Name: Spanx founder: My dad encouraged me to fail
Uploaded: 2024-09-13T09:53:53.000Z
Duration: 4 min
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To-infinitive

Growing up, my dad used to encourage my brother and me to fail.

And he would ask us at the dinner table what we had failed at that week, and if we didn't have something to tell him, he would actually be disappointed.

Past continuous

And I didn't realize it at the time, but he was just redefining failure for me.

Failure became about not trying, not the outcome.

Going through life, the only failure that I ever feel that I've had is if I don't try.

I wanted to be a lawyer, and I'm a terrible test taker.

After I basically bombed the LSAT, I tried out at Disney World to be goofy.

And you have to be 5'8", and I'm only 5'6", so I'm the height of a chipmunk.

Which was like, I guess you could say, sort of felt a little bit like rock bottom.

I wasn't going to be a lawyer, and I was too short to be goofy.

There was a moment when I was selling fax machines door-to-door, and I was constantly being escorted out of buildings.

Or sometimes people would rip up my business card in my face, which was a typical occurrence.

And one day I pulled off the side of the road, and I literally thought,

Cut, called the director, called the producer.

How did this happen? This is not supposed to be my life.

I went home that day and wrote in my apartment, in my notebook, what my strengths were.

And the only thing basically in the strength column that I was sure about was sales.

And I said, okay, what can I do with that?

And I ended up writing, I want to invent a product that I can sell to millions of people that will make them feel better.

And it was two years later that I cut the feet out of control-top pantyhose to wear white pants to a party.

I went online and looked up manufacturers that made undergarments and hosiery-type products.

And I called them on the phone and didn't get anywhere.

And eventually I took a week off of work and drove around North Carolina begging all of these men, ironically, that were making our undergarments to help try to make this new type of undergarment.

I went in unannounced. I had no appointment.

Most of them escorted me out and said, good luck.

I got a phone call about two weeks later from one of the manufacturer owners, and he said, Sarah, I have decided to help make your crazy idea.

I ran it by my three daughters at the dinner table, and they told me I should give you a shot.

I came up with the name Spanx because it was all about the rear.

And I changed the KS to an X at the last minute because I knew that made-up words were easier to trademark.

The first big account that I got was Neiman Marcus, and I called them on the phone.

And I spent about a week calling the buyer and just kept getting her answering machine.

But I knew from my fax machine selling days, don't leave a message.

And I waited till I got a human on the phone, and I said, this is Sarah Blakely. I've invented a product that's going to change the way your customers wear clothes.

And she said, if you're willing to fly here, I'll give you 10 minutes.

I jumped on a plane. I took my lucky red backpack from college.

And a few minutes into the pitch, I could tell I was losing her, so I invited her to come to the bathroom with me.

My dream is for there to be many more female inventors.

I'm hoping more and more women will have the courage to take that risk.

You have to do something that didn't already exist, which is scary.

I mean, my brain told me a million times, who do you think you are coming up with this?

 And then one day you wake up and you go, well, what if it is me?