Sara Blakely & Failing Your Way to a Billion-Dollar Brand

We’re talking about what it really takes to succeed — and why failure is part of the process.

Sara Blakely went from selling fax machines to building Spanx into a billion-dollar brand. Her story is a reminder that rejection and missteps are fuel, not flaws. 💥

We unpack how failing early builds resilience, why perfection is a myth, and how to keep going when the world says no. Plus, her new venture Sneaks is giving “Sneakers meets stiletto” energy 👟✨

Time Stamps:
00:45 Sara Blakely: From Humble Beginnings to Billion-Dollar Empire
01:35 The Importance of Failure in Entrepreneurship
04:41 Sara's Journey: From Disney to Spanx
06:38 The Birth of Spanx: Overcoming Rejection
08:22 Lessons from Sara's Success
17:02 The Role of Failure in Personal Growth
29:42 Innovating Beyond Spanx: New Ventures

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Transcript

Episode 088: Sara Blakely

Michelle Pualani: [00:00:00] When you are innovating, when you are making an impact in the world, when you have created something that has never existed before, it's gonna feel a little scary. It's gonna feel risky, it's gonna feel daunting, or you might just not have the path laid out for you, and that's where that failure and that rejection keeps happening.

But if intuitively you know that this is the path for you, keep going. 

Hello and welcome back to the Her First podcast. Today we are chatting about Sara Blakely. If you do not know the name, you've probably heard the brand. Sara Blakely is the founder of Spanx, and she created over a billion dollar empire based off of. A pantyhose story. So we're gonna get into a little bit of her background, where she started, how she grew, to the point of Spanx evaluation, and then what came after that.

And all along the way, she dealt with failure. And handled it like a [00:01:00] champ and some of the mindset and lessons that she learned from an early age, I think really shaped her perspective of the world and how she was able to continue through rejection, even when the world was telling her no. She kept on going and she made things happen.

Lots of lessons that we can learn from her story we're gonna chat about it today. I'm Michelle, founder of To Be Honest Beverage Company, a non-alcoholic spirit alternative, and a coach and mentor to business owners for where personal development meets personal branding.

Joanna Newton: And I'm Joanna Newton. I'm the co-founder of Millennial Marketer and Agency that helps creators build their own online digital businesses.

Michelle Pualani: So if we're looking at failure, I would say that failure wasn't something that I was exposed to at an early age, and I feel like if I'd encountered more failure, more rejection earlier on in my life, it would've primed me a lot better for my initial years in business.

I feel like I got into business, started experiencing failure and rejection, and took a. Big step back and was [00:02:00] like, whoa, whoa, whoa. What's happening here? This is not normal. I'm used to succeeding. I'm used to being the best. I'm used to showing up and not necessarily getting my way, but having things work out the way that I expect them to.

And so when we launch in the digital space, when we create content, when we put out offers, when we build our businesses. Things don't go as expected as planned, and we encounter failure and rejection along the way. the more and the sooner that we can build that mindset and that ability to handle failure and rejection is critically important for being able to then recover, bounce back, and move forward past it so that you can succeed.

Joanna Newton: Failure is just a necessary point of being an entrepreneur. And even being just a high achieving person, if you are always succeeding at everything that you do, you are not actually stretching yourself. You're not trying things that are taking you to the next level and you're just playing it safe. This is something that I've been actually thinking about a lot recently and, thinking about [00:03:00] how I tend to be the kind of person that when I come into something new, ace it every time and it's probably 'cause I'm not moving fast enough.

I'm not taking bigger risks and I could probably scale faster, build faster, get to that next level that I really wanna be at. If I just. go there and I'm less afraid to fail. you pulled this topic up and I was looking through the outline we were working on and all of that, I was thinking about how fitting this is.

'cause right now I'm in a place where I'm like, I've just gotta go big. I feel like I'm about to blow up. But. I'm holding myself back by playing it safe, not going for the big opportunities, not just acting like I'm already there because I know I can handle failures. I know that if money is tight or something something is lost or something happens, I will be fine.

I can handle it like I always figure it out. So I've just gotta learn how to go for it, no matter what it is.

Michelle Pualani: We all handle different limitations in some way, it can be the fear of success, it can be the fear of failure, and they can be closely linked and tied into one another. So if [00:04:00] you're not pitching yourself to bigger opportunities, if you're not putting the content out there, if you haven't launched that offer that you've been sitting on and thinking about, all of those things are related to this internal narrative and dialogue that you may have going with yourself, conscious or subconscious, about why it's not time.

Why it's not gonna happen just yet, why it's not gonna be successful, why it's gonna fail. You're telling yourself these stories. So we'll weave that into our conversation today and see from a leader, a huge, impactful, powerful woman who has been incredibly successful in her business as she's grown it.

And take some of those lessons and see how we can apply it to our own businesses and the success of what we are doing. So let's get into Sara's. Background. So from the early years from Fax Machine to Founder, So Sara grew up in Clearwater, Florida originally wanted to be a lawyer, but actually didn't do very well on the lsat, which I think is also just an incredible point to make is that we're not always gonna be good at everything, and that's okay.

She might not have [00:05:00] been successful as a lawyer, but she's incredibly successful as a business owner and founder. So maybe you are headed in a direction and think, I'm gonna give this a go. It doesn't really work out for you. Now, of course, don't pivot and change because you're like, ah, I can't do that. I'm gonna just adjust.

But give it a go. And if it doesn't seem like it works out, maybe it is time to pivot and that's okay. There could be a different industry, a different niche, a different opportunity that is more suited to your skillset and your natural propensity in your ability. So that's. Okay, so after she gave up being a lawyer, she actually took a job at Disney World and it didn't last there very long before she started selling fax machines.

She started selling them door to door. And when I think about those roles, I think that's gotta be the hardest thing of all time to knock on someone's door. Be there face to face and sell them this thing that they maybe haven't even heard about or don't need. And one of the things to keep in mind, you know, Joanne is talking about, I'm ready for that next step.

I'm ready to go [00:06:00] big. When you are innovating, when you are making an impact in the world, when you have created something that has never existed before, it's gonna feel a little scary. It's gonna feel risky, it's gonna feel daunting, or you might just not have the path laid out for you, and that's where that failure and that rejection keeps happening.

But if intuitively you know that this is the path for you, keep going. So she had that sales job. She dealt with a lot of rejection, sometimes on a daily basis, getting door slammed in her face, not getting the yes, being asked the same questions, giving the same script, and not always getting the answer that she wanted or that she expected.

Now, this is actually where the idea of Spanx came from. So being in Florida managing the heat, she had to wear pantyhose as a part of her uniform, and she really, really didn't like the way that the seam looked on her exposed feet, but she liked the way that it kinda held everything in, got rid of panty lines and adjusted everything [00:07:00] underneath the clothes.

So little fast forward, that's where she came up with the idea of Spanx, 

Joanna Newton: What I love about this story is, that. As much as Sara experienced like pivots and changes, she was always moving and always moving forward to the next thing. Right. And I think a lot of times it's really easy for us to think of career, either your career or your life as an entrepreneur as. You know, a, a nice clean uphill graph where you just make little bits of, even progress over time when really there's peaks, there's valleys, there's turnarounds.

Like it's not a straight path to success, and I. When we experience something like, I'm gonna be a lawyer, but my LSAT scores suck, you have choices. You could study harder, try again, keep going. You could say, Hey, maybe this isn't for me. I'm going to make a decision. Either path is gonna leave you to success.

The one that isn't is when you say, oh, well, sucked at that lsat. So I'm just not gonna do anything right? Like it can be really [00:08:00] easy to not try to innovate and move forward and figure out that path forward and just stay stagnant. Oh, didn't get that sale guest. Business ownership wasn't for me. Oh, didn't get that job.

Guess that career path isn't for me. No, you have to change, adapt, move forward. And this is exactly what she did. And eventually led to a, a massive company and massive success.

Michelle Pualani: The road to success. If you look at any of the stories and a lot of times why we highlight these women. And the impact that they've had. It has never been a straight shot and it has never not dealt with adversity or some kind of difficulty as a part of the process. So knowing that, I know you're probably dealing with things at home. Maybe the partner, maybe the offer didn't sell the way that you wanted to, the launch didn't go as planned, the ads didn't work, the algorithm is against you. All of these things, they're what we encounter on a daily basis. And I was talking to my husband last night I was telling him if anyone ever asks or inquirers, like, how is business going? What do [00:09:00] you do for work? Like what? What is your role? The answer that always comes to me is I'm ultimately solving problems that I've never solved before. And I'm learning to do things I've never done before. Having to pick them up and execute on them, and that is my job and responsibility. I have to be able to deal with issues and I just have to address challenges, and I have to hear the no or get the rejection and experience the failure, and then you gotta pick up and you gotta move on.

You have to not let it take you down, we'll feature on the podcast. Joanna just had this idea to talk about the Canva founder, but the Canva founder, which now is everybody use it in terms of graphic design. No one has not heard of it. Got so many rejections from VC founders in the beginning, but they just kept going.

She just kept going. And so when you think about failure in the context of your life. Think about the things that you've had to deal with. Know that you are not alone and know that you can rise above it and you can [00:10:00] move past it. And there is continued success on the other side of it. So let's go back into Sara's story a little bit.

She started exploring this idea, so she had the pantyhose moment of Aha. I want something that controls underneath my clothes, but doesn't go to my feet. So with about $5,000 in saving, she started exploring the research and development of this product from a manufacturing perspective. She researched patents.

At the library, she didn't hire a coach or a big team. She did this very grassroots on her own. To get started. She started cold calling hosiery mills, and through that experience. Faced? No after. No, after. No. Remember that idea and concept of innovation and how if you are innovating, if you're creating something, no.

A lot of times the people that you speak to are used to their paradigm of how things used to be because it hasn't been created before. They [00:11:00] can't think of conceive of, or sometimes even understand your vision of what that future thing looks like. Know that just because something has existed the way that it has for so long doesn't mean that you cannot make that change and grow to that point.

It just might mean that you need to take a little bit of a different path or move through a lot of that failure and rejection in order to get there. I. So she finally found someone to be able to help and support the manufacturing process, and Neiman Marcus was the first retailer to be able to take her on and give her a chance, but she had to go at it from a slightly unconventional way.

She took the buyer into the bathroom with her and showed her the before and after of her product. When you are introducing something, sometimes you gotta be scrappy, sometimes you gotta think. Out of the box. Sometimes you have to be creative approach it in a slightly different way, so her story continues to grow from there.

We're not gonna get into all the details. One of the things that really spotlighted the brand, Spanx was being featured on Oprah's favorite things [00:12:00] in the year 2000, which really gave that brand massive exposure. We've talked on the podcast about borrowed authority. This is a perfect example and representation of borrowed authority.

Everyone looks to Oprah as an authority figure in what she likes, what she purchases. She's reputable. People relate to her, and therefore the brands that she talks about are going to get a ton of exposure and lead to sales, et cetera. Overnight things kind of transformed and the aspect of her story got larger.

The Spanx concept got larger and it kind of bled into what is now over a billion dollar empire with Spanx, they got purchased in the near recent past. But Sara has continued to represent the brand and evolve it into leggings, activewear, and even men's wear actually. in 2021. Sara sold a majority stake in Spanx to Blackstone, valuing the company at 1.2 billion.

So going from that $5,000 in savings to over a billion [00:13:00] dollar company. Of course she's done funding along the way. Things change, things evolve, things grow What you need for your company and business right now will not be the same in five years from now. And that's okay holding the vision of where you're headed, but addressing.

What you need to do. One of the things I love that Sara talks about is that when she would get into a new retail outlet, she would call up everyone she knew in that area, tell them to go buy the product. She would personally show up in the stores and talk to customers and demonstrate it. A lot of times in the early stages, you've gotta be scrappy and you've gotta really believe in the value that you're offering and what you're bringing to the market, and you gotta push it in that way.

Joanna Newton: Yeah. It's such a testament to when you have an idea and you put the work in and you get grassroots and you talk to people, you talk to customers, you do all of that. You can see that success. And I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs like. Every week new people, like older people that I've known for a while, and one of the big things I see as to the people who are [00:14:00] successful and the people who aren't successful is that willingness to roll up their sleeves and do the work. Some people really have this idea in their head, and while it would be wonderful that they just post a couple of times on social media and they sell a They sell a bunch of offers, they make a bunch of money. But the reality is, is to get started, you have to make the phone calls and you have to send the messages, and you have to ask, and you have to talk, and you have to do all of those things.

And what it takes to sell in the early stages and what it takes to sell when you're a household name just aren't the same thing. So a lot of times I think people are looking at big name people in their niche and they're like. Well, he just throws up an ad and it sells. Or he just does one post and makes a million dollars.

Well, you are not that person. You can't yet today, Spanx can just say, this is our new line for next year. It goes to soars, it sells. Right, because it's a household name that didn't work that way in the early days. Right. She's calling up, her friends come by, so this store thinks this is viable. So it keeps it on the [00:15:00] shelves. and I think sometimes we forget about that stage because we look. And we listen to people like, especially if we are in the course creator space, right? You're looking to Brendan Rashard or you're looking to Amy Porterfield. You're looking to these people who can just, like Amy Porterfield could say, tomorrow I'm launching a new course, and it would sell immediately. but she did all that grassroots stuff in her early days, I'm sure of, right? Like she did the cold calling and the dms and the grassroots work for that growth. And then now is in a position where the sales are easier and you have to put in that work first.

Michelle Pualani: And what people don't realize is that through the grassroots, through the learning, through the understanding, through the consumer psychology and the customer research, and the sales and marketing messaging, and all of the testing and experimenting, that the place that they are now, 10 years down the road is so well.

Curated, tested and demonstrated that they don't have to necessarily think about it. They can position themselves [00:16:00] in a way that pulls in the people and makes the sale.

And people don't always realize 

I think it's Picasso. There's a story about this. I don't know if it's real or not, but ultimately it's like a guy sees Picasso in a cafe. And he's sketching on a napkin, and he goes to throw the napkin away and somebody grabs it and they're like, oh, can I buy this from you?

And Picasso says, yeah, that'll be $10,000 or a hundred thousand dollars million dollars, whatever it is. the guy's like, what? It just took you five minutes? And Picasso said, yeah, but it took me. 20 years or however much time to be able to do that in five minutes. So we discount the amount of reps or the time that was put in in advance and we come to the table and just think, oh, I should already be at that level.

I can do that. And it's just not the case. So it's important to think about what is the experimentation, what is the testing? What is the work that you're doing behind the scenes that is gonna lead you to that place? And that's such a big part of failure. So really learning to love failure and create a [00:17:00] relationship with failure that is positive.

One of the things that's always stood out to me when I've heard Sara's story or heard her speak, is that she would talk about her father. And when they were younger, her and her brother would be at the dinner table and her father would ask her, what did you fail at today? And if they didn't have an answer, he would encourage them to go try something new and fail at it.

And that perspective and impact from such a young age truly sets. Us up for success. I mean, I think if you're a parent and have that ability to influence your children in that way to help encourage them to experience failure. So positive because again, me and my personal story, I feel like after college into the workforce and then starting my own business, and that's when I started experiencing failure at the age of.

28, whatever it is. I'd spent so much time not being comfortable with failure, not getting to know failure, not building a relationship, and realizing that failure actually isn't a big deal at all. Like failing is such a [00:18:00] part of the process. And if anything, it's a redirect. It's an opportunity for you to say.

That didn't work either. Let me test an experiment, try an AB or do it this way, or try this one little lever and pull this and tweak this or, okay, that didn't work out the way that I intended. Great. Let me pivot. Let me go this other direction. Let me try something new instead of a lawyer. I'll try sales instead of sales.

I'll be a business owner and be a founder. I think we forget so often that although life is short and we should embody and live it to the fullest, life is also really long. And we each have the opportunity to try new things, to do different things, to fail and try again and realize that People aren't judging you as much as you think that they are. They're really not paying that much attention. They're in their own worlds, they're doing their own thing, and those people who are judging you don't deserve a place in your world. So allowing yourself to embrace some of that failure and really shifting your perspective and your relationship with what failure [00:19:00] looks like to you.

Joanna Newton: I feel like I had a big breakthrough with all of this really recently in the past couple of weeks around myself and how approach things and avoid mistakes and all of that. I was actually, I visited a client and was watching her film a course that we're gonna put together. We're gonna set it up on Kajabi and build her funnels and all of that.

And I visited her while she was filming just to help. with the process and her course was on parenting and the course is about being a present parent and thinking through your parenting ideal deals and all of that. And at one point there was this discussion around discipline and how, how your discipline as a child affects. How you live your life and how you discipline your own children. And it got me reflecting on like my own like discipline as a child and how that's affected me. it made me realize like, my parents are great in a thousand ways and I'm not really gonna complain about this, but they really didn't discipline me like we didn't have.

[00:20:00] Discipline. And for the most part, I didn't need to be disciplined because I just like did the right things and never did anything that would've got me disciplined. I realized the reason I did that was 'cause I was scared of like the emotional reaction, right? If I did something wrong, my mom might freak out and be mad, or my dad might freak out and be mad.

I was afraid of the emotional response that was an effect of my actions, but I wasn't afraid of the actual consequences, like the actual potential consequence of making a mistake wasn't what I was avoiding. When I'm avoiding mistakes. It was an emotional reaction from someone else. So. I avoid making mistakes altogether and like, don't take big risks and don't do those things.

Do things that I know are gonna be fine. So nobody has a negative reaction to me, which is wild to think about because when it comes to real life consequences, when I've been low on money, or I've lost a client, or I've lost a job, I've always figured it out, like the actual risks that you take. Always been able to manage, but I'm so afraid. Of what other people [00:21:00] might think or how other people may respond when you're right, Michelle. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Either they're not paying attention or their opinion doesn't matter. So if I know I can weather a financial storm, I know I can weather losing a client and and finding another one, I. Then what's keeping me back from taking those risks that are gonna get me to the next level? It's just the opinions and reactions of others, maybe I just need to get over it. And now that's easier said than done, right? We have a tendency to wanna protect ourselves, but these are the kind of things that if you are feeling stuck.

If you are feeling like you can't get to the next place in your business or your career, there might just be mental blocks that are keeping you from that. and, you know, today we're really reflecting on failure. think about the last time you failed. Think about the last time you mis you made a mistake. What happened? Is it still affecting you now? Probably not. You've probably like figured it out and moved on and grown from it and learned from it and not been like stuck in that [00:22:00] place. But I think we're so scared to fail, for some sort of reason that has nothing to do with the actual consequences of that failure.

Michelle Pualani: We're really reframing our perspective and understanding of what failure. Year is, and what it means to us, as well as reframing and shaping the perspective of judgment and how we respond to that judgment in the world. This story of Sara's father asking them what did they fail at today and encouraging them if they didn't try something today, that they failed at.

Find something new and risk failing, opening up that opportunity and that door so that when Sara encountered things later on in her life, she knew that failure was not something that you wanted to avoid. It was something that you worked toward as a part of the learning. Process. They say the faster you fail, the quicker you'll grow.

And it's so true. Your ability to try to test, to experiment, to risk, and then recover from that as you move forward.

[00:23:00] Mimi Bouchard of the Superhuman App refers to it as the bounce back rate. Your ability to fall to misstep and then bounce back from that and move forward independent of that failure, independent of what happened. So as you reframe that, it'll shift your mindset all together in terms of what you're capable of and what you can do, what is possible for you. It'll allow you to face rejection so much more easily. She dealt with a ton of male manufacturers who had only made. Pantyhose in one way for so long she dealt with male investors. Now I'm highlighting the male aspect because she was a really early female entrepreneur in our world and we still deal with this as female founders and business owners are in the minority.

And in terms of funding, that's still an issue. Lots of male companies likely 'cause there are a lot more male companies, but also because of the way in which funding is allocated the perception of men and women in the business. We won't get into that today, but we do get into [00:24:00] it on the podcast. If you haven't yet, hit subscribe and keep tuning in for more episodes just like this.

So with that ability to handle rejection, when she moved into sales, she would get the no no at the door. She would get the door slammed in her face and she could keep moving forward. She could move on to that next pitch. When she found a manufacturer that didn't work for her, she got the no, she moved on.

Over and over and over again, and we hear it and see it so often in stories like this, in the business space, in entrepreneurship, and so you're not alone if you've experienced failure and you can move past it. so for women, as we center on women on this podcast, there is this expectation to present perfectly.

We've talked about this before, and we're gonna continue to drive it home. In the content that we create, in the products that we put out, in the way in which we approach our businesses, there has to be some level of put together. Perfect. Everything is good to go. We don't make mistakes. We don't have failures.

As a coach, this is a [00:25:00] conversation that I hear a lot in my mastermind groups and when I'm working with business owners and coaches and practitioners, is that if the content that they're sharing, preaching, and promoting, if they are not perfectly representing that. All the time in their lives that they have either imposter syndrome or fears and doubts about their ability to deliver and help other people.

And it's so much pressure and it's limiting your ability to impact, your ability to create an audience, your ability to drive traffic, your ability to get customers and consumers because you are worried about a small aspect of not being represented. To a TA hundred percent of the time, exactly what you're talking about now.

It's important to be transparent and honest and not say that you're a vegan, but then eat. Stake behind the scenes, right? We're not talking about that, but we're human. And the more that you acknowledge that humanity and the more that you share the ways in which you do misstep, but are able to bounce back or to overcome that failure, the [00:26:00] more you will be accepted, the more people are gonna be drawn to what you're doing.

As a coach, as a practitioner, because people really invest in that relatability. They want to see themselves in you, and if you are trying to project perfection, if you're trying to project, I have it together all the time. A hundred percent. This is me. I'm amazing. You think that you're doing a great job of demonstrating the work that you do, but other people see you and they think, wow, she's awesome.

She's amazing. She could never understand where I am because I struggle with this. they see you, they put you on a pedestal, they likely won't invest or buy from you or join you because they can't relate to you. So thinking through how you are positioning yourself releasing a lot of that need for perfection and a lot of the need to show up a hundred percent and open up that authenticity.

Allow yourself to be seen as relatable as human. Talk about the failures, embrace them and share [00:27:00] them.

Joanna Newton: And if you're, if you're listening and that sounds scary to you, okay. Right? Like the idea of being vulnerable, the idea of embracing your failures, the idea of like. Trying to do things so outside your comfort zone that you might fail, that's really scary. But if you want to be successful, you have to follow in the footsteps of successful people.

And successful people are people who fail. we see that in in Sara's story. We see that in a lot of the stories that we've highlighted on this show. see it in. like sports and athletics. This is something my husband and I I talk a lot about cause he's, well, he doesn't watch basketball anymore, but he used to be a big basketball fan and the players who have all of like the scoring records. Of like most points scored in a game or most three pointers or any of those types of records, they are people who took the most shots, not the people with the best percentage, right? Not the people with the best shooting percentage, but the people who actually took the most shots. it's [00:28:00] important to remember that.

And one of the things, I do, we've talked about before, I sell, I sell for my agency. I get so many nos, I get so many nos or ghosted so many times, and sometimes I'll go through my little sales tracker and be like, okay, I haven't heard from these people. In weeks, I'm gonna send them all a, like, good luck, goodbye, kind of email, close it out.

And sometimes I'll move 10 people into my lost category in a single day. Right. Like that happens that same day I could close $10,000 in sales, right? And so we have to stop thinking that nos are a death sentence. They are not like they are not, and you're not gonna have success. If you're not getting nos, and I think if we can really embrace that, if we can really believe that to be true.

And I love what you said, Michelle, like reframe what failure is like reframe failure as a good thing. We're all gonna see exponential growth in our businesses 

Michelle Pualani: The analogy of the sports is all about quantity, and we've actually talked about quantity versus quality on the podcast, so often we're [00:29:00] trying to come to the table with quality, but we forget that a lot of what makes quality is quantity, and it's been demonstrated from an artistry perspective to a sports perspective, to a celebrity perspective.

Entrepreneurship all across the board. You've gotta test, you've gotta experiment, you've gotta put it out there. Be cringe. Show up doing the thing that you never thought you would do, like try it out, test it, and see what works for you. And then be able to tweak, change, and evolve. Just thank you. You're only getting like 200 views, not that many people are seeing it.

You still have eight. Billion people in the world to address. You still have millions of people out there who are waiting for what you are gonna talk about, but you're not gonna get there if you don't first try and maybe suck at first. And that's okay. So we're gonna wrap up this conversation with what's next for Sara Blakely.

So she introduced a new footwear brand. So she moved from Spanx, which was all about shapewear, predominantly for women. And then moved into the footwear space. So she launched Sneak, it's a sneaker Meets [00:30:00] Stiletto hybrid, and it's kind of a really interesting take on comfortable, but professional footwear for business women You can look up the brand, check it out, see how it's gonna evolve and grow. Now we're at a different time in Sara's path, right? She's already demonstrated huge success with this business. She now has a team. She now has funding, like she's demonstrated the success of her entrepreneurial chops, and she has a lot more support in launching the brand.

But she still experienced a lot of no when going to manufacturers to figure out how to build this shoe. Why? Because people have built sneakers and people have built heels, they've never really merged the two. So here she is again. Years later in her business and entrepreneurship journey, continuing to innovate, continuing to face rejection, continuing to get nos.

So it does not stop. It does not go away. You embrace it as a part of the journey, as a part of the process, and you get to decide how you deal with it, how you [00:31:00] move past it, and how you grow beyond it. So it's such a great. It's just such a great learning lesson to really extract from her story as a whole that.

It doesn't stop, like you only lose, or you only fail when you give up. And it's okay to transition and transform and evolve and grow and pivot and maybe head in a different direction. You know, I felt like my online stuff wasn't really working out the way that I wanted it to. I had to kind of put it down, and now I'm doing a non-alcoholic hemp infused spirit business, which is a physical product I never thought that I'd launch in the CPG space that I have.

Never been in before, but you learn and you grow, and that is helping me evolve my own personal brand and my story and get myself out there and practicing more on interviews for podcasts, and showing up in summits and doing all of these. Things. So you really don't know what that path and journey is going to take you on.

being open to that opportunity is such a big part of the process. So [00:32:00] really being able to shift your mindset, reframing that failure, looking at judgment differently and releasing a lot of the judgment you have of yourself letting go of the expectation that. Others may have of you and releasing some of that pressure.

What can you decide is intentional and a choice for yourself? How can you go back to your intuition and let that intuition and alignment guide you? Even if you're facing rejection, even if you're getting the nos, how can you be confident and have the belief and the value that you are bringing to the marketplace that you are bringing to your audience, that you're bringing to your customers, and let that drive your actions, drive you forward, releasing a lot of that perfectionism and how you're showing up allowing yourself to show up with genuine, authentic contributions of your content, your offers, your products, your programs, what you're putting out into the world. 

Joanna Newton: While you were chatting, Michelle, I went and I Googled sneakers. 'cause I was like, what do these things look like? 'cause I could not picture them in my head. And let me tell you, I think they're, they're like nothing I've ever seen before, but they're like [00:33:00] super cute and they're way outside of my price range for something I would spend on shoes.

But they're super, super cute and really different looking and, and really innovative and. I could see someone looking at those and thinking, Ugh, I'm never gonna wear those. And I could see someone looking at them and say, oh, I love them. that's the thing when you, innovate, You do something different. It takes people time to catch on. And that's like why you're gonna experience failure. So if you're, if you're doing things and people are like, Hmm, not so sure about that, it doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means you're ahead of the times. You know? And, and we could talk about Tesla for a second. We won't talk about Elon Musk because whatever's happening these days, I don't wanna be a part of. But when Tesla first came out, people were like, those cars are ugly. well now they're not doing well. But let's say like three years ago, thought they were the coolest, And really the only reason the company's struggling now is because it's current, like political affiliations.

But like originally, people said Teslas are ugly, but then they became a huge car company, right? Because, oh, [00:34:00] that looks weird. That's ugly. Why would anyone wanna drive that? But things change because innovators innovate ahead of the curve. And if you can innovate ahead of the curve and do something different in your industry that no one else is doing, you're gonna be able to see success, but you're probably also going to get nos.

Why would you do it that way? That's weird. That's ugly. That makes no sense. That can't work because other people aren't ready for it.

Michelle Pualani: An excellent reminder that sometimes those initial round of things aren't super well received and you're gonna have and face. Criticism, and sometimes that's a part of the process. One starting with an MVP, a minimum viable product. You're getting something out into the marketplace. So you can even just get feedback, hear what people are saying about it, 

try not to focus on like five of your best friends, because that's not a good target demographic. But when you are launching something, it's okay to put something out there and try it. NY is something that maybe it doesn't appeal to everyone, but perhaps they'll introduce sleeker looks that [00:35:00] aren't as.

Sneaker ish or aren't as athletic, or aren't as sporty, but they'll still be as comfortable as the original design. something can continue to evolve. Look at our iPhones. I mean, I don't even know what number iPhone we are on, but if you introduce the original iPhone today, you'd be like, what is this?

This is not, doesn't have the capabilities that I want it to, But at the time it was incredibly innovative and also they had to launch something that had bugs and had issues in the beginning in order to continue to improve and grow. So when you look at all of the instances, Amazon started with books and now look at what it does.

So it's okay to release and then to change and let that thing iterate over time. The worst thing you can do is just sit on everything or quit or give up or say it's not worth it. Keep trying. We want you to embrace that failure. We want you to learn from it. We want you to grow. We want you to evolve and change, and you are so incredibly capable.

So if you enjoyed this episode today, please share it with a friend who [00:36:00] could really use some help embracing failure and changing their perspective of it. Maybe they've never heard of Sara Blakely her story or with Spanx and could use a little bit of inspiration in the entrepreneurship journey that we are all on together.

So hit subscribe we'll see you next time on the Her first podcast.