“You have to learn how to fall.”

What Iskra Lawrence Taught Me About Failing and Not Giving Shortcuts

That line came near the end of my conversation with Iskra Lawrence, when I asked her what she’d tell her 12-year-old self stepping into the modeling industry. She thought about it for a moment and said she wouldn’t give her any shortcuts. Because without the falling, you don’t get the experience. And without the resilience, you don’t get to where you’re going.

It’s a simple idea. It’s also one most of us spend enormous energy trying to avoid.

This episode wasn’t a biography. It was an hour of someone thinking out loud about how she actually lives - as a founder, a mother, a partner, a breadwinner. Iskra Lawrence built one of the fastest-growing body care brands in America, Saltair. She has never paid herself a salary, clocks off at 2:30 to pick up her kids, and still doesn’t think she has it figured out. That combination is exactly why I wanted her at the table.

Here’s some lessons learned from our conversation:

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Remove “should” from your vocabulary.

Any time you construct a thought around the word “should,” it means the idea hasn’t come from you. It’s downloaded - from your parents, your industry, your feed, whoever told you what success is supposed to look like. Iskra’s done dismantling it. Sleep training, nursing schedules, nannies, salary structures - her answer to all of it is the same: figure out what works for you, and stop letting someone else’s version of right make you feel wrong.

That’s not a parenting philosophy. That’s a life philosophy.

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One habit is enough.

The origin of Saltair is a postpartum story most women don’t tell publicly. Postpartum with her first, Iskra wasn’t showering. She was malnourished, exhausted, barely holding on. Her husband asked her what she needed. She said: A shower. I just need five minutes in the shower.

That was it. Not a wellness routine. Not a comeback plan. One habit. The shower led to getting dressed, getting dressed led to feeling human, feeling human led to a company that has now sold over a million bottles of body oil.

When you’re at the bottom, the goal isn’t to climb all the way back at once. It’s to find the one thing that makes you feel like yourself for five minutes. It’s the little things.

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Your children will teach you about yourself if you let them.

Her son’s tooth brushing story sounds small. It isn’t. Iskra’s son hated brushing his teeth - constant battle, every night. She started paying attention to what motivated him, and realized it was speed and accomplishment, not rewards. So she turned it into a race. Problem solved.

But then she turned the mirror on herself. Why does she do things at a high level? Why does she hate to leave things unfinished? She traced it back to her parents’ discipline style: disappointment as currency. One tooth brushing standoff became a window into her own self reflection.

Our kids are constantly showing us who we are. The moments that trigger us the most are usually the moments worth paying the closest attention to.

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Empathy is the real Breadwinner superpower.

I asked Iskra what her superpower is as a Breadwinner. I expected something about execution or resilience. She said empathy - specifically, empathy for her husband.

She talked about how her husband, Philip, grew up with the cultural message that men carry financial responsibility. Now she does. And she watches him navigate that, quietly, without making it smaller or brushing past it. She holds space for his feelings about their financial dynamic without letting it destabilize what they’ve built together. She watches his tone cues. She thinks about timing when she asks for things. She lets him feel valuable.

This is the marriage conversation we don’t have often enough. Breadwinner partnerships require active, ongoing maintenance of each other’s dignity. That’s the recipe to a healthy relationship.

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Apply timelines to your children the way you do your career.

Iskra said something that hit: we set timelines for our careers, our businesses, our goals. We rarely do it for our children. And then the years move faster than the days, and we’re caught off guard.

We talked about the math of it. You get one summer with your baby. Three with your toddler. Nine with your child. Four with your teenager. That’s seventeen summers, total, before the shape of your relationship changes permanently.

I’m not saying this to add guilt. I’m saying it because it reframes the 2:30 school pickup. The activity you build your afternoon around. The phone you put down at dinner. These aren’t sacrifices - they’re investments in a window that closes.

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Let your kids see the fight and the resolution.

Iskra and I both openly discussed the importance of this. It’s not about having a conflict-free household. It’s about modeling what happens after the conflict. Kids who watch their parents fight but never see them repair walk away thinking rupture is permanent. Kids who see the repair learn that it isn’t.

Have the hard conversation. Let them see you disagree. And then let them see you come back together. That’s the lesson worth teaching.

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You can’t wait for the phone to ring.

At 22, Iskra walked into a New York modeling agency with a laptop and gave a veteran agent - someone who had been in the industry for over 20 years - a full presentation. Where she wanted to work. Which brands. What she could bring. He cried. He said no model had ever done that before.

She had already been booking jobs by cold-calling brands directly, cutting the gatekeepers out entirely. She wasn’t waiting for permission. She was building leverage.

Whatever you’re building - a company, a career, a platform - no one is coming to discover you. Make your own door.

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This is a season.

The last thing I want to leave you with is this. Iskra clocks off at 2:30. She’s the default parent. She’s also building one of the fastest-growing body care brands in American retail - without a salary. These things coexist right now because she’s decided this is the season for both.

Not forever. Not for everyone. For her, right now, in this season.

We spend so much energy trying to find the permanent answer. The right structure, the right schedule, the right split. But the structure changes. The kids get older. The business matures. Your partner’s career shifts. The season turns.

The question isn’t what does this look like forever. But rather: what does this season call for - and are you building something that can flex when it changes?

Iskra is. This is her Breadwinner story.

Listen to the full episode here.

Thanks for being here
— Alexis

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