3 Key Secrets to Mastering Negotiation

If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually it's a place where you're blaming people can be unfair, unjust. That's for sure happens. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from.

Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to this special masterclass. We've brought some of the top experts in the world to help you unlock the power of your life through this specific theme today. It's going to be powerful, so let's go ahead and dive in. Was there ever a moment where you didn't unconditionally love yourself? And if so, when did that shift where you stopped that and you started saying, okay, I appreciate myself because of my contribution and my service and who I am? What was that shift?

I don't think it was ever I.

Just didn't love myself.

There were times obviously be angry with yourself or frustrated with yourself or thinking, you know, I'm not doing enough. I mean, I can remember my birthdays, to be honest with you, probably up till my 40th birthday. including my 40th birthday. You know, you have a birthday with a zero on it once you're over past 30, you know, 35, sometimes five years on it as well. People look at their life differently culturally. And I think it was bull, but sure enough, I would do it. I remember turning 40 and I was really, really unhappy. I was like, Jesus, I've not done enough. I've not helped enough people. I know tens of millions of people at that point already done all over the earth in 100 plus countries at that point. But it was still kind of stuck in my head. So I would earn the love by over delivering, change somebody's life. Like, I don't get it because somebody says, oh, I love you, Tony. I mean, I appreciate that. Or, oh, you're the greatest. It's got to be my standard. My standard's higher than their standard for me, right? So when I get up and someone's going to kill themself and it's, they're suicidal and boom, turn around and they're no longer not going to kill themself, but they're transformed. Their life is there. You know, that's when I go, okay, you know, now we've hit the center of what I'm made for. Now, you know, I deserve to feel this euphoric feeling within myself and appreciation. And even then, I still know it's God coming through me. I don't have the delusion it's just me. But I think sometime after 40, I finally saw the stupidity of it. I accumulated enough that I looked at life with fresh eyes. And I can say by the time I turned 60 a year ago, I noticed it was interesting because my birthday, I didn't have an ounce of it. I was just like, you know, how could I at this stage of my life when I've had the privilege of serving so many humans in so many contexts, you know, from turning around, you know, Guys are going to kill themselves with PTSD to helping kids turn around, to getting kids off cocaine or adults to, you know, helping people build multi-billion dollar businesses from nothing. And when I lived this long, I can't go by without hearing half a dozen stories a day or a dozen stories a day from people telling me how something I did changed their life. So it's not that I'm so smart now, it's just I've stacked it. By the way, though, stacking is the way you can do things. Most of us stack the negative. if you are really angry, it's not usually because of just the moment, it's that it happened again. You know, it's like if you've ever lost it or overreacted to your kid or to a friend or a business or even within yourself, it's because it happened again. We hit this one, two, three, many point and then our nervous system overreacts. But what I've learned is you can stack the good. And for example, if you're, if you go into a state of really strong anger for more than five minutes, your immune system is suppressed between an hour and a half to two hours. That's a physiological fact. But no one had done any study, I started stacking good. Like, okay, let me stack a dozen great memories, feel them, see them, experience them. And I felt this biochemical change that didn't just last a half hour, an hour, or 10 minutes. It went on for a day or two. And so I think I've learned to stack the good. So just having the experience is not enough. You got to stack the good to be able to appreciate it. But I think the more you find unconditional love for others, the easier it is to find in yourself. And I think the focus is serving and loving, and that's what will get you to the point where you start doing it. But if you want to speed it up, stack all the good you've done, you'll feel great about yourself.

I already know all the comments that are coming through, thousands of comments telling me, but what about my family that's toxic? What about my partner who's toxic? And how do I love someone unconditionally when they don't respect me? I can't trust them. What about situations like that?

All those reactions are natural human reactions from ego. Because it's all about you, me, me, me, what I'm not getting, what I'm not doing, and that's why you're in pain. I've done it too in the past, but it's an old pattern I don't really do anymore. And it used to affect me. Now, not a dominant one, I wouldn't have become who I become. Early in my life, I developed this belief that life is calling not to give me something, life is calling for me to deliver things, for me to bring something to life. And I felt the joy that came from not getting but giving, and I got hooked on that core pattern and then the pattern of learning so I'd have something to give, which I know one of the things I respect about you, Louis, is that you have that same pattern in you. You're always trying to learn more because underneath it all, you also want to give it. You want it for you, but you want to share it, right? And so those patterns help me not be in what they're not giving me. And all this language, language, today people don't understand the power of their language, like toxic. You've been reading too much social media and thinking about yourself or somebody raised you to constantly judge everybody else. We live in a culture now Where people, you know, you're evil or you're like me. That's basically how it is, right? The whole world, everybody else is immoral unless they do what you do, think what you think, experience what you think. I mean, being a liberal, I was a liberal, right? Being a liberal growing up meant, I would fight for your ability to say and believe whatever you want different than me. Today, now everybody wants everybody to think the same thing, otherwise they're evil or otherwise they could hurt me. Whatever happens, sticks and stones will break your bones, words will never hurt me. We have this whole thing that words are evil, words are action, and all it does is make you incredibly weak as a human being and you're more than that. We all are more than that. But you know what? Like a kid that's never broken their bones, deathly afraid of breaking the bone. But if you're a kid and you're rough and tumble, you broke multiple bones and they heal, you don't have any fear of it. There's so many kids that have been raised to be safe and secure every moment. Anything that's insecure or unsafe they don't want to be a part of, including language. And what it does is make you incredibly weak and fearful. And that's why there's so many people that are abundant that are angry all the time because they're angry because they're not growing. So don't get me wrong. I know some people are not a good influence. I'm not denying that. I'm just saying you're more than somebody's influence unless you obsess about it every moment and make them wrong so you can make yourself feel superior morally, psychologically or spiritually. Stop the pattern. We've all done it. Catch yourself. Because if you want joy, happiness and freedom in an extraordinary life, it will not come from blame.

Never.

There's no pride that comes from blame. Pride is something you earn. People tell me, oh, I have no self-esteem because my parents used to say this or they'd say that. Self-esteem does not come from what people say about you. Self-esteem comes from what you experience about yourself. See, someone can tell your whole life you're a piece of crap and a part of you can go, you,'re full of it. I'm gonna show you. Lots of people have done that. They never bought it. Or someone tell you, you're beautiful your whole life. You go, I'm not really beautiful. So what people tell you doesn't matter at all. It's what you stack. It's what you assemble. It's what you create. It's the habit of what you put in your head. And today I don't blame you because we got a whole culture that's always blaming somebody else for something in their life. But blame is not a strategy for pride. That's why you listen to these blaming people. They're all angry all the time. Listen, if I wanted to blame, I grew up in an environment, I didn't even share it to my mom past, and even then I didn't share. I grew up in a pretty rough environment. My mom was a beautiful soul, but when she drank alcohol and she mixed it with prescription drugs, it was a different creature. And it was a violent creature. And I have a younger brother five years younger and a younger sister seven years younger. And my mom would get nuts and I didn't want them to get hurt. So I was 5'1 in high school. She'd grab me by the hair and smash me against the wall till I bled. Now, I never shared this and I'm not denigrating her in any way. I only shared it like four or five years after she died, because I was talking to a group of kids in New York City, all without fathers, 80% African-American, about 20% Hispanic out of their group roughly, no white kids, and I'm talking about your biography is not your destiny. And it doesn't matter what you've been through, what you decide now is what's going to control your life, what you decide each day going forward is going to decide your life. And I look at them seeing me, I can read their minds. This big, tall, white, rich guy is gonna tell me, biography doesn't matter. So I said, you, let me tell you my story. And I told them the whole story way more than I'm telling you. And every one of them was crying their eyes out when they were done. I said, look where I am right now. Because I wouldn't assemble the story that my past equals my future. The past only equals your future if you live there. If you're using a rear view mirror to guide yourself, you're gonna crash. So what you've been through is horrific. What you've been through is unjust. I'm on your side. But if you hang on to it, you have no future and you have no one to blame but yourself. And these kids, to their credit, man, they just responded to the challenge because they first cried their eyes out hearing all the stories. My mom would think I was lying and I wasn't lying. She poured liquid soap down my throat till I threw up. And I wasn't lying. So it's not the physical abuse. It's the fact that this is the.

Person you love most that's trying to.

Hurt you, that messes with your head. So I could have been messed up for life, but I didn't. Because something inside me says, I'm responsible for this life. And part of that is because I started reading when I was 13, 14, biographies of people, the greatest people in history, and reading their lives and finding out, guess what? Their lives were far from perfect. Some of them had worse lives than I had. But when you have no reference and all you do is go online, you talk to other people, it's making everybody else toxic and I'm like this and they didn't do that, right? Don't be one of those. Free yourself from the chains of your past. I'm not saying your past doesn't matter, but listen, my mother, I tell people this all the time, and it's the truth. If my mother had been the mother I wanted to be, the mother she should have been, I would not be the man I'm proud to be today. Because I had to become a practical psychologist way before any schooling, figure out when's she gonna go in the mood, how do I change her state, how do I protect her from the kids, I mean, it was felt life and death, and it was to some extent. So I developed skills at such a young age that when I learned things, I just added to my skills. But I had a core sense of certainty that I could turn anybody around because it started with my mother. And thank God for her. And she encouraged me in so many ways. She did so many great things. And she loved me, even though it didn't look like it at times. So, but if your parents, if the people around you said all the things you thought they should have, if they had just not been toxic, if they'd encouraged you, You wouldn't have any muscle. And right now you don't have any muscle because you're using that as an excuse if you're thinking that. And I'm not attacking you brothers and sisters, I'm calling to you because I know you're more. Otherwise I'd just keep my mouth shut. You've been hypnotized by a culture of weakness. Now having said that, I'll say one last thing. I know you've got other questions, but it's so important what you asked. Yes, there are people that you don't want to hang out with that will not serve you. But then move on. Don't sit there and talk about it constantly. Don't waste your time. And you say, but what if it's family, Tony? Mine was family too. That's God coming to you saying, grow. You need some spiritual growth. There's gotta be some change in your perception, your belief, your emotions, your spiritual look of life. So that can't happen anymore. And when it happens, like at 61, I've been through so many of those things. And I like to do things in mass. I took on big challenges so I'd have to grow more. But then life throws them at you too. When they come, you just go, okay, it's going to have me until I grow. What needs a shift in me so that no longer has an impact? But you know, Jim Rohn used to say, my original teacher, he used to say, Tony, what happens if I've got a cup of coffee here? And he'd say, what if your worst enemy drops sugar in your coffee? What's going to happen? And I go, well, you don't have sweet coffee. And he goes, what if your best friend, your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your loved one drops one drop of strychnine? I said, you,'d be dead. He goes, that's right. Life is both sugar and strychnine, so watch your coffee. His whole thing was stand guard at the door of your brain. But some people take it and go, oh my God, you can kill me. It was a metaphor. These people are not so toxic. They're toxic because you give them energy. So if your mom's crazy and constantly criticizing you and it drives you nuts, just go, that's my mom. That's her way of showing love. And I find a new perspective and no matter what she does, just stay in a beautiful state and love on her and think, boy, think of all that she cares and feels for, all that she's frustrated in life, all that she's that's going through that's made her this way. And thank God I don't have to go through this. I can love her. It's like your growth is the only limit to your happiness. If you're not happy, you're not growing in some area. And usually it's a place where you're blaming, you're pointing the finger. I don't care if it's government, don't get me wrong, people can be unfair, unjust, that's for sure happens. But you can't control that. You can't make it not happen. What you have to do is become stronger than any of it so you're free. Freedom comes from growth. Freedom does not come from control. Because control is an illusion. You can't control everybody. No matter how hard you try, you can't control what they think or feel. And not everybody's gonna be fair and just. And you, my dear friends, and I have not always been fair and just. Whether we admit it or not, it's just the nature of being a being, a human being. But we can make the largest pattern fair and just and loving and powerful and serving and growing. until it becomes the dominant thing inside you. And then you experience life as being great, not your great. Life's great because you're living a great path.

It seems like what I'm seeing and hearing from a lot of people that this past year everything has fallen apart for them. Their health, their relationships, their finances, their mission or purpose, and their spiritual awareness, like every area of life has been in breakdown mode for some people. Not everyone. Some people have had incredible lives and they've stepped up to the occasion and broken through on all these things. but I'm seeing a pattern of a lot of people breaking down in many areas. Hypothetical scenario, let's say you could only focus on one thing to get you started. You only have the time and energy to focus on one of these areas. Your health, your relationships are all breaking down, your finances are failing everywhere. Where should people lean into first to kind of create that foundation so that everything else can start to rise as well?

I think before you answer what to do, you're going to answer why you're there. It is not because of the pandemic. I remember when 9/11 happened and people tell, oh my God, my life was destroyed because of 9/11, and there were people in the same building who turned their life around, grew spiritually, got closer to their family, made their businesses larger, and the same building burned down. I know in my case, 9/11 comes, if you can imagine, I'm fortunate to have now more than 80 companies in all these different industries. obviously, you know, I've done pretty darn well by most people's standards of business and life. But my core mission is what I do for a living. It's why I'm here talking to you right now. It's getting people to be free and alive and have the level of fulfillment that they deserve to have. I know they desire, but I also believe they deserve to have, but to deserve to have it, you gotta do certain things, right? Blame is not a strategy for a meaningful life. Blame is not a strategy for greatness. So you gotta resolve that number one. And then your question was, What's the one thing to focus on if you can only focus on one? I think it's smart to focus on one thing primarily. Focus on too many can be overwhelming. Other people, it's good to focus on multiple things. It depends on your personality. So I wouldn't presuppose. But then the answer would be whichever thing you're most desirous of changing. Whatever thing is giving you the most pain. So if it's your relationship, I go full force on that. Now in the world we're in today, you don't usually have the privilege of going, okay, I want to work on just being happy. well, I can train you to be happy while hell's breaking loose. You can sit in this chair and be totally euphoric. But if you do that in a Western culture, people come and take your furniture, right? So you probably have to work on both your business or financial side and some personal side. I would be working on both. And to me, the way to attack that, if you're not sure which areas to start with the body. And I know you can relate to this, Louis, because you and I both share this in common. It's like I always teach physiology first, as you well know. If you change the body, you'll change the emotions. If you change the emotions, you'll change your decisions, you'll change the quality of your 'cause the quality of life is your emotions. It's not what you get. You have a billion dollars and commit suicide. People have done it, right? You can have beautiful relationships and commit suicide. You can have people loving you and be sad all the time. Our pattern of emotion is our home. And you have to upgrade your home. You have to train it. And one way to train it is the emotion comes from the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you speak. So if I said to your listeners, there's a depressed person behind the curtain over here and I'll give $100,000 to their favorite charity if they had to describe their body, their posture, and they're depressed, you tell me. I'll just use you as the example.

What does that person look like? They're slouched down. They're looking down at their feet. They're not looking upward.

Their shoulders are over. Are they breathing full or shallow, do you think? They're shallow. Are they talking fast or slow?

They're talking, if they're depressed, they're probably talking fast because they're not calm.

Well, no, that's usually stressed. Depressed is different than stressed.

They're slow, they're probably talking low volume, slower than.

And all those physical characteristics change your biochemistry towards this feeling of being depressed. And in a depressed state, you won't do anything. When I used to be depressed, I don't get it anymore. I just took it out of my life. I even took the language of it out of my life. because the words you create create a biochemical response. I got out of it by using anger originally. I'd much like sometimes if somebody's really sad or depressed, I'll make them angry and be like, what's he doing? He's making me angry. Because angry is much more resourceful than depressed. From anger, I can get you to laughter, I can get you to taking action. And then gradually I got where I didn't need anger. It was about growth, it was about contribution, it was about meaning. So there's like stages to go through. But to answer your question, they should work on both their business side of their life and personal, one of each. and in order for either one of those to work, you need to be in a strong emotional state. And if you start with your body, like, you know, I start every morning in my cold water, start every morning with my workout, I start every morning feeding my mind, right? So there's certain things you got to do physically so you're strong enough to remember the truth. Because remember, fear is physical. You feel in your throat or your gut. So is courage. Courage doesn't mean you're not afraid. It just means you're strong enough you push through in spite of the fear, right? And courage feels different in the body. So when you go lift or you go for a sprint or a strong run or you jump in that freezing water. When you push your mind to go beyond what's comfortable, you feel a strength inside you and that strength will help you to change your body, your emotions, your relationships, whatever. But then the other thing I have to say is model someone who's successful. Find somebody who has what you want, ideally maybe more than one person, two or three. And so what are they doing different than you in their relationship? What do they believe different than you about relationship? If it's their body, what are they doing different? They're not lucky. They're doing things differently. You might be slightly biochemically different, but there's patterns there that you can see. And so instead of learning by trial and error, which can take decades you may never learn, Jim Rohn taught me success leaves clues, man. Find someone who's got what you want, study what they do, every aspect of it, and then add yourself to it. And that's the pathway to speed of transformation. So now, like, you know, I've done it. I'm not the only person. There's so many companies that went from Worse off than they'd ever been in their history to the best off because they found a way to pivot.

Life is a series of mentors. I went on from there and, you know, I had one great teacher and that's all you need is one really great teacher in school that makes you feel really special. And then I had a mentor who owned a corner store in my neighborhood and he would teach me and explain to me, you know, his business tactics. And then my mother Ended up having a boyfriend who I call my stepfather who who was actually of the Jewish faith and youd know, he taught me that love doesn't come in a color or a gender and that and that you know for me to be very proud of my culture, but don't be anti anything else and respect everybody so I think that gave me a broader look at life and I never walked in the room with a chip on my shoulder. I also never thought anybody else was better than me, but I never thought anybody had it better than me too because people of all colors have challenges in life, dreams and aspirations. So those things all led me, you know, to be the man that I am, and I'm very happy of those experiences.

Yeah. And what got you into or being interested into the fashion world, into clothing world?

Well, it was this new music that was coming out of the Bronx right around 1982-83. It was called, you know, rap music, and it made its way into Queens where I lived. and his music was amazing, it was fascinating. Before that I would listen to music, you know, great people like of course, you know, Rest in Peace David Bowie and Rolling Stones and Donna Summer, Stevie Wonder, Barry White. But all these people had this beautiful way of singing. They had this orchestra and everything else and they touched on some of the political issues in the world. But this music that was coming out of the Bronx named rap, it was kind of like our version of Twitter today, I always say. It was like a disruptive technology because I started to hear about other kids, their hopes and their dreams, their aspirations, the plights of the neighborhood, things that I wouldn't be able to see on the news. And they were putting it in a rhythmic form and it was starting to educate us. And it came with a way not only to listen to music, but a way to walk, talk and even dress. And you felt like you were part of this society if you wore your Adidas with fat laces on or you knew how to break dance. And that's where I sort of find my identity as a young man. So that's really where fashion started.

Right, right.

With me. I wouldn't know till, you know, I was about 12 years old. I wouldn't know till probably about another 10 years, 15 years, that maybe we should all do something that we love. Right. I tried everything else.

Yeah.

But I never thought about fashion. It's kind of like, you know, you bust your butt to go and, and work and make a living, and then you go out and on the weekends, you kind of snowboard and do all stuff like that, but you never thought about busting your butt building snowboard or, or, or, yeah, or snowboarding and making money. Like Rob Dyrdek, your buddy, Rob Dyrdek.

Exactly, Rob, yeah, Rob's in the book as well, of course.

Exactly, yeah, that's interesting.

So how old were you when you sold your first article of clothing? How old was I? How was I? It was, I know the date, I know exactly the date. It was 1989, good Friday, three o'clock in the afternoon, 37 degrees outside. I stood outside the Colosseum Mall. in 1989. So I was 20 years old. Okay.

Yeah.

Cool.

20 years old.

20 years old.

When did you have. How old were you when you said you had the passion for.

I had the passion in 10, 11, 12. I had a passion for fashion earlier on in my life prior to that as well. But it was really my mother was dressing me because we didn't, you know, not really want us four or five or six because we didn't have money enough money to go buy clothes. So she would sell them. Interesting. And sometimes the pocket would be hanging.

Up in the back somewhere, but it was okay. So what gave you When did you decide that you had the permission to go create your own things or sew them in the basement and then go sell them? What gave you that belief in yourself that you could create this?

I, you know what? Again, like most of us start, there was no belief that I could do it, but I remember walking into a store and I started to see cross colors everywhere and I walked in the store and I saw this picture of this guy who looked like a young Mike Tyson hanging off a pair of jeans and it was Carl Kanai. And then it just hit me. I thought prior to that we always thought that you had to be from Italy and France to design. You had to be older and like a, you know, you know the guys with the tape around their neck, you know, the tailors, right? And so, or whatever the fashion designers had looked like in those days. And I thought I just, I'm just supposed to buy from them. When I saw that, I was like, wow, that's amazing. Okay, no problem. Then I'm watching a De La Soul video. I remember and seeing them wearing these hats. It almost looked like a ski cap, but it has like a tie on the top and I couldn't find that hat anywhere in Queens. I finally find one uptown Manhattan. I pay for the hat, I come home, I show my mother, I said, Look, Ma, I paid, you know, I always say a joke, I paid $6,000 in gas, $900 in tolls and $20 for the hat. Check this out. And she goes, that's a piece of crap. But I could, Damon, I could show you how to sew hats like that, so you can sew as many as you want, so you can wear them, you don't have to do that. So go get $40 worth of fabric, I go to the store, $40 worth of fabric. I come home, I give my mother the stuff to sew the hats, and she says, I'm not sewing this, you're sewing this. So, crap, now I gotta work at this. I sew the hats, and then all of a sudden, I have all these hats and only one head. Because it's not like I was too stupid or I wasn't thinking, thank God, I didn't buy $40 worth of different fabric.

I bought $40 worth of the same fabric.

I bought one maybe every three years. Yeah, so anyway, so that's when it happened. That's when I went out and sewed those hats and the Outside on that Good Friday and I sold $800 worth of hats in one hour. And that's when it just snapped. I just said to myself, Wait a minute, I made this with my own hands. I went and sold this to individuals and nobody was in my way. I didn't have to get a check from a boss. Nobody told me when to come to work or go to work. I can't get fired from this because of my color creed or whatever the case is. I'm responsible for what's happening here and I will either fail because every decision I make, I'll succeed because every decision I make.

Was that the first time that you made money on your own as an entrepreneur, or were you.

No, no, no, no. I've made money on my own and lost money on my own as an entrepreneur. You know, I started my first business. It took me a long time to really decide what I want to do and what was my first business. It took me forever to decide my first business. My first business, I finally decided what I wanted to do when I was six years old. Took me forever, right? I was selling pencils in, in school. Wow. And then I then I would go ahead and, and, and sell candy. And then when I, when, when, when it snowed, I would shovel snow in the winter, rake leaves in the, in the fall. And, and then I remember when I used to shovel snow, I used to go and kids would want to help me because I started getting, you know, everybody in the blocks that I wanted to, I would travel about three miles and, and take care of it. Kids want to help me. So I would tell them, okay, no problem. Here's what you're going to do. If you're going to help me, I'm going to let you work. I'm going to give you a Let's split the money with you, but you got to do a spring cleanup for free so we can go back into spring. And then I would go to the owners of the house and say, well, everybody else on the block, if they shovel your snow, they're showing you $3. If I shovel your snow three times during the winter, I'm going to give you a free spring cleanup. So I was leveraging all those little guys in the neighborhood.

I love it.

Ah, man, that was a great business.

Now, when did you realize that you kind of, you know, the $800 first day, it might have been a great first day, but when you realize like, okay, I have something actually that is consistently getting results. I mean, was it just easy for you after that? For the next year, you were just making 800 bucks every day and then it just kept growing? Or was there like, oh, there's some dry spells here or I need to.

Change where I'm promoting it? Like anything in business, it was always a dry spell here, dry spell there, but in all reality, you know, my friends and I, we love selling the hats. Why? Because there was a reason to talk to girls on the street. There you go.

Right.

And that's why we do a lot of that. Everything, right? If we didn't have women in the world, we'd all be walking around barefoot and just, you know, no teeth.

Right.

Exactly. And then I would start going to the black expos where there was, like, a basically Market on the road. And I would try to sell shirts there. Why? Because girls were there. Right, right. But also, we started, we were really passionate about what we were doing and we started getting that high when we sold stuff at a Black Expo, you know, and then we go to another one and we see somebody wearing it.

I go, wow, that's pretty cool.

And that's when they came back and started saying, man, you know, I tell everybody about this shirt and they asked me for, so I need to buy three now because I gotta buy for everybody. And we saw, I said, wow, right? And it just became so exciting. I would have normally paid to go to the Black Expo to go around and buy stuff or see stuff and then You know, we happen to live in Hollis Queens. There's a lot of music artists in Hollis Queens, you know, obviously Salt and Pepper, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Tribal Quest, a lot of them come from there. We didn't really know them, but we knew all their friends. But then all of a sudden we heard, we were saying, well, can we get something in a video? And they would go, yeah, come on down. We go down to the video, and there's craft services. It's free to eat as much food as you want. You get to see somebody like LL Cool J performing a song. There's video vixens running around. Vixens everywhere. I would have paid to go there. Meanwhile, I'm going there, go ahead, put on a shirt. They put on a shirt, then I'll say, Man, I don't have any money to-- I have a small company, so.

I really can't afford to lose that shirt. Can I have it back?

Really? Sounds like, you know, what you did. When was this? What year was this? This was-- well, honestly, I opened Food 189, I closed it three times because I ran out of capital from '89 to '92. So the story really goes from '89 to around '96.

Okay, cool. so 20 years ago, you were essentially the true branding expert who was leveraging the Instagram influencers of today. You were leveraging the music stars, the MTV stars, and getting that social media out there on MTV, as opposed to on Instagram, which is what brands are doing today. They're trying to find the top influencers and get their clothing on them.

Yeah, we always call FUBU the first hashtag of clothing, you know?

Yeah, yeah, I like it. I like it. what was, what would you say was the biggest challenge once you started to really take off and grow? Obviously as a small business owner when a trend hits and everyone wants your product, how did you handle that and what was the biggest challenge?

Scalability was very hard because it was how do I go and finance and underwrite these things? Where will I get the capital? What's the turnaround time? And I didn't have any financial intelligence at the time. Right. So, you know, my journey, sell, and you could hustle. I could sell, like a hustle. But, you know, my journey, I I almost failed or in lost everything several times throughout that Journey because I just didn't know how to use the tool of money.

Yeah.

And, and, and it's so hard to try to acquire all that knowledge within the same time. How do I acquire the knowledge of branding, marketing, distribution, manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, Financial intelligence, customer support, you know, return on Goods, you know, consumption. you know what I mean? It's so hard. So of course I had to start leveraging as well and creating a bunch of strategic relationships because I knew I needed that. I knew I needed that because, you know, listen, you know, when you tell somebody to stop smoking, you know, a couple of times and, and, and after the 10th time, they know they already have a problem with smoking. They don't want to listen to you. Listen, forget it. I'm not even gonna address it. I'm only talking about smoking. When you have a business, you have to answer the call. or you're closed.

Right, right.

So you have to plug the dam. And I knew I had to plug the dam. So I started just creating a lot of strategic relationship, and that's actually the power broke, because it is the fact that, you know, if I would have had money when I went to those video sets, I would have paid the director, I'd have paid the producer, I'd have paid the, the rapper, everybody else.

Right.

How do, if you gave me $20,000 at that time and I heard that LL Cool J will wear my stuff for $5,000 and the director wants $5,000 to wear it. They're getting the money, of course.

Right?

And they're gonna wear it. But I got into 30-40 videos with $0, right? Because I had no way to do it. I had nothing to lose. You couldn't take anything from me. I didn't have anything. Yeah, right.

Exactly. So, so you couldn't even give me your shirt.

Right.

You took it back.

I took it back. You know, when you have, when you, when you're working with the Power of Broke, it does a couple of things. Number one, It makes sure that you learn the process yourself. You can't afford to hire anybody else. So all those people out there who pay $40,000 for a website when it really costs five.

Or you can leverage it by bartering or something.

Whatever the case is, right? So you have to learn the process. And what happens during that period of time of learning the process is that when and if and hopefully you get to the point that you are successful, Nobody can tell you lies. You can't have somebody say, well, I'm not going to tell you about shipping because you're firing me and I've got to go work it out yourself. You get and you learn the process, number one. Number two is because you don't have a lot of capital, you focus on the only thing that you can do. You don't drown on opportunity. You don't take a bunch of money and go, We should try a bunch of stuff. Here you go. Here's 10,000, 10,000, 10,000, 10,000 here. Go. Yeah, you go. So, all right, what are we gonna do with this hat right now? So that's the process. And that process is very, very important. Also, you learn and it brings out the character of who you have around you when you operate the power of brokering.

What do you mean by that?

Well, if you're busy, let's open a business today. Let's go take a $10,000, let's go take a $100,000 loan. Well, what happens when the money goes away? Because when I didn't have anything, people worked with me for free. And I saw who rose to the challenge. I saw who jumped ship. I saw who was problem solvers and problem creators. And that's the process of activating the power of broke. Because to tell you the truth, the people who activate the power broke more than anybody else are the people who are successful, because that's how they stay successful.

I'm sure how it all started. so we have an understanding of what it is and how you got into it.

Absolutely. It actually started with my own butt because I couldn't figure out what to wear under white pants. And I'm sure you've had this problem.

When you're getting dressed.

All the time. So what ended up happening was there was, you know, our undergarment options were no good. There was underwear that left a panty line, and then there was the girdle that was way too thick and heavy. And so then they came out with the thong. which just put underwear exactly where we've been trying to get it out of.

Right, so that didn't help at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so Spanx was born out of just being a frustrated consumer. I wanted to wear my clothes, I wanted a smooth canvas, I didn't want to see lines or any kind of things going on underneath. So by taking the hosiery material, which was meant to be seen on the leg until Spanx sort of looked at it with a different lens, and said, no, no, no, I want the hosiery material to actually be what I create the undergarment out of. And it was wild trying to convince the hosiery manufacturers to help me make this product with that in mind, because for so many years they'd been using the material to be seen on the leg.

Right.

I said, no, it's just it's the perfect material to create the perfect canvas for women under our clothes. And it opened up my wardrobe, it opened up so many other women's wardrobe. We could start wearing colors we didn't feel comfortable wearing. And the models get airbrushed.

We get Spanx. There you go. There you go. I love it.

And when was this? What year was this? This was in, well, I cut the feet out of my panty I was in 1998. Wow. Yes, I was 20 years ago.

Am I doing my math right?

Yes, I was 27. And then I spent the next two years getting it made. I worked at night and on the weekends on the idea while I was selling fax machines door-to-door and then the company was launched in 2000 when I was 29.

Wow.

Yeah.

Selling fax machines door-to-door where were you living?

In Clearwater, Florida. Okay. Where I grew up.

Fax machines.

On Clearwater Beach. Are there even fax machines anymore around? No.

I mean, thank God I'm not still doing that.

I don't know what would have happened. There are no more fax machines. Just like no one watches the movie Airplane anymore. I cannot believe. I need to know. Is he the only one on the planet who's not seen the movie Airplane? I was quoting Airplane as soon as they put the headset on.

I'm like, Stryker, you're too low.

You're too low. And you just stared at me like, what is she talking about?

Guys.

That's it, guys.

So how long were you selling the fax machines?

I sold the fax machine door-to-door for seven years. Seven years? Yes, I know. And before that, I wanted to be a lawyer, but I failed the LSAT.

Not once, but twice.

And you wanted to be a lawyer. That was your job.

I wanted to be a lawyer.

I was like, I'm gonna be a lawyer. But so you wanted to be a lawyer, but it didn't work out. I wanted to be a lawyer. I failed the LSAT not once, twice.

So then instead of going to law.

School, I drove to Disney World and tried out to be goofy. But you have to be 5'8.

You're 5'6. And I'm 5'6.

So you didn't wear heels? No, I didn't wear heels. I didn't wear heels.

And so I was the height of a chipmunk.

So you got the chipmunk? I got the chipmunk part, but I didn't end up doing it. I put people on rides in a brown polyester spacesuit at the World of Motion and Horizons at Epcot. Epcot Center. And I would see people that I hadn't seen in a while and... Come through. Yeah, I'm walking on the moving sidewalk, putting people on rides and they'd go, Hey, Blakely, is that you? Didn't you graduate from College and my big Mickey Mouse here said Sarah Blakely and I'd be like, yes, get on the ride. Oh my gosh. But that's what I did and then.

I sold fax machines door-to-door for seven years. -That's crazy. -Seven years. Did you wake up every morning and.

Say, this is my dream to sell fax machines door-to-door? Were you thinking, no. What am I doing in my life? Exactly. So, what happened was a lot of people think that Spanx started when I cut the feet out of my pantyhose but actually it started long before that. It started when I was selling fax machines door-to-door. and getting my business card ripped up in my face, being escorted out of buildings all day, every day, that I woke up one day and just thought, I'm in the wrong movie. Like, how did this happen? This is not my life. Cut scene, director, like, call the producer. And I got out a piece of paper and I wrote down, what am I good at? And the only thing in the good column was sales. And I thought, okay, what am I gonna do with that? And I ended up writing in my journal, I'm going to invent a product. and sell it to millions of people that will make them feel good. And then I asked the universe for an idea and I was very specific and it took two years and I only cut the feet out of my pantyhose one time and I was not going to squander any idea the universe gave me because I had really asked for it. And then the minute I cut the feet out, I started trying to make it. I started looking up manufacturers on the internet.

This is before Alibaba, wasn't it?

It. Yes.

Because I tried this, I did this about eight years ago and I used Alibaba for something and it was easy to find like a manufacturer in China and test different things. But how did you find a manufacturer at that time?

A website called ThomasRegistry.com and it lists all the manufacturers in the country based on category. And that's when I found out that a lot of hosiery and undergarments were being made in North Carolina.

Oh really?

Yeah.

So you got a local? Yes.

So US, yeah. So I called and called and no one would take my call and they'd either hang up on me or say they weren't interested. So I took a week off of work and drove around in person. And just showed up and said, I just showed up.

Hey, I want to create a sample.

Yeah.

Because if they weren't gonna get a big order for something, they're probably like, what's, I'm not gonna do a little sample for you.

Right, right, yeah. I showed up with my lucky red backpack from college. It's always with me. You still have it?

Yeah, of course.

And... You didn't bring it here. Come on. It's with me, it's with me in LA, yeah. Oh, wow.

Yeah.

So anyway, I went into the manufacturing plants and they asked me the same three questions. And you are, let's say, Sarah Blakely, and you're with, like, myself. Sarah Blakely. And you're financially backed by it. I was like, Sarah Blakely. So you can imagine how those went. It was like, well, have a nice day, honey, and good luck. And about, you know, a few weeks after I made all those rounds, I got a call from a guy in North Carolina who had Dad took pity on me and said, Sarah, I have decided to make your crazy idea.

Wow.

And when I asked why the change of heart, he said, I have three daughters. Wow.

Yeah, so he ran the idea by.

Them and they're like, Dad, that sounds interesting. You gotta give that girl a chance. Amazing.

So he called you back. You didn't follow up with these people.

Oh yeah, I was following up, but to no avail. Gotcha.

But he followed up and said, We'll give it a shot.

Yes.

We'll make this. So what was the next step? Was he just making a sample for you or testing different models or sizes.

Yeah, so it just set up to make the garment. While I was making it with his manufacturing plant, I was also wanting to patent the idea, and I was also trying to come up with the name for the invention. So I was doing those three things simultaneously, driving up on the weekends and working with Ted in the back of the manufacturing plant that I'd become very close with. You're driving to North Carolina from Florida?

No, from Atlanta.

I was living in Atlanta at the time.

What's that about, eight hour drive, six hour drive?

About four and a half. Oh, it's not bad, okay. Yeah, it's not bad. Anyway, Ted became my buddy and I went to get it patented, but all the patent lawyers wanted between three and $5,000 and I had $5,000 set aside to do this. That's it, yeah. So I wrote my own patent, I went to Barnes and Noble. No way. And I bought a book called Patents and Trademarks and I wrote the patent and then I called one of the patent lawyers that was the nicest to me and said, Please, please, please, will you write the claims over the weekend for a discounted price? I've done all the other rest of the patent.

The leg work you'd done.

Yeah.

You just kind of needed to button it up and.

Yeah, you needed to sign it off. The legal part. And so he did. He actually admitted to me that when I came to visit him, he thought I'd been sent by Candid Camera, which, let me put it in your.

I know.

I know.

He thought he was being punked.

Of course. Of course. Wow. Yeah. He thought he was being punked. Okay. And he thought.

Where's Ashton?

Yeah, exactly. He thought that his friends. We're playing a joke on him. --No way. --Yeah, he goes, who's this girl? --Sarah, I mean like you're not the typical person who walks in the door saying, I've got a product and I want a patent. --Wow. --So anyway, he did that. Then at the same time, I'm trying to think of the name. I had horrible names written on scrap pieces of paper all over the place in my apartment, in my car, in rental cars on the back of like Avis agreements.

And you want to hear how bad the runner-up name to Spanx was?

--Yeah. --Oh. Open toed Delilahs.

No way.

Yes.

I cannot believe that was even an option.

It was, it was a runner-up. Like how bad is that? Open toed Delilahs. I so wouldn't be sitting here with.

You right now if I named it that.

That is the horrible, yeah, so bad. Wow. Yes. So anyway, okay, so what does SPAC stand for? Well, it's all about the butt. Makes your mind wander a little bit. Nobody ever forgets it. I had no money to advertise. It was risky. It was fun. At the time, listen, now it's become a household name, but when I first.

Invented it, I would call people and.

Say, hi, I'm Sarah from SPACs, and they would hang up.

Right.

And I thought it was probably like a porn.

Yeah, they thought I was pranking them. I'm called, I'm like, no, really, I'm Sarah and my company really is called Spanx. And I had department stores across the country that wouldn't sell it. They thought it was too risque of a name. Yeah. And my mom sent her whole luncheon to the wrong website when I first started. I was like, Mom, it's with an X. Oh my God. It's super important. It's with an X. So yeah, anyway, I ended up buying the word Spanx. from a man who said he was holding out from the porn industry. Funny enough that you say that.

I bet, yeah. I paid Frank with an X. I.

Paid some money for that. But anyway, yes. So, amazing. Named it Spanks. It came to me because I narrowed down my thinking. I knew that Kodak and Coca-Cola were the two most recognized names in the world at the time. And I thought, what do they have in common? I like to think about words and phrases a lot. They both had a strong K sound in them.

Them.

And the man that created Kodak liked the K sound so much, he took a K and put it in the beginning and the end of the word and played with letters in the alphabet. So, and I also had a bunch of friends who did stand-up comedy and it's this weird trade secret among comedians that the K sound will make your audience laugh. So I put all that together and I'm like, okay, I want my product name to have the K sound in it for good luck. And literally Spanks came across my dashboard in my car in my mind and I pulled off the side of the road. I wrote it down. I went home that night. I typed it in my computer for $150 with my credit card and at the last second I backspaced the K and the S and put in an X and hit send.

So it was an accident? Kind of with the X.

No, I know.

You backspaced, gotcha.

I backspaced because I stared at it for a while and I had done research that made up words do better for product than real words and they're easier to trademark. So then I had the name and I had the patent in the works. Got my prototype and my patent lawyer said, Sarah, I need to know what's in this garment in order to write the patent. I said, okay, no problem. We'll call Ted. So I get Ted on the phone. I'm like, Ted, can you talk to the manufacturer? Yeah, in the back. In the back. I'm like, Ted, can you talk to my patent lawyer? He's like, yeah. So we're all talking and he goes, I go, Can you tell him what's in it? He's like, yeah. Well, it's 70% nylon and 30% lacquer. And I'm like, All right. And so I'm taking notes. My patent lawyer's taking notes. And that night I could not sleep. I'm up all night. And the next morning I wake up.

I'm like, How is there lacquer in this product?

What is lacquer just so I'm aware?

I think it's like paint thinner or something.

Okay. So I called Ted. 30% paint thinner. So I called Ted, I go, Ted, can you spell lacquer? He's like, yeah, L-Y-C-R-A. Oh my God, Lycra. Oh yeah, I was like, Got it. It can all change on lacquer immediately.

I'll change.

My patent lawyer was laughing. He said, you know how fast you would have gotten a patent if you tried to make this out of paint thinner? They would be like, sure.

So was it challenging to get it? Did you get it the first try?

The patent? I did.

Wow. Usually it takes a few turns, doesn't it?

I got the patent the first try and I got the trademark name Spanks.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So it didn't seem like there was that many challenges once you submitted it or whatever. You kind of got the things you needed in place. You got the orders in. was there a lot of challenges after that? Once you got the patent, the trademark?

That was a really hard part. It's just I heard the word no for two years. All the manufacturers, nobody thought it was a good idea. And also when you're just yourself trying to break into an industry like you mentioned, the manufacturers, it's not really in their best interest to slow down machines or try to give a girl with a couple grand a chance. Unless you're gonna give them a bunch.

Of money for a big order of something.

It's like, what's the point? Right, so that was the hard part. And then once I had it, I told called Neiman Marcus and that was the first account I called on. Did you get it? Yes.

Well, you were great at sales. Well, listen, you could sell it.

I was so excited. It was my moment. I flew to Dallas. I called them and said, if you give me 10 minutes of your time, I'll come and meet with you.

And she said, all right.

It was a buyer. Yep, the buyer. I first called the Atlanta store. They're like, girl, we can't help you. We have a buying office. I'm like, well, where is that? Give me their number. Wow. And I went in and halfway through my pitch, I could tell I was losing her. So I said, you know what? Will you please come to the bathroom with me? And she was, like, so buttoned up. I mean, Neiman Marcus, like, her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes.

And she was like, what?

Like, what am I going to do in the bathroom? I was like, just follow me to the bathroom and show you my own panty line. And I went in the stall with Spanx and my pants and without it in my pants. And she was like, oh, I totally get it.

It's awesome.

And I'm going to put in seven stores.

Wow.

Yeah. Oh, man.

Just like that. Just like that.

It was so unbelievable. I was so nervous. And then, of course, I had to call Sam. I'm like, in the rental car on the way back to, to, to the airport. I called the owner of the manufacturing plant. I'm like, Sam, Sam, it's Sarah. I need more. I just landed Neiman Marcus. And he's like, what? He was in shock. He goes, Sarah, I thought you were gonna give these away as birthday presents for, like, years. And I said, no, Neiman Marcus just bought it, and I need more. And he patched me through to Ted. He goes, okay, you need to talk to Ted.

Okay.

So Ted comes back in. He's on the phone. And I go, Ted, I need more. And he goes, I just landed in Eem and Marcus. He goes, well, that's great, but what.

You can do about the crotches.

The crotches? Yeah, exactly. That's what I said. I go, what? Don't they come with crotches? We've been making them with crotches.

He goes, well, yeah, but we only got one crotch machine.

It's being used by somebody else.

No way.

Yeah.

So what do you do then?

So I just landed in Eem and Marcus and I have no crotches. Oh my gosh. Is there a hole in your crotches? I don't know where to go for a crotch.

I mean, I don't know.

Where do you go? I actually looked in the Yellow Pages. Crotch making machine?

Yeah, I just looked at crotch.

Crotch machine.

I looked up crotch.

I don't even know how you spell crotch. Okay, listen.

This is what I learned.

I'm gonna teach you something. Okay, so I didn't know that. What's Yellow Pages again?

Yeah.

Oh, my God. It's a big book. It's yellow. That's what we used to look at. Hilarious. And what's Instagram?

You just got on it?

Okay, I just joined it seven days ago. All right, so where was it? Oh, crotch.

Yeah.

Crotch machine.

So I looked it up.

Yeah. So anyway, in the yellow pages, it's not under crotch. So I learned there's a fancy word for crotch named gusset.

Gusset?

Yes.

What? Gusset. Never heard that word. So I started calling gusset companies. They were like, FedExing me crotches from all over. My roommate would come home and be like, you got another crotch in the mail. And then I ended up I ended up finding a man by the name of Gene Bobo that worked for a crotch company just 20 minutes north of where I lived in Atlanta and he saved the day and they made the crotches and then I could deliver Neiman Marcus.

So you had the leggings, they made.

The crotches and then you sewed them together, is that's how it works?

Yes, apparently, yes.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So then you had another, how many did you print the first time? 3,000.

3,000. 3,000 pair of the first Spanx.

One, one skew, right? Or two?

Yes, one skew.

$20, one skew. Three sizes or? Like four. Four sizes. 4 sizes, yeah.

And... 3,000 of them.

Yes, and that's what Neiman's ordered. And then I sent them to the, they sent them to the seven stores. I had no packing and shipping department, so the semi-trucks were pulling up to my apartment in Atlanta and I was shipping them myself to Neiman's. Oh my gosh. This is amazing. And then I called every friend I had in those seven cities, like people.

I hadn't talked to in 20 years.

Hey, go buy a few of these. Take your girlfriends there. Hi, Christina, remember me? I used to sit next to you all the time in grade school. Will you please go buy this product called Spanks? I literally called them and I said, and I'll mail you a check. So I paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product. That is brilliant. And I said, to get some moves. Yeah, I said, go in. I gave him a whole script. I'm like, go in and say, I've been looking for this all my life. I can't believe it's here. And create all this excitement. And then of course a week later, I talked to the Neiman's buyer and she's like, Sarah, we are blowing out. I'm like, you don't say.

No way.

Meanwhile, I was buying them all.

Yeah.

You have to.

Wow.

You have to make sure your own success.

Absolutely.

So then once I started running out of money Oprah called and put it on as her favorite product of the year.

How long was that for? Until the time was in Neiman Marcus to Oprah calling.

Like a month.

It just happened that quick.

A month or a month and a half.

How did she even hear about it.

In a month and a half? She sent it to her in a gift basket and her Andre who dresses her put it in her dressing room and she put them on and has basically worn them every day since.

Shut up.

I'm not Kidding, it was so unbelievable. I had no money to advertise. I'm in the back of my apartment. I was selling fax machines like a month before that. But I have to say, I was working every night and on the weekends for two years quietly trying to get this man. Building this thing, yeah. Building it. I had no option in my mind.

I was like, I am scripting a new life for myself. And- Was this movie about you that.

Came out a year ago?

Joy?

Yeah, is that about you? My dad called me, he goes, Sarah.

I just saw a movie.

It's basically your life except for the dysfunctional family part.

Yeah, right.

I was like, yeah, right, dad. Okay, sure. yeah, but I could really relate to her. I'm sure it was like the hustle and yeah, that's crazy. But when I got Neiman Marcus, I think a lot of people think that's when you've arrived. That's when I double-timed. I mean, I got on a plane and was gone for two years straight and I went to every department store in the country that sold Spanx, every Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Bloomingdales and I would go before the store opened and do an all-store rally and tell them what my product was, explain it to them, do a demo, give out free product, and then stand there in the department for, you know, eight hours a day and tell customers what it was. Because I didn't have any money, I was selling it for them. But what I didn't realize I was doing was I was building a sales force, not on my payroll, because all these people started to become so ambassadors. Ambassadors. And they were rooting for me and they loved the product. And so that was a really important part of the formula. And then I learned what my next products were going to be because I was standing right there with customers. and let's say what they need, what their challenge is.

I can't do this, blah, blah, blah. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me, as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. if you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your in your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.