SKIMS Co-Founder (Emma Grede): They're Lying About Work Life Balance! I Built The Kardashian Empire! I Built SKIMS Without Fashion Knowledge!
In this episode of The Diary Of A CEO, SKIMS co-founder Emma Grede discusses how her East London upbringing and her mother's financial struggles shaped her drive for success. She shares her approach to building successful businesses, including her focus on core competencies and her strategy of hiring "T-shaped leaders" who combine deep expertise with broad business understanding.
Grede opens up about her personal life, including her fertility journey and experience with surrogacy. She describes how therapy has helped her navigate both personal and professional challenges, and explains her perspective on work-life balance, including how she maintains a strong partnership with her husband while managing their business endeavors. Throughout the episode, she emphasizes the role of self-belief and determination in achieving goals.
This is a preview of the Shortform summary of the May 5, 2025 episode of the The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
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1-Page Summary
Emma Grede's Personal Background and Formative Experiences
Emma Grede's upbringing in East London by a single mother profoundly shaped her character and future success. Despite her father's absence, Grede benefited from strong male role models in her grandfather and uncles. The financial struggles she witnessed in her childhood, particularly her mother's constant anxiety over bills, instilled in her a fierce determination to achieve financial security and stability for her own future.
Principles and Strategies for a Successful Business
Grede emphasizes the importance of focusing on core competencies and maintaining sharp customer focus. In building her team, she prioritizes attitude over experience, seeking what she calls "T-shaped leaders" who combine depth in specific skills with broad business understanding. Grede's approach to innovation involves taking calculated risks, as demonstrated by her successful identification of a market gap in the denim industry, where she pioneered an inclusive approach to sizing.
Mindset, Resilience, and Self-Belief In Achieving Goals
Grede attributes her success to her strong self-belief and what she calls "grit." She views her identity as a black woman in predominantly different spaces as an advantage, crediting her family's deep love and security for her confidence. Grede openly discusses her use of therapy as a tool for personal growth and advocates for visualization combined with action, sharing how she's seen her childhood visualizations become reality through proactive effort.
Emma's Personal Life Challenges and Lessons Learned
In discussing her fertility journey, Grede reveals the challenges she faced, including multiple rounds of IVF and losses, ultimately leading to a successful surrogacy experience with twins. She speaks about balancing her ambitious career with family life, crediting therapy for helping her navigate this challenge. Grede describes her partnership with her husband Jens as "unbelievable," highlighting their weekly date nights and mutual support in both personal and professional growth. Their success, she suggests, comes from maintaining genuine interest in each other's perspectives and a shared commitment to growth.
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Actionables
- You can identify and nurture your core competencies by creating a personal skills inventory. Start by listing all the skills and strengths you possess, then select the top five that you believe define your core competencies. Focus on developing these skills further through online courses, practice, or mentorship. For example, if you're great at public speaking, you might join a local Toastmasters club to refine this competency.
- Develop a T-shaped skill set by first mastering a niche skill and then expanding your knowledge horizontally. Choose a skill or area you're passionate about and dive deep into learning everything you can about it. Once you feel proficient, start learning about adjacent areas to build a broad understanding of the field. For instance, if you're skilled in graphic design, you could learn about user experience design to broaden your business understanding.
- Cultivate a growth-focused relationship with a partner or close friend by setting up regular "growth meetings." During these meetings, discuss personal and professional development goals, share insights from books or articles, and provide feedback to each other. This practice encourages mutual support and maintains a genuine interest in each other's growth, similar to how Grede and her husband support each other.
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Emma Grede's Personal Background and Formative Experiences
Emma Grede's journey from East London to entrepreneurial success is a story shaped by early life experiences that forged her resolve, ambition, and values.
Emma Grede's Upbringing Shaped Her Values and Work Ethic
Raised by a Single Mother, Emma Learned Responsibility, Reliability, and Hard Work For Success
Emma Grede was raised by a single mother in East London, and she credits this experience with molding her into the person she is today. With a household of four girls to manage, Grede had to take on significant responsibilities from a young age, including helping raise her siblings. This instilled a strong work ethic and a culture of reliability and honesty. She reflects that, despite the challenges, the mentality she adopted from her upbringing was one of achievement and possibility: that success was attainable through hard work, regardless of where one started.
Grede learned to be responsible not only for herself but for the well-being of her family, focusing on stability and safety, which became more important to her than leisure and play. It was this early emphasis on responsibility that honed Grede's skills of self-discipline and focus, which later translated into her business acumen.
Emma's Father's Absence Minimally Impacted Her Development
Strong Male Role Models Guided Emma
Though her father was absent, Grede doesn't feel that she suffered from 'daddy issues.' She believes that this is because of the strong male role models she had in her life, such as her grandfather and uncles. They provided her with a strong sense of what positive male influence looked like and helped to fill the gap left by her father's departure.
Financial Struggles Drove Emma's Ambition For Security
Witnessing Her Mother's Struggle Instilled In Emma a Desire to Avoid That Anxiety and Uncertainty
Emma Grede openly discussed the financial strains her family faced ...
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Emma Grede's Personal Background and Formative Experiences
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Actionables
- You can foster a strong work ethic by volunteering to take on additional responsibilities at your job or in community projects, which can help you develop self-discipline and focus similar to what Emma experienced. For example, if you work in retail, offer to manage a new inventory system, or if you're part of a local club, propose to organize an event. This not only improves your skills but also demonstrates your reliability and commitment to your team or community.
- Create a "security savings plan" by setting aside a small percentage of your income each month, aiming to build an emergency fund that covers at least three to six months of living expenses. Use budgeting apps or financial planning tools to track your progress and adjust your savings goals as needed. This practice can instill a sense of financial responsibility and stability, echoing Emma's determination for financial security.
- Develop a personal mission statement that outlines yo ...
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Principles and Strategies for a Successful Business
Emma Grede illuminates pivotal aspects of founding and cultivating a successful business, from the grassroots of sharp focus on her core competencies to the structural strategies involving optimal hiring practices and bold innovation.
Focus and Improve Core Skills For Business Success
Emma Drives Key Activities to Advance Her Businesses
Emma Grede outlines the importance of focusing on one's strengths and core activities to drive a business forward. She emphasizes the need for knowing oneself and the business, regularly checking in to understand market and competitive dynamics. Grede is relentless in her pursuit of goals, concentrating on customer obsession, and mastering a set of core products, a strategy that implies deep understanding over broad diversification.
Choosing the Right People Is Vital
Emma Focuses On Hiring Top Talent and Swiftly Removing Underperformers to Maintain a High-Functioning Organization
When it comes to building the right team, Grede stresses the importance of recruiting top talent, while she is decisive in her approach to pruning the workforce to keep operations running at peak performance. She places a high value on fresh perspectives, which encourages her to consider input from new employees, as their objective views are vital in maintaining a fertile environment for continuous improvement.
Grede's hiring strategy focuses on attitude, typically over experience, searching for so-called T-shaped leaders who offer both depth in a specific skill and a breadth of understanding across the business. She continually practices thoughtful hiring decisions, understanding that a strong company culture can bring an individual from average to excellence.
Furthermore, Grede takes personal responsibility for maintaining the company's culture and trajectory, which also involves making tough decisions like downsizing when necessary. Grede reasons that a part of her job as a leader is making challenging decisions to safeguard the business and its employees.
Risk-Taking and Innovation Are Key to Achieving Goals
Emma's Bold Strategies Drive Her Entrepreneurial Success
Emma Grede's journey is highlighted by her willingness to take risks and innovate. From transitioning business models to stepping into unfamiliar territories such as creating a new apparel company, Grede’s methodology epitomizes the power of recognizing and seizing opportunities that may lie beyond one's comfort zone.
She successfully identified and fi ...
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Principles and Strategies for a Successful Business
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Counterarguments
- While focusing on core competencies is important, diversification can also be a strategy for risk management and can lead to discovering new growth opportunities.
- Regular market checks are essential, but they must be balanced with internal innovation, as excessive focus on competition can lead to reactive strategies rather than proactive ones.
- Customer obsession is key, but it should not come at the expense of employee well-being or ethical considerations.
- Hiring top talent is crucial, but the definition of 'top talent' can be subjective and diverse hiring practices should ensure a variety of perspectives and backgrounds.
- Swiftly removing underperformers might improve efficiency, but it can also create a culture of fear, which may stifle creativity and long-term loyalty.
- Valuing fresh perspectives is beneficial, but it should be integrated with the wisdom and experience of existing employees to avoid a disconnect between new ideas and practical implementation.
- T-shaped individuals are valuable, but so are specialists and generalists, depending on the business needs and project requirements.
- A strong company culture is important, but it should not be so rigid as to discourage individuality or suppress constructive dissent.
- Downsizing can protect a business, but it can also have negative long-term effects on morale and the company's reputation.
- Risk-taking is necessary for innovation, but it must be balanced with due diligence to avoid unnecessary failures.
- Seizing opportunities outside one's comfort zone can lead to growth, but it also requires a support system and resources to manage potential setbacks.
- Inclusive and innovative strategies are comm ...
Actionables
- You can leverage your existing skills by offering to lead a project at work that aligns with your strengths. For instance, if you're good at organizing, propose to coordinate a team-building event or streamline a process within your department. This will not only showcase your competencies but also provide you with a platform to drive success in your organization.
- Develop a habit of writing down customer feedback you receive in any context, whether it's a casual conversation or a formal review. Use this information to create a "customer obsession journal" where you track patterns in feedback and brainstorm ways to improve core products or services you're involved with, even if it's just within your own household or community.
- Create a personal "risk-taking" cha ...
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Mindset, Resilience, and Self-Belief In Achieving Goals
Emma Grede’s journey to success is a testament to the immense power of mindset, resilience, and self-belief. Her approach to business decisions, handling obstacles, and personal growth exemplifies how these traits can drive success.
Emma's Strong Self-Worth and Conviction Drive Her Success
Emma's Confidence and Resilience Drive Her to Overcome Obstacles and Pursue Her Ambitions
Emma emphasizes her clarity and certainty about her business decisions, relying on her vision and trusting her gut, which indicates a profound confidence in her judgment and self-belief. She views her identity as a black woman in predominantly different spaces as an advantage, attributing her increased capacity for learning and openness to the deep love and security provided by her family. Her ability to disregard external noise and internal fears and to focus single-mindedly on her goals further underscores her strong sense of self-worth and conviction.
Emma Grede credits her success to having “grit,” implying that it is her determination and perseverance that drive her forward. With a mentality focused on doing something special and a “I’ll do that” approach to volunteering for any task, Emma exhibits a proactive attitude and strong self-belief in her capabilities. Steven Bartlett even suggests that Emma's early responsibilities and independence significantly contributed to the development of her current resilience and self-belief.
Resilience Through Therapy and Personal Growth Helped Emma Manage Setbacks
Coping Tools and Support Strategies
Emma shares candidly about using therapists throughout her life to help her navigate different challenges, including being a better parent and balancing her ambition with parenting. She views therapy as a vital tool for growth, showing how personal development is integral to managing setbacks. Her experience with taking a community anger management course exemplifies the importance of actively seeking to improve oneself and one’s relationships through external support and self-work.
Visualizing Goals Can Help Turn Them Into Reality
Emma Uses Her Vision and Rehearsal to Turn D ...
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Mindset, Resilience, and Self-Belief In Achieving Goals
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Counterarguments
- While mindset, resilience, and self-belief are important, attributing success solely to these traits may overlook other critical factors such as opportunity, timing, and external support.
- Confidence and resilience can help overcome obstacles, but excessive self-confidence without adequate preparation or knowledge can lead to poor decision-making.
- Strong self-worth and conviction are valuable, but they must be balanced with humility and the ability to learn from others to avoid becoming inflexible or dismissive of valuable feedback.
- Grit and determination are key to success, but they should not lead to burnout or neglect of personal well-being.
- A proactive attitude is beneficial, but it's also important to recognize when to delegate tasks or collaborate with others to achieve more efficient outcomes.
- Early responsibilities and independence can contribute to resilience, but not everyone with such backgrounds will necessarily develop strong self-belief, and other factors like a supportive environment are also crucial.
- Therapy is a powerful tool for personal growth, but it's not the only method, and some individuals may find other strategies more effective for managing setbacks.
- Personal development is important, but it should not overshadow the need for systemic c ...
Actionables
- You can foster resilience by creating a "Challenge Journal" where you document daily setbacks and your responses to them. This practice encourages reflection on how you deal with difficulties and helps identify patterns in your resilience. For example, if you faced a tough situation at work, write down the challenge, your initial emotional response, the action you took, and the outcome. Over time, you'll have a record of your growth in resilience and a clearer understanding of how to handle future obstacles.
- Develop your self-belief by setting aside time each week for "Skill-Sprint Sessions," where you focus on improving a specific skill you're insecure about. Choose a skill, such as public speaking or analytical thinking, and spend an uninterrupted hour practicing it through exercises, online courses, or role-playing scenarios. Tracking your progress over weeks will build confidence in your abilities and reinforce your self-belief.
- Enhance ...
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Emma's Personal Life Challenges and Lessons Learned
Emma Grede has faced significant struggles and learned profound lessons on her journey through fertility challenges, balancing ambition with family, and collaborating with her husband for support and growth.
Emma's Fertility Struggles and Surrogacy Stress the Importance of Openness and Support
Emma Grede shares a deeply personal fertility journey, highlighting the value of openness and support systems during such difficult times.
Emma's Private Fertility Journey Turns Into Story-Sharing and Support
Emma wishes she had been more open about her fertility struggles, realizing the potential for support had she discussed with friends who had gone through similar experiences. She emphasizes the importance of planning for children and encourages more dialogue on fertility, which is often kept secret among women. Emma had an easy time getting pregnant with her first two children, but subsequent attempts revealed unexplained infertility, leading her through multiple rounds of IVF and the loss of a baby three times at different stages, which she found heartbreakingly difficult.
During the isolating time of COVID, her fertility journey was "very, very difficult" and "so destroying." Emma eventually chose surrogacy, which led to the birth of her twins with the help of what she describes as an "incredible woman," who she had a "beautiful, amazing partnership" with. Despite the sense of shame or loss for having to use surrogacy, she expresses profound gratitude for the experience and the selflessness of another human being.
Balancing Ambition and Family Requires Effort and Adaptation
Effort and constant re-evaluation are required for balancing personal ambition with parenting responsibilities.
Emma acknowledges that achieving success demands honesty about the efforts needed and that employees have their responsibility regarding personal life arrangements. Her approach to this balance involves seeing a therapist to help her be a great parent without losing sight of her ambitions. She makes an effort to balance career demands with personal time, such as spending time in Malibu and on the beach on most weekends. This ongoing effort is indicative of her commitment to finding equilibrium between her professional and familial roles.
Strong Partnership With Husband Key to Support and Growth
Emma's collaboration with her husband, Jens, fuels both her personal development and professional aspirations.
Emma and Jens frequently discuss various aspects because they work together, and Jens uniquely under ...
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Emma's Personal Life Challenges and Lessons Learned
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Actionables
- Create a personal openness pledge to share your challenges with a trusted friend or family member, ensuring you have a support system in place for life's hurdles. By committing to this pledge, you make it a habit to reach out and discuss your struggles, which can lead to discovering shared experiences and receiving advice that you might not have found otherwise.
- Schedule a weekly "ambition audit" with yourself to assess how well you're balancing your personal goals with your responsibilities. During this time, reflect on the past week, set goals for the upcoming week, and adjust your schedule to ensure you're allocating time to both your ambitions and your personal life, similar to how you might plan a budget to balance income and expenses.
- Initiate a monthly "re ...
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