Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan
Confidence Classic: Why Your Mindset Is The KEY To Success! With Sara Blakley & Jesse Itzler
Tue, 04 Feb 2025
In This Episode You Will Learn About: The power of your mindset Staying present Taking risks Visualizing success Resources: Sara Blakely Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X: @sarablakely LinkedIn: @sarablakely27 Jesse Itzler Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter/X: @jesseitzler Facebook: @jesseitzler1 Get 50% off your first box plus free shipping at factormeals.com/confidence50off with code confidence50off. Get 10% off your first Mitopure order at timeline.com/CONFIDENCE. Download the CFO’s Guide to AI and Machine Learning at NetSuite.com/MONAHAN Head to AirDoctorPro.com and use promo code CONFIDENCE to get UP TO $300 off today Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at shopify.com/monahan Cancel unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster at RocketMoney.com/CONFIDENCE. Call my digital clone at 201-897-2553! Visit heathermonahan.com Reach out to me on Instagram & LinkedIn Sign up for my mailing list: heathermonahan.com/mailing-list/ Overcome Your Villains is Available NOW! Order here: https://overcomeyourvillains.com If you haven't yet, get my first book, Confidence Creator Show Notes: I’m cutting right to it - the interview of a LIFETIME! I sat down with Sara Blakley, the founder of SPANX, and her husband, Jesse Itzler, a serial entrepreneur, to share the power of your mindset. Sarah and Jesse share the risks they took that changed EVERYTHING and why you should NEVER underestimate your mind! If you can stay positive and focused on the work before you, there’s NOTHING you can’t accomplish. Start spending your time and energy on pursuing your ideas, NOT defending them!
Chapter 1: How did Sara Blakely overcome rejection to start Spanx?
Life has a weird way of giving you these experiences because when I started Spanx, the combination of the amount of rejection I had had was perfect to start a company because I was told no every day for two years. The idea is no good. No, thank you. We don't want to help you. We think this is stupid, whatever. And it didn't really faze me.
And then the writing comedy for two years while I was doing that helped me do all the writing for Spanx and the marketing. And Spanx didn't advertise for 16 years. We became a household name and a household brand around the world without ever advertising.
Come on this journey with me. Each week when you join me, we are going to change Tell me, have you been enjoying these new bonus confidence classics episodes we've been dropping on you every week? We've literally hundreds of episodes for you to listen to. So these bonuses are a great way to help you find the ones you may have already missed. I hope you love this one as much as I do.
Welcome back to Creating Confidence. I'm so excited you're back here with me. Thank you for making it this week. And you are going. to flip about this episode. I am so grateful to everyone at Hypergrowth for giving me the opportunity to share this interview with you. It is the interview of a lifetime, and I'm so excited for you to hear it. Can't wait to hear what you think.
So this week is a really big week for me. Saturday, I am giving my first TED Talk And it's interesting because I'm learning so much about TED Talks because all I do now is obsess over watching every TED Talk in the world and reading about TED Talks to really immerse myself and figure out if there's any tips or tricks on how to make it better.
to connect with the audience and to get this thing to go viral. So I'm really all in on this TED Talk. And the challenge is you only get 10 minutes. And I always thought TED Talks were 18 minutes, but apparently you get whatever you are given by the TED board that you're working with. And for the TED Talks that we're doing in Boca Raton, TEDx, it is 10 minutes. So
It's tough to tell a story, share an idea, and be concise enough in 10 minutes. It's a lot to accomplish. So I'm hoping that I was able to do just that. And I am going big or going home as always. So I'm really trying to focus just on the TED Talk right now, which is crazy because this week is, there's a lot going on. I'm actually giving a speech on Wednesday at a media company.
On Thursday, I'm flying to New York to support the book launch of a good friend of mine, Standing O Encore. I actually wrote the foreword for the book. So I'm flying to New York for that. And then I'm heading Friday to the Boca Raton TEDx event. VIP sponsor party, which all the speakers have to attend. And we do some media as well as be there to support the actual event.
Then I'll drive home and come back the next morning to actually do my talk after we have our walkthrough. So it's kind of a crazy week. And My son is heading to a marine biology trip for three days, so we've got to get him packed up with all of his gear, sleeping bag, water bottles, all this crazy stuff. I'm trying to just focus primarily on the TED Talk and make sure that I've got things in.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of mindset in personal success?
Yeah. So I just that's the reason why I'm wearing flip flops. I just got back from a race called The Last Man Standing. You guys hear me OK? Cool. OK. I feel like an operator. And the format of the race is you run a four point two mile loop. You have an hour to do it. And if you finish earlier, you can finish in 15 minutes.
You have a 10 minute rest and then they line you up again at the top of the hour and you do it again and you keep going until one person is left. So my wife, it was in Maine, and when I Googled it, it said that there was moderate elevation. Yeah, if you live in Maine. It was crazy terrain. So I ended up, I just got back. I did 20 hours, 80 miles, and I came in fifth.
I think that deserves a round of applause.
And my wife was the last wife standing.
Yes, I win last wife standing. I didn't sleep for 35 hours, so I was supporting him. And it's really challenging. I said at one point I had a breakdown, I think at like 4 in the morning, where I just started crying because I said marriage is hard when you have to really support each other's dreams, and especially if you have to watch the person you love suffer.
And Jesse had a pep talk with me before, and he said no matter what, Tell me I look good. Tell me I look strong. Don't pull me out of the race.
Don't tell me that you're worried about me.
But I didn't say to say it like this. Ooh, you look good.
That's true. But it was really a wild experience of just human spirit. You know, what we all have inside of us, that grit and determination. And there were 112 of really intensely impressive ultra runners there. And, wow, I was just blown away by mindset, really. Because I asked Jesse after this. I mean, Jesse's 51.
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Chapter 3: Why did Sara Blakely keep her Spanx idea a secret for a year?
So, but then fast forward, you know, I think it was 10 to 15 years after high school that I ended up on the cover of Forbes. And the texts I got in my phone were so funny. I mean, literally all my friends were like, damn, should have listened to that shit. So... So I'm a big believer in it.
I learned early on about manifesting law of attraction, not caring what other people think about you, which is a really big one for an entrepreneur or, you know, in life really. And I'm a work in progress on that. There are times where I do care and I check myself and say, you know, let's work on this. But it's very freeing to not care what other people think.
You'll take more risks to not really focus on the outcome and be so afraid to fail. So all of that is a big part of my journey and Spanx for sure. So I think mindset is, I work on it daily.
We all need to, I need to get those cassettes. Jesse, you didn't start out an MTV rapper. You didn't start out owning an NBA team. You were sleeping on couches for quite a while, which people probably find hard to believe. Do you attribute your success to mindset or what do you attribute it to?
I think, well, I definitely have my own version of mindset. When I have a goal, I like to say that's the end of the movie. I go to the end of the movie first where I want the outcome to be. And that's unwavering. I don't negotiate that. I don't try not to ever negotiate my goals. The script changes, the plot changes, how you get there.
You have all kinds of obstacles, but the end of the movie really never changes for me. So that's my form of visualization and how I kind of attack it.
Sari, you mentioned that you didn't share your invention with anyone for that first year. Why would you take that approach instead of enlisting others to help you or support you through that?
That really came from a gut feeling. I really honor my gut and intuition a lot and still do through the journey that I'm on. But when I cut the feet out of my pantyhose and started Spanx, I had actually asked for the idea two years prior. So I was selling fax machines. I had one really bad day. I'd been kicked out of an office again.
I mean, I got usually business cards ripped up in my face about once or twice a week. I got escorted out of buildings all the time. And this day was just hard. I mean, I'm seven years into 100% cold calling. to sell people a fax machine. And I pulled over and I said, I'm in the wrong movie. How did this happen? Call the director, call the producer. This is not my life.
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Chapter 4: How did Jesse Itzler use storytelling to build his career?
That was a tweetable moment for me. I'm going to spend my time and energy pursuing it, not defending it. I think that's really powerful. Do you see ideas the same way that they need to be nurtured and protected? Or were you more, I mean, because you created a lot of different companies and concepts over your career and life. Did you bring people in earlier on or did you take that same approach?
Well, I have to agree with everything. We're married. So, of course, I agree. No, I think one of the most important things as an entrepreneur I found is figuring out how to get from point A to point B the fastest.
And if that is telling someone, or if that, in my case, maybe it was getting a key investor, getting a celebrity as part of Zico or one of our brands, whether it was a key partnership, I think that's been a critical part of my journey. Because when I started out, I did sleep on 18 different couches. The one thing I needed that we all need is we need a story. We need momentum.
People buy into stories and momentum more than they buy into products. Like, we're the business plan. When I started out, I started out in the music business. I had a record out on a label called Delicious Vinyl. And right when my album came out, I did Club MTV, which is a big show on MTV at the time. I was 21 years old. And I thought like, wow, man, mom, I made it. I'm on MTV.
This is unbelievable. And I did my first show in Pittsburgh. And I got off the airplane in Pittsburgh. And when I got off the airplane, there was a huge newsstand. And on the cover of this big magazine called Rap Pages at the time was my picture. And I'm like, Holy shit. I'm on the cover of rap pages. And I'm like, this is unbelievable. I was like thinking I was Forbes for Sarah.
Like I'm on rap pages. And I go and I get the magazine and the cover of the magazine with my picture on it was our white rappers ruining hip hop.
I have not heard this story.
I want to tell you what to marry me. So I needed a story. I needed a story. So for me at that age, you know, it wasn't about when I had an idea of telling people it was about getting momentum. And I went to the New York Knicks with an idea to do a theme song for the Knicks. I was 22 years old. And I said, you know, sports is changing. People sit in seats for three hours in an arena.
But the game is only 48 minutes. So you have to entertain them for over two hours. Let's do a song and a video and we'll get all the celebrities in New York. The song was called Go New York Go. And the Knicks paid me four thousand dollars for the song. And by the time I paid the studio, the engineer, the singer, the producer, the drummer, it cost me $4,800 to do the song.
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Chapter 5: What role does humor play in business and personal life?
And then I'd be like, yes, I get an opportunity to explain it to her.
I love that you brought that story up. Would you mind sharing that story of how you sold it into Neiman Marcus? Because I love that is such a great face to face and it just pulls on that past track record that you had with the cold calling and how it paid off for you.
Yeah. So when I first landed, Neiman Marcus was my first account. And two things about that that are just something that I reflect back on. One is everybody in the industry after I landed Neiman's came up to me and said, how in the world did you land Neiman Marcus? And I would look at them and I'd say, I called them. what do you do?
And they'd say, oh my God, we go to trade shows and we set up a booth and we've been doing it for seven years. And everybody says around year six or seven that you get a chance with Neiman's. I didn't even know there were trade shows.
So I often say what you don't know can be your greatest asset if you let it, if you're not intimidated by the self-talk of, I have no idea what I'm doing and that shuts you down. So if you can power through the, I have no idea what I'm doing and actually see it as a positive and go, That means I'm going to do it different. And that's where you break real ground.
It takes a lot of courage and a lot of willingness to look stupid and potentially fall on your face. But that's where the magic is. So anyway, I got a chance to go and cold call Neiman Marcus. I flew on a plane from Atlanta, where I live, to Dallas. And I met with the buyer, and she was impeccably dressed. I'm in the intimidating Neiman's headquarters. I had my lucky red backpack from college.
I had the prototype in a Ziploc bag from my kitchen and a color copy of the packaging that I had created on my friend's computer. Halfway through my pitch, I was telling her what it is, and I could tell I was losing her. After seven years of cold calling and trying to sell things to people, you get really good at reading nonverbals. And I always say nonverbals tell you way more than the verbal.
When people sit there and shake their head and say, I love it, and I'll call you tomorrow, you're like, oh my God, mayday. That's when you pull the shoe and say, I've got to try everything. And so she was kind of doing that. She was like, okay, thanks. And I just stopped and said, you know what, Diane, will you come to the bathroom with me? And she literally was like, excuse me?
I'm like, I know it's a little weird, but can you just follow me to the bathroom and I'm going to actually show you what my product can do. I'm going to go in the stall. And she was like, oh, okay. And she walked down the hall and I went in the stall and I put it on under my white pants and I came out.
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