Emma Grede, co-founder and CEO of inclusive fashion brand Good American alongside Khloé Kardashian, and founding partner of Skims with Kim Kardashian, has had a boardroom seat to the billion-dollar impact social influence can have on business. But she says it takes a lot more than influence to turn ambition and ideas into lasting success, and she has plenty of advice from her path to self-made millionaire to offer other women.
In Grede’s new book “Start With Yourself”, which came out Tuesday, she writes that women are often held back by how they are conditioned to think about money, leadership, and the permission to pursue their ambitions.
“There’s a lot of social conditioning that happens to us ... ‘she’s a good girl,’ and it teaches you to be small and be quiet and to be a pleaser,” Grede told CNBC’s Julia Boorstin during the latest episode of the “CNBC Changemakers and Power Players” podcast, which was also released Tuesday.
That conditioning early in life can leave a long and lasting negative impact on women, Grede says. “If you sit in fear about sticking out or doing something wrong, it’s going to be really hard for you to start something new because you’re so fearful. And if you’re a people pleaser, you’re probably not going to say what you really mean. ... And if your ambition to make a lot of money only lives inside of you, and you haven’t really vocalized it, then why should anybody pay you more?”
