Start With Yourself

Emma Grede, a British entrepreneur who cofounded the inclusive denim brand Good American and served as chief product officer of SKIMS, a shapewear company she developed with Kim Kardashian, presents a framework for professional and personal success rooted not in prescribed actions but in the mindset that determines them. Drawing on her trajectory from poverty in East London to Forbes's "America's Richest Self-Made Women" list, Grede organizes her argument across four parts: Vision, Managing Emotions, Old Thoughts, and Action.

The book opens with a formative memory. At seventeen, Grede was living in an apartment in Stratford, East London, when Marcus, a lifelong family friend, called from jail and instructed her to leave the flat while an associate retrieved contraband. Marcus spent twenty-two years in prison but ensured the rent was paid for years. Grede grew up raised by her white British single mother, Jenny-Lee, who worked on a bank trading desk; her Trinidadian father, Steve, was entirely absent. Multiple family members and friends went to jail, and the predetermined path for women in her world was domestic dependence on men. Grede was asked to leave high school for being disruptive, only to learn as an adult that she has dyslexia, and she dropped out of the London College of Fashion after one term because she could not afford to stay. Despite this, she built multiple successful businesses, married Jens Grede, a Swede, and raised four children. She credits her mother's saying, "You're not more special than anyone else, but nobody is more special than you," as a foundational belief and frames the book's thesis: Success comes from managing emotions, dismantling limiting beliefs, and taking full responsibility for creating your own future.

In Part One, Grede argues that a clear vision is the essential starting point. She recounts compulsively drawing a decorated Christmas tree as a child, then realizing twenty years later that the first house she bought with Jens matched those sketches. She describes East London as the place where she learned directness, keeping your word, and facing consequences for dishonesty. She traces her earliest jobs, from delivering newspapers at twelve to selling designer merchandise that "fell off trucks" to teachers, and her path through unpaid work placements, a six-year stint at a fashion show production company, and the moment she quit after her bosses refused a meaningful raise despite the significant revenue she generated. She describes her visioning process: writing decade plans, reviewing them weekly, working backward into actionable goals, and completing annual reflective questions on growth, avoidance, and boundaries.

Part Two addresses emotional management. Grede argues that emotional attunement is a strength, but unmanaged emotions can undo any plan. She devotes a chapter to each of five emotions. On anger, she shares a deeply shaming anecdote about screaming at a deaf woman in a London tube station, which prompted her to enroll in a free anger management course she attended for three years. She describes years of anger toward her mother before recognizing that Jenny-Lee simply lacked the capacity to give what Grede needed. She references psychiatrist Phil Stutz's concept of "the Maze," the futile pursuit of vindication, and trauma therapist Prentis Hemphill's framing of boundaries as "the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously."

On fear, she recounts her hypervigilance from growing up in a dangerous neighborhood and reframes business fear as "eustress," or challenge stress, citing German psychiatrist Fritz Perls's idea that "fear is excitement without the breath." On guilt, she draws on her experience as a parentified child who took on parenting responsibilities for her three younger sisters while her mother worked long days. She connects this to modern motherhood guilt, referencing anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's concept of alloparenting, or communal child-rearing, and former First Lady Michelle Obama's advice not to "parent from guilt." On sadness, she introduces her "Rule of Thirds": Expect to feel happy about a third of the time, all right another third, and somewhat difficult the last third. On joy, she argues it is a better goal than sustained happiness and stresses that clearing barriers to joy is each person's own responsibility.

Part Three, the longest section, systematically dismantles what Grede calls "Old Thoughts," culturally ingrained beliefs that limit women. She opens by distinguishing between gratitude and pride, arguing that women habitually credit external factors for their success and disown their power.

Across six thematic domains, she challenges specific beliefs. On trade-offs, she argues against the either/or mindset, proposing a both/and approach that requires anticipating and planning for sacrifices. She critiques over-parenting culture and warns younger women against prioritizing comfort over career investment in their twenties. On money, she confronts women's reluctance to discuss finances and argues that scarcity is manufactured. She recounts the breakthrough of Jens telling her to stop having an "employee mentality" when negotiating her compensation with the board of ITB, her talent and sponsorship business; she stated her package as a fact, and nobody objected. She provides concrete advice: Assume you are underpaid, state your ask without overexplaining, and never accept the first offer.

On career, she tells the story of Good American's 2016 launch, when the brand sold one million dollars in jeans across an unprecedented size range from 00 to 24 but ran out of stock within hours because she had used all start-up capital with no production cycles planned. She credits the women at Nordstrom with teaching her the denim business and argues that curiosity matters more than credentials. She challenges work-life balance as a goal, arguing that extraordinary careers require extraordinary effort and that remote work risks removing women from rooms where decisions are made.

On family, she argues children need less hovering than culture prescribes and describes her working partnership with Jens across multiple businesses, emphasizing complementary skill sets and separate operational lanes. She shares her fertility journey, including multiple IVF rounds, three miscarriages, and the surrogacy that brought her twins.

On building a brand and business, she urges bootstrapping over raising large capital, studying competition obsessively, and recognizing that every company exists on a relevancy curve. She introduces business executive Bernard Arnault's concept of "transitioning on the way up," meaning innovating while things are still going well. She describes investing in CAKES body, a washable silicone nipple-cover brand, through the television show Shark Tank and cofounding the sports apparel brand Off Season, enlisting Fanatics founder Michael Rubin to leverage his platform. She argues that product, pricing, and distribution must be right before marketing can succeed.

On leadership, she recounts failing at Good American's first investment review, realizing her job was not to do the math but to make decisions determining the company's trajectory. She argues that likability and good leadership are mutually exclusive, that a business is not a family, and that women must stop policing other women's success. She frames diversity and inclusion as business responsibility, noting that Good American's size-inclusive model prompted industry-wide change.

Part Four distills her operating principles into three guiding rules from East London: Do what you say you will do; always tell the truth; stay in motion, always learning. She reflects on her shift from building new brands toward teaching what she has learned. She closes by emphasizing that nothing of value is built alone, listing her support system, including nannies, household staff, and an exceptional team, and insisting on honesty about these resources so other women are not misled. The book ends where it began: with the conviction that change starts with yourself.