SKIMS Co-Founder (Emma Grede): They’re Lying About Work Life Balance! I Built The Kardashian Empire! I Built SKIMS Without Fashion Knowledge!

0:00:02 Work-life balance is your problem.
0:00:04 It isn’t the employer’s responsibility.
0:00:07 Look, I have four kids, and I had to figure out
0:00:08 how I would think about my own ambition
0:00:10 balanced with my parenting.
0:00:10 That’s true.
0:00:12 And we have to have a level of honesty
0:00:15 about what it takes to be really successful.
0:00:17 But is it possible to be number one
0:00:18 but still have all of my evenings and weekends?
0:00:20 No, you know, no, no.
0:00:22 If it’s possible, tell me who she is,
0:00:23 and I’ll show you a liar.
0:00:26 Emma Greed has rewritten the fashion business rulebook.
0:00:28 As the co-founder of multi-billion dollar brands
0:00:31 like Good American and Skims with the Kardashians,
0:00:32 she’s now revealing the secrets
0:00:34 behind her unstoppable success.
0:00:35 You know this Emma here?
0:00:36 Where’d you get these photos?
0:00:37 How old are you here?
0:00:38 15.
0:00:39 And how do you feel about her?
0:00:42 I feel like this person was, like,
0:00:45 dying to escape her circumstances.
0:00:47 I was raised by a single mom,
0:00:47 one of four girls,
0:00:50 and I had a very big hand in raising them
0:00:53 to help my mom keep our family afloat.
0:00:54 But I thank God every day
0:00:56 for the type of upbringing that I had
0:00:58 because it was hammered into me
0:01:00 that nothing is going to come easy.
0:01:02 And that made me who I am.
0:01:03 Gritty.
0:01:04 Fast forward,
0:01:06 and I’m an apparel CEO,
0:01:07 someone who goes out
0:01:09 and raises hundreds of millions of dollars,
0:01:10 somebody who starts an agency
0:01:11 in multiple countries.
0:01:13 I have zero qualifications to do any of that.
0:01:15 Like, I didn’t have talent as a designer,
0:01:17 but I will just make it happen.
0:01:19 There’s a lot of things I want to go into there.
0:01:21 What are the three most important things
0:01:22 in being successful in business?
0:01:23 Do you think it’s possible for someone
0:01:25 to make themself gritty?
0:01:27 How do we not give so many?
0:01:28 My sociality.
0:01:29 And then pitch Chloe.
0:01:31 What was that journey like?
0:01:32 I’ll tell you the truth.
0:01:37 I find it incredibly fascinating
0:01:38 that when we look at the back end
0:01:40 of Spotify and Apple
0:01:41 and our audio channels,
0:01:42 the majority of people
0:01:43 that watch this podcast
0:01:45 haven’t yet hit the follow button
0:01:46 or the subscribe button
0:01:47 wherever you’re listening to this.
0:01:49 I would like to make a deal with you.
0:01:50 If you could do me a huge favor
0:01:51 and hit that subscribe button,
0:01:53 I will work tirelessly
0:01:54 from now until forever
0:01:55 to make the show better
0:01:56 and better and better and better.
0:01:58 I can’t tell you how much it helps
0:01:59 when you hit that subscribe button.
0:02:00 The show gets bigger,
0:02:01 which means we can expand the production,
0:02:04 bring in all the guests you want to see,
0:02:05 and continue to do in this thing we love.
0:02:07 If you could do me that small favor
0:02:07 and hit the follow button,
0:02:09 wherever you’re listening to this,
0:02:10 that would mean the world to me.
0:02:12 That is the only favor I will ever ask you.
0:02:13 Thank you so much for your time.
0:02:19 Emma, what do I need to understand
0:02:22 about your earliest context
0:02:24 in order to understand the woman,
0:02:25 the very, very unique woman,
0:02:26 the very successful woman
0:02:29 that is sat in front of me today?
0:02:30 And when I ask that question,
0:02:33 I’m looking for the characteristics
0:02:34 that were most formative
0:02:38 in creating the woman that is Emma.
0:02:40 What a great way to start.
0:02:43 I think that that’s a great question for me
0:02:46 because so much of who I am
0:02:49 and how I feel about who I am
0:02:50 comes from where I’m from.
0:02:53 And, you know, I say all the time,
0:02:53 I’m from East London.
0:02:55 I like to make that distinction
0:02:58 because I feel like such a Londoner.
0:03:00 And I feel like that, you know,
0:03:01 being from East London,
0:03:03 coming from that place
0:03:06 is so much a part of my character.
0:03:09 It’s so much a part of what is important to me,
0:03:12 like that idea of being,
0:03:14 you know, someone that is reliable,
0:03:17 someone that is honest,
0:03:19 not just, you know, sometimes,
0:03:20 but all the time.
0:03:23 And I’m one of four girls.
0:03:24 I was raised by a single mum
0:03:28 and it was so much kind of hammered into me
0:03:30 that this is where you’re from.
0:03:32 This is not where you need to stay.
0:03:33 The world is your oyster.
0:03:34 You can do anything.
0:03:36 You’re just going to have to work really,
0:03:37 really hard.
0:03:38 And I think all around me,
0:03:41 I saw a lot of people that were working hard.
0:03:43 I saw a lot of people that were hustling
0:03:44 and doing what they needed to do
0:03:45 just to get through the day.
0:03:48 But I had this feeling very much inside of me
0:03:50 that if I wanted more for myself,
0:03:52 it was all completely within reach.
0:03:54 And I think that really came from this,
0:03:56 like East London mentality
0:03:58 and all the people that were around me.
0:03:59 I didn’t need to do my research
0:04:01 to realise that you are a big sister.
0:04:05 Because you’ve got some serious big sister energy.
0:04:06 Even with me,
0:04:07 we’ve known each other for a little while now.
0:04:09 So you’re the oldest of four sisters.
0:04:10 I am indeed.
0:04:12 How did that shape you?
0:04:14 I think in a really big way.
0:04:14 You know,
0:04:16 I have a pretty interesting relationship
0:04:17 with my mum.
0:04:17 You know,
0:04:19 my dad left when we were much younger.
0:04:21 And our family dynamic is like,
0:04:23 she’s the dad,
0:04:24 I’m the mum,
0:04:25 and we have three kids together.
0:04:27 And I really,
0:04:27 you know,
0:04:29 I think if you asked any of my sisters,
0:04:29 they’d say,
0:04:32 Emma had this very big hand
0:04:33 in raising us,
0:04:35 in being pretty formative
0:04:36 in our childhood.
0:04:36 You know,
0:04:38 I would get up as a kid,
0:04:40 I’d iron three school shirts,
0:04:41 I’d make three pack lunches,
0:04:41 my mum would,
0:04:42 you know,
0:04:43 go off to work.
0:04:45 I’d get all the kids in school
0:04:45 and half the time
0:04:46 turn back around
0:04:47 and come home
0:04:47 to watch This Morning.
0:04:50 That was my life,
0:04:50 you know.
0:04:52 There was the odd day
0:04:53 I decided to stay there,
0:04:54 but more often than not,
0:04:55 I was just,
0:04:55 you know,
0:04:57 about trying to help my mum
0:04:59 keep our family afloat.
0:05:01 And I think that that made me
0:05:02 super responsible
0:05:03 at an early age,
0:05:04 but it also gave me
0:05:06 a very early indication
0:05:07 of like how I didn’t
0:05:08 want to live my life.
0:05:10 I knew that the milkman
0:05:10 hadn’t been paid.
0:05:12 I knew that there were bills
0:05:13 dropping on the,
0:05:13 you know,
0:05:14 on the doormat
0:05:15 kind of every day
0:05:16 and I felt that
0:05:18 at a very young age
0:05:19 and I felt the heaviness of that
0:05:21 and I knew it was all down
0:05:21 to my mum
0:05:24 to make ends me
0:05:25 and to figure that out
0:05:27 so that we could all be okay.
0:05:29 And I kind of decided
0:05:30 at a very,
0:05:30 very young age
0:05:31 that I didn’t want
0:05:33 any of that anxiety
0:05:34 and I didn’t want
0:05:35 that heaviness
0:05:36 to stay around
0:05:37 and to weigh on me
0:05:38 as I grew up.
0:05:39 I feel like children
0:05:40 aren’t supposed to grow up
0:05:41 with the heaviness
0:05:42 of bills on the doormat.
0:05:43 Whether they are
0:05:44 or they aren’t,
0:05:44 I actually,
0:05:46 I thank God every day
0:05:47 for the type of upbringing
0:05:48 that I had
0:05:49 because I think,
0:05:50 A,
0:05:51 it’s made me who I am
0:05:53 and I guess there were
0:05:54 parts of my childhood
0:05:56 that essentially
0:05:57 like just didn’t exist
0:05:58 because I didn’t have
0:05:59 the ability to like,
0:06:00 you know,
0:06:00 and still to this day
0:06:01 it’s so interesting actually
0:06:02 like the idea
0:06:03 of like just playing
0:06:04 isn’t part of like
0:06:05 who I am
0:06:07 but it gave me
0:06:08 a lot of other things.
0:06:10 It gave me a sense of,
0:06:10 you know,
0:06:11 I’m an extremely
0:06:13 maternal person
0:06:14 and it gave me
0:06:15 this kind of like
0:06:16 empathetic root
0:06:17 that it’s like
0:06:18 I’m here to look after
0:06:20 a lot of other people
0:06:21 and I know I do that
0:06:22 very, very well.
0:06:23 My energy had to be about,
0:06:24 you know,
0:06:26 making sure my sisters
0:06:26 were fed
0:06:27 and making sure
0:06:28 that the house was clean
0:06:28 and making sure
0:06:29 we were safe
0:06:30 because as wonderful
0:06:31 as East London was
0:06:32 it was also a place
0:06:32 where you needed to have
0:06:34 your wits about you.
0:06:34 You needed to make sure
0:06:36 that you’d brought your bike in,
0:06:37 you needed to make sure
0:06:38 that you were safe
0:06:40 and so my primary instinct
0:06:40 wasn’t like
0:06:41 let me have a laugh right now
0:06:42 and let me see
0:06:43 what my friends are doing.
0:06:44 My primary instinct was
0:06:45 how do I ensure
0:06:45 everybody’s safe
0:06:46 and the door’s locked
0:06:47 and we’re going to be good.
0:06:50 The absence of your father,
0:06:52 in hindsight,
0:06:54 do you notice an influence
0:06:56 that that had on you
0:06:57 as a young woman?
0:06:58 You know,
0:07:00 I’ve had a lot of therapy
0:07:02 so starting from
0:07:03 when I was 18 or 19
0:07:06 I started anger management
0:07:08 and because I felt,
0:07:08 you know,
0:07:10 like I was constantly
0:07:11 in a rage,
0:07:12 like I’ve never had
0:07:13 any issue
0:07:13 with being able
0:07:14 to express myself
0:07:15 and express rage
0:07:16 which I know is something
0:07:17 a lot of women
0:07:18 struggle with,
0:07:18 not me.
0:07:20 And it’s interesting,
0:07:20 you know,
0:07:21 and I’m going to sound
0:07:23 like so unbelievably arrogant
0:07:24 when I say this,
0:07:25 I don’t really have
0:07:27 those daddy issues.
0:07:29 Like I’ve been so fortunate
0:07:30 with the men
0:07:31 that have been in my life.
0:07:32 I’ve never had
0:07:33 a bad boyfriend.
0:07:34 I’ve never had
0:07:36 experiences with men
0:07:37 that have been like
0:07:39 really unfortunate
0:07:40 in that way
0:07:41 and so I think
0:07:42 the absence of
0:07:44 my father in my life
0:07:45 is one thing
0:07:46 but I had a lot
0:07:48 of really important
0:07:48 male influences
0:07:49 around me.
0:07:50 you know,
0:07:51 I had my granddad
0:07:52 that was a big part
0:07:52 of my life,
0:07:53 my granddad Reg,
0:07:54 it’s actually
0:07:55 his birthday today
0:07:56 which is so crazy
0:07:57 that he’s coming up
0:07:58 in conversation
0:07:59 because he does it
0:07:59 every day
0:08:00 and then I had
0:08:01 like two uncles,
0:08:01 Uncle Robbie,
0:08:02 Uncle Joe,
0:08:03 one uncle by marriage,
0:08:03 one uncle,
0:08:05 my blood uncle
0:08:06 and they were just such
0:08:09 like huge figures
0:08:09 in my life
0:08:10 and I had such
0:08:13 amazing male role models
0:08:14 that I knew exactly
0:08:15 what I needed
0:08:16 in my life.
0:08:17 Like I never,
0:08:18 I just,
0:08:18 I don’t feel
0:08:19 like I had
0:08:20 that emptiness
0:08:20 of not having
0:08:22 my father around.
0:08:22 I really,
0:08:23 it just wasn’t
0:08:24 my experience.
0:08:26 Anger management.
0:08:27 Mm-hmm.
0:08:29 Where do those roots
0:08:30 stem from?
0:08:31 You know,
0:08:32 it’s really interesting
0:08:34 because I really felt
0:08:35 like I was raised
0:08:36 in like quite a
0:08:37 blamey culture,
0:08:38 like everything
0:08:39 was somebody else’s fault.
0:08:40 If you weren’t
0:08:42 making enough money,
0:08:42 if you,
0:08:43 you know,
0:08:44 couldn’t make ends meet,
0:08:45 like whatever was happening,
0:08:46 it was the government’s fault,
0:08:47 it was that person’s fault,
0:08:48 it was never about
0:08:48 this idea
0:08:50 that I’ve accepted
0:08:51 as a kind of a radical
0:08:52 part of my life
0:08:52 which is like
0:08:53 self-responsibility.
0:08:55 Like I truly believe
0:08:56 that everything I want,
0:08:57 who I am,
0:09:00 anything is within my reach
0:09:01 if I choose it to be.
0:09:03 But growing up,
0:09:04 that really wasn’t a,
0:09:05 that just wasn’t
0:09:06 a part of my life.
0:09:07 It was very much
0:09:08 about what was happening
0:09:08 over there
0:09:10 and how that affected you.
0:09:11 And so,
0:09:13 it was interesting actually,
0:09:14 I think I just got enraged
0:09:15 thinking that
0:09:17 all the possibilities
0:09:19 that weren’t so obvious to me
0:09:20 were the fault of somebody else.
0:09:22 And I was,
0:09:23 I think,
0:09:24 just a bit of a hothead,
0:09:24 you know,
0:09:25 and what I saw
0:09:27 in my family
0:09:28 and what I saw around me
0:09:29 over and over again
0:09:30 was this ability
0:09:31 to just kind of like
0:09:32 lash out
0:09:33 and not deal with things.
0:09:34 And I absorbed that
0:09:35 as though
0:09:37 it was just the default reaction
0:09:37 to anything.
0:09:39 But I knew pretty early on
0:09:41 I had a really fantastic boyfriend
0:09:43 when I was 18, 19
0:09:44 and he was like,
0:09:45 your reactions
0:09:46 are just not normal.
0:09:47 And I was like,
0:09:47 really?
0:09:48 He said,
0:09:48 yeah,
0:09:49 I think you should try
0:09:50 and deal with that.
0:09:50 And I did.
0:09:52 I went like into a community
0:09:55 like anger management course
0:09:55 and I was like,
0:09:56 oh,
0:09:58 like there’s other ways
0:09:59 to deal with this.
0:10:01 Like I can breathe through it.
0:10:02 I can like find these
0:10:04 like tools and techniques
0:10:04 and figure out
0:10:06 how I can react differently.
0:10:07 and with that
0:10:08 it’s going to come
0:10:09 a different result
0:10:09 and with that
0:10:10 people will treat me
0:10:11 in a different way.
0:10:12 And it was like this
0:10:14 insane moment
0:10:15 of connection for me.
0:10:16 I hadn’t connected
0:10:18 how my behaviour
0:10:20 might be impacting
0:10:21 a lot of my relationships
0:10:22 and what was happening
0:10:23 around me.
0:10:23 But you don’t need
0:10:24 to tell me things
0:10:25 like more than once.
0:10:26 I was like,
0:10:26 got it.
0:10:27 Like, you know,
0:10:28 I stayed in the programme
0:10:29 for like,
0:10:29 I don’t know,
0:10:30 a couple of months
0:10:32 and it’s something
0:10:33 that throughout my life
0:10:33 like therapy
0:10:34 in different ways,
0:10:35 thankfully not
0:10:36 group therapy anymore,
0:10:37 but, you know,
0:10:38 I’ve remained
0:10:40 using therapists
0:10:41 in different ways
0:10:42 to unlock different things
0:10:43 that for me
0:10:44 become difficult
0:10:45 and I think about that
0:10:47 as like a tool
0:10:48 and the way that I grow
0:10:49 and, you know,
0:10:50 when I had kids
0:10:51 I saw a therapist
0:10:52 to really understand
0:10:53 like how I could be
0:10:54 a great parent,
0:10:55 how I would think
0:10:56 about my own ambition
0:10:57 balanced with my parenting
0:10:58 and so it’s like
0:10:59 just something for me
0:11:01 that I feel pretty good
0:11:02 about using someone else
0:11:03 to come and help me
0:11:04 figure something out
0:11:05 that I’m struggling with.
0:11:07 And at that young age
0:11:08 before the age of,
0:11:09 let’s say before the age of 16,
0:11:10 if I’d met you
0:11:11 as a 15-year-old
0:11:11 and said,
0:11:12 what do you want to be
0:11:13 when you’re older,
0:11:13 what would you have said to me?
0:11:14 Fashion designer.
0:11:15 Fashion designer?
0:11:16 Straight away, yeah.
0:11:16 Fashion designer.
0:11:17 And why would you have said that?
0:11:17 I was obsessed.
0:11:18 Well, you’ve got to remember,
0:11:19 you know,
0:11:20 I was born in 82
0:11:21 and in the early 90s
0:11:22 in England
0:11:24 it was like the glory days
0:11:24 of fashion.
0:11:25 You know,
0:11:25 you had all of those
0:11:27 supermodels,
0:11:28 the Cates and the Naomies
0:11:29 and, you know,
0:11:30 amazing designers,
0:11:32 McQueen and Galliano
0:11:33 and the British kind of
0:11:34 Brit art scene
0:11:35 and the, you know,
0:11:36 British music scene.
0:11:37 It was just an amazing time
0:11:38 in England.
0:11:38 But to me,
0:11:39 fashion was this
0:11:41 means of escape.
0:11:41 It was this
0:11:43 fantasy industry.
0:11:44 I didn’t know anyone
0:11:45 that worked in fashion,
0:11:46 which is so crazy.
0:11:48 My grandma worked
0:11:49 in a bra factory,
0:11:50 which I laugh about
0:11:51 all the time now
0:11:52 thinking about how many bras
0:11:52 I make.
0:11:54 But that was like
0:11:55 as close as anything
0:11:55 I knew,
0:11:56 like anyone that had worked
0:11:58 in like the apparel business.
0:11:59 I certainly didn’t understand
0:12:00 the idea of
0:12:01 entrepreneurialism,
0:12:02 having your own business.
0:12:03 To me,
0:12:04 it was just a fantasy.
0:12:04 Like,
0:12:05 I’m here
0:12:06 in Plasto,
0:12:07 it’s shit,
0:12:09 how do I get away from it?
0:12:10 And, you know,
0:12:11 to me it was like,
0:12:12 it’s almost like the movies.
0:12:13 Could have just as well
0:12:14 been Hollywood.
0:12:14 It was like,
0:12:15 that’s over there,
0:12:16 it’s beautiful,
0:12:17 it’s glamorous,
0:12:18 wouldn’t that be fantastic
0:12:19 to be part of that?
0:12:20 And what was,
0:12:21 I was thinking the other day
0:12:22 about money,
0:12:23 I was speaking to a friend
0:12:25 and we were discussing money
0:12:27 as if it was a person
0:12:29 and playing through
0:12:30 the attachment style
0:12:31 we would have with that person,
0:12:32 you know,
0:12:33 like the secure attachment,
0:12:33 the anxious,
0:12:34 the avoidant.
0:12:35 At a young age,
0:12:37 what was money
0:12:38 as a person
0:12:38 in the room,
0:12:39 in your life,
0:12:40 growing up,
0:12:40 in the family?
0:12:42 like,
0:12:45 like the best,
0:12:47 the best friend,
0:12:48 like the best thing ever.
0:12:49 I mean,
0:12:50 you know,
0:12:51 I,
0:12:52 we worshipped money.
0:12:53 We worshipped money,
0:12:54 we worshipped what money
0:12:55 could bring,
0:12:56 we worshipped the material,
0:12:58 stuff that you could get
0:12:59 for having the money.
0:13:00 It was all about the car
0:13:01 and the bag
0:13:01 and the thing
0:13:02 and the thing,
0:13:02 that was it.
0:13:03 Was money around a lot?
0:13:06 It was none of it around.
0:13:07 Absolutely none.
0:13:08 I mean,
0:13:08 I knew,
0:13:09 I knew people
0:13:10 that had money
0:13:11 but they were kind of
0:13:11 over there
0:13:12 doing their thing.
0:13:13 They were not part of
0:13:14 my thing.
0:13:15 But it was,
0:13:17 it was so obvious to me
0:13:18 when I was a kid
0:13:21 that money was something
0:13:23 that I needed to find.
0:13:24 So in my head,
0:13:25 that was always like
0:13:27 playing out in my mind
0:13:27 of like,
0:13:29 how do I get away
0:13:30 from that being my reality?
0:13:32 And I’ve,
0:13:32 you know,
0:13:34 I wanted to leave
0:13:35 where I was,
0:13:35 you know,
0:13:36 I wanted to be,
0:13:38 I used to have this like vision
0:13:39 and I would draw
0:13:40 this fireplace
0:13:42 and this beautiful Christmas tree
0:13:44 and this credenza
0:13:45 and I would,
0:13:45 you know,
0:13:46 and I’d imagine like
0:13:47 that’s the house
0:13:48 of my dreams
0:13:49 and it’s so,
0:13:49 you’re going to think
0:13:50 I’m insane.
0:13:52 But years later,
0:13:52 the first,
0:13:53 so I had Gray
0:13:54 on December,
0:13:56 December 20th
0:13:59 and got him back home,
0:14:01 sat down with my baby
0:14:02 in my living room
0:14:02 for the first time
0:14:04 and literally burst into tears
0:14:05 and my husband was like,
0:14:05 oh my God,
0:14:06 isn’t it like amazing?
0:14:07 We’ve got this baby
0:14:07 and I was like,
0:14:07 no,
0:14:09 it’s amazing.
0:14:10 I drew this scene.
0:14:11 This is the scene
0:14:12 that I drew my whole childhood
0:14:14 and had this beautiful townhouse
0:14:14 in Clerkenwell
0:14:15 and it was like the window
0:14:16 and the credenza
0:14:17 and the Christmas tree
0:14:18 and I was like,
0:14:19 I did it
0:14:21 and I will never forget
0:14:21 the moment.
0:14:22 It was almost eclipsed
0:14:23 having the baby.
0:14:24 I was like,
0:14:25 this is insane.
0:14:26 Like,
0:14:27 I visualised that.
0:14:28 I made that happen.
0:14:29 I’ve drawn this
0:14:30 500 times
0:14:31 and here it is
0:14:32 and here I am.
0:14:33 And if you were
0:14:34 to give someone
0:14:35 some advice,
0:14:36 just jumping ahead
0:14:37 and doing some top line stuff
0:14:39 on how to make
0:14:40 their drawing
0:14:41 come true
0:14:42 in their life,
0:14:43 as you reflect back
0:14:45 on the core components
0:14:47 of that manifestation
0:14:48 becoming a reality,
0:14:49 what are those core components?
0:14:50 Because we’ve all got
0:14:51 a drawing in our head.
0:14:51 Yeah, yeah,
0:14:52 of course we have.
0:14:52 Well, first of all,
0:14:53 I wouldn’t tell them to draw it
0:14:54 because that’s just not me.
0:14:57 That wouldn’t be part
0:14:57 of what I would say.
0:14:58 Absolutely not.
0:15:00 I think that certainly
0:15:02 in this space
0:15:02 of like,
0:15:03 you know,
0:15:05 mindset,
0:15:06 manifestation,
0:15:07 visualisation,
0:15:09 there’s a lot of toxic positivity
0:15:10 around here for women
0:15:11 and what you need to do
0:15:13 is like get to work.
0:15:13 Like,
0:15:14 that is the first thing to say.
0:15:16 So I have like,
0:15:17 yes,
0:15:17 you can dream it,
0:15:18 you can believe it,
0:15:19 you can create a vision board,
0:15:20 all the things,
0:15:20 but don’t forget
0:15:21 what comes under that
0:15:22 and what comes under that
0:15:24 is an enormous amount of work
0:15:25 and an enormous amount
0:15:26 of planning.
0:15:28 I think that what I do
0:15:30 uniquely well,
0:15:31 Stephen,
0:15:33 is that I have an ability
0:15:36 to focus on what I’m doing.
0:15:38 I have an ability
0:15:40 to get better
0:15:41 at what I’m doing,
0:15:41 right,
0:15:42 like to constantly
0:15:43 get better
0:15:44 at whatever it is
0:15:45 that I’m focusing on
0:15:46 and then I have an ability
0:15:49 to drown out
0:15:50 and kind of disregard
0:15:50 the noise
0:15:52 of everyone around me
0:15:53 and those three things
0:15:53 are important
0:15:55 because focus
0:15:56 is like,
0:15:57 it’s like a force multiplier
0:15:57 in work,
0:15:58 right?
0:15:59 When you have a plan
0:16:00 and you have a focus
0:16:01 and you can kind of
0:16:02 go into
0:16:03 what it is
0:16:05 that you find important
0:16:07 and double down
0:16:08 on a very finite
0:16:09 number of things,
0:16:10 that’s what propels
0:16:11 you forward
0:16:13 and I was very fixated
0:16:14 on working in fashion
0:16:15 but I also knew
0:16:17 that I didn’t have talent
0:16:17 as a designer
0:16:18 and as much
0:16:18 as I wanted
0:16:19 to be a fashion designer,
0:16:20 I couldn’t draw.
0:16:21 That drawing
0:16:22 wasn’t a very good one
0:16:22 actually.
0:16:24 If you look at it now,
0:16:24 it’s like,
0:16:25 I couldn’t sketch,
0:16:26 I don’t have much
0:16:27 creative talent.
0:16:28 What I am
0:16:29 is a great enabler
0:16:29 to talent.
0:16:30 I can sit next
0:16:30 to a talent
0:16:31 and understand
0:16:32 their vision
0:16:33 and figure out
0:16:34 a way to turn
0:16:35 that vision
0:16:35 into a reality
0:16:37 but the creative part
0:16:38 isn’t what I do
0:16:38 so well
0:16:40 and so really
0:16:40 understanding
0:16:42 like what is your plan
0:16:43 and how you can
0:16:44 double down
0:16:45 and get into the things
0:16:46 that you are uniquely
0:16:47 good at
0:16:48 and that you uniquely
0:16:48 have skills for
0:16:50 is important.
0:16:51 I think getting
0:16:52 outside of your head
0:16:53 is like really important
0:16:54 because so many people
0:16:55 have dreams
0:16:56 and ambitions
0:16:57 and ideas
0:16:58 but it just exists here.
0:16:59 Like what I do
0:17:00 is a lot of action.
0:17:01 Like I made like
0:17:03 hundreds of calls.
0:17:03 Like I always talk
0:17:04 about this thing
0:17:05 of at some point
0:17:06 because this was
0:17:07 like before email
0:17:08 I would send a lot
0:17:09 of letters
0:17:09 and I thought
0:17:10 no one’s getting back
0:17:10 to me.
0:17:11 Maybe they’re not
0:17:12 getting the letters.
0:17:13 So I started like
0:17:14 hand delivering things
0:17:15 around the West End.
0:17:16 I would buzz
0:17:17 on little doors
0:17:18 of PR agencies
0:17:18 and be like
0:17:19 hi you know
0:17:20 my name’s Emma
0:17:21 and I sent you a letter
0:17:21 but I don’t know
0:17:22 if you got it.
0:17:23 You know what I mean?
0:17:24 It’s like yeah
0:17:25 whatever love
0:17:25 but sometimes
0:17:26 they’d let you up
0:17:26 and sometimes
0:17:27 you’ve had a conversation
0:17:28 with somebody
0:17:29 and whatever right.
0:17:30 so I really believe
0:17:31 in this kind of idea
0:17:32 of action
0:17:33 and then you’ve
0:17:34 just got to like
0:17:36 just really
0:17:37 when I talk about
0:17:37 this idea of
0:17:38 disregarding what
0:17:39 people think
0:17:39 there’s just so much
0:17:40 noise
0:17:41 and you have to
0:17:41 have like this
0:17:42 single-minded focus
0:17:43 on what you’re doing
0:17:44 and I’ve been really
0:17:45 good at drowning
0:17:46 out the noise
0:17:46 not just from
0:17:47 what goes on
0:17:48 inside me
0:17:49 and what you know
0:17:50 my own kind of fear
0:17:51 but also what’s
0:17:52 happening around you
0:17:52 and I think that
0:17:53 those things are
0:17:54 really really key.
0:17:55 when you say
0:17:56 drowning out the noise
0:17:57 there’s a lot of things
0:17:57 I want to go into there
0:17:58 but you talk about
0:17:59 drowning out the noise
0:17:59 I’ll focus on that
0:18:00 because it was the last thing
0:18:01 how do you balance
0:18:03 drowning out the noise
0:18:04 with another principle
0:18:04 that I know is important
0:18:05 to you which is
0:18:06 feedback
0:18:08 especially from customers
0:18:08 because customers
0:18:09 will be saying
0:18:10 we hate this
0:18:11 customers always hate change
0:18:12 and they also don’t
0:18:13 know what they want
0:18:14 so how do you
0:18:15 know what to drown out
0:18:16 and what to consider
0:18:17 to be feedback?
0:18:17 I think that that’s
0:18:19 it’s a great question
0:18:20 and you know
0:18:21 it’s interesting
0:18:22 because I am actually
0:18:23 a person who
0:18:25 takes in a lot of
0:18:25 information
0:18:26 if I’m trying to make
0:18:27 like a really big decision
0:18:27 that I don’t feel
0:18:29 fully qualified to make
0:18:30 which by the way
0:18:31 happens to me all the time
0:18:31 because I’m still
0:18:32 learning so much
0:18:34 I will call a lot of people
0:18:35 that I think are in the know
0:18:36 but at the end of the day
0:18:38 I have to call the play
0:18:38 right and often
0:18:39 if you call up
0:18:40 seven or eight people
0:18:41 they’re going to have
0:18:42 different opinions
0:18:43 there’ll be different
0:18:44 patterns that emerge
0:18:45 there will be
0:18:46 contrarian type of
0:18:47 you know
0:18:48 something that comes out
0:18:48 of that
0:18:49 and so you have to
0:18:51 then still like go
0:18:52 where is my gut
0:18:54 what feels good to me
0:18:55 what’s right for my
0:18:55 customer
0:18:56 I think it’s very
0:18:57 different when you get
0:18:57 customer feedback
0:18:59 because what I’ve learned
0:19:00 is that everything your
0:19:01 customer says is true
0:19:02 because it’s true to them
0:19:04 and so what I do
0:19:05 is like of course
0:19:06 we have a balanced view
0:19:06 we try to like speak
0:19:08 to as many customers
0:19:09 we’re doing giant surveys
0:19:10 and you take you know
0:19:12 the sum of those parts
0:19:13 but when it comes down
0:19:14 to customer feedback
0:19:15 I think it is
0:19:17 it’s ingested
0:19:18 in a very very different way
0:19:19 than like that kind of
0:19:20 decision making feedback
0:19:21 when I make a decision
0:19:23 on behalf of my business
0:19:24 that has to come from my gut
0:19:25 and from the intentions
0:19:26 of where I want that
0:19:27 business to go
0:19:28 when I’m doing things
0:19:28 for customers
0:19:29 it’s very different
0:19:29 because you just want
0:19:30 to please customers
0:19:32 you reference that
0:19:33 calling around people
0:19:34 that you respect
0:19:34 all the time
0:19:36 I do it constantly
0:19:39 I had someone say
0:19:40 that refer to this
0:19:41 as your like personal
0:19:42 board of directors
0:19:43 oh I love that
0:19:43 which is these like
0:19:44 five or seven people
0:19:45 that you typically call
0:19:46 maybe it’s ten
0:19:47 who’s on your
0:19:48 personal board of directors
0:19:49 like who are these people
0:19:49 that are taking
0:19:50 these phone calls
0:19:50 and why are you
0:19:51 calling them
0:19:52 what is it about them
0:19:53 that makes them
0:19:55 a reliable partner
0:19:56 in decisions
0:19:57 well you know
0:19:57 first person
0:19:59 I speak to my husband
0:19:59 a lot
0:20:00 because obviously
0:20:01 we work together
0:20:03 and Jens has a unique
0:20:05 understanding of me
0:20:06 of my weaknesses
0:20:07 of what might be
0:20:07 stopping me
0:20:08 from making a decision
0:20:09 so I feel like
0:20:10 I go to him
0:20:11 a lot
0:20:12 because he will
0:20:13 oh he’s going to
0:20:14 tell me the truth
0:20:16 he’s told me
0:20:17 some of the biggest
0:20:19 unlocks in my life
0:20:20 and my career
0:20:22 have come from Jens
0:20:23 and I will never
0:20:24 ever forget Stephen
0:20:25 like one of my
0:20:26 first board meetings
0:20:27 one of my first companies
0:20:28 it was called ITB
0:20:30 and I would get so nervous
0:20:31 ahead of a board meeting
0:20:32 and he’d be like
0:20:33 why are you so nervous
0:20:34 and I’d be like
0:20:35 I don’t know
0:20:36 because I’m a good chatter
0:20:37 I’m a good presenter
0:20:38 I can sell anything
0:20:38 but you know
0:20:39 I would get to these
0:20:39 board meetings
0:20:40 and I would just
0:20:41 fall apart
0:20:42 and he said to me
0:20:43 just
0:20:45 wrong timing
0:20:45 by the way
0:20:45 if you’re going
0:20:47 to give your wife
0:20:47 a little bit of feedback
0:20:48 literally just before
0:20:49 we went in
0:20:49 and he said
0:20:49 you know what
0:20:50 I really
0:20:51 I know why
0:20:53 you are suffering
0:20:53 here Emma
0:20:54 you have an
0:20:55 employee mentality
0:20:57 and I
0:20:59 I mean I was 26
0:21:00 or 27 years old
0:21:01 I couldn’t think
0:21:02 about anything else
0:21:03 in the whole meeting
0:21:03 because I was like
0:21:05 he’s completely right
0:21:06 I have an employee
0:21:06 mentality
0:21:07 well why
0:21:08 because I’d only
0:21:09 ever been an employee
0:21:10 up until that point
0:21:12 but I was looking
0:21:14 instead of
0:21:14 you know
0:21:16 being there
0:21:16 as the CEO
0:21:18 to guide the board
0:21:19 into a decision
0:21:20 I was looking
0:21:20 for everybody else
0:21:21 to tell me
0:21:22 what to do
0:21:23 and so I was seeking
0:21:24 their approval
0:21:25 instead of going in
0:21:25 and saying
0:21:26 here’s the direction
0:21:27 this is what we’re doing
0:21:28 everybody come with me
0:21:29 and these are the reasons
0:21:31 and so it was such
0:21:32 an interesting insight
0:21:33 and I think that you
0:21:34 could only
0:21:35 or I could have only
0:21:35 heard that
0:21:36 from somebody
0:21:37 so close to me
0:21:38 so at that early
0:21:39 stage in your career
0:21:40 what role
0:21:41 are mentors playing
0:21:42 because we’re talking
0:21:42 about personal
0:21:43 boards of directors here
0:21:43 yeah
0:21:44 these are
0:21:45 in some respects
0:21:46 mentors
0:21:46 yeah
0:21:48 do they matter
0:21:49 and I say this Emma
0:21:49 because I have kids
0:21:50 coming up to me
0:21:50 all the time
0:21:51 saying
0:21:52 Steve I need a mentor
0:21:53 and they sometimes say
0:21:54 can you be my mentor
0:21:55 and I’m thinking
0:21:55 fucking hell
0:21:55 I’ve done
0:21:57 17,000 hours of podcasting
0:21:58 and they haven’t learned
0:21:58 a fucking thing
0:21:58 I’m like
0:22:00 that was the mentorship
0:22:01 that was the mentorship
0:22:03 what’s your take
0:22:04 on finding a mentor
0:22:05 and how pivotal
0:22:06 and important that is
0:22:07 to become a successful person
0:22:08 listen
0:22:08 you know
0:22:09 from my own experience
0:22:11 I don’t think
0:22:13 I had any mentors
0:22:13 you know
0:22:15 I started work
0:22:17 let’s talk about
0:22:17 real work right
0:22:18 so it’s like
0:22:19 I’ve had a job
0:22:20 since I was 12 years old
0:22:21 I’ve worked a paper round
0:22:22 and then I worked
0:22:22 in the delis
0:22:23 and then I worked
0:22:24 in clothes shops
0:22:24 and when I got
0:22:25 my first real job
0:22:27 in an office
0:22:28 in a fashion show
0:22:29 production company
0:22:30 I was 18 years old
0:22:31 so I’ve had
0:22:32 a salaried job
0:22:33 in a place
0:22:33 that was working
0:22:34 towards something
0:22:35 that I felt
0:22:35 was interesting
0:22:36 and in the
0:22:37 kind of direction
0:22:38 of where I wanted
0:22:38 to go
0:22:39 since I was 18
0:22:41 at that point
0:22:42 you make whoever
0:22:43 is around you
0:22:43 if you’re smart
0:22:44 you make whoever
0:22:45 is around you
0:22:45 your mentor
0:22:46 I used to sit
0:22:47 in front of my boss
0:22:48 and everybody
0:22:48 thought that was
0:22:49 so unfortunate
0:22:50 because she could
0:22:51 see my screen
0:22:52 and that was like
0:22:52 the beginnings
0:22:53 of online shopping
0:22:54 Net-a-Porter
0:22:55 was our client
0:22:56 and we all had
0:22:56 a discount
0:22:57 so everyone would
0:22:58 sit on Net-a-Porter
0:22:58 all day
0:22:59 except me
0:23:00 because my boss
0:23:00 sat behind me
0:23:00 and they were like
0:23:02 what a nightmare
0:23:03 and I was like
0:23:04 no not a nightmare
0:23:04 at all
0:23:06 whatever she says
0:23:06 when she’s on her
0:23:07 sales calls
0:23:08 I would write down
0:23:09 and I would use them
0:23:10 later on
0:23:11 on my sales calls
0:23:12 now was she my mentor
0:23:13 no she was my boss
0:23:15 but I used her
0:23:15 as such
0:23:16 because I would
0:23:17 learn from her
0:23:17 I’d take
0:23:18 you know
0:23:18 I even like
0:23:19 copied her outfits
0:23:20 you know
0:23:21 I would do the whole thing
0:23:22 and so for me
0:23:23 she was really formative
0:23:25 but I don’t think
0:23:25 that you should
0:23:26 walk around
0:23:26 looking for a mentor
0:23:27 I think you have to
0:23:27 walk around
0:23:28 asking questions
0:23:29 because anyone
0:23:29 who’s going to be
0:23:30 a good mentor
0:23:31 probably doesn’t
0:23:31 have time
0:23:32 to mentor you
0:23:33 first
0:23:34 secondly
0:23:35 like depending
0:23:36 who you are
0:23:37 and what your exposure
0:23:37 is
0:23:38 you’re not going to
0:23:39 have the right
0:23:39 people around you
0:23:40 to get mentored
0:23:41 so you’ve just got
0:23:42 to be super inquisitive
0:23:43 and I think it’s
0:23:44 really important
0:23:45 to take where you are
0:23:46 and figure out
0:23:47 like who is around you
0:23:48 and where can you
0:23:48 get that type
0:23:49 of mentorship from
0:23:50 for me in the beginning
0:23:51 I would just take
0:23:53 whatever client I had
0:23:54 like if I come into
0:23:55 contact with the CMO
0:23:56 or the CEO
0:23:57 I’d just ask him a question
0:23:58 I’d be in the meeting
0:23:58 I’d be like
0:24:00 I have two other
0:24:00 questions for you
0:24:01 I have nothing to do
0:24:02 with the work
0:24:02 that we’re doing
0:24:03 or the you know
0:24:04 whatever brief
0:24:05 I was there to deliver
0:24:06 and I’d ask a question
0:24:08 and what part of you
0:24:09 do you think
0:24:10 if I removed
0:24:12 and this could be
0:24:13 a skill or a characteristic
0:24:15 would definitely assure
0:24:15 that you wouldn’t
0:24:16 be where you are today
0:24:17 like what is the
0:24:18 sacred part of you
0:24:19 that is defining
0:24:20 because people see
0:24:21 Emma today
0:24:22 and they see these skills
0:24:22 and this knowledge
0:24:23 and all this stuff
0:24:24 and these relationships
0:24:24 and these businesses
0:24:25 and this success
0:24:26 but what is the like
0:24:27 because you said
0:24:28 I’m dyslexic
0:24:29 and I think you left school
0:24:30 you dropped out of school
0:24:30 at 15
0:24:32 and then you went to
0:24:32 college for a while
0:24:33 and you lasted
0:24:34 six months there
0:24:35 I’m a serial dropout
0:24:36 so it’s not something
0:24:37 you learn necessarily
0:24:37 in school
0:24:38 so I’m wondering
0:24:39 what the characteristic is
0:24:41 that was the like
0:24:42 the wind in one sails
0:24:44 that brought you here
0:24:45 and if I removed that thing
0:24:46 you definitely wouldn’t
0:24:47 be here
0:24:47 and it could only
0:24:48 give me one thing
0:24:50 I mean listen
0:24:51 we didn’t call it
0:24:52 that then
0:24:54 but it would come down
0:24:54 to grit
0:24:55 grit
0:24:57 I think that that is
0:24:58 what we would say
0:24:58 now
0:24:59 you know
0:25:00 Angela Duckworth
0:25:01 like coined that
0:25:02 phrase I guess
0:25:04 or that term
0:25:05 and wrote that
0:25:06 fantastic book
0:25:07 about grit
0:25:07 that all
0:25:08 everybody read
0:25:09 and was like
0:25:09 oh my god
0:25:10 I just want my kids
0:25:11 to have grit
0:25:12 like my kids want
0:25:13 for nothing
0:25:13 they’re not going
0:25:13 to be gritty
0:25:15 like it’s just facts
0:25:17 you don’t go off
0:25:18 in bel-air gritty
0:25:18 you know
0:25:19 but I think
0:25:19 that if you
0:25:21 if I think about
0:25:23 what it is for me
0:25:24 and still is
0:25:26 I’m just gritty
0:25:28 I’m very clear
0:25:29 about what I want
0:25:30 and what I need
0:25:32 and I will find a way
0:25:33 whatever it is
0:25:34 you know
0:25:35 I am not
0:25:36 any of the things
0:25:37 that you would have
0:25:38 on my resume
0:25:39 you know
0:25:39 an apparel
0:25:40 CEO
0:25:42 someone who goes out
0:25:42 and raises hundreds
0:25:43 of millions of dollars
0:25:44 somebody who starts
0:25:44 an agency
0:25:45 in multiple countries
0:25:47 I have zero qualifications
0:25:48 to do any of that stuff
0:25:50 I will just make it happen
0:25:52 because I’m in the moment
0:25:53 I see the opportunity
0:25:54 and I am prepared
0:25:55 and I’m prepared
0:25:56 because it’s like
0:25:57 I have done all the work
0:25:59 to get to the point
0:26:01 where that thing
0:26:03 that is in front of me
0:26:04 I will make it happen
0:26:05 I’ve done enough work
0:26:06 to say
0:26:06 okay
0:26:08 I can take this
0:26:09 to that next place
0:26:10 and is that grit
0:26:11 and ember
0:26:12 that life blew on
0:26:13 because I wonder
0:26:14 if I’d gone back
0:26:14 and I’d met Emma
0:26:15 at 18 years old
0:26:16 whether she would have
0:26:17 said it like
0:26:18 to me like that
0:26:19 so
0:26:20 no
0:26:21 Emma at 18 years old
0:26:22 would have been like
0:26:23 it’s so interesting
0:26:23 you know
0:26:24 we don’t have yearbooks
0:26:25 in England
0:26:26 but if we did
0:26:27 I reckon
0:26:28 I would have been
0:26:28 like the most likely
0:26:29 to succeed
0:26:30 I don’t think anyone
0:26:31 at school was like
0:26:31 oh she’s a bit
0:26:32 of a waistcoat
0:26:32 no
0:26:32 it’s like
0:26:34 I had that mentality
0:26:36 that I was away
0:26:36 from the pack
0:26:37 that I was going
0:26:38 to do something special
0:26:41 but also my mentality
0:26:41 was like
0:26:43 whatever it takes
0:26:43 you know
0:26:43 if I could
0:26:45 if I think about
0:26:46 the most important
0:26:47 words
0:26:49 for career advancement
0:26:51 like the three
0:26:52 most important words
0:26:52 would be like
0:26:53 I’ll do that
0:26:54 that was me
0:26:55 I had my hand up
0:26:56 my whole life
0:26:57 I’ll do that
0:26:59 like every single time
0:27:00 anytime anyone
0:27:01 has asked me
0:27:02 whatever it took
0:27:04 wherever I’ve been
0:27:05 in whichever workplace
0:27:05 I was like
0:27:06 I’ll do it
0:27:07 I’ll do that
0:27:08 and that is what
0:27:09 like people
0:27:11 started to look at me
0:27:11 as someone
0:27:12 that would just
0:27:13 figure it out
0:27:13 right
0:27:13 it’s not like
0:27:14 I had any
0:27:16 particular skill
0:27:17 I just put myself
0:27:18 in a situation
0:27:21 and in the space
0:27:21 of
0:27:23 let me have a go
0:27:25 every single time
0:27:25 to me it makes
0:27:26 perfect sense
0:27:27 it makes perfect sense
0:27:28 because
0:27:29 you grew up
0:27:30 in a situation
0:27:31 as an older sister
0:27:32 where you were
0:27:32 playing the role
0:27:33 of a dad
0:27:34 where you did
0:27:34 have to put your
0:27:34 hand up
0:27:35 and say
0:27:35 I’ll do that
0:27:36 you did have
0:27:36 to make the
0:27:37 lunches
0:27:38 and I sometimes
0:27:39 think back
0:27:40 to my own life
0:27:40 and think about
0:27:41 how a void
0:27:41 of independence
0:27:43 is maybe a scary
0:27:44 thing to some parents
0:27:45 but it’s also
0:27:45 an incredibly
0:27:46 useful thing
0:27:47 for a kid
0:27:47 to learn
0:27:48 that I have
0:27:49 to get myself
0:27:50 from A to B
0:27:51 whether it’s
0:27:52 from home
0:27:52 to school
0:27:53 or from home
0:27:53 to dinner
0:27:54 or from home
0:27:55 to whatever
0:27:56 it might be
0:27:56 and that
0:27:57 I don’t know
0:27:58 I look at your life
0:27:58 and go
0:27:59 you had this
0:27:59 massive void
0:28:00 of independence
0:28:01 and in there
0:28:02 grows
0:28:03 skills
0:28:03 belief
0:28:04 and understanding
0:28:05 about life
0:28:05 that most
0:28:05 others
0:28:06 don’t get
0:28:07 so it’s no surprise
0:28:08 that at such a young age
0:28:10 you thought you could do stuff
0:28:10 because so many people
0:28:12 they have an idea
0:28:13 they know where they are now
0:28:14 and they kind of
0:28:15 might have an idea
0:28:16 of where they want to be
0:28:17 but the gap between it
0:28:17 is not something
0:28:18 they’ve ever had to traverse
0:28:20 like they’ve never had to walk it
0:28:21 do you think it’s possible
0:28:22 for someone to make
0:28:23 themselves gritty
0:28:23 you know you’ve got
0:28:24 team members
0:28:24 employees
0:28:26 you can see the variance
0:28:27 in gritty and ungritty
0:28:28 resilience
0:28:29 I see a lot of ungrittiness
0:28:30 yeah go on
0:28:32 where do you see
0:28:33 the ungrittiness
0:28:34 and is it possible
0:28:34 to make yourself gritty
0:28:35 have you ever seen
0:28:36 someone go from
0:28:37 what should we call it
0:28:38 what’s the opposite
0:28:38 of grittiness
0:28:39 floppy
0:28:40 I don’t know
0:28:41 I don’t know
0:28:41 what the opposite
0:28:43 of grittiness is actually
0:28:45 soft I guess
0:28:46 yes listen
0:28:47 I do
0:28:49 if you want it
0:28:50 like anything else
0:28:50 right
0:28:50 it’s got
0:28:51 it’s all about
0:28:54 do you actually
0:28:55 want to be that way
0:28:56 and to behave that way
0:28:56 and we were talking
0:28:57 about this
0:28:58 actually funny enough
0:28:59 on the way over
0:29:00 because you know
0:29:01 I just came from
0:29:02 my own office
0:29:03 two minutes away
0:29:04 it’s Friday
0:29:06 all of the product
0:29:06 teams are in
0:29:07 the rest of the office
0:29:08 is pretty empty
0:29:10 and you know
0:29:10 and I think
0:29:11 post-COVID
0:29:12 people have really
0:29:14 taken the liberty
0:29:14 of
0:29:17 as we allow them
0:29:17 right
0:29:18 they can come in
0:29:19 four days a week
0:29:21 and it’s interesting
0:29:22 because we talk
0:29:23 so so much
0:29:25 about the flexibility
0:29:27 of working from home
0:29:28 and what Zoom Life
0:29:29 has kind of done
0:29:29 for business
0:29:30 but we don’t talk
0:29:31 about any of the
0:29:32 rigidity of it
0:29:33 and what it takes
0:29:34 away from work
0:29:36 and I can tell you
0:29:37 and I can guarantee you
0:29:39 that had I been
0:29:41 a work from home
0:29:42 person in my 20s
0:29:43 I would not
0:29:44 be where I am now
0:29:46 there is no doubt
0:29:46 in my mind
0:29:48 and I think about
0:29:49 some you know
0:29:50 I met my husband
0:29:50 at work
0:29:52 I made some of my
0:29:53 best strongest
0:29:55 relationships in my life
0:29:55 that are the most
0:29:56 important things to me
0:29:57 and the foundation
0:29:59 of my happiness
0:30:00 and my like
0:30:02 being a solid person
0:30:03 at work
0:30:03 that’s where
0:30:04 those relationships
0:30:05 come from
0:30:05 and so I think
0:30:06 it’s really interesting
0:30:07 now that we have
0:30:08 this aversion
0:30:09 of wanting to be
0:30:11 away from the office
0:30:12 all of the time
0:30:12 and I’m like
0:30:13 oh that’s
0:30:13 like
0:30:14 it’s so interesting
0:30:15 to me
0:30:15 because I’m like
0:30:16 such a
0:30:17 I’m like an
0:30:18 in-person person
0:30:18 I want to be
0:30:19 with people
0:30:19 I want to collaborate
0:30:20 I want to do
0:30:21 things quickly
0:30:23 and the culture
0:30:24 of work right now
0:30:26 makes that so hard
0:30:27 so I think
0:30:28 yes you can
0:30:29 teach someone
0:30:31 to have grit
0:30:32 but I can’t teach
0:30:32 you on a screen
0:30:33 babe
0:30:34 I can’t reach you
0:30:35 you won’t see
0:30:36 how I move
0:30:37 and in that same way
0:30:38 that I had this woman
0:30:40 that sat behind me
0:30:41 and I would take notes
0:30:41 of everything she said
0:30:42 that happened
0:30:44 in real time
0:30:44 right
0:30:45 she would walk
0:30:46 out of the room
0:30:46 and I’d be on my
0:30:47 next new business call
0:30:48 saying her lines
0:30:49 like it was just
0:30:50 that quick
0:30:50 and that immediate
0:30:51 and I would test it out
0:30:52 and I’d make it my own
0:30:54 all of that is lost
0:30:55 and so I feel
0:30:56 a little bit sad
0:30:57 for the way
0:30:57 that we’re working
0:30:58 right now
0:30:59 because I don’t think
0:31:00 that we’re having
0:31:01 that exchange
0:31:02 of you know
0:31:03 what happens
0:31:03 when you’re in
0:31:04 a really dynamic
0:31:05 environment
0:31:05 and you’re able
0:31:06 to learn from
0:31:08 people around you
0:31:09 because we’re not
0:31:09 as together
0:31:10 as we once were
0:31:11 when you’re looking
0:31:12 around your team
0:31:13 and thinking
0:31:14 that person’s
0:31:14 going to be a star
0:31:15 in the future
0:31:15 that person’s
0:31:16 going to be a star
0:31:16 in the future
0:31:17 which I’m always doing
0:31:18 which I’m always doing
0:31:18 as well
0:31:19 always always always
0:31:19 always
0:31:20 what are the factors
0:31:21 or the characteristics
0:31:22 of those people
0:31:22 that you look at
0:31:23 in your office
0:31:23 and go that’s
0:31:24 she’s going to be a star
0:31:25 he’s going to be a star
0:31:26 what is it about them
0:31:27 what are they doing
0:31:28 that others aren’t doing
0:31:29 well I you know
0:31:30 people ask me this
0:31:30 all the time
0:31:31 I think that
0:31:33 the sure way
0:31:34 to put yourself
0:31:34 in a position
0:31:36 for more responsibility
0:31:37 for promotion
0:31:38 is to be excellent
0:31:39 at what you’re doing
0:31:40 right
0:31:40 like I
0:31:42 I find it really difficult
0:31:43 when people are like
0:31:43 you know
0:31:44 I’d really like to do
0:31:45 this thing over there
0:31:46 I’d really like that opportunity
0:31:47 and I’m like
0:31:48 but you’re only 70%
0:31:49 good at what you’re doing now
0:31:50 like I’m looking at
0:31:52 the 120% people
0:31:53 the people that are
0:31:54 smashing it in the role
0:31:55 that they’re at now
0:31:56 before they’re going to go
0:31:57 anywhere else
0:31:58 so that’s the first thing
0:31:58 to say
0:31:59 but I don’t think
0:31:59 it’s any
0:32:01 I again
0:32:02 I hire much more
0:32:03 for attitude
0:32:06 over experience
0:32:06 right
0:32:07 I really want the people
0:32:08 that come in
0:32:10 with like a winning mentality
0:32:11 a figure it out mentality
0:32:12 and also
0:32:13 what I love
0:32:14 is these people
0:32:15 that have like
0:32:16 an understanding
0:32:17 across the business
0:32:18 it’s like you are
0:32:19 an amazing thoroughbred
0:32:20 you know
0:32:21 wholesale salesperson
0:32:23 but you really want
0:32:23 to learn e-com
0:32:24 and you really want
0:32:25 to learn about stores
0:32:26 and you really
0:32:27 have a good understanding
0:32:27 what’s happening
0:32:28 planning and merchandising
0:32:29 like you know
0:32:31 in business leadership
0:32:31 language
0:32:31 they call them
0:32:32 the t-shaped leaders
0:32:33 but it’s like
0:32:33 that’s what
0:32:35 that’s what I care about
0:32:35 people that have
0:32:37 an interest in
0:32:38 the entirety of our business
0:32:39 and they can see
0:32:40 outside of the lane
0:32:41 or the division
0:32:42 that they work in
0:32:43 and so that becomes
0:32:44 interesting to me
0:32:45 but to me
0:32:45 it’s so much more
0:32:46 mentality
0:32:47 energy
0:32:48 enthusiasm
0:32:50 attitude
0:32:51 I’m also
0:32:52 one of the things
0:32:52 that I think
0:32:54 is massively overlooked
0:32:55 but a key thing
0:32:56 now is flexibility
0:32:57 because I hire
0:32:58 a lot of people
0:32:58 that are in their
0:32:59 40s and 50s
0:33:00 right
0:33:01 for super senior
0:33:02 executive leadership
0:33:03 level roles
0:33:04 but if you come to me
0:33:05 from a competitor
0:33:06 and you believe
0:33:07 that the only way
0:33:08 to get from here
0:33:09 to here
0:33:09 is the way
0:33:10 you’ve been doing it
0:33:11 for the last 20 years
0:33:13 that’s problematic to me
0:33:13 I need you to come
0:33:14 both with the experience
0:33:16 and a level of flexibility
0:33:17 because technology
0:33:18 means that the customer
0:33:20 and the consumer
0:33:21 experience is changing
0:33:22 all the time
0:33:23 so that ability
0:33:23 to say
0:33:24 I’ve got all of this
0:33:24 knowledge
0:33:25 but I’m willing
0:33:26 and ready to flex
0:33:28 is like really important
0:33:29 so I need
0:33:30 I need all those things
0:33:31 I need a lot
0:33:32 Stephen
0:33:33 you don’t say
0:33:34 but what are the red flags
0:33:35 very demanding
0:33:37 tell me some sentences
0:33:37 I could say
0:33:38 in an interview with you
0:33:39 that would be
0:33:40 immediate red flags
0:33:41 oh I’ve got a good one
0:33:43 so can you talk to me
0:33:45 about work-life balance
0:33:46 in this organisation
0:33:48 sorry babe
0:33:49 I’m leaving
0:33:50 I’m like
0:33:51 get out
0:33:52 here’s the thing
0:33:53 work-life balance
0:33:54 is your problem
0:33:56 like that’s yours
0:33:56 to figure out
0:33:57 because the way
0:33:58 we run organisations
0:33:59 now
0:33:59 is that
0:34:00 no one misses
0:34:01 a dentist appointment
0:34:03 or a doctor’s appointment
0:34:03 or a haircut
0:34:04 or their kids
0:34:05 parent teacher conference
0:34:07 at our organisations
0:34:07 that’s just not
0:34:08 how we work anymore
0:34:08 right
0:34:09 like you come in
0:34:10 you have set hours
0:34:11 but you know
0:34:12 there’s flexibility
0:34:13 within the
0:34:14 your working life
0:34:15 it’s not like
0:34:16 oh my goodness
0:34:16 such and such
0:34:17 it’s not at their desk
0:34:17 that’s just not
0:34:18 how we work anymore
0:34:19 so when somebody
0:34:20 talks to me
0:34:22 about their work-life balance
0:34:24 in an interview process
0:34:24 I’m like
0:34:26 something is wrong with you
0:34:27 you haven’t been able
0:34:27 to figure that out
0:34:28 that’s not the way
0:34:30 you win this interview
0:34:31 I’m not trying to give this away
0:34:32 go on go on
0:34:33 I’m not trying to give this away
0:34:34 but
0:34:35 because it might
0:34:36 fuck me over saying this
0:34:37 but um
0:34:38 we do a screening survey
0:34:39 and one of the questions
0:34:40 tests for this
0:34:40 so I actually know
0:34:42 the exact percentage
0:34:43 of the general public
0:34:44 that when asked this question
0:34:45 will pick work-life balance
0:34:47 as one of the most important things
0:34:48 and it’s roughly 33%
0:34:49 33
0:34:50 so 33% of people
0:34:51 on our screening survey
0:34:52 will say that
0:34:53 work-life balance
0:34:55 is more important to them
0:34:56 than another range of options
0:34:56 including
0:34:58 doing perfect work
0:34:59 beating the competition
0:35:01 leading and inspiring others
0:35:02 having a happy team etc
0:35:02 they’ll pick
0:35:03 work-life balance
0:35:04 as being one of their
0:35:05 most important things
0:35:07 so it’s a lot of people
0:35:08 that prioritise this
0:35:09 and it’s not to say
0:35:09 for me
0:35:09 listen
0:35:11 it’s not to say
0:35:11 for me
0:35:12 that it’s a bad thing
0:35:14 but it’s
0:35:16 it’s not what I would pick
0:35:17 no babe
0:35:18 it’s not what you would pick
0:35:19 because you’re ambitious
0:35:20 as anything
0:35:21 so maybe you won’t fit
0:35:21 you know
0:35:23 it’s very interesting
0:35:23 right
0:35:24 because I wonder
0:35:25 if you put on that list
0:35:26 of options
0:35:27 earning
0:35:29 10% more year on year
0:35:31 getting a meaningful bonus
0:35:31 right
0:35:31 because
0:35:32 here’s the thing
0:35:33 these things correlate
0:35:34 and that’s what people
0:35:34 don’t understand
0:35:35 in order to run
0:35:36 an organisation
0:35:37 where there is
0:35:38 the ability
0:35:40 for your people
0:35:40 to have a good
0:35:41 work-life balance
0:35:43 you have to be
0:35:43 profitable
0:35:44 the company
0:35:45 has to be
0:35:45 you know
0:35:47 in line with
0:35:47 if not
0:35:49 beating its competition
0:35:50 we have to be able
0:35:52 to run
0:35:53 an efficient business
0:35:55 to give people
0:35:56 what they need
0:35:57 the two things
0:35:58 go hand in hand
0:35:59 and so I have this
0:36:00 idea that
0:36:01 with the people
0:36:01 that I work with
0:36:02 like we’re in a social
0:36:03 like we’re in a contract
0:36:04 together right
0:36:04 it’s like
0:36:05 you’re going to work
0:36:06 really hard
0:36:06 and in return
0:36:07 you should get
0:36:09 an amazing place
0:36:09 to work
0:36:10 you should get
0:36:11 an incredible
0:36:12 environment
0:36:14 that is feeding you
0:36:15 in ways that are
0:36:16 not just about
0:36:17 your job right
0:36:18 and so
0:36:19 when I look around
0:36:20 at our office
0:36:21 and our organisation
0:36:22 we’re doing
0:36:22 you know
0:36:22 I just
0:36:23 I left the office
0:36:24 yesterday
0:36:24 there was like
0:36:25 a fertility seminar
0:36:26 going on
0:36:27 where there were
0:36:27 like hundreds
0:36:28 of people
0:36:29 in the kitchen
0:36:29 of our office
0:36:30 all learning
0:36:31 about having
0:36:31 their eggs
0:36:32 frozen
0:36:33 and like
0:36:33 various different
0:36:35 I have four kids
0:36:35 I clearly didn’t
0:36:36 need to be in the
0:36:36 seminar
0:36:36 I’m like
0:36:37 I’m done
0:36:38 but you know
0:36:39 that was happening
0:36:39 it’s like
0:36:40 we do things
0:36:41 for our employees
0:36:42 that are above
0:36:42 and beyond
0:36:45 what a workplace
0:36:45 back in the day
0:36:46 may have considered
0:36:47 the norm
0:36:49 so I just feel
0:36:50 like you’ve got
0:36:51 to with that
0:36:52 like something
0:36:52 has to give
0:36:53 and there are
0:36:53 certain things
0:36:53 that are the
0:36:54 employee’s
0:36:55 responsibility
0:36:56 within that
0:36:56 and you figuring
0:36:57 out what works
0:36:58 for your life
0:36:58 how you’re going
0:36:59 to pick up
0:36:59 your kids
0:37:00 how you get
0:37:00 home
0:37:01 how you get
0:37:02 to work
0:37:02 what happens
0:37:03 these are
0:37:03 all things
0:37:04 that you need
0:37:04 to figure out
0:37:05 within the
0:37:05 construct
0:37:06 of your life
0:37:07 that isn’t
0:37:08 the employer’s
0:37:09 job
0:37:10 that isn’t
0:37:11 the employer’s
0:37:12 responsibility
0:37:13 I’m going to
0:37:13 play devil’s advocate
0:37:14 so what people
0:37:15 are I guess
0:37:15 when they hit
0:37:16 that button
0:37:17 and they say
0:37:18 I want work life
0:37:18 balance
0:37:19 what they are
0:37:20 maybe alluding
0:37:20 to is
0:37:22 am I expected
0:37:22 to work
0:37:23 seven days a week
0:37:24 because
0:37:25 I need that
0:37:25 information
0:37:26 to be able
0:37:26 to figure out
0:37:27 if I’m going
0:37:27 to be able
0:37:28 to pick up
0:37:28 my kids
0:37:29 and be able
0:37:29 to do
0:37:29 my
0:37:31 DJing
0:37:32 on the weekend
0:37:32 so
0:37:34 what is
0:37:34 the expectation
0:37:35 in your business
0:37:36 I don’t think
0:37:37 the expectation
0:37:38 is that anyone
0:37:39 is going to
0:37:40 have to work
0:37:41 seven days a week
0:37:43 in order to get
0:37:43 you know
0:37:44 to have an average
0:37:45 job
0:37:45 like they’re not
0:37:46 going to have
0:37:47 to do that
0:37:48 if you have
0:37:49 ambition
0:37:50 if you want
0:37:51 to
0:37:53 do the most
0:37:53 if you want
0:37:54 to grow
0:37:55 if you want
0:37:55 to be one of
0:37:56 those people
0:37:56 that’s like
0:37:57 you know
0:37:57 at the top
0:37:58 of the organization
0:37:59 the chances
0:37:59 are
0:38:00 you might
0:38:00 have to
0:38:00 work
0:38:01 a little
0:38:01 bit more
0:38:02 that’s the
0:38:03 truth
0:38:03 what are we
0:38:04 talking about
0:38:04 here
0:38:04 we’re going
0:38:05 to lie
0:38:05 to everyone
0:38:06 do you
0:38:06 work five
0:38:07 days a week
0:38:07 Stephen
0:38:08 no babe
0:38:09 you’re working
0:38:09 on a Saturday
0:38:10 and a Sunday
0:38:11 and if I text you
0:38:12 wherever you are
0:38:12 in the world
0:38:13 you come back
0:38:13 to me
0:38:14 within about
0:38:14 an hour
0:38:16 I’m assuming
0:38:16 that that’s
0:38:17 not just
0:38:17 what you do
0:38:18 for me
0:38:18 that that’s
0:38:19 just how
0:38:20 you roll
0:38:20 and that’s
0:38:21 how I roll
0:38:22 and that’s
0:38:22 how most
0:38:22 successful
0:38:23 people roll
0:38:24 and you
0:38:24 know
0:38:25 it’s like
0:38:26 there is
0:38:26 something
0:38:27 to speed
0:38:27 and agility
0:38:28 and I don’t
0:38:29 listen
0:38:30 I think I have
0:38:30 a tremendous
0:38:31 work-life balance
0:38:32 I am in
0:38:33 Malibu
0:38:34 most weekends
0:38:34 I’m on the
0:38:35 beach
0:38:35 but I think
0:38:36 that we have
0:38:36 to have a
0:38:37 level of
0:38:37 honesty
0:38:38 about what
0:38:38 it takes
0:38:39 to be
0:38:41 really successful
0:38:41 and I think
0:38:42 that everybody
0:38:42 is tired
0:38:43 of hustle
0:38:43 culture
0:38:44 people are
0:38:44 tired
0:38:45 of burnout
0:38:47 and figuring
0:38:48 out how
0:38:48 you can
0:38:49 do what
0:38:50 you need
0:38:50 to do
0:38:51 and be
0:38:51 really
0:38:51 successful
0:38:52 at the same
0:38:52 time
0:38:52 is like
0:38:53 what I
0:38:53 consider
0:38:54 personal
0:38:54 responsibility
0:38:55 but at the
0:38:56 same time
0:38:56 if we
0:38:57 tell everybody
0:38:57 that to be
0:38:58 really successful
0:38:59 you can do
0:39:00 that in a
0:39:00 way that
0:39:02 is you know
0:39:03 without being
0:39:04 150%
0:39:05 without waking
0:39:06 up most days
0:39:06 and doing
0:39:06 some type
0:39:07 of work
0:39:07 without thinking
0:39:08 about work
0:39:08 a lot
0:39:09 it’s just
0:39:10 not
0:39:11 it’s not
0:39:11 honest
0:39:12 and it’s
0:39:13 not
0:39:15 it wouldn’t
0:39:15 connect
0:39:16 with what
0:39:17 I see
0:39:18 and what
0:39:18 my experience
0:39:19 are of most
0:39:19 people that
0:39:20 are truly
0:39:20 successful
0:39:21 why do some
0:39:21 people hate
0:39:22 what you just
0:39:22 said?
0:39:23 I think
0:39:23 because it
0:39:24 hits them
0:39:24 in a
0:39:24 place
0:39:25 of like
0:39:25 I just
0:39:25 don’t want
0:39:26 to do
0:39:26 that
0:39:27 I want
0:39:27 all the
0:39:28 benefits
0:39:28 but I
0:39:28 don’t want
0:39:29 to do
0:39:29 the bit
0:39:29 in the
0:39:29 middle
0:39:30 and I
0:39:30 get that
0:39:30 it’s not
0:39:31 for everyone
0:39:31 then don’t
0:39:32 do it
0:39:33 but is it
0:39:33 but is it
0:39:33 but is it
0:39:33 possible to
0:39:34 have the
0:39:35 success
0:39:36 to be
0:39:36 number
0:39:36 one
0:39:36 to be
0:39:37 on the
0:39:37 magazines
0:39:38 to be
0:39:38 Emma
0:39:40 and is
0:39:41 there like
0:39:41 not a way
0:39:43 where I can
0:39:43 have my
0:39:44 evenings and
0:39:44 weekends but
0:39:45 still get
0:39:45 like
0:39:46 I have some
0:39:47 evenings and
0:39:47 weekends
0:39:48 but like I
0:39:49 want all of my
0:39:50 evenings and
0:39:50 weekends
0:39:52 if it’s
0:39:52 possible
0:39:52 tell me
0:39:53 who she
0:39:53 is
0:39:54 and I’ll
0:39:54 tell you
0:39:54 I’ll show
0:39:55 you a liar
0:39:58 you know
0:40:00 I don’t
0:40:01 think so
0:40:03 and honestly
0:40:03 Stephen
0:40:04 like what
0:40:04 are we
0:40:05 talking about
0:40:05 because
0:40:06 we
0:40:07 I think
0:40:08 that most
0:40:08 people
0:40:10 most people
0:40:10 want
0:40:11 a
0:40:13 you know
0:40:14 they don’t
0:40:14 want
0:40:15 everything
0:40:15 right
0:40:16 it’s like
0:40:16 most people
0:40:17 don’t
0:40:17 are not
0:40:18 sitting here
0:40:18 being like
0:40:18 I need
0:40:18 to be in
0:40:19 all the
0:40:19 magazines
0:40:20 I want
0:40:20 this
0:40:20 I want
0:40:21 that
0:40:21 it’s like
0:40:22 most people
0:40:22 want to
0:40:24 have security
0:40:24 of a
0:40:25 well-paying
0:40:26 job
0:40:26 they want
0:40:26 to you
0:40:27 know
0:40:27 be able
0:40:28 to afford
0:40:29 their rent
0:40:29 or their
0:40:29 mortgage
0:40:30 and have
0:40:31 a nice
0:40:31 car
0:40:32 and live
0:40:32 well
0:40:32 and go
0:40:33 on a few
0:40:33 holidays
0:40:34 and that’s
0:40:34 like a
0:40:35 good life
0:40:36 should you
0:40:36 be able
0:40:37 to do
0:40:37 that
0:40:38 absolutely
0:40:39 should you
0:40:39 be able
0:40:40 to do
0:40:40 that
0:40:40 without
0:40:41 working
0:40:41 evenings
0:40:42 and weekends
0:40:43 and putting
0:40:43 all of the
0:40:44 hours in
0:40:45 yeah I
0:40:45 really think
0:40:46 that you
0:40:46 should
0:40:47 but if
0:40:47 you are
0:40:48 leading
0:40:48 an
0:40:49 extraordinary
0:40:50 life
0:40:51 to think
0:40:51 that
0:40:52 extraordinary
0:40:53 effort
0:40:53 wouldn’t be
0:40:54 coupled to
0:40:54 that
0:40:54 somehow
0:40:55 is
0:40:57 crazy
0:40:58 it’s
0:40:58 interesting
0:40:59 post-pandemic
0:41:00 how it feels
0:41:01 like leaders
0:41:03 got gaslit a little bit
0:41:04 founders got
0:41:06 gaslit by
0:41:06 platforms
0:41:07 you know like if you go on LinkedIn
0:41:10 you’ve got all these people telling you
0:41:11 how to run a business
0:41:13 and that what you’re doing wrong
0:41:14 and work-life balance
0:41:15 and you’ve got to be more like this
0:41:17 and you’ve got to be this kind of leader
0:41:18 and you have to be this empathy
0:41:19 and do this and that and the other
0:41:21 and if you’re a young founder
0:41:22 growing up in this world
0:41:23 where there’s
0:41:24 everyone is telling founders
0:41:24 what to do
0:41:27 it can feel incredibly confusing
0:41:28 and I think in particular
0:41:29 post-pandemic
0:41:30 where like how we work
0:41:31 was like shuffled up
0:41:31 and it’s now like
0:41:32 pick and mix
0:41:32 it’s like
0:41:34 before the pandemic
0:41:34 it was like
0:41:35 we all got it
0:41:36 we come to the office
0:41:37 five days a week
0:41:37 we work
0:41:37 you know
0:41:40 it’s a difficult time
0:41:40 to be a founder
0:41:41 because
0:41:43 you’ve almost got to step out
0:41:44 if you know what I mean
0:41:45 yeah you do
0:41:47 yeah you have to
0:41:48 and listen
0:41:50 I don’t think that that is
0:41:51 as hard
0:41:52 as people are making it
0:41:54 you have to understand
0:41:54 that
0:41:55 you know
0:41:56 you can’t be
0:41:57 a leader
0:41:58 and a people pleaser
0:41:59 at the same time
0:42:00 and if you’re walking around
0:42:01 trying to make everybody happy
0:42:02 guess what you won’t do
0:42:04 you won’t have a great business
0:42:05 you have to have
0:42:06 a focus
0:42:07 on what it is
0:42:08 that you’re trying to do
0:42:09 and you have to be relentless
0:42:10 in the pursuit
0:42:11 of doing those things
0:42:13 and you need the people
0:42:14 that are going to
0:42:15 you know
0:42:15 I am
0:42:17 I’m so much
0:42:19 about the people
0:42:20 that help you
0:42:20 you know
0:42:21 I hate that idea
0:42:22 of like being
0:42:23 you know
0:42:23 like a
0:42:24 you know
0:42:24 I get called
0:42:25 like a self-made
0:42:25 whatever
0:42:26 and I’m like
0:42:28 I’m really not self-made
0:42:29 if you understood
0:42:30 how many people
0:42:31 there were around me
0:42:32 that just like
0:42:33 getting me here today
0:42:34 do you know what I mean
0:42:34 there’s like a
0:42:36 village sitting outside
0:42:37 but nothing happens
0:42:38 on your own
0:42:38 and it takes
0:42:39 so many people
0:42:41 and so much skill
0:42:42 and so much
0:42:43 that I don’t have
0:42:44 and so
0:42:46 when you start
0:42:46 a company
0:42:47 this idea
0:42:48 that you should
0:42:49 make all of the
0:42:50 if you’re thinking
0:42:51 about making
0:42:51 all of these
0:42:52 concessions
0:42:53 before you’re thinking
0:42:54 about what the goal is
0:42:55 what the
0:42:57 you know
0:42:57 I call it
0:42:58 and everybody
0:42:58 it’s like
0:43:00 enterprise mentality
0:43:00 it’s like
0:43:00 you have to put
0:43:02 the business first
0:43:02 the needs
0:43:03 of the business
0:43:04 and sometimes
0:43:06 that is about
0:43:06 thinking about
0:43:07 your people
0:43:08 and being a certain
0:43:09 type of leader
0:43:10 sometimes it’s not
0:43:11 so you’ve got to
0:43:12 balance those things
0:43:12 right
0:43:12 we’re trying
0:43:14 the point of a business
0:43:15 is to make profit
0:43:17 it’s to create
0:43:18 like a company
0:43:19 to serve
0:43:20 you know
0:43:21 your customers
0:43:22 all of those things
0:43:24 it really isn’t
0:43:25 about what I think
0:43:25 so many people
0:43:26 are trying to make
0:43:27 it about
0:43:28 now your leadership
0:43:29 style
0:43:30 is you know
0:43:31 it’s going to be
0:43:32 such a huge part
0:43:32 of what makes
0:43:33 that business successful
0:43:34 but it isn’t
0:43:35 it isn’t everything
0:43:36 and so I think
0:43:37 that we’ve just got to
0:43:37 try and separate
0:43:38 these things
0:43:39 like a little bit
0:43:39 that can’t be
0:43:40 the first thing
0:43:41 that you’re thinking
0:43:43 of like how
0:43:44 you know
0:43:45 like how you’re
0:43:46 doing all of that
0:43:46 stuff the first
0:43:47 thing you think
0:43:47 about is like
0:43:48 how is the business
0:43:48 going to grow
0:43:49 how are we going
0:43:49 to thrive
0:43:50 what are we
0:43:50 what are we
0:43:51 actually here to do
0:43:51 I think founders
0:43:52 are scared as well
0:43:52 because we live
0:43:53 in this age
0:43:54 of social media
0:43:55 where you know
0:43:56 if especially
0:43:57 if you have a profile
0:43:58 if you do
0:43:59 something wrong
0:44:00 there’s this really
0:44:01 interesting incentive
0:44:02 that the employee
0:44:03 has where they
0:44:03 can they can
0:44:04 pop back
0:44:05 and so if
0:44:06 if you fire me
0:44:07 from your company
0:44:07 Emma
0:44:09 and you know
0:44:10 I didn’t feel
0:44:11 so good
0:44:12 when I was there
0:44:14 I now have you
0:44:14 by the balls
0:44:15 a little bit
0:44:15 if you know
0:44:16 what I’m saying
0:44:16 yeah totally
0:44:17 because I can
0:44:18 post on my
0:44:18 TikTok
0:44:19 and say you know
0:44:20 Emma is not
0:44:21 who you think
0:44:21 she is
0:44:22 yeah that’s just
0:44:22 part of being
0:44:22 in business
0:44:23 though right
0:44:24 but then because
0:44:24 you’re living
0:44:25 under that threat
0:44:27 from some kind
0:44:28 of activist
0:44:29 employee
0:44:30 how do you
0:44:30 stop that
0:44:31 from changing
0:44:32 the way that
0:44:33 you live
0:44:33 with that
0:44:34 enterprise mentality
0:44:35 and do what’s
0:44:35 right for the
0:44:36 business
0:44:37 I don’t think
0:44:37 you do
0:44:38 I’ve had so many
0:44:38 founders say this
0:44:39 to me in my
0:44:39 portfolio
0:44:39 they’ve said
0:44:40 like oh man
0:44:40 I’m like scared
0:44:41 of being cancelled
0:44:43 well don’t do
0:44:43 anything to be
0:44:43 cancelled
0:44:44 I mean look
0:44:45 I think it’s
0:44:45 a fine line
0:44:46 right
0:44:46 you’re
0:44:47 if you’re
0:44:47 a leader
0:44:48 you’re never
0:44:48 going to
0:44:49 please everybody
0:44:50 and I think
0:44:50 that this is
0:44:51 where leadership
0:44:52 style and
0:44:54 who you are
0:44:55 as a person
0:44:56 really comes
0:44:56 out
0:44:57 I don’t think
0:44:57 anybody
0:44:58 I’m somebody
0:44:59 that leads
0:44:59 with no
0:45:00 ambiguity
0:45:01 nobody’s like
0:45:02 I wonder
0:45:02 what Emma’s
0:45:03 thinking
0:45:03 it’s like
0:45:04 I’m very
0:45:05 clear in
0:45:05 what I’m
0:45:05 thinking
0:45:06 I’m very
0:45:07 clear in
0:45:07 what the
0:45:08 goals are
0:45:08 and the
0:45:09 reason that
0:45:09 we’ve been
0:45:10 able to do
0:45:10 what we’ve
0:45:10 been able to
0:45:11 do is
0:45:11 because of
0:45:12 those things
0:45:13 I have a
0:45:14 very
0:45:15 straightforward
0:45:16 management
0:45:17 style
0:45:17 and I
0:45:18 bring
0:45:19 everybody
0:45:20 along with
0:45:20 me
0:45:20 now listen
0:45:20 there’s
0:45:21 always going
0:45:22 to be
0:45:23 someone
0:45:24 or you
0:45:24 know
0:45:24 a fraction
0:45:24 of people
0:45:25 that will
0:45:25 feel
0:45:26 disgruntled
0:45:27 I’ve
0:45:27 gone
0:45:27 through
0:45:28 various
0:45:28 things
0:45:28 in
0:45:28 different
0:45:29 companies
0:45:29 where you’ve
0:45:30 had to
0:45:31 downsize
0:45:31 or let
0:45:32 people go
0:45:32 and things
0:45:32 that are
0:45:33 really
0:45:33 unfortunate
0:45:34 and that’s
0:45:35 just part
0:45:35 of the
0:45:35 course
0:45:36 of business
0:45:37 now are
0:45:37 you doing
0:45:38 those things
0:45:38 in a way
0:45:39 that is congruent
0:45:40 with who
0:45:40 you are
0:45:42 as a leader
0:45:43 and you know
0:45:44 really thinking
0:45:44 about
0:45:46 what that
0:45:47 actually
0:45:47 like you know
0:45:48 it’s not
0:45:49 again it’s like
0:45:50 I never have
0:45:50 like an
0:45:52 individualistic
0:45:53 idea about
0:45:54 that it’s like
0:45:55 if I have to
0:45:55 look at a
0:45:56 company and
0:45:56 downsize
0:45:57 I’m not
0:45:57 thinking
0:45:58 about
0:45:59 the
0:45:59 50
0:45:59 people
0:46:00 that I
0:46:00 have to
0:46:00 let go
0:46:01 I’m thinking
0:46:01 about the
0:46:02 400 jobs
0:46:03 that need
0:46:03 to be
0:46:03 saved
0:46:04 and sadly
0:46:05 sometimes there
0:46:06 is a little
0:46:07 collateral damage
0:46:07 that’s just
0:46:08 part of
0:46:08 being
0:46:09 in business
0:46:10 and I
0:46:11 certainly
0:46:11 am not
0:46:11 sitting here
0:46:12 sweating what
0:46:12 somebody might
0:46:13 do on
0:46:13 TikTok
0:46:14 because I
0:46:14 know
0:46:15 who I
0:46:15 am
0:46:15 and I
0:46:16 feel good
0:46:16 about the
0:46:16 decisions
0:46:17 that I
0:46:17 make
0:46:17 because
0:46:19 of the
0:46:19 where they
0:46:20 come from
0:46:20 they come
0:46:21 from me
0:46:21 they come
0:46:22 from my
0:46:22 heart
0:46:23 and I know
0:46:23 that I’m
0:46:23 a good
0:46:24 person
0:46:25 so I
0:46:25 would never
0:46:25 sit here
0:46:25 and be
0:46:26 like oh
0:46:26 no someone’s
0:46:27 gonna like
0:46:28 shame me
0:46:29 what was the
0:46:29 most important
0:46:30 lesson you
0:46:30 had to learn
0:46:31 about leadership
0:46:32 as a
0:46:34 up and coming
0:46:35 talented
0:46:36 black woman
0:46:38 in business
0:46:38 I don’t think
0:46:39 it’s any
0:46:40 different than
0:46:41 honest if I’m
0:46:42 really honest I
0:46:42 don’t think it’s
0:46:43 any different
0:46:44 from any other
0:46:44 woman but I
0:46:45 do think it’s
0:46:45 different for
0:46:46 women more
0:46:47 generally
0:46:48 I think
0:46:49 probably the
0:46:49 most important
0:46:51 lesson was
0:46:53 how distinctive
0:46:55 and important
0:46:56 my point of
0:46:57 view is
0:46:58 and why
0:46:59 that gives
0:47:00 me an
0:47:00 edge
0:47:01 right
0:47:02 but I also
0:47:03 understand
0:47:04 that you
0:47:04 know this
0:47:05 kind of like
0:47:06 empathy
0:47:07 coin has
0:47:08 two sides
0:47:08 to it
0:47:08 right
0:47:09 what makes
0:47:09 women
0:47:10 phenomenally
0:47:11 good
0:47:11 leaders
0:47:13 and makes
0:47:13 them
0:47:14 fantastic
0:47:15 at you
0:47:15 know
0:47:16 mentoring
0:47:17 staff
0:47:18 and looking
0:47:18 after the
0:47:18 needs
0:47:19 of the
0:47:19 team
0:47:20 is sure
0:47:21 as the
0:47:22 underbelly
0:47:23 when it
0:47:23 comes to
0:47:24 perhaps
0:47:24 you know
0:47:26 downsizing
0:47:26 their team
0:47:27 or you
0:47:28 know firing
0:47:28 the wrong
0:47:29 person
0:47:30 or if
0:47:30 people are
0:47:30 not getting
0:47:31 pay rises
0:47:31 like how
0:47:32 they might
0:47:33 feel about
0:47:33 that so
0:47:34 I definitely
0:47:35 had to
0:47:36 learn that
0:47:37 there’s two
0:47:37 sides to
0:47:38 what makes
0:47:38 me great
0:47:39 and to
0:47:39 keep both
0:47:39 of those
0:47:40 sides
0:47:40 in check
0:47:41 so it’s
0:47:41 balancing
0:47:42 the empathy
0:47:43 part of you
0:47:43 with the
0:47:45 needing to
0:47:45 make
0:47:46 difficult
0:47:46 decisions
0:47:49 because it
0:47:49 doesn’t feel
0:47:50 like care
0:47:50 to fire
0:47:51 someone
0:47:51 it’s like
0:47:52 because
0:47:52 no it
0:47:53 goes against
0:47:53 the grain
0:47:54 of
0:47:55 caring
0:47:56 for
0:47:56 it goes
0:47:57 against
0:47:57 the grain
0:47:57 of being
0:47:58 like a
0:47:58 maternal
0:47:59 individual
0:48:00 who is
0:48:01 looking after
0:48:01 people
0:48:02 right
0:48:02 because
0:48:03 that’s
0:48:04 the opposite
0:48:04 of that
0:48:05 you’re
0:48:06 leaving
0:48:06 someone to
0:48:07 their own
0:48:07 devices
0:48:08 and so
0:48:08 that’s
0:48:08 been
0:48:09 difficult
0:48:09 for me
0:48:10 for sure
0:48:10 do you
0:48:10 remember
0:48:10 the first
0:48:11 time you
0:48:11 had to
0:48:11 contend
0:48:12 with that
0:48:13 dichotomy
0:48:14 and how
0:48:14 it felt
0:48:15 and
0:48:16 yeah
0:48:17 yeah I
0:48:17 do
0:48:18 I think
0:48:18 it would
0:48:18 have been
0:48:19 like way
0:48:19 back when
0:48:20 in London
0:48:21 in ITB
0:48:22 the first
0:48:22 time I
0:48:23 had to
0:48:23 do like
0:48:24 a meaningful
0:48:25 downsizing
0:48:25 of the
0:48:25 agency
0:48:26 and I
0:48:26 had to
0:48:27 fire like
0:48:28 you know
0:48:28 it was a
0:48:29 small agency
0:48:29 I had like
0:48:30 60 people
0:48:30 and I
0:48:31 fired 15
0:48:32 people in
0:48:32 one day
0:48:33 so we’re
0:48:33 in a
0:48:34 tiny office
0:48:35 Gressy
0:48:35 Street
0:48:36 in you know
0:48:36 just off of
0:48:37 Tottenham Court
0:48:37 Road
0:48:38 everyone sits
0:48:38 together
0:48:39 so there
0:48:39 was no
0:48:40 like giant
0:48:40 boardroom
0:48:41 that you
0:48:41 could go
0:48:41 into
0:48:41 and then
0:48:42 go out
0:48:42 the back
0:48:42 door
0:48:43 it was like
0:48:43 I went
0:48:44 back upstairs
0:48:45 and told
0:48:45 everyone
0:48:45 you know
0:48:46 it was like
0:48:46 awful
0:48:47 it was
0:48:47 absolutely
0:48:48 awful
0:48:48 I laugh
0:48:48 about it
0:48:49 out of
0:48:49 just like
0:48:51 horror
0:48:52 of how it
0:48:53 felt at
0:48:53 the time
0:48:53 because it
0:48:54 really to
0:48:54 me it
0:48:55 felt like
0:48:56 the end
0:48:56 of the
0:48:56 world
0:48:57 the end
0:48:57 of my
0:48:58 life
0:48:59 and I
0:48:59 felt so
0:49:00 responsible
0:49:01 because
0:49:01 oftentimes
0:49:02 you know
0:49:02 like so
0:49:03 much of
0:49:04 being in
0:49:04 a competitive
0:49:05 dynamic
0:49:06 environment
0:49:06 you know
0:49:06 you’re pulling
0:49:07 people out
0:49:07 of other
0:49:08 agencies
0:49:08 jobs
0:49:09 and you’re
0:49:09 bringing
0:49:10 them in
0:49:10 and you
0:49:11 know
0:49:11 you’re like
0:49:11 that’s the
0:49:12 best person
0:49:12 for this
0:49:13 and then
0:49:13 all of
0:49:13 a sudden
0:49:13 you’re like
0:49:14 I’m so
0:49:14 sorry
0:49:15 but like
0:49:16 it’s over
0:49:17 and that
0:49:18 for me
0:49:19 was soul
0:49:19 destroying
0:49:20 the first
0:49:20 time I
0:49:20 had to
0:49:20 do it
0:49:21 but in
0:49:21 hindsight
0:49:22 how do
0:49:23 you look
0:49:24 at that
0:49:24 decision
0:49:24 now with
0:49:25 your wisdom
0:49:26 well look
0:49:27 again I
0:49:27 go back
0:49:27 and say
0:49:28 I created
0:49:29 a better
0:49:29 company
0:49:30 because of
0:49:30 it
0:49:30 I
0:49:31 created
0:49:31 more
0:49:32 discipline
0:49:32 in the
0:49:33 business
0:49:33 because I
0:49:34 was able
0:49:35 to see
0:49:35 the mistakes
0:49:36 that I’d
0:49:37 done
0:49:37 that weren’t
0:49:38 just about
0:49:38 overstaffing
0:49:39 but it was
0:49:39 just about
0:49:40 running a
0:49:42 less healthy
0:49:42 engine
0:49:43 I do think
0:49:44 it made me
0:49:44 a better
0:49:45 leader in
0:49:46 the sense
0:49:47 of I had
0:49:49 held so much
0:49:49 of the anxiety
0:49:50 of what was
0:49:51 happening in
0:49:51 that company
0:49:52 it not going
0:49:53 well to
0:49:54 myself
0:49:54 I hadn’t
0:49:55 really shared
0:49:56 with the full
0:49:56 senior management
0:49:57 team like quite
0:49:58 how bad
0:49:58 things were
0:49:59 because I
0:49:59 thought I’m
0:50:00 the CEO
0:50:00 that’s all
0:50:01 my problem
0:50:01 they should
0:50:02 be able to
0:50:02 just come
0:50:02 in and out
0:50:03 and with
0:50:03 that
0:50:04 there was
0:50:04 a lack
0:50:04 of
0:50:05 accountability
0:50:06 from everybody
0:50:06 else
0:50:06 and so I
0:50:07 think I’ve
0:50:07 really understood
0:50:08 now that
0:50:09 you know
0:50:09 it’s like
0:50:11 I’m here
0:50:11 at the top
0:50:12 of the
0:50:12 organisation
0:50:14 and you know
0:50:14 it’s almost
0:50:14 like I’m
0:50:16 the manager
0:50:16 right
0:50:16 I sit
0:50:17 on the
0:50:17 sidelines
0:50:17 and I have
0:50:18 a bunch
0:50:18 of people
0:50:18 I shouldn’t
0:50:19 be running
0:50:19 on the pitch
0:50:20 to score
0:50:20 the goal
0:50:21 I need
0:50:21 to stay
0:50:22 on those
0:50:22 sidelines
0:50:22 and I need
0:50:23 to direct
0:50:23 everybody
0:50:24 to do
0:50:25 the best
0:50:25 job
0:50:25 possible
0:50:27 and now
0:50:27 I think
0:50:28 so much
0:50:28 more about
0:50:29 bringing
0:50:29 everybody
0:50:30 on the
0:50:30 journey
0:50:30 and when
0:50:30 you’re
0:50:33 all the
0:50:34 time
0:50:34 in all
0:50:34 of our
0:50:35 businesses
0:50:35 despite
0:50:36 whatever
0:50:36 it might
0:50:36 look like
0:50:37 to people
0:50:37 you know
0:50:37 you need
0:50:38 to bring
0:50:38 people
0:50:39 on the
0:50:39 journey
0:50:39 and get
0:50:39 them
0:50:40 involved
0:50:40 in
0:50:41 what
0:50:41 those
0:50:41 solves
0:50:42 are
0:50:42 because
0:50:43 if you
0:50:43 get to
0:50:44 that
0:50:44 place
0:50:44 where
0:50:44 you
0:51:03 cash
0:51:03 cash
0:51:03 cash
0:51:03 flow
0:51:04 issues
0:51:04 the
0:51:05 uncertainty
0:51:05 around
0:51:05 the
0:51:05 business
0:51:06 and
0:51:06 you
0:51:06 know
0:51:06 they
0:51:07 internalize
0:51:07 it
0:51:07 they
0:51:08 take
0:51:08 it
0:51:08 home
0:51:08 with
0:51:08 them
0:51:08 it’s
0:51:08 with
0:51:08 them
0:51:09 seven
0:51:09 days
0:51:09 a week
0:51:11 how did
0:51:11 it feel
0:51:11 for you
0:51:12 when you
0:51:12 were going
0:51:13 through those
0:51:13 challenges
0:51:13 with your
0:51:14 first
0:51:15 company
0:51:16 and I
0:51:17 ask that
0:51:17 because
0:51:19 I want
0:51:21 the person
0:51:21 going through
0:51:21 that
0:51:22 I was going
0:51:22 through it
0:51:24 to feel
0:51:24 seen
0:51:24 but also
0:51:25 to have
0:51:25 a bit
0:51:25 of a
0:51:25 blueprint
0:51:26 a
0:51:26 roadmap
0:51:26 of what
0:51:27 to do
0:51:27 about
0:51:27 that
0:51:28 the
0:51:29 truth
0:51:29 is
0:51:30 it
0:51:30 feels
0:51:30 like
0:51:30 the
0:51:31 end
0:51:31 of
0:51:31 the
0:51:31 world
0:51:31 right
0:51:32 that
0:51:32 that’s
0:51:32 how it
0:51:32 feels
0:51:33 when you
0:51:33 start
0:51:34 something
0:51:34 from the
0:51:35 ground
0:51:35 up
0:51:36 and it’s
0:51:36 yours
0:51:37 there’s
0:51:37 such a
0:51:37 sense
0:51:37 of
0:51:38 responsibility
0:51:39 and
0:51:40 you know
0:51:40 I think
0:51:40 that what
0:51:40 happens
0:51:41 in
0:51:41 business
0:51:41 it’s
0:51:41 always
0:51:41 like
0:51:42 a
0:51:43 confluence
0:51:43 of
0:51:44 factors
0:51:44 right
0:51:44 like
0:51:44 you
0:51:44 try
0:51:44 to
0:51:45 work
0:51:45 out
0:51:45 what
0:51:46 has
0:51:46 made
0:51:46 this
0:51:46 thing
0:51:47 happen
0:51:47 and
0:51:47 it’s
0:51:47 like
0:51:48 you know
0:51:48 sometimes
0:51:48 like
0:51:49 death
0:51:49 by a
0:51:49 thousand
0:51:50 cuts
0:51:50 there’s
0:51:50 no
0:51:50 like
0:51:50 one
0:51:51 thing
0:51:51 that
0:51:51 you
0:51:51 can
0:51:51 point
0:51:52 to
0:51:52 and
0:51:52 say
0:51:53 that
0:51:53 was
0:51:53 it
0:51:53 that’s
0:51:53 what
0:51:54 made
0:51:54 this
0:51:54 like
0:51:55 downtrending
0:51:56 moment
0:51:56 happen
0:51:56 it’s
0:51:56 like
0:51:57 it’s
0:51:57 a bit
0:51:57 of
0:51:57 this
0:51:58 and a bit
0:51:58 of that
0:51:58 and a bit
0:51:58 of this
0:51:59 and a bit
0:51:59 of that
0:51:59 but often
0:52:00 what it
0:52:00 comes from
0:52:01 is
0:52:01 you know
0:52:02 you get
0:52:02 so
0:52:03 into
0:52:03 what
0:52:03 you’re
0:52:03 doing
0:52:04 that
0:52:04 it’s
0:52:04 very
0:52:05 hard
0:52:05 to
0:52:05 rise
0:52:06 back
0:52:06 up
0:52:06 and
0:52:06 I
0:52:07 think
0:52:07 what
0:52:07 I’ve
0:52:07 taught
0:52:08 myself
0:52:08 like
0:52:08 this
0:52:09 muscle
0:52:09 that
0:52:09 I’ve
0:52:09 taught
0:52:09 myself
0:52:10 is
0:52:11 every
0:52:11 kind
0:52:11 of
0:52:12 quarter
0:52:13 at least
0:52:13 every
0:52:13 six
0:52:13 months
0:52:14 I
0:52:14 try
0:52:14 to
0:52:14 float
0:52:15 up
0:52:15 and
0:52:16 see
0:52:16 like
0:52:16 what
0:52:17 is
0:52:17 happening
0:52:18 not
0:52:18 what
0:52:18 I’m
0:52:18 telling
0:52:19 myself
0:52:19 not
0:52:19 what
0:52:19 are
0:52:19 we
0:52:20 doing
0:52:20 like
0:52:20 what’s
0:52:21 happening
0:52:21 what’s
0:52:21 happening
0:52:21 with
0:52:21 the
0:52:22 competition
0:52:22 what’s
0:52:22 happening
0:52:23 in
0:52:23 the
0:52:23 market
0:52:24 and
0:52:24 back
0:52:24 then
0:52:24 I
0:52:25 just
0:52:25 didn’t
0:52:25 have
0:52:26 the
0:52:26 ability
0:52:26 to
0:52:27 do
0:52:27 that
0:52:27 I
0:52:27 was
0:52:27 so
0:52:28 heads
0:52:28 down
0:52:28 so
0:52:29 in
0:52:29 the
0:52:29 work
0:52:29 so
0:52:30 you
0:52:30 know
0:52:31 like
0:52:31 just
0:52:33 deep
0:52:33 in
0:52:34 like
0:52:34 my
0:52:35 clients
0:52:35 and
0:52:35 doing
0:52:36 the
0:52:36 best
0:52:36 job
0:52:36 that
0:52:37 I
0:52:37 could
0:52:37 I
0:52:38 had
0:52:38 no
0:52:38 ability
0:52:39 to
0:52:39 zoom
0:52:39 out
0:52:39 and
0:52:39 I
0:52:40 do
0:52:40 again
0:52:41 I’m
0:52:41 not
0:52:41 just
0:52:41 blaming
0:52:42 myself
0:52:42 but
0:52:42 it
0:52:43 really
0:52:43 was
0:52:43 about
0:52:43 that
0:52:44 inability
0:52:44 to
0:52:45 see
0:52:46 clearly
0:52:46 and
0:52:47 so
0:52:47 I
0:52:47 think
0:52:47 for
0:52:48 anybody
0:52:49 that’s
0:52:49 kind
0:52:49 of
0:52:49 been
0:52:49 through
0:52:50 a
0:52:50 moment
0:52:50 like
0:52:50 that
0:52:51 it’s
0:52:51 either
0:52:52 surrounding
0:52:52 yourself
0:52:53 with
0:52:53 people
0:52:53 that
0:52:53 are
0:52:53 able
0:52:54 to
0:52:54 help
0:52:54 you
0:52:54 have
0:52:55 a
0:52:55 little
0:52:55 bit
0:52:55 more
0:52:56 perspective
0:52:57 or
0:52:58 trying
0:52:58 to
0:52:58 make
0:52:58 that
0:52:58 a
0:52:59 habit
0:52:59 that
0:52:59 you
0:52:59 do
0:52:59 that
0:53:00 in
0:53:00 your
0:53:00 business
0:53:00 you
0:53:00 know
0:53:01 Bill Gates
0:53:01 talks
0:53:02 about
0:53:02 having
0:53:03 reading
0:53:03 week
0:53:03 or
0:53:04 like
0:53:04 you
0:53:04 know
0:53:04 an
0:53:04 away
0:53:05 week
0:53:05 he
0:53:05 takes
0:53:05 himself
0:53:06 off
0:53:06 and
0:53:06 he
0:53:06 does
0:53:06 it
0:53:06 twice
0:53:07 a
0:53:07 year
0:53:07 and
0:53:08 he
0:53:08 goes
0:53:08 and
0:53:08 he
0:53:08 just
0:53:09 sits
0:53:10 somewhere
0:53:10 beautiful
0:53:10 it
0:53:10 looks
0:53:11 like
0:53:11 by
0:53:11 the
0:53:11 water
0:53:12 or
0:53:12 something
0:53:12 goes
0:53:13 into
0:53:13 a
0:53:13 little
0:53:13 cabin
0:53:13 and
0:53:13 he
0:53:13 just
0:53:14 reads
0:53:14 but
0:53:14 he
0:53:14 thinks
0:53:15 about
0:53:16 what
0:53:16 is
0:53:16 happening
0:53:26 something
0:53:26 that
0:53:26 all
0:53:27 founders
0:53:28 should
0:53:28 really
0:53:28 think
0:53:29 about
0:53:29 and
0:53:29 it’s
0:53:29 given
0:53:29 me
0:53:30 unbelievable
0:53:31 perspective
0:53:31 that
0:53:31 I’ve
0:53:31 made
0:53:32 that
0:53:32 a
0:53:32 practice
0:53:33 now
0:53:34 that’s
0:53:35 so so
0:53:35 true
0:53:35 I was
0:53:36 talking
0:53:36 the other day
0:53:36 I think
0:53:37 it was
0:53:37 actually
0:53:37 when I did
0:53:38 that solo
0:53:38 episode
0:53:38 on the
0:53:39 Diary of
0:53:39 Aseo
0:53:39 about this
0:53:40 idea of
0:53:40 clouds and
0:53:41 trenches
0:53:41 I love
0:53:42 the solo
0:53:42 episodes
0:53:44 I love
0:53:44 them
0:53:44 I think
0:53:44 they’re
0:53:45 so good
0:53:45 one of
0:53:46 the ideas
0:53:46 that emerged
0:53:47 from that
0:53:47 process
0:53:48 was
0:53:48 as I was
0:53:49 writing
0:53:49 the solo
0:53:49 episode
0:53:50 I thought
0:53:50 about
0:53:51 the day
0:53:51 I went
0:53:51 fishing
0:53:52 I don’t
0:53:52 fish
0:53:53 obviously
0:53:55 but I went
0:53:56 fishing
0:53:56 because
0:53:57 whatever
0:53:58 I just
0:53:58 found myself
0:53:58 there
0:53:59 and I’m
0:53:59 on this
0:53:59 boat
0:53:59 in the
0:53:59 middle
0:54:00 of the
0:54:00 lake
0:54:00 and the
0:54:00 art
0:54:01 of fishing
0:54:01 is
0:54:01 you sit
0:54:02 there
0:54:02 and do
0:54:02 fucking
0:54:02 nothing
0:54:03 and you’re
0:54:03 on a lake
0:54:03 and it’s
0:54:04 pissing it
0:54:04 down
0:54:04 and I’m
0:54:05 sat there
0:54:05 in my
0:54:05 Mac
0:54:05 and it’s
0:54:06 just
0:54:06 leathering
0:54:06 on me
0:54:07 and this
0:54:07 boat
0:54:07 this is
0:54:08 not
0:54:08 glamorous
0:54:08 this is
0:54:08 a
0:54:09 two
0:54:09 meter
0:54:09 wooden
0:54:10 boat
0:54:10 oh
0:54:10 babe
0:54:10 we all
0:54:11 had
0:54:11 an
0:54:11 idea
0:54:11 of
0:54:11 a
0:54:12 yacht
0:54:13 it was
0:54:13 like
0:54:13 at a
0:54:14 castle
0:54:14 somewhere
0:54:15 and it
0:54:15 was the
0:54:16 most
0:54:16 important
0:54:17 like
0:54:17 seven
0:54:18 hours
0:54:18 of my
0:54:18 life
0:54:19 at that
0:54:19 exact
0:54:19 moment
0:54:19 because
0:54:19 I’d
0:54:20 been
0:54:20 in the
0:54:20 trenches
0:54:21 for so
0:54:21 many
0:54:22 weeks
0:54:22 in a
0:54:22 row
0:54:23 that
0:54:24 sitting
0:54:24 out
0:54:24 on that
0:54:24 boat
0:54:25 for seven
0:54:25 hours
0:54:26 just waiting
0:54:26 for this
0:54:26 nibble
0:54:27 that never
0:54:27 came
0:54:27 because I’m
0:54:27 shit at
0:54:28 fishing
0:54:28 it
0:54:28 turns out
0:54:30 was so
0:54:30 powerful
0:54:31 this is
0:54:32 the
0:54:33 distinction
0:54:33 between
0:54:34 being able
0:54:34 to stand
0:54:35 back
0:54:35 from the
0:54:35 photo
0:54:35 so you
0:54:35 can
0:54:36 see
0:54:36 the
0:54:36 picture
0:54:37 and
0:54:38 founders
0:54:38 like
0:54:38 especially
0:54:38 when
0:54:38 you
0:54:38 got
0:54:39 cash
0:54:39 flow
0:54:39 issues
0:54:39 and
0:54:40 clients
0:54:40 giving
0:54:40 you
0:54:40 shit
0:54:40 and
0:54:41 team
0:54:41 member
0:54:41 issues
0:54:42 you’re
0:54:42 like
0:54:43 this
0:54:43 yeah
0:54:44 and I
0:54:44 think
0:54:44 that
0:54:45 the
0:54:45 problem
0:54:45 is
0:54:45 as
0:54:46 founders
0:54:46 we
0:54:46 can
0:54:46 feel
0:54:46 guilt
0:54:47 and we
0:54:47 kind of
0:54:48 talked about
0:54:48 this
0:54:48 tremendous
0:54:49 guilt
0:54:50 of like
0:54:50 not being
0:54:50 in there
0:54:51 and not being
0:54:51 in the
0:54:51 trenches
0:54:52 but because
0:54:52 we don’t
0:54:52 realise
0:54:52 we’re
0:54:53 serving
0:54:53 our
0:54:53 company
0:54:54 by
0:54:55 creating
0:54:56 a little
0:54:56 bit of
0:54:56 space
0:54:57 so is
0:54:57 it
0:54:57 a
0:54:57 practice
0:54:58 for you
0:54:58 it
0:54:58 is
0:54:59 honestly
0:54:59 I’ve
0:54:59 really
0:55:00 made
0:55:00 it
0:55:00 a
0:55:01 practice
0:55:01 and
0:55:01 I
0:55:01 say
0:55:01 that
0:55:02 it’s
0:55:02 about
0:55:03 like
0:55:03 first
0:55:03 of
0:55:03 all
0:55:03 I
0:55:03 have
0:55:03 to
0:55:04 get
0:55:04 out
0:55:04 of
0:55:04 the
0:55:05 office
0:55:05 that’s
0:55:05 the
0:55:05 most
0:55:06 important
0:55:06 thing
0:55:07 and
0:55:08 it’s
0:55:08 really
0:55:09 about
0:55:09 me
0:55:10 creating
0:55:10 the
0:55:10 conditions
0:55:11 for me
0:55:11 to be
0:55:12 really
0:55:12 thoughtful
0:55:12 so it’s
0:55:13 like
0:55:13 I
0:55:13 prepare
0:55:13 to
0:55:14 be
0:55:14 with
0:55:15 myself
0:55:15 so I’m
0:55:16 really
0:55:16 taking
0:55:16 a
0:55:16 snapshot
0:55:17 of
0:55:17 what’s
0:55:18 happening
0:55:18 with my
0:55:19 competition
0:55:19 what are
0:55:20 people
0:55:20 doing
0:55:21 I’m
0:55:21 on the
0:55:22 sites
0:55:22 of my
0:55:23 competition
0:55:23 I’m
0:55:23 like
0:55:24 what is
0:55:24 the
0:55:25 customer
0:55:25 seeing
0:55:26 I go
0:55:26 like
0:55:26 in
0:55:27 store
0:55:27 I
0:55:27 really
0:55:28 try
0:55:28 to
0:55:29 understand
0:55:29 what is
0:55:29 everybody
0:55:30 else
0:55:30 like
0:55:30 what are
0:55:31 customers
0:55:31 truly
0:55:32 experiencing
0:55:32 from
0:55:33 this
0:55:33 brand
0:55:33 and
0:55:34 then
0:55:34 it’s
0:55:34 really
0:55:35 about
0:55:36 looking
0:55:37 objectively
0:55:38 at what
0:55:39 we’re putting
0:55:39 out there
0:55:40 and I
0:55:40 really do
0:55:41 that
0:55:41 and I’ve
0:55:41 got
0:55:43 I think
0:55:43 I have
0:55:43 a really
0:55:44 really good
0:55:45 sense
0:55:45 of not
0:55:47 I don’t
0:55:47 know how to
0:55:48 say it
0:55:49 without swearing
0:55:50 I just
0:55:50 don’t believe
0:55:51 my own
0:55:51 bullshit
0:55:52 I’ve
0:55:53 still got
0:55:53 the ability
0:55:54 and it’s
0:55:54 so interesting
0:55:55 because I
0:55:55 think that
0:55:56 when you
0:55:56 join a
0:55:57 new company
0:55:57 you know
0:55:57 I always
0:55:58 say to
0:55:58 people
0:55:58 that
0:55:58 come
0:56:00 you know
0:56:00 you’ve
0:56:00 got fresh
0:56:01 eyes
0:56:02 for
0:56:03 I don’t
0:56:03 know
0:56:03 a couple
0:56:03 of weeks
0:56:04 maybe a
0:56:04 couple
0:56:04 of months
0:56:05 at best
0:56:06 until you
0:56:06 start telling
0:56:07 yourself
0:56:07 the same
0:56:08 stories
0:56:08 that we
0:56:09 tell ourselves
0:56:09 internally
0:56:11 and I
0:56:12 am very
0:56:12 good at
0:56:13 having those
0:56:13 fresh eyes
0:56:14 and so
0:56:14 when I
0:56:15 have new
0:56:15 people in
0:56:15 the business
0:56:16 I will
0:56:16 go to
0:56:17 those
0:56:17 people
0:56:17 and be
0:56:17 like
0:56:17 what are
0:56:18 you
0:56:18 seeing
0:56:18 where
0:56:19 were
0:56:19 you
0:56:19 before
0:56:20 what have
0:56:20 you
0:56:20 like
0:56:21 versus
0:56:21 what
0:56:22 we’re
0:56:22 telling
0:56:22 you
0:56:22 like
0:56:22 what
0:56:22 are
0:56:23 you
0:56:23 seeing
0:56:23 in
0:56:23 this
0:56:23 company
0:56:24 and so
0:56:24 I
0:56:24 make
0:56:25 a point
0:56:25 to
0:56:25 get
0:56:26 around
0:56:26 to
0:56:26 any
0:56:26 new
0:56:27 starters
0:56:28 and that’s
0:56:28 just
0:56:28 like
0:56:28 part
0:56:28 of
0:56:28 the
0:56:51 random
0:56:52 thing
0:56:52 that
0:56:52 I’m
0:56:52 like
0:56:53 didn’t
0:56:53 see
0:56:53 that
0:56:53 happening
0:56:54 I
0:56:54 didn’t
0:56:54 see
0:56:54 how
0:56:54 shit
0:56:55 we’d
0:56:55 become
0:56:55 at
0:56:55 that
0:56:56 you
0:56:56 know
0:56:56 and so
0:56:56 it’s
0:56:56 like
0:56:57 I
0:56:57 try to
0:56:58 have
0:56:58 that
0:56:59 level
0:56:59 of
0:57:00 objectiveness
0:57:00 all the
0:57:01 time
0:57:01 Are you
0:57:01 paranoid?
0:57:03 Definitely
0:57:05 100%
0:57:05 yes
0:57:06 well also
0:57:07 I’m rightly
0:57:07 paranoid
0:57:08 like I’ve
0:57:08 worked with
0:57:08 some of the
0:57:09 most copied
0:57:10 duped brands
0:57:10 in the whole
0:57:11 world
0:57:12 I mean
0:57:12 it’s like
0:57:13 I’m not
0:57:13 actually
0:57:13 paranoid
0:57:14 I’m just
0:57:14 like
0:57:14 everybody’s
0:57:15 copying
0:57:15 Mi
0:57:16 And how
0:57:16 do you
0:57:17 think
0:57:17 about
0:57:17 people
0:57:18 copying
0:57:18 you
0:57:18 because
0:57:19 anyone
0:57:19 that’s
0:57:19 successful
0:57:20 all of
0:57:20 my
0:57:20 friends
0:57:20 that
0:57:20 have
0:57:20 done
0:57:21 anything
0:57:21 well
0:57:21 they’re
0:57:22 just
0:57:22 everyone
0:57:23 just
0:57:23 copies
0:57:23 the
0:57:23 blueprint
0:57:23 I’m
0:57:24 totally
0:57:24 unbobbered
0:57:24 we’ve
0:57:25 moved
0:57:25 already
0:57:25 babe
0:57:25 I’m
0:57:26 like
0:57:26 by the
0:57:26 time
0:57:26 they’ve
0:57:27 copied
0:57:27 me
0:57:27 I’m
0:57:28 you know
0:57:28 I’m
0:57:28 a year
0:57:28 and a
0:57:29 half
0:57:29 in
0:57:29 the
0:57:29 future
0:57:29 I’m
0:57:29 like
0:57:30 go for
0:57:30 it
0:57:31 done
0:57:31 it’s
0:57:31 over
0:57:32 you
0:57:32 can’t
0:57:32 there’s
0:57:33 no
0:57:33 other
0:57:33 way
0:57:33 to
0:57:34 behave
0:57:34 you know
0:57:34 it’s
0:57:34 like
0:57:35 if
0:57:35 you sit
0:57:47 I work
0:57:47 in
0:57:48 fashion
0:57:48 it’s
0:57:48 very
0:57:49 cyclical
0:57:49 where
0:57:50 are
0:57:50 ideas
0:57:50 owned
0:57:51 anyway
0:57:52 who
0:57:52 knows
0:57:52 but
0:57:53 does
0:57:53 it
0:57:53 piss
0:57:53 you
0:57:53 off
0:57:55 yes
0:57:55 absolutely
0:57:56 I’ve
0:57:56 been
0:57:56 known
0:57:56 to
0:57:56 walk
0:57:56 up
0:57:57 to
0:57:57 a
0:57:57 founder
0:57:57 in
0:57:57 the
0:57:58 gym
0:57:58 and
0:57:59 disturb
0:57:59 him
0:57:59 during
0:57:59 his
0:58:00 workout
0:58:00 in
0:58:00 the
0:58:00 early
0:58:01 days
0:58:01 of
0:58:01 good
0:58:01 American
0:58:01 I was
0:58:01 like
0:58:02 excuse
0:58:02 me
0:58:03 sir
0:58:03 I
0:58:03 won’t
0:58:03 say
0:58:04 who
0:58:04 I
0:58:04 was
0:58:04 like
0:58:05 you
0:58:05 are
0:58:05 we
0:58:06 used
0:58:06 to
0:58:06 have
0:58:06 this
0:58:06 one
0:58:07 company
0:58:07 that
0:58:07 would
0:58:07 buy
0:58:08 whatever
0:58:08 we
0:58:08 dropped
0:58:08 at
0:58:09 good
0:58:09 American
0:58:09 and
0:58:09 they
0:58:09 would
0:58:10 photograph
0:58:10 it
0:58:11 and
0:58:11 put
0:58:11 it
0:58:11 on
0:58:11 their
0:58:12 website
0:58:13 the
0:58:13 next
0:58:13 like
0:58:14 three
0:58:14 days
0:58:14 after
0:58:15 and
0:58:15 take
0:58:16 pre-orders
0:58:16 on
0:58:16 it
0:58:16 and
0:58:16 I
0:58:16 was
0:58:16 like
0:58:17 I
0:58:17 know
0:58:18 you’re
0:58:18 I can
0:58:18 see
0:58:19 the
0:58:19 rip
0:58:19 pattern
0:58:19 like
0:58:19 I
0:58:20 know
0:58:20 that’s
0:58:20 my
0:58:21 gene
0:58:22 that’s
0:58:22 literally
0:58:22 my
0:58:22 gene
0:58:23 you
0:58:23 haven’t
0:58:23 tried
0:58:24 to
0:58:33 the
0:58:34 size
0:58:34 of
0:58:34 our
0:58:34 business
0:58:34 so
0:58:35 you
0:58:35 know
0:58:35 it
0:58:35 worked
0:58:35 for
0:58:36 him
0:58:37 they’re
0:58:37 what
0:58:37 they’re
0:58:38 big
0:58:38 they’re
0:58:38 a big
0:58:38 one
0:58:39 don’t
0:58:39 say
0:58:39 anything
0:58:39 more
0:58:40 Steven
0:58:40 people
0:58:40 will
0:58:40 work
0:58:40 it
0:58:41 out
0:58:41 no
0:58:41 I’m
0:58:41 not
0:58:42 going to
0:58:42 say
0:58:42 anything
0:58:42 else
0:58:44 about it
0:58:44 but tell
0:58:44 me
0:58:44 more
0:58:47 there’s
0:58:47 a lot
0:58:47 of
0:58:47 companies
0:58:48 out
0:58:48 there
0:58:48 that
0:58:48 do
0:58:48 a
0:58:48 good
0:58:49 job
0:58:49 copying
0:58:49 everybody
0:58:50 else
0:58:50 but
0:58:50 that
0:58:50 means
0:58:50 you
0:58:50 can
0:58:51 become
0:58:51 successful
0:58:51 just
0:58:52 by
0:58:52 ripping
0:58:52 someone
0:58:52 off
0:58:54 I’m
0:58:54 sure
0:58:54 people
0:58:54 have
0:58:55 you
0:58:57 know
0:58:58 I don’t
0:58:58 know
0:58:58 how fun
0:58:58 it is
0:58:59 to run
0:58:59 a company
0:58:59 like that
0:59:00 but
0:59:02 are they
0:59:03 fast fashion
0:59:04 they might
0:59:04 be
0:59:04 I know
0:59:05 who it
0:59:05 is
0:59:05 I’ve
0:59:06 figured
0:59:06 it out
0:59:07 you got
0:59:07 your first
0:59:08 I guess
0:59:08 your first
0:59:09 foray into
0:59:10 the world
0:59:10 of fashion
0:59:10 was that
0:59:11 internship
0:59:11 you had
0:59:11 at 19
0:59:12 years old
0:59:12 you became
0:59:13 a show
0:59:13 producer
0:59:13 after that
0:59:14 at
0:59:14 Inca
0:59:14 Productions
0:59:15 you worked
0:59:15 at a
0:59:15 marketing
0:59:16 agency
0:59:16 between
0:59:18 23
0:59:18 25
0:59:18 years
0:59:19 old
0:59:19 called
0:59:20 Saturday
0:59:20 Group
0:59:20 which is
0:59:20 now
0:59:20 known as
0:59:21 Wednesday
0:59:21 Agency
0:59:22 co-founded
0:59:23 by
0:59:23 your
0:59:24 husband
0:59:26 Jens
0:59:26 yes
0:59:27 indeed
0:59:28 which is
0:59:28 where you
0:59:28 met him
0:59:29 yes
0:59:30 now I’m
0:59:30 you know
0:59:30 I’m in
0:59:31 business
0:59:31 with Jens
0:59:32 so we
0:59:32 started our
0:59:33 relationship
0:59:34 as I was
0:59:34 an employee
0:59:35 and then
0:59:36 he was
0:59:36 my
0:59:36 investor
0:59:37 so he
0:59:37 and his
0:59:38 business
0:59:38 partner
0:59:38 invested
0:59:39 alongside
0:59:40 somebody
0:59:40 else
0:59:40 that I
0:59:40 bought
0:59:40 in
0:59:41 in my
0:59:41 first
0:59:42 company
0:59:43 then
0:59:43 I
0:59:43 married
0:59:44 him
0:59:45 then
0:59:45 we
0:59:45 had
0:59:46 four
0:59:46 kids
0:59:46 together
0:59:47 and
0:59:48 it
0:59:48 has
0:59:48 been
0:59:49 an
0:59:50 unbelievable
0:59:51 relationship
0:59:52 and one
0:59:52 of the
0:59:53 kind of
0:59:54 most
0:59:54 important
0:59:55 things
0:59:55 in my
0:59:55 life
0:59:55 and still
0:59:56 remains
0:59:56 one of
0:59:56 the most
0:59:56 important
0:59:57 things
0:59:57 in my
0:59:57 life
0:59:57 but it
0:59:58 hasn’t
0:59:58 always
0:59:58 been
0:59:59 easy
1:00:00 because
1:00:00 he
1:00:01 is
1:00:01 obviously
1:00:02 you know
1:00:03 doing his
1:00:03 thing
1:00:03 and he’s
1:00:04 very
1:00:04 ambitious
1:00:04 and he
1:00:05 has
1:00:05 his
1:00:05 own
1:00:05 things
1:00:06 going
1:00:06 on
1:00:08 and when
1:00:08 you bring
1:00:08 kids
1:00:09 into the
1:00:09 equation
1:00:09 everything
1:00:10 changes
1:00:10 again
1:00:10 right
1:00:11 that
1:00:11 it
1:00:12 shifts
1:00:12 a little
1:00:12 bit
1:00:13 I
1:00:13 think
1:00:13 what
1:00:13 is
1:00:14 important
1:00:14 is
1:00:15 to have
1:00:15 somebody
1:00:15 who
1:00:17 just
1:00:18 sees
1:00:20 all of
1:00:20 your
1:00:21 talent
1:00:21 and
1:00:21 sometimes
1:00:22 sees it
1:00:22 before
1:00:22 you
1:00:22 do
1:00:23 yourself
1:00:24 and I
1:00:24 think
1:00:24 that
1:00:25 Jens
1:00:25 has been
1:00:25 like
1:00:26 unbelievably
1:00:27 encouraging
1:00:28 of me
1:00:28 at every
1:00:29 turn
1:00:30 every time
1:00:30 I’ve had
1:00:31 any doubt
1:00:32 every time
1:00:32 I’ve been
1:00:33 like
1:00:33 god
1:00:34 that feels
1:00:34 like a
1:00:35 little bit
1:00:35 outside of
1:00:35 my comfort
1:00:36 zone
1:00:36 and he’s
1:00:37 been like
1:00:37 but you
1:00:38 did this
1:00:39 but you
1:00:39 did that
1:00:40 you know
1:00:40 and I’m
1:00:40 like
1:00:41 oh yeah
1:00:41 I did
1:00:41 didn’t I
1:00:43 everybody
1:00:43 has that
1:00:44 and you’ll
1:00:45 know people
1:00:45 right
1:00:45 who are
1:00:46 really
1:00:46 ambitious
1:00:47 themselves
1:00:48 and maybe
1:00:49 their partner
1:00:50 is
1:00:51 envious
1:00:52 resentful
1:00:52 maybe
1:00:54 low-key
1:00:55 subtly
1:00:56 plays them
1:00:56 like plays
1:00:57 them down
1:00:58 or diminishes
1:00:59 their ability
1:00:59 to them
1:01:00 what would
1:01:00 you say
1:01:00 to someone
1:01:01 who right
1:01:02 now is
1:01:02 listening to
1:01:02 this
1:01:03 and has
1:01:04 a partner
1:01:04 who they
1:01:05 feel
1:01:06 doesn’t
1:01:07 want them
1:01:08 to climb
1:01:08 to the top
1:01:09 of the mountain
1:01:09 and isn’t
1:01:10 willing to
1:01:10 help carry
1:01:10 them up
1:01:11 there
1:01:11 and actually
1:01:13 sees their
1:01:14 work as
1:01:16 a competition
1:01:17 what would
1:01:17 you say
1:01:17 to that
1:01:18 person
1:01:18 because I
1:01:18 know we
1:01:18 probably
1:01:19 got a
1:01:19 couple
1:01:19 million
1:01:19 listening
1:01:21 I say
1:01:22 this all
1:01:23 the time
1:01:26 everything
1:01:27 starts with
1:01:27 yourself
1:01:29 and you
1:01:29 have to
1:01:30 be willing
1:01:31 to put
1:01:32 what it
1:01:33 is that
1:01:33 you care
1:01:34 about
1:01:34 what it
1:01:35 is that
1:01:35 you
1:01:37 want
1:01:37 more than
1:01:38 anything
1:01:40 first
1:01:41 you
1:01:41 have
1:01:42 to be
1:01:42 able
1:01:42 to do
1:01:42 that
1:01:43 first
1:01:44 and
1:01:44 if
1:01:45 you
1:01:45 have
1:01:45 somebody
1:01:46 who
1:01:47 isn’t
1:01:47 necessarily
1:01:48 like a
1:01:49 big cheerleader
1:01:49 which not
1:01:50 everybody can
1:01:50 be for
1:01:51 everybody else
1:01:51 that’s one
1:01:52 thing
1:01:52 but if
1:01:52 you’ve got
1:01:53 someone
1:01:54 that sucks
1:01:55 your energy
1:01:55 and your
1:01:56 ability
1:01:56 to believe
1:01:57 in yourself
1:01:58 that’s a
1:01:58 problem
1:01:59 right
1:01:59 so I don’t
1:02:00 think that
1:02:00 everybody
1:02:01 needs the
1:02:01 cheerleader
1:02:02 your husband
1:02:03 but you
1:02:04 need somebody
1:02:05 that at least
1:02:06 supports your
1:02:07 belief in
1:02:07 yourself
1:02:08 so that you
1:02:09 can go off
1:02:09 and do what
1:02:09 you need to
1:02:10 do
1:02:10 how do you
1:02:11 and Jens
1:02:12 keep the
1:02:14 relationship
1:02:15 spicy
1:02:16 when you’re
1:02:17 both working
1:02:17 very very hard
1:02:18 and I ask
1:02:19 this in part
1:02:19 for myself
1:02:20 right my
1:02:20 partner is on
1:02:20 the other
1:02:21 side of the
1:02:21 world in
1:02:22 Bali doing
1:02:22 her business
1:02:23 and I’m
1:02:23 out here in
1:02:24 LA doing
1:02:25 my thing
1:02:25 so I’m
1:02:26 wondering how
1:02:28 you stay
1:02:28 as you know
1:02:29 these independent
1:02:30 beasts that
1:02:30 are building
1:02:32 your own
1:02:32 things but
1:02:34 then you
1:02:35 nurture the
1:02:36 third person
1:02:36 or the third
1:02:37 thing which
1:02:37 is your life
1:02:38 together
1:02:38 like do you
1:02:39 schedule date
1:02:40 night do you
1:02:41 and what is
1:02:41 the journey
1:02:42 you’ve been on
1:02:43 to figure out
1:02:44 the solution
1:02:44 here yeah
1:02:45 because you
1:02:45 must have
1:02:46 had to do
1:02:47 some trial
1:02:47 and error
1:02:49 yeah for sure
1:02:49 I mean look
1:02:50 I think that
1:02:51 I’m very very
1:02:52 lucky with Jens
1:02:54 we are really
1:02:55 into each other
1:02:55 we’re really
1:02:56 interested in
1:02:57 each other
1:02:57 and that’s
1:02:58 the starting
1:02:59 point for
1:02:59 any great
1:03:00 relationship
1:03:00 right like
1:03:01 I am
1:03:02 interested in
1:03:03 his point
1:03:03 of view
1:03:04 about something
1:03:05 when I see
1:03:05 something read
1:03:06 something you
1:03:07 know get
1:03:07 something on
1:03:08 social like
1:03:09 the first
1:03:09 person I think
1:03:10 about is oh
1:03:10 my god I need
1:03:11 to see what
1:03:11 Jens thinks
1:03:12 about this
1:03:12 and so that
1:03:13 that is just
1:03:15 the default
1:03:16 nature of
1:03:17 our relationship
1:03:18 yes we
1:03:19 schedule date
1:03:19 nights and you
1:03:20 know 16
1:03:21 years in
1:03:22 that takes a
1:03:23 lot of different
1:03:24 you know shapes
1:03:25 and forms I
1:03:26 will go to a
1:03:26 Lakers game
1:03:27 together like
1:03:28 Jens loves the
1:03:29 basketball and
1:03:29 I was like
1:03:30 you know what
1:03:31 like he loves
1:03:31 the basketball
1:03:32 all the good
1:03:33 restaurants are
1:03:34 downtown I’ll
1:03:34 make sure that
1:03:35 we go to like
1:03:36 some new crazy
1:03:36 restaurant that I
1:03:37 want to go to
1:03:38 ahead of the
1:03:38 game and then
1:03:39 we go to the
1:03:39 game and it’s
1:03:40 like the perfect
1:03:40 date night we
1:03:41 both get what
1:03:42 we want and so
1:03:43 how often is
1:03:44 date night oh
1:03:44 well we do a
1:03:45 date night every
1:03:46 single week without
1:03:47 fail yeah yeah
1:03:47 and it’s and it’s
1:03:49 really funny because
1:03:50 our my our teams we
1:03:51 have like team team
1:03:52 greed meetings we
1:03:53 all get together like
1:03:54 once a month and
1:03:55 it’s everyone and
1:03:56 they the first
1:03:57 thing everyone
1:03:58 puts down is
1:04:00 date night they
1:04:02 they program it in
1:04:02 like wherever we
1:04:04 are and it just
1:04:04 become and it’s so
1:04:06 interesting that I
1:04:06 always think it’s so
1:04:08 funny that they
1:04:10 they safeguard it in
1:04:11 such a way because I
1:04:12 feel like they all
1:04:13 feel like that this
1:04:14 is this is become like
1:04:15 a really important
1:04:16 thing but I don’t
1:04:17 know that there’s any
1:04:18 big secret the
1:04:19 secret is just being
1:04:20 interested in each
1:04:20 other the secret is
1:04:23 just growing
1:04:25 together and I
1:04:25 think that we are
1:04:27 so fortunate that
1:04:28 we’ve been able to
1:04:29 work with one
1:04:30 another but it
1:04:30 comes from like this
1:04:32 place of like interest
1:04:33 and respect and I’m
1:04:34 interested in the
1:04:35 person that he was
1:04:37 this is 16 or 17
1:04:38 years ago I wish I
1:04:39 knew but I’m
1:04:39 interested in the
1:04:40 person that he’s
1:04:41 becoming and I
1:04:42 think he’s
1:04:42 interested in the
1:04:43 person I’m
1:04:43 becoming
1:04:46 quick one I want
1:04:46 to talk about
1:04:47 something we all
1:04:48 need to take
1:04:48 seriously which is
1:04:49 cyber security
1:04:50 whether you’re a
1:04:51 first-time founder
1:04:52 facing your very
1:04:53 first audit or a
1:04:54 seasoned professional
1:04:54 who’s been through
1:04:55 it all staying
1:04:56 compliant is getting
1:04:57 more critical than
1:04:57 ever and more
1:04:58 complicated I have to
1:04:59 say and that is
1:05:00 where Vanta comes in
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1:05:43 $1,000 off
1:05:47 so 25 years old you
1:05:50 start ITB worldwide
1:05:51 and you run that
1:05:52 business
1:05:53 yeah 25 or 24 maybe
1:05:54 yep something like
1:05:54 that
1:05:55 for a decade
1:05:55 roughly
1:05:56 yeah a decade
1:05:58 a decade of your
1:05:58 life up until
1:06:00 35-ish
1:06:01 and you meet
1:06:02 Chris
1:06:02 yes
1:06:03 Jenna
1:06:04 in this process
1:06:05 of these 10 years
1:06:06 when did you meet
1:06:07 Chris Jenna
1:06:09 I met her for the
1:06:10 first time like on a
1:06:12 job that I’d done for
1:06:13 one of the girls I was
1:06:14 actually and I’m sure
1:06:16 they must be pretty
1:06:17 furious now actually I
1:06:18 was actually introduced
1:06:20 through an agent at WMA
1:06:21 they just gave me her
1:06:22 number directly so I
1:06:22 just called her
1:06:23 why would they be
1:06:24 furious now because
1:06:24 they could have taken
1:06:25 a cut
1:06:26 probably
1:06:28 you know maybe they
1:06:29 should have ushered
1:06:30 that introduction
1:06:31 slightly more but hey
1:06:32 ho
1:06:34 yeah I just called her
1:06:35 at that time you know
1:06:37 at that time Chris
1:06:38 wasn’t the Chris of
1:06:39 now she was still
1:06:39 extremely famous I
1:06:40 remember when we went
1:06:42 for lunch there you
1:06:42 know there was like a
1:06:43 little crowd forming
1:06:44 outside but it was very
1:06:45 different from how it
1:06:45 is today
1:06:47 and what was she like
1:06:48 when you met her
1:06:49 amazing you know but
1:06:51 also like not in that
1:06:54 way that when you you
1:06:55 go and meet someone for
1:06:55 me it was just like
1:06:56 meeting any other
1:06:58 manager agent publicist
1:07:00 and of course it was
1:07:01 Chris and she was you
1:07:02 know on the show and
1:07:03 so I had an
1:07:03 understanding of who
1:07:05 she was but also I
1:07:05 was trying to get
1:07:06 something done you
1:07:07 know I would have
1:07:08 been doing some type
1:07:10 of endorsement and
1:07:11 trying to you know get
1:07:13 some information about
1:07:14 whatever it was that you
1:07:15 know I was working on
1:07:16 at the time so it was
1:07:17 just like a means to an
1:07:18 end wherever I would go
1:07:19 at that point in my
1:07:20 life you know I was
1:07:21 meeting with managers
1:07:22 agents publicists all
1:07:24 the time and that was
1:07:25 part of my job and part
1:07:26 of what I did on behalf
1:07:27 of brands.
1:07:28 What was that journey
1:07:29 from meeting Chris that
1:07:30 first time to getting
1:07:31 into business with
1:07:32 Chris and pitching
1:07:34 her to be a business
1:07:34 partner and then what
1:07:36 happens to ITB the
1:07:37 agency you were running
1:07:37 in the background?
1:07:39 So it was a really
1:07:40 interesting time for me
1:07:41 actually because there
1:07:43 was this big shift and
1:07:44 what I’d done in the
1:07:45 agency was built this
1:07:46 you know entertainment
1:07:47 marketing agency and we
1:07:48 really kind of sat at the
1:07:49 intersection of where
1:07:51 like brands and
1:07:52 entertainment get
1:07:54 together so film product
1:07:55 placement endorsement
1:07:57 deals influencer packages
1:07:58 like and that was like
1:07:59 the very early days of
1:08:00 influencers most of
1:08:00 the like we were
1:08:01 calling them bloggers
1:08:02 at that time right
1:08:04 so the agency was
1:08:06 growing and I’d
1:08:07 opened an office in
1:08:08 New York that was
1:08:09 really doing like the
1:08:10 majority of the
1:08:10 business and it was
1:08:11 fantastic so the
1:08:12 business become very
1:08:14 kind of US facing from
1:08:15 a client based point of
1:08:17 view and then this idea
1:08:19 of like talent based
1:08:20 equity deals kind of
1:08:21 like raised its head and
1:08:22 I’ve read something
1:08:23 about Ashton Kutcher
1:08:24 taking I don’t know
1:08:25 equity in some
1:08:26 Silicon Valley startup
1:08:27 and I started to get
1:08:29 calls and you know
1:08:29 people would always
1:08:31 phone me when they
1:08:32 wanted to put an
1:08:33 A-list talent in a
1:08:33 fragrance ad for
1:08:34 example but people
1:08:35 started calling me and
1:08:37 saying hey we’ve got
1:08:38 this startup we’d be
1:08:39 willing to give X Y and
1:08:41 Z 10% of this thing
1:08:43 for you know for an
1:08:44 endorsement and I was
1:08:44 like well that’s
1:08:45 interesting how do I
1:08:47 commission that right
1:08:48 because usually I would
1:08:50 be getting paid a
1:08:51 percentage of whatever
1:08:52 cash was taking was
1:08:54 crossing hands so for me
1:08:55 it was like this new
1:08:57 interesting part of the
1:08:58 business that I had to
1:08:58 figure out how to
1:09:01 monetize so fast
1:09:02 forward I did a
1:09:03 couple of deals and
1:09:03 instead of you know
1:09:05 taking a piece of
1:09:06 equity like you know
1:09:07 because at the end of
1:09:08 the day my agency
1:09:10 wasn’t it wasn’t in
1:09:11 that way shape or
1:09:12 form it wasn’t figured
1:09:13 out that we could like
1:09:14 bring equity into the
1:09:15 business like where
1:09:15 does that go that
1:09:16 wouldn’t go over to
1:09:17 me that would go to
1:09:18 the shareholder base
1:09:18 it would then mean
1:09:19 nothing to anybody so
1:09:20 I was like do you know
1:09:21 what a flat fee and
1:09:22 so I did a bunch of
1:09:23 deals with a bunch of
1:09:24 talents and I’d say
1:09:25 you’re going to pay me
1:09:25 a couple hundred
1:09:26 thousand dollars I’m
1:09:28 going to work out for
1:09:30 X to take 10% of
1:09:31 your company and I
1:09:32 did three that were
1:09:33 very very successful
1:09:35 then what happened is I
1:09:36 kind of sat back and I
1:09:38 was like wow it’s so
1:09:39 interesting and I
1:09:41 remember this company
1:09:44 reporting some just
1:09:45 reporting some numbers
1:09:46 and I was like I cannot
1:09:47 believe that they’ve
1:09:48 gone from there to
1:09:50 there and in my head I
1:09:51 made a direct
1:09:52 correlation between the
1:09:53 talent that had been
1:09:53 brought into that
1:09:54 company it was Pharrell
1:09:55 Williams at the time
1:09:56 and I was like wow
1:09:58 because Pharrell did this
1:09:59 thing the value of the
1:10:00 company jumped like this
1:10:01 I got my little couple
1:10:02 of hundred grand and
1:10:04 wasn’t incentivized and
1:10:06 you know by any of the
1:10:07 value that was created and
1:10:08 therefore you know I was
1:10:09 like God I’m really
1:10:11 losing here maybe I
1:10:12 should do one of these
1:10:13 for myself maybe I
1:10:14 should create a company
1:10:16 and bring a talent into
1:10:17 that company and give
1:10:18 them a piece of equity in
1:10:19 order to accelerate the
1:10:21 business that was the
1:10:21 start of Good
1:10:22 American that was the
1:10:24 initial thought because
1:10:25 I wasn’t getting paid
1:10:26 what I needed to from my
1:10:27 clients so I was like
1:10:29 well who’s going to who’s
1:10:29 going to pay me
1:10:31 correctly no one so I’ll
1:10:32 create it myself at that
1:10:34 time Jens and Eric had
1:10:36 started Frame which is an
1:10:37 incredibly successful
1:10:38 denim company and so I
1:10:39 had kind of thought in my
1:10:40 head that between you
1:10:42 know I had clients like
1:10:43 G-Star and Calvin Klein and
1:10:44 I’ve worked with Topshop for
1:10:46 a long time very denim
1:10:49 heavy Jens had Frame and
1:10:49 so I was like I know
1:10:50 something about denim
1:10:52 like that’s a category I can
1:10:54 do no what I knew was
1:10:56 denim marketing I had no
1:10:57 idea about how to make a
1:10:59 product and then fast
1:11:01 forward I sit down I sit
1:11:02 at a dinner and next to
1:11:03 some guy who had invested
1:11:06 heavily in a big plus size
1:11:08 retailer in America and he
1:11:10 said to me Emma this space
1:11:12 is exploding and he’s
1:11:13 telling me all about it and
1:11:15 I looked on my phone I
1:11:16 looked at the retailer and
1:11:18 I was like that’s gross
1:11:21 nobody wants to dress in
1:11:22 those clothes that product
1:11:24 is horrible and then
1:11:26 everything just came
1:11:27 together I was like oh my
1:11:28 goodness I’m going to
1:11:30 create a denim company I’m
1:11:31 going to make all of the
1:11:32 sizes all the time and I’m
1:11:33 going to make everyone look
1:11:36 hot buster end of that was
1:11:37 it I was like ding ding
1:11:38 ding and it just came
1:11:40 together and I was like oh
1:11:41 and you know what I know
1:11:42 how to do I know how to book
1:11:43 talent and bring them into the
1:11:45 brand and converge all of
1:11:47 those things and it’s going to
1:11:49 be explosive and so the idea
1:11:50 was kind of set in my head and
1:11:51 at that point I’d had the
1:11:53 conversation with Chris who
1:11:55 had said you know we’re
1:11:56 looking for these type of
1:11:58 partnerships now and so I
1:11:59 just went back to her and I
1:12:00 was like I have an idea and
1:12:01 I’d really love it if I could
1:12:04 pitch your daughter the rest
1:12:06 is history you pitched her
1:12:07 I pitched her you pitched
1:12:10 Chloe what did Chloe say I
1:12:11 don’t remember the exact words
1:12:13 and you know I never like to
1:12:15 it’s so interesting we have a
1:12:17 great working relationship
1:12:21 the family and I because I
1:12:22 don’t speak on their behalf
1:12:24 you know and I’m very careful
1:12:25 not to speak on their behalf
1:12:27 and it feels really unfair
1:12:29 because what they are so
1:12:31 unbelievably famous that
1:12:33 anything that you say becomes
1:12:35 news so I prefer never to talk
1:12:38 about what she said what I
1:12:39 remember is the end result is
1:12:41 that she said yes and you know
1:12:42 we’re in business together eight
1:12:44 years later what was the
1:12:45 process of making good
1:12:46 America a good company in
1:12:48 terms of you have that
1:12:49 initial hypothesis when you
1:12:50 sat at that dinner you think
1:12:51 okay this is what it’s going
1:12:53 to be it tends to be the case
1:12:54 that almost everyone’s
1:12:55 initial hypothesis is like a
1:12:57 little bit wrong yeah at least
1:12:58 in part no it’s so
1:13:00 interesting actually that’s the
1:13:01 that’s the thing that we got
1:13:02 right I think that what we
1:13:03 understood intrinsically is
1:13:04 that there was this huge
1:13:06 subset of customers that were
1:13:07 left out of the fashion
1:13:08 conversation if you’re above a
1:13:11 size 12 that there was
1:13:12 almost nothing cute in the
1:13:14 market for you and what we
1:13:15 didn’t do was create any
1:13:17 separation we were just like
1:13:19 we’re going to make 19 sizes of
1:13:21 clothes and what happens
1:13:22 traditionally in most retailers
1:13:24 is that you’ve got one set of
1:13:25 sizes and then you go up to
1:13:27 floor five and there’s this like
1:13:28 horrible little subsection and
1:13:30 you’ve got a bit of you know the
1:13:32 assortment for petite and a bit
1:13:33 of the assortment for plus size
1:13:35 women and it’s completely not
1:13:37 reflective of what’s downstairs for
1:13:38 everybody else and so we were
1:13:39 like do you know what we’re just
1:13:40 going to connect all of those
1:13:41 things we’re just going to make
1:13:43 one product we’ll make it in 19
1:13:45 sizes and whatever we do we’ll
1:13:47 let the customers choose so if
1:13:49 we’re making a dress with a giant
1:13:50 slit up the side of it we’re not
1:13:52 going to moderate it because we
1:13:53 think that a girl at a certain
1:13:54 size doesn’t want the slit as
1:13:56 higher because you know what we bet
1:13:58 she does if we make a teeny tiny
1:14:00 fluorescent pink bikini we’re
1:14:01 going to make it in every size and
1:14:03 we’ll let the decision be down to
1:14:05 the woman and it turns out we were
1:14:08 100% right with our instinct because
1:14:10 these girls weren’t buying or
1:14:13 because they didn’t want to buy it
1:14:14 they weren’t buying because it
1:14:16 wasn’t available anywhere and so our
1:14:18 instinct to just like make the
1:14:20 stuff and put it out there and see
1:14:22 who comes was the right thing to do
1:14:25 what part of the strategy and the
1:14:32 games you played in 2018 could not be
1:14:33 replicated now that was so important
1:14:35 back then because the game has
1:14:37 changed so many that the game has so
1:14:39 changed you know the arbitrage that
1:14:42 existed in social media then like how
1:14:44 you could pay to acquire a customer is
1:14:47 almost entirely gone and so when I
1:14:48 think about how we could work with
1:14:50 Facebook and how we could work with
1:14:53 Instagram how powerful those
1:14:56 followings were back then you can’t
1:14:58 compare it to now and so you could
1:15:00 acquire a customer very cheaply you
1:15:02 could you know I think that the
1:15:04 the algorithms worked completely
1:15:06 differently therefore the cohorts in
1:15:07 your business behave completely
1:15:09 differently and if I think about it
1:15:13 we had a three-year golden period of
1:15:16 runway the good thing is I think we
1:15:18 knew and I always talk about the
1:15:20 beauty of my board members at that
1:15:22 time going back to people like Andrew
1:15:24 Rosen and John Howard who were the
1:15:27 total opposite to everybody else on my
1:15:29 board that was like Emma you need to
1:15:31 just double down acquire as many
1:15:33 customers as possible don’t worry
1:15:36 about profitability just spend spend
1:15:38 spend and they were like absolutely
1:15:41 do not do that you need a profitable
1:15:43 business that works when this is over
1:15:47 and so I just was like I’m gonna do
1:15:49 what these guys are telling me they have
1:15:51 a lot of experience they have a lot of
1:15:52 successful businesses they’ve been
1:15:54 doing it for a lot longer and so I
1:15:56 think that while we you know created a
1:15:58 foundation for the business that was
1:15:59 really important that was rooted in
1:16:03 being digitally native we never we
1:16:05 never rested on that being the only
1:16:06 way that we could meet customers we
1:16:08 were immediately saying we’ve got to
1:16:10 open our own stores we’ve got to
1:16:11 create a wholesale footprint and when
1:16:14 the tide turned which inevitably did and
1:16:16 that really happened you know COVID
1:16:18 kind of gave you an acceleration but
1:16:20 then the fall off was pretty quick we
1:16:21 had this buffer of an incredible
1:16:24 business that allowed us to stay the
1:16:28 course so if one is you know 2025 and
1:16:30 they’re trying to deploy a strategy to
1:16:32 build any kind of brand and they’re
1:16:34 thinking about the channels if we think
1:16:36 about B2C companies so things like
1:16:39 Good American or it could be I don’t
1:16:42 know an energy drink or whatever what
1:16:44 what kind of strategy you thinking about
1:16:45 now to acquire customers as being some
1:16:47 of the most interesting but maybe
1:16:51 yeah I really am blown away by what
1:16:53 happens when you meet customers in real
1:16:56 life you know and I think that some of
1:16:58 the more experiential things that we’ve
1:17:00 done that stay with people you know
1:17:02 post COVID people want to be together
1:17:04 and they want to be in person and they
1:17:08 want experience and they want memories
1:17:10 and they want things that last and they
1:17:12 want physicality and and what’s
1:17:15 tangible and so whatever you can do that
1:17:17 brings those type of experiences like in
1:17:21 real life experience is always going to
1:17:23 be out anything that is like more
1:17:25 digitally native and so a good example
1:17:27 of that is we just opened a store on
1:17:29 sunset for skims and we connected the
1:17:32 store opening with this incredible diner
1:17:34 next door that’s like a 24-hour kind of
1:17:38 like Hollywood staple diner there were
1:17:40 queues around the block every single slot
1:17:43 for in the entirety of the six days and
1:17:45 it’s 24 hours was booked within five
1:17:48 minutes and this is to get pancakes and
1:17:50 you know chicken tenders and like a root
1:17:53 beer float and what was so interesting to
1:17:55 me is I took my kids and it was so cute
1:17:57 you know it’s like a 50s diner with a
1:17:59 jukebox and we skimsified the whole thing
1:18:02 it looked amazing my three-year-old two
1:18:04 days later said I want to go back to the
1:18:06 cafe and I was like you’re English that’s
1:18:08 so cool you want to go to the diner she’s
1:18:09 like yeah I want to get the thing with
1:18:12 the cherry on the top and I was like wow
1:18:14 like in a three years three-year-old’s head
1:18:16 that even like she had an impression of
1:18:19 like that being like a special moment and
1:18:20 something that’s stuck in her mind and I
1:18:22 was like those type of things for me are
1:18:25 just way more valuable now look if you’re
1:18:27 starting a business it’s really hard to do
1:18:29 experiential in real life things like that
1:18:31 but I think the point is that getting in
1:18:34 front of customers like getting to them
1:18:36 and that physicality of being in front of
1:18:38 them and whether that is if you’re starting
1:18:40 a new drink like being in the supermarket
1:18:44 being in front of like the point of purchase
1:18:46 like that is really important to tell your
1:18:48 story and have some physicality around what
1:18:49 you’re doing are you seeing this idea of
1:18:51 community becoming more and more important
1:18:54 for building brands because you know a couple
1:18:56 of years ago it was all like just throw some
1:18:57 Facebook ads at them or get some influencers
1:18:59 to tell them about it now we’re seeing this
1:19:02 transition towards like run clubs and yoga
1:19:05 thing with the brand present and yeah I think
1:19:08 it’s I definitely think it’s community and I
1:19:10 you know when I think about what that means
1:19:13 for our businesses you know oftentimes it’s
1:19:16 really about like like owning that customer
1:19:20 experience you know it’s like if you if you
1:19:22 know for example Skims has an app which is
1:19:24 like an incredible place for customers to
1:19:26 experience the brand and I think there’s
1:19:29 like a lot again it’s like there’s high low
1:19:31 ways there’s very very few brands that can
1:19:33 be successful in an app right you’ve got to
1:19:35 really have so much brand affinity and so
1:19:37 much love to that brand that people will
1:19:39 come get off of whatever they’re doing and
1:19:41 like click and be in your app so I think
1:19:43 that’s certainly not for everybody I don’t
1:19:44 think that would work for a lot of the
1:19:46 brands that I’m involved in but the sense
1:19:50 of like standing for something having some
1:19:52 kind of purpose galvanizing people around
1:19:54 something that isn’t just about your
1:19:58 product is is probably the way to go I think
1:20:00 and you know Good American has been so
1:20:02 successful because it always stood for
1:20:04 something at the end of the day we were
1:20:06 selling blue jeans and white t-shirts but
1:20:08 people understand why they come to that
1:20:09 brand they understand that there’s a
1:20:12 purpose but you also have to evolve that
1:20:15 purpose continuously and when I think about
1:20:17 where we started eight years ago and where
1:20:19 we are in the middle somewhere we became
1:20:21 B Corp certified and that was another like
1:20:24 real push for the company it was very
1:20:26 very very heavy lifting but that was
1:20:29 something that for our staff became so
1:20:31 important to them you know denim is a
1:20:33 tough business to be in it’s a very
1:20:36 pollutive business I have a lot of really
1:20:38 young people a lot of young mothers that
1:20:40 work at the company and they wanted to
1:20:41 know that they worked in a place that
1:20:44 cared about the world that they live in and
1:20:45 so it really was something that was an
1:20:48 undertaking by that company to say we all
1:20:50 feel that we could do so much better and I
1:20:53 think that the underlying values of that
1:20:56 company are about it being about our
1:20:59 customers and the people that work for work
1:21:01 there and whatever is true to them being
1:21:03 the most important thing and so that has
1:21:05 really evolved over time how old are you
1:21:08 here in this photo I must be what okay so
1:21:11 if Katie is what she looks like I must be
1:21:17 16 16 15 no 15 15 oh yeah yeah oh if you
1:21:19 were to speak to this Emma and this Emma was
1:21:21 keen to start a business and she came to
1:21:23 you and said what are the like first
1:21:26 principles of business what are the the
1:21:28 the three most important things in being
1:21:29 successful in business that you’ve learned
1:21:32 in your decades now of wisdom and
1:21:34 experience what would you take the say to
1:21:37 her oh bless her well I’d say I love your
1:21:41 curly hair first of all um it’s not a bad
1:21:44 place to start actually because I would say
1:21:47 that it’s so important to be true to
1:21:51 yourself in whatever you do and you know I
1:21:55 think that I have an incredible gut instinct
1:22:01 and I have very strong feelings that guide the
1:22:04 decisions that I make and that has really
1:22:07 led me so well so I’d be like have conviction
1:22:10 about what it is that you feel deeply and go
1:22:13 and go with that but by the same token I’d say
1:22:15 know what you don’t know because there’s a
1:22:17 lot of places where I’m weak and one of my
1:22:19 greatest strengths and a superpower of mine
1:22:22 has been know what you don’t know and hire
1:22:25 people into the kind of gaps and the holes
1:22:28 that you have in your own knowledge that’s
1:22:30 been really important for me and it’s I feel
1:22:33 like I’m so privileged that I’ve worked with
1:22:35 people in one company and being able to bring
1:22:37 them into another company and another and I
1:22:40 start almost a lot of things with like a
1:22:42 similar group of people and I love that because
1:22:46 they fill in for where I’m not so good and
1:22:51 that’s been really key and then despite everything
1:22:55 you’ve been told you’re going to have to take some risks
1:22:58 and I think that everything that this kid knew was
1:23:02 like don’t be risky don’t take any risks like figure
1:23:20 everything out and be really safe and what I’ve learned is that nothing is going to come easy and I think that when I moved here I moved to America with a two year old and a newborn baby and I had no friends here not like real friends and it was a really scary move because you move away from you know you forget when you move country you move from all senses of what is familiar to you and that’s very
1:23:39 and that’s very it’s very difficult in any stage of your life but there’s a special vulnerability
1:23:43 and having a new baby and having a new venture that you don’t really understand how to run
1:23:51 at the time and so I would say like learning to take risks as probably being the best thing
1:23:52 that I’ve done.
1:23:53 How do you feel about her?
1:24:01 Oh you know I think she’s so cute and so lovely you know I don’t like I feel like that’s you
1:24:03 you know I still look exactly the same don’t I?
1:24:05 Yeah you do.
1:24:28 You know like I feel like this person was like dying like dying to dying to just do something differently and dying to escape her circumstances but also you know this person loved these three people so much Charlotte, Rachel and Katie they are like my world my sisters
1:24:55 we’re on a group chat and we’re on a group chat and we chat all the time and like my reason for being successful was so much about them it’s so much about this idea of being able to share and look after them and take all the things that we had in our childhood and move it into a new space and I’m really proud of myself that I’ve been able to do that.
1:24:57 Dying to escape that situation.
1:25:23 Yeah because I feel like for me you know I didn’t feel that safe when I was younger you know I really didn’t I really really didn’t and I felt like I should probably have a future where my kids feel
1:25:57 be thoughtful about the words because you know my mom is still alive and she did the very best she could with what she had which is all any parent can do but I feel that for me and my sisters there was just so much uncertainty in so many things that I wanted to make sure that for my kids there was just this solid foundation and I’m so happy I’ve been able to do that.
1:25:59 Some of the skills that I’ve been able to do that.
1:26:08 Some of the skills that I think you have that are unappreciated one of them is the ability to articulate an idea and some people call this like sales.
1:26:18 How critical do you think it is for women for men for everybody to cultivate that particular skill and how did you cultivate it?
1:26:38 Oh I think it’s one of the most important things you know when I think about who I am investing in when I think about what businesses to support I don’t care if a founder has a lot of missing pieces but if you can’t sell you ain’t getting my money like no way like it’s just no way.
1:26:58 No you can’t you can’t outsource that stuff you either have an ability to convince somebody of what you’re doing and sell your idea uniquely or you don’t and I’ve never invested in any founders that didn’t have that as a skill that couldn’t bring me on a journey and tell me their story and convince me that this was something that the world needed.
1:27:06 How do you sell so if you were selling something to me what are the core what would you be thinking about as you’re preparing that pitch and putting it together?
1:27:28 Oh you’ll see you’re just so much more thoughtful than I am I would just I would be so you know like my whole thing is like I have to be passionate about the thing that I’m doing I have to like see the need I have to figure out the like what am I solving for and then I go in on that I’m like you know I’m I’m painting the picture of like where the problem sits.
1:27:50 and then I’m showing you how I’ve uniquely come up with the solution and then I’m you know I I’m like old school right it’s like I create a value proposition I’m all about like the perfect place for pricing and then it’s like I’m going to get it to you in a unique way but I don’t think it’s like so complicated I’m I’m I’m like a born salesperson that’s just who I am.
1:27:52 When you reference this you touch your chest a lot.
1:27:52 Oh do I?
1:27:54 No but it’s interesting to me.
1:27:55 Because it’s like a heartfelt thing.
1:27:55 That’s what I’m saying.
1:28:09 So intuition feeling yeah and I do get that from you that I think you’ve cultivated the trust with your intuition which obviously took some time because I remember the comment Jens made to you said you’re acting like an employee.
1:28:13 You need to like it almost sounded like trust yourself a bit more so you can call the shots.
1:28:27 is that something we cultivate and and how how do we know whether to trust our intuition because so many people like their intuition is trying to say something to them and maybe they like gaslight themselves and tell themselves or other people tell them to to sort of dim down that internal voice.
1:28:32 But how have you learned to get that conviction to act upon feeling?
1:28:36 How have I learned to act upon feeling?
1:28:41 Well I guess there’s an element of doing it and turning out to be right.
1:28:55 But I think that you’ve got to know the difference between having intuition and a gut feeling and then just sort of general excitement and being able to separate those things.
1:29:00 Because I get really excited about things right and I’ll be like oh my god that’s amazing.
1:29:08 And it’s so interesting because when you sit on a show like you know Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank like you really need to learn like very quickly to separate those feelings.
1:29:20 And so that that helped me a little bit but I think that that is the like is it coming from a place that kind of hits you in your heart spot or are you just feeling like some sense of excitement?
1:29:23 And that that is two very different things for me.
1:29:30 Like are you are you moving me emotionally or am I just like oh that feels like money over there?
1:29:36 It’s like that looks like it’s going to chop up into some you know nice dividends at some point.
1:29:44 That’s that’s not how I make decisions like I never I never go that way with that sort of general excitement of something that’s going to be like more financially exciting for me.
1:29:45 They never work out.
1:29:53 Have you thought much about as you look back through your career and now you have the clarity of hindsight how important the size of one’s dreams are?
1:30:02 Because I imagine that if you spoke to that Emma now you’d be like like listen go fucking out like dream fucking bigger like it’s gonna you know.
1:30:10 And I was I think it was when I heard about how we work took investment in the back of a car from mashu I was his name son something yeah.
1:30:19 From soft bank the bigger like billionaire investor and he gave the we work founder a billion dollar check and said you know the only problem with you is you don’t dream big enough.
1:30:31 He just given him a billion dollars and he was criticizing him for not asking for more and as I reflect back through my career I go Jesus Christ like so many moments I like undersold myself because I just couldn’t see it.
1:30:38 I didn’t have the friends you know what happened in the end of that story right Stephen yeah yeah yeah but still like listen this guy walked away with a billion dollars.
1:30:43 Listen he did he did all right he did all right but you know it’s like I’m I’m not investing in his next thing a year.
1:30:49 He’s just raised 250 million I saw it I can’t believe it I can’t believe people are just walking back into that but there you go.
1:30:56 The thing that it put in my mind was actually that you know that whole adage of like aim for the cloud like aim for the stars in your land on the clouds whatever.
1:31:00 Yeah I was like there’s truth to this idea of just like aiming higher.
1:31:20 Yeah I think there is some truth to it I mean look I I don’t know that I even had an idea of how high high was you know and I think that it’s perspective and your environment that gives you an idea of like what is high you know I often talk about this idea you can’t be what you don’t see.
1:31:40 And for me I don’t think that I had a lot of role models and being in England at that time it just wasn’t like who was there like do you know what I mean like I don’t remember anybody being particularly like you know I I kind of honed in on Oprah because she was on the TV when I would come home from school and I was like that is aspirational.
1:31:55 Now there’s a black woman who reads all these books that has these crazy ideas around gratitude and at the time she you know she was talking a lot about manifesting and it wasn’t mindfulness meditation right but that then kind of moved in to mindfulness.
1:32:10 But the exposure to those ideas to me at that time it felt fresh and new and I was like I am going to watch Oprah and I’m going to be like Oprah in my way of thinking not that I wanted to be on TV but it’s like that’s the type of level of thought I wanted.
1:32:17 I wanted to be thoughtful and articulate and move like Oprah because I thought she’d move good.
1:32:30 So when it comes to like your dreams and your ambitions for me I think that they’ve maybe aside from the visualization side of things where I like drew this beautiful home for me they’ve always been a little bit more bite size.
1:32:48 It’s been like let’s get out of this place get out of Plasto then let’s like get a job and surround yourself with the right people and then like you know it’s all been very kind of like much more incremental and I always think about this idea of how I’ve leveraged everything that I’ve had into the next thing and I’m pretty good at doing that.
1:33:00 I have grand plans that I started writing when I was 30 but they’re much more theoretical about how I want to feel and how I want to be spending my time as opposed to like what will I be doing at that moment.
1:33:06 One of the things you’ve said over and over again as well when talking about building business is hiring and how important that is to you.
1:33:13 It’s taken me a long time longer than I would have liked to realize the importance of hiring.
1:33:15 In my first business I think it was an afterthought.
1:33:21 I thought most important things are if I work seven days a week and I don’t leave this office and I have good ideas we’ll be good.
1:33:24 Yeah not so much not scalable.
1:33:29 Yeah you learn the hard way you learn the hard way because you start hiring your friends and you go off vibes etc.
1:33:37 So the hiring advice that you needed at the start of your career that would have helped you to make less mistakes what is that advice?
1:33:39 The hiring advice was learn to fire.
1:33:45 Well that’s what you know because I think that what happens in businesses is the people that get you to 10 million
1:33:49 and not the people that get you to 100 million people get you to 100 million and not people get you to 500 and then to a billion.
1:34:02 And so what happens is as a founder you get so you know you know what it’s like like that startup vibe those early people that work that they do and the times you have together.
1:34:16 That all becomes like so much part of your success story right and if you hold on to that for too long you kind of miss what is next and you miss that ability to be able to pivot and to level up.
1:34:21 And so I think that the mistakes that I made early on were not moving people out of the business quickly enough.
1:34:31 Because I just didn’t want to fire them because I have loyalty and I’m like such a nice girl and I was like you just needed to go and I didn’t want to say that.
1:34:34 And what was the harm that they did by staying or by you enabling them to stay?
1:34:46 It restricted my growth it restricted my ability to be able to move up and level up and have better clients and you know you you don’t know what you don’t know until it’s like right in front of you.
1:34:57 And so I needed to keep as the business grew you need to keep constantly up leveling your people and so that’s what I that’s what I missed.
1:35:01 So if I could bring that old Emery in that didn’t want to fire and I sat her here what would you say to her?
1:35:08 Because I ask this because I know because kids come up to me all the time saying this that there are so many people who can relate.
1:35:10 Who can relate?
1:35:11 Can relate.
1:35:12 Oh no doubt.
1:35:14 You know people pleasing we’re a family.
1:35:16 Yeah no we’re not a family we’re not a family.
1:35:39 And that’s the first thing it’s like I think everybody really needs to understand like why they are there and this is about leadership style right like are you clear in what you’re all there to do because it’s like I am not building a family I am here to run an organization that organization is here to create a profit and we all have to be very very clear about our goals and how we’re getting there.
1:35:55 And I think that’s what we’re getting there and I think that’s what we’re getting there and I think that in the past what happens and especially when you have successful companies success masks a lot of problems in a business right like and when you get successful you’ve got to allow yourself and your team to be equally critical.
1:36:05 Even when everything’s going well and even if the bottom line’s well there’ll still be dysfunction within that organization and you can’t let the success mask what that dysfunction is.
1:36:18 You’ve got to get into it and actually it’s even more important when you are successful that you deal with those things because otherwise the problems get bigger and bigger as the company gets bigger and bigger and you end up with a problem that you could have stamped out much earlier on that you then didn’t.
1:36:24 So it’s just a really key thing and it’s like anything you get better at this like all the time.
1:36:33 Now I’ve become better and better at spotting who are the right people and inevitably actually I spend more and more of my time bringing the right people into the company.
1:36:45 I reckon we were talking about this the other day I think it’s like 20 maybe even 25% of my time is spent on talent and cultivating like the right people to come into the company.
1:37:06 It’s a lot of time it’s a lot of time a lot of time oh my god but that’s the difference between good and great 100% agree who you bring in you know when we talk about culture in a company culture is like who you hire who you fire and who gets promoted now that is my job that’s my decisions to make within the organization.
1:37:16 So I really think about how much more thoughtful can I be about those decisions and the majority of that is put in like who I hire.
1:37:26 So on that point then how does one get truly exceptional people to come and join them and I say this because you know in the last five years I’ve become increasingly obsessed with hiring.
1:37:38 It’s like my team will tell you I feel like I’m the head of recruitment yeah I built the process sign off everybody that joins every company obsessing about it building tools myself in my bedroom to make art like the screening process that I talked about built it myself.
1:37:52 It’s my absolute obsession because I now have the clarity of hindsight where I go oh my god my net worth and my outcomes can be correlated to like 10 exceptional people that I brought into my ecosystem 10 years ago and the downstream impact of them hiring more exceptional people etc.
1:38:03 So this so but me and you’re in a different place now and if you go back to when you first started your agency all those years ago you didn’t have the same leverage.
1:38:04 Oh no way.
1:38:18 So if you’re a startup founder now and they agree with this principle that hiring is so critical A players really matter how do they go about like how would you go about now getting exceptional people to come and join Emma’s company.
1:38:34 Yeah well Stephen that’s the reason that you’ve got to be a great salesperson otherwise I’m not going to invest in you but it comes back down to that right because in the beginning you’ve got to sell a dream a vision you might be willing to give someone some equity but chances are that equity is worth zilch in the beginning.
1:38:47 So you’ve got to be that person that can say here’s where we’re going we’re going to paint a vision but you’ve got to have the strategic chops to say you know anybody good is going to understand that a founder alone goes nowhere right.
1:39:04 So it’s like what am I coming into like if it’s the founder and it’s like very little then what’s the vision I’m buying into and what’s the strategy to get there so it comes back down to this like idea of like can you sell a vision can you sell the strategy these people are going to come into and actually work towards.
1:39:20 And I think that that is probably like the thing that I’m good at after I’ve had a pretty clear idea about what I’m doing and I can do that because I don’t do very much everybody always says to me how do you do so much it’s like I don’t do very much what I do is obsessed over the customer.
1:39:24 I obsess over a set of products and then I get into them really quickly.
1:39:37 That’s it like that’s all I do and so it’s not really that much that I do and I think that it’s like so so so important for you to be able to do very very very few things really really well.
1:39:43 I think that’s it really goes against what a lot of startup founders think they have to be doing because they think they have to be good at everything.
1:39:50 No no I think I honestly think it’s the opposite and I think that if you start to tell yourself that it’s a slippery slope because no
1:39:59 one is good at everything right you’ve got to find people that have expertise that can do things that you can’t do and that can be really difficult in the beginning.
1:40:11 But again it’s like you have to have it’s like so much of it is about curiosity asking as many questions as you can so you can start to figure out who is going to be the best person to solve that problem in the beginning.
1:40:20 Like I just feel like I had no idea how so many parts of my business worked but it’s like I would make sure that I would be the person to ask enough
1:40:29 questions to get to the point where I could hire somebody that would be competent to do that role right so it’s like you train yourself and you you train these
1:40:43 muscles that get you better at hiring and you’re going to make some mistakes like I I never feel like we spend enough time talking about failure about the mistakes I’ve made so many mistakes I moved a whole bunch of
1:41:02 whole bunch of people here to LA and shut the office down 18 months later because I was I thought I had something that I just didn’t have I thought that the reputation I’d built in London would translate to LA what I didn’t understand is LA is a community and I wasn’t part of it you know it was like a closed
1:41:12 closed door I got here and I was like well like I think just frozen frozen out completely like like that yeah they’re not like us like
1:41:33 so you know and it really was and so I think that you know learning like not just understanding okay I had this thing it went wrong but it’s like really going deep and being like where and how did I fail and how do I consistently get better at that and staffing is one of those things that you just get better and better and better at it the more you do it.
1:41:44 I’m really obsessed about this idea of like truly exceptional people and truly exceptional people yeah like truly exceptional people I was I was listening to something Steve Jobs was saying a couple of weeks ago throw it up on the screen for anybody.
1:41:58 I’ve built a lot of my success off finding these truly gifted people and not settling for B and C players but really going for the A players and I found something.
1:42:22 I found that when you get enough A players together when you go through the incredible work to find you know five of these A players they really like working with each other because they never had a chance to do that before and they don’t want to work with B and C players and so it becomes self policing and they only want to hire more A players and so you build up these pockets of A players and it propagates.
1:42:35 Have you found that have you found that to be the case and also I want to address another point here which is the insecurity of an early stage founder who looks up and sees someone that’s really experienced and then they have that sort of self-doubt and go how the fuck am I going to manage them.
1:43:02 You know what at the risk of disagreeing with anybody so prolific and amazing I think as someone who has been able to move people between organizations or between companies sometimes it can be the company that can make people great you can have a truly exceptional person in a kind of dysfunctional company and then they don’t do as well right.
1:43:13 Like you can bring in somebody not quite exceptional into an exceptional culture and company and the organization makes them great.
1:43:15 Makes them look great or makes them great?
1:43:25 No it makes them great because what people tend to do is level up right whether you end up the average of the people that you surround yourself most.
1:43:43 And I have in some cases brought people in you know that I’d be like a B minus and they’ve turned into an A player and the more I think about this Stephen the more I think that’s happened on a number of occasions when the organization is exceptional and when the people there are doing exceptional work they can actually level up the people.
1:43:48 Now they have to be somebody that wants to level up for sure but I’ve definitely seen it work that way.
1:43:59 One of the things I think a lot about is kind of dovetails into this a little bit because I was referencing how we can sometimes be our own worst enemies and doubt ourselves away from like finding the truly exceptional person so we end up hiring our friends.
1:44:02 I love this idea that you’ve hired friends.
1:44:04 Who are these friends that you’re hiring?
1:44:05 Did you hire a bunch of friends?
1:44:07 It’s a terrible bloody idea.
1:44:08 Says me who works with my husband.
1:44:22 No I was 18 and I they weren’t actually friends but they weren’t qualified I just met them at like I met one guy at a Prada store and I was like you can be my account manager and then I met some guy at like a rap battle and I was like you should be my marketing director.
1:44:26 This is great between Prada and the rap battle I get it I can see how these things weren’t happening.
1:44:28 No rigor in deciding who.
1:44:37 No but that’s what it comes down to like rigor right it’s like you again you’ve developed systems and processes that have helped you get to where you are and it’s like now I have a giant organization.
1:44:53 An organization and a you know a head of people that that spend their life like not just again bringing people into the organization but then like making them great once they get there like I had no such thing I don’t think I knew where the HR office was when I was in in employment.
1:44:59 I mean like who are they where are they some I don’t know girl called Jo that sits in a camp so I don’t know where she was.
1:45:15 But I say that because we’re in a different time now where there is such an ability for us to be more thoughtful about who we’re bringing in and so I think anyone who’s really smart and any founder that’s really smart is going to use all the tools.
1:45:27 All you need to do is know that it’s a really important thing that you will do who those first three five ten people that you bring into your organization will be the difference between good and great.
1:45:42 And so being slow and thoughtful and purposeful and using everything at your disposal to make those decisions is probably the best time that a founder can spend outside of developing products or whatever the end product is.
1:45:43 How do you think about prejudice Emma?
1:45:55 I mean what I really mean here is being being counted out before you walk in the room so people hear that you’re it might be a woman or something else and you feel that they’re not taking you seriously.
1:46:05 Has that happened in your career as a black person as a woman as anything that puts you in the minority as it relates to the accomplishments you’ve made?
1:46:08 Actually I’m going to give you a bit more context as to why I ask this.
1:46:35 It’s because one of my fears is with some people they count themselves out before they walk in the room because prejudice is real so they limit themselves and there’s a really great study they did many many years ago where they got a group of black people I believe it was on a vocabulary test just to talk about their race before they did the vocabulary test and if they got them to talk about their race before their performance dropped.
1:46:57 If they didn’t get the group to talk about their race before in a different study performance was the same they did the same with women they got them to identify their gender before doing a maths test and because there’s a stereotype around maths or at least there was at the time in women women on that test would perform worse if they talked about their gender right before they did the test but importantly if they didn’t the results were the same as everybody else.
1:47:09 The stereotype threat is a stereotype threat is a stereotype threat and the stereotype threat is a real thing and the unpopular conversation is there could be ways that we’re holding ourselves back before we even walk into the room because of that stereotype threat.
1:47:20 It could be age it could be race it could be gender it could be gender it could be anything else it could be a disability and I just wonder how you think about like you know that.
1:47:28 I mean look it’s undoubtable that that is real for so many people in their lives and the way they think about themselves.
1:47:56 I think that any thoughtful organization has and certainly in more recent times if we think about what’s happened in the last five years anybody that didn’t look at their company hiring process and beyond the hiring process look around their business and see is it a true reflection of our customer base of society of what we’re trying to achieve and who we want to be you know making decisions.
1:48:13 We’re talking about foolish companies here I feel like anybody anybody and everybody did that look the great thing the great thing about prejudice is you very rarely know if it actually happened to you nobody nobody likes to point out they’re like listen you didn’t get this thing because actually I’m prejudiced against you.
1:48:36 I’m sure it’s never something that for me knowing how I’m hardwired I would have let get to me in any way shape or form you know I’d get in a room and would never feel any such like like held back by my education held back by my accent or anything like that or being a black woman.
1:48:50 In fact to the contrary to me I always felt like it was a bit of an advantage there was only one of me I used to walk into these offices and work experience and everybody would always single me out because I was the only one that kind of looks like she might have a different opinion.
1:49:01 Everyone came from the same kind of you know like private school stock and there I was with the accent with the big curly hair black girl sitting in the corner and inevitably they’d be like what do you think.
1:49:08 So you know it just played out differently for me and therefore my experience is kind of a reflection of that.
1:49:10 That’s what I wanted to know.
1:49:23 I wanted to understand that because it’s it’s it’s something that I really want people to realise which is like prejudice yes it’s real as you said but it doesn’t have to be your problem.
1:49:25 It can remain theirs.
1:49:25 Yeah.
1:49:31 And I really worry that people will internalise other people’s prejudice and then limit themselves.
1:49:36 Yeah and I think this is a very different listen you and I speak as two British people right.
1:49:39 I’ve lived here now for eight years.
1:49:41 It ain’t the same here in America.
1:49:42 How do you mean?
1:50:00 Well the the way people relate to race is extremely different here and if I’d have been born in America maybe I’d have had a different feeling about how the colour of my skin impacted my life on a daily basis because it’s very very very very different here and very much more prolific.
1:50:18 And a point of everyday not just conversation but everyday prejudice comes up and manifests itself in a very very different way here with negative connotations.
1:50:29 And so I thank God that I was raised in London and I I had a very very different way of associate like how I felt about myself.
1:50:39 I had a very very different way of the way in which I was raised and how I experienced like race as a kid.
1:50:48 How you felt about yourself seems to be more internal than external in that regard and that brings me to my next question which is just about how do we not give so many fucks?
1:50:56 It’s hard to live and it’s hard to strive and it’s hard to take risk if we’re imprisoned by the amount of fucks that we give.
1:50:59 Yeah this is I feel like this is like my speciality you know.
1:51:06 It’s really interesting because so much of that is just like in us right.
1:51:25 It’s like hardwired who we are and how many fucks we give and I just so happen to be the type of person that has such sort of self-assurance and such conviction that I don’t care or I just have I have such high.
1:51:36 It’s not that I don’t care I just have such a high value on how much I care about what I think that maybe what other people think just kind of like pales into insignificance for me.
1:51:41 That’s the honest truth and so I just have very very high self-worth.
1:51:46 I’ve heard you talk before about how as well we kind of misunderstand how much people actually give a fuck about us.
1:51:59 I think about that all the time because it’s just one of those things that we just imagine that people spend a lot of time crafting texts to us that you would like sit and be like what did they mean by that?
1:52:03 You know like it’s a scent do you know what I mean?
1:52:08 Like I didn’t even think about the words and the now you know whether I was using caps or the wrong emojis or like whatever it is.
1:52:17 And I do think that there is this thing that we imagine because we’re at the centre of our universe that we’re at the centre of everybody else’s and it’s just not the truth.
1:52:20 Nobody’s watching you like I think about it all the time.
1:52:23 Nobody wakes up and thinks about me as much as I do.
1:52:25 It can feel like that.
1:52:25 So we just got to relax.
1:52:30 Well maybe it feels like it for you but I just don’t think that anybody’s that interested.
1:52:40 It doesn’t feel like it for me but when you’re in the I think humans like from an evolutionary perspective we’re like our brain is built to deal with like 20 tribes people.
1:52:41 Yeah.
1:52:42 Yeah.
1:52:50 So we interpret we have a probably hardwired to our fault of being interpreting everything is coming from a member of the tribe.
1:52:50 Yeah.
1:52:58 Whereas in reality it could be like Dave and Swindon with like an egg emoji who’s telling you that those genes suck.
1:52:59 Suck yeah.
1:52:59 Yeah.
1:53:00 Yeah totally.
1:53:04 Listen and David Swindon is like allowed to have his egg emoji.
1:53:07 I just don’t think his egg emoji needs to like ruin my day.
1:53:10 I’m like poor fucker like what’s he doing?
1:53:11 How embarrassing.
1:53:16 One of the next seasons of life I find myself moving towards quickly is parenthood.
1:53:22 When did you start trying and what was your fertility journey like?
1:53:26 I love that you asked this and I was I’m very surprised that you are.
1:53:42 I had the most easy unbelievable brilliant fertility journey with my first two and then probably the saddest most disappointing hardest time in my life with the second two.
1:53:53 And so it really was a tale of two halves because I have an 11 and an 8 year old and you know without too much information I like literally you know came off the pill and poof I was pregnant.
1:53:54 Oh wow.
1:54:12 Which was amazing 31 I had grey one yeah so 30 30 years old you know was had got married actually had zero ambition to ever have kids ever and then it was like one of those fairy tale things where I literally walked down the aisle and was like oh my god I just can’t wait to have a baby.
1:54:28 It’s like what’s going on here no I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know who that girl was and so I got pregnant very easy with my first child couple of years later had my second child you know life happens move to the US or everything’s like you know going fantastic.
1:54:38 I decide baby number three come off the pill again and I’m like waiting waiting again and it doesn’t happen.
1:54:42 And so I’m like honey you need to go and get yourself checked.
1:54:57 He’s like okay you know so we do the things that you do when you don’t get pregnant so easily and there was just no explanation for my infertility and so I went through a few rounds of IVF and for me you know.
1:55:05 What age is this sorry just so I am at this point how old am I now I’m 42 the kids are three so 38.
1:55:05 You’re 38.
1:55:22 I’m 38 so I’m you know I’m not like quite yet a geriatric pregnancy as they like to call it in this country when a woman over the age of you know 40 has a baby but I’m skimming right I’m on the edge of where fertility starts to become you know more of an issue.
1:55:34 And anyway for me it was devastating because I really really had something and I’m sure so many women will tell you this once you’ve made up your mind that you’re having another baby.
1:55:48 That was it for me then it was just like well how is this going to happen and I was so lucky in some ways that I was here in you know I lived in Beverly Hills at the time access to the best doctors was like so so easy.
1:55:59 And so I went on what would become a journey through IVF and it was one of the hardest most soul destroying times of my life.
1:56:04 I couldn’t think about anything else you know you could be like Emma what do you want for dinner tonight I’d be like a baby.
1:56:13 You know like I just I just was single track like all I could think about was I need this I need to be pregnant.
1:56:15 Why soul destroying?
1:56:33 You know it was so destroying because I went through multiple rounds of IVF and every single time for me actually it did work out but then I lost a baby three times and it was really it was just awful you know and for me it happened at nine weeks 11 weeks and 16 weeks.
1:56:44 And so you know at that point 16 weeks you you’re about to tell people you are you know you think you’re past the danger zone so to speak something in my heart told me that it wasn’t going to work out for me.
1:56:57 Like I actually think I knew deep down but you’re doing all the things you know I’m having the acupuncture and the doctors all feel great about it and of course you know you have IVF and then it’s successful you’re like great now I’m pregnant I’m having a baby.
1:57:26 And so that that loss was just and it was so hard to deal with and again you know it was a very isolating time because it was like like COVID I was on my like driving and you know in gloves and hazmat suit you know it was like the time when we really didn’t know and you know and the roads were empty and it was tough you know police would pull you over and I’d be like I’m going to the IVF clinic which was like one of the few things that you were allowed to be on the road and driving around for.
1:57:56 So it was just very very difficult but you know I had a happy ending and so for me my journey ended in something that I never thought would be a way that I would go but I ended up deciding that I would have a surrogate and I met an incredible woman and she carried my twins which was the like single biggest thing that anyone could do.
1:58:23 I can ever do but you’re like what like this is so crazy and it was amazing I had like such a profound incredible pregnancy with this amazing wonderful woman who beyond what our contractual commitment was you know because you hear horror stories like she asked me for nothing it was a beautiful amazing partnership and my twins were born via surrogacy and that was that.
1:58:24 Complicated emotions?
1:58:24 Complicated emotions?
1:58:34 No and you know I have to tell you Stephen I’d love to like and maybe I approached it more like a bit of a like I was very transactional about it.
1:58:35 Not the surrogacy?
1:58:35 No.
1:58:36 In the moment before?
1:58:50 Oh beyond beyond beyond beyond complicated emotions because you are you know I’ve had pregnancy loss before before I decided to have children you know I’ve had a complicated as so many women have a complicated fertility journey.
1:59:09 It was emotions that were I would say too hard to bear and for somebody who’s used to being able to get her way and work towards things being as they should be and to me it’s like the amount of effort I put in directly correlates to the result and there was no such thing in this.
1:59:25 You could have all the shots and all the acupuncture and do everything that you’re supposed to do not work out too much don’t go in a sauna you know like be an angel eat all of the right things and still I couldn’t you know hold on to the pregnancy so to me it was just something that I couldn’t I couldn’t bear.
1:59:36 In that moment are there any like are there decisions that you wish you’d made or is there something you’d wish you’d known because we don’t talk about this enough so people end up going through this themselves.
1:59:46 You know what I’ll tell you I wish I’d have spoken about it more with all of my friends that had gone through it and I will tell you this story.
2:00:10 I was a couple of summers ago you know I’m often the person people confide in and I happen to be I won’t say where I was in this place very confined like on a boat and all of the women were in some type of fertility thing like they had different things going on and I looked around and I knew I was the only one of all five of us that knew everybody’s thing.
2:00:32 And I was like we could be having such a good conversation now right like it would be so rich and so useful because again like there was somebody that had like had kids by IVF there was someone who had just come from somewhere there was somebody that was in the middle of like diagnosing endometriosis and there was somebody who was pregnant but not telling everyone she was pregnant because it was IVF and she’d had all the problem.
2:00:45 But anyway like everybody had their own unique circumstances and I was like in a group of women where we discuss I won’t even say what we discuss but we discuss every single thing that that is like the last taboo.
2:00:56 It says something about your womanhood that it would that it would be such a deeply held secret and something that you just can’t discuss is such a shame.
2:01:18 And I’m not saying that that’s what it is for all women and all groups of friends but it’s definitely something that people really really struggle with talking about and certainly for me going down the surrogacy route I really felt an element of I wouldn’t say shame but it was like I was willing to do this myself.
2:01:28 Like why couldn’t I you know I should have just been able to do it I was ready you know at 38 to like have to like go back on the workouts and you know like you know figure myself out again.
2:01:37 And so I felt like I’d been robbed of an opportunity to do something and then you know coming out of it I was like wow that was such a profound experience.
2:01:52 And so I would never have had had all of these things not happen and so in a weird way I was just kind of grateful for the opportunity to have been you know to have been able to see how selfless like another human being could be.
2:01:57 Were you aware of the biological clock in the way that people are now aware of it back then.
2:02:07 Yeah I was although I have to tell you that there’s nothing you know for most women we spend all of our time thinking about how to not get pregnant.
2:02:18 It’s just like you know I just want to like not get pregnant forever until it’s your moment that you want to get pregnant and then there’s this second moment where it’s like it’s no longer your choice and the window’s really really narrow.
2:02:27 And so I you know again I have hundreds of women in my office and I mentioned to you at the start of this conversation you know there was some fertility seminar yesterday.
2:02:37 I think that there’s still so many myths around it you know there is no good time you can freeze eggs but it’s not like freezing embryos it’s very different right.
2:03:03 And so the idea that the decision is just not realistic and that there is there is a window and it is narrow and it is something that you have to think about and I think there are a lot of women that know that they don’t want children that’s fine but if you do it’s really something that you ought to be more planful of because it’s bloody difficult and it’s not how you think.
2:03:24 Thank you. Thank you for talking about that because as you say there’s not enough people that talk about it and actually had I not had the access to information on doing this podcast and meeting these women who have been very open about it I would have had no idea and I would have probably found myself in a bit of a struggle because me and my partner weren’t thinking about that.
2:03:45 We’re thinking about getting the back we’re thinking about building our businesses and we’re 32 now so when I hear people like you say listen if this is something you want then plan make a plan and I don’t think many people listening actually have a plan for children they’re going to they see it as the thing they’ll get round to when they’re ready but this clock man it’s like the clock is ticking.
2:03:49 I’ve got an idea I’ve got an idea I think you should start a podcast.
2:03:56 Stephen whatever you say I will do it’s a great idea let’s go what should it be called?
2:04:01 I think you should call it Aspire and I think you should launch it in May.
2:04:12 Stephen you’re so incredibly smart and thoughtful and I feel like if my podcast could be born here and be just half the podcast that you have.
2:04:28 I think you can do it even better I think you can I think you can level up this is what you said you said people come and see something then they level up so level up why podcasting so your podcast launches in May it’s called Aspire yeah what are the what are you trying to achieve what’s the mission there?
2:04:44 Yeah you know and I’m so glad that you asked a question like that because for me it is a little bit of a mission and I think that the more success I’ve had and I’m sure this is very similar to you and you you’ve mentioned it on a few occasions and actually I remember being out with you in Manchester.
2:05:01 Do you remember when we had to like walk like from the studio to the bar where everyone’s in that thing and you know it’s like inundated with people and questions and people just wanted like just get like this one thing that they’re trying to figure out across the line and say like Stephen like how does how do I do this?
2:05:10 And so that happens to me all the time wherever I go and I’ve made it a habit of mine in the morning on the way to the work to just like jump on the phone to someone for half an hour.
2:05:25 I do it almost every day four days out of five and I’ll speak to some founder and give them like 30 minutes of whatever it is that I can and so the podcast was honestly from the beginning about figuring out like how can I scale mentorship?
2:05:33 How can you get to this place where all of these people that want to ask me questions can actually get some answers from me?
2:05:40 And you know the podcasting was not the first thing that came to my head but the more I looked into it because I am a huge podcast listener.
2:05:53 I listen to so many podcasts but it’s kind of interesting that for such a kind of broad space there is kind of such a narrow point of view in so many ways.
2:06:00 It’s so many men hosting podcasts and when we start to think about business it becomes even more male dominated.
2:06:04 And so in my head I was like well I just have a very different point of view.
2:06:06 I have very different experience.
2:06:09 I have a very different you know access.
2:06:13 And what’s been so interesting is all the people I called out to do a podcast they’ve never done a podcast before.
2:06:14 Yeah.
2:06:18 Everyone that I was like hey would you come on they were like I’ve never done this.
2:06:19 And I was like well that’s interesting.
2:06:26 And immediately even just from that kind of casting point of view I was like oh maybe I have a distinct point of view that could be interesting here.
2:06:34 But all I want to do is very very simply is take what I’ve learned and take the people that I know and have it be impactful.
2:06:37 Because I feel like everyone aspires to something.
2:06:40 Everybody wants to build the life of their dreams.
2:06:56 And so I was really thinking about this as something that maybe if I could facilitate conversations and tell people more about the journey that I’ve been on and be really thoughtful about what it takes right.
2:07:06 Because I just feel like again in like the female like media landscape there’s so much toxic positivity and I’m like babe you’re not going to be able to manifest your way there.
2:07:09 Like I’ll tell you the truth if you want to listen.
2:07:17 And if you’re willing to put the work in like all of these things could be you know applicable and you know you could have access.
2:07:19 And so that’s what I want to do.
2:07:22 I want to just like do things how I do them.
2:07:23 Be honest with people.
2:07:26 Bring in people that I know and be honest about my journey.
2:07:28 And I’m excited to do it.
2:07:32 Like it’s been I’ve done a couple of episodes and I’m like I’m just having a chat.
2:07:53 I think of all the things you’ve done in your life I think the more and more that you find yourself in the public eye and the more of the work that you do on your podcast Aspire I think that is ultimately going to be the greatest part of your legacy.
2:08:06 And I say that because there is nobody else able and capable of occupying that space that I can see.
2:08:15 There is no one who comes from where you come from who has been on the journey that you’ve been on both in the UK and in the US that’s climbed both mountains.
2:08:35 That is relatable even though that they’re so high up the mountain that is had to contend with some of the things you contended with which many women and men contend with which is like parenthood and family that is articulate that is seasoned across a variety of different environments and spaces that is also a black woman.
2:08:37 There is nobody.
2:08:46 And if you reflect on you as that young girl looking up at Oprah or me like looking up at Jamal Edwards it was so important.
2:08:54 It was the it was the kernel of belief that stays in your mind that says if they can there’s no reason I can’t.
2:09:00 And I’ve said this to my team before a ton of times over the last couple of months about you I’m like there’s no other Emma.
2:09:09 So she almost has a responsibility to that gap because you’ve done incredible things in your life.
2:09:25 You’ve done so much philanthropic work which I’ll put all in the description below to help so many people but it’s not lost on me that like the older I’ve gotten just seeing someone that you can that makes you realize that that brings down those like limiting beliefs that you have.
2:09:32 Or that society is has passed to you could go on to create a hundred thousand Emmas.
2:09:40 And that it’s hard to think of a more like astonishing important legacy than than that like the 10 million Emmas that you will create.
2:09:44 And so I’m so glad you’re doing this because I’ve said to my team and I was like there’s not there’s not another Emma.
2:09:46 There’s not someone else that could occupy that position.
2:09:50 So it’s so important that you’re successful in it and it’s so important that you continue to do it.
2:09:51 So so thank you for that.
2:09:53 That means so much.
2:10:02 It’s so true though I say it all the time behind your back I’m like there’s not another one there’s only Emma so she has to not has to because it’s not it’s not an obligation but it’s a responsibility.
2:10:03 It’s a responsibility.
2:10:04 I think I see it as a responsibility.
2:10:20 It’s one that I’m taking really seriously because I feel like there is there is an amazing opportunity there and if you take anything seriously and you apply yourself and you think about like who are you here to serve you know.
2:10:30 And I think about that every day I told you it’s like I’m obsessed with customers I’ll be obsessed with listeners and at the end of the day I just want to do something where it’s like it’s just about doing a good job.
2:10:52 right now I’m obsessed with like what is the content that you put out how do you have a conversation that’s not currently being had and I feel like there are such incredible people like yourself that are having beautiful conversations that are actually moving us forward in ways you know it’s like I you know I text you when you have an amazing episode.
2:11:06 I’m like I love that episode and I’m so proud that you know you could be in like black guy from England who’s doing these things who’s at the top of the charts and I look at that and I think that’s so important.
2:11:12 And so for me it’s like it’s interesting to think about how this could be important for a certain group of people right now.
2:11:16 It’s going to be important beyond what you’ll ever see or realise or understand or be able to measure.
2:11:17 It’s hoping.
2:11:25 And we’ve you know if you know that if that’s 15 year old Emma there had seen this Emma what that would have meant to her.
2:11:26 Yeah.
2:11:27 You know what that would have meant to her.
2:11:27 Quite a lot.
2:11:28 Exactly.
2:11:34 We have a closing tradition here Emma where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who they’re leaving it for.
2:11:49 And the question that’s been left is what about you is better or has vastly improved because of the person who loves you the most?
2:11:53 Who loves you the most?
2:11:56 Well Jens loves me the most doesn’t he?
2:11:57 More than?
2:11:58 More than my mum.
2:12:01 More than my lovely mum.
2:12:19 You know I would say whether it was my mum or it was Jens you know when you are when you’re so loved you know and I feel like someone who is so loved you know my sisters love me my kids love me my mum really loves me Jens loves me.
2:12:28 You have like such capacity right and that’s what I always feel you know when when I think about what it is that.
2:12:29 Kind of like keeps me going.
2:12:32 Kind of like keeps me going and gets me up.
2:12:36 I have such a huge capacity for more.
2:12:44 I have such a like huge capacity to give to put the work in to receive to make things better.
2:12:57 And I honestly think that that is what’s happened to me that I’ve like my ability has just grown so much and continues and my capacity just keeps growing.
2:13:18 And it’s a really interesting thing as you get older to see that like happen within you you know because you we always talk about like having insane energy in our 20s and then you know it’s like I’m 42 now and I think I have more capacity for learning for giving for being you know open to new things than I’ve ever had in my life.
2:13:42 And I think that that is because I’m really loved and it’s so interesting I don’t think it’s about what I’ve achieved I don’t think it’s about anything else I think that I know I feel so safe and so secure and so seen that I can do anything because even the biggest mistakes like these people would they’ll always love me like it’s totally fine whatever I do.
2:13:45 So it’s like I would say that.
2:13:46 That’s a beautiful thing.
2:13:48 Emma thank you so much.
2:13:49 Thank you darling.
2:13:55 I’m a huge fan of yours in every way and you’re like a big sister to me and I really appreciate our relationship and long may it continue.
2:13:56 So thank you so much.
2:13:56 Oh I hope so.
2:13:58 I’m so I’m so proud of you.
2:13:59 I really am.
2:14:05 I look at everything you’re doing and I’m so happy that you’re here in America about to take it over.
2:14:07 Come on babes.
2:14:09 Thank you so much.
2:14:24 I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels the majority of people that watch this podcast haven’t yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button wherever you’re listening to this.
2:14:25 I would like to make a deal with you.
2:14:33 If you could do me a huge favour and hit that subscribe button I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better.
2:14:36 I can’t tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button.
2:14:42 The show gets bigger which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love.
2:14:46 If you could do me that small favour and hit the follow button wherever you’re listening to this that would mean the world to me.
2:14:48 That is the only favour I will ever ask you.
2:14:50 Thank you so much for your time.
2:15:14 Thank you so much for your time.