Emma Grede wants you to cross out your Old Thoughts
Emma Grede wrote Start With Yourself about the rules you were handed and never checked.
Grede co-founded Good American and is a founding partner of Skims. In 2021 she joined Shark Tank as a guest investor.
She calls those rules Old Thoughts. They're ideas about work and life that people treat as fixed. Work and life balance has to fall in a set place. Money is crass to talk about. Ambition is unseemly. Grede says each one is a bias, and you can cross it out.
Grede on taking power
Nobody’s coming to hand you power. You have to take it for yourself.
Test one of your own on the escalation exercise
The escalation exercise asks four yes or no questions about money and a deadline. The last two differ only in what you win.
Pick one of your Old Thoughts about work and write it at the top of the page before you start.
Try Escalation
We built Escalation into the free Astera workspace to go with this book. Your answers save as you go.
Try itThe book itself is Start With Yourself by Emma Grede.
Questions
Who is Emma Grede?
A British entrepreneur and the chief executive of Good American.
When did it come out?
April 2026.
Which Astera exercise goes with it?
Escalation, which is free in the Astera workspace.