0
SPEAKER_00
Parents, if you ve ever experienced bedtime battles with the kids, I m gonna let you into a little secret.
0
SPEAKER_00
The Koala Moon podcast has revolutionized over 20 million bedtimes, with parents like you calling it life-changing and the perfect nighttime routine.
0
SPEAKER_00
With original kids  bedtime stories and cozy sleep meditations, every episode has been specially designed to make bedtimes a dream.
0
SPEAKER_00
Listen to Koala Moon on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_02
Hey, everybody, welcome to Across Generations, where the voices of Black women unite.
0
SPEAKER_02
I m your host, Tiffany Cross.
0
SPEAKER_02
Join me and be a part of sisterhood, friendship, wisdom, and laughter.
0
SPEAKER_02
We gather a seasoned elder, myself as the middle generation, and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations, prepare to engage or hear perspectives that literally no one else has had.
0
SPEAKER_02
Listen to Across Generations podcasts on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_03
Imagine you asked two people the same seven questions.
0
SPEAKER_03
I m Minnie Driver, and this was the idea I set out to explore in my podcast, Minnie Questions.
0
SPEAKER_03
This year, we bring a whole new group of guests to answer the same seven questions, including Courtney Cox, Rob Delaney, Liz Phair, and many, many more.
0
SPEAKER_03
Join me on season three of Minnie Questions on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_03
Seven questions, limitless answers.
0
SPEAKER_01
This episode is brought to you by Masterclass, and I ve got some exciting news.
0
SPEAKER_01
This month, my Masterclass on navigating change is live on the Masterclass platform.
0
SPEAKER_01
Go to masterclass.com forward slash navigate change to tune in now.
0
SPEAKER_04
When you are chasing a dream, you re going to be happy about a third of the time.
0
SPEAKER_04
I have lost and failed more times than I ve succeeded.
0
SPEAKER_04
We don t talk about that.
0
SPEAKER_04
I felt like it was the end of, like, my company and my career, but it wasn t.
0
SPEAKER_04
It was just a failure.
0
SPEAKER_02
One of America s richest self-made women.
0
SPEAKER_04
Fashion and business powerhouse, Emma Green.
0
SPEAKER_04
I spent such a huge part of my life being so crippled by fear for so long, that held me back.
0
SPEAKER_04
It was rough.
0
SPEAKER_01
Before we jump into this episode, I d like to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews that will help you become happier, healthier, and more healed.
0
SPEAKER_01
All I want you to do is click on the subscribe button.
0
SPEAKER_01
I love your support.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s incredible to see all your comments, and we re just getting started.
0
SPEAKER_01
I can t wait to go on this journey with you.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thank you so much for subscribing.
0
SPEAKER_01
It means the world to me.
0
SPEAKER_02
The best-selling author and host.
0
SPEAKER_02
The number one health and wellness podcast.
0
SPEAKER_02
On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
0
SPEAKER_01
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to become happier, healthier, and more healed.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know that my goal is to introduce you to incredible thinkers, thought leaders, people who are making an impact and a difference in the world, rule breakers, people who are changing the way we think, lead, and live.
0
SPEAKER_01
And today s guest is someone I ve wanted on for a long, long time.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I m very excited that I finally have her sitting opposite me.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m talking about the one and only Emma Greed, CEO and co-founder of Good American, the first fully inclusive fashion brand that celebrates all dimensions of female power.
0
SPEAKER_01
In October 2016,
0
SPEAKER_01
Emma launched Good American alongside Khloe Kardashian.
0
SPEAKER_01
What started as the largest denim launch in history, Good American is now an iconic, inclusive fashion line of denim, ready-to-wear, swim, shoes, and activewear.
0
SPEAKER_01
Emma is also a founding partner and chief product officer of Skims, a solutions-oriented brand creating the next generation of underwear, loungewear, and shapewear.
0
SPEAKER_01
You already knew that.
0
SPEAKER_01
and co-founder of Safely, an accessible premium home care brand dedicated to creating high quality plant-based cleaning products.
0
SPEAKER_01
Emma is now recognized as one of America s richest self-made women by Forbes and serves as chairwoman of the 15% Pledge and also as a board member of Baby 2 Baby.
0
SPEAKER_01
And for me, beyond all of this, I m just happy to be sitting with a fellow Brit in LA and just so grateful, Emma, because I ve been watching you, I ve been following you,
0
SPEAKER_01
your energy, whether it s a picture or a video, is so magnetic and so real.
0
SPEAKER_01
And now I meet you in person, I m like, it s amazing.
0
SPEAKER_01
So thank you.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for being here.
0
SPEAKER_04
Honestly, I could not be more happy to be here.
0
SPEAKER_04
A, definitely because you re a fellow Brit, but I have been listening and watching and reading you for so long.
0
SPEAKER_04
This is like the thing that I ve been most excited about for the longest time.
0
SPEAKER_04
So thank you for having me today.
0
SPEAKER_01
Very happy.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s a big like tick.
0
SPEAKER_01
for me i m like yes let s do it oh you re the sweetest and i want you to know literally my whole team was so excited you were coming today everyone is such major fans i can t even imagine that even when you say i m like really it s true oh no
0
SPEAKER_01
I want to go back to, I remember that you and Chloe were doing a live years ago.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yes.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I literally just came on because I saw you both live and I came on and I was just saying, hey guys, you know, like just being friendly.
0
SPEAKER_01
And we were like, wow!
0
SPEAKER_01
You both shifted the entire, I just want everyone to understand this.
0
SPEAKER_01
They re on a live talking about their incredible brand that is like crushing it.
0
SPEAKER_01
And little old me comes on.
0
SPEAKER_01
We re like, yay!
0
SPEAKER_01
We love him!
0
SPEAKER_01
And it was the sweetest thing.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, and I was like, how did I felt terrible?
0
SPEAKER_01
So I logged off.
0
SPEAKER_01
It was so sweet.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I was just like, how conscious and kind and thoughtful.
0
SPEAKER_01
And anyway, I want to dive straight into your incredible journey.
0
SPEAKER_01
That s why we re here today to understand you, the human behind this incredible journey and incredible story.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I want to start off with what is your earliest childhood memory that you think is indicative and defines who you are today?
0
SPEAKER_04
That is such a brilliant question.
0
SPEAKER_04
This is what you do, right?
0
SPEAKER_04
You ask the best questions.
0
SPEAKER_04
I m so glad you re going to say, why did you start Good American?
0
SPEAKER_04
You know, it s so interesting.
0
SPEAKER_04
I come from East London and, you know, East London is like, you know, it s like coming from like Long Beach, Inglewood or Brooklyn.
0
SPEAKER_04
Do you know what I mean?
0
SPEAKER_04
It s like, it s the street.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s the part of London that when, you know, if you go back,
0
SPEAKER_04
30 years ago when I was a kid is just not the place where you would happily hang out.
0
SPEAKER_04
I had a fantastic upbringing there, you know, and I think it s very defining.
0
SPEAKER_04
East London has been very defining of me, my personality.
0
SPEAKER_04
You were really raised to, you know, in a community, to have huge respect for the people around you, huge trust actually for the people around you, but it was pretty devoid of any aspiration and certainly any glamour.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I was one of those kids that just kind of grew up like,
0
SPEAKER_04
always kind of looking at what could be next and what was in my future.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I just fell into this like fashion magazine land, you know, it s like I would do my paper out, I d get the money from that, I d spend it on an issue of like Vogue or Elle or Marie Claire.
0
SPEAKER_04
And it was that great moment, sort of late 80s, early 90s in England, where we had, you know, so many incredible movements, you know, Brit pop, Brit art, but all of those supermodels, you know, it s like Naomi and Kate Moss.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I saw that as a means of escapism.
0
SPEAKER_04
I never thought about it as a potential for a job, but I was like, let me just lift out of where I am and aspire to something that was beautiful and aspirational, because I couldn t see that anywhere around me.
0
SPEAKER_04
when I think about my childhood, I think partially about this piece of like East London where there s an honesty and an authenticity and a level of just like being the person that you say you are, like living by a certain set of values.
0
SPEAKER_04
And then this other part that was like, get me out of there.
0
SPEAKER_04
Do you know what I mean?
0
SPEAKER_04
And that s the honesty of it, really.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and where do you think that comes from?
0
SPEAKER_01
I think some people are like, you know, we ve become products of our environment.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so if some people are in a group of people or in an area that is unambitious or not striving, it s easy to fold into that.
0
SPEAKER_01
Where did that come for you personally?
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, was it someone in your life?
0
SPEAKER_01
Was it something you read?
0
SPEAKER_01
Was it the magazines?
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, where did that belief come that there could be more, there may be more, there is another place to go to?
0
SPEAKER_04
You know, I think that it must have come from my mom in some ways, because I honestly, I didn t know anyone that owned their own business.
0
SPEAKER_04
Everywhere I come from, everyone worked a job and you work for somebody else.
0
SPEAKER_04
And jobs were seen as exactly that.
0
SPEAKER_04
There was no career, there was no vocation, there was no like purposeful doing of what you do.
0
SPEAKER_04
It s like you get up, you went to work, you probably found it miserable and you try to get out of there as quickly as you could.
0
SPEAKER_04
And for me, I really thought that, you know, there has to be a better way to live.
0
SPEAKER_04
I was like, shouldn t there be some excitement and enjoyment?
0
SPEAKER_04
But I don t know where I got it from.
0
SPEAKER_04
The sense of value and the sense of ambition has always been in me.
0
SPEAKER_04
And people always say to me, you know, like,
0
SPEAKER_04
How did you get to where you are?
0
SPEAKER_04
And I go, well, it s much more simple than people think.
0
SPEAKER_04
You know, it s like, I really value myself and I really value my goals.
0
SPEAKER_04
And I don t think it s much more complicated than that.
0
SPEAKER_04
But I was taught that by my mom, who was very, very much like, listen, Emma, you re not better than anybody else, but nor is anyone better than you.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so when people talk about imposter syndrome, I look around, I m like, that s just made up.
1
SPEAKER_00
We all feel exactly the same, like deep, deep down.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that sense of me feeling like I could achieve was just built in.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve never felt a lack of confidence.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve never felt less than.
1
SPEAKER_00
I always felt like if I worked hard enough,
1
SPEAKER_00
and I really put everything into it that I could achieve.
1
SPEAKER_00
I still feel like that today.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t expect things to be easy, but I ve never had a sense of, I couldn t.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, what a great way for your mum to set you up.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like, what an amazing recipe.
1
SPEAKER_01
But no, it s beautiful to hear that because I love that perspective of no one s better than you and you re not better than anyone.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like that s such a great equaliser.
1
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the two things are really important, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because I grew up with such a respect for everybody else around me, regardless of like where they come from or, you know, what they were doing.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that, you know, as a kid, I was surrounded by a lot of people that were
1
SPEAKER_00
doing what they had to do to get through the day.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I never looked down on anyone.
1
SPEAKER_00
I always thought, well, you know what, as long as you are doing something, you find an interest in something.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for me, that came at a very early age in fashion, but it was much more a means of escapism than me sitting there and like really appreciating the clothing or the craft.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was like, it was a means to dream.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And tell me about, you touched on it there, but I want to talk about your first job.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I like doing this with people because what s really interesting to me is people forget, especially when someone s at the peaks of their careers and achieving incredible things.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like when people ask you the question of like, how did you get to where you are?
1
SPEAKER_01
it almost takes away from the fact that there was a first job that wasn t this CEO.
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, especially now, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because we have this idea through like social media that everything happens overnight.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think, you know, it s like I ve been grafted in a way since I was 12 years old and like, boom, I get some success at 40 and people think you re an overnight success.
1
SPEAKER_00
I have worked every job imaginable.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had a paper round when I was 12 until I was 15.
1
SPEAKER_00
I worked in a delicatessen.
1
SPEAKER_00
I worked in clove shops.
1
SPEAKER_00
I served in restaurants.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I ve done every job in fashion that you could do at the lowest possible level imaginable while not being paid, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I ve done all of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
But actually for me, you know, when you talk about people and your point of view on life, like I am a naturally positive, of a naturally positive distribution, disposition.
1
SPEAKER_00
I always am a person that thinks about the glass being half full.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so even when I worked in that deli and I was making a sandwich, I was going to make you the best turkey sandwich you ve ever had in your life.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I would wait and look at you and be like, how good is that sandwich?
1
SPEAKER_00
Is that an amazing sandwich?
1
SPEAKER_00
I chose the best light amount of turkey with the right amount of the pickle and I d make it look nice and I d cut it beautifully like on the plate.
1
SPEAKER_00
And do you know what I mean?
1
SPEAKER_00
So for me, I can take pride
1
SPEAKER_00
in anything and I also take a huge amount of learnings from everything so for me it s like I used to think well one day like this will be useful to me like one day learning how to make a perfect cappuccino or making a customer happy or discussing how things work in a shop or a delicatessen will be useful to me and I actually think about all of those experiences as being very formative and I enjoyed all of them you know it s like I ve just
1
SPEAKER_00
I ve really worked and I think everybody talks so much about hard work, but they don t really talk about like unenjoyable work.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had a lot of unenjoyable jobs that I just had to get through, but I never, ever let it put me off.
1
SPEAKER_00
I always saw them as a means to the end, you know.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I think when we talk about that now, like what does hard work actually means?
1
SPEAKER_00
It means getting up and thinking about the end goal when you re nowhere even close to it, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
But you can see a pathway.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for me, it was always about that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I could always see very clearly that I m gonna do that to get to that, to get to that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I ve been quite planned, I feel in so many ways in my life.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I m so glad you raised that point because I feel the same way that you don t have to love a job to learn from it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think we all are thinking, well, I hate my job.
1
SPEAKER_01
I dislike it.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s the worst.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a waste of time.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m in the wrong place.
1
SPEAKER_01
But actually, if you just shift that to be like, what can I learn?
1
SPEAKER_01
What experience do I not have?
1
SPEAKER_00
How can I interact?
1
SPEAKER_00
How do I not want to behave?
1
SPEAKER_00
Like this boss drives me crazy.
1
SPEAKER_00
I ll never be this boss.
1
SPEAKER_00
I remember I had a boss like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I used to literally write down in the back of my book, like you should never, ever speak to people like that or call someone out in that way.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s been so formative of what type of leader I want to be.
1
SPEAKER_00
But the two things for me haven t been mutually exclusive, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
I think that you can
1
SPEAKER_00
Two things can be true at the one time.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can be unashamedly ambitious and focused on what it is that you need while also being an inspiring and empathic leader who lifts other people up.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I ve been thinking about those type of things since I ve been a boss, you know, for the last 15 years as a direct reflection of what I didn t experience when I was an employee.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I actually think, God, all of those experiences were really good for me because now I know what I don t want to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_01
I did a paper round too by the way.
1
SPEAKER_00
Did you?
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, that was my first ever job.
1
SPEAKER_00
That was heavy work.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was such hard work.
1
SPEAKER_00
But that s where I feel like I got my appreciation for the mornings.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m such an early bird and I remember doing those paper rounds in the dark in England and it was kind of amazing because you d like, most houses were quiet and then you d see this one house where there s a little glimmer happening and I thought, I learned the power of the mornings from that particular job.
1
SPEAKER_00
getting out, getting a head start.
1
SPEAKER_00
I d go home, I d put on my school uniform before any of my sisters.
1
SPEAKER_00
I d be sitting there with a cup of tea while they were all like scrambling around.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, this early morning stuff, there s something to it.
1
SPEAKER_00
You know?
1
SPEAKER_01
That s interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I used to do mine in the evening.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, did you?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because I didn t have to do in the morning.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I do it after school.
1
SPEAKER_00
What about your people getting the papers?
1
SPEAKER_00
What happened to them?
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t know.
1
SPEAKER_00
They re a day behind.
1
SPEAKER_00
They waited you.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s what I was told to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t think anyone read the paper.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s amazing.
1
SPEAKER_01
But I would like, I d walk around with my headphones on.
1
SPEAKER_01
I d be listening to Eminem and I d have like this.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh I know that.
1
SPEAKER_00
I know that paper route.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah and I d have this like really weird looking like trolley that I d pull around and then I d have to take the papers into a bag.
1
SPEAKER_01
That bag stunted my growth.
1
SPEAKER_00
You are bringing me back.
1
SPEAKER_00
I believe that too.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have like a lopsided shoulder because of that bag.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was so bad.
1
SPEAKER_01
But yeah, I learned the same thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like for me, so all the kids in my area, what they used to do, the other kids who did the paper routes, they used to throw the papers off the edge of the train track or like in a bush or whatever it was.
1
SPEAKER_01
So then the guy who ran whatever company it was that did the paper routes, he said to me, he goes, Jay, you re the only reliable person I have.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I m going to give you all their streets.
1
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re like that, quits in.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re out here making money.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it was amazing.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it s, I love that you said that, that you learned, and I love the passion.
1
SPEAKER_01
I wish you were at my local deli.
1
SPEAKER_01
Like, and you know, that stuff still happens today.
1
SPEAKER_01
I interviewed, um, last year I was doing a show for YouTube and I interviewed this TikToker called Markel Washington.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, right.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if anyone doesn t know who he is, he s awesome, like great energy, super talented young guy.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he was, I think he worked in a subway.
1
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
1
SPEAKER_01
And he was, he used to dance and sing while he served.
1
SPEAKER_01
And not only did he used to upload that to TikTok, he got found that way.
1
SPEAKER_01
And now he s got this incredible career.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I love that energy of like back then when you were doing it and it took you maybe a lot longer to find that success.
1
SPEAKER_01
He was doing it more recently.
1
SPEAKER_01
He found it, but it s interesting to see that it s the same sort of,
1
SPEAKER_01
What was the hardest job that you did, the most unenjoyable, the most uncomfortable, where you actually looked at it and went, maybe this is not worth it?
1
SPEAKER_01
What was the one that pushed you to the edge?
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, you know, it s so interesting.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was probably the job that I did before starting my first company, because such a part of that, I worked in a fashion show production company, which
1
SPEAKER_00
If you imagine that I want to be in fashion, you think, yes.
1
SPEAKER_00
The reality of that is that you re building stages.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re working on this like concept of like, you know, whatever you re producing for three months, the show goes up and down in 10 minutes.
1
SPEAKER_00
Everybody goes off to the after party and you re doing D-Rig and you re like, oh!
1
SPEAKER_00
This is the worst job ever.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I transitioned into this role of like sponsorship, which was so formative for my, for the first business that I ever started because it was all about brand partnerships and marketing and collaboration.
1
SPEAKER_00
But my role at that point when you know nobody was just cold calling, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
So I would just have to like hit the phones and the rejection and you know, you can t help but take that person.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re like, I haven t made one connection today.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that I found so disheartening.
1
SPEAKER_00
But, you know, I even knew then I was like, this will be worth something because for every like little knockback you got, you know, every kind of three days, you d get one glimmer of hope and you take one meeting and out of those 10 meetings, maybe you d start one deal.
1
SPEAKER_00
And actually it was very, it was just like very telling about yourself.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like, what are you good at?
1
SPEAKER_00
And now I think, you know, as I think about entrepreneurship and because I meet so many founders, that skill of sales and storytelling, if you ain t got that, like you can t do this job.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can t you can t sell to investors.
1
SPEAKER_00
You can t craft a story to customers and you certainly can t get into the heart of like what makes a brand successful unless you can sell and storytell.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so again it s just one of those things that I had to go through but it was miserable getting there.
1
SPEAKER_00
Beyond miserable.
2
SPEAKER_01
I didn t realise how many different similarities we have in our background.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, really?
2
SPEAKER_01
So I worked at the business design centre for a bit.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, did you?
2
SPEAKER_01
And I did like internships then.
2
SPEAKER_01
I worked there over the summer and stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
And all I had to do was sit there and call to sell the stands.
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because you know, they d have all the different stands for like the bike show or the, there d be fashion shows.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s formative.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it really is.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I remember the cold call and I look back at that and I remember before then I was so, I was quite introverted, I was quite shy and then all of a sudden when you re doing like 300 cold calls a day.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s gone.
2
SPEAKER_01
It goes away and it s amazing how so much can be like removed from, not your personality, but this kind of fear and insecurities that we often have as a kid.
2
SPEAKER_00
A hundred percent.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like even now, you know, when I think about fear and what that s meant in my career so much, cause it s actually been helpful in so many ways.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I always think about myself now and I m like, you know, it s like,
2
SPEAKER_00
if I am not a little bit scared about what I m doing, like even coming here today, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like, then I m not growing.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I m not moving forward.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not going in the right direction.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so now I find myself looking for the fear.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, what can I do that s going to scare me?
2
SPEAKER_00
Cause like, I know how to make jeans.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can make you fantastic knickers all day long, but actually like branching out and trying to do something else
2
SPEAKER_00
is the stuff that keeps us as humans growing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think about that all the time because I spent such a huge part of my life being so crippled by fear and failing.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I was a school, I dropped out of school when I was 15 or 16.
2
SPEAKER_00
I can t actually remember.
2
SPEAKER_00
It must ve been 15.
2
SPEAKER_00
But, you know, that always left me with this kind of inferiority complex that I wasn t educated enough.
2
SPEAKER_00
I d work in London around all of these like very hoity-toity wonderful people that were fresh out of Cambridge and Oxford and had these wonderful educations.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I always felt a bit inferior for that.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I m gonna get caught.
2
SPEAKER_00
They re gonna find out that I don t, you know, have that educational background.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t speak in the right way.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I feel like for so long that held me back until I realized, no, no, no,
2
SPEAKER_00
That s my fuel.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s what makes me, me.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if I m not a little bit scared, now I find myself just actually looking for it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cause I know I need that fire in my belly, like the whole time.
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you ever feel that anyone ever made you feel inferior because of a lack of the formal education or was it an internal?
2
SPEAKER_00
I m sure they did, but it was much stronger, the internal voice, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I don t think anybody, you know what it s like when you re in London, there is such a class system, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
And people know immediately they, in this country, they think you and I sound like the
2
SPEAKER_00
And we know in reality, we don t babe.
2
SPEAKER_00
And in London, any English people listening to that, us, absolutely know that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so there is a ways that you open your mouth and immediately you re judging, you know exactly where I m from and you can attribute a set of circumstances to that.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I think it was much more about the voice in my own head.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think about that
2
SPEAKER_00
an awful lot now in the way that I ve set up my life and my businesses.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, I believe very much in this idea, like this rule of thirds, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
I think about it constantly.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, when you are doing something very difficult or you are chasing a dream, you re going to be happy about a third of the time, you re going to feel okay about a third of the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the other third of the time, you re going to feel pretty crappy.
2
SPEAKER_00
you are going to feel bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if the ratios get out of whack and things are not actually, you re too happy, you re probably not pushing yourself hard enough.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if, you know, you re actually spending too much time, you re probably not, you know, you re not thinking about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I do think that that leaning that I ve had my whole life, like the idea that I shouldn t be comfortable and happy all of the time actually really
2
SPEAKER_00
helps me so much.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think about that idea of the third and the third and the third, and it doesn t scare me anymore.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m like, Oh, I m just having one of the days that is my crappy day.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s okay.
2
SPEAKER_00
Cause what I m doing isn t straightforward.
2
SPEAKER_00
It isn t what everybody s doing and it s supposed to be difficult.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s supposed to be heavy.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s supposed to not be comfortable all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that for me has been a way that I can actually get through those times that are a bit more tricky.
2
SPEAKER_01
This segment is brought to you by Beyond Meat.
2
SPEAKER_01
Beyond Meat offers great plant-based alternatives for everyone.
2
SPEAKER_01
With an amazing range of offerings, Beyond Meat provides delicious options for meat eaters looking to incorporate more plant-based meals into their diet.
2
SPEAKER_01
They provide a good source of protein and are made with simple plant-based ingredients.
2
SPEAKER_01
I also love how accessible Beyond Meat is when I m traveling.
2
SPEAKER_01
When I m on the road for extended periods of times, it s comforting knowing that I can still access nutritious options outside of my home.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because Beyond Meat is available nationwide and at many local restaurants, I can find it almost everywhere I go.
2
SPEAKER_01
Whenever I m craving a burger, Veggie Grill is my go-to restaurant for a burger, which is made solely from Beyond Meat.
2
SPEAKER_01
When at home, Beyond Meat brings a whole new level of culinary excitement for anyone.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can make everything from classic tacos and comforting lasagnas to impressive dishes like steak miso ramen or buffalo chicken tenders.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s the perfect way to spice up your regular meals or dive into trying out fresh, adventurous recipes.
2
SPEAKER_01
And for anyone who loves cooking, their website has great resources and ideas.
2
SPEAKER_01
Beyond Meat s recipe section offers everything from grand feast recipes that fit for any celebration to quick hassle-free dishes that you can make in less than 20 minutes.
2
SPEAKER_01
What I also appreciate about Beyond Meat is their commitment to sustainability.
2
SPEAKER_01
Beyond Meat s approach significantly reduces the environmental footprint associated with traditional meat production.
2
SPEAKER_01
Their mission is to positively affect the planet, the environment, and the climate.
2
SPEAKER_01
According to a recent study Beyond Meat conducted, producing a Beyond Burger uses significantly less water, land, and energy, and it generates fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
2
SPEAKER_01
If you re looking for culinary inspiration, go to the recipe section at beyondmeat.com to learn more and find some great recipes just in time for the holidays or any celebration you have coming up.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s beyondmeat.com.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, I love that.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ve never heard someone say it like that before.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh really?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s such a unique way of thinking about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you said the thirds are okay, happy, and then terrible.
2
SPEAKER_01
And then terrible.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and that s so spot on and I ve never heard someone break it down like that simply.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well I am a very simple girl, you know.
2
SPEAKER_00
I have to break it down like that for myself.
2
SPEAKER_00
But you know, it s really helpful because I think in any part of your life, like there is, especially now because I work with so many people, there is this idea.
2
SPEAKER_00
And also, you know, I m a mom of four, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
So there is this part of me that s like, I just want my kids to be all right and to be happy all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like,
2
SPEAKER_00
actually know, because it s in those moments, and you know this more than anyone, of challenge, of difficulty, that s when you grow the most.
2
SPEAKER_00
But we shouldn t, rather than like trying to remove that from my children, or take those times away from my employees, or think that s not okay, it s like, no, no, no, guys, like, that s what it s about.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you re coasting through life and doing something that really simplistic, fine, you might just feel all right all the time.
2
SPEAKER_00
But I am so happy when the good is good, that I ll take the okay and the bad.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s worth it because it actually all comes out even in the end, you know.
2
SPEAKER_01
Sure.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you were chasing the dreams back in the day or like trying to build it up, were you dating?
2
SPEAKER_01
Did you care about that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Was that like, cause now obviously you have a beautiful family.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now you obviously have a beautiful family.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have a wonderful partner.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have four kids, as you said, like, but I wondered then, like, I feel like a lot of us spend a lot of our teens and our twenties thinking about love.
2
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
2
SPEAKER_01
Was that how you were too?
2
SPEAKER_00
A hundred percent.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I ve ever been without a boyfriend.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m a person that needs a someone.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I, you know, I went around a little bit and I m, I m very, I was very happy to settle down at 25, 26.
2
SPEAKER_00
I don t feel like I missed out, you know, because we started so early.
2
SPEAKER_00
I feel like, you know, I was like out in the clubs when I was 13, 14.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then I had this stint in Ibiza when I was asked to leave school.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, I ve had a lot of living before I got there.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I, I think that I ve always been someone that has chased love.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I love that feeling, but as you get older,
2
SPEAKER_00
you realize, you know, what that really means.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like today, it s like, I want to be loved back, but it s not all about that rush.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s like, I ve been with my husband now for 15 years, married for 11.
2
SPEAKER_00
And the things that I value have completely shifted, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like, and we ve been on a journey together.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that in life you need chapters and just as the same, you know, like in career and you need
2
SPEAKER_00
you know, needing transitions and to transform relationships need chapters like that too.
2
SPEAKER_00
The first five years, we traveled the world, we partied, we got drunk, we like did all the things that you do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then we went through a period of having children.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s extremely challenging on any relationship, especially while the two of you are enormously ambitious.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I think that what I have with my husband is this extremely unique partnership where
2
SPEAKER_00
he always understood that I was ambitious and I needed to do things and he s completely supported that and I think that the love that I have for him has grown exponentially because I ve still been able to chase all of my dreams outside of the relationship and the family structure while having someone really support me do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s it, yeah we won t go down the
3
SPEAKER_01
the stint in Ibiza.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, it s really fun.
3
SPEAKER_00
Calling part.
3
SPEAKER_00
No, I just feel like, you know, it s like you, you have, there s a part of my life where I think there was a need to escape, you know, and I found that I was a real club kid.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s what I enjoyed.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to go out.
3
SPEAKER_00
For me, it was actually never about getting smashed, but it was like the music and those super late nights and the, like that whole community of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I was friends with the DJs and the MCs and you know, like I was on the list and like, I did that whole thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that was a huge formative part of my childhood.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I would not, or not my childhood, my kind of late teens, early twenties, like I needed to go and get
3
SPEAKER_00
like remove myself from what my kind of everyday life and my upbringing was.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it kind of introduced me to a lot of alternative things and people and ways of being.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you know, it s like you go to Ibiza, you learned yoga for the first time.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like, well, what s this?
3
SPEAKER_00
Nobody I knew in Plasto was doing yoga.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t know anyone in Ibiza was doing yoga either.
3
SPEAKER_00
for the island, baby.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you know, it was like, there s just, there s things that I think that part of my life really opened me up to.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I felt like in some ways, even though I saw a lot as a kid and I was experienced to some pretty kind of gruesome things, there was a whole part of life and sort of a way of living and a kind of level of peace and understanding of people that was not
3
SPEAKER_00
ever explained to me and was not part of my childhood and my upbringing and I learned that much later.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s so, yeah, it s so interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
Again, we often feel like the next chapter will be better and you ve just broke it down and said, well, no, actually there s going to be every chapter and every chapter has its reason and it has its story.
3
SPEAKER_01
And you just said, I love that I live life that way.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then when I met my partner, I knew it was going to work.
3
SPEAKER_01
And even that s had so many chapters inside of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
What would you, how would your mum,
3
SPEAKER_01
describe what she saw as a little girl to who she sees now?
3
SPEAKER_00
I think she d say same, same.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was always a pain for everyone around me.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I literally, I was that kid.
3
SPEAKER_00
I, I actually didn t, you know, I didn t have many, I wasn t that the popular kid, you know, my sisters were all massive athletes, hugely popular.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was a bit more of a loner.
3
SPEAKER_00
I had like, you know, two or three really solid friends.
3
SPEAKER_00
It sounds exactly like today, actually.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you know, it was like, I was that kid.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was like in my own head.
3
SPEAKER_00
I ve always been a dreamer, but you know, my mom would always say, she was like, you re a dreamer, but you re a doer.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I always had those two things.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I ve changed that much.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I think about myself and I m like, I ve been absolutely the same since I was seven years old.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is how I ve always felt.
3
SPEAKER_00
This is how I ve always been.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s epic, that s so cool.
3
SPEAKER_01
I wonder how you see that with now being a mum too, like now when you re looking at your kids and their personalities.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s wild because I think like so many mums, especially mothers that work in the same way that I do, right, you re kind of plagued by this idea
3
SPEAKER_00
of what you re supposed to be and do as a mother.
3
SPEAKER_00
And because I grew up with a mom that left the house every day, that went to work, I have maybe a different idea of what I m supposed to be providing for those kids.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s really important that my children see me living out my dreams and hopefully they ll do the same for themselves.
3
SPEAKER_00
But you know, everybody, the question always kind of boils down to like, how do you do it all?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I really,
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s important to dispel that myth of doing it all because women have been really sold a crock of crap.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like it s like, you can t have it all, all the time.
3
SPEAKER_00
And my life is a series of trade-offs, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
That s just a fact.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not the mom who is at the school gate.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not there for pick up and drop off.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m not at the school gala.
3
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully my kids get something else from me, which is a sense of,
3
SPEAKER_00
actually living out your dreams and what you re supposed to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that they will see that and really appreciate having that from me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think it s very important that we stop talking about this idea of like balance, because there is no balance in my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like it s, it s rubbish.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s like, I have to go wherever the energy is that morning and my children have to fit around that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Nothing s changed.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like I said, I m still the same, the same person and for children, yes, it changes the,
3
SPEAKER_00
the kind of, you know, routine of your day, but it doesn t change who you are fundamentally.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I am one of those person, people that think, you know, my children have to fit around me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, and that s just a fact, you know, it just, it is what it is.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I ll say as, as a kid who grew up with a mum who was working that hard and like had her, so, so my mum,
3
SPEAKER_01
trained to be a financial advisor so that she could be self-employed, as we called it.
3
SPEAKER_01
She was an entrepreneur, but the language wasn t there.
3
SPEAKER_00
She could manage her own time, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so she could manage her own time so she could be there for us.
3
SPEAKER_01
So my mum would make us breakfast, drop us to school, pack lunch.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s amazing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then she d go to work.
3
SPEAKER_00
Superwoman.
3
SPEAKER_01
Pick us up, feed us, and then go back out to work.
3
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes I d join her.
3
SPEAKER_01
I d go out with her in the car and sit with her.
3
SPEAKER_00
My son s in my office today.
3
SPEAKER_01
When she was with clients.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s amazing.
3
SPEAKER_00
I know, I know, I should have.
3
SPEAKER_01
I should have.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s just, I saw my mom be so active.
3
SPEAKER_01
My mom was never, she wasn t around, like just hanging around the house.
3
SPEAKER_01
She wasn t available in that way.
3
SPEAKER_01
Again, I m not saying that s a bad thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m just saying my mom wasn t.
3
SPEAKER_01
And as someone who grew up with a mom like that, like not only do I love and respect my mom insanely, I also just saw that
3
SPEAKER_01
it, you could still feel loved without having loads of time.
3
SPEAKER_00
100% because it s about quality, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
I always think about that.
3
SPEAKER_00
My kids need me like in a 100% capacity, like not half looking at my phone, not half doing work, not surrounded by lots of people in the house.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I really try to think about them as individuals because I have a boy and a girl and then boy girl twins.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I like to do things with my kids individually so that I can really understand who they are and what their needs are, not like this sort of like family pack, you know, because it very quickly becomes that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m like, ah, like all of you in the car.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think that, you know, again, when you grow up in a big family, you have ideas and experiences of how it wasn t so great and what you d want to do differently.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I try to apply that.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I think for most women, it s really,
3
SPEAKER_00
it s really important to just level, like lower the expectations a little bit and be honest with ourselves about what we re capable of because it s really something that I think there s so much being thrown at women all the time about what you should do and how you should advocate for yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, and, and it quite frankly is just too much.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is not feasible.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is not something that we can all
3
SPEAKER_00
cope with.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think that you do what you do to get through the day and we should all just like lower the expectation levels a little bit.
3
SPEAKER_00
That isn t to say lower your ambition level, but that s just to say, don t, don t feel bad about what you re doing.
3
SPEAKER_00
At the end of it, it s like we all do as much as we can and our kids will all be all right.
3
SPEAKER_00
They don t need us to usher them through every experience in the day.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they ll be who they are.
3
SPEAKER_00
They ll be who they are.
3
SPEAKER_01
How did you make peace with that?
3
SPEAKER_01
Because I feel like I, I love that perspective and I m sure it s going to help so many people, but I think people struggle with this.
3
SPEAKER_01
We love being the controller.
3
SPEAKER_01
We love making sure everything s right.
3
SPEAKER_01
We also so hard on ourselves as you were just saying, because people were hard on us and now we think we need to be super mom and maybe our mom did it or maybe our auntie did it, whatever.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think there s a lot of people who are just like,
3
SPEAKER_01
I get that, but I don t know how to make peace with that.
3
SPEAKER_00
A hundred percent.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s a great question.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I always think about, I m somebody that s absolutely like fixated and fascinated by memories, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
I always like go back and I think about like the big important things in my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
What did I really enjoy from last year?
3
SPEAKER_00
What were the moments that like are here in my memory?
3
SPEAKER_00
And when you do that, it very rarely has anything to do with any level of perfection.
3
SPEAKER_00
The best moments are the sporadic moments that were unplanned.
3
SPEAKER_00
when you re sitting there, the kids are a mess, you re in the garden, something happened that just made it so.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it s never the moments that you kind of forced, it s never the things that you planned, it s never the ones that you spent like all your energy on.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think that it just becomes about like this great, like, you ve got to weigh it up, right?
3
SPEAKER_00
You ve got to weigh up like, what is worth it?
3
SPEAKER_00
And what where do you derive enjoyment from?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I think anyone who looks at their life will actually find that it s in the small stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s in those moments that you just let it all go.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I think it s really, it s such a good exercise, especially for women and moms to just kind of backtrack and say, in the last 12 months, what were the single best moments that you had?
3
SPEAKER_00
and then you will absolutely not stress about whatever it is that is weighing you down today because it s never what you think ever.
3
SPEAKER_00
It never has been for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah and don t judge the moment right like we can we re so quick to be like oh I just I said the wrong thing.
3
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
3
SPEAKER_01
And all of a sudden I said the wrong
4
SPEAKER_01
thing becomes, I messed up today.
4
SPEAKER_00
I shouldn t be here.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t belong.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m not supposed to be part of it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s so interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
I remember like, there s this brilliant story about when Oprah was going through this like crazy, crazy time in her life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And she turns up at Quincy Jones s house for business at dinner.
4
SPEAKER_00
And she said to him, Oh my God, like, it s so terrible.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so awful.
4
SPEAKER_00
Have you seen the press and did it?
4
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, what are you talking about?
4
SPEAKER_00
He hasn t seen anything right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Because at the end of the day, no one s watching you.
4
SPEAKER_00
No one s watching you like you re watching you.
4
SPEAKER_00
Most of your mistakes is in private.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I often think about that because it s like everybody s so bothered about their own stuff and what s going on in their head, they re not thinking about you.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so sometimes you just have to release a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I always try to think about like, what is real and what is ego, you know, and so much of it
4
SPEAKER_00
is ego.
4
SPEAKER_00
So especially around the mum part, funnily enough, right, because we re all trying to do and be better than what we had and change things for our children and be this impossible, wonderful, perfect mother.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s nothing to do with your kids, because what your kids want is just a bit of you in the most simple way.
4
SPEAKER_00
They don t care about any of that stuff.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so, again, it really is that challenge of really sitting down and speaking to your children and thinking to yourself, like, what actually matters?
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think it s like those small moments.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah yeah that s well said and as I said as someone who received a lot of that from my mum I felt like I never doubted whether my mum loved me or not.
4
SPEAKER_01
Whether she could come to my rugby game or not or whether she could come and watch me
4
SPEAKER_01
at the class rehearsals or dramas or whatever we were doing, if she was there or she wasn t there, that wasn t how I felt loved.
4
SPEAKER_00
You knew she loved you, absolutely.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, because it was so, it s such a core part of my life.
4
SPEAKER_01
I feel today I have like so much love to give because of how much my mum loved me.
4
100%.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s not that she was there every moment. 100%.
4
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, and on the flip side, I m sure there s people who would think, God, my parents were around all the time and I didn t necessarily feel connected.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you didn t necessarily connect, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I didn t necessarily feel connected, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
You ve talked about this before and I really like it, this whole idea of like, you can t have it all and everyone s always talking about balance and I agree with you, I don t think balance exists either, even in my life because I often get that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Jay, mindfulness and meditation.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, but that s not balance.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like you re actually constantly using these tools and techniques to be back at a point of equanimity.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
To be back at a point of equanimity, but there isn t this idealized balance.
4
SPEAKER_01
When it comes to, you know, you and your partner, you both have great careers.
4
SPEAKER_01
You do some things together, lots of things individually.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like how does that, like, I guess my question there is what is the one thing you both need from each other?
4
SPEAKER_01
that allows you to stay connected whilst having collective empires, individual empires, and then a beautiful family as well on top of all of that?
4
SPEAKER_00
I honestly think that just comes down to love, because it s different things in different moments.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if you really, really love someone, then you do what they need in that moment, whether or not it s
4
SPEAKER_00
good for you right there or what you might have discussed right that comes down to do I really love this person and want the best for them in this thing this moment this decision and more than anything you know I have such an admiration for my husband in so many different ways in how he thinks and how he approaches things and what type of father he is and
4
SPEAKER_00
you know, love does lots of different things, but you know, usually it grows or it dwindles, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like in relationships.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that mine is still growing, but it just comes down to the fact that I love him.
4
SPEAKER_00
It isn t any more complicated than that.
4
SPEAKER_00
We have lots of things that we do together.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I do think there is a huge thing of this idea of chapters and having projects together, you know, to some extent children at that, because you go through this, like, you know, trying to get pregnant and then being pregnant and then having the baby in those early days.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then those stories about those early days.
4
SPEAKER_00
and then buying houses together and doing those houses up and so there is this element and with us we ve also had the businesses that to some degree and in some businesses we ve done those things together and so there have been these chapters and these projects that have been extremely
4
SPEAKER_00
I d say pivotal in our life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you often see that, that when, you know, couples have kids that fly the nest, it s like suddenly they don t have a project anymore.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, everything s done.
4
SPEAKER_00
And they re like, okay, we don t have anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
So we have that together.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I feel like in my life, I m extremely ritualistic.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, that s just how I am.
4
SPEAKER_00
And there s parts of our relationship that have taken on some of those rituals in terms of,
4
SPEAKER_00
you know how we think about time just us and not with the children, how we think about setting up our mornings and those things become sort of bedrocks and foundations that for what I think is like a healthy relationship.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah what I really gained from what you re saying right now and I hope everyone s listening and taking notes too because there s so many great great insights that are like you re just sprinkling them everywhere and I m like trying to catch them and there s I love the idea that
4
SPEAKER_01
If you value a relationship in your life, your relationship s only as good as the stories you ve lived together and the memories you ve made.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you stop making stories and memories with people, then you re constantly living in the past.
4
SPEAKER_00
Exactly, which is so unhealthy.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you ve seen that in so many friendships, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
When you re no longer creating together, you have nothing but your old memories.
4
SPEAKER_00
And after a while, that just dwindles.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you need to consistently create.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that can be big things or small things.
4
SPEAKER_00
It can be building a shed in your back garden, but something that you live out together and you see to fruition and you create and you make.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that s a really important part of relationships.
4
SPEAKER_01
And to keep doing that and keep getting excited together about something.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, rather than just like, how was your day?
4
SPEAKER_01
And then you re talking about your own world and then their world.
4
SPEAKER_00
And all of that separation, you know, and that s how so many couples, I think where it goes wrong, you re kind of living out the most exciting parts of your life entirely separately.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I feel with us, you know, it s like, we just bought a cold plunge and like the cold plunge has become the thing, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
We re literally just like, how many minutes are you going to do?
4
SPEAKER_00
How many minutes are you going to do?
4
SPEAKER_00
Oh my God, are you going to put your head under?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, you know, but it becomes this thing that you re living out together and now we ll be like cold plunge bullies to all of our friends.
4
SPEAKER_00
you know even something so small like that can be so like magical for a relationship because you re learning and pushing and doing something together.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah we do the same.
4
SPEAKER_01
Do you?
4
SPEAKER_01
No you don t.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah we do but my wife.
4
SPEAKER_01
So L-I-J.
4
SPEAKER_00
She s so good in the cold.
4
SPEAKER_00
No she s not.
4
SPEAKER_00
She s
4
SPEAKER_01
I m so good.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m so jealous.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so I can t even try to beat her.
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, I married a Swedish man, so I feel like I m at a disadvantage, like from the outset.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, you were basically born in the ice.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, come on.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like, of course you re better at this than I am.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s amazing.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then we ve been playing pickleball as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s our other thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Have you played yet?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s so fun.
4
SPEAKER_00
I have a pickleball court, but I don t think I m going to make it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I m going to be on it anytime soon.
4
SPEAKER_00
You guys can come over and you can show us how it s done.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s so much fun.
4
SPEAKER_01
And again, it s just doing, taking on a new project and you know, whatever it may be.
4
SPEAKER_01
I love that you were saying that you love memories and that you kind of almost have a memory bank.
4
SPEAKER_01
I was going to ask you, do you think there s a memory in your life?
4
SPEAKER_01
that you ve kind of like locked away or hidden away that you kind of like, it s almost like, have you seen that movie Inception?
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, he locks it away in the basement and he never goes there because it kind of, it has, sometimes it can be good, bad, it can be anything, but do you have a memory you ve locked away?
4
SPEAKER_00
I think I probably have a lot of memories that I ve locked away.
4
SPEAKER_00
And you know, it s really interesting.
4
SPEAKER_00
We should have maybe done this podcast like in a month.
4
SPEAKER_00
I m going to go to the Hoffman Institute.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think I have an enormous amount of that in my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I said to you earlier, you know, I think if you re not,
4
SPEAKER_00
I think about my life in terms of like practice, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like I m practicing every day, like who I want to be.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that s a great way to teach my children because they do what they see.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I never beat myself up about my past, who I ve been, my background, where I came from, because I know that I m constantly moving and evolving.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like if you re not working on yourself,
4
SPEAKER_00
then you re not really living.
4
SPEAKER_00
Do you know what I mean?
4
SPEAKER_00
I feel like the purpose of my life is to explore how I can be the best version of me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I don t just mean that in business, I mean in every single facet of my life.
4
SPEAKER_00
How can I be the best mom and the best wife and the best boss?
4
SPEAKER_00
Like all of those things that mean a lot to me, but it takes work and it takes practice and I don t get it right every single day.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when I think to answer your question about
4
SPEAKER_00
memories and things I ve locked away.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s when I ve not been proud of my behavior, but those are always things that I am willing to kind of hold my hands up to and, and work on.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like I ve done, especially now I live here, you know, you come and you do the work, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
It s like, it s just the grown up thing to do.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I feel like that s been
4
SPEAKER_00
One of the reasons I ve enjoyed being in LA so much is because I ve had this whole, obviously all the success with the businesses, but on this other side, I ve had this huge awakening in terms of who I am and who I m supposed to be and how I m evolving as a person.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so I really feel like those are things that I m still exploring and I will be until the day I die, you know, I m always in learning mode.
4
SPEAKER_01
I love that.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you were invited back afterwards as well.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you don t have to worry about.
5
SPEAKER_02
I hope this is not going to be the last time you come, but what s a memory that you d love to relive or you revisit often mentally and you close your eyes and you re like, yeah, I m there.
5
SPEAKER_02
Like, I d love to live that again because it was so.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, it s so crazy.
5
SPEAKER_00
I think it s probably, I mean, it feels so bad on my kids, but the birth of my first child, like that was so insane and amazing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s really funny because women like often say like everything changed then, you know, it s like, and I, and for me,
5
SPEAKER_00
everything changed in that moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
I remember having just had Grey and Jens was holding him on like, you know, the side of the bed.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, I have got to get out of this bed and go to the office.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s all I could think in my head.
5
SPEAKER_00
Cause it was like, all of a sudden I had the reason I was doing all of this stuff for, and it never become more clear to me than in that moment.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, okay, like now real life starts.
5
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s really how I felt.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, get me back, like into the office, like immediately.
5
SPEAKER_02
Oh my gosh.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Forget the baby.
5
SPEAKER_00
Nothing about going home and like snuggling with my child.
5
SPEAKER_00
I was like, I have a reason to do what I m doing now.
5
SPEAKER_02
And that can coexist with loving your kids.
5
SPEAKER_02
A hundred percent.
5
SPEAKER_00
Because again, like you can be so many different things.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I am a super nurturing hands-on mom and I really enjoy motherhood.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just have other stuff that I like too.
5
SPEAKER_02
Why do you think we struggle to have those two ideas?
5
SPEAKER_00
Because society has set it up that you re one or the other, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
You re either putting on your heels and like banging out the door and like, don t see your kids and put them to bed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Or you re like this really sweet mom.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, no, I m both.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m actually everything.
5
SPEAKER_00
I am every woman.
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, just like tough.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you know, it s like, I think that actually what it is that, you know, there are all of these like misconceptions about what you are allowed to be.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think we put those same things on men because men can be like totally in the office and killing the deal.
5
SPEAKER_00
And like, then just be this incredible dad throwing like a football on the weekend.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, you re fully allowed and it s,
5
SPEAKER_00
fine but for women it s not so fine and so you know so much of what I do in my work and my businesses and actually just sort of trying to be honest about me and and how I operate is to dispel a lot of those myths because I do think that we are not one-dimensional and you can be so many different things
5
SPEAKER_00
and also so many different things to different people.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, I m one person to my husband and one to my kids.
5
SPEAKER_00
And if you were to come in my office, I think they d give you a whole different version of me.
5
SPEAKER_00
I like it, I love it.
5
SPEAKER_02
It s true that we all have to, there s all different facets to each part of ourselves.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it s about the level of acceptance, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Like, are you allowed to be that and is it accepted?
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s why, you know, Jay, it s so interesting.
5
SPEAKER_00
I don t think I ve ever listened to a podcast
5
SPEAKER_00
where a man has been asked about imposter syndrome.
5
SPEAKER_00
Not once.
5
SPEAKER_00
It is a question that is the special reserve for women, as is the question of balance.
5
SPEAKER_00
No one says, hey Jens, how are you balancing it?
5
SPEAKER_00
Oh, the brands and the business and the kids.
5
SPEAKER_00
No one says that to my husband.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m glad I didn t ask both of those questions.
5
SPEAKER_00
I just made it up.
5
SPEAKER_00
They say it to me every day, every single day.
5
SPEAKER_00
What is it like to be a black woman in business?
5
SPEAKER_00
I m like, what kind of question is that?
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, but there are things that for women, just like, we re still not able to get over this idea that we have in our heads, that we can t be many things to many people.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I just don t believe in that at all.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
No, I m with you.
5
SPEAKER_02
I m with you.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I really feel that
5
SPEAKER_02
naturally all those questions are coming because that s what people are scared about and insecure about and worried about and it s as you said it s come because it s been created in society i read a there was this research paper a long time ago and i won t get it absolutely accurate but the point was that when men and women look at a job application
5
SPEAKER_02
If men can do some of it, they ll apply.
5
SPEAKER_02
And even if women can t do one part of it, they won t apply.
5
SPEAKER_00
I see that every single day in my own office, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
A guy will work for me for six months and come and ask me for a pay rise.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then I will say to a woman, I don t think you ve had a pay rise for like a year and a half.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, or somebody that will come in and say, like, I speak absolutely fluent Spanish and a woman who s pretty 90% there won t even mention it.
5
SPEAKER_00
So there are those obvious things.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s just about, you know, so many times for women, there is this,
5
SPEAKER_00
natural nurturers, we naturally play down our skills.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that that is just something that society has taught us.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I think about it all the time.
5
SPEAKER_00
I m quite the opposite.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, I ll go in and pretend I can
5
SPEAKER_00
do anything in a pitch meeting or it s like, I ll say what needs to say to get it done.
5
SPEAKER_00
Do you know what I mean?
5
SPEAKER_00
But I do think that for so many women, there is this like sort of magical golden moment in your life where you re free of a lot of constraints.
5
SPEAKER_00
You know, maybe you don t have a mortgage, you don t have children yet, you re not in a really serious relationship,
5
SPEAKER_00
where there is this moment to be incredibly selfish.
5
SPEAKER_00
And for most women, when all of the responsibilities pile on, they stop doing that.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I think that actually, just as women, we would do better to be selfish for longer in our lives.
5
SPEAKER_00
And that s the type of thing.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so many people will be like, oh, I just don t like the word.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can t you find another way to dress it up?
5
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely no, because I mean what I say.
5
SPEAKER_00
you do have to think about yourself because nobody else is thinking about that for you.
5
SPEAKER_00
Everybody else is too busy thinking about themselves.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so this idea of being selfish shouldn t feel like such a foreign thing for women or a dirty word for women.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like, you have to be, there is no other way to get ahead and to do what you want to do.
5
SPEAKER_00
You have to put your needs and your wants and your ambition first, because no one is going to do that for you.
5
SPEAKER_01
Parents, ready to discover a new educational and interactive podcast for kids?
5
SPEAKER_01
Join Stories for Kids by Lingokids, where episodes are packed with fun activities.
5
SPEAKER_01
Right, Elliot?
5
SPEAKER_01
Oh, yes!
5
SPEAKER_01
We learned how to recycle at the beach.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was great fun!
5
SPEAKER_01
Cowie, what do you say?
5
SPEAKER_01
It was!
5
SPEAKER_01
And that time when we did the science experiment and Billy made raisins dance!
5
SPEAKER_01
That is so cool, Billy!
5
SPEAKER_01
He did!
5
SPEAKER_01
Not to mention when a certain Elliot took up swimming classes with Lisa.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was me!
5
SPEAKER_01
Bet you can t catch me!
5
SPEAKER_01
I m going to get you!
5
SPEAKER_01
All this fun and more in our Stories for Kids.
5
SPEAKER_01
Lingo Kids  Stories for Kids is now available on Story Button, the kid-friendly device for screenless podcast listening.
5
SPEAKER_01
Listen to Stories for Kids on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_04
The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is an NAACP and Webby Award winning podcast dedicated to all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
5
SPEAKER_04
Here, we have the conversations that help black women decipher how their past inform who they are today.
5
SPEAKER_04
and use that information to decide who they want to be moving forward.
5
SPEAKER_04
We chat about things like how to establish routines that center self-care, what burnout looks and feels like, and defining what aspects of our lives are making us happy and what parts are holding us back.
5
SPEAKER_04
I m your host, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.
5
SPEAKER_04
And I can t wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday.
5
SPEAKER_04
Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_04
Take good care, and we ll see you there.
5
SPEAKER_03
Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much, like easy listening, but for fiction.
5
SPEAKER_03
If you ve overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.
5
SPEAKER_03
I m Katherine Nicolai, and you might know me from the Bedtime Story podcast, Nothing Much Happens.
5
SPEAKER_03
I m an architect of cozy, and I invite you to come spend some time where everyone is welcome and kindness is the default.
5
SPEAKER_03
When you tune in, you ll hear stories about bakeries and walks in the woods, a favorite booth at the diner on a blustery autumn day, cats and dogs, unrescued goats and donkeys, old houses, bookshops, beaches where kites fly, and pretty stones are found.
5
SPEAKER_03
I have so many stories to tell you and they are all designed to help you feel good and feel connected to what is good in the world.
5
SPEAKER_03
Listen, relax, enjoy.
5
SPEAKER_03
Listen to stories from the village of nothing much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
5
SPEAKER_02
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_02
And it s hard, isn t it?
5
SPEAKER_02
When, like you were saying, you ve tried to be the boss that you didn t have.
5
SPEAKER_02
I can identify with that.
5
SPEAKER_02
I try and be the boss, the bosses that I didn t have.
5
SPEAKER_02
And I think it,
5
SPEAKER_02
is really wonderful when you see a great relationship building with people you work with, where they recognize you re being the boss that they never had as well.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you are too.
5
SPEAKER_02
And you re also realizing they re being a great person of your team that hasn t been like other people.
6
SPEAKER_00
have been, how have you learned to like sense that and know that when you re like, okay, well, me and this person can go and build together and create together, or this is the right person to recruit onto my team, or like, what are the things that you re looking at and trying to decipher?
6
SPEAKER_00
Because I think right now we do live in a world where also people are thinking about a job as a paycheck and they don t care, whereas you re very passionate, you re very driven.
6
SPEAKER_00
You always have been since the deli.
6
SPEAKER_00
So it s like, if you ve cared that much about the deli and the sandwich, obviously you care so much about what you do today.
6
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
6
SPEAKER_00
How do you do that?
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, I think I m really realistic because you will have those people in your business that come to work with you literally because, you know, a good American, we are B Corp registered, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
And people feel that they want to work in a company that cares about the environment, that cares about what they re putting out.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you ll get people that care about the mission and the vision and the values.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I don t expect that everybody will care.
6
SPEAKER_01
I know that there are some people that just come and they just want their paycheck.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so for me, I try to separate
6
SPEAKER_01
who I am and what I might need from what somebody else might need.
6
SPEAKER_01
My expectation is that not everybody s bouncing in there trying to kill it for me, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
I m pretty sure that a lot of these people come in and they do their job and they re working on their side hustle halfway through the day and that s okay, you know?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s like that s not for everyone and I think that as I ve got older I ve learned not to put my type of ambition
6
SPEAKER_01
on, you know, or not to try to reflect that onto everybody that s around me.
6
SPEAKER_01
And those people will, of course, they ll rise to the top.
6
SPEAKER_01
They ll make themselves known, but it isn t for everybody.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s just, it s just a fact.
6
SPEAKER_01
And also you need that when you re building a team.
6
SPEAKER_01
If everybody was an ambitious little monster, it would be a disaster.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, you need people happy to come in, grind, do their job and leave at five o clock.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s just facts.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, absolutely.
6
SPEAKER_00
How did you make that leap?
6
SPEAKER_00
Like you just said earlier, I m just connecting the dots.
6
SPEAKER_00
You were like, I was never around anyone who s an entrepreneur who had their own business.
6
SPEAKER_00
Everyone worked a job.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
How did you... Accident Jay Shetty, accident.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was a total accident because, you know, I never set out to start my own company.
6
SPEAKER_01
I was frustrated that I wasn t being paid enough where I worked and then was like, all right, well,
6
SPEAKER_01
if you don t like that, then you re going to have to do something else.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I was also acutely aware that no one was going to come and hand me a company on a plate.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like here s this company to run.
6
SPEAKER_01
You pass them with no experience and you know, you kind of jumped up 24 year old.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I was very like acutely aware that I d have to do it myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s where it came from.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, I d love to say that I had this like
6
SPEAKER_01
great idea and this great ambition, but it came out of like frustration and not being paid enough and feeling like I wasn t getting the value back that I put in.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s the honest answer.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, no, and I think that s very relatable.
6
SPEAKER_00
I think most people are in positions like that, but that doesn t lead to the courage to do it because we feel like, well, what if it doesn t work?
6
SPEAKER_00
What will my friends say?
6
SPEAKER_00
what, you know, and all those kind of things that come up because we re scared.
6
SPEAKER_00
Even for me, like, I remember I had a steady job and I was, this is after I d left the monastery, I d come back home, I d finally found a steady job, I was dating my... It s such a good sentence, after I left the monastery.
6
SPEAKER_01
Isn t it good?
6
SPEAKER_01
You should start and wind that in anywhere.
6
SPEAKER_01
I d be like, so after I left the monastery...
6
SPEAKER_00
I was just trying to give context.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is, this is the British banter.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
6
SPEAKER_00
I love it.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t have a sentence like that.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I want one.
6
SPEAKER_01
I might just take it.
6
SPEAKER_00
You ve got plenty.
6
SPEAKER_00
But no, the, so I was in this steady job and it was like, I was dating my now wife and
6
SPEAKER_00
I remember going, this is not working for me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like, and I wasn t killing it and I wasn t doing badly.
6
SPEAKER_00
I was, I was doing all right.
6
SPEAKER_00
But I just knew it wasn t my place.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I remember I probably spent two years there feeling that way.
6
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
6
SPEAKER_00
Totally.
6
SPEAKER_00
You kind of just, you re just thinking about it, reflecting on it.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re like, what do I do?
6
SPEAKER_00
What if it doesn t work?
6
SPEAKER_00
And so walk us through that a little bit, because I think a lot of our listeners may actually be feeling that way.
6
SPEAKER_00
A lot of our audience is actually listening, going, you know what, I d love to
6
SPEAKER_00
I d love to forget doing what Emma s done now.
6
SPEAKER_00
I d just love to get out of where I am now because it s, you know what I mean?
6
SPEAKER_01
I think the truth of it was that I ve never been that scared of failing.
6
SPEAKER_01
Right.
6
SPEAKER_01
And for me at that time in my life, I was making a small amount of money.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s fair to say that I didn t have any, you know, no one was relying on me to
6
SPEAKER_01
to pay rent.
6
SPEAKER_01
I had a tiny, tiny little, I lived in like a high rise in East London with no front door and a gate on the door, no oven, just a microwave, no fridge.
6
SPEAKER_01
I put my milk on the balcony just to paint the picture of like where I was at that time in my life.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was rough.
6
SPEAKER_01
And honestly, what I thought is that
6
SPEAKER_01
how could I lose?
6
SPEAKER_01
Like at this point I could always go and get another similarly not inspiring job.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so that idea of like fear of not failing was really key.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I also was really, I ve always been very honest with myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, everybody has a voice in their head and some people have a voice that like chats them up, you know, it s like I do.
6
SPEAKER_01
But I also have that voice that s like, Emma, like know what you don t know.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, don t be too silly in this situation.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think that I really, in that instance where I decided like, let s get out of this job and try to go and do something else, it was enough understanding of it wasn t that good where I was.
6
SPEAKER_01
If it really didn t work out, I could always get back into something like that.
6
SPEAKER_01
But also that thing that just says, what happens if you don t do it?
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, like for me, I was miserable and I really saw a better life for myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I was like, I will just regret this.
6
SPEAKER_01
when I m 35, for example.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so it was really about just going like, you know, no one s going to take a chance on me.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have to take the chance on me.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then maybe someone else will be inspired to take a chance on me, which is ultimately what happened.
6
SPEAKER_01
I left that role.
6
SPEAKER_01
I got employed in another job.
6
SPEAKER_01
And then when I got into that job,
6
SPEAKER_01
my now husband and business partner at the, at that time, they kind of saw me and they were like, well, this girl s like kind of good.
6
SPEAKER_01
She has something.
6
SPEAKER_01
And they ended up being my first investors when I was 25 years old, which was, which was crazy, which to me, even at the time, it felt crazy.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I remember questioning, I was like, why would anyone invest in me?
6
SPEAKER_01
And then I thought, no,
6
SPEAKER_01
of course they ll invest in me.
6
SPEAKER_01
Who else you going to invest in?
6
SPEAKER_01
Like you might as well, I m as good as anybody else out there.
6
SPEAKER_01
And that s when that thing started ticking in.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I think sometimes you ve just got to not be too afraid to lose.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you know, the truth is Jay, I have lost and failed more times than I ve succeeded.
6
SPEAKER_01
We don t talk about that.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s not in the articles.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t post that on Instagram.
6
SPEAKER_01
But that s just the fact.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve made so many mistakes.
6
SPEAKER_01
Before I got here and had three very successful companies, I had a dog of an agency that I opened here in a very successful business that was thriving in London and thriving in New York.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I opened an office in LA.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I
6
SPEAKER_01
embarrassed myself.
6
SPEAKER_01
I completely let the, you know, I let the company down, I let the board down, I let the staff down, I under-invested, I did all of the classic mistakes.
6
SPEAKER_01
And, you know, at the time I felt like it was the end of, like, my company and my career, but it wasn t.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was just a failure.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve had lots of things like that happen.
6
SPEAKER_01
Lots of, you know, public embarrassments and things that didn t work out.
6
SPEAKER_01
And it s,
6
SPEAKER_01
you know, sounds like such an obvious thing, but it s like, well, how do you recover from that?
6
SPEAKER_01
And so for me, it s like always been this thing of like, all right, well, I ve dusted myself off.
6
SPEAKER_01
I ve survived worse, you know?
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think a lot of that comes from my upbringing.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, it s like, you see a lot of stuff go down and you can get through things.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think I m pretty good at getting through things.
6
SPEAKER_00
And this is that Quincy moment where I m like, I didn t even know.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s amazing.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s just like, you just, you know, you, it s so fascinating how quickly we are.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s so fascinating how quickly we point out people s faults and then forget about them.
6
SPEAKER_00
A hundred percent.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s, that happens so fast.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not as fun a story, right?
6
SPEAKER_01
People want, at the end of the day, I believe in
6
SPEAKER_01
you know, the goodness of humans.
6
SPEAKER_01
We default one good, good stuff for each other.
6
SPEAKER_01
And we want to see each other win and people are very happy to celebrate alongside you.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re much more concerned about your failures.
6
SPEAKER_01
You re much more concerned about your fears than anybody else out there.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I think every now and again, I kind of just have to tune myself back into to that piece of it.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah and it sounds like what I really like is that you ve got this ability and I ve been watching the whole interview and it s like you ve got this ability to know what the different voices in your head are.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
6
SPEAKER_00
Like you re very clear about like this is the one that s being real, this is the ego, this is giving me the hype that I need right now.
6
SPEAKER_01
100% but also you know I know their voices, I know they re not me.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
And I always knew that.
6
SPEAKER_01
because I have an ability, like my whole superpower in life is about being able to turn it on and off.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I am acutely aware that those are just things and that I have at my disposal.
6
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes they work to my advantage and sometimes they work to my disadvantage, but I don t think that it s me.
6
SPEAKER_01
Does that make sense?
6
SPEAKER_01
Like, it s like, I know who I am.
6
SPEAKER_01
Like,
6
SPEAKER_01
And it ain t all of that.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s not the chatter.
6
SPEAKER_01
None of it.
6
SPEAKER_01
It s just, I m something else.
6
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s, I mean, that s a incredible distinction to know and have and build.
6
SPEAKER_00
Did that come from, did you read something?
6
SPEAKER_00
Did you learn something
7
SPEAKER_01
or was it just you started listening to yourself?
7
SPEAKER_01
Did you spend a lot of time alone?
7
SPEAKER_01
I m intrigued as to what you did to gain that skill because it s a skill and you re obviously aware of it.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, I think I m just that like Oprah generation.
7
SPEAKER_02
Do you know what I mean?
7
SPEAKER_02
You come home every day from school, Oprah was on the TV telling you to be grateful.
7
SPEAKER_02
what do I have to be grateful for?
7
SPEAKER_02
Have you seen my house?
7
SPEAKER_02
Have you seen my trainers?
7
SPEAKER_02
I need new shoes.
7
SPEAKER_02
Like, you know, and it s like, I didn t get it then, but I started to believe it.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I started to read, you know, I am an avid reader.
7
SPEAKER_02
I read so much everything and always have since I was 13.
7
SPEAKER_02
And again, it was that means of escapism.
7
SPEAKER_02
And so I started reading things like, you know, the power of now, or like, you know, like all of these,
7
SPEAKER_02
things that like conversations with God.
7
SPEAKER_02
I remember, you know, it s like, I read that book and I was like, like just blew my mind because I didn t know anybody that thought like that.
7
SPEAKER_02
And so maybe I just absorbed it, a bit of Oprah, a couple of books, you know, and it went in and it made sense to me.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, it s as simple as that.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I, the same generation, like we, I grew up in the same way and it s so true how like these tiny little messages just start connecting dots.
7
SPEAKER_01
And that s kind of what kids are built on and young people are built on.
7
SPEAKER_01
It isn t, you could have heard the same thing at school every day, but because it wasn t simplified and easy and digestible.
7
SPEAKER_01
You don t remember it, but you remember the random TV show you watched that your parents had on in the background.
7
SPEAKER_01
Exactly.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
That s amazing.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
7
SPEAKER_01
No, I love, I love witnessing it in an interview with someone where you re like, wow, this person s so aware.
7
SPEAKER_01
And I want to talk more about, hopefully this is what you don t get to talk about as much, or maybe like you re saying, like men get asked this stuff and maybe women don t, I m intrigued.
7
SPEAKER_01
But like we were talking earlier, you re a brand marketing genius.
7
SPEAKER_01
Like you re,
7
SPEAKER_01
You re super attentive, aware, conscious.
7
SPEAKER_01
You have this ability to think about products and brand in a different way.
7
SPEAKER_01
How do you select problems to solve?
7
SPEAKER_01
How do you choose which problems you want to work on and then make sure that you build something that actually solves that problem?
7
SPEAKER_02
I think about it in the sense of myself.
7
SPEAKER_02
I think it would be very difficult for me, and I m not saying other people can t do it, but to do things that you can t relate to, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
So I always start with the idea that if it s a problem for me, likelihood is it s a problem for other people like me, whether that be other young women or other women in the middle of America, but it s like the starting point is always,
7
SPEAKER_02
What do I find problematic?
7
SPEAKER_02
And then I think the lens and the kind of red thread that goes through all of my companies is this idea that, and again, I hate saying it because in the last kind of five years, it s almost become like this sort of buzzword.
7
SPEAKER_02
But when we think about inclusivity in business and what that actually means,
7
SPEAKER_02
including and thinking about the most amount of people possible.
7
SPEAKER_02
When I started Good American, it was actually a reaction to this idea that so many women, women of color, plus-size women, are just completely left out of the fashion conversation.
7
SPEAKER_02
And why is their dollar any less valuable than anybody else s?
7
SPEAKER_02
And so I had worked in marketing for all of these years.
7
SPEAKER_02
For 15 years, I grew this incredible agency.
7
SPEAKER_02
and I d done castings and, you know, put projects and collaborations together for the biggest and best brands in the whole world.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I d been part of actually falsifying an image of inclusivity.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s like you have a group cast, you need a black girl and an Asian girl and then this and this.
7
SPEAKER_02
And actually when you thought about the product,
7
SPEAKER_02
And when you thought about the senior management of those companies, it looked nothing like that, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
It just, the product didn t work for anyone over a certain size.
7
SPEAKER_02
And the boardrooms were just all made up of typically like white men making the decisions, usually for women.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I just sort of thought to myself, there must be a better way to start a company, but it came from problem solving for myself.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I go back to this idea of like, you know, when you think about businesses,
7
SPEAKER_02
it makes more sense that they would be geared towards serving more people.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s just good business, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
Forget DE&I, forget this idea of diversity, equity, inclusion being something that companies need to do now.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s just good business.
7
SPEAKER_02
And when I talk about it, this idea of inclusivity and diversity being a superpower in business,
7
SPEAKER_02
It s not something that I just say, it s something that I do.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s where the process actually starts.
7
SPEAKER_02
I m thinking about how can I best serve customers, the most amount of people.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then when there s an acknowledgement of someone who isn t usually acknowledged, of course it goes without saying that suddenly they feel seen, they feel heard.
7
SPEAKER_02
And they re like, I m going with this girl.
7
SPEAKER_02
I m going with this brand because it s the first time anyone s spoken directly to them.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I think that that s such a, it s such an under thought about part of business.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, people usually bolt it on at the end and I m like, no, no, no, no.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s right where you start.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s in the inception of those products.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s in making 32 sizes.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s in doing nine different shades.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s in the very, very beginnings of what you re creating.
7
SPEAKER_02
And then you can dress it up and make it look nice and put the right kind of branding on it.
7
SPEAKER_02
But actually it starts way earlier than that.
7
SPEAKER_02
And so I actually think about customers in a way that I think most people don t.
7
SPEAKER_01
Where did you not learn that, but where did you learn to look to understand that?
7
SPEAKER_01
Obviously you started with yourself, but I m like, why didn t people do that before?
7
SPEAKER_01
Cause like you just said, it s better business.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s better financially.
7
SPEAKER_01
It makes more sense.
7
SPEAKER_01
It makes more people happy.
7
SPEAKER_01
What do you think blocks companies?
7
SPEAKER_02
I think it just comes from where decisions are being made, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
Because it s like, you don t know what you don t know.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I ve sat in enough rooms trying to pitch enough businesses to a group of people that aren t my end audience.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I have actually said in, in meetings before, maybe you should phone your wife or daughter, like literally, like phone them because you don t understand this because it s not for you.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, and so I think that decisions are made in such a abstract way in most companies.
7
SPEAKER_02
And, you know, you see this when, you know, companies make mistakes, right?
7
SPEAKER_02
That we ve seen a lot of like big fashion brands and big consumer brands make mistakes that have seemingly kind of come across as like insensitive, racist, completely misogynistic.
7
SPEAKER_02
That s just where a decision is made.
7
SPEAKER_02
A company isn t inherently racist, like the whole company.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s just the decision-making process is flawed.
7
SPEAKER_02
i.e.
7
SPEAKER_02
there s not enough people in the room of a different background to say, hey, perhaps put the t-shirt on the other kid, like then it won t be an issue.
7
SPEAKER_02
So I think that this just comes from the idea of like where are the decisions made in that company and who s making the decisions.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I know that the more people you bring around the table from different backgrounds, we re not just talking about race here, we re talking about age, education, the full gambit, like the better the company will be.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that is such great.
7
SPEAKER_01
I love what you just said about asking someone to call their partner or their daughter or son or whatever it may be, because you re so right.
7
SPEAKER_01
Like I think so many people sit in meetings.
7
SPEAKER_01
And they re looking around going, these people don t know what they re talking about.
7
SPEAKER_01
Or like, they just don t understand.
7
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
7
SPEAKER_01
How have you maintained, like, I guess the question is, how many of those meetings did you have to sit in until you felt like, I m just going to do this, or we re just going to figure it out?
7
SPEAKER_01
Or did you look for someone who
7
SPEAKER_01
agreed with you and had your values and did the research?
7
SPEAKER_01
Or was it kind of like, we re just going to build it ourself?
7
SPEAKER_01
Like, how much, give, give us a bit of that because I think a lot of people sit in meetings.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s so interesting.
7
SPEAKER_02
I m at that point in my career now where I don t sit in a lot of meetings.
7
SPEAKER_02
Now they pitch me.
7
SPEAKER_02
which is lovely, the shoes on the other foot.
7
SPEAKER_02
I m like, come over here and I ll let you know if you can come in.
7
SPEAKER_02
But in the early days, you know, I think that I sat in a lot of situations feeling like,
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, the great thing is I never doubted myself or any of those ideas.
7
SPEAKER_02
I just thought I hadn t found the right people yet.
7
SPEAKER_02
It s a little bit like, you know, I m happy to kiss a lot of frogs.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I always have been, because again, I don t think it should be so easy when you re doing something that is new and without so much definition and unproven, like it s supposed to be hard.
7
SPEAKER_02
And again, it s like anything, I never let it get to me.
7
SPEAKER_02
I just was like,
7
SPEAKER_02
poor chicken, he doesn t get it yet.
7
SPEAKER_02
And he will do and he ll kick himself, you know, and that s fine.
7
SPEAKER_02
You know, it s just, it s part of it.
7
SPEAKER_02
And I don t mean that in a smug way, but I never, I never doubted what I was doing.
7
SPEAKER_02
I was very, very clear, especially when we started Good American, I was like, this thing people don t understand and we ll just get them to understand it.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, definitely.
7
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, and I think that s such a great mindset to have and to not have the smugness or bitterness because that person just wasn t in the right space.
7
SPEAKER_01
You don t know what you don t know.
7
SPEAKER_01
Totally.
7
SPEAKER_01
It s totally cool.
7
SPEAKER_01
I feel like that all the time.
7
SPEAKER_01
I m like, I m trying to find the people who want to be part of this story.
7
SPEAKER_01
And if they don t want to be a part of this story, that s totally cool.
7
SPEAKER_00
For all the parents out there, picture that it s bedtime.
7
SPEAKER_00
You and the kids have been busy all day.
7
SPEAKER_00
You know they re tired, but with all that anxious energy, they just won t go to sleep.
7
SPEAKER_00
This was my kids every night.
7
SPEAKER_00
But I did find that stories calmed their mind and gave them something to focus on.
7
SPEAKER_00
So six years ago, I created the kids  podcast Bedtime History to help solve that problem.
8
SPEAKER_00
Bedtime History is a series of relaxing history stories that end with an inspirational message.
8
SPEAKER_00
We have episodes about Jackie Robinson, Neil Armstrong, Maya Angelou, and Sokka Jawea.
8
SPEAKER_00
Episodes also include topics like space exploration, engineering, the rise and fall of civilizations, and major events like the Civil Rights Movement and the Transcontinental Railroad.
8
SPEAKER_00
With over 2,000 positive parent reviews, Bedtime History is one of the top education podcasts.
8
SPEAKER_00
This week, join me and listen to Bedtime History every Monday and Thursday on iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
8
SPEAKER_01
Tune in to the new podcast, Stories from the Village of Nothing Much, like easy listening, but for fiction.
8
SPEAKER_01
If you ve overdosed on bad news, we invite you into a world where the glimmers of goodness in everyday life are all around you.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m Katherine Nicolai, and you might know me from the Bedtime Story podcast, Nothing Much Happens.
8
SPEAKER_01
I m an architect of cozy, and I invite you to come spend some time where everyone is welcome and kindness is the default.
8
SPEAKER_01
When you tune in, you ll hear stories about bakeries and walks in the woods, a favorite booth at the diner on a blustery autumn day, cats and dogs, unrescued goats and donkeys, old houses, bookshops, beaches where kites fly, and pretty stones are found.
8
SPEAKER_01
I have so many stories to tell you, and they are all designed to help you feel good and feel connected to what is good in the world.
8
SPEAKER_01
Listen, relax, enjoy.
8
SPEAKER_01
Listen to stories from the Village of Nothing Much on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
8
SPEAKER_02
Get emotional with me, Radhi Devlukia, in my new podcast, A Really Good Cry.
8
SPEAKER_02
We re going to talk about and go through all the things that are sometimes difficult to process alone.
8
SPEAKER_02
We re going to go over how to regulate your emotions, diving deep into holistic personal development, and just building your mindset to have a happier, healthier life.
8
SPEAKER_02
We re going to be talking with some of my best friends.
8
SPEAKER_02
I didn t know we were going to go there.
8
SPEAKER_02
people that I admire.
8
SPEAKER_02
When we say listen to your body, really tune in to what s going on.
8
SPEAKER_02
Authors of books that have changed my life.
8
SPEAKER_02
Now you re talking about sympathy, which is different than empathy.
8
SPEAKER_02
And basically have conversations that can help us get through this crazy thing we call life.
8
SPEAKER_02
I already believe in myself.
8
SPEAKER_02
I already see myself.
8
SPEAKER_02
And so when people give me an opportunity, I m just like,
8
SPEAKER_02
Oh great, you see me too!
8
SPEAKER_02
We ll laugh together, we ll cry together, and find a way through all of our emotions.
8
SPEAKER_02
Never forget, it s okay to cry, as long as you make it a really good one.
8
SPEAKER_02
Listen to A Really Good Cry with Radhi Dablukia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
8
SPEAKER_03
because they won t be great partners to you down the line, right?
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like, you either get it and you want to be part of it and you are happy to know that you don t know it all, right?
8
SPEAKER_03
Because it s about new space.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like, if we were all doing the same thing and trying to set up the same companies, we d never find a Skims.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, it s like, you d never land on it.
8
SPEAKER_03
You d be like, that s too complicated.
8
SPEAKER_03
That s not how we do things.
8
SPEAKER_03
And you d skip over the great stuff.
8
SPEAKER_04
How have you managed to continue to stay hungry and also stay innovative when things are good?
8
SPEAKER_04
Like before you talk about, I didn t like my job, I wanted to get out.
8
SPEAKER_04
You know, milk was outdoors.
8
SPEAKER_04
I was, you know, like there s a pain that pushes you in a better direction.
8
SPEAKER_04
I m not saying you don t have pain anymore.
8
SPEAKER_04
Of course, there s stress is a challenge.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t have that much pain.
8
SPEAKER_03
I have daily dramas, but the pain is gone.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know what it is?
8
SPEAKER_03
You are fueled every day by,
8
SPEAKER_03
a piece of it is competition, right?
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like, I look at everything.
8
SPEAKER_03
There is no one who knows more about jeans and knickers than I do.
8
SPEAKER_03
I look at every competitor.
8
SPEAKER_03
I go out in the market.
8
SPEAKER_03
I see it.
8
SPEAKER_03
I know like the promotional cadence.
8
SPEAKER_03
I know everything everybody else is doing.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I think that that natural inquisitiveness is part of what keeps me good.
8
SPEAKER_03
But at the end of the day, it s like, I just want to win.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, it s like, I don t feel satisfied.
8
SPEAKER_03
And also it s like, how could you?
8
SPEAKER_03
It s just been a couple of years.
8
SPEAKER_03
There s loads of people that have had successes for six and for three years.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t think that s the end goal.
8
SPEAKER_03
The end goal is to build like, you know, generational or generationally defining businesses.
8
SPEAKER_03
And that doesn t happen quickly.
8
SPEAKER_03
And also I m not stupid enough to think like, or to let, I
8
SPEAKER_03
few years success get to me.
8
SPEAKER_03
There s a lot of people that had a few years success, you know, that s not the end game.
8
SPEAKER_03
And so I think about now it s about
8
SPEAKER_03
you know, really taking the foundations of what we ve built, not sacrificing any of your principles and still being able to grow and to thrive and to hire people.
8
SPEAKER_03
But that gets more and more difficult the bigger you get, right?
8
SPEAKER_03
There s one thing saying, oh, we re going to do business this way.
8
SPEAKER_03
When there are 10 of you and you re doing a million dollars, it s very, very different all these years in because there s no model.
8
SPEAKER_03
There s nothing that you can go out and emulate.
8
SPEAKER_03
We are making it up as we re going along.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
How do you, how do you define winning now?
8
SPEAKER_04
Like, is that how you define winning?
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, I define winning now by doing things that excite me.
8
SPEAKER_03
Like, you know, it s like, we just launched this insane pushup bra at Skims and everyone s talking about it.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s all over the place.
8
SPEAKER_03
And you know, like that s exciting to me because like some, one of my girls in England will call me and be like,
8
SPEAKER_03
Oh my God, I need to get that brought.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, it s like, I love that.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I still get a thrill from, you know, it s like, I love what I do.
8
SPEAKER_03
Like I genuinely really love it.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I just want to keep getting better at it.
8
SPEAKER_03
And for me, it comes in so many different ways.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like, I love giving people opportunities.
8
SPEAKER_03
I love the,
8
SPEAKER_03
hiring part of it and getting to work with all different people.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I think that those things for me feel really successful.
8
SPEAKER_03
But if you were to ask me just to like boil it down, it would be like to continue the growth and what we re doing without sacrificing the principles that we set the companies up with.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t want to dial it down because we re, you know, reaching some kind of like critical mass.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
Yeah.
8
SPEAKER_04
How do you, you know, we were talking about that.
8
SPEAKER_04
You have daily dramas, you said, not pains.
8
SPEAKER_03
Nobody talks to me when things are going well.
8
SPEAKER_03
My life is just a series of problems, you know, from the minute I wake up to, you know, the minute I go to bed, like that s just a fact.
8
SPEAKER_03
The stress level is unbelievable.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I do think that s important because
8
SPEAKER_03
You wouldn t know that looking at me or maybe just speaking to me, but you know, my job is not all, you know, trying different fabrics out and hanging around with models.
8
SPEAKER_03
That s just not what I do.
8
SPEAKER_04
What do you find to be the most stressful thing about building a business and what do you do in order to deal with it?
8
SPEAKER_03
I think the most stressful thing is probably the expectations, right?
8
SPEAKER_03
That that comes from the outside.
8
SPEAKER_03
I honestly believe you re only as good as your last launch.
8
SPEAKER_03
I never ever drink the Kool-Aid ever.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I think that, you know, I happen to work in extremely high profile businesses where everything that we do is scrutinized.
8
SPEAKER_03
And with that comes a level of stress.
8
SPEAKER_03
it comes back to that thing of being very ritualistic.
8
SPEAKER_03
I, you know, I m militant about the things that work for me.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, I suffer with migraines.
8
SPEAKER_03
I get super, you know, I carry stress like in my body.
8
SPEAKER_03
And so it s like, I get up very early.
8
SPEAKER_03
I wake up, I work out, I meditate.
8
SPEAKER_03
I make sure I have to be up before my children are up.
8
SPEAKER_03
Cause I need like,
8
SPEAKER_03
quiet time.
8
SPEAKER_03
I need time to like focus.
8
SPEAKER_03
I m like religiously grateful.
8
SPEAKER_03
Like I ve trained myself to focus on the great stuff in my life because I feel like there is so much noise, you know, whether I like it or not.
8
SPEAKER_03
And so I could be overwhelmed every day in the things that are going on around me.
8
SPEAKER_03
And at the end of it, I m like,
8
SPEAKER_03
looking up going, wow, the ceiling in my bedroom.
8
SPEAKER_03
Like, how could you even have a say?
8
SPEAKER_03
I could never imagine that I d have such a beautiful ceiling ever.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, it s like, I am someone who truly stops to smell the roses.
8
SPEAKER_03
Like quite literally, I can find good happiness, joy in anything.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I really make
8
SPEAKER_03
at a point and a priority to do that every day.
8
SPEAKER_03
And even as I have my tea, you know, it s like I have special tea from Japan and I have a special pot that I put it in and I just like taste it.
8
SPEAKER_03
And every day it s like, I m tasting it for the first time.
8
SPEAKER_03
But if I didn t do those things, I would lose my mind.
8
SPEAKER_03
You know, I would lose my mind.
8
SPEAKER_03
And so I think I ve just trained myself to like enjoy the kind of the rituals and the small things and
8
SPEAKER_03
be hyper grateful because there is no difference between me and all of those kids that I went to school with in East London.
8
SPEAKER_03
And I should be so lucky.
8
SPEAKER_03
It s like, we re here in the sunshine overlooking the whole of LA.
8
SPEAKER_03
I m chatting to you.
8
SPEAKER_03
I m going to go into my office where I m the boss and people are going to film me chatting about stuff.
8
SPEAKER_03
Like I don t have anything to complain about.
8
SPEAKER_04
But I bet, and from what I ve learned today, you were like that even when the milk was outside.
8
SPEAKER_04
100% I was.
8
SPEAKER_03
I was like, at least I have a balcony.
8
SPEAKER_03
I don t have a fridge, but I have a balcony.
8
SPEAKER_04
Because if it wasn t there then it wouldn t be there now.
8
100%.
8
SPEAKER_03
If you went on a walk with little Emma as a memory,
9
SPEAKER_02
You held hands and you went on a little walk with her.
9
SPEAKER_02
What do you think she d say to you?
9
SPEAKER_01
I think she d say, well done, love.
9
SPEAKER_01
You did it.
9
SPEAKER_01
Keep going.
9
SPEAKER_01
Keep going.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think so.
9
SPEAKER_02
What would you say back?
9
SPEAKER_01
I am walking forward now.
9
SPEAKER_01
I always sit here and I think, oh my goodness, like I m so proud of myself, but honestly, Jay, when I think about what that means for me now and the level of responsibility that I feel.
9
SPEAKER_01
That is the thing that really fuels me today because when I do something, I feel a weight and an expectation of a group of people that have been historically left out and marginalized from a lot of these conversations and a lot of these opportunities.
9
SPEAKER_01
And there is this huge sense of responsibility that I have for women, especially sort of young black women and minority women.
9
SPEAKER_01
and kids that just grew up poor anywhere.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like I think about all that stuff every single day.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think that real success for me will be when I am, you know, able to really pull what I ve got and what it is that I kind of like strive for and continue to achieve and have that affect a lot more people.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I do that in ways, you know, like
9
SPEAKER_01
through my chairmanship of the 15% pledge, that s been like a huge undertaking, an amazing amount of work that I have been able to do.
9
SPEAKER_01
But for me, it s like that is only kind of scratching the surface.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think more and more of my work will be in how can I
9
SPEAKER_01
help so many more people that are like me, you know, get out of their circumstances and be able to contribute more because it just is mesmerizing to me that I ve been able to go so far.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it ain t because I m something special.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s because there were a series of circumstances and then enough kind of grit and determination that I was able to do it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so it s like, how do you put other people into the same circumstances so that if they have the will that they can do it too?
9
SPEAKER_01
And so that s where I m fixated right now.
9
SPEAKER_02
What s been one of your favorite success stories from that or like a memory or story from that?
9
SPEAKER_01
Well, you know, it s so funny because it happens again in the small, in the smallest ways, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like, I ll have a chat.
9
SPEAKER_01
I get hundreds of people reach out to me to say, listen, I m starting a business.
9
SPEAKER_01
I, you know, I m selling $10,000 a month in this clothing brand.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s like, I ll jump on the phone.
9
SPEAKER_01
and I ll give someone some advice.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, I had a girl a couple of years ago, she was like, I think I m going to get into Selfridges and I want to know how to do that.
9
SPEAKER_01
How do I structure the contract?
9
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, fast forward two years later, I do my first ever like, ask me anything.
9
SPEAKER_01
Cause my team pressured me into it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m like, social is just not my bag.
9
SPEAKER_01
But anyway, so I do the first ask me anything and all the girls are asking me the same questions, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
How do you start a business?
9
SPEAKER_01
How do you thrive?
9
SPEAKER_01
And this girl comes up and then she says, I just want to let you know that I now do however many tens of thousands a week at Selfridges.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it was all because you helped me walk through that contract.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I took your advice and I, you know, I stuck to the distribution plan and did it.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I was like,
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh my God, you know?
9
SPEAKER_01
And so it s always those tiny things for me.
9
SPEAKER_01
And again, that s just about giving someone your time.
9
SPEAKER_01
So I m really trying to think thoughtfully about how I can do more of that in a more systematic and a bigger way, because sadly I can t answer every phone call or every DM that comes through.
9
SPEAKER_01
What are you talking about?
9
SPEAKER_02
No, that s so beautiful.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I think that that component is such a big part of happiness and success.
9
SPEAKER_02
Of course it is.
9
SPEAKER_02
Because you re so right.
9
SPEAKER_02
Like no one who s got the top
9
SPEAKER_02
is any more special, just going back to what your mum said at the beginning.
9
SPEAKER_01
No, you ain t better than anyone else.
9
SPEAKER_02
And as soon as you start thinking it, or people also start thinking it, that, oh yeah, that person s there because they re faster, smarter, better.
9
SPEAKER_02
Or when we do the opposite, when we go, they don t deserve to be there.
9
SPEAKER_02
Exactly, no.
9
SPEAKER_02
Both of those just take it away.
9
100%.
9
SPEAKER_02
I look at your journey and I m so, I like really admire the way you live and think.
9
SPEAKER_02
Like it s really, it s, it s such a wonderful mindset and it s such a strong, you ve been able to craft something that s so resilient and, and you can, and yeah, it s so, what you ve been able to build.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I m talking about almost like if we were able to physically look at your mindset.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s so resilient because I can hear as we ve approached it from so many different points of view, it s like you have such a clear philosophy on how you live, who you are, what matters, what doesn t matter.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I look at that clarity when I see you as like, that s the reason you are who you are and where you are.
9
SPEAKER_02
It s because you re just so clear.
9
SPEAKER_02
And I feel like no matter what would happen either way, it s like, that is what you re betting on.
9
SPEAKER_02
And that s what you ve been building and focused on.
9
SPEAKER_01
I think so.
9
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think so.
9
SPEAKER_01
Someone write that down.
9
SPEAKER_01
I really mean it.
9
SPEAKER_01
I really mean it.
9
SPEAKER_01
So kind.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s so kind.
9
SPEAKER_01
No, I love that you say that.
9
SPEAKER_01
It makes me it makes me so happy because you never think about yourself in such clear terms like that, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
It never
9
SPEAKER_01
you are who you are in so many ways, you know?
9
SPEAKER_01
And I see that with my own kids.
9
SPEAKER_01
They re like four people that I think, well, you got exactly the same upbringing.
9
SPEAKER_01
We all live in the same house.
9
SPEAKER_01
I don t do one thing different.
9
SPEAKER_01
And yet they are just these like four tiny individuals.
9
SPEAKER_01
And at six months, it s like, you know exactly what kind of kid you ve got.
9
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, if this kid is like super anxious, if this kid s super obnoxious, like, you know exactly who they are.
9
SPEAKER_01
I m sure there s lots of things and changes coming in their lives, but so much of it is just in you, right?
9
SPEAKER_01
you know, and then you layer circumstances onto that.
9
SPEAKER_01
And you know what you re capable of, what you can and can t affect, and what you should be doing.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so I always look at it as like, I was living like a very nice, very privileged life in England, and I moved here specifically for work.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s been wonderful for work, but in so many other facets of my life, being in LA has been an eye opener.
9
SPEAKER_01
And it s actually fueled me in a way that I really never expected.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I always think, you know, if you elevate your health, you elevate your life.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s like, if you elevate your thinking, you elevate, you know, what your capabilities are.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so for me, it s just been wonderful and an amazing moment to be here because I ve been able to elevate so many things that I do.
9
SPEAKER_01
And I think that that should only end up in like a bunch of other people being able to benefit from that.
9
SPEAKER_02
Absolutely.
9
SPEAKER_02
Well said.
9
SPEAKER_02
Write that down.
9
SPEAKER_02
Print it out.
9
SPEAKER_02
That was, yeah, no, absolutely.
9
SPEAKER_02
Like I think,
9
SPEAKER_02
It s incredible how, you know, I think a lot of people label LA as Hollywood and think of it as just that.
9
SPEAKER_02
But it s like, I feel the same way as you, like moving here, like my eyes have opened up to so many more things that are really valuable, important, insightful.
9
SPEAKER_02
I ve met people who are doing incredible things.
9
SPEAKER_02
You know, what you just said now of like opening the door and trying to break down, we had, you know, just a few months ago, we had Lewis Hamilton here talking about 44 and talking about how he s trying to help.
9
SPEAKER_02
you know, trying to help people of color get into the world of Formula One, which isn t normal, which him and his father were able to do.
9
SPEAKER_02
Like, you start seeing that happen across fashion, sports, business, and that s so incredible because you start thinking about all those little Emmas and little Louises and everyone else out there.
9
SPEAKER_02
Totally.
9
SPEAKER_02
Who s just trying to figure out whether they have a shot.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, 100%.
9
SPEAKER_02
And they do, yeah.
9
SPEAKER_02
Emma, we end every episode with a final five, which we sit down and do as a fast five, which means every answer has to be one word to one sentence maximum.
9
SPEAKER_01
One word to one sentence, all right.
9
SPEAKER_02
But I always ruin it because I get intrigued.
9
SPEAKER_02
So, all right, okay.
9
SPEAKER_02
So, Emma Green, these are your final five.
9
SPEAKER_02
The first question is, what is the best advice you ve ever heard or received?
9
SPEAKER_01
I wish that I could make this sound as powerful as it was for me.
9
SPEAKER_01
That s the first thing to say, but it s a good one.
9
SPEAKER_01
It was to make a decision and move on because you can be so stifled by your decisions.
9
SPEAKER_01
And when you are just stuck, it just does so many other things to you.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so I think it served me really well in so many ways.
9
SPEAKER_01
I used to think about it just for business.
9
SPEAKER_01
And now I don t, I think it s make a decision and move on.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I always say to people, stop trying to make the right decision, just make a decision and then make it right.
9
SPEAKER_01
Totally, 100% you can go back afterwards.
9
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, I love that, that s great, we ve never had that on the show, love that.
9
SPEAKER_02
Question number two, what is the worst advice you ve ever heard or received?
9
SPEAKER_01
Stay in your lane.
9
SPEAKER_02
What was the lane?
9
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I don t know, but someone was trying to stifle me and lucky enough, I listened to my little Emma inside and gave her a big old beep.
9
SPEAKER_01
Never stay in your lane.
9
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
9
SPEAKER_01
But it s interesting because I think all the growth in my life has come when I have stepped outside of whatever lane I was in at that time.
9
SPEAKER_01
And so it s useless advice.
9
SPEAKER_02
Absolutely.
9
SPEAKER_02
Question number three, how would someone who doesn t know you that well describe you in three words?
9
SPEAKER_02
I wish, if you re listening to this, you just missed out on the best facial expression.
9
SPEAKER_02
You need to go to YouTube right now.
9
SPEAKER_01
It s always such a worry.
9
SPEAKER_01
I mean, goodness me, the things I ve been called.
9
SPEAKER_01
How would someone describe me?
9
SPEAKER_01
I think they would describe
10
SPEAKER_03
me as kind, I m a kind person, ambitious, and not to be messed around with.
10
SPEAKER_01
Got it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I like it.
10
SPEAKER_01
I like the third one, not to be messed around.
10
SPEAKER_03
I couldn t think of the one word, right?
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no, that s good.
10
SPEAKER_03
I think that s what people think about me.
10
SPEAKER_03
Tough.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_03
Tough.
10
SPEAKER_01
Tough.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_03
Kind but tough.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
10
SPEAKER_01
And ambitious.
10
SPEAKER_01
Question number four, how would someone who knows you very deeply describe you in three words?
10
SPEAKER_03
sensitive, very thoughtful and tough.
10
I love it.
10
SPEAKER_01
That s brilliant.
10
SPEAKER_01
We need to get your husband on the podcast.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly.
10
SPEAKER_01
To verify.
10
SPEAKER_02
To verify for sure.
10
SPEAKER_02
You go tough, tough and tough.
10
SPEAKER_01
I love it.
10
SPEAKER_01
And Emma, your final question.
10
SPEAKER_01
Fifth to final question.
10
SPEAKER_01
If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be?
10
SPEAKER_03
you know, very specifically for the time we re in right now, it would be to lead with kindness, nothing else.
10
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we need it in every little interaction.
10
SPEAKER_03
In everything, it s so powerful and it s what I teach my kids.
10
SPEAKER_03
It s like, just be kind.
10
SPEAKER_03
It doesn t take much and it goes so unbelievably far.
10
SPEAKER_03
And when I say that about myself being kind, it s like, that is something that I think about every single day.
10
SPEAKER_03
How am I treating people?
10
SPEAKER_03
What do people get from me?
10
SPEAKER_03
And I m talking about everyone, you know, like everyone.
10
SPEAKER_03
It s just a fact.
10
SPEAKER_03
Just be kind.
10
SPEAKER_01
Emma, great.
10
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for coming on.
10
SPEAKER_01
This was incredible.
10
SPEAKER_01
Everyone who s been listening and watching wherever you are, whether you re walking your dog, whether you re at the gym, whether you re driving to or from work, whether you re listening with your friends, I want you to know that please go and tag me and Emma in
10
SPEAKER_01
the moment that stood out to you, maybe there s a quote, maybe there was so much wisdom sprinkled across this entire episode.
10
SPEAKER_01
I hope that you find the ones that resonate with you.
10
SPEAKER_01
I hope that this helps you make a shift in your career.
10
SPEAKER_01
I hope this helps you make a shift in your mindset about how you re trying to balance what s going on in your world.
10
SPEAKER_01
I hope this helps you think differently about the choices and decisions you re about to make.
10
SPEAKER_01
Please, please, please tag me and Emma across social media to let us know what stood out to you.
10
SPEAKER_01
Please show her a ton of love.
10
SPEAKER_01
Emma, thank you for doing this.
10
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for opening up.
10
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for being so real and wonderful to spend this much time with.
10
SPEAKER_03
It s been a pleasure.
10
SPEAKER_03
I ve loved every second.
10
SPEAKER_03
I m so grateful to you.
10
SPEAKER_01
Thank you, Jay.
10
SPEAKER_01
So good to see you.
10
SPEAKER_01
If you love this episode, you will also love my interview with Kendall Jenner on setting boundaries to increase happiness and healing your inner child.
10
SPEAKER_00
You could be reading something that someone is saying about you and being like, that is so unfair because that s not who I am.
10
SPEAKER_00
And that really gets to me sometimes.
10
SPEAKER_00
But then looking at myself in the mirror and being like, but I know who I am.
10
SPEAKER_00
Why does anything else matter?
10
SPEAKER_01
Let s be honest, life is stressful.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s work, it s relationships, and the state of the world.
10
SPEAKER_01
But there s a way to bring that stress level down.
10
SPEAKER_01
Calm.
10
SPEAKER_01
It s the number one app for mental wellness with tons of content to manage anxiety, promote concentration, and help you unwind.
10
SPEAKER_01
There s music, meditation, and more.
10
SPEAKER_01
Calm makes it easy to de-stress.
10
SPEAKER_01
You can literally do a one-minute breathing exercise.
10
SPEAKER_01
Personally, I love the soundscapes.
10
SPEAKER_01
Nothing like a little rain on leaves to help soothe my nervous system.
10
SPEAKER_01
I ve actually been working with calm for a couple of years now and I d love for you to check out my series on reducing overwhelm.
10
SPEAKER_01
8 short practices, quick relief.
10
SPEAKER_01
Right now, listeners of On Purpose get 40% off a subscription to Calm Premium at calm.com forward slash j. That s c-a-l-m.com forward slash j-a-y for 40% off.
10
SPEAKER_01
Calm your mind, change your life.
10
SPEAKER_05
You don t put those inside of you, do you?
10
SPEAKER_04
This is a show about women.
10
SPEAKER_05
I mean, you do?
10
SPEAKER_04
Finally, a show about women that isn t just a thinly veiled aspirational nightmare.
10
SPEAKER_04
It s not hosted, not narrated.
10
SPEAKER_04
We re just dropping into a woman s world.
10
SPEAKER_04
I found out when my dad was gay when I was 10.
10
SPEAKER_04
We were in a convertible on the 405 freeway, listening to the B-52s.
10
SPEAKER_04
Looking back, I should have said, this is gay.
10
SPEAKER_04
This is already all gay.
10
SPEAKER_04
Listen to finally a show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10
SPEAKER_05
Discover a new educational and interactive podcast, Stories for Kids by Lingokids.
10
SPEAKER_05
Our episodes are packed with fun activities.
10
SPEAKER_05
Right, Elliot?
10
SPEAKER_05
Oh, yes.
10
SPEAKER_05
We went shape hunting around the block, and we found spheres and cubes on the street.
10
SPEAKER_05
That was great fun.
10
SPEAKER_05
Join Stories for Kids, the Lingokids podcast, inspiring you to learn while having fun.
10
SPEAKER_05
Listen to Stories for Kids on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10
SPEAKER_06
The Black Effect presents Family Therapy, and I m your host, Elliot Connick.
10
SPEAKER_06
Jay is the woman in this dynamic who is currently co-parenting two young boys with her former partner, David.
10
SPEAKER_04
David, he is a leader.
10
SPEAKER_04
He just don t want to leave me.
10
SPEAKER_06
But how do you lead a woman?
10
SPEAKER_06
How do you lead in a relationship?
10
SPEAKER_06
Like, what s the blue part?
10
SPEAKER_06
David, you just asked the most important question.
10
SPEAKER_06
Listen to Family Therapy on the Black Effect podcast network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.