I didn't want women to walk out of the dressing rooms feeling depressed and wanting a cocktail.

It's important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable.

My husband is such a healthy eater. Except when it comes to sweets. He never consumes anything except fruit until noon. And then from noon on he might have some brown rice and some tofu, and then, come eight or nine at night, he orders three mud-pie double-chocolate pieces of cake and eats all three of them.

My first account was Neiman Marcus. I cold-called them just like I had cold-called businesses when I was selling fax machines for seven years.

Embrace what you don't know, especially in the beginning, because what you don't know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.

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.

Failure to me became not trying versus not succeeding