-[theme music playing] -[Reese Witherspoon reading]
So fun. Whoo!
-Cheers! -Cheers!
Hi!
[Reese] I'm doing a show highlighting powerful,
ambitious women in different fields.
Let's go back to the top of the frame.
Okay, how did I do?
[Reese] And I would love to share with you
what makes these women so inspirational to me.
[gasps]
Love, Reese.
I've known since I was a little girl I was gonna help women,
I just didn't know I was gonna start with their butt.
Like, God has a good sense of humor,
but turns out it's a really good place to start.
[upbeat music playing]
[Reese] My good friend, Sara Blakely,
is one of America's most successful and creative entrepreneurs.
She created Spanx out of her apartment,
and now you can find her products in over 60 countries worldwide.
With her confidence, grit and sense of humor...
Along came the thong which still completely confuses me
because all that did was put underwear
exactly where we had been trying to get it out of. [laughs]
[Reese] Sara revolutionized an industry traditionally run by men,
and in 2012, became the youngest self-made female billionaire.
Hello, Reese. [chuckles]
[Reese] Hi.
[Sara] Welcome to Spanx.
Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited to be here.
We're so excited to have you here.
-Thank you so much. -Thank you.
I've heard so much about it,
but now I'm finally here at the headquarters.
-I know, right? It's like... -It's so exciting.
I know, every time I walk in the door, I actually still pinch myself.
I mean, this started out of my apartment.
-And now, look, there's marble everywhere. -I know! I know!
I'm like, "Marble! I can't believe it!"
And I was just looking at this when I came in.
-[Sara] Yeah. -[Reese] So this is the story
-of how you created Spanx. -Yeah.
You know, I cut the feet out of control-top pantyhose,
which are up there.
And then there is the patent that you helped write.
Oh, my God, that's amazing!
[Sara] And the picture of the diagram of it
is me standing in my mom's living room, and my mom drew it.
This is so great. I would love to see more.
-Yes, let's go. -Okay.
[Reese] Oh, this is awesome. That's so cool.
[gasps] There's your famous mugs!
[Sara chuckles]
Okay, I see you all the time on Instagram with your mugs.
This is her "Get Shit Done" mug.
You can either talk about shit or get shit done.
-[laughing] -Right, people?
That's sounds so good with your accent. Love it.
I was the last one on the planet to join Instagram.
I was very hesitant, I was kinda, like, you know, about privacy and this and that,
and now it's like...
In case you guys needed the full glory of my drop-off outfit for my son. Okay?
My mom's like, "You cannot put that on there." [chuckles]
Okay, this is why I wanna talk to you.
-Yeah. -You started with $5,000?
I did. I started with $5,000. [chuckles]
And you've never borrowed any money or taken any money?
No.
-[whispers] Wow. -Yeah, I knew so little
-about how it was "supposed to be done..." -Mmm-hmm.
...that I didn't even really know that was an option.
-So you took a chance. -As crazy as that sounds.
-I did, I took a chance. -And learned along the way.
I've kind of, um, looked at the things that I'm afraid of,
-like, I'm afraid of being embarrassed... -Mmm.
...afraid of failure,
all these different things, and I go straight towards them.
Growing up, my dad would ask my brother and me
at the dinner table what we had failed at that week.
I can remember coming home and going,
"Dad, Dad, I tried out for this, and I was horrible,"
and he'd go, "Way to go!" and high-five me.
And so, I didn't realize it at the time,
but he was just completely redefining failure for me.
-Yes. -Failure for my brother and me
became about not trying versus the outcome.
What an incredible life lesson when you're so young.
I know.
Instead of telling people to try so hard and--
-Be so perfect and... -Be so perfect.
[Sara] I know.
This myth of perfection, I think women are trapped in as well.
I mean, people ask me about how this all started,
and the sound bite that's out there the most
is, "I cut the feet out of my pantyhose,"
but the reality is Spanx started long before I did that.
And, you know, I'd started at the age of 16
listening to a lot of motivational,
inspirational tapes that talked all about visualization, manifestation,
law of attraction.
When I was 16 years old,
my friend was run over by a car in front of me,
and my parents got separated at almost that exact time.
That was one of my darkest times.
My dad, as he was leaving, came into my bedroom,
and handed me this cassette tape series.
I always had it playing in my car in high school,
and no one wanted to be stuck in my car.
Like, after every party, people would be like,
"Do not go home with Sara
'cause she's gonna make you listen to that crap."
Fast forward 20 years, I end up on the cover of Forbes,
and all I got were texts from people from Clearwater High
that said, "Damn, should have listened to that shit."
[laughing]
When I was in my 20s,
-I was selling fax machines door-to-door. -Yeah.
I didn't feel like it was the right life that I was in.
-Yeah. -And I remember one day, I was like,
"This is not my life. What happened?"
And I went home that night, and I wrote down,
"I want to invent my own product that I can sell to millions of people
that will make them feel good."
Wow, so you just manifested that?
I just wrote it down that day and then I literally looked up and said,
"Universe, give me the idea and I will not squander it."
-Wow. -And it was two years before,
-one day, here in Atlanta... -Yeah.
...I couldn't figure out what to wear under my cream pants.
Every time I put them on, you could see the thong
or you could see the panty line.
And that's really where it came from.
And then, um, I cut the feet out of pantyhose,
and threw them on under the cream pants, and I was, like...
[snaps fingers] ...done.
This is why I think of you so frequently as a kindred spirit.
-You see a problem... -Yes.
...and you don't talk about the problem.
You think, "How am I gonna solve the problem?"
Yes.
Despite how many people said to you, "This is a terrible idea."
And as I'm cold-calling and standing as this, like,
single girl with this dream of this product,
in manufacture plant after manufacturer,
I couldn't believe it. Reese,
all men were making all of our undergarments.
Not one woman.
When I showed up on manufacturing plants in North Carolina,
they have all these plastic forms in the different sizes.
A small, a medium, and they would put the product on it,
and they would all sit back with their clipboards, and be like,
"Yup, that's a medium."
I was like, "What?"
So, I just changed the whole model with Spanx.
-[Sara] Hi, everybody! -[woman] Hey.
-Hi! -This is Reese.
-Hello. Nice to meet you. -Jadidia.
-Hi, Jadidia. -Hi. So nice to meet you. I'm Kiana.
-Hi, Kiana. I'm Reese. -It's a pleasure.
We have a whole section of the company that's fitting rooms,
and we test everything on body,
standing, sitting, you know...
We do yoga poses in the fitting room,
we're jumping up and down in a strapless bra.
We're trying to simulate real-life scenarios.
Jadidia, she's been with me basically from the start.
She started at Spanx out of the back of my apartment
after I was six months into the business.
She has no experience in this either.
-Oh, wow. -Like, she was an interior designer.
And after two weeks of being my assistant, I was like,
"Do you mind being my head of product development?"
And she's like, "I don't know anything about hosiery or shapewear."
I'm like, "Me neither."
Like, how many times did we hear, "Can't be done"?
You know, "It'll roll up. It'll slide down. It can't be--"
-"That's not how it's done." -[Sara] "That's not how it's done."
And we're like, "Yeah, I know, but let's just see."
My favorite thing is to prove them wrong.
I think it's important to say, like, you didn't go to business school.
-You didn't go to Wharton. -No.
I always had trouble in school, like, with reading comprehension and stuff.
So, my dream was to be a lawyer, my dad was a litigator,
and I bombed the LSAT.
-So life had other plans for me, you know. -[Reese] Yeah.
-I was pre-med... -[Reese] Oh, okay.
...and thought I was going to be a pediatric neurosurgeon.
-[Sara laughing] -And here we are picking panty prints.
-[Reese] Yes! -[all laughing]
-And I'd have it no other way. -[Reese] Yeah.
[Kiana] So what we want to do now
is essentially narrow this down to our top three to five favorites.
[Sara] Do you have a favorite?
Am I getting to make decisions at Spanx? This is so exciting!
[upbeat music playing]
[Reese] I'm feeling the animal prints a lot.
-[Sara] Yeah. -I mean, I think cheetah's a neutral.
-That's what I'm thinking. -Are you going to do it?
-[Kiana] Oh, she is! -[Sara screaming in excitement]
I mean, those are really cute and sassy,
and it kinda looks good with my blazer.
I could just have this and the blazer. I'd be good to go.
[both laughing]
I was at a cocktail party,
and I'd just invented it, and I had boxes in my apartment,
and I was super excited,
and these two guys came up to me and they said,
"So, Sara, we heard you invented something,"
and I said, "Yes, I did. I'm so excited!"
And one guy patted me on the shoulder and he said,
"Well, you know, business is war."
And they laughed, and he said, "Yeah, I hope you're up for it."
And I just went home that night, and I like sat down on my floor
in my apartment, and cried. And I was like,
"I don't want to go to war.
Why does it have to be war?
What if there's a different way?"
[Reese] You know, I get shopping fever
whenever I see these mannequins.
Something about a mannequin makes me want to buy everything.
[Sara laughing]
Before I started Spanx, I spent seven years in a grey cubicle
-in a corporate environment... -Yeah.
...where it didn't feel like anybody really cared about me, or how I felt.
And I always thought,
I'd sit in my cubicle and dream, like, "One day if I ever had my own company,
I would want to make sure that it was such a happy place."
And so, this is like, I walk in, and I'm like... [gasps]
You know, dreams do come true. Like, it happened.
You know, I employ mostly women,
and it's really important to me that I'm as supportive as I can be
for any working woman who becomes a working mother,
because we're all in the same boat.
You know, it's not the kind of culture that if all of a sudden your kid's sick,
and you have to run to school, that anybody is looking twice at you.
-Hi. -Hi.
We have a lot of support for each other.
[Reese] When I was growing up in the South,
ambition in a woman was looked at as a negative trait.
And, um, I would love your thoughts on what it means to be an ambitious woman.
I feel like that, that whole messaging was on me as well, growing up,
but I feel like it's really important for women to feel okay
with ambition for themselves.
And, you know, it's funny. When I married my husband, Jesse...
[Reese] He's such a supportive and wonderful person.
[Sara] He's so supportive and wonderful,
-but I didn't get married till I was 37. -[Reese] Right.
I had been through so many relationships
that the money and the success became an issue.
I think it was 60 days before I was marrying him,
we went to dinner and I said, "I have something to tell you."
I think he thought I was gonna, like, call off the wedding, and I go...
[inhales deeply]
"I think I make more money than you think I do."
[both laughing]
And he goes like this...
"What?" I was like, "Yeah. And I just, I haven't..."
-Been honest about it? -Uh, yeah. You know what he said to me?
He just looked at me and he goes,
"Well, it couldn't have happened to a better person,"
-and then just kept eating his spaghetti. -Mmm.
-I love that. -Okay, great.
And I do think women have a lot of fear around money.
Yeah. Like, "Am I worthy of it?"
Or "How is that gonna make my boyfriend feel..."
-Or my girlfriends? -"...or my husband feel?" Right.
[Reese] I always think back
about what my mother said to me when I was a little girl.
She said, "Don't ever let a man control you with money.
-Always have your own money." -Yeah.
"Always have enough to get by and enough to take care of your children,
and you will never be in a position, in a relationship or marriage,
-where you feel trapped or vulnerable." -Trapped. Yeah
And I say it to my girlfriends sometimes, and they say,
"Your mother said that to you?"
I said, "Yeah. Didn't your mom say that to you?"
They didn't. So I think it's a great message to put out there
for either the mothers in the room
or the young girls who haven't heard about that.
-Yeah. -Like, there's nothing wrong
-with ambition. -Mmm-mmm.
I think about that a lot. The mental tenacity,
the drive, the will, and I mean, you have that as well.
So, like, where does that come from for you?
Because I was an actress for so long, and really young,
I got used to people saying, "No, you're not good enough.
You're not tall enough, you're not skinny enough,
you're not pretty enough, you're too Southern,
-you're too sassy, you're not..." -[Sara laughs]
I also got, like, "You're not dumb enough," sometimes.
-Well, you're like, "I can't win! What?" -I was like, "Well, I'm sorry.
I can't accept the idea of not getting a part 'cause I'm just not dumb enough."
-[Sara laughing] -Um, but--
I can't believe someone actually said that to you.
Well, I think you have to be like water off a duck's back...
-Yeah, I know. -...if you wanna accomplish anything.
I think about people like you
or anybody who's accomplished something really extraordinary,
has to learn to tune out the naysayers.
Yeah, I consider that a life practice for me
is to really work on not caring what other people think.
-Yeah. -I think that that is something that,
as women, if there's, if we could free ourselves up from feeling that need,
to look like we have it all together at all times...
Yeah. I have these days when I'm so on it,
and everything is firing on every cylinder,
and there's days where I'm just like 30% of myself.
-Oh, yeah. -Like I'm lobotomized or something.
I had this great coach when I did this movie
where I was playing a softball player, and she said,
"I don't care if you have 30%, give me 100% of that 30%."
-I was like, "Thank you. What a relief." -Permission.
-Permission to not be perfect. -Permission. Right.
-I like that, too. -Yeah, it was really cool.
I want to ask you,
do you think you see a change coming?
-Yes. 100%. -'Cause I feel like something's coming
and I would love to hear your thoughts about that.
I'm a big believer that the male and female energy
on the planet has been very out of balance...
-Mmm. -...for well, about 3,000 years.
-[laughing] -Um, and, and so,
I think the world would be so much better
-if it was more balanced. -I feel the same thing.
When we raise female leadership...
-Yeah, you just have more balance. -And anyone who feels...
Or even... Yes.
Or even just the feminine way of the thinking and going about it,
like, giving even men permission to get more in touch
-with the feminine in them, as leaders. -Yeah.
So, there is a shift happening, and I can feel it.
-Yeah. -And it's, it's... It's time.
-It is so time. -It's time. We're all gonna be better off.
-I think so, too. -Yeah.
I love that message. It's perfect. Yes.
[upbeat music playing]
[Reese] As Sara Blakely continues to revolutionize the shapewear industry,
Candace Nelson is reinventing some of America's favorite foods
with her own high concept twist.
Her artisanal pizzeria, Pizzana,
and Sprinkles, the world's first cupcake-only bakery,
are favorites of foodies everywhere.
[Candace] Hi, Reese!
-Welcome! -Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to see what you guys do.
[Candace] I can't wait to show you behind the scenes.
-[Reese] Let's do it! -[Candace] Let's do it!
Come on back.
[Reese] Oh, my gosh, I've always wanted to know
what's in the back of a bakery.
-This is amazing. -Smell it. Breathe it in.
How many cupcakes does an average store sell a day?
[Candace] We sell a few thousand.
Between one and 3,000 cupcakes per store per day.
-Per day? -Yes!
-You're kidding me. -No, I'm not kidding you.
That's insane.
When I decided to do this show, it was all about focusing on women
who've done incredible things in different industries.
And I immediately thought of you, first of all, 'cause you're...
Thank you.
-...my really good friend, Candace. -Thank you.
And then, also, just, you built this business
out of a transition in your life.
I like to say I went from banking to baking.
-Yes. -'Cause I was a financial analyst.
Natural transition, right?
-Normal. Normal. -Yeah, yeah!
And then I actually worked, uh, at a tech company
during the dot-com boom of the late '90s.
-And then there was the dot-com bust. -Yes.
And I just thought, if I'm gonna have to start over again,
we devote so much of our waking lives to work...
-Yes. -...I want to do something
that I'm really passionate about.
So, I decided to go to pastry school.
I'd always grown up baking, I love to bake with my mom,
and it really was about testing my interest in my hobby.
Like, it's fun to bake on the weekends,
but would I love to do it if I had to wake up every morning
-and do it as a job? -Right.
And what I realized was I loved it.
I loved working with batter, and flour, and sugar, and great chocolate,
and beautiful ingredients, and making artful things
to give to people to enjoy.
Baking had always been a hobby for me,
and always been something I loved to do.
I was born in Jakarta, Indonesia.
There were so many amazing things about living overseas,
but I wanted to feel connected to the US.
You know, if I wanted a chocolate chip cookie,
if I wanted a cupcake or a brownie,
I couldn't get them at the store in Sumatra.
So I had to make them myself.
And, so, my mom and I would bond,
baking things we loved from home,
and that's how my love of baking first started.
You know, I initially started making special-occasion cakes,
and ultimately decided that wasn't a very good business.
So I decided I wanted to do something artful but simpler,
and something that people could eat on a daily basis,
and that led me to the cupcake.
But at the time, you know, cupcakes were still sort of kids' thing.
-Kid birthday party stuff. -They were, like, kids' lunchbox,
you'd find them at the supermarket in the plastic clamshell.
Yeah, they're all plastic-y and yucky.
They just weren't good quality. And I thought,
"If we were to create a cupcake using the same beautiful ingredients
and artful design that I use for special-occasion cakes,
then wouldn't cupcakes appeal to adults, too?"
That's incredible.
We had landlords, you know, hang up on us when they heard what our idea was.
They said, "We want something that's gonna last more than a few months."
But when you have something to prove, you're gonna work that much harder.
My husband and I had poured all of our life savings into this little bakery,
and we were busy right off the bat, we were working round the clock,
-we were exhausted. -Yes.
There was a line wrapping almost completely around...
-No. -...the city block for months.
I think there's a lot of people out there who wanna change their life
or they wanna do something new,
but they think, "How do I do it? Do I take a risk?"
That's what I love about your story,
is that you were fully immersed in a different business,
-and you took a chance. -Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.
I had a grandma who was, like, "You can be anything you wanna be."
And she grew up in a time where she could not be.
-Right. -She had a master's degree.
One of the first women
-to have a master's degree in education. -Wow.
But, Candace, like, she couldn't get a job
being anything but a first grade teacher.
And so, she had a hard time in life, because she never could reach the height
-of what she wanted to be. -Right, right.
So, I think, for the women who came before us,
and cut this path for us, it's important for us to
shine a light on them and have people learn more about the stories
-of how they accomplished those things. -Right.
So now, should we go look at your new concept?
-[gasps] Let's do it. -It's pretty exciting.
I've never met anybody who loves food the way Candace does.
She loves two of my favorite foods which are cupcakes and pizza,
and I think that's what our friendship is basically based on.
[chuckling] Our love of pizza and cupcakes.
[chuckles] Oh, and rosé.
Rosé, too. [giggles]
♪ I'm a sun Rising on a brand new day... ♪
You know, there's something about driving with a camera in my face
that makes me feel like a Kardashian.
[both laughing]
This is... I've never felt more glamorous, really.
Well, we're just as appealing.
[laughing]
Hey, I wonder, are you ever, like, the only woman in the room,
like, in a business situation?
Since I'm now the entrepreneur and the boss in most settings,
I am typically surrounded by women.
And I have to say, back in the day,
there was this idea that working for women was actually not that desirable.
Because women were known for being tougher bosses than men.
Maybe there was this idea that there wasn't enough to go around.
-Right. -But also there was this idea
that these women had to show other women coming up through the ranks
how tough it was to get to where they got.
Yeah. In my business, you have to have three hits to be a success...
-Right. -...as a woman,
instead of, like, have one little tiny success,
and now you're a huge megastar,
which is what happens with a lot of, like, male directors.
No one's just gonna bet on you.
-Yeah, which is crazy. -That's bizarre.
Also, I feel like when I was in the workforce 15 years ago,
there was more sort of competition inherent between women.
And now, there's just this
groundswell of support for women, by women.
And it's about time.
And that's the key to women getting where they need to be,
is women looking out for other women.
I think that's why I buy all your sprinkles.
-[laughing] -[giggles]
Thank you, Reese!
[Reese] Oh, my God, we found a parking spot.
[Candace] Right out front of Pizzana!
Let's go!
-I love the design. -Thank you.
-You worked so hard on it. -We worked really hard on it.
Just had to be, you know, casual, but comfortable.
Right
[Daniele] Okay, what we gonna do, is starting to push,
control the air until it's flat.
Now, the hard part.
-[laughing] -There you go!
Yeah, that was so fun!
So fun!
You can actually see right through it, 'cause there's a lot of hole on it.
[Reese] I know, there's a lot of holes.
[Daniele and Candace chuckling]
Shh. He called me out.
Daniele, where're you from in Italy?
Napoli, South... South Italy, Naples.
There's a different way they make pizza there.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, uh... Well, we just,
uh, quick stretch the dough and then,
-the oven is at really high temperature... -[Reese] Okay.
[Daniele] ...and it's cooked for 60 seconds.
We make our own starter, and the starter
was make from my grandfather 62 years ago.
[Reese] Wait a second. You're telling me this starter came from Italy?
-Someone carried it over? -[Daniele] I carried it.
-No, I carry it. -You carried it?
Yes, in the jar.
[Reese] You're kidding me?
[Candace] That can't have been legal, Daniele.
[Candace and Reese laughing]
-I got lucky though. -And they didn't stop you at LAX?
-Sorry, I got lucky though. -Don't show this to Customs.
-That's incredible. -I wouldn't fly without it.
You know, it's story of my family.
You're literally eating a piece of his family history
when you come to Pizzana.
[Daniele] The huge thing about pizza, when people eat it
they always feel so bloated, and they, you know,
"Oh, my God, I feel like I had a Titanic in my belly."
-Right. -You know, I wanted to give people
a healthy pizza, they still enjoy, walk out,
30 minutes, and feel like they had sushi.
-Nom, nom, nom. -[laughter]
[Reese] Oh, my gosh, this is gonna be delicious.
I love green tomatoes.
-[Candace] Perfection! -You're a natural.
[Candace] Thank you, Daniele. We can't wait.
[Daniele] Thank you.
Am I supposed to eat this with a fork and a knife?
-Oh, you can! There're no rules here. -That's what Daniele said.
Well, in Naples, they eat it with a fork and knife,
-because it's so sort of... -[Reese] Juicy? In the middle?
[Candace] ...goopy in the middle, so you can't pick it up.
-But Americans like handheld food. -Oh, right.
I mean, I kinda specialize in handheld food, frankly.
-[Reese] You kinda do. -[chuckles]
You had this successful run with cupcakes.
So why pizza, and why did you wanna transition?
I consider myself an entrepreneur and a creative person,
and I've run Sprinkles for close to 12 years,
and I wanted a new creative challenge.
I didn't know what it was gonna be, and then when I met Daniele,
I found myself saying,
"Somehow, maybe we should do this with you."
-[Reese] Right. -Food is the universal human experience.
I mean, it really is.
A cupcake, a pizza appeals to everyone,
and there's comfort and pleasure in both of those things.
I don't trust people when they say they don't like cupcakes.
-I'm like, "Mmm. Are you a human being?" -[laughing]
Food is so much bigger than what it seems, right?
I mean, a cupcake, to me, isn't just a cupcake,
a piece of pizza isn't just a piece of pizza.
It's nostalgia, it's reminiscent of happier, simpler times.
No, it's something that everyone can have
a piece of, and it's a unifying thing.
And I love to offer that experience to people.
[theme music playing]