Sara Blakely
Sara Blakely
Sara Blakelyis an American businessperson and founder of Spanx, an American intimate apparel company with pants and leggings, founded in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2012, Blakely was named in Time magazine's "Time 100" annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. As of 2014, she is listed as the 93rd most powerful woman in the world by Forbes...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth27 February 1971
CityClearwater, FL
CountryUnited States of America
Failures are life's way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school.
We don't have the luxury of time. We spend more because of how we live, but it's important to be with our family and friends.
Failure is not the outcome - failure is not trying. Don't be afraid to fail.
My advice for an entrepreneur just starting out is to differentiate yourself. Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?
If somebody can do something 80 percent as good as you think you would have done it yourself, then you've got to let it go.
Failure to me became not trying versus not succeeding
The thing about fashion - it's like ducks going quack, quack quack. It's being dictated from above, and it just makes me want to rebel against it.
It's really a full-time job to manage our lives.
When I was growing up, my dad would encourage my brother and I to fail. We would be sitting at the dinner table and he would ask, 'So what did you guys fail at this week?' If we didn't have something to contribute, he would be disappointed. When I did fail at something, he'd high-five me. What I didn't realize at the time was that he was completely reframing my definition of failure at a young age. To me, failure means not trying; failure isn't the outcome. If I have to look at myself in the mirror and say, 'I didn't try that because I was scared,' that is failure.
Don't let what you don't know scare you, because it can become your greatest asset. And if you do things without knowing how they have always been done, you're guaranteed to do them differently.
Instead of failure being the outcome, failure became not trying. And it forced me at a young age to want to push myself so much further out of my comfort zone.
You’ve got to visualize where you’re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you’re going to be in a few years.
Embrace what you don't know, especially in the beginning, because what you don't know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.
I knew that I wanted to start my own business. I knew that I wanted to work for myself. I was no stranger to the word no. You just have to keep going.