Lessons Learned From Sara Blakely

Excerpt by Sara Blakely

“When I was 16 years old, I witnessed a very tragic accident of a close friend of mine, and she was run over and killed by a car. And shortly after that my parents separated and ultimately got divorced. And it was a very difficult time in my life. And when my dad left home– I will never forget it– he came into my bedroom and he handed me a cassette tape series by Wayne Dyer, and the title was ‘How to be a No-Limit Person.’ And he said to me, ‘Sara, I wish that I was your age when I discovered this instead of the age of 40.’ And then he left. 

And I’m staring at this cassette tape. I’ll never forget. There were pink hearts all over the walls of my wallpaper. And had it been any other time or chapter in my life, I would have thrown it into the bottom of my closet. But because I was in that very dark place, I was willing to listen to it. And I put the cassette tapes in and I started listening to this man talk to me about how you can choose to think, and I started to weep. And the reason why I started to cry is because I had just spent 16 years of my life in school being taught what to think, but nobody had ever taught me how to think. 

Some of the most important things that I learned from those tapes are not to care what other people think about you. And here’s the caveat that I had to learn on my own, that not caring what other people think about you doesn’t have to mean you don’t care about them. The second thing is that when somebody is reacting towards you, you don’t have to own it. So it’s like the example of hitting the ball back. Somebody hits you a tennis ball and it’s really negative, or it’s negative energy, or they’re in a certain place in their life. You don’t have to own it. Hit the ball back. 

That’s when the light bulb went on, and I really started becoming a student of what I call the entrepreneurial mindset. And then that changed the trajectory of my life.”

This was the start of Sara Blakely. Sara is the force of nature creator behind the brand Spanx and in 2012 became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire. There have been countless lessons learned from Sara over the years, but I’ve distilled down ten lessons that have left a lasting impact on me. 

Don’t be afraid to fail 

Failure is often viewed as a negative. As we go through school, “failure” becomes unacceptable and a hindrance to our development, but in reality failure is an essential component to growth. Think of a child learning how to walk or talk. They try and fail, try and fail, try and succeed. It’s how we learn in life. Sara was taught at a young age to embrace a failure mindset and this type of thinking had a tremendous impact on her success. 

“My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.”

So next time you experience failure, don’t view it as a negative but as another opportunity to grow.

Don’t let lack of money stop you

What’s one of the #1 excuses for not starting a business? Lack of money… Sara is one of many self-made billionaires who took virtually no money and turned it into a massive amount of wealth. “Blakely launched Spanx in 1998 with just $5,000 out of her Atlanta apartment. Today, Forbes estimates Blakely is worth more than $1 billion. Blakely said she is still self-funded and owns 100% of Spanx.” How’s that for motivation and eliminating excuses? In a time where everyone is discussing venture capital and big fundraising, this approach is refreshing to say the least. “Nobody gave me any money and I also really didn’t understand that [venture capital] world,” said Blakely, “I did not understand how people raise money. I didn’t know anything about the undergarment industry. I just trusted my gut.”

Ensure your own success 

A common theme amongst the world’s most accomplished people is they’re willing to bet on themselves. After all if you’re unwilling to bet on yourself, then who will bet on you? Sara is one of those people who bet on themselves every time. “I ensured my own success. I was never going to allow my success to be in the hands of anybody else along the way. It meant I had to work like you cannot believe, but that’s what I found it took.” It wasn’t just about self belief for Sara, but of a relentless pursuit of putting in the work so she could succeed. “The reason I believe I took the idea and ran with it was because of all of the prework I had done. I knew I wanted my life to be different than it currently was, so I took inventory of my strengths and weaknesses. I recognized that one of my strengths was selling. I really enjoyed it and knew I was good at it.” 

Taking a realistic inventory of your own strengths and weaknesses is never easy but an essential component of taking the next step in your personal development. If you don’t know how you operate then how can you create a plan to help you maximize your talents? Blakely didn’t stop there. 

“So I said, OK, I want to invent or create a product that I can sell that’s my own and not somebody else’s, and I want it to be something I can sell to millions of people. And I want it to be something that makes people feel good. I wrote that specifically in my journal, and I just kept looking for when it was going to show up in my life. I was on high alert.” Opportunities only present themselves for those who are looking. Put in the work and stay on “high alert”. 

Say yes now and figure it out later 

There are moments that present themselves that can forever change your life. Some people capitalize on them while others sit on the sideline and watch them go by. Sara Blakely doesn’t let opportunities go to waste. Back in 2000, Blakely sent samples from her first batch of Spanx to Oprah Winfrey, whose stylist suggested she try them on. This was one of those moments that could forever change the course of her life. Oprah chose them as her product of the year for her popular “Favorite Things” episode. Just one little issue for Sara… “The show called and said, ‘You have a website, right?’ And I went, ‘Uh-huh, of course.’ And they were like, ‘And you can ship and fulfill lots and lots of orders?’ And I’m like, ‘Uh-huh, of course I can.’”

Sara had none of these things and while it would have been easy to pass on this opportunity because of the difficulty, Sara went all in. “I had 2 1/2 weeks to build a website and make sure I had enough product,” says Blakely, who until that point had been using her apartment as a packing and shipping “warehouse.” That wasn’t all she did, “I quit my day job selling fax machines on Oct. 14, 2000, and Oprah called two weeks later. I was on her show in November. I’d been working full time while I was working on this idea at night and on weekends. I didn’t want to quit my job. I needed the income and the security and the insurance and the health benefits and all that. So I literally waited. I did not leave my job until I’d already landed Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue. That was when I got the courage to make the leap and go on my own.” In life when moments of great opportunity present themself, will you be ready? 

Be cautious of who you solicit feedback from

Oftentimes when we work on something new and exciting, we want to share it with those closest to us. The reason this often backfires is because those closest to us are afraid of hurting us and often give us only positive advice even if it’s not what they truly believe. In a startup or any business wrong feedback can be devastating and can lead to endless amounts of time and money spent on the wrong thing. Be protective of where and who that feedback comes from. Sara says, “Don’t solicit feedback on your product, idea or your business just for validation purposes. You want to tell the people who can help move your idea forward, but if you’re just looking to your friend, co-worker, husband or wife for validation, be careful. It can stop a lot of multimillion-dollar ideas in their tracks in the beginning.” 

No doesn’t mean no… You just haven’t gotten to yes yet 

“No” is something we will hear constantly throughout our lives. If you are starting or running a business you tend to hear “no” more often than most people. If you’re willing to accept “no,” you won’t make it in the long run. Sara refused to take “no” for an answer from day one. She was relentless with her outreach to manufacturers, patent lawyers, and retailers who almost all said “no,” but this didn’t stop her. 

“Believe in your idea, trust your instincts, and don’t be afraid to fail. It took me two years from the time I had the idea for Spanx until the time I had a product in hand ready to sell into stores. I must have heard the word “no” a thousand times. If you believe in your idea 100%, don’t let anyone stop you! Not being afraid to fail is a key part of the success of Spanx.” 

You can let a “no” be a crushing blow to your confidence or you can be like Sara and so many other entrepreneurs who just use that as another stepping stone to getting a “yes”.  

With early hiring, trust adds speed 

When Sara first started Spanx she didn’t have connections in the apparel industry but this turned into a positive with regards to hiring. Two of her early hires were a head of Product Development and a PR director, both of whom were her friends. Neither had prior experience in what they were hired for, but because of the trust they developed in their friendship it allowed them to move quickly. Reid Hoffman also believes that trust adds speed and speed can be a vital component of the success of a startup. This trust was essential in her belief system of “I’m a believer of starting small, thinking big, and scaling fast.” There are situations where having a person you trust in a role is more beneficial than having someone with more experience.

Adaptability 

Life is constantly throwing difficult obstacles our way. Overcoming these obstacles will be impossible If you’re unwilling to adapt. Think of everything Sara had to figure out as she created Spanx. No money, never created a product before, no business experience, no office, no website, everyone saying it wouldn’t work… This list could go on and on! Any obstacle or challenge she faced, she embraced and looked at it as an opportunity to become better. Embrace the challenges life throws at us and be willing to adapt. 

Schedule time to think 

Creating space for yourself to get away from the constant chaos of life is essential for pushing forward with your vision. Sara does this by carving out time for what she calls “Protected Time,” where she can think about new ideas. There is a reason our best ideas come at times such as the shower or on a long walk when we’re away from the never ending interruptions coming at us. Neuroscientists call this the “incubation period.” This is when the subconscious mind has been working extremely hard to solve the problems you face and now that you let your mind wander, it can surface and plant those ideas into your conscious mind. Even though she lives close to the Spanx office in Atlanta, she intentionally takes at least an hour to commute to work in the morning creating more of this incubation period. This allows the free space for her mind to wander and that’s when the best, most creative ideas come to her. Find ways to schedule “Protected Time” into your own schedule and you too will unleash the positive benefits. 

Never stop hustling 

From the start to today, Sara has never stopped hustling. Her relentless work ethic seems almost inhuman at times but I believe it’s this work ethic that has brought all of her success. She embraces the reality that achieving greatness is not going to be a walk in the park and it’s going to take time, sacrifice and a never ending pursuit. It started from the tapes that her dad gave her at a young age, then that relentless drive led to selling fax machines door to door for 6 years, being turned down by countless manufacturers, using her apartment as a shipping warehouse and it hasn’t stopped there. Even though she could have stepped away years ago and retired on a beach, she keeps her foot on the gas pedal and keeps driving Spanx forward.  

“Most of the reason we don’t do things is because we’re afraid to fail. I just made a decision one day that I was not not going to do things in my life because of fear.” Get out there and make the decision to go after what you want in life. 

Momentum breeds momentum,

Sean