This piece of advice from her mother made Blake Lively who she is today

Blake Lively spent International Women’s Day in her husband’s home nation of Canada celebrating women through L’Oréal’s Women of Worth campaign. While talking to Canada’s eTalk before the event, Lively shared a lesson from her mother that’s worth teaching to every kid.

As her mom is one of the most important women in her life, it made sense that Lively spoke about her during International Women’s Day. She said how her mom always told her to never take no for an answer, but another — less conventional — piece of motherly wisdom she shared was:

"You can't mess it up."

Lively said, “Whatever it was, whether I was doing a school project, I was doing something creative, she would always say, ‘You can’t mess it up.’”

Of course, Lively understood that there was the possibility of screwing up something, but that her mom’s encouraging phrase gave her confidence. “I mean, I could mess it up really severely, but just the fact that she told me I couldn’t almost made me feel like I couldn’t,” Lively said.

"I would take risks and I would do things that I otherwise would have limited myself with, but because she told me I couldn't mess it up I got to make those mistakes and feel supported."

That sounds like some top-notch parenting and you can see Lively talk about her totally inspirational mom starting at 4:15 in the video below.

Lively also admitted to being a bit more Type A than her own mother, so this message was particularly helpful for her. And we’re pretty sure that based on the excellent role model Lively is for women that this will be a lesson that she shares with her own two daughters with Ryan Reynolds someday.