Aside from the title, which is giving major self-help vibes, this book is anything but.
It’s more of a manual for career and business, with a fair amount of memoir running through it.
And I wouldn’t normally go anywhere near a book like this. My entire blog is built on helping you stop hustling, not start. It’s author, Emma Grede, is also a multi-millionaire, an entrepreneur, and a mum, who’s built her whole career on doing more, not less.
But Start With Yourself kept popping up all over my Instagram feed, so what can I say? I got curious. I wanted to hear what she actually had to say, and get the full story behind how she got started and kept going.
In all honesty, some of it wasn’t really for me, but a lot more resonated than I expected.
Here’s my hot take.
P.S. If you’re new here, hey! I’m Thalia. I help burnt-out girlies like you build a life that’s aligned, magnetic, and unapologetically yours. Every week(ish), I share content on burnout recovery, self-development, finding joy, and career growth. Subscribe here so you never miss a debrief.
Who is Emma Grede?
Quick context if her name is new to you.
Emma Grede is the cofounder and CEO of Good American, the denim brand she built with Khloé Kardashian. She’s also a founding partner of SKIMS, and on top of that, she’s cofounded two more brands; Safely and Off Season.
She’s an investor, guest star on Dragon’s Den (which is how I first heard of her) and has her own podcast called Aspire with Emma Grede.
Not exactly burnout recovery material, I know, but her backstory is what I’m interested in.
Emma grew up working-class, raised by a single mum in East London, and left school early. She had no money or connections, and definitely no head start. Everything she’s achieved up to now is because she hustled and worked damn hard for it.
Which is exactly the energy the rest of the book runs on.
I’m not a bitch — I’m not trying to be purposefully obstructive or negative about something, but I’m also not going to tell an entrepreneur their idea is perfect when it’s not, or that their business model will work when it won’t. That is not helpful.
Emma Grede
The lowdown on Start With Yourself
The book is split into three parts, and Emma is upfront that the order matters.
You start with getting clear on your vision, because you can’t manage your emotions or untangle your thinking patterns if you don’t actually know what you’re working towards.
From there she moves into navigating emotions, which sounds soft but it’s really about not letting guilt, jealousy, or other people’s opinions make your decisions for you.
Then comes the meatiest part: reframing what she calls Old Thoughts — our inherited beliefs around money, ambition, parenting, and what most of us never actually chose for ourselves. She breaks this down across trade-offs, money, career, family, building a brand and business, and leadership.
Then action, because none of it matters if you don’t actually do anything with it.
I’ll be honest, it took me a minute to wrap my head around the structure, but once it clicked, I actually found myself looking forward to reading more about how it played out in Emma’s own life.
I also felt that the first half was stuff I’d already heard before, but the chapter on building your business and personal brand is what actually got me listening.
Overall, Start With Yourself reads more like a business playbook than a self-help guide, probably because Emma literally thinks in systems. So it’s probably not for everyone, especially for us burnt out girlies.
How easy to read is Start With Yourself by Emma Grede?
In short, very easy.
Emma Grede has spent years pitching to investors and building multiple billion-dollar businesses, so knows how to make complicated stuff land in one sentence. And that skill shows up on every page.
It consists of short chapters and punchy topics so you can dip in and out of it while on your morning commute without losing the plot.
So yes, unlike a lot of self-improvement books that feel like homework, I got through this one in a few sittings.
Emma writes exactly how I’d imagine she talks: bold, direct, a bit blunt, and zero fluff.
There are no long-winded metaphors or let-me-set-the-scene waffle. It reads more like she’s talking to you IRL than through a book.
And she is here for the truth (one of my core values so you know we’re aligned) — she doesn’t sugarcoat things or make things sound easy.
The only thing I wish is that there were quick recaps at the end of each chapter. There’s so much packed in that I ended up taking notes and highlighting as I went, just to keep track of her key points.
My 3 biggest takeaways from Start With Yourself by Emma Grede
I’m not exactly Emma Grede’s target reader.
Actually, if we’re being honest, I’m not even sure who Emma’s target reader was. It felt like she was talking to women in corporate jobs, mums, twenty-something girlies just starting out, CEOs, and business owners, all at the same time.
That’s probably why I didn’t connect with this book as much as I thought I would. I had to skim through a lot of advice that didn’t make sense for me before I hit the parts that really did land.
Here’s everything that has stuck with me, weeks later.
P.S. I encourage you to save this post (like now!!) so you can come back to it whenever you need to.
1 | Treat every opportunity as leverage
Emma implies it simply: It you hate your job, treat it as something that can help move you forward to the next best thing.
This hit deep, because I spent the better part of two years in a job I resented, doing work I found meaningless, and my main coping mechanism was complaining about it.
I treated that job like a complete write-off — something to survive, rather than something I could actually use. But Emma’s framing flips that.
What I really should’ve done is treat that experience as leverage.
Because the lessons, the skills, the contacts you build come with you where ever you go. This doesn’t mean pretending your shitty job is secretly amazing. It just means learning to appreciated the good (e.g. your growth, the people you work with, etc.) and stop hating every single second.
Gratitude won’t fix a toxic job, but it does help you notice the wins you’re already picking up along the way.
Remember, nothing is wasted. Everything counts.
Wherever you are in your career, treat every opportunity and experience as leverage—even if you hate it in that moment, skip the sour attitude and think about what it’s teaching you, and what you’ll eventually be able to bring forward.
Emma Grede
2 | No one owes you anything
“No one is coming to save you” is by far my favourite Mel Robbins quote. And this sentiment is echoed throughout Start With Yourself.
And oof did it sting a little.
For a long time, I just assumed that if I worked hard enough and was likeable enough, things would eventually land in my lap. Like bigger brand collaborations, more recognition, and clients finding me out of the blue rather than me having to chase them.
Basically, I was waiting to be picked.
But Emma’s whole argument is the opposite. Nobody is coming to rescue your business, your career, or your sense of worth, and waiting for someone to notice your effort is a losing strategy.
It’s a hard pill to swallow, I’m not gonna lie.
But it’s also kind of freeing, because once you accept no one owes you anything, you stop waiting for permission and just start acting.
3 | I don’t want to build an empire
This one’s less a takeaway and more of a permission slip.
Reading about Emma Grede’s own early years grinding through the fashion industry brought back so many uncomfortable memories for me.
Like the stress and exhaustion of working 8+ hours a day for very little money.
She clearly had it in her to push through and build something huge off the back of it to set her up for long-term success. I didn’t. But reading her story didn’t make me feel jealous or particularly inspired.
If anything, her work ethic made me realise that overachieving and burnout was never worth it for me.
Which made one thing pretty clear. I don’t want to build an empire.
I don’t want to manage a large team of fifty or more people. I don’t want the kind of ambition that means your work absorbs every other part of your life, even temporarily, even if it is for good reason.
I’m happy with a quiet life.
That’s not me being lazy or scared, even though those are the two explanations I used to default to. It’s just not the shape of life I want. I want something sustainable, and small enough that I still recognise myself inside it.
Sometimes you have to stand back and say, “Does this matter to me based on my principles and what I think is right? Is this the right use of energy?” I often stop myself from simply going with the flow of cultural pressure when I realise that I simply don’t care enough to spend any time on it.
Emma Grede
Final thoughts
Looking back at everything I’ve taken from this book — the leverage, the no-one-owes-you-anything bit, the realisation that I don’t want an empire — they all point to the same thing.
It doesn’t matter if you’re climbing the corporate ladder or just trying to make it through burnout in one piece, the responsibility for getting there is still yours alone.
I also loved how much of an advocate Emma is for values. She mentions them again and again throughout the book, and really drums in the idea that if you don’t know your values, you’ll keep building a life, career, or a business, that doesn’t actually fit you.
So yes, I guess Start With Yourself is worth the hype. Even if you’re not the obvious target reader.
It won’t tell you how to slow down, as it’s not trying to be a self-help book.
But it is an honest, no-nonsense look at what it actually takes to build something, on whatever scale you’re building it.
You’ve got this.
Thalia xx
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