Mary Kay Ash (1918–2001,) born Mary Kathlyn Wagner, was an American entrepreneur. She was the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics. Ash’s reliance on in-home, direct salespersons, and creative motivational sales techniques brought her company great financial success.
After serving as national sales director for World Gifts (1949–63,) Ash purchased a formulation for a skin-care cream and founded Mary Kay Cosmetics in 1963. By the time she retired as the chairperson of her company, her direct-marketing sales force had grown to more than 750,000, mostly women, in 37 countries.
Ash wrote her bestselling autobiography Mary Kay (1981,) and the popular self-help books Mary Kay on People Management (1984) and Mary Kay—You Can Have It All (1995.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Mary Kay Ash
For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Entrepreneurs, Action, Success & Failure, Adversity, Failure, Fail, Act
People fail forward to success.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Success, Failure
We fall forward to succeed.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Success & Failure, Success
We treat our people like royalty. If you honor and serve the people who work for you, they will honor and serve you.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Kings, Queens, Royalty
Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Risk, Trying
Give yourself something to work toward—constantly.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Work, Goals
Honesty is the cornerstone of all success, without which confidence and ability to perform shall cease to exist.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Ability, Integrity, Honesty
No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Praise
Sandwich criticism between two layers of praise.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Criticism
Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as you mind lets you. What you believe, you can achieve.
—Mary Kay Ash
If you think you can, you can.
And if you think you can’t, you’re right.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Attitude, Luck, Confidence, Thought, Courage, Belief
Do not desire to fit in. Desire to lead.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Individuality, Courage
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, “Make me feel important.” Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Confidence, Praise
A good goal is like a strenuous exercise—it makes you stretch.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Goals
Sandwich every bit of criticism between two thick layers of praise.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Optimism, Praise
Every failure, obstacle or hardship is an opportunity in disguise. Success in many cases is failure turned inside out. The greatest pollution problem we face today is negativity. Eliminate the negative attitude and believe you can do anything. Replace ‘if I can, I hope, maybe’ with ‘I can, I will, I must.’
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Success, Determination, Success & Failure
Central banks don’t have divine wisdom. They try to do the best analysis they can and must be prepared to stand or fall by the quality of that analysis.
—Mary Kay Ash
A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go farther than a great idea that inspires no one.
—Mary Kay Ash
There are two things people want more than sex and money—recognition and praise.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Praise
If you’re good to your staff when things are going well, they’ll rally when times go bad.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Bad Times
Aerodynamically, the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that; so it goes on flying anyway.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Motivational, Expectation, Flying, Hope, Control, Confidence
The speed of the leader is the speed of the gang.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Leadership, Speed
We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don’t know where you’re aiming, you don’t have a goal. My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I die, someone can say, “she cared.”
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Goals
Those who are blessed with the most talent don’t necessarily outperform everyone else. It’s the people with follow-through who excel.
—Mary Kay Ash
Topics: Talent
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