Very Wang Interview: Her 10 Rules for Success

If you're looking for ways to find your passion, be a minimalist, and empower others, then this video is for you.

When you love something, every day goes by in 10 minutes, and for me, it was all about fashion. Right now, the minimalism clears my head. It represents who I am. If you encourage women to explore their own creativity, and hopefully you give them the tools, they can express themselves.

Need motivation? Watch a top 10 with Believe Nation! What's up, it's Evan Carmichael. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So let's get your motivation to a 10 and get you believing in you. Grab a snack and chew on today's lessons from a woman who tried and failed to make the US Olympic team for figure skating, to becoming an award-winning fashion designer with clients like Mariah Carey, Victoria Beckham, and and Kim Kardashian. She's Vera Wang, and here's my take on her top 10 rules of success. Enjoy! Alright, let's kick things off with rule number 1: Find your passion.

I was working as a salesgirl at Yves Saint Laurent, and in walked Frances Padocchi Stein. She was then the fashion director of American Vogue. I sold her a lot of clothes. She said, "Someday when you finish college, call me and I will give you a job at Vogue." Well, for me, c'était un rêve, quoi. And I came home and I told my mother, "This woman's gonna give me a job at Vogue." And my mother started laughing at me. She said, "I'm sure she says that to all the young women." And I said, "No, I think she really thinks that I can come to Vogue and work." I didn't know what an editor did. I think she saw passion, and I think she saw a desire to work. I got totally seduced, and from there on in, I fell in love with it, and it just became— it became my life. Fashion is not for the faint of heart. Neither is figure skating, by the way. And considering those are the two loves of my life, I would say that in order to do both and suffer, in a way, sometimes the loneliness of that kind of dedication, you have to really be passionate. When you love something, every day goes by in 10 minutes. And for me, it was all about fashion. It really was. It was my way to express myself through dressing women and creating things. And that's a very, very seductive feeling. You know, it was just—

you know when you look at the clock and you're a clock watcher and it's 9 o'clock and you look again and it's 9:02? And you look again, it's 9:07.

Well, when I worked at Vogue, I'd look at 9:02 or 8:02, and I'd look again, it was 10 at night. And I don't even know where my youth or my days or my nights went. Well, you're 15 years.

But I was really, really very, very happy there.

Rule number 2 is be fearless.

One of the things that I found extremely fascinating about you is that you and your career have consistently been a risk taker. In fact, I think one of the biggest risks you took was turning the traditional white bridal gown into pink, yellow, green, even black. What drove you to take such risks?

Well, I will say I am fairly fearless, although it doesn't come without a price. But creatively, when you work in a certain genre and I work in ready-to-wear as well as bridal, but I think we're very celebrated, obviously, for the dress for the woman's most important day of her life. So I have to say that trying to keep that fresh, trying to keep that new, trying to keep myself creative, and trying to envision bridal as a whole nother form— trying to envision bridal as a whole other form of self-expression for not only myself as a designer but for the bride. I've taken big risks like black dresses, nude dresses, pink dresses.

Rule number 3 is marry your creativity with business.

I think the perception of fashion is that it's extremely glamorous and that it's sort of frivolous and all of these things, but it really isn't. Like, it's like a business like anything else, and you have to— pardon my pun, 'cause I'm known for wedding— but you have to marry, really, your creativity with what's going on and what's real in terms of the market.

Rule number 4 is reinvent yourself.

Attending Sarah Lawrence, too, provided a general opportunity for me to pursue my Olympic dream while attempting to get a serious liberal arts education. In the end, I neither qualified for the U.S. Olympic team nor excelled at college, and ultimately Sarah Lawrence asked me to take an indefinite leave of absence. In other words, I was kicked out. I was now at an all-time low. More than my family and faculty, I had let myself down morally, spiritually, and intellectually. As I slowly and painfully began to reevaluate my decisions, I found great solace in Paris, where I fell in love with fashion. It was the first time in my life I had lived— not lived the overscheduled existence of a professional child. In addition to immersing myself in French culture, I also reaffirmed my own desire to return to school. Skating for me had not ended with Olympic gold, but it had provided me with a powerful metaphor that would forever define my life. No matter how many times you fall, get up and try again. Getting back into Sarah Lawrence now became my overriding goal. Metaphorically, at 20, I was starting out all over again. Although my second attempt at college was very different. This time I was fully committed to learning, but also determined to explore life from a very different perspective. I had also learned yet another significant life lesson about the importance of timing and priorities, but most of all reinvention. As junior year approached, I again returned to Paris to enroll in Sarah Lawrence International Program. What a magical time that was, and as I fell further in love with all things French, not men necessarily, um, Oh, maybe. Um, a life in fashion began to intrigue me. I had found something else that had seduced my heart and captured my imagination as much as skating had.

Rule number 5: work in a great environment.

Vogue was my first job, and I was very, very lucky to have a job there. Everything I've learned, um, a lot of my training, my eye, my background has come from my years at Vogue. And I think working for Ralph Lauren was a privilege. In all honesty, when you work for a man that's so decisive, so consistent, so brilliant, it's bound to, or hopefully to influence how you view your own career. And so I was very fortunate to have two really great careers at both of these institutions.

Rule number 6, find your creative process.

When I first started, I used to do sketches where I could say, well, here's a low neck, here's a high neck, here's a version of that with a bigger skirt. I mean, it was the only way I could get out what was in my brain. But over the last 25 years, I've really come to wanna work myself with the fabric. So being here is now integral to my design process. There's no other place or way I can do it anymore. It sounds very extravagant in this day and age, but we work right on the body. We have a constant fit model because I have to see the clothing on the body. Be very interesting to do a raglan. I don't want to tear this one apart. We'd make another. Right, that goes away. I drape on her, I correct it, I make them cut it. We do pages of notes. I want a space where I could, in a way, retire from the intensity of that room, which is extremely intense. So this room is my office, if that's the right word. No one comes in here. It's really, for me, my haven slash disco slash mental hospital.

Rule number 7 is learn from failure.

Also, behind every perceived success is always some very significant failure. The importance of failure, however, as many people say, is to learn from it. But to quote Winston Churchill, "Success is not final and failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts." Rule number 8: Work hard on your passion.

If you could credit your success to just one thing, what would that be?

I would think hard work. Um, also very Chinese trait. Um, in all fairness, I was driven by passion. I think whenever I speak to young people, I always try to instigate in them an understanding that if you really feel some— for something, if you really love something, you're going to succeed far more easily.

Rule number 9 is be a minimalist.

If you didn't know Vera Wang was a top fashion designer before walking into her new office space, you'd be none the wiser once you were there. There are no racks of clothes, no swatches of fabric, or even glossy high-fashion photography on the wall. The space is so spare, there isn't even a sign at the entrance.

For me, um, right now, the minimalism clears my head. It represents who I am today, probably even more than as a designer, because there's so many categories technically I have to do. So I wouldn't say one blanket statement. I think that'd be very limiting, but it does represent a certain kind of freedom for me and a certain kind of openness and a decluttering.

And rule number 10, the last one before the bonuses and also my personal favorite: empower others.

Kohl's Simply Vera is a lifestyle brand, no question. It's about philosophy. It's about encouraging women, not intimidating them. Fashion can be very very intimidating. If you encourage women to explore their own creativity, and hopefully you give them the tools, they can express themselves. A beautiful print, a great jean that's beautifully cut, then I think we're on the right track.

So I love rule number 10, empower others, because it really speaks to the one-word philosophy and core selling in that people are buying you and your products because of what you stand for, and because of how it makes them feel about themselves. It's a reflection of themselves. Not just because of the benefits that they're getting by using your product. So companies often start off selling the, the features, what your product or service actually does. Then they move towards benefit selling, which is more around the benefit that they get by using your product or service. And then the companies that really excel, the companies that have brand status, the companies that are really doing big things are the ones using core selling, which is that last bit, which is by using your product or service, by being associated with your company, I feel better about myself. I feel empowered myself to go off and do something because I believe not just in the product you're selling but in the mission of your business. And then you get to the point where people will buy from you just because of who you are and what you're doing regardless of what the product or service actually is. And so that's where I want companies to go to. That's where I want entrepreneurs to be, not just competing on price but competing on your mission. Like you're doing something really important and you want that to spread and you want that to be the thing, the catalyst that makes people want to come back and buy from you and tell their friends about you and keep buying from you and keep telling more people about you. So I love it. I love the idea of empowering others. I encourage all entrepreneurs to find that empowering mission within yourself, your one word, bring that to your business, and that's when you start to see a lot of success. So I want to know from you guys though, rule number 10 was my personal favorite. Do you agree with me? Is rule number 10 the best one from from this episode? Or is there a rule that you like better? Let me know, leave it down in the comments below. Now I made this video because Fenny Mitzi asked me to. If there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, check out the link in the description to the request line where you can go and cast your vote. I also want to give a quick shout out to Lynn Podetti. Lynn, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my new book, The Top 10 Rules of Success, and sharing it with your kids and having them read it at a young age. I love it, I love that picture. Thank you for posting it online, and for all the support. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. Hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.

I was quite inspired by fictitious Marie Antoinette. This last show I gave in ready-to-wear was based on Marie Antoinette, a new version of her, a new vision of her if she were today. Because she was a fashion icon to me. I mean, her dresses Dresses got larger, her hairdos, her perruques got bigger and bigger, her wigs. And she became a rock star in fashion. And I wasn't really looking at the beheading or all of the end of the monarchy. I was really looking at her as this fashion— this fashion adventuress, you know what I mean? That she dared, she really dared to explore new proportion, new silhouette. I looked at it from a very weird point of view, from a fashion point of view. So I would love to know what went through her head when she went to live in the country and suddenly she was wearing these peasant shirts and sleeping in them, and she'd left the court, you know, of Louis XVI, and suddenly she's like this country girl. I just thought there is that dichotomy in most women. There are many sides to one woman. You're not just one thing. You're many things. And that's why I thought it was kind of fascinating this year for me to explore her mind. Mindset, at least what I think was their mindset.

So let me give you the one word secret to happiness. One word.

This is all you need to be happy.

The most important word ever.

If you had to think of one word that's most important to you or that sums you up or that would be kind of like a little beacon.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to know what the most important one word is for Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Oprah Winfrey, Will.i.am and Howard Schultz, I have a very special secret video for you. Check the description for details.