Quotes By Sara Blakely

I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course. My attitude to failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. It is liberating. Most people attach failure to something not working out or how people perceive you. This way, it is about answering to yourself.

The thought of my mortality - I think about it a lot. I find it motivating. It can be any time that your number's up.

If we can put a man on the moon, we can make pantyhose comfortable.

Within the first year of launching my company, Spanx, I decided to go over to England and cold-call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges the same way I had cold-called Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's here in the United States.

My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.

I'm just like so many women - I was frustrated, I had these white pants that I had spent a lot of money on, and you get home and you think, 'What am I really supposed to wear under this?' So it was a frustrated consumer moment.

When I was 7, I came up with the idea of 'charm socks.' My mom would take me to buy bags of plastic charms, we would sew them on frilly white socks, and I sold them at school.

Every time I went on stage I was so terrified I almost threw up.

When I cut the feet out of my pantyhose that one time, I saw it as my sign. I had been visualizing being self employed prior to this happening. It was my mental preparation meeting the opportunity in that moment.

My revenue was $4 million my first year in business, off of one $20 item.

Eminem's 'Lose Yourself' is my go-to song to pump myself up if I'm having a tough time or if I get really nervous right before a speech.

What I most identify with is effortless fashion, looking as if someone's not put a lot of effort into their look.

You've got to embrace what you don't know.

I shopped for body shapers for the first time in my life and I was horrified. They were thick - it was like wearing workout clothes and they all had a leg band on one side that showed through the pants.

I didn't like the way it looked in white trousers, and I couldn't find anything to work underneath them.

I started thinking about joy. Everything in our society is so purposeful. Let's bring joy back to the experience.

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.

Shapewear is the canvas and the clothes are the art.

I took a Fear of Flying class, and I always missed the class, because I was always flying.

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.

My first account was Neiman Marcus. I cold-called them just like I had cold-called businesses when I was selling fax machines for seven years.

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.

I've always had that gratitude that I had the opportunity to pursue my potential. So I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver. We can make the world a better place, one butt at a time.

I couldn't figure out what to wear under my clothes. The body shapers were too thick at the time.

I feel like money makes you more of who you already are.

I cut the feet off of a pair of panty hose and it allowed me to wear a pair of great strappy sandals. I didn't see lines but the hose rolled up at my feet - and that's how Spanx born.

Don't solicit feedback on your product, idea or your business just for validation purposes. You want to tell the people who can help move your idea forward, but if you're just looking to your friend, co-worker, husband or wife for validation, be careful. It can stop a lot of multimillion-dollar ideas in their tracks in the beginning.

I made a conscious decision not to tell anyone in my life. Now I tell people - don't tell anyone your idea until you have invested enough of yourself in it that you are not going to turn back. When a person has an idea at that conception moment it is the most vulnerable - one negative comment could knock you off course.

Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson - from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.

It's really a full-time job to manage our lives.