Emma Grede’s Guide to Getting Paid What You Deserve and Building Unicorns

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Today, she gives us the script to use when asking for a raise. And what I want everybody to understand is that when you go into those negotiations, it's never just about the negotiation. The big secrets of the rich that she learned only once she made it big. If you want money, you have to have some audacity. And what I mean by that is that you have to ask for what you need. And some really refreshing takes on parenting. I don't think parenting has got more difficult. I think that the expectations have become really crazy. I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Emma Greed, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you so much for having me, Nicole. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy to see you. I saw you a year ago. Was it a year ago already? It's crazy. My goodness I was like freshly freshly postpartum I just lost my home my office my everything and you were starting a new podcast it hadn't even launched yet and I was like for Emma I'm I'm coming over but I feel like we need to read you I'm back listen you were first of all you were amazing and you actually set me up in such a good place because it for me was like a key indicator of what my audience wanted to hear. Nobody would know that what you were going through, but you were beautiful and bright and sparkly and did what you did for an audience that, you know, perhaps didn't know you as well. And you taught me stuff. You have been throwing down some money bars, like after my own heart, like in my soul. I saw you recently at South by and you said, you have to say it for me. It was like, you don't put money in the center. Money's not going to center you. Here's the thing, Nicole, and this is why I love what you do. And you are one of the first people on my podcast purposefully and for a reason, because I really think you walk the walk and talk the talk and you speak in such a plain way that doesn't leave women feeling left out of the conversation. But what has happened is that I think that the stories that we tell ourselves often get in the way of us making real progress, right? And one for many, many women is I'm not good at math. I don't really understand finances. I've never been good at numbers. Here's the thing. You have no choice, right? If you want money, you have to have some audacity. And what I mean by that is that you have to ask for what you need. And we have to take some responsibility for the fact that we're often not centering money in our plans, right? I get a lot of investment proposals sent to me and I'll be like five, six, seven pages in and no one's told me where the profit's coming from. But you've told me how you're going to fund a program in your community, how you're going to give away one for one of whatever products you're selling, how you're going to, you know, like get involved in nonprofit. The point of being in business is to make a profit. And so when you don't center money in what you're doing, money starts to invade you. When you don't elegantly address the idea of like, I'm here to make money, then the money will avoid you. And so what I want to say to people and specifically to women is that you can actually care about money and you can care about a lot of other things too you can do really important meaningful impactful work and care about money and I think what's happened is that we've made them kind of mutually exclusive we've said you know it's crass I don't want to talk about this it feels like you know something that makes you look really greedy I've got enough and I'm like no no no no no we need more women in positions of power like nothing else in the world right now. And money and power are in direct correlation. The more money we have, the more power we have, the more decisions we can make, right? So it's like all of that stuff is inextricably linked. And so I want us to start taking what is rightfully ours and making what is rightfully ours. Yes. Yes. Because if you do money affords you that the profit affords you the nonprofit and the giving back and the everything else, but it comes to profit first. So you said when you avoid the subject of money, money avoids you it does so let's not avoid it let's put it front and center and in your book you talk about when you were founding your agency you made a lot of money mistakes and how you paid people and how you paid yourself you didn't go into specifics so I'd love to like double click what were those dig it out well you know what happened I think for me because I was so young I always imagined that there would be you know a better person to run the business that my naivety and my lack of experience meant that somewhere outside, there'd probably be like a 35 year old man that would do it better than me. And for a long time, I tried to find that. So I paid myself less. I brought in people into my own company that would be like a magical managing director. Needless to say, none of them were. It never, ever worked. But I was often undervaluing my own understanding, my own vision, my own ability to be strategic, to attract the right clients and people in the business because I was looking to what I imagined a CEO, a managing director, a president would kind of look like. And so I think that I really did take a, I don't want to say take a back seat, but I undervalued my contribution for a long time and lifted other people even in my own company. So you didn't pay yourself? I did. I've always paid myself, only because I didn't have an option not to, right? It's like I don't come from that type of family. I needed to eat. I just paid myself a lot less. And just to be really specific, there was a time when I had a company where I was probably paying myself £45,000 a year. And the guy that I had brought in, who shall remain nameless, he knows who he is. He lasted all of nine months. It should have been three. But I was paying him £150,000. Right? That's a gap. That's three times what I was paying myself. Because he came from a competitor agency where he'd run it. He had, you know, being at the top of the business for a long time. He had a Rolodex full of contacts. And I was like, this guy is going to be transformative. He's going to add some special sauce and a magic ingredient that I don't have. Needless to say, what he was missing was entrepreneurial grit, which I have in spades. And so coming into my organization, he couldn't move the needle at all. And in my head, I kept wishing and hoping and imagining. And again, belittling my own ability until I was like, this is just not working. I'm still the person who's delivering the business. I'm still the person that is connecting with the clients. And so off we went. You didn't grow up rich. I didn't grow up rich. We didn't grow up in this world. I think what trips people up when they're getting into business is the jargon. There was so much. I mean, in agency land, because my first business was an entertainment marketing agency. And so to be honest, I was pretty good there because I was servicing mostly fashion, beauty, lifestyle clients. And so I understood the vernacular there. But fast forward to Good American, when I was running my first econ business, and it was all about the LTV and the AOB and the UPT. And I was like, what? Like literally had no idea. The e-commerce metrics, the kind of vernacular that people use when they're running apparel-based businesses, even sitting there looking at investment review, like that would always be the moment for me. And this is like where you by the season are looking at, you know, what are we investing in? What is the fabric? What are we putting out? How are we breaking down the categories? What, you know, what are we putting into what sales channel? I would literally sit there with these Excel sheets being completely drained. I'm absolutely dyslexic, not really understanding that it's not my job to understand how all the numbers connect. My job is to paint the vision, is to say, you know what? I think that we should be 60% indirect to consumer, 40% wholesale. I believe that these styles will sell in these channels, that this is a category we should keep to ourselves until it's proven. I didn't really get that in the beginning. I learned that. I had to learn the hard way. And I think it's when I stopped faking it. It's when I actually said, I don't know what that means. What are we doing here? What is investment review? What is the purpose of this meeting? And, you know, the interesting thing is I learned from my colleagues. I learned from my own employees. I hired really well. And it wasn't some mentor or some like magical unicorn that was teaching me. It was my head of merchandise, Melissa Anderson. It was Lindsay Foley who, you know, was their employee number one at Skims. I learned from those people. EBITDA. That, that, my favorite one of all. It's a whole language. It's a language. You go to Japan, you don't speak Japanese, you'll be really confused. You go to Wall Street, you go to business, you look in a P&L, you go in a spreadsheet, like you'll be confused until you ask the question and then you're like, duh. But you've got to ask the question, and I think you have to take responsibility for your own learning because hiding behind what it is that you don't know and kind of like trying to fake it till you make it isn't the thing. That doesn't help you. You've actually got to go in and surround yourself with people that know the things that you don't know. What was the financial truth that you learned once you got into this world that wealthy people gatekeep? Oh, that's a really good question. I don't know if it's so much one that wealthy people gatekeep. Like, I think I understood coming kind of like from the streets, I understood the principles of investment, right? I really understood that what you get should be invested somewhere else to create more. Like that was like a street principle to me. It was like more than you spend. And I think that I understood that intrinsically. I didn't have an investment thesis. I didn't really understand how to do that. And I've learned that over the years to invest in what I know. And I think that becomes even more prevalent the more opportunities you get. Like back in the day, my deal flow was non-existent, right? I took the opportunities that I would get. Now I have a big, you know, choice and a lot of things that come to me and a lot of opportunities to get involved in things and very early. And so now I have to have real discernment there to say, where is there a place that I can add value? What is a space that I understand? And where can I be useful in where I'm actually putting my money? Because I tend not to put my money into things blindly. There's usually some requirement of me and some involvement of me. So I think that I've really understood like where am I best to invest? Like what makes most sense for me given my experience and my knowledge? Yeah. And even in business, you were saying in the book that when you launched Good American, you sold out of a million dollars the first day. And you were like, hell yeah. First, you see that and you're like, that's incredible. But your investors were like, explain the lesson there. Because this is really interesting. successful investors more in this opportunity cost. Yeah. Even though you made that, they thought we could make more. I think what was interesting is that I, you know, first of all, I'm not, I wasn't an apparel CEO back then. I was somebody who had a great idea and was really winging a lot of it. And I had bought inventory for what I envisaged would be three months, right? It's a brand new business. Nobody knows it. It was an unproven price point. And I really thought that it would take a little bit of time and it didn't. And so I got two lessons then. Number one was that I really kind of looked at this opportunity. I was like, okay, now is the time to engage with your customers, right? I started a conversation with them that to this day, I think is the kind of reason that company is successful because there is a two-way street between the company and its customers. And we've always kept this language and this dialogue going and it's super helpful. I really never doubted myself for a second while my board and my investors were looking at me and saying, wow, you're amazing, Emma, at 9am. And then by noon, they were like, you're not fit to run the company because you've underestimated the opportunity. I didn't doubt myself. I thought, you know what, if not me, then who? And by the way, I will figure it out, which is exactly what I did. And I think what usually happens there is that we can go into a spiral of self-doubt. And I just wasn't having that. Like I wasn't scared of the opportunity. I wasn't going to talk myself out of the opportunity. I thought there'd be plenty of other people that could do that for me. And so I really went headfirst into learning mode. I was like, I'm going to learn everything I can about how denim sells, about the patterns of online, about my traffic, about what my customers want, and I will figure it out. And in the meantime, I'll apologize to every single person whose name is on the wait list, who's not going to get their jeans for 12 weeks. What did you also learn about the way that successful investors or the board do business? For me, I noticed that, you know, rich people will write with terrible grammar, really short emails really quickly or never. Oh, that's so interesting. I think I was probably used to that having been in the client business where nobody forges an email that they would be happy to see on the outside. I don't know that I was that If I really honest I wasn shocked by my investors behavior They gave me money and I didn do the best that I could with the money And so I expected to get chastised Like what are you going to do I going to sit there and feel sorry for myself I was like, they're talking to me like shit because I did a shit job. But did you feel like you did a shit job? I underestimated the opportunity. Having said that, given the money that I raised, there wasn't that much opportunity to do too much more. The flip side of that would have been sitting on a million dollars of inventory that didn't sell. And so to me, I tested and I'd learned into a market. And what I know and I never worry about now is that scarcity in the beginning of a business is never a bad thing. Selling out is never terrible. So long as you can get back into the inventory while the customers want and need and feverishness for that product is still there. Now, 12 weeks later could be a little bit longer. So my job then wasn't to figure out why my investors were so mad at me. That's a waste of my time. My job was to get back into inventory. So I didn't even let it bother me to that extent. I was like, okay, you guys are upset. So? Like, do you know what I mean? It's like I'm here to run a business. I'm not here to worry about how you guys feel and your emotional outpouring. And also I'm like, I'm one of so many investors. I'm like, get on the phone to your next company and whine at them. I really didn't take it personally. I think that's the point. And that's just so much of who I am. Like, I'm like moving on. Like, I'm like, you have an opinion. Great. Like, go for it. I was busy actually fixing the problem. I was busy thinking about my next move and how I was going to please the customers. And ultimately, when you're in business, like that's my job. My job is not to please the board. My job is to please the customers. Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one. 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So even if you have funding and unlimited funding from great investors, what are the problems that money is not going to solve? Money can fix a lot of problems, but not everything. Well, first of all, it's product. And I do think that at the end of the day, we can get really amored. Like when you raise money, you have an immediate problem because you have an obligation that you never had before. So this idea that we all have to go out and raise money for businesses, you really have to think carefully before you raise any money, because what you have then is a new set of problems, a new set of people that have an idea of what should happen in your business and how you should be reporting to them. And, you know, all of, as you just said, like a lot of opinion incoming. I think that money doesn't figure out. Like, honestly, almost anything, because in the beginning you have to find a customer in the beginning, a customer has to fall in love with your product. And so you need to spend all of your energy on making sure that what you are creating, the actual product is the best thing. And that's where all of my energy went. It was like, how do I make this gene the best gene on the planet? And so that required me thinking about fabric and thinking about trims and thinking about belt loops and thinking about construction and thinking about silhouettes and like going into every stitch of that. And so I really tried to think about when you start a business, you can't have too many focuses. You need to have like have three things. We're going to do these three things and we're going to put every bit of energy and focus into those three things. But I think as far as it comes to money, like money, we all imagined that money could buy us a customer, right? That you could advertise on Facebook or Facebook. I will never call it meta. Advertise on meta, advertise on Instagram, you know. So is Twitter. But that was the prevailing wisdom then, right? That you could cheat your way, buy your way to a customer. What that ended up being was a false hope for so many brands because they were overextending their marketing budgets to be able to acquire a customer too expensively, not putting money on the bottom line and then not giving themselves enough room to actually run a healthy and profitable business. So money, as much as it can be a help in the beginning of business, it can also be a hindrance because it gives you a false kind of bottom, right? It's like if you don't have any money, you make really different decisions. And so I would actually caution anyone to going out and raising money because you need to understand, like, what is the truth of my business? Like, where are we actually at if we weren't propped up by this money that wasn't generated by the business? Right. So it might not buy a customer, but does it buy happiness? It doesn't buy anything. I mean, listen, it's easier now that I have money to say that. But I think that, you know, money is it's almost like a magnifying glass. You know, I think about it as being something that, you know, whoever you were beforehand, like is who you're going to be. And it just really magnifies anything that, you know, you might have been or might turn into. When do you think you were the happiest? Was it when you had money or didn't have money? I'm definitely happier with money. Yeah. Like I'd be a liar if I said that I wasn't. No, no, no. I was made to have money. You know, I've been really poor in my life. I just think that I've always been very focused on finding those unlocks that would get me money. I was never shy about saying, hey, I'm happy to be in this company to intern for you, but I'm looking for a job because I need money. And when I got a job, I was always the person knocking on the door saying, hey, I need an increase. I'm delivering X and I really think I deserve Y. And when I couldn't get that, I'd be like, bye. You know, I never like I've always been very forthright and comfortable about understanding what I am worth and then like transitioning into the situations that would get me to like really where I wanted to be. And you dig into negotiation and start with yourself. I'd love to dig into negotiation more with you. What's the wildest thing you've done in a negotiation? Oh, what is the wildest thing? I mean, listen, close the deal. Well, you know, back in the day when you're in like celebrity wrangling, right? Because that's what I did. I was essentially the broker, the person in the middle between the brand and the celebrity. And so you would do pretty wild things, you know? I don't know that like, I'm trying to think of a good one. I do remember, I do remember taking the Dior team. This is a story actually I haven't told, which is really funny. I took the Dior team to meet Natalie Portman ahead of her signing her now kind of, you know, amazing, infamous. What is that like running for the last 15 years? Her fragrance deal with them. And Natalie is a famous vegan. And the whole team turned up and I was like, no, guys, like you've all got leather shoes and leather accessories. And so I went out and bought everybody espadrilles before we did the meeting because I was pretty sure that if all of these people turned up seemingly kind of like ignoring one of her core principles and values that my deal wouldn't get done. And so I was like, actually, like a very, you know, like not rich broker at the time and to spend like a couple of hundred bucks on other shoes for these people that should have thought about it. I was like, what is happening here? What am I having to do? But it all turned out. And, you know, that was a it was a huge unlock for my company. Like that, that deal put us on the map because Natalie had famously never done a commercial. It was the year like of, you know, Black Swan and like this like insane Oscar and this beautiful moment for her in her career. And I had the shiny, big endorsement in the celebrity space. And it really put out, I went to every brand and meeting on the planet for the following two years going, you know, that was my opening picture of my deck. So it really, it was worth me paying for the espadrilles. Espadrilles and tofu and you closed the deal. But, you know, it's like I always think people imagine that there's some like kind of magic to negotiations. And really the point of a negotiation is to find, you know, like this mutually advantageous place on both sides. Right. So it's like it isn't to bash anyone down on either side. It's actually to bring two sides closer together. And what you need is an intrinsic understanding of what each party is trying to do. And so I really find myself spending a lot of time in negotiations, really going, what are they trying to get? Like not, not what are they trying to do? It's like, what are they trying to get out of this? And what are they trying to get out of this? And how do I meld those two things together? And that's what I'm really good at because I can see things from all sides. Well, when I was on your podcast, you were talking about a different kind of negotiation that you did with your husband. Oh, the prenup. At the romantic restaurant. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I actually saw that woman recently who was sitting there and thought it was so amazing that I'd had that conversation with my husband in public. But we laugh about it now. And going into because you obviously work with your husband. He's your romantic partner. He's your business partner. How do you think about negotiating a personal contract versus a professional contract? Kind of no different in a way. Right. At the end of the day, it's even more important that both of you are happy because you're going to see each other every day. I have to negotiate with people that are very close to me all the time, you know, my own team, my own staff. And so I try to take emotion out of the equation, which is something I talk about a lot in this book, like managing your emotions and making sure that your decision making isn't coming from an emotional place because we all have fear. We all have guilt. We all have things running through our head that really can govern our decisions. And so when I'm in a personal negotiation, I'm trying not to let the emotional piece of it, how much I love you, how much joy we're going to have together, how angry you make me sometimes. I'm trying not to make my decisions from that basis. And I am the start with yourself girl, which means I start with myself. What do I want? What do I need? What are my principles? What are my values? What do I need to get here? And I'm really serious about that because as a mother of four, I think people find it kind of hard to take, like the idea that I would put myself first. But I do. And I do it kind of unashamedly because I know when I'm good, everything around me is good. It's better for my kids. It's better for my team. It's better for everyone. And so I don't shy away from that idea of having very high self-value and self-worth because I really think it works out for everyone. Yeah. If mom is good, everybody's good. And so if somebody is negotiating their prenup, you probably had to compromise here and there. But what's the thing to remember? Protect what you brought in? Oh, I think 100% protect what you brought in. But let's be honest, right? Because the time when most of us get married, they're your big earning years, right? Like I think that people are not getting married mostly until like early 30s now. So they're your peak, right? But they're your peak earning years between the age of like 35 and 55. That's when people make their money. And so you really have to protect what you do during your marriage. Now, depending on what type of person you are, you know, that can be really something and really lucrative. And you have to, you know, I was talking to somebody about this just last night. I was working with somebody in my house who was styling me for some things. And we had this exact conversation. And I think depending on like your money narrative, how you grew up, what you saw from your parents, you'll have all of these feelings and these emotions running through you. And I think what you have to do again is step back and be unemotional about it. what is it that I actually want? What am I trying to optimize for? Like, if you feel very, very clear that you have made some money and that is yours and that is like linked to how you feel about yourself, then protect it, protect it. If you don't have much and you're relying on the other person, then you don't have as much leverage. You don't, you know, you've got to be honest with yourself, but don't come at like these money conversations with emotion because you'll never get what you need out of it. Like that's just not smart. A lot of women are nervous about prenups. Yeah. I don't think they should be. Or would you suggest to bring it up? I actually don't remember. No, in my husband, I mean, he's so Swedish and straightforward. He probably said, he probably said it to me. He was also much wealthier than I was at that time. And now things have really evened out, but my husband does very well. And so do I. And we have four kids together. And so it's pretty even Stevens around in our house, but I still get every single thing that we do, investment that we make, house that we buy, major purchases. I still have my own set of lawyers that look out over every single transaction that has my name attached to it. I never want to be that woman. You know, I never want to be left high and dry and wondering what happened. Well, let's talk about some of the blocking and tackling in career negotiations. I think there are a lot of important strategies that you touch on, and I'd love to do a little role-playing with you. Let's do it. Let's do it. I love a role-play. Who am I? Am I the boss or are you the boss, Nicole? I'm the boss. Okay, fine. Fine. Do you, before we get into, do you think that you should throw out a number? Yes, I do. But I think that that number needs to be researched, Right. So the worst thing to me is when somebody comes in and gives me a number that is so out of the realm of possibility. I'm like, you must be stupid. Therefore, you didn't get the job just because your number was so bad. Right. If you're coming in for a position and the, you know, the salary cap is around 200 and you tell me you need 375. I'm like, what planet are you on? Surely you're not going to do a good job on behalf of me. You can't even value yourself. So I think doing that research in the beginning. right spending time on LinkedIn looking at you know what the pay the realm of pay is for that role is so important and doing it in a way that is relevant to your market you can't just look at the comps for your position you have to say okay what place is this company in size of the business number of is it a startup is it you know a mature company is it in hyper growth mode that has a huge difference on what people are willing to pay you. What about a good moment of silence? I love a moment of silence. It's hard for me, Nicole, but I think that anyone that goes into a negotiation has to get comfortable with the silence. And my little thing is like, sing a song in your head, like not like a really like, you know, big one, but just do a little, I want to dance with somebody, you know, cause it's kind of smisey, but it's not like, you know, it's not mean. So you want to have, I want to dance with somebody, Whitney Houston, in your head and get to a good part of that song. Love it. So that you can just like chill it out. Lots of great stuff happens in silence. And what should women stop saying in negotiations? Like, sorry to bother you, but, or. Like, stop saying too much. Like, you can stop and pause and don't be, you know, certainly don't be apologizing. But I think that what happens is, I don't know how it works here. but you know it's like you know it works pretty much the same everywhere right it's like let's just be honest talk about your experience have specificity what i hate is that like loosey goosey like give me the number what did you do how did you do it how much did it save how much did it generate be specific like i want to have specificity and don't waffle right like you've got be respectful of somebody's time you've got an interview you've got 40 minutes be done at 37 Those things matter Okay I the boss Okay And you want to raise Finding it hard already but go ahead Yes Go ahead I want to raise Yes I do Always Hello Emma You called a meeting. Nice to see you. And thank you for taking the meeting because it's been really important for me to come and talk to you about what I'm doing in the company right now. I don't know if you're aware, but X, Y, Z, right? All the things that you have been doing. like and again I want you to take a step back here and think about the company's goals not what you have to say what is the company trying to achieve and what have you done that ladders up to those goals so that's what you're going to express you're like I know right now that international distribution is really important to us it is and what I have been working on is right that's what you're going to do you're going to talk about all of the things that you've done that ladders into the company's goals. Then you're going to pause and you say, do you have any questions about those projects? Were you aware of them? Because here's the thing, we all go in with complete orientation around ourselves and what we know we've been doing. The other people don't even know. Your boss may not be aware. So give them an opportunity to come up to speed to understand that, oh, you were responsible for that. What part did you have in it? What did it generate? Like, What did that project look like? What was that? So you're going to like give the person a moment to catch up with all of the things that you've told them. As a result, my compensation no longer really matches the output of what I'm doing. I've done research and I've seen that X, Y, Z, 250,000 would be more commensurate with the work that I'm doing. Can you look at my salary and consider a race? You're currently on 170. they're not going to give you a number on the spot because any good boss. Yes, I have to think about it. I have to go. I have to go back and I have to talk to the board. I have to talk to the team. Absolutely. And here are a couple of things I'd love you to consider while you do that. If you can't get me to the 250 number, I would happily take an offer that gets me there, but I'd like it to happen in a three month window, right? That gives them the opportunity to come back to you with 230 and tell you how you get to 250. Those are my favorite negotiations because your idea of what you're doing and your firm or your company's idea of what you're doing can be completely different. But you're not backing down immediately. You're saying this is what I want. Having said that, and if it's a really big jump, you're like, I'm happy to do this in steps. By the way, three months is nothing. But you're setting yourself on a path. You're also giving them the opportunity to start looking at what you're doing for this person whose radar you may not yet be on to start going. oh my goodness, like, look, we gave her that 230 and we gave her a bunch of things to do and she's doing them. She should be paid 275. Let's put her on a fast track. Let's change her position. Let's move her into a new department. So you're creating an opportunity for yourself to be seen. And what I want everybody to understand is that when you go into those negotiations, it's never just about the negotiation. You want to create visibility and proximity between whoever is your superior and the work that you're doing. That stuff is really, really important. Don't imagine that anybody is watching you in the same way that you're watching you. And you walk out of that room and you follow up a couple of days later. You don't wait. You know, even if they said, it's going to take me two weeks to go and speak to the board and speak to the, that's fine. In three days, you follow up. And you, again, just outline the exact conversation. Here's what we spoke about. I so look forward to hearing from you. That's what you do. Yeah, because they're thinking about their own race. Of course they are. Everybody's thinking about their own thing. And there's only one pot, right? And so it's like at the end of the day, you have to make sure that when you're coming into a negotiation that is entirely about you, that you never position it as such. Make it about the company. Make it about your contribution. Make it about what you're going to do in the future and what you have done in the past. But don't center it in like, you know, my rent's just gone up. You know, my dog needs this operation. It's like nobody cares. Nobody cares. I was just about to ask you that. So in the past I've had employees say like, I've just went through a breakup and I need to move or like my dog is sick or whatever. What's that got to do with me? Like, am I a softie? If it got to me? Yeah. Yeah. What would you do? I would try to figure out what that means in my business. I mean, don't get me wrong. Of course, there have been people that have come to me in the past with personal circumstances. but I'm really not in the business of giving raises against what's happening in your life. Can you imagine if you, when you do that at scale, I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that are working for me with lots and lots of thoughts and feelings and things and boyfriends and stuff happening. You know, there's too many dogs to look after. No, I think that you have to create the conditions in your organization for whatever is happening in somebody's pay packet to be linked to the work that they're doing. And that's really clear in our organization. I think that you can go to anyone from C-suite to customer services, and they're going to tell you, here are the three things that make a difference in this company. Here is the goals, and here is the focus, and this is the work that I need to do that's going to be beneficial to the whole company. That way you're all working together. You're all on track. Do you think employees tend to overshare their personal circumstances with female bosses? i mean not with me but maybe that's more says more about who i am so how so that's the tmi that you should leave out we all have stuff we all have problems it's not appropriate negotiation i don't think that that's the time and the place for it i think that you have to have a level of honesty about your circumstances when they affect the work that you're doing like i can't come to work this morning because you know my dog has to go to the bet because this thing is happening okay that's fine but I don't need to know the ins and outs it's not the place what are questions that interviewers ask you that they never ask yet oh how long I mean first of all there is a special set of questions for females everywhere starts with the balance question it starts with the mothering question it goes into the you know It's just like I don't think anybody has ever asked Yens about what he's wearing, what his wellness routine is, how he thinks about skin care. It's like I love all of that stuff. But there's a time and a place for it. Right. They don't ask him about his style as much as they would ask me. Like, what is your leadership style? You know, like, how do you go about things? like imagining that like I have some special lady way to do it you know so do you think we should stop saying female founders and just say founders I mean I've always called myself a female founder and I've done that so deliberately because I want other women to understand that there are lots of different types of female founders I think I am deeply empathetic and I actually think I'm a really great person to work for. I think that that also, there's a side of me that is just really straightforward. Like nobody's ever thinking, I wonder what Emma's thinking right now. It's like, you know what I'm thinking. I already told you. It's not, you know, I don't save it for some special moment when we're going to, you know, have a catch up or a TB. It's like I told you right there and then. And that creates like really interesting conditions in an organization because the feedback loop is my expectation is that that's what's coming back to me you told me too I'm really like clear and honest about my mistakes because I want other people to be able to do that I leave the office every day at five o'clock because I want to create the conditions for other parents or non-parents to be able to leave at five too I come back and I do emails at eight but it's like I like to go home and have dinner with my kids and read a story with them and put them to bed and so those things are ways of behavior that I am very purposeful about as a female founder because I want women in my organization and I'm so proud to say that there have been women in my organizations who have had three babies and climbed the career ladder I have people that started with me as junior designers and now are VPs after having three kids and being able to come back to work and still progress and I think that's because of the conditions that I created in that organization and I lived it and breathed it and was honest about it, importantly, and honest about what it would take as well as creating the environment for people to be able to do that. So what questions do you think people should stop asking women? Well, like how do you do it all? More generally, yeah. Like how do you balance? How do you balance it? How do you do everything? What does it look like, you know, with your kids? Like what's your routine? Like all of that stuff. I don't know why it's important. I guess there's a part of it that, you know, for some women, it could feel like there's an unlock, like they literally want to understand how to do it. And I appreciate that. But there's not much of a mystery there. Like you have to not do a lot of it, which is what I've said in this book. Start with yourself. I didn't find a 25th hour in the day. What's more important to ask me is what are you not doing? because I don't clean my house and I don't make my kids lunches and I don't take them to school every day. There's a bunch of trade-offs and a real set of happenings that I just decided were not important for me because I was trying to do other stuff too. So I think that if it's to unlock some honesty and visibility on what's the truth and what works, then that's one thing. But if it's just to like kind of dig around and create some kind of female founder fantasy, then that's not useful for anybody. Well, I love that you talk about your army of help that you have. And I think that's important because I think family planning and financial planning should not be separate. They're 1 million percent. 1 million percent. I couldn't agree with you more. They're inextricably linked. I think that we have to take the shame out of that. You know, I was raised by a single mom. And at one point, you know, my auntie looked after us. And then we had a family friend who looked after us. There was always someone helping my mom, you know, as the eldest daughter oftentimes that was me I would make the dinner for the kids I would make their packed lunches I would iron the you know the my sister's school shirts before we went to school but you had to pitch in and now we don't live in communities like that anymore and I'm obviously coming from a really privileged position because I have a lot of money which means I have a lot of help but I don't try to hide that like I'm not sitting here going like I'm doing it all like I make that Halloween costume it's like I don't like I don't and and I don't want to yeah you didn't have wealthy parents, but your kids do. And so you could give them anything they want, but do you? I mean, Warren Buffett has said that give your kids enough money so that they can do anything, but not nothing. I love that. I would go one step further. I'm not the type of person that is going to give to my kids in that type of way. Like I never imagined a moment that they get bought an apartment from me. I'm going to pay for their education and they can, as long as they are in education I will support them and after that they're on their own I don't and here's the thing I think that you make really different choices as a rich kid when you know that there's a big trust fund and part of being human is like figuring out like what am I good at where do I belong who are my people and if you and let me tell you if I had a rich mum and I grew up how I'm raising my kids now I'd have just gone and been like a DJ because I could hang out in the clubs that wasn't a choice for me. So I had to find something that I was really good at. Couldn't just like follow my passions, which at that point, an 18 year old, you know, was like hanging out in clubs with boys and, you know, being around a DJ booth. That is never going to be a choice for my kids. I think that I'm not trying to engineer hardships, but by the same token, I think making it too easy stops people from fully becoming who it is that they want to. So as a wealthy parent, you're going to get all the help and all the support from me all the way through college. And then you're on your own, kiddo. You've got to figure it out. Go and sleep in a shared apartment and find out what you're good at and make money doing that. In the book, you said that parenting is not that deep. It's not that deep. We've made it mad. I don't think parenting has got more difficult. I think that the expectations have become really crazy. And that's largely owing to social media and the wider media. And that's why I talk in the beginning of my book about the reason that it's so important to have a vision for yourself. And I don't mean like a vision board. I mean like a concrete vision of how you want to live and what's important to you, what your values and principles are, and then to measure yourself by that, not by what's going on on the outside. And I think that's a little bit of what happened with mothering. It's like, if you're not sitting there, you know, like squeezing out your own almond milk, like suddenly your kid's going to like burst into a million pieces because everybody's like dairy intolerant. It's like when I was a kid, if there was an apple and a packet of chips in the house, my mom was like, done, like that's my job. You know, I just don't think we need to like pave the way for every interaction, every single thing that our kids do, do every single, you know, like organize every play date, watch what's in their diet, manage all their preferences. It's like, it's just not a good use of time and nor is it particularly good for the kids. I think that my kids need like a real, lovely, loving mother who worships them and is there when they fall over and there when they want to have a chat and sits and watches the TV with them. And that's about it. You know, I get them fed. I keep them, you know, with a roof over their heads and then the rest they can figure out. Like they'll be fine. Like you and I ate crayons and dirt and look at us thriving. I mean, look at us. look at her a quick side question in the book you talk about how as a kid you sold ysl shirts that fell off drugs oh yeah what does that mean this is like mafia that's what they refer to i love it like so far as mafia i just used to sell stolen goods like that was the way i made money yeah yeah tell me more well i mean i grew up in the hood so it was easy to come by you know and so you'd have a guy and he'd have a bunch of like YSL, Ralph Lauren shirts or whatever he had that week. And, you know, I would get them and I'd go and sell them and I'd make a bunch of money. Like that's how, that, that's how I became, I guess that was like my early hustle. That was like how I became an entrepreneur. But you know, it was interesting. I had a paper route too. And I always kept the paper route because I was sure that at one point, you know, whatever was going to happen to that guy would happen to that guy. And, you know, my, my kind of, you know, uh, what do you call it? My inventory would cease to, uh, to be there for me. But you know, this is the thing. I did whatever I had to do as a kid. I had a paper route. I worked in a deli. I sold fireworks. I made sandwiches. I sold the stolen goods. Like I did everything to make a buck. Like, because in my head, I was literally going to work my way out of where I came from. I was like, if I just keep working, I will be able to propel myself out of where I am. And by the way, it worked. But you know, there were some unsavory things that happened along the way. And that was just my reality. You did anything you could to secure the bag and you did. And I would love to play the secure the bag game with you. I love it. All right, here we go. What's been your most challenging money experience oh I have so many listen it's always hard when you don't have any money I think for me the first time I made some money I was in my mid-20s I sold a company I made a little bit of money and it wasn't like can I can I curse on this so it wasn't fuck you money right but it was more money than I'd ever had. And to me, that was, yeah, yeah. I'd made a couple of million pounds. And so I was just really for me it was so difficult because it wasn like go and buy your mama house like money you know but it was enough to make sure that some people around me had a better existence and make sure that I was going to be okay. And all the things I thought I was going to do, I didn't do. And I invested it in myself instead. Yeah, you did. I mean, when you see zeros like that? Like dead. I thought I'd won the lottery. I honestly still to this day, one of the best days of my life. And, you know, it's so funny because the less you have, the more impactful it is, right? Arguably I've made so much more money, which doesn't feel the same. I remember going like having a 60,000 pound salary and negotiating 150,000 pounds for me. now that was the best day of my life i hear this a lot i was like oh my god because that really was a game changer that meant i could change apartment that meant i could you know spend more money in the clubs i could change how i dressed like that to me was 60 to 150 grand game changer yeah but right now like you can only live in so many houses you can only you know yeah and don't get me wrong like All of that stuff is lovely. And money has, it's such an enabler, right? Like what you can do when you have money. It's incredible. But I don't know that that much changes like a certain point. What's a money mistake that still haunts you? I'm going to be really honest. So I married a Swedish man when I was 20. I'm still married to him. Same man. When I was 12. How old was I when I got married? Damn. 29? I was 29. Up until then, and the reason I say Swedish man like that, he is so fiscally responsible. I am naturally, I used to have this boyfriend that called me a squander bird, which I thought was such a good way of describing me. Like the money would come in. If I get 100, I'm spending 100, right? It's like just how I'm wired. I'm like a spenny girl. And I think that I did that for so long and I craved something else. I craved this security. and watching how Jens, how responsible he was with money, really changed my relationship to it. I just thought that that was like a safer way to live. So I haven't really been, just to answer your question, I haven't really made a lot of mistakes with money because I'm so careful and I've learned to be really, really careful. So I just, I think apart from that one spin in my mid-20s where I was like, I'm going to put all this money on myself, I have been so fiscally responsible I know the price of everything like everything and I'm really like I'm quite frugal not frugal in a way like you know it's like I have nice stuff I like to spend money but I am very mindful and have huge awareness over what I'm spending you know what I'm doing how much every single thing costs and I like to be you know it's like I pay for things and I do things and I spend a lot of money, but I know what I'm spending. Like there's never an accident. I'm never like, oh my gosh, like ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. Do you ever fear that it's going to go away? No, no, I don't. Because to me, I've seen enough to know that it comes and it goes, right? I think that I was surrounded. My life was so kind of built on that like boom and bust cycle as a kid. Like I saw it all around me. You know, you see a guy that was like doing really well, doing whatever he was doing and bought a BMW and did whatever they put, you know, new glazing in their house. And it was like, boom. The next thing you knew, he was an alcoholic and they had no money and the kids were like, it was a disaster. And so I saw that all around me. And I think that's what created a level of kind of fiscal responsibility that is kind of only grown the more money that I have. But I even watched my mom as a kid. she was very like you know used to write checks in those days and she would write everything down the gas the heating the milk the groceries and then she'd write checks for them and then she'd balance it all out and she'd be like right this is what we've got to live on you know and it was very clear to me like how everything had to stretch and so I'm not I just don't think about what I have lasting forever because I've seen I've seen things come and things go but it's not what scares me. It does. It's not, that's not what drives me. I believe in my ability to always make money no matter what. I could lose it all tomorrow. I'll start again and I'll be fine. Have you ever felt used? No, I'm too tough for that. And I tell you why, because when you come from where I come from, East London, the hood, you have an aversion to anyone taking anything from you. And so I just can't be used. You know, it's just like not in, it's just not anywhere near me. Like, I think you're going to take advantage before you've even taken advantage. And even that is not a thing that I love to admit, but I'm naturally very distrusting. And so I never even get there. You know, it's like, you couldn't take advantage of me because I've already clocked you and like, I've, I've got rid of you. You know, I'm a good shedder. I shed people. If I smell it, I'm like, you know, like, what's a sign? Oh, you know, if I have any type of behavior, money, any like, I, I am not a money lender. I will give you money. Right. It's like, if you come to me and you're like, oh my goodness, like, you know, shit's hit the fan and I need, I need to lend 10,000. If I am in a position, I'm going to give you the 10 grand. I never expect you to pay it back. And it's like, I'm not going to sit there, you know, worried about you paying me back. if I have a good friend who needs something but I don't set myself up in those situations for anybody to owe me anything because it's a really unhealthy way to live and I think that that's something that played out in my childhood and I just don't but I don't I also don't conflate it like I don't miss like I don't conflate friendship and money I'm like if I have something then I'm happy to spend it I'm happy to take everybody on the vacation I'm happy to have you as the guest on my boat. I'm like, those things are totally fine to me, but to owe me anything or to dodge me or to seemingly be wanting something from me, I am allergic to it. I smell it a mile away and we're just not friends. What does it smell like? It smells like shit. Nicole, it smells shit. Can you imagine? It's not a smell I like and I get rid of it as quick as you get rid of shit. I could not adore you more. And sister, you are like the it girl of the moment. Get out of town. If I had to reshoot Boss Bitch, like I would put you on the cover. It has just felt like you have exploded, though, over the last few years. Was that an intentional choice to move out of the background? Like, were you building your personal brand in stealth? Yeah, I think there was two. I never thought about it like personal brand, which from a kind of, I would consider myself a marketing expert sounds really trite. But the truth is, I, I got frustrated with the way I was being labeled, right? I was very like, wait a second, you know, I am, I am a person that has a lot of experience. I have worked or had a job since I was in my teens, I have a really good reputation in my business. And so I thought what was happening is that I was kind of getting branded into this like cute girl boss. And I was like, guys, you do realize that I go to work every day, that my life isn't a photo shoot, that like you seeing me on vacation is like my vacation. I don't take pictures of me in my office. And so I really was like, I've got to change that because I want and need people to understand like all these mistakes that I've made, how hard I've worked, all the crap that I've taken, the bosses that I had before I started my own businesses, the trials and tribulations that I had starting companies. And so I was like, you just have to tell the truth of what this stuff is. So I started to be more public because it was almost like this correction that needed to happen. And with that, turns out people like it when you're honest. And so that's what happened. But I really thought that there was some value in me sharing that it's not as you know as you see things that actually there's an unbelievable amount of work and strategy and hardship and stuff that just didn't work out and maybe wasn't instagramable that I wanted to share and I thought that that would be a value like when I wrote this book I wasn't like let me write my life story I was like let me write something that you can use rather than something that you read I imagined that people would pick this book up and go to the section on money or on family and they would be like oh I see I need to rewire my thinking I've got some old thoughts in my head that need addressing so I was like create something that people can actually use and I think that was really the genesis of me trying to be a little bit more public because I just thought when I come off of the stage at a conference the questions were always the same you know it's like oh my goodness like how do you do what you do and I was like, well, it's not magic. I really worked for it. So the genesis was to take back your story. What's the end game? Like, are we the next Oprah? Are we building the next LVMate? What are we doing here, sister? Can you imagine? Oh, my God. You know Oprah is my number one person in the world. You know what? I really think, like, opportunities have always, like, I've always had to go and find my opportunities. never have I been in a position where I am now where things come to me and so I thought I would see what's going to come to me and in the same time I was like what do you want to do like I think about myself I'm a pretty good teacher the people that work with me are like I learned a lot from Emma like she's she's really hard she has really high standards it was like crazy three years of my working life but I learned a lot and I was like wouldn't it be good if I could actually teach a lot of people scale that and so in my head I thought about the podcast as being this platform where it's like I'm going to teach you how to interview I'm going to teach you how to use AI beyond it being a search engine I'm going to lift the lid on how Reese Witherspoon made all of that money with her company and how she really feels about it but I was like thinking about it as like entertainment you know like I was like I'm going to take all the things that I've learned and make it more useful than just me making a lot of money. And so that was all that was in my head. And right now I'm like an open book. It's like, I'm still operational in my companies. I still, you know, my studio's in my office. So it's like, I go to work every single day and take meetings. You know, it's like, I take meetings for all the companies, like in between doing whatever it is that I'm doing. So right now I'm, I really believe that when you do great stuff, the opportunities will come and when you have a great product you can do anything with it and so I'm kind of saying to myself I'm going to stay open and I'm going to concentrate on being really good at this stuff and it's not what comes naturally to me you know it's like I'm not a professional interviewer I'm not you know a great writer it's like I'm super dyslexic so I have to work really hard on those things and so I thought I'll just have like a couple of years of going, what am I other than somebody that goes into an office and cranks it out every day? Because that's all I know. That's all I've known for 20 years. And also you've gotten so much traction with it. In your book, you talk about creating a plan for when you turn 30, for when you turn 40, you kept it on your phone. Now you're creating a plan for when you turn 50. What does that look like? You know, it looks like having a different pattern in my life. You know, Like, again, I've woke up every day for 20 years. I work out early. I come home late. I get back on the computer. I send hundreds of emails every day. I have meetings with lots and lots and lots of people because I work in product, right? So it's like you have 60 people in a proto meeting. It is draining. It is draining, driving those companies. It is a lot of work. And I thought that what I should do is try to create a different flow in my workday. You know, Nicole, there was maybe it was, I can't even believe I'm going to say this. It might have been two years ago. Two years ago, I dropped one of my kids off at school. I had a cancellation. I was like, I'm going to walk from the school to the coffee place. As I was walking, I realized I had never done that. I have never, ever had a slot where I could take that free moment and go and do what I wanted to do, which in that moment was get a coffee. Meanwhile, I went past about 27 mothers from the school that were all, you know, in their leggings. Thankfully, they were skims going to get their coffees. And I was like, what is happening? So I have to just create a little bit of space in my life because I have been doing the same thing for a really long time. And as much as I love it, I just want a different rhythm. That isn't to say I want to stop working. I will work until I'm 90, until I'm dead. I just want to have a slightly different rhythm in my day. that's so what so when you come back you're 43 now I'm 43 I've been telling everyone on this book tour by the way that I'm 42 until my husband corrected me two days ago on a zoom call he's like you're fucking 43 I was like oh my god I'm 43 there's seven years when we chat when you're 50 what is that like what is the bio edition oh great great question I would really want it to be that I have helped like make a million little emas that there are a bunch of girls that on paper shouldn't really you know start at their own companies or be doing these big jobs and that's something I did or I said or you know they learned from me changed the way that they think and they went on a different path. And I think that that always has to be the ultimate goal because I know in my life that when you touch people, when you are able to change somebody's trajectory, a bit like Oprah did for me, that's the most valuable thing that you could ever have. And I've done the stuff, right? It's like I've made the money. I have four kids. I'm very happy in my life. Now I'm like, oh, you have a different responsibility because people look to you and you could make that really important and impactful. And so I think it would be amazing if that was something that I could do. You know, it's like if I built a school or made like a centre for people, you know, women and girls to come to. And, you know, there was like a special Emma course or like whatever it was. But I did it in a way that I think, you know, for me, when I go back to East London, I'm like, there's so much talent here. There's so much, but there's no opportunity. And so if I could like figure out how I can help those things collide, I'd be like one and done. Well, thank you for giving the mini masterclass here. As you know, we end all of the episodes by asking for one final investing or money tip that our listeners can take straight to the bank. You know, here's the thing that I really learned. When I made some money and invested in myself, it was a risk. But it was the best risk that I've ever taken. And I think that if given the opportunity and it can be, you know, it can be directly with money. It can be an investment in the sense of time and your learnings. I think figuring out what it really means to invest in yourself is probably the best use of time and money and energy that you could ever make. And I mean, like really sitting down and going, what can I do for me that will impact me? What is going to allow me to really take this idea of what it means to start with myself and take it seriously? And so I would do that. I would think about the tip being like self-investment. That pays most dividends later on. Damn right it does.