Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maya Barlow. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Maya, appreciate you joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Honestly, I couldn’t tell you exactly what it takes to be successful. I don’t believe that there is a “one size fits all” answer. We all come from such unique experiences and circumstances. The measurement of success is also unique to each person. Everybody’s idea of success is different. I embody the traits that I believe help propel me towards my definition of being successful. The three traits I deliberately aim to engage in are consistency, discipline, and truth. During The process of growth and improvement, honesty is key. To be able to progress forward, it’s important to be honest about where you are starting. I grew up in an extremely small town before moving to the fourth largest city in the United States. I was surely a small fish in a big pond, maybe even the ocean… Houston is huge. I wasn’t equipped to take on one of America’s leading business hubs. I was always ambitious and eager to grow, so I tried to use that wide-eyed and bushy tailed energy to my benefit. Every experience is a learning experience. Something that really helped me was changing my perception of the word ‘failure’. Failure isn’t final, it’s formative. Failure is a positive thing. When I started changing how I perceived failure, it also encouraged me to be resilient. Your best self is ever evolving and ever changing. We are always capable of doing more and being more. Getting better isn’t a hack, a trick, or a one-time alteration. Development is a life’s journey and a personal crusade. It is an engagement of self-discipline. Nobody will always want to do the dirty work or the mundane things. When it comes to long term success with anything in life, I think it is worthwhile to realize that feelings aren’t always relevant. It is not only natural but expected to not always feel motivated or inspired. I strive to be disciplined enough to execute action items even on days I don’t really want to do it. A great mind once told me, “It is better to be consistently good than occasionally great”. It is crucial to be incessant. Success and failure are both generally slow processes. An effective tip I practiced wholeheartedly when I started my business was I strived every day to complete one task that facilitated the embodiment of the goal to have a fully operational company. These tasks do not have to yield grand accomplishments. For example, every day I would do one thing that nudged me forward. Whether the task is picking a color for the logo, selecting a font for the newsletter, having a meeting with a potential business partner, etc. Those little habits being created and small wins achieved will slowly build up. Every single one of us is so much stronger than we think we are. It is such a palpable feeling of empowerment to envision who we want to be and to realize that just by exhibiting the qualities of who we are striving to be, all of our goals can become a reality. The fulfillment of our dreams lies within us and us alone. No one can take that from you. We cannot control what happens to us, but we can control what we do about it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I am Maya Barlow. I am the CEO of a lush vegan skincare company named Sol Skincare. In addition to running Sol Skincare, I study biomedical engineering. Sol Skincare is an e-commerce company. All of our products are featured and available on our website, www.solskinline.com. I have extremely sensitive skin and have struggled with eczema my entire life. I felt that I had searched, used, and experimented with so many products that were available. I felt that I was not able to acquire a product with how I defined a product as effective. It was disheartening and a bit exhausting. During my journey for the perfect product, I realized a few things. One being that none of the products that I tried, didn’t satisfy how I wanted to resolve my skin condition. It seemed that the products didn’t aim to genuinely fix any legitimate problems, but only offer temporary solutions. A band-aid if you will. As a current biomedical engineering student, my education is in chemistry. I couldn’t think of a more befitting opportunity to apply my knowledge. This helps me to ensure our company never uses nor handles harsh, damaging, unnatural materials, or components. Sol Skincare works to remain completely authentic, natural, and innovative. All of our products are paraben-free, silicone-free, talc-free, cruelty-free, and sulfate-free. Our products not only enhance the appearance of the skin but simultaneously nurtures, repairs, and replenishes the skin. Afterall, Sol Skincare is Where Health Meets Beauty. I chose this slogan because it perfectly depicts the essence of Sol Skincare. Sol Skincare genuinely aims on improving the wellness of the skin. By focusing the intentions on making the skin healthier, this then yields the desirable qualities we crave such as a radiant glow, supple skin, or fewer wrinkles. Sol Skincare is unparalleled in an innumerable number of ways. First and foremost, the company’s priority as a whole is to ensure that everything we do is executed with an exceedingly high degree of excellence. One of the many ways Sol Skincare guarantees this is by making the use of clean ingredients a top priority. There might be 10 million other skincare companies, but we unconditionally ensure that each product is hand-crafted one by one with salubrious ingredients. This also assures that not only is the quality superior but the results are effective. Moreover, another quality that is extraordinary about us is that we don’t market based on insecurities. We do not sell people the idea of perfect skin. Instead, we advocate the nurturement of the skin with salubrious ingredients . Sol Skincare’s adept team incessantly strives to exhibit and deliver nonpareil skin care to our patrons. A particular goal of mine was to end the frustration and hassle of skin care for millions of people. The skin is the body’s largest organ, the most visible organ, and it is the protective barrier for the entire body. With that being said, the skin is not uniform. The skin varies in thickness, texture, oiliness, redness, and aridity depending on the area. Sometimes, even in the same area, such as the face, there are multiple and different qualities. Instead, we should provide our skin with beneficial, healthy, quality, clean, and nutritious substances necessary for your skin to heal and improve itself. To use Sol Skincare is to radiate confidence. We are bringing an entirely new meaning to being comfortable in your own skin.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I love being able to share the story of how I funded my entire business. I’m hoping my optimism and passion illustrated in my story will help one person visualize that anything is possible. Believe it or not, I grew up outside of a small Amish town in the Appalachian Mountains. As I grew older, I developed an extremely ambitious personality. I always felt eager to succeed. I developed goals and dreams that I knew would take me to different places. I decided to go to an out-of-state college. At the onset of my college career, I started waitressing part-time. The restaurant was shoddy and out of the way. In the beginning, I struggled to even carry a drink on a tray. It was funny. I learned very quickly that if I wanted to make money, I needed to teach myself new skills. I quickly adapted, taught myself how to be successful in the industry, and worked my way up to bartending. I truly enjoyed bartending because how well you prosper is completely dependent upon the individual. Every night I would take a portion of my tips and set them aside in a special account. The more real-world experience I gained, the more I realized I was basically financially illiterate. Always trying to improve, I started to read about finances, just trying to set myself up for success. I was a small town mountain girl, with big aspirations. I started to become curious about the idea of investing. I began to do research on my own. I was extremely nervous to invest, I had no idea what I was doing really. One thing I did know, to get to a level I had never been, I had to do things I had never done. I analyzed the market as best as I could, then I decided to simply believe in myself and take that leap. I played around with a few different stocks gaining most of my knowledge through experience. I yielded a great return, even for some of the most seasoned investors. I sold a portion of my stocks and was able to start my company without any loans, investors, crowdfunding, venture capitalists, etc. Being able to do that allowed me to develop and brand my company the way I thought was best. Now, as Sol Skincare has grown, I have business partners but I am so thankful I was able to brand Sol Skincare how I envisioned it. It wasn’t easy but I am so thankful to that little girl who believed that dreams were more than just fantasies. She didn’t know it at the time, but she not only changed her life but entire future generations.

What was a lesson you had to unlearn?

I am invariably striving to be a better version of myself by enlightening myself with knowledge and experiences. Sometimes learning new lessons means detaching yourself from the old lessons. The lesson I was most grateful to unlearn was that I needed to embody and pursue one specific thing or path. As I was growing up it was constantly drilled into me by teachers, counselors, and anyone professional in child development that I needed to pursue one thing whether that be a quality, trait, passion, or an idea. I know most people, if not everyone, experiences this at some point or another in their life. As we all went through the years of grade school, we were given so many different tests. These tests were to help categorize our personalities, our interests, put us into groups with people who had a few similar traits and to even project career paths based upon our most prevailing or dominant traits. I always struggled with this idea. I never knew which trait I was supposed to give the spotlight to. I understand that this idea has positive intentions meant to give guidance and help people learn certain things about themselves. In reality though, we are not just one idea. None of us are. I am a completely different person from when I was a little girl. If I would have based my life on my first career path I ever chose, I would be a space princess right about now. Can you imagine….a space princess ….(I’m laughing so hard.) Even then, I knew I didn’t want to limit myself to one path. Although being a space princess did not work out, of course, I’m so bummed. With that in mind, I am not just one thing, one trait, one facet. I am multifaceted. I don’t desire to confine myself. I am ever evolving, growing, and learning. I don’t want to be defined as intelligent, pretty or exclusively one idea, whatever it may be. I aspire to be intelligent, resilient, honest, humble, adventurous, receptive, assiduous, joyful, caring, accountable, creative, and benevolent. When I was able to understand that it was okay to fully embody so many of these traits, it changed me. Life is beautiful, chaotic, and random. Life itself is multifaceted. When I stopped trying to fit in a box, that is when I began thriving. Allowing myself to explore different characteristics, I was able to create an advantageous mindset for myself. Different qualities are valuable but also necessary in different situations and problems. It is okay to focus on one thing at a time, to get to know each unique trait intimately as you learn your individual strengths and weaknesses. If anyone ever takes one piece of advice from me, let this be it. Do not confine or limit yourself to one thing, whatever that may be. Life is so expansive and so are you. You are capable of being everything you desire. Be courageous, even though sometimes it is scary. There is only one you in this world. No matter how hard anyone could ever try, it is impossible to produce another you. Stop trying to fit in a generic form when there is nothing generic about you. You are your advantage.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.solskinline.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solskinline/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/solskinline
• Other: The episode link to my feature on the Houston Element Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/38POuf5yLebCDgRYGA4ei5?si=yQa4PgFTTSu9Czt1_thg3A