• Business Insider looked into how some of the most successful people out there met their spouses and partners.

• Several couples, like Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos and Bill and Melinda Gates, met at work.

• Others met at recreational events, like a charity poker tournament or a high school football game.

When Bill Gates first asked out his now-wife, Melinda, she said no.

When Lebron James first asked out his now-wife, Savannah, she had no idea who he was.

Warren Buffett's first wife introduced him to his future second wife.

Take a look below at how eight hugely successful couples first met:

SEE ALSO: A look inside the marriage of world's richest couple, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos — who met at work, were engaged in 3 months, and own more land than almost anyone else in America

DON'T MISS: Inside billionaire Warren Buffett's unconventional marriage, which included an open arrangement and 3-way Christmas cards

LeBron James and his future wife Savannah both grew up in Akron, Ohio and attended rival high schools. The couple first met at a high school football game.

She told Harper's Bazaar she wasn't aware of his growing star when she accepted his invitation to go check out one of his basketball games: "I had no idea who he was."

Source: Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, Business Insider

Microsoft CEO Bill Gates first asked Melinda, a newly hired product manager, out to dinner at a company picnic in 1987.

The only problem? He wanted to schedule the date two weeks in advance. She responded, "That's not spontaneous enough for me," Fortune reported in 2015.

Later that evening, Gates called her up later that night with a wry question: "Is this spontaneous enough for you?" Turns out, it was.

Source: Fortune, Business Insider, Business Insider

Spanx founder Sara Blakely met her husband — Marquis Jets cofounder Jesse Itzler — at the 2006 Net Jet Annual Las Vegas Poker Tournament. One of her sales representatives wrangled her a seat at the main table with Itzler.

He told Success.com he was fascinated by her departure from the game: "Who goes to bed at 9:30 at night in Vegas? That intrigued me. And she loved to laugh, and that intrigued me, too."

Source: Business Insider, Success.com

• Spanx founder Sara Blakely is one of the richest self-made women in the world.
• Blakely said her father encouraged her to always share her failures along with her accomplishments.
• Blakely told Business Insider that she's passing the lesson onto her four kids: "One of the parenting things I think is so important is not praising the child, but praising the effort."

From a young age, Spanx founder Sara Blakely was encouraged to take risks.

In a Business Insider video, Blakely said her dad used to invite her and her brother to share their failures at the dinner table. Instead of being disappointed or upset, he would celebrate their efforts.

"What it did was reframe my definition of failure," Blakely said of the tradition. "Failure for me became not trying, versus the outcome."

Eventually, Blakely began to find value in her shortcomings.

"My dad would encourage me any time something didn't go the way I expected it to, or maybe I got embarrassed by a situation, to write down where the hidden gifts were and what I got out of it," she said. "I started realizing that in everything there was some amazing nugget that I wouldn't have wanted to pass up."

While Blakely thinks "so many people don't take risks for fear of failure," she isn't one of them. Despite having next to no knowledge about fashion design, retail, or business, she believed in the idea for her now-ubiquitous shape-wear company wholeheartedly. She spent two years — and $5,000 of her own money — diligently patenting the idea, finding a hosiery manufacturer, prototyping the product, and successfully pitching it to Neiman Marcus, all while working a full-time job.

Business Insider caught up with Blakely at Cosmopolitan and SoFi's Fun Fearless Money event and asked if she's continued her dad's dinner-table tradition with her four kids.

"I'm already having that conversation with my 7-year-old. I talk to him all about, 'What have you tried to fail at this week?'," Blakely said.

Though she said it's still a hard concept for him to grasp, she makes a point to celebrate his efforts, whether it be on the soccer field or at school.

"One of the parenting things I think is so important is not praising the child, but praising the effort," Blakely said. "And if he does things he's not good at, I talk to him about what he gets out of it."

SEE ALSO: A counterintuitive change to your daily schedule can make you feel happier and less busy

DON'T MISS: This CEO turned down her dream job to build an email newsletter into a business with $28 million, 25 million fans, and a clothing line at Target

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: How Sara Blakely went from door-to-door saleswoman to billionaire philanthropist

CEO of Spanx, Sara Blakely, shares her thoughts on failure and success and how her father helped shape her ideals.

Produced by Emma Fierberg and Alana Kakoyiannis.

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• Spanx founder Sara Blakely is married to Jesse Itzler, who is an entrepreneur, a former rapper, and the author of, most recently, "Living with the Monks."
• In the book, Itzler recalls Blakely telling him to stay at the monastery he was visiting "until you have a breakthrough or you're broken."
• It's something Blakely learned when she was a teenager and her father gave her Wayne Dyer's motivational cassettes during a particularly difficult time. 

Jesse Itzler is a former rapper, an entrepreneur, and the husband of Spanx founder Sara Blakely. He's known for pushing himself to his limits — both physically and mentally.

In 2015, he published a book titled "Living with a SEAL," about his experience training with a Navy SEAL. This year, he came out with "Living with the Monks," which documents his struggles to adjust to life at a monastery (that also happens to train dogs).

Towards the end of the book, Itzler remembers feeling restless and homesick. He thinks back to a conversation he had with Blakely before he left for the monastery.

When Itzler asked Blakely how long he should stay, she told him: "Stay until you have a breakthrough or you're broken."

Blakely had already told Itzler about the time she was on the precipice of having a breakthrough and feeling broken. At age 15, Blakely saw her friend get hit by a car while riding her bike. Around the same time, Blakely's parents got divorced.

As Blakely's father was leaving the house, he handed her a collection of cassette tapes featuring the late motivational speaker Wayne Dyer. Blakely listened to the tapes constantly — in fact, she credits Dyer for teaching her how to "visualize" her eventual success in founding Spanx.

Blakely told Inc. that she "wasn't that surprised" when she got a call inviting her to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show "because it had been my mental snapshot for almost 15, 20 years."

For Blakely, receiving those tapes from her father was the breakthrough she needed when she was on the verge of being broken. In some sense, she had to hit rock bottom before she could skyrocket to success.

Itzler doesn't identify explicitly his breakthrough/broken moment. But it seems to be the day he left the monastery to record a podcast episode in New York City.

Back in the hustle and bustle, he found himself able to clear his mind and meditate for 15 minutes at a time, and newly appreciative of his personal relationships. After that, he returned to the monastery for his final day there.

Itzler summarizes the lesson Blakely learned from her own experience as a teenager (in bold and italics, so you can't miss it): "The gap between breakthroughs and being broken is so narrow that sometimes it's impossible to see."

SEE ALSO: Inside the marriage of billionaire Spanx founder Sara Blakely and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler, who met at a poker game and slow dance to make up after fights

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Learning to celebrate failure at a young age led to this billionaire's success

• Spanx CEO Sara Blakely says she does her best thinking in the car. The only problem is that she lives close to her office and has a short commute.
• To give herself more time to think, Blakely wakes up an hour early each morning to go on a "fake commute" in which she drives around Atlanta "aimlessly."
• It was on one of those fake commutes that Blakely came up with the name "Spanx" for her company.

What should you do if you do your best thinking during your morning commute, but you live close to your office?

If you're Spanx CEO Sara Blakely, you make your morning commute longer.

Blakely revealed earlier this year that she wakes up an hour early each day to embark on a "fake commute" in which she drives around Atlanta "aimlessly" to give her time to think.

"I've identified where my best thinking happens and it's in the car," Blakely told LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman on a March episode of his podcast "Masters of Scale.""I live really close to Spanx, so I've created what my friends call my 'fake commute,' and I get up an hour early before I'm supposed to go to Spanx, and I drive around aimlessly in Atlanta with my commute so that I can have my thoughts come to me."

Blakely said she even came up with the name "Spanx" on one of these long commutes.

"I … said I want my invention to have the 'k' sound in it and literally, almost spontaneously, I'm sitting in traffic in Atlanta, the word 'spanks' came to me across my dashboard in traffic," Blakely said at the Inc. Women's Summit in 2011. "I pulled up to the side of the road. I wrote it on a scrap piece of paper and I thought, 'That's it.'"

Read more:Inside the marriage of billionaire Spanx founder Sara Blakely and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler, who met at a poker game and slow dance to make up after fights

On the podcast, Hoffman praised Blakely for her unconventional morning routine.

"As an entrepreneur, you have to put yourself in situations where your great ideas are likely to strike," Hoffman said.

"Sara knows that she does her best thinking in the car. So, she intentionally creates the time and space — first thing every day — to open herself up to new ideas."

Listen to the full episode of "Masters of Scale"»

SEE ALSO: Inside the marriage of billionaire Spanx founder Sara Blakely and entrepreneur Jesse Itzler, who met at a poker game and slow dance to make up after fights

DON'T MISS: This photographer captured shots of New Yorkers on their way to work for 10 years — and it shows how repetitive a commute can be

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why most people refuse to sell their lottery tickets for twice what they paid

• Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and 12 other successful entrepreneurs revealed their favorite places to "think big" on the podcast "Masters of Scale."
• Host Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn, said it's one of the questions he asks every guest on the show.
• Their answers ranged from the treadmill and a dance studio to the Golden Gate Bridge.

What is your favorite place to think big?

That's the question LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman said he asks every one of his guests on his podcast "Masters of Scale," from Mark Zuckerberg to Bill Gates.

On a "Masters of Scale" episode from earlier this year, Hoffman revealed several of the responses he's gathered over the years. He learned that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg does her best thinking on the treadmill, for example, while Netflix CEO Reed Hastings thinks best while sitting in his living room.

Then there's Spanx CEO Sara Blakely, who said she wakes up an hour early every morning so she can drive around Atlanta aimlessly, all because she does her best thinking in the car.

Here's what Zuckerberg, Gates, and 12 other successful entrepreneurs said when asked about their favorite places to think big.

SEE ALSO: The CEO of Spanx wakes up an hour early to drive around 'aimlessly' on a 'fake commute' because she does her best thinking in the car

DON'T MISS: 15 books Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk think everyone should read

Airbnb CEO and cofounder Brian Chesky said his favorite place to think big was the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.

Source: "Masters of Scale"

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was "my lawn, pacing around in circles."

Source: "Masters of Scale"

Minted CEO and founder Mariam Naficy chose "running by the Golden Gate Bridge."

Source: "Masters of Scale"

• Having a set morning routine can help jump-start your day — it even works for billionaires.
• Both Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett prioritize sleep and aim to get eight hours per night. 
• Oprah and Jack Dorsey meditate and exercise before starting their days. 
• WATCH NEXT: Here's what caffeine does to your body and brain

Following is a transcript of the video.

Oprah's morning is very involved. The first thing she does when she rises at seven o'clock is brush her teeth before taking her five dogs for a walk. While she waits for her espresso to brew, she reads a card from her '365 Gathered Truths' box. Then, she turns to an app on her phone to read her daily Bowl of Saki. Next, she meditates followed by an hour long workout in the hills of her backyard.

Elon Musk's morning is not as calm as Oprah's. He also wakes up at seven, but he gets right to business. Elon spends half an hour reading and responding to critical emails while drinking coffee. He says he's too busy for breakfast. After sending his five sons to school he showers, then drives to work. Sounds about right for someone who works up to 120 hours a week.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey says he gets out of bed 5 a.m. He meditates for 30 minutes and then completes a seven-minute workout three times. After that, he has his morning coffee and then checks in.

Warren Buffett likes to sleep. He says he usually sleeps a full eight hours a night. He reportedly wakes up at 6:45 a.m. and starts his day reading newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

Jeff Bezos also values his sleep. He says he makes it a priority. However, Bezos reportedly wakes up naturally, without an alarm. He likes to hold high-IQ meetings in the morning before lunch, ideally at 10 a.m.

Bill Gates starts his day with cardio. The New York Times reported that Gates would spend an hour on the treadmill while watching educational DVDs. He says he enjoys Cocoa Puffs cereal but his wife, Melinda, says he doesn't eat breakfast.

Many of us cannot imagine a morning without coffee, but Sara Blakely can. The founder of Spanx says she's never had a cup of coffee. Instead, she drinks a smoothie made of frozen wild berries, dark cherries, kale, dates, cinnamon, spinach, cilantro, fresh mint, lemon, water, ice, chia, and walnuts. Blakely also tries to get a yoga session in at 6:30 a.m. before taking her kids to school.

Mark Zuckerberg stays true to his brand. The first thing he does is check his phone in bed.

Mark Zuckerberg: The first I do is look at my phone. I look at Facebook.

Jerry Seinfeld: Right.

Zuckerberg: Right to see — to see what's going on in the world.

Seinfeld: Right, right.

Zuckerberg: And I check my messages. I look at Messenger and WhatsApp.

He also says he doesn't like wasting time on small decisions which is why he wears pretty much the same outfit everyday.

Anastasia Soare is the founder of makeup brand Anastasia Beverly Hills. She also reaches for her phone when she wakes up at 7:00 a.m. Apparently, Instagram is the first app she checks every morning. She always has two cups of black coffee and eats a light breakfast while answering emails. Her personal trainer comes to her house most days and she exercises for an hour. And of course, she never leaves her house without doing her eyebrows.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This video was originally published on January 31, 2019. 

Join the conversation about this story »

• For these 11 famous entrepreneurs and celebrities, their side hustles became more than just a way to supplement their income. 
• Some of these successful entrepreneurs, like Marc Benioff, stayed at their full-time jobs even after their companies took off.
• Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield never intended for the messaging platform he built for the employees of his video game company to become his main source of income.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

A side hustle can be more than just a way to supplement your income. 

These 11 entrepreneurs built their fortunes from ventures that started out as part-time gigs. Not all of them were quick to give up their day jobs, however. Ashton Kutcher has continued to act even after his venture capital firm took off, while Slack's Stewart Butterfield gave the corporate messaging app his full attention after his video game company went under.

Read more: A high school teacher with a 6-figure side hustle says a 2-part strategy helped him become a millionaire at 35

Keep reading for a look at 11 people who made more from their side hustles than their primary jobs.

SEE ALSO: 5 Hollywood celebrities who became billionaires and are vastly more rich than their peers

DON'T MISS: Meet Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of SoftBank and one of the richest men in Japan, who has a $16.3 billion fortune and owns a $117.5 million Silicon Valley estate

Stewart Butterfield was trying to build a now-defunct gaming company when he created Slack to ease communication with his employees.

Lucrative side hustle: Slack

Slack isn't the 46-year-old CEO's first successful side hustle. He built Flickr, which he later sold to Yahoo for a reported $35 million while attempting to develop a video game called "Game Neverending," according to Money Magazine.

Butterfield subsequently returned to video games and founded a new gaming firm. After Butterfield's new company, Tiny Speck, shuttered in 2012, he realized the messaging platform he built for his employees might be worth something.

Butterfield is now worth $2.4 billion thanks to his stake in Slack, according to Canadian Business. Slack is now preparing to go public and will be one of the year's most anticipated IPOs.

Read more: Here's Who's Getting Rich on Slack's Multi-Billion Dollar IPO

Basketball legend Michael Jordan is worth $1.65 billion — mostly because of his shoe line with Nike, according to Forbes.

Lucrative side hustle: Nike Air Jordan, The Charlotte Hornets

Jordan, 56, is the highest-paid athlete of all time, but not because of his salary from the Chicago Bulls. Jordan earned $1.4 billion before taxes from corporate sponsorships during his professional basketball career. His film debut, "Space Jam," also earned $250 million at the worldwide box office, according to IMDB. 

He went on to purchase an NBA team, The Charlotte Hornets, in 2010. The Hornets may be the third least-valuable NBA franchise according to Forbes, but the team's valuation at $1.05 billion is still a major part of Jordan's wealth. Jordan has also made a lot of money from Nike's Air Jordan line, which made him a billionaire in 2015, according to CNN Business.

Read more: 7 money lessons you can learn from the way Michael Jordan makes and spends his fortune

Sara Blakely revealed on LinkedIn that she ran Spanx out of her apartment at night — even after her products were featured on Oprah.

Lucrative side hustle: Spanx

Sara Blakely, 48, spent her days selling fax machines for office-supply company Danka long after she founded Spanx, according to a post she wrote on LinkedIn. Blakely ran her side business out of her Atlanta apartment and would often come home to boxes of Spanx stacked in front of her front door so high that she needed help from neighbors to move them. She didn't quit her day job as a Danka salesperson until after Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue started selling Spanx in their stores in 2000.

While it's unclear how much money Blakely made at her day job, her net worth was probably a lot lower than it is now: Forbes estimates that she's worth $1 billion because of Spanx.

Salesforce was just a side hustle for Marc Benioff while he worked full time at Oracle, until a disagreement with his boss led him to strike out on his own.

Lucrative side hustle: Salesforce

Benioff, now 54, got hired as a salesperson at Oracle right after graduating from the University of Southern California in 1986, according to Bloomberg. Benioff had worked his way up to being an executive before he came up with the idea for Salesforce during a 6-month sabbatical from the company.

Benioff worked on Salesforce while holding on to his position at Oracle, and even received a $2 million investment from Oracle founder Larry Ellison, Business Insider previously reported. Benioff later quit his day job as Salesforce began to compete with Oracle.

Oracle paid Benioff $300,000 for his work as a vice president when he was 26. Benioff is now worth $6.7 billion, with most of his wealth coming from his shares of Salesforce, according to Bloomberg.

Read more: The epic 30-year bromance of billionaire CEOs Larry Ellison and Marc Benioff

Rihanna is the world's wealthiest female musician according to Forbes, but she didn't make her fortune from her 14 No.1 songs.

Lucrative side hustle: Fenty

Billboard reported that Rihanna, 31, made $22 million from her music in 2016, but that number is dwarfed by her earnings from her fashion and beauty ventures. Rihanna is the creative director of Puma, and she partnered with French luxury-goods maker LVMH to launch Fenty Beauty in 2017 and a fashion house of the same name in 2019.

Rihanna's beauty line alone is worth $3 billion, she owns 15% of the company, and she has a net worth of $600 million, according to Forbes.

Read more: Rihanna is the world's richest female musician — from yachting trips on the French Riviera to a staff that includes a chef and personal trainers, see how she spends her $600 million fortune

Bonobos cofounder and former CEO Andy Dunn got started by selling chinos out of his car while earning his MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business, according to NPR's "How I Built This with Guy Raz."

Lucrative side hustle: Bonobos

Dunn's first involvement with Bonobos was to help his cofounder and roommate Brian Spaly sell Spaly's design for more flattering men's pants while both were full-time students at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Spaly is no longer involved with the company, according to NPR's "How I Built This with Guy Raz." 

Dunn, now 40, sold Bonobos to Walmart for $310 million in 2017, and stayed on as the company's CEO until 2018, according to Inc. He is currently the senior vice president of digital brands at Walmart.

Jay-Z may be the first hip-hop billionaire, but he made most of his money from streaming service Tidal, his clothing line, and cognac brand D'Ussé — not hip hop.

Lucrative side hustles: Tidal, D'Ussé

The stake Jay-Z, 49, has in premium streaming service Tidal is worth $100 million alone, according to Forbes. Jay-Z acquired Tidal for $56 million in 2015. Sprint bought a 33% stake in the company for $200 million in 2017, which put the company's valuation at $600 million.

In comparison, Jay-Z only made about $500 million from his 14 No. 1 album before taxes. 

Ashton Kutcher was one of the highest-paid actors in television in 2013, according to Forbes, but he's made even more in venture capital.

Lucrative side hustle: Sound Ventures

Kutcher made $24 million between June 2012 and June 2013 from his role in hit series "Two and a Half Men,"Forbes reports, but his investment portfolio is worth even more.

The investment portfolio Kutcher built alongside talent manager Guy Oseary was worth $250 million in 2016 according to Forbes. Kutcher and Oseary began by investing $30 million in companies including Uber, Skype, Airbnb, Spotify, Pinterest, Shazam and Warby Parker. Kutcher, 41, invests in startups because he wants to help "brilliant people trying to solve hard problems," the actor explained in a blog post he wrote on Atrium.

Kutcher still finds time to act and currently stars in Netflix sitcom "The Ranch."

Nike founder Phil Knight sold Japanese running shoes out his car at track meets while working as an accountant.

Lucrative side hustle: Nike

Knight, now 81, founded Nike with his old track coach Bill Bowerman after becoming inspired by the running shoes he saw on a trip to Japan. Knight first became interested in selling shoes while still a student at Stanford, but he decided to become a CPA and pursue a career in accounting instead. When Knight found success selling shoes after hours, he decided to turn Nike, then called Blue Ribbon Sports, into his full-time career in 1968, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

After 52 years at Nike, Knight retired from his role as the company's chairman in 2016. He owns 20% of the Oregon-based giant and is worth $33.9 billion, according to Forbes.

Actress Jessica Alba made her fortune from the natural consumer products company she cofounded to create safe products for her children, according to Forbes.

Lucrative side hustle: The Honest Company

While the 38-year-old "Fantastic Four" star may be best known for her acting career, the biggest source of her wealth is The Honest Company, according to Forbes. Alba cofounded the all-natural household and baby products producer in 2011, and currently serves as the chair of The Honest Company's board.

Forbes estimates that Alba's net worth was $200 million in 2017, down from $340 million in 2016 after the Honest Company's valuation peaked at $1.7 billion.

Daymond John founded FUBU in between 12-hour shifts at Red Lobster, according to CNBC.

Lucrative side hustle: FUBU

John, 50, founded his hip-hop fashion brand by making hats out of his home in Queens with the help of his mom while waiting tables full time at Red Lobster, according to Investopedia. FUBU has now sold over $6 billion of clothing and accessories.

"I would get up at 6 in the morning, I would answer all the calls that were on the voicemail and then I would (deliver) as many hats as I could, or t-shirts, to all the stores I could until about 12," John said told CNBC. "I probably need(ed) to get to Red Lobster about 2. I would work till about 10, 11, 12 at night. I would then come home and sew the labels on things … until 3, 4 in the morning."

John is worth $300 million, according to Investopedia. John still works at FUBU, in addition to starring on "Shark Tank."

• There's a lot of value to be found in strong communication — especially the nonverbal type.
• Your body language can be speaking volumes on your behalf, which means that optimizing it can have great returns.
• Dr. Donna Van Natten, who studies body language, points to founder of Spanx Sara Blakely as an example of an entrepreneur who effectively utilizes body language.
• Van Natten points to Blakely's eye contact, hand gestures, and smiles as effective tools for building trust.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Learning to communicate better is one of the best ways to improve yourself and succeed as a human being.

But do we ever think about "improving" our communication in the nonverbal sense? In other words, are you even aware of the effects your body language has on people?

While focusing so much on how we come across with our words and actions, we tend to forget the importance of our nonverbal communication.

The expert in this field is Dr. Donna Van Natten, the Body Language Dr, and author of the upcoming release, "The Body Language of Politics: Deciding Who is Lying, Who is Sincere, and How You'll Vote."

I caught up with Van Natten and asked her which successful entrepreneurs we can all learn from when it comes to successful body language habits. Van Natten was quick to reference Sara Blakely— the self-made billionaire and founder of Spanx — whom she has studied and examined through a variety of photographs and videos.

Blakely's passion is obvious and clearly displayed through her body language. In her analysis, Van Natten discovered three creative techniques Blakely uses to capture and sustain our attention. 

SEE ALSO: 10 small tricks that will make you feel happier, according to therapists

1. Lots of eye contact

From photographs to interviews to Spanx promotional materials, Blakely is constantly "looking at us" from beyond the cameras. We stare back at her blue eyes as they captivate us through our screens.

No doubt, part of her successful branding is to make sure that we are watching her, and she is watching us.

"Eye contact is a critical nonverbal because it instantly builds trust and ensures honesty. Plus, her gazing at us gives the impression of confidence — and we are hooked," explains Van Natten.

Van Natten adds, "Eye contact helps us connect with another person ... When you watch her, don't you feel connected? I do."

2. Hand gestures that reinforce your words

Van Natten explains that Blakely's use of hand gestures constantly reinforces her verbal messages. We believe what she is saying because she backs it up with complimentary gestures and other body movements.

"In several videos," says Van Natten, "I see her clasping her hands to infer warmth, extending her palms to invite us in, and making a point by the subtle lifting of her pointer finger — as if to say, 'I'm making a point ... and we are No. 1.'"

3. A genuine smile

• Single women should focus on becoming the CEOs of their own lives instead of searching for husbands, billionaireSpanx founder Sara Blakely wrote on LinkedIn on Monday.
• In the post, Blakely explained that she married her husband Jesse Itzler when she was 37, after two decades of being interrogated about her relationship status at the dinner table on Thanksgiving.
• Blakely, now 48, is ranked by Forbes as one of the richest self-made women in the country with a net worth of $1 billion.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Many people dread reuniting with their extended family over the Thanksgiving dinner table, but perhaps no one more than single women.

Worse than arguments over politics or overcooked turkey, those women will have to endure endless questions about when they plan to get married and start families. Billionaire Spanx founder Sara Blakely faced "THAT question" for almost twenty straight Thanksgiving dinners, she wrote on LinkedIn on Monday.

For women in that position this year, Blakely has a simple piece of advice: "Be the CEO your parents always wanted you to marry!"

"I didn't get married until I was 37," the now 48-year-old billionaire wrote on LinkedIn. "I remember going out to eat alone A LOT in my 20s and 30s and getting looks from people who felt sorry for me. Well-meaning women used to say to me, 'it's ok honey... you'll meet a nice man someday...' It was rare that anyone ever encouraged me to stand on my own two feet and to have dreams for myself."

Instead of searching for a successful man to marry, Blakely got a full-time job selling fax machines for office-supply company Danka while operating her shapewear business as a side hustle. In 2000, she quit her day job to focus on Spanx full-time, Business Insider previously reported. Blakely ran her side business out of her Atlanta apartment and would often come home to boxes of Spanx stacked in front of her front door so high that she needed help from neighbors to move them. Blakely wrote that she was inspired to "be the CEO of my own life" by her mother and grandmothers, who never had the same opportunity.

"I eventually did get married to the best hubby Jesse Itzler but it was after I started Spanx built a global brand and became a CEO," Blakely wrote.

Clearly, things worked out for the entrepreneur. Blakely is ranked by Forbes as one of the richest self-made women in the country with a net worth of $1 billion.

Read Blakely's full post below:

SEE ALSO: Billionaires' success boils down to a set of 3 personality traits that aren't directly tied to intelligence, a new report says

DON'T MISS: White Claw billionaire Anthony von Mandl got his start selling wine out of his car. Here's how he built a $3.4 billion fortune off the hard seltzers and lemonades that have redefined booze for bros.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Traditional Japanese swords can take over 18 months to create — here's what makes them so special

• Spanx founder Sara Blakely will loan her wedding dresses to 31 brides whose weddings have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
• Blakely built a billion-dollar fortune after founding shapewear maker Spanx in her Atlanta apartment in 1998, while selling fax machines door to door to make ends meet.
• The novel coronavirus sparked dual public health and economic crises in the United States after killing 5,923 Americans.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Billionaire Spanx founder Sara Blakely is looking out for an oft-overlooked population affected by the coronavirus pandemic — brides.

Blakely is offering to loan her wedding dress out to any size 4 or size 6 brides who are struggling to organize a wedding amid the pandemic, she announced on Instagram. Over thirty women have already taken Blakely up on the offer, she told CNBC.

"When COVID-19 happened, I shifted my thinking to, 'How can I use my social platform right now to be helpful?'" Blakely said in an interview with CNBC Make It's Taylor Locke published Thursday. "I thought, 'This is a really feel-good post that should make other people feel good right now ... and I also wanted to hopefully start a trend and spark an idea in other women that maybe they hadn't thought of loaning their wedding dress out and now they will."

"My heart is breaking for all the brides out their [sic] having to cancel and postpone their special day so I thought why not offer my dress to more amazing women," Blakely wrote when first making the offer on Instagram March 19. "Hoping this will possibly help ease someone's plans during this time."

The 49-year-old billionaire loaned out one of the two dresses she wore to her October 2008 wedding years before the coronavirus outbreak began, first to a friend in 2010 and later to a stranger she met on a hiking trail in 2016, according to CNBC. Blakely built a billion-dollar fortune after founding shapewear and loungewear brand Spanx in her Atlanta apartment in 1998, Business Insider reported.

Engaged couples across the country have been forced to postpone or completely cancel their nuptials as authorities limit gatherings to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. The cancellations are also costing couples tens of thousands of dollars in losses from broken contracts with vendors, canceled flights and hotel bookings, aside from what they hoped would be the happiest day of their lives, Business Insider's Jessica Snouwaert reported.

The novel coronavirus has infected over one million people and killed over 96,000 across the globe, after being identified in Wuhan, China, in December. No country has reported more cases than the United States. In addition to a public health crisis, the outbreak has also led to an economic downturn, as nearly 10 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the past two weeks alone as businesses close to comply with social distancing guidelines designed to slow the virus' the spread.

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• Spanx founder and CEO Sara Blakely needed a change of scenery, so she and her family bought a 35-foot RV to explore the quieter corners of Florida.
• In a conversation with LinkedIn's This is Working podcast, Blakely shared four things Spanx is doing to get through the coronavirus crisis.
• In moments of challenge, she says, "the ones who make it are the people who take obstacles and turn them into opportunities."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic has many people working remotely, but Spanx founder and CEO Sara Blakely is taking it a good distance further.

"We decided that quarantining with four children under the age of 10 in a home just wasn't enough," she told LinkedIn's Dan Roth. "We had to take it up a notch."

Blakely and her husband Jesse Itzler — himself an entrepreneur as well — needed a change of scenery, so they bought a 35-foot RV to escape their home city of Atlanta and explore the quieter corners of Florida.

"We don't even have super set plans. We kind of just got in," she said.

Even on the road however, Blakely remains involved in her company during this unprecedented time.

"Spanx is deeply affected, like so many other businesses. We are in the retail space, which obviously has had an enormous impact," she said.

Blakely shared four things Spanx does, which are helping the business get through the crisis.

Zero-based budgeting

When setting your budget for the upcoming year, it may seem natural to simply look at what you spent last year. But that's not how Blakely runs Spanx.

"Every year the budget starts at zero," she said. "Each leader in the organization has to make a case for the money being spent."

This approach has helped the company weather disruptions in the past, and Blakely turned to it once more when this crisis hit.

"We regrouped as a leadership team and each leader redid the budget with the new normal," she said.

The new financial targets are more fluid than in normal periods, and the team revisits them every few weeks to make sure they're still appropriate.

Prioritizing culture and communication

Blakely said her first thought when the health crisis started was how to keep her team safe and connected, which involved a major push toward remote work.

"We're doing a virtual all-company meeting every week," she said. Also, "we're having fun virtually and connecting, because emotional wellbeing is a really important thing right now."

People may not be physically close to their coworkers, but Blakely says that shouldn't stop leaders from investing the time and resources into strengthening their teams.

"This is a fantastic time to build culture and to show your people that you care," she said. "People are going to remember in times like this who showed up who did something for them."

And what goes for your team applies to your customers as well.

"People are hurting and scared," Blakely said. "People don't want to feel like they're just being sold to. They want to feel like you're there for them."

'Take obstacles and turn them into opportunities'

In moments of challenge, Blakely says, "the ones who make it are the people who take obstacles and turn them into opportunities."

For Spanx, one such opportunity is the chance to focus on rethinking some of the company's processes.

"Spanx has been growing pretty rapidly over the last several years and it's harder to stop and go, 'there's a more efficient way to do this.'"

Even though Spanx is a global brand and a household name, Blakely says she still runs the company like a small business and that she's no stranger to getting good results with lean financing.

"Cash for a while is not going to be as accessible as it has been and I think for a lot of people that may end up being a hidden blessing," she said.

Learning from the past

Blakely launched Spanx 20 years ago with $5,000 that she saved from selling fax machines, and has since weathered two major economic recessions.

"I moved forward with everything that I could and I just didn't let the the macro environment overwhelm me," she said.

Entrepreneurs may take a degree of comfort in knowing that creative business ideas and an adaptable mindset can get them through some extraordinary circumstances.

"If you are making a product or a service better than anything else out there, it is always a good time to start a business," Blakely said.

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