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.
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.
My husband is such a healthy eater. Except when it comes to sweets. He never consumes anything except fruit until noon. And then from noon on he might have some brown rice and some tofu, and then, come eight or nine at night, he orders three mud-pie double-chocolate pieces of cake and eats all three of them.
When I'm bored or tired of being blonde, I'll throw on a wig. It's a lot less of a permanent way to change your look, and I have about 10 - all different colors, shapes, bobs, long hair, short, feathered.
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.
What I most identify with is effortless fashion, looking as if someone's not put a lot of effort into their look.
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.
I'll mix a lot of things. I'll wear a Temperley dress with flip flops, or I might be in head-to-toe Gucci and have on a ring that I got from a gumball machine for 50 cents.
It's really a full-time job to manage our lives.
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.
Don't be intimidated by what you don't know. That can be your greatest strength and ensure that you do things differently from everyone else.
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 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.
My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.
I was trying to convince all these men to try to make a product that they didn't even wear! Or if they did wear them, they were not admitting it! There was the problem right there. No wonder their hosiery was so uncomfortable.
I got a call from the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah had chosen Spanx as one of her favorite products in 2000. I had boxes of product in my apartment and I had two weeks notice that she was going to say she loved it on TV and I had no shipping department.
I cut the feet out of my control top pantyhose to wear under these white pants and that was the ah-ha moment that started Spanx. My own butt was my own inspiration!
I'd get kicked out of buildings all day long, people would rip up my business card in my face. It's a humbling business to be in. But I knew I could sell and I knew I wanted to sell something I had created. I cut the feet out of those pantyhose and I knew I was on to something. This was it.
If we can put a man on the moon, we can make pantyhose comfortable.
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.
