Anastasia Soare, who is famous for the revolution in eyebrows and popularly called the “Eyebrow Queen” is a Romanian-American billionaire businesswoman and the CEO and founder of Anastasia Beverly Hills. She was born and raised in Romania, where she studied art history and architecture. In 1978, she married a ship captain named Victor Soare, with whom she has one daughter, Claudia Soare. They divorced in 1994.
At the height of the Cold War, Anastasia and her family escaped communist Romania in search of a better life. Her husband sought asylum from the American embassy in Italy, and six months later, he was in the United States. After three years, Anastasia and their daughter were able to join him.
When she arrived in Los Angeles, Anastasia had no money; she could not speak English and worked fourteen hours a day in a beauty salon. In no time, she understood that eyebrows were an under-exploited area, and developed a technique for shaping people’s eyebrows according to their unique bone structure and natural eyebrow shape. As she was required to work long hours, and for low pay, it soon dawned on her that nothing was going to change without a conscious effort on her part to change it. She had set out to America in search of a better life, but the experience she had was not the better life she anticipated. She decided to stop waiting for her situation to change and change it. She rented a room in a Beverly Hills salon and began offering facials, body waxing, and eyebrow sculpting to her clients and moved from there to running her salon situated in Bedford Drive Beverly Hills. Her clientele grew and included celebrities. Her unique method of shaping eyebrows made her stand out from the crowd and become an instant success. Her business is currently a global empire with over 1,000 outlets in the United States and more than 600 outlets internationally. She is estimated to be worth 1.2 billion dollars (Wikipedia).
Leadership Lessons from the Life of Anastasia Soare
- Take a hard look at your life, and change what is not working. This is what Anastasia did. When she was working fourteen hours daily for little pay, she had to look at her life and realise that until she changed what she was doing, nothing was going to change. Her advice in Rhonda Bryne’s book Hero is simple, she says, look into your life and if you are not happy where you are or with the job you have, change it. Refuse to settle for less than what you want. Refuse to be content with smallness. And understand this, until you change, nothing changes. Doing the same thing will give you the same results. Anastasia worked for over three years doing the same thing and getting the same results. But once she changed what she was doing, she began to make progress.
- People will try to talk you out of your dream; therefore, you must be sure of yourself and what it is that you want. Every idea attracts naysayers, and unfortunately, many have allowed naysayers to talk them out of their vision. When Anastasia attempted to rent a shop in Beverley Hills the landlord immediately told her that she could not pay the rent doing eyebrows. If she wasn’t sure of what she wanted that was enough to dissuade her. But she knew what she wanted, and in time, she proved the naysayer landlord wrong, and he would eventually say to her, are you sure you are doing eyebrows there?
- Believe in yourself. Anastasia believed in herself, and this was primarily because of the words her mother spoke to her. When she was only six years old, her mother sent her grocery shopping with a list, and at first, she was afraid, but her mother assured her that she was smart and could do it so she went, hanging on to those words. She returned with all the items purchased, and her mother said to her, I told you you could do it. This caused her to believe in herself, and a belief in herself led to her success in business. Now, perhaps you were not so fortunate, and your parents or the adults around you did not inspire self-confidence in you, but you can become your self-nurturing parent and inspire confidence in yourself by speaking words to yourself that build you up and destroy fear and doubt.
- Avoid pessimism. According to Anastasia, Pessimism will kill any dream. Therefore you can’t afford to be pessimistic, and more importantly, you can’t afford to keep company with those who are negative. When people have no confidence in your ability to bring your dreams to fruition, and they always remind you of your failures or their words do not give you any hope for a better tomorrow, run for your dear life.
- There is power in gratitude. In the book, Hero, Anastasia advises the reader to wake up every morning and count their blessings. This is vital to success. Take a close look at successful people, and you will discover that they are grateful people. You may not have the kind of job you want or live in the type of house that you wish to live in or drive the sort of car you like, but if you are alive, it is a testament to the fact that you can still have your dreams so be grateful. Gratitude increases, gratitude promotes, and gratitude opens doors. Be thankful as a lifestyle.
- Determination is instrumental to success. Please understand that life will test you before it allows you to have your dreams. Your plans will not always work out the way you thought they would, things will go wrong that you did not anticipate, doors will shut in your face, people will desert you, and you will be disappointed, but in all this, be resolute. Anastasia says that she was determined that if a door closed, she would bang on it, break it down or enter through a window. It is this kind of determination that wins eventually and delivers to you your dream.
- You have to be a fighter. Still in the book, Hero, Anastasia says that life is a challenge, and if you think otherwise you are wrong or delusional. She insists that if you want to move from an ordinary life to a life of significance, then you have to be a fighter. The reason is apparent, life is going to resist you. Everyone has dreams, but not everyone sees their dream fulfilled, and what separates those who see their dreams fulfilled from those who don’t is the spirit of a fighter. Those who carry the spirit of a warrior and keep fighting will eventually get that for which they have fought. Those who quit or can’t be bothered to fight must settle for mediocrity.
- Don’t be intimidated by what you don’t have, recognise what you do have and market your strengths. We are all unique. We all have our place. If you want to be successful, it is crucial that you know your uniqueness and celebrate it. Don’t be afraid to be different. No two people are precisely the same. Discover yourself, discover your uniqueness and discover your worth. Anastasia admits that she had to find herself and uncover her worth. She admits it was daunting but worth it.
- Opportunities abound, so seize them. In the book, Hero, Anastasia says that there are opportunities everywhere, but people don’t grab them because people don’t see them. And I believe that people don’t see them because they look like a lot of work.
- Don’t be afraid to fail. Too many do not try anything because they fear failure. As Anastasia says, in the book, Hero, what do you have to lose? I believe that it is better to try and fail than to lie on your deathbed with the regret of what would have been if or what might have been if only you had tried. And I will add here that once this life is up, we don’t get another chance to try. This is no dress rehearsal; this is the real deal.
- Life returns us our investment. What are you investing in life? If you invest a little, you will get a low return. According to Anastasia, life is like a bank account, and you can only withdraw what you have deposited. She says, don’t put little and expect to get big. It is not going to happen.
- Stop making excuses and start making progress. Excuses will destroy your dreams. Yes, there will be challenges, and yes, there will be obstacles, but you can find a way around them. You can learn what you don’t know. You can build from nothing. Anastasia started from nothing; she had no money, she didn’t speak the language, and she certainly didn’t understand how things worked in her new country. She had to learn. Some would have used it as an excuse and allowed it to limit them, but she chose to learn those things which were necessary to get her where she wanted to be.
- No dream is an end in itself. Life is progressive. The fulfilment of one dream usually creates a situation that causes us to have another goal. Anastasia dreamt of going to America, and eventually, that dream was fulfilled, but once in America there were obstacles and challenges, life was not how she expected it to be, and so she had to dream another dream, a dream of owning her own business, and work to bring it to fruition.
- Where you are is usually a preparation for where you are going. The harsh life Anastasia was faced with in Romania prepared her to face a tough life in America overcome the hurdles, and rise above the challenges, to see her dream fulfilled.
- Great women are an inspiration to other women. Their story sends a simple but powerful message to other women. One that says, if I can, so can you. Anastasia Soare went from a penniless immigrant to a billionaire businesswoman and, so can you.
