I grew up in a house where my father encouraged my brother and me to fail. I specifically remember coming home and saying, 'Dad, Dad, I tried out for this or that and I was horrible,' and he would high-five me and say, 'Way to go.'

My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don't be afraid to fail.

My training of cold-calling and everyone under the sun telling me no, and my keeping going, was a huge part of the first two years of Spanx.

I aim to be pretty - I gave up dressing to be sexy in the eighties.

The women are so strong in my family.

Music has always been in my family, but it was mainly keyboards. I learned to play classical piano, but when I first heard the amazing bass guitar of James Jamerson, who played on all the big Motown hits of the '60s and '70s, I knew bass guitar was my instrument.

My friends and family keep me grounded.

If anything, 'Friday Night Dinner' is quite mean. All these pranks that we play on each other, there's a lot of hitting and slapping and jumping at each other trying to scare each other. But underneath it all it is a family, so we all love each other.