I was sitting on my kitchen floor at 11 PM, laptop open, pretending I had energy left to plan my next career move. The dishwasher was humming. I had a to-do list I hadn’t touched. And I was tired of reading books that promised me balance and ease. That’s when I found Emma Grede’s Start With Yourself.
The cover is bright. The title sounds like gentle encouragement. But I opened it ready to be skeptical. Another self-made woman telling me to hustle harder. Another story that leaves out all the luck.
What I found instead was something I wasn’t prepared for. Something that made me put the book down three times to think. How much of my stalled progress was actually my own fault?
Who Emma Grede Is and Why She Wrote This
Emma Grede grew up in East London. Working class single mother. Rough neighborhood. Dropped out of high school. By every early indicator, she was not supposed to become one of America’s richest self-made women. She co-founded Good American. She helped build SKIMS into a billion-dollar brand. She runs multiple businesses while raising four children.
But this book isn’t her bragging about those wins. It’s her showing you the exact mental framework she used to get there. She calls it “Old Thoughts” versus “New Thoughts.” Old Thoughts are the stories we inherit about what’s possible for us. That we can’t have both career and family. That asking for money is crass. That ambition in women is unseemly. She says those aren’t rules. They’re biases. System errors. And we have to delete them.
Radical Self-Responsibility
Here’s the part that made me uncomfortable. Grede argues that blaming your circumstances won’t change them. She acknowledges systemic issues like racism and misogyny. She doesn’t pretend those don’t exist. But then she says something harder: you still have to move forward anyway. You can’t wait for the world to fix itself before you start building your life.
She tells a story about being rejected from a job early in her career. She could have blamed the interviewer. She could have said it was because of her background. Instead, she asked: what can I learn from this? What can I do better next time?
That’s not toxic positivity. It’s strategic survival. She’s not saying the system is fair. She’s saying waiting for fairness to arrive is a losing strategy.
What This Book Does Well
The chapter on emotions surprised me the most. She says emotions are information, not commands. You don’t have to act on every feeling you have. You can feel scared and still pitch the investor. You can feel angry and still be professional. She learned this the hard way, after letting her emotions damage a business relationship.
The section on motherhood is also honest in a way most books aren’t. She doesn’t pretend you can do it all alone. She talks about her support system. Her husband. Her nanny. Her community. She says you don’t have to choose between your dreams and your family. But you do have to stop pretending you can be everything to everyone. That’s a tradeoff she’s willing to name.
Where the Book Falls Short
I’ll be honest. Some of her advice assumes you have access to resources. Hiring help. Building a team. Saying no to obligations. That works when you have money. When you’re starting from zero, some of her suggestions feel out of reach.
She also has a relentless energy that can feel exhausting. Not everyone is wired to work at her pace. Not everyone wants to. She says you have to be obsessed with your customers and your business. That’s true for building a billion-dollar company. It might not be true for building a good life.
Who Should Read This Book and Who Should Skip It
Read this if you’re an ambitious woman who feels stuck. Read this if you keep waiting for permission to go after what you want. Read this if you’re tired of sugarcoated advice that doesn’t challenge you.
Skip it if you want a gentle, slow-paced self-help book. Skip it if you believe systemic change must come before individual effort. Skip it if you’re anti-capitalist or deeply uncomfortable with the idea of wealth creation.
What I Took Away
The most powerful line in the book is something Grede says about gratitude. She’s been asked in interviews if she feels grateful for her success. Her response? “I’m not grateful. I am proud. Because I worked for everything I had.” She points out that no one asks a man if he’s grateful for his accomplishments.
That reframe stayed with me. Not because I agree with everything she says. But because she forced me to examine where I was giving my power away. Waiting for someone else to notice my work. Hoping for permission. Making excuses.
The book won’t hand you a step-by-step business plan. It won’t make your problems disappear. But it will make you feel slightly less alone in the moments when you’re the only one betting on yourself. And honestly, sometimes that’s enough.
