Confidence with Sara Blakely | A Bit of Optimism: Episode 29

[Music] be confident build your self-confidence we're always told when we're growing up confidence is attractive confidence helps you get a job that you're applying for but where does confidence come from are we born with it absolutely not we can learn confidence and sarah blakely the founder of spanx she absolutely learned how to build her confidence and it's that self-confidence that helped her build a company without any debt without any investors and she became a billionaire confidence is a powerful thing this is a bit of optimism [Music] this is such a treat for me because i'm such a fan of yours i wanted to talk to you because one of my this is one of my favorite things about you you have a kind of confidence that few people i know have but you have this sort of quiet calm about you this sort of self self-deprecating sense of humor and yet i know how much you believe in yourself and believe in the things that you do and it's that sort of belief in your direction that i find just more magical thank you the question i have is were you always that way or did it build over time i was born with it to a certain degree and then there was a lot of work i did throughout my life to cultivate it even more so like like when i was 16. you see how this is going to go right yes i've been working on mindset since i was 16. i can really say honestly i've been a student of um not what to think but how to think and i had this revelation at the age of 16. you know i had two things happened to me at that time in my life one of my very close friends was run over by a car and killed in front of me and my dad left home and my parents got separated and ultimately divorced and when my dad left home he came into my bedroom and he handed me a cassette tape series called how to be a no limit person by wayne dyer and he said sweetie i wish i was your age when i discovered this instead of 40 and then he left and i think most 16 year olds at clearwater high on clearwater beach probably would have chucked that middle aged guy with the bushy mustache telling me how to be a no limit person in the bottom of my closet but i was hurting so much that i was open to it and that's the hidden blessing for that you know there's always a hidden gift in in the darkest of times and my openness to listening and i just started crying sitting in my bedroom as i put these cassette tapes in because i realized i'd spent 16 years plus in school being taught what to think but no one had ever taught me how to think and i had this epiphany of oh my god wait i can control how i think like i can actually work on this and become a student of how to think so i really started getting as much as i could outside of school that was teaching me how to not fear failure how to you know take risks the law of attraction visualizing my own success manifesting what i wanted in my life and then really i think more than anything learning how to respond to what comes at you in life like there's so much stuff that's going to come at you in life and the way that you think about it is either going to hold you back or propel you forward and learning that was really enlightening for myself so how did you learn to respond to things that don't go quote-unquote according to plan i feel like the combination of how i came into the world i have had a deep center like a deep sense of confidence about believing in myself if i feel like it feels right to me and maybe it's a real connection to gut and intuition because there's a knowing inside of all of us and we get distracted from the knowing but if i'm in connection with that knowing it's almost like nothing can rattle me yeah one of the other things i know that you have a mission to empower women as well tell me about how you found yourself wanting to advance that mission in the first place right so i cannot pinpoint where that comes from i sometimes joke it must be a past life passion i didn't grow up in a family that was like we need to support women i think a lot of it had to do actually with watching my mom and my grandmother's limited options and sort of absorbing that i felt they were being held back whether they even acknowledged it out loud or said it it was just this feeling that i had and i just plainly see that the balance between the masculine and the feminine is so out of whack and so i want to help it and i entered an arena in business that the masculine really ruled the feminine is really only been honored in this space not that long ago when i started spanx i had two guys come up to me and say you invented something sarah congratulations you know i hope you're ready business is war and i went home that night to my apartment and i was so sad and i remember sitting on the floor of my apartment and saying why is it war like why does it have to be work and i vowed to myself that night i was like i'm going to do it differently i don't want to go to war and i just honored very feminine principles in how i conducted myself and grew my business and in the back of my mind i was thinking maybe i'll end up successful and if i do wouldn't that be cool because then i can show there's another way yeah what are some examples of those principles i mean using vulnerability i've been very guided by my intuition i'm in a business group with guys and i would say things like well i'm gonna talk to the universe i'm gonna consult with the universe and they like literally thought i was insane and then as my business continued to grow around year four or five i found out later i'm still in the business group with them 20 years later they're like my brothers but they all told me they were placing bets how long i would last in business four or five years into its time and they all individually were pulling me aside and they were like so how do you talk to the universe tell me what you mean but so vulnerability i'll give you an example i started spanx i make butts look better starting with my own i took a picture of my own butt with cellulite and a panty line in my pants and then put my product on and showed it side by side and laminated it at kinko's and stood in neiman marcus right like this store with the most impeccably dressed women and i'm showing this image of myself and over and over again i had people say you know if you're the founder and the owner and you probably should use someone else's butt like why are you using you know they couldn't wrap their head around the fact that i wasn't trying to say you need me i'm perfect i have a product for you i was kind of like we're in this together this is what this does for me and that was a real shift at the time as a consumer i always felt like companies were talking at me and not to me and i feel like there was a real fear among companies that if we put our guard down like if we acted real human or kind of at the level of our customer they might not believe we're credible like that we're not the expert and that they don't need our products so i just stripped that all away and then i had such a deep connection with consumers as a result simon spanx didn't advertise for 16 years i became a global household name without ever advertising and i truly believe it's because there was this approach to the consumer that the women were feeling something so different and sharing it with all their friends and that's the ad campaign but this taps into this confidence that i adore i think there's an irony here which is people think confidence is being strong well that's because there was no place in the workplace for vulnerability vulnerability was seen as a weakness to me vulnerability takes great strength and it's the deepest way to connect with another human being you know like i love deep connecting whether it's a customer or a friend and i find that happens the most when i'm authentically just who i am right how old were you when you met jesse your husband i was 35 i got married at 37. did you want to get married prior i wanted to get married and had you had a couple of full starts were you ever engaged prior to jesse yes i was engaged before jesse i had many many relationships that weren't right i really wanted to be married i really wanted children i had a lot of this conflict inside of my body in my 20s because i would meet men they would be really nice they would want to get married and i would feel like if i married them i might not figure out my full potential so if you married them you wouldn't back up them i so i had you know all these opportunities to marry men who were very interested in taking care of me or just you know very successful whatever and i would have this inner conflict that was so intense that would say but if you do that you might become content and you might not ever learn your full potential of what you're capable of and what you could do and it was like a knowing inside of myself that i almost knew that that would happen to me i just was like i need to find my way first kind of i was very determined to be financially independent my mom and dad got divorced my mom had been a stay-at-home mom all her life and then i'm sitting at home with her and i'm a freshman in high school when it all makes sense to you i said well mom you know what's your savings you know i don't have any savings do you have a 401k do you have a pension no i've been a stay-at-home mother i was like okay and it was a really intense time for me as a 15 and 16 year old girl to kind of absorb all of that so you resisted marriage for a long time so what was it i resisted it but i wanted it i could spend time on a therapy couch about that but it's all worked out i found my husband in vegas at a poker tournament naturally [Laughter] go on i don't think i've ever heard the story of how you and jesse met i met jesse in vegas at a poker tournament and neither one of us play poker and wait so you're both in the poker tournament yes that's even better [Laughter] and then i just kind of knew i was like oh boy i was like this guy's in my movie i never could see any of the guys i was with prior to jesse in my movie and as soon as i met jesse you know he lived in new york i lived in atlanta we were in vegas the whole thing was you know he was an entrepreneur i had started spanx but i just i just saw him in my movie i absolutely love that terminology you know what it is it's a very clever device to trust your gut because i've dated people and i've you know i've liked them and and i thought could i could i end up with this person you know could i end up with her and i and i play this game like well she has these qualities but these qualities but if i simply say can i see her in my movie the answer is no amazing human being right but not in my movie right and it allows someone to not have to explain why it doesn't feel right but rather accept that it doesn't feel right exactly it's a clever device yeah you talked earlier about the law of attraction how do you know that it exists how have you been able to follow the law of attraction and listen to the universe i have been calling on the universe to help me it's visualizing i will see something before it happens and i will then fill in the blanks in college i visualized myself on the oprah show i with 100 certainty saw myself sitting on stage with oprah and we were talking and i was certain of it and the next you know 10 to 12 years i called filling in the blanks i had no idea what i was going to be on oprah and i actually was so excited i remember in my 20s being like i can't wait to find out what i'm talking to her about and i mean i ended up at disney world because i failed the l stat to be a lawyer i was too short to be goofy i'm the height of chippendale i'm at the height of a chipmunk then you know then i sell fax machines door-to-door for seven years i mean i get kicked out of every office building all day long every day in clearwater florida i'm living with my mom like i'm dating the wrong guy after the wrong guy and if you had pulled me off the side of the road in my honda at any given moment in that time i would have been like with 100 certainty i'm on oprah it's going to happen and then all of these things started happening and and i was on oprah if anyone whispered in my ear as a 20 year old at the you know in florida that you're going to be talking to her about a new product you create as an undergarment you know it's like i would have thought they were insane you know i'd never taken a business class i've never worked in fashion or retail but that was a 100 visualization i love this because a lot of people look a lot of people have told themselves they're going to be on oprah right a lot of people have said themselves and a lot of people have believed it but after the second year or third year of selling fax machines they start to doubt the vision the confidence starts to go sideways because the timing isn't as they expected and you sold tax machines for seven years and that's a long time i mean the average person at that company lasted like six months it was so intense i mean you you got kicked out of buildings all day long i mean i got escorted out of buildings because i had to do a hundred percent cold calling so every morning i would get in my car and walk into businesses unannounced and try to sell them a fax machine clearly you figured out how to sell somebody a fax machine if you lasted seven years doing it it was brutal though you know what did you learn from that that has benefited you now oh my god what didn't i learn it's like one of the best things you could ever do to prepare for life i learned how to get my foot in the door you're really only given about 30 seconds to a minute and i figured out how to approach someone in those first 30 seconds to a minute to get a possible chance it was true sales and i think sales is a really important part of life i think no matter what you do in life there's sales right you're selling yourself in a job interview you're selling your kids to eat the broccoli at night you know and i got really good at understanding customers and how to communicate and listen to them and and deliver and not taking rejection personally right oh my god i mean i cried a lot i mean i would get in my car after being like yelled at you know a lot of receptionists used to rip my business card up in my face as i handed it to them and i just have to like take a deep breath and go well thank you very much you know if anything comes up call me and then i get in my car and i'd cry but i was listening all the time to wayne dyer tony robbins zig zigler brian tracy like you couldn't have been in my car in the 90s without you know putting your feet on like 50 different cassette tapes that were people talking about you know how to think and goal setting and and i don't know i just really i just was really drawn to all of that i actually took it to my principal at clearwater high and said can we please teach this i said this is changing my life and he kind of laughed at me and was like no i said can we just maybe get rid of homec like like an elective you know like do we really need homec anymore could we make it mindset and could we just play these cassette tapes because i couldn't get over what the impact it had on me and all of my friends you know simon and i went to clearwater high like i went to a public high school they were always fighting over who had to be in my car after a party because they're like she's gonna make you listen to that and it was always playing and then you know fast forward like you know 10 or 15 years and i'm on the cover of forbes and i get all these texts from my friends at clearwater high and all they write was damn should've listened to that that's so funny do you teach all that stuff to your your the folks who work with you yes every new hire gets a how to be a no limit person that tape series that's fantastic and do you still cry yeah i still cry i still doubt myself i have days where i'm like oh my god i don't know what i'm doing yeah so i have had to push myself really really hard to do what i've done i've been terrified i've been scared i mean at every turn i was scared but i always say when you make what you're doing about something other than yourself if your why is bigger than you and for me my why is about women and the feminine being raised and so i found courage i never knew i had and that propelled me to do things that didn't feel as natural for me especially as a woman but literally it sounds dramatic but when i was like sitting in my rental car in dallas and deep breathing to go into the neiman marcus headquarters to make my first spanx call i just remember i was always like you're doing this on behalf of women you're walking through that door for your mom and your grandmothers who didn't have this choice and this opportunity you're walking through that door for all the women around the world who still don't have this opportunity so get your ass out of the car and walk through the door and like shaking in my boots you know this is significant because ultimately human beings are animals of service you know we're social animals and to do something in the service of others we find courage where to do it for yourself it's much more difficult i like to joke that i'm very happy to let myself down [Laughter] but i don't like letting other people down right but i also like how you thought about your mother and your grandmother you know the marine corps talks about this they talk about those who came before us right that we cannot let the sacrifices of those who came before us go in vain completely because it's too difficult to talk about the abstract future you know do it for our children nobody makes the right decisions for their children that's interesting but rather we're actually much more beholden to the past because the past is tangible and so you kept invoking your mother and your grandmother you cannot let their sacrifices and the things they gave up for you go in vain you had to work harder so that their sacrifice was worth it yes how do we teach girls to have your confidence you know i think that for one the more female examples out there that are really authentically vulnerable and not perfect and living a life that they might aspire to you know i want young girls to see themselves in me like when i was on the cover of forbes they're like we want you in a suit we want you with your arms crossed i'm like why does ultimate success have to look so serious yeah and so not enjoyable like i really like representing my house is the mess i'm trying to figure it out and i put the cookies on the wax paper by accident instead of the parchment paper and like all of this stuff but then i feel like i have a chance for younger girls to see themself in me and if they see themself in me and i'm not putting on a real front then i feel like they might tap into something and say why not me the irony is is that we need men to act more like you also you're empowering women but i think men have this tremendous pressure to put on the air as you know this is war act tough and i think one of the things that your example provides is no no just have fun be yourself let the guard down all that artifice let it go and by the way this is beneficial to a human being i feel it's happening yeah don't you feel it yeah i feel a shift for sure happening for men i think men are getting more and more comfortable and there's more permission because men have feminine and masculine energy i have both in me i honor both yeah i could not have done spanx without the masculine energy inside of me i just didn't want to do it by saying i will play by these rules and completely annihilate and squash the feminine yeah you know there are these traditional male characteristics as you talked about like aggression decisiveness you know and there's these traditional female characteristics like patience and empathy and it's not so much that we need more female leaders it's that we need more leaders to act like females and women just happen to be better at that i just think it's about balance it's balance it's exactly right i think our society is over indexed on masculine energy to our detriment rugged individualism and aggression and all this stuff we just over-indexed it's not that it's unnecessary it's that the balance is too far off we need to recalibrate our society to find a rebalance of energy completely and everything you embody is not feminine it's balance right and you know as a woman entering the workforce the women that came before me they had to act like men to have even a remote chance to be accepted in that arena so when you say in the marines or in the military you honor the people that come before you i have so much gratitude for those women because those women played in the arena they all had to look and dress and act like men you know cut their hair short and wear a pantsuit right but they paved the way for me to be where i am and i was determined to wear a dress when i wanted to and to paint my nails i've done my journey very feminine and honoring that i know it's because people paid their dues before me and when i think about timing simon i mean my mother is 22 years older than me so you think about timing human beings have been on the planet you know depending on who you ask and what you believe thousands of years or millions of years either way it's been a while and i made the cut by 22 years my mom was expected to be a homemaker her options were really really really limited i mean the fact that 22 years later i could start my own business and have this opportunity you know i have a board game hanging at spanx that says the exciting game of career women and it was mattel i think that came out with the board game in the mid to late 60s right when my mom was getting married and everything and there were five options it was teacher nurse ballerina socialite and flight attendant social light was a career option like oh no those were the options so it's hanging here at spanx because we have lots and lots of women that work here and there a lot of them are in their 20s and so just having them see that board game they're kind of like what is that like that wasn't that long ago true sarah thank you so much for taking the time you're welcome sarah such a joy such a joy such a joy wishing you only the best and we'll talk real soon all right thanks for having me bye if you enjoyed this podcast and you'd like to hear more please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts until then take care of yourself take care of each other you

Channel: Simon Sinek

Views: 19,486

Rating: 4.950345 out of 5

Keywords: simon sinek, start with why, inspiration, motivation, leadership, career, inspire

Id: 4GXdV9x7DEU

Length: 25min 40sec (1540 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021