My very first memory is of my mother's scent, her aura of freshness, the perfume of her presence. My first sensation of joy was being allowed to reach up and touch her fragrant and satiny skin. Her hair didn't escape my attention, either. As soon as I was old enough to hold a brush, l'd give her no peace.

All of this annoyed my father considerably. "Stop fiddling with other people's faces," he'd say.

But that is what I liked to do touch other people's faces, no matter who they were, touch them and make them pretty.

Before I'm finished, I'll set, I'm certain, the world's record for face touching ... and I’m nowhere near finished, I might add.

My father's hardware store was my own first venture into merchandising. I loved to help him arrange his wares. My special job was creating window displays that would attract customers. How I loved to make those windows appealing!

There may be a big difference between lipstick and dry goods, between fragrance and doorknobs, but just about everything has to be sold aggressively. 

I honed my techniques as I played with the wares at my father's store and at Plafker and Rosenthal. I whetted my appetite for the merry ring of a cash register.

I learned early that being a perfectionist and providing quality was the only way to do business.

He captured my imagination and interest as no one else ever had. I was smitten with Uncle John. He understood me. What's more, he produced miracles.

I watched as he created a secret formula, a magic cream potion with which he filled vials and jars and flagons and any other handy container. It was a precious velvety cream, this potion, one that magically made you sweetly scented, made your face feel like spun silk, made any passing imperfection be gone by evening.

We constructed a laboratory of sorts in the tiny stable behind the house. My parents installed gleaming linoleum on the floors and walls.

We set up a table, where I watched my uncle mix his magic.

Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams quite seriously? Teach her secrets?

I could think of nothing else. After school, l'd run home to practice being a scientist. I began to value myself so much more, trust my instincts, trust my uniqueness.

Times were lean. About two years after our marriage, we had a beautiful son, and I spent my days mothering Leonard. And all the time, all the time, I was also mothering my zeal for experimenting with my uncle's creams, improving on them, adding to them.

I was forever experimenting on myself and on anyone else who came within range.

Good was not good enough—I could always make it better. I know now that "obsession" is the word for my zeal. I was obsessed with clear glowing skin, shining eyes, beautiful mouths.

It was never quiet in the house. There was always a great audible sense of industry, especially in the kitchen, where I cooked for my family and during every possible spare moment, cooked up little pots of cream for faces. I always felt most alive when I was dabbling in the practice cream.

I showed Mrs. Morris a mirror. She was a raving beauty.

Silence. She was thinking. "Do you think you would be interested in running the beauty concession at my new salon at 39 East Sixtieth Street?" she asked.

I did not hesitate a second. Up until that point, I had been giving away my products. This was my first chance at a real business.

I would have a small counter in her store. I would pay her rent; whatever I sold would be mine to keep. No partners (I never did have partners). I would risk the rent, but if it worked, I would start the business I always dreamed about.

Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever became a success without taking chances. Yes, yes, yes, Mrs. Morris! I was interested.

First things first. If I was going to be in business, I needed proper jars.

I rushed out to buy dozens of simple white opal-glass jars with black covers, which looked quite professional to me.

My uncle had marketed creams under his wife's name, Floranna, but now it was my turn, and my business.

I wanted to see my name in lights, but I was willing to settle for my name on a jar.

Now, the big secret: I would give the woman a sample of whatever she did not buy as a gift.

The hotel owners welcomed the diversion I provided. It cost them nothing, and my services were more enthusiastically received than an entertainer's.

Women wanted to learn, not laugh at silly jokes. One summer after another, I pushed myself, lauding creams, making up women, selling beauty.

In the winters, l'd visit these eager ladies at their homes, where, with a bridge game as a backdrop, l'd make up their friends and sell more creams. The mood at these sessions was as exhilarating for me as for them.

I didn't need bread to eat, but I worked as though I did… from pure love of the venture. For me, teaching about beauty was and is an emotional experience. I brought them charisma and knowledge about their possibilities. They gave me a sense of success. I felt flushed with excitement after each session. Pure theater—in the end that's what it was, this rendering of beauty. Pure theater for me!

I cried more than I ate. There was constant work, constant attention to detail, lost hours of sleep, worries, heartaches. Friends and family didn't let a day go by without discouraging us.

"Estée, what do you need this for? Stay home with your darling family…" They meant well.

Despite all the naysayers, there was never a single moment when I considered giving up. That was simply not a viable alternative.

I had a secret weapon. There were, in those days before television and high-gloss advertising, only two key ways to communicate a message quickly. They were: telephone and telegraph.

I had a third. It was potent: Tell-a-Woman.

Women were telling women. They were selling my cream before they even got to my salon. Tell-a-Woman was the word-of-mouth campaign that launched Estée Lauder Cosmetics.

I was beginning to feel restless with the success I was enjoying at the salons. It soon became apparent that I needed to have a larger marketplace the great department stores to be exact—partly because of the new phenomenon of charge accounts.

Joe and I knew we had to start running a very different, much more serious operation; space became the operative word.

We set about finding our first "factory" to fill our new, terribly momentous Saks Fifth Avenue order. They were the first, the very first, to take us on and I would never forget it. Ever since, I've had a special place in my heart for this store: breaking that first, mammoth barrier was perhaps the single most exciting moment I have ever known.

Fortunately, our confidence equaled our excitement, because we had to have enough faith in our work to invest all our savings.

Our first home base was a former restaurant on Central Park West—1 West Sixty-fourth Street. We had to pay six months' rent in advance.

Those were potent words—"in advance"—but we swallowed hard and signed. On the restaurant's gas burners we cooked our creams, mixed them, sterilized our pretty new jars with boiling water, poured and filled and planned and packaged. We did everything ourselves. I still have one of those gas burners, which I treasure as a memento of our beginnings. Every bit of work was done by hand, four hands, Joe's and mine.

We had my uncle's original cream and others l'd created by then. We stayed up all night for nights on end, snatching sleep in fits and starts.

The order for Saks had to be produced on time. As D-day (delivery day) loomed, we hired a man to help us, and deliver we did—on time. At last, we were in the big leagues of business.

All the people to whom I had given samples, all the people who had been telling other people, all those people appeared on opening day at Saks Fifth Avenue.

In two days, we were sold out. The fun was about to start. And with that came the endless work, the endless traveling, the endless streams, rivers, tides, torrents, oceans of words I would utter in praise of the products I knew were the creams of the crop.

I was a woman with a mission. I had to show as many women as I could reach not only how to be beautiful, but how to stay beautiful. On the way, I hoped in my secret heart to find fame and fortune.

The next prestige store I decided to take by storm was Neiman-Marcus in Dallas.

Mr. Ben Eisner, the store's merchandise manager, was less than optimistic. "There's no room for a new counter," he intoned. "It's a bad time of the year. Give me a call when you can. We'll talk again."

I called and I called. I went to see him. It was always a bad time.

There never was enough room.

One day, I suppose in deference to my profound eagerness, my refusal to be put off, and my insistence that was getting dangerously close to nagging, Mr. Eisner said that he could probably give me some room to open up on the day after New Year's. Not that he was encouraging.

"No one will come out," he said. "It's just too hot. Besides, every woman will have spent all her money on Christmas. Don't get your hopes up."

That's just where they were. Up.

"Is there a local radio program I could go on?" I asked. "Just get me a fifteen-minute spot on the radio the day before we open," I begged.

Mr. Eisner reluctantly agreed to do what he could.

The sun rose early, yellow and hot, on New Year's Day. I was primed to go on a local woman's program at 8:15 A.M. The time was available because only a minuscule audience was expected to be listening to the radio at that ungodly hour.

"Good morning, ladies," I practically sang into the microphone, as the sleepy-eyed technicians watched lethargically. "I'm Estée Lauder just in from Europe with the newest ideas for beauty. In this weather you have to work hard to look your loveliest, and I have the secrets. I have an all-purpose cream that takes the place of the four creams you've been using, and I have a glow and a powder that will make you look fresh and clean no matter how hot it is. And I have a small gift for every woman who comes in. Do let me personally show you how to accomplish the newest beauty tricks from Paris and London. Start the New Year with a new face."

Start the New Year with a new face. The women responded with verve my counter overflowed with customers, my heart overflowed with joy.

Neiman-Marcus ran the ad every year for all the years that followed: START THE NEW YEAR WITH A NEW FACE ... ESTÉE LAUDER COSMETICS.

First, I would open each store myself. I might have to travel by bus, train, or donkey, but l'd be there for a week to train the salespeople, to set out the merchandise attractively, to create the aura. My creams, my makeup, had the purest, most extraordinary ingredients. I had to convince the customer to try the products, and then she'd come to love them. We were selling jars of hope. If my customer couldn't buy a new dress this year, she could always buy one next year. But a new face that she couldn't buy. She had to pay attention to her face, right now.

My convictions were solid, and my strongest one was that I had to be everywhere in person to convince.

Second, I needed a special kind of salesperson. She had to look wonderful herself. She had to use my products and sell their effectiveness by example. I was not out to fool the customer. No one could tell her, and make her believe, that a certain cream would make her sexy, brilliant, or rich. What a cream could do was to make her clean, pretty, and confident. That was the truth. Confidence breeds beauty. The spokespeople for my products would always have to be smiling, pretty, and confident; very elegant, very soft and very fine. They couldn't be T and T salesgirls either. T and T salesgirls were always on the telephone or the toilet. Bad business. I needed my counter attended by alert, interested, eager young women. If a customer looks around for two minutes for a salesperson, finds no one available, another product will instantly catch her eye and you've lost her, perhaps forever.

The saleswoman was my most important asset. I knew it then. I know it now. She has to be a walking advertisement. She can't oversell—no woman ever appreciates being sold more than she needs. Actually, the saleswoman's job was not to sell, but to let women buy. She had to respect the customer. She had to know the product and believe in it. She had to know how to use it and what one could realistically expect from it. Most of all, she had to convince the customer to try it on, as she would a dress or hat. Then, and only then, would she make her sale.

Ambience counted deeply. Counters had to attract. Each Estée Lauder counter, I decided, would be a tiny, shining spa complete. I'd make sure there was color to make them attractive. The color I chose was the same, wonderful, in-between-a-blue-and-a-green that whispered elegance, aristocracy, and also complemented bathroom wallpapers.

Finally the lure, the reason to appear at my counter, was the gift to the customer—the free something that would sell everything else. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? I'd have to agree. It was simple. Most good ideas sparkle in simplicity, so much so that everyone wonders why no one ever did that before.

Actually, the sample was the most honest way to do business. You give people a product to try. If they like its quality, they buy it. They haven't been lured by an advertisement but convinced by the product itself. Not that we never tried to go the advertising route in the beginning.

Our first year's sales amounted to about $50,000. Expenses ate up just about every dime. No matter. Forward.

There was a stone wall in my path after my successes at Saks and Neiman-Marcus, and I was determined to leap over it, or at the very least, tiptoe around it. 

Making individual contacts to gain entry into department stores was a solid way to do business, but it took too long.

Two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock. I waited that whole day.

Feeling invisible, I was close to tears.

At five-fifteen, Miss Weston herself came out, looked at me in disbelief, and asked, "Are you still here? Well, do come in and let's have a look at what you have. Such patience must be rewarded."

Eventually, Miss Weston was able to get me a store for my line, and then Miss Mullins at another buying office found me another. I wasn't exactly riding a meteor, but the stone I was pushing was beginning to roll.

During the week I usually spent at an opening promotion, I made it my business never to leave a town without seeing every beauty editor of every magazine and newspaper. I brought them samples, made up their faces, gave them beauty advice. I promoted beauty. Made friends.

Everywhere, I made friends.

There is no such thing as bad times, I kept telling myself. There is no such thing as bad business. Business is there if you go after it.

I was unstoppable, so great was my faith in what I sold. But there were moments of great heaviness in my heart. I missed my family, all those long days on the road.

Career women in every age, I don't care how powerful and effective they are, will always have the problem of juggling priorities. It's not easy, but take heart, it's possible to handle many things at once.

My family has always taken precedence over all other things, but I have never felt the need to choose between family and business. I could, I would, I have both.

Perhaps I missed some small part of my sons' growing up, perhaps I was not there at one or two crucial moments, but I was building something for all of us. I called home every night. I kept in constant touch when I was on the road.

I knew what the trouble was. Perfume was the perfect gift. That was killing it.

Only a rare woman would walk into a department store and buy perfume for herself.

Traditionally, women in America were passive about smelling wonderful. It was proper to wait for your loved one to present you with a bottle of something he liked, or something that he thought you might like. And if you had no such loved one? It was unthinkable, self-indulgent, narcissistic, and even decadent to treat yourself to fragrance. Oh, you could buy an inexpensive bottle of cologne.

Nothing more significant.

What nonsense. I'd always chosen my own scent and I always made myself responsible for having a quantity of it on hand.

One evening, at a dinner party, staring at one more dresser tray with three unopened pretty bottles of perfume, I had an idea. I'd convince the American woman to buy her own perfume, as she would buy a lipstick.

How could I get the American woman to buy her own perfume? I would not call it perfume. I would call it Youth-Dew. A bath oil that doubled as a skin perfume.

That would be acceptable to buy because it was feminine, all-American, very girl-next-door to take baths, wasn't it? A woman could buy herself a bottle of bath oil the way she'd buy a lipstick—without feeling guilty, without waiting for her birthday, anniversary, graduation, without giving tiresome hints to her husband. I believe that advances for women got a boost when a woman felt free to dole out some of her own dollars for her own choice of scents.

I had another idea. I wouldn't seal the cap of the Youth Dew bottle as the French perfumers did.

In 1953 Youth-Dew did about $50,000 worth of business for us. In 1984 that figure had jumped to over a $150 million dollars.

I was convinced that my marketing strategy in America would also work abroad. If I could start with the finest store in London, which was Harrods, all the other great stores would follow. Fashion cachet would only come through the best outlets. It would be much harder to aim for the stars in Europe than to break through in second-rate department stores. Still, if I placed my products in a lesser atmosphere, they would be tainted with second-class citizenship.

As luck would have it, Sir Richard Burbridge, the owner and director of Harrods, came to visit his good friend Mr. Adam Gimbel in New York.

Sir Richard asked Mr. Gimbel if there were any exciting new products on the market. Mr. Gimbel told Sir Richard that there was a new cosmetics line in the store that was selling brilliantly. He went on to say that it was owned by a woman who could sell a defunct railroad line in about five minutes. Sir Richard decided to see me. It was 1959. was in my tiny office at 15 East Fifty-third Street when I received a telephone call that a Sir Richard Burbridge of Harrods in London, England, would like to meet me.

I could hardly contain my excitement.

Sir Richard did come. He told me that Adam Gimbel never raved about anything. Since he was raving about Estée Lauder, Sir Richard would like me to stop in to see his buyer the next time I was in London. put some cream on Sir Richard's hand. I gave him some to take home to his wife. Yes, indeed, I assured him, the next time I was in London, l'd contact his buyer.

I found myself in London almost immediately.

"Sir Richard suggested I see you," I told the Harrods buyer. "He thought my products would be just right for Harrods."

Not so simple. Nothing is ever simple. What a blunder. I'd gone over her head and bypassed channels by speaking to the buyer's boss before I spoke with her. She wouldn't give me the opportunity to say two more words.

Simply not interested was the unmistakable message.

Selfridge's was available to me, but it wasn't the most prestigious store in London at that time. I turned them down.

A little media attention was called for. I visited the beauty editors of various magazines. I was especially interested in the British edition of Harper's Bazaar, a guidepost to excellence. The editor at Harper's Bazaar was very kind and said that she knew and admired my Super-Rich All Purpose Creme. Carmel Snow always brought her a jar whenever she came to London. Yes, she'd be happy to write a piece about my products; what store in London would be carrying them?

"My products are not available in London," had to be my reply.

"Well," she answered, "I'll write a piece saying that Estée Lauder's cosmetics will be coming soon.

"Wonderful," I said, and gave her a jar.

Beatrice Miller was the beauty editor for Queen magazine. "May I just put a bit of cream on your skin to show you how fresh and lovely it will make you feel?" I asked her.

"You certainly may not," said Beatrice Miller.

But in walked her secretary with very troubled skin. She was willing, thank goodness. Before she could say much more than a rather doubtful

"Well, I suppose you could try," I was in action.

I had a little box of products with me, which I used on her face. You could see a difference in only five minutes. I can see that girl's face in front of me right now—her name was Penny-and even Beatrice Miller was impressed. Queen magazine came out with a fine article, but we still had no place in London where customers could find us.

Again I went to Harrods.

"I'm not trying to sell you something that isn't the finest," I told the buyer. "I'm trying to sell you something I think the American visitors to London will appreciate having accessible and a product that the Englishwoman needs to know about!"

Again the answer was no. There was no space at this time, there was no call for my products, this wasn't the right time of the year, maybe another time. I had committed a fatal error by speaking to her boss before approaching her. 

I wasn't sure I could redeem the mistake, but I had to keep trying. Since this incident, I always tell salespeople never to go over the buyer's head. See the one directly responsible for the cosmetics department, not the boss. Let the buyer get credit! Another lesson learned the hard way.

I stayed in England a month, visiting every beauty editor to make my name known. I was getting write-ups but no Harrods order. Before I left London, I visited with the buyer one more time. "Can't you just take the smallest order," I asked. "Or even let me send a supply of my products to your home so you can experiment and see for yourself how good they are."

"No, no, no, send me nothing."

Harrods was looking very bleak.

The next year, I went back to London. And Harrods.

I think the cosmetics buyer must have been reading the magazines, and my friends, the beauty editors, had been so supportive. She was not quite as hostile, not quite as intractable. "Let me tell you, I have no room here, as I've told you before," she said brusquely. "But perhaps I could take a tiny order and put it in with the general toiletries. It won't be next to the good cosmetics that you'll have to understand, Mrs. Lauder."

"Oh, I quite understand," said I, nearly bursting with joy. "Wherever you say will be just fine."

"We don't run ads, we don't have promotions, we won't give a gift with the customer's purchase. I hope you understand that." I did. Estée Lauder appeared, almost invisibly, at last.

It was not a victory yet. I visited every one of the beauty editors again, to remind them of me. Another round of makeups. Another round of samples. "Do you think you might write another piece?" I asked each one. "Now that we're in London at Harrods?" The articles appeared.

Customers also appeared. I was on my way. Women began asking for Estée Lauder. The Harrods buyer was reluctant to notice, but she had no choice.

In the flush of a good week's sales, I summoned up courage to ask if she could give me a more important counter. "This is such a good line. You see how it's moving, and we have a wonderful new fragrance called Youth Dew ..."

As I spoke, I dared to open a bottle and quickly touch a drop-just a drop of Youth Dew to her hand; it could make her furious. It might— just might-pique her interest. A calculated risk.

"What's this all about?" she asked with some irritation.

"Youth Dew is about a bath oil that doubles as a skin perfume; it's nondrying and it's taking America by storm. Please, won't you take this bottle home?"

"Oh, no," she said, "I never do that. You should know that by now, Mrs. Lauder. And other counter space is definitely not available." But I left the Youth Dew on her desk. And she pretended not to notice. I will never know if she took it home. About six months later, I made my third trip to London.

"Well, we seem to have many London women asking for your products," she grudgingly admitted.

"I think I'll give you a small spot at a more prestigious counter."

And that's how Estée Lauder came to Europe.

We moved slowly, as usual. Since we were a family-owned business, since we didn't have investors to contend with, we didn't have to apologize to anyone if we didn't show immediate profits.

New lines and new forays like Aramis cost money in research, design, and promotion. It could take four or five years to turn a new venture from the red into the black. Getting Aramis on the counter cost about $250,000, not an insubstantial amount of money in those days. Of that amount, $20,000 was spent on package design.

This is not a completely utilitarian society. There's a certain total pleasure in the look of a product. It is a sales tool.

We didn't make that $250,000 back in the first year, I can assure you. I believe only a privately owned company could consider risking a large amount of money on a new, untried product like a men's toiletries line. If shareholders were involved, we'd have to show a steady, inexorably upward rise in profit if offering prices were not to be affected.

Leonard said it many times: if ever there was a brand-new concept that could compete with Estée Lauder, he wanted Estée Lauder to introduce it.

Leonard was our catalyst. He thought this could be the biggest thing since Youth Dew. He was determined to create something strikingly original. And he, more than any of us, was convinced that if we managed to do what seemed impossible so far, anyway—we'd not only have the first medically researched and tested fashion hypoallergenic line, we'd also have the profit of a lifetime.

Without Leonard, there would not have been Clinique. At a time when I must confess I had my doubts, he insisted, he knew, we were on to something exciting and big.

For one thing, we didn't want to confuse the customer. We were offering something new; we didn't want her to think it was like any other cosmetic she'd ever tried before.

Second, we didn't want anyone to say that Estée Lauder had a nonallergenic line. It would have hurt Estée Lauder to have anyone make the very wrong assumption that we'd come out with a hypoallergenic line because there was something allergenic about our main line.

Third, combining two different lines under one umbrella wouldn't allow for each to grow strongly as a separate entity.

Leonard was quite correct when he said we would be our own best competition. The best way of competing was with two companies, not two products under a parent name.

With Clinique, we funded a full line, all at once. What a chance to take! We launched Clinique with 117 items.

After the first year or so of Clinique's growth, outsiders estimated that one day Clinique would reach $5 million in sales. To date, our figures have reached nearly $200 million. And we're still growing.

Then, we hired the six Clinique Women, staff supervisors who went on the road to open Clinique accounts in stores everywhere. Most of them were not from the cosmetics industry. They were extremely healthy-looking (pallor couldn't be tolerated), literate, ambitious young women.

One was the designer Rudi Genreich's showroom manager, another was an airline hostess, another was a teacher. Evelyn trained these women in Clinique product usage and they, in turn, trained local salespeople all over the world. The saleswoman was our secret weapon.

At Estée Lauder, we all expect unrelenting, single-minded perfection.

"What a beautiful blouse you're wearing," I complimented her. "It is just so elegant. Do you mind if I ask where you bought it?"

She smiled. "What difference could it possibly make?" she answered, looking straight into my eyes. "You could never afford it." I walked away, heart pounding, face burning.

Never, never ... never will anyone say that to me again, I promised myself. Someday I will have whatever I want: jewels, exquisite art, gracious homes, everything.

Business is a magnificent obsession. I've never been bored a day in my life, partly because as a true business addict it's never been enough to have steady work; I had to love what I was doing. Love your career or else find another. Measure your success in dollars not degrees. Respect your product.

I tend to work nonstop during the day, usually seven days a week.

I'd be a one-song woman, a one-note friend if that's all I did. If I stayed home, what would I see? Going out (I have to admit, about five times a week is my average) widens my horizons and gives me two ways of life.

It does something else as well. It helps business. It keeps me in touch with the people who buy and sell my cosmetics. It keeps my finger on the pulse of my customers, who are also the kind of people I choose as friends. How would I know which fragrance women really love if I didn't smell it on them?

I go out to see what people look like to get ideas for faces and fragrances. It's very useful to stay in close social contact with business associates. Those who are connected with my business life—store owners, buyers, media people, movie stars, countesses, young career women—are involved on another level in my social life.

Big business, I think, is a combination of timing, hard work, and an ability to see beyond one's nose. Patience. People with big ideas and dreams often fail because they can't wait out the slow times.

Business is not something to be lightly tried on, flippantly modeled. It's not a distraction, not an affair, not a momentary fling. Business marries you. You sleep with it, eat with it, think about it much of your time. It is, in a very real sense, an act of love. If it isn't an act of love, it's merely work, not business.

What makes a successful businesswoman?

It's persistence. It's that certain little spirit that compels you to stick it out just when you're at your most tired. It's that quality that forces you to persevere, find the route around the stone wall. It's the immovable stubbornness that will not allow you to cave in when everyone says give up.

Living the American dream has been intense, difficult work, but I couldn't have hoped for a more satisfying life. I believe that potential is unlimited—success depends on daring to act on dreams. How far do you want to go? Go the distance!

Within each person is the potential to build the empire of her wishes, and don't allow anyone to say you can't have it all. You can—you can have it all if you're willing to work.

Which gave me more pleasure the birth of a baby or the birth of a perfect fragrance that would bring joy to millions? Who can say? I chose not to choose between the two. No one has to settle for the mediocre if she has dreams of glory.

I've always believed that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. My whole life has been about fulfilling dreams. I kept my eye on the target, whatever that target was.

I've never allowed my eye to leave the particular target of the moment, whether it was a lovely warm meeting with my adorable grandchildren, a business achievement, plans for an extraordinary party, or even just a quiet evening at home. Whether your target is big or small, grand or simple, ambitious or personal, I've always believed that success comes from not letting your eyes stray from that target. Anyone who wants to achieve a dream must stay strong, focused and steady.

She must expect and demand perfection and never settle for mediocrity.

If you push yourself beyond the furthest place you think you can go, you'll be able to achieve your heart's dream.