In ELLE\u2019s monthly series <\/em>Office Hours<\/a><\/em>, we ask people in powerful positions to take us through their first jobs, worst jobs, and everything in between. This month, we spoke with Molly Sims\u2014a woman who truly does it all. After launching her career as a <\/em>Sports Illustrated model and MTV VJ, <\/em>she<\/em>\u2019s <\/em>gone on to become an act<\/em>ress, podcaster, author, social media personality, mother, and the founder of Something Happy Productions. Her most rewarding role yet? Building YSE Beauty, her skin care brand, which recently closed a $15 million Series A funding round and debuted its new, soon-to-be-viral launch: Wide Awake<\/a>, an eye cream she calls a cure-all for dark circles, puffiness, and fine lines. \u201cMy whole life is just trying to get people to take me seriously,\u201d Sims says of her latest venture. \u201cI\u2019ll always have that little girl in me thinking, <\/em>Do they really believe I can do this?\u201d Here\u2019s how she proved the naysayers wrong.<\/em> I worked at a little fashion boutique in Mayfield, Kentucky. I was 15, and I was a saleswoman. At first, they thought I was crazy because I\u2019d be like, \u201cTake that off, she cannot<\/em> buy that.\u201d I was their best salesperson ever. I loved it. I was very good at it. I was like, \u201cYou\u2019re going to get this, even if you can\u2019t afford it.\u201d I think I made $6 or $7 an hour.<\/p>\n What I wanted to be in life: I worked at a law firm called Haverstock. I was a receptionist; I became a notary; I got everybody coffee. I mostly just sat at my desk.<\/p>\n Between my freshman and sophomore years in college at Vanderbilt, I worked on the Hill because I wanted to go into political law at the time. I was going to study abroad at the London School of Economics the first semester of my junior year, but the summer before, I ended up getting an opportunity to go to New York. I took some test pictures because a girl I went to school with said I should model. The pictures got sent to New York and I did the rounds. I went to Elite; I went to Next; I went to Ford with my mom, never really expecting to go more than a week, and we stayed four weeks. Then I was asked to take the semester off and model in Europe. So I ended up in Germany, then London, then Paris, and I spent six-plus years after that [modeling].<\/p>\n The hardest part was transitioning from a sorority, having so many friends and not really worrying about what you look like, and then the next day you\u2019re being told, \u201cGo get your jeans so I can see your size,\u201d because someone thinks you\u2019re too fat. I went from one extreme to another. It\u2019s a business. You\u2019re making money off somebody\u2019s face, body, look, image, and likeness. That business was amazing to me, ultimately, but for a 21-year-old girl who gets thrown into it, it is still very hard. It rocked my world, rocked my confidence, rocked my being\u201420 years with my nose, I never thought it was crooked; I never thought I had bad hands; I never thought my calves were too big. I can tell you wonderful things it has given me as a founder: I can pivot, I can problem-solve, I can work a 15-hour day in two countries. But the mental side was definitely very hard. You schlepped around so someone could open their book and not even look at you. The people who said \u201cyes,\u201d I can count on my hands. But still, say yes. Keep saying yes. You never know.<\/p>\n Those four or five years before were very pivotal to set me up for it. You think, Oh, God, I could walk a runway. <\/em>Or, you weren\u2019t just considered to be a catalog girl, and all of a sudden you meet Diane Smith at Sports Illustrated<\/em> and she says, \u201cI like you.\u201d I came up with Corinne Day, heroin chic, and Kate Moss, and I wasn\u2019t. I was not 80 pounds. I have naturally black hair. People said I would never work as a blonde. Then came MTV\u2019s House of Style<\/em>. They were thinking of trying to figure out Amber [Valletta] and Shalom [Harlow], and that wasn\u2019t working, and whether they could take it back to what Cindy [Crawford] did. Then Old Navy was like, \u201cOh my God, she can speak!\u201d That became a five-year contract with CoverGirl. But I never thought [that this was what I wanted to do]. I can\u2019t not talk; I can\u2019t not have an opinion. I always knew there was something else.<\/p>\n It\u2019s full circle with YSE. [Previously,] I was always the girl at the end holding it up. I\u2019ve never been a part of something from an idea\u2014an idea that came out of a problem that I felt was a white space that fit my life but also fit what I wanted to have as a legacy. I love acting; I didn\u2019t want to leave my home. I\u2019ve never worked harder than creating this brand. I didn\u2019t go to Harvard Business School, I didn\u2019t go to ops school, I didn\u2019t go to marketing school…I\u2019ve had to learn and listen and PD and it\u2019s exciting; you\u2019re on a roller coaster, you\u2019re flying a plane, put on your seat belt, put on an oxygen mask, and giddy the fuck up because it is stomach-churning starting a startup. You have to have such a passion and such a strong point of view. Sometimes things don\u2019t work.<\/p>\n The jump from modeling to acting was hard, because you always tried to pretend; you were just so afraid someone would be like, \u201cWell, she\u2019s just a model.\u201d My whole life is just trying to get people to take me seriously. It\u2019s always a weird place to come from, because so much of my career was just about what I looked like. I\u2019ll always have that little girl in me thinking, Do they really believe I can do this<\/em>?<\/em><\/p>\n Four and a half years ago, when I started my podcast Lipstick on the Rim<\/em>, that was strategic for people to take me seriously in an industry that is very serious\u2014beauty and wellness is a very serious category. I felt YSE was two sides of the coin: yes, it\u2019s my products; it\u2019s all the things that make me look good. But the other side of the coin is no matter how you look, I can look at different pictures and say, \u201cI didn\u2019t like myself there.\u201d It\u2019s how you feel<\/em> about yourself. And at the time, in my industry, nobody would tell you the truth about anything; they would cover it up; they would lie; they were such gatekeepers that it bothered me. My community\u2014my girls\u2014I would be transparent with. That is why I wanted to start YSE.<\/p>\n Wide Awake. When I developed it, I asked, \u201cWhat do you want to see from me? What are you missing?\u201d And everyone wanted an eye cream. They want to wear an eye cream, but they don\u2019t. So I made it blurring; the applicator is like a cold plunge; there\u2019s a color corrector. It fixes fine lines and wrinkles; it adds moisture\u2026the idea is to help that area not look dry, not look old, not look crepey. Think of it as a day concealer. It gives you that dewiness underneath. Because this area gets bad<\/em>.<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/p>\nMy first job <\/h2>\n
My worst job<\/h2>\n
How I got discovered<\/h2>\n
What modeling taught me the hard way<\/h2>\n
How I transitioned from model to MTV VJ and actress<\/h2>\n
What feels the most energizing to me right now<\/h2>\n
![\"molly](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/office-hours-image-molly-sims-1-694dcd492ebf7.jpg?resize=640:*\" "\\"molly")
<\/p>\nWhich career choice taught me the biggest lesson<\/h2>\n
What got me hooked on beauty<\/h2>\n
![\"molly](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/hmg-prod\/images\/office-hours-image-molly-sims-2-694dcd82a6967.jpg?resize=640:*\" "\\"molly")
<\/p>\nThe beauty product I never travel without<\/h2>\n
![\"Wide](\"https:\/\/hips.hearstapps.com\/vader-prod.s3.amazonaws.com\/1764102134-YSE-Beauty-shot30-eye-cream-primary-open_2.jpg?crop=1xw:1.00xh;center,top&resize=980:*\" "\\"Wide")
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