How to Raise a CEO: Sara Blakely's Mom Has the Answers

Sara Blakely, founder, and CEO of Spanx turned a $5,000 business into a billion-dollar company after grinding to bring her shapewear brand to market. 

Based on Sara Blakely, much of her success is because of her mom's upbringing, Ellen Blakely. Ellen, on the other hand, shared how to raise a CEO. 

Aside from Sara Blakely, 49, Ellen Blakely also raised another successful entrepreneur. Ford Blakely, Sara's 45 years old brother, is the one behind the messaging platform Zingle, which was acquired by Medallia for $42 million in 2019, based on a company press release. 

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How to raise a CEO?

For parents and parents-to-be, the question is, how to raise a CEO? 

For Ellen Blakely, she said that one thing to know on how to raise a CEO is to give your children the freedom to explore what they want to do with their lives. 

Ellen Blakely added that her children had a lot of free time, which she does not think kids today do. She said that creative free time is so important. 

As Ellen observed, things are so programmed right now with sports and other activities that parents drive their kids to do constantly. She revealed that she did not do that to her kids. 

Allowing kids to be bored

Aside from these, Ellen Blakely said that she allowed her children, like Sara Blakely, to be bored and suggests to parents that they do the same for their children.

Ellen Blakely shared that Sara Blakely would even say to her before how she has nothing to do and how she is bored. Ellen would just say that she has a lot of toys and that she should just figure it out. 

Ellen said that on how to raise a CEO, parents should know the value and the importance of creativity, free time, and learning to entertain themselves. In which, the mother revealed that her CEO daughter, Sara Blakely, is a master of. 

Ellen also shared Sara's business endeavors when she was still a kid. She revealed that Sara will do drawings, put them in her little red wagon, and then she will sell them to their neighbors. Sara also did lemonade stands. 

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Sara Blakely as a child

Ellen revealed that her daughter is always doing something like that. 

It comes to a point that she even charged their neighbor kids to play minigolf at their house. 

Ellen said that it was because she and her husband were golfers and they had extra putters and balls and other golf things. She said that Sara would lay out a course with beach towels with building blocks for obstacles and toys and all those kinds of things. 

The neighbor kids just loved it and they would line up in their garage for them to be able to play and experience it. 

The key to raising a CEO

For Ellen, the key to knowing how to raise a CEO is to let your children be. Let them explore and try things on their own. 

Let them find their passion and pay careful attention to the things that they like and encourage them to do it. 

Finally, she said that although it is hard to be a parent, the mother of two successful entrepreneurs said that parents like her should just go with their guts and simply follow their instincts. 

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