← The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
The Woman That Makes Millionaires: They're Lying About Work Life Balance! I Built SKIMS Without Fashion Knowledge!
02:15:44
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- [00:00]
Emma Grede
Work life balance is your problem. It isn't the employer's responsibility. Look, I have four kids and I had to figure out how I would think about my own ambition balanced with my parenting. That's true. And we have to have a level of honesty about what it takes to be really successful.
- [00:15]
Stephen Bartlett
But is it possible to be number one but still have all of my evenings and weekends?
- [00:19]
Emma Grede
No, you're not. No, no. If it's possible, tell me who she is and I'll show you a liar.
- [00:24]
Stephen Bartlett
Emma Green has rewritten the fashion business rulebook. As the co founder of multi billion dollar brands like Good American and skims with the Kardashians, she's now reveal the secrets behind her unstoppable success. You know this Emma here?
- [00:36]
Emma Grede
Where'd you get these photos?
- [00:37]
Stephen Bartlett
How old are you here?
- [00:38]
Emma Grede
15.
- [00:39]
Stephen Bartlett
And how do you feel about her?
- [00:40]
Emma Grede
I feel like this person was like dying to escape her circumstances. I was raised by a single mom, one of four girls, and I had a very big hand in raising them to help my mom keep our family afloat. But I thank God every day for the type of upbringing that I had because it was hammered into me that nothing is going to come easy. And that made me who I am. Really fast forward and I'm apparel CEO. Someone who goes out and raises hundreds of millions of dollars. Somebody who starts an agency in multiple countries. I have zero qualifications to do any of that. Like I didn't have talent as a designer, but I will just make it happen.
- [01:18]
Stephen Bartlett
There's a lot of things I want to go into there. What are the three most important things in being successful in business? Do you think it's possible for someone to make themself gritty? How do we not give so many.
- [01:28]
Emma Grede
My sexuality and then pitch?
- [01:30]
Stephen Bartlett
Chloe, what was that journey like?
- [01:32]
Emma Grede
I'll tell you the truth.
- [01:35]
Stephen Bartlett
I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button. Wherever you're listening to this, I would like to make a deal with you. If you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better. I can't tell you how much it helps. When you hit that subscribe button, the show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love. If you could do Me that small favor and hit the follow button wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me. That is the only favor I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time. Emma, what do I need to understand about your earliest context in order to understand the woman, the very, very unique woman, the very successful woman that is sat in front of me today? And when I ask that question, I'm looking for the characteristics that were most formative in creating the woman that is.
- [02:38]
Emma Grede
Emma, what a great way to start. I think that that's a great question for me because so much of who I am and how I feel about who I am comes from where I'm from. And, you know, I say it all the time. I'm from East London. I like to make that distinction because I feel like such a Londoner. And I feel like that, you know, being from East London, coming from that place is so much a part of my character. It's so much a part of what is important to me, like that idea of being, you know, someone that is reliable, someone that is honest, not just, you know, sometimes, but all the time. And I'm one of four girls. I was raised by a single mom, and it was so much kind of hammered into me that this is where you're from, this is not where you need to stay. The world is your oyster. You can do anything. You're just going to have to work really, really hard. And I think all around me, I saw a lot of people that were working hard. I saw a lot of people that were hustling and doing what they needed to do just to get through the day. But I had this feeling very much inside of me that if I wanted more for myself, it was all completely within reach. And I think that really came from this, like, East London mentality and all the people that were around me.
- [03:58]
Stephen Bartlett
I didn't need to do my research to realize that you are a big sister, because you've got some serious big sister energy, even with me. We've known each other for a little while now. So you're the oldest of four sisters.
- [04:10]
Emma Grede
I am indeed.
- [04:11]
Stephen Bartlett
How did that shape you?
- [04:13]
Emma Grede
I think in a really big way. You know, I have a pretty interesting relationship with my mom. You know, my dad left when we were much younger, and our family dynamic is like, she's the dad, I'm the mom, and we have three kids together. And I really, you know, I think if you asked any of my sisters, they'd say Emma had this very big hand in raising us, in being Pretty formative in our childhood. You know, I would get up as a kid, I'd iron three school shirts, I'd make three pack lunches, my mom would, you know, go off to work, I'd get all the kids in school and half the time turn back around and come home to watch this morning. That was my life. You know, there was the odd day I decided to stay there, but more than not, I was just, you know, about trying to help my mum keep our family afloat. And I think that that made me super responsible at an early age, but it also gave me a very early indication of, like, how I didn't want to live my life. I knew that the milkman hadn't been paid. I knew that there were bills dropping on the, you know, on the doormat kind of every day. And I felt that at a very young age and I felt the heaviness of that. And I knew it was all down to my mum to make ends meet and to figure that out so that we could all be okay. And I kind of decided at a very, very young age that I didn't want any of that anxiety and I didn't want that heaviness to stay around and to weigh on me as I grew up.
- [05:39]
Stephen Bartlett
I feel like children aren't supposed to grow up with the heaviness of bills.
- [05:42]
Emma Grede
On the doormat, whether they are or they aren't. I actually, I thank God every day for the type of upbringing that I had because I think a. It's made me who I am, baby. And I guess there were parts of my childhood that essentially just didn't exist because I didn't have the ability to, like, you know, and still to this day, it's so interesting actually, like, the idea of, like, just playing isn't part of, like, who I am, but it gave me a lot of other things. It gave me a sense of, you know, I'm an extremely maternal person. And it gave me this kind of, like, empathetic route that is like, I'm here to look after a lot of other people. And I know I do that very, very well. My energy had to be, you know, making sure my sisters were fed and making sure that the house was clean and making sure we were safe. Because as wonderful as East London was, it was also a place where you needed to have your wits about you. You needed to make sure that you'd bought your bike in. You needed to make sure that you were safe. And so my primary instinct wasn't like, let me have a laugh right now, let me See what my friends are doing. My primary instinct was, how do I ensure everybody's safe and the door's locked and we're gonna be good.
- [06:49]
Stephen Bartlett
The absence of your father, in hindsight, do you notice an influence that. That had on you as a young woman?
- [06:58]
Emma Grede
You know, I've had a lot of therapy, so starting from When I was 18 or 19, I started anger management. And because I felt, you know, like I was constantly in a rage. Like, I've never had any issue with being able to express myself and express rage, which I know is something a lot of women struggle with, not me. And it's interesting, you know, I. And I'm gonna sound, like, so unbelievably arrogant when I say this. I don't really have those daddy issues. Like, I've been so fortunate with the men that have been in my life. I've never had a bad boyfriend. I've never had experiences with men that have been, like, really unfortunate in that way. And so I think the absence of my father in my life is one thing, but I had a lot of really important male influences around me. You know, I had my granddaughter. That was a big part of my life. My grandad Reg is actually his birthday today, which so crazy that he's coming up in conversation. Cause he does an every day. And then I had, like, two uncles. Uncle Robbie, Uncle Joe, one uncle by marriage, one uncle, my blood uncle. And they were just such, like, huge figures in my life. And I had such amazing male role models that I knew exactly what I needed in my life. Like, I've never. I just. I don't feel like I had that emptiness of not having my father around. I. It just wasn't my experience.
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Stephen Bartlett
Anger management.
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Emma Grede
Mm.
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Stephen Bartlett
Where do those roots stem from?
- [08:31]
Emma Grede
You know, it's really interesting because I really felt like I was raised in, like, quite a Blamey culture. Like everything was somebody else's fault. If you weren't making enough money, if you couldn't make ends meet. Like, whatever was happening, it was the government's fault. It was that person's fault. It was never about this idea that I've accepted as a kind of a radical part of my life, which is like, self responsibility. That everything I want, who I am, anything is within my reach if I choose it to be. But growing up, that really wasn't a. That just wasn't a part of my life. It was very much about what was happening over there and how that affected you. And so it was interesting, actually. I think I just got enraged thinking that all the possibilities that weren't so obvious to me were the fault of somebody else. And I was, I think, just a bit of a hothead, you know, and what I saw in my face and what I saw around me over and over again was this ability to just kind of like lash out and not deal with things. And I absorbed that as though it was just the default reaction to anything. But I knew pretty early on I had a really fantastic boyfriend when I was 18, 19. And he was like, listen, your reactions are just not normal. And I was like, really? He said, yeah, I think you should try and deal with that. And I did. I went like into a community, like, anger management course. And I was like, oh, like, there's other ways to deal with this. Like, I can breathe through it. I can, like, find these, like, tools and techniques and figure out how I can react differently. And with that is gonna come a different result. And with that, people will treat me in a different way. And it was like this insane moment of connection for me. I hadn't connected how my behavior might be impacting a lot of my relationships and what was happening around me. But you don't need to tell me things, like, more than once I was like, got it. Like, you know, I stayed in the program for like, I don't know, a couple of months and. And it's something that throughout my life, like therapy in different ways. Thankfully not group therapy anymore. But, you know, I've. I've remained using therapists in different ways to unlock different things that for me become difficult. And I think about that as like a tool and the way that I grow. And, you know, when I had kids, I saw a therapist to really understand, like, how I could be a great parent, how I would think about my own ambition balanced with my parenting. And so it's like just something for me that I. I feel pretty good about using someone else to come and help me figure something out I'm struggling with.
- [11:06]
Stephen Bartlett
And at that young age, before the age of, let's say before the age of 16, if I'd met you as a 15 year old and said, what do you want to be when you're older, what would you have said to me?
- [11:14]
Emma Grede
Fashion designer.
- [11:15]
Stephen Bartlett
Fashion designer.
- [11:15]
Emma Grede
Straight away? Yeah, fashion designer. And why would you have said that I was obsessed? Well, you've got to remember, you know, I was born in 82 and in the, in England, it was like the glory days of fashion. You know, you had all of those supermodels, the Kates and the Naomi's, and, you know, amazing designers, McQueen and Galliano and the British kind of art scene and the, you know, British music scene. It was just an amazing time in England. But to me, fashion was this means of escape. It was this fantasy industry. I didn't know anyone that worked in fashion, which is so crazy. My grandma worked in a bra factory, which I laugh about all the time now, thinking about how many bras I make. But that was, like, as close as anything I knew. Like, anyone that had worked in, like, the apparel business. I certainly didn't understand the idea of entrepreneurialism, having your own business. To me, it was just a fantasy. Like, I'm here in Plasto. It's shit. How do I get away from it? And, you know, this. To me, it was like. It's almost like the movies could have just as well been Hollywood. It was like, that's over there. It's beautiful. It's glamorous. Wouldn't that be fantastic to be part of that somehow?
- [12:20]
Stephen Bartlett
And what was. I was thinking the other day about money. I was speaking to a friend, and we were discussing money as if it was a person and playing through the attachment style we would have with that person. You know, like the secure attachment, the anxious, the avoidant. At a young age, what was money as a person in the room, in your life, growing up in the family, like the.
- [12:45]
Emma Grede
The best. Best friend, like, the best thing ever. I mean, you know, I. We worshiped money. We worshiped money. We worship what money could bring. We worshiped the material stuff that you could get for having the money. It was all about the car and the bag and the thing and the thing that was.
- [13:03]
Stephen Bartlett
It was money around a lot.
- [13:05]
Emma Grede
There was none of it around. Absolutely none. I mean, I knew. I knew people that had money, but they were kind of over there doing their thing. They were not part of my thing. But it was so obvious to me when I was a kid that money was something that I needed to find. So in my head, that was always, like, playing out in my mind of, like, how do I get away from that being my reality? And I. You know, I wanted to leave where I was. You know, I wanted to be. I used to have this, like, vision, and I would draw this fireplace and this beautiful Christmas tree and this credenza, and I would. You know, and I would. I'd imagine, like, that's the house of my dreams, and you're gonna think I'm insane. But years later, the first. So I had Gray on December 20 and got him back home. Sat down with my baby in my living room for the first time and literally burst into tears. And my husband was like, oh, my God. Isn't it, like, amazing? We've got this baby? And I was like, no, it's amazing. I drew this scene. This is the scene that I drew my whole childhood and had this beautiful townhouse in Clerkenwell. And it was like the window and the credenza and the Christmas tree. And I was like, bam. I did it. And I will never forget the moment. It was almost eclipsed having the baby. I was like, this is insane. Like, I visualized it. I made that happen. I've drawn this 500 times, and here it is, and here I am.
- [14:33]
Stephen Bartlett
And if you were to give someone some advice, just jumping ahead and doing some top line stuff, tell me on how to make their drawing come true in their life as you reflect back on the core components of that manifestation becoming a reality. What are those cool components? Cause we've all got a drawing in our head.
- [14:51]
Emma Grede
Yeah, yeah, of course we. Yeah. Well, first of all, I wouldn't tell him to draw it. Cause that's just not me. That wouldn't be part of what I would say. Absolutely not. I think that certainly in this space of, like, you know, mindset, manifestation visualization, there's a lot of toxic positivity around here for women. And what you need to do is, like, get to work. Like, that is the first thing to say. So I have like, yes, you can dream it, you can believe it, you can create a vision board, all the things. But don't forget what comes under that. And what comes under that is an enormous amount of work and an enormous amount of planning. I think that what I do uniquely well, Stephen, is that I have an ability to focus on what I'm doing. I have an ability to get better at what I'm doing. Right. Like, to constantly get better at whatever it is that I'm focusing on. And then I have an ability to drown out and kind of disregard the noise of everyone around me. And those three things are important because focus is like. It's like a force multiplier in work, right? When you have a plan and you have a focus and you can kind of go into what it is that you find important and double down on a very finite number of things. That's what propels you forward. And I was very fixated on working in fashion, but I also knew that I didn't have talent as a designer. And as much as I wanted to be a fashion designer, I couldn't draw. That drawing wasn't a very good One actually, if you look at it now, it's like I couldn't sketch. I don't have much creative talent. What I am is a great enabler to talent. I can sit next to a talent and understand their vision and figure out a way to turn that vision into a reality. But the creative part isn't what I do so well. And so really understanding, like what is your plan and how you can double down and get into the things that you are uniquely good at and that you uniquely have skills for is important. I think getting outside of your head is like really important because so many people have dreams and ambitions and ideas, but it just exists here. Like what I do is a lot of action. Like I made like hundreds of calls. Like I always talk about this thing of at some point because this was like before email. I would send a lot of letters and I thought, no one's getting back to me, maybe they're not getting the letters. So I started like hand delivering things around the West End. I would buzz on little doors of PR agencies and be like, hi, you know, my name's Emma and I sent you a letter, but I don't know if you got it. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, whatever, love. But sometimes they'd let you up and sometimes you've had a conversation with somebody and whatever, right? So I really believe in this kind of idea of action. And then you've just gotta like, just really. When I talk about this idea of disregarding what people think, there's just so much noise and you have to have like this single minded focus on what you're doing. And I've been really good at drowning out the noise. Not just from what goes on inside me and what, you know, my own kind of fear, but also what's happening around you. And I think that those things are really, really key.
- [17:55]
Stephen Bartlett
When you say drowning out the noise, there's a lot of things I want to go into there. But you talk about drowning out the noise. I'll focus on that because it was the last thing. How do you balance drowning out the noise with another principle that I know is important to you, which is feedback, especially from customers, because customers will be saying, we hate this. Customers always hate change.
- [18:12]
Emma Grede
Totally.
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Stephen Bartlett
And they also don't know what they want. So how do you know what to drown out and what to consider to be feedback?
- [18:17]
Emma Grede
I think that that's a, it's a great question and you know, it's interesting because I am actually a person who takes in a lot of information. If I'm trying to make, like a really big decision that I don't feel fully qualified to make, which, by the way, happens to me all the time because I'm still learning so much. I will call a lot of people that I think are in the know, but at the end of the day, I have to call the play. Right. And often if you, if you call up seven or eight people that you're gonna have different opinions there, there'll be different patterns that emerge. There will be contrarian type of, you know, something that comes out of that. And so you have to then still, like, go, where is my gut? What feels good to me? What's right for my customer? I think it's very different when you get customer feedback because what I've learned is that everything your says is true because it's true to them. And so what I do is like, of course we have a balanced view. We try to, like, speak to as many customers. We're doing giant surveys and you take, you know, the sum of those parts. But when it comes down to customer feedback, I think it is. It's ingested in a very, very different way than like, that kind of decision making feedback. When I make a decision on behalf of my business, that has to come from my gut and from the intentions of where I want that business to go. When I'm doing things for customers, it's very different because you just want to please customers.
- [19:31]
Stephen Bartlett
Mm. You referenced that. Calling around people that you respect all the time.
- [19:35]
Emma Grede
I do it constantly.
- [19:37]
Stephen Bartlett
I had someone say that refer to this as your, like, personal board of directors.
- [19:42]
Emma Grede
Oh, I love that.
- [19:43]
Stephen Bartlett
Which is these, like five or seven people that you typically call? Maybe it's 10. Who's on your personal board of directors? Like, who are these people that are taking these phone calls and why are you calling them? What is it about them that makes them a reliable partner in decisions?
- [19:57]
Emma Grede
Well, you know, a first person. I speak to my husband a lot. Cause obviously we work together and Jens has a unique understanding of me, of my weaknesses, of what might be stopping me from making a decision. So I feel like I go to him a lot because he will, oh, he's gonna tell me the truth. I mean, he's told me that, like, some of the biggest unlocks in my life and my career have come from Jens. And I will never, ever forget Stephen. Like, one of my first board meetings, one of my first companies, it was called itb. And I would get so nervous out of a board meeting and he'd be like, why are you so Nervous. And I'd be like, I don't know. Cause I'm a good chatter, I'm a good presenter, I can sell anything. But, you know, I would get to these board meetings and I would just fall apart. And he said to me, just wrong timing, by the way, if you're going to give, you know, your wife a little bit of feedback, literally just before we went in, he said, you know what? I really. I know why you are suffering here, Emma. You have an employee mentality. And I. I mean, I was 26 or 27 years old. I couldn't think about anything else in the whole meeting. Cause I was like, he's completely right. I have an employee mentality. Well, why? Because I'd only ever been an employee up until that point. But I was looking. Instead of, you know, being there as the CEO to guide the board into a decision, I was looking for everybody else to tell me what to do. And so I was seeking their approval instead of and saying, here's the direction. This is what we're doing. Everybody come with me. And these are the reasons. Duh, duh, duh. And so it was such an interesting insight. And I think that you could only. Or I could have only heard that from somebody so close to me.
- [21:38]
Stephen Bartlett
So at that early stage in your career, what role are mentors playing? Cause we're talking about personal boards of directors here. Yeah, these are, in some respects, mentors. Right. Do they matter? And I say this, Emma, because I have kids coming up to me all the time saying, steve, I need a mentor. And they sometimes say, can you be my mentor? And I'm thinking, fucking hell, I've done 17,000 hours of podcasting and you haven't learned a fucking thing on me. I was like, that was the mentorship.
- [22:01]
Emma Grede
That was the mentorship.
- [22:03]
Stephen Bartlett
What's your take on finding a mentor and how pivotal and important that is to become a successful person?
- [22:08]
Emma Grede
Listen, you know, from my own experience, I don't think I had any mentors. You know, I started work. Well, let's talk about real work, right? So it's like, I've had a job since I was 12 years old. I've worked a paper round, and then I worked in the delis, and then I worked in clothes shops. And when I got my first real job in an office in a fashion show production company, I was 18 years old. So I've had a salaried job in a place that was working towards something that I felt was interesting and in the kind of direction of where I wanted to go. Since I was 18 at that point. You make whoever is around you. If you're smart, you make whoever is around you your mentor. I used to sit in front of my boss, and everybody thought that was so unfortunate because she could see my screen. And that was like the beginnings of online shopping. Net A Porter was our client, and we all had a discount. So everyone would sit on Net A Porter all day except me, because my boss sat behind me. And they were like, what a nightmare. And I was like, no, not a nightmare at all. Whatever she says when she's on her sales calls, I would write down and I would use them later on on my sales calls. Now, was she my mentor? No, she was my boss. But I used her as such because I would learn from her. I'd take. You know, I even, like, copied her outfits. You know, I would do the whole thing. And so for me, she was really formative. But I don't think that you should walk around looking for a mentor. I think you have to walk around asking questions because anyone who's gonna be a good mentor probably doesn't have time to mentor you first. Secondly, like, depending who you are and what your exposure is, you're not gonna have the right people around you to get mentored. So you've just gotta be super inquisitive. And I think it's really important to take where you are and figure out, like, who is around you and where can you get that type of mentorship from. For me, in the be, I would just take whatever client I had. Like, if I come into contact with the CMO or the CEO, I'd just ask him a question. I'd be in the meeting, I'd be like, I have two other questions for you. I have nothing to do with the work that we're doing or the, you know, whatever brief I was there to deliver. And I'd ask a question, and what.
- [24:07]
Stephen Bartlett
Part of you do you think if I removed and this could be a skill or a characteristic, would definitely assure that you wouldn't be where you are today? Like, what is the sacred part of you that is defining? Because people see Emma today and they see these skills and this knowledge and all this stuff and these relationships and these businesses and the success. But what is the like? Cause you said, I'm dyslexic. And I think you left school. You dropped out of school at 15, and then you went to college for.
- [24:32]
Emma Grede
A while and you also, yeah, dropped out there too. I'm a serial dropouter, so it's not.
- [24:36]
Stephen Bartlett
Something you learn Necessarily in school. So I'm wondering what the characteristic is that was the. Like the wind in one's sails that brought you here. And if I removed that thing, you definitely wouldn't be here. And he could only give me one thing.
- [24:49]
Emma Grede
I mean, listen, we didn't call it that then, but it would come down to grit.
- [24:55]
Stephen Bartlett
Grit.
- [24:56]
Emma Grede
Right. I think that that is what we would say now. You know, Angela Duckworth, like, coined that phrase, I guess, or that term, and wrote that fantastic book about grit that all. Everybody read and was like, oh, my God, I just want my kids to have grit like my kids want for nothing. They're not gonna be gritty. Like, it's just. Just facts. They're gonna hear that. You don't go off in Bel Air gritty, you know, But I think that if you. If I think about what it is for me, and still is, I'm just gritty. I'm very clear about what I want and what I need, and I will find a way, whatever it is, you know, I am not any of the things that you would have on my resume. You know, an apparel CEO, someone who goes out and raises hundreds of millions of dollars, somebody who starts an agency in multiple countries. I've qualifications to do any of that stuff. I will just make it happen. Because I'm in the moment. I see the opportunity, and I am prepared. And I'm prepared because it's like, I have done all the work to get to the point where that thing that is in front of me, I will make it happen. I've done enough work to say, okay, I can take this to that next place.
- [26:09]
Stephen Bartlett
And it's that grit. An ember that life blew on. Because I wonder, if I'd gone back and I'd met Emma at 18 years old, whether she would have said it to me like that.
- [26:20]
Emma Grede
No. Emma at 18 years old would have been like, it's so interesting. You know, we don't have yearbooks in England, but if we did, I reckon I would have been, like, the most likely to succeed. I don't think anyone at school was like, oh, she's a bit of a waistcoat. No, it's like I had that mentality that I was away from the pack, that I was going to do something special. But also my mentality was like, whatever it takes. You know, if I could. If I think about the most important words for career advancement, like, the three most important words would be like, I'll do that. That was me. I had my hand up my whole life. I'll do that, like, every single time, anytime anyone has asked me, whatever it took, wherever I've been in whichever workplace, I was like, I'll do it, I'll do that. And that is what, like, people started to look at me as someone that would just figure it out. Right. It's not like I had any particular skill. I just put myself in a situation and in the space of let me have a go every single time, to.
- [27:25]
Stephen Bartlett
Me, it makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense because you grew up in a situation as an older sister where you were playing the role of. Of a dad, where you did have to put your hand up and say, I'll do that. You did have to make the lunches. And I sometimes think back to my own life and think about how a void of independence is maybe a scary thing to some parents, but it's also an incredibly useful thing for a kid to learn that I have to get myself from A to B.
- [27:51]
Emma Grede
Yes.
- [27:51]
Stephen Bartlett
Whether it's from home to school or from home to dinner or from home to whatever it might be. And that, I don't know. I looked at your life and go, you had this massive void of independence. And in there grows skills, belief and understanding about life that most others don't get. So it's no surprise that at such a young age you thought you could do stuff. Cause so many people, they have an idea, they know where they are now, and they kind of might have an idea of where they want to be, but the gap between it is not something they've ever had to traverse. Like, they've never had to walk it. Do you think it's possible for someone to make themself gritty? You know, you've got team members, employees, you can see the variance in gritty and ungritty resilience.
- [28:28]
Emma Grede
And you see a lot of ungrittiness. Yeah, go on.
- [28:32]
Stephen Bartlett
Where do you see the ungrittiness? And is it possible to make yourself gritty? Have you ever seen someone go from. What should we call it? What's the opposite of grittiness?
- [28:39]
Emma Grede
Floppy? I don't know. I don't know what the opposite of grittiness is, actually.
- [28:45]
Stephen Bartlett
Soft, I guess.
- [28:45]
Emma Grede
Yes, listen, I do. If you want it like anything else, right, it's all about, do you actually want to be that way and to behave that way? And we were talking about this actually, funny enough, on the way over, because, you know, I just came from my own office, two minutes away, it's Friday. All of the product teams are in. The rest of the office is pretty empty. And you know, and I think post Covid people have really taken the liberty of as we allow them, right. They can come in four days a week. And it's interesting because we talk so, so much about the flexibility of working from home and what Zoom life has kind of done for business, but we don't talk about any of the rigidity of it and what it takes away from work. And I can tell you, and I can guarantee you that had I been a work from home person in my 20s, I would not be where I am now. There is no doubt in my mind. And I think about some, you know, I met my husband at work. I made some of my best, strongest relationships in my life that are the most important things to me and the foundation of my happiness and my, like, being a solid person at work, that's where those relationships come from. And so I think it's really interesting now that we have this aversion of like, wanting to be away from the office all of the time. And I'm like, oh, that's like. It's so interesting to me. Cause I'm like such a. I'm like an in person person. I want to be with people, I want to collaborate, I want to do things quickly. And the culture of work right now makes that so hard. So I think, yes, you can trick, teach someone to have grit, but I can't teach you on a screen, babe. I can't reach you. You won't see how I move. And in that same way that I had this woman that sat behind me and I would take notes of everything she said that happened in real time, right? She would walk out of the room and I'd be on my next new business call saying her lines like it was just that quick and that immediate. And I would test it out and I'd make it my own. All of that is lost. And so I feel a little bit sad for the way that we're working right now, because I don't think that we're that exchange of, you know, what happens when you're in a really dynamic environment and you're able to learn from people around you because we're not as together as we once were.
- [31:11]
Stephen Bartlett
When you're looking around your team and thinking, that person's gonna be a star in the future, that person's gonna be.
- [31:16]
Emma Grede
A star in the future, which I'm always doing, which I'm always doing as well. Always, always, always.
- [31:20]
Stephen Bartlett
What are the factors or the characteristics of those people that you look at in your office and go, that's she's gonna be a star, he's gonna be a star. What is it about them? What are they doing that others aren't doing?
- [31:28]
Emma Grede
Well, you know, people ask me this all the time. I think that the sure way to put yourself in a position for more responsibility for promotion is to be excellent at what you're doing. Right. Like, I find it really difficult when people are like, you know, I'd really like to do this thing over there. I'd really like that opportunity. And I'm like, but you're only 70% good at what you're doing now. Like, I'm looking at the 120% people, the people that are smashing it in the role that they're at now before they're gonna go anywhere else. So that's the first thing to say. But I don't think it's any I. Again, I hire much more for attitude over experience. Right. I really want the people that come in with like a winning mentality, a figure it out mentality. And also what I love is these people that have like an understanding across the business. It's like, you are an amazing thoroughbred, you know, wholesale salesperson, but you really wanna learn equal and you really want to learn about stores and you really have a good understanding what's happening. Planning and merchandising, like, you know, in business leadership language, they call them the T shaped leaders. But it's like, that's what I care about. People that have an interest in the entirety of our business and they can see outside of the lane or the division that they work in. And so that becomes interesting to me. But to me it's so much more in mentality, energy, enthusiasm, attitude. I'm also one of the things that I think is massively overlooked. But a key thing now is flexibility. Because I hire a lot of people that are in their 40s and 50s, right, for super senior executive leadership level roles. But if you come to me from a competitor and you believe that the only way to get from here to here is the way you've been doing it for the last 20 years, that's problematic to me. I need you to come both with the experience and a level of flexibility. Because technology means that the customer and the consumer experience is changing all the time. So that ability to say, I've got all of this knowledge, but I'm willing and ready to flex is like really important. So I need all those things. I need a lot. Steven, don't say, but what are the red flags? Very demanding.
- [33:36]
Stephen Bartlett
Tell me some sentences I could say in an interview with you, that would be immediate red flags.
- [33:41]
Emma Grede
Oh, I've got a good one. So can you talk to me about work life balance in this organization? Sorry, bae, I'm leaving. Get out. Here's the thing. Work life balance is your problem. Like that's yours to figure out. Because the way we run organizations now is that no one misses a dentist appointment or a doctor's appointment or a haircut or their kids parent teacher conference at our organizations, that's just not how we work anymore, right? Like you come in, you have set hours, but you know, there's flexibility within the your working life. It's not like, oh my goodness, such and such is not at their desk. That's just not how we work anymore. So when somebody talks to me about their work life balance in an interview process, I'm like, something is wrong with you. You haven't been able to figure that out. That's not the way you win this interview.
- [34:31]
Stephen Bartlett
I'm not trying to give this away.
- [34:32]
Emma Grede
Go on, go on.
- [34:32]
Stephen Bartlett
I'm not trying to give this away, but because it might fuck me over saying this, but we do a screening survey and one of the questions tests for this. So I actually know the exact percentage of the general public that when asked this question, will pick Work life balance is one of the most important things. And it's roughly 33%.
- [34:49]
Emma Grede
33.
- [34:50]
Stephen Bartlett
So 33% of people on our screening survey will say that work life balance is more important to them than another range of options, including doing perfect work, beating the competition, leading and inspiring others, having a happy team, etc. They'll pick work life balance as being one of their most important things. So it's a lot of people that prioritize this. And it's not to say for me. Let's listen, listen. It's not to say for me that it's a bad thing, but it's not what I would pick.
- [35:17]
Emma Grede
No, babe, it's not what you would pick. Cause you're ambitious as anything, so maybe you won't fit. You know, it's very interesting, right? Because I wonder if you put on that list of options earning 10% more year on year, getting a meaningful bonus, right? Because here's the thing, these things correlate and that's what people don't understand. In order to run an organization where there is the ability for your people to have a good work life balance, you have to be profitable. The company has to be, you know, in line with, if not beating its competition. We have to be able to run an efficient Business to give people what they need. The two things go hand in hand. And so I have this idea that with the people that I work with, like, we're in a social. Like, we're in a contract together, right? It's like you're gonna work really hard. And in return, you should get an amazing place to work. You should get an incredible environment that is feeding you in ways that are not just about your. Your job. Right? And so when I look around at our office and our organization we're doing, you know, I just, I left the office yesterday. There was like a fertility seminar going on where there was like hundreds of people in the kitchen of our office all learning about having their eggs frozen and like, various different. I. I have four kids. I clearly didn't need to be in the seminar. Like, I'm done. But, you know, that that was happening. It's like we do things for our employees that are above and beyond what a workplace back in the day may have considered the norm. So I just feel like you've got to with that. Like, something has to give. And there are certain things that are the employee's responsibility within that. And you figuring out what works for your life, how you're gonna pick up your kids, how you get home, how you get to work, what happens in, like, these are all things that you need to figure out within the construct of your life that isn't the job, that isn't the employer's responsibility.
- [37:13]
Stephen Bartlett
I'm gonna play devil's advocate.
- [37:14]
Emma Grede
Go on.
- [37:14]
Stephen Bartlett
So what people are, I guess, when they hit that button and they say, I want work, life, balance, what they are maybe alluding to is, am I expected to work seven days a week? Because I need that information to be able to figure out if I'm gonna be able to pick up my kids and be able to do my totally DJing or whatever day on the weekend. So what is the expectation in your business?
- [37:36]
Emma Grede
I don't think the expectation is that anyone is going to have to work seven days a week in order to get, you know, to have an average job. Like, they're not going to have to do that. If you have ambition, if you want to do the most, if you want to grow, if you want to be one of those people that's like, you know, at the top of the organization, the chances are you might have to work a little bit more. More. That's the truth. What are we talking about here? We're gonna lie to everyone. Do you work five days a week, Stephen? No, babe, you're working on A Saturday and a Sunday. And if I text you wherever you are in the world, you come back to me within about an hour. I'm assuming that that's not just what you do for me, that that's just how you roll and that's how I roll and that's how most successful people roll. And you know, it's like there is something to speed and agility and I don't listen. I think I have a tremendous work life balance. I am in Malibu most weekends, I'm on the beach. But I think that we have to have a level of honesty about what it takes to be really successful. And I think that everybody is tired of hustle culture. People are tired of burnout. And figuring out how you can do what you need to do and be really successful at the same time is like what I consider personal responsibility. But at the same time, if we tell everybody that to be really successful you can do that in a way that is, you know, without being 150%, without waking up most days and doing some type of work, without thinking about work a lot. It's just not, it's not honest and it's not. It wouldn't connect with what I see and what my experiences are of most people that are truly successful.
- [39:21]
Stephen Bartlett
Why do some people hate what you just said?
- [39:23]
Emma Grede
I think because it hits them in a place of like, I just don't want to do that. I want all the benefits, but I don't want to do the bit in the middle. And I get that it's not for everyone. Then don't do it.
- [39:33]
Stephen Bartlett
But is it possible to have the success to be number one, to be on the magazines, to be Emma? And is there like not a way where I can have my evenings and weekends but still get like the.
- [39:46]
Emma Grede
I have some evenings and weekends, but.
- [39:48]
Stephen Bartlett
Like I want all of my evenings and weekends.
- [39:50]
Emma Grede
No, you're not. No, no. If it's possible, tell me who she and I'll tell you, I'll show you a liar. You know, I don't think so. And honestly, Stephen, like, what are we talking about? Because we. I think that most people, most people want a, you know, they don't want everything, right? It's like most people don't. Are not sitting here being like, I need to be in all the magazines. I want this, I want that. It's like most people want to have security of a well paying job. They want to, you know, be able to afford their rent or their mortgage and have a nice car and live well and go on a Few holidays and, and that's like a good life. Should you be able to do that? Absolutely. Should you be able to do that without working evenings and weekends and putting all of the hours in? Yeah, I really think that you should. But if you are leading an extraordinary life, to think that extraordinary effort wouldn't be coupled to that somehow is crazy.
- [40:58]
Stephen Bartlett
It's interesting post pandemic how it feels like leaders got gaslit a little bit, founders got gaslit by platforms. You know, like if you go on LinkedIn, you got all these people telling you how to run a business and that what you're doing wrong and work life balance and you've gotta be more like this and you've gotta be this kind of leader and you have to be this empathy and do this and that and the other. And if you're a young founder growing up in this world where everyone is telling founders what to do, it can feel incredibly confusing. And I think in particular post pandemic where like how we work was like shuffled up and it's now like pick and mix. It's like before the pandemic it was like we all got it. We come to the office five days a week, we work. You know, it's a difficult time to be a founder because you've almost got to step out, if you know what I mean.
- [41:45]
Emma Grede
Yeah, you do. Yeah, you have to. And listen, I don't think that that is as hard as people are making it. You have to understand that, you know, you can't be a leader and a people pleaser at the same time. And if you're walking around trying to make everybody happy, guess what you won't do? You won't have a great business. You have to have a focus on what it is that you're trying to do. And you have to be relentless in the pursuit of doing those things. And you need the people that are going to, you know, I am, I'm so much about the people that help you. You know, I hate that idea of like being, you know, like, you know, I get called like a self made, whatever and I'm like, I'm really not self made. If you understood how many people there were around me that just like getting me here today, do you know what I mean? There's like a village sitting outside, but nothing happens on your own. And it takes so many people and so much skill and so much that I don't have. And so when you start a company, this idea that you should make all of the. If you're thinking about making all of These concessions before you're thinking about what the goal is, what the, you know, I call it, and everybody. It's like enterprise mentality. It's like you have to put the business first, the needs of the business. And sometimes that is about thinking about your people and being a certain type of leader. Sometimes it's not. So you've got to balance those things. Right? We're trying. The point of a business is to make profit. It's to create, like, a company to serve, you know, your customers, all of those things. It really isn't about what I think so many people are trying to make it about now. Your leadership style is, you know, it's gonna be such a huge part of what makes that business successful, but it isn't everything. And so I think that we've just gotta try and separate these things like a little bit. That can't be the first thing that you're thinking of, like how, you know, like how you're doing all of that stuff. The first thing you think about is like, how is the business going to grow? How are we going to thrive? What are we. What are we actually here to do?
- [43:51]
Stephen Bartlett
I think founders are scared as well, because we live in this age of social media where, you know, if. Especially if you have a profile, if you do something wrong, there's this really interesting incentive that the employee has where they can. They can pop back. And so if you fire me from your company, Emma, and, you know, I didn't feel so good when I was there, I now have you by the balls a little bit, if you know what I'm saying.
- [44:16]
Emma Grede
Yeah, totally.
- [44:17]
Stephen Bartlett
Because I can post on my TikTok and say, you know what? Emma's not who you think she is.
- [44:22]
Emma Grede
Yeah, that's just part of being in business, though. Right.
- [44:24]
Stephen Bartlett
But then because you're living under that threat from some kind of activist employee, how do you stop that from changing the way that you live with that enterprise mentality and do what's right for the business?
- [44:36]
Emma Grede
I don't think you do.
- [44:38]
Stephen Bartlett
I've had so many founders say this to me in my portfolio. They've said, like, oh, man, I'm like, scared of being cancelled.
- [44:42]
Emma Grede
Well, don't do anything to be cancelled. I mean, look, I think it's a fine line, right? If you're a leader, you're never going to please everybody. And I think that this is where leadership style and who you are as a person really comes out. I don't think anybody. I'm somebody that leads with no ambiguity. Nobody's like, hmm, I wonder what Emma's thinking. It's like, I'm very clear in what I'm thinking. I'm very clear in what the goals are. And the reason that we've been able to do what we've been able to do is because of those things. I have a very straightforward management style, and I bring everybody along with me. Now, listen, there's always going to be someone or, you know, a fraction of people that will feel disgruntled. I've gone through various things in different companies where you've had to, you know, downsize or let people go and things that are really unfortunate, and that's just part of the course of business. Now, are you doing those things in a way that is congruent with who you are as a. As a leader and, you know, really thinking about what. What that actually, like, you know, it's. It's not. Again, it's like I never have, like, an individualistic idea about that. It's like if I have to look at a company and downsize, I'm not thinking about the 50 people that I have to let go. I'm thinking about the 400 jobs that need to be saved. And sadly, sometimes there is a little collater that's just part of being in business. I certainly am not sitting here sweating what somebody might do on TikTok, because I know who I am and I feel good about the decisions that I make because of the. Of the. Where they come from. They come from me. They come from my heart. And I know that I'm a good person. So I would never sit here and be like, oh, no, someone's gonna, like, shame me.
- [46:29]
Stephen Bartlett
What was the most important lesson you had to learn about leadership as a up and coming, talented black woman in business?
- [46:38]
Emma Grede
I don't think it's any different than honest. If I'm really honest, I don't think it's any different from any other woman. But I do think it's different for women more generally. I think that probably the most important lesson was how distinctive and important my point of view is and why that gives me an edge. Right. But I also understand that, you know, this kind of like, empathy coin has two sides to it, right? What makes women phenomenally good leaders and makes them fantastic at, you know, mentoring staff and looking after the needs of the team is sure as the underbelly when it comes to perhaps, you know, downsizing their team or, you know, firing the wrong person or if people are not getting pay rises, like how they might. Might feel about that. So I definitely had to learn that there's two sides to what makes me gray and to keep both of those sides in check.
- [47:41]
Stephen Bartlett
So it's balancing the empathy part of you with the needing to make difficult decisions.
- [47:47]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [47:49]
Stephen Bartlett
Cause it doesn't feel like care to fire someone. It's like, because.
- [47:52]
Emma Grede
No, it goes against the grain of caring for. It goes against the grain of being like a maternal individual who is looking after people. Right. Because that's the opposite of that. You're leaving someone to their own devices. And so that's been difficult for me, for sure.
- [48:10]
Stephen Bartlett
Do you remember the first time you had to contend with that dichotomy and how it felt in.
- [48:16]
Emma Grede
Yeah, yeah, I do. I think it would have been like, way back when in London in itb. The first time I had to do, like, a meaningful downsizing of the agency and I had to fire, like, you know, it was a small agency. I had like 60 people, and I fired 15 people in one day. So we're in a tiny office, Gressy street, in, you know, just off of Tottenham Court Road, and everyone sits together. So there was no, like, giant boardroom that you could go into and then go. Go out the back door. It was like I went back upstairs and told everyone, you know, it was like, awful. It was absolutely awful. I laugh about it out of just like, horror of how it felt at the time, because it really, to me, it felt like the end of the world, the end of my. And I felt so responsible because oftentimes, you know, like, so much of being in a competitive, dynamic environment, you're pulling people out of other agencies and other jobs and you're bringing them in and, you know, you're like, that's the best person for this. And then all of a sudden you're like, I'm so sorry, but, like, it's over. And that for me was soul destroying the first time I had to do it.
- [49:21]
Stephen Bartlett
But in hindsight, how do you look at that decision now with your wisdom?
- [49:26]
Emma Grede
Well, look again. I go back and say I created a better company because of it. I created more discipline in the business because I was able to see the mistakes that I'd done that weren't just about overstaffing, but it was just about running a less healthy engine. I do think it made me a better leader in the sense of I had held so much of the anxiety of what was happening in that company, it not going well to myself. I hadn't really shared with the full senior management team, like, quite how bad things were because I felt I'M the CEO. That's all my problem. They should be able to just come in and out. And with that, there was a lack of accountability from everybody else. And so I think I've really understood now that, you know, it's like I'm here at the top of the organization, and, you know, it's almost like I'm the manager, right? I sit on the sidelines and I have a bunch of people. I shouldn't be running on the pitch to score the goal. It's like I need to stay on those sidelines, and I need to direct everybody to do the best job possible. And now I think so much more about bringing everybody on the journey. And when you're having difficult times, which we do all the time in all of our businesses, despite whatever it might look like to people, you know, you need to bring people on the journey and get them involved in what those solves are. Because if you get to that place where you have to downsize or you have to change the way that you're doing business and you have to make meaningful changes, they're there with you. They've been part of of the solution. They've been part of those solutions not working out, and they're gonna be part of making them right for the rest of the business.
- [50:57]
Stephen Bartlett
I think there's a lot of business owners that can relate to holding onto all of that pressure themselves, cash flow issues, the uncertainty around the business, and they internalize it. They take it home with them. It's with them seven days a week. How did it feel for you when you were going through those challenges with your first company? And I asked that because I want the person going through that, I was going through it to feel seen, but also to have a bit of a blueprint, a roadmap of what to do about that.
- [51:28]
Emma Grede
Well, the truth is, it feels like the end of the world, right? Like, that's how it feels when you start something from the ground up and it's yours. There's such a sense of responsibility. And, you know, I think that what happens in business, it's always like a confluence of factors, right? Like, you try to work out, like, what has made this thing happen. And it's like, you know, sometimes like death by a thousand. There's no, like, one thing that you can point to and say, that was it. That's what made this, like, down trending moment happen. It's like, it's a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit of this and a bit of that. But often what it comes from is, you know, you get so into what you're doing that it's very, very hard to rise back up. And I think what I've taught myself, like, this muscle that I've taught myself is every kind of quarter. At least every six months, I try to float up and see, like, what is happening, not what I'm telling myself, not what are we doing, like, what's happening, what's happening with the competition, what's happening in the market. And back then, I just didn't have the ability to do that. I was so heads down, so in the work. So, you know, like, just deep in, like, my clients and doing the best job that I could, that I had no ability to zoom out. And I do. Again, I'm not just blaming myself, but it really was about that inability to see clearly. And so I think for anybody that's kind of been through a moment like that, it's either surrounding yourself with people that are able to help you have a little bit more perspective or trying to make that a habit that you do that in your business. You know, Bill Gates talks about having reading week or like, you know, an away week. He takes himself off and he does it twice a year, and he goes and he just, like, sits somewhere beautiful. It looked like it was like, by the water or something, goes into a little cabin and he just reads. But he thinks about, like, what is happening in his business, what is happening in the world. And I certainly would never want the comparison to Bill Gates, but I think just having the ability to zoom out a little bit is something that all founders should really, really think about. And it's given me unbelievable perspective that I've made that a practice now.
- [53:34]
Stephen Bartlett
That's so, so true. I was talking the other day, I think it was actually when I did that solo episode on the Diary of a Siya about this idea of, like, clouds and trenches.
- [53:41]
Emma Grede
I love the solo episodes.
- [53:43]
Stephen Bartlett
Oh, did you listen to it? Oh, thank you.
- [53:44]
Emma Grede
Yeah, I love them. I think they're so good.
- [53:46]
Stephen Bartlett
It's one of the ideas that amazing emerged from that process was as I was writing the solo episode, I thought about the day that I went fishing. Like, I don't fish, obviously, you know, like, you know, but I went fishing because whatever, I just found myself there. And I'm on this boat in the middle of the lake. And the art of fishing is you sit there and do fucking nothing. You do nothing and you're on a lake and it's like pissing it down. So I'm sat there in My Mac. And it's just like leathering on me. And this boat, this is not glamorous. This is a 2 meter wooden boat.
- [54:10]
Emma Grede
Oh, babe. We all had an idea of like a yacht. No, no, no, no.
- [54:13]
Stephen Bartlett
It was like at a castle somewhere. And it was the most important, like seven hours of my life at that exact moment. Cause I'd been in the trenches for so many weeks in a row that sitting out on that boat for seven hours just waiting for this nibble that never came. Cause I'm shit at fishing, it turns out, was so powerful. Like, this is the distinction between being able to stand back from the photo so you can see the picture, and founders, like, especially when you've got cash flow issues and clients giving you shit and team member issues, you're like this.
- [54:43]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [54:44]
Stephen Bartlett
And I think that the problem is as founders, we can feel guilt. And we kind of talked about this earlier. Tremendous guilt of like not being in there and not being in the trenches, but because we don't realize we're serving our company by creating a little bit of space. So is it a practice for you?
- [54:58]
Emma Grede
It is. And honestly, I've really made it a practice. And I say that it's about, like, first of all, I have to get out of the office. That's the most important thing. And it's really about me creating the conditions for me to be really thoughtful. So it's like I prepare to like, be with myself. Like, so I'm really taking a snapshot of like, what's happening with my competition? What are people doing? I'm on the sights of my competition. I'm like, what is the customer seeing? I go like in store, I really try to understand what is everybody else like, what are customers truly experiencing from this brand? And then it's really about looking objectively at what we're putting out there. And I really do that. And I've. I've got a. I think I have a really, really good sense of not. I don't know how to say it without swearing.
- [55:49]
Stephen Bartlett
You can swear.
- [55:50]
Emma Grede
I just don't believe my own bullshit. I've still got the ability. And it's so interesting. Cause I think that when you join a new company, you know, I always say to people that come, you know, you got fresh eyes for, I don't know, a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months at best, until you start telling yourself the same stories that we tell ourselves internally. And I am very good at having those fresh eyes. And so when I have new people in the business, I will go to Those people and be like, what are you you seeing? Where were you before? What have you like versus what we're telling you, like, what are you seeing in this company? And so I make a point to like get around to any new starters. And that's just like part of the process competition, new starters, having the zoom out. What am I actually like serving and delivering to customers. And I kind of take all of that and come up with like just a one pager. Like for me it's always very simplistic. You know, it's like three things. I'm like, this, this, this, go and work on those things. And it will often be in line with the priorities that I have, like the broader priorities of the business. But sometimes it's just like a random thing that I'm like, didn't see that happening. I didn't see how shit would become of that, you know? And so it's like I try to, I try to have that level of objectiveness all the time.
- [57:01]
Stephen Bartlett
Are you paranoid?
- [57:03]
Emma Grede
Definitely. 100%, yes. Well, also, I'm rightly paranoid. Like I've worked with some of the most copy duped brands in the whole world. You know what I mean? It's like, I'm not actually paranoid. I'm just like, everybody's copying me.
- [57:16]
Stephen Bartlett
And how do you think about people copying you? Because anyone that's successful, all of my friends that have done anything, well, they're just, everyone just copies the duper brand.
- [57:24]
Emma Grede
I'm totally unbothered. We've moved already, babe. I'm like, by the time they've copied me, you know, I'm a year and a half in the future. I'm like, go for it, it's done, it's over. You can't. There's no other way to behave. You know, it's like if you sit around and you're so concerned at that, you know, don't get me wrong, if it's like copy, right? That's different. You're here for my people. But it's like that is just part of being like, I work in fashion. It's very cyclical. Where are ideas owned anyway? Who knows?
- [57:53]
Stephen Bartlett
But does it piss you off?
- [57:55]
Emma Grede
Yes, absolutely. I've been known to walk up to a founder in the gym and disturb him during his workout. In the early days of Good American, I was like, excuse me. So I won't say her, but I was like, you are. We used to have this one company that would buy whatever we dropped at Good American and they would photograph it and put it on their Website the next, like three days after and take pre orders on it. And I was like, I know you're doing. I can see the rip pattern. Like, I know that's my gene. That's literally my gene. You haven't, like, tried to make it. You've just taken our thing and you're taking orders on it would drive me crazy. So when I saw him, I went and told him about him. He didn't care. He still carried on doing it. And they're about 12. 12 times the size of our business. So, you know, it worked for him.
- [58:37]
Stephen Bartlett
They're one.
- [58:38]
Emma Grede
They're big. They're a big one. Don't say anything more, Stephen. People will work it out.
- [58:41]
Stephen Bartlett
No, no, no, no. I'm not gonna say anything else. I'm not gonna ask anything else about it, but tell me more. I'm joking.
- [58:46]
Emma Grede
You know, there's a lot of companies out there that do a good job copying everybody else, but that means you.
- [58:51]
Stephen Bartlett
Can become successful just by ripping someone off.
- [58:54]
Emma Grede
I'm sure people have.
- [58:56]
Stephen Bartlett
Hmm.
- [58:57]
Emma Grede
You know, I don't know how fun it is to run a company like.
- [59:00]
Stephen Bartlett
That, but are they fast fashion?
- [59:04]
Emma Grede
They might be.
- [59:05]
Stephen Bartlett
I know who it is. I figured it out. You got your first, I guess your first foray into the world of fashion was that internship you had at 19 years old. You became a show producer after that at Inka Productions. You worked at a marketing agency between sort of 23, 25 years old called Saturday Group, which is now known as Wednesday Agency, Co founded by your now husband, Jens.
- [59:26]
Emma Grede
Yes, indeed.
- [59:28]
Stephen Bartlett
Which is where you met him.
- [59:29]
Emma Grede
Yes. Now I'm, you know, I'm in business with Jens. So we started our relationship as I was an employee and then he was my investor. So he and his business partner invested alongside somebody else that I bought in in my first company. Then I married him, then we had four kids together. And it has been an unbelievable relationship and one of the kind of most important things in my life and still remains one of the most important things in my life. But it hasn't always been easy because he is obviously, you know, doing his thing and he's very ambitious and he has his own things going on. And when you bring kids into the equation, everything changes again. Right. It shifts a little bit. I think what is important is to have somebody who. Who just sees all of your talent and sometimes sees it before you do yourself. And I think that Jens has been like, unbelievably encouraging of me at every turn. Every time I've had any doubt, every time I've been like, God, that feels like a little bit outside my comfort zone. And he's been like, but you did this, but you did that, you know? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I did, didn't I?
- [60:42]
Stephen Bartlett
He's like, no, everybody has that. And you'll know people, right, who are really ambitious themselves, and maybe their partner is envious, resentful, maybe low key, subtly plays them down or diminishes their ability to them. What would you say to someone who right now is listening to this and has a partner who they feel doesn't want them to climb to the top of the mountain and isn't willing to help carry them up there and actually sees their work as a competition? What would you say to that person? Cause I know we probably got a couple million listening.
- [61:21]
Emma Grede
I say this all the time. Everything starts with yourself. And you have to be willing to put what it is that you care about, what it is that you want more than anything first. You have to be able to do that first. And if you have somebody who isn't necessarily like a big cheerleader, which not everybody can be, for everybody else, that's one thing. But if you've got someone that sucks your energy and your ability to believe in yourself, that's a problem, right? So I don't think that everybody needs the cheerleader husband, but you need somebody that at least supports your belief in yourself so that you can go off and do what you need to do.
- [62:10]
Stephen Bartlett
How do you and Jens keep the relationship spicy when you're both working very, very hard? And I ask this in part for myself, right? My partner is on the other side of the world in Bali doing her business, and I'm out here in LA doing my thing. So I'm wondering how you stay as these independent beasts that are building your own things, but then you nurture the third person or the third thing, which is your life together. Like, do you schedule date night? Do you? And what is the journey you've been on to figure out the solution here? Cause you must have had to do some trial and error.
- [62:48]
Emma Grede
Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, I think that I'm very, very lucky with Jens. We are really into each other. We're really interested in each other. And that's the starting point for any great relationship. Interested in his point of view about something. When I see something, read something, you know, get something on social, like, the first person I think about is, oh, my God, I need to see what Jens thinks about this. And so that. That is just the default nature of our relationship. Yes, we schedule date nights and you know, 16 years in, that takes a lot of different, you know, shapes and forms. Like we'll go to a Lakers game together. Like, Jens loves the basketball. And I was like, you know what, let's like, he loves the basketball. All the good restaurants are downtown. I'll make sure that we go to like some new crazy restaurant that I wanna go to ahead of the game. And then we go to the game and it's like the perfect date night. We both get what we want and.
- [63:42]
Stephen Bartlett
So how often's date night?
- [63:44]
Emma Grede
Oh well, we do a date night every single week without fail. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it's really funny because our teams, we have like team greed meetings. We all get together like once a month and it's everyone and they, the first thing everyone puts down is date night. They program it in like wherever we are and it just become, and it's so interesting that I always think it's so funny that they, they safeguard it in such a way. Cause I feel like they all feel like that this has become like a really important thing. But I don't know that there's any big secret. The secret is just being interested in each other. The secret is just growing together. And I think that we are so fortunate that we've been able to work with one another. But it comes from like this place of like interest and respect. And I'm interested in the person that he Was is this 16 or 17 years ago? I wish I knew. But I'm interested in the person that he's becoming and I think he's interested in the person I'm becoming.
- [64:45]
Stephen Bartlett
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- [65:52]
Emma Grede
Or was I 24 maybe? Yeah, something like that.
- [65:54]
Stephen Bartlett
For a decade, roughly.
- [65:56]
Emma Grede
Yeah, a decade.
- [65:57]
Stephen Bartlett
A decade of your life up until 35ish. And you meet Chris, Jenna in this process of these 10 years. When did you meet Kris Jenner?
- [66:08]
Emma Grede
I met her for the first time, like on a job that I'd done for one of the girls. I was actually, and I'm sure they must be pretty furious now. Actually, I was actually introduced through an agent at wma. They just gave me her number directly, so I just called her.
- [66:23]
Stephen Bartlett
Why would they be furious now? Because they can't see it.
- [66:25]
Emma Grede
Well, you know, probably, you know, maybe they should have ushered that introduction slightly more. But hey, ho, yeah, I just called her. At that time, you know, at that time, Chris wasn't the Chris of now. She was still extremely famous. I remember when we went for lunch there and you know, there was like a little crowd forming outside, but it was very different from how it is today.
- [66:47]
Stephen Bartlett
And what was she like when you met her?
- [66:49]
Emma Grede
Amazing, you know, but also like not in that way that when you, you go and meet someone. For me it was just like meeting any other manager, agent, publicist. And of course it was Chris and she was, you know, on the show. And so I had an understanding of who she was. But also I was trying to get something done. You know, I would have been doing some type of, of endorsement and trying to, you know, get some information about whatever it was that, you know, I was working on at the time. So it was just like a means to an end wherever I would go at that point in my life. You know, I was meeting with managers, agents, publicists all the time. And that was part of my job and part of what I did on behalf of brands.
- [67:27]
Stephen Bartlett
What was that journey from meeting Chris that first time to getting into business with Chris and pitching her to be a business partner? And then what happens to itb, the agency you were running in the background?
- [67:38]
Emma Grede
So it was a really interesting time actually because there was this big shift and what I'd done in the agency was built this entertainment marketing agency. And we really kind of sat at the intersection of where like brands and entertainment get together. So film, product placement, endorsement deals, influencer packages, like, and that was like the very early days of influencers. Most of the, like, we were calling them bloggers at that time, right? So the agency was growing and I'd opened an office in New York that was really doing like the majority of the business and it was fantastic. So the business become very kind of us facing from a client based point of view. And then this idea of like talent based equity deals kind of like raised its head. And I read something about Ashton Kutcher taking, I don't know, equity in some Silicon Valley startup. And I started to get calls and, you know, people would always phone me when they wanted to put an ATS talent in a fragrance ad, for example. But people started calling me and saying, hey, we've got this startup. We'd be willing to give x, y and z 10% of this thing for, you know, for an endorsement. And I was like, well, that's interesting, but how do I commission that? Right? Because usually I would be getting paid a percentage of whatever cash was taking was crossing hands. So for me, it was this new interesting part of the business that I had to figure out how to monetize. So fast forward, I did a couple of deals and instead of, you know, taking a piece of equity, like, you know, because at the end of the day, my agency, it wasn't in that way shape or form. It wasn't figured out that we could like bring equity into the business. Like, where does that go? That wouldn't go to me. That would go to this shareholder base. That would then mean nothing to anybody. So I was like, do you know what a flat fee? And so I did a bunch of deals with a bunch of talents. And I'd say, you're gonna pay me a couple of hundred thousand dollars. I'm gonna work out for x to take 10% of your company. And I did three that were very, very successful. Then what happened is I kind of sat back and I was like, wow, wow, it's so interesting. And I remember this company reporting some, just reporting some numbers. And I was like, I cannot believe that they've gone from there to there. And in my head, I made a direct correlation between the talent that had been brought into that company. It was Pharrell Williams at the time. And I was like, wow. Because Pharrell did this thing, the value of the company jumped like this. I got my little couple of hundred grand and wasn't incentivized and, you know, by any of the value that was created. And therefore, you know, I was like, God, I'm really losing here. Maybe I should do one of these for myself. Maybe I should create a company and bring a talent into that company and give them a piece of equity in order to accelerate the business. That was the start of Good American. That was the initial thought, because I wasn't getting paid what I needed to from my clients. So I was like, well, who's going to. Who's going to pay me? Correct. No one. So I'll create it myself. At that time, Jens and Eric had started Frame, which is an incredibly successful denim company. And so I had kind of thought in my head that between, you know, I had clients like G Star and Calvin Klein, and I've worked with Topshop for a long time. Very denim heavy. Jens had Frame, and so I was like, I know something about denim. Like, that's a category I can do. No. What I knew was denim marketing. I had no idea about how to make a product. And then, then fast forward, I sit down, I sit at dinner next to some guy who had invested heavily in a big plus size retailer in America. And he said to me, emma, this space is exploding. And he's telling me all about it. And I looked on my phone, I looked at the retailer and I was like, that's gross. Nobody wants to dress in those clothes. That product is horrible. And then everything just came together. I was like, oh, my goodness, I'm going to create a denim company. I'm going to make all of the sizes all the time, and I'm going to make everyone look hot. Buster. End of. That was it. I was like, ding, ding, ding. And it just came together and I was like, oh. And you know what I know how to do? I know how to book talent and bring them into the brand and converge all of those things, and it's going to be explosive. And so the idea was kind of set in my head and at that point I'd had the conversation with Chris, who had said, you know, we're looking for these type of partnerships now. And so I just went back to her and I was like, I have an idea and I'd really love it if I could pitch your daughter. The rest is history.
- [72:05]
Stephen Bartlett
You pitched her?
- [72:06]
Emma Grede
I pitched her.
- [72:07]
Stephen Bartlett
You pitched Chloe.
- [72:08]
Emma Grede
Mm.
- [72:08]
Stephen Bartlett
What did Chloe say?
- [72:10]
Emma Grede
I don't remember the exact words. And, you know, I never like to. It's so interesting. We have a great working relationship, the family and I, because. Because I don't speak on their behalf, you know, and I'm very careful not to speak on their behalf. And it feels really unfair because they are so unbelievably famous that anything that you say becomes news. So I prefer never to talk about what she Said, what I remember is the end result is that she said, yes, and, you know, we're in business together eight years later.
- [72:43]
Stephen Bartlett
What was the process of making Good America a good company in terms of. You have that initial hypothesis, when you sat at that dinner, you think, okay, this is what it's gonna. It tends to be the case that almost everyone's initial hypothesis is, like, a little bit wrong.
- [72:56]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [72:57]
Stephen Bartlett
At least in part.
- [72:58]
Emma Grede
No, it's so interesting, actually. That's the thing that we got right. I think that what we understood intrinsically is that there was this huge subset of customers that were left out of the fashion conversation if you were above a size 12, that there was almost nothing cute in the market for you. And what we didn't do was create any separation. We just like, we're gonna make 19 sizes of clothes. And what happens traditionally in most retailers is that you've got one set of sizes and then you go up to floor five, and there's this, like, horrible little subsection, and you've got bit of, you know, the assortment for petite and a bit of the assortment for plus size women. And it's completely not reflective of what's downstairs for everybody else. And so we were like, do you know what? We're just gonna connect all of those things. We're just gonna make one product. We'll make it in 19 sizes, and whatever we do, we'll let the customers choose. So if we're making a dress with a giant slit up the side of it, we're not gonna moderate it because we think that a girl at a certain size doesn't want the slit as high. Cause you know what? We bet she does. If we make a teeny, tiny fluorescent pink bikini, we're gonna make it in every size, and we'll let the decision be down to the woman. And it turns out we were 100% right with our instinct, because these girls went buying because. Because they didn't want to buy it. They weren't buying because it wasn't available anywhere. And so our instinct to just like, make the stuff and put it out there and see who comes was the right thing to do.
- [74:23]
Stephen Bartlett
What part of the strategy and the games you played in 201818 could not be replicated. Now, that was so important back then.
- [74:34]
Emma Grede
Because the game is changed so many. The game has so changed. You know, the arbitrage that existed in social media then, like, how you could pay to acquire a customer, is almost entirely gone. And so when I think about how we could work with Facebook and how we could Work with Instagram, how powerful those followings were back then. You can't compare it to now. And so you could acquire a customer very cheaply. You could, you know, I think that the algorithms worked completely differently. Therefore, the cohorts in your business behave completely differently. And if I think about it, we had a three year golden period of Runway. The good thing is, I think we knew. And I always talk about the beauty of my board members at that time, going back to people like Andrew Rosen and John Howard, who were the total opposite to everybody else on my board. That was like, Emma, you need to just double down, acquire as many customers as possible. Don't worry about profitability, just spend, spend, spend. And they, they were like, absolutely, do not do that. You need a profitable business that works when this is over. And so I just was like, I'm going to do what these guys are telling me. They have a lot of experience, they have a lot of successful businesses. They've been doing it for a lot longer. And so I think that while we created a foundation for the business that was really important, that was rooted in being digitally native. We never, we never rested on that being the only way that we could meet customers. We were immediately saying, we've got to open our own stores, we've got to create a wholesale footprint. And when the tide turned, which it inevitably did, and that really happened, you know, Covid kind of gave you an acceleration, but then the fall off was pretty quick. We had this buffer of an incredible business that allowed us to stay the course.
- [76:25]
Stephen Bartlett
So if one is, you know, 2025 and they're trying to deploy a strategy to build any kind of brand and they're thinking about the channels, if we think about B2C companies, so things like Good American or it could be, I don't know, an energy drink or whatever, what kind of strategy are you thinking about now to acquire customers as being some of the most interesting but maybe unobvious?
- [76:48]
Emma Grede
Yeah, I really am blown away by what happens when you meet customers in real life, you know, and I think that some of the more experiential things that we've done that stay with people, you know, post Covid, people want to be together and they want to be in person and they want experience and they want memories and they want things that last and they want physicality and what's tangible. And so whatever you can do that brings those type of experiences, like in real life, experience is always going to be out anything that is like more digitally native. And so a good example of that is we just opened a store on Sunset for skims. And we connected the store opening with this incredible diner next door that's like a 24 hour kind of like Hollywood staple diner. There were queues around the block, every single slot for the entirety of the six days. And it's 24 hours was booked within five minutes. And this is to get pancakes and you know, chicken tenders and like a root beer float. And what was so interesting to me is I took my queue and it was so cute. You know, it's like a 50s diner with a jukebox. And we skims ified the whole thing. It looked amazing. My 3 year old 2 days later said, I wanna go back to the cafe. And I was, I was like, you're English, that's so cool. You wanna go to the diner? She's like, yeah, I wanna get the thing with the cherry on the top. And I was like, wow, like in a 3 years, 3 year old's head that even like she had an impression of that being like a special moment and something that stuck in her mind. And I was like, those type of things for me are just way more valuable now. Look, if you're starting a business, it's really hard to do experiential in real life, things like that. But I think the point is that getting in front of customers, like getting to them and that physicality of being in front of them and whether that is if you're starting a new drink, like being in the supermarket, being in front of like the point of purchase, like that is really important to tell your story and have some physicality around what you're doing.
- [78:49]
Stephen Bartlett
Are you seeing this idea of community becoming more and more important for building brands? Because a couple of years ago it was all like just throw some Facebook ads at them or get some influencers to tell them about it. Now we're seeing this transition towards like run clubs and yoga thing with the brand present.
- [79:04]
Emma Grede
And yeah, I think it's, I definitely think it's community. And when I think about what that means for our businesses, you know, oftentimes it's really about like owning that customer experience. You know, it's like if you, if you know, for example, skims has an app which is like an incredible place for customers to experience the brand. And I think there's like a lot again it's like there's high, low ways. There's very, very few brands that can be successful in an app, right? You've got to really have so much brand affinity and so much love to that brand that people will come, get off of whatever they're doing, and, like, click and be in your app. So I think that's certainly not for everybody. I don't think that would work for a lot of the brands that I'm involved in. But the sense of, like, standing for something, having some kind of purpose, galvanizing people around something that isn't just about your product is. Is probably the way to go, I think. And, you know, Good American has been so successful because it always stood for something. At the end of the day, we were selling blue jeans and white T shirts. But people understand why they come to that brand. They understand that there's a purpose, but you also have to evolve that purpose continuously. And when I think about where we started eight years ago and where we are in the middle somewhere, we became B Corp certified, and that was another, like, real push for the company. It was very, very, very heavy lifting. But that was something that, for our staff, became so important to them. You know, denim is a tough business to be in. It's a very pollutive business. I have a lot of really young people, a lot of young mothers that work at the company, and they wanted to know that they worked in a place that cared about the work that they live in. And so it really was something that was an undertaking by that company to say, we all feel that we could do so much better. And I think that the underlying values of that company are about it being about our customers and the people that work for work there, and whatever is true to them being the most important thing. And so that has really evolved over time.
- [81:05]
Stephen Bartlett
How old are you here in this photo?
- [81:07]
Emma Grede
I must be what I pay. So if Katie is. Is what she looks like, I must be 16.
- [81:12]
Stephen Bartlett
16.
- [81:13]
Emma Grede
15. No, 15.
- [81:14]
Stephen Bartlett
15.
- [81:14]
Emma Grede
Oh, yeah, yeah. Aw.
- [81:17]
Stephen Bartlett
If you were to speak to this Emma, and this Emma was keen to start a business, and she came to you and said, what are the, like, first principles of business? What are the three most important things in being successful in business that you've learned in your decades now of wisdom and experience? What would you say to her?
- [81:35]
Emma Grede
Aw, bless. Well, I'd say, I love your curly hair. First of all, it's not a bad place to start, actually, because I would say that it's so important to be true to yourself in whatever you do. And, you know, I think that I have an incredible gut instinct, and I have very strong feelings that guide the decisions that I make, and. And that has really led me so well. So I'd be, like, have conviction about what it Is that you feel deeply and go and go with that. But by the same token, I'd say know what you don't know because there's a lot of places where I'm weak. And one of my greatest strengths and a superpower of mine has been know what you don't know and hire people into the kind of gaps and the holes that you have in your own knowledge. That's been really important for me. And I feel like I'm so privileged that I've worked with people in one company and being able to bring them into another company and another. And I start almost a lot of things with like a similar group of people. And I love that because they fill in for where I'm not so good. And that's been really key. And then despite everything you've been told, you're gonna have to take some risk. And I think that everything that this kid knew was like, don't be risky, don't take any risks. Like figure everything out and be really safe. And what I've learned is that nothing is going to come easy. And I think that when I moved here, I moved to America with a two year old and a newborn baby. And I had no friends here, not like real friends. And it was a really scary move. Cause you move away from, you know, you forget when you move country, you move from all senses of what is familiar to you. And that's very, it's very difficult in any stage of your life. But there's a special vulnerability that comes along with having a new baby and having a new venture that you don't really understand how to run at the time. And so I would say like, learning to take risk as probably being the best thing that I've done.
- [83:52]
Stephen Bartlett
How do you feel about her?
- [83:55]
Emma Grede
Aw. You know, I think she's so cute and so lovely. You know, I don't like, I feel like that's, you know, I still look exactly the same, don't I?
- [84:05]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah, you do.
- [84:06]
Emma Grede
You know, like, I feel like this person was like dying, like dying to. Dying to. To just do something differently and dying to escape her circumstances. But also, you know, this person loved these three people so much. Charlotte, Rachel and Katie. They are like my world, my sisters. We're on a group chat and we chat all the time. And like my reason for being successful was so much about them. It's so much about this idea of being able to share and look after them and take all the things that we had in our childhood and move it into a new space. And I'm really proud of myself that I've been able to do that.
- [84:55]
Stephen Bartlett
Dying to escape that situation.
- [84:58]
Emma Grede
Yeah. Because I feel like for me, you know, I didn't feel that safe when I was younger. You know, I really didn't. I really, really didn't. And. And I. I felt like I should probably have a future where my kids feel. I want to be thoughtful about the words because, you know, my mom is still alive, and she did the very best she could with what she had, which is all any parent can do. But I feel that for me and my sisters, there was just so much uncertainty and so many things that I wanted to make sure that for my kids, there was just this solid foundation. And I'm so happy I've been able to do that.
- [85:59]
Stephen Bartlett
Some of the skills that I think you have that are unappreciated, one of them is the ability to articulate an idea. And some people call this, like, sales. How critical do you think it is for women, for men, for everybody to cultivate that particular skill? And how did you cultivate it?
- [86:19]
Emma Grede
Oh, I think it's one of the most important things. You know, when I think about who I am investing in, when I think about what businesses to support, I don't care if a founder has a lot of missing pieces, but if you can't sell, you ain't getting my money. Like, no way. Like, it's just no way. You can't outsource that stuff. You either have an ability to convince somebody of what you're doing and sell your idea uniquely, or you don't. And I've never invested in any founders that didn't have that as a skill that couldn't bring me on a journey and tell me their story and convince me that this was something that the world needed.
- [86:59]
Stephen Bartlett
How do you sell? So if you were selling something to me, what. What are the core? What would you be thinking about as you're preparing that pitch and putting it together?
- [87:06]
Emma Grede
Oh, you'll see. You're just so much more thoughtful than I am. I would be. So, you know, like, my whole thing is, like, I have to be passionate about the thing that I'm doing. I have to, like, see the need. I have to figure out the, like, what am I solving for? And then I go in on that. I'm like, you know, I'm painting the picture of, like, where the problems, and then I'm showing you how I've uniquely come up with the solution. And then I'm, you know, I'm like, old school, right? It's like, I Create a value proposition. I'm all about, like, the perfect place for pricing. And then it's like, I'm gonna get it to you in a unique way. But I don't think it's, like, so complicated. I'm. I'm like a born salesperson. That's just who I am.
- [87:50]
Stephen Bartlett
When you reference this, you touch your chest a lot.
- [87:52]
Emma Grede
Oh, do I?
- [87:53]
Stephen Bartlett
No, no. But it's interesting.
- [87:54]
Emma Grede
Cause it's like a heartfelt thing. That's what I'm saying.
- [87:56]
Stephen Bartlett
So intuition feeling.
- [87:59]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [88:00]
Stephen Bartlett
And I do get that from you, that I think you've cultivated the trust with your intuition, which obviously took some time. Because I remember the comment Jens made to you said, you're acting like an employee. You need to like. It almost sounded like trust yourself a bit more so you can call the shots. Is that something we cultivate? And how do we know whether to trust our intuition? Cause so many people, like, their intuition is trying to say something to them. And maybe they, like, Gaslight themselves and tell themselves or other people tell themselves to sort of dim down that internal voice. But how have you learned to get that conviction to act upon feeling?
- [88:34]
Emma Grede
How have I learned to act upon feeling? Well, I guess there's an element of doing it and turning out to be right. But I think that you've got to know the difference between having intuition and a gut feeling and then just sort of general excitement and being able to separate those things. Cause I get really excited about things, right. And I'll be like, oh, my God, that's amazing. And it's so interesting. Cause when you sit on a show like, you know, Dragon's Den or Shark Tank, like, you really need to learn very quickly to separate those feelings. And so that helped me a little bit. But I think that that is the. Like, is it coming from a place that kind of hits you in your heart, hot spot? Are you just feeling like some sense of excitement? And that is two very different things for me. Like, are you moving me emotionally or am I just like, oh, that feels like money over there. It's like, that looks like it's gonna chop up into some, you know, nice dividends at some point. That's not how I make decisions. Like, I never go that way with that sort of general excitement of something that's gonna be, like, more financially exciting for me. They never work out.
- [89:46]
Stephen Bartlett
Have you thought much about. As you look back through your career and now you have the clarity of hindsight, how important the size of one's dreams are? Because I imagine that if you spoke to that Emma, now you'd be like. Like, listen, go fucking out. Like, dream fucking Vega. Like, it's gonna. You know. And I was. I think it was when I heard about how WeWork took investment in the back of a car from Mashi, what's his name, son, something from software bank, the bigger, like, billionaire investor. And he gave the WeWork founder a billion dollar check and said, you know, the only problem with you is you don't dream big enough. He just given him a billion dollars, and he was criticizing him for not asking for more. And as I reflect back through my career, I go, jesus Christ. Like, so many moments, I, like, undersold myself because I just couldn't see it. I didn't have the friends.
- [90:32]
Emma Grede
You know what happened in the end of that story, right, Stephen?
- [90:34]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah, but still, like, listen, this guy walked away with a billion dollars, even though he.
- [90:39]
Emma Grede
He did all right. He did all right. But, you know, I'm not investing in his next thing a year.
- [90:43]
Stephen Bartlett
He's just raised 250 million.
- [90:45]
Emma Grede
I saw it.
- [90:45]
Stephen Bartlett
I saw it.
- [90:46]
Emma Grede
I can't believe people are just walking back into that, but there you go.
- [90:50]
Stephen Bartlett
The thing that put in my mind was actually that, you know, that whole adage of, like, aim for the cloud, like, aim for the stars and you land on the clouds, whatever. I was like, there's truth to this idea of just, like, aiming higher.
- [91:01]
Emma Grede
Yeah, I think there is some truth to it. I mean, look, I. I don't know that I even had an idea of how high high was, you know, And I think that it's perspective and your environment that gives you an idea of, like, what is high. You know, I often talk about this idea. You can't be what you don't see. And for me, I don't think that I had a lot of role models. And being in England at that time, it just wasn't like, who was there? Like, do you know what I mean? I don't remember anybody being particularly like, you know, I kind of honed in on Oprah because she was on the TV when I would come home from school, and I was like, that is aspirational. There's a black woman who reads all these books that has these crazy ideas around gratitude. And at the time, she was talking a lot about manifesting. And it wasn't mindfulness meditation. Right. But that then kind of moved into mindfulness. But the exposure to those ideas, to me at that time, it felt fresh and new. And I was like, I am going to watch Oprah, and I'm gonna be Like Oprah in my way of thinking. Not that I wanted to be on tv, but it's like, that's the type of level of thought I wanted. I wanted to be thoughtful and articulate and move like Oprah. Cause I thought she'd moved good. So when it comes to like, your dreams and your ambitions, for me, I think that they've maybe, aside from the visualization side of things, where I like, drew this beautiful home, for me, they've always been a little bit more bite sized. It's been like, let's get out of of this place, get out of Plastow. Then let's like get a job and surround yourself with the right people. And then like, you know, it's all been very kind of like, much more incremental. And I always think about this idea of how I've leveraged everything that I've had into the next thing. And I'm pretty good at doing that. I have grand plans that I started writing when I was 30, but they're much more theoretical about how I want to feel and how I want to be spending my time as opposed to, like, what will I be doing at that moment.
- [93:01]
Stephen Bartlett
One of the things you said over and over again as well when talking about building business is hiring and how important that is to you. It's taken me a long time, longer than I would have liked to realize the importance of hiring in my first business. I think it was an afterthought. I thought most important things are if I work seven days a week and I don't leave this office and I have good ideas, we'll be good.
- [93:21]
Emma Grede
Yeah, not so much. Not scalable.
- [93:25]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah. And you learn the hard way. You learn the hard way because you start hiring your friends and you go off vibes, et cetera. So the hiring advice that you needed at the start of your career, that would have helped you to make less mistakes, what is that advice?
- [93:37]
Emma Grede
The hiring advice was learn to fire.
- [93:39]
Stephen Bartlett
Oh, really?
- [93:40]
Emma Grede
Well, that's what you know. Because I think that what happens in businesses is the people that get you to 10 million are not the people that get you to 100 million. The people that get you to 100 million are not people who get you to 500 and then to a billion. And so, so what happens is as a founder, you get so, you know, you know what it's like that startup vibe, those early people, the work that they do and the times you have together, that all becomes like so much part of your success story. Right. And if you hold onto that for too long you kind of miss what is next, and you miss that ability to be able to pivot and to level up. And so I think that the mistakes that I made early on were not moving people out of the business quickly enough because. Because I just didn't want to fire them. I was so loyal because I have loyalty. And I'm like, such a nice girl. And I was like, you just needed to go. And I didn't want to. I didn't want to say that.
- [94:32]
Stephen Bartlett
And what was the harm that they did by staying or by you?
- [94:35]
Emma Grede
Oh, well, it restricted my growth. It restricted my ability to be able to move up and level up and have better clients. And, you know, you don't know what you don't know until it's, like, right in front of you. And so I needed to keep. As the business grew, you need to keep constantly up, levelling your people. And so that's what I. That's what I missed.
- [94:57]
Stephen Bartlett
So if I could bring that old Emma in that didn't want to fight and I sat her here, what would you say to her? Because I ask this, because I know. Cause kids come up to me all the time saying this, that there are so many people who can relate.
- [95:10]
Emma Grede
Who can relate.
- [95:11]
Stephen Bartlett
Can relate.
- [95:11]
Emma Grede
Oh, no doubt.
- [95:12]
Stephen Bartlett
You know, people pleasing. We're a family.
- [95:14]
Emma Grede
Yeah. No, we're not a family. We're not a family. And that's the first thing. It's like, I think everybody really needs to understand, like, why they are there. And this is about leadership style, right? Like, are you clear in what you're all there to do? Because it's like, I am not building a family. I am here to run an organization. That organization is here to create a profit. And we all have to be very, very clear about our goals and how we're getting there. And I think that in the past, what happens, and especially when you have successful companies, success masks a lot of problems in a business, right? And when you get successful, you've got to allow yourself and your team to be equally critical. Even when everything's going well, and even if the bottom line's well, there'll still be dysfunction within that organization. And you can't let the success mask what that dysfunction is. You've got to get into it. And actually, it's even more important when you are successful that you deal with those things, because otherwise the problems get bigger and bigger as the company gets bigger and bigger, and you end up with a problem that you could have stamped out much earlier on that you then didn't. So it's just a really key thing and it's a muscle. It's like anything. You get better at this, like all the time. I've become better and better at spotting who are the right people. And inevitably, actually, I spend more and more of my time bringing the right people into the company. I reckon we were talking about this the other day. I think it's like 20, maybe even 25% of my time is spent on talent and cultivating the right people to come into the company. It's a lot of time.
- [96:47]
Stephen Bartlett
It's a lot of time.
- [96:48]
Emma Grede
It's a lot of time.
- [96:49]
Stephen Bartlett
Oh my God.
- [96:50]
Emma Grede
But that's the difference between good and great. 100% agree who you bring in. You know, when we talk about culture in a company, culture is like who you hire, who you fire, and who gets promoted. Now that is my job. That's my decisions to make within the organization. So I really think about, about how much more thoughtful can I be about those decisions. And the majority of that is put in, like who I hire.
- [97:17]
Stephen Bartlett
So on that point, then how does one get truly exceptional people to come and join them? And I say this because in the last five years, I've become increasingly obsessed with hiring. It's like my team will tell you. I feel like I'm the head of recruitment. I built the process, sign off everybody that joins every company, obsessing about it, building tools, myself in my bedroom to make arts like the screening process that I talked about, built it myself. It's my absolute obsession because I now have the clarity of hindsight where I go, oh my God, my net worth and my outcomes can be Correlated to like 10 exceptional people that I brought into my ecosystem 10 years ago and the downstream impact of them hiring more exceptional people, et cetera. So this so. But me and you are in a different place now. And if you go back to when you first started your agency all those years ago, you didn't have the same leverage.
- [98:04]
Emma Grede
Oh, no, no way.
- [98:05]
Stephen Bartlett
So if you're a startup founder now and they agree with this principle that hiring is so critical a players really matter, how do they go about? Like, how would you go about now getting exceptional people to come and join Emma's company?
- [98:19]
Emma Grede
Yep. Well, Stephen, that's the reason that you've gotta be a great salesperson, otherwise I'm not going to invest in you. But it comes back down to that, right? Cause in the beginning, you've got to sell a dream, a vision. You might be willing to, to give someone some equity, but chances are that equity is worth zilch in the beginning. So you've gotta be that person that can say, here's where we're going. We're gonna paint a vision. But you've gotta have the strategic chops to say, you know, anybody good is gonna understand that a founder alone goes nowhere. Right? So it's like, what am I coming into? Like, if it's the founder and it's like, very little, then what's the vision that I'm buying into and what's the strategy to get there? So it comes back down to this, like, idea of, like, can you sell a vision? Can you sell the strategy these people are gonna come into and actually work towards? And I think that that is probably, like, the thing that I'm good at after I've had a pretty clear idea about what I'm doing. And I can do that because I don't do very much. Everybody always says to me, how do you do so much? It's like, I don't do very much. What I do is obsessed over the customer. I obsess over a set of products and then I get them to them really quick. That's it. Like, that's all I do. And so it's not really that much that I do. And I think that it's like, so, so, so important for you to be able to do very, very, very few things really, really well.
- [99:37]
Stephen Bartlett
I think that's really goes against what a lot of startup founders think they have to be doing. Because they think they have to be good at everything.
- [99:44]
Emma Grede
No, no, I think. I honestly think it's the opposite. And I think that if you start to tell yourself that it's a slippery slope. Cause no one is good at everything. Everything. Right? You've got to find people that have expertise that can do things that you can't do. And that can be really difficult in the beginning. But again, it's like you have to have. It's like so much of it is about curiosity, asking as many questions as you can so you can start to figure out who is going to be the best person to solve that problem in the beginning. Like, I just feel like I had no idea how so many parts of my business worked. And. But it's like, I would make sure that I would be the person to ask enough questions to get to the point where I could hire somebody that would be competent to do that role. Right? So it's like you train yourself and you, you train these muscles that get you better at hiring, and you're going to make some mistakes. Like, I. I Never feel like we spend enough time talking about failure, about the mistakes. I've made. So many mistakes. I moved a whole bunch of people here to LA and shut the office down 18 months later. Cause I was, I thought I had something that I just didn't have. I thought that the reputation I'd built in London would translate to la. What I didn't understand is LA is a community and I wasn't part of it. You know, it was like a closed door. I got here and I was like, what? Like just frozen, Frozen out completely like that.
- [101:11]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah, yeah.
- [101:11]
Emma Grede
They're not like us. Like so. And it really was. And so I think that, you know, learning, like not just understanding, okay, I had this thing, it went wrong, but it's like really going deep and being like, where and how did I fail and how do I consistently get better at that? And staffing is one of those things that you just get better and better and better at it the more you do it.
- [101:34]
Stephen Bartlett
I'm really obsessed about this idea of like truly exceptional people.
- [101:38]
Emma Grede
Truly exceptional people?
- [101:39]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah, like truly exceptional people. I was listening to something Steve Jobs was saying a couple of weeks ago. I'll throw it up on the screen for anybody.
- [101:45]
Emma Grede
I've built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and.
- [101:53]
Stephen Bartlett
Not settling for B and C players.
- [101:56]
Emma Grede
But really going for the A players.
- [101:57]
Stephen Bartlett
And I found something. I found that when you get enough A players together, when you go through the incredible work to find, you know, five of these A players, they really.
- [102:08]
Emma Grede
Like working with each other because they've.
- [102:10]
Stephen Bartlett
Never had a chance to do that.
- [102:11]
Emma Grede
Before and they don't want to work.
- [102:14]
Stephen Bartlett
With B and C players. And so it becomes self policing and they only want to hire more A players. And so you build up these pockets of A players and it propagates. Have you found that to be the case? And also I want to address another point here, which is the insecurity of an early stage founder who looks up and sees someone that's really experienced, experienced, and then they have that sort of self doubt and go, how the fuck am I going to manage them?
- [102:37]
Emma Grede
You know what, at the risk of disagreeing with anybody so prolific and amazing, I think as someone who has been able to move people between organizations or between companies, sometimes it can be the company that can make people great. You can have a truly exceptional person in a kind of dysfunctional company and then they don't do as well, right?
- [103:03]
Stephen Bartlett
Yeah.
- [103:03]
Emma Grede
Like you can bring in somebody not quite exceptional into an exceptional culture and company and the organization makes them Great.
- [103:14]
Stephen Bartlett
Makes them look great or makes them great?
- [103:15]
Emma Grede
No, makes them great. Because what people tend to do is level up, right? Whether you end up the average of the people that you surround yourself most. And I. I have, in some cases, brought people in. You know, I'd be like a B minus, and they've turned into an A. And I. The more I think about this, Stephen, the more I think that's happened on a number of occasions. And when the organization is exceptional and when the people there are doing exceptional work, they can actually level up the people. Now there have to be somebody that wants to level up for sure. But I've definitely seen it work that way.
- [103:49]
Stephen Bartlett
One of the things I think a lot about, it kind of dovetails into this a little bit. Cause I was referencing how we can sometimes be our own worst enemies and doubt ourselves away from, like, finding the truly exceptional person. So we ended up hiring our friends. Is the idea of.
- [104:01]
Emma Grede
I love this idea that you've hired friends. Who are these friends that you're hiring? Did you hire a bunch of friends? It's a terrible bloody idea. Eighteen, says me, who works with my husband.
- [104:11]
Stephen Bartlett
I was 18. And they weren't actually friends, but they weren't qualified. I just met them at, like, I met one guy at a Prada store, and I was like, you can be my account manager. And then I met some guy at, like, a rap battle, and I was like, you should be my marketing director.
- [104:22]
Emma Grede
And he's like, between Prada and the rap battle, I get it. I can see if these things weren't happening.
- [104:27]
Stephen Bartlett
No rigor in deciding who.
- [104:28]
Emma Grede
No, but that's what it comes down to. Like, rigor. Right. It's like you, again, you've developed systems and processes that have helped you get to where you are. And it's like, now I have a giant organization and a head of people that spend their life not, just, again, bringing people into the organization, but then making them great once they get there. I had no such thing. I don't think I knew where they HR was when I was in employment. I mean, who are they? Where are they? Some, I don't know, girl called Jo that sits in accounts. I don't know where she was. But I say that because we're in a different time now where there is such an ability for us to be more thoughtful about who we're bringing in. And so I think anyone who's really smart and any founder that's really smart is gonna use all the tools. All you need to do is know that. That it's a really important thing that you will do. Who those first three, five, ten people that you bring into your organization will be the difference between good and great. And so being slow and thoughtful and purposeful and using everything at your disposal to make those decisions is probably the best time that a founder can spend outside of developing products or whatever the end product is.
- [105:42]
Stephen Bartlett
How do you think about prejudice, Emma? What I really mean here is being counted out before you walk in the room so people hear that you're. It might be a woman or something else, and you feel that they're not taking you seriously. Has that happened in your career as a black person, as a woman, as anything that puts you in the minority as it relates to the accomplishments you've made? Actually not. I'm going to give you a bit more context as well.
- [106:08]
Emma Grede
Yeah, go on.
- [106:09]
Stephen Bartlett
It's because one of my fears.
- [106:10]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [106:11]
Stephen Bartlett
Is with some people, they count themselves out before they walk in the room because prejudice is real. So they limit themselves. And there's a really great study they did many, many years ago where they got a group of black people, I believe it was on a vocabulary test, just to talk about their race before they did the vocabulary test. And if they got them to talk about their race before their performance dropped, if they didn't get the group to talk about their race before, in a different stage study, performance was the same. They did the same with women. They got them to identify their gender before doing a math test. And because there's a stereotype around maths, or at least there was at the time in women, women on that test would perform worse if they talked about their gender right before they did the test. But importantly, if they didn't, the results were the same as everybody else. So stereotype threat is a real thing. And the unpopular conversation is there could be ways that we're holding ourselves back before we even walk into the room because of that stereotype threat. It could be age, it could be race, it could be gender, it could be anything else, it could be a disability. And I just wonder how you think about, like, you know, that.
- [107:21]
Emma Grede
I mean, look, it's undoubtable that that is real for so many people in their lives and the way they think about themselves. I think that any thoughtful organization has, and certainly in more recent times, if we think about what's happened in the last five years, anybody that didn't look at their company hiring process and beyond the hiring process, look around their business and see is it a true reflection of our customer base, of society, of what we're trying to achieve and who we want to be making decisions. We're talking about foolish companies here. I feel like anybody and everybody did that. Look, the great thing about prejudice is you very rarely know if it actually happened to you. Nobody likes to point out, they're like, listen, you didn't get this thing because actually I'm prejudiced against you. I'm sure it has happened. It's never something that for me, knowing how I'm hardwired, I would have let get to me in any way shape or, you know, I'd get in a room and would never feel any such like held back by my education, held back by my accent or anything like that or being a black woman. In fact, to the contrary to me, I always felt like it was a bit of an advantage. There was only one of me. I used to walk into these offices and work experience and everybody would always single me out because I was the only one that kind of looks like she might have a different opinion. Everyone kind from the same kind of, you know, like private school stock. And there I was with the accent, with the big curly hair black girl sitting in the corner. And inevitably they'd be like, what do you think? So, you know, it just played out differently for me. And therefore my experiences kind of are a reflection of that.
- [109:09]
Stephen Bartlett
That's what I wanted to know. I wanted to understand that because it's something that I really want to people to realize, which is like prejudice. Yes, it's real, as you said, but it doesn't have to be your problem. It can remain theirs.
- [109:25]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [109:26]
Stephen Bartlett
And I really worry that people will internalize other people's prejudice and then limit themselves.
- [109:32]
Emma Grede
Yeah. And I think this has a very different. Listen, you and I speak as two British people, right. I've lived here now for eight years. It ain't the same here in America.
- [109:42]
Stephen Bartlett
How'd you. What do you mean?
- [109:43]
Emma Grede
Well, the way people relate to race is extremely different here. And if I'd have been born in America, maybe I'd have had a different feeling about how the color of my skin impacted my life on a daily basis. Because it's very, very, very different here. And very much more prolific and a point of everyday, not just conversation, but everyday prejudice comes up and manifests itself in a very, very different way here with negative connotations. And so I thank God that I was raised in London. And I had a very, very different way of associate like how I felt about myself. I had a very, very different way of the way in which I was raised and, and how I experienced race as a kid.
- [110:40]
Stephen Bartlett
How you felt about yourself seems to be more internal than external in that regard. And that brings me to my next question, which is just about how do we not give so many fucks? Because it's hard to live and it's hard to strive and it's hard to take risk if we're imprisoned by the amount of fucks that we get.
- [110:56]
Emma Grede
Yeah, I feel like this is like my speciality, you know, it's really interesting because so much of that is just like in us, right. It's like hardwired who we are and how many fucks we give. And I just so happen to be the type of person that has such sort of self assurance and such conviction that I don't care or I just have. I have such high. It's not that I don't care. I just have such a high value on how much I care about what I. That maybe what other people think just kind of like pales into insignificance for me. That's the honest truth. And so I just have very, very high self worth.
- [111:42]
Stephen Bartlett
I've heard you talk before about how as well we kind of misunderstand how much people actually give a fuck about us.
- [111:47]
Emma Grede
I think about that all the time because it's just one of those things that we just imagine that people spend a lot of time crafting tastes, texts to us that you would like sit and be like, what did they mean by that? You know, like it was sent. Do you know what I mean? Like, I didn't even think about the words. And then now you know whether I was using caps or the wrong emojis or like whatever it is. And I do think that there is this thing that we imagine because we're at the center of our universe, that we're at the center of everybody else's. And it's just not the truth. Nobody's watching you. Like, I think about it all the time. Nobody wakes up and thinks about me as much as I. I can feel like it. You just gotta relax. Well, maybe it feels like it for you, but I just don't think that anybody's that interested.
- [112:31]
Stephen Bartlett
It doesn't feel like it for me. But when you were in the. I think humans, like from an evolutionary perspective, we're like. Our brain is built to deal with like 20 tribes people.
- [112:41]
Emma Grede
Yeah. Yeah.
- [112:42]
Stephen Bartlett
So we interpret. We have a. Probably hardwired to our fault of being. Interpreting everything as coming from a member of the tribe.
- [112:50]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [112:51]
Stephen Bartlett
Whereas in reality it could be like Dave and Swindon with like an egg Emoji. Who's telling you that those jeans suck. Suck.
- [112:59]
Emma Grede
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Listen. And David Swindon is, like, allowed to have his egg emoji. I just don't think his egg emoji needs to, like, ruin my day. I'm like, poor fucker. Like, what's he doing? How embarrassing.
- [113:12]
Stephen Bartlett
One of the next seasons of life I find myself moving towards quickly is Perry.
- [113:17]
Emma Grede
Mmm.
- [113:19]
Stephen Bartlett
When did you start trying and what was your fertility journey like?
- [113:23]
Emma Grede
I love that you asked this. And I was. I'm very surprised that you are. I had the most easy, unbelievable, brilliant fertility journey with my first two, and then probably the saddest, most disappointing, hardest time in my life with the second two. And so it really was a tale of two halves. Cause I have an 11 and an eight year, and, you know, without too much information, I, like, literally, you know, came off the pill and poof, I was pregnant, which amazing. 31. I had gray when. Yeah, so 30. 30 years old, you know, had got married. Actually had zero ambition to ever have kids, ever. And then it was like one of those fairy tale things where I literally walked down the aisle and was like, oh, my God, I just can't wait to have a baby. What is going on here? No, I don't know who that girl was. So I got pregnant very easy with my first child. Couple of years later, had my second child. You know, life happens, move to the U.S. everything's like, you know, going fantastic. I decide baby number three, come off the pill again. And I'm like, wait in. Da, da, da, da, da. Wait in again. And it doesn't happen. And so I'm like, honey, you need to go and get yourself checked. Okay? You know, so we do the things that you do when you don't get pregnant so easily. And there was just no explanation for my infertility. And so I went through a few rounds of ivf. And for me, you know, what age is this? Sorry.
- [114:58]
Stephen Bartlett
Just so I can.
- [114:59]
Emma Grede
So I am at this point. How old am I now? I'm 42. The kids are three. So 38.
- [115:05]
Stephen Bartlett
You're 38?
- [115:06]
Emma Grede
I'm 30. 38. So I'm, you know, I'm not, like, quite yet a geriatric pregnancy, as they like to call it in this country, when a woman over the age of, you know, 40 has a baby. But I'm skimming, right? I'm on the edge of where fertility starts to become, you know, more of an issue. And anyway, for me, it was devastating because I really, really had something. And I'm sure So many women will tell you this once you've made up your, your mind that you're having another baby. That was it for me then. It was just like, well, how is this going to happen? And I was so lucky in some ways that I was here in, you know, I lived in Beverly Hills at the time. Access to the best doctors was like so, so easy. And so I went on what would become a journey through ivf. And it was one of the hardest, most soul destroying times of my life. I couldn't think about anything else. You know, you could be like, emma, what do you want for dinner tonight? I'd be like a baby. You know, like, I just, I just was single track. Like, all I could think about was, I need this, I need to be pregnant.
- [116:14]
Stephen Bartlett
Why soul destroying?
- [116:16]
Emma Grede
You know, it was soul destroying because I went through multiple rounds of ivf and every single time for me, actually it did work out. But then I lost, I lost a baby three times. And it was really, it was just awful, you know, and for me it happened at nine weeks, 11 weeks and 16 weeks. And so, you know, at that point, 16 weeks, you're about to tell people you are, you know, you think you're past the sort of danger zone, so to speak. Something in my heart told me that it wasn't going to work out for me. Like I actually think I knew deep down, but you're doing all the things, you know, I'm having the acupuncture and the doctors all feel great about it. And of course, you know, you have IVF and then it's successful. You're like, great, now I'm pregnant, I'm having a baby. And so that, that loss was just, it was so hard to deal with. And again, you know, it was a very isolating time because it was like, like Covid. I was on my, like driving in a, you know, in gloves and hazmat suit. You know, it was like the time when we really didn't know and you know, and the roads were empty and it was tough. You know, police would pull you over and I'd be like, I'm going to the IVF clinic. Which was like one of the few things that you were allowed to be on the road and driving around for. So it was just very, very difficult. But, you know, I had a happy ending. And so for me, my journey ended in something that I never thought would be a way that I would go. But I ended up deciding that I would have a surrogate. And I met an incredible woman and she carried my twins which was the, like, single biggest thing that anyone can ever do. You're like, what? Like, this is so crazy. And it was amazing. I had, like, such a profound, incredible pregnancy with this amazing, wonderful woman who, beyond what our contractual commitment was, you know. Cause you hear horror stories, like, she asked me for. It was a beautiful, amazing partnership. And my twins were born via surrogacy, and that was that.
- [118:24]
Stephen Bartlett
Complicated emotions, no.
- [118:26]
Emma Grede
And, you know, I have to tell you, Stephen, I love to like. And maybe I approached it more like a bit of a. Like, I was very transactional about it.
- [118:34]
Stephen Bartlett
Not the surrogacy. No, in the moment before.
- [118:37]
Emma Grede
Oh, beyond, beyond, beyond complicated emotions. Because you are. You know, I've had pregnancies, pregnancy loss before, before I decided to have children. You know, I've had a complicated. As so many women have, a complicated fertility journey. It was emotions that were, I would say, too hard to bear. And for somebody who's used to being able to get her way and work towards things being as they should be, and to me, it's like the amount of effort I put in directly correlates to the result. And there was no surprise. You could have all the shots and all the acupuncture and do everything that you're supposed to do. Not work out too much. Don't go in a sauna, you know, like, be an angel, Eat all of the right things. And still I couldn't, you know, hold onto the pregnancy. So to me, it was just something that I couldn't.
- [119:25]
Stephen Bartlett
I couldn't bear in that moment. Are there any, like. Are there decisions that you wish you'd made, or is there something you'd wish you'd known? Because we don't talk about this enough, so people end up going through this themselves.
- [119:37]
Emma Grede
You know what I'll tell you? I wish I'd have spoken about it more with all of my friends that had gone through it. And I will tell you this story. I was a couple of summers ago. You know, I'm often the person people confide in, and I happened to be. I won't say where I was in this place. Very confined, like, on a boat. And all of the women were in some type of fertility thing. Like, they had different things going on. And I looked around and I knew I was the only one of all five of us that knew everybody's thing. And I was like, we could be having such a good conversation now, right? Like, it would be so rich and so useful, because, again, like, there was somebody that had, like, had kids by ivf. There was someone who had just come from somewhere. There was somebody that was in the middle of, like, diagnosing endometriosis, and there was somebody who was pregnant, but not telling everyone she was pregnant because it was IVF and she'd had all the problems. But anyway, like, everybody had their own unique circumstances. And I. I was like, in a group of women where we discuss. I won't even say what we discuss, but we discuss every single thing. That. That is, like, the last taboo. It says something about your womanhood. That it would be such a deeply held secret and something that you just can't discuss is such a shame. And I'm not saying that that's what it is for all women and all groups of friends, but it's definitely. It's definitely something that people really, really struggle with talking about. And certainly for me, going down the surrogacy route, I really felt an element of. I wouldn't say shame, but it was like, why I was willing to do this myself, like, why couldn't I? You know, I should have just been able to do it. I was ready, you know, at 38, to, like, have to, like, go back on the workouts and, you know, like, you know, figure myself out again. And so I felt like I'd been robbed of an opportunity to do something. And then, you know, coming out of it, I was like, wow, that was such a profound experience. I would never have had had all of these things not happened. And so, in a weird way, I was just kind of grateful for the opportunity to have been, you know, to have been able to see how selfless, like, another human being could be.
- [121:53]
Stephen Bartlett
Were you aware of the biological clock in the way that people are now aware of. Of it back then?
- [121:58]
Emma Grede
Yeah, I was. Although I have to tell you that there's nothing, you know, for most women, we spend all of our time thinking about how to not get pregnant. It's just like, you know, I just want to, like, not get pregnant forever until it's your moment that you want to get pregnant. And then there's this second moment where it's like, it's no longer your choice, and the window's really, really narrow. And so I. You know, again, I have hundreds of women in my office, and I mentioned to you at the start of this conversation, you know, there was some fertility seminar yesterday. I think that there's still so many myths around it. You know, there is no good time. You can freeze eggs, but it's not like freezing embryos. It's very different. Right. And so the idea that the Decision is all ours is just not realistic. And that there is a window and it is narrow, and it is something that you. You have to think about. And I think there are a lot of women that know that they don't want children, that's fine. But if you do, it's really something that you ought to be more planful of, because it's bloody difficult, and it's not how you think.
- [123:04]
Stephen Bartlett
Thank you. Thank you for talking about that, because as you say, there's not enough people that talk about it. And actually, had I not had the access to information on doing this podcast and meeting these women who have been very open about it, I would. I would have had no idea. And I would have probably found myself in a bit of a struggle because me and my partner weren't thinking about that. No, we're thinking about getting the bag. We're thinking about building our business.
- [123:27]
Emma Grede
Of course you are.
- [123:27]
Stephen Bartlett
And we're 32 now, so when I hear people like you say, listen, if this is something you want, then plan, make a plan. And I don't think many people listening actually have a plan for children. They see it as the thing they'll get round to when they're ready. But this clock, man, it's like, is.
- [123:44]
Emma Grede
The clock is ticking.
- [123:46]
Stephen Bartlett
I've got an idea. I think you should start a podcast, Stephen.
- [123:51]
Emma Grede
Whatever you say, I will do. It's a great idea. Let's go. What should it be called?
- [123:57]
Stephen Bartlett
I think you should call it Aspire.
- [123:59]
Emma Grede
That is great.
- [123:59]
Stephen Bartlett
I think you should launch it in May, Stephen.
- [124:03]
Emma Grede
How does that sound? So incredibly smart and thoughtful.
- [124:06]
Stephen Bartlett
Thank you, Emma.
- [124:06]
Emma Grede
And I feel like if my podcast could be born here and be just half the podcast that you. You have, I think you can do it even better.
- [124:16]
Stephen Bartlett
I think you can level up. This is what you said. You said people come and see something, then they level up, so they level up. Why podcasting? So your podcast launches in May. It's called Aspire. What are you trying to achieve? What's the mission there?
- [124:29]
Emma Grede
Yeah, you know, and I'm so glad that you asked a question like that, because for me, it is a little bit of a mission. And I think that the more success I've had, and I'm sure this is very similar to you, and you've mentioned it on a few occasions, and actually, I remember being out with you in Manchester. Do you remember when we had to, like, walk, like, from the studio to the bar, wherever we were doing that thing? And, you know, it's, like, inundated with people and questions and People just wanted, like, just get, like, this one thing that they're trying to figure out across the line and say, like, stephen, like, how does. How do I do this? And so that happens to me all the time, wherever I go. And I've made it a habit of mine in the morning, on the way to the work to just, like, jump on the phone to someone for half an hour. I do it almost every day, four days out of five, and I'll speak to some founder and give them, like, 30 minutes of whatever it is that I can. And so the podcast was honestly, from the beginning about figuring out, like, how can I scale mentorship? How can you get to this place where all of these people that want to ask me questions can actually get some answers from me? And, you know, the podcasting was not the first thing that came to my head, but the more I looked into it, because I am a huge podcast listener. I listen to so many podcasts. But it's kind of interesting that for such a kind of broad space, there is kind of such a narrow point of view in so many ways. There's so many men hosting podcasts, and when we start to think about business, it becomes even more male dominant. And so in my head, I was like, well, I just have a very different point of view. I have very different experience. I have a very different, you know, access. And what's been so interesting is all the people I called out to do a podcast, they'd never done a podcast before.
- [126:14]
Stephen Bartlett
Really?
- [126:14]
Emma Grede
Yeah. Everyone that I was like, hey, would you come on? They were like, I've never done this. And I was like, well, that's interesting. And immediately, even just from that kind of casting point of view, I was like, oh, maybe I have a distinct point of view that could be interesting here, but all I want to do is very, very simply is take what I've learned and take the people that I know and have it be impactful, because I feel like everyone aspires to something. Everybody wants to build the life of their dreams. And so I was really thinking about this as something that maybe if I could facilitate conversations and tell people more about the journey that I've been on and be really thoughtful about what it takes. Right. Because I just feel like, again, in, like, the female, like, media landscape, there's so much toxic positivity, and I'm like, babe, you're not gonna be able to manifest your way there. Like, I'll tell you the truth. If you wanna listen and if you're willing to put the work in, like, all of these things could be, you know, applicable and, you know, you could have access. And so that's what I wanna do. I wanna just. That's like, do things how I do them. Be honest with people, bring in people that I know and be honest about my journey. And I'm excited to do it. Like, it's been. I've done a couple of episodes and I'm like, just having a chat.
- [127:32]
Stephen Bartlett
I think of all the things you've done in your life. I think the more and more that you find yourself in the public eye and the more of the work that you do on your podcast especially, I think that is ultimately going to be the greatest part of your legacy. And I say that because there is nobody else able and capable of occupying that space that I can see. There is no one who comes from where you come from, who has been on the journey that you've been on, both in the UK and in the US that's clients both mountains that is relatable, even though that they're so high up the mountain. That is had to contend with some of the things you've contended with, which many women and men contend with, which is like parenthood and family, that is articulate, that is seasoned across a variety of different environments and spaces. That is also a black woman. There is nobody. And if you reflect on you as that young girl looking up at open Oprah or me, like looking up at Jamal Edwards, it was so important. It was the kernel of belief that stays in your mind that says, if they can, there's no reason I can't. And I've said this to my team before a ton of times over the last couple of months about you. I'm like, there's no other Emma. So she almost has a responsibility to that gap. Because you've done incredible things in your life. You've done so much philanthropic work, which I'll put all in the description below, to help so many people. But it's not lost on me that, like, the older I've gotten, just seeing someone that you can, that makes you realize that that brings down those, like, limiting beliefs that you have or that society has has passed to. You could go on to create 100,000 emmas, and that it's hard to think of a more like, astonishing, important legacy than. Than that like the 10 million emmas that you will come create. And so I'm so glad you're doing this because I've said to my team a ton of times, I was like, there's not. There's not another Emma. There's not someone else that could occupy that position. So it's so important that you're successful in it and it's so important that you continue to do it. So. So thank you for that.
- [129:52]
Emma Grede
That means so much.
- [129:54]
Stephen Bartlett
It's so true though. I say it all the time behind your back. I'm like, there's not another one. There's only Emma. So she has to not has to. Because it's not, it's not an obligation, but it's a responsibility.
- [130:02]
Emma Grede
It's a responsibility. I think it's one that I'm taking really serious because I feel like there is an amazing opportunity there. And if you take anything seriously and you apply yourself and you think about like, who are you here to serve? You know, And I think about that every day. I told you, it's like I'm obsessed with customers, I'll be obsessed with listeners. And at the end of the day I just want to do something where it's like, it's just about doing a good job. Right now. I'm obsessed with, of like, what is the content that you put out? How do you have a conversation that's not currently being had? And I feel like there are such incredible people like yourself that are having beautiful conversations that are actually moving us forward in ways. You know, it's like, you know, I text you when you have an amazing episode. I'm like, oh, I appreciate it. I love that episode. And I'm so proud that, you know, you could be and like black guy from England who's doing these things, who's at the top of the charts. And I look at that and I think that's so important. And so for me it's like, it's interesting to think about how this could be important for a certain group of people right now.
- [131:13]
Stephen Bartlett
It's gonna be important beyond what you'll ever see or realize or understand or be able to measure. Here's hoping and you know, you know that if that 15 year old Emma there had seen this Emma, what that would have meant to her.
- [131:26]
Emma Grede
Yeah.
- [131:26]
Stephen Bartlett
You know what that would have meant to her?
- [131:27]
Emma Grede
Quite a lot. Exactly.
- [131:29]
Stephen Bartlett
We have a closing tradition here, Emma, where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question that's been left is, what about you is better or has vastly improved because of the person who loves you the most. Most. Who loves you the most?
- [131:54]
Emma Grede
Well, Jens loves me the most, doesn't he? More than, more than my mom. More than my lovely mom. You know, I would say, whether it was my mom or it was Jens, you know, when you are. When you're so loved, you know, And I feel like someone who is so loved, you know, my sisters love me, my. My kids love me, my mum really loves me, Jens loves me. You have, like, such capacity, right? And that's what I always feel, you know, when I think about what it is that kind of, like, keeps me going and gets me up. I have such a huge capacity for more. I have such a, like, huge capacity to give, to put the work in, to. To receive, to make things better. And I honestly think that that is what's happened to me, that I've, like, my ability has just grown so much and continues, and my capacity just keeps growing. And it's a really interesting thing as you get older, to see that, like, happen within you, you know, because we always talk about, like, having insane energy in our 20s. And then, you know, it's like, I'm 42 now, and I think I have more capacity for learning, for giving, for being, you know, open to new things than I've ever had in my life. And I think that that is because I'm really loved. And it's so interesting. I don't think it's about what I've achieved. I don't think it's about anything else. I think that I know, I feel so safe and so secure and so safe that I can do anything. Because even the biggest mistakes, like these people, they'll always love me. Like, it's totally fine, whatever I do. So it's like, I would say that.
- [133:46]
Stephen Bartlett
That'S a beautiful thing. Emma, thank you so much.
- [133:49]
Emma Grede
Thank you, darling.
- [133:49]
Stephen Bartlett
I'm a huge fan of your pleasure. What a pleasure every way. And you're like a big sister to me and I really appreciate our relationship and long may it continue. So thank you so much.
- [133:56]
Emma Grede
I hope so. I'm so proud of you. I really am. I look at everything you're doing, doing, and I'm so happy that you're here in America, about to take it over. Come on, babes, no pressure.
- [134:12]
Stephen Bartlett
I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button. Wherever you're listening to this, I would like to make a deal with you. If you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better. And better and better. I can't tell you how much it helps. When you hit that subscribe button, the show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see, and continue to doing this thing we love. If you could do me that small favor and hit the follow button wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me. That is the only favor I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time.
- [134:58]
Emma Grede
Oh.