DALLAS — Kendra Scott’s failed hat business made way for a billion-dollar jewelry brand.
"I totally missed it. I had jewelry I was making in my hat store. And I thought, 'It’s hats! I’m going to do a hat thing.' Until I closed my shop and people were calling me not for the hats but for the jewelry and I thought, 'Hmm, maybe there is something to this jewelry after all,'" she said.
The entrepreneur launched her first book, "Born to Shine", in September. Most of the stories are from private journal entries; they peel back Scott’s glamourous layers, showing her dark moments to generate vulnerability and compassion in the workplace and beyond.
Sitting down with Kendra Scott, you realize her personality matches her signature color.
"I can be very glamorous and then, when I’m home, I’m in sweats and bunny slippers. And that’s the truth," she said.
In "Born to Shine", Scott reveals moments of her life that didn’t sparkle.
Taking pages from her journal, she writes about her miscarriage and the time she nearly died after falling down an embankment while vacationing in Colorado.
"I honestly didn’t think I was going to put [it] in the book. I wrote it more for me," Scott says. "Most of the journal notes, in a lot of ways, were memories I wanted to remember, even the hard ones. I wanted to remember how I felt in those moments."
Scott also wanted to remind readers to be vulnerable.
"Because we share more things than we don’t share. We always want to come up as, 'Everything is great, and I’m great and everything is wonderful.' But the reality is we’ve all suffered in our lives. And you may never have known that about that person if you hadn’t had the courage to share your own story," says Scott.
The self-made billionaire has created a utopia of female support. Her goal is to change the way we view others' success
Ladies, she’s talking to all of us!
"There [are] more CEO’s named John than there are female CEO’s. The only way that those things are going to change is if women start supporting each other," Scott said. "The instinct for women - which it shouldn’t be - is, 'Oh, she got a promotion. It’s negative,' instead of, 'Yes! She got a promotion! I’m proud of her.' If we can start changing that, it’s a point for all of us every time a woman succeeds."
Supportive women are a big reason Kendra Scott says she could build a brand while raising young children.
"When I first started the company, I had a small group of unbelievable women. We could be vulnerable with one another. Young mothers, going through a lot of things. We would be passing babies in the office to each other," she said.
The mother of three and new stepmom encourages women to show up as their authentic self whatever stage of life.
"We go through those moments of, 'I’m afraid to show who I am, I have to be this thing that they want me to be.' I was dressing in dark pant suits and not being this because I wanted to fit in with the men in the suits. Not realizing that the more I could be myself, the more they could be impressed by what I was saying," said Scott.
Twenty years later, Kenda Scott has everyone’s attention. She says to stay at the top, great business leaders must be open to change.
"You have to be agile. And you don’t know what’s going to happen, right? The 2008 recession, I wasn’t anticipating. I knew that the business model I had in that moment wasn’t going to be sustained," she said. "I had to be able to be thoughtful, creative, think outside the box and pivot around the situation we were in,"
Scott calls the unexpected, "Snow Globe Moments." She had one of those moments during the pandemic when she and her sons created Scott Bros., a men’s jewelry line that also benefits youth causes.
"You don’t know what’s going to be around the corner, but it could be the greatest thing that will happen to your business is the shake the snow globe moment," says Scott.
‘Born to Shine’ is available for purchase right now. Kendra Scott gets personal, discussing her divorces, growing up in a family of coalminers and farmers. And more savvy business insight.