Chances are that you have heard of the shapewear Spanx. It is worn by many around the world. But did you know that it all began with $5,000 and a little hustling in order to bring that product in front of millions of people? Now it is a billion-dollar booming business. Sara Blakely, founder and CEO of Spanx, credits her mother, Ellen, with much of her success, according to CNBC.
Not only did Ellen raise Sara, who invented Spanx, but she also raised a son, Ford Blakely who is the creator of the messaging platform Zingle. Zingle was acquired by Medallia for $42 million in 2019. When asked about how she came to raise two highly successful children, she said the important part was to let them be bored. Yes, really.
Ellen spoke with Megan Reilly of the "Who Is Your Momma?" podcast on December 14. She explained that Sara and Ford had quite a lot of free time on their hands as children, and she thinks that was an important driving factor in their success. She said that she does not think that children today have very much "creative free time" as they did when her children were growing up. She believes that it is very important.
Ellen said that she allowed her children "to be bored." She stated that when Sara would tell her that she was bored and had nothing to do, Ellen told her, of course, she had plenty to do; she had plenty of toys. She said that it was all about letting her children be creative with their free time and learning to entertain themselves.
She spoke about how Sara would set up lemonade stands, then make drawings, put them in a wagon, and sell them to neighbors. She also said that Sara started her very own babysitting business out of the Hilton Hotel near their home, even convincing a pool boy to let her hang flyers to garner parent's attention. Ellen said that she would come home with wads of dollar bills, it wasn't about the money, it was all about doing what was fun for her.
Everything that Sara did never really surprised Ellen. She said, "It was just the way Sara was." She said that she credits her "relaxed" parenting style to her children's successes. Her advice is to let children find their own passion by paying careful attention to what they really like and encouraging them to go with that.
Sources: CNBC, Who Is Your Momma