Nikki Reed is an award-winning actress turned entrepreneur. Nikki starred in The Twilight Saga and in Thirteen before co-founding multiple businesses, including the supplement company The Absorption Company. Nikki joins Adam to share her journey and her best lessons and advice. Nikki and Adam discuss a wide range of topics: defining and attaining personal and professional success, reinvention, leadership, mentorship, confidence, authenticity, and much more.
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Read the full transcript of Adam’s conversation with Nikki Reed.
Episode Summary
Nikki Reed is an award-winning actress turned entrepreneur who co-wrote and starred in Thirteen, starred in The Twilight Saga, co-founded the supplement company The Absorption Company, and founded the jewelry and lifestyle brand BaYou with Love. She tells Adam how an unconventional start in film shaped a career built around mission-driven businesses, privacy, and constant reinvention.
Nikki says her career started almost by accident. She recalls being 13 when she and a family friend, a production designer and aspiring director, spent six days over a Christmas break turning her journal entries into what became Thirteen. The experience made her grow up very fast, she says, and she recalls moving back in with her father at 21, after living on her own for about six years and in at least two or three other countries. Even between films in what she calls arguably one of the largest film series of all time, she followed her passion for travel, culture, and language, at one point telling a publicist or agent that she was learning Greek and would be back when it was time to be on set. Seeing communities and small businesses around the world, she says, inspired her to build mission-driven companies.
Success, Nikki says, is building something you are proud of that makes people feel good, and it is not always a number on paper. She is the founder and CEO of BaYou with Love, a small company she says has kept one team for going on a decade, and one of four co-founders of The Absorption Company, where one co-founder is her husband and she is the only woman. She says she was always deeply uncomfortable with fame, calls privacy in many ways our greatest form of currency, and explains that the recognizability that comes with a certain level of acting success was a price she was not willing to pay.
Nikki, who describes herself as a 37-year-old woman who has constantly reinvented herself, rejects the idea of a timeline: you are never too old, or too young, to find a new passion or explore a new career. She believes you find your path where passion meets purpose, and says skill is cumulative, so lacking it should not stop you from starting. She recalls sitting in rooms with people she may not have been qualified to sit next to because she wanted to learn from them. Her advice in business, especially for women, is never to discount your voice; if an idea meets resistance, she says, it may need to be articulated differently, and the loudest person in the room does not have the most valid point.
Nikki admits she is still working on confidence daily and says a certain level of confidence comes with authenticity. The best leaders, she says, listen. She credits her mentor Catherine Hardwicke, with whom she says she has worked on Thirteen, Twilight, and Lords of Dogtown, with the ability to walk into an empty room and bring it to life, and with bringing out what already exists in young people. As a mentor herself, Nikki says giving someone your time is a potent gift.
Nikki says the unnaturally fast pace of modern life was part of the birth of The Absorption Company, but adds that we cannot supplement our way out of this crisis. She says she has bought a flip phone, tries to turn off her cell phone on weekends, and is trying to set the bar a little lower for herself, pointing to the 5,326 emails she says she is behind on. Her closing advice is to align your business goals with the goals of your life, so that your business fits into your life rather than the other way around.
What You’ll Learn
- Your version of success may look different from anyone else’s, Nikki says: for her, it is building something you are proud of that makes people feel good, and it is not always a number on paper.
- You are never too old, or too young, to reinvent yourself, Nikki says, and there is no timeline for finding a new passion or exploring a new career.
- Don’t let a lack of skill stop you from starting, Nikki says: skill is cumulative, and she has put herself in rooms where she was far from the smartest person so she could learn as she went.
- Never discount your voice, Nikki says: a nagging thought or feeling is valuable, and if an idea meets resistance, it may simply need to be articulated in a different way.
- Lead by listening and mentor by bringing out what already exists in people, Nikki says, a quality she admires in Catherine Hardwicke, along with simply giving others your time.
- Make your business fit into your life, not the other way around, Nikki says, which for her means trying to turn off her cell phone on weekends and setting the bar a little lower when the task list outweighs her time.
About Nikki Reed
Nikki Reed is an actress, entrepreneur, and environmentalist. She co-wrote Thirteen with director Catherine Hardwicke and starred in the 2003 film, earning an Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance, and she is best known for playing Rosalie Hale in The Twilight Saga. Her films also include Lords of Dogtown. In 2017, she launched BaYou with Love, a conscious luxury and lifestyle brand focused on sustainable fine jewelry, apparel, home, and beauty, which she runs today. She also co-founded the supplement company The Absorption Company with her husband, Ian Somerhalder, along with Zeke Bronfman and Nate Medow. She says she has spent the last 15 years running businesses.
Related Episodes
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For more on The Absorption Company, Ian, Nikki’s husband and a fellow co-founder who starred on The Vampire Diaries, discusses understanding and unlocking purpose, overcoming setbacks, and inspirational leadership. - Episode 291: barre3 Co-Founder and CEO Sadie Lincoln
For more on confidence as a woman in business, Sadie, who co-founded barre3, discusses cultivating self-confidence, excelling as a woman in a male-dominated industry, and entrepreneurship. - Episode 3: Suzanne Somers
For more on reinvention, Suzanne, a television star who built businesses around her likeness, discusses how to reinvent yourself, bouncing back from being fired from Three’s Company, and business and branding advice. - Episode 226: Award Winning Actress Bellamy Young
For more on changing course in your career, Bellamy, who won a Critics’ Choice Award for her role on Scandal, discusses finding personal and professional alignment, pivoting in your career, and excelling in a competitive field. - Episode 338: Poppi Co-Founder Allison Ellsworth
For more on building a better-for-you brand, Allison, the co-founder of Poppi, discusses how her own stomach problems led to the prebiotic soda brand, along with entrepreneurship, branding, and community.
