Start With Yourself by Emma Grede book review - a new vision for work and life
A no-nonsense guide to ambition, self-belief and taking control of your own success story, from a former East-End-raised school dropout-turned LA-based millionaire.
Emma Grede started out trying to write a straightforward business book. Yet, as she told Harper’s Bazaar, the more she got into it, “I was like, no, this is a vision for work – and for life, because you can’t have one without the other.”
Her debut, the New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller Start With Yourself, has been acclaimed as a fiercely honest, tough-talking and immensely practical guide for both. “No-bullshit” as she says.
It’s about defining success on your own terms and getting women in particular to think really clearly about what they want. Also: to stop apologising for their own ambition – something typically hard-wired into women from day dot.
From the East End to one of America's richest women
Born in east London and raised by a working-class single mum, Grede has had quite a journey.
“I’ve made no secret of the fact I grew up with very little and dropped out of high school,” she told Harper’s.
Today? She’s CEO and cofounder (with Khloé Kardashian) of Good American; founding partner (with another Kardashian, Kim) of Skims; a podcast host; a board director of nonprofits including the Obama Foundation and Baby2Baby – as well as a King’s Trust Ambassador. All of which has made her one of America’s richest self-made women. And it was all down, she says, to mindset.
She also says that the blueprint behind her success can absolutely be learned. “Wherever I go, I’m always asked about how I’ve done what I’ve done,” she says. “I think people are not asking how I did it – they actually want to know for themselves.”
Practical lessons
And so she’s told them. Structured around practical lessons and easy-to-apply takeaways, Start With Yourself challenges readers to identify and dismantle what she calls “Old Thoughts” – outdated beliefs, biases and “system errors” about money, success and ambition that hold people back, and prevent them from taking ownership of their lives and goals.
While refreshingly clear that success means making difficult decisions, sacrifices, and compromises, the book’s equally frank about the realities of modern life for women; raising her own four kids took an “unbelievable amount of help… we were never supposed to raise kids all alone.”
Ultimately, it’s a powerful reminder that meaningful change starts when you don’t actually wait for permission – and get out of your own way. “I’m allergic to toxic positivity,” she told Harper’s, “I can’t bear being told bullshit.” Start With Yourself is anything but.
- Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life is out now from Simon & Schuster
Ali Catterall is an award-winning writer, journalist and filmmaker whose writing has featured in the Guardian, Time Out, GQ, Film4, Word magazine and the Big Issue, among many others. Ali is also the writer and director of the 2023 film Scala!!!