Multi-Billionaires EXPLAIN Their Steps To SUCCESS & HAPPINESS |Sara Blakely & Jesse Itzler

right now more than ever your greatest weapon and the greatest thing that's gonna get you through this and maybe determine who really thrives first who survives through this he is going to be mindset welcome back everyone of the school of greatness podcasts I've got my favorite couple in the world on Sara Blakely Jessi it's learn in the house thank you guys so much for being here sorry to put makeup on yes he didn't shave and it's all good right you guys have probably the most loves entrepreneurial family and couple on the internet with everything the post about you both independently have amazing businesses and brands but then you share your lives together on social media which is amazing and it's inspiring it's beautiful it's messy it's not perfect it's all the things and I'm just curious the first question I have is what have you learned the most about each other during this time of quarantine whatever you like cuz you put together four you've been married for what 10 15 years now four kids something yeah 11 and a half years and we've been quarantined for five and a half weeks which feels like five years and 38 minutes it's interesting because I'm a you on a regular day everything is scheduled and structured and now everything is completely unstructured and I'm used to coming home after busy work days for Sara and I and you know we have dinner and we have our kids and the window is really short when we're together and now it's everywhere I go there she is which is a great thing wait I learned an English class that anything that comes before the but is really not the major no you're really happy but no no it's just it's interesting it's interesting because you have a lot more time to fill you know and and aurally and art as parents our responsibilities have shifted because now we have so many more hours with the kids we have four kids on ten that are we have to be really together and aligned or it's gonna be Morgan how do you manage pork that wasn't his question what have you learned about each other have you learned about each other yeah exactly I would say that I haven't really learned anything new about Jesse but everything that I kind of knew has just been you know it's I think everything is so exaggerated what give me an example so like for an example my husband thinks of ideas all the time I would say 80 to 90% of all of our conversations in this marriage are ideas they're either ideas or our children for the most part and I'm living this in real-time so he's having like 13 ideas a day he's filtering them all through me it's a lot and I've been trying to talk to him a little bit about his own filter system because he has such a bias for action which is cool but like he's an idea and then he's off and running and talking to three people about it and then he's got another idea an hour later and he's got that one going and so there's a little bit of a little bit of me helping him think that through not that he asked me for the help on that but it's a lot the other night we sat down at the dinner table and Sarah asked myself and our four kids to go around the table and explain in detail how we were feeling emotionally I'm with short-circuited I'm not wired for that what is your response I know what you say good I'm like you know I'm like I call it the feelings game because you know I'm trying to get the children to participate in it and I'm wondering what they truly are feeling they seem okay but as a parent I'm like this is heavy stuff that's going on and the news is on the background sometimes when they're in the room and so I was just trying to tease out how they might be feeling and so it was good I mean we ended up going around if I go first because then I example yeah it's so so what I'm here you say is the thing you've learned about Jessie is that he's got usually his ideas are gone with his team somewhere but he's got more ideas all the time and they're he's taking action on a lot of stuff and tag I'm it I'm the focus group on all of them why can't I be for sure of course why it seems like Sara you've had one idea that you've stuck with for 15 or 18 years with Spanx and you create new ideas within the one idea just a different model I do I shared with Jesse and he knows this I have other ideas so I have 99 pages single-spaced type of ideas and I mean I email them to me then myself the minute I have them and it's 99 pages right now which is just funny my assistant keeps going on have you run out like can we hit a hundred pages but I end up just it's so much more important to me in sort of instead of actioning on them instantly it's more important to me to not lose them I think an idea is a gift from the universe and and I cannot take for granted that I might forget it so the second I have it I email it to myself I used to keep it in notebooks but now I do email and they're there and then I revisit them and then they will come out of they will come out like my belly art book had nothing to do with Spanx and that was an idea that was on that 99 pages and and I some of them will knock on the door enough that I'll say I'm gonna find the extra time to make them happen how many ideas do you think that is on 99 pages that have thousand is 10,000 it's at 500 what is that rain do you think I don't know I don't know but I was it's interesting because for both entrepreneurs with completely different styles so Sarah's really good we're both very ATD Sarah's very good at staying on one thing saying notice stuff mono tasking being single focused and I have to I like to operate in a completely different style I need a lot of balls in the air at once I need to bounce around from thing to you know from one thing to another it's just the way I operate I operate better with more balls in the air so everybody has their own style and overtime you figure out what that works the best but you know Sarah's really disciplined she's very disciplined and she works it she looks at things through a unique lens it's always customer first it's always focused on value it's always focused on she goes right to the story and how she can articulate this to the customer and I'm ready fire aim I'm like I got started for anybody else starts and I'm gonna figure it out as I go just different styles yeah I mean are you friends with Buffett Sarah yes didn't isn't he the guy who said the quote like successful people and really successful people do things a little bit differently they say no more than successful people or something like that yeah it's funny when we were talking his quote came to my mind but there is a Warren Buffett quote that says you know the most successful people in life have one thing in common their ability to say no and you say no a lot many things I have to I have to but it doesn't mean that you know another style of creating things in the world is any less it's just it's interesting I I am I am very disciplined and what I focus on I I'm kind of like I probably say I'm in between both of you like for me for me like I want to create stuff all the time and launch something quickly and put it out there but then I'm also like well you can't truly build something an empire and something magical for the long term if you're just jumping from one thing to the next whereas you have been disciplined for decades on building this global brand that just is so inspiring and both are fun it's like but you get to create your it's creative expression over here the Jessie style but you it's you get to create something magical no that's well I you know it's just the two ways to look at it is I also look at Jessie's life as so magical because no because literally I'm like honey you went he became top of the field in rap he was like on MTV and you know had hits in the top whatever and then he went from that to a jet company and did really well which is so different than rap music and then he goes from jets to coconut water and is really successful there and that you know and now he's doing he's an author and he's a motivational speaker so to me like that's really fascinating that he's been able it's very unique to find someone who's it's not that hard to find people have jumped from sector to sector to sector it's hard to find people who've mastered or kind of been top of the game in all those different ones so I always look at him and think oh my gosh that's really makes for a colorful life like I've been plotted along on my own journey but he's doing he does have a billion stories but you go I was starting out in business my philosophy was say yes to everything because you know and I'm so interest well it is because it was laughing at jokes that aren't funny going to everybody it was I had nothing show up to every medium say that I had a building network I had to get out let it be someone that want one I wanted to teach everything I'm serious because I didn't have the resources so from me I had to say yes to everything there was an event I'm going because there could be a buyer there could be someone that that a connection if there was a basket basket ball game I'm going I don't know who's gonna be in the audience so it was yes yes yes yes yes when you get married and you have kids and you evolve your system has to evolve with it so what worked for me when I was twenty years old you know I'd dinner when I was at eleven o'clock at night in New York City now we have dinner at 5:30 at night as you evolve your system has to evolve so I have said I'm starting to say no to things and you know I have a very simple test Louis and for for friends and for business I don't want low aggravation for the highest reward like everybody now I'm young I'm willing to go high aggravation for hire high reward but now that reward isn't worth it so I want low aggravation so I'm curious Oh Jesse I'll let you start with this I'm gonna ask you guys both a question Jesse what's the thing you're most proud of about Sarah that she probably doesn't know about I feel like you tell her all the time you guys talk all the time about everything but what's the thing that maybe you don't tell her enough or that you're really proud of that she maybe doesn't think is a big deal but you do the way she uses her success her wealth and her success is unbelievably inspiring and not just the philanthropy that she does and she does a lot of that in behind the scenes that no one knows about that I know about and in front of the scenes but just how she treats her friends and her family and me and her kids and it's inspiring man it's uh it's actually unbelievable so she's very selfless and very she puts herself second and that's a great quality and especially because no one taught you know when you come into to wealth or success no one teaches you how to do it it's like I want Bordeaux model my dad on the plumbing supply house you know I was like you never talked about anything about that and she's just intuitively hmm just figured out how to do it she's been enjoying The Giving Pledge and all the stuff she's done it's just unbelievable there's no not where does that come from Sarah in YouTube you know again you were selling I think was fax machines door-to-door for five or seven years you didn't have tons of money and then you became you know extremely wealthy with owning this business and building this successful brand for 15 plus years where is that generosity come from at such a high level when everyone wants a donation everyone wants your time era I want you to coach them everyone wants you to speak interview you everyone wants you you spend you've got four incredible kids you've got all your friends your family everyone is expecting more from you how do you stay humble through all that gratitude I'm so anchored in gratitude I feel grateful that I'm a woman in this country born at the right time I've talked about that a lot and I feel that when you stay anchored and gratitude for what you have and what you've been able to accomplish it's it just it can't do anything but keep you humble I mean there's no reason to be any different I really believe and I've said it before I think money just makes you more of who you already were so if you were a jerk you become a bigger jerk if you were kind you become kind or if you were generous you become more generous I can also mention that I've never been doing this for the money you know so the money has been a byproduct of following a passion I did want independence as a woman so I did that was important to me I didn't want to be financially dependent on anyone but beyond that it wasn't like I'm not I'm not driven by material success really I like experiences and I like you know things things that can help me spend more time with the people I love but I think that also made it easier for me not to get completely wholly consumed by the sparkle of it all it was never really about the sparkle on you know on like you shiny a new car and all of that for me I have an inside look into Sara's lifestyle it's fascinating you know as an entrepreneur watching as a marketer it's just unbelievable I've never seen anything like it but her decision-making is so unique and for most of us we make decisions based on as entrepreneurs ROI return on investment and for ninety nine percent point ninety-nine point nine percent of the listeners that's the bottom line ROI is I put this much money in I get this much money out she looks at ROI through a completely different lens its ROI it's never it's not really the bottom line of course it's factored in its experiences is how I treat people ROI could be the gift she gives to our kids in the form of cooking dinner every night you know her her ROI her pancakes nobody but if you look at return your return on investment across a bigger platform than just what we normally look at it and that's her lens so I think it's really interesting you talk about this Louis but there's colors in life right so success is there's different kinds of success and so there's monetary success that's one bucket of your life you know there's success in your chips and your relationships their sex success and how you are and behave in the community and what you're contributing there's success and are you healthy and strong and do you take time to you know eat the right things and work out and so I've kind of always had all of those pillars in my mind also and I think it's easy for people to get so singularly focused in one pillar and that makes their whole life off kilter I think one more thing I love it really good point because you know people success to me and everyone is a different definition of success but when I look at success it's being good in multiple buckets like Sarah just said success like when I was a kid I remember going into meetings and I would sit there now being all of these people that had so much wealth that I was trying to do to actually you know I was a young kid 2324 sitting in boardroom meetings and as I got older those superheroes my superheroes some of them turned out to be unbelievably amazing humans but others I started looking at it's like man you're just rich yeah I don't like the nice person yes right so um success is its being good in multiple buckets and that's where we put our energy yeah trying to be good parents and we got plenty of flaws man we try to be good parents we try to be good husbands and wives good kids we both of our parents are both alive so investing in you know time with them and it's it's exhausting man is there's so many buckets as you get older this is what I want to ask you about the question about energy and you know you have yes you have you know financial abundance right financial stability but you still have four kids you still have hundreds or thousands of employees and people counting on you people asking questions all the time people wanting from you and you could you'd have all the help in the world you could have all the tutors and nannies and cooks or whatever maybe but still it consumes so much energy of your time your thoughts and your attention how do you guys manage energy because I call it I mean I've got I don't have kids I've got a passionate Latina which is a lot of energy I've got to have but it's I've got a small team you've got a big team how do you and it's exhausting for me sometimes so how do you guys manage energy like you said you have to really think prioritize delegate which you can and let it go and not be too mentally hard on yourself and as your bubble grows you invest the time in hiring your weaknesses so whatever where where are your weaknesses and find the best talent invest in the talent and you know if you put the right people in place in certain areas then it will free you up to be able to prioritize your time and then you have to take the time to do that like even though I have this leader in place what is the most important thing for me to be focusing on for Spanx even though I may or may not have a nanny what is the most important thing for me to be doing with my children what's important to me and I sat down with Jesse and we wrote out like what's important for us to be what is the quality time that we want to have with our children and just be at being intentional about those buckets will really help you figure out energy and how to use it and how to make it go farther I would add I think three things I think we've spoken about this in the past lose many times you know I think the most important thing is to really be present be where your feet are so for with our kids were with our kids if we're if Sarah's at work and you know I don't want Sarah to be guilty or resent me you know for when she's at work when she's at work she's at work and it's fine when she's with the kids she's with the kids you got to be where your feet are so we communicate about that today I was on I had to do something for two hours I said I let her know I need two hours alone she was like no problem because I didn't want to feel guilty or and I don't want her to resent me so we communicate that but you got to be mega present too you go in and out of waves so like we went on a trip to Poland with ten friends brothers I make best friends I don't you know overnight best friends if I don't speak to the guys for six months I'm not gonna beat myself up the relationships still there so you have to trust the seeds and know that when that you planted and know when it's time for me to jump back into that but 10 I'm gonna be present and everything's gonna be but you can't beat yourself up that your energy is pulling you somewhere else that time will come back you know and three is you got a plan you can't like we're not good enough to just wake up and wing it we planned stuff man no we planned stuff like I plan that I'm gonna see my parents a certain amount of times a year then I'm gonna go in a certain amount of trips one on one trips with my kids we go away once a quarter we have we plan a trip alone time we have date night every Wednesday I might not see Sarah every single day every minute of the day during work but we know Wednesday nights we're having date night we know we have our family dinners we know the weekends is our time so you have to you know you have to plan otherwise it's it's it's you know you start to spiral and when you spiral it's hard to get out of it it's really hard especially if you're in quarantine sick I heard an interview that Oprah did years ago about I'm gonna butcher this but she essentially said at one point she made a decision in her life to throw a big dinner and bring all of her friends and family who've been asking her for money and stuff for years and she threw this big party huge dinner through it the best food and gave away cash and cars and gifts and said I'm bringing you all here I'm giving you the last thing I'm gonna give you because I I assumed for years people were just kept asking for more and more and they were never happy and they're never satisfied this is the general concept I might be butchering it how do you guys manage the expectations of friends family people that are just on social media that ask you for things how do you manage the energy of people getting angry or upset or getting hurt if you don't do something for them when they think you should or could do you guys face that at all all the time it's a great question I mean first of I don't I don't get angry at anyone's reaction very time when people ask for something you're put in in a lose-lose situation I remember my mother told me and I when I was growing up - never - never lend people money for a lot of different reasons agree let down you'll be let down and why do I have to pay him back they don't need the money or if you do pay him you know there's all kinds of guilt and resentment so you know one way to handle this is you just you can give people money and to say this is a gift not alone but it's really case by case it's really by case and situational and but it I'm not gonna lie man it is challenging it is challenging and how do you know when someone is like truly a friend or versus someone who's like always reaches out every year for for something you know monetarily let's say I don't feel like we have we have that much issue with that that's good yeah I mean I personally don't know how you feel about it but I think you know I think if it feels very obvious to us who who's a friend and who's maybe someone who's a not more of an opportunist but we we live our life in such a way that we're not in the situations very often that we're put in these positions and I stay very true to my core mission again with my foundation which is elevating women and supporting women so it gives me an opportunity to explain or have my team explain why the funds don't make sense to go there and that we'd love to support everyone in everything but you have to pick a lane and in order to be effective or possibly make an impact in that lane you have to give yourself permission again to say no to everything else that isn't in that lane so that's been very helpful yeah having that structure and organization and explanation makes sense yep has this as this time as this time shifted your guys vision for the future this quarantine Korona stuff has shifted your ideas of how to be an entrepreneur for the future about your businesses your brands being you know learning how to use zoom now and is it shifting anything or you you say you know what we're staying the course is our initial vision for where we had before I mean I'm gonna speak for myself I'm in survival right now so yes so I have retail well no I mean at home I have she's not talking about business she's talking about those are my home kids I'm in survival mode I mean we've had no nanny no support no no you know we have been for five weeks now with four children 10 and under and three of them are five and under which anybody with small kids knows your game on like from the minute they wake up you're making sure they don't get hurt you're just you're just tag teaming it we're doing around-the-clock cooking and cleaning and you know all of this so I I have not had the luxury of time to think about anything much else so it has been all-consuming for me by the time we get the kids finally to bed it's later and the minute our heads hit the pillow we're pretty much asleep we haven't watched any television in five and a half weeks other than maybe a few minutes of news here and there I mean I haven't read a book I have not had a minute to do anything but I will say that I do think that there's a for me I'm hoping that there will be this shift in gratitude because I think gratitude is the basis for happiness and the basis for joy and we are we the whole all of us got a reset button on gratitude because you know it's very easy when you're on autopilot you're going to and from work you're doing this you know you we take certain things for granted and now I mean the simplest things when we come out of this I mean we're gonna have such extreme gratitude I mean I had to make a target run the other day I put on you know tons of but I've never been more grateful to be able to go to Target you know and so like I think there's gonna be all these nuggets where we come out of this and like going to a park is gonna be such a gift going and seeing friends it's gonna be a gift and we were just doing it before yeah between guys and girls the survival mode Sara means is survival around around time you know we have that we're at the home school for kids that have different schedules and Sara's running a business I'm running a business so and there's no one there's no there's no one around so we have a swimming pool this stuff that can go wrong so you have to be alert and survival mode meaning like alert I'm a different I'm a different animal in this thing for one Lewis I'm taking its earmuffs era inventory you know this is a time where humans can be consign and become great humans you know I want to be known at the end of the quarantine is someone that called my friends call my family call my customers I want to be remembered as someone that didn't disappear I want to be remembered as someone in the community so I'm making it a point every day I call it the 3 minute miracle I just take 3 3 minutes I send three texts every day so over the month I'll send 100 texts and emails to friends family and customers if you invest 10 minutes you'll send 300 emails in the next 30 days and that's what I'm doing I'm making sure when I have free time then I'm staying connected we organized a zoom call with our friends from Poland I've done this scene with my with my you know college friends high school friends I want to make sure during these times a lot of emotions come to the surface man you know you start to realize what you want to do what's important to you and when we come out of this I want to put way more on my plate of the things I love to do with the people I love to do them with and that's what I miss I don't miss going to a sporting event or watching a rerun or what I miss is like the camaraderie of my friends yeah yeah I stuck together with the friends yeah I'm gonna OD on experiences or do deed for the last 10 years but like that's what I'm craving I'm craving like you know so I'm using this time and if you if you're a business owner this is a great time to to to do two things one is for a lot of businesses the narratives about that has changed so if I'm if I'm in the financial world and I sell insurance let's just say and I've been struggling it's not the insurance is the the narrative is now changed because really what you're really selling and what people want is peace of mind mm-hmm people want security and those that can really imagine they're talktrac in their business and and talk to the emotions that people are going through taking the biggest risk off the table giving people comfort are gonna win and this is a time to invest in those in that storyline and those relationships if you know I'm sure Sarah is saying that sounds great and all but I've got four kids to manage right now and I'm feeling overwhelmed and stressed and for those that Sarah are those that may not have the time even for ten minutes they think that's too much right now for them they're there in total survival mode they lost their job they're overwhelmed what do you think is the skill they should be trying to learn with the extra time that they can create what's this new skill in an entrepreneurial mindset that they should be thinking about maybe they don't have time to call their friends and did this or did that because they're whatever reason but they have a little bit of time to create a skill if you could wish for that from one part I if I what I would say is positive mindset is a skill so I would say if you are that person and you're at home right now listen to anything that helps you have a positive frame of mind because right now more than ever your greatest weapon and the greatest thing that's gonna get you through this and maybe determine who really thrives first who survives through this yeah is going to be mindset so listening to you know I have my favorites I grew up on Wayne Dyer you know there's Tony Robbins Wayne Dyer there's so many great up-and-coming people in this space Louis your stuff is so positive to listen to I would do that there's a lot of golden nuggets that you could learn also right now from other entrepreneurs but and then I would say selling as crazy as that sounds I would learn to sell I would practice it I might listen to an audio on selling I might read a book on selling I think at the end of the day selling is really important and selling yourself so maybe you practice selling yourself maybe you get a piece of paper out and you write why me what is unique about me even if you're feeling so down there's something that you are unique in the world that you do and start writing about it in on a piece of paper and keep writing about it and get really confident about what you can contribute when this all comes through and then practice being able to articulate it in a really concise confident way and that's gonna go farther than a lot of things I mean that's really an important important skill yeah I would just add also if you for those that only have a couple of minutes it's a great time to teach your kids certain skills so one of the things that we've done here at our house is every week we're trying to try to teach our kids one thing so this week for example I say it's capitals and states we're gonna on all the capitals in state and giving the kids one big monthly goal so for our daughter it's teaching her how to ride a bike so I think a lot of people came into the quarantine thinking oh my god I'm gonna be home I'm gonna get so much done and they put a lot of pressure on them saying we have enough pressure our parents are older our kids we're worrying about our parents our kids but there's enough pressure to put pressure on yourself that you have to accomplish so much during this time write the book and learn Spanish should what right I came into this thing saying we yeah my list was week one I'm writing a book week two I'm doing a documentary yeah we writing my second book I'm gonna take the ten thousand photos and organize them week four I've done out of it but if there's at first I beat myself up about it and I was like Sarah we come home we were like this is a wasted day we've surrendered that and said you know what let's get some small wins man small wins every day and that's been the philosophy and it's work take the pressure off it yeah and just for anyone couples going through quarantine together right now I will say so the first two weeks that we were doing this I felt that I was carrying more of the burden of the home and responsibility energy effort patients well I just I just felt like that so I I sat down and had a conversation with Jesse and he was very receptive and we actually sat down and divided and conquered responsibilities but until we did that I just naturally absorbed more of the burden so I was like cooking all the meals for the kids Jesse's out doing adventures in the backyard and dreaming about of books listen so we had different responsibilities those two weeks Louis yes yeah like I feel like I'm carrying the entire burden but anyway Louis so it worked because we we wrote down a piece of paper soon now for example I was doing all three meals and that's a lot of prep time and cooking for six in the course so Jessie does breakfast I do lunch dinner that's a bad is a big help we divide the cleaning in half what and so and then the homeschooling we've divided I take our oldest son which is really challenging and then he's taking the three littles and helping to monitor their their schedule with our teachers online so before in the first two weeks I was trying to do all four kids home learning and all of that and then I realized this isn't making sense so a lot of times communication in a marriage Jessie wasn't meaning to do that and I wasn't even meaning to be the one that absorbed it all it's just kind of what happened and now of course I felt overwhelmed and I needed to share that well I'm curious what was the moment Jessie that you were like man this is this is the person I want to be with for a long time when was the moment you looked at Sara or you thought to yourself like I can't I can't do this without her well well before I even met Sara someone sent me a picture of Sarah we were having an event for Marquis jet company I owned at the time and it was a customer appreciation event and everybody our reps from each territory had to invite one person to come to this event the Georgia Rhett sent me a picture and said I think this girl Sara Blakely should come I didn't know who she was and she sent me a picture I'm like don't send any more applicants have her at the event and we got married later noble' but when did you know it was them when you saw the photo or when you first met her when did you really know oh right away there was something going on for me at least you never you know like it wasn't I wasn't thinking about marriage or long-term relationships or anything at that time but Sarah was I mean she was just very interesting let's play the feelings game Luis let's do it let's go right to his comfort zone I love it right so right away maybe I do right over right what about what about for you Sarah was there a moment where you're like man this guy's nagging me so much and he's courting me so hard for months and months like okay maybe he's the right guy for me what what was that for you well I I had been single I mean I got married at 37 for the first time and he got married at 40 for the fall and so I had obviously been dating for quite some time and I always described it this way I never saw any of the people that I was dating in my movie hmm and it's just like I would I had great relationships some of them I really loved but for some reason it's just almost like I couldn't see the picture and then as soon as I started dating Jesse he was in the movie like I just saw in the future I saw him as the father of my children I saw us like playing together in a backyard and so for me I'm very visual I have a lot of manifestations in my life that are happening and that I'm doing so I think in pictures and I didn't see anybody else in my movie Louis until late tell Jesse you know it's interesting when you get married I never I thought okay you get married you don't I gotta hear that yes Louis cuz you know look this is the there's a lot that goes into a marry I'm sure there's a lot of married couples and people that maybe are engaged this and that when you get married there's a lot of things that you never consider before your philosophy around your philosophy around food you're a possibly around what schools you want to go to on how you want to discipline your kids there's a lot of scenarios that you never think about and it's just you know you have to have a partner that is flexible and you have to be flexible in those main buckets because they'll tear apart a marriage you know para Department you have to be aligned in those in those buckets and there's more and right because it's a lot of compromising but you got both bikes like driven high-achieving stuck to your like mindset type of people because it's what got you to where you are what was the hardest thing for you guys to be flexible about each one of you to be totally honest food because you're vegan we come from different schools of thoughts you eat right sir and by the way Louis foods not so easy because I don't know the last time I checked you needed to live and the last time I checked you have three meals a day 21 a week so if you're not aligned and the energy is like this you know wow food is the the biggest challenge for for you guys well it's something that I'm deeply passionate about and very well-read and have very strong opinions on and you speak about publicly all the time about right so it's the hardest thing for me to to budge and move and sarah has been very patient in this and we've worked we've we've really come really far very far we've actually basically solved what could have been a really big problem really anything is a big problem if you let it bubble and escalate and then resent anything so how did you solve it we compromised with the meteor we compromised it we worked at it I mean one compromise is with the kids don't eat red meat but we do turkey and chicken so that was like a big kind of long in the middle for us you know I I eat these things in moderation but it was important to me to kind of my biggest thing was I didn't want to focus on food in our family I didn't want it to be a big subject I didn't want the children to feel limited or too controlled around food and so it's very difficult when you're with someone who's super controlling around well whose intentions are pure and what's the little on live healthy these make a lot of sense I mean let's totally it it's not like he's so I seen every documentary on veganism averages yes it's just it's just was and this was a messy bucket for us but we we continued to talk it out and work it out and we've we've really come a long way on that because we had to for the sake of our family unit and the children but it's if you don't mind losing yes not just that it's like our kids right now or we have to decide I'm on school on where they go to school they're in kindergarten but but we have to decide they've graduated from the school they're in now it might not seem I it's creating no conflict or issues yeah yeah but my point is the alignment you know when you're young when you're young and this is for everybody that's that's you know younger than us when you're young you don't think about that kind of stuff and it's exciting and you know but as you get older real issues emerge and tell that your parents get older and how do you deal with that satyrs grandma lived to be 90 plus years and you know how we dealt with that and making decisions jointly around should she live at home should she live somewhere else how often you don't think about when you're 20 and all I'm saying is you know marriage it's um there's a lot to it that that that people don't understand yeah we're not experts in it will it's not all romance and now the Duffy 24/7 and honeymoon that's one thing that we really do have in common which is humor hmm humor is so important at the end of the day I mean you you know it's gonna be next to impossible to marry someone that's gonna be exactly like you are in all those it's but if you can marry someone that shares your common sense of humor or can make you laugh I mean life's heavy a lot of the time as we know and this guy can make me laugh on the drop of a dime and I hope I can make him laugh but he might be laughing at my jokes and not mean it based on we share I share a lot in common and we use humor as a tool to yeah I'm gonna go ahead no says now all these things are coming to my head I would I hear it but it's interesting because as you as you talk to friends and we do this all the time about how they manage their finances or how like we have our own philosophy you know we do things that make sense for us and we're not I wouldn't say we're casual about it but our priorities are in other stuff you know and it's just interesting to see how other people I have a friend of mine who we went we go away and took the receipt and he wanted and he was checking to see if they had if who had what on the menu and this and that and then he goes home and it's like it's a lot of time and effort and it's just interesting to see all the different styles that are out there because ours is different everybody's like you get married you won't know if yours will be right food it might be finance it might be the way you parent right might be the discipline you might be over here and your wife might be here you might be going well I gotta find the common ground what's the most important conversation people should be talking about before they get married just to try to set themselves up for the best you know possible relationship like what are the main questions before you even have that conversation you have to have the intuition and the feel and just be aligned on values mm-hmm your value so like we come from completely different backgrounds Florida New York I mean different but if you look if you looked at Sarah and myself we're so similar in almost every bucket when it comes to values so even though we might vary on the way we want how we want to what we want to put in our mouths or this and that or a line that we want the best interest for our kids you know in what they eat we want them to be healthy when they have good habits so I think before you even have that conversation but I would say that most of the situations that lead to unhappy marriages are either in the category of finances or parenting and most of it is around around children so if I to answer your question getting aligned on how you want to raise your kids what's an important you know are they going to Sunday school or they're not going to Sunday school with it those kind of things do you won't even want to have kids we have friends that are in marriages that one once advocated one does it so I mean it's tough so I mean getting on the same page you know to get into every detail we didn't even discuss it but the values were there no no no the values were there so we just assumed Sara was gonna be vegan one day when we first started dating we were at a nightclub in New York and the music's like really loud I'm on my third date with him or something and he yells I need to know if you would be willing to drive carpool and I was like what I don't know Sara's got this business no idea what Spanx was it was I just knew she had a business I don't know anything okay the first time we met I asked her if they saw their product at Barnes & Noble he did okay so I didn't even I know it this guy has no idea but then again it hit to me I'm like I fast forward like I do oh my head I I went out five years cuz look at that point of my life at 40 I'm speed-dating let's do everything we can do in a week you know we're getting married or we're done so let it out the boss yeah yeah a week in one week we did everything so on the third day I'm like this is going I'm going five years out I need to know is she is Sara willing to go and pick up the kids at carpool she's like what it's a great question you go you're gonna get the kids at car pool the answer was yes I mean he'd had a few drinks I started laughing I was really just ask me that yeah but you gotta understand this is the guy to a Russian illegal sauna in New York for our first date okay hey I don't think he was really trying to pull out a lot like this I think he was just like hey let's do this and anyway I thought I was going to get a massage and that it was very sweet of him to arrange for me but it turned out to be this you know it was basically what you guys did in pole in this plot saw where you go from extreme called dream bot experience I've got a few questions for you guys I don't want to ask a question because you guys are on a roll so I love this but I have a few questions for you left to make sure I respect the time this one is about it's more of a personal one so feel free to tread lightly how you choose to it's about intimacy and I want I want some advice for myself and for all the people out there who are in relationships and want to be in committed long-term relationships want to have kids want to have a business want to do the experience experiences want to travel to Poland with crazy friends all the things and still want to be intimate in your relationship how do you create intimacy when there's so much stress anxiety weight responsibilities dreams business travel how do you cultivate that more than just a date night is that even something to look forward to or is that even a possibility for me what do you what do you guys think about okay well I someone told me this once and it really struck me they said intimacy can only happen when someone is present and I was like whoa because it's you know the way that life has been set up before quarantine we're all running a million miles an hour and so to think about that that wait I really only truly intimate when I'm fully present changed my thinking and you know I think my my best suggestion would be to carve out that time to sit and be present with the person that you love whether it means you have a designated time in the house that you sit and talk to each other look at each other whatever whatever it is but it's really only gonna happen in presence I think also it's really important that the person next to you is like your superhero I think it's really important that you always you know have someone that you look up to and you respect and you value and like because it's easy to forget all the amazing qualities it's hard man anybody who says it's not it's easy I mean I wanna I want a lesson because the kids you know work pants card so I think one way that you have to check in an intimacy by the way doesn't necessarily mean taking off your clothes and blah blah blah intimacy is also a function of respect it's a function of having conversations we check in with each other very often you know during the day even if it's just for a couple of minutes it's getting away and and you know one thing that we try to do is we let our kids know we let our kids know that we prioritize our relationship first so like when we're going out on Wednesday night it's it's about spending time together but it's also sends a signal to the kids that like we we come first because if we're broken if this is broken it's the worst thing for the kids I mean when I look in my life the greatest gift I think I've gotten in life is I parents in America for 65 years now they didn't have it all figured out they hadn't give me all the best necessarily all the best advice and it's not but they maintained a marriage for 65 years through the depression through Wars through putting four kids to school and there's a lot of lessons in that and when I look at my mom right now my dad's 90 years old and and not in great shape when I look at the commitment that my mother has to my father staying home every day sacrificing the last decade of her life to stay with him every day with no nurses it's just I mean it's just an it's an insane lesson and so you know it comes in multiple forms but I think it starts by you know I always have things that say to Sarah all the time that's a form of intimacy too you know I tell her all the time I married Wonder Woman I can't believe like when you know like if the light is shining on Sarah I'm so excited for Sarah I cry every time I go to her speech you know like it's like it comes in a lot of different forms and when you show that she sees that she knows how much I care about her when you when she sees that it makes her want to do the same for me so it comes in a lot of different ways it's not like Oh having sex eight times a week you know for the next 50 years now beautiful that's beautiful I want to play the question game with you guys little dating game room for action do you have a pen and paper each of you yeah I want you to I want you to I'm gonna give you a question and how well do we know each other how what do you know each other okay so the full start with an easy one so what are we doing right Arian so you're gonna write you're gonna write the answer down first the other person can see and this will be for for Jesse for you to guess and you guys both write down the answer for Jesse what's what's Jesse's favorite food oh that's easy okay yeah what is it Jesse banana bananas okay okay and what's what's uh what's Sarah's very you got a right one what Sarah's favorite food it's a competition that's what Sarah's favorite food there's two of them what's that let's say Sarah Sarah Sarah first there what is it she said ah Wow cheese it's good okay who is Jessie's best friend oh gee oh wait I don't know oh let's see what he would say okay well it could be in the top five okay top five commit you can you can put one name it's in the top five thank you okay because he's probably got I can be able to guess this he's probably a hundred percent you are my best friend in top five top five best friend that way it's not it's not uh yeah give a give a top five name Dougie fresh okay he's not on this list would you place God like 50 best Fred so I get it that's a challenging one Oh Kenny Reisman ah it's a very tough let stop stop okay is what I was saying okay what about for Sarah top five will be I mean he knows we both have a strong group of a core attendant renzobbi type one okay what is what is the greatest hit for Jesse his greatest hit song the song that got the biggest downloads the most sales the biggest views what's the one song there was the biggest hit it's between two so yeah it's between two I mean let's see how well you know your husband okay I'm gonna say college girls are easy but shake it like a white girl was used in a fillip okay so which one which one which one though you have to pick 100 is I supposed to write it down you could well well I want to hear Sarah I would have said go near go okay Jesse what was which year was Sarah's biggest year spanks well that's that's easy yeah can I do me I'll write it down her biggest year at Spanx yep good sir sweetie you better not get this wrong 2019 yeah last year every year is a bigger year for you right last year was amazing okay which is unbelievable that's crazy to say that your biggest year is always the unbelievable stat what company does that always been my last year okay but it was last year that's amazing what is the that's amazing okay what is the thing okay besides food Jesse what is the the biggest thing that Sarah would love you to change the most or to budge on the most or to adjust the most in your marriage besides food what's the rent right now it's my beard you're crazy yes beside your beard you got a right Sarah's got a right down I gotta write it down two beds what's the biggest thing you want him to adjust or the biggest argument I guess I'm gonna save it you can say it is not the beard not the food the biggest thing it's easy now it's me all the time good question Lewis wait by the way I hope these questions make our marriage stronger I know it's all point what is it yes stop writing a heart miles let's do less yeah that works less okay why are you doing this to your body yeah I know okay and Jesse write down all right plus for Sarah the biggest thing anyway you want to adjust or change that is the biggest challenge or stressor or you know whatever note if I mean Lewis your questions are no joke man this is like a hard worker I mean most people are like what's your favorite color come on the dating game is supposed to be like most what a change [Laughter] it's cool greatness you know we got to go a little bit to this level okay the thing that says not the beard I mean uh think about her that you're like frustrated weird or well it could be a fun thing it doesn't have to be yeah okay well the biggest the biggest challenge slash frustration slash argument slash oh god honestly I'm just gonna say what it was because it'll be hard there's not a lot of things that I would change and Sarah to be honest with you all of it comes with the - all of it is what it is and I'm fine with all of it I mean during this time of quarantine but Lois if she can put a little bit less salt on the food ideal I love it okay and the thing that you think your partner loves about you the most that they haven't expressed on this interview the thing you think that your partner loves that you do for them the most the thing they do and she's got a million good qualities it is not I couldn't even you know not just trying to sound corny or whatever but there's uh Sarah's got so many good qualities it's just it's well here's the thing Sarah what I will tell you about what Jesse whenever one with Jesse he always says amazing things about you whenever I'm with him whenever we're alone whenever would there's a group of people he is singing your praises and speaking about you with such level of respect honesty admiration and he's such a great role model for me and all the men that he speaks with about just how to communicate about your partner when you're with a friend or a group of people or on stage so just as a friend of both of you I'd love the way he communicates about you when you're not around it's beautiful well thank you so much and I have to say that you know as a woman going through my business journey and dating a lot of people it was challenging for me to find someone that didn't feel inferior or threatened I my business success and I would date guy after guy and they would always say it's not an issue it's not gonna bother me and then somehow it would end up becoming an issue and so I felt very you know challenged and sometimes sad about that and then Jesse came along and he is truly and I think this speaks volumes about him he is so truly happy for me like my success has nothing to do with how he defines himself as a person or doesn't define himself and I always say they're like brighter my star gets the happier he gets yeah and I just felt like I won the lotto on that with him because that's just that's just someone who's pretty self-confident and has their own journey and feels good about themself and I think at the end of the day that's what we all want in a partner yeah it's beautiful you both have amazing businesses and things you're doing right now to give back during this time and you've got the red backpack fun can you tell me more what that is you made this huge announcement making this big donation to all these women female entrepreneurs what is it and why did you decide to want to give so much to these women at this time well I'm so excited I so the red backpack fund is I decided to donate five million dollars to female business owners during this time and I know as a female business owner myself how incredibly hard it is and to layer on this global crisis on top of it is just mind-boggling to me and I wanted to do whatever I could to help extend a hand these are women that bet on themselves I want to bet on them especially during this time I know that funding for women is really low I think in all the VC funding that goes out to support businesses women still only get two percent of it or around two percent of all the funding so I was excited to help and the five million dollars goes to giving $5,000 to 1,000 different women and $5,000 is really symbolic when I started Spanx with 20 years ago I had $5,000 in savings from selling fax machines and my lucky red backpack and this behind me is the actual real lucky red backpack see this is it from college and it normally hangs in a glass box at Spanx headquarters but I had it taken out recently and it's at home right now for launching the red backpack fund but you know it's symbolic of like what women and what we all really need is right there on our back and it's also symbolic of starting small but dreaming big I started Spanx without $5,000 and I've never taken any outside investment since over the last 20 years and been able to just grow the business and live you know live the American dream I'm very very grateful for it and I want a lot of other people to be able to live that dream too so just trying to help out how can these women be a part of this do they have to submit something do they yes so there is a website and it's called global giving org forward slash red backpack fund and I partnered with global giving they are doing all of the vetting they are doing all of the selection of the women and the distribution of the funds and not just scrolling through Instagram and saying yes to a bunch of people it's someone else who's actually vetting it yeah making sure those qualifications are met yeah there there are five qualifications that you know we that we had to come up with and then they answer some questions and we yeah so the businesses will be chosen by them I have nothing to do with the selection process if you're fans that say hey but I've been commenting on your Instagram for years can you do it for me they still have to go through the wish I could but for the governances and legal stipulations of foundations it has to be this way but I'm thrilled that I was able to partner with GlobalGiving because it does allow me to give to individual women and not have to give to another big organization which is also great but this is going directly to these women's businesses amazing so how many women 1,000 women each receive $5,000 do they need to be from the US around the world to be from the US and it's taking place over the next five months so a million dollars will be given away every month for the next five months so that they can monitor the vetting process because it takes some time yeah but the next time that the portal will be open for applications is May 5th GlobalGiving dot org slash red backpack fund yes to go there there'll be a waitlist if it's not open right now you can go back on the first and every month it'll open up right yes okay so mark your calendars go there now if you're a female entrepreneur do you need to be a have a business already do you need to have an idea okay so the qualifications are you have to already have a business you have to at least have one employee on payroll you have to be doing less than five million in revenue and I believe you have to have less than 50 employees there's five or six stipulations and oh and then just asking a few questions and talking about the need and how you would use the money and then you know I love it a thousand women will be be given the five grand you're such a giver Sarah I love it and Jesse you've got this amazing calendar Club which you've been talking about for a year can you share about what this is oh it's a new business I just launched yeah I've been walking around with this big calendar for years and I'm Sarah nuts that's one of the nuts I take it anywhere but you know most calendars we get filled up with appointments and schedules and weddings and you know we're playing defense because we don't have a lot of time to put the stuff we love to do on the calendar so I flipped the model this calendar plays offense we put all this stuff we want to do in our lives down which is what it's a system I've been using for the last couple of years and and then you get an accountability coach and I hold your hand to the finish line so we map out big adventures date nights all the stuff we talked about and we put it on your calendar I have a system that I've kind of I want to say perfected and yeah it's called the big ass calendar club where can we get it how can we be part of the club it's on my Instagram you can go only go yeah so thank you and build your life resumes on there as well and that's my coaching program yeah and I've heard from so many people that are listening out previous interviews that said it's one of the greatest programs they'd been through so you get coaching from Jesse coach it's all in your history I'm linked for all the stuff it is yeah and hopefully we can go to 2902 9 in the future this is going to be the greatest adventure of your life climbing was that though I didn't complete it I haven't yet to complete it so that's a goal of mine but you completed it barely the first time it almost broke me it almost broke me my spirit and my body for months because I went into it a mindset thinking I got this I'll be fine now you got to have humility on the mountain and you don't need to learn how to manage the mountain Louis I just wanted before we got I just wanted it every time I speak to you probably until you're 90 and I'll be 120 oh you gave me probably the greatest non-family trip of my life though it was Nam that Poland trip man it still sits on the top of my head the lessons the friendships I just I can't believe if I was on the fence to go because it's so far if you ever and if you ever do something again like that and I don't get invited we're not friends yeah and you got it was just so unbelievable so thank you again for all those uh of course friendships man it was unbelievable horse of course okay I've taken too much time but I have one final question I'll have you guys share both I think I've asked you both this the question of the three truths at the end of every interview so what I'll do is I'll let you each share one truth so this is all you could share left the world and no one had access to your coaching your Instagram or content anymore but you could share one lesson each to live by what would you each share well that well that Sarah go first and then Jesse goes second for individual ones and then one together at the you would share maybe a family truth I'll go first okay go ahead so put your soul into whatever you do every year I pick one word that defines the year last year was soul if you're gonna do it do it with your soul mm-hmm okay what's your process work really hard to honor yourself don't care about what other people think about you practice that don't worry about failing and the fear of failure which usually ultimately ends up being the fear of being embarrassed which leads you back to what other people think if you can live your life not being defined by the worry of what everyone else might be saying about you were thinking about you you're really gonna honor your one gift of life and I feel like that is a gift and so that's one of the best ways to honor it yeah beautiful and then maybe one together a family truth that's you speak about with your kids all the time something because if you have an opportunity to create a memory we talk about it all the time take advantage of it because you never know if you'll get that opportunity again invest in experiences and adventures but you know we we make that a priority in our family it's really prioritized experiences over everything and it's a great gift for our kids and it's a great gift for our marriage we've had some amazing memories and moments that we made an effort you know like as you get older it's really again we talk about this it's really hard to create newness because we live in routine so you know you really have to work on creating newness and an adventure and prioritize it put on your big-ass calendar I appreciate loved and acknowledge you both for taking the time I know you have no time right now and so it means a lot to me you spent a couple extra minutes to share your wisdom to share your advice with people watching and listening Sarah you are just a beautiful soul every time I see your videos and photos online every time I get this connect in person over on line like this you you bring your heart - every moment and it just it's amazing what you're able to do and give to so many people I'm gonna acknowledge you for your giving nature and your joy you're constantly loving and joyful with everyone all the time it's unbelievably best and Jesse man you're you're welcome - Jesse you're just the most caring friend who brings the creativity you bring the passion you're you're always willing to jump on the phone with someone and text people back and you're just an incredible human being as well in your own creative quirky ways that is different but man you've got so much soul in you all the time from rapping to dancing to jokes it's 4:00 a.m. all this stuff man so I acknowledge you both for your individual contributions to the world and together how you guys share that with the world as well thank you for your time appreciate you guys thank you the bright light that you are in the world thank you so much for watching this video and if you're looking for more gradients in your life and check out this next video right here you have to have the courage though to say even though I wasn't trained in this because a lot of people think well I didn't go to school for this so how could I possibly know but you know it's inside of you and you were willing to be creative and risk failure in a way that most people aren't

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 63,410

Keywords: lewis howes, sara blakely, sara blakely interview, jesse itzler, jesse itzler interview, school of greatness, success, inspiration, motivation, self help, self improvement, self development, inspirational video, motivational videos, wealth, how to build wealth, how to make money, money, cash flow, success principles, relationship advice, billion dollar advice, relationships, love advice, how to be happy, how to become successful, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, key to happiness

Id: Ueh7W0xGac0

Length: 72min 45sec (4365 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 27 2020