Success Never Smelled So Sweet

author interview

Interview with Lisa Price on Success Never Smelled So Sweet
What were your biggest challenges in starting and running Carol’s Daughter?
In the very beginning when the business was just my husband Gordon and me, I had to learn to discern between good and bad advice. People offer their unsolicited opinions all the time. You find yourself critiquing your performance all the time based on a third party’s peripheral observations.
Then, when I hired people to work for me I had to learn to “let go.” I wanted to control everything, but I needed to delegate in order to grow. I had to give myself permission for my business not to be perfect or it would never grow beyond my living room.
When the boys were babies, I had a hard time making time for Lisa. I was swamped 24/7/365 and I was exhausted all the time and I looked like, as my mother used to say, “Who did it and ran.”
[I think this question could go.] What did you choose to start a beauty products company? How did you decide upon your motto, “Beauty By Nature?”
I chose to start a beauty product company when I realized the demand and the void in the marketplace. At first it was just a hobby and then I had women asking me for more products and I made them.
Why did you feel you needed to write a book about your experience in business?
To be honest, a psychic told me I would write a book and I thought she was crazy. I didn’t think I had anything to offer at that point. But as the business continued to grow and I learned more about myself and business and I was challenged to improve my personality and become a stronger person, I understood why I needed to write it down for others to read.
One tends to think that all business people have degrees, and bank loans and/or rich parents. But some of us just have a passion that won’t die and the other things come to us, if we ask.
What do you hope your readers take away from reading this book?
This is my answer from before. I think this question was already asked.
The importance of prayer and meditation…I am not special. I was not born with a lot of money. I didn’t go to my parents and ask them to invest in me. Not to say that it’s easier for those people who can get that kind of financial support from their families. Business is business and it’s going to be difficult. What I mean to say is I am an average woman and I listened to the universe when it told me to believe in myself. I hope that others will learn from my story and in turn, follow their hearts and discover their passion.
You’ve had a lot of different names — Khoret Amen, Topaz. What does this say about the transformations in your life?
One thing I’ve discovered about myself is that subtlety doesn’t always work for me.  When the universe needs to teach me something, it sometimes goes about it in a big way.  Lisa had to become Khoret Amen to get the courage to become Topaz just to realize that there was never anything wrong with Lisa in the first place.  Reinventing yourself doesn’t always require changing your name, but it’s what I needed at those times.  
Why did a change of name feel most significant to you? How does your name change reflected your transformation? This is hard to answer. In the book when I talk about receiving the name Khoret Amen Tera in meditation it wasn’t so much that I needed to change my name, but my first experience in trusting my inner voice. In the religion I practiced at the time, it was commonplace to change your name. But another person did not give my name to me. It came to me when I prayed. Two years after using it, I looked it up in a dictionary of ancient Egyptian language and found that the translation I was given in my dream was correct. That experience taught me to trust my inner voice. It was the first in a series of lessons in trusting what I already know to be correct.
The choice of the name Topaz was more frivolous. I was moving into a frivolous world and trying to find a way to blend my beliefs with my new world. I didn’t want to be Lisa, she seemed to be too boring and Khoret was religious and restricted by rules. The name Topaz came from the stone. Its amber color is one I’ve always loved. I owned one ring and it was a topaz ring, given to me by a favorite aunt that had passed.