Sara Blakely's Father's Dinner Table Question

✨Key takeaways:

• Embrace failure and extract lessons from it.
• Redefine failure as "not trying."
• Persist even when facing numerous rejections.

Sara Blakely's father instilled in her a unique perspective on failure. Every night at dinner, he'd ask her and her brother, "What did you fail at today?" encouraging them to identify lessons learned. This practice destigmatized failure and nurtured risk-taking. Blakely learned to view failure as "not trying," enabling her to overcome obstacles like manufacturers' rejections, high legal fees, and retailers' resistance. This mindset, coupled with persistence, led her to found Spanx, a billion-dollar company.

Example: Sara Blakely's journey with Spanx illustrates these points. Despite facing numerous setbacks, she persisted. She drafted her own patent agreements, devised a unique brand name for trademarking, and ignored naysayers, ultimately achieving remarkable success.