Sara Blakely

Sara Blakely has described a habit children can slip into: take fewer risks, and there is less chance of disappointing a parent. Her father, John, unsettled that logic. At dinner, he regularly asked Sara and her younger brother what they had failed at that week.

No answer disappointed him. A real attempt, even one that had gone badly, earned his attention and a high-five. Sara remembers coming home to report that she had tried out for something and had been horrible at it. Her father answered, “Way to go.” The attempt itself had given them something worth discussing.

Blakely later wrote that her parents’ support and expectation that she take risks removed much of failure’s fear. The ritual promised no happy ending. It gave an unsuccessful effort a familiar place to land: an ordinary conversation with people who still approved of her.

As an adult, Blakely failed the law-school admission test twice, tried stand-up comedy, and spent seven years selling fax machines door to door. When she began developing Spanx, hosiery mills rejected her idea for two years. She kept her sales job while working on the product, used $5,000 of her savings, and launched the company without outside investment. Blakely has called her upbringing and her father one of the biggest keys to her success.

Rejection does not guarantee a good outcome, and persistence is never the only ingredient in a business. John had changed something smaller, years before any business idea existed. Failure no longer had to mean that Sara had let the family down. It could mean she had brought a new attempt to the table.