Aspire with Emma Grede - Love, Family and Business: How To Work With a Partner with Jens Grede

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Aspire with Emma Grede is a finalist for Best New Podcast with Signal’s Listener Choice Awards!  Vote here. In this episode of Aspire, Emma Grede sits down with her husband, Jens Grede— media and retail investor, CEO of Skims, Chairman of Frame and founder of the Saturday Group.  Jens’ business acumen has been instrumental to Skims’ exponential growth, which has a current valuation of $4 billion.  They sit down for a candid conversation about what it takes to be both life partners and business partners. Emma and Jens open up about the lessons they’ve learned building brands like Skims and Good American, the rule that anchors their marriage, and why embracing risk and reinvention has shaped both their careers and their family life. They share honest reflections on balancing ambition with love, parenting with partnership, and excellence with vulnerability. Tune in for a real, behind-the-scenes look at how Emma and Jens make marriage and business thrive — together. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I am so excited to share my debut book with you or Start With Yourself, which is available now. You might have seen the headlines, you might have seen the social, but this book is exactly what I intended, a conversation that will make you think, and it's a blueprint for anyone who wants success without the toxic positivity. Start with yourself is about self-leadership, because wherever I go, women ask me how I got to where I am. But what you really want to know is how you can get there. So I'm doing what I do best, sharing and navigate keeping what's works for me in the hope that you can borrow from a philosophy that has served me so well. The truth is I'm not an expert. I've just lived it. I've made the mistakes.

I've had the failures and I've learned what actually works. It takes a lot. It takes the most. And this book is for anyone who's tired of feeling like a passenger in their own life. It's about taking responsibility for your thinking, managing your emotions and getting clear on your ideas and then knowing your next step. It's about picking yourself up after failure, being accountable, but also forgiving yourself, pushing for wins, and never, ever apologising for your ambition. It's also about challenging the rules that you've been told. There is no perfect time. Balance isn't the goal. Alignment is and there's nothing wrong with you wanting more. I'm precisely sure that the reason I've been so successful is so I can

share it with you. Start with yourself. My debut book is available now. Visit emigre.com to purchase the book, also available on Amazon, your favorite audio platforms and all good bookshops. Today is a crazy one. I'm interviewing my husband, who I've also worked with for over 18 years, Yens Greed. Yens is a serial entrepreneur, prolific investor in the media and consumer industries, father of our four kids and CEO of Skims. Today, we unpack how we've been able to build together in life and business. Yens reveals why he never denied. gut instinct and how success is about opportunity, patience and resilience, and the moment that changed everything for us. Hi darling. This is weird. Oh yeah. Very, very weird. How are you feeling?

I'm extremely nervous. I think I'm the most nervous I've been for life since our wedding day. Oh, shut up. There's no way. Are you really? Of course, because I want to do a good job for you. This isn't what I do, so I'm doing it for you. You're so good. I literally had ours from outside. Well, you're very lovely, and I'm happy you're here because actually, of all the people I've asked to do the podcast, you gave me the most direct answer, which was just a flat no, maybe season two.

Yeah. And here you are. I was hoping when season two would roll around, I could say season three and so forth. Just keep kicking the can. It was a deferment. Well, the people have spoken in the end, they want to hear from you. It is a fact of social media questioning. So here you are. Obviously, I know you as my beloved husband, their father of our four children and an amazing investor, founder, CEO, all-round entrepreneur. But for my audience that

don't know you, can you just take me back to the beginning a little bit and talk to the audience about where you come from and what your upbringing was like? I grew up in a small working class community, an hour south of Stockholm, a son of a Swedish filmmaker who made very difficult movies about difficult subjects. You can say that again? Yeah. And the mother who was a tapestry artist. So we were the odd family, you know, I wouldn't say we were the Adams family, but we

were the odd family in where I was raised. And talk a little bit about because you left home at a very young age and kind of set out on your own away from your parents, like 16 years old. Yeah, I moved away when I was 16. You know, I grew up in the countryside, but I never really had a strong connection to the countryside. I was a kid that was very bored growing up and dreaming of, you know, the big city. And I was obsessed with skateboarding. And I spent my whole child. did skateboarding and snowboarding, and it's not that easy to skateboard on a farm. Facts. So, which is, it was like a challenging choice.

So I moved to Stockholm when I was 16, so I could really skate all year around indoors and lived on my own ever since. Tell me about coming to London. I know you turned up to London when you were 19, but give me that bridge of like, how did you get into fashion? because I feel like for certain careers, music, fashion, entertainment, it's, you know, it's very, very different now to what it was back then. But you were still a kid with no contacts, no money, no, like, you weren't in the mix because that's not where you came from. So how did you break into fashion?

What was your first job? Well, that was before I came to London. I think I was like 20, about to become 21. I had somehow wrangled my way into a magazine in Stockholm that was a very well-respected fashion magazine. I wrangled my way in by, I approached them in a nightclub. I saw the editor and I said, I worked for free. And who doesn't want someone working for free? I mean, that's what we could do back in the day. Those days are gone, but we all worked for free.

I worked for free until he grew a conscience and started paying me. You didn't tell him he how to pay you. you? No. No. We all just worked for free. It was the norm, especially in fashion. Well, I wanted the job and I was okay to go hungry for a little bit. And go hungry, you did. All right, so you turn up to London. You've got 300 quid in your pocket, and 300 quid is, you know, not a lot of dollars, basically. And what do you do? Well, I know this is shocking to hear, but I had a girlfriend before you. I know, I know, I know, it's shocking. And, and surprise. Do you mean that you moved to London for a girl?

I think there was a girl involved, yes, in that move. I wanted to move to New York. Long may she be gone. Well, God works in mysterious ways. Because I was in London, just waiting for you. Because you were in London. Because I did not like London. I didn't like it one bit.

And I wanted to move to New York. And I showed up in London. We shared a small apartment above a book binders on Holloway Road, which is not the greatest area then. I don't think it's the greatest area today. And I slept on a, well, her and I lived on a blow-up mattress together with her flatmate. That was that. They were the good old days. They were the good old days. Did you envisage yourself to be where you are now? The short answer is yes. I mean, I never envisaged my career. I never had a plan for my career. I didn't know what form it would take or what good I could do. But I was a daydreamer. I was a big daydreamer. And I think I spent most of my school years daydreaming. I certainly didn't spend my school day studying. I never went to college.

No, you left when you were what, 15, 16? No, no. I left after high school. after high school. It's a little different in the UK to the US and Sweden, but I left after high school, I had terrible grades. I couldn't get into university. I wanted to get into university because I wanted to be able to live.

And if I would get into university, I would get student loans and I could live on the student loans. But my grades didn't really get me there. So from the terrible grades, tell me how you first got started in business. What was the first thing? So the way I think about,

about business. There's something I do to do something I want to do. It's, it's business itself. It's a means to an end. It's the necessary things we do to be able to practice something we love, or we want to express. You don't become an artist to be in the music business. You become an artist. The music business follows being an artist or a writer. And I was a writer, or at least identified as a writer. I didn't write very much, but I identified as a writer. You have to work at a magazine. But really, I didn't have any fault of being in business or running a business or starting a business until I had to start a business to do what I wanted to do. Why did you mean to start a business?

Like, where were you, where were you at? Where were you working? I was 24. Because that's really young to start a business. Yeah, but I couldn't get the job I wanted. So I had to create the job I wanted. I wanted to work with my best friend. and no one would hire two people at the same time.

I can't believe we thought that we were naive enough to think that you can get hired as two people. I mean, how many people have come into your office saying, here's the two of us. And here's my best friend. Here's my best friend. Hire us both. That's not how it goes. However, we were naive enough to think that that's how it goes. And when not only that, we only really wanted to work for one or two people.

And when they didn't give us a job, we had no choice but to start. on this. I've heard you talk about or I heard you say that dysfunction is an opportunity. And so I wonder about somebody listening to this, how, you know, a toxic job, a bad boss or being in a kind of not so great work environment can actually be a growth experience. Well, just imagine, right, if everybody around you is really great, you know how hard it is to stand out. But if you're working in an environment with some dysfunction and you're in a job and you don't think your boss is that good or your coworker is that good, good. You'd be great. You'd be great. You will stand out and you'll get opportunities because you will be there and you'll do a better job.

So yeah, instead of, and I've said this to many friends, don't complain about your environment. See your environment as an opportunity to put yourself forward and do a great job. Don't worry so much about if the people you work with is not up to what you perceive, rightly or wrongly, to be your level, but then you be the level. Yeah. No, I think that shuts down quite a lot of complaining. I love what you said about the way of framing your 20s, your 30s and your 40s, because I think that common wisdom, or so many of us think that everything should be figured out. Like, you've spent maybe time in education, you come out of college, and your 20s, and you should like walk into this dream situation. But the reality is, and I think I've learned this as I got older, that it's a

doesn't work like that at all. And I wonder if, like, you know, you have hundreds and hundreds of employees, you've had multiple companies and successes. Can you talk a little bit about the timing, the timing of everything and how we should think about some of those frameworks? Well, unlike you, I don't have a plan. We're going to talk a lot about how different we are, you and I. I don't have a plan. I don't have a linear career pattern. I don't call myself an entrepreneur. I don't call myself a CEO. I normally say, who the hell wants to be a CEO?

CEOs gets fired. I don't want to be a CEO. I want to call the shots. I want to own it. But that's someone else been to firing life. But the distinction is important because I think for a long time, all I wanted in my life was to be the CEO, the entrepreneur, and you have always fought against those things.

You're like, no, you don't, Emma. You just want to be the person calling the shots. Yeah, what does it matter? Well, I think people care about labels. You're just very, like, you can give a shit about those things. I couldn't care two sheds about those things. I think one should be careful about being too excited about calling yourself a CEO or founder. I mean, I prefer founder.

I think founder is fair. You have an idea. You're bringing that to life. I think it's the best way to describe it. But to me, when I think about a CEO, I think about someone who is, you know, commanding a large corporation, not someone who's trying to make a dream become a reality. But you are a CEO. You're the CEO of Skims. You've been the CEO of multiple companies. And yet that's just not something that you identify with. No. I identify with a role as a coach. I think in, as you know, as you know, which is ironic,

but I really think about a lot of things in business as a sports analogy. And I'm a basketball coach. I want to win the title. I put my guys on the floor. But if you're losing in the fourth quarter, I'm not going to run out and sink a free pointer for you, but I'm going to deal with you in the off-season.

So for me, I see my job as trying to bring a vision into reality. And that vision will shift as business gets bigger. You know, the dream of what Skims can become is bigger today than when we started the company. But I see my role with Kim. Kim had a vision of what she wanted to create. And I see my role as making that a reality for her and for myself and for you. and for our team.

I want to know, because I feel like you have a good point in view on this, for someone who's starting out with super limited resources, what do you think the smartest way is to build and to create momentum for yourself? If somebody else has the 300 pounds in their pocket, what do you think you would advise? Well, if you got $3 or $400 in your pocket, you can't really do shit. That's the truth. you have to be good at something.

You know, if you don't have the money, you have to have the human capital, your skill set, your drive, your talent. That is hopefully more valuable than $400. So you have to double down on being good at something. People try to skip that over. We see these success stories all the time about someone who stumbles over something

and oh my God, now it's unbelievable, and it's a billion-dollar business. And I can tell you, I have been, as you know, an avid investor in the consumer space and in technology and media for 20 years, I'm on the inside of many of those stories. It's not my name because it's not mine,

but I'm on the inside because I'm an investor. It never is what people think it is. is never as great as it might look. So it's far better to focus on being excellent. And I have in my whole life never seen excellent people fail. That's a delicious bit of advice right there. Just try to be great. Just try to be great.

Just try to take whatever it is that you've got and be great. I want to talk to you about the big pivotal moments. and I think that one element or something that I see in you that I've really had to try to learn is this element of risk taking. And so I feel like you have reinvented yourself in your career multiple, multiple times. And I wonder what's giving you the courage to start over

and start over and start over again? The biggest risk you can take in life is not taking any risks in life. You have told me this many times. That's a fact. Whatever good moment you have is going to pass for everybody. You are a bundle of joy, my darling. It is just what it is.

This is the stoic, Swedish, joyfulness that I wake up with every morning. Feeling good, it's going to pass. I'm like, oh, great. Fucking great. What is going to pass if you don't reinvent yourself? Well, because you're going to pass. you believe very much like not getting high in your own supply, right? You're like, you're being a moment and you know it's just a fleeting moment. I think getting high on your own supply,

but getting high on your own success, I would say that drug has taken down more of my friends than any of the others. You have to reinvent yourself every five to seven years or so. And give me a night, like for people listening, exactly what do you? you mean by now? What do you mean by reinvent yourself? I'm sitting on your podcast. I'm sitting on your podcast. Fair. We all have that dream trip. We've been wishing we could go on. But too often life or usually price gets in the way. That's why price line is here to help you turn your dream trip into reality. With up to 60% off hotels and up to 50% off flights, you can book everything you need for your next adventure.

Don't just dream about that next trip. Book it with Priceline. Download the Priceline app or visit Priceline.com and book your next trip today. Go to your happy price, price line. So you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night's day anywhere? Anywhere.

What about fancy places like the canopy in Paris? Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby. Or relaxing sanctuaries, like the Conrad in Toulomb? Hilton Honors, baby. What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the mall? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties? When you want points that can take you anywhere anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

Book your spring break now. All right, let's talk about me and you, dear. Let's do it. Okay, so we got to the kind of early 30s, which is basically when I met you. I met you when you were 30. 30? 30. 30?

30. 29. Because I remember your 30th birthday. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I wasn't invited. No. You had another girlfriend then too, but...

It wasn't much of a party. No. You were miserable before me, but let's just talk about... Well, actually, why don't we talk about that? Why don't we talk about how we first met? Because you know how couples have these different ideas of that. Let's talk about us together, how we met. Go on.

In your words. Well, we met through an agency that was under the sat big group umbrella. and they wanted to branch out into sponsorship and events. I didn't really care. But the people running it said. That's exactly why I came over because you didn't care. I was like, all right. We'll try it.

Yeah. And they said this. But you were in my interview. You were my final interview, basically. Yes. Yes. After I did. You do remember it.

Very well. Where were we? But I was going to say something nice. Okay, go on, go on. I was going to say something really nice. They were saying at the time, I was like, why would we do that? And they were like, this girl, everybody loves her. She's super well respected.

She's really young. But I think it would be a really good look for us if she worked here because everybody else would want her to work for them. And I said, good enough for me, but let me meet this person. Yeah. And so I met you. So you met. And how did you feel about me straight away? Was it love at first sight?

It wasn't love at first sight. But you? But it wasn't. I loved you straight away. But it wasn't your love at first side. You can't say it's not love. You really, like, the way I remember it is you literally didn't know that I existed for nine months. Huh.

I think that's a slight exaggeration. I do remember our entire first meeting. in detail. Oh, yeah, no doubt. You're very, you remember detail. And I wouldn't have remembered that in detail if you hadn't made a very strong impression. I remember telling someone I thought you were very cute. So I give you that. But I was also aware that that's not something I should think. I remember being so in love with you, the moment I met you, that when you wrote my offer down, because I was essentially at that point, it was. like I was going to start a division of an agency you already have. And I would have a stake in that,

you know, it wasn't really even a company. It was just a division. But I would basically get to, you know, make a decent amount of money. And you wrote my offer down on a piece of paper. And I loved you so much at that point that I still have that notebook. It's upstairs still in my GA office. It's upstairs in the office. Yes. That's extremely cute. Isn't that? Yeah. Yeah, that's very cute. Yeah, I'm so glad you thought that was cute. I like that. Yeah, I mean, it's the truth.

I was completely smitten, but, you know, we were not in situations either of us to start dating one another because we both had other partners at the time. I don't think that Meet Q is as interesting perhaps as how, you know, how I fell in love with you, which I find was one of the most I'm going to sound like the way I don't want to come across, almost spiritual. Aw. In the way that happened, it was a...

Sounds like I have dream catchers. It really does. Which is like the opposite. But I just knew. When I knew, I knew. I had, when I knew, I had no doubt. It was like a cosmic experience.

And I knew you felt the same way, even though we had never, talked about. No, we never had a discussion because we were professional. When we kind of proclaimed our love for one another and started dating, we just came out with it. Yeah. I remember I was with you.

No, we hadn't kissed and we hadn't done it. Nothing. But I was willing to leave everything and anything for you. Yeah, same. And you did. Which, you know, yeah, sometimes the greatest risk is not taking it. But it didn't feel like a risk at all. It felt like this is what I had to do.

But I was never uncertain. And I was never uncertain about how you felt either. No, I think that we've been very clear together. I mean, I do think, and I say this all the time, it has been a gift and a blessing that we had a working relationship together for just under a year. before we actually started dating before I put my, you know, falling in love on day one to the side and decided to do some good work.

Well, that's helpful because when you have a working rapport, it's much easier to have a personal rapport. Yeah, I think so. If you have a personal rapport and you try to turn that into working rapport, that can be a little bit challenging because you just have different patterns. Yeah, the way around it really worked. And I think that what's been interesting is how we've managed to stay. happily married together now with four kids later and yet still work together.

So what do you think it is that makes us able to work together? I would broaden that a little bit because I have only really worked with friends. I consider everybody I work with a friend. I didn't, in almost every case, you know, there's been that duality. You know, you're my family. but as we grow up in our 20s and 30s, our friends are also our family. So I have only,

I feel like I've always ever worked with family. But also I grew up in a home where my dad was making movies, my mom was making art, and they had a dialogue around each other's work all the time. So I think I grew up in a home where work and life was, always intertwined. And it wasn't something that my parents were trying to separate.

They got a tremendous amount of joy and value out of it, just like I believe I'm getting a tremendous amount of joy and value out of working with you. You know, all relationships, not just in love, but all relationships have to create something together. And we can create a home, we can create a family, people can create memories, you can have projects, you can start companies. People ask me all the time. You know, my friends ask me, you're, you know, you're working with your wife. I said, to work with your wife, I can you work with your wife. That would drive me nuts. You know, how do you do it? And I say, you all work with your wife. You all work with your partners. You know, we're lucky now.

that we don't have to argue so much about who's taking out the trash. But for most people, the division of roles and responsibilities in a home, in any relationship, it sure looks like work to me. So I don't make that much distinction. You really don't. No. I always think that it's somewhere in the fact that you and I are, and we talk about this a lot, like we are so different.

The way we approach business, the way we are with the people that we work with, you and I have entirely opposite styles. But in our home lives and what we care about and who we are, we're incredibly similar. I think we're very similar about our taste. Yeah. Taste meaning how we want to live, how we want to eat, what we get excited about. we have very similar values. Yep.

You know, of the whole spectrum of values. I think we have similar moral code. That for sure. I think we look at the world in a very similar way. I feel that I'm incredibly aligned with you as a human being. Yeah, our styles of work are entirely different. Not like Mars and Venus. No, like galaxies apart.

Galaxy is apart. Galaxy is a part. You are charming and friendly, impersonable and emotional. And, you know. And you, my darling. I'm accused of being a little bit stoic, or impersonal perhaps sometimes, a little cold.

I wouldn't use that word, but I would just say, you know, a little bit more objective. We're super different in how we approach our work. but that's small stuff. That's just how you approach your work is how you get shit done. Yeah. That's what I'm. Yeah.

You know, and I've said this to you many times when we've had this agreement, which is it's all going to lead to the same result. Yeah. This is how you go about it to get to your end result. I have to go about it the way I go about it. And when you say, how can you do this or, you know, I don't agree with that, you know, I'll sometimes have to remind you that I've done just fine in life doing it my way. And we're going to get to the same place.

We're going to get to the same place. But we do have some rules. Like I feel like one of the things that between you and I, we always say, like, whichever of us cares the most gets to decide. Yeah, this is a, I would say this is a pillar of my kind of philosophy of working with people that I love. And it goes for you. It goes for all my partners. I think it goes for my working relationship with Kim. Yeah. Which is, I know what you, I know what Kim, I know what my other partners deeply care about. And if you care that much about it, I'm going to let you have it. And I'm lucky enough to work with people that give me the grace that when I care a lot, you let me have it.

Because in the end of the day, we all make good decisions. We make more bad decisions. It's okay. Okay, you like blue. I like red. Who to say what's the best? Okay, if you really want blue, let's do blue. If it doesn't work out, we'll do it differently.

What's the big deal? How does your dad say it? Some things work out. What is the saying he has? Well, the saying my dad has, which applies to a lot of things in life, is it's going to be okay. But if it's not okay, that's okay too. But as it pertains to how you divide responsibilities between a friend and a business partner, it's really important to follow the rule of who cares.

Yeah. Who cares more? Because if you're passionate about it, it's important for you. to see that through. You have that in your heart. You want to see this idea through. Who am I to stop you from seeing that fruit? That creates friction and tension.

And if it doesn't work out or you don't get your way and I get my way instead, and that doesn't work out, you're going to be resentful thinking if you've only done it my way. Isn't it much easier to go? If this is really important to you, we're going to do it the way you want to do it. and we're going to get behind the way you want to do it, 110%. If it doesn't work out, well, you know what? We'll make a different decision next time.

Yeah. It's okay. Honestly, people overthink the small decisions and they forget about the bigger picture because you chose that color, because you opened that store, because you choose that packaging, because you spent that on a billboard. You think that's really ultimately going to determine the success of what you're doing? It's not. You're going to make some bad decisions.

You're probably going to make some horrible decisions. The secret to success as a founder is to realize that you only have to make a couple of really good decisions. And you can make a ton of bad ones. Just make a couple really good ones. And the only way you make some good decisions is to make a decision and move on. Companies and ideas fail, not because of good and bad ideas, but because, people cannot make decisions. They spend too much time with too few decisions, make more decisions, don't sweat it, learn from it, move on. What was your advice? Because I think it's my number one,

and I've said this so many times, my number one piece of advice from you is always that, make a decision and move on. But what do you think your advice is for people that hesitate too long, who make decisions out of fear and get it wrong? What do you say to people? Well, We're all wired differently. So it's easy for me to say to somebody who has a tendency to procrastinate to make a decision to move on. But with so many things that we say, this is who I am, this is the way I am, I do it this way, I overthink, I procrastinate. And you use that as an excuse for not getting shit done is it's actually a muscle. Yeah.

I'm not a fast runner. You've seen me run. I run slow. It's not your thing. No, it's not my thing. But if I committed myself to it, maybe I could run a little bit faster, right? So things that we know about ourselves, which we wish we could change, it doesn't make you, oh my God, I'm going to be the fastest, most aggressive, risk taker that ever grace God's earth.

That's probably not going to happen. But you can develop that muscle. and you can become a faster decision maker. You can become a bigger risk taker. You can be more in tune with what your gut is telling you. You can develop a gut feel. You always refer to gut instinct and gut feel. Can you just talk about what that means to you specifically?

So when we think about gut feel, we think of that feeling we have inside of us, when we're confronted with a decision or how we feel about someone when we meet them or a situation. Yeah, typically. Right? That's how we refer to it.

So when we speak about it, we tend to also speak and think about it as something that's kind of given to us by God that it just instinctively happens. I can't explain it. It's in my spirit. Yeah. There might be some truth to it.

But your gut is really your collective memory your collective experience and learnings all inside of you that is forming that feeling. It's everything you read, every book, every article, every conversation you had, every wrong and right decision you made. That becomes your gut. And it's okay not to be able to explain why you feel it, but you can feed it. And you can feed it by being a curious person. I spend every morning reading news for an hour.

I read five newspapers. Yeah, five newspapers. I read things that disagree with. I read things I agree with. I listen to podcasts of people that I strongly disagree with and people I strongly agree with. I take in the false spectrum. I meet people. whenever we meet someone together, you go, oh, oh, here comes Jens 21 questions.

I'm always asking people questions. Because you were so interesting. Yeah, I just don't want to know like the surface stuff. So all of that, you know, in my life, that's built up. That's my gut feel. All of its feeds my gut feel. And I have learned to feed it. and I have learned to trust it.

I don't need to explain it. I just have now, I think, my instincts have got better as I got older. And the only way to explain that is to say my gut instinct is a muscle that I have trained and I have developed. Can you think about a time when your gut instinct has led you down like the right path? when you specifically used your gut and it's turned out to be right. When I met Kim and she showed me

what her early ideas around Skims was and she had an idea about a world that she wanted to build, I wasn't looking for a project. I was very happy. I had no interest in starting another business. I was kind of searching for a quite different chapter, I think, in life. But once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

Yeah, you couldn't not do it. I couldn't not do it. And it's not like I want to do something. And I never think that I've approached opportunities and investments and like, oh, I really want, like I really want to do it. It's more like I wake up the next day and I think I have to do it. I cannot not do it. So I just had a gut feeling.

that what she was showing me was something that I had to help bring to reality. So it certainly led me right, but I would say more often I remember the times where I don't listen to my gut, where I let myself be convinced that I'm wrong, where I'm giving too much, let's say, grace, partly because sometimes I can't articulate why I don't like something. something. It's not always easy in a nice way to say what I'd like something. Sometimes you see something, it just really like it. I don't really like it. So you can be convinced because, I don't really like it. But if you really like it, then you go against that gut feel, it always turns out. It always turns out terribly. Do you think that you knew when you and I got together, did you think

that you knew that we would like stay in business together? Did you ever have a feeling about about how our life would turn out together? Well, the most important thing has to be the most important thing. And if you're in love, being in love is the most important thing. That's such a you answer. I didn't think about business or what's going to happen next week. No. I was in love with you.

So that was the most important thing. And that's that. Do you feel like there's stuff that I do now that drives you crazy as a business partner? Well, you drive me crazy as a business partner as my best friend and my wife. How so? I've learned as I get older, I have learned that we all have different processes. It's not for me to change you. That's not my job.

and I'm pretty sure I do a lot of things that drives you up the wall. And I think the most important thing for any relationship, again, in love, in business, is really to, and I keep using this word today, I don't know why, you've got to give each other grace. You've got to give each other grace and allow one another to be who you are. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel

is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at yamavaitheter.com.

Only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in? Must be 21 to enter. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank.

I want to talk about disagreements because obviously all partnerships, relationships, everyone has disagreements. And how do you think that, especially in a relationship like us, how do you stop or how do we stop disagreements from becoming like, destructive, a work or a home? Well, it goes back to a little bit about who cares most. My ambition is actually not to have disagreements. Once you have a disagreement, it's gotten pretty far.

So I don't like to get to that. I mean, you can have bickering. Yeah, but I love the way you think you guys. It's got to go pretty far to the disagreement. That means that you have a point of view. I have a different point of view. No one's willing to give up their point of view. you that it feels so strongly that we'd rather disagree than move forward.

So I think disagreements should be avoided generally. But if you find yourself in the unfortunate situation that you have a true disagreement, you've got to take down the temperature, de-escalate. And again, what's the most important thing? Are we going to lose our business, lose our love, lose our friendship, lose our friendship, over this? Is this the most consequential thing? Is everything really at stake here? And usually not. Almost never, right?

Yeah. Like usually not? Almost never. So what do you think if there's people listening right now and they are thinking about working with a partner or working with a really close friend? What's the first conversation that they need to have before saying yes or coming together? I think if you have to have the conversation, maybe you shouldn't be partners. you know, I think that the best partners have a different skill set to you. You do different things. So the things that you do, or the thing that Kim does,

or the thing that our partners do has to be different from the thing that I do. So if you're the expert at A, it's going to be very easy for me to let you make all the decision as it pertains to A. If I'm an expert in B, you're going to let me make the decision as it pertains to B. You might advise me differently from what I want to do, but ultimately, that's my area of expertise. So I think if you're sitting with a friend, you're trying to figure out how to work together, you probably shouldn't work together. You're doomed? You're doomed. Yeah.

We never had to sit down and figure out our roles. It's bloody obvious. Yeah, basically. But with everybody I work with, it's pretty obvious. We do different things. And you should have more so than some kind of agreement, admire your partners for what they do, respect them for what they do. I worked with some brilliant creatives. I'm not as good as them.

I admire them. Yes. I wish I had those skills. I don't have them. I admire, I look up to it, and I'm excited to see what they do every day. Yes. That's how I want to go to work. I want to be excited about what my partner is going to show me,

and I hope they're excited about what I'm going to do. No doubt. I want to change gear a little bit because I am very happy that you're happy and open to talk about anxiety, and you have been pretty open about the fact that you suffer from anxiety, and I want to understand a bit more about anxiety, As anxiety as it relates to your career and your life and your business, because I think that we're so much conditioned to see anxiety as a weakness, and I know you think about it as a superpower. So when did you start seeing it as a superpower and will you just talk about it a bit for me?

Very late, probably in my late 30s, where I really understood. and I did that through work I was doing with a highly spiritual person who asked me, I said, I want to change. I don't want to be this anxious person any longer. I want to feel whole. And he said, are you sure you want to change? I said, yeah, this is a negative thing for me. This is a big, you know, my days are heavy.

And he said, if you change, it also will change who you are. You're not just successful because, you know, despite your anxiety, you're successful because of them. There's so many positives that are driven and so many skills that comes from your anxiety, that if you change that, you might not be as good as you are today. You might not be as good version. You might not be as an effective founder, entrepreneur without it.

Are you sure you want to lose that power? And that was... Oh, yeah, that was... I walked out of that room. I remember. Dr. Tran, right? Yeah, Dr. Tran. Nothing had changed and everything had changed at the same time.

Yeah, I mean, I think that that even just you saying it, and I know that story so well, I feel like it is so important for people to hear because we all have parts of our personality that are useful or less useful, more useful or less useful. And it's not often, like we don't often put things in the right order. We don't often understand how some of those things that can be troubling to us can also enable us. Yeah, and anxiety can be debilitating, can be crippling. And indeed, for many people, something that they need to get treated. At the same time, anxiety is a human emotion. It's part of our human experience. We all have it.

It's healthy to have a dose of anxiety. It's connected to fear, which is a natural human emotion, reaction. our ability to feel love, sadness, you know, joy. Anxiety is part of us. I have more of it and I have so much of it that for a long time in my life, every day was just harder for me than it was for other people. And I kind of started every day at a negative.

Yeah. Right? So I had to overcome that to do anything. I had to overcome anxiety to meet people. I had overcome anxiety to get out in traffic, to get on an airplane, to be on my own. So I always was so, it was exhausting. It was really, really exhausting. It still is often exhausting.

How do you know when anxiety is fueling you versus controlling you these days? I think it does both for better or worse. But I don't judge myself for having anxiety anymore. I accept it. I see it as a wave. And when it comes, it can be imposing. And in the middle of the wave, you feel hopeless. But I know the wave is going to wash over.

And I know there's still, the water is still on the other side. So what am I going to do? Never get in the ocean. is that better? Where am I going to start getting scared of the sand? You know, the problem, and I'm sure other people, if anyone listens to this, who suffers from anxiety, and I'm sure many do, the more you tailor your life

to avoid situations which makes you anxious, you're getting anxious in lesser situations. When you lower the bar, that becomes a, new bar, you need to lower it again. And life gets smaller that way. It's a very tricky subject. Everybody have their own journey, and I can only speak on my experience.

I'm not saying that's translatable to other people. They have to have their journey and they know themselves best. I can only speak of mine. But my personal experience is that I do better when I challenge it. I wonder, Yind, what tools keep you most grounded when the anxiety flares up? Like, how have you learned to cope?

Being honest with the people around me. Yeah, it's a big one. Yeah, I didn't grow up in an environment where you could show fear. I didn't grow up in a community or a culture where that was accepted, not in a school, where that was accepted, not in a friend group, where that was accepted, or even a thing. No. So.

I mean, to a certain extent, I don't even think that I understood anxiety until I met you. Right. Because it's just not a factor in my life and certainly not something I grew up speaking about. And it wasn't until I was in a relationship with you that I understood anxiety to the extent I understand it now. Right. So I think myself like many others, when you have, you suffer from dyslexia. Yeah. Okay.

So you develop tools. to get through school. And little things you did and little fakeouts and ways for it not to show or to get through your day and get done what you needed to do. Absolutely. Okay. Still using them. Right. And I still use mine.

So I had developed tools to deal with my anxiety. And what I learned for me is that I needed an out. I needed an emergency exit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I would find ways to reassure myself that I was able to leave this situation if I needed to leave it. And if I knew I had an escape plan, I had a much easier time getting through that way.

Totally. So I developed my tools. But what has helped in adult age, as I'm living in a different time, in a different culture, where we are so much more open and generous with one another, I learned to be very open about how I feel. I went on this podcast right now and I said, I'm nervous. And when I can sit in front of you and say, I'm the most nervous I've been for 15 years, having this conversation with you, and I can say that on camera,

well, that diffuses my anxiety. Yeah. Because if I'm putting it out there, what do you have on me? The other thing that I've done is to surround myself with people that know how to support me when they see it's happening. They know the signs. And I have these sayings in my head when I used to go in for a meeting that was consequential. you know, when I was in the ad business, you have to pitch for work. So you constantly have to put yourself in really uncomfortable position, fly across the world,

getting into these hot-ass meeting rooms with people, get treated like shit, present your work, sometimes being belittle, and millions of dollars it's at stake. And at times, in the early days, the company was at stake. Yeah. that's a pretty anxious place to be even if you're not suffering from anxiety that's a really anxious you know high strung so i am blessed to have had people around me that say this isn't the end of the world they've got nothing on you if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out there's always tomorrow there's always another client it's always another flight there's always another

meeting. They helped me diffuse it. As I got older and even more confident, all those things live in me. Yeah. And I think part of why I have pursued success, for lack of better words, in life, is to create a environment in which I feel I always have the option to leave. I think they call it fuck you money. I think that's what they call it for sure. So I don't want to be crude, but... No, it's true. I'm a very happy person who suffered from anxiety

and I've been able to create a life, partly because of it, partly because of the tools which we haven't really touched on, which I actually think is the superpower in anxiety, not just the militating side of anxiety. So if you don't mind, can we talk a little bit about... Please, I'm dying for you to tell. Because I think that if you're a young founder, you're a young leader, you're just anyone who has anxiety, you need to understand that.

Like, I know it's been a breakthrough for you. Well, you said earlier in this conversation, how I don't like to big things up. I'm always moving on to the next thing. I'm always thinking about tomorrow. I'm not really worried about today. but what do you think that comes from? What do you think that comes from?

My fear, which is essentially what anxiety is, is a sense of irrational fear, right? My fear is always driving me to see around the corners. I'm not buying the BS. Okay, you love me today. You won't love me tomorrow. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to focus on tomorrow.

So that's where my focus is going to be. That comes from a place of anxiety, but it actually is a superpower to constantly live and plan and work in the future. Because you're saying it allows you to see around the corners. Totally. You can call the play before it's even happening. We are all the main characters in the movie of our life, right? So most of us believe every moment is here to stay. When people tell us nice things, we tend to really believe they meant them.

and that they really thought about what they said. It's nice to be an optimist. It's less gratifying to be a pessimist. But... If you're married to an optimist, you've got some space. Well, you lift me up. You know, you lift me up. But the positive is that you're more objective.

You're more realistic. And you don't tend to get sucked into this vortex where you start trying to feed your own ego. The ego isn't as important for an anxious person. You're swimming. You're trying to keep your head above the water. I'm not really thinking about, oh my God, I'm so special. I'm trying to survive, bro.

I'm trying to live. So if I'm just thinking about living... You've got no time for the bullshit. I'm not going to think that I'm that special because I might drown. And that's the feeling. The feeling is I'm trying not to drown. So it's easy for me to be objective. It's easy for me to cut through the crap.

It's easy for me to transform myself because my fear of being stuck or my fear of being left or my fear of drowning is far greater than my fear of what's tomorrow. Tomorrow holds promise for me. Tomorrow is exciting for me. Wow. Do you think you can do the same thing with people because of your anxiety?

Like, do you think that you see things that other people miss? I think anxious people tend to be really great readers of other people. You're so aware all the time of your surroundings because instinctively, you're just looking for threats. It's like a primal thing. Yeah, totally. Right. Yeah.

This is, we're from the animal kingdom. This is a primal thing. I'm just wired to look for frets. Yeah. I'm the lookout guy. Yeah. You're the caveman. Totally.

Yeah. You want me in the lookout tower. Yeah. Totally. I'm looking at every leaf. What moves? Literally why I married you. Yeah.

So, yeah, you become really good at reading people, reading their intentions, understanding what they want. Yeah. And it's. a superpower. But you speak a bit about this with me, like about paranoia, right? Like you talk about your own paranoia and how that's allowed you to make good decisions, good investments, Eva. Yeah. Give me an example of where that type of paranoid mindset has paid off for you. Well, it's paid off because I have always moved on at a moment where I could have stayed.

Right. I have always planned for the next. chapter while I was in my current one. I have a red thread through my work because of my love for popular culture, for my love of fashion, for my love of retail, for an aesthetic that I gravitate towards. So there's a, this podcast is not long enough for me to lay out how everything I've done from ad agencies, starting magazines to starting, you know, one of the first influencer platforms to starting

a jeans company, co-founding of skims, like all of that might seem like, oh my God, you've done so many different things. I think I've had just done various expressions of the same thing. Yeah. That's how I feel. I can see that. So it's not like I think that I'm like, oh, my. God, this ship is sinking, I'm going to jump up to this.

It just means that I'm excited about where the future is going, and my eyes are open for the next opportunity. So when I see that opportunity, I want to take it. So if you are, if you're young now and suffering from anxiety, what, based on your experience would you say to people, what's the best thing to do? Just go after your dreams. You have to go for your dreams. You know, if you fail, at least you did it.

Your life becomes smaller if you don't try. Your life and your experience becomes bigger. If you go for it, you have to challenge yourself and it can be really, really difficult. But that doesn't mean you have a choice. Just do it. Just there. I want to talk to you a little bit about more personal life.

I wasn't personal enough for you? More personal life. Is it like digging further into personal life? I feel like you're finally getting to know me after 16 years. I waited a long time for this conversation. I'm wondering if we go to conflict. Like I've got so many things that I wanted to talk to you about. What do you think, Yens, is the hardest part of being married to somebody as ambitious as me?

I've never been married to anyone else. So it's hard to compare. And I wouldn't want to be. Your ambition is part of what I fell in love with. You couldn't take that out of you and it to be you. But I think in any relationship, when you have two parties that are highly ambitious, it's more about allowing each other the moment.

There was a moment when you were starting this podcast in the spring where that was your moment. The energy around you in your home I'm sure nerves that you felt

going through a transition or adding something to what you want to do and put yourself out there in a different way than you've done in the past. It's pretty nerve-wracking. It's going to consume a lot of energy. It's going to consume a lot of conversation.

At that moment in time, it's going to be all about you. That's okay. It's got to be about you. What can I do? What's best for me is if, and I remember thinking this, the best thing is for Emma to be successful at whatever she wants to succeed at. Because God forbid you aren't, I'll have to listen to this for years. But if we lean in here, I'll let her have this moment.

We can get back to me. We can get back to you eventually. No, but I mean, jokes aside, you have to know when something is important to the other partner. Like so much of what we're talking about today really comes down to. to grace, knowing each other and allowing this is important to you, this is important to me. If you care, if this is your moment, if you care about this, I'm going to get behind you. I'm going through something that's important to me. You'll recognize that and you'll get behind me.

Yeah, and I feel like once you've been together for as long as we have for 17 years, there's seasons to this shit, right? It's like sometimes it's all about me, sometimes it's all about you, sometimes there's a clash. think the point is that we are in constant conversation about these things. And it's not just like a realization that, oh, this person's traveling and sucking all the air out of the room and everything's about them now. It's usually a conversation and an acknowledgement that this is a period that's about to happen in our lives. And I think that we have a level of just a lot of honesty in our relationship and a reality of like what is going to happen. We're not trying to kid ourselves

about it. Yeah, but that's also part of who we are. This is a hard thing to teach people, I think. You know, I think if I was married to someone who was about themselves all the time for 16 years, I don't think it would last that long. Yeah. You know, it's kind of, that would start grading on me a little bit. So that's just not who you are.

If you were that person, that wouldn't be you and I wouldn't be with you. You know, you are outside or work a sensitive, highly tuned person and a great and loving and supportive wife to me. And I recognize that and I want to be all of those things to you. And you are. Yeah, I try. I try. I mean, that doesn't mean we get it right all the time. Well, no, we don't get it right all the time, believe.

But the balance is not right all the time. But you know what? That's okay too. People talk about this, like, it's not like everything. It's always in balance. Actually, life tends to be like an EKG is never really in balance, right? It's like, it's not really in balance. But there's like a, talk to me about balance.

But there's some kind of medium in it. There's a kind of an average. Like, yeah, you take the average, like somewhere across the, you know, across the life, across the time, like there's going to be like I'm more often than not wavelength. And it's like, are you comfortable with that? Yeah. Jerry Seinfeld said something in an interview a while back. And he said, you know, we also have to go for a day. Okay, we have a good morning.

We have a shitty afternoon. We're somewhat of a good moment at dinner. Maybe we're bad again. Then we're good again. Life is not a, we're not in this equilibrium. No, but that's the problem because I think so many people are looking for equilibrium and they don't get it. And then they wonder, you know, it's like, again,

I don't expect to always be in the most joyful, incredible, magical moments with you. And after 15 years, I'd be very disappointed. But that's part of it, right? Because if we, I mean, and again, let's talk about conflict a little bit. Because I think a lot of people want to understand with us. If we have conflict at home, how do we make sure that it doesn't seep into business and vice versa? Lessa, like how do we manage conflict within our relationship? I'm going to tie this to what we just discussed.

Yeah, please. What's the most important thing here? What's the most important thing? And you can have levels to a relationship. I don't have just one level of my relationship with you or anyone else. I have, some people do. Some people, it's like just one bucket. Yeah, no, we have no, no, that's not my people.

Yeah. But some people just have. One bucket. I have levels to a relationship and there's a work level, but that has nothing to do with the fundamentals of my relationship with you or anyone else. I'm in love with you. That's the most important thing. Okay, so that's here. Okay, so now we have this work level.

It might have some disagreements. But that's really got nothing to do with all the fundamentals of our relationship or my relationship. with anyone else for that matter. Yes, but you kind of have to, you know how to talk about you wear different hats. Yeah, you wear different hats, but for a lot of people, that's very hard to understand.

And for me, I'll be totally honest with you. When I first met you, that was hard for me to understand. I didn't understand how we would have a massive conflict in work, which you and I have and continue to have sometimes, and then get home and it will be fine. But I do think that that is the point. Like, we have different hats,

and we are very, very, very, very good at leaving it where it is. Like, it's not personal. Like with you, it's never personal. Emma, boxers shake hands at the end of the match. Some of them, yes. Some of them, like the whole crew just like jumps in the ring and they all go fucking mental.

So it's not everyone. Hopefully not. No, but I mean, boxers shake hands. What I'm trying to say is that when I'm on the pitch, when I'm on the court, when I'm at work, I'm there to fucking win. I'm going to focus on what's going to make me win. What's going to make us win? You know, what do I need to do to get to the best result?

So just like there's a scuffle on the court, it doesn't mean that when you watch a game on a TV, that those guys are, you know, taking that off the court. You know, so I'm pushing and shoving on the court as part of playing basketball. doesn't mean that they're not friends. It's the same thing. You know, when I'm at work, I'm in the game. When I'm at home, I'm out of the game. Why would I bring the game home?

Just because you gave me a little elbow under the basket, doesn't mean I'll take that shit home to roast chicken and potatoes. It's too true. Thank you for that. I leave it out the door. Not loving your AT&T or T Mobile Bill? Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news.

Bring your AT&T or T Mobile Bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon. Run, ride, canoe. Whatever it takes, we'll be here. Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to a Verizon store today and we'll give you a better deal on the best network. A better deal.

No surprises. That's Verizon. Best Network based on Route Metrics, Best Overall Mobile Network Performing with U.S. Second Half 2025. All rights reserved. It must provide a recent consumer mobile bill in the name of the person who gave me the deal. Additional Terms Conditions and Restrictions apply. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day like superheroes and sidecicks or auto and home insurance.

With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. How do you think about everything that you've learned in your life and career and your business and our kids? And when you think about, you know, I do want to talk to you about money a little bit because I love to talk about money. But when you think about risk, resilience, like the things that have made you, you in and around your career, How do you think about that as it relates to the kids? I want my children to write their own story.

You know Lola said that to me once. Yeah. When I told her to come to skims and work, she's like, no, mommy, I'm going to write my own story. Yeah, that's what you want. I don't want children who defines themselves by their parents. Amen. I want them to be them. How do you foster that?

You tell them. You do it. You do you. I don't know. I don't know how you foster it other than leaving by examples. Generally, I think children are magical. And there's a part of you and there's a part of me and the part given by God. And they are their own people.

And we're there to give them love and support and share our experiences. and encouragement, but they're going to be who they're going to be. But what I would hate is if they define themselves, if their identity in this world is rooted in their parent's success or failure, why would I want that? Well, we are 100% aligned with that. Wouldn't that be incredibly selfish?

Incredibly selfish and incredibly sad, quite frankly. Yeah, but it's just selfish. Yeah. Do you have a moment that you think, like, I just wonder like what you're most proud of as, not really as a businessman, but more as like a person, husband, father, Yenzi? Well, first of all, let me tell you that I detest the term business man. But you do know that you're a businessman. Yens?

Yeah. Like, seriously, you're grown up in the office every day. Like, just because you don't carry a briefcase, you are. a businessman. That's how everyone, like all of your staff, all the hundreds of people that work here, that's how they see you. They're like Emma's a businesswoman and Jens is a businessman. Like it or no? Tough shit. That's something I will have to process. Talk to your therapist. I think I fired my therapist for asking me to do things that they wanted to. I wasn't willing to do the work. You weren't willing to do the work. You done a lot of work. You can take breaks from your

therapist. That's all right. Actually, what you're most proud of? Oh, I am the most proud of that I have. I think there was a time in my life when I finished high school. So I was around 18 and I had no plans. And I wasn't particularly good at anything. I thought I was really cool. I was kind of always out and about, you know, in clubs and this, that and

the other and the irony of our relationship. And they asked me earlier, it's like, tell us something that, you know, we don't know about Emma. Well, they got you on social media commitment. They got some. And, but I'll tell you something. They don't know about you, which is, you're incredibly personable and you appear social. You're not a social person.

Yeah. You're not a social person. At all. A few really good friends. you don't like going out that much. You like to be with the people you love. The same people for 25 years? At home.

At home. Preferably. Please. Dear God. No one thinks I'm a social person. I'm the most social person. The most. All dinner reservations, all group activities, all things with our friends go via you.

I have so many friends. I can't keep up. It's true. And I love it. And I love all of them. Yeah. I can do multiple drinks and dinners with different people in the same. same night just to fit people in.

I'd rather kill myself. Yes, you tell me that often. Yeah, I'm not coming. I'm not coming. I said, you want to come and you go, I'll rather come myself. I don't want to come. I'll rather kill myself. I don't want to do it.

So there was this time when I really didn't have a purpose. And I felt that I wasn't swimming. I was drowning. In that moment, I think I had kind of come out into adulthood. thinking somehow as a daydreamer that these daydreams were going to come true because I was I. You know, you know, so I was special. This was going to happen and then nothing happened. And that negative spiral starts.

And from that point, and I can pinpoint the daytime where I sat in the apartment. And I just realized that in the end of the day, and it's not because. the world is a cold, loveless place, but people are really busy with their own shit and their own lives. And they might be supportive, but only you can help you. You have to take care of yourself. No one cares more about you than you care about yourself.

And in that moment, everything changed for me. I went from not getting in to, to college, not having a job being totally kind of purposeless with really low self-esteem, to having, you know, a column in the daily newspaper, to being having a dream job, but the coolest magazine. And my whole life turned around and within, you know, two, three years. I was in London within five years, you know, I had. had raised money, started the business, was starting to have some early success in life. So is having overcome that moment in time and been able to live my life and build a life

that I can be proud of. That's the most important thing. Next company, the next idea, an investment working, not working. Again, what's the most important thing? the most important thing is that I built the life that I'm proud of. That's really meaningful. And again, when you're faced with adversity in life, I had what people would refer to as a soft bottom.

Not a hard bottom. It's not like you've probably crashed out, but it's a soft bottom. I'm grateful for that moment because I discovered a power in myself in that moment in time. And I had never seen it or felt it. before. I used to be lazy. I became ambitious. I used to be waiting. I became active. All of these traits that used to drag me down was turned into this positive moment.

So I think it was divine intervention. So knowing that, what advice would you give your 20-year-old self about both success and happiness? It's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. I have been so worried about so many of my friends when I was in my 20s. It all worked out. We were in our early 20s and we didn't have no money. We never understood how we would be able to afford an apartment, how things were going to happen for us. And somehow for all of us, and you know many of them, it all worked out. It works out. You cannot see it.

You sit at home. You're scribbling. You try and figure out how am I. And I used to think that my whole 20 is, how am I ever going to be able to own a property? I couldn't make the math work. And I didn't have the money for a deposit. You know, it worked out.

But I might be an outlier, you know, on that scale. But I was just saying generally, it works out. It does work out. For most of us, if we're at it, if we do the right thing, if we try to do the best with the talent we have, again, I've never seen anyone fail. It works out. So if it all went away tomorrow, like everything, the businesses, the money, like the whole lot, what's the first thing that you would do? I guess I would have to take an unpaid internship here at the Spire.

Do it all again. Try to prove my value. take you. Through my worth. Again, if you don't have money, you have your human capital. You have you. So you put that to work. You better watch out Joe Rogan if Jens comes to work for us. I mean, that's what I think.

What do you think success feels like today versus when you started? Well, they keep moving the goalposts for me. When I was young, I could never have him. imagine the life that I live today, that would have been far and beyond my greatest expectations. But as you do things in life, the goalpost shifts a little bit. So what success looked to me when I was younger or 10 years ago and what they look like today, of course they have changed. And I like to keep them to myself.

And the reason I want to keep my ambition to myself, it's an emergency accident. If you don't know it, I don't feel put upon. I don't feel boxed in. I don't feel scared of failure because the only one that would see it is me. So I rather keep what success looks like to myself. But I can tell you, I remind myself all the time about how lucky I am. to be where I am today. And if nothing more happened,

and if I achieve nothing else, I would still be overjoyed with a life that I built. Yeah. Damn right. You've got to lead with gratefulness. You've got to lead with being grateful. All right. One more little piece of wisdom from you, Yenz.

If someone remember just one thing, like one sentence from you, what would you want it to be? That if it's not okay, that's okay to. We all catastrophize. We all think that what we're going through is forever. You know, when you're a teenager and you're unhappy in love, it feels like the world's ending,

there's nothing beyond that moment. There's nothing beyond high school. There's nothing beyond that grade. And you can try to tell your children when you come home today not to worry about how the first day in middle school was. That's all they're going to worry about. Middle school is an eternity. Yeah.

So, but it's going to be okay. And I think it's the most important thing for all of us to take with us that moments don't last forever. There's still water on the other side of the wave. And if you're going for hell, you've got to keep on going. So good. Okay, I'm going to take you to rapid fire. You're right at the end. Let's do it.

Let's do it. All right. The first thing you do when you wake up? Get you a cup of coffee. and myself. It is very true. And thank you, because I think that's the secret to a lasting relationship. Right.

I know how you like it. Thank you. Damn right. The last thing you do before you go to bed? Sneakly look at the news, waiting for you to tell me to stop because it's too late. True. I mean, normally I would say watching Frasier or Seinfeld or any kind of sitcom that... Which we love.

Yeah, which I love. Which we love. We re-watching... I normally kind of sneak a little bit of iPad news there. Yeah, I see it. I just let you do it. I just don't want that light near me. Yeah.

I'm just like, put it. It's unhealthy. No, it's not good. It's like, I just like, I put my phone in the other room and then there's somebody next to you with an iPad. I go to bed ready for tomorrow. I'm like, I know what's happening. Listen, don't we just now? You are my news.

I basically get all of my information from you. And I like the arc of your news. You know, it's the Economist, it's the New York Times. It's the Washington Post. It's Wall Street Journal. And then you've got like the tea for me. Like, you know, if some housewife is like something's happening with her, you know that too. You know if something would happen to me.

I would know nothing, no news. Jens, what are you currently aspiring to in your business life? To continue to surprise and delight our customers. I want to do things that is unexpected. And when they think they have an idea about what skim says and what it will do next, I want to do something that surprises. Do you think we're doing so good at that? What are you currently aspiring for in your personal life?

A hobby. To have a hobby. You're not still on that one. Yeah, I will never give that up. But you play tennis, you like, what kind of, you go to the gym all the time, you read a lot, like, what kind of hobby do you want? First of all, I go to the gym for you to want to stay married to me and to stay alive so I can be married to you and be right.

around for the children. Okay, thank you. I play tennis because it's the best sport to stay both, you know, cognitive decline. Damn right. Also, it's fun. Yes. And you're very good at it. It's a combination of both.

Yeah, I got it. Don't say I'm very good at it because I have friends who are listening to this who's really good at it. And they know I'm not that good at it. No, I will say I think you're better than Pietro, not better than Jason. That is, I am worse than both of them, considerably worse. And you're better than me. If you wanted to know what we could be arguing about, it would be the fact that they would ridicule me

because I have a wife who loves me so much. She thinks I'm better at tennis than them, which I'm not. I'm not even going to ask you a book that changed your life because you're not really a book that changed your life to have a guy, are you? I have you to tell me what's in the books. And I have you to tell me what's in the news. This is how this partnership works. All right.

I have for you. What is something that you valued when you were starting out that you no longer value? That's just not how I think. I can't even relate to the question. What do you mean value? Okay, yeah. It's like some people value other people's opinions, some people think that money is the goal. Like, what's something you thought was important back in the day? I mean, or just explain to us how your brain does think. Okay. Something that I thought was important. to be everywhere, to be seen. People think that showing up like, oh, I'm at this event, oh, I've got to be seen here, I've got to be at this dinner,

and they think that somehow success comes from being seen. Success and being seen as almost, unless you're in the public eye, and the public eye is your business, as far as business success? Zero correlation. There's no correlation to that. Zero correlation. In fact, I think one of the things that is my, I would say my red flag for investing in companies and in founders, if you see them attend too many conferences. Because if you want to go to a conference and everybody to go, oh, my God, I love what you do, I love your startup.

And for you to spend all that time talking about something, when you have like 20 stores or sold in one retailer because you have like a snickerdoodle brand and, you know, that's popular in Whole Foods, like, no. No. Don't. Word flag. Yeah, because you're too in love with the idea of being successful, be in love with the work. If you're in love with the work, success comes. You'll have time to talk about it when you really have something to be proud of.

But don't take this thing and like spend all this time talking about something you have yet to create it. talk about it. Okay. What's something that you value now that you didn't value when you were starting out? Meditation. Meditation. I think meditation is the greatest tool to find clarity, peace, give you energy, joy. I wish I had found meditation earlier. I found prayer when I was a child. but I would say meditation to me, yeah, has given me a lot in the last, within the last five years. I mean, I've been doing it for a long time, much longer than that. But you become really serious about it in the last month.

Yeah, yeah, I practice it more diligently and in a different way. I really value meditation. It's one of my favorite habits that you have introduced me to because if somebody is meditating in your room at 6am, it's almost stupid not to join them. And so I feel like it's one of those things that by, you know, virtue of you being really into it, I've got really into it.

And it really works. Like I literally think it's like a tool. And for someone like me who's very highly strung, who's, you know, always on the edge, I feel like it's a really useful thing that just readjust me. and it works for the whole day. It's like whatever you did, whenever I've done it in the morning,

I feel like my day pans out differently. Well, have you ever tried to run and play chess at the same time? Definitely not. No, but that's what we do, right? We run for our day, we run for our life, and then we're supposed to be strategic, have ideas, process,

make the right decisions, handle things. So how are we going to do that when our breath is up here? Impossible. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. Meditation allows us to ground ourselves so we can make better decisions, so we have better coping mechanisms.

Again, you can't run in place just at the same time. So I don't know why people think they can just run 24-7 without any time for reflection. And reflection isn't just sitting down and like agonizing over. what happened or agonizing of what's going to happen tomorrow. It's about allowing you the space for that intuition to do its work, to build them. And you'll find a lot of peace and clarity for meditation. So if you don't, for those who don't do it, I really recommend it. This is like a slightly different thing for this podcast, but because it's you,

there's a bunch of questions from our team. Okay. Okay. And I just chose the really easy one. I thought I was nervous before. No, please, easy. All right, first question from the team, they want to know, how do we keep the spark alive in our relationship?

I mean, look at you. That's not hard. Good artsy-ncy. It's a lot of work then. Obviously, you and I are very intentional about date nights, but I think the question is when two people are very busy, like how do you keep something like that going? And after 17 years, like, are you just running out of places to go?

Like, why do we keep them? How do we keep them? I think you have to consciously plan to do things together. But I often can feel like if we have a couple of weeks where we're a little disconnected and we're all both running, I kind of feel like there's a hole. I kind of feel like there's a void and so we normally plan something and do something together. I think it's incredibly important, especially when you have children, to have time just as a couple. Because you're more than just parents and you're more than business partners, more than married

couple. You're also, you know, best friends and everything else. And you've got to give yourself time to do all those things together. Definitely. All right. This is a strange question, but they want to know. What was the moment that you knew you were in love with me? I don't know.

That's a very you answer. I don't know. I don't know the moment I knew, but when I knew, I fucking knew. I just never had less doubt about anything. I can't pinpoint it. You know, I don't know. You're very lovable. I know the exact moment on the other hand, but that's fine.

I know. I'm so disappointing to ask this question. No, it was the least disappointing person in the world. Thank you, my darling. Thank you so much for having me. If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating

and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emagreed is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emagreed. Our executive producers are Corrine Gilliard Fisher, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung Kaiser, Leah Reese Dennis,

Asha Saluja and Jenna Weissberg. Stephen Key is our senior producer, sound design and engineering by Bill Shorts. Angela Paluso is our Booker, Original Music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado and Arnie Agassi. Social media by Olivia Holman. Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at the lead company and WME. Mora Curran, Josephina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchins. and Rose, Tim Mekyll, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira.

If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emma Greed. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E, that's AspI-R-E-E with Emmergreed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emigreed.me. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's, like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards.

Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years. Savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. See site for details.