The Reality Of Reaching Your Goal (1) 0 - 8m 53s

Have you ever been in a situation

where you think, "I really need X,"

and so you search high and low,
and nothing;

and so you go into the shops,
and nothing;

and you look online,
and nothing.

And you think to yourself,
"That's really annoying,

I can't believe nobody's doing that.
I really need it."

Do you stay annoyed?

Maybe you post a rant on Twitter;

but do you actually do anything about it?

About this time, seven years ago,

I was working in a consulting project
which I really didn't like,

with a manager who'd
taken a strong disliking to me.

I was bored, frustrated, and annoyed,

but all of those things
are a really good motivator

when you're trying to figure out
what you want to do next.

Because the truth was, I had always
wanted to be an entrepreneur,

and I knew I wanted it to be in fashion,

but not necessarily clothes.

And I'd been working on
a few different things,

and nothing was quite working out.

And then, after years
of never being able to

find tights that actually
match my skin tone,

or a nude which actually matched my nude,

it sort of came to my head;
it was very simple.

I was going to create a company

which did lingerie and hosiery

that worked as a nude for women of color.

And I remember sending off a text
to one of my really good friends saying,

"I figured out what I want
to do when I grow up."

[audience laughs]

And that was just the start.

I realized pretty quickly
that I was going to need to save

a lot of money to start my own business,

and so I decided to switch industries
and go back into finance.

And by the end of that year,
this is in 2011,

I was working in a swanky new job

in private equity fundraising,
and it was great.

I really liked my team,

I bought a new iPad,
I bought a few new designer dresses,

and life was really good.

And in short, I got distracted.
[scattered chuckles]

Now moving ahead to 2012,

and it was the summer of the Olympics,

and so I was in New York for work.

And I was living at the time
with a friend from university,

and I shared this idea with her,

and she thought it was fantastic.

And so when I came back to London,

I was really, really excited,
and, you know,

was ready to start working
on this company.

But work got busy, and as happens,

I got distracted again.

And then, in May 2013,

I got a late birthday card,

and across the front, it said,

"It's time to start living the
life you've always imagined."

And on the inside was
a really lovely message

from my friend Mira,

and she said how proud she was of me

and how she was so looking
forward to this company,

and how she couldn't wait to see me
on the cover of Forbes one day.

[sighs]

And needless to say,
that was the kick that I needed,

and the next day,
I registered the company,

I started the registration
for the trademarks,

and I started reaching out
to manufacturers.

And from that moment on,
I was like a woman possessed,

and it was wonderful.

And I would sleep with a notebook
beside my bedside table,

because I'd bolt up awake around 4am

with different ideas of what
I wanted to do for the business.

And over the months,
I attended different lingerie trade shows

and met my manufacturer.

And I won't go over all the details
of research and development,

but it is a pretty amazing thing

to see something that's
been in your head come to life.

And once I'd gone to the factory
to inspect the goods,

then I started to focus
on the photoshoot,

because, at the time,
I thought Nubian Skin

was going to be e-commerce only,

and so I knew that the images
had to be amazing.

And the photoshoot was so much fun,

and we had amazing images.

And then I went away on holiday.

And at the time,
I had about 50 followers on Instagram

and maybe about 10 followers on Twitter,

and I hadn't really thought about how
I was going to market this company.

Which, if you are going to start
a business, that's a terrible idea.

You need to have a marketing plan.
[audience laughs]

But I put this image up of four girls

who were in our first
collection of lingerie,

and I went off on holiday.

And halfway through in the holiday,
my phone started buzzing,

and I looked at my Instagram account,
and I had 100 followers.

And I realize that's not
very impressive now,

but back then,
[audience laughs]

back then, I was a novice,
and I was really excited

that 100 people cared about
what I was going to be doing.

At the end of the week,
I had 1,000 followers

At the end of four weeks,
I had 20,000 followers.

The campaign had gone viral,
and I didn't really know

what that meant
until it happened to me.

[audience laughs]

BuzzFeed did an article about us
saying we were

"redefining nude,"

and then The Mail Online
and The Independent

contacted us for image rights.

And our followers kept growing.

Then Tandiwe Newton tweeted
about the brand,

and Kerry Washington
retweeted an article about it,

[laughs]

and it kept growing and
growing and growing.

And all of this was happening

in August 2014 and September 2014,

and we didn't actually have a product yet,

and the e-commerce site wasn't live.
[audience chuckles]

But we had a blog,
and we kept people updated

with what was going on.

And then in October 2014,
nubianskin.com went live.

I had done it. I had a seat at the table.

And I had spent so much time
up until that point

worrying about getting there
and actually attaining my goal.

And once I was there, I had to figure out,

"What do I do now?"

As human beings,
we put so much emphasis on attaining.

There are countless books
on getting what you want,

how to get rich, how to become a CEO,

how to start your own business,
how to get a bikini body,

and that isn't a bad thing.

Having goals is wonderful,

and getting them is great,

but for any given goal that we do have,

we need to ask ourselves
three important questions.

The first:
what are you willing to give up?

The second:
what will you do once you get it?

And the third: what do you have to gain?

We all have goals.

And sometimes we have goals
because there's a true passion.

And sometimes, we have the goal
because we like the idea of it,

of what we think is going to come with it.

And other times, we have goals
because it's what's expected of us.

And I'm not really going to say
what I think is

or isn't a good motivating factor,

but we do need to be thinking about,

"what are we willing to give up?"

And I'm going to let you in
on a little secret.

I love money.
[audience laughs]

I love comfort.

I love nice, shiny, expensive things.

And honestly, just talking about it
makes my heart beat a little bit faster.

[audience laughs]

And when I was young,
my mum used to say to me,

"Addey, you really like nice things.

When you grow up,
you need to have a good job."

And my mom is a very wise woman.
[audience chuckles]

Before I started my company,
I worked in finance,

and I had clients who were really
impressive and very intelligent,

and I loved being around that.

But I also very much enjoyed

having the means to go on lovely holidays,

and buy nice things,
and not really worry about money.

Now, a good indication of whether
you really want something

is what you're willing
to give up to get it.

As I mentioned previously,
I had gone back into finance

with the goal that I was going
to save to start my business.

But it was really hard for me to save

when there was a Jimmy Choo sale going on.

And I remember calling up one
of my friends and telling her,

and complaining about how
hard it was to save money,

and she wasn't particularly sympathetic.

And as a response,
she invited me to come over

to this apartment she was staying at.

And this apartment belonged
to an old boss of hers,

and this woman's apartment was insane.

And the best bit was her walk-in closet,

the pinnacle of which was a shoe closet.

She had an entire wardrobe
dedicated to designer shoes,

and as I'm sitting there,
literally salivating over the shoes,

my friend slams the door shut
in front of me and says,

"You will never have that
because you don't save."

Needless to say,
that was the kick that I needed

to stick to my savings plan.

And I thought I was actually
in a pretty good position

by the end of it.

I had saved up quite a lot of money
to start my business.

I'd also put aside an emergency stash,

because a girl is going to need some
things once she leaves her job.