not very present when we're thinking of the million things on the to-do list....

So I've committed to doing one thing and doing it well! Or maybe two... :-))