3 Key Secrets to Mastering Negotiation

Few skills can be more valuable in a wider variety of areas than negotiation can. From salary talks to landing top-tier clients to navigating a miscommunication with your spouse, learning how to negotiate can take you further than you might have ever thought was possible. In this special episode, we’re bringing together Tony Robbins, Daymond John, and Sara Blakely to share their origin stories and the lessons they learned from negotiating that led to their success. In this episode,Tony Robbins, entrepreneur, best-selling author, philanthropist, and the nation’s #1 life and business strategist, shares why your past do not equal your future. Daymond John, American businessman, investor, television personality, New York Times bestselling author, and motivational speaker, explains the simple process of getting started on your first business when you’re broke. Sara Blakely, businesswoman, philanthropist, and the founder of Spanx, explains why you don’t need a lot of money in order to be ultra successful and how ten minutes of someone’s time is all you need. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1503For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960Original Episodes:Tony Robbins - https://link.chtbl.com/1107-podDaymond John - https://link.chtbl.com/598-podSara Blakely - https://link.chtbl.com/893-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tony Robbins?

  If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually, it's a place where you're blaming. People can be unfair, unjust. That's for sure happens. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from...

• 0:12Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:35Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to this special masterclass. 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. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in.

• 0:53Lewis Howes?

  Was there ever a moment where you didn't unconditionally love yourself? And if so, 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. When was that shift?

• 1:08Tony Robbins?

  I don't think it was ever I just didn't love myself. There were times, obviously, be angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or thinking, you know, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up to my 40th birthday, including my 40th birthday. 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. People look at their life differently culturally. And I used to think it was bull, but sure enough, I would do it. I remember turning 40, and I was really, really unhappy. I was like, Jesus, I've not done enough. I've not helped enough people. I helped tens of millions of people at that point already, all over the earth in 100-plus countries at that point, but it was still kind of stuck in my head. So I would earn the love by over-delivering, change somebody's life.

• 1:52Tony Robbins?

  Like, I don't get it because somebody says, oh, I love you, Tony. I mean, I appreciate that. Or, oh, you're the greatest. It's got to be my standard. My standard's higher than their standard for me. Right? 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. Their life is there. You know, that's when I go, okay. You know, now we've hit the center of what I'm made for. Now, you know, I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation. And even then, I still know it's God coming through me. I don't have the delusion it's just me. But I think sometime after forty, I finally saw the stupidity of it. I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes. And I can say by the time I turned sixty a year ago, I noticed it was interesting because my birthday, I didn't have an ounce of it.

• 2:36Tony Robbins?

  I was just like, you know, how could I at this stage of my life? And I've had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts. 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 from nothing. And when I've lived this long, I can't go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or dozen stories a day from people telling me how something I did changed their life. So it's not that I'm so smart now, it's just I've stacked it. By the way, though, stacking is the way you can do things. Most of us stack the negative. If you are really angry, it's not usually because it's just the moment. It's that it happened again, you know?

• 3:18Tony Robbins?

  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. We hit this one, two, three mini point and then our nervous system overreacts. But what I've learned is you can stack the good. And, but 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. That's a physiological fact. But no one had done any study. I started stacking good, like, okay, let me stack a dozen great memories. Feel them, see them, experience them. And I felt this biochemical change that didn't just last a half hour, an hour or ten minutes. It went on for a day or two. And so I think I've learned to stack the good. So just having the experience is not enough.

• 4:03Tony Robbins?

  You got to stack the good to be able to appreciate it. But I, I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself. And I think the focus is serving and loving. And that's what will get you the point where you start doing it. But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you've done. You'll feel great about yourself.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  I already know all the comments that have come through, thousands of comments telling me, but what about my family that's toxic? What about my partner who's toxic? And how do I love someone unconditionally when they don't respect me? I can't trust them. What about situations like?

• 4:35Tony Robbins?

  All those reactions are natural human reactions from ego.

• 4:40Tony Robbins?

  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. But I've done it too in the past, but it's an old pattern, I don't really do anymore. And it used to affect me. Now, not a dominant one, I wouldn't have become who I've become. 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. And I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving, and I got hooked on that core pattern, and then the pattern of learning, so I'd have something to give, which I know one of the things I respect about you, Lewis, is that you have that same pattern in you. You're always trying to learn more, because underneath it all, you also want to give it. You want it for you, but you want to share it, right?

• 5:24Tony Robbins?

  And so those patterns helped me not be in what they're not giving. And all this language, language, today, people don't understand the power of their language, like toxic. You've been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself, or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else. We live in a culture now where people, you know, you're evil or you're like me. That's basically how it is, right? The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think. I mean, being a liberal, I was a liberal, right? Being a liberal growing up, I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me. Today, now, everybody wants everybody to think the same thing, otherwise they're evil, or otherwise they could hurt me. Whatever happens, sticks and stones will break your bones, words will never hurt me.

• 6:09Tony Robbins?

  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. We all are more than that. But you know what? Like a kid that's never broken their bones, definitely afraid of breaking the bone. But if you're a kid, and you're rough and tumble, you broke multiple bones, they heal, you don't have any fear of it. There's so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment, anything that's insecure or unsafe, they don't want to be a part of, including language. And what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful. And that's why there's so many people that are abundant that are angry all the time. Cause they're angry because they're not growing. So, don't get me wrong. I know some people are not a good influence. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying you're more than somebody's influence.

• 6:54Tony Robbins?

  Unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong. So you can make yourself feel superior morally, psychologically, or spiritually. Stop the pattern. We've all done it. Catch yourself. Cause if you want joy, happiness, and freedom in an extraordinary life, it will not come from blame. Never. There's no pride that comes from blame. Pride is something you earn. Like people tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this, or they'd say that. Self-esteem does not come from what people say about you. Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself. See, someone can tell you your whole life, you're a piece of crap, and in part you can go, you're full of it. I'm gonna show you. Lots of people have done that. They never bought it. Or someone tell you you're beautiful your whole life. You go, I'm not really beautiful. So what people tell you doesn't matter at all. It's what you stack.

• 7:39Tony Robbins?

  It's what you assemble. It's what you create. It's the habit of what you put in your head. And today, I don't blame you because we got a whole culture that's always blaming somebody else for something in their life. But blame is not a strategy for pride. That's why you listen to these blaming people. They're all angry all the time. Listen, if I wanted to blame, I grew up in an environment, I didn't even share it till my mom passed. And even then, I didn't share. I grew up in a pretty rough environment. My mom was a beautiful soul, but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs, it was a different creature. And it was a violent creature. And I have a younger brother, five years younger, and a younger sister, seven years younger. And my mom would get nuts. And I didn't want them to get hurt. So I was five one in high school.

• 8:23Tony Robbins?

  She grabbed me by the hair and smashed me against the wall till I bled. Now, I never shared this and I'm not denigrating her in any way. I only shared it like four or five years after she died. Because I was talking to a group of kids in New York City, all without fathers, eighty percent African American, about twenty percent Hispanic out of their group roughly, no white kids, and I'm talking about your biography is not your destiny. And it doesn't matter what you've been through, what you decide now is what's gonna control your life, what you decide each day going forward is gonna decide your life, and I look at them seeing me, I can read their minds. This big, tall, white, rich guy is gonna tell me biography doesn't matter. So I said, "Yeah, let me tell you my story," and I told them the whole story, way more than I'm telling you, and everyone was crying their eyes out when they're done.

• 9:08Tony Robbins?

  I said, "Look where I am right now." Because I wouldn't assemble the story that my past equals my future. The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rearview mirror to guide yourself, you're gonna crash. So what you've been through is horrific, what you've been through is unjust. I'm on your side, but if you hang on to it, you have no future, and you have no one to blame but yourself. And these kids, to their credit, man, they just responded to the challenge, cuz they first cried their eyes out hearing all the stories. My mom would think I was lying, and I wasn't lying, she poured liquid soap down my throat till I threw up, and I wasn't lying. 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.

• 9:50Tony Robbins?

  So I could've been messed up for life, but I didn't. Cuz something inside me says, "I'm responsible for this life," and part of that's cuz I started reading, when I was thirteen, fourteen, biographies of people, the greatest people in history, and reading their lives and finding out, guess what? Their lives were far from perfect, some of them had worse lives than I had. But when you have no reference, and all you do is go online, you talk to other people, making everybody else toxic, and I'm like this, and they didn't do that, right? Don't be one of those. Free yourself from the chains of your past. 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. If my mother had been the mother I wanted her to be, the mother she should have been,

• 10:35Tony Robbins?

  I would not be the man I'm proud to be today. Because I had to become a practical psychologist way before any schooling. Figure out, when's she gonna go in a mood? How do I change her state? How to protect her from the kids? What do we... I mean, it was felt life and death, and it was to some extent. So I developed skills at such a young age. 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. And thank God for her. And she encouraged me in so many ways. She did so many great things. And she loved me, even though it didn't look like it at times. Correct. 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.

• 11:20Tony Robbins?

  And right now, you don't have any muscle because you're using that as an excuse if you're thinking that. And I'm not attacking you, brothers and sisters. I'm calling to you because I know you're more. Otherwise, I'd just keep my mouth shut. We're just, you've been hypnotized by a culture of weakness. Now, having said that, I'll say one last thing. I know you have a lot of other questions, but it's so important what you ask.

• 11:39Tony Robbins?

  Yes, there are people that you don't want to hang out with that will not serve you. But then move on. Don't sit there and talk about it constantly. Don't waste your time. And you say, but what if it's family, Tony? Mine was family too. That's God coming to you saying, grow. You need some spiritual growth. There's gotta be some change in your perception, your belief, your emotions, your spiritual look of life. So that can't happen anymore. And when it happens, like at 61, I've been through so many of those things. And I like do things in mass. I took on big challenges, so I'd have to grow more. But then life throws them at you too. When they come, you just go, okay, it's gonna have me until I grow. What needs a shift in me so that no longer has an impact?

• 12:22Tony Robbins?

  But you know, Jim Rohn used to say, my original teacher, he used to say, Tony, what happens if I've got... A cup of coffee here and he'd say, what if your worst enemy drops sugar in your coffee? What's gonna happen? And I'd go, well, you'd have sweet coffee. And he goes, what if your best friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your loved one drops one drop of strychnine? I said, you'd be dead. He goes, that's right. Life is the most sugar in strychnine, so watch your coffee. His whole thing was stand guard at the door of your brain. But some people take that and go, oh, my God, you can kill me. It was a metaphor. These people are not so toxic. They're toxic because you give them energy. So if your mom's crazy and constantly criticizing you and it drives you nuts, just go, that's my mom. That's her way of showing love and I find a new perspective. And no matter what she does, just stay in a beautiful state and love on her and think,

• 13:07Tony Robbins?

  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. And think, I don't have to go through this. I can love her. It's like your growth is the only limit to your happiness. If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually it's a place where you're blaming, you're pointing the finger. I don't care if it's government, don't get me wrong. People can be unfair, unjust, that's for sure happens. But you can't control that. You can't make it not happen. What you have to do is become stronger than any of it. So you're free. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from control. Because control's an illusion. You can't control everybody, no matter how hard you try. You can't control what they think or feel.

• 13:51Tony Robbins?

  And not everybody's gonna be fair and just. And you, my dear friends, and I have not always been fair and just. Whether we admit it or not, it's just the nature of being a being, a human being. But we can make the largest pattern fair and just and loving and powerful and serving and growing until it becomes the dominant thing inside you. And then you experience life as being great, not you're great. Life's great because you're living a great path.

• 14:16Lewis Howes?

  It seems like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year, everything has fallen apart for them. Their health, their relationships, their finances, their mission or purpose. And these, their spiritual awareness, like every area of life has been in breakdown mode for, for some people, not everyone. Some people have had incredible lives and it was stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things. But I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas. Hypothetical scenario, let's say you could only focus on one thing to get you started. You only had the time and energy to focus on one of these areas. Your health, your relationships are all breaking down, your finances are failing, failing everywhere.

• 14:57Lewis Howes?

  Where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?

• 15:03Tony Robbins?

  I think before you answer what to do, you gotta answer while you're there.

• 15:08Tony Robbins?

  It is not because of the pandemic. I remember when 9/11 happened and people tell, "Oh my God, my life was destroyed because of 9/11." And there were people in the same building who turned their life around, became, grew spiritually, grew closer to their family, made their businesses larger. And the same building burned down, right? I know in my case, you know, 9/11 comes, if you can imagine, you know, I'm fortunate enough to have now more than 80 companies in all these different industries. And obviously, you know, I've done pretty darned well by most people's standards of business and life. But my core mission is what I do for a living. It's why I'm here, it's what I'm talking to you right now. It's getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have. I know they desire, but I also believe they deserve to have.

• 15:51Tony Robbins?

  But to deserve to have it, you gotta do certain things, right? Blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life. Blame is not a strategy for greatness. So you gotta resolve that, number one. And then your question was, what's the one thing to focus on if you only focus on one? I think it's smart to focus on one thing primarily. Focus on too many can be overwhelming. Other people, it's good to focus on multiple things. It depends on your personality. So I wouldn't presuppose. But then the answer would be whichever thing you're most desirous of changing. Whatever thing is giving you the most pain. So if it's your relationship, I'd go full force on that. Now, in the world we're in today, you know, you don't usually have the privilege of going, "Okay, I want to work on just being happy." Well, I can train to be happy while hell's breaking loose.

• 16:35Tony Robbins?

  You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric. But if you do that in a Western culture, people come and take your furniture, right? So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side. I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which area, is to start with the body. And I know you can relate to this, Lewis, because you and I both share this in common. It's like, I always teach physiology first, as you well know. If you change the body, you'll change the emotions. If you change the emotions, you'll change your decisions, you'll change the quality of your life. Because the quality of your life is your emotions. It's not what you get, and you have a billion dollars and commit suicide. People have done it. Right? You can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide. You can have people loving you and be sad all the time.

• 17:18Tony Robbins?

  Our pattern of emotion is our home. And you have to upgrade your home. You have to train it. And one way to train it is the emotion comes from the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you speak. So if I said to your listeners, uh, there's a depressed person behind the curtain over here, and I'll give a hundred thousand dollars to their favorite charity if they had to describe their body, their posture, and they're depressed. You tell me. I'll just use the example. What's that person look like?

• 17:45Lewis Howes?

  They're slunched down, they're looking down at their feet, they're not looking upward, their shoulders are over, they're...

• 17:51Tony Robbins?

  Are they breathing full or shallow, do you think?

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  They're shallow.

• 17:54Tony Robbins?

  Are they talking fast or slow?

• 17:57Lewis Howes?

  They're talking... If they're depressed, they're probably talking fast because they're not calm.

• 18:02Tony Robbins?

  Well, no, that's usually stressed. Depressed is different than stressed.

• 18:05Lewis Howes?

  They're probably talking low volume, slower than...

• 18:10Tony Robbins?

  And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed. And in a depressed state, you won't do anything. When I used to be depressed, and I don't get it anymore, I just took it out of my life. I even took the language of it out of my life. Because the words you create, create a biochemical response. I got out of it by using anger originally. I'm much like, sometimes if somebody's really sad or depressed, I'll make them angry. People are like, "What's he doing to make him angry?" Because angry is much more resourceful than depressed. From anger, I can get you the laughter, I can get you the taking action. So, and then gradually, I got where I didn't need anger. It was about growth, it was about contribution, it was about meaning. So there's like stages to go through. But to answer your question, they should work on both their business side of their life and personal, one of each. And in order for either one of those to work, you need to be in a strong emotional state.

• 18:54Tony Robbins?

  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 by feeding my mind, right? So there's certain things you gotta do physically. So you're strong enough to remember the truth. Because remember, fear is physical. You feel your throat or your gut. So is courage. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're strong enough, you push through in spite of the fear, right? And courage feels different in the body. 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, you 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. But then the other thing I have to say is, model someone who's successful. Find somebody who has what you want. Ideally, maybe more than one person, two or three. And figure out what are they doing different than you in their relationship?

• 19:40Tony Robbins?

  What do they believe different than you about relationship? If it's their body, what are they doing different? They're not lucky. They're doing things differently. You might be slightly biochemically different, but there's patterns there that you can see. And so instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades, you may never learn. Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man. Find someone's got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it. And that's the pathway to speed of transformation. So now, like, you know, I've done it. I'm not the only person. 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.

• 20:19Daymond John?

  Life is a series of mentors. I went on from there and, you know, I had one great teacher. And that's all you need is one really great teacher in school that makes you feel really special. And then I had a mentor who owned a corner store in my neighborhood. And he would teach me and explain to me, you know, his business tactics. And then my mother ended up having a boyfriend, who I call my stepfather, who was actually of the Jewish faith. And, you know, he taught me that love doesn't come in a color or a gender and that, you know, for me to be very proud of my culture, but don't be anti anything else and respect everybody. So I think that gave me a broader look at life. And I never walked in a room with a chip on my shoulder.

• 21:04Daymond John?

  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, you know, to be the man that I am. And I'm very happy of those experiences.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And what got you into or being interested into the fashion world, into clothing world?

• 21:25Daymond John?

  Well, it was this new music that was coming out of the Bronx right around 1982, 83. It was called, you know, rap music. And it made its way into Queens where I lived. And his music was amazing, it was fascinating. And before that, I would listen to music, you know, great, great people, like, of course, you know, rest in peace David Bowie and, and Rolling Stones, and Donna Summer, Stevie Wonder, Barry White. But all these people had this beautiful way of singing, they had this orchestra and everything else. And they, they touched on some of the political issues in the world, but this music that was coming out of the Bronx, named rap, it was kinda like our version of Twitter today, I always say. It was like a disruptive technology because I started

• 22:10Daymond John?

  to hear about other kids, their hopes and their dreams, their aspirations, their plight, so the neighborhood, things that I wouldn't be able to see on the news. 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, to listen to music, but a way to walk, talk, and even dress.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Daymond John?

  And you felt like you were part of this society if you wore your Adidas with fat laces on, or you knew how to break dance. And, and, and that's where I started to find my identity as a young man. So, that, that's really where fashion started.

• 22:41Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 22:42Daymond John?

  Um, with me. 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, uh, that we love.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 22:56Daymond John?

  I tried everything else.

• 22:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:58Daymond John?

  But I never thought about fashion. It's kinda like, you know, you bust your butt to go and, and, and work and make a living, and then you go out and on the weekends, you kinda snowboard and do all stuff like that, but you never thought about busting your butt, building snowboarding, or, or, or, yeah, or snowboarding and making money.

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Like Rob Deere Deck, your buddy, Rob Deere Deck.

• 23:17Daymond John?

  Exactly. Rob's, yeah, Rob's in the book as well, of course.

• 23:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's interesting. So how old were you when you sold your first article of clothing?

• 23:27Daymond John?

  How old was I? Um, how old was I? It was, I, I, I know the day, I know exactly the day. It was 1989, Good Friday, 3 o'clock in the afternoon, 37 degrees outside, I was still outside the Coliseum Mall. In nineteen eighty-nine, so I was twenty years old.

• 23:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 23:43Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Lewis Howes?

  Cool, twenty years old.

• 23:44Daymond John?

  Twenty years old.

• 23:45Lewis Howes?

  When did you have, uh, how old were you when you said you had the passion for?

• 23:48Daymond John?

  I had the passion at ten, eleven, twelve. 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 we didn't, you know, not, really when I was four, five, or six, because we didn't have money, enough money to go buy clothes, so she would sew them.

• 24:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 24:04Daymond John?

  Yeah, something out of the pocket would be hanging up in the back somewhere, but it was okay.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  So what gave you, what, 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? What gave you that, you know, belief in yourself that you could create this?

• 24:19Daymond John?

  I, I, you know what, again, like, like, most of us start, there was no belief that I could do it, but I remember walking into a store, and, um, I started to see cross colors everywhere, and I walked in the store and I saw this picture of this guy who like, looked like a young Mike Tyson, hanging off a pair of jeans, and it was, uh, Caucanai. And then it just hit me. I thought prior to that, we always thought that you had to be from Italy and France to design. You had to be older and like, uh, you know, you know, the, the guys with the, with the tape around their neck, you know, the, the tailors, right? And so, or, or whatever the fashion designer had looked like in those days. And I thought I just, I'm just supposed to buy from them. When I saw that, I was like, wow, that's amazing. Okay, no problem.

• 25:04Daymond John?

  Uh, then I'm watching a De La Soul video, I remember, and seeing them wearing these hats. It almost looked like a ski cap, but it has like a tie on the top, and I couldn't find that hat, uh, anywhere in Queens. I finally find one uptown Manhattan. I, I pay for the, the hat. I come home, I show my mother, I say, "Look, Ma, I, you know, I, I, I paid, uh, you know, I always say a joke, I paid 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." But I could, "Damon, I could show you how to sew hats like that, so you can sew as many as you want, so you can wear them. You don't have to do that. So, go get forty dollars worth of fabric." I go to the store, get forty dollars worth of fabric. I come home, I give my mother the, the, the stuff, the, to sew the hats, and she says, "I'm not sewing this. You're sewing this. I sew. Crap, now I gotta work at this." I sew the hats, and then all of a sudden...

• 25:49Daymond John?

  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 uh forty dollars worth of different fabric. Forty dollars worth of the same fabric.

• 26:02Lewis Howes?

  One maybe every three years.

• 26:03Daymond John?

  Yeah, so, so anyway, so that's when it happened, that's when I went out and sold those hats in the outside on that Good Friday and I sold eight hundred dollars of worth of hats in one hour. 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 color creed or whatever the case is, I'm responsible for what's happening here. And I will either fail because every decision I make, I'll succeed because every decision I make.

• 26:38Lewis Howes?

  Was that the first time that you made money on your own as an entrepreneur or were you?

• 26:42Daymond John?

  No, no, no, no, I made money on my own and lost money on my own as an entrepreneur, you know, I started my first business. It took me a long time to really decide what I want to do and what was my first business, it took me forever to decide my first business. My first business, I finally decided what I wanted to do when I was six years old.

• 27:01Daymond John?

  I was selling pencils in, in school.

• 27:03Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 27:04Daymond John?

  Uh, and then I would, then I would go ahead and, and, and sell candy and then when I, when, when, when it snowed, I would shovel snow in the winter. Rake leaves in the, in the fall and, 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, you know, everybody in the blocks that I wanted to, I would travel about three miles and, and take care of it, kids would want to help me, so I would tell them, okay, no problem, here's what you're gonna do, if you're gonna help me, I'm gonna let you work, I'm gonna give you a couple. Let's split the money with you, but you gotta do a, 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 in the block, if you shove, if they shove your snow, they're showing you three dollars.

• 27:46Daymond John?

  If I shovel your snow three times during the, the winter, I'm gonna give you a, a, a free spring cleanup. So I was leveraging all those little guys in the neighborhood.

• 27:55Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 27:56Daymond John?

  Ah, man, that was a great business.

• 27:59Lewis Howes?

  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? 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 it?

• 28:19Daymond John?

  Like anything in business, it was always a dry spell here, a dry spell there. But in all reality, you know, my friends and I, we love selling the hats. Why? Because there was a reason to talk to girls on the street.

• 28:31Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 28:32Daymond John?

  Right?

• 28:32Lewis Howes?

  That's why we do a lot of things.

• 28:33Daymond John?

  Of course we do it. Everything, right? If we didn't have women in the world, we'd all be walking around barefoot and just, you know, no teeth, right?

• 28:39Lewis Howes?

  Exactly.

• 28:41Daymond John?

  Then I would start going to the black expos where there was like a basically market on the road. And I would try to sell shirts there. Why? Because girls were there.

• 28:49Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 28:50Daymond John?

  But also, we started, we were really passionate about what we were doing. And, 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. I'd go, wow.

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  That's pretty cool.

• 29:05Daymond John?

  And that's when they came back and started saying, man, you know, I tell everybody about this shirt and they asked before, so I need to buy three now because I got a vibe for everybody. And we started saying, wow. Right? And it just became so exciting. I, I would have normally paid to go to the black expo.

• 29:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 29:21Daymond John?

  To go around and buy stuff or see stuff. And then, you know, we happen to live in Hollis, Queens. There's a lot of music artists in Hollis, Queens, you know, obviously, Salt and Pepper, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Tribe Called Quest, a lot of them come from there. We didn't really know them, but we knew all their friends. But then all of a sudden, we heard, we were saying, well, can we get something in a video? And they would go, yeah, come on down. We'd go down to the video and there's craft services. It's free to eat as much food as you want. You get to see somebody like LL Cool J performing a song. There's video vixens running around.

• 29:52Lewis Howes?

  Girls everywhere.

• 29:52Daymond John?

  I would have paid to go there. Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead, put on a shirt. And you put on a shirt and then I'd say, man, I don't have any money to, I have a small company, so I really can't afford to lose that shirt. Can I have it back?

• 30:04Lewis Howes?

  Really? Sounds like, you know, what you did. When was this? What, what year was?

• 30:08Daymond John?

  This was, well, honestly, I opened Food One 89. I closed it three, three times because I, I ran out of capital from 89 to 92. So the story really goes from 89 to around 96.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. So 20 years ago, you were essentially the true, uh...

• 30:27Lewis Howes?

  Branding expert who was leveraging the Instagram influencers of today. You were leveraging the, you know, music stars, the MTV stars.

• 30:35Daymond John?

  Yes.

• 30:36Lewis Howes?

  And getting that social media out there on MTV.

• 30:38Daymond John?

  Sure.

• 30:38Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to on Instagram, which is what brands are doing today. They're trying to find the top influencers and get their clothing on them.

• 30:45Daymond John?

  Yeah, we always call FUBU the first hashtag of clothing, you know.

• 30:48Lewis Howes?

  There you go. I like it. I like it. What was, what would you say was the biggest challenge, um, once you started to really take off and grow?

• 30:55Daymond John?

  Yeah.

• 30:55Lewis Howes?

  Um, 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?

• 31:04Daymond John?

  Scalability was very hard because it was how do I go and finance and, and, and underwrite, you know, these things, you know, where, where will I get the capital? How, what's the turnaround time? And I didn't have any financial intelligence at the time.

• 31:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:18Daymond John?

  So, you know, my journey.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  Sell and you could hustle and promote.

• 31:22Daymond John?

  I could sell like a hustle, but you know, my journey, I, I, I almost failed or in lost everything several times, uh, throughout that journey because I just didn't know how to use the tool of money.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Daymond John?

  And, um, and, and it's so hard to try to acquire all that knowledge within the same time. How do I acquire the knowledge of branding, marketing, distribution, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, financial intelligence, customer support, you know, return on goods, you know, consumption, you know what I mean? It's so hard. So, of course I had to start leveraging as well and creating a bunch of strategic relationships because I knew I needed that. I knew I needed that because, you know, listen, you know, when you tell somebody to stop smoking, you know, a couple of times and, and, and after the 10th time, they know they're, they already have a problem with smoking. They don't want to listen to you. Listen, forget it. I'm not even going to address it. I'm going to start smoking. When you have a business, you have to answer the call or you're closed.

• 32:18Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:18Daymond John?

  Right? So you have to plug the dam. And I knew I had to plug the dam. So I started just creating a lot of strategic relationships and that's actually the power of broke. Because it is the fact that, you know, if I would have had money. When I went to those video sets, I would have paid the director, I would have paid the producer, I would have paid the rapper, everybody else, right? 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. Of course. Right? And they're gonna wear it. But I got into 30, 40 videos with $0, right? Because I had no way to do it and I had nothing to lose. You couldn't take anything from me. I didn't have anything.

• 33:03Daymond John?

  Yeah, exactly. Right? So, so... You couldn't even give me your shirt. Right. You took it back. I took it back. You know, when you have, when you, when you, when you're working with The Power of Broke, it does a couple of things. Number one, it makes sure that you learn the process yourself. You can't afford to hire anybody else. So, all those people out there who, who pay $40,000 for a website when it really costs five, right? Or you can leverage it by bartering or something. Whatever the case is, right? So, you have to learn the process. 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. You can't have somebody say, "Well, I'm not gonna tell you about shipping because, you know,

• 33:48Daymond John?

  you're firing me and I gotta go work it out yourself." You, you know, you, you, you get and you learn the process, number one. Number two is, because you don't have a lot of capital, you focus on the only thing that you can do. You don't drown an opportunity. You don't take a bunch of money and go, "Huh, we should try a bunch of stuff." Here you go. Here's $10,000, here's $10,000, here's $10,000, here's $10,000, here. Go. Yeah, you go, "All right, what are we gonna do with this hat right now?" 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?

• 34:32Daymond John?

  Well, if you, if you, if you're busy, "Let's open a business today. Let's go take a $10,000, let's go take a $100,000 loan." Well... What happens when the money goes away? Because when I didn't have anything, people worked with me for free. And I saw who rose to the challenge. I saw who jumped ship, right? I saw who were problem solvers and problem creators. And that's the process of activating the power broke. Because to tell you the truth, the people who activate the power broke more than anybody else are the people who are successful. Because that's how they stay successful.

• 35:08Lewis Howes?

  Can you share how it all started? So we have an understanding of what it is and how you got into it.

• 35:12Sara Blakely?

  Absolutely. It actually started with my own butt because I couldn't figure out what to wear under white pants. And I'm sure you've had this problem when you're getting dressed.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  All the time.

• 35:22Sara Blakely?

  So what ended up happening was there was, you know, our undergarment options were no good. There was underwear that left a panty line. And then there was the girdle that was way too thick and heavy. And so then they came out with the thong, which just put underwear exactly where we've been trying to get it out of.

• 35:38Lewis Howes?

  Wedgie.

• 35:40Sara Blakely?

  That did not help at all. And so Spanx was born out of just being a frustrated consumer. I wanted to wear my clothes. I wanted a smooth canvas. I didn't want to see lines or any kind of things going on underneath. 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 and said, no, no, no. I want the hosiery material to actually be what I create the undergarment out of. And it was wild trying to convince the hosiery manufacturers to help me make this product with that in mind. Because for so many years, they'd been using the material to be seen on the leg.

• 36:15Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 36:16Sara Blakely?

  And I said, no, it's just, it's the perfect material to create the perfect canvas for women under our clothes. And it opened up my wardrobe. It opened up so many other women's wardrobe. We could start wearing colors we didn't feel comfortable wearing. And the models get airbrushed. We get Spanx.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  There you go. There you go. I love it. And when was this? What year was this?

• 36:35Sara Blakely?

  This was in, well, I cut the feet out of my pantyhose in 1998.

• 36:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 36:41Sara Blakely?

  Yes. I was 27.

• 36:43Lewis Howes?

  18 years ago? Am I doing my math right?

• 36:44Sara Blakely?

  Yes. I was 27. And then I spent the next two years getting it made. I worked at night and on the weekends on the idea while I was selling fax machines door to door. And then the company was launched in 2000 when I was 29.

• 36:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 37:00Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  Selling fax machines door to door, where were you living?

• 37:03Sara Blakely?

  In Clearwater, Florida.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 37:05Sara Blakely?

  Where I grew up.

• 37:06Lewis Howes?

  Fax machines.

• 37:07Sara Blakely?

  On Clearwater Beach.

• 37:07Lewis Howes?

  Are there even fax machines anymore around?

• 37:09Sara Blakely?

  No, I mean, thank God I'm not still doing that. I don't know what would have happened. There are no more fax machines.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Just like no one watches the movie Airplane anymore?

• 37:17Sara Blakely?

  I cannot believe, I need to know, is, is he the only one on the planet who's not seen the movie Airplane? I was quoting Airplane, as soon as I put the headset on, I'm like, Stryker, you're too low. You're too low, and you just stared at me like, what is she talking about? That's okay.

• 37:32Lewis Howes?

  So, how long were you selling the fax machines?

• 37:34Sara Blakely?

  I sold the fax machines door to door for seven years.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  Seven years?

• 37:37Sara Blakely?

  Yes, I know. And before that, I wanted to be a lawyer, but I failed the LSAT, not once, but twice, and...

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  You wanted to be a lawyer, that was your dream?

• 37:46Sara Blakely?

  I wanted to be a lawyer. I was like, I'm gonna be a lawyer, but...

• 37:49Lewis Howes?

  So you wanted to be a lawyer, but it didn't work out?

• 37:50Sara Blakely?

  I wanted to be a lawyer, I failed the LSAT, not once, twice. So then, instead of going to law school, I drove to Disney World and tried out to be goofy, but you have to be five eight.

• 37:59Lewis Howes?

  And you're five six.

• 38:00Sara Blakely?

  And I'm five six.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  So you didn't wear heels?

• 38:02Sara Blakely?

  No, I didn't wear heels.

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Come on, Sarah.

• 38:04Sara Blakely?

  I didn't wear heels, and so I was the height of a chipmunk.

• 38:08Lewis Howes?

  So you got the chipmunk?

• 38:09Sara Blakely?

  I got the chipmunk part, but I didn't end up doing it. I put people on rides in a brown polyester spacesuit at the World of Motion and Horizons at Epcot.

• 38:18Lewis Howes?

  Epcot Center.

• 38:19Sara Blakely?

  And I would see people that I hadn't seen in a while, and...

• 38:22Lewis Howes?

  Come through?

• 38:22Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, I'm walking on the movie sidewalk, putting people on rides, and they'd go, hey, Blakely, is that you? Didn't you graduate from college? And my big Mickey Mouse ears said, Sarah Blakely, and I'd be like, yes, get on the ride.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Oh my gosh.

• 38:34Sara Blakely?

  But that's what I did, and then I sold fax machines door to door for seven years.

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  That is crazy.

• 38:37Sara Blakely?

  Seven years.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  Did you wake up every morning and say, this is my dream to sell fax machines door to door, or were you thinking?

• 38:44Sara Blakely?

  No.

• 38:44Lewis Howes?

  What am I doing in my life?

• 38:45Sara Blakely?

  Exactly. 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. It started when I was selling fax machines door to door, and getting my car, business card ripped up in my face, being escorted out of buildings all day, every day. Then I woke up one day and just thought... I'm in the wrong movie. Like, how did this happen? This is not my life.

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Sara Blakely?

  Cut scene, director, like, call the producer. And I got out a piece of paper and I wrote down, what am I good at? And the only thing in the good column was sales. And I thought, okay, what am I gonna do with that? 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. And then I asked the universe for an idea. And I was very specific. And it took two years. And I only cut the feet out of my pantyhose one time. And I was not gonna squander any idea the universe gave me because I had really asked for it. And then the minute I cut the feet out, I started trying to make it. I started looking up manufacturers on the internet.

• 39:47Lewis Howes?

  This was before Alibaba, wasn't it?

• 39:49Sara Blakely?

  Yes.

• 39:50Lewis Howes?

  Cause I had done this, I did this about eight years ago and I used Alibaba for something and it was easy to find like a manufacturer in China and

• 39:56Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  Test different things. But how did you find a manufacturer at that time?

• 39:59Sara Blakely?

  A website called Thomas Registry.

• 40:01Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 40:02Sara Blakely?

  Dot com. And it lists all the manufacturers in the country, based on category. And that's when I found out that a lot of hosiery and undergarments were being made in North Carolina.

• 40:11Lewis Howes?

  Oh, really?

• 40:12Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Lewis Howes?

  Oh, so you got a local?

• 40:13Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, so.

• 40:14Lewis Howes?

  I mean, US, yeah.

• 40:15Sara Blakely?

  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. So I took a week off of work and drove around in person.

• 40:25Lewis Howes?

  And just showed up and said,

• 40:26Sara Blakely?

  I just showed up.

• 40:26Lewis Howes?

  Hey, I wanna create a sample.

• 40:28Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 40:28Lewis Howes?

  Cause if they weren't gonna get a big order for something, they're probably like, what's, Oh, please. I gotta do a little sample for you.

• 40:33Sara Blakely?

  Right.

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  Right, yeah.

• 40:34Sara Blakely?

  I showed up with my lucky red backpack from college, it's always with me.

• 40:37Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man, you still have it?

• 40:38Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, of course. And

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  You didn't bring it here? Come on.

• 40:42Sara Blakely?

  It's with me, it's with me in LA, yeah.

• 40:44Lewis Howes?

  Oh, wow.

• 40:45Sara Blakely?

  Yeah. So, um, anyway, I went into the hosi- the manufacturing plants and they asked me the same three questions. And you are, let's say, Sarah Blakely? And you're with?

• 40:56Lewis Howes?

  Uh, myself.

• 40:57Sara Blakely?

  Sarah Blakely? And you're financially backed by? And I was like, Sarah Blakely? So, you can imagine how those went. It was like, well, have a nice day, honey, and good luck. And, um,

• 41:09Sara Blakely?

  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.

• 41:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 41:17Sara Blakely?

  And said, Sarah, I've decided to make your crazy idea.

• 41:21Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:21Sara Blakely?

  I'm gonna ask him why I had the change of heart. He said, I have three daughters.

• 41:26Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, so he ran the idea by them and they're like, Dad, that sounds interesting. You gotta give that girl a chance.

• 41:32Lewis Howes?

  Amazing. So he called you back. You didn't follow up with these people?

• 41:35Sara Blakely?

  Oh, yeah, I was following up, but to no avail.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  But he he followed up and said, we'll give it a shot. We'll make this. So what was the next step? Was he just making a sample for you or testing different models or sizes or?

• 41:46Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, so um, 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.

• 42:08Lewis Howes?

  Driving to North Carolina from Florida.

• 42:09Sara Blakely?

  No, from Atlanta. I was living in Atlanta at the time.

• 42:12Lewis Howes?

  What's that about? Eight hour drive, six hour drive?

• 42:14Sara Blakely?

  Um, about four and a half, five. Yeah, it's not bad. And so anyway, um, Ted Ted became my buddy and I went to get it patented, but all the patent lawyers wanted between three and five thousand dollars and I had five thousand dollars set aside to do this.

• 42:29Lewis Howes?

  That's it, yeah.

• 42:30Sara Blakely?

  So I wrote my own patent. I went to Barnes and Noble and I bought a book called Patents and Trademarks. And I wrote the patent 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? I've done all the other rest of the patent.

• 42:48Lewis Howes?

  The legwork you'd done. You just kinda needed to button it up and.

• 42:51Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, he needed to do the legal part. And so he did. He actually admitted to me that when I came to visit him, he thought I'd been sent by Candid Camera, which let me put it in your words.

• 43:01Lewis Howes?

  I know Candid Camera. I know.

• 43:02Sara Blakely?

  He thought he was being punked.

• 43:03Lewis Howes?

  Of course, of course. Wow.

• 43:06Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, he thought he was being punked, okay? And he thought.

• 43:10Lewis Howes?

  Where's Ashton? Where's Ashton?

• 43:11Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, exactly. He thought that his friends were playing a joke on him.

• 43:16Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 43:16Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, he goes.

• 43:17Lewis Howes?

  Who's this girl?

• 43:18Sara Blakely?

  Sarah, 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, in rental cars on the back of like Avis agreements. And um, you want to hear how bad the runner up name to Spanx was?

• 43:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Sara Blakely?

  Open Toad Delilah's.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 43:42Sara Blakely?

  Yes.

• 43:42Lewis Howes?

  I cannot believe that was even an option.

• 43:44Sara Blakely?

  It was, it was a runner up. Like how bad is that?

• 43:46Lewis Howes?

  Open Toad Delilah?

• 43:48Sara Blakely?

  I so wouldn't be sitting here with you right now if I named it that.

• 43:51Lewis Howes?

  That is the horrible, yeah.

• 43:52Sara Blakely?

  It's so bad.

• 43:53Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 43:54Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, so anyway, okay, so.

• 43:55Lewis Howes?

  What's Spang stand for?

• 43:56Sara Blakely?

  Well, it's all about the butt. It makes your mind wander a little bit. Nobody ever forgets it. I had no money to advertise. It was risky. It was fun. At the time, listen, now it's become a household name, but when I first invented it, I would call people and say, hi, I'm Sarah from Spang, and they would hang up.

• 44:11Lewis Howes?

  Right, because it was probably like a porn name.

• 44:12Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, they thought I was pranking them. I'm called, I'm like, no, really? I'm Sarah and my company really is called Spang. And I had department stores across the country that wouldn't sell it. They thought it was too risque of a name. Yep. And my mom sent her whole lunch into the wrong website when I first started. I was like, mom, it's with an X.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  Oh my god.

• 44:32Sara Blakely?

  It's super important. It's with an X. So, yeah, anyway, I ended up buying the word Spang from a man who said he was holding out from the porn industry. Funny enough that you say that.

• 44:43Lewis Howes?

  I bet, yeah.

• 44:44Sara Blakely?

  I paid.

• 44:45Lewis Howes?

  Spang with an X.

• 44:46Sara Blakely?

  I paid some money for that. But, um, anyway, yes. So.

• 44:51Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 44:51Sara Blakely?

  Named it Spang. It came to me because I narrowed down my thinking. I knew that Kodak and Coca-Cola were the two most recognized names in the world at the time. And I thought, what do they have in common? I like to think about words and phrases a lot. They both had a strong K sound in them. 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. 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 Spang came across my dashboard in my car in my mind, and I pulled off the side of the road. I wrote it down. I went home that night. I typed it in my computer for a hundred and fifty dollars with my credit card.

• 45:36Sara Blakely?

  And at the last second, I backspaced the K and the S and put in an X and hit send.

• 45:41Lewis Howes?

  So it was accident? Kind of with the X?

• 45:43Sara Blakely?

  No, I, no, I.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  You backspaced, catch me.

• 45:45Sara Blakely?

  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.

• 45:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:53Sara Blakely?

  So then, then I had the name and I had the, the, the, um, 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. I said, okay, no problem. We'll call Ted. So I get Ted on the phone. I'm like, Ted, can you talk to-

• 46:11Lewis Howes?

  The manufacturer.

• 46:13Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, like in the back, in the back. I'm like, Ted, can you talk to my patent lawyer? He's like, yeah. So we're all talking and he goes, I go, can you tell him what's in it? He's like, yeah, well, it's 70% nylon and 30% lacquer. And I'm like, all right. And so I'm taking notes. My patent lawyer's taking notes. And that night I could not sleep. I'm up all night. And the next morning I wake up, I'm like, how is there lacquer in this product?

• 46:36Lewis Howes?

  What is lacquer? Just so I'm aware of-

• 46:38Sara Blakely?

  I think it's like paint thinner or something.

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 46:40Sara Blakely?

  So I called-

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  30% paint thinner?

• 46:42Sara Blakely?

  So I called Ted. I go, Ted, can you spell lacquer? He's like, yeah, L Y C R A. I'm like, oh my God, Lycra.

• 46:52Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, yeah. I was like-

• 46:53Sara Blakely?

  Got it. Do an all change on lacquer immediately.

• 46:57Lewis Howes?

  All change.

• 46:58Sara Blakely?

  My patent lawyer was laughing. He's like, you know how fast you would have gotten a patent if you, um-

• 47:03Lewis Howes?

  Would make paint?

• 47:03Sara Blakely?

  Tried to make this out of paint thinner? He's like, they would be like, sure.

• 47:07Lewis Howes?

  So was it challenging to get it? Did you get it the first try?

• 47:10Sara Blakely?

  The patent? I did.

• 47:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Usually it takes a few turns, doesn't it?

• 47:13Sara Blakely?

  I got the patent the first try and I got the, um, trademark name Spanx.

• 47:18Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 47:19Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  So it didn't seem like there was that many challenges. Once you submitted it or whatever, you kind of got the things you needed in place. You got the, the orders in. Was, was there a lot of challenges after that? Once you got the patent, the trademark?

• 47:32Sara Blakely?

  That was a really hard part. It's just, I heard the word no for two years. Yeah, all the manufacturers, nobody thought it was a good idea.

• 47:38Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:39Sara Blakely?

  And, um, 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.

• 47:51Lewis Howes?

  Unless you're gonna give them a bunch of money for a big order of something. It's like, what's the point?

• 47:54Sara Blakely?

  Right. So that was the hard part. And then once I had it, I cold called Neiman Marcus. And that was the first account I called on.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  Did you get it?

• 48:02Sara Blakely?

  Yes.

• 48:03Lewis Howes?

  Well, you were great at sales. So you could sell it.

• 48:06Sara Blakely?

  I was so excited. It was my moment. I flew to Dallas. I called them and said, if you give me 10 minutes of your time, I'll come and meet with you. And she said, all right.

• 48:14Lewis Howes?

  This is the buyer?

• 48:15Sara Blakely?

  Yep, the buyer. I first called the Atlanta store. They're like, girl, um, we can't help you. We have a buying office. I'm like, well, where is that? Give me their number.

• 48:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, wow.

• 48:23Sara Blakely?

  And, um- I went in and halfway through my pitch, I could tell I was losing her. So I said, you know what? Will you please come to the bathroom with me? And she was like so buttoned up. I mean, Neiman Marcus, like her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes. And she was like, what?

• 48:38Lewis Howes?

  Like, what am I gonna do in the bathroom?

• 48:39Sara Blakely?

  I was like, just follow me to the bathroom and show you my own panty line. And I went in the stall with Spanx in my pants and without it in my pants. And she was like, oh, I totally get it. It's awesome. And I'm gonna put it in seven stores.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:52Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 48:53Lewis Howes?

  I mean, just like that?

• 48:54Sara Blakely?

  Just like that. It was so unbelievable. I was so nervous. And then, of course, I had to call Sam. I'm like, Sam, in the rental car on the way back to, to, um, to the, um, airport. I called the owner of the manufacturing plant. I'm like, Sam, Sam, it's Sarah. I need more. I just landed Neiman Marcus. And he's like, what? He was in shock. He goes, Sarah, I thought you were gonna give these away as birthday presents for like years. And I said, no, Neiman Marcus just bought it and I need more. And he patched me through to Ted. He goes, okay, you can need to talk to Ted.

• 49:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:22Sara Blakely?

  So Ted comes back in.

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 49:24Sara Blakely?

  He's on the phone. And I go, Ted, I need more. And he goes, I go, I just landed Neiman Marcus. He goes, well, that's great. But what you can do about the crotches?

• 49:32Lewis Howes?

  The crotches?

• 49:33Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, exactly. That's what I said. I go, what? Don't they come with crotches? We've been making them with crotches. He goes, well, yeah, but we only got one crotch machine. It's being used by somebody else.

• 49:42Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 49:43Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 49:44Lewis Howes?

  So what do you do then?

• 49:45Sara Blakely?

  So I just landed Neiman Marcus and I have no crotches.

• 49:47Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh. You got a hole in your crotches?

• 49:50Sara Blakely?

  I don't know where to go for a crotch. Do you, I mean, like, where do you go? I actually looked in the Yellow Pages.

• 49:56Lewis Howes?

  Crotch making machines?

• 49:57Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, I just, I looked up crotch.

• 49:58Lewis Howes?

  Machine.

• 50:00Sara Blakely?

  I looked up crotch.

• 50:01Lewis Howes?

  I don't even know how you spell crotch.

• 50:02Sara Blakely?

  Okay, listen, this is what I learned. I'm gonna teach you something. Okay, so I didn't know this.

• 50:06Lewis Howes?

  What's Yellow Pages again?

• 50:08Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, oh, my God.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  I'm just kidding.

• 50:09Sara Blakely?

  It's a big book. It's yellow. It's what we used to look at. Hilarious. Um, and what's Instagram?

• 50:16Lewis Howes?

  Uh, you just got on it.

• 50:17Sara Blakely?

  Okay, I just joined it seven days ago. All right. So, um, Where was, oh, crotch.

• 50:22Lewis Howes?

  Yes, crotch machine, looked it up.

• 50:24Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, so, anyway, in the Yellow Pages, it's not under crotch. So I learned there's a fancy word for crotch named gusset.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  Gusset?

• 50:31Sara Blakely?

  Yes.

• 50:31Lewis Howes?

  What?

• 50:32Sara Blakely?

  Gusset.

• 50:33Lewis Howes?

  Never heard that word.

• 50:34Sara Blakely?

  So, I started calling gusset companies. They were like FedExing me crotches from all over. My roommate would come home and be like, you got another crotch in the mail. And then I ended up finding a man by the name of Gene Bobo that worked for a crotch company just twenty minutes north of where I lived in Atlanta, and he saved the day. And they made the crotches, and then I could deliver Neiman Marcus.

• 50:54Lewis Howes?

  So you had the leggings, they made the crotches, and then you sewed them together? Is that's how it works?

• 50:58Sara Blakely?

  Yes, apparently, yes.

• 51:00Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, okay. So then you had enough, how many did you print the first time?

• 51:05Sara Blakely?

  Um, three thousand.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  Three thousand?

• 51:06Sara Blakely?

  Three thousand pair of the first Spanx.

• 51:08Lewis Howes?

  One, one, uh, SKU, right?

• 51:11Sara Blakely?

  Yes, one SKU, twenty dollars, one SKU.

• 51:13Lewis Howes?

  Three sizes, or?

• 51:15Sara Blakely?

  Hmm, like four, four sizes, yeah. And...

• 51:18Lewis Howes?

  Three thousand of them?

• 51:19Sara Blakely?

  Yes, and that's what Neiman's ordered. And then I sent them to the, they sent them to the seven stores. I had no packing and shipping department, so the semi trucks were pulling up to my apartment in Atlanta, and I was shipping them myself to Neiman's.

• 51:32Lewis Howes?

  This is amazing.

• 51:33Sara Blakely?

  And, um, then I called every friend I had in those seven cities, like people I hadn't talked to in twenty years.

• 51:38Lewis Howes?

  Say, hey, go buy shoes, yeah, take your girlfriends there.

• 51:41Sara Blakely?

  Hi, Christina, remember me? I used to sit next to you all the time in grade school. Will you please go buy this product called Spanx? I literally called them and I said, and I'll mail you a check. So I paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product.

• 51:55Lewis Howes?

  That is brilliant, actually, to get some movement.

• 51:57Sara Blakely?

  Yeah, I said, go in, I gave him a whole script, I'm like, go in and say, I've been looking for this all my life, I can't believe it's here, and create all this excitement.

• 52:04Lewis Howes?

  This is amazing.

• 52:05Sara Blakely?

  And then, of course, a week later, the Neiman, I talked to the Neiman's buyer, and she's like, Sarah, we are blowing out. I'm like, you don't say.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 52:12Sara Blakely?

  Meanwhile, I was buying them all, yeah.

• 52:13Lewis Howes?

  That's brilliant.

• 52:14Sara Blakely?

  You have to.

• 52:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:16Sara Blakely?

  You have to, you have to ensure your own success.

• 52:19Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely.

• 52:20Sara Blakely?

  So then, once I started running out of money, Oprah called and put it on as her favorite product of the year.

• 52:25Lewis Howes?

  How long was that for? Until, the time was in Neiman Marcus to Oprah calling?

• 52:30Sara Blakely?

  Like a month.

• 52:32Lewis Howes?

  It just happened that quick?

• 52:33Sara Blakely?

  A month or a month and a half.

• 52:34Lewis Howes?

  How did she even hear about it in a month and a half?

• 52:35Sara Blakely?

  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.

• 52:44Lewis Howes?

  Shut up.

• 52:45Sara Blakely?

  I'm not kidding. It was so unbelievable. I had no money to advertise. In the back of my apartment, I was selling fax machines like a month before that. But I have to say, I was working every night and on the weekends for two years quietly trying to get this made.

• 52:57Lewis Howes?

  Building this, yeah.

• 52:58Sara Blakely?

  Building it. I had no option in my mind. I was like, I am scripting a new life for myself and...

• 53:05Lewis Howes?

  Was this movie about you that came out a year ago?

• 53:07Sara Blakely?

  Joy?

• 53:08Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, is that about you?

• 53:09Sara Blakely?

  My dad called me, he goes, Sarah, I just saw a movie. It's basically Your Life, except for the dysfunctional family part.

• 53:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, right.

• 53:15Sara Blakely?

  I was like, yeah, right dad, okay, sure. Yeah, but I could really relate to her.

• 53:19Lewis Howes?

  I'm sure.

• 53:20Sara Blakely?

  All the hustle and, yeah.

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  That's crazy.

• 53:22Sara Blakely?

  But when I got Neiman Marcus, I think a lot of people think that's when you've arrived.

• 53:25Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 53:25Sara Blakely?

  That's when I double timed. I mean, I, 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, Saks, Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's. 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, you know, eight hours a day and tell customers what it was. Cause I didn't have any money, 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...

• 54:03Lewis Howes?

  Ambassadors.

• 54:04Sara Blakely?

  Ambassadors. And they were rooting for me and they loved the product. And so, that was a really important part of the formula. And then I had learned what my next products were gonna be, because I was standing right there with customers and all these...

• 54:17Lewis Howes?

  Let's say what they need, what their challenge is. I can't do this, blah blah blah.

• 54:20Sara Blakely?

  They told me what they wanted.

• 54:21Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 54:22Sara Blakely?

  Yeah.

• 54:22Lewis Howes?

  I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels, at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter

• 55:06Lewis Howes?

  and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.