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Jay Shetty Podcast

The Business Expert: The SECRET FORMULA That Launches Billion-Dollar Companies!

Let's welcome today's guest, prominent serial entrepreneur and philanthropist, Emma Grede.

Emma GredeguestJay Shettyhost

Nov 27, 20231h 27mWatch on YouTube

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CHAPTERS

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Chapter summaries

Introducing Emma Grede and Her Brand Empire
Jay Shetty welcomes Emma Grede, outlining her roles at Good American, SKIMS and Safely, and her Forbes recognition. The two bond as fellow Brits in LA and swap a story about a past Instagram Live.
- •Emma is CEO and co-founder of Good American, which launched with Khloe Kardashian in October 2016
- •She is a founding partner and chief product officer of SKIMS and co-founder of Safely
- •She chairs the Fifteen Percent Pledge and sits on the board of Baby the Baby
- •Forbes recognizes her as one of America's richest self-made women
East London Roots and a Mother's Lesson on Self-Worth
Emma describes growing up in East London, escaping into fashion magazines, and not knowing anyone who owned a business. She credits her mum's message that no one is better than you and you're not better than anyone, and dismisses imposter syndrome.
- •East London gave her honesty and community but little aspiration or glamour
- •A paper route funded the Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire issues that were her escapism
- •Her mum taught her she's not better than anybody, but nobody is better than her
- •She says she has never felt less than and sees imposter syndrome as made up
First Jobs, Paper Rounds, and Learning from Every Role
The conversation turns to Emma's first jobs and why success is never overnight. She says every job taught her something, including how not to lead, and she and Jay compare paper rounds and early mornings.
- •Emma has worked since age 12, including a paper round, a deli, clothes shops and restaurants
- •She took pride in even a turkey sandwich and treated each job as formative
- •A bad boss taught her what kind of leader she did not want to be
- •She says you can be unashamedly ambitious and still an empathic leader
- •Her paper round taught her the power of mornings
Cold Calling, Sales, and Fear as Fuel
Emma names her hardest job: cold-calling for sponsorships at a fashion show production company. She says sales and storytelling are essential skills for founders, and describes how fear and her lack of formal education became fuel.
- •Cold calling meant constant rejection but taught her sales and storytelling
- •Jay says doing hundreds of cold calls a day erased his childhood shyness
- •Emma now looks for fear because being a little scared means she is growing
- •She left school at 15 or 16 and felt inferior around Oxford and Cambridge graduates
- •She later realized that insecurity was her fuel
The Rule of Thirds: Embracing Difficulty
Emma explains her rule of thirds: chasing a dream means feeling happy a third of the time, okay a third, and bad a third. She says this framing helps her get through hard days and informs how she thinks about her kids and employees.
- •If the ratios tilt toward too happy, you may not be pushing hard enough
- •Difficulty is expected when doing something unconventional
- •She doesn't try to remove challenge from her children or employees because growth happens there
- •Jay says he had never heard it broken down so simply
Love, Ibiza, and Relationships That Need Chapters
Jay asks whether Emma cared about dating while chasing her dreams. She talks about her club years and time in Ibiza, her 15-year relationship with her husband, and how relationships, like careers, move through chapters.
- •Emma says she has never been without a boyfriend and settled down at 25 or 26
- •Club culture and Ibiza gave her a way out of her everyday life and introduced her to yoga
- •The first five years with her husband were travel and partying, followed by the strain of raising children while both were ambitious
- •She says her husband has always supported her ambition
Motherhood, Trade-offs, and Rejecting 'Doing It All'
Emma and Jay discuss growing up with working mothers. Emma says there is no balance, her life is a series of trade-offs, and women should lower expectations without lowering ambition.
- •Emma wants her children to see her living her dreams
- •She calls the idea of having it all a myth and says there is no balance in her life
- •Quality of attention matters more than quantity, so she spends one-on-one time with each child
- •Jay says his working mum never made him doubt her love
- •Emma says women should lower expectations, not ambition, and not feel bad about what they do
Making Peace with Imperfection and Ego
Asked how to make peace with not being a supermom, Emma suggests recalling your best moments of the past year, which are rarely planned. She shares the Oprah and Quincy Jones story to show that nobody watches you as closely as you do, and separates ego from reality.
- •The best memories are sporadic and unplanned, not forced or perfect
- •Emma suggests asking what the single best moments of the last 12 months were
- •In the Oprah and Quincy Jones story, Quincy hadn't even seen the press Oprah was worried about
- •Much of the pressure to be a perfect mother is ego, not what children want
Keeping a Marriage Alive Through Shared Projects and Rituals
Jay asks what Emma and her husband need from each other. Emma answers that it comes down to love, shared chapters and projects, and rituals. They agree relationships need ongoing new stories, from a cold plunge to pickleball.
- •Emma says it comes down to love and doing what the other person needs in the moment
- •Children, houses and businesses have been shared projects for her and her husband
- •Couples can struggle when children leave and the shared project ends
- •Jay says a relationship is only as good as the stories and memories created together
- •Small shared pursuits like a cold plunge keep couples learning and pushing together
Memories, Self-Work, and Birth as a Turning Point
Jay asks about locked-away memories. Emma describes her ongoing self-work and her planned visit to the Hoffman Institute. She recalls the birth of her first child as the moment she wanted to get back to the office, and says she can be both a nurturing mum and a driven professional.
- •Emma says she practices daily who she wants to become and doesn't beat herself up over her past
- •She treats working on herself as the purpose of her life
- •After her first child was born she felt she finally had the reason for her work
- •She says she is both a hands-on mom and a person with other interests
Double Standards for Women, Imposter Syndrome, and Being Selfish
Emma says society forces women to be one thing or another, while men aren't asked about balance or imposter syndrome. She shares examples of women underselling themselves at work and argues women should be selfish for longer.
- •Society sets women up as either a tough professional or a sweet mum, but Emma says she is both
- •Men are not asked about balance or imposter syndrome the way women are
- •Jay cites research that women apply to jobs only if they meet every requirement, and Emma sees similar patterns on her team
- •Emma says women should put their needs and ambition first because no one else will
Building Teams and the Accidental Leap into Entrepreneurship
Emma says not everyone on her team shares her ambition and that a team needs people who clock in and leave at five. She says she became an entrepreneur by accident, out of frustration at being underpaid, and explains why she wasn't afraid to take the leap.
- •Emma doesn't expect everyone to bring her level of ambition
- •A team needs people who do the job and leave at 5:00
- •She started her company out of frustration over pay, not a grand plan
- •With little to lose, she asked how she could lose and what regret she would face at 35
- •Her future husband and his business partner became her first investors when she was 25
Failure, Fear of Judgment, and Knowing the Voices in Your Head
Emma says she has failed more than she has succeeded, including a failed LA office for her agency, and recovered because she had survived worse. She says people are more concerned with their own failures than yours, and she distinguishes her inner voices from her true self, drawing on Oprah and books.
- •Emma says she has lost and failed more times than she has succeeded, and that this goes unspoken
- •Her LA agency office failed due to under-investment and she felt it was the end of her career, but it wasn't
- •She says you are much more concerned about your failures than anyone else
- •She sees her inner voices as tools she can turn on and off, not as her identity
- •Oprah and books like The Power of Now and Conversations with God shaped her thinking
Solving Problems and Building Inclusivity into Business
Emma says she picks problems that she personally experiences, and that inclusivity should be built in from the start, not added later. She argues flawed decision-making and a lack of diverse voices in the room cause company mistakes, and she describes persisting through skeptical meetings.
- •She starts with what she finds problematic, assuming others like her do too
- •Good American grew from her seeing inclusivity falsified in castings while products and boardrooms didn't reflect it
- •She says inclusivity is good business and starts with product, like 32 sizes and nine shades
- •She says company mistakes come from who is making decisions
- •She says a skeptical meeting meant she hadn't found the right people yet
Staying Hungry, Defining Winning, and Daily Stress Rituals
Emma says she stays driven through competition, a desire to build generationally defining companies, and excitement about her work. She explains that her biggest stressor is outside expectations and describes the early-morning rituals and gratitude that keep her grounded.
- •She studies competitors closely and wants to build generationally defining businesses
- •She defines winning as growing without sacrificing her principles
- •Her days are a series of problems and the stress is high
- •She copes with migraines through early mornings, working out, meditating and quiet time
- •She practices daily gratitude, such as for her bedroom ceiling and her Japanese tea
Responsibility, Giving Back, and Closing Reflections
Emma says her main fuel now is a sense of responsibility to historically marginalized groups, and she describes her work with the Fifteen Percent Pledge and her mentoring story about a founder who got into Selfridges. She and Jay reflect on mindset and on living in LA.
- •She feels responsible to women, particularly Black and minority women, and to kids who grew up poor
- •She says she isn't special and that circumstances plus grit got her here
- •She helped a founder structure a Selfridges contract, and the founder later reported tens of thousands a week in sales
- •Jay praises her clarity of philosophy as the reason for her success
- •Emma says LA has been an eye-opener and elevated her health and thinking
Final Five: Quick Answers
Jay runs the Final Five questions. Emma names her best advice, worst advice, how others would describe her, and the one law she would create.
- •Best advice: make a decision and move on
- •Worst advice: stay in your lane
- •Strangers would call her kind, ambitious and not to be messed around with
- •People who know her well would say sensitive, very thoughtful and tough
- •Her one law would be to lead with kindness

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