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With every obstacle that has happened to me in my life, my brain immediately says, ‘Where is the hidden blessing?’ In starting a business and growing a business, every day is learning how to manage obstacles.

Sara Blakely

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Sara Blakely
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: February 27
Businessperson
Businesswoman
Patron Of The Arts
Stand-Up Comedian
Clearwater
Florida
Life
Blessing
Learning
Says
Obstacle
Growing
Hidden
Brain
Immediately
Happened
Obstacles
Business
Manage
Every
Starting

More quotes by Sara Blakely

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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.
Sara Blakely
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Ensure that you do things differently from everyone else
Sara Blakely
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There is a hidden blessing in the most traumatic things we go through in our lives. My brain always goes to, 'Where is the hidden blessing? What is my gift?'
Sara Blakely
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I have this system where if I buy three or four new things, I give away three or four things. Sometimes, it's a very painful system, but shopping is even better when you know that someone else who needs it will be getting. Keep the clothing karma going, I say.
Sara Blakely
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Where I get my energy is: 'How can I make it better'?
Sara Blakely
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Within the first year of launching my company, Spanx, I decided to go over to England and cold-call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges the same way I had cold-called Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's here in the United States.
Sara Blakely
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I feel like money makes you more of who you already are.
Sara Blakely
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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.
Sara Blakely
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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.
Sara Blakely
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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.
Sara Blakely
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My revenue was $4 million my first year in business, off of one $20 item.
Sara Blakely
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I think failure is nothing more than life's way of nudging you that you are off course.
Sara Blakely
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Instead of failure being the outcome, failure became not trying. And it forced me at a young age to want to push myself so much further out of my comfort zone.
Sara Blakely
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Failure is not attached to outcome, but in not trying. This way, it is about answering to yourself.
Sara Blakely
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You’ve got to embrace what you don’t know.
Sara Blakely
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It's important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable.
Sara Blakely
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Every time I went on stage I was so terrified I almost threw up.
Sara Blakely
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Most of us want to tell our coworkers or friends, or husbands or wives, our ideas. For what reason? We want validation. But I feel ideas are most vulnerable in their infancy. Out of love and concern, friends and family give all the reasons or objections on why [you] shouldn't do it. I didn't want to risk that.
Sara Blakely
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You’ve got to visualize where you’re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you’re going to be in a few years.
Sara Blakely
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Having a mental snapshot of where you are, where you are going, and what you are moving toward is incredibly powerful.
Sara Blakely