After beginning her career as a door-to-door fax-machine saleswoman, Blakely started Spanx with just $5,000 and no business plan. Her big break came courtesy of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.â€
The best advice she got, Lee said, came from Marissa Mayer when Lee considering taking a job at Google. Mayer said her own favorite choices had come when she followed the more difficult road. “’Are you learning, are you growing, are you challenging yourself?’†Lee recalled Mayer asking. “I always define my career in terms of that.â€
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