Taking Responsibility: Are We Thinking About Success and Ambition All Wrong? (Emma Grede)

17:48Amol Rajan:Line by line in a diary. She'd sit there with the Abbey National and she had her little book. So I understood, like, here's what the heating costs and here's what the gas costs. And here's what we owe Milky and here's how much our groceries cost. It's a bit like looking at P &L now. Literally. But to me, there was a sense of like, okay, like prioritization. Here's what has to be paid. Here's what's a must have. Here's what's a nice to have. But it wasn't that sense of like, you know, we have plenty. It's like, here's what we need to do to get through our life. And I still think like that. even to this day, even when that's not necessary for me.

18:17Amol Rajan:So it's interesting you talk about your mum. Reading the book, quite a lot of what you say, not all of it. You know, I'm a bloke, I'm starting a business, and I felt like it was written to me and for me as well. But quite a lot of what you do and what you do on your podcast, which features a lot of extraordinarily powerful women. And I should say, for those who don't know, you're on the board of the Obama Foundation. You spent a lot of time with Michelle Obama. You're really trying to make women and working women think differently about their careers, the trade-offs, the reality of things like what we call the motherhood penalty.

18:49Amol Rajan:What are the old thoughts that you would like to disentangle, attack, break down when it comes to A, women and B, motherhood? Well, you know, the motherhood thing is a really, really big one because I think that all women that I know, working women that work either in or out of the home are completely exhausted. and I don't think that motherhood got harder. I think the expectations around motherhood got really hard and all I'm saying is what works for me is not walking around with this ball of guilt and if you have guilt, which most mums will, you've got to make sure that you're measuring that guilt against your own expectations, not something that you're getting from the outside.

19:29So not this idea that you saw somebody doing this like big performanting parenting thing on Instagram and you've decided, oh my goodness, I'm not doing that and I need to live up to that impossible standard, but rather that you have a vision for your family and how you guys want to live, and then you live up to that.

19:45Amol Rajan:You're not for a minute disputing that there is something called the motherhood penalty, that there are lots and lots of women who do work and who at the absolute moment in their career, maybe they're in their late 20s, early 30s, maybe a bit older, when they want to be soaring and they see blokes, frankly, you know, really soaring, you know, going up three or four levels of the career ladder very, very quickly. They have to take several years out and not just several years out, but they're kind of absolutely knackered and they want men to pull their weight. The motherhood penalty is real and it is the, I mean, the evidence shows it is the main driver still of the gap between men and women at the top of the tree.

20:20100%. In fact, I'm reinforcing that. And I'm also saying that it is something that you have to manage, right? Nobody is coming to help you manage that conundrum. And I think that actually what women have been sold around, you know waiting to have kids pushing out having kids for their careers is crippling women i actually think that and listen i'm certainly not advocating for teenage pregnancy nothing near it but also waiting until you're 38 probably isn't a plan either because at the end of the day there is a biological reality as to when women are naturally going to conceive now i can say this because i've got four kids i had my first two kids naturally i had my second two kids with a lot of help i went through rounds of IVF, ended up having my second two by surrogate because I had waited too long.

21:08So as a boss and a leader and somebody who has sat in my organization and said, don't worry, girls, we have a benefit. You can freeze your eggs. Perhaps that isn't the ideal thing to do. There is a reality to when we should be having and thinking about having children. And that's why I talk about seasons in your life. There will be moments when you have to put the pedal to the medal in my 20s all I did was work I was 150 then there was this period early 30s where I kind of had to go all right do you know what I'm gonna go to work every day but I've got these little babies and I talk a lot about accepting help knowing when to lean in knowing when to lean out but it has to be about your decisions not trying to live up to impossible standards do you ever relax I do and it's so funny I relax you sound quite defensive all of a sudden no you know what I'll tell you No, I love that you say that because I always think people think I don't relax because people imagine I found like a 25th hour in the day.

22:02The reality is I have a lot of help. I do. There's so much that people look at me and they go, God, she must be doing a lot. Let's talk about the things that I don't do because that is what makes women feel bad. This idea that you think, God, she's out there killing it and she's got these four kids. I don't cook. I don't clean. I'm not at the school gala. I'm not at the school gate. There's a bunch of stuff that I don't do. And as opposed to like hiding behind this and trying to put forward an image of like perfection, I'm actually saying, do you know what? I had to trade off. I had to make a decision about what type of parent I wanted to be.

22:35And sometimes that was about putting myself first. I am a mother of four who says, actually, guess what? I'm the top of my list. I am right on the top. And people go, goodness me, that's so selfish. And I'm like, actually, that is my choice. And so I am doing the opposite. I don't want people to sit here and feel guilty. I want them to know the truth of what it takes to be really successful.

22:55Amol Rajan:But don't you think, and I get that from your book, but don't you think that some women feel that they're not really allowed to say what you've just said? That's the point, but you need more models in the culture that actually come out and tell the truth. So that's on us, right? If you're going to put forward the impossible reality, guess what you're going to get back? A mirror. So I'm actually here saying there's another way to do this stuff. It's so interesting. So I, um, I, my wife is a sociologist who looks at professor. She's a professor of family society. And I try and leave some of this stuff to her.

23:25Amol Rajan:And I don't talk too much about our relationship because I do have the thing about our family life is private for that reason. And others, I don't put my kids on social media, but there's a very particular one thing which is relevant to what you say, which I just mentioned here. When I get asked to do stuff as I do all the time, very lucky to have had the things and opportunities I've done. I've had, I get asked to do things. I am quite good now at saying thanks but no thanks I can't I've got too much on and I've got four young kids and I just don't think women are able to do that or allowed to do that in the same way I just I'm not sure that women can say I'm really sorry I've got four young children at home because it's like there's a sort of thing of you know what well yeah that's your you're meant to sort that out because you're their mum whereas for dads if dads do it they're total bloody heroes and I think that's ridiculous it's the same with the school gates and I say this is a fully fully signed up.

24:11Amol Rajan:Thank you. Modern dad and a hypocrite probably. If dad turns up it's amazing how many women at the school gates not men because they're doing it as well but who go oh my god what a hero he's turning up. Wow. What a great guy. So great these years. He left work early and I do think it is extraordinary still the uneven application of standards isn't it? No but it's so crazy that you say that because there's also the inverse works right when I turn up at the school they're like oh my goodness it's so great to see you. You're meant to run these billion dollar brands and you're still here. My husband does the same thing He probably does the same amount of school run dud.

24:41And they're like, hello, mate. Like, you know, it's just insane that that is the expectation and that we're in this way. But again, I think that we have to take a little bit of responsibility for this, because if we keep trying to put forward this idea of perfection all the time, then that's the expectation. And in my book, I talk constantly about failure. I talk about what I don't do. And I talk about the tradeoffs that I've made. And sometimes that just needs to be said for other people to feel relaxed and good about doing it themselves.

25:07Amol Rajan:So let's talk about what all this adds up to. So the book is an attack on some old and in your view, kind of outdated ways of thinking, old thoughts, as you call them, on these big, these big, you know, the big pillars, the big issues in our lives. What does it add up to? Because you are obviously a paragon of social mobility. You're one of the most successful. And by that, I don't just mean wealthy. I mean, successful transatlantic business women of your generation. You're an entrepreneur, you're an investor, you've launched and run big, big companies. and yet you've left the UK. And I'm not saying you've done that because of a verdict on the UK, but there is a prevailing mood in the UK.

25:46Amol Rajan:In fact, we just released, as we were talking recently, an episode of this podcast with a leading pollster, James Kanagasurim, where he talks about a real spirit of anxiety, concerns about decline, concerns about the UK. And I just wonder what your book sort of adds up to. Is it a way of saying to lots of young people who are having a tough time at the moment, you can do better, you can be better, you can actually take control of your life you have more power than you think if you start with yourself i exactly that because i think actually where we are right now is that there is so much noise and there's so much confusion and there's such uh almost like desperation around what should i be doing like will it matter anyway and i think that we have to look at history right if you look at history, there have been major moments and major changes throughout the last, you know, two, three hundred years that have transformed the way people come into work and what they do with their lives.

26:41Right now, we're in one of those transformative moments with AI. But at the end of the day, humans have a way of figuring things out. And what I'm saying is, despite whatever noise and circumstances, the political climate, the economic climate, that if you actually do what it is that you need to do, you apply yourself, you become excellent at something, it will probably work out for you. You cannot be crippled by fear. You cannot be crippled by the unknown. And I just think that where we are right now with all the uncertainty that's there, the single best thing that you can do is go inside, look at yourself and figure out what you can be absolutely great at and then work really, really hard to do that.

27:23Amol Rajan:Your radical idea, and you described it as radical elsewhere, which is, I think, I'm just looking for you. You've got your pillars of success. Yeah. My basic rules for success, page 275. I shifted my mindset from blaming the circumstances of my life to taking complete responsibility for myself. Elsewhere, you've described this idea of self-responsibility as you've used the word radical. Why was it such a radical idea for you to take control of your own life? I think where I came from, there was just like a very blamey culture. It was always somebody else's fault. Council's fault. It's the government's fault.

27:57Council's fault. The government's fault. No one's picking up our bins. We can't get a doctor's appointment, this and that. And actually, there's a reality to all of that stuff. It wasn't untrue, but there was a choice. You could wake up and default, go down, down, down and be in a spiral and no movement. Or you could lift yourself up and be in motion. And in my life, I've chosen to constantly be in motion, constantly be in learning mode, constantly trying to move forward. And actually, I really believe that it is that attitude and that mindset that has allowed me to do the things. And I want to be really clear.

28:31I don't believe that you can manifest your way into success, that you can vision board your way out of Plasto. That kind of, you know, ambition has to meet really hard work. But when you come at things, at people, at, you know an opportunity into a job with an attitude of i'll do that yes please put your hand up what comes back at you is really interesting what comes back at you is opportunity is you know great attitude is like more and more and more abundance but you did visualize didn't you you

29:01Amol Rajan:did visualize i do i do i do all of it this is a really weird thing i've got i want to like get a kind of like little list of your superpowers for how you did it not escape plasto because that's unfair to plasto but you know you've gone from plasto to la and done extraordinary things in your life but one of the things that's really striking and it's a weird thing to say but if anyone watches pumping iron which is a documentary about arnold schwarzenegger such a good documentary one of the all-time great documentaries across any genre i agree and arnold schwarzenegger who for quite a long time in the 80s and 90s probably the most famous man alive went on to a career in california as governor he was from a small place in austria and he had this vision he had other people other muscle men of russia on the wall posters on the wall and i my big thing i'm here is a product of failure and you talk a lot about failure but I wanted to be a cricket player so there's a guy called Shane Warne late great Australian spin bowler all I wanted was to be Shane Warne and I dreamt and dreamt and dreamt and in the end I wasn't good enough so I stumbled into journalism itself but there was a power to the vision and envisioning and you did didn't you what was the what was the young Emma's vision you know my vision was so clear because I'm like an absolute like fiend for the holidays for celebrations for any moments and so for me it was always anchored around this idea of Christmas and I would draw this like in my head what was a beautiful big house with a giant window and a Christmas tree and just like to me what signalled like, you know, luxury, this bloody credenza.

30:23Amol Rajan:I don't even know what a credenza is. Just sideboard, I reckon. Cupboard, we might call it in England. You know, when it gets fancy and Danish in 1970s, it becomes a credenza, I think, darling. When you paid a lot of money for it, it becomes credenza-ish. So I basically like had that visualisation. You know, I'm not a good drawer, But I would draw that over and over and over again. And I really did imagine myself in the pages of the magazines. When I talk about having an obsession with fashion, I would buy these magazines, I would tear out the advertisements and literally cut the little catwalk pictures out and file them away by brand.

30:58And I imagined myself in that world. I imagined myself taking part. I imagined the house and all of the things. and it wasn't until I had my first child, Grey, who's 12 years old now, that I came home, you know, you're all emotional. He was born prematurely and it was all lovely Christmas and I kind of looked, sat down in my living room and looked and I was like... In Clerkenwell. Yeah, in Clerkenwell. So nice. My first house that I bought and I literally was like, oh my goodness, that's my visual. That's a visualisation. The window was there, the Christmas tree was there, the credenza was there.

31:32Amol Rajan:The cupboard. And I was like, the cupboard. And it was magical to me. I was like, are you kidding? My husband was like, isn't it amazing? We've got a baby. And I was like, no, I'm crying because I made this happen. Like I imagined this thing. But what does that do to your ambition when you've achieved the thing you visualised? That's a wonderful question. Thank you very much. You can come up next week anytime. Wonderful. That's it for Radical this week. Wonderful question. I've got to learn to draw better, I guess. Now, do you know what's so interesting? what happens when you're ambitious is that the bar constantly gets higher and it's not like it gets higher for myself I now start to think wow like how many other people could be affected by my success like how many other people that grew up like me could literally see their dreams come true because they see me because they know that you can come from plaster and it actually is possible.

32:28So I think the reality of my ambition is just stretched now. Imagine there are a million little Emmas. I'm like, how amazing.

32:58Amol Rajan:whenever we release a new episode and you'll never miss out. Right, back to Emma Greed.

33:06Amol Rajan:So I want to ask you some specific advice for young people. We've got a lot of listeners on this podcast. A lot of them are young and a lot of them look up to you. You're very kindly sticking around to answer some of their questions. Oh, yes, I am. In our bonus episode. I've got some specific questions about social mobility. One is about accent. I did a bunch of documentaries about social mobility a few years ago. We've had incredible guests on this podcast some of whom come from other parts of England, talk about accents. And the single biggest thing that I've learned, and I've spent probably about 30 years thinking about this stuff, is that accent paranoia is a much bigger part of being British in accent pride.

33:39Amol Rajan:A lot of people are very, and I do mean this specifically, ashamed of how they speak. They think they sound stupid. And by the way, kids, if you don't believe me, go watch the documentaries I made, which start with pictures of people from Hull and elsewhere saying, I think my accent makes me sound stupid. You've got a very strong voice, but you've also got a very particular accent. Oh, yeah. I noticed that you don't pronounce, I think about this quite deeply, your T's. So you said... Pilates, burrata. You just said social mobility. Yeah. Would you have said social mobility? Sadiq Khan, the mayor of the city or city of London, who's like me from tooting, because when I grew up, it was tooting.

34:20Amol Rajan:Then it became tooting. He says city. Did you say city and social mobility before you went to LA? Absolutely not. Right. Now, people don't understand you in America. You try. I used to stay at the Mercer Hotel. You get in a taxi, you go, take me to Prince of Mercer. And they go, where? Prince of Mercer. Prince of Mercer. Prince of Mercer? And they're like, oh. Oh, Prince of Mercer. Oh, Prince of Mercer. I'm going to take you right there. So has it been unconscious? Yes. So you're not. It's conscious, unconscious. So you, you, I've been there for eight years and I think I'm as East London as it comes.

34:55Amol Rajan:I think you're very East London. I think I'm very East London. And of course, if I've been in London for a couple of days, like it starts to hit, it comes back. But you don't consciously change. And if you're interviewing Michelle Obama or Ted Sarandos, you don't, you don't think I'm going to change how I speak. Oh no. And I will tell you that growing up, I like coming from East London, you are always super proud of your accent. Like you are not, not from that. I remember going to, living in Birmingham for a bit, and people would say the same thing. I don't enjoy my accent. I'm going to try to move down to London and get rid of that accent.

35:25And I'd always be like, but it's so charming. It's such a cute accent. I never understood it. What happens when you go to America is two incredible things. First of all, you stand out. And standing out has always been a good thing for me. I've always had correlated that positively because it's like, you're going to notice me. The other thing is, no one knows the difference between me and the King of England. They're like, oh, they think I'm like, you know, fresh out of Harry Potter. They have no idea that my accent has the connotations in England that it does, that I would be lower class, working class, like whatever it might be.

35:58And so in a way, there is no reason for you to do that shape shifting. The reason you do the Pilates Burrata is so people can actually understand you. Because if you ask for water, you ain't getting it. You got to ask for some water. Can I ask some water, please? So people can understand you. So it has nothing to do with that kind of shape-shifting because, you know, no one knows the difference.

36:17Amol Rajan:But that part comes from your confidence and your confidence perhaps comes from success. We'll come back to confidence. What about geography? As I say, social mobility, mobility, mobility. Let's do mobility. Mobility. Social mobility. Social mobility, which is how I would have said it for about 38 years of my life, I think. Very big theme on this podcast, big theme in my life. We had an amazing young man called Joe Seddon, set up a brilliant social enterprise kind of tech platform called Zero Gravity there, sat there a few weeks ago. he said the following words in the uk geography is destiny and one thing i'm very struck by about your remarkable career we've had successfully launched these multiple million dollar businesses billion dollar businesses billion dollar businesses and brands is you have always been where the action is at and i mean that in two senses i mean that in terms of geography and i mean that also in terms of timing we'll come back to timing but that would you say to people sorry facts just facts It's just facts.

37:08Amol Rajan:Would you say to people, because we live in a country which has got extreme regional inequality, Britain is unusual in that we don't, like a lot of European nations, have a tier of second string cities. They go to a lot of European cities, countries. They've got a lot of second tier cities that are still powerful after the capital. We don't have that to the same degree in the UK. And there are lots of people, frankly, who are left behind in this country. If you want to have the kind of success a man greed has had, do you need to go to where the action is? And that means the big city. I think so, yes.

37:40And look, that's really difficult to say. And I think that there's a couple of reasons for it, right? I actually remember speaking to a fantastic British entrepreneur who shall remain nameless, who had her company based in Manchester, I think. And I was like, for me and for you to have global success, that is somewhat limiting. Not because there's anything wrong with Manchester, but it's all of the other stuff that's attached to that. Your ability to access talent, your ability to make sure that you catch the fleeting opportunities that in business to be successful, you just have to grab onto.

38:19And so what you're doing is just actually taking away some of the chances to be great. That doesn't mean you can't be successful in those places. But, you know, as an entrepreneur, you've got to take every single chance. And if you're immediately saying, OK, I'm going to be like out of the action, out of the circle of interest, not going to this thing, not invited over here, not attracting this type of talent because I'm putting myself geographically outside of the circle of, you know, you know, the sphere of opportunity, then it's tough. And I do think that, you know, when I moved to America, it was for a very, very specific reason.

38:58I don't know that I could have had the same level of success in the same amount of time. And that was just because I chose an idea where access to capital was paramount. And there isn't that same access in the same way. Then you add, you know, all of the things that I, I don't think anyone ever judged me in a meeting because of my accent in America. In fact, it was a net positive. It wasn't like, wow, I wonder if she has the education that will enable her to run this company. Never ever was that a question because the understanding of where I come from wasn't immediate because you weren't attaching.

39:35Oh yes, she must be from X, Y, and Z. and be where there's an element of it be where the action is and where the action is is where

39:41Amol Rajan:you can have access to capital and access to connections what about timing i'm really struck because we're a similar age i've had um 20 years where i worked in newspapers it's a very difficult time i've worked at the bbc news which is an extraordinary jewel in the life of a nation but you know it's a time when news is undergoing huge transformation and i'm not sure you did it necessarily consciously but 20 years of or 25 years of work uh into your career you could look back and say one of the things about emma greed hugely successful work with some of the biggest names on the planet launch multiple businesses investor entrepreneur blah blah blah but she was ahead of the curve particularly when it comes to social media the nature of influence the ability to use modern technology to build these things we call brands i want you to explain what a brand is in a minute but what is how important in retrospect even if you didn't do it consciously was it for you to be ahead of those trends?

40:35So just to answer the question, absolutely didn't do the early moves consciously. That is an... Because you wanted to be in fashion, right? Yeah, I really wanted to be in fashion. And I have to tell you, the fashion industry moves really slowly and all the space for kind of, you know, to do great work was taken up. So the move into social media was more about like, nobody occupied that space. And so it was easier for me to get in as opposed to all of these sort of like deep relationships that go back in fashion that for me, I was locked out of as somebody that, you know, had a marketing agency.

41:08So I think what is interesting is that the best businesses always happen when they're timed with what's already happening in the culture. And I happen to be pretty good at really looking and understanding these like cultural shifts and movements.

41:25Amol Rajan:Looking around corners. Yeah. Yeah. Looking around corners, see where the trends are going. Where do you stand on unpaid internships? You know, it's so funny. I did a lot of unpaid internships for 18 months, and they were a huge enabler to me. When I think about it now, I've always been a negotiator, and I would go in, I would be like, will you pay for my oyster? Will you buy me lunch? And some people said yes, and some people said no. But I'd always shoot my shot because I didn't have any money. I needed that. Because the government currently in this country is consulted on banning them. I know.

41:55And here's the thing. I understand why that would be the case, because there will always be those outliers that want to take advantage of people. But for me, they were a massive unlock. And when I think about some of the small startup businesses that I know and their ability to give amazing experience to somebody who's willing to come in and do, you know, a limited amount of time and work for free. Like, it's such a shame that that opportunity would be taken away. But I think there's about like you have to balance it. For me, it was huge, foundational, fundamental. That 18 months of me getting my foot in the door of five, six, seven, eight places, arguably, like, changed everything in my career because I had an understanding of what I didn't want to do.

42:39I made a bunch of contacts and I landed something that turned into a full-time job. And so I would say that in the right circumstances, treated properly with the right, you know, levels of respect and all the things like, absolutely, like, we need those unpaid internships.

42:52Amol Rajan:We have an extraordinary situation in this country of nearly a million. It's actually up to 957 ,000 young people, 16 to 24, who are what we call NEETs, not in education, employment and training. And what is dreadful is a lot of those people, if they end up not working, might stay not working for a very, very long time. I had that front of mind when I was reading your book and in a way your book's kind of addressed to them I don't know how sort of I mean maybe it's addressed to lots of people and I'm over interpreting it but to those million young people what's your message about how you know obviously they've all got particular circumstances particular families particular difficulties but what's your so what's your kind of message about how if they do think about their own power and the power of technology in their pocket how they can take a control of their lives and grip their futures?

43:40You know, what I want to say to young people is that we're in an extraordinary moment. And what you have to do is lean in to learning. Like when we've got something out there, like in AI, which is this great enabler, if used properly, you have to do everything that you can to learn about it, to figure out how to use it and to harness the power of it. And when you start getting scared of something, when you let fear take over your decision making, which is so much what I talk about in this book, like you will always be counting yourself out before you've even had an opportunity to know if you're good at something.

44:19So for me, it's like always be in learning mode. Try to be excellent at something. You don't need to be good at everything. You don't need to, you know, it's like I was never a good student at school, but figuring out one thing that you can be excellent about at and caring the most, like that is so important. And I think for all young people that might be sitting here and listening to this, like we're in a golden age of opportunity. Think about it that way and think about what you can do with the tools that are out there and how lucky you are to be in this moment in time.

44:52Amol Rajan:So a lot of those young people listen to this podcast and a lot of them have been in touch with me and they've got questions for you. There are three or maybe two and a half questions to finish with, which they would not forgive me for not asking you. The first is you are, how can I put this, world-class, preeminent when it comes to launching, growing and selling brands. In a couple of sentences, what is the key if people want to do this? Business advice, grow a brand, schemes, Good American, whatever it might be, as successful as you've done, what do people need to think about? Focus on the product.

45:22If you have a product that is uniquely solving a problem and something that you believe is best in class. That is the foundation of everything. Don't get carried away by gimmicks and marketing and your route into, you know, something that feels like a fancy party or like social media. It's like at the end of the day, brilliant businesses will be found. Brilliant products drive business. And if you've got something that you think is an idea and can be unique. You've got to get out of your head and start. That's it.

45:58Amol Rajan:Just do it. Just do it. Just go. Get out of your head and just go. What did therapy teach you? Everything. How long you got? Some people won't know, and the book starts with this, you undertook a pretty extensive course in anger management. Oh, yes. When you were pretty young. Are you no longer the person that needs anger management therapy? I'm a person that needs to constantly remind herself of the things that she's learned. Are you prone to rage? No, I wouldn't say rage. Fury? Yes, yes. I can definitely listen. It's like in me. It's here. I feel like it's something that I manage consistently because default emotions are always there.

46:41When you're trained in a certain way, you know, what do they talk about? Like, you know, like your firing is your wiring. Like that's how I'm wired. And so I have to work against my better instincts. and that is just one of the many things I think again has made me successful because I know I can train myself out of any type of behavior that means I can train myself into any type of behavior

47:03Amol Rajan:too final thought are you in a weird to the way almost glad that your life was so tough to begin with because that toughness made you sound like you do today you sound like someone who's learned a lot it's been very successful you've got a zeal you know you've got a drive and energy and I just wonder a little bit where that comes from and whether or not it comes from that girl who's hiding behind the sofa because the milkman was going to charge her. Listen, no doubt, you know, the academics call it grit, right? And any parents of, you know, that are raising kids that are more privileged than them constantly worried about their level of grittiness.

47:39Like I'm like, how do you get grit when you live in Bel Air? Like it's just not going to happen. You know, this is not something, a feeling and a, you know, a trait that I can manufacture for my children. I'll tell you a very quick story. I went to something called the Hoffman Process, which is like this kind of deeply therapeutic eight days in the middle of nowhere where you work on all the patterns that you learned in your childhood to train yourself how to not have repetitive patterns. And after three days, I went and saw one of the main counsellors and I was like, listen, there's some stuff I don't want to get rid of because I think it's been really useful.

48:15And there's a little bit of that anger. There's a little bit of that fire, a little bit of that grittiness that I was like, don't get rid of it because that's made me who I am. That's made me good. And so the answer to your question is, yes, I do believe that. But that also is something that I have to be really careful with. Right. It's also something that now that I don't have that, can I still like muster all that magic and can I still be good and can I still be successful? And so at the end of the day, I think that I am in training constantly to be the type of woman that I want to be. And because I'm ambitious and because that bar constantly keeps going higher, I just never stop training.

48:58Like I never think I'm done. I never think, oh, my God, I made it. It's all amazing. There's always something more. There's always something else to do. And so I never rest on my laurels.

49:06Amol Rajan:Where's your ambition going to take you? You know, I just feel like right now, first of all, I love being home because I think the reception that I get here in England is so interesting. And it really is about what could you enable? Like what would happen if, you know, it's like I went down to East London and like, you know, imagine I had a school. Like imagine I had like an entrepreneurial centre and school and academy. Like I literally think to myself, the world is my oyster at this point. I have so much opportunity, but it's like I've kind of done like loads of things that I want to do. And I really, really sit there and go like, it's time to like get this and like spread it out.

49:49You know, like butter on a crumpet. I'm like, who else can have some? Like I'm sure a lot of people want it. And I feel like I am the person to deliver that.

49:59Amol Rajan:When are you going to get it through this podcast? I love how you said butter rather than butter. There you go. Look at your impact and your influence on me already. Amazing. You know about influence. Emma is such a privileged guest. Well, not just chatting to you, but getting to know you. You're going to stick around to answer some listening questions. But thank you so much for coming on Radical. Really appreciate it. Thank you. This was wonderful.

50:26Amol Rajan:Well, Emma Greed is, I mean, to say force of nature is to put it mildly. She's extraordinary. She's been on a totally, totally remarkable journey, raised by a single mum, eldest of four siblings in Plasto in East London, and now one of the most recognisable names in transatlantic business. Hugely, hugely, hugely influential. A few things jumped at me about that. The first is that, you know, the basic premise of this podcast is that we are living through a very, very crazy, bewildering, dizzying, for lots of people, scary and anxious period of human history. And she was totally on board with that.

51:01Amol Rajan:And she was on board with coming up with radical ideas as well. We'll come to that in a second. But this sense that we are living through crazy times was something that she really connected with. But she also thinks this is an era of extraordinary opportunity for young people. And we're talking at a time when, as I think you may have heard, I said nearly a million young people between 16 and 24 are not in education, employment or training. But it's an era of extraordinary opportunity for young people if they go out and get it. And you, if you're listening, her message to you is start with yourself.

51:31Amol Rajan:That's the title of her book. But also go to where the action is. That might mean you've got to move geographically. It might mean that you've got to get ahead of trends that are reshaping particular industries. But it certainly means don't be working from home three days a week because that's not a great way to transform your circumstances. I thought all of that was really interesting. In terms of some of the more, how can I put this, newsy stuff. You know, at a time when the government is conducting a consultation on unpaid internships, it's very, very interesting that Emma Greed, who is a paragon of social mobility, should say that she thinks unpaid internships may, with caveats, may have a place.

52:07Amol Rajan:Of course, the argument against them is that they get rigged, that, you know, unpaid internships, you know, only rich people can afford them. And therefore, it's a way of actually deepening and extending the advantage through social capital and connections that rich people have. That's not how she thinks of it. She said she did lots and lots of unpaid internships and they were absolutely critical to her getting to meet people, learning lots and getting a foot in some very important doors. So in that sense, she goes slightly against the grain of some public conversation. But she's also stuck around to answer your questions in our bonus episode.

52:39Amol Rajan:And some of those are about the nature of business. And she's pretty, how can I put this, pretty blunt and brutal in how she thinks about business with the basic message being if you don't want to get on board, get off board, i.e. jump off. That's on Monday's episode which I really, really strongly recommend you check out.

53:01Amol Rajan:Well, that is it for this episode. We've got, of course, Monday's bonus Q &A coming. It's called Your Radical Questions. If you just make sure that you subscribe to Radical with Amol Rajan on BBC Sounds or indeed you can watch it on the iPlayer, of course. Just search for Radical with Amol Rajan on the iPlayer. But if you do subscribe, You'll get our lovely main episode on a Thursday, but you'll also get radical questions and your radical questions answered on a Monday. Those episodes are a little bit shorter, but the basic idea, just in case you haven't heard one and you're new to this podcast community, welcome.

53:31Amol Rajan:The idea is that you send in your questions for our fantastic guests and I pursue answers on your behalf. And they're often very, very illuminating. And the ones from Emma Greed most certainly are. Right. Thanks so much for your time. We'll speak to you next week. Goodbye.

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