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Chapter 1: What are the core ideas behind Emma's framework for work and life?
Okay, so today is book launch day. My debut book, Start With Yourself, is finally out and I am relieved and anxious and nervous and thankful and hopeful that you will buy it and that it will light up something inside of you. A wave of skincare products featuring the ingredient Blue Tansy has taken over the clean beauty space and for good reason.
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The Start With Yourself Tour kicks off on April 15th in New York City. Tickets are on sale now at emagreed.com. So today, my plan is to read some of the book directly to you. It's right here in all its glory, and I'm going to read it to you. And that part is about a moment that changed my life. But first and before that, I want to get into a few of your biggest questions.
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Chapter 2: Why isn't 'Start With Yourself' just for entrepreneurs?
I was blasted. Let me tell you what I think the helpful new thought is. Rather than wasting your time searching for a work-life balance, which is the wrong focus, strive instead for alignment to your ultimate ambition. I want you to make sure you hear that, right? Alignment to your ultimate ambition. This is the right goal. If you want to go big, think about what it is that you want.
And for a period of time, do everything it takes to get there. Be all in if that's what you're aiming for. in for the long hours, in for the office like five days a week, because you know this, what you lose in remote work is profound. And the downside is deceleration, which is a curse for ambition.
In the book, I talk about hustle culture and I get that people are tired and burnt out, but an extraordinary career is always the result of extraordinary effort. I can guarantee that if I had been working from home in my 20s, that I wouldn't be anywhere close to where I am now. I'm going to go one step further on this point and tell you that remote work is killing life and it's career suicide.
But maybe you just need to read the book for more. So, look. Here's my thoughts. I am an in-person person. I want to be with people. I want to collaborate. I love detail. I love specificity. I want to do things quickly. I mentor a lot of young men and women inside my business. And work culture right now makes that very, very hard. I can't teach you through a screen.
If you're not with me, you won't see how I move or how I operate. You need proximity to me. You need to understand the flow of what is happening. The way we work now actually makes me a little bit sad because I don't think we're having all of the exchanges that are the result of being in a really dynamic environment where you're able to learn from people on the fly and all the time.
We're just simply not as together as we used to be. Even if we actually work five days a week and in person, there's an element of almost like self-imposed solitude in modern life. We're not connecting because of social media, because of online shopping, and because you don't even leave your house for food. So after work drinks goes totally out of the window.
And our personal and professional relationships really are suffering because of it. It just isn't as much fun. If you work in a business with other people or you want to build a business of scale someday, the idea that you can do it alone is a joke. You're not going to get far unless you surround yourself with people because nobody is successful working on their own. Absolutely nobody.
And my experience tells me that that's a fact. If you want to lead or be at the decision-making level of any company, together, connected, and in person is the only way. I honestly just haven't seen it work any other way. And I promise you, I'm not trying to upset anyone. I can only tell you what worked for me. And for the record, I'm not saying that this is the rule for everyone.
But if you're an ambitious little monster like me, if you want to keep moving and progressing, if you want to make a lot of money in your chosen field and become best in class anything, there is a trade-off and it doesn't include much balance for a period of time. As I've said, I've never seen it work any other way.
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Chapter 3: What should women consider if they've been putting themselves last?
As someone who employs countless women, I think there are three main reasons that women are choosing to get pregnant later in life. Number one, we prefer to wait to further our careers. Two, looking for the perfect partner. And three, because parenting, what we think of as modern day parenting, has gone completely mad. Now, if you put those three things together, here we are.
The average age of first-time mothers in the US is now 27 and a half. In 1970, it was 21. If you're college educated, it's even higher. 30 for women with a bachelor's degree and 33 if you have a professional degree, like according to the CDC. Now, granted, many women are choosing not to have a baby. It is not the be all and end all. And for the record, I am not talking about to those women.
I applaud and support any woman's choice. I have so many happy and fulfilled friends who are just good being aunties. But we know that many women do want to have kids and we're putting it off to a point where it's just no longer our choice. Age kicks in and we're left with too few options or completely heartbreaking, or in my case, both.
I had a baby at 31 and at 34, and I had my twins by surrogate at 39 after multiple IVF attempts. I have countless friends and colleagues who left it too late. IVF isn't a safety net. Live birth rates using your own eggs drops from 55% when you're under 35 to 41% when you're 35 to 37, down again to 27% at 38 to 40%. and to 13 to only 4% at 41, 42 and over.
As a result, so many women I know are miserable. Now, as someone who has done it the hard way and the easy way, I want to tell you, and I want to help women navigate the three big reasons that they're choosing not to have kids. And I wanted to use my book to help dispel a couple of really big myths that are out there. Trust me, your career will recover.
Finding a perfect partner that ticks every box is impossible. Newsflash, people. There is no such thing as a perfect partner or someone that can meet all of your needs. There is just a bunch of stuff. you will need to provide yourself outside of your romantic relationship. That's a conversation for another episode. Parenting has lost the plot, yes.
But trust me, as a mother of four, it's just not that deep. It's not that hard. You don't need all the things that you think. And your kids don't need everything you're being told either. This idea that you are solely responsible for your kids' lives and it's your responsibility to protect them from the world. And it's just like an additional full-time job. It's just not so.
I have stopped being ambitious on behalf of my kids. And I go into this in so much detail in the book. I can not tell you. Now, I've just touched on a few of the many, many rules that I want to dispel and create a conversation around, importantly. And within the book, of course, I'm going through it in a lot finer detail to help you think for yourself around these subjects. It's all in there.
My corporate career journey before I started building businesses, the stories about the businesses I've built and the leadership lessons that I have learned. I end the book with my basic rules for success. What I want to do now is read the intro straight from the book about a moment that changed my trajectory.
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Chapter 4: What uncomfortable truths did Emma face while writing her book?
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Chapter 5: How does Emma differentiate her book from traditional self-help content?
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so before we wrap a quick reminder that start with yourself is available for pre-order and tickets for the live shows are available now starting april 15th we're coming to new york los angeles san francisco chicago dc boston atlanta and london visit emigreed.com for tickets and full tour details i cannot wait Start with yourself. It's a new vision for work and life. And this is the introduction.
Where was Marcus? I was on the 10th floor of a very gray, very shitty 21 floor apartment complex in Stratford, which for the uninitiated is in East London. It was a concrete dump, but for me, it was free. As I walked to the station every day to take my train into town, you would never have thought I was living in a flat with no stove or fridge.
Marcus and I would joke that in England, a balcony is sufficient to keep milk cold. It's possible that on this day, there was a Gucci diamante thong peeking out from the top of my jeans, as was the questionable style of the day. But what's for sure is that I look fantastic. I've always known how to put myself together, even when everything in my life was a mess.
And on this particular day, everything was a disaster. The apartment was small. I slept on the couch in the living room, Marcus in the single bedroom. And so it didn't take me long to deduce that he wasn't there. And then the phone screamed through the silence. It was Marcus. "'Emma,' he said, "'I've been arrested. "'You need to go on a walk. "'My mate is coming over to get some of my things.
"'Until he does, Emma, don't go home.' "'All right, all right,' I replied, scared and thoroughly confused. "'So I went for a walk. "'I stayed away until well after dark, "'and with each step I turned Marcus's words over and over in my mind. "'What was his mate going to do in our apartment? "'Why couldn't I be there at the same time? "'What was his mate going to do?
"'The more I thought, the more scared and confused I felt.' All I knew for sure is that I needed to follow Marcus's instructions precisely. I had known him my whole life and I trusted him like family. Marcus ended up spending 22 years in jail. Only much, much later did I sort of surmise that his mate must have come by to collect some essential contraband.
I didn't want to know back then and I still don't. For me, the main point then and now is simply that Marcus, on the edge of the abyss, was thinking of me, trying to keep me safe. That felt meaningful and symbolic. My future deserved his protection.
And I carried that from that moment onward, the knowledge of his faith in me, the belief that I was destined for more, and also the realisation that I would need to cross a bridge from the world he and I came from to the world where I wanted to live.
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Chapter 6: Who is 'Start With Yourself' intended for beyond business owners?
If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend who'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Greed.
producer Ashley McShan Derek Brown and me our executive producers from Odyssey Leah Reese Dennis Asha Saluja Lauren Lagrasso producer KK Sublime Stephen Key is our senior producer sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz Angela Peluso is our booker original music by Charles Black video production by Evan Cox Kurt Courtney Andrew Steele and Carlos Delgado social media by Olivia Homan Catherine Bale
Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Shuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Mecole, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E. That's Aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E with Emma Greed.
Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me. So before we wrap, a quick reminder that Start With Yourself is available for pre-order and tickets for the live shows are available now. Starting April 15th, we're coming to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, DC, Boston, Atlanta, and London. Visit emigreed.com for tickets and full tour details. I cannot wait.