Emma Grede: “The Parenting Rules I Refuse to Follow”

0:00It's been one of the single biggest unlocks of my life that I made a decision that the only standards I needed to live up to as a mother were my own. After my first kid, I just felt completely exhausted. And so I just decided that there must be a better way. Motherhood is teaching me. Don't like be living in this place of kind of guilt and fear and frustration. You can't have it all, right? No, you've got to have the trade-offs. Do you have those guilt feelings? Where do you put them? I don't make my decisions based on that. I make my decisions based on my vision. I am not here to parent my husband and my kids.

0:38You're a partner, not a parent. But I do think we've hit a place where parenting has gone bananas. What lesson keeps repeating for you? Ooh! That is the most important question that you can ask yourself as a woman. hey welcome to mother kind we are proudly sponsored by wild nutrition's women's supplements it is me your host zoe and this is the show for you the woman behind the mother during august the mother kind team and i try and practice a little bit of what we teach by slowing down we take some time off and try to make the juggle of the summer holidays a little bit easier so throughout the month, we're bringing you some of our most loved and listened to episodes of the year so far.

1:24Today's episode has been one of our biggest of 2026 and I cannot wait for you to hear it. Here it is. Enjoy.

1:35My guest today is Emma Greed. Emma is the co-founder of Skims and Good American, a shark on Shark Tank, a dragon on Dragon's Den and a mother of four. She is also the author of her new book, Start With Yourself, which has sparked a global conversation about women's ambition. But in this conversation, I wanted to know about Emma, the mother, her matrescence, how she deals with guilt, how her own childhood has informed who she is today, what kind of parent she is, how she manages the mental load with her partner, who's also a CEO. I wanted to know if she holds the same ambition for her kids as she does for herself and how she makes decisions about her priorities without overthinking if she's a good enough mother all the time.

2:22Emma is someone who is unapologetically her. She knows who she is. She knows what she wants. She knows the type of mother she is and she has a very clear vision for her life and she goes for it. Obviously, not all of us want Emma's vision. That isn't the point of this conversation. The point is that Emma says you have to have a vision for who you want to be, what you want, so that you don't get lost in the opinions and the shoulds and the pressures of others. Let's just say I learned a lot. Before we get to it, can you do me a quick favour and subscribe to Motherkind? I've actually never spent a penny marketing this podcast.

3:05It has been grown by you, our community supporting it and sharing it so please subscribe and share this episode with someone you think needs to hear it today here it is

3:16i feel just such a mix of emotions sat in front of you i'm so excited honestly i'm so happy to be here i i couldn't i couldn't think of a better way to spend like on my afternoon and i absolutely adore the new book start of yourself and there were so many quotes that just viscerally hit me and there was one which brought me to tears no way yeah oh give it to me what do i say well you're like which one was it yes my kids need me but they also need a parent who is fully expressed because that is so counter-cultural to what we are taught it means to be a parent it's so anti everything that we're told that we have to stay small and guilty and we have to micromanage their lives how did you get with such conviction and clarity that that was going to be the philosophy by which you were going to raise your children well first of all I love that you start there because to me it's been one of the single biggest unlocks of my life that I made a decision that the only standards I needed to live up to as a mother were my own and it was really difficult to come to like what is it that I believe in like what's my own parenting philosophy because we are bombarded by so many messages and so much information and it's really difficult to make a distinction between what have I seen what is that happening in the media and on social and what do I actually want to do and what do I believe and what happens is you kind of like I don't know what it's been like for you but after you have a baby you kind of get consumed you know you're taken on this journey and you're like is that me do I need to do that then you meet other mothers and you see other parents and you hear other things and I just felt completely exhausted like after my first kid by month three or four I was like I'm not playing these games I actually really want to go back to work I actually am more ambitious than before I even had him and what's interesting is the ambition hasn't stopped I've got more ambitious for every single kid that I've had and I have four of them now and so I just decided that there must be a better way a less exhausting way and when I thought about the type of mother that I want to be because look just like all mums I love my kids I think they're the best thing since I spread but it's like I have other stuff to do I have other goals that have nothing to do with them and what I kind of want to push against is this idea that you are selfish if you put yourself first.

5:52What I believe your kids need is like a lot of love and a lot of attention and somebody that they can rely on, but they don't need you to usher them through absolutely every single thing in their lives. And all that does is depletes you. It depletes your energy and you end up feeling resentful, which then has the opposite impact on your kids. So for me, I was like, I'm going to try to be the type of mum I want to be and I'm going to show my kids what you're supposed to do with life and hopefully we'll all be fine and I reckon we are in those first few months did you ever get to that moment where you were like what does this look like for me because I think that is such a almost universal experience for mums right where they're like this doesn't feel how I thought it was going to feel I feel completely different.

6:42How did you figure that out? Well, you know, listen, I have written this book, Start With Yourself, because I felt like it was really needed because I felt so much of the messaging that's out there is the opposite of the way I felt. And I felt very lost after I had my first kid because I thought, am I on my own? Am I the only one who feels like this? Does everybody want to just sit and stare at the baby and like go to like mummy and me classes and like forget all the things that they thought before? And of course, I learned that very quickly that wasn't true. But I didn't really find like my way and my philosophy.

7:19And so I talk so much in this book about holding a vision for yourself. and I think that you have to hold a vision for your career and for your work but you also have to hold a vision for the type of woman that you want to be and that includes the type of mother that you want to be and so very quickly I started going like what's important to me like I think it's really important I love waking my kids up in the morning because it's that like first chit chat of the day I'm like did you dream you know and it's like it's such a lovely moment like going in I'm like wakey wakey lemon baking I open the blinds and I have a little moment with them but you know like school runs for me aren't possible because of the way that I work and you know being super present at the school isn't possible I like to have a moment at dinner time but I'm not there every single night for my kids because I have to travel and I have other things to do so for me it was about really figuring out like what do I deem to be the most important and I'm going to just live up to that those are the things that I'm going to do and I'm going to create my own set of principles that govern the way I want to parent and everything else I say no to everything else I don't allow to kind of burden me with guilt because it's just not a productive way to move through life this is why we need this manual honestly though because you say it that you say a quote you know mothers are killing themselves killing killing killing themselves that way I don't know any mom who isn't exhausted that isn't super thinly spread but more than that like that stuff makes you really miserable when you think that you're failing right it's like i'm not doing good at this you know it's like i should be here i should be there it's like i don't want that feeling and i think that when you start to you know when you have a vision if you miss something you're like that's okay because that's in line with what i've set out to do but when you're running from pillar to post and you haven't made those decisions you feel like those decisions are seemingly made for you that's when it starts to get to you that's when it eats away at you so I think that you have to be really clear like what is it that I care about the most what is important to our family what's important to our kids I'm never missing something that's important to my children I ain't turning up for the mum's coffee or the school gala I don't care like I just don't and I think once you say that out loud you free yourself and you're like you know what there are mums that do care great then they should do that and I should do things that make sense for me but don't like be living in this place of kind of guilt and fear and frustration because that isn't good for your kids either that's not an example that you want to set for them to live unfulfilled to live resentful to live in a place that's like not meeting their full potential that we would never ever tell our kids to do that so why would we choose that for ourselves yeah because we're always modeling to our kids right what it means always modeling i also think that about getting up and going to work every day because I think I'm showing my kids what it means to live up to your full potential and you know live up and to your dreams and so when I think about you cannot write a book about women in business without talking about family you cannot write a book in business without talking about kids and listen there are plenty of women out there that choose not to have children and they're happy just to be you know like good aunties and that's fine but when you decide to have children and if you're thinking about having children that is something that requires a lot of thought and a lot of planning and so I just try to be honest about what that's meant for me.

10:39I think it's that honesty that I love about you and maybe too honest millions more no because we don't we don't we don't say it and you talk about so many stories in the book where you're sat on these panels and people are sort of talking about work-life balance and being everything and it's like no you you can't have it all right you gotta have the trade-offs you know the trade-offs are so important and I think what's interesting is that people always think no I make trade-offs there's all this stuff I don't want to do but that's not the point the trade-offs are always the things that you do want to do but it's picking and choosing and what I've learned now at the age of 43 is that your life is in seasons right like and you don't get everything that you want all the time and there are moments to kind of lean into work there are moments to lean into family and what you have to get comfortable with is the ebb and flow sometimes you have to be all in typically after you've had a baby you're like that's a moment where you need to be all in on the parenting yeah and then this might be some place like you know when your career takes off like we were talking about your breakthrough episode right you need to double down lean in do the podcast get more episodes you might not have the 400 time for your family at that moment but that doesn't mean you care less.

11:50Two things can be true at once. You can at once be a really attentive, like mindful mother that cares the most about her kids and want the biggest career and to make money and to be successful and to want power all at the same time. And I think that what we've done is somehow kind of uncoupled the idea of both. No, you don't get both at the same time, but there are seasons and moments for it. And all you've got to do is learn to move into the rhythm of your life and choose your choice don't let anyone dictate to you because I think what happens more often than not is that people decide what we should be when and I just refuse to subscribe to it and in my life it's like why would you work so hard to have an amazing career and then your moment comes and you're like sorry like I'm busy with the kids over here that's just not honest it's like sometimes you have to do things differently and by the way that's what dads are for that's what other caretakers are for like I just use all all the help around me and i don't think that i have to be every single thing to my kids i don't believe it's my job to be their everything and you know the thing that i want to talk to you about that undermines that is guilt all the time right guilt guilt that i'm having a moment in my career right of course then you feel guilty i'm not at the pickup no other side too right guilt that i've got a sick kid and i can't be at that meeting i can't show up for that colleague do you have those those guilt feeling where do you put them what do you do with them it's a great question and it's the reason that I talk so much about managing emotions in this book because I know I love that section that was like one of my favorite sections I'm gonna write it was so easy because I was like I'm gonna write a book that is about building a brand and running a company and leadership and career and then I was like hang about Emma why are you able to do all of that stuff and the reason that I'm able to be successful in that side of my life is because I figured out that I cannot make my decisions based on how I feel so of course I have fear and of course there's loads of guilt in my life but I don't make my decisions based on that I make my decisions based on my vision and how I want to live and what type of life I want and how I'm thinking about my future I am NOT going to allow a momentary fleeting feeling of guilt to flash up and then decide what I'm gonna do because it is a really bad way to make decisions and it's a slippery slope Yeah, you've got to have that vision, right?

14:17It starts there. I love that you - With yourself, by the way. Great title. I love that you talk about sadness in the book. Oh, yeah. Because I experienced a lot of sadness. When I got to that section, I was like, sad. I'm sorry. No, I was happy that you were sad. Totally. Because it's the truth, right? And I think that, again, as women, if we avoid the idea that we get sad, And again, I think so much of this is about like what we allow people to see and the culture that we're in. And, you know, I sort of live my life. I always talk about this idea of the rule of thirds. And it is a really simple one because we shouldn't be happy all the time.

14:55That isn't the human condition that you're supposed to be like a range of emotions. And if you are doing something big and you're chasing a dream, you will only be happy about a third of the time. And then this other third, you'll feel indifferent. And the final third, you will feel shit. And that's just the truth. But if we don't understand the crappy feelings, like when we're super down, it's really hard to enjoy the highs. But that is normal. Like we all have days where nothing goes right, where our kids are sad, where, you know, and listen, it's just normal. Your kid has, somebody once said to me, you know, it's such a good quote.

15:31They said, you know, you're only ever as happy as your most unhappy child. If you've ever had a kid who's been bullied or going through it. Or not wanting to go to school. Not wanting to go to school, starting high school, right? And it's like, no one's sitting with me. And you're like, ugh. You know, like, it's the most terrible, terrible feeling. Which you did have, right, with your eldest, with Grey. I had, I mean, you go through a range of things, like, with kids, right? But at the end of the day, you've really got to understand, like, how fleeting all of that stuff. And in the same way we talk to our kids and we say, that's a momentary moment in time.

16:04This too shall pass. Like, we have to speak to ourselves like that. And so I like to be really, really honest with myself. But also I like to be my own best champion. And I really think about that so much, like the way that I speak to myself, the way I treat myself, the way I prioritize myself. And again, as a mother of four, a lot of people have a problem in me saying I'm right at the top of my to do list. Is that selfish or is it just sensible? because if I feel good and I'm full and I'm relaxed and I'm well rested and I'm happy, listen, my whole family's benefiting from that. My husband will tell you, I want you to continue doing that.

16:41But I think this idea that we should like give, give, give, give, give to everyone and be the last thing that we think about, it's just like, it's not sustainable. What a broken model. That's right, it's not selfish. It's self-sustaining. You're someone who I suspect from the moment you open your eyes, you are giving people aren't going to come to you in your businesses because it's everything's going right right no they only come to me with problems a series of problems all day long so i imagine you are giving out energy and yet i've just met you now you are the most one of the most energetic vibrant energies that i've ever had the privilege to sit with that's so kind thank you yeah i feel like you get what you do for me how are you giving all this out what is going on and yet you are a human battery of energy you know i here's the thing i feel so lucky and so much gratitude and you know i always think of myself as like that oprah generation you know i like well and truly drunk the kool-aid of like the gratitude journals and thinking and focusing about on what's good in my life and i think that coming from where i come from you know it's like I was born in East London.

17:53I was raised by a single mum. I'm the eldest of four. So I really grew up like looking after free kids. You've been a mum a very long time. For a very long time. And I'm naturally very maternal. So I do give. But it's like I've seen all the sides of life. And I really understand how much privilege I have at this point. And I also know that it's really important for me to speak my truth. And I have an awareness about what I'm giving out. Doesn't mean to say that I walk around happy all day best energy I mean talk to my team for two minutes they'll tell you right it's like it goes up and down but I do believe in life that you give what you get and you have to bring your full self into situations and you have to decide to be happy you have to decide to be ambitious and so I have made those decisions and I think that it's really really important that I try to like give that out but also give it back because I think where we are in the world right now, and this is an idea that I'm absolutely obsessed with, I really believe that we need more women in positions of power.

18:57And as women, we have a responsibility to give it to each other. So when I find a little unlock in my life, I'm not gatekeeping. I'm the opposite. I have the opposite of the scarcity mindset. I'm like, if I've got something, I'm going to let you know how I got it so you can get it too. Like that to me is so important. And so I really think about the way I come into a room the way that I treat people and let me tell you the world is so small even on this like as I go around promoting my book I've met three journalists that used to work for me in one way shape or form and so it's like thank god you're nice and you're energetic because it all comes back round but I've like I've been around long enough to know that the way you treat yourself and the way you speak to yourself and the way you go about things in your life that will decide your day so when i say start with yourself it's like start with your own energy start with what you're putting out and then figure out what starts to come back to you because i know for a hundred percent sure you get what you give it's so true do your kids model that do you see them walking do you see them walking into rooms greeting everyone do you know what it's like i i look at my kids and i'm like who's going to be the most like me and i'm a hundred percent sure like my youngest daughter lake yeah she just like has it she has that energy she also has the underbelly to it right she's like the most like fierce little kid in the world but that's a part of my personality because as much as i write about guilt and i write about fear i also write about anger because those your emotions are not sort of like single fold right yeah you can't selectively choose the ones you want and not the ones you don't want always an underbelly and so i think I'd be lying if I said you know there haven't been parts of my personality that I've also had to tune out and tune down and do a lot of work on but that's what I try to do in this book is to be super honest I talk about all my failures I talk about all my flaws I talk about all the work that I've done I talk about all the things I'm still trying to work on because at the end of the day to present anything but somebody that is still in motion and still trying to figure things out would just be a lie and i never want to make other women feel like i've got it all worked out no i'm just telling you what has worked for me and hopefully some of that works for you too but let's be honest about this stuff because the more honest we are together and the more that we work together as women because women are best in community like i know the better it gets for all of us

21:26and i love how you talk about allo parents oh yeah not many people know that phrase no not many i write that in my book and when i got to i was like they were like yes i get it it's so true why is it so important you that because that feels like that idea of raising children in community feels so central to your philosophy right well here's the thing i believe that you've got to take in life and in business every little bit of help that you can yes right we used to Why do so many women struggle with it though? You know, because I think that there is an element of shame attached to ever asking for help or ever seemingly like not knowing something, not having it all sorted out.

22:04And that's why I, again, I'm like, I don't have this. I rely on other people. It takes an army. Like the idea that I would have all of these companies and be successful and have kids. It's like I have so much help. I have so much help in my home and in my, you know, life with my kids. and that is not how I was raised. You know, like I said, my mum was single. We always had either an auntie or a babysitter that would get us or we were alone after school, which is why I had such a role like in parenting my younger sisters. And so I think that this idea of how we are all raised and the idea of being in community and needing people, like you have to drop that shame because who doesn't need help?

22:46Everybody needs, you know, like, and here's the thing. I also feel like that really helped me as a kid. Like all of the women that were around me, I saw so many different sides, like from neighbours to aunties. I saw my mum leave the house every day and go to work. And all of those versions of womanhood were really pivotal to the type of woman that I've become now. But, you know, I just think that we, you know, what do you call it? Like closed mouths don't get fed. And so you have to be the one that says what you need and what you want. And it's a little bit like in the workplace or with, you know, careers and ambition.

23:24Like you have to be clear about your intentions. Hiding behind soft ambition or being the person that's going to solve it for the whole family does not make people want to come and help you. It does not make people want to come and give you a pay rise when you've just got all of this stuff happening inside your head. And seemingly you're the one who's going to sort it all out. Perfection is something that happens on the outside. And I'm like, for who? Like, who do we need to be perfect for? I just never felt like I needed that. So I'm like, I need help, please. I'm like, somebody come over here and help me do this thing.

23:54How do you decide in parenting? Because I think this is something a lot of ambitious, successful women grapple with. What bits to outsource and what bits will never be outsourced? I love that question. I think this comes down to your vision and your principles, right? Like, I love putting my kids to bed. I love cooking also but I don't get home in time to make dinner at a certain time so it's like you got to take the bits that you really enjoy and that are really important to you and your family and that hold value and outsource everything else like do you need to be the person that does absolutely everything for your kids are they going to think less of you let me tell you my mum went out the door probably at 7 30 in the morning and did not come back till 7 30 8 at night she's still my mum she's still the person that raised me what's your relationship like today you know my relationship with my mum is so interesting because it's like we we joke that my mum's the dad I'm the mum and we have three kids together yes so it's like I'm what they now call you know like a parental parent parent parented kid yeah parentified child parentified thank you say that for me a parentified child um but you know I really think about that relationship as being something that was forged because of our circumstances and I don't blame my mum for that she needed to get to work to keep the lights on and she did that and she did it well and she did the best with what she had and at the end of the day that's all you can do you know I don't think your kids will grow up resenting you for doing the best that you can and I think that every family is really different but my point of view is that whatever you can afford whatever is within your means that you don't necessarily have to use your own hands your own energy to do let it be done i also think the other thing is you know i'm really lucky because i have a husband he's swedish and i've never ever once imagined that i am the lead parent i'm really not that is so rare it's so rare i refuse normally happens this thing called default right or she fault yeah yeah but it's like who's like whose fault is that yeah maybe it's the mothers because maybe you naturally took the lead and maybe you told him like you should hold the baby like this and you need to change the nappy like this and the way that we make sandwiches is like this i'm like let him make a bad sandwich let him make a bad sandwich i don't give a shit do you know what i mean it's like you can't micromanage your way through somebody else helping you let it go it's not that deep do you know what i mean like that's like that's really what i think because if you want help you've also got to take the help in the shape the help comes 100 right so i was like i used to watch my husband and i used to think oh my god is he really going to put that outfit on my child you know I'm from East London we like to look fresh and I'd be like the whole thing would just not be working I was like they're dressed we're walking out the house just let it go you know it's like maybe you know he would be more likely to put on a movie or put a kid in front of an iPad than I would be I'm like you know what he's got it and I have a book and a cup of tea in my hand just like just let it go you know what's to say that my way's right and his way's wrong and so I don't want to micromanage my husband I'm uninterested in that and I let him be the type of parent but I do insist on 50 50 and of course it's not like always you know half and half sometimes like right now he has the kids he's doing the whole thing and other times I have to lean in but like when you look at it and you zoom out it's not I am not here to parent my husband and my kids yes you're a partner not a Let him do it.

27:32I'm like, let him get it wrong. Do you think culturally, because in Sweden it's very different culture, right? You are absolutely right about that. It really is. The culture in Sweden is such a matriarchal society. Yes. And you see it. You see the dads in the cafes. And listen, it's a much smaller country. The way the society is structured in terms of like maternity leave is that a couple can take their maternity leave split and they basically get fully paid. right so we know that in most countries certainly in the uk and and even worse in america that isn't the setup but at the end of the day when we start talking about starting with yourself it's like that means you have to look internally like what are you doing what did you allow your partner to get on with what are you happy to outsource are you like trying to control everything every interaction now i know that that has been me and in the beginning i was so you know when you've got that first little precious baby you're like everything needs to be just so and then i was like but does it I actually would rather just take the break like I would rather have my husband involved and also make sure that I'm like sort of training these kids to fall over and go dad as quickly and as soon as they would go mum right that is you that is you either swoop in and be the first one or like you let that be dad too you let that be your partner too and I think those things are really important and that comes from us and I love how you talk about you know obviously not micromanaging jets but also not micromanaging your kids don't have time don't have time i don't think because i i do this i'm a bit of yeah oh no i refute you know i'm a bit of a micromanager with the kids no listen i feel like that is that's just like what's happening in the culture i remember the like not too long ago a mum wrote to me and she was like our kids are in an argument and a i think they should go and see like the school counselor and b i think we should like arrange like a sorry note from one kid to the other and you know like a bit of an intervention and i was like or we can let them figure it the fuck out themselves because i don't have time for this nor do i think you should have time for it and don't you think they should just figure that out like that's part of becoming a person we're in this weird intense parenting yeah but you know what motherhood didn't get harder the expectations got harder yes and i think that you have to again decide well what are the expectations because you're literally training your kids to need you so much because you are micromanaging like at the end of the day if you are doing the entirety of your schedule of your kids schedule and ferrying them from pillar to post and making sure they have everything that they need in their bag and then like asking them like what they had you know once you open the packed lunch box from lunch like if you do all of that how is that kid ever figuring out what it takes to do it themselves you're basically setting yourself up to have a kid who's like what next mom like I just I don't have time for it and I don't think it's a good use of energy now listen I'm not sitting here and going I'm perfect I've got it all worked out but I do think we've hit a place where parenting has gone bananas and it's just not needed you know back in the day if my mom had like an apple and a packet of crisps in the house she was like winning off you go figure it out now society's changed right but it's like do you really need to control like every single thing that they eat every single interaction that they have do you really like did you even have playdates when you were there was no such thing as a play date no i didn't have a play date just kind of we used to we used to watch tv right yeah but you would just go around someone's door to play this is the thing so i don't know that all of that is a net positive i don't know that being the person that does every single thing for your kids is that good for you and of course you'll be like but that's really helpful for my child but what about you that's just exhausting yeah that just gives you too many things to do on your to-do list yeah I don't want to do that so you look at your list and you're like what could the kids actually do themselves I guarantee you like I get it I have little ones too but I guarantee you a bunch of the stuff they could do themselves and then the other stuff when I look at my four-year-olds I'm Do they need to be scheduled every single day?

31:42Do they need an activity all the time? Do they need to go to every single birthday party? Because if they go to the birthday party, I have to buy a card. I have to buy the present. I have to get them there. I have to get them back. I probably, when they're little, need to go and hang out. Hang out at the party with the other mums who I don't even know and I'm not friends with. No. What about skipping it? What about just not going? You speak the truth. I love how you say you stopped being ambitious for your kids. Yeah. Tell me about the piano. This is one of my best ones. And this is why I say I'm not always like totally perfect.

32:16So we got a new house and in the house was a piano. And I, you know, in my head, I was like, this looks so beautiful. You had a vision. You know, of course. I had a total vision of the whole family, like sitting around and, you know, having like piano sessions and singing. And I really tried my best to push my kids into piano lessons, starting with the big ones. I was like guys you should do piano lessons like no thanks mum I've got enough to do what about you no thanks mum then I like got the little ones and eventually my husband was like do you know who needs a piano lesson it's you and I was like what he's like you need to be the piano player you need to be the one of us who actually gets on the piano because nobody else cares this is your ambition and I was like oh shit he's totally right it's like me projecting and so I now kind of know when i'm like is this me like i would love my big two kids to be like really sporty they ain't sporty i took them they didn't want to do that you might not like sporty kids is a whole other ball game when you've got to be at these matches all the time you know what i'm so glad i'm not i'm not gonna lie it's just one less thing to do on the weekend but the truth is that when you carry that type of ambition for your kids it's really difficult to keep up and i think that you really set yourself up for a fall when you're constantly projecting your own ideas of what you want them to do yeah on them and they don't feel that good about it either so i just decided like let's just not do that it's that simple you know like some of this stuff is not complicated it's like let's not i love it you say this phrase that you heard repeatedly from your mum and nan which is no one's better than you yeah nor are you better than anyone else i mean i just love that it's a good one isn't it i tell my kids exactly but i'm wondering what's the phrase if they were here what would they say is the phrase that they keep here you repeating work hard you know i think that what's interesting is when you grew up a certain way which is to say that i grew up with very very little like poor and like needing stuff that when you've got kids that are growing up with a lot of privilege in the beginning I felt like I was trying to engineer hard yeah I was thinking that do you do you say no you can't have those new shoes knowing that you could probably get them for free like the next day totally because you're just like god like why do you lot have so much and it's so easy for you and also how are you going to have kids that have any ambition or any grit that that's always my worry I'm like you want for nothing like I need it I was like I need like you know new shoes and I like want to get out of the place that I'm from and so ambition for me was relatively easy to come by because I was like I gotta get out you got the fire must be yeah there must be something better my kids are living at large fresh prince of bel-air do you know what I mean literally so I always worried about that but I think that what my kids hear from me and what I insist on is you just need to care about one thing and that needs to be something that you care about it isn't my ambition for you and you need to work hard because the baseline expectation is that you're going to be excellent at something.

35:27And I don't mean that you've got to be really good at it, but you need to put 100 % of your effort into something and that's good enough for me. And that's all I ever ask for my kids because they see me get up every day, they see me go to work, they know what's possible, but they have to figure that out for themselves. And that's the other thing. Now, I am not constantly projecting what I need onto them because I'm too busy doing it for myself. Yes. I would rather go, do you know what? I'm going to keep this energy for all the things that I want to do. And you're going to see that. And either you get the message or you don't.

35:59But I can't hothouse you into like ambition. I can't make you gritty. Like that's just like not possible. What's it like culturally where you live? Is it like kids are doing seven languages by the time they're three and it's like. Some of them, not mine. I got that. Definitely not mine. um you know i think that america is um you know it's so interesting before i moved to america and before he passed away my my father's husband said you know america is the best of everything and the worst of everything and i think that that is really true i'm super super grateful to america as a country for what it's given to me and the opportunity because i don't think what i've done in eight years is possible anywhere else yeah but equally i don't need to explain to you like you only have to watch the news for 10 seconds to understand how tumultuous it is and how kind of heart-wrenching that place can be in so many different ways um but by the same token i you know i'm an optimist and i think that what i've chosen to take from the place and what i i think what it enables my kids and certainly my family there's so many great things about it like Like I look at, you know, I remember when I first started my first ever company, I found it so difficult to go into a client and present.

37:18I look at my kids and I'm like, they've been doing show and tell since they were three. They can like hold up something and speak to it in such an American way. I'm like, oh, my God, I didn't teach them that. That came from the school system. And so there are certain things that are really amazing about it. And then there's other things where I'm like, oh, my God, where's my little English accent children? How do you feel about the school system? because the entrepreneurs that I look to, so many of whom didn't fit in at school, right? Because in some ways you could say it's actually not designed for the exact qualities that you need to be an entrepreneur.

37:54Rule breaking, questioning. Totally. Focusing on what you're really good at. And yet kind of your kids are at school. How do you square that? Do you talk to them about that? Or are you like, no, we're at school, we follow the system and this is how we do it? You know, I think that what's very interesting, my kids go to a very progressive school meaning that um in america i feel like that there are so many different styles of education and because of the sort of learning needs of my eldest child i ended up sending him to a very progressive school perhaps even more progressive than i am by nature because that's what suited his learning style he's dyslexic as am i and they just had such an unbelievable way of teaching and a way of thinking that i kind of adopted that for him because it was right for him and then like it's such a long process to apply for schools i was like all of my kids are going to this yeah yeah yeah that's another one of your philosophies shortcut i'm like you're all going there um but what has been wonderful is actually to see a system that actually is very kind of child-centered and really really works for them and then i think that you have to couple that with a lot of like what do we care about at home because all that is inevitable is change, right?

39:07Right now we're talking about AI taking over the world and what is important. I'm focused on my kids loving learning, like whatever it is, having curiosity, having an idea of like being good at one thing because I think those skills are really transferable. I'm lucky because I feel like I have a school that has a non-traditional way of thinking about education and thank goodness they're having a better start of it than I was because I just feel like my dyslexia wasn't even recognised at school. God knows what I'd have been up to. How did you, so many people that I speak to that had those challenges at school, they create these quite strong beliefs about themselves.

39:46I'm not smart, I can't succeed. How did you dodge that? Did you dodge that? I think that was so largely down to my mum and what she told me. When she said, no one is better than you. You believed it. Oh my God, I believed it. I was like, nobody's better than me. And I really honestly did. And that's not to say that I haven't had, you know, questions about what I'm good at. But I never felt imposter syndrome. I was like, if not me, then who? Like, who? And I really believed that. But I also, you have to understand, like, how hard I worked. Like, if I don't know something, I am like a maniac. I will just find out.

40:24I'll figure out. And I have no shame. You know, I miss that gene of being like, you know, like maybe you should like not ask. Maybe you should like, you know, pretend that, you know, I don't have any of that. I will literally put my hands up in my own, you know, company and sit with a bunch of junior people and go, can you show me how that works? Show me how you do that. I have no idea. I just don't have that that type of ego. And I have a big ego, but I don't have that type of ego. I am just in this like I really believe in this idea of always being in learning mode yeah meaning that wherever you are I can come to you today and I'm like I'm gonna learn something from you I'm gonna pick up something that you know and that your background taught you and that your guests taught you that I would have no idea about and I think when you have that type of curiosity you always learn stuff and things just happen and you have like no arrogance about the situation so I think that that's what it is I just like going to every situation imagining if I don't know I can get to know and if I do know I'm going to share it and early in your career did you did you still have that you know when you walk into those rooms and it's like oh so many people how did you get that confidence just be like I don't know but still be able to emanate and emulate that sort of leadership quality that you just have yeah how do you do the two I think that you know I think this interesting like when you think about confidence and you think about resilience because they're two things traits that I have that I think are really useful and I kind of call on every day and both are exactly the same you have to go through stuff to get confident meaning that you have to go through stuff and it has to not go well and then you need to have the ability to look back and know I got through it like I'm on the other side of that what happened why did this happen and be really thoughtful about it and it's the same with resilience I don't think you wake up confident or resilient but you go through so many things that you learn it's like a muscle and it builds over time because you're just like oh like that thing didn't kill me that embarrassment wasn't the end of the world that pitch that I didn't win wasn't the end of my company and like so all of those things they build and they build and they build and over time that's your collective experience that's your collective understanding of the way that the world works and so i think i just know better to understand that like who cares about that stuff as much as i care about it like nobody is watching you as much as you're watching you so true do you know what i mean it's like nobody's sitting down thinking oh look at zoe she really missed that it's like no they're just not and so i just know that the more stuff i do the better i get and i really try not to be that hard on myself and I tell you the reason I have been around in business for so long and I watched all of these guys all of these men make so many mistakes so many businesses opened and then closed so much money you know one and then lost like and then like rolling on and starting another thing and I was like oh that's interesting because all the women that I know make one mistake and everyone's like oh look at her there she was thought she could do it thought she could do all this thing and I was like oh so there's like one rule for them and one rule for us and I just refuse to subscribe to it that is why this book is really important because I am honestly trying to tell everybody it's like you get a lot of chances you don't get one big chance you actually can totally mess up and I have and you can totally have like public failure and I've had those you can say the wrong thing and do the wrong thing and think that you're charlie big bananas and everything goes sideways the next day and it's okay because you're going to get another chance the only thing that is unforgivable is not learning from the situation so you kind of have to gather yourself and go what was my part in all of that like what did i do and what are the patterns that i have that constantly repeat themselves because you'll find when you have mistakes in your life they kind of usually all come from the same thing it's like the same sort of mindset the same way thinking something that you keep telling yourself and you can trace it all back and you're like i gotta stop doing that what lesson keeps repeating for you that you haven't quite nailed yet oh what lesson does keep repeating for me that is a great question you know here's the thing i have such enthusiasm for things that I you know definitely early in my career found myself saying yes too much and what I know for sure is that you cannot be a people pleaser and a leader and so I just got really good at saying no and you know I think that maybe there's like a little English thing there because saying no I'm like is that that's not polite you can't just say no and I'm like no it's it's fine it's polite you can just say no and you don't need to go into some big explanation you don't need to like you know make an excuse you can just say no and you do not need to walk around pleasing everybody else you just need to please yourself that's it because everybody else you know they like move on they go to the next thing they forget they're not thinking about it oh they're not thinking about it but you you sit there you go I can't believe I should have done this thing it's like that that would be my big thing that i think i've really trained myself into not people pleasing not saying yes to everything that comes my way and and discernment is really underrated it must be so hard for you though because i imagine everything that comes to you is kind of stuff that's fun and you probably want to do yeah true but that's the part of the trade-off so i feel like oh my god i've got all these opportunities you know this is such a poor person mentality i'm like i need to do that and do that and do that yeah that's scarcity mindset There is that there and it kind of happens.

46:19But at the end of the day, you have to decide what's most important. And I think that I have a very, very clear set of goals. And I say no to everything that isn't getting me closer to my goals. And that is the way you keep your energy as well. That's the way you end up not depleted. And I think when you say yes to everything, yes to the school, yes to your husband, yes to your kids, yes to your work, yes to some lady down the gym that you hardly know. like what are you doing like don't do well every time you say that you're you're pushing yourself down aren't you yeah so you end up being like number 23 on your list it's like that's not that's not the thing to do yeah i want to talk to you about women in leadership women in business because that's what i always want to talk about yeah because there's so many things in the book i was like yes you know obviously we we can't have this balance you talk so brilliantly about boundaries why is it do you think that so many women struggle to put in place of those those boundaries that they do find themselves just pulled in every direction and what is it in your kind of operating manual that's enabled you to be like no I leave at five no I go out three nights a week no I don't do this no I don't do this what what is it so I think there's a couple of things there the first thing is and I've said this like I put myself really high on my list and because I have that vision right and and with the vision i'm not talking about vision boards or manifesting i'm talking about an idea for how you want your life to run now and in the future and with that comes a set of principles that for me it's like i'm leaving at 5 p.m i'm leaving at 5 p.m because i like to have dinner with my kids and i like to do bath and bedtime and oftentimes i put them to bed and then i go back out or i do work again but like that time for me is sacred and so i have to protect that but equally it's really important for me to model that behavior in my office because that signals to everyone else you can leave at five if you're a parent you can too go home and I think that women struggle with it because there aren't enough models in the culture of people saying no I'm putting myself first and I don't need to be like this you know juggling act and do this juggling act to prove to somebody else.

48:36That is not it. You feeling exhausted at the end of the day isn't a sign of achievement. It's a sign you've got something wrong. You're doing something wrong if that's how you feel. You're doing too much. And that isn't a good feeling day in and day out. Now, I have days where I put the pedal to the metal and I go for it. But it can't be every day. I've been miserable. So you have to figure out what is most important to you. And that's where the trade-offs come in and this sort of like idea that you're going to balance everything all the time it's like where did that come from I live my life like totally out of balance because when you are leaning into one thing something else has to give so you won't feel balanced that day I haven't seen my kid for three nights because I've been in London and I've been promoting my book I spent two years bloody writing a thing it's like that's the most important thing right now it's like they will see me when I get back.

49:30But if I torture myself about that, then I won't enjoy the fruits of this project that I've done and this like beautiful thing that I've given birth to. Like that would be so like such a bad use of energy and time. And so I think that you have to think like, what is external? What are the things that are being put on you? Because you have a really busy life and you have a lot to do. And what is the stuff that you're doing to yourself? And leadership, because ultimately this book is about self-leadership. Leadership is about you making the decision, not being led, not having all the decisions made for you.

50:02So you've got to decide what's the stuff that is really key and what is the stuff that I can let go of. That is the most important question that you can ask yourself as a woman right now. Like take the self-leadership, really, really important. And to do a really, really, sorry, take the self-leadership really seriously. Because one of my like most important things, and I think this kind of happened as I got older, is you have to get close to yourself. You have to like understand like your wants and your needs and your ambition. And the only way that you do that is by going like deep inside. And I know for some people that might just sound like a little bit woo woo.

50:48But like I always talk about the same thing. Diane von Fustenberg who says Emma the most important relationship you'll ever have is the relationship you have with yourself and unless you understand that intrinsically unless you've figured out like this is the stuff that I most care about like you really won't get anywhere and and I know that feeling of sort of you know feeling like you're standing still like things are not moving like things just sort of like go and go and go and you're like where did the time go where did the year go well my kids are getting so much older it's like but did you sit down at the beginning of the year and say this is what I want this year to be these are the pinnacle moments that we must have as a family these are the things that I need to get out of my career because if you did and you do and then you orientate all your decision making around those things you're going to sit there in December and be like haha nailed it 2026 was like incredible and if you didn't do it do it for next year like figure it out you give us the rope you tell us how to do it that's I literally like I had to road map it out because I write it down I have write everything down yeah so i've got a brain like a sieve and so for me it's like i write it all down and it lives like on my phone in the notes app and it says emma 2026 and i have them going back i love how you talk about it's not just work it's not i know last year last year you had swimming lessons for you right can you even believe it i took swimming lessons for two years with the twins how's the swimming going oh babe i can swim at last i mean listen i ain't winning any medals that's for sure but but i'm a half elegant swimmer you know it's i'm not like like anymore but you know even something like that like i think that like and and i'm sure there's like so much data around this but when you challenge yourself yeah and you do new stuff something novel they call it right you increase your ability to learn so even if you are a woman you know and you've had a few children and this is not how you live and you don't currently make plans you can start at 45 yeah like you can start at any age you could be a 30 year old woman that's right at the kind of precipice and beginning of a great career or you can be a teenager that's sort of like coming out of school or you can be you know in midlife you could sit there in your 50s and you make the decision to like i don't like the way this is going i'm going to change it's like our mutual friend mel oh look at mel i mean imagine she was our age you know i mean look at she started we're the same age let's just say what she 54 now she's just had arguably her best year I think she's had now yeah she's like fully in her flow at this point in her life and let me tell you like Mel is living a dream right now and she's doing that because she got so honest with herself and we all get to witness that and we all get to benefit from it but I do really think that you've got to do it yourself like I don't think that anybody's coming to kind of give you a handbook you've got to make and have those realizations for yourself and then you've got a guy kind of like action it i love it let me ask you the final questions quick fire oh motherhood is teaching me dot dot motherhood is teaching me i mean first of all it's taught me a lot of patience um but it really is teaching me that my philosophy of starting with yourself really is the right one what's something that you valued before motherhood that you no longer value i guess it would be like more of like the frivolous things in my life you know i've really spent a lot of time just like not doing stuff like do you know me like not like letting sort of like letting time go past in a way that I didn't value as much now I'm like so precious a minute is like everything yes you know and I think about that all the time that's why it's like I'm obsessed with memories and I'm really like I'm gonna make like this Christmas the most special perfect brilliant Christmas imaginable because to me it's like so precious and I think God like Gray will be 18 soon and maybe I want to go and spend Christmas with some other family with some woman that he's met um but you know I really think about that so much and so I guess the answer to your question would be time what's something that you didn't value before motherhood and you really value now I don't think I put as much value

55:22on how I do things you know now I think I'm in this constant mode of like modeling the type of woman that I want to become not just for myself but also for them and so I'm really considered in so many ways now more considered in the way that I speak even though I still you know like swear like a chimney sweep but um I think I'm much more considered in things now if you were talking to your first time pregnant self she sat here what would you say eat less first pregnancy i was like a lunatic well they tell you you're eating for two which is a lie it's such a lie it's a lie um i lie i i you know i was actually so happy to just like sit there and have like this moment in my life where i had every little thing that i ever wanted um what i would tell ah this is one what i would actually tell my first time pregnant self is it's going to be okay because you know those like few months after when you are like everything is so clouded and you've got this little baby and you're like what like I just remember thinking this is gonna last forever I'm never gonna feel like me again and so I would have definitely just told myself that it is going to be okay it's beautiful last one what's one gift that you would give to all the mothers in the world and why my book and listen I really mean it yeah and it's not the book it's the messages in the book because I think that life could be easier and I think that we could all collectively take a deep breath and give ourselves a little bit credit.