Many entrepreneurs dream of that moment when they know they’ve really “made it.” That might look like turning a profit for the first time, or seeing how their product or service changes the lives of customers. It should feel like a moment of pride and celebration, but one multimillionaire serial entrepreneur admits it felt quite the opposite for her.
“The first time I made real money, I cried in a parking lot,” Emily Lyons wrote in a LinkedIn post in October. “Not because I was happy. Because I was terrified I’d lose it.”
Lyons, the founder and CEO of Femme Fatale Media Group and Lyons Elite, said this moment was so scary for her because she had grown up watching her parents fight about money. They had even been evicted from their home, and counted coins to take the subway.
“That kind of stress doesn’t leave your body,” Lyons wrote. “It just waits.”
Lyons founded Femme Fatale, a leading North American event-staffing and marketing agency headquartered in Toronto in 2009. She started the company at age 23 with just $80, a cracked laptop, and a vision to revolutionize event staffing. The company has grown to become a multimillion-dollar agency with a network of more than 20,000 event professionals serving clients like L’Oréal, Red Bull, Sony, and Grey Goose as well as other Fortune 500 companies. She was also recently named Entrepreneur of the Year at the CanadianSME Small Business Awards.
