Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we are going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Charlotte Neuville, the founder and creator of the Fashion Chef and author of Stylish Cakes, a fabulous new book out from Harper Collins. Charlotte, imagine we have a young woman, young professional with us at the table today, and she wanted to achieve your success; what advice would you give her?

Charlotte: Dream big, you know, and listen to it and don’t discount it, because many times when we dream big, no matter what our age is, we discount it thinking, oh, there’s no way that could happen. And that’s where we’re our own worst enemies in that sense and, I’ll be honest, in terms of achieving your goals, a lot hasn’t changed; which is, it takes a lot of hard work. A lot of hard work and getting to learn about yourself and what really excites you and what keeps you up at night in terms of your passion and allows you to work hours on end and not feel that you’re tired. And sometimes that involves sharing your passion with a friend. In my case, I get to share it with one of my closest friends, Michael Coffindaffer, in my business and it doesn’t get better than that, because then your business can grow bigger and bigger, but it’s really—you’ve just got to really stay as authentic as you can to yourself.

And you know when you’re in your 20’s, you’re not so sure what that is, and that might entail trying 10 different things. But I assure you wherever you are out there that you will learn something from each of those 10 different things; even if it’s a job behind a counter at a library. You will learn something about yourself and something about interacting with other human beings that you can take to your dream.

Leisa: Thank you very much. There you have it, extraordinary advice from an extraordinary woman. I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson, President and Co-founder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile design and development company. You can find me at contentactive.com or follow me on Twitter @LHNelson. We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.