Last week, Forbes published an article about Sara Blakely, the youngest female self-made Billionaire in the world. Sara made her fortune from her company Spanx, the ubiquitous lady-shaping underwear company. But Blakely didn’t always want to be an undergarment magnate. After graduating from Florida State University, she had planned to go to law school, but ran into the LSAT. After bombing the LSAT twice, she worked at Disney World before selling fax machines door-to-door. Then came the Spanx epiphany.
But what would have happened if she had actually done well on the LSAT? Let’s take a look at what could have been…
After taking the LSAT and scoring abysmally, Sara Blakely decides to enroll in a Blueprint LSAT class (Blueprint didn’t exist at the time, but hey, as long as we’re rewriting history…). She studies super hard and gets a 171! With her new and improved LSAT score, she applies and gets into Harvard (LSAT scores were still averaged back then, but her personal statement helps win them over). On her first day of class, she briefly wonders what her life would have been like if she hadn’t done well on the LSAT, but quickly puts this out of her mind. There’s work to do.
Sara’s a real go-getter, and she works hard during her three years in law school. She graduates and gets a job at a big law firm right out of school, pulling in six figures as a starting salary. She never thought she’d ever see so much money, and feels grateful. Yet there’s something pulling at her… it’s her underwear. Having to wear formal business attire for the first time in her life, she’s surprised at how uncomfortable and unflattering it all is. If only someone would invent a more comfortable and shapely brief. Such are the trappings of modern life, she thinks. She sighs, getting back to doc review. She probably just needs sleep.
Ten years later, life’s going pretty well. She’s doing great at her firm, and is on track to make partner eventually. She got married to her law school boyfriend, and they’re trying to have a kid. She works long hours and doesn’t see the daylight as much as she’d like, but that’s part and parcel for the job. She never really wanted to be a lawyer, but it’s not such a bad life after all. And she doesn’t have any underwear problems anymore! Someone came out with a great new product called Spranx, so all of her undergarments aren’t so annoying anymore! They’re a great invention, almost the kind of thing she would have come up with, she thinks, as she finishes her fifth coffee.
The moral of the story? Anyone can do well on the LSAT, but not everyone should necessarily go to law school. If you want to be a lawyer, it is the best decision you could ever make. But if you want to reinvent underwear, follow your dream, because fame, fortune, and billions of dollars could be awaiting you.
