Jessica Alba is playing hooky. Well, she will be after this interview — then, instead of heading to the office, she’ll be off to get a massage. Boy, is it well deserved: “I sat in a six-hour meeting yesterday, and my pelvis feels like it’s cracking in half,” she says.
The hint of weariness in her voice might have something to do with the fact that when we spoke, Jessica was just 10 days away from delivering her third child, a son named Hayes, with husband Cash Warren (daughters Honor and Haven are 9 and 6). “I’m pretty relentless in everything I do... but I’m learning to be better at not pushing myself too hard. I normally wouldn’t have given myself today off.”
And then with a knowing laugh: “But right now my kitchen’s a disaster and my garbage cans are full, so I’ll be thinking about that instead of just relaxing.” Yeah, like most busy moms, Jessica has work to do on the “let it go” front. But in all other ways, that ferocious drive has served the actress-turned-mogul well.
“I was always in trouble with my parents for speaking up and wanting to be an equal part of the conversation. I started working young so I could get that respect,” she confesses. As a tweenager, Jessica entered an acting competition — and the rest is IMDB history, from a breakout TV role as a superhuman badass in Dark Angel to turns in big-screen blockbusters like Fantastic Four.
Then, at 27, the expecting mom totally changed lanes: Frustrated at the lack of effective natural baby products, she decided to produce them herself. Launched in 2012, Honest Company (which also offers cleaning products and a makeup and skincare line) has grown exponentially — reports say the private company’s sales hit $300 million last year.
Most would label that a smashing success — for Jessica, 36, it’s a good start: “I have dreams that it’ll be a global brand.” So after taking maternity leave, she is prepared to return full-tilt to growing Honest while hopefully “keeping it feeling small.” That means Jessica will still be taking customer service calls now and then: “Nobody ever believes it’s me,” she says. Think of all the things you’d ask if you got the surprisingly open, super-chatty mom on the line. I did, and here’s what she shared about the power we all have to make great things happen for ourselves.
Dream Big
Funny thing: Turning your passion into a career isn’t a snap because you’re a household name. Jessica knew from the start that she didn’t want to just be the face of a natural products brand, she wanted to create and run it — but getting others to see her as a businesswoman was a tough sell: “One time, someone asked me to join him on this venture, and I was like, ‘Remember when I went to your office [when I was trying to get Honest off the ground], and you were a total d--- and disregarded me?’ He was like, ‘Yeah I remember that. But look at you now!’ It sucks that he made me feel small and I allowed it to happen in the moment. But I had a vision and I didn’t lose sight of it. People always ask, ‘Did you know Honest would be what it is?’ And I’m like, ‘Of course I did,’ because I set this goal for myself. You have to set big goals before you can reach them.”
Chat Up People You Admire
“When I’m around someone who’s started a business, I have no qualms diving in with, ‘How did you get started? How did you take it from point A to point B?’” she says. Though her on-the-fly advisers have been both male and female, when Jessica has “issues that specifically have to do with being a woman in business,” she turns to a crew of successful friend-mentors (Tory Burch, Gwyneth Paltrow, WhoWhatWear’s Katherine Power, and Ouai haircare creator Jen Atkin, to name a few) for help.
“I’ve asked things like how do they make it a point to give more opportunity. It’s tough, because you just want to hire the best person for the job, but at the same time you want to give more people a seat at the table.” Last year, with critical guidance from new CEO Nick Vlahos, Honest started a program to build leadership skills and give in-house mentorship to women in its workforce. Ultimately, “making sure that diversity is represented at every level as much as can be” is crucial, says Jessica.
Find the Lesson in Everything
Every company has growing pains, as Jessica learned last year when Honest was hit with lawsuits from people claiming that some products’ ingredients were
misrepresented. “Employees who’d worked at consumer product goods brands before Honest told me that when things like that happen at other companies, it’s not news,” Jessica says. “The fact is, when you make hundreds of thousands of products, not everything is going to turn out exactly the same. But because my name is attached, the story is clickbait.”
To limit distractions to the business, Honest settled out of court and focused on getting stronger. It’s expanded its in-house laboratory and research and development team—and how’s this for a comeback: Four of Honest’s newest cleaning products were awarded the coveted Good Housekeeping Seal. “I want parents searching for better-for- you products who don’t have the time to research them to feel secure outsourcing their trust to us.”
Schedule Regular Me and We Time
Jessica has a mom’s sense of irony: “I feel like right when Cash and I got in a groove where we can leave our daughters in a room to go do our own thing and they won’t kill themselves — we’re almost going back to square one.” But she’s also serious about protecting her non-kid-related happiness. “You have to be structured about carving out time for yourself and your relationship.”
Super-early morning workouts three times a week help keep her Zen: “I like to go hard. That effort level where you’re pushing yourself to the limit is almost meditative.” To stay connected, she and Cash turn every night into a kitchen-table date night. “I always try to get home from work for bath time and to cuddle the kids before bed. After that, Cash and I have dinner together and talk about our days. I need ‘us’ time all the time.”
Don't Dwell on Parenting Mistakes
If you want to hear Jessica laugh with a tone that could be translated as “Oh, you’re funny!” just tell her that she seems to have it so together, then ask if she’s had any big parenting bloopers. “I don’t have it together at all. I just don’t need to use social media as therapy and tell everyone, ‘Today I f---ed up as a mom.’ It’s none of your damn business,” she says, still laughing.
“I’m fine if people want to air their dirty laundry online, but people know enough about me. I make mistakes all the time...and sometimes when I get together with my friends, we’ll reflect on how we’ve made similar good and bad decisions. It’s like, ‘Yeah, that was humbling.’ Then you move on and have a glass of wine.”
But Do Let Your Kids See You Sweat
It hasn’t been — and isn’t — always easy for Jessica to be a hands-on leader in an industry she’s still learning, and she wants her daughters to know that. “I hope that their seeing me get out of my comfort zone will give them some degree of fearlessness to try stuff,” she says. And it’s not just about diving headlong into a dream, it’s about sticking with it: “I want them to know that you can’t give up when it gets hard; when it gets hard is when you learn the most. You can’t teach kids that by just talking the talk — you have to walk the walk and reinforce it with talk.” And with that advice, Jessica is off to her pregnancy massage — another smart idea we should all consider copying.
For more from Jessica, pick up the April issue of Redbook, on newsstands March 20.
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