Why Mary Kay Ash is the Most Influential American Ever... 1st Reason

Mary Kay Ash is the most influential American because she didn’t need other people to get her ideas across. She didn’t need to shoot somebody, or write some fantastic speech. She wasn’t going to beg you to follow her or ask you to join her cause. She led by example, not with her words. She didn’t want to be the leader, she became it. She went out and started a business in a time where everybody told her she couldn’t do it. Sure she is just another piece to the puzzle of American history, but she changed the way the puzzle fit together. She’s not as recognized as Martin Luther King Jr. She didn’t do one huge thing to change the way the world is now like Abraham Lincoln. She built her message discreetly and carefully without supreme power, but supreme commitment and belief. She was directly affected by the injustice and so she singlehandedly took down the belief system of millions. She did it subtly , while being larger than life. Mary Kay Ash opened the business world up to women for them to be successful. She saved families. Her actions have given people the opportunity to go from poverty to paradise. She became the first women to have a Fortune 5oo company. She did it with her actions. She worried about herself but fought for women across the globe. She didn’t care what people thought about her ideas and beliefs of how a business should be run, because she wrote the rules we live by today. She changed the world without political power. She changed the world without people following her beliefs. She just went out there and sold makeup. She gave away Pink Cadillacs and diamond bracelets. Mary Kay trusted in the American people and herself that they wouldn’t let the status quo get confused with the equal rights they deserved.

Mary Kay Ash opened what was originally “Beauty by Mary Kay” just a few weeks after her husband died. Her accountant and lawyer advised her not to continue with the opening due to the fact that it would only be her running the business. She ignored this advise because she believed in herself. Within a year, her business had exploded with her number of “beauty consultants” growing from 9 to over 300. And her business wasn’t about pressuring the consumer to buy her product through one-on-one sessions, but rather house parties with many consumers teaching them how to use the makeup whether they chose to us their products or not. This genuine care for the customer was one of the reasons people loved her product. They also enjoyed what her business stood for. Each year Mary Kay would hold a convention to give away gifts to her top salespeople. She wanted for women to be proud of the way they looked. Eventually, she stepped down from chairman and gave the position to her son, but she never lost the influence in her company until she died in 2001.

Her company was great, but that was never the most important thing to her. This is what separates the great people from the true upper echelon of people in history. Putting the needs of millions of others in front of the select few peoples’ needs that you truly care about. I guess the best way to say it would be to love mankind more than more than a man. Or in this case, womankind. But Mary Kay didn’t need a podium or Congress to do it. She made her message clear, and had a burning desire to show the world why she was right, but she did it with a larger than life personality and a subtle approach. Her actions were bipolar, but she had made up her mind.