- If you could redo anything about your twenties--
- Oh my God.
- What would it be?
Who would he be? (laughs)
- I was just trying to pick which one.
- I was joking.
- No literally.
- I was like, which one?
- Cause that would be my redo.
- I'm Gwyneth Paltrow,
and here we are for BuzzFeed with Jessica Alba.
- We're giving life advice.
You're gonna live by all of this advice.
- How do you start off each morning?
I am curious about this.
- (laughs) Really?
- [Gwyneth] Yeah.
- I have two different starts of the morning,
cause I go through phases of exercising
and phases of not exercising.
So in my phases of exercising is I wake up early,
and I go to the gym when I'm still blurry-eyed.
But I always take like, a tea, so I'm drinking that
to try and wake up on the way to the gym.
I sweat it out for 45 minutes,
I come home by the time the kids are waking up.
- Wow. That's commitment.
- That's the way.
It's early, but that's the only way I can see them,
then go to work and do other things.
- How long do your workout phases last before you lapse?
- Sometimes it's a few weeks,
sometimes it's a few months actually, yeah.
How do you motivate yourself to work out
after a long, exhausting day?
- When I first met the trainer
that I've been with forever and ever,
I had just had my son like maybe 10 months before,
and I could not lose the last bit of weight,
and it was very demoralizing, and I wasn't seeing change.
And I said to her one morning, like,
"I really really don't wanna do this.
"Like, I can't, I don't want to."
And she said to me, "Stop giving yourself that option."
She's like, "Do you say to yourself like,
"I don't wanna brush my teeth?"
She's like, "You just brush them."
And she's like, "You are just doing this."
And it kind of changed the way that I perceived it,
so I took the optionality out of it,
and I was like, "I just do it."
And then it wasn't like, ugh,
like rolling a boulder up a hill.
- It wasn't an option.
- Wasn't an option.
- It's just a part of your life.
- It's like, you brush your teeth, you take a shower,
you work out, like it's not, "I don't feel like it today."
What is one beauty secret or tip that's changed your life?
- When I dye my hair, which isn't often, but when I do,
I sleep with oil and leave-in conditioner
in my hair most nights.
- Oh, before you dye or after?
- [Jessica] After.
- I'm gonna do that.
- What's one thing every woman should do in their twenties?
- I feel like every woman should
live in Manhattan in their twenties.
- That's a really, really good recommendation.
- Even if it's just a short time.
But I think it's a great thing to do.
I would've loved to have the opportunity to
kind of start my self-exploration earlier, in my twenties.
I feel like I really had my head up my ass
until I was about 38.
Do you believe in soulmates?
And if you do believe in soulmates, how do you imagine.
Do you believe in soulmates?
- It's weird, you know, I did when I was younger,
and then I got really, I don't know,
I just didn't after my first breakup.
And then when I met my husband,
I felt like I had known him my whole life the day I met him.
He was very familiar, and he felt like family.
What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given
that you keep with you to this day?
- My dad gave me the best advice like,
pertaining to every situation.
In my twenties I was having trouble
with one of my girlfriends who I'd,
you know, known since grade school.
And he said, "You can't make new old friends."
And it really stuck with me.
That's actually a piece of advice
I think you can apply to other things too.
But it's like the value in time.
You know, it's sort of like what you were saying with Cash,
like the value that's created
when two people make a commitment,
whether it's a relationship, or a friendship,
or a parent-child relationship.
To commit to the commitment is very powerful.
- It is very powerful.
I think people who come from my kind of background
feel like certain things aren't meant for you
because your circumstance is different.
And my mom was always like,
"You can have absolutely anything
"you want in this world if you work hard."
- It's true.
- And so that stuck with me from day one.
- She must be so proud of you.
- Yeah.
- I feel like I always learn something
when I sit next to her.
- I know, me too.
- Like, you always are surprising in the best way
with your answers.
It was nice to hear about what you just said
with your mom and your family.
- You know what I think is great about the show that we did
is A, we're not reality TV folks, obviously.
People get to see a side to Gwyneth,
and I got to see and learn a side to her,
that she's so freaking smart,
but so emotionally intelligent.
And I think that's something that you can't really learn,
you either have it or you don't.
I haven't seen a lot of actresses
that have been emotionally intelligent in this way,
and I really appreciate it.
- Thank you.
- It's cool.
- That is so nice. Thank you.
Anyway, I need to go on BuzzFeed, in fact--
- [Jessica] It's really fun.
- [Gwyneth] My son yesterday was doing something
that he learned on BuzzFeed.
I don't remember what it was though.