Women in Business: Lisa and Marie-Hélène, Founders of La Ritual Box
We are Lisa & Marie-Hélène, two friends in our 40s who are passionate about (and trained in) personal development techniques.
At the same time in our respective lives, we both felt the desire to find meaning in our professional careers.
Exactly one year ago (March 4, 2019!), we launched—together—personal growth kits consisting of guides paired with talismanic objects to support people specifically during certain stages of their lives(such as a birthday, a new project, or a breakup).
We're here to help you regain balance, regain your strength, and find fulfillment once again as you move through the different stages of life.
Strangely enough, the difficulty didn't come from outside.
We encountered a challenge that women often face in their careers: impostor syndrome.
This sense of illegitimacy had an impact on several aspects of our journey.
While it drives us every day to deepen our knowledge and expertise, this syndrome has hindered us quite a bit through self-censorship.
We scaled back our ambitions at the start and made fairly conservative projections, and that kept us from knocking on certain doors!
That's it for today—we're preparing a big comeback for 2020, one that's even more in line with our ideas and ambitions!
In the same vein, putting ourselves out there—both for Marie-Hélène and Lisa—remains a real challenge… On this point, however, we still haven’t quite “figured it out” ;-), even though in our industry, it’s essential for building a following and earning our customers’ trust!
Otherwise, more generally speaking, we face the typical challenges of entrepreneurship: loneliness, dealing with a multitude of administrative tasks, and so on.
It all boils down to one powerful sentence: Go for it (but don't rush into it)!
Here's an explanation in three points:
1) Talk (a lot) about your project, choosing the right people to talk to: those who will help you objectively, without holding you back or discouraging you. Test it out and refine it by engaging with your potential customers.
2) Position yourself as a professional right away. You’re not a dreamer or a “crazy person”—you’re a woman who is methodically building an ambitious project.
3) Launch it as soon as possible—don’t wait for the business plan or your pitch to be perfect. While being kind to yourself, stay confident and keep your cool :-) because clarity and enthusiasm will be your best allies.
As a bonus, here’s a game we play among ourselves before launching major operations: we play “Worst-Case Scenario vs. Fairy-Tale Scenario”… it’s fun and really helps.
Lisa & Marie-Hélène
The Ritual Box
At the same time in our respective lives, we both felt the desire to find meaning in our professional careers.
Exactly one year ago (March 4, 2019!), we launched—together—personal growth kits consisting of guides paired with talismanic objects to support people specifically during certain stages of their lives(such as a birthday, a new project, or a breakup).
We're here to help you regain balance, regain your strength, and find fulfillment once again as you move through the different stages of life.
- As a woman who has launched a project, what challenges have you faced?
Strangely enough, the difficulty didn't come from outside.
We encountered a challenge that women often face in their careers: impostor syndrome.
This sense of illegitimacy had an impact on several aspects of our journey.
While it drives us every day to deepen our knowledge and expertise, this syndrome has hindered us quite a bit through self-censorship.
We scaled back our ambitions at the start and made fairly conservative projections, and that kept us from knocking on certain doors!
That's it for today—we're preparing a big comeback for 2020, one that's even more in line with our ideas and ambitions!
In the same vein, putting ourselves out there—both for Marie-Hélène and Lisa—remains a real challenge… On this point, however, we still haven’t quite “figured it out” ;-), even though in our industry, it’s essential for building a following and earning our customers’ trust!
Otherwise, more generally speaking, we face the typical challenges of entrepreneurship: loneliness, dealing with a multitude of administrative tasks, and so on.
- If one of our readers is hesitant to get started on her project, what advice would you give her?
It all boils down to one powerful sentence: Go for it (but don't rush into it)!
Here's an explanation in three points:
1) Talk (a lot) about your project, choosing the right people to talk to: those who will help you objectively, without holding you back or discouraging you. Test it out and refine it by engaging with your potential customers.
2) Position yourself as a professional right away. You’re not a dreamer or a “crazy person”—you’re a woman who is methodically building an ambitious project.
3) Launch it as soon as possible—don’t wait for the business plan or your pitch to be perfect. While being kind to yourself, stay confident and keep your cool :-) because clarity and enthusiasm will be your best allies.
As a bonus, here’s a game we play among ourselves before launching major operations: we play “Worst-Case Scenario vs. Fairy-Tale Scenario”… it’s fun and really helps.
Lisa & Marie-Hélène
The Ritual Box
