Eva Longoria is a human force of nature. The actor and creator has starred in a million things like Desperate Housewives and Only Murders in the Building, and produced and directed a ton, including Flamin’ Hot, the biopic about the creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. And beyond entertainment, she’s built an incredible business empire spanning tequila, a production company, and multiple soccer teams.
But for all the success she has personally achieved, Eva’s true passion is empowering others to win. Her work to create business pipelines for Latinas was recognized with a cover story of Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Women of Impact issue, and most recently, she teamed up with Lenovo on their Backing Every Business program. The initiative offers tech packages tailored to small businesses, mentorship, training, and a global network of entrepreneurs. Eva recently joined me on How Success Happens to talk about purpose, partnership, resilience, and building teams that win on and off the field. We’ve broken down her insights to help your personal success take off in three, two, one!
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Three Key Insights
1. Pick Partners Who Match Up With Your Principles
Eva has spent more than two decades partnering only with brands that align with her deeper mission, not just her image. She’s been with L’Oréal for 22 years because, as she puts it, “we share this same passion about making sure women understand their worth in life, not just buying makeup and haircare.” She looks for partners whose purpose matches her own work supporting Latinas through entrepreneurial and educational programs, especially since Latinas start small businesses “six times the national average.” For her, getting on board a program like Backing Every Business begins by asking herself the same questions: “What is the point of doing this and is it really going to move the ball forward? Will it create sustainable change?”
Takeaway: Before you say yes to any partnership, ask if it clearly advances your mission and creates sustainable change, not just short-term buzz.
2. You’re Nowhere Near Rock Bottom
When entrepreneurs feel like giving up, Eva sees that as a signal to widen their support system, not walk away. She believes “If you are an entrepreneur, you have tenacity, you have tough skin, you have a passion,” and that every mistake is “not the end of the journey, it’s just a lesson to learn from.” She reframes complaints as customer feedback, asking, “How can we be better? How can we better serve our community?” and reminds stuck founders, “You’re so far from the end of the road, so far from rock bottom,” because there is so much mentorship and information —podcasts, books, YouTube — just waiting to be tapped.
Takeaway: When you feel done, treat it as a research assignment: expand your network, seek new mentors, and mine every “complaint” for the next improvement.
3. Rejection Just Means You’re on the Wrong Freeway
Eva is brutally honest about how much rejection she’s faced—from not making the choir in eighth grade to not getting into the colleges she wanted to attend to moving to Hollywood, “probably the industry with the most rejection out there.” Instead of quitting over rejection, she asks hard questions: “Was I not prepared? Let me try this again and be more prepared.” Or if she was fully ready and still shut out, she regroups and restrategizes. She started out as a producer, fell into acting, felt limited, and ultimately realized, “If the end goal is storytelling, there must be a different path.” That led her to become a director and create her own opportunities, where she flourished. As she puts it, “Rejection can sometimes teach you you’re just on the wrong freeway.”
Takeaway: Use each rejection to either level up your preparation or consciously change lanes toward a different path that still leads to your ultimate goal.
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Two Free Resources to Learn More
- You can keep up with Eva’s latest projects, business ventures, and advocacy work by following her on social media and visiting her official channels, where she shares updates on her entrepreneurial initiatives and resources.
- 2. Read Eva’s Entrepreneur magazine cover story, where she digs deep into her path to running businesses and giving opportunities to women who might never otherwise get them.
One Question to Ponder
When was the last time rejection steered you onto a better “freeway”? What were some of the unexpected benefits you got from this unexpected path?
Email your answer to howsuccesshappens@entrepreneur.com—your story might be read on a future episode.
About How Success Happens
Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining, and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts, and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure, and anything else that got thrown in their way.
Eva Longoria is a human force of nature. The actor and creator has starred in a million things like Desperate Housewives and Only Murders in the Building, and produced and directed a ton, including Flamin’ Hot, the biopic about the creator of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. And beyond entertainment, she’s built an incredible business empire spanning tequila, a production company, and multiple soccer teams.
But for all the success she has personally achieved, Eva’s true passion is empowering others to win. Her work to create business pipelines for Latinas was recognized with a cover story of Entrepreneur magazine’s 100 Women of Impact issue, and most recently, she teamed up with Lenovo on their Backing Every Business program. The initiative offers tech packages tailored to small businesses, mentorship, training, and a global network of entrepreneurs. Eva recently joined me on How Success Happens to talk about purpose, partnership, resilience, and building teams that win on and off the field. We’ve broken down her insights to help your personal success take off in three, two, one!
