Women sometimes surprise themselves with their resilience and self-reliance. October is small business month, and I thought we’d take a look at a quirkily successful lady.

Linda Hollander is a big fan of Estee Lauder who started out doing makeovers at local salons and grew her business into a global cosmetics empire. Lauder’s self reliance was so inspiring that she and her best friend, Sheryl Felice, launched a packaging business called The Bag Ladies, selling custom-printed paper and plastic bags to leading-edge companies. She made every mistake and faced every kind of business hardship imaginable. The girls learned self-reliance and pushed through the roadblocks finally breaking through and picking up huge business. Clients like Disney, Cisco Systems, Mattel, Universal Studios, Nissan, Yamaha, Sony, Revlon and many more besides were drawn to their entrepreneur business because The Bag Ladies is one of the only women-owned packaging firms in the country and the women in charge at the respective companies were attracted to their whole package.

Linda started out worse than broke. She was buried in debt, involved in abusive relationships and couldn’t find a way out of the poverty trap. Now self-reliance has changed her life and October being Women’s Small Business Month, I am sure more women will be hot on their heels.

Shannon Lavenia- Polaris Media Group