Things Learned From…
Blake Burge — on Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx
"My definition of failure became not about the outcome, but about not trying."
A few years ago on a podcast with Tony Robbins, Sara Blakely told the story of her father's nightly routine.
As his children returned from school, he would ask Sara & her brother one question:
"So what did you guys fail at this week?"
As Sara tells it, her father would be disappointed not if they failed, but if they didn't.
For her, "it flipped the whole model on its head."
Her father was changing her definition of failure.
Instead of a negative, failure "became not about the outcome, but about not trying."
Another thing her father did (which I love) is ask his children "what benefit or what positive" came from their failures.
In Blakely's words, this "trained our brains also to find that—and then it became, of course, I want to try these things."
In short, the focus shifted from the outcome to what she could learn through the process.
Thanks for reading! Hope you have an outstanding day.
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