Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success with Rebecca Minkoff

Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success with Rebecca Minkoff

Have you heard of Rebecca Minkoff? Her name graces the aisles of high-end department stores in the form of clothing and accessories. Even celebrities wear her clothes. Is the name sounding familiar to you yet? I had a wonderful interview with her and I have to share it with you! Here’s to unlocking creativity, courage, and success with Rebecca Minkoff. 

Rebecca Minkoff is a fashion icon. She is someone I’ve looked up to and admired for years–not just in her style, but who she is as a person. If you haven’t heard of Rebecca Minkoff, she is a globally known brand in the fashion world. She is a designer and founder of her fashion company and is the queen of turning nothing into something. 

What Started Rebecca Minkoff’s Career

Rebecca’s designer eye sparked when she was 8 years old and wanted to buy a dress. Her mom told her, “No way, Jose!” but she would teach her how to make her own. Rebecca said sewing taught her how she literally held the power in her hands to turn nothing into something and became obsessed.

She moved to NYC when she turned 18 and got a paid internship working in the fashion industry. She worked there for 3 years and then launched her own business in 2005. While this sounds like everything worked out smoothly, it was actually terrifying. 

Rebecca was fired from her job and her boss lovingly told her she was pushing her in the right direction to start something for herself. Rebecca wasn’t sure what to do, but she knew she needed to do something. That’s when she saw one of her shirts was worn by a celebrity on TV. After that appearance, her shirt was showing up in magazines week after week.  She was living off of this single t-shirt creation, but knew it wouldn’t last forever. 

Rebecca created her own collection and was hustling to store after store, showing her collection to the owners, trying to make a brand for herself. She tried her hand at making her own handbags and that took off. Rebecca even feels her first handbag is what turned her company into something legitimate. 

It was through all of her hustling, courage, and creativity that turned her business into a successful multi-million dollar company that is today. She’s also running this company while having a thriving marriage and raising three beautiful children. Wow! Can you now see why I look up to her so much?!

Sneak Peek for Rebecca’s Book, Fearless

Rebecca recently released a book, Fearless, The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success, and I’m in love with every page! She lists 21 rules to live by when running any type of business. Rebecca shared how it doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur, a mother, an employee–this book is for women who want to feel empowered with the work they produce. 

Rebecca shared a few thoughts about some of the rules from her book, so here’s a little sneak peek for you! I personally think I need to read every rule. I’m so happy with what I learned from Rebecca’s words. If you’re wanting to learn how to become a better version of yourself as a business woman, this book is for you!

Rule #1: Sign your own permission slip.

How many times have you said, “What do you think about this?” or “Do you think I should do this?” as if you need approval or permission before you do it. This is something that gets instilled in us as kids because we are trained to ask our parents for permission before almost everything. 

While this is helpful while we’re younger and still trying to make good choices, somewhere along the way we forget that you do make good choices now and you don’t need anyone else’s opinion before you make that choice. 

It’s totally OK to ask for helpful advice, but use it as a guide not as your permission. Once you start making your own choices without asking someone else first, you’ll go a lot farther a lot faster. 

Rule #6: Love it and leave it. Be okay with walking away.

People often say to keep going and to never give up. I say it’s OK to walk away from something if it’s not working out. In my company we’ve had to leave things, end projects early, turn around from failures over and over again. This is how you learn! Sometimes it’s smarter to let go of things that aren’t working rather than trying to force it to work. 

Think of it as a tree that needs pruning. If you let the tree keep growing every which way for too long, it will soon die or turn into a mess rather than the masterpiece it’s supposed to be. It’s better to cut some branches back in order for the tree to grow healthy overall. 

Rule #11: Skip the shortcuts.

Everyone wants a shortcut. The bad news in business is that you are not going to find one. Instead of looking for a shortcut, notice when you have wind in your sails and use that momentum to fly forward to where you want to go. 

Rule #13: Be there for it. Make yourself available. 

One thing I’ve learned over and over again is how this is a give and take world. The more often we give to others, the more we will be able to take from others giving in return. If we could train our minds to think every day, “Who can I be of service to today?” you will be much happier. I dare you to have this mindset and then see how much success comes your way!

Rule #19: Go beyond burnout. Work can be self-care too. 

The way I see it is, if you have to work, you might as well love it. If you don’t feel any type of refreshment from your job, this is where self-reflection comes into play. Ask yourself questions like, what are things you have to do to create a better work environment? What do you need to do to rekindle your passion in your field of work? 

Once you find the answer or the source to these questions, you can make a plan to get back to where you want to be, or move to a better place than you’ve ever been. If you’re not sure how to move forward, make a to-do list and start with checking off easy tasks, moving your way toward the bigger ones! 

Rule #21: It’s endless. Success is being able to keep going. 

I know people will ask, do these rules really work? Applying these rules is what saved me. I pull from personal experiences over the past 20 years that have shaped me and my business into what is today. A lot of those experiences have come from failures or moments where I didn’t know how things were going to work out. That’s why I saved this rule for the last one. 

Success is not having all good things happen to you most of the time. It really means the ability to keep moving forward through your failures and finding what does work. You can find your path in this world, one failure at a time. 

Just watch, you’ll start to see yourself and your business grow bit by bit and then one day you’ll say, wow, I did it. You’ll still have those moments where you wonder if it’ll work out, but it’ll be at a different level. You’ve got this! 

Gosh, Rebecca’s words make me feel just as good as when I’m eating chocolate cake! If only we could read the book and all of a sudden start unlocking creativity, courage, and success with Rebecca Minkoff, right? Since we can’t have that dream, we can have one where we feel the fear and do the scary thing anyway. That’s true success!

I hope you enjoyed this little piece of Courtney Beyond the Cake! Follow me on Instagram @cakebycourtney to catch more of my life and of course my recipes and tips on all things cake!