The Oprah Podcast
Start with Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life with Emma Grede and Oprah
21 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What inspired Emma Grede to write 'Start With Yourself'?
And here's the thing, Oprah, this book is dismantling the rules that we've all been sold around these things. I honestly believe that we need, desperately need, more women in positions of power right now. And so I look at this and I say, do you know what? If you are an ambitious woman, it is going to require some discomfort.
Chapter 2: How did Emma Grede redefine her life and career?
If you want money, it's going to require some level of audacity. If you want a big, big career, you're going to need visibility and proximity. If, and it's not for everybody, but if you want a family, it's going to require some timing and it's probably not what we've been told. And if you want power, then you are going to need to take it because nobody is coming to give you power.
And just like I said, we are desperate in this world for more women in positions of power right now.
Hey there, everybody. Glad to be with you here on the Oprah Podcast. My guest is not just an entrepreneur, not just a businesswoman. She is an inspiring force, a modern-day business mogul and visionary.
Chapter 3: What role does radical self-accountability play in success?
And she's written a book called Start With Yourself. It's a new vision for work and life, and it should be your guide if you are starting a business, thinking about starting a business, already in a business, want to make a better business for yourself, and want to be a better person in that business. I highly recommend start with yourself, honey. Please welcome Emma Green to the podcast.
Hi, Emma. Hi, Oprah.
Chapter 4: How can women balance career ambitions with motherhood?
I am so happy to be here. I can't even tell you how happy I am.
Forbes named Emma Greed, one of America's wealthiest self-made women at just 40 years old, her wife and mother to four. She's worked with both Loewy and Kim Kardashian to co-found culture-defining global brands like Good American and Skims, now valued at $5 billion.
She offers savvy business advice on her podcast, Aspire with Emma Greed.
Chapter 5: What mistakes did Emma Grede make in her early career?
Put yourself in the position of your customers and just listen to your intuition. It will never serve you well. She's also the first black female investor on that ABC hit show, Shark Tank. And I've been toying in my head. I'm like, do I call her Miss Winfrey Jackson? You call me Oprah. You have to call me Oprah.
Because I was reading in your book and I was so touched every time I saw my name where you would say, and I'd go home and I'd watch Oprah. I mean, really, thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you. And listen, I know that every time somebody meets you, they have this kind of explosive reaction to you.
Chapter 6: How important is mentorship in building a business?
And so I'm like, what do you do? What do you say that she hasn't heard before? And I'm not trying to say anything you haven't heard before. For me... There is nobody else that I would rather sit and discuss this book with because you have been in my mind as my fantasy mentor since I was 10 years old. And it's the truth because I had no other example of a woman that...
that was like you, that had that level of integrity and spoke like that and behaved in a way. And so I feel like I have tried my best to emulate some of the behaviors that I saw in you for the longest time. Yeah, and as I'm reading the book, I see some of my teachings. I see that.
I say, oh. They are there. You're one of those students who paid attention.
Oh, yes, I did. I really did. In the most, in the biggest and the smallest ways, you know, from thinking about gratitude to thinking about how you speak to people and what your energy is that you give off.
Chapter 7: How does Emma view dyslexia as a superpower in business?
And so for me, it's really been in so many, so many ways.
Yeah, you tell the story in the book about yelling at a deaf woman. Tell us that story. Oh, is that where we're starting? I didn't want to start there, but because you said about the energy, that is such a classic energy story.
Okay, so let me tell you the truth of this is, and you will... I mean, my publisher from Shannon, from Simon & Schuster, will tell you this. I took that out of the book three times for one reason, because I said, if I ever get to meet Oprah... I know that she will pick up this story. Of course. And when I spoke to your producers, I was like, no, no.
And I took it out and they said, you've got to put it back in. You've got to put it back in.
I like it because it's so revealing, so truthful. And it is a story of you recognizing in your own self-awareness that I need to do better. So that's why I loved it.
So here's the story. The story goes, like many people, I got up every morning and went to work on the tube, on the train. And I'm at the turnstiles and, you know, it's like I grew up in a place where my learned default emotion was anger. Whatever was happening, whatever wouldn't go my way, I would turn to anger.
And so on this particular morning, I was frustrated because, you know, this woman was messing around in her bag and I was like in that mode of, let me just get to work. And I said, excuse me, excuse me, excuse me. And when I screamed, excuse me, she said, I'm partially deaf. And I shoved this woman and asked her, well, are you blind too?
And I moved her and I went down the escalators and I got on the train and I am so filled with shame as I even recount the story. But it was in that moment that I thought, oh my goodness, you have to get a grip of yourself. You are never going to go where you want to be if this is the way that you behave. And so I immediately enrolled myself into like a... community anger management program.
Anger management program. And I stayed in that program for a long time, but I'd never been taught that you could get a grip of yourself. I'd never really understood that you could go inside yourself.
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Chapter 8: What does Emma Grede believe about work-life balance?
We did a whole podcast on it. And I listened to it. And that was after I went, so it was so nice to have that perspective. But, you know, I remember saying to them, like, don't take that all out of me because I need a little bit of that. But it's understanding that that doesn't have to be the default. And a big part of what I write about in this book is...
being a woman and having your emotions guide your decision-making is a really kind of like low vibrational place to be. That's right. And if you are going to, you know, live up to your higher self, as you know, you have always said, then that can't be the way you make your decisions.
Well, in Start With Yourself, which is just such a perfect title, when did you know that that was the title?
I love that you say that. My working title was Without Apology. And I decided that that couldn't possibly be the title because it gives you the connotations that there's something to apologize for.
And so to me, start with yourself was everything because it's about not blaming anything that's happening on the outside and knowing that everything that you do, all the success that you have and all the hardships that you have and the way that you choose to walk through the world, it all starts with yourself. So when I landed it, I was like, that's it. That's the one.
And I like the way it looks.
I love the way it looks. And I love the way you designed the book. Isn't it nice? It's very nice. Beautiful fabric. Beautiful fabric. People say you can't judge a book by cover, but yeah, you can. Yes, you can. A friend introduced me to this book, and as soon as she dropped it off, I went, I love this book. Chic. Cheek, very cheek. It can sit in your beautiful surroundings. Yes, that's right.
And it goes with everything.
Yeah, I don't want my face on there either.
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