Reese Witherspoon joins a group photo with friends Laura Dern and Octavia Spencer at day one of Hello Sunshine’s Shine Away event held at nya studios on Saturday (October 5) in Los Angeles.
The 48-year-old actress and her company hosted the two day event this weekend, which brings the Hello Sunshine “community together to connect women to greater possibilities through connection, entertainment and joy.”
Also in attendance on the first day included stars like Amanda Kloots, Olivia Munn, Candice Parker, Clea Shearer, Joanna Teplin, Ashlyn Harris, Heather McMahan and Raegan Revord.
While speaking at the event, Reese opened up about not being able to keep the lights on at the company and revealed her aha moment that helped turn it around.
Keep reading to find out more…
“There’s a moment in all of our lives when you realize, ‘No, wait, no one’s coming to help, no one’s coming to make that decision. For me, I have to make that decision.’ I’ve had a lot of those,” she shared. “Being a single mom when I was in my late 20s, I had to make a lot of decisions for my two kids and a lot of financial decisions too.”
While they were seeing great success with their projects, the reality was it wasn’t that easy, with Reese recalling they only “had four employees and I couldn’t keep the lights on.”
“I remember the accountant calling me going, ‘You didn’t make enough money producing those three things to keep four employees,’” the actress said. “I was like, ‘I’m doing something wrong.’ And that’s when I had this aha moment. I was like, I need to have help. I don’t have a business plan.”
She said this moment helped her “realize there’s things I didn’t know, and I had to reach out for help, and that’s when I had a friend help me create a business plan.”
“It’s also good to know what you’re not good at, and I know what I’m really good at, but it’s also important to go, I’m not good at something,” Reese added. “So that’s when Sarah Harden came in — who’s our amazing CEO — and we had secure funding, but I had no idea how to hire executives and create infrastructure and get lawyers and business affairs and financial people.”
After working with Sarah for a year and asking her “the dumbest questions you can possibly imagine,” Reese says that being vulnerable and asking for help is what led to their current success.
“I’m sure she was like, ‘Oh my God.’ She’d go home and I’d be like, ‘My business partner’s an idiot.’ Like how did she not know? But she was so patient with me and let me be vulnerable,” Reese said of Sarah. “And that vulnerability I think is what led to our success.”
On day two, Reese returned with more celeb guests, including Naomi Watts, Jennie Garth, Ashlyn Harris and Sophia Bush and Tatyana Ali.
FYI: Reese is wearing a Carolina Herrera dress on day one.
Check out more photos of Reese Witherspoon and more at Hello Sunshine’s Shine Away event…
