Sara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story with Lewis Howes

welcome everyone back to the school of greatness podcast we have a living legend in the house sarah blakely thank you so much for being here absolutely i really appreciate it so excited to be here absolutely i feel like i should take your order take my order what are you doing i want a milk i always want a milkshake so yeah chocolate oh my gosh vanilla chocolate whatever yeah whatever i am down um i'm so glad you're here it wasn't even six months ago when your husband was sitting right there and we got to have a good conversation he said amazing things about you and i was like you know one day i want to have her on as well and luckily you have the book you're here and we're able to make it happen your incredible publicist is so amazing so beautiful who's just on top of everything set it up for me so thank you from the bottom of my heart for for making this happen and um it's so good to connect so yeah thanks yeah and you are the uh the founder of spanx which uh has blown up it's like one of the biggest companies in the world it seems like now right and you're there's a lot of buts right there's a lot of what's up and um i know you've shared how it all started but for those that don't know spanx can you share how it all started so we have an understanding of what it is and how you got into it absolutely it actually started with my own butt because i couldn't figure out what to wear under white pants and i'm sure you've had this problem when you're getting dressed all the time so what ended up happening was there was you know our underground options were no good there was underwear that left a panty line and then there was the girdle that was way too thick and heavy and so then they came out with the thong which just put underwear exactly where we've been trying to get it out of wedgies and so spanx was born out of just being a frustrated consumer i wanted to wear my clothes i wanted a smooth canvas i didn't want to see lines or any kind of things going on underneath so um by taking the hosiery material which was meant to be seen on the leg until spanx sort of looked at it with a different lens and said no no i want the hoshi material to actually be what i create the undergarment out of and it was wild trying to convince the hosiery manufacturers to help me make this product with that in mind because for so many years they've been using the material to be seen on the leg right i said no it's just it's the perfect material to create the perfect canvas for women under our clothes and it opened up my wardrobe it opened up so many other women's wardrobe we could start wearing colors we didn't feel comfortable wearing and the models get airbrushed we get spanx there you go there you go i love it and when was this one this was in um well i cut the feet out of my pantyhose in 1998. wow yes i was 25 years ago yes i was 27 and then um i spent the next two years getting it made i worked at night and on the weekends on the idea while i was selling fax machines door-to-door and then the company was launched in 2000 when i was 29 wow yeah selling fax machines door-to-door where were you living in clearwater florida okay where i grew up fax machines on clearwater beach machines anymore around no i mean thank god i'm not still doing that i don't know what would have happened there are no more fax machines just like no one watches the movie airplane anymore i cannot believe it i need to know is is he the only one on the planet who's not seen a movie airplane i was quoting airplane as soon as they put the headset on him like striker you're too low you're too low and you just stared at me like what is she i apologize that's it guys so how long are you selling the fax machines i sold the fax machine sorted or for seven years seven years yes i know and before that i wanted to be a lawyer but i failed the lsat not once but twice and wanted to be a lawyer that was you know i wanted to be a lawyer i was like i'm going to be a lawyer my dad was a trial attorney i used to watch him in court when i was a little girl and i'm a terrible test taker and so i am the worst are you the worst teacher i was in the bottom four of my grade my class all through high school because i could not take tests and i always felt like the dumbest kid in the world isn't that doesn't that suck i mean it's it was like the most insecure feeling yeah and we ranked we had rankings on our grade cards so i knew exactly how dumb i was always in the bottom four is miserable yeah test taking why is it so hard test taking i don't know i have trouble reading and comprehending me too i really do i like i those sras are you too young for sra's sorry okay forget it i don't know but everybody at school i used to take the sras and i would read the paragraph and be i remember vividly reading it halfway through i'd be like remember what i'm reading remember what i'm reading remember what i'm reading and i looked at those four questions at the bottom and be like i don't know what i read so i'd go back up and start over again you're speaking this is my life really and i would just like make stuff up constantly whenever i had to comprehend i would just read the same page over and over and i'd be daydreaming so much so i couldn't remember it as well i i either made stuff up or i sat next to christina yeah she was so smart i was the king was my best friend growing up she ended up going to dartmouth it was like valedictorian or something i'm like i'll just sit next to chris do you have scantrons do you remember that no i'm not okay you can't remember we were doing things with a number two pencil yeah i did that too yeah that's a scam scantron is like multiple choice it's like a long sheet with a multiple choice all multiple choice did you have that multiple choice we had to fill in the bubbles yes yeah okay let's scan and when you skipped a bubble and then time's almost out and you realize you've just done all the wrong bubbles on the whole page and you're like no exactly but i'm on the same page bringing up a lot of you i'm remembering all that i used to cheat because i couldn't comprehend so i would have an incredible vision i would be like this but i could see through and like see all this stuff like that that's a dead giveaway like any kid in the class like this just you knew that they were cheating no one ever caught me so all right it's how i got through school was cheating i could not have made it through class without it christina you had your girl that's hilarious so you were a cheater as well well i'm just saying christina sat next to me you're an innovator i was being resourceful exactly i like it i was being really resourceful but you wanted to be a lawyer but it didn't work i want to be a lawyer i failed the else out not once twice so then instead of going to law school i drove to disney world and tried out to be goofy but you have to be five eight and five six and i'm five six so i didn't wear heels and so i was the height of a chipmunk oh so you got the chipmunk i got the chipmunk part but i didn't end up doing it i put people on rides in a brown polyester spacesuit at the world of motion and horizons at epcot epcot center and i would see people that i hadn't seen in a while and come through yeah i'm walking on the moving sidewalk putting people on rides and they'd go hey blakely is that you didn't you graduate from college and my big mickey mouse here said sarah blakely and i'd be like get on the ride oh my god but that's what i did and then i sold fax machines door-to-door for seven years seven years did you wake up every morning and say this is my dream to sell fax machines door-to-door were you thinking no what am i doing in my life exactly so what happened was a lot of people think that spanx started when i cut the feet out of my pantyhose but actually it started long before that it started when i was selling fax machines door-to-door and getting my car business card ripped up in my face being escorted out of buildings all day every day that i woke up one day and just thought i'm in the wrong movie like how did this happen this is not my life cut scene director like call the producer and i got out a piece of paper and i wrote down what am i good at and the only thing in the good column was sales and i thought okay what am i going to do with that and i ended up writing in my journal i'm going to invent a product and sell it to millions of people that will make them feel good and then i asked the universe for an idea and i was very specific and it took two years and i only cut the feet out of my pantyhose one time and i was not going to squander any idea the universe gave me because i had really asked for it and then the minute i cut the feed out i started trying to make it i started looking up whole manufacturers on the internet this is before alibaba wasn't it yes because i joined this i did this about eight years ago and i used alibaba for something and it was easy to find like a manufacturer in china and test different things but how did you find a manufacturer at that time a website called thomasregistry.com and it lists all the manufacturers in the country based on category and that's when i found out that a lot of hosiery and undergarments were being made in north carolina oh really yeah so you got it local yes yeah so i called and called and no one would take my call and they'd either hang up on me or say they weren't interested so i took a week off of work and drove around in person and just showed up and i just showed up yeah i want to create a sample yeah because if they weren't going to get a big order for something they're probably like what's i'm not going to do a little sample for you right i showed up with my lucky red backpack from college it's always with me you still haven't yeah of course and you can bring it here come on it's with me it's with me in l.a yeah oh wow yeah so um anyway i went into the host the manufacturing plants and they asked me the same three questions and you are let's say sarah blakely and you're with like myself and you're financially backed by and i was like sarah blakely so you can imagine how those went like well have a nice day honey and good luck and um about you know a few weeks after i made all those rounds i got a call from a guy in north carolina who had took pity on me and said sarah i've decided to make your crazy idea wow i'm going to ask him why he had the change of heart he said i have three daughters wow yeah so he ran the idea by them and they're like dad that sounds interesting you got to give that girl a chance amazing so he called you back you didn't follow up with these people oh yeah i was following up but to no avail but he he fought up and said yeah we'll give it a shot yes we'll make this so what was the next step was he just making a sample for you or testing different models or sizes or yeah so um it just set up to make the garment while i was making it with his manufacturing plant i was also wanting to patent the idea and i was also trying to come up with the name for the invention so i was doing those three things simultaneously driving up on the weekends and working with ted in the back of the manufacturing plant that i'd become very close with and driving to north carolina from florida no from atlanta i was living in atlanta what's that about eight hour drive six hour drive um about four and a half oh it's not bad yeah it's not bad and so anyway um ted ted became my buddy and i went to get it patented but all the patent lawyers wanted between three and five thousand dollars and i had five thousand dollars set aside to do this that's it yeah so i wrote my own patent i went to barnes and noble no way and i bought a book called patents and trademarks and i wrote the patent and then i called one of the patent lawyers that was the nicest to me and said please please please rewrite the claims over the weekend for a discounted price i've done all the other rest of the patent the legwork you've done yeah you just kind of need to button it up yeah you need to sign it off the legal part and so he did he actually admitted to me that when i came to visit him he thought i'd been sent by candid camera which let me put it in your word camera i know i thought he was being punked of course of course wow yeah he thought he was being punked okay and he thought where's dashan where's ashley yeah exactly he thought that his friends were playing a joke on him no way yeah he goes who's this girl i mean like you're not the typical person who walks in the door saying i've got a product and i want to pat it so anyway he did that then at the same time i'm trying to think of the name i had horrible names written on scrap pieces of paper all over the place in my apartment in my car in rental cars on the back of like avis agreements and um you want to hear how bad the runner-up name to spanx was yeah open-toed delilah no way yes i cannot believe that was even an option it was it was the runner-up like how bad is that open-toed delilah i so wouldn't be sitting here with you right now if i named it that is the horrible yeah it's so bad wow yes so anyway okay so what does that stand for well it's all about the butt and it makes your mind wander a little bit nobody ever forgets it i had no money to advertise it was risky it was fun at the time listen now it's become a household name but when i first invented it i would call people and say hi i'm sarah from spanx and they would hang up right because i was probably like a porn yeah they thought i was pranking them i'm called i'm like no really i'm sarah my company really is called spanx and i had department stores across the country that wouldn't sell it they thought it was too risque of a name yeah and um my mom sent her whole lunch into the wrong website when i first started i was like mom it's with an x oh my god it's super important it's with an x so yeah anyway i hadn't ended up buying the word spanx from a man who said he was holding out from the porn industry funny enough that you say that i bet yeah i paid with an x i paid money for that but um anyway yes so amazing named it spanx it came to me because i narrowed down my thinking i knew that kodak and coca-cola were the two most recognized names in the world at the time and i thought what do they have in common i like to think about words and phrases a lot they both had a strong k sound in them and the man that created kodak liked the k sound so much he took a k and put it in the beginning and the end of the word and played with letters in the alphabet so and i also had a bunch of friends who did stand up comedy and it's this weird trait secret among comedians that the k sound will make your audience laugh so i put all that together and i'm like okay i want my product name to have the k sound in it for good luck and literally spanx came across my dashboard in my car in my mind and i pulled off the side of the road i wrote it down i went home that night i typed it in my computer for 150 with my credit card and at the last second i backspaced the k and the s and put in an x and hit so it was accident kind of with the no idea i know i you backspace catch i backspaced because i stared at it for a while and i had done research that made up words do better for product than real words and they're easier to trademark yeah so then then i had the name and i had the the um patent in the works got my prototype and my patent lawyer said sarah i need to know what's in this garment in order to write the patent i said okay no problem we'll call ted so i get ted on the phone i'm like ted can you talk to the manufacturer yeah like in the back in the back i'm like ted can you talk to my patent lawyer he's like yeah so we're all talking and he goes i go can you tell him what's in it he's like yeah well it's 70 percent nylon and 30 lacquer and i'm like all right and so i'm taking notes my patent lawyer's taking notes and that night i could not sleep i'm up all night and the next morning i wake up i'm like how is there a lacquer in this product what is lacquer just saying i'm awake it's like paint thinner or something okay so i called 30 paint thinner so i called ted i go ted can you spell lacquer he's like yeah l-y-c-r-a i'm like oh my god lycra oh yeah yeah i was like got it don't all change on lacquer immediately my uh lawyer was laughing you know how fast you would have gotten a patent if you um tried to make this out of paint thinners like they would be like sure so was it challenging to get it did you get the first try the pattern i did wow usually it takes a few turns doesn't it i got the patent the first try and i got the um trademark name spanx amazing yeah so it didn't seem like there was that many challenges once you submitted it or whatever you kind of got the things you needed in place you got the the orders in was was there a lot of challenges after that once you got the patent the trademark that was a really hard part it's just i heard the word no for two years yeah all the manufacturers nobody thought it was a good idea and um and also when you're just yourself trying to break into an industry like you mentioned the manufacturers it's not really in their best interest to slow down machines or try to give a girl with a couple grand a chance unless you're gonna give them a bunch of money for a big order of something yeah right so that was the hard part and then once i had it i cold called neiman marcus and that was the first account i called on did you get it yes well you were great at sales well you could sell it i was so excited it was my moment i flew to dallas i called them and said if you give me 10 minutes of your time i'll come and meet with you and she said all right this is the buyer oh yep the buyer i first called the atlanta store they're like girl um we can't help you we have a buying office i'm like well where is that give me their number and um i went in and halfway through my pitch i could tell i was losing her so i said you know what will you please come to the bathroom with me and she was like so buttoned up i mean neiman marcus like her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes and she was like what am i gonna do in the bathroom i was like just follow me to the bathroom and show you my own panty line and i went in the stall with spanx in my pants and without it in my pants and she was like oh i totally get it it's awesome and i'm going to put it in seven stores wow yeah i mean just like that just like that it was so unbelievable i was so nervous and then of course i had to call sam i'm like in the rental car on the way back to to um to the um airport i called the owner of the manufacturer but i'm like sam sam it's sarah i need more i just landed neiman marcus and he's like what he was in shock he goes sarah i thought you're giving these away his birthday presents for like years and i said no neiman marcus just bought it anymore and he patched me through to ted he goes okay you need to talk to ted okay so ted comes back in he's on the phone and i go ted i need more and he goes i go i just landed neiman marcus he goes well that's great but what you can do about the crotches the crotches yeah exactly that's what i said i go what don't they come with crotches we've been making them with crotches he goes well yeah but we only got one crotch machine it's being used by somebody else no way yeah so what do you do then so i just landed neiman marcus and i have no crotches oh my god you've got a hole in your brushes i don't know where to go for a crotch do you i mean i don't know where do you go i actually looked in the yellow pages crotch making machines yeah i just well i looked up crosstalk machine i looked up crosstalk even how you spell crotch okay listen this is what i learned i'm gonna teach you something okay so i didn't know that what's the yellow pages again yeah oh my god it's a big book it's yellow it's what we used to like things like hilarious um and what's instagram oh yeah we just got off okay i just joined it seven days ago all right so um where what oh crotch yeah machine looked it up yeah so anyway in the yellow pages it's not under crotch so i learned there's a fancy word for crotch named gusset gusset yes what gusset never heard that word so i started calling gusset companies they were like fedexing me crotches from all over my roommate would come home and be like you got another crotch in the mail and then i ended up finding a man by the name of gene bobo that worked for a crotch company just 20 minutes north of where i lived in atlanta and he saved the day and they made the crotches and then i could deliver neiman marcus so you had the leggings they made the crotches and then you sewed them together because that's how it works yes apparently yes gotcha okay okay so you had to know how many did you print the first time um three thousand three thousand three thousand pair of the first spanx one one uh skew right or yes one skill twenty dollars one sku three sizes or like four four sizes yep and three thousand of them yes and that's what neiman's ordered and then i sent them to this that they sent him to the seven stores i had no packing and shipping department so the semi trucks were pulling up to my apartment in atlanta and i was shipping them myself to neiman's this is amazing and um then i called every friend i had in those seven cities like people hadn't talked to in 20 years say hey go buy a few of these yeah take your girlfriends there hi christina remember me i used to sit next to you all the time in grade school will you please go buy this product called spanx i literally called them and i said and i'll mail you a check so i paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product that is brilliant and i said to get some money yeah i said go in i said i gave him a whole script i'm like go in and say i've been looking for this all my life i can't believe it's here and create all this excitement that's amazing and then of course a week later the knee i talked to the neiman's buyer and she's like sarah we are blowing out i'm like you don't say no way i was buying them all yeah brilliant you have to wow you have to you have to ensure your own success absolutely so then once i started running out of money oprah call and put it on as our favorite product of the year how long was that for until the time was enigma marcus to oprah calling like a month it just happened like a month or a month and a half how did she even hear about it i sent it to her in a gift basket and her andre who dresses her put it in her dressing room and she put them on and has basically worn them every day since shut up i'm not kidding it was so unbelievable i had no money to advertise in the back of my apartment i was selling fax machines like a month before that but i have to say i was working every night and on the weekends for two years quietly trying to get this man building this thing yeah building it yeah did you have a relationship at this time yes really yeah my boyfriend at the time quit his job as a healthcare consultant because he started helping me ship the spanx out all night every night see he was fully in support yeah he came on board and was on board for like the first maybe six years of the company six to seven years wow he was amazing help wow um okay so if you have not if you would have not had oprah bring this on tv i just have to ask you did you know what spanx were before i came on here to be honest my assistant is wearing them today all right okay good of course you know i make man spanx well i heard you i read they used to have like a men's line now i have a small cult following for this product i've never bought now i mean what is it what are the man spa what are the banks the banks okay so it's an under all it is is a man's undershirt and i just saw that my husband and my brother and my dad had the same undershirt since it came out so i researched it because i think it's interesting things that never change it's like a white haines understand the man's undershirt came out in 1918 not one thing has changed about it yeah so i was like i'm not comfortable that's why i don't wear it yeah and it stretches out so i i said let me put a little bit of lycra in it i'll make it the same cotton undershirt guys are used to but i'll make it not stretch out as easy be a little tapered in at the waist so it looks better under yeah eva then i got men's spanx underwear that are amazing they're just comfortable okay we re we reinvented the pouch okay so i'll try them out i'm just gonna say the only thing the only thing i can say is tell me what to get i'll get it the men that have wor wore it told me it keeps the family together oh hey i will try it so i'm gonna go get it okay what store is you in now you're in every store yes okay yes the men's thanks spanx.com but you have to spell it with an x ex this is amazing so would you have um where would you be uh if over didn't pick it up within the first couple months like if you had a year of trying to do this on your own do you think you'd have got other press or you'd have money to build it okay i do because i was so determined i mean what as soon as i got the order i was so committed you weren't just interested in seeing if this worked you weren't committed and doing whatever in it to win it you have to remember right i was selling fax machines thrown out of buildings i had no option in my mind i was like i am scripting a new life for myself and was this movie about you that came out a year ago joy yeah is that about you my dad called me go sarah i just saw a movie it's basically your life except for the dysfunctional family part right yeah right daddy okay sure yeah but i could really relate to her i'm sure it was like a hustle and yeah but when i got neiman marcus i think a lot of people think that's when you've arrived that's when i double timed i mean i i got um on a plane and was gone for two years straight and i went to every department store in the country that sold spanx every neiman sacks nordstrom and bloomingdale's and i would go before the store open and do an all store rally and tell them what my product was explain it to them do a demo give out free product and then stand there in the department for you know eight hours a day and tell customers what it was because i didn't have any money averages i was selling it for them but what i didn't realize i was doing was i was building a sales force not on my payroll because all these people started to become so ambassadors ambassadors and they were rooting for me and they loved the product and so that was a really important part of the formula and then i had learned what my next products were going to be because i was standing right there with customers and let's say what they need what's the challenge i can't do this but they told me what they wanted amazing yeah this is unbelievable you were like willing to do whatever it takes above and beyond totally so when oprah had you on or she didn't have you on she had the product on you didn't go on right i didn't go on but they called and they said sarah it's her favorite part of the thing she doesn't have people on this but she loves that you're taking on this billion dollar industry and she wants to film you and kind of just show a little bit of b-roll so they landed in my atlanta and came to my apartment and they had all this official stuff and they go we discussed on the plane we want to film you in your headquarters oh my gosh headquarters like my living room yeah i'm like you're here i don't you know and then they wanted to film me having a staff meeting and i had no staff so i called carl go to the factory and you're like i called up sam and i no listen i called connie that i had met at mailboxes etc because she'd been fedexing pantyhose for me and she left work and came with three other friends of mine and that was my staff meeting on the show amazing what did the sales do after that it was amazing i mean i went from you know when i saw somebody order that wasn't my mom's friend i was dancing around my apartment and then to all of a sudden 30 000 orders like it was just was this online at the time yes it was on spanx.com wow yeah thirty thousand came in and how what type of uh time yeah um pretty quickly like a week yeah thirty thousand words in a week or two yeah it was crazy i was up all night every night shipping i had friends coming over helping me pack and ship them and this is how clueless i was i was sending everybody's product in regular mail so then i started getting all these emails and phone calls from people going my product never shut up and i didn't have any way to track it i was like oh okay i guess they're supposed to be tracking with this fedex and everything else yeah wow so then i you know that's how i did the whole thing i stumbled through it i always tell people what you don't know can be your greatest asset if you let it because it ensures you're going to do it differently absolutely and when i landed neiman marcus all these people came up to me and said i have been doing this for seven years ten years five years how did you land neiman marcus and i said i called them and they just looked at me and i was like why would you do they're like well i go to trade shows and i set up my booth and i'm waiting for the neiman marcus buyer to come by and we've been doing it every year for seven years i didn't even know there were trade shows wow so sometimes just not knowing how it's supposed to be done 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 yeah and you're willing to be creative and risk you know failure in a way that most people aren't you put yourself out there in a major way and you said hey come to the bathroom with me right and uh i'm not gonna do anything weird it's amazing it's incredible story my dad used to encourage me to fail so at the dinner table growing up he would ask my brother and me what we failed at that week and if we didn't have something to tell him he'd be disappointed and i vividly remember being a little girl and saying i tried out for this dad and i was horrible and he would high-five me he'd go way to go wow so he's reframing my definition of failure so failure for me became about not trying not the outcome hmm what was the biggest lesson he taught you was that it yeah for sure and what about your mom what's the biggest lesson she tell you my mom is so supportive she's the most lovely sweetest person i've ever met in my life and she's an artist and she's super creative so i like to think and hope that she passed on a little bit of the creative side to me who would you say is uh more influential to you oh both yeah it was such a balance yeah yeah i got really a really good my family's very supportive mm-hmm that's amazing so you know some people i hear about when they get these big orders or a lot of press for something they're not set up or ready to take it on and it actually kills the company because they don't have the funds to buy the product or the goods yeah but for you that didn't happen you were you were set up you're good to go or it was close i mean i was in my apartment and i had five thousand dollars that i'd started it with so and i stayed self-funded from the start i still own 100 of spanx i never borrowed any money or went outside of and how many employees do you have now over over 200 200 yeah based in atlanta indiana based in atlanta it's amazing it's unbelievable now you have jesse who was in here before yes how long you guys been married now eight years eight years and when was spanx started what year 2000 2000 okay yeah we actually started our companies at the same time we didn't know each other he started marquis jet in 2000 yeah and i started spanx wow yeah and you met eight years after because it's been 16 years since you started right so eight years into spanx you met yes and how did um that you know how did you know that you guys were gonna be married and start this life because you were in another relationship before it sounded like correct yes so how did it come about well i was a customer of his and our sales rep kept saying you have to meet the owner and founder of this company and they kept inviting me to things and i couldn't go and then she said we have a poker tournament in vegas that you have to attend and it's a customer appreciation so i went and that's where we met in vegas so i like to say that i met my husband in vegas oh all right and uh you guys should hit it off and you just knew right then or i pretty much knew right away really yeah okay and were you out of uh the relationship before then or were you transitioning or was it kind of it was fading my my boyfriend at the time was supposed to be with me and he got sick at the last minute no way didn't come on the trip yeah and so my friend julie came in with me instead and then i just had a feeling when i met jesse i was like wow this guy i just felt something like that that he would somehow end up in my life and we stayed in touch casually yeah for the next like six months and then when that relationship stopped wow jesse called really yeah you kind of heard about it okay gotcha amazing and now you guys have you have four kids together right yes all under the age of seven this is amazing three in diapers right now i'm like what's my name what's going on i understand how you're able to and you said a you know joke before you're like if you ask me how to balance it i'm not gonna be able to give you a good answer but how are you how do you like you're you seem so graceful right now you're so clear and lovely and friendly and happy and joyful when you have this you know how big your company is to uh four kids a husband to traveling around you've got a book coming out right now we're gonna talk about you've got working on multiple products different things all the time i don't understand how you're this calm and loving lovely and amazing well thank you i you know the work life balance thing is i am a work in progress that's my best i don't have any wonderful advice to dispense i wish that i did but i don't but i will say the one thing that i feel like has helped me the most is to um be kind to myself so i realized that as a mother i when i became a mom i spent a lot of mental energy beating myself up feeling so guilty and when i was working i was beating myself up that i wasn't with the kids and mentally and when i was with the kids i was beating myself up with that so i think a lot of mothers were our own worst enemy and when i really stopped and said i don't know how to juggle all this some days i feel like i'm doing it right and some days i feel like i just want to cry i at least i made that change and it was a huge change for me i just catch myself when i start doing that to myself and i just i change it to kindness and forgiveness as opposed to beating yourself up yeah i'm just like okay it's all right yeah and um and then that that helps me stay more present also is there a woman or a mother that you uh really admire that you see that is doing it gracefully as well that is a good model for you or um well your friends or i moms out there yeah um i think any any working mom i mean when i see working moms any mom really honestly stay-at-home moms i mean it's like it's a full-time job no matter how you slice it it's really impressive i think women are really incredible you are yeah i don't know how you guys i like to hire moms because i know that they are unbelievable at multitasking and getting multiple things done well most of my team is women yeah one guy on my team and the rest smart smart man yeah yeah you guys are extremely talented so thank you yeah this is amazing i agree and what is the book you've been working on a book for seven years is that you said seven years ago it's true you took a photo seven years ago seven and a half years ago and what's the book called it's called the belly art project and i'm super excited about it it started with my own pregnant belly three days before i delivered my son i woke up in the middle of the night and just thought oh my god my body is amazing that it can do this like the state that my body's in and what women's bodies can do so i saw my belly as a canvas and thought i want to do something artistic with my body in this moment in time it may never be like this again and so i wanted to turn my belly into objects and i wrote down three in the morning watermelon beach ball basketball mr potato head and went back to bed and the next day a friend came over and painted my belly these objects i ran around atlanta and posed in different environments and gave them to my husband as a gift and that's when he said you got to do more with this idea and seven and a half years later and over a hundred more women and bellies from around the world that all painted different fun objects the book is out now it's out it's out it takes so long i mean think about it it's not like i can do a casting call for nine months pregnant women i was stalking them in airports nail salons other people's websites finding them i'd read about them in the press and then start calling them and say please would you be in this book and then each woman that you photograph i'm like okay now we have nine women i can't do a book with nine all right let's find a tenth then i'd be ten and be like we need another one you know and so when was it enough and we have one man in the book who painted his belly and i bet for all the money you couldn't guess who the man is is a celebrity is it yes he's famous he's the only man in the book with his belly painted hmm does he play a sport no he's over 80. larry king no that's a good guess he's been on the show that's why i thought larry king but uh well over 80. stan lee no i don't even know who's over 80 that it's a famous dude i don't know the most unlikely person maybe that you could guess his name starts with a w uh wes welker who's that wes welker no les walker's what i'm thinking who's the guy who wants victoria's secret oh less wexner that's what's next i had the football player totally bothered the football player i said who is the football player wes welker is a football player all right all right but i'm from columbus where victoria's secret unlimited is at okay so that's what i'm thinking of all right les wexner right yeah yes i don't know who is it warren buffett warren buffett no way you got him to do it yeah painting his belly yes that's worth buying the book just for that i know you have to see it he's such an amazing trooper he's so generous with his spirit and everything and he sat next to me at lunch and i said he said what are you up to and i said here are the pictures and he laughed for a minute straight and said i want to be in the book no way yes he paint what is a painted so we were on a plane to omaha to paint warren buffett's belly we were freaking out i was so nervous and so excited and then we were all rehearsing like how do you ask warren to take his clothes off like do you ease into it do you say hey do you make small talk and he came in and he was just such a good sport took his dress shirt off and said he chose the yo-yo so we painted a yo-yo on his back that's amazing yeah and what's up for the cause so 100 of the book proceeds goes to every mother counts and gives back to christy turlington's foundation she's doing amazing work my foundation's about empowering women but this creative idea felt much more in line with pregnancy and childbirth so i wanted to gift the money to a foundation that was much more like on the ground knowing exactly how to make a difference for maternal health amazing and you know every two minutes um a woman dies uh in childbirth on the planet so this book hopefully will help make childbirth safe for women everywhere amazing so you got to get the book it's a beautiful coffee table book or it's a cool shower gift i'm hoping i also sell a belly painting kit and i'm hoping yeah i'm hoping women will do it at showers like paint the paint the girl's belly at the shower that's cool have fun with it post your pictures belly art project bellyartproject.com.org.org.org and you can get the big limited edition book the coffee table book at spanx.com you can also get the belly painting kit at spanx.com and the smaller book that's 29.99 is at um amazon and barnes and noble and everywhere belly art project yeah that's awesome i'm excited make sure you guys pick it up yeah what's the thing you are most proud of that a lot of people maybe don't know about you um what a good daughter and granddaughter i've been um like it's always been such a priority to me to take really good care of my mom and my grandma and be close and you know i i think just you said what people don't know about me so i was trying to think about it but i'm most proud of the fact that um that i was able to to achieve this in a really um kind way you know that i can look at myself in the mirror and just i am where i am and i feel really good about it really good about myself i didn't feel like i had to compromise you know when i first started spanx i was at a cocktail party and three guys came up to me and they said sarah we heard you just started your a business and invented something and i said yes and they go you know business is war and i just looked at him and and then one guy you know pat me on the back and he said yeah i hope you're up for it i hope you're ready for war wow and i went home that night in my apartment and i sat down on the floor and i literally started crying and i remember thinking i don't want to go to war like why does it have to be war i want to go about this in a completely different way and so the whole journey of spanx i really took a feminine approach to it i mean i i def i didn't know business i had never taken a business class i didn't have a business plan i didn't go out and raise vc so i trusted my gut i stuck with intuition i you know just did things what felt very yeah i think traditional business has been very male energy and so i wanted to see what would happen if i took a very feminine energy approach how have you handled you know kind of the recognition the i guess the fame of the business you've built i think the i don't know the actual stat but you're like one of the only self-paid made billionaire women i think that's like the line or something you're one of the top 100 most influential people in the world by time magazine how have you handled the exposure and the awareness and the all the things that come to you i believe money just makes you more of who you already were so if you were kind you're going to be kinder if you're a jerk become a bigger jerk right you know insecure you become more insecure i see it as a magnifying glass like you know money so money didn't change me it doesn't feel weird to me to to you know for me it was really about i was so inspired to make a product that was gonna make a difference and make people feel good and especially women i feel like the industry had stopped caring about how we felt in our clothing and i was really i wanted to take that angle of like no i do believe we can feel good and look good at the same time it doesn't have to be like uh uncomfortable yeah it doesn't have to be a compromise you know and so yeah yeah that's cool what's your biggest fear right now losing someone i love what's your biggest fear am i allowed to interview you you can ask me anything you want um you know it's interesting that you say that because it hasn't really been a fear of mine until recently because i'm just like i have so many good friends and people that i've met over the last few years especially with the podcast that have all these great relationships and i'm like gosh at some point like it's either me or someone else you know i'm not sure who it's going to be something's bound to happen to someone i know just because of the odds you know so and i don't want to happen either you know i don't want to say it's a big fear just like i feel like it's going to happen at some point like it's just like a feeling and i don't want it to be someone really close to me you know scary i've had a lot of loss really yeah a lot of a lot of people close to you really yeah by the time i was 31 i'd lost 11 different people close to me from separate tragedies oh my gosh yeah so i've been you know dropped to my knees many times in life by grief i mean just it's like unbearably painful but i will say that you know going through that i always think there's a hidden blessing in everything that we go through in life and um one of the blessings was that facing my own mortality at a really young age had all these hidden gifts you know i use mortality and sort of the insignificance of all of this in a positive way you know it doesn't you know just how temporary this all is to fuel me and to say why would i ever not do this what because i'm afraid that person the person's not gonna remember me five minutes after i make a fool of myself anyway like let's do this we're all here for just a short period of time so it freed me up um in a way that i think most people in the natural course of life you know maybe starts to think about in their 40s when they might lose a parent or a grandparent or something so yeah really how do you get through a challenging loss like that like what's your process oh my gosh i one day at a time i mean it is just one day at a time yeah wow it was really my best friend um she died in a tragedy and i was her roommate and i started spanx in her bedroom no way yeah i've done i've never really talked about that but yes spanx headquarters was in laura's bedroom and um so that's pretty cool i feel like i had her yeah company yeah and she was always really so supportive of me were you guys roommates or was this yeah your roommates she passed away when you were yeah when you were living together yep she was riding a horse and was hit by a car on the horse oh my gosh chapel hill a 92 year old man said he never saw her or the horse when he came around the corner oh my gosh yeah so sad so and she was so awesome but anyway i yeah many many different things like that have happened yeah i've lost very close people in my life and um yeah well you've you've come out in an amazing way and been such an inspiration to so many people so it's made you better it sounds like the experiences you've learned from it sounds like so thank you what speaking of learning from lessons you've been around a lot of incredible entrepreneurs and i know you did a reality show with richard branson says 10 12 years ago you said yes what was that like and what's been a big lesson you've learned from him and what was the show and what'd you learn yeah the show was called the rebel billionaire and it was the apprentice version richard branson's version of that they were looking for 16 entrepreneurs so i'm like hey i'm an entrepreneur i want to do this and i really wanted to meet richard i sort of had set intentions out there that i was going to manifest him becoming a friend in my life so when i heard about the show i was like oh this is interesting this might be how this happens so i applied for it and um uh it was wild so it's how big how big was spanx at the time was it really well known was it like just kind of it was pretty i mean it was four years in it was doing great yeah multiple seven figures yeah my lawyers begged me not to do it they're like what are you doing you own this company you're gonna do a reality show i was like i just want to know richard i just feel like this is a chance so um so yeah and all the business challenges took place around the world in different cities and instead of if you didn't win the business challenge going into a board room to get fired you had to do a crazy stunt like a world record breaking stunt because richard is obviously like a huge adrenaline junkie guy so um in addition to being an amazing entrepreneur and the very first day of filming i had to climb the side of a hot air balloon at 9000 feet in the air on a dangling rope ladder and have tea climb to the top and have tea on top of the balloon with richard it's insane it's insane what did you guys talk about on top oh my god i talked about like how do we get down and that's what he said you climb back down i was like what i didn't think about that it was so scary yeah my gosh yeah so it took me 48 minutes to climb to the top it's at the height of a 17-story building and the dangling rope ladder was just like hanging out into the abyss of nothingness it wasn't anchored to anything so i'm like climbing it and um there's cameras that was the first day of filming so two months later i know there's cameras up there yes helicopters circling probably probably i had to do all these crazy stunts the next stone i had to do is i had to jump off the side of the victoria falls gorge in africa on a with a bungee cord attached to me and my guy on my team was dangling on a wire on a crane 10 feet out from the cliff and each person had to come up and stand there and you couldn't run and jump and you had to stand still and jump and if he caught you you were okay and they'd put you back on the cliff and if not you fell 385 feet on a bungee cord and so i am be on terrified of heights it's like one of my i'm so afraid of heights i cry on airplanes still during takeoff a lot of times and i was one of the only people to make the jump richard didn't make the jump all these other guys that were like amazing athletes didn't make the jump and i like to talk about this because i always talk about aiming high and the importance of aiming high in life and then i think all of us we don't aim high enough and so watch where you're aiming and that that saying you know if you shoot for the moon if you miss you're at least with the stars and afterwards everyone's like sarah how did you make that jump you're literally like the only contestant and look at you i said well i was aimed at the pulley six feet above his head where were you aiming and i aimed i didn't even look at him i aimed six feet above his head and i landed at his waist and he caught me and everybody else was aiming at his face and landed at his feet and missed amazing so it's like a really just poignant example of the importance of aiming high in all areas of life yeah yeah wow yeah this is fascinating so what was the biggest lesson you learned from from richard richard is um a really uh he first of all he's such a bias for action it was fun to watch him have he doesn't think things through to the point you know i mean it's unbelievable he has an idea and before you're even done saying well wait writing it on the napkin he's doing it really yeah he doesn't sleep much he requires almost no sleep and he's always got a notebook with him writing ideas he delegates he's really good at delegating he's very good at empowering the people around him and he didn't ask us to do any business challenge any crazy challenge that he didn't do himself he was doing it with you he'd already done it did each one that we did himself also amazing yeah wow would you say he's the most inspiring entrepreneur you know or probably i mean he's just yeah he's so he's so much fun he's a multi-billionaire that still lives his life like he has 20 dollars in his pocket what does that mean what do you mean it means he's up for anything he there's no entourage about him he's not afraid of anything you know sometimes i've seen some people become a little bit more reserved reserved or you know careful and he still takes risks oh yeah amazing have you been to his island many times i have yep necker island that's cool yeah amazing i'm curious what is uh more challenging for you running a billion dollar brand or being a mom and a wife being a mom because it's a moving target like what worked yesterday it doesn't work today i'm like wait that worked on you yesterday teenagers right yeah it's the most humbling thing i mean i feel like i gave birth to you know four teachers to me i mean your children are here to teach you i'm a believer in that too so i'm a student right now and it's fascinating so being a mom yeah we're challenging the running of business for you yes being a mom and you know running the business and the brand just required a lot of hustle just a tremendous amount of hustle i always say that you know anybody you think is really really lucky there's a lot of sweat behind that luck you know it just says um final few questions i really appreciate this i wish i could talk to you forever but i know you got to get back to things what are you most grateful for in your life recently my children that's easy yeah my four children i think every mom has to say that right or it's just i mean it's true it's really how i feel um i'm also really grateful for being a woman born in the right country at the right time i had nothing to do with that and i'm very grateful and i wake up all the time thinking of that you know my mom we're only 21 difference in age 21 years my mom her choices were so much more limited and what was expected of her or what her opportunities were so i mean if you think about how long we've been on the planet some people think a couple thousand years some people think a couple million anyway it's a long time and by just 20 years in the right country i feel like i i was born and had the opportunity for spanx yeah you know to fulfill a potential or something inside of me as a woman that was in me and so i'm grateful for that that's amazing yeah it's amazing yeah uh this is something called uh the three truths question that i ask everyone at the end okay so if this was the uh the last day many many years from now for you and it's your last day and you've achieved i have no idea why but mustard came into my mind okay perfect we'll see if that's a part of it okay i don't know i just thought i would share that with you i want the randomness mustard is that like a mom thing after you have kids i don't know maybe it makes it crazy just put mustard on it perfect okay i actually don't know the last one on the planet no you're not the last one this is this is uh the last day for you many years from now so okay it's the it's the last day uh you've achieved everything you want okay everything in your business your family everything you want you've got but for whatever reason everything you've created has been erased your books your projects your companies it's all been gone and your whole family and friends are there and they say we don't have anything to remember you by so can you write down on a piece of paper and a pen the three things you know to be true about the lessons you learned in life that you would pass on to us so three truths this is so heavy you can make it light you can make it like it can be simple and this is off the cuff so again three lessons that you would pass on to your friends family in the world it can be anything you want you can say eat mustard is number one but mustard makes everything taste good um okay three trees um the more you experience in life the more you'll have to offer others so experience everything anything and everything don't hold yourself back um in order let's see can smile and be kind and don't take it all too seriously remember to laugh along the way those are great exactly i love those don't have to be heavy right use and pack mustard i like it um before i ask the uh the final question oh my gosh there's another one after that okay yeah before i ask the final question i wanna i wanna know uh is there ever a question you wish people would ask you that they don't ask no i think you did a pretty good job okay yeah okay how about that question for you um i'll tell you off-camera okay i have to think about it i don't know i'm so focused on you right now um again before i ask the final question i want to acknowledge you sarah for being an incredible inspiration in the world for being a a leader for women where i think a lot of women didn't have a lot of great leaders before you came around and you've really stepped up to show people what's possible to have it all in all areas of life family relationships career business friendships your health and it's and you're an amazing example for so many people and your generosity and your sweetness and your kindness is even more refreshing because of what you've created uh you're still a genuine kind caring loving person someone acknowledge you for the incredible gifts you are yeah yeah that was so nice of course you're welcome i really appreciate that of course i took that in good yeah thank you um make sure everyone follows you on instagram and you're gonna do a giveaway please yes i am gonna do a giveaway i just joined instagram yes okay so i ran around the airport asking people to follow me there you go airport you're like hustling just like i i'm like hi i'm sarah i just joined instagram everyone in the terminal is like who cares it's funny but um yes so we're gonna do it yes you're gonna you're gonna give away i'm gonna give away i'm gonna give away 20 belly books amazing and i'm also going to give away 20 spanx leggings our faux leather leggings so hot like we can't keep them in stock we have black gunmetal and wine color faux leather leggings that make you look fab and i'm going to give 20 of those away to anybody who follows me on instagram follow your sarah blakely on instagram at sarah blakely yep yep so we got to follow you and they have to what do they have to do and then if they hashtag they write something inspiring yep their photo on their photo and then they hashtag um school great school of greatness yes school graduates and then i'm gonna pick people okay if they have the hashtag the school of greatness so you gotta follow sarah then you have to use the hashtag school of greatness yes and then tag you as well so they can see that photo i think we should add that okay tag sarah's name in that photo yeah they'll understand it i know you're okay you're still trying to figure it out but trust me people understand if you're on instagram take a photo of some inspiring message use the hashtag school of greatness and tag sarah as well yes and sending you leggings and books i'm going to just pick people at random i so appreciate the follow yeah you'll dm them if you'll get their information yeah all right we invented a bra that was so comfortable women sing when they put it on so we named it i like that i like that okay perfect tiff you down okay awesome is there anything else that we can do to support you before the final question because i still want to ask you because i give back to help women so the more spanx that are bought the more i can do to help it's all full circle there you go like a full circle thing here um yeah no i think you did a great job thank you and the belly book the belly art project buy them for everybody you know it's all for i mean it's a gift that gives back 100 is going to help moms there you go there you go love it okay this is the final question okay sarah blakely what is your definition of greatness hmm my definition of greatness would be going for it no matter what despite fear and making the absolute most of the life that you were given because it's not a dress rehearsal sarah blakely thank you so much that was amazing absolutely appreciate it hey guys thanks so much for watching this video i really appreciate it and if you enjoyed this video then make sure to subscribe to my youtube channel you can do that by clicking right here to subscribe because each week we come out with awesome epic and inspiring interviews and messages and videos just for you so click subscribe right here to get notified of new videos every week also if you enjoyed this specific interview we've got a lot of great interviews like this that are uplifting and inspiring so click right here to watch the previous interviews because the people i've had on are pretty cool and epic as well so click here to watch previous interviews click here to subscribe i love you guys and i'll see you very soon

Channel: Lewis Howes

Views: 199,355

Keywords: LEWIS HOWES, SCHOOL OF GREATNESS, SARA, SARA BLAKELY, SPANX

Id: WSrpZIzAhKU

Length: 59min 54sec (3594 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 23 2016