"The thought of my mortality—I think about it a lot. I find it motivating. It can be any time that your number’s up."

In March 2012, Sara landed on the cover of Forbes. It wasn't her first magazine story, but it was a big first—she's the youngest self-made female entrepreneur. She was 41. A year later, she signed Bill and Melinda Gates' and Warren Buffet's Giving Pledge, vowing to give at least half her wealth to charity. Helping others is something she'd already been doing, from starting the Sara Blakely Foundation in 2006 to funding female entrepreneurship and education, to the Leg-Up program promoting women-owned businesses in the SPANX catalog, and now she just has a lot more to give.

Forbes |

Mike Mozart | (CC BY 2.0) |