Reese Witherspoon: Don't Ever Let Somebody Control You With Money | Aspire Archives

0:00 So, what's the one thing that every woman

0:01 needs to know about money, do you think?

0:04 where do I start?

0:05 One thing?

0:06 Well, go on, give us it all.

0:07 I'm going

0:09 [laughter and gasps]

0:09 Well, first of all, I learned about money from doing things wrong.

0:15 Yes.

0:14 I don't know a woman, Emma.

0:16 I do not know a woman who doesn't have a disaster financial story in her past.

0:22 Facts.

0:23 Whether it's her, her best friend, her sister, her mom, her grandma, her auntie.

0:27 Mhm.

0:27 Who she lost all her money.

0:30 Or she got divorced and she got stuck with the bill.

0:33 Or you know, just whatever financial does debt.

0:38 So much debt.

0:40 And so I listen every podcast on finances.

0:42 I am so interested in financial wellness for women.

0:45 And just also a lot of what we learn is one course three days in high school.

0:53 We're lucky if you get three months.

0:54 Yeah.

0:55 And that was the end of my financial learning.

0:57 And then I became this woman I was making money

1:00 and I was a young mom and I did not save correctly.

1:05 I'm in fine I'm fine.

1:07 What do you mean you're fine?

1:08 You're not I'm fine.

1:09 I'm great.

1:09 You're just like are you not rolling in it like now?

1:12 Like just like I did invest properly.

1:14 I'm not not saying that it wasn't I'm completely fine and and and I did well,

1:21 but I could have done amazing if I had learned a few things.

1:25 And a lot of them are mindset.

1:27 Right.

1:27 Mhm.

1:28 About saving, about the steadiness of the stock market and index funds

1:33 and diversifying your portfolio and making sure

1:36 that you're looking at treasuries and you're

1:38 looking at bonds and yields and things that are pretty simple if

1:42 somebody says them to you in a like if you're a visual person,

1:46 you see a visual chart.

1:48 I'm a visual person.

1:49 So, every time I talk to people about finances out.

1:52 I need it laid out.

1:52 I want cute colors.

1:54 I'm just being honest.

1:56 Notes.

1:58 [laughter] I want a pleasing palette and a pie chart.

2:00 Thanks.

2:01 So, I'm right.

2:01 We know what your business managers [laughter] are doing.

2:04 Making this very aesthetically pleasing presentation.

2:08 "Can somebody do the pie chart for Reese?" BUT I

2:10 LOVE that you say that because it is all pretty simple,

2:12 but again, we're not always having

2:14 those conversations and sharing the information.

2:16 What's the best piece of money advice you think you've been given?

2:19 Don't get into debt.

2:21 Do everything you can to not get into debt.

2:26 And pay off those credit cards or don't spend the money like it's yours.

2:30 It's not yours, girlfriend.

2:32 Yeah.

2:33 And that was a really good piece of advice.

2:36 Um don't ever let somebody control you with money.

2:40 Somebody says, "I'll take care of it and I'll take care

2:42 of you and I'll take care of this." That person could leave.

2:45 That person can hurt you.

2:48 You always keep your job.

2:50 Your job is your life insurance.

2:52 My mom used to always say that to me.

2:54 Oh.

2:55 And my mom went through some tough stuff in a marriage with finances.

2:58 Really tough stuff.

3:00 Yeah.

3:00 And so did my grandma.

3:01 Not in the marriage, but in like a family structure.

3:04 And um I have this past of women not being taken care of financially.

3:11 And so I think Mhm.

3:13 Right?

3:14 And it as a little girl Yeah.

3:16 Scars you.

3:17 Like literally.

3:17 It's It's inside me.

3:20 so so deeply.

3:22 And that's why I have a passion for helping

3:24 women um understand and also demystifying it, you know?

3:29 Yeah, I feel like the demystifying piece is really really important.

3:31 Do you Are you the type of person that looks after everything yourself

3:35 or have you kind of outsourced all of that to a team at this point?

3:37 I have outsourcing, but there's frequent check-ins.

3:41 Okay.

3:41 Same.

3:42 Weekly.

3:42 I'm the same.

3:43 I like to have a enough of that you know,

3:45 it's like one hand's on it all the time.

3:47 Like I'm happy to let the experts be expert-ing,

3:49 but I need to like I need it there.

3:52 Yes.

3:53 Yeah, I need it there and then I also need checks and balances.

3:57 I need to diversify things so that everything's

3:59 not in one investment or one savings account.

4:03 Yes.

4:03 But that's it.

4:04 That comes again, I think that comes from your upbringing

4:06 and it's like if nobody teaches you that, you don't know.

4:09 And you're just like, "Okay,

4:10 the money sits all here and it's safe." But it's like it might be safe,

4:14 but it's not growing.

4:15 It's not doing anything for you.

4:17 Right.

4:17 Right.

4:17 And most people don't live in a way that savings is even part of their life.

4:21 Okay, so I'm I'm very realistic about that.

4:24 Yes, you have to be.

4:25 With my mom and my grandma always saying to me,

4:28 "I don't have any savings." You know, they did have My mom has retirement.

4:32 She worked her whole life doing three and four jobs including being

4:36 in the military and being a nurse and working at a state university.

4:40 But you have to think ahead and you have

4:42 to think about saving as helping your future self.

4:46 Oh, yes.

4:47 Absolutely.

4:48 What you don't spend today, you're saving for your future self.

4:52 You're saving for 65-year-old Emma who doesn't want

4:55 to have to worry about the gas bill.

4:57 Yes.

4:58 Yes.

4:58 Yeah, I want to relax.

5:00 lady.

5:01 Yeah, me too.

5:02 Eventually at some point.

5:03 I want to have a glass of wine and sit on a porch.

5:06 A porch.

5:07 I want to come on that porch.

5:08 We're just going to sit there and tell our stories.

5:11 Talk about all the like, you know.

5:13 We're going to travel where we want to go.

5:16 Oh.

5:16 And our cute kids are going to be Oh my god, we're having the best time.

5:19 They could be looking after us.

5:21 I love that you say that so much is about

5:24 mindset because I'm somebody that believes that mindset is everything.

5:28 And so I wanted to talk to you a little

5:29 bit about your mindset and also Reese and leadership

5:34 because you've clearly had to be and you've become

5:36 an excellent leader to get to where you you are.

5:40 Do you have like is there a leadership or a business philosophy that you have?

5:45 How do you think about how you come into a room,

5:49 how you lead people or is it even something that you think about?

5:54 Um well, I I wasn't always a leader.

5:56 I was a I was part of a group.

5:58 I never in high school ran for a student office.

6:00 I never wanted to be the person who raised her hand to run anything.

6:04 That's crazy cuz I think of you so

6:05 as like like head of the school, student president.

6:09 No, that was just a character I played in a movie once.

6:12 [laughter] So, where did I get that from?

6:14 I'm not Tracy Flick.

6:16 I'm not at all.

6:18 Um and so when my company came around, I bet I'd had a lot of group dynamics.

6:24 Filmmaking is a collaborative um art.

6:26 So, we work with groups of 150 to 200 people per movie.

6:32 And we're all working in concert to the same idea.

6:35 Um and so I knew when I started my company,

6:38 I wanted to have that same feeling, but I knew I had to be the director.

6:43 And the director The most successful directors

6:46 I've ever worked with have very clear vision.

6:49 They also don't micromanage people who are very good at their jobs.

6:53 So, you hire the best and let them do their thing.

6:56 But keep reminding people core values, core values.

6:59 So, it's really important when you begin

7:01 your company to do that core values exercise.

7:04 Ours at Hello Sunshine are optimism, humor, storytelling,

7:09 um a do-it-yourself culture where nobody's above

7:12 any one thing or below any one thing.

7:14 It's not hierarchical.

7:16 Um and so they're defined and we can always go back and they're on the wall.

7:22 So, in case you forget, they're right there.

7:24 Um and I I I think one thing I always say and I

7:28 said this to my little kids um it was it came from motherhood.

7:33 And you know when you're like about to cross

7:34 the street with your kids and you're like,

7:36 "Okay, walk quickly directly to the door of the grocery [clears throat] store.

7:40 We're not wandering around.

7:41 We're not walking in circles.

7:42 We're not wandering off.

7:44 Walk directly." And so I started saying to my kids when they were little,

7:47 "Walk with purpose in the direction you're going." Or And so when

7:51 I started the company I extrapolated that out to "Walk with purpose." Right?

7:57 We're walking towards a purpose of greater storytelling for women,

8:00 greater recognition for female filmmakers and artists and authors.

8:04 But also you start to notice people walk in the same direction with you.

8:09 Oh, yeah.

8:10 Especially when you have purpose.

8:11 And especially when you have that level

8:12 of clarity cuz I think one of the biggest

8:14 jobs that you have as a CEO is to constantly reinforce those values, right?

8:20 It's like cuz you know, as companies invariably do, hopefully, they get bigger,

8:23 more people come on board and you need

8:25 to be that beacon that tells everybody where we're going.

8:29 But I heard you or maybe I read in an article that you

8:33 say you have a bit of a problem with the word power.

8:36 And when I speak to you,

8:37 it's so clear that you are incredibly powerful and incredibly directional.

8:42 Do you still have that in you?

8:44 Power is just an a hard word for me to handle because

8:49 I think for years in Hollywood I watched the abuse of power.

8:52 Oh, yeah.

8:53 And power corrupting.

8:54 And also people assuming power when they hadn't

8:58 really done the work to have the power.

9:02 And I watched a lot of women defer to powerful individuals

9:06 that didn't really know what they were doing or talking about.

9:09 So, it's hard.

9:11 Power feels like an empty word to me.

9:13 I think more comfortable with leadership?

9:15 Leadership is a better word, I think.

9:17 Yeah.

9:18 I I think we have a lot of great leadership at Hello Sunshine.

9:22 Starting with you.

9:24 Starting with me, but my yeah, my I've really like I hired a really great

9:28 great leaders don't stay around not a great leader.

9:31 So, you have to be, basically.

9:32 I'm saying that you are.

9:33 Well, Because you wouldn't have that many incredible people

9:36 in that company if it wasn't super solid at the top.

9:41 Yeah.

9:41 And I'm and I'm very I'm I recognize their efforts and I really try and I hope I

9:46 do a good job of this of constantly telling

9:48 them that I appreciate them and I appreciate their efforts.

9:52 Even if something doesn't work the right way,

9:54 I also appreciate when people take accountability for mistakes.

9:58 I appreciate when people don't triangulate

10:01 at a company or talk about another person, that we work together on problems.

10:05 But Emma, I have learned an entire world

10:08 of information in nine years that I've been doing this.

10:12 Have you um Have you failed?

10:15 Have I failed?

10:16 Yeah.

10:17 Well, I would say you know, when when I had the company and it

10:20 I'd done I had three Oscar nominations and eight

10:23 Emmys for Big Little Lies and I couldn't

10:25 do anything but break even, that was a fail.

10:29 And I thought that there's something wrong here.

10:32 What did you do?

10:33 Well, that's when I called my friend and he and he helped me

10:36 come up with a business plan and that's when I hired Sarah Harden.

10:39 But have we had fails?

10:41 Sure, we've had some stuff inside the company

10:44 that I feel like we tried things, didn't work.

10:47 Just didn't work?

10:48 Certain verticals were doing really well five years ago,

10:51 not doing as well right now.

10:53 That's okay.

10:54 I'd rather us try.

10:56 But I'm really proud of the brand that we've built because

10:59 I think it stands for something and consumers know what it means.