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If you re not happy, you re not growing in some area.
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And usually it s a place where you re blaming.
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People can be unfair, unjust.
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That s for sure happens.
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Freedom comes from growth.
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Freedom does not come from...
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Welcome to the School of Greatness.
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My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur.
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And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness.
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Thanks for spending some time with me today.
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Now let the class begin.
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Welcome to this special masterclass.
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We ve brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today.
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It s going to be powerful.
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So let s go ahead and dive in.
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Was there ever a moment where you didn t unconditionally love yourself?
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And if so, when did that shift where you stopped that and you started saying, okay, I appreciate myself because of my contribution and my service and who I am?
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When was that shift?
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I don t think it was ever I just didn t love myself.
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There were times, obviously, being angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or thinking, you know, I m not doing enough.
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I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up to my 40th birthday,
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including my 40th birthday.
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You know, you have a birthday with a zero on it once you re over past 30, you know, 35, sometimes five years on it as well.
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People look at their life differently culturally.
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And I used to think it was bull.
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But sure enough, I would do it.
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I remember turning 40.
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I was really, really unhappy.
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I was like, Jesus, I ve not done enough, I ve not helped enough people.
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I d helped tens of millions of people at that point, I d already done all over the earth in 100 plus countries at that point, but it was still kind of stuck in my head.
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So I would earn the love by over-delivering, change somebody s life.
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Like, I don t get it, because somebody says, oh, I love you, Tony.
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I mean, I appreciate that, or, oh, you re the greatest.
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It s got to be my standard.
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My standard s higher than their standard for me.
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Right.
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So when I get up and someone s going to kill themselves and it s they re suicidal and boom, turn around, they re no longer not going to kill themselves, but they re transformed.
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Their life is there.
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You know, that s when I go, OK, now we ve hit the center of what I m made for.
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Now, you know, I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation.
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And even then, I still know it s God coming through me.
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I don t have the delusion.
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It s just me.
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But.
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I think sometime after 40, I finally saw the stupidity of it.
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I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes.
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And I can say by the time I turned 60 a year ago, I noticed it was interesting because my birthday, I didn t have an ounce of it.
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I was just like, you know, how could I at this stage of my life when I ve had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts?
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You know, from turning around, you know, guys are going to kill themselves with PTSD, to helping kids turn around, to getting kids off cocaine or adults, to, you know, helping people build multi-billion dollar businesses for nothing.
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And when I ve lived this long, I can t go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or a dozen stories a day from people telling me how something I did changed their life.
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So it s not that I m so smart now, it s just I ve stacked it.
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By the way, Bill, stacking is the way you can do things.
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most of us stack the negative.
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If you are really angry, it s not usually because it s just the moment, it s that it happened again.
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It s like if you ve ever lost it or overreacted to your kid or to a friend or a business or even within yourself, it s because it happened again.
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We hit this one, two, three mini point and then our nervous system overreacts.
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But what I ve learned is you can stack the good
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And look, for example, if you re if you go into a state of really strong anger for more than five minutes, your immune system is suppressed between an hour and a half to two hours.
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That s a physiological fact.
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But no one had done any study.
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I started stacking good, like, OK, let me stack a dozen great memories, feel them, see them, experience them.
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And I felt this biochemical change that didn t just last a half hour, an hour or 10 minutes.
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It went on for a day or two.
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And so I think I ve learned to stack the good.
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So just having experience is not enough.
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You got to stack the good to be able to appreciate it.
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But I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself.
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And I think the focus is serving and loving.
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And that s what will get you to the point where you start doing it.
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But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you ve done, you ll feel great about yourself.
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I already know all the comments that are coming through.
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Thousands of comments tell me, but what about my family that s toxic?
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What about my partner who is toxic?
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And how do I love someone unconditionally when they don t respect me?
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I can t trust them.
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What about situations like that?
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All those reactions are natural human reactions from ego.
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because it s all about you, me, me, me, what I m not getting, what I m not doing, and that s why you re in pain.
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But I ve done it too in the past, but it s an old pattern I don t really do anymore.
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And it used to affect me.
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Now, not a dominant one, I wouldn t have become who I become.
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Early in my life, I developed this belief that life is calling not to give me something, life is calling for me to deliver things, for me to bring something to life.
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And I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving
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And I got hooked on that core pattern, and then the pattern of learning so I d have something to give.
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Which I know, one of the things I respect about you, Lewis, is that you have that same pattern in you.
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You re always trying to learn more, because underneath it all, you also want to give it.
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You want it for you, but you want to share it, right?
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And so those patterns help me not be in what they re not giving me.
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And all this language.
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Today, people don t understand the power of their language, like toxic.
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You ve been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else.
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We live in a culture now where people, you know, you re evil or you re like me.
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That s basically how it is, right?
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The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think.
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I mean, being a liberal, I was a liberal, right?
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Being a liberal growing up meant I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me.
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Today, now, everybody wants everybody to think the same thing, otherwise they re evil, or otherwise they could hurt me.
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Whatever happens, sticks and stones will break your bones, and words will never hurt me.
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We have this whole thing that words are evil, words are action, and all it does is make you incredibly weak as a human being, and you re more than that.
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We all are more than that.
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But you know what?
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Like, a kid that s never broken their bones, definitely afraid of breaking the bone.
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But if you re a kid, and you re rough and tumble, you broke multiple bones and they healed, you don t have any fear of it.
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There s so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment.
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Anything that s insecure, unsafe, they don t want to be a part of, including language.
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And what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful.
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And that s why there s so many people that are abundant that are angry all the time.
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Because their anger is they re not growing.
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So don t get me wrong.
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I know some people are not a good influence.
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I m not denying that.
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I m just saying you re more than somebody s influence, unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong so you can make yourself feel superior morally, psychologically, or spiritually.
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Stop the pattern.
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We ve all done it.
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Catch yourself.
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Because if you want joy, happiness, and freedom in an extraordinary life, you will not come from blame.
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Never.
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There s no pride that comes from blame.
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Pride is something you earn.
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Like, people tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this, or they d say that.
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Self-esteem does not come from what people say about you.
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Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself.
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See, someone can tell you your whole life you re a piece of crap, and part of you can go, you re full of it, I m gonna show you.
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Lots of people have done that.
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They never bought it.
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Or someone can tell you you re beautiful your whole life, and you go, I m not really beautiful.
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So what people tell you doesn t matter at all.
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It s what you stack.
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It s what you assemble.
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It s what you create.
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It s the habit of what you put in your head.
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And today, I don t blame you because we got a whole culture that s always blaming somebody else for something in their life.
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But blame is not a strategy for pride.
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That s why you listen to these blaming people.
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They re all angry all the time.
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Listen, if I wanted to blame, I grew up in an environment, I didn t even share it until my mom passed, and even then I didn t share it.
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I grew up in a pretty rough environment.
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My mom was a beautiful soul, but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs, it was a different creature.
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And it was a violent creature.
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And I have a younger brother five years younger and a younger sister seven years younger.
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And my mom would get nuts, and I didn t want them to get hurt.
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So I was 5 1 in high school.
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She d grab me by the hair and smash me against the wall till I bled.
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Now, I never shared this, and I m not denigrating her in any way.
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I only shared it, like, four or five years after she died.
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Because I was talking to a group of kids in New York City, all without fathers, 80% African American, about 20% Hispanic out of their group, roughly, no white kids.
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And I m talking about your biography is not your destiny.
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And it doesn t matter what you ve been through.
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What you decide now is what s going to control your life.
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What you decide each day going forward is going to decide your life.
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And I can look at them seeing me and I can read their minds.
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This big, tall, white, rich guy is going to tell me biography doesn t matter.
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So I said, you know, let me tell you my story.
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And I told them the whole story, way more than I m telling you.
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And every one of them was crying their eyes out when they were done.
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I said, look where I am right now, because I wouldn t assemble the story that my past equals my future.
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The past only equals your future if you live there.
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If you re using a rearview mirror to guide yourself, you re going to crash.
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So what you ve been through is horrific.
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What you ve been through is unjust.
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I m on your side.
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hang on to it, you have no future, and you have no one to blame but yourself.
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And these kids, to their credit, man, they just responded to the challenge cuz they first cried their eyes out hearing all the stories.
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My mom would think I was lying, and I wasn t lying.
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She poured liquid soap down my throat till I threw up, and I wasn t lying.
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So it s not the physical abuse, it s the fact that this is the person you love most that s trying to hurt you that messes with your head.
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So I could have been messed up for life.
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But I didn t, because something inside me says I m responsible for this life.
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And part of that s because I started reading when I was 13, 14, biographies of people, the greatest people in history, and reading their lives and finding out, guess what?
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Their lives were far from perfect.
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Some of them had worse lives than I had.
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But when you have no reference and all you do is go online, you talk to other people, it s making everybody else toxic, and I m like this, and they didn t do that, right?
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Don t be one of those.
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Free yourself from the chains of your past.
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I m not saying your past doesn t matter, but listen, my mother, I tell people this all the time and it s the truth.
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If my mother had been the mother I wanted her to be, the mother she should have been, I would not be the man I m proud to be today.
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because I had to become a practical psychologist way before any schooling, figure out when she s gonna go in the mood, how do I change her state, how to protect her from the kids, whatever.
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I mean, it was felt life and death, and it was to some extent.
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So I developed skills at such a young age.
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Then when I learned things, I just added to my skills, but I had a core sense of certainty that I could turn anybody around, because it started with my mother.
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And thank God for her.
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And she encouraged me in so many ways.
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She did so many great things.
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And she loved me, even though it didn t look like it at times.
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But if your parents, if the people around you said all the things you thought they should have, if they had just not been toxic, if they d encouraged you, you wouldn t have any muscle.
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And right now, you don t have any muscle because you re using that as an excuse, if you re thinking that.
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And I m not attacking you, brothers and sisters.
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I m calling to you because I know you re more.
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Otherwise, I d just keep my mouth shut.
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We re just, you ve been hypnotized by a culture of weakness.
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Now, having said that, I ll say one last thing.
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I know you haven t got other questions, but it s so important what you ask.
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Yes, there are people that you don t wanna hang out with that will not serve you.
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but then move on.
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Don t sit there and talk about it constantly.
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Don t waste your time.
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And you say, but what if it s family, Tony?
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Mine was family too.
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That s God coming to you saying, grow.
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You need some spiritual growth.
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There s gotta be some change in your perception, your belief, your emotions, your spiritual look of life.
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So that can t happen anymore.
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And when it happens, like at 61, I ve been through so many of those things.
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And I like do things in mass.
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I took on big challenges, so I d have to grow more.
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But then life throws them at you too.
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When they come, you just go, okay, it s gonna have me until I grow.
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What needs a shift in me so that no longer has an impact?
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But you know, Jim Rohn used to say, my original teacher used to say, Tony, what happens if I ve got.
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a cup of coffee here, and he d say, what if your worst enemy drops sugar in your coffee, what s going to happen?
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And I d go, well, you d have sweet coffee.
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And he goes, what if your best friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your loved one, drops one drop of strychnine?
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I said, you d be dead.
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He goes, that s right.
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Life is about sugar and strychnine, so watch your coffee.
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His whole thing was stand guard at the door of your brain.
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But some people take that and go, oh my God, you can kill me.
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It was a metaphor.
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These people are not so toxic.
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They re toxic because you give them energy.
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So if your mom s crazy and constantly criticizing you, and it drives you nuts, just go, that s my mom.
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That s her way of showing love.
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And I find a new perspective.
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And no matter what she does, just stay in a beautiful state and love on her.
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And think, boy, think of all that she cares and feels for, all that she s frustrated in life, or all that she s going through that s made her this way.
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And thank God I don t have to go through this.
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I can love her.
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It s like your growth is the only limit to your happiness.
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If you re not happy, you re not growing in some area.
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And usually it s a place where you re blaming, you re pointing the finger.
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I don t care if it s government, don t get me wrong, people can be unfair, unjust, that s for sure happens.
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But you can t control that.
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You can t make it not happen.
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What you have to do is become stronger than any of it, so you re free.
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Freedom comes from growth.
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Freedom does not come from control.
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Because control is an illusion.
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You can t control everybody, no matter how hard you try.
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You can t control what they think or feel.
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And not everybody s going to be fair and just.
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And you, my dear friends, and I, have not always been fair and just, whether we admit it or not.
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It s just the nature of being a being, a human being.
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But we can t make the largest pattern fair and just and loving and powerful and serving and growing until it becomes the dominant thing inside you.
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And then you experience life as being great, not you re great.
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Life s great because you re living a great path.
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It seems like what I m seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year, everything has fallen apart for them.
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Their health, their relationships, their finances, their mission or purpose, and their spiritual awareness.
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Like every area of life has been in breakdown mode for some people, not everyone.
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Some people have had incredible lives and have stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things.
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But I m seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas.
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hypothetical scenario, let s say you could only focus on one thing to get you started.
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You only have the time and energy to focus on one of these areas, your health, your relationships are all breaking down, your finances are failing everywhere.
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Where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?
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I think before you answer what to do, you gotta answer why you re there.
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It is not because of the pandemic.
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I remember when 9-11 happened and people said, oh my God, my life was destroyed because of 9-11.
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And there were people in the same building who turned their life around, grew spiritually, grew closer to their family, made their businesses larger, and the same building burned down.
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Right?
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I know in my case, you know, 9-11 comes.
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If you can imagine, you know, I m fortunate enough to have now more than 80 companies in all these different industries.
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And obviously, you know, I ve done pretty darn well by most people s standards of business and life.
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But my core mission is what I do for a living.
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It s why I m here talking to you right now.
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It s getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have.
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I know they desire, but I also believe they deserve to have.
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But to deserve to have it, you got to do certain things.
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Blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life.
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Blame is not a strategy for greatness.
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So you ve got to resolve that, number one.
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And then your question was, what s the one thing to focus on if you only focus on one?
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I think it s smart to focus on one thing primarily.
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Focus on too many can be overwhelming.
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Other people, it s good to focus on multiple things.
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It depends on your personality.
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So I wouldn t presuppose.
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But then the answer would be whichever thing you re most desirous of changing.
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Whatever thing is giving you the most pain.
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So if it s your relationship, I d go full force on that.
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Now, in the world we re in today,
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You know, you don t usually have the privilege of going, OK, I want to work on just being happy.
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Well, I can train to be happy while hell s breaking loose.
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You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric.
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But if you do that in Western culture, people come and take your furniture.
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Right.
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So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side.
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I would be working on both.
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And to me, the way to attack that, if you re not sure which areas to start with the body.
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And I know you can relate to this, Lewis, because you and I both share this in common.
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It s like, I always teach physiology first, as you well know.
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If you change the body, you ll change the emotions.
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If you change the emotions, you ll change your decisions.
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You ll change the quality of your life.
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Because the quality of life is your emotions.
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It s not what you get.
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You can have a billion dollars and commit suicide.
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People have done it, right?
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You can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide.
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You can have people loving you and be sad all the time.
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Our pattern of emotion is our home.
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and you have to upgrade your home.
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SPEAKER_00
You have to train it.
1
SPEAKER_00
And one way to train it is the emotion comes from the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you speak.
1
SPEAKER_00
So if I said to your listeners, there s a depressed person behind the curtain over here, and I ll give $100,000 to their favorite charity if they had to describe their body, their posture, and they re depressed, you tell me.
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I ll just use the example.
1
SPEAKER_00
What does that person look like?
1
SPEAKER_01
They re slunched down.
1
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They re looking down at their feet.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re not looking upward.
1
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Their shoulders are over.
1
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Are they breathing full or shallow, do you think?
1
SPEAKER_01
They re shallow.
1
SPEAKER_00
Are they talking fast or slow?
1
SPEAKER_01
If they re depressed, they re probably talking fast because they re not calm.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, no, that s usually stressed.
1
SPEAKER_00
Depressed is different than stressed.
1
SPEAKER_01
They re probably talking low volume, slower than.
1
SPEAKER_00
And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed.
1
SPEAKER_00
And in a depressed state, you won t do anything.
1
SPEAKER_00
When I used to be depressed, I don t get it anymore.
1
SPEAKER_00
I just took it out of my life.
1
SPEAKER_00
I even took the language of it out of my life.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because the words you create create a biochemical response.
1
SPEAKER_00
I got out of it by using anger originally.
1
SPEAKER_00
I d much like, sometimes if somebody s really sad or depressed, I ll make them angry.
1
SPEAKER_00
People are like, what s he doing?
1
SPEAKER_00
He s making me angry.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because anger is much more resourceful than depressed.
1
SPEAKER_00
From anger, I can get you to laughter.
1
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I can get you to taking action.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then gradually, I got where I didn t need anger.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was about growth.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was about contribution.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was about meaning.
1
SPEAKER_00
So there s like stages to go through.
1
SPEAKER_00
But to answer your question, they should work on both their business side of their life and personal, one of each.
1
SPEAKER_00
And in order for either one of those to work, you need to be in a strong emotional
2
SPEAKER_00
state and if you start with your body, like you know I start every morning in my cold water, start every morning with my workout, I start every morning on feeding my mind, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
So there s certain things you got to do physically so you re strong enough to remember the truth because remember fear is physical.
2
SPEAKER_00
You feel your throat or your gut.
2
SPEAKER_00
So is courage.
2
SPEAKER_00
Courage doesn t mean you re not afraid, it just means you re strong enough, you push through in spite of the fear, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And courage feels different in the body.
2
SPEAKER_00
So when you go lift, or you go for a sprint, or a strong run, or you jump in that freezing water, when you push your mind to go beyond what s comfortable, you feel a strength inside you, and that strength will help you to change your body, your emotions, your relationships, whatever.
2
SPEAKER_00
But then the other thing I have to say is, model someone who s successful.
2
SPEAKER_00
Find somebody who has what you want,
2
SPEAKER_00
Ideally, maybe more than one person, two or three, and figure out what are they doing different than you in their relationship?
2
SPEAKER_00
What do they believe different than you about relationship?
2
SPEAKER_00
If it s their body, what are they doing different?
2
SPEAKER_00
They re not lucky.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re doing things differently.
2
SPEAKER_00
You might be slightly biochemically different, but there s patterns there that you can see.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades, you may never learn.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man.
2
SPEAKER_00
Find someone who s got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s the pathway to speed of transformation.
2
SPEAKER_00
So now, like, you know, I ve done it.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not the only person.
2
SPEAKER_00
There s so many companies that went from worse off than they d ever been in their history to the best off because they found a way to pivot.
2
SPEAKER_02
Life is a series of mentors.
2
SPEAKER_02
I went on from there and I had one great teacher and that s all you need is one really great teacher in school that makes you feel really special.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then I had a mentor who owned a corner store in my neighborhood and he would teach me and explain to me his business tactics.
2
SPEAKER_02
My mother ended up having a boyfriend, who I call my stepfather, who was actually of the Jewish faith.
2
SPEAKER_02
He taught me that love doesn t come in a color or a gender and that for me to be very proud of my culture, but don t be anti anything else and respect everybody.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I think that gave me a
2
SPEAKER_02
a broader look at life, and I never walked in a room with a chip on my shoulder.
2
SPEAKER_02
I also never thought anybody else was better than me, but I never thought anybody had it better than me, too, because people of all colors have challenges in life, dreams and aspirations, so those things all led me to be the man that I am, and I m very happy of those experiences.
2
SPEAKER_01
And what got you into, or being interested into, the fashion world and the clothing world?
2
SPEAKER_02
Well, it was this new music that was coming out of the Bronx right around 1982, 83.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was called, you know, rap music.
2
SPEAKER_02
And it made its way into Queens, where I lived.
2
SPEAKER_02
And his music was amazing.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was fascinating.
2
SPEAKER_02
And before that, I would listen to music, you know, great, great people like, of course, you know, rest in peace, David Bowie and
2
SPEAKER_02
and Rolling Stones and Donna Summer, Stevie Wonder, Barry White.
2
SPEAKER_02
But all these people had this beautiful way of singing.
2
SPEAKER_02
They had this orchestra and everything else.
2
SPEAKER_02
And they touched on some of the political issues in the world.
2
SPEAKER_02
But this music that was coming out of the Bronx named Rap, it was kind of like our version of Twitter today, I always say.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was like a disruptive technology because
2
SPEAKER_02
I started to hear about other kids, their hopes and their dreams, their aspirations, the plights of the neighborhood, things that I wouldn t be able to see on the news.
2
SPEAKER_02
And they were putting it in a rhythmic form, and it was starting to educate us, and it came with a way not only to listen to music, but a way to walk, talk, and even dress.
2
SPEAKER_02
And you felt like you were part of this society if you wore your Adidas with fat laces on, or you knew how to breakdance.
2
SPEAKER_02
And that s where I sort of find my identity as a young man.
2
SPEAKER_02
So that s really where fashion started with me.
2
SPEAKER_02
I wouldn t know till, you know, I was about 12 years old, I wouldn t know till probably about another 10 years, 15 years that maybe we should all do something that we love.
2
SPEAKER_02
I tried everything else, but I never thought about fashion.
2
SPEAKER_02
It s kind of like, you know, you bust your butt to go and work and make a living, and then you go out and on the weekends, you kind of snowboard and do all sorts of stuff like that, but you never thought about busting your butt, building snowboards, or snowboarding and making money.
2
SPEAKER_01
Like Rob Dyrdek, your buddy, Rob Dyrdek.
2
SPEAKER_02
Exactly, Rob s in the book as well, of course.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s interesting.
2
SPEAKER_01
So how old were you when you sold your first article of clothing?
2
SPEAKER_02
How old was I?
2
SPEAKER_02
How old was I?
2
SPEAKER_02
It was, I know the date.
2
SPEAKER_02
I know exactly the date.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was 1989, good Friday, three o clock in the afternoon, 37 degrees outside.
2
SPEAKER_02
I stood outside of Coliseum Mall in 1989, so I was 20 years old.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wow, okay.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yep.
2
SPEAKER_02
Cool, 20 years old.
2
SPEAKER_02
20 years old.
2
SPEAKER_01
When did you have, how old were you when you said you had the passion for?
2
SPEAKER_02
I had the passion at 10, 11, 12.
2
SPEAKER_02
I had a passion for fashion earlier on in my life prior to that as well, but it was really my mother was dressing me because
2
SPEAKER_02
We didn t, you know, not really when I was four or five or six, because we didn t have money, enough money to go buy clothes, so she would sew them.
2
SPEAKER_02
And sometimes the pocket would be hanging up in the back somewhere, but it was okay.
2
SPEAKER_01
So what gave you, when did you decide that you had the permission to go create your own things or sew them in the basement and then go sell them?
2
SPEAKER_01
What gave you that, you know, belief in yourself that you could create this?
2
SPEAKER_02
You know what?
2
SPEAKER_02
Again, like most of us start, there was no belief that I could do it, but I remember walking into a store and I started to see cross colors everywhere.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I walked in the store and I saw this picture of this guy who looked like a young Mike Tyson hanging off a pair of jeans and it was Carl Canai.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then it just hit me.
2
SPEAKER_02
I thought prior to that, we always thought that you had to be from Italy and France to design.
2
SPEAKER_02
You had to be older and like a
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, the guys with the tape around their neck, you know, the tailors, right?
2
SPEAKER_02
Or whatever the fashion designer had looked like in those days.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I thought, I m just supposed to buy from them.
2
SPEAKER_02
When I saw that, I was like, wow, that s amazing.
2
SPEAKER_02
Okay, no problem.
2
SPEAKER_02
Then I m watching a De La Soul video, I remember, and seeing them wearing these hats.
2
SPEAKER_02
It almost looked like a ski cap, but it has like a tie on the top, and I couldn t find that hat.
2
SPEAKER_02
Anywhere in Queens.
2
SPEAKER_02
I finally find one uptown Manhattan.
2
SPEAKER_02
I pay for the the hat I come home.
2
SPEAKER_02
I show my mother I said look ma.
2
SPEAKER_02
I you know I Paid you know I always say a joke I pay six thousand gas nine hundred dollars in tolls and twenty dollars for the hat check this out And she goes that s a piece of crap
2
SPEAKER_02
But Damon, I can show you how to sew hats like that so you can sew as many as you want so you can wear them.
2
SPEAKER_02
You don t have to do that.
2
SPEAKER_02
So go get $40 worth of fabric.
2
SPEAKER_02
I go to the store.
2
SPEAKER_02
Get $40 worth of fabric.
2
SPEAKER_02
I come home.
2
SPEAKER_02
I give my mother the stuff to sew the hats.
2
SPEAKER_02
She says, I m not sewing this.
2
SPEAKER_02
You re sewing this.
2
SPEAKER_02
I sew.
2
SPEAKER_02
Crap, now I got to work at this?
2
SPEAKER_02
I sew the hats and then all of a sudden,
2
SPEAKER_02
I have all these hats and only one head because it s not like I was too stupid or wasn t thinking, thank God, I didn t buy $40 worth of different fabric.
2
SPEAKER_01
I bought $40 worth of the same fabric.
2
SPEAKER_01
One maybe every three years.
2
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_02
So anyway, so that s when it happened.
2
SPEAKER_02
That s when I went out and sold those hats in the outside on that good Friday and I sold $800 worth of hats in one hour.
2
SPEAKER_02
and that s when it just snapped it just i just said to myself wait a minute i made this with my own hands i went and sold this to individuals and nobody was in my way i didn t have to get a check from a boss nobody told me when or to come to work or go to work i can t get fired from this because of my
2
SPEAKER_02
color, creed, or whatever the case is, I m responsible for what s happening here.
2
SPEAKER_02
And I will either fail because every decision I make, or I ll succeed because every decision I make.
2
SPEAKER_01
Was that the first time that you made money on your own as an entrepreneur, or were you?
2
SPEAKER_02
No, no, no.
2
SPEAKER_02
I made money on my own and lost money on my own as an entrepreneur.
2
SPEAKER_02
You know, I started my first business.
2
SPEAKER_02
It took me a long time to really decide what I wanted to do and what was my first business.
2
SPEAKER_02
It took me forever to decide my first business.
2
SPEAKER_02
My first business, I finally decided what I wanted to do when I was six years old.
2
SPEAKER_02
Took me forever.
2
SPEAKER_02
I was selling pencils in school.
2
SPEAKER_02
Then I would go ahead and sell candy.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then when it snowed, I would shovel snow in the winter, rake leaves in the fall.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then I remember when I used to shovel snow, I used to go and kids would want to help me because I started getting everybody in the blocks that I wanted to.
2
SPEAKER_02
I would travel about three miles and take care of it.
2
SPEAKER_02
Kids would want to help me, so I would tell them,
2
SPEAKER_02
okay no problem here s what you re going to do if you re going to help me i m going to let you work i m going to give you a couple let s split the money with you but you got to do a spring cleanup for free so we can go back into spring and then i would go to the to the owners of the house and say well everybody else on the block if you shove if they shove your snow they re showing you three dollars if i shovel your snow three times during the the winter i m going to give you a
2
SPEAKER_02
a free spring cleanup.
2
SPEAKER_02
So I was leveraging all those little guys in the neighborhood.
2
SPEAKER_02
Man, that was a great business.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now, when did you realize that you kind of, you know, the $800 first day, it might have been a great first day, but when did you realize like, okay, I have something actually that is consistently getting results?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean was it just easy for you after that for the next year you were just making 800 bucks every day and then it just kept growing or was there like oh there s some dry spells here or I need to change where I m promoting like anything in business it was
3
SPEAKER_00
There s always a dry spell here, a dry spell there.
3
SPEAKER_00
But in all reality, my friends and I, we love selling the hats.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because there was a reason to talk to girls on the street.
3
SPEAKER_00
There you go.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why we do a lot of these.
3
SPEAKER_00
Of course we do.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why we do a lot of these.
3
SPEAKER_00
Everything, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
If we didn t have women in the world, we d all be walking around barefoot and just no teeth.
3
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then I would start going to the black expos, where there was basically a market on the road, and I would try to sell shirts there.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why?
3
SPEAKER_00
Girls were there.
3
SPEAKER_00
But also, we were really passionate about what we were doing and we started getting that high when we sold stuff at a black expo, you know, and then we d go to another one and we d see somebody wearing it.
3
SPEAKER_00
We d go, wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s pretty cool.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s when they came back and started saying, man, you know, I tell everybody about this shirt and they asked me for it, so I need to buy three now because I got to buy it for everybody.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we started saying, wow.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it just became so exciting.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would have normally paid to go to the Black Expo, to go around and buy stuff or see stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then, you know, we happened to live in Hollis, Queens.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of music artists in Hollis, Queens, you know, obviously Salt-N-Pepa, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Tribal Quest.
3
SPEAKER_00
A lot of them come from there.
3
SPEAKER_00
We didn t really know them, but we knew all their friends.
3
SPEAKER_00
But then all of a sudden we heard
3
SPEAKER_00
We re saying, well, can we get something in a video?
3
SPEAKER_00
And they ll go, yeah, come on down.
3
SPEAKER_00
We go down to the video, and there s craft services.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s free to eat as much food as you want.
3
SPEAKER_00
You get to see somebody like LL Cool J performing a song.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s video vixens running around.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s everywhere.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would have paid to go there.
3
SPEAKER_00
Meanwhile, I m going to go ahead and put on a shirt.
3
SPEAKER_00
They put on a shirt, and then I d say, man, I don t have any money to.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have a small company, so I really can t afford to lose that shirt.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can I have it back?
3
SPEAKER_00
Really?
3
SPEAKER_00
Sounds like, you know, what you did.
3
SPEAKER_00
When was this?
3
SPEAKER_02
What year was this?
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, honestly, I opened Food 189.
3
SPEAKER_00
I closed it three times because I ran out of capital from 89 to 92.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the story really goes from 89 to around 96.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK, cool.
3
SPEAKER_02
So 20 years ago, you were essentially the true branding expert who was leveraging the Instagram influencers of today.
3
SPEAKER_02
You were leveraging the, you know, music stars, the MTV stars.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
And getting that social media out there on MTV.
3
SPEAKER_02
Sure.
3
SPEAKER_02
As opposed to on Instagram, which is what brands are doing today.
3
SPEAKER_02
They re trying to find the top influencers and get their brand, their clothing on them.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we always call FUBU the first hashtag of clothing.
3
SPEAKER_02
I like it.
3
SPEAKER_02
I like it.
3
SPEAKER_02
What would you say was the biggest challenge once you started to really take off and grow?
3
SPEAKER_02
Obviously, as a small business owner, when a trend hits and everyone wants your product, how did you handle that and what was the biggest challenge?
3
SPEAKER_00
Scalability was very hard because it was how do I go and finance and underwrite these things?
3
SPEAKER_00
Where will I get the capital?
3
SPEAKER_00
What s the turnaround time?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I didn t have any financial intelligence at the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So my journey- You could sell and you could hustle and promote.
3
SPEAKER_00
I could sell, I could hustle, but my journey, I almost failed and lost everything several times throughout that journey because I just didn t know how to use the tool of money.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s so hard to try to acquire all that knowledge within the same time.
3
SPEAKER_00
How do I acquire the knowledge of branding, marketing, distribution, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, financial intelligence, customer support, return on goods, consumption, you know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_00
It s so hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
So of course I had to start leveraging as well and creating a bunch of strategic relationships because I knew I needed that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I knew I needed that because, you know,
3
SPEAKER_00
Listen, you know, when you tell somebody to stop smoking, you know, a couple of times and after the 10th time, they know they already have a problem with smoking.
3
SPEAKER_00
They don t want to listen to you.
3
SPEAKER_00
Listen, forget it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not even going to address it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m going to start smoking.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you have a business, you have to answer the call or you re closed.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you have to plug the dam.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I knew I had to plug the dam.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I started just creating a lot of strategic relationship and that s actually the power broke because it is the fact that, you know, if I would have had money when I went to those video sets.
3
SPEAKER_00
I would ve paid the director, I would ve paid the producer, I would ve paid the rapper, everybody else, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
If you gave me $20,000 at that time and I heard that LL Cool J will wear my stuff for $5,000 and the director wants $5,000 to wear it, they re getting the money.
3
SPEAKER_00
And they re gonna wear it.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I got into 30, 40 videos with zero dollars because I had no way to do it and I had nothing to lose.
3
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t take anything from me, I didn t have anything.
3
SPEAKER_00
You couldn t even give him your shirt.
3
SPEAKER_00
You took it back.
3
SPEAKER_00
I took it back.
3
SPEAKER_00
When you re working with The Power of Broke, it does a couple of things.
3
SPEAKER_00
It makes sure that you learn the process yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t afford to hire anybody else.
3
SPEAKER_00
So all those people out there who pay $40,000 for a website when it really costs five, right?
3
SPEAKER_02
Or you can leverage it by bartering or something.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whatever the case is, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
So you have to learn the process.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what happens during that period of time of learning the process is that when and if and hopefully you get to the point that you are successful, nobody can tell you lies.
3
SPEAKER_00
You can t have somebody say, well, I m not going to tell you about shipping because, you know, you re firing me and I got to go work it out yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, you get and you learn the process.
3
SPEAKER_00
Number one.
3
SPEAKER_00
Number two is.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because you don t have a lot of capital, you focus on the only thing that you can do.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t drown an opportunity.
3
SPEAKER_00
You don t take a bunch of money and go, we should try a bunch of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
Here you go.
3
SPEAKER_00
Here s 10,000, 10,000, 10,000, 10,000 here.
3
SPEAKER_00
Go.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you go.
3
SPEAKER_00
All right, what are we going to do with this hat right now?
3
SPEAKER_00
you know so that s the process and that process is very very important also you learn and it brings out the character of who you have around you when you operate the power of broke what do you mean by that well if you if you if you re busy let s open a business today let s go take a ten thousand let s go take a hundred thousand dollar loan well
3
SPEAKER_00
What happens when the money goes away?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because when I didn t have anything, people worked with me for free.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I saw who rose to the challenge.
3
SPEAKER_00
I saw who jumped ship.
3
SPEAKER_00
I saw who was problem solvers and problem creators.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s the process of activating the power broke.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because to tell you the truth, the people who activate the power broke more than anybody else are the people who are successful.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because that s how they stay successful.
3
SPEAKER_02
and share how it all started, so we have an understanding of what it is and how you got into it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
It actually started with my own butt, because I couldn t figure out what to wear under white pants.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I m sure you ve had this problem when you re getting dressed.
3
SPEAKER_02
All the time.
3
SPEAKER_01
So what ended up happening was there was, you know, our undergarment options were no good.
3
SPEAKER_01
There was underwear that left a panty line, and then there was the girdle that was way too thick and heavy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so then they came out with the thong, which just put underwear exactly where we ve been trying to get it out of.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so Spanx was born out of just being a frustrated consumer.
3
SPEAKER_01
I wanted to wear my clothes.
3
SPEAKER_01
I wanted a smooth canvas.
3
SPEAKER_01
I didn t want to see lines or any kind of things going on underneath.
3
SPEAKER_01
So 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,
3
SPEAKER_01
And said, no, no, no, I want the hosiery material to actually be what I create the undergarment out of.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was wild trying to convince the hosiery manufacturers to help me make this product with that in mind.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because for so many years, they d been using the material to be seen on the leg.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I said, no, it s just it s the perfect material to create the perfect canvas for women under our clothes.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it opened up my wardrobe, it opened up so many other women s wardrobe.
3
SPEAKER_01
We could start wearing colors we didn t feel comfortable wearing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the models get airbrushed, we get Spanx.
3
SPEAKER_02
There you go, there you go, I love it.
3
SPEAKER_02
And when was this?
3
SPEAKER_02
What year was this?
3
SPEAKER_01
This was in, well, I cut the feet out of my pantyhose in 1998.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I was 27.
3
SPEAKER_01
Was it 18 years ago?
3
SPEAKER_01
Am I doing my math right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I was 27.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I spent the next two years getting it made.
3
SPEAKER_01
I worked at night and on the weekends on the idea while I was selling fax machines door to door.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then the company was launched in 2000 when I was 29.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_02
Selling fax machines door-to-door, where were you living?
3
SPEAKER_01
In Clearwater, Florida.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
Where I grew up.
3
SPEAKER_02
Fax machines.
3
SPEAKER_01
On Clearwater Beach, yes.
3
SPEAKER_02
Are there even fax machines anymore around?
3
SPEAKER_01
No.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, thank God I m not still doing that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know what would have happened.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are no more fax machines.
3
SPEAKER_02
Just like no one watches the movie Airplane anymore?
3
SPEAKER_01
I cannot believe, I need to know, is he the only one on the planet who s not standing in the airplane?
3
SPEAKER_01
I was quoting airplane as soon as they put the headset on.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m like, Striker, you re too low.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re too low.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you just stared at me like, what is she talking about?
3
SPEAKER_01
That s it guys.
3
SPEAKER_02
So how long were you selling the fax machines?
3
SPEAKER_01
I sold the Fax Machine Sorter door for seven years.
3
SPEAKER_01
Before that I wanted to be a lawyer, but I failed the LSAT not once, but twice.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you wanted to be a lawyer, but it didn t work out.
4
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to be a lawyer.
4
SPEAKER_00
I failed the LSAT not once, twice.
4
SPEAKER_00
So then instead of going to law school, I drove to Disney World and tried out to be goofy.
4
SPEAKER_00
But you have to be 5 8 .
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re 5 6 .
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m 5 6 .
4
SPEAKER_01
So you didn t wear heels?
4
SPEAKER_00
No, I didn t wear heels.
4
SPEAKER_00
I didn t wear heels.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I was the height of a chipmunk.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you got the chipmunk?
4
SPEAKER_00
I got the chipmunk part but I didn t end up doing it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I put people on rides in a brown polyester spacesuit at the World of Motion and Horizons at EPCOT.
4
SPEAKER_01
EPCOT Center.
4
SPEAKER_00
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?
4
SPEAKER_00
Didn t you graduate from college?
4
SPEAKER_00
And my big Mickey Mouse ears said Sarah Blakely and I d be like
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes, get on the ride.
4
SPEAKER_00
But that s what I did, and then I sold fax machines door to door for seven years.
4
SPEAKER_00
Seven years.
4
SPEAKER_01
Did you wake up every morning and say, this is my dream to sell fax machines door to door?
4
SPEAKER_01
Or were you thinking, what am I doing with my life?
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
It started when I was selling fax machines door to door.
4
SPEAKER_00
and getting my 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.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, how did this happen?
4
SPEAKER_00
This is not my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
Cut, scene, director, like, call the producer.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I got out a piece of paper and I wrote down, what am I good at?
4
SPEAKER_00
And the only thing in the good column was sales.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, okay, what am I going to do with that?
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I asked the universe for an idea.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was very specific.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it took two years.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I only cut the feet out of my pantyhose one time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was not going to squander any idea the universe gave me because I had really asked for it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then the minute I cut the feed out, I started trying to make it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I started looking up manufacturers on the internet.
4
SPEAKER_01
This was before Alibaba, wasn t it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because I did this about eight years ago and I used Alibaba for something and it was easy to find a manufacturer in China and test different things.
4
SPEAKER_01
But how did you find a manufacturer at that time?
4
SPEAKER_00
a website called thomasregistry.com.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it lists all the manufacturers in the country based on category.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s when I found out that a lot of hosiery and undergarments were being made in North Carolina.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, really?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you got a local?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So 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.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I took a week off of work and drove around in person.
4
SPEAKER_01
and just showed up and said, hey, I want to create a sample.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because if they weren t going to get a big order for something, they re probably like, we re not going to do a little sample for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
I showed up with my lucky red backpack from college.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s always with me.
4
SPEAKER_01
You still have it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, of course.
4
SPEAKER_00
You didn t bring it here.
4
SPEAKER_00
Come on.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s with me.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s with me in LA.
4
SPEAKER_00
Is it?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, I went into the manufacturing plants, and they asked me the same three questions.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you are, let s say, Sarah Blakely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re with?
4
SPEAKER_00
Myself.
4
SPEAKER_00
Sarah Blakely.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you re financially backed by?
4
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, Sarah Blakely.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you can imagine how those went.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was like, well, have a nice day, honey, and good luck.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to ask him why he had the change of heart.
4
SPEAKER_00
He said, I have three daughters.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so he ran the idea by them and they re like, Dad, that sounds interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
You got to give that girl a chance.
4
SPEAKER_01
Amazing.
4
SPEAKER_01
So he called you back.
4
SPEAKER_01
You didn t follow up with these people.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah, I was following up, but to no avail.
4
SPEAKER_01
But he followed up and said, Yeah, we ll give it a shot.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yes, we ll make this.
4
SPEAKER_01
So what was the next step?
4
SPEAKER_01
Was he just making a sample for you or testing different models or sizes or?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so 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
4
SPEAKER_00
No, from Atlanta.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was living in Atlanta at the time.
4
SPEAKER_01
What s that, about an eight-hour drive, six-hour drive?
4
SPEAKER_00
About four and a half, five.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, it s not bad.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s not bad.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so, anyway, Ted became my buddy, and I went to get it patented, but all the patent lawyers wanted between $3,000 and $5,000, and I had $5,000 set aside to do this.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s it, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I wrote my own patent.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went to Barnes and Noble.
4
SPEAKER_00
No way.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I bought a book called Patents and Trademarks.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I wrote the patent.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then I called one of the patent lawyers that was the nicest to me and said, please, please, please, will you write the claims over the weekend for a discounted price?
4
SPEAKER_00
I ve done all the other rest of the patent.
4
SPEAKER_01
The legwork you d done.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
You just kind of needed to button it up and sign it off.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, you needed to do the legal part.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so he did.
4
SPEAKER_00
He actually admitted to me that when I came to visit him, he thought I d been sent by candid camera.
4
SPEAKER_00
Which, let me put it in your words, he thought he was being punked.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he thought he was being punked.
4
SPEAKER_01
He thought that his friends were
4
SPEAKER_00
Playing a joke on him.
4
SPEAKER_00
No way.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, he goes who s this girl?
4
SPEAKER_00
I mean like you re not the typical person who walks in the door saying I ve got a product and I want to patent 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 and rental cars on the back of like Avis agreements and You want to hear how bad the runner-up name to Spanx was?
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I
4
SPEAKER_00
Open toad Delilah s no way.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
I cannot believe in that was even an option.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was Open toad Delilah, I so wouldn t be sitting here with you right now if I named it that is the horrible it s so bad Wow.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
4
SPEAKER_01
So anyway, okay space stand for
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s all about the butt.
4
SPEAKER_00
Makes your mind wander a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_00
Nobody ever forgets it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had no money to advertise.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was risky.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
At the time, listen, now it s become a household name.
4
SPEAKER_00
But when I first invented it, I would call people and say, hi, I m Sarah from Spanx.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they would hang up.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was probably like a porn.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I was pranking them.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m called.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, no, really, I m Sarah.
4
SPEAKER_00
My company really is called Spanx.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I had department stores across the country that wouldn t sell it.
4
SPEAKER_00
They thought it was too risque of a name.
4
SPEAKER_00
And my mom sent her whole lunch into the wrong website when I first started.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was like, mom, it s with an X. It s super important, it s with an X. So yeah, anyway, I ended up buying the word Spanx from a man who said he was holding out from the porn industry.
4
SPEAKER_00
Funny enough that you say that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Spanx with an X. I paid some money for that.
4
SPEAKER_00
But anyway, yes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Amazing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Named it Spanx.
4
SPEAKER_00
It came to me because I narrowed down my thinking.
4
SPEAKER_00
I knew that Kodak and Coca-Cola were the two most recognized names in the world at the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, what do they have in common?
4
SPEAKER_00
I like to think about words and phrases a lot.
4
SPEAKER_00
They both had a strong K sound in them.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
So and I also had a bunch of friends who did stand-up comedy and it s this weird trade 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.
4
SPEAKER_00
I went home that night.
4
SPEAKER_00
I typed it in my computer for $150 with my credit card and at the last second I backspace the K and the S and put in an X and hits that was accident.
4
SPEAKER_01
I
4
SPEAKER_01
kind of with the X. You backspaced, gotcha.
4
SPEAKER_00
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.
4
SPEAKER_00
So then I had the name and I had the 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.
4
SPEAKER_00
I said, okay, no problem.
4
SPEAKER_00
We ll call Ted.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I get Ted on the phone.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, Ted, can you talk to the manufacturer?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like in the back, in the back, I m like, Ted, can you talk to my patent lawyer?
4
SPEAKER_00
He s like, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we re all talking and he goes, I go, can you tell him what s in it?
4
SPEAKER_00
He s like, yeah, well, it s 70% nylon and 30% lacquer.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, all right.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I m taking notes.
4
SPEAKER_00
My patent lawyers taking notes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that night I could not sleep.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m up all night.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the next morning I wake up, I m like, how is there lacquer in this product?
4
SPEAKER_01
What is lacquer just I m aware like paint thinner or something.
4
SPEAKER_00
Okay, so I called 30% paint thinner So I called Ted I go Ted.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can you spell lacquer?
4
SPEAKER_00
He s like, yeah Oh my god, Lycra.
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
Got it My lawyer was laughing you know how fast you would have gotten a patent if you I
4
SPEAKER_00
So was it challenging to get it you get the first try I did I got the patent the first try and
5
SPEAKER_00
And I got the trademark name Spanx.
5
SPEAKER_01
Amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So it didn t seem like there was that many challenges once you submitted it or whatever.
5
SPEAKER_01
You kind of got the things you needed in place.
5
SPEAKER_01
You got the orders in.
5
SPEAKER_01
Was there a lot of challenges after that?
5
SPEAKER_01
Once you got the patent, the trademark?
5
SPEAKER_00
That was a really hard part.
5
SPEAKER_00
I heard the word no for two years.
5
SPEAKER_00
All the manufacturers, nobody thought it was a good idea.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
Unless you re gonna give them a bunch of money for a big order or something.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, what s the point?
5
SPEAKER_00
So that was the hard part.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then once I had it, I cold called Neiman Marcus, and that was the first account I called on.
5
SPEAKER_01
Did you get it?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, you were great at sales, so you could sell it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was so excited.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was my moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
I flew to Dallas.
5
SPEAKER_00
I called them and said, if you give me 10 minutes of your time, I ll come and meet with you.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she said, all right.
5
SPEAKER_01
And this is a buyer?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yep, the buyer.
5
SPEAKER_00
I first called the Atlanta store.
5
SPEAKER_00
They re like, girl, we can t help you.
5
SPEAKER_00
We have a buying office.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, well, where is that?
5
SPEAKER_00
Give me their number.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I went in, and halfway through my pitch, I could tell I was losing her.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I said, you know what?
5
SPEAKER_00
Will you please come to the bathroom with me?
5
SPEAKER_00
And she was like so buttoned up.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, Neiman Marcus, like her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes.
5
SPEAKER_01
And she was like, what?
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, just follow me to the bathroom and show you my own panty line.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I went in the stall with Spanx in my pants and without it in my pants.
5
SPEAKER_00
And she was like, Oh, I totally get it.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s awesome.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to put it in seven stores.
5
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, just like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Just like that.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was so unbelievable.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was so nervous.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then, of course, I had to call Sam.
5
SPEAKER_00
In the rental car on the way back to the airport, I called the owner of the manufacturer.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, Sam, Sam, it s Sarah.
5
SPEAKER_00
I need more.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just landed Neiman Marcus.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, what?
5
SPEAKER_00
He was in shock.
5
SPEAKER_00
He goes, Sarah, I thought you were going to give these away as birthday presents for like years.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I said, no, Neiman Marcus just bought it and I need more.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he patched me through to Ted.
5
SPEAKER_00
He goes, okay, you can talk to Ted.
5
SPEAKER_00
So Ted comes back in.
5
SPEAKER_00
He s on the phone.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I go, Ted, I need more.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, I go, I just landed Neiman Marcus.
5
SPEAKER_00
He goes, well, that s great, but what you can do about the crotches?
5
SPEAKER_01
crotches?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s what I said.
5
SPEAKER_00
I go, what?
5
SPEAKER_00
Don t they come with crotches?
5
SPEAKER_00
We ve been making them with crotches.
5
SPEAKER_00
He goes, well, yeah, but we only got one crotch machine.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s being used by somebody else.
5
SPEAKER_01
No way.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
So what do you do then?
5
SPEAKER_00
So I just landed Neiman Marcus and I have no crotches.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
5
SPEAKER_00
You got a hole in your crotches?
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t know where to go for a crotch.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, where do you go?
5
SPEAKER_00
I actually looked in the yellow pages.
5
SPEAKER_01
Crotch making machines?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I just looked at crotch.
5
SPEAKER_01
Crotch machine.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t even know how you spell crotch.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, listen, this is what I learned.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m going to teach you something.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, so I didn t know this.
5
SPEAKER_01
What s Yellow Pages again?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, my God.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m just kidding.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s a big book.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s yellow.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s what we used to look things up.
5
SPEAKER_00
Of course.
5
SPEAKER_00
Hilarious.
5
SPEAKER_00
And what s Instagram?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
You just got on it.
5
SPEAKER_00
OK, I just joined it seven days ago.
5
SPEAKER_00
All right.
5
SPEAKER_00
So where was it?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, crotch.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, crotch machine.
5
SPEAKER_01
Linked it up.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
So anyway, in the Yellow Pages, it s not under crotch.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I learned there s a fancy word for crotch named gusset.
5
SPEAKER_01
Gusset.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
5
SPEAKER_00
What?
5
SPEAKER_00
Gusset.
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SPEAKER_01
Never heard that word.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I started calling Gusset companies.
5
SPEAKER_00
They were like FedExing me crotches from all over.
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SPEAKER_00
My roommate would come home and be like, you got another crotch in the mail.
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SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
And he saved the day and they made the crotches and then I could deliver them to Marcus.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you had the leggings, they made the crotches, and then you sewed them together, is that how it works?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, apparently, yes.
5
SPEAKER_01
Gotcha, okay.
5
SPEAKER_01
So then you had another, how many did you print the first time?
5
3,000.
5
SPEAKER_00
3,000?
5
SPEAKER_00
3,000 pair of the first Spanx.
5
SPEAKER_00
One SKU, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes, one SKU.
5
SPEAKER_00
$20, one SKU.
5
SPEAKER_00
Three sizes, or?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like four four sizes.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, 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.
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SPEAKER_00
So the semi trucks were pulling up to my apartment in Atlanta and I was Myself to Neiman s this is amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And Then I called every friend I had in those seven cities like people hadn t talked to in 20 years.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hey, go buy Yeah
5
SPEAKER_01
Take your girlfriends there.
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SPEAKER_00
Hi, Christina.
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SPEAKER_00
Remember me?
5
SPEAKER_00
I used to sit next to you all the time in grade school.
5
SPEAKER_00
Will you please go buy this product called Spanx?
5
SPEAKER_00
I literally called them and I said, and I ll mail you a check.
5
SPEAKER_00
So I paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is brilliant.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I said, yeah, I said, go in.
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SPEAKER_00
I said, I gave him a whole script.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, go in and say, I ve been looking for this all my life.
5
SPEAKER_00
I can t believe it s here and create all this excitement.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then of course, a week later, the knee, I talked to the Nieman s buyer and she s like, Sarah, we are blowing out.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, you don t.
5
SPEAKER_00
say.
5
SPEAKER_00
No way.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I was buying them all.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, brilliant.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have to.
5
SPEAKER_00
Wow, you have to have to ensure your own success.
5
SPEAKER_00
So then once I started running out of money, Oprah called and put it on as our favorite product of the year.
5
SPEAKER_01
How long was that for?
5
SPEAKER_01
Until the time was in Neiman Marcus to Oprah calling?
5
SPEAKER_00
like a month.
5
SPEAKER_01
It just happened that quick?
5
SPEAKER_00
A month or a month and a half.
5
SPEAKER_01
How did she even hear about it in a month and a half?
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_01
Shut up.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m not kidding.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was so unbelievable.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had no money to advertise.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m in the back of my apartment.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was selling fax machines like a month before that.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I have to say I was working every night and on the weekends for two years, quietly trying to get this made.
5
SPEAKER_00
Building it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I had no option in my mind.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I am scripting a new life for myself.
5
SPEAKER_01
Was this movie about you that came out a year ago?
5
SPEAKER_00
Joy?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, is that about you?
5
SPEAKER_00
My dad called me and goes, Sarah, I just saw a movie.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s basically your life except for the dysfunctional family part.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, right.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, yeah, right, Dad.
5
SPEAKER_00
Okay, sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but I could really relate to her.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
All the hustle and yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s crazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
But when I got Neiman Marcus, I think a lot of people think that s when you ve arrived.
5
SPEAKER_00
No.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s when I double-timed.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I got 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 Sachs, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale s.
5
SPEAKER_00
and I would go before the store opened 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 eight hours a day and tell customers what it was, because I didn t have any money averages.
5
SPEAKER_00
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.
5
SPEAKER_00
Ambassadors, and they were rooting for me, and they loved the product,
5
SPEAKER_00
And so that was a really important part of the formula.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I learned what my next products were gonna be because I was standing right there with customers and all these- They d say what they need, what their challenge is.
5
SPEAKER_00
They told me what they wanted.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can t do this, blah, blah, blah.
5
SPEAKER_00
They told me what they wanted.
5
SPEAKER_01
Amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
I hope today s episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness.
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SPEAKER_01
Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today s show with all the important links.
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
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SPEAKER_01
And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.
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SPEAKER_01
And now it s time to go out there and do something great.