- 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.
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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:
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