How to Build Something Meaningful From Your Worst Chapter (Sarah Jakes Roberts)

I am so excited to share my debut book with you all, 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 is how you can get there.

So I'm doing what I do best, sharing and never gatekeeping what's worked 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 emmagrady.com to purchase the book, also available on Amazon, Amazon, your favorite audio platforms, and all good bookshops.

Me sharing my voice on a platform, then me trying to start a business— if it doesn't work, it won't kill me, because that was literally designed to kill me.

Sarah Jakes Roberts went from Teen Mom to New York Times bestselling author.

She's a pastor and the force behind Women Evolved.

I realized that being able to put into words what other people are feeling is a gift.

When we see somebody like you that had the start that you did and then make the choices that you did, that So unbelievably inspiring.

But before the success was a woman who had to fight her way through the belief that she was undeserving of happiness.

I live with the belief that you are a bad girl.

You're dumb, you're stupid, you're nasty.

Women in general are not allowed to be angry.

The reframing of anger is a very, very useful tool.

This is a conversation about how you can become greater than your worst moment.

What do you What would you say to someone who thinks that where they're at is going to define them forever?

Wait, we're going there.

Emma, please.

Sarah, I am so happy to have you here today.

I'm so excited.

Thank you for having me.

Now, welcome to Aspire.

I tell you, I have been Thinking about this conversation since you and I had the opportunity to sit down and you gave me the most beautiful introduction to my own book press.

You were the first person to interview me about my own book.

And it was so satisfying to know, A, that somebody had really read it, 'cause you had really read it.

You had really read it, girl.

But also, the amazing feedback that you gave me.

And one of the key things that I talk about in that book is that in order for you to have meaningful success, you have to take radical responsibility.

Responsibility for your life.

And when I think about you and what your life and your career has really embodied, it's exactly that, taking responsibility for yourself.

You have had such an amazing— it's like a movie.

When I read your life, you know, it's like you became a mother as a teenager.

You then kind of, you know, went out and started, you know, discovering the world and doing everything that you did.

You dropped out of college.

You were waitressing as a teenager.

And it feels to me like there was this kind of moment, this opportunity, opportunity that you had to truly start with yourself.

And you began writing about your pain.

You kind of built this platform.

And now I look at you, you're running a global empire.

You're doing so much.

And you're also leading a megachurch.

And I guess my question to you from the beginning has to be like, I wonder if as you were going through all of that stuff, all of that tumultuous time, if you could see and if you understood

that there was something bigger on the other side.

I don't know if I thought that there was something bigger on the other side as much as I felt like I could be bigger than the moment I was standing in.

I am not one of those people who looked at their lives and like, one day I'm gonna speak to millions of people, I'm gonna write books.

I've always just kind of taken whatever the next available step was in front of me.

And I was walking out of the CPS office, which is Child Protective Services, which is a long story that I will save for another time.

But I just thought one thing to myself, and it was, I can do better than this.

I can do better than this.

And that has been my mentality that I'm always kind of chasing.

What does better look like from here?

So what did you think you would do as a kid?

You must have had, like, hopes and dreams and, you know, why I was dreaming of being a fashion designer.

What was it for you?

Not to be a pastor.

That was nowhere on the list.

I was literally about to say, did you imagine you would follow your father's footsteps?

No girl.

I looked at that, I was like, er, we're going the opposite direction.

I think at one point I wanted to be a doctor.

After I had my son, I just wanted stability.

And by the time I dropped out of school, I thought, well, at first I was going to go and be an accountant.

But then there was this one math class I couldn't pass.

And I was like, well, then I just

I just need stability.

I have a child to take care of.

And I thought if I could become an administrative assistant, I could support someone else's work and I could have stability for my son, maybe room for some growth.

And I was— that's literally all I wanted to be.

So you never thought, I'm going to be, you know, leading 30,000 people every weekend?

Absolutely not.

No.

No.

And now that I— I still have to, like, invite my previous versions of myself into this moment to realize, like, this is the moment that I'm living in.

Oprah said once that she's living God's dream for her life.

And I feel like that's very much so.

My reality is that I'm living out a dream that I could have never had for myself.

What was the decision for you that you weren't going to let, like, hard moments in your life define your future?

I had to let them define my present first.

I think that sounds easy, like, I'm not going to let these hard moments define me for the rest of my life.

And sometimes that's an instant click for people.

But then there are people like me who live in the result of letting those hard decisions define them, where they come to a place where they're like, I don't like the results.

I did not like who I was when I looked in the mirror.

I just didn't.

I just didn't like her.

It started, of course, when I was a pregnant teenager, and I was so ashamed of myself.

I'd look in the mirror, and I would think the worst thoughts about myself.

And then as my choices continued to reflect that poor self-belief, I just didn't like who I was.

And I began— became curious about whether or not there was any way that I could love myself.

And I started, like, just taking little pieces of myself that I like.

Well, I like this about me, and I like that about me.

And that was the journey of me falling in love with myself.

And from that place, I began to fall in love with the world around me and other people and experiences and opportunities.

And things began to change.

How did you decide to start speaking and thinking about yourself and your own identity differently?

Probably— now, this is where me growing up in a faith household, I think, really began to take form for me, is because they kept talking about faith and God and, you know, he loves

you and all this stuff.

And I just didn't believe it.

I just— it couldn't be possible.

God love me and I don't love myself?

And the people who I trusted have turned their back on me and friends don't believe in me anymore.

And so I think by faith began to say, like, if God is real, if this is possible, I want to imagine what kind of life I could have if I really believe these things.

And it was me living out that life that I began to see a shift and a change take place within me.

But I think a lot of people were disappointed in me when I got pregnant.

I think they were like, you could— could maybe possibly recover if you don't make any more poor choices.

But then I kept making poor choices.

So then I was like, we might as well have fun while we're making poor choices.

And so, um, I had to make some subtle changes before I saw a sudden shift.

I mean, what's so interesting to me is while all of this is going on, it's against the background of you being a mother, right?

And then you get married at 19 years of age, and you start to put out all of what's happening to you.

You start blogging, basically, because it was blogging back then, right?

You weren't an influencer, you were blogging.

And I wonder what what made you actually decide to put what was happening in your life and all of that mess, like, out on the internet?

It was just stuck inside of me.

Like, I started liking the fact that I was angry.

I think it's because I wasn't feeling anything at all, that to even feel anger made me feel alive.

It made me feel like a person.

Unless you've been there, it's really hard to understand for someone.

But yeah, it just— it made me feel alive to feel angry.

And I felt like, okay, this probably isn't healthy.

And I was in my first marriage, and we were going through a terrible situation, which there was an alleged pregnancy by someone else.

And I started really having some unhealthy thoughts.

And I knew, Emma, I knew I was headed to prison.

Because listen, like, I preach now, and I get dressed up, and I may not give what I was ready to give back then.

But I was ready to give jail time.

I just was.

And I was like, okay, I gotta make it.

Because you were that angry.

I was so upset.

But I had to realize, like, I was upset with him, but more than anyone, I was upset with myself.

And I felt like what I wanted was, someone to channel that anger towards.

And he gave me a reason to channel that anger towards him and her or anyone.

And I got to a place where I had to let it out.

So I was writing, it was really just for me because I wanted to get it out of me.

Then I realized I would like close the blog with like, you know, if I were someone's friend, what would I say to someone in this situation?

And it— what was a conversation between me and maybe the highest version of myself became this conversation that I started having with thousands and then millions of women who were

in similar situations.

I wanna just double down on the anger piece for a second.

Yeah.

Because it's an emotion that throughout my life, I've always been very attuned to my anger, shall we say.

There was a time when I think I was really led by that emotion.

And as I've got older, I've been able to train myself and understand it a lot more and channel it.

I wonder if there is any part of the anger that serves you now.

Like, do you find any channel or any use for it in your work and your life now?

That's a great question.

I think so.

I think I get angry now at systems of oppression.

I get angry at— And that fuels you.

It does.

It makes me want to dismantle them.

But at the time, I couldn't channel it that way.

But I think also just women in general are not allowed to be angry.

And because we were not allowed to be angry, I thought I had to suppress it, suppress it, suppress it.

And so there would be these moments of explosion that seemed like it was just about that one thing in front of me, but it wasn't.

It was about all of the other things that I had to stuff down.

Yeah, I really can resonate with that.

I actually think that for a lot of women, the reframing of anger is a very, very useful tool because it can be one of those emotions that really allows you to get stuff done.

People talk about being people pleasers all the time.

And I'm thinking, are we people pleasers, or are we manipulating people into believing that it's easy to love us and that we won't cause any issues and we're just so easy to get along

with?

When in reality, there are things that offend us, there are things that upset us.

But because I feel like I'm not allowed to tell you because I wanna be nice and I wanna be sweet, I often end up building up relationships that don't have the roots to really withstand

what it means to be in relationship with my authenticity.

Honestly, when I think about my book and how much time I spent around this idea of people pleasing and anger and how actually one leads to the other.

Because when you're constantly running your agenda on what you think is gonna please other people, you get way off track and way off course.

Mm-hmm.

Sarah, what was so unbelievable is that your blog went from 0 to 1 million viewers in less than 3 months.

Yeah.

Can you take me back to that moment?

Because when I look at you and look at the platform that you have now, that must have been like an early signal that you were like, one second, I have something.

Now, I have something.

Not my family, not where I come from.

This is like, this is me.

I'm putting my information out there and it's really resonating.

It was crazy, especially like my father has a famous last name, but I wasn't writing under my maiden name.

I was still married at the time.

And so, I think it really spoke to the fact that I was telling this story that other women could resonate with.

And as much as I was like, As much as it was a sign to me that I had something, because listen, I grew up in church where like, if you can't sing, you can't dance, you can't pray, then

like you don't have any talents.

And so I didn't know that writing could be a gift.

Right.

But I realized that being able to put into words what other people are feeling is a gift.

And so I thought, okay, so this is a blog and people are in search of words and meaning.

That felt nice, but also scary.

I'm naturally introverted.

And so this idea of like, wait a minute, guys, this is my diary and now you guys are all watching.

I think I felt like a sense of responsibility sense of maybe urgency to get to a place of healing and not just unpacking and unloading without leading people somewhere.

You know, when I look at the sort of broadness of your work, from, from what you do in the church to what you do with your women's conference to these unbelievably successful books

that you've had, and so I wonder what you're hearing from women now.

Like, what has changed from when you first started to where you are now?

And do you hear the same Sometimes I hear echoes of the same thing.

I feel like the universal thread between all of those different types of women is that some of us in some way are trying to figure out what happened to us and how it's showing up in

our present.

And that's for the woman in the boardroom, and that's for the little girl in a detention center.

What happened to me and how is it showing up in the choices that I make now?

And so I still see that thread in many of the things that I do.

But what I feel exists now that didn't exist when I first started is that I do believe that women feel more empowered to lay hold of possibilities that perhaps didn't exist a few years

ago.

I think with the rise of social media and technology, that possibilities are more at our fingertips than before.

And I believe that seeing other women, because of social media, who maybe have similar backgrounds and backdrops, have given people who are in limiting circumstances or who are wondering

what their pathways can look like, it's given them hope and possibility that there's a path for girls like me and women like me to have children and have the business or to go from

a place of being in incarceration to starting a business.

Like, I feel like the possibilities are more exposed.

And I believe that that's given women a lot of hope.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

And I feel like when we see somebody like you that had the start that you did and then make the choices that you did and then has come through and is doing what you do now, like, that

is so unbelievably inspiring for so many young women.

I wonder if there's something, you know, You and I spoke about this a little bit when we first met, and because my book is kind of largely structured around this idea of thoughts that

exist, these kind of old thoughts that you keep with you, and there being this other idea of what is possible and how you should think now.

Do you think that you were plagued by old thoughts and things that had happened to you when you were younger, and that they show up in your life and your business now?

Oof.

Mm.

Yes, girl.

It's just— wait.

We going to therapy.

Emma.

Emma, please.

Let's do it.

Let's go.

Please.

Can we take a minute?

It's only question 5, baby.

Oh, hey.

Geez.

For sure.

OK, so I think to properly frame this, though I am 37 now, to go back to that age at 13 years old, man, I have a 16-year-old daughter.

I realize how identity shifting that is.

A baby, having a baby.

Now, there's all kinds of trauma.

I deal with a lot of women who have experienced molestation.

They've been abused.

They've been raped.

So a lot of women carrying different types of wounds from early childhood or adolescence.

But a baby, you've got evidence on your hip.

Oh.

And when you've got evidence— Oh.

Yeah.

You just made me go so cold.

When you've got evidence on your hip, whether you're at the grocery store or you're at church, people are looking at you trying to do the math.

And so, I lived with the belief that you are a bad girl.

People would look at you, and there's pity, and there's shame.

And you begin to believe there's something wrong with me.

And, you know, people— you know how babies come, right?

So you have sex, you get pregnant.

Like, the math is there.

And so, now I'm like, you're also stupid, because how did you let this happen?

And that's all I ate.

For years as it relates to identity and self-esteem.

You're dumb.

You're stupid.

You're nasty.

Like, over and over again, over and over again.

So how does that show up in my present now?

Though I've done the work and the healing and the praying and the meditating, I think there are still moments where I wonder, like, are you really good enough for this moment?

I would rather not do it at all than to risk disappointing people.

But when I overcome those feelings of self-doubt out and of just not believing in myself, there's this other flip side of it where it's like, you've kind of already taken some of the

biggest L's you could take.

So like, if a podcast flops, it's not going to break you.

You know what I mean?

Like, when you have hit rock bottom, there is this temptation to stay there so that you never have to experience the collision again.

Or there is this belief that you can tap into that says, if this is truly as low as it can get, whether it's a teen pregnancy, it's grief, it's addiction, if this is the lowest it can

get, then me sharing my voice on a platform, then me trying to start a business, if it doesn't work, it won't kill me because that was literally designed to kill me.

There are very few people who can say they've gone through things that were literally designed to kill them.

And if you manage to survive those things, I believe you owe it to your survival to dare to live again.

And that living again can be big and bold, where you're doing something that has a huge platform, or it could be the smallest thing of waking up this morning, taking a shower, going

outside, and seeing what's happening in the world.

But you owe it to yourself to try to live again.

I mean, it's so beautifully said and so beautifully put, the way you think about it.

And I think for anybody that is listening to this, because to a degree, we all have to overcome shame in some way, shape, or form.

And it's one of the hardest things.

To deal with.

But actually, the way that you frame it and the way that you, I guess, have taken unbelievable and radical responsibility for it, that's what's really inspiring to me.

What I seek to do is to help women understand, like, I'm just bait.

Like, maybe you've heard one of my messages, read one of my books, and you're here because you know who I am.

But the most important person in this room is the person who's sitting beside you.

And we are intentional about creating connection because shame is isolating, doubt is isolating, worry is isolating.

What I found out when I started started blogging is that I wasn't by myself.

There was this tunnel that I was living in that made me believe that I was the only one who had ever felt discarded, the only one who had ever felt damaged, and that there was something

wrong with me.

Man, I owe as much to Woman Evolve as the women who I've been able to serve say that they owe to me, because they helped me to see that I wasn't in it on my own.

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Does imposter syndrome, or any of the kind of underbelly of that shame, does that ever show up for you anywhere?

Because when you're standing on a stage in front of thousands of people on a Sunday morning, I guess there has to be like, you know, every now and again, like some kind of self-doubt

that creeps up.

I feel no need to try and talk myself out of being an imposter.

There are parts of me that have no business standing where I am.

I know where I've come from.

I know what I've gone through.

I know that there are people who are more eloquent, people who are more studied, people who on paper would be a better fit for the things that I do.

But I'm the one here.

And because I'm the one here, I'm gonna step into the moment with everything I have or don't have.

God makes up the difference.

Make the difference for me.

And it's an offering.

My life is an offering.

I'm not here to prove anything to anyone.

I am already so much further than I ever thought that I would be, that like, maybe I shouldn't be up here.

But since I'm the one who's got the mic right now, I'm gonna serve the moment well until whoever's supposed to be here finally makes it here on time.

Until then, this is gonna be the moment that I stand up to whatever's in front of me.

So talk to me, if you are somebody sitting at home right now that is in

the worst moment of their life, they're in the middle of the worst chapter, knowing what you know and doing what you've done, what do you say to them right now, to someone who thinks

that where they're at is going to define them for forever?

Mm-hmm.

I think that if you're in a season right now where you feel like this moment is going to define me forever, I think that you should figure out how it is defining you now, that you should

study that definition, And then see where you wanna make edits and amendments.

I think sometimes the resistance of letting it define us has more stress than just embracing that this is now a part of my identity.

This is a part of who I am now.

I spent so long trying to not be a teen mom with a baby on my hip.

You know, trying to not be the girl who went through the divorce while going through the divorce.

Because I felt like, I don't wanna be who other people think I am because of what has happened to me.

But this is a part of my truth.

And so, I have to embrace it.

And I have to let it change me.

And then I have to figure out who do I wanna become based off of what I have left.

And part of my belief is that there are things that can be made out of leftovers.

Listen, my parents grew up on government cheese, okay?

I was raised, my parents were on welfare.

We know a thing or two about taking what looks like leftovers and making incredible meals.

It's ingrati— it's in the culture of how I've grown up.

I think the same thing applies to our life experience.

Experiences, we may have nothing but broken pieces left.

And we can look at that and think to ourselves, there's nothing that can be made out of these broken pieces.

Or we can dare to believe that there is a mosaic that maybe has never been seen before, maybe that we could not create in our own imagination, but that they really can all work together

to produce something that looks like good and looks like God.

I love that reframing that the worst moments, your worst season, The worst things that happen to you are actually all meaningful in whatever it is that you're gonna do and you're gonna

become.

And actually accepting that and embracing it and actually imagining that actually there's something unique and beautiful and becoming and useful in all of those broken pieces that you

could put it together and see a new version of yourself.

Like, that's super helpful.

Because I think that's reality.

These broken pieces have meaning.

It's just a matter of who's gonna find them most valuable.

And it may not be the room rooms full of 40,000 people.

It may be that room with that one person.

And so, those broken pieces, they do have value.

And I think I've been fortunate that, you know, my influence has allowed me to let those broken pieces shine before millions and shine before one.

And yet, there's been meaning in each of those scenarios.

So, let's talk a little bit about the business because you for sure are a businesswoman.

You are doing, you know, you're selling out arenas, you're selling books, you have a platform, you have so many So many avenues to your business and so many tentacles to what it is

that you're building.

Talk to me about how this ecosystem comes together because I think so many people that are listening right now will think, you know, how do I monetize and develop my skill?

And sitting right here is somebody who's done exactly that kind of over and over and over again in various different verticals.

And you're very successful.

So I almost want you to frame up what it is that you do for anyone who doesn't know.

And then let's talk about this business that you've built.

So, you know, I'm speaking and I'm writing.

So of course, I'm getting paid to write books.

And then I go out and I speak.

And it was pretty much just me.

And the books come from the blog, right?

Yes, right.

It's like you had the blog and then it was like you wrote books.

Publisher approaches me and says, hey, you've got this blog.

Do you want to share your story?

I'm like, sure, that's fine.

And like, I didn't even know that you could like get paid for writing.

And so I'm like, okay, this is great.

You know, I'll share my story.

And then I began to speak and I'd get invitations.

And so I'm just facilitating the business of me at that point.

Yeah.

And being able to like set goals for myself.

And so I think this is just gonna be me.

But then I have this idea for a conference.

And I'm thinking to myself, I didn't really wanna have a conference just because I had a popular speaking voice.

I really wanted to have a message that I felt like you could build a movement on.

And for me, that came from studying Eve in the Bible, which like, girl, you know, you may not be a Bible thumper, but let me tell you, Eve get a bad rap.

Everyone knows that, whether they're a Bible thumper or not.

I love a girl who knows better but didn't do better.

And I love a God that'll meet her in the midst of it all.

And so Woman Evolved was this ode to Eve for all women who knew better better but haven't always done better, but wanted to believe that better could still exist for them.

So I'm gonna host a conference.

And I realized that in order to host this conference, I'm gonna need to bring in lights.

I'm gonna need to bring in cameras.

I'm gonna need to bring in speakers.

And so there's a registration fee for the conference.

When I started seeing this money hit my account, I realized, wait a minute, this is a business.

Like, we're not just vibing.

We're not just having ideas.

You're not just signing books.

This is legitimate business.

People are investing their money, and I have a responsibility to be a good steward over the money that's coming in.

As I launched the podcast, I realized that I am having to

engage with other businesses for something that just felt like, oh, a passionate pursuit.

Yes.

So I was thrust into business as a result of me pursuing my passion.

Business is not at the forefront of my mind.

That's why I'm grateful that I have my husband, who is more of a natural business person than I am, because I've had this tutor that's been able to help me.

As I began to see things grow, right, so now we've gone from a few thousand to millions of dollars coming in in revenue and millions of dollars going out as a as a result of expenses,

I realized that we're gonna have to be very intentional about what is our long-term goal and strategy.

So of course we wanna have the conferences and events, but what is the legacy we wanna leave?

Well, how do we wanna continue to attract incredible talent to make sure that we're amplifying in some of the most powerful ways possible?

And that requires resources.

And so what does it look like?

I'm curious to understand like the personas, right?

'Cause it's like you have this one side of you that is very, like outward facing and you're on stage and you're, you know, sharing your message.

But there has to be another side of you who's like leading the business and working on that side of things when it comes to your book deals and the, as you say, the strategy of what

you're building, this media empire.

What do those two versions of Sarah look like?

Well, you know, I'm probably more from my heart when speaking and more from my mind when doing the business side of things.

Are you equally comfortable or in both?

Yes.

Yes.

If there is more discomfort on one side, it's probably more the heart side because I'm introverted and I don't necessarily— I don't like speaking.

I've just been through a lot.

And then you're exposing yourself to so many people.

So I am protective.

But I do, on the mind side of things, on the business side, I had to become intentional because nobody knows what this is but me.

And people can come in and they can project their ideas of what it can become, but it's going to take it away from what I know it's supposed to be in my core.

And I have to answer for what I did with this.

Influence, for what I did with this call, for what I did with this purpose.

Are you the driver of it?

Are you the driver of the strategy and what you want it to be?

I feel like I know what it is.

I feel like I— it's hard to explain.

I have a sense for what Woman Evolve is supposed to be and how it resonates with those people.

But I don't always have the talent or the skill set to translate what I feel into meaningful impact.

That's interesting.

What do you mean by that, you don't have the talent and the skill?

I love to hear people talk about what they don't have.

Because everybody always talks about what they have.

I do.

So my husband on the business side of things, when we started bringing in larger contracts, I knew where the limits needed to be, but I didn't know how to communicate that to partners

in a way that still honored the fact that we wanted to be in relationship, but also created some strong boundaries.

And so I depended on him for that.

My friend Jason is an incredible visual director.

I know what it— I want it to feel like when the women come into the room, they need to feel fun, they need to feel love, they need to feel the theme really infiltrate everything that

they touch.

He can execute that in a way that I can't.

I see myself as someone who understands the vision of what it's supposed to be, how it's supposed to show up, but the actual execution of it, I don't necessarily have the gifts and

talents to do that in some arenas.

Oh, so I would just think about you as an excellent CEO and leader.

Because— and here's one of the things that I love to talk about all the time, that as a woman in a leadership position, we always envisage that we need to have the answers to absolutely

everything, that you need to be the best.

And actually, you need to be great at what you're great at.

And then you need to find all of the people around you to do and execute the rest.

What you are is just an excellent leader.

You're an excellent CEO.

It doesn't mean to say you need to be, you know, you don't need to do the books, you don't need to do the finances, you don't need to do the retail.

You need to have the vision and tell everybody where to go.

Well, thank you.

I want to create space for the best to be the best.

And so, my goal is to attract the type of environment and culture that makes it easy for people who have a gift and a talent to come in and to be able to really to really expand it

and magnify it in a way that is ultimately meaningful for the women we get to serve.

Do you have lessons in leadership that you feel like over the years, like what has changed in your style of leadership and how you come into the kind of business of what it is that

you do?

For sure.

I think when I first started, I would just take whatever came my way and whatever people said I should do.

And I was finding myself like overwhelmed and not really being clear about my message, my brand, my desire to show up in the world.

As directed by what I believe my sense of calling is.

And now I feel more agency, more of a sense of ownership to say what I will do, what I won't do.

And I think one of the greatest things that I've learned as a leader is to not apologize for what I don't know.

I think that there's this temptation when you're finished, like accepting whatever comes your way, that now I'm gonna overcompensate and know everything and do everything.

And I felt like I had found the way to balance.

Like this I'm really strong in, I know this for sure, I know that for sure.

And the things that I don't know, I don't mind not knowing because it doesn't change who I am in the equation of things.

And I don't have to know something that I don't know.

My father taught me, he's like, you only don't know once.

So if you're ever in a room and someone's talking about something you don't know or something you don't understand, if you ask, you only don't know once.

And then from there, you're able to add to your knowledge.

That's some good advice.

Isn't that great?

That's such good advice.

He should do something with his life.

Yeah, just put— yeah.

He should do something.

What's he doing over there?

I wanted to ask you, because I feel like authenticity is such a key driver of what it is what it is that you do.

Like, it's so clear what you stand for, who you are.

It kind of runs through everything.

How do you protect that authenticity so that your audience still feel the reasons that they came to you in the first place?

Well, I think one thing is I have to be willing to walk away from any and everything.

I think that's the biggest thing is to not need.

You know, success is weird because the definition's always changing, right?

So for me, you gotta remember, my first form of success was like, if I could be an administrative assistant.

If I could just publish one blog.

And then you do that thing, and then the bar for success keeps moving.

The only problem with that is sometimes we're not moving the bar.

Sometimes other people are.

And so part of me staying authentic to what it is I'm called to do is making sure that I'm never signing up for something that means more to me than the women I get to serve.

Yeah.

I wanna talk to you about money.

My favorite subject.

So you grew up in, as you say, a house of faith.

Yes.

And I guess that that would've given you a very specific relationship with money.

And I just wondered how it shaped shaped your idea of money and how you think about wealth and earning money now?

Hmm.

My father's more of the variety of like, I have money, you don't.

So even— We're rich.

Oh yeah.

That don't have nothing to do with you.

No, you rich.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, you know, like I said, I was— my parents were on government assistance when I was born.

And so I've seen their life grow and evolve.

But I think like a lot of families and cultures like mine, my parents were so busy surviving and trying to make the money that they didn't have time to talk about it.

So, we didn't—

We didn't have a lot of conversations about finances.

My father would be on, "Don't ask me to borrow any if you have already spent the money that you had from your paycheck." So I feel like we learned a lot of things on our own or just

by watching them.

And so I've had to manage my relationship with money from a sense of like, if I don't talk about it, then I'm not gonna be able to negotiate for what I need in this moment or to get

what— I need the truth from other people.

That's the other thing about being in a position.

And this may be true in every field, but I think when you're in a position of faith, like, people wanna offer you something in exchange for what you've maybe done in their lives with

your messages.

And I wanna know what it costs for real.

Because, you know, gifts are nice, but I wanna know what it would really cost for me to put this event on if you weren't here.

And so, I've had to have some intentional conversation with people about, like, give me a realistic view of what this costs so that I can plan for longevity and not just for this season.

Yeah, no, I really understand that.

Has there ever been any conflict in you about essentially making money from a faith-connected business?

For sure.

I think, one, even though, like, when you're writing books, the resources come from the publisher, there's this fine line of wanting to make sure that my ancillary businesses, which

do bring in revenue, don't— doesn't look like I'm taking it from people.

And I think that there are some legitimate concerns and legitimate ill practices that have taken place that has created distrust between people and ministry.

From faith leaders.

And so I've constantly tried to position myself in such a way that I am able to sustain my life and the things that we have going on in our lives outside of resources or donations from

other people.

Like, I've always tried to make sure that that was a part of what we do, um, because I am relying ultimately on the gifts and talents that God gave me, just like everyone else has.

And I want to make sure that we're leveraging them with responsibility.

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I want to talk a little bit about your family life and you as a mother because it's such a huge part of who you are.

When I was doing my research, I kind I counted like 6 kids in a blended family.

But let's kind of take me back because we know that you were a teenage mum.

I think your eldest is 23 now?

Yes.

Malachi?

Mm-hmm.

I mean, the idea of a 23-year-old son when you're younger than me is mind-blowing.

Yeah, it really is something.

I just wonder like what he has taught you about yourself.

Because obviously, you know, it's like, motherhood teaches you so much.

But this particular child must have taught you maybe more than the others.

I don't know.

Malachi has made me believe that I wasn't as bad as I thought I was.

Oh.

Because I think I spent so much of his childhood feeling like I'm just such a terrible person, such a terrible mom.

He deserves so much better.

I could do so much better.

But he has some of the most beautiful memories of his childhood.

Like, he texted me today.

He was eating an orange and he was like, this reminds me of when I went to summer camp and you packed me this huge lunch.

I got to feed all of my friends.

And so even though I felt disconnected and distant He was still getting a part of me that felt like the best part of me, even though I didn't know I was the best— doing my best, which

I think is such a message to women who are trying to do it all.

That in those moments where you're hard on yourself because you feel like you're falling short, that these children are— they're grading us on a curve.

They're grading us on a curve, and they don't know any different.

And if we can give them the love that we have, if we can give them the presence that we have, even as we're growing and changing, that it's enough.

And as we grow, the more that we give them, that'll be enough, too.

But I don't think I was as bad of a mother as I thought I was as a teenager.

How does that make you feel?

Thanks.

Don't do it, Emma.

Listen, girl, this is our second time talking.

You not finna have me— I'm going in.

You not finna have me crying on this thing.

I'm going in.

Because I just— I understand that.

Like, I understand living with a feeling of how you assumed it was going to be and almost almost like that becoming your reality in your head because you were like, I had him so young.

I am a bad mom.

This, you know, and then the idea that he can turn around and say to you, I have great memories.

Like, that's a big deal.

I think the idea that, as for me, the idea that I didn't want to mess it up, like so many of the choices that I made was because I didn't want to mess him up.

I didn't want to mess him up.

I think being driven by that made me show up for him in a way way that kept me from messing it up.

And I feel like if it really matters to you, even if you don't know what you're doing, the fact that you're trying, I think they pick up on the effort.

Yeah.

They pick up on the trying.

And I think that that can give us consolation as we mother and navigate uncertainty.

Oh, my kids should be so happy with me then.

So much effort.

It doesn't always work out exactly as I want it to, but the intention— I actually think that— I don't know if I've ever heard anybody I heard Rudy say that, that your kids will pick

up on the effort and the intention.

Which for any mother out there who is just doing her best is huge.

I believe that.

My son's in his 20s, but if you think about it, even as we think about our parenting dynamics, like the things that we penalize our parents for the most is like, it's like you didn't

try.

But then you can tell when they did try.

You know when they were trying.

Trying.

And I think that a lot of times we end up with parent wounds because it feels like you didn't really try.

Even when your best wasn't enough, we can at least reconcile the fact that, hey, at least you gave it your best shot.

It's the not trying at all that I think leaves us the most wounded.

Like, you could have at least tried.

Facts.

Facts.

The idea that they can actually feel the effort and the intention is a really big a really huge takeaway that I hope anybody that's listening to this really can double down on and understand.

Because if you're doing your best, that might be all you have to give.

That's it.

That might be it.

I was interested in your parenting philosophy because you've got a lot of children.

You have like, so you've got your first kid you had as a teenager.

You then have a second kid.

You then have 3 in your current relationship and 1 that you had together.

Yes.

So I'm counting, it's a lot of people.

It's 6 now.

It's 6.

It's 6.

And with everything going on, have you adopted a specific parenting style, parenting philosophy?

Like, what is happening?

What does your family look like?

You know, the way I try to parent and the way I was parented, they don't go together.

Oh, good, because that was my next question.

Let's talk about that.

And I had to— see, and the problem is that I was formed in a form of parenting that is so counter to the way that I want to parent that I have to remind myself I find myself, when parenting

my children, to not turn into my parents when parenting them.

Because my parents, they didn't really care about your feelings.

You know, they cared that you did what I told you to do.

And I find myself, when my children think I care about their feelings— and I led them to believe that I cared about their feelings, but Emma, sometimes I don't care.

And that's the problem, is they think I care when I don't.

And so I'm having to create space for their feelings while also creating space for my own in this dynamic.

Just let's pause there for a second.

Because I feel like this generational divide is so real, right?

Let's just be— like, never in my life of my entire childhood did my mother care about my feeling toward a certain situation.

And I thought they were wrong until I started hearing these feelings.

And I was like, that's why they didn't care.

That's why.

Uh-oh.

They knew it was a slippery slope.

And they said, we're not gonna— We owe the boomers an apology because y'all had it a little right.

Because now I find myself having to care about things I don't care about.

So here I am after the longest day known to man, talking about what happened on the playground.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And I don't care.

Absolutely.

And I don't care that you don't want to do your homework and that you don't want to eat these vegetables.

But, you know, I'm trying to, like, you know, care in a way that I haven't.

And that's interesting.

My greatest philosophy about parenting, beyond, like, don't let these kids kill you and don't let these kids take you out,

is create space for you to be a person in the midst of it all.

Because kids are selfish by nature.

It's okay.

The moment they enter the world, everything centers around them.

But if you do not begin to introduce that you're tired, that you have vulnerable moments, that you're afraid sometimes, then they will think that you are superhuman instead of just

a super good mom or a super good parent.

And I want them to know that sometimes it costs me to show up in the way that I do.

That I'm not always in a space where I can take on everything consistently.

Concerning you that I need time to.

And so I'm trying to introduce them to who I am as a woman, not just who I am as their mother.

I mean, bravo.

First of all, you're speaking to the start with yourself lady.

So I am— Yeah, because when I read your book, I was like, uh, Emma, you were like, mm-mm, the family chapter starts with you.

And I was like, I don't know if you edited it properly, but do I— You're like, do I start family?

I learned a lot.

No, your book, it really helped me tremendously with business and with family.

Well, I'm so happy that you say that.

And I think it's a really

really important point that you make.

Because if you don't reinforce the idea that you are something other than a mother, you kind of set your entire family up to see you but nothing other than a mother.

Right?

And so, you have to kind of take responsibility for that too.

And I feel like so many of us make ourselves indispensable to our family.

We make our households incapable of running without us.

And then we wonder why everybody's looking to us to do everything.

For sure.

And so, I think that when I think about start with yourself, is that, you know what, everybody in this house can pick things up from the floor.

And everybody can make a dinner and everybody can contribute.

And so, the idea that the mother is going to just be there to constantly service the needs of everybody really dissipates when you've taught everyone that that's not how it is from

the get-go.

And so, I think that there is so much that I always want to do, but I don't need everybody else to want me to do it too.

So, for me, it's just about being really honest about, you know, everybody contributes.

Contributes to this.

It's not like mom number one and then, you know, like a bunch of children.

It's just not how it works.

That's my first sign that I need to make a pivot, that my life has gotten imbalanced, is when my children start asking me to do things that is perfectly reasonable for them to ask me

to do, but that irritates me.

So like, if they start asking me what's for dinner, I know that like, okay, I've moved into this space where I'm allowing everyone to rely on me so much so that when they ask me they

ask me a simple question like, "What's for dinner?" I'm annoyed and irritated.

Like, "Can I get a drink?" Or "Can I get a snack?" I'm like, "Yeah, wait a minute." You know what I mean?

And so allowing them to like, you know, I'm like, "I need help.

I need support." Or we're gonna have to— Training.

Yes.

I have to reorient them.

Yes.

But you know, I think the other thing is a lot of times— now, this is gonna be deep.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

I think that when we have had moments like I've had, where we have struggled with self-esteem and low self-worth, it is affirming that the world only spins if we're in the center of

it.

And it can be edifying for us that everyone needs us.

It makes us feel valued.

It makes us feel— it may be stress and all of those things too, but we kind of like that this world would fall apart if I wasn't in it.

And I do think that there is a need for us to decenter ourselves and to not need the world to revolve around us if we're really going to experience the type of liberation that allows

them to, one, grow up and be self-sufficient.

But also for us to be affirmed outside of what we do for other people, we have to remove the need for other people to center us.

Themselves around us.

I mean, a million percent.

And not only that, but the ability for you to be able to meet yourself in the highest possible way, you need to not be dragged down by all of this stuff that everybody else can help

with.

Right?

So it's like the two things are, we have to remove our ego from any of that situation and really understand, like, what is the goal?

Not just for me, but for the entirety of our family.

Like, that's a— a really key thing.

I want everybody to feel like they have a position and a job and a role in this family, and I don't want to have to carry that.

God forbid if anything ever happened to me, I always think like, I want my kids and my husband to feel like they understand, like, what is required, that they are part of like what

has built this, and that it doesn't live and fall with me.

For sure.

I always I try to have a level of honesty about the things that I am not doing.

Because when you work as much as you do, and you have all of those kids, like something gives.

And I talk about trade-offs all the time.

Do you have trade-offs?

Are there things that you are just not doing that other mums might be like, "I do that all the time." What are you not doing?

I don't cook as often as I should.

We definitely have support in the kitchen, 'cause it's a lot of work and a lot of mouths to feed.

It's a lot of food.

I don't do the laundry.

I don't do the laundry.

I don't do the laundry.

This is what I started doing when I started growing in the area of revenue.

I started asking myself, how much of this am I doing that someone else could do that would not necessarily damage my children?

And they do not care whether or not I fold their clothes.

No.

They don't.

No.

They do like to have clean underwear, though.

We like them to have clean underwear.

I prefer it.

Who cleans the underwear?

There's a little negotiation there, you know?

And so it started like we would maybe a laundry service for just a few things, but then we've been able to evolve that as well.

So yeah, there's definitely some things that I'm not doing.

And then there are other things that I absolutely have to do.

I will die on a hill about getting them kids to school in the morning and picking them up.

I— We all have our hard and fast, like this is my thing.

I must see them.

I need to see their attitudes before they go to school, and I need to see their attitudes when they're coming home.

So when I'm on a trip like this, their sisters picking them up, which is like, then their older sisters, like the next best thing to having mom look at them.

Because I know that she'll take care of them.

But I don't play about being with them.

That's, I mean, listen, I love the honesty because I think that we all need to get out of our way when it comes to help.

If you can afford and you are able to have any type of help, like it's really important that we're just honest about taking it.

And don't, again, don't get in our own ways because I really, really feel like we can be so proud about taking any anything from anyone, and everybody needs a little something.

And can I tell you, I think not even basing it on income, because part of what low-income families are able to do that often middle and upper-class families don't do is low-income families,

they work together in order to facilitate someone's going to school and someone's— Like we all did back in the day.

Exactly.

And so I think that we have an opportunity to also make sure that we are allowing people to help us.

People who say things like, if you need anything, let me know, that we don't want people to feel like, well, I don't want them to think I'm not being responsible.

I don't want to ask for any help.

So important is help that there are literally government assistant programs to help caretakers have a day out so that they can take care of themselves instead of taking care of other

people.

And so I also want to just challenge people to not think that help is limited to certain income brackets, that there's often community support and there are often programs that exist

to help people of all income spectrums to be able to get help and support that they need.

But you still got to be open to taking the help.

But you got— and admitting that you need it.

Admitting that you need it is a huge, huge thing.

Yes.

And let me tell you who else you need to help you.

You need your husband.

To help you, which takes me to my next subject, which is the whole marriage and the business and the partnership.

Because you work with your husband.

And one of the things that I wanted to ask you is that for women that have fought so hard to become their own person and to have their independence, what does it look like trying to

actually build alongside somebody?

You know, Emma, I tell my husband all the time, I'm so submissive.

I'm so submissive.

I say that because after he has wrestled with me— If you have to tell him, I feel like— Like it might not be true.

I'm like, you know what?

I am blown away by how submissive I am.

It really is.

You know, and he giggles.

I'm not sure what the joke is.

It's hard, especially like, I'm gonna talk to you like I would talk to like one of my homegirls, right?

Yes.

When you have had somebody play in your face and play with your time and play with your body and your money, the last thing you're gonna do is let somebody get over on you again.

Let me just lay down and see what happens.

I'm like, "No, absolutely not." Right?

And so, I think I got married, I was like, "I love him, but like, I'm never gonna let anybody play in my face again." But what I realized is like, having someone reflect your face is

not the same as someone playing in your face.

And so, I had to learn the beauty— How long did that take you?

Well, we're 12 years in, so— Last year.

11 years and 6 months, you know?

You know?

It's hard.

I was so busy trying to protect him protect myself from him that I didn't get to experience the beauty of who he is.

And so trusting, you know, because of my faith, we have this like, what God has put together, let no person tear apart.

And I didn't want to be the one who was tearing it apart.

And so I really had to trust that God would allow me to be in partnership with someone who could help make my life better, even though I had experiences where I put myself with someone

in the past and it didn't make I can make it better.

So there is a humility.

There is an awareness.

That's the other thing is I recovered so hard that I didn't think I had any flaws.

You know, after I went down in the dumps and came up like the phoenix that I believe that I am, I said, wow, you really are that girl.

There are very few things wrong with you.

And if they are, they're in your past.

Then I meet Prince Charming.

And Prince Charming's like, your shoes off.

And I'm like, sir, I prefer to be barefoot.

And he's like, OK.

You're weak, it's still the, I prefer my weak sauce.

Listen, I will take that off for you.

Like, I've seen that stuff on stage.

And so I missed out on the opportunity to like really have meaningful feedback that can make me better.

And so when I learned to like at least take his feedback, even if I took it with my eyes rolled and then like, you don't know what you're talking about, I'd like take it into my closet

and be like, well, let me look at it and see what he said.

And I would see opportunities for me to grow and opportunities for me to change.

And I learned to come to a space where I realized we really are on the same team.

Now, his delivery may be different from mine.

His perspective may be different.

We may have to learn how to communicate things.

But I know that he's for me.

And knowing that he is for me has been one of the greatest gifts that I think that I have been able to offer to our marriage, because it has changed the way that we communicate.

But it is hard to be in partnership after you've been wounded and hurt.

And to allow someone into the most intimate parts of your life is challenging.

But when you really trust that that person is there to make your life flourish, and they Do they have evidence of it, right?

Because we're not just talking about words.

I looked at the way that his evidence showed up.

We were just dating.

He lived in California.

I lived in Dallas.

It was my daughter's first day of school.

He flies into town for her to go to her first day of school.

You know what I mean?

There were these little things, these little signs along the way where I said, I can trust him.

And most importantly, you can trust yourself again.

And I feel like, yeah.

You can trust yourself again when you've made poor decisions in the past.

You don't trust yourself.

It's not about the other person.

And that's always what I think.

I feel like when there are tough relationships, when there are infidelities, when you feel like somebody has played in your face, to use your words, it's not just a mistrust of the

other side, it's a mistrust of yourself.

Like, you are like, I didn't see that.

I didn't understand that.