Glucose Goddess Turned Sugar Hacks Into an 8-Figure Business (Jessie Inchauspé)

Today on Aspire, Emma sits down with Jessie Inchauspé, known to millions as The Glucose Goddess. What started as a personal health experiment turned into three bestselling books, a global community, and an eight-figure business — built from the ground up, without outside investors. But this conversation isn’t about going viral. It’s about control. Emma and Jessie talk about the very intentional decision to bootstrap, what it actually takes to protect your freedom as a founder, and why Jessie would rather move slower than compromise on quality. They get into building around real intellectual property instead of trends — and why trusting your own proof can be more powerful than chasing scale. In this episode, Jessie shares: Why she chose not to raise capital How staying independent shaped every major decision The trade-offs that come with slower, intentional growth Why she refuses to sacrifice quality for margin How motherhood made her more focused, not softer How a simple personal breakthrough can evolve into a global platform Yes, they talk about her famous glucose hacks. But more importantly, they talk about conviction and what happens when you decide something that worked for you might actually help millions of others. This episode is for founders who care about freedom, longevity, and building on their own terms. If it resonates, like, comment, and subscribe for more honest conversations with leaders shaping the future of business.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:09Emma Grede?

  Today on Aspire, I'm sitting down with Jessie Inchows Bay, better known to millions as the Glucose Goddess. Now, what started as a personal health experiment turned into a global movement. She has three bestselling books, millions of followers, and now an eight-figure, fully bootstrapped business. But what really struck me in this conversation is that Jessie didn't raise capital. She didn't follow a roadmap, she followed her intuition. We talk about what it looks like to build without investors when you are protecting your freedom as a founder, and why she refuses to compromise on quality, even if it means lower margins, and how motherhood has made her more focused, not softer. Yes, we get into the glucose hacks, of course.

• 0:53Emma Grede?

  But this episode is really about what she's building and what happens when you decide that something that worked for you could be applicable to others and you get out of your own way and actually make it happen. Here's Jessie's Aspire episode. And darlings, while you're here, don't forget to like and subscribe.

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Anthropic is a research company first, built to make sure the transition to powerful AI goes well. When they launched Claude in 2023, its first users were businesses. Since then, it's been tested inside leading startups and enterprises. At DoorDash, a code migration that would have taken four engineers months to complete took one person three weeks. At Carvana, one team used to hunt through old tickets and code to answer a question. With Claude, they get answers 65% faster. And at Rakuten, engineers have achieved 99.9% accuracy on tough coding jobs using Claude. Today, nine Fortune 10 companies run on Claude

• 1:57Speaker 01

  for the work they want to get right. And these businesses are helping Anthropic shape what comes next. Build your business with support from Claude at claude.ai/odyssey.

• 2:13Emma Grede?

  Jessie, let's start exactly there because I am so excited to have you here today. I am an avid follower of yours, but I am just really, really interested that when I see someone like you, who is such an incredible expert, turn their expertise into a business, it just kind of blows my mind. And I kind of want to frame this up for people a little bit. You are a bestselling author, three times over, I think. You've got over 6 million followers on social media, which is absolutely wild because you've built that audience in a relative short space of time. You have a degree in mathematics, a degree in biochemistry, you have a brand, you're building this, you know, like world of your own. And I am so

• 2:56Emma Grede?

  dying to talk to you about every bit of it and then kind of, you know, like get all your expertise so I can gobble it all up or not gobble it up as the case might be.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  The Nucotax.

• 3:05Emma Grede?

  Exactly. For any audience members that might not know you or might not follow you or have the same kind of, you know, fascination with you quite yet, can you just talk a little bit about what it is that you do and where your expertise are, please?

• 3:20Speaker 02

  I help people eat better so they can feel better. That's it, if you boil it down. But I do it with a little bit of magic. So my tagline for my company, which I don't really use very often, but it's one that I love, it's magic starts here, but it's all science. So I distill complicated science into easy tips, like having your veggies before the rest of your meal, like moving after you eat, like vinegar before your cookie, that help people steady their blood sugar levels. And this was the beginning of my adventure, finding these hacks, the science, et cetera. And since then, I've really built it up into a little, a little company. And we do lots more than just that now.

• 4:02Emma Grede?

  Which is so exciting. Talk to me, did you actually understand that you were building a company when you started out on this journey?

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Hell, no. No. So the journey was I got interested in blood sugar in the first place because of my own issues. I broke my back when I was nineteen. This is the origin story. Broke my back at nineteen, developed a lot of mental health issues, went to school for biochemistry to try to understand how the heck this machine I was living in was working, worked in genetics. And then, out of the sky, one day, almost ten years after my surgery, the universe, seriously, that's how it felt, presented me a glucose monitor. Like, randomly, I was working in Silicon Valley.

• 4:42Emma Grede?

  I'm assuming this was before, like, everyone in the gym was wearing glucose monitors.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Yes, this was twenty eighteen.

• 4:47Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was the beginning. And so I had the opportunity to put one on, and I was like, sure, I'll try. And it completely changed my life. I realized that if I could study my blood sugar levels, my mental health was better. And if I had big blood sugar swings during the day, my mental health was worse. At this point, nobody was wearing a glucose monitor. It felt very strange. It felt very alien, almost. But I became fascinated by the topic. And I looked at all the science. I started healing myself, my own blood sugar. And then I felt like, why doesn't everybody wear a glucose monitor? This is so interesting. This can help so many ailments, from mental health to energy to, of course, diabetes and the things we associate with blood sugar. And so here I

• 5:30Speaker 02

  was, on my couch in San Francisco, feeling like, okay, I have this passion that has just bubbled up from inside me. This idea of making glucose mainstream was bubbling inside me. And it was just gripping me, you know, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And so I started working. I said, okay, how can I immerse myself in this world? And how can I make something out of it? But really, what I cared about was communicating the science and the information to people.

• 5:58Emma Grede?

  About this discovery, wearing the glucose monitor that sparked such an interest in you? Like, what were you seeing in those early days that was like, I've got to share this information?

• 6:07Speaker 02

  So I was seeing big blood sugar spikes and big drops in my own data. And I was correlating that to my own feelings and symptoms. But Emma, I could have just said, oh, I should keep this to myself. This is great. I'm learning. I'm fixing my body. I didn't have to go and think I'm on a mission to share this. And I can't explain it. It feels almost spiritual. I don't know. The idea sort of picked me and I, all of a sudden, I was, I was a channel for this thing. I was like, I, I need to tell the world.

• 6:34Emma Grede?

  That is crazy.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  And at that point, I didn't have an Instagram account. It was just me by myself.

• 6:38Emma Grede?

  And you're working a corporate job at this point, right? So you just have a regular job and you're a regular girl going to work with your degree in biochemistry.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so I thought, I need to share this information. So I have a background in maths, as you said, and I can program a little bit. So I thought, I'm going to write a computer software that takes the data from my glucose monitor. Because at the time, they were not connected to fancy apps for wellness people. So I took screenshots on this very like medical device looking app in my phone. I put it on my computer and I wrote this little program that like digitized the data and turned it into something slightly prettier. And I would make these comparisons. I would make like an orange versus an orange juice and show the blood sugar spike difference. And literally send this to my mom and my boyfriend and be like, isn't this cool? And they were like, yeah, it's cool, Jessie. Okay, girl. Okay, super cool.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  But I kept sharing it and I felt like people were seeing something new. And I felt like this was really the idea that needed to blossom.

• 7:36Emma Grede?

  But this is the start of your famous graphs, right? Because I feel like still to this day, you'll put up like these graphics. And that to me is what really drew me in because I'm super dyslexic. And so reading information like that maybe won't go in. But when I saw your page, I was like, oh damn, like that, you know, it's like, it goes straight in.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  That was my core invention. That was the moment of genius that changed everything. And because I had a background, I was a product manager at 23andMe, the genetics company. I was managing features in an app and a website. And I was learning how you make a feature and how you get feedback from the user and you iterate. So I thought, I'm going to approach Instagram posts like I would approach a feature. I am going to iterate and give feedback, how many likes does it get? And then I'm going to tweak it a little bit and do it again and see if this gets more likes and see comments and get user feedback. I didn't just make an Instagram and post whatever I wanted. I was on a mission. I was on a mission so that Nancy, because let's be honest about who your user is if you're actually trying to communicate stuff on Instagram. Your user is Nancy.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  She is probably on the toilet scrolling on her Instagram.

• 8:44Emma Grede?

  Who, me? I never do that.

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Or Emma. And if you try-

• 8:48Emma Grede?

  I don't know if I've been on the toilet recently without scrolling Instagram.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  There you go. So you were my user.

• 8:53Emma Grede?

  Right now.

• 8:54Speaker 02

  And I wanted to grow this content. I wanted to make it big. I wanted everybody to know about it. So I thought, okay, what's the problem I need to solve? I need Emma on the toilet to see my piece of content. And how do you grow an Instagram? You get people to share your content to their friend and to their colleague and to your sister and to your mom so that they start following the account. That's how you grow an Instagram. People forget this. They come to me and they say, Jesse, how do you grow an Instagram account? I said, you have to make content that's shareable, that people share with their friends and family, and then they come and they follow you.

• 9:22Emma Grede?

  You weren't connecting at that point that you want to grow an Instagram account to eventually be able to do all of this other stuff.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely not.

• 9:29Emma Grede?

  You're like, I'm fascinated by this information. I want to get the information out.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  That's it.

• 9:32Emma Grede?

  And I'm going to use my understanding of the digital landscape to actually put these things together and make something that has some level of virality to it.

• 9:40Speaker 02

  I had no thought in my mind I should build a business, none of that. And because I was in Silicon Valley, everybody was telling me, that's a great little thing you have, go raise a million dollars and build a company. So I kind of tried that on for a bit. I was like, okay, like, I don't know. I went to talk to a few VCs and they were like, yeah, we'll take 20% of your company for one million. I was like, but I don't have a company. I don't have a business. I know nothing. And I kept going back to what my body was telling me, which was, this startup thing is not for you. Like, you're about the content. You're a teacher. That's where I felt my best. That's where I felt like I was thriving. I was excited. It was in teaching. It was in making that content. And I had no clue how I was going to make money from this.

• 10:20Emma Grede?

  But you landed in that lane, and I've heard you speak about this before, like, you made science sexy.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:25Emma Grede?

  Like, it really worked. Like you were just on your own, doing something that you felt super passionate about and the world was responding.

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Pretty much. I mean, it took a long time.

• 10:34Emma Grede?

  But let's talk about that part. How long did it take?

• 10:37Speaker 02

  So long.

• 10:38Emma Grede?

  There's no overnight, is there? People are gonna be like discovering you and I mean, you're so popular now, but we're going back like, you know, many years ago. It took a while.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  I did this thing that I recommend every person launching a business or trying a new idea do. I wrote a little diary. And every week or every month, I would put a little entry. And as I was walking into your office today to record, I looked back on my diary. And it was August twenty nineteen. I'm starting this Instagram. I have fifty followers. September twenty nineteen, I have a hundred followers. December, I have five hundred followers. And it's just like, it's so slow, but I kept coming back to, how do I make shareable, useful content? Because I believed that was what was most important. I didn't think about products. I didn't think about R O Is. I didn't think about margins. I didn't think about raising money. I didn't think about anything. I was just obsessed with the content. And after six months, I had gone to ten thousand followers with a lot of daily work.

• 11:30Emma Grede?

  Talk to me about that daily work. Like, what did that actually look like? Because I feel like, you know, when you're working a job and people are, you know, for, for you at that time, it was really a side hustle. So what did the side hustle consist of? Like, how much time were you putting in?

• 11:44Speaker 02

  I made a pact with myself. I said, I'm gonna work on this one hour a day for six months.

• 11:48Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  No matter the outcome. Because every day I had a reason to quit. When you have fifty followers and you get home from work and you're like, okay, I'm gonna test an apple juice on my glucose monitor and turn it into graph and post it on Instagram and get twelve likes and zero comments. It's rough.

• 12:05Emma Grede?

  It's rough.

• 12:06Speaker 02

  It's rough.

• 12:07Emma Grede?

  So what gave you the confidence at that point that you were on to something and and that you could afford to like bet on yourself?

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Intuition.

• 12:14Emma Grede?

  With intuition.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  I was laser focused on how do I get this to the most possible people? Biggest number of people. And after six months, I was at ten thousand followers. So I quit my job with no plan. And I just kept going. I kept growing the Instagram. I even tried to.

• 12:30Emma Grede?

  How could you afford to do that?

• 12:31Speaker 02

  I had forty thousand dollars in savings.

• 12:34Emma Grede?

  So you seriously took a bet on yourself. You're not gonna take this forty thousand and when I get to the end of that, you'd have had to figure out a way to make money.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  And six months later, I had no more money and I had no business. And I was like, I'm gonna quit. And then the universe once again was like, uh-uh, girl, run a mission here. You know what happened? The person who is now my literary agent saw my Instagram and told me, I think you should write a book. And she signed me for a book. I was like, I'm gonna write this book. So I locked myself in my apartment for two years and I wrote the book. And that's when everything started. That book was really the break. And that book allowed me to keep going. And then the money from that book, I reinvested and started hiring one person to help me and then another person. And I bootstrapped everything. And today I have an eight-figure business.

• 13:21Emma Grede?

  I mean, it's pretty incredible. Talk to me a little bit about your family. I feel like I read somewhere that your mother like outlawed soda in your house because there was some kind of diet coke addiction. Or like, did you grow up with like an understanding of nutrition, food, what it does to you? Like, you know, it's just so interesting to me that this has become so much your lane and you're so like focused. There's such a singularity to what you do. I mean, you're the glucose goddess, like this is all the work kind of comes back to this theme and idea. But was that in your childhood somewhere?

• 13:56Speaker 02

  So childhood, no. My mom had forbidden us from having Coca-Cola at home because she was addicted. She had a serious addiction to diet coke.

• 14:04Emma Grede?

  Really?

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably. I mean, like, yes, she had like three or four day, every single day of her life.

• 14:08Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  But I grew up eating Nutella crepes and lots of sugar at home, so that wasn't a thing. But when I was a teenager, my mom remarried to my stepdad. And my stepdad's brother was a doctor called David. And he had written a book about how you use nutrition to help in cancer remission. And so from him, I learned a lot. I learned about sugar. I learned about blood glucose levels and what that meant. I learned about omega threes, about fish, about meats, about what are carbs. And so he really shaped my early understanding. But at that point, I was 14. I didn't think I would do anything with glucose. I just was sort of remotely interested and my family got a bit healthier. But the passion didn't come from there. The passion really came from the glucose monitor experience when I was in my early

• 14:53Speaker 02

  twenties.

• 14:54Emma Grede?

  And so the, for you to go into mathematics and then have this degree in biochemistry, you were obviously naturally very academic and very gifted as a student and you wanted to do well. I'm so interested that you just decided to go in those directions because they're traditionally such male-dominated fields.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 15:12Emma Grede?

  And I'm interested like what you would say to young women now that are exploring that type of career for themselves.

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Listen. I believe there's nothing better than being a female in a scientific or male dominated field. It's so cool to be one of the only women in that class where you're learning about, you know, I don't, algebra. And it's a lot of men and then there's the three girls sitting together and you just feel like you have to find your power and you're the underdog and it's very exciting and very, very interesting and very motivating. And the reason I went into mathematics, I didn't like math. I just didn't know what to do with my life.

• 15:49Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  And so my stepdad, again, gave me a very good piece of advice. He said, if you don't know what to do, do the hardest thing you can.

• 15:56Emma Grede?

  That's gold.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Especially for studies. I think this is very applicable because.

• 16:01Emma Grede?

  Because it's almost counterintuitive thinking because I feel like if I hadn't had a clue of what I wanted to do, I'd have leaned into the thing that I was really good at and that would have been easiest for me.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  Exactly. But the problem is if I had done a degree in, I don't know, history, you know, age nineteen, discovering a passion for health after breaking my back, I could have never gone into biochemistry. So that math degree kept all of my doors open. And having done that math degree gave me quite a lot of power later on in my career. Because when you're a young woman and you look like I do and you're like cute and like ha, ha, ha, and you say you have a degree in mathematics, all of a sudden.

• 16:38Emma Grede?

  You would choose Avis.

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. All of a sudden, people change how they perceive you. Because I've often been underestimated in my life. Often, often, because I, you know, I'm friendly, I come off as nice and non-threatening, whatever. And so I've been underestimated. Even today, a lot of people think I'm just an influencer. They don't realize what I've built.

• 16:55Emma Grede?

  Which is wild and so insulting, given how.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  But you can't control that.

• 17:00Emma Grede?

  No, you can't. I mean, and listen, there's this other part of you, you know, I, I swear that I found you through looking at outfits of yours because you're always like, she's in a whole mu mu getup, you've got an amazing shoe. And maybe I was just like looking at the outfit and then kind of tuned in and started listening and saw a graph that.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  Well, that's exactly what I wanted to accomplish, Emma.

• 17:21Emma Grede?

  Jumped up, babe.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  That's exactly, the reason I wear all these looks is because I believe that what you wear tells a story and draws people in and makes you less threatening. So I want the outfits and the universe to be fun and colorful and friendly. So you come in and then I talk to you about blood sugar levels, something really unsexy and kind of boring, but here you are because I was wearing a fun outfit and now you're watching my video and I can teach you how to feel better.

• 17:45Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I mean, that a hundred percent worked for me.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 17:47Emma Grede?

  Definitely worked for me. But I feel like it's really interesting because you've spoken about this publicly, that you are a biochemist and you're not an influencer. Why is that so important to you to be so forthright about that?

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Because it's the truth. I don't influence by sharing my personal life. I I'm not influencing, I'm sharing science. That's what I'm here for. For me, influencer is more personal. I think when I'm a biochemist, I'm a teacher, you know? It's not about me, it's about the content. I'm teaching, I'm offering interesting, helpful information. I'm not influencing by sharing my personal life. It's very different to me.

• 18:27Emma Grede?

  It's very different. I I agree with you.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  It's education.

• 18:29Emma Grede?

  Yeah, every time I watch you, I feel like I learned something. And this through line of everything that you've done in your career is, you know, your books are so unbelievably brilliant because they break down these really complicated subjects in ways that are not just teachable, but it's like you can take that stuff into your life. And I wonder when you did that first book, like, what was your aim right then? Like, what were you trying to to do?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I think I have a lot of empathy for people going through difficulty with their health. And I really feel like I can connect and I understand what people need and how to meet them where they are. So what I was trying to do is I was trying to make a book that was going to become a solution for people, a guide. I understand who this person is that I'm talking to, that I'm writing for. I really deeply do. I think maybe because I struggled so much and I know what it feels like when you're just, it just feels like everything is so dark. It's so dark, you're lost, you don't know where to go. And those are the people that I make my content for. And when I was writing my book, I was trying to make it both informative, but also full of heart and love.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  And I put a lot of stories in there, my personal anecdotes. And I I try to, you know, not use mechanics such as guilt or fear mongering. And I I just, I wanted to make something that felt really cozy and helpful, like a warm blanket, helping you get from zero to one with your health.

• 19:58Emma Grede?

  So talk to me about that first moment when you started to feel like, what I'm doing is working. You've got the book deal, you write this book, it actually does become a bestseller. And as somebody that has, you know, the the kind of Education that you do, you've then got this platform that's starting to become a thing and you're getting noticed, you've got the book that's starting to blow up. Did you have a plan at that point? Is this the point that you went, alright, I'm gonna start to build something?

• 20:26Speaker 02

  No plan, intuition only. I just felt like, okay, it's too much for me to do all the research I'm doing, plus all the posts, plus try to manage the interviews coming in. So I just needed to hire one person. And I was like, okay, I have this much money in my bank account. And when I signed my books, I didn't take the money personally. I thought, I'm gonna form an LLC because let's see what happens. So the book advances went to the LLC. I hired one person. It was just one step after another. And people kept trying to give me advice, you know, investors and people with big companies, do this, do that, do you really wanna be a CEO? It's not a good idea, or this is not a business, blah, blah. I just quieted everything and did what my heart and my intuition told me to do.

• 21:06Emma Grede?

  What did you have to learn about money that science didn't prepare you for?

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Oof, that money is energy. When I got the book advance, I was getting stored energy. And it was my responsibility to decide how I was gonna spend that energy. And I wanted to keep going further because even though I didn't have a plan for a business, I wanted this message to become so well-known that everybody knew about the glucose hacks. The money was energy and I was trying to really, really use it as periodically and smartly as possible. Again, it's a very different situation. If you raise money, you can go faster, bigger. I had to make every decision very carefully. And we're talking, you know, I was dealing with like tens of thousands of dollars, not millions of dollars. So every decision, every person.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I learned everything just by doing it and by trying and by failing every single day. And even today, you know, when I launched my first product, Antispik, my supplement, that was really intuition. I felt like people wanted something that was gonna help them with their glucose spikes, but I didn't have a business plan. So I just looked at the best science and I put the best molecules together and I made a really expensive product with really bad margins, but really bad margins. And everybody in the supplement industry was like, Wait, what did you do? I was like, oh yeah, I put a Reducos and Ariomene in the same product. They're like, that's way too expensive. Why would you do that? I said, well, because it's the best. They're like, yeah, but it's not a good business. I don't care. I don't care. I'm making the best product. So I just went for it.

• 22:38Emma Grede?

  Is there, is there a belief system there? Because I, I always believe like you make a great product. The customer is going to come like you can figure the things out afterwards.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Yes, I believe that as well.

• 22:48Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 22:49Speaker 02

  I believe that as well. I'm not cynical. I think that people want the best products and no shortcuts will ever pay off. So if I had taken shortcuts, maybe the business would be bigger today, but I'm proud of every single thing that I've made. And I followed my intuition for ultra high quality decisions at every turn. Ultra high quality.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Today's episode is sponsored by NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast. Personal finance can feel like a pop quiz you didn't study for. This podcast is your study guide. On NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, you'll hear from trusted journalists who explain the why behind major financial decisions. You'll get research-backed insights and clear pros and cons, whether you're planning a big purchase or just want to grow your wealth. Make your next financial move with confidence. Follow NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast on your favorite podcast app.

• 23:42Speaker 04

  Do you ever wish you could ask nosey questions about people's money?

• 23:45Speaker 05

  I have $729.71 in my bank account.

• 23:49Speaker 06

  We bought, you know, a 1.3 million dollar house on a $350,000 income.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  On the podcast, What We Spend, we ask those questions. It's a show about money and all the feelings that come with spending it.

• 24:01Speaker 07

  I want to be the kind of person who can just take care of the people in my life.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  Listen to What We Spend, an Odyssey original, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

• 24:17Emma Grede?

  That's a really great way to frame everything that you do. Because it comes across, right? It comes across in the content, the captions, the way that you write the books, the way that you put yourself together, the way that you've framed this new product. It's like, I'm gonna make an ultra-high-quality decision at every turn, and that's gonna pay dividends.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  I'm obsessive. I wanna make perfect stuff because I believe in them.

• 24:41Emma Grede?

  It's so interesting because I feel like great founders are always a little bit obsessive. They're as obsessed with the product as they are with the packaging, as they are with the overall output and the messaging.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  And you have to.

• 24:56Emma Grede?

  I think you have to.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Everyday as a founder is a punch in the gut. So if you're gonna keep going, you have to be obsessed. You have to keep getting backup, but it's not centered. The text is not centered. That's how I feel most days. But you have to, and I think that's driven me. And I had opportunities to quit at every turn. But this sort of spiritual thing, I kept coming back to it. I felt like I was on a mission.

• 25:18Emma Grede?

  Talk to me about those opportunities to quit because I think that what we see is this ascent, right? That you've kind of gone on a tear and you've had this tremendous acceleration in this part of your life and career. What have been some of the setbacks? What are the things that behind the scenes we wouldn't have seen or heard about?

• 25:39Speaker 02

  Well, because I don't have a structure, I didn't have a structure in place of a big company and investors and a roadmap and quarterly results. My business was just being fueled by my energy and my motivation. So the weeks where I didn't feel very motivated because everybody on the internet was trying to take me down, I felt like the business was slowing down. So I've always had this push and pull, every single day, every single week. I don't have a big support system in terms of the company. It's just me driving it with my passion. So the opportunities to quit, I mean, man, just being on social media, you wanna quit every single day. It's rough.

• 26:18Emma Grede?

  How have you learned to deal with the trials, the haters, the nonstop opinions, writing your shit, writing your comment feed?

• 26:26Speaker 02

  At the beginning, I was taking a lot of good criticism and feedback because I didn't really understand what I was doing. Like, I needed feedback from my users. Again, people were like, I hate it when you say this. Don't say this, you know? If you're talking about somebody who's diabetic, don't say she's diabetic, say she has diabetes. I had to learn all these things that I didn't know. I didn't know a lot of stuff. Or type one diabetics, you know, people were type one diabetes saying, oh, wearing this glucose monitor is offensive. Like, don't do that. This is our glucose monitor. It's it's not cool. We don't feel good about it. I had to learn a lot. And the criticism taught me a lot, but today, I've heard it all. So it doesn't really touch me anymore.

• 27:02Emma Grede?

  Is there any part of you that shied away from some, because I feel like you've been out there and you've openly criticized oatmeal, granola, drugs like Ozempic as an example? Have you ever been nervous when it comes to like challenging at least big food companies and Big Pharma?

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, those are huge mammoths. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. With a lot of money, with way more money than I will ever have.

• 27:28Emma Grede?

  And big teams of lawyers.

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. But this is what I have to do. Like, if I didn't wanna make anybody upset or ruffle any feathers, I would not be able to do what I do. My entire job is telling you, they're manipulating you with the marketing. This food is not as healthy as you think. This drug is not solving the issue, it's masking the symptom. I have to go up against it. So yeah, of course, it's a little bit scary, but we gotta go. It's war, baby.

• 27:55Emma Grede?

  It's war.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:56Emma Grede?

  But I love that that's your attitude, because I speak to so many female founders, and it can be very intimidating when you cross a line, knowing it or not, and there's, you know, a legal letter that lands on your door, or something that kind of threatens you. How have you dealt with those things? Because I know they've kind of hit you.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Hmm. I cry. Get a good cryin', you know?

• 28:19Emma Grede?

  Love a good cry.

• 28:20Speaker 02

  Love a good cry.

• 28:23Emma Grede?

  I'll cry sometimes when I'm not sad.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Just for fun.

• 28:27Emma Grede?

  Yeah, just to cry, not in the camera or anything. I hate that shit, but it's like, I love a cry. So healthy.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  And then I have to find my center again and remember what I'm doing and remember the mission and what I'm here for. Cause those things can knock me off course so hard. And then you're like, wait, why am I doing this? Like, is everything I'm doing wrong? And I just have to keep coming back to myself. And over the years, the muscle has grown stronger. So now I can come back much faster. I don't have a secret like magic solution for this. It's tough.

• 28:58Emma Grede?

  Yeah, but isn't that just the point that I think so many people want to understand? Like, how do you get more resilient? Will you get more resilient?

• 29:04Speaker 02

  You have to do it. You have to do it. Okay, story, story time. First time I gave a public, public speech was at twenty three and me. I was an intern. I had just joined. Two months into the internship, I have to present in front of four people, four people. I prepare my presentation and I get into the room and I turn the slide on and there's four colleagues of mine from my team. And I just totally blackout. I cannot get a word out like, um, um, um. And, and my other colleague had to take over my presentation. I just collapsed, panic attack totally in front of four people. Today you can put me in front of a hundred thousand people. I'm not scared. Why? Because I kept going back to that horrible thing. It's like pushups, Emma.

• 29:49Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  The only way to get better at pushups is to do the pushups. Same thing. I wanted to get better. It was so hard. But I think about maybe four years in, then I wasn't scared anymore. But it took four years of a lot of public speaking and learning the presentation by heart, every sentence. This is where my academic brain worked and was helpful. I learned my presentations, word for word, in one hour presentation, word for word, the whole thing, memorized everything. Cause I was so terrified of going in front of these people and talking about glucose. I learned everything, every single word. And I rehearsed it in my flats. And I would film myself, everything. Cause that was the only way to get through the anxiety and the nerves. And today I don't have to do that anymore.

• 30:32Emma Grede?

  And you don't have any anxiety or nerves anymore?

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Nothing. I love it now. I love it. I'm like, give me a big audience. I got this.

• 30:38Emma Grede?

  Give me that audience.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  And you know, I get on stage and like, hey guys, hey, how's it going? You know? She's like.

• 30:43Emma Grede?

  Exactly. But at the beginning, I was very hard.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  Faking it.

• 30:47Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Faking it.

• 30:49Emma Grede?

  I'm a sweater, so I will, I don't ever look like I'm sweaty. I mean, I'm always shiny, but it's like I will sweat through that entire clothing outfit. And every time I come off the stage and people are like, you, that was great. And I'm like, oh my God, like, get me a towel. Like, I'm just like.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  But are you scared? No.

• 31:07Emma Grede?

  Not at all.

• 31:07Speaker 02

  You just sweat?

• 31:08Emma Grede?

  No, I just, that's just what, that's my reaction. I just like sweat out. But it's like, again, I could go in front of a huge audience, but it certainly wasn't always like that. I just practiced and practiced and practiced. And unlike you, sadly, I don't have that academic brain, but I'm really good at freestyling it. So I would just have like the one lines of like each paragraph and I'd go there and then I can just like.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  You can. Oh, wow.

• 31:34Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I only need the headlines. I'm like a headline, I have the bullets and I can do the 20 bullets and then I'll just like fill in the gaps.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Well, I wish I could do that. That would have saved me a lot of.

• 31:44Emma Grede?

  No, your way is better because, you know, every now and again, you'll be like, off with the, off with the birds.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  But it's violent. It's a violent process to get better at stuff.

• 31:53Emma Grede?

  First of all, better, I love the way you frame things. It's violent.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  It's violent.

• 31:57Emma Grede?

  It's violent against yourself.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:00Emma Grede?

  You have to go against everything that's natural to you. You have to.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  All the resistance.

• 32:04Emma Grede?

  Fear and you have to sweat your way through it in my case, but it is, it's, it's violent.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  And I kind of enjoy the process a little bit.

• 32:13Emma Grede?

  Yes. And I feel like, I mean, I've spoken about this so much, but it's like, I look for the fear now because I know once I get on the other side of the things that really scare me, there's such good stuff there and it's really, really hard. But then when you're on the other side, you're like, ha, ha, ha, I did it. It just took me three years, but I did it. I want to talk about hacks, but there's these hacks, like, there's such a huge buzzword and you have these glucose hacks.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 32:40Emma Grede?

  You've kind of got and you've owned. I want to really understand, like, why was it important for you to frame them that way?

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Because I think I'm very good at marketing.

• 32:50Emma Grede?

  Yeah, because it's really central to your work, right?

• 32:53Speaker 02

  And marketing is not a dirty word here. Marketing is how do you turn something into something people want and people understand? So I had all this science. I had these hundreds of scientific papers. And I felt like, how do I make this into something that people are gonna understand and are gonna connect with? So it was the hacks, but they didn't just drop out of thin air. It was actually when I was writing my first book that I thought about this concept of turning all this data I had amassed into these hacks. And I thought 10 is a great number. So I put together 10 hacks. And it just worked out. It was amazing. I have a brain that understands how people change their behavior and how I can get through and cut through the noise and give them tools they can actually use and remember. So the hacks are the core of my work.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  And throughout all of my career, it's always been about hacks. Easy stuff you can remember because I'm obsessed with behavior change.

• 33:43Emma Grede?

  And it really shows.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 33:44Emma Grede?

  It really shows.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 33:45Emma Grede?

  What do you think are the top hacks that work for you in your life right now?

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Having a savory breakfast. Never having anything sweet first thing in the morning.

• 33:56Emma Grede?

  Oh, they jump like that in America. No.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  This is the most difficult hack, Emma. This is the hardest hack with the biggest payoff.

• 34:06Emma Grede?

  It's the hardest hack with the biggest payoff.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:08Emma Grede?

  So like when we talk sweet, all right, let's just like

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Okay, yeah, yeah.

• 34:12Emma Grede?

  Sweet a little bit, you know, because fruit is sweet.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Fruit is okay.

• 34:16Emma Grede?

  Is that a no too?

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Fruit is okay.

• 34:18Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  It's okay as a side dish.

• 34:20Emma Grede?

  Not optimal.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  It's okay.

• 34:22Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  For taste, for enjoyment, for pleasure, let's say. Your savory breakfast needs to be built around protein. You need to start the breakfast with protein. Maybe it's eggs, maybe it's a Greek yogurt, maybe it's protein powder, maybe it's nuts, maybe it's leftover salmon from last night. Protein.

• 34:37Emma Grede?

  Oh, God, don't make me have dinner for breakfast.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Yes, Emma. Do you want a sharp brain?

• 34:43Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Do you wanna feel like eagle focused energy all day?

• 34:46Emma Grede?

  Absolutely.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  Then you gotta have a savory breakfast, girl. And then if you want something sweet, have it at the end of the breakfast.

• 34:54Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Just try it because the payoff for your mental clarity is so humongous. It's like walking through a mirror and going through another world. It is literally a different world, sweet breakfast or savory breakfast. Why? Because the sweet breakfast creates a big glucose spike in your body. That leads to inflammation, that can lead to brain fog. And it kickstarts a roller coaster of crashes all day. And you spike and two hours later, you crash as your blood sugar come down. And you're tired and you want more sugar and you're exhausted and the brain fog and the fatigue. And then you go back up with more sweets and back down. I think, single-handedly, having a savory breakfast has helped me with my career more than any advice I ever got.

• 35:39Emma Grede?

  Wow.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  One hundred percent.

• 35:42Emma Grede?

  All right, what's the second most important thing that we need to know?

• 35:45Speaker 02

  The second one, oh, that's tough because they're all competing. Okay, I would say having a veggie starter before dinner. So typically, people have dinner and dinner is gonna be the biggest meal of the day. That's the meal where you're coming home and you have more time and you're eating a lot. Now, the problem is, if you have a big spike at dinner, your deep sleep during the night is gonna be messed up. So you're gonna wake up and feel less rested. So how do you counteract this? You start your dinner with a veggie starter, meaning a plate of vegetables. It can be anything. Broccoli, it can be salad, it can be tomatoes, carrots, whatever your favorite vegetable is. You can have it raw, cooked, boiled, baked, anything you like, grilled. The vegetables contain fiber.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  And if you have fiber at the beginning of your dinner, it's gonna create this protective mesh in your intestine. Fibers are a superwoman, we love her. At the beginning of your meal, creates this mesh. Whatever you eat afterwards will go more slowly into your digestive system and into your bloodstream.

• 36:47Emma Grede?

  So it's not that you're trying to trick me into eating less of whatever the rest is on my plate? It's about this?

• 36:52Speaker 02

  I want you to eat more.

• 36:53Emma Grede?

  Seal.

• 36:54Speaker 02

  I want you to eat more with the protect with the protective fiber in place.

• 36:58Emma Grede?

  Oh, Lord. All right. So I'm gonna have a savory breakfast. I'm then gonna eat veggies before my dinner.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 37:04Emma Grede?

  What's the other thing? Cause I want like.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Tell me more.

• 37:07Emma Grede?

  Boss girl diet. You know, I want the one that's gonna give me maximum energy, that's not gonna let me crash, that's gonna keep my brain like on fire. You know, it's like, that's, that's the diet that I want.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  Then in that case, you're gonna be snacking throughout the day, probably.

• 37:22Emma Grede?

  Oh, good. I do.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:24Emma Grede?

  But I'm a really good snack. Okay, so here's my thing. I love nuts.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Yes, perfect. Okay, stop there. It's perfect.

• 37:30Emma Grede?

  I'm an almond girl.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Perfect, ten out of ten.

• 37:32Emma Grede?

  Thank you very much.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 37:34Emma Grede?

  The perfect snack. And I do bone broth.

• 37:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, very good.

• 37:37Emma Grede?

  That's bone broth. I don't really have a sweet tooth, except I do like like a very, very good chocolate, but I, for that to happen like on a weekday, I have to be like extremely pissed off. Like, I'm very regimented with my diet.

• 37:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:52Emma Grede?

  And I just don't really leave much choice there, because my way of controlling things is to not have choices. I just eat what I'm given.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:00Emma Grede?

  And I.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  And it works for you.

• 38:03Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 02

  And you're, you're a boss girl.

• 38:05Emma Grede?

  Well, you know, we try to be, but I'm like, you know, I like a sandwich as much as the next person. And so if I'm given the choice, I'm gonna say, I want a sandwich. If somebody just is like, this is what your lunch is today, and it just is in front of me, it's like, I'm gonna eat the protein and veggies.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  I think one tip that I would give is that throughout the day, you might be tempted for sugar, for chocolate, for a donut, for those little dried mango stuff we had on the table before then, I was like, no, no, no. Anything sweet throughout the day, it can sort of help you go through work, because you feel like it gives you a little energy boost to eat something sweet. Actually, the sweetness is giving you dopamine, which is the pleasure molecule in your brain, but it's not giving you energy, because it's probably creating a spike, which then leads to a crash. So what do you do? You do what's called, put clothing on your carbs. So anytime you eat carbs. Example, donut, example, chocolate. You put some clothing on that. So almonds are an excellent piece of clothing to put on your carbs.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Because they contain protein and fat. And so as they mix with the sugar in your stomach, they're going to slow down the glucose spike of the sugar. So you can still have the donut, the chocolate you like. If you add some clothing to it, it's going to affect your brain, your energy, your performance and your cravings less.

• 39:21Emma Grede?

  See, this is what I love about your advice. Because I feel like it is realistic. Like, I'm not never gonna have a donut. A donut is delicious. But there's a way to have a donut.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  It's all about the way to have the stuff that you love with less impact on your body. And there's so much we can do. A donut, first thing in the morning for breakfast, is 100% different from the donut you have after your dinner where you had a veggie starter. Completely different impact on your body.

• 39:45Emma Grede?

  So you're happy for me to have the donut later?

• 39:47Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:47Emma Grede?

  That feels so counterintuitive. That feels like a donut at night is just gonna like sit there and, you know, not do the right thing for me.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  If you have a veggie starter before that dinner, you're gonna have a smaller glucose spike from the donuts. If you had the, if you have the donut for breakfast on an empty stomach first thing, you're kicking off an entire day of glucose rollercoaster. And then you feel like crap. And so you can't do the stuff that you wanna do. Because you feel horrible in your own body.

• 40:11Emma Grede?

  So what do you do if you don't wanna walk around with a glucose monitor? Like, as I look at those, you know, people with the glucose monitor.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Those people with the glucose monitor.

• 40:19Emma Grede?

  That's what I think. I'm like, oh, I'm not dating you. I'm out of the dating game, thankfully. But you know, like, to me, I'm like, no, like, really? Are we doing, like, are we doing that?

• 40:30Speaker 02

  I think we are.

• 40:31Emma Grede?

  Are we?

• 40:31Speaker 02

  At least for two weeks.

• 40:32Emma Grede?

  She's like, yes, I'm the glucose goddess. We are.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Do it for two weeks, once.

• 40:37Emma Grede?

  Why? Because you're like, do it for two weeks and learn about yourself.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 40:40Emma Grede?

  Okay.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  You don't have to wear it all the time. Okay, just do it once. Learn about yourself. See if your glucose levels are steady. See what spikes, see what doesn't, and then you're good. If you don't wanna wear one at all, intuit into your own body. When do you feel tired? When do you have cravings? These are the two main signs you're having a glucose crash after a big spike. Okay? It's the fatigue and the cravings. Keep a little diary. Or just feel into it. And I promise you, if you switch from a sweet breakfast to a savory breakfast, those things will be much, much, much better instantly.

• 41:11Emma Grede?

  Yeah, I mean, listen, I've really have become obsessed with my health over the last few years. There's something about moving to LA that, that'll do that to an English girl. But I also think about my health as an investment. When you have four kids and you have businesses, like, there is no choice for me. And the reason that... I started to follow you and I started to become so interested in this is because I know the difference. Like I feel it so intrinsically in my skin and the energy levels. But I feel like we're all looking for a clear out of the information. And I think what I love about what you do is that it's really understandable. And it's really science based, but there's no clutter there because there's so much information

• 41:55Emma Grede?

  out there. And what I want are like, as you say, it's like the 10 things that I need to do. And the things are realistic.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  And they work for everybody and they're not a diet. They, I see the hacks as like little fairy godmothers that you have in your pocket that you use whenever you can, whenever you want. You can't fail at the glucose hacks. It's about using them as much as possible, whenever they call you, whenever they're easy to do. And even if just one time this week, you think about, okay, I'm going to put clothing on those carbs, even just one time, that's better than doing it zero times.

• 42:26Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  You can't fail. You see what I mean? You can't fail. These are just principles like brush your teeth and wear sunscreen. If you don't brush your teeth one night, you're not going to wake up the next morning and be like, oh damn, I forgot to brush my teeth last night. I can never brush my teeth again. I failed at brushing my teeth. No, but just brush your teeth that day. Same thing with the hacks.

• 42:52Emma Grede?

  I've heard you say that people discover their true self, like once the symptoms start to subside, like what did you discover? What do you, what do you have that, you know, can lead people into thinking that this is the way forward in their lives?

• 43:08Speaker 02

  I discovered more resilience because my brain felt weak. I was struggling with mental health, with mood swings. I felt, I felt fragile.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  I felt fragile in my body and in my brain. And so I wasn't taking many risks. I wasn't doing things that scared me because I just didn't have the resources. Because I was concerned that I was gonna feel anxious or depressed. Or I had this very intense mental health condition called depersonalization, which is when you feel like a stranger in your own body. It's horrible. And I was able to-

• 43:43Emma Grede?

  What did that stem from?

• 43:45Speaker 02

  My back accident, I think. It started developing about six months after the accident. And when I look back, I think it was probably some sort of PTSD from being scared of dying and not having the tools to process the fear.

• 43:58Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 02

  And so I would feel like a stranger in my own body. It was horrible. It was just so scary. And so my brain was broken. And the glucose spikes were making it worse. And it took me almost a decade to figure it out. And so when I studied my blood sugar, then I got a bit of resilience back and I could start building my health back up. It was not all about glucose. Glucose was the first step. It gave me a little bit of strength that I needed to then go after the stuff I wanted to do. So what I tell people is if you could feel better than you currently do, then try the glucose hacks. Because most of us have glucose spikes and we don't know it. And the symptoms we feel on a daily basis, like maybe it's acne,

• 44:40Speaker 02

  maybe it's PCOS, maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's feeling addicted to sugar. These are all messages from your body. Symptoms are not something to suppress. Symptoms are some things to, something to look into. There are messages your body's speaking to you. And often your body's like, can you please start with keeping your blood sugar level steady? Because this is not helping.

• 44:59Emma Grede?

  I've heard you speak a lot about the links between fertility and glucose and your glucose levels. Is there, I mean, I'm assuming because it's you, there's a lot of science behind that.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So one of the most common reasons for infertility today in females is polycystic ovary syndrome, PCOS.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  And in many cases, PCOS is actually a symptom of having high glucose levels in your body.

• 45:23Emma Grede?

  Why?

• 45:24Speaker 02

  Is it really?

• 45:25Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  Because high glucose increases this hormone called insulin in the body. And insulin is there just trying to manage glucose levels and get those glucose levels back down. But they also impact female hormones and they increase testosterone in a female body. And so PCOS is often a consequence of having too much testosterone because of too much insulin, because of too many glucose spikes. So that's why, yeah, so many women who use my glucose hacks, all of a sudden their insulin comes down. Their testosterone comes back to normal and they ovulate again.

• 46:04Emma Grede?

  That's insane.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:05Emma Grede?

  That's so crazy. I had no idea. I mean, is that like a widely known thing?

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I think it's getting more widely known and scientists believe that about seventy percent of PCOS cases are due to this glucose, insulin, testosterone.

• 46:20Emma Grede?

  It's like a, like an amalgamation of symptoms, right? It's like, it's not a thing, like a disease, like it's, it's like a lot of different things that play out.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:29Emma Grede?

  And, and we diagnose it as such.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  And in seventy percent of the cases, PCOS also is happening with high insulin levels and is due to that. So PCOS is, as you said, it's an umbrella term for symptoms that all stem from a hormonal imbalance.

• 46:44Emma Grede?

  Yes.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  And again, in seventy percent of cases, that hormonal imbalance is linked to high insulin. So you gotta get the insulin down so the hormones get back into their normal ranges. And to get the insulin levels down, you get the glucose down. So you gotta understand the few steps. So it's not super easy because sometimes you might know about the insulin. And so you might take a medication to get insulin down, but you're not fixing the root cause.

• 47:06Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Or for example, you might go on the birth control pill to manage PCOS. But the pill is not fixing the issue. It's sort of masking the symptoms for a little while. And then you get off the pill and you wanna have a baby, but you're not ovulating anymore. And so you realize, oh, that pill didn't fix anything.

• 47:22Emma Grede?

  No, so you've actually gotta go down and fix this root cause.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  And listen, this is not always the case that fixing glucose fixes PCOS. But in many, many cases, in the majority of cases, it does.

• 47:33Emma Grede?

  That is crazy. I mean, you've just had your own little baby.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:37Emma Grede?

  Eight months old, a little boy.

• 47:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:39Emma Grede?

  So sweet. I think for so many of us, having a baby is a time in our life where everything changes. Your eating habits, the time that you have, the, you know, how much you focus on yourself. What was the experience like for you and what kind of came out of it in terms of, you know, you having like this new health experience and life on the other side of having a baby?

• 48:03Speaker 02

  I can't believe I had a baby. Like, what? What just happened? You know, like I made this.

• 48:08Emma Grede?

  I still feel like that twelve years after the first one, I'm like, are you guys mine?

• 48:14Speaker 02

  My, I mean, I think I'm still in process with it. It's hard to say. I found it.

• 48:18Emma Grede?

  First of all, eight months in is basically a newborn.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Basically.

• 48:21Emma Grede?

  When my kid was five, I was saying, I just had a baby. Like, it's, yeah, eight months is like a newborn child. Yes.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  I found it to be much harder than I thought it was gonna be. I thought writing a book was hard.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  But this just changed everything. And it's just so much love and so much focus. And now my heart lives outside my body, in him. That's how it feels. And I've also had to manage my company and finish writing my book postpartum, which was hardcore. I don't know. It, it, it's focused me a lot. It's focused me. I've had so much time before. I didn't realize how much time I had.

• 48:57Emma Grede?

  Right.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  I had, I was like, what was I doing from like six P M. to eleven P M. every night? Like, what? I was chilling. What are you talking about?

• 49:07Speaker 02

  Like, what are you talking about? So it's made me much more focused and it's made me happier also. And I always had before, I think, this sort of ten percent of my emotional state at all times, which was a kind of ten percent of maybe longing or a little bit sad. And I'm French, you know? Melancholic, like, oh, should I do something different? Like, is my life not great? Blah, blah, blah. And that's just gone. Yeah, searching, searching. And I feel like that's gone. I don't have that sort of mild chronic depression anymore. Because I have purpose, you know? And it's, it's not, it's not the same thing as purpose with a company. Because the purpose of the company comes and goes every day. And again, it's hard with him. It's just.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  It's so clear. It's clarified everything. It's made everything much harder, but everything's so much clearer.

• 49:54Emma Grede?

  Yeah, and also I feel like there's something to be said of like, you know, you have a mission and a purpose for your company, but now there's like a reason to be doing all of that stuff. Like somehow.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Completely. It crystallizes everything.

• 50:05Emma Grede?

  It crystallizes everything. How has it changed for you? Because obviously you are running a company with a lot of different pieces and verticals to it. How have you been able to, you know, come into mothering and still be this entrepreneurial? What does that look like for you?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  I just do it. I don't know. I don't have a magic solution. It's just hard. I just work more, longer hours. I'm more efficient. I delegate more. I do more on my phone. I'm better at multitasking. And I thought motherhood might make me a bit softer in terms of my business. I thought maybe it's gonna slow me down. And it hasn't. It's made me more hungry. I don't know why. I can't explain it. I just realized I don't have much time.

• 50:51Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  And I'm gonna do a lot of stuff and I have a lot of people to serve. So I just gotta be better, more laser focused. I make decisions faster. I'm rearranging my team much quicker than I would have in the past. You know, I don't let things linger for more than a couple of days. I'm like, I gotta change this. I don't have time. I don't have time.

• 51:08Emma Grede?

  Yeah. Everything feels so much more finite when you have kids, right? Yeah. You're like, this forty five minutes better be used wisely.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. These, these twelve minutes before you wake up from the nap, you better, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this. Yeah. And I think I'm more efficient today and I think I'm actually delivering more today than I did before I was a mom.

• 51:28Emma Grede?

  Isn't that incredible?

• 51:29Speaker 02

  It's incredible.

• 51:30Emma Grede?

  It's absolutely incredible.

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Do you feel the same?

• 51:32Emma Grede?

  A million percent. I always talk about this moment, the, the first child I had, I remember sitting in the hospital bed and feeling this surge of like, I gotta get back to the office. You know, it's like, I gotta get back to work because somehow there was a reason for doing all the things that was beyond it just being about me. And I also think it's such an incredible example for your kid to see you so as they get older, so passionate about something and to care so much about something. I mean, that's like for me, all it boils down to, I don't really like what my kids do, you know, and what they become. I don't care, but I want them to care about something as much as I care about what I do. And that's all that I can hope for them.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 52:12Emma Grede?

  Which is the best thing in the world. And they're seeing it. I mean, they're watching you. So talk to me about the product that you've just launched, because I feel like the product kind of came out of like one of your big, probably most famous hacks, right?

• 52:25Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So one of the most famous hacks was have vinegar before eating something sweet. Because vinegar contains an incredible molecule called acetic acid, we love her, which slows down digestion just a little bit. And as a result, when you eat carbs, they arrive more slowly into your bloodstream. They turn to glucose more slowly. But people kept telling me vinegar is disgusting. I had like, I need to drink vinegar and water? What are you talking about? It's gross. I was like, oh, no, it's okay. You'll get used to it. And people kept saying, can I take like a supplement instead? And there was nothing that really was a good alternative. Like a vinegar supplement was not delivering

• 53:06Speaker 02

  the same molecules as the vinegar itself, not the same quantity and quality. So I got into research. I looked for two years through all the scientific studies and I found these incredible molecules, plant molecules that I had never heard about before, mulberry leaf being the main one, and then a molecule that comes from lemons. And I called up the suppliers and I was like, you have incredible clinical trials showing that these molecules reduce glucose spikes because they interact with the enzymes in your belly. And I was like, I want to put them in a product and give it to people and call it Anti-Spike. And so I just did it. I knew nothing about the supplement world. I didn't partner with a company.

• 53:42Emma Grede?

  I was just gonna say.

• 53:43Speaker 02

  I want to be very clear here. I built the whole thing myself, all internally, manufacturing, logistics, sourcing, everything.

• 53:51Emma Grede?

  Wow, you are a crazy lady. I love you.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Crazy lady.

• 53:54Emma Grede?

  Because I'm sure you'd had offers on offers on offers like, put your name on this product. We're developing something. You can take some equity.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  I got an offer. I got an offer.

• 54:03Emma Grede?

  Do it from scratch.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  Six months before I launched Anti-Spike, I got an offer for $300,000 to put my name on a supplement and just sell it as my own. And I didn't take that.

• 54:13Emma Grede?

  Didn't fancy that?

• 54:14Speaker 02

  No, I felt like if I did that, that would be the last thing I ever did. Because it would just collapse everything. I would not believe in what I was doing anymore. I would just sell out and I never wanted to do that. So I built it all internally and then I told my team, oh, and by the way, we're going to launch in the US, Canada, all of Europe at the same time.

• 54:31Emma Grede?

  Did you go out and raise money?

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Nope, all bootstrapped. So I took all the money we had in the bank to buy the inventory for Anti-Spike. And I took a bet. I had no, I had no market research. I had no idea how much people were willing to pay for it. It was all intuition. I just did. I was like, it's going to cost $59. Like literally, that's what I did.

• 54:50Emma Grede?

  No, you did not.

• 54:50Speaker 02

  I promise. And I had no understanding of how this supplement world worked at all. I was like, okay, well, you know, the raw materials are very expensive. But if I sell it for $59, like I can make this much money on each bottle. That makes sense. And I'm going to launch in the world because my entire community is all across the world. And so it was me and my little mighty team of four people and we just took it on.

• 55:11Emma Grede?

  Really?

• 55:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:12Emma Grede?

  How is it doing?

• 55:13Speaker 02

  It's doing great. It's doing great.

• 55:15Emma Grede?

  That's crazy.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Because it's the best product on the market for glucose spikes.

• 55:19Emma Grede?

  Let's talk about this a bit because I love this idea that like you've got this fantastic business. Because there's also like a cost of entry, right? Because you have a reputation, you sell a lot of books. So it's not like you're just coming at this and being like, oh, let me just like, figure it out because it might not touch anything else. This is core to the principles of things that you talk about. I buy something from you, it needs to work. It needs to also not impede on the rest of the businesses. So you must have felt so much conviction, but like taking all your money and going, okay, I'm just gonna go. That's like, that's crazy.

• 55:55Speaker 02

  I know. And I listen, I just did it. I just felt like it was the right thing to do.

• 56:00Emma Grede?

  And is it the right thing to do? Like when you look at it, when did you launch?

• 56:04Speaker 02

  We launched two and a half years ago.

• 56:07Emma Grede?

  Two and a half years ago?

• 56:08Speaker 02

  And we had all these problems because the production was delayed. And so I was being pre-orders and I told people it's ready in a month. Actually, it was ready in four months and it was just so stressful. It was just awful, awful, awful. And now, so in terms of my business, so the books are a big source of revenue. The supplement as well. I also do speaking, but not so much. It's not core. I'm not like a speaker. I do this like three, four times a year. And I'm launching another product. I'm launching what I believe to be the best protein powder in the entire universe.

• 56:35Emma Grede?

  And how are you thinking about ownership of these things, Jessie? What does this look like for you?

• 56:39Speaker 02

  What do you mean?

• 56:39Emma Grede?

  Like, do you own it?

• 56:41Speaker 02

  Do I own one?

• 56:41Emma Grede?

  Like the brand and the like Glucose Goddess is yours, the product is yours? Or do you take investment and you take partners?

• 56:48Speaker 02

  I have no investments, no partners. I've bootstrapped everything from that first sixty thousand dollar advance in the first book.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Never took an investor.

• 56:55Emma Grede?

  Yeah. That's so wonderful.

• 56:57Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you.

• 56:57Emma Grede?

  Do you see a time, and this is very dependent on your vision, do you see a time where you're like, there's a time for investment and it just isn't now? Or what's the plan?

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Yes, probably. Probably if I do something with more CapEx, I don't know, like, you know, I could open maybe a restaurant chain or something like that and I would not just have enough cash to do it myself, so in that case maybe, but I love my freedom. And you know, at the beginning, I was telling you, people were like, raise money, a million dollars and do a tech company. And every time I went to a VC, they'd be like, I have this idea for Glucose Spikes. I have no idea what I'm building, but you want to invest? They were like, yeah, we'll take twenty percent. And I just felt in my body, the constriction, you're going to own twenty percent of this? But it's mine. I don't want to give it away because it's not just a business. It's my life. It's my, it's my purpose. So I'm so glad that I was able to stay free. I wanted that freedom. And today, we don't even have offices. We're all remote.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  I don't have meetings, I hate meetings. We have one weekly meeting, that's it. And then I just call people and I'm on WhatsApp all day. I do not want meetings. I do not want anybody taking any freedom from me. That's so important. So that's one of my core values, freedom. So I don't know if I would want investors. Maybe I would if it doesn't feel like I'm giving my freedom away. So maybe the right partner.

• 58:12Emma Grede?

  I think that you have such unbelievable clarity around what you're optimizing for. At the end of the day, if you're optimizing for freedom, then you're building the absolute right structure for you to have the ultimate amount of freedom.

• 58:24Speaker 02

  But I think one day it'll make sense. Like if I keep going and if I, if I really keep going to my ultimate vision, I think I will need an investment at some point.

• 58:33Emma Grede?

  Well, when your freedom starts to get restricted, right?

• 58:36Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 58:37Emma Grede?

  When your business takes over and you're like, I don't feel so free anymore.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  Exactly. So I might be.

• 58:42Emma Grede?

  Need to take certain.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  I might be close to that point.

• 58:45Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 58:45Speaker 02

  We'll see.

• 58:45Emma Grede?

  Listen, and when it comes, it comes. But I think that what's so impressive about you is that you have core principles. You're like, I am optimizing for this thing. This is what's important to me right now. In the beginning, that was about democratizing this message and this or this information that you had. And now it's about being able to do things on your own term as

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Make the best things.

• 59:06Emma Grede?

  Yeah. And and and that is so clear. It's like this quality, the freedom, being able to, you know, take what it is that you've learned and gift it to the world. And I feel like you're doing all of those things on your own terms. Who is who's helping you? Like, where do who advises you? Is there anyone that you've been able to lean on? And I've heard you say a couple of times in this conversation, you know, people have tried to give you money or tried to come into your business. Is there anyone that you rely on?

• 59:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely. It's people I meet throughout my career. It's, you know, I think you're amazing. I hope I can call you one day and be like, Emma, can you give me advice about this?

• 59:40Emma Grede?

  You can call me anytime.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  It's people that I've met throughout interviews, throughout podcasts, at conferences, and I just call them. And like, hey, I'm having this problem. Can you help me out? And it's that community. I don't have like a mentor. I have a network of incredibly smart people that who sometimes are okay giving me fifteen minutes of their time. And that's the biggest gifts I can have.

• 1:00:00Emma Grede?

  First of all, that's amazing, because I feel like we have this obsession right now of finding mentors. I never had a mentor either. And often people will come to me and say, hey, could you be my mentor? And I'm like, just use these fifteen minutes that we've got to ask me a question, because I don't have time to be your mentor. But we're in front of each other right now. And I think it's fantastic advice that to use whatever you've got in front of you, to use that ten minutes that you have backstage with someone at a conference, or you meet somebody on the street, or you're lucky enough to be introduced to somebody. It's like, use whatever is at your disposal to get the information that you need and figure it out.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:00:40Emma Grede?

  Have a crack. You did the first thing. Parts of it worked, parts of it didn't. As you move into this second venture, you're doing things a little bit differently. It's your own learned and lived experience.

• 1:00:50Speaker 02

  Completely. And I was alone at the beginning. I didn't know anybody in the space. I didn't know any other entrepreneurs or, you know, people making content on the internet. And so I grabbed information and advice wherever I could find it. I just grabbed it. I didn't have the big structure in place of like, this is going to be the business and I have this board of advisors and these mentors and now I'm ready to go. Ah, no, no, no.

• 1:01:11Emma Grede?

  No.

• 1:01:11Speaker 02

  No. It was the other way around.

• 1:01:14Emma Grede?

  I have a feeling that when you're ready for it, there'll be a big, long queue out the door of people just being like, this shit is the real deal and we can improve these margins.

• 1:01:26Speaker 02

  I'll call you, Emma.

• 1:01:27Emma Grede?

  Just let me know, girl. They don't call me eighty percent for nothing.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  Totally, totally. And, you know, I'll feel it maybe one day, but for now it's working and I'm happy.

• 1:01:48Emma Grede?

  When you think of like the great voices in your space, in health, in wellness, in science, like who do you want to be mentioned alongside? Like who's the, who are the heroes and the people that you think about?

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Oh, that's such a beautiful question. You know who are the real heroes? The people who do the scientific studies that nobody knows about.

• 1:02:08Emma Grede?

  The ones we don't know their names.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  In my latest book, in my acknowledgements, the first sentence is, thank you to all the researchers who've done these studies because they're the real reason this work exists. I'm just a translator of their amazing work. I'm not in the lab doing the studies. They are. Hundreds, thousands of researchers and scientists across the world. They're the real heroes. I'm just here making it useful for people and translating the complicated scientific jargon into something that we can actually use. But without them, I'm nothing. Without them, any scientific creator online is nothing. So shout out to all the people in the labs during the work, right? Because they're the ones that are finding the answers.

• 1:02:49Emma Grede?

  No, and I love that you say that because these are the unsung heroes. And when we think about what's happening, you know, I'm not going to go off on a political tangent here. When you think about what's happening to research budgets and in the biggest universities in the land. You know, that is the type of work that is under threat. And we don't hear about it or speak about it nearly enough. But as you quite rightly say, nothing that you do and you communicate so beautifully would be possible without that foundational work, without the work of these unsung heroes that are doing, you know, the most important work to bring humanity and, you know, take us forward.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  And these are a lo- this is long work, like many of these studies take decades.

• 1:03:34Emma Grede?

  Totally. It's not seasonal, like what I do.

• 1:03:36Speaker 02

  No. They're there working on the same thing for ten, fifteen years.

• 1:03:41Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  It's tough. It's rough. I was, I was working in a lab doing my master's degree in biochemistry. I was like, I just don't have.

• 1:03:47Emma Grede?

  Don't you love just throwing that into conversation? I was, you know, working in a lab doing my master's degree in biochemistry. I wish I could say that shit. I might just say that one day, just like on the floor.

• 1:03:57Speaker 02

  Try it on, try it on. And I realized this is not for me. Like, I gotta be, I gotta be talking to people and making daily content that I can iterate on. I don't have the patience. I don't have that kind of brain.

• 1:04:07Emma Grede?

  You have a different kind of brain.

• 1:04:08Speaker 02

  I have a different kind of brain.

• 1:04:09Emma Grede?

  An equally brilliant type of brain.

• 1:04:11Speaker 02

  Know our specialties.

• 1:04:12Emma Grede?

  Damn right. Yes, we do. I mean, you want, you know, information around glucose and glucose habits to be as common as any other health information. And I feel like you're really doing that. What, what's the ultimate goal for you?

• 1:04:27Speaker 02

  I think for my work on glucose to become obsolete. So I want to be useless. I want glucose goddess to be useless because everybody knows this stuff. That's the goal of that original idea about glucose. And then personal goal, just want to be happy and use my talents. And have a bit of fun and feel like I'm being stretched and I'm doing violent things and improving. I want that. But for the glucose idea, you know, I kind of very spiritual and I kind of

• 1:04:56Emma Grede?

  I feel like you need a T-shirt. We need like doing violent things.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Totally, totally.

• 1:05:01Emma Grede?

  As that little reminder. It's so good.

• 1:05:03Speaker 02

  But I had a sort of quote unquote conversation with the glucose idea recently because I was asking her like spiritually like, did I do a good job? Like, do you feel like the work is done? And she was like, yeah. Yep. You're pretty much there. So I made all this content. I made the books. I read the books. The hacks are out there. They're spreading because they work. So people tell their friends and their families and they become, now, everybody knows about the veggies first thing, for example, or, well, everybody. Way more people than at the beginning. Or the savory breakfast, the clothes on carbs, etc. So I feel like I've done a pretty good job. And so now I think I'm going to use my same talents to evolve Glucose Goddess into another direction. And maybe, maybe she's not going to talk about mental health, which is such a big topic for me. Maybe.

• 1:05:43Emma Grede?

  That's what comes next after glucose?

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  So maybe, yeah. Because Glucose Goddess, what does this brand and company do? We make science accessible. And nutrition was the first topic.

• 1:05:54Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  But now what's the evolution? Where can we go from here?

• 1:05:57Emma Grede?

  Yeah, and I feel like so much of your work and what you've done has been a springboard from actually things that happened in your life that came from real adversity, right?

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  And your best customer is the person you once were. So I was thinking, I would love to do something for very specific audience. People in their early twenties who've had spine surgery. Seriously. Because I felt lost.

• 1:06:18Emma Grede?

  I love specificity. There's nothing better than a real niche audience.

• 1:06:22Speaker 02

  So maybe that's what I'm going to do next with Glucose Goddess. I don't know. I'm just saying this. We'll see what happens.

• 1:06:27Emma Grede?

  What's your like broad aspiration? Like if we were to fast forward thirty, forty years, what would you want us?

• 1:06:35Speaker 02

  Say. What would I want to say? Where would I want to be?

• 1:06:38Emma Grede?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:39Speaker 02

  I want to be still writing books. I love the violent process of writing a book. It's very violent. I still want to do the same thing, I think. And I don't know.

• 1:06:49Emma Grede?

  Lovely is that?

• 1:06:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know, Emma. I don't have. I'm just following my intuition and where the energy flows. I don't know. I don't know where I'm gonna be. I don't know. I'm not locked in, I'm free. So who knows? Maybe I'm gonna be like an expert parachutist. I don't know. Cause I'm wearing a top that.

• 1:07:08Emma Grede?

  Equally violent.

• 1:07:10Speaker 02

  So I honestly don't know, but I love what I do. I feel so fortunate that I built this beautiful company and this mission. So I just want to keep going and see where it takes me and keep having a relationship with this work because it is a relationship. But I don't know.

• 1:07:25Emma Grede?

  We shall see. We shall say.

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  We shall see, girl.

• 1:07:27Emma Grede?

  We'll be watching.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:07:28Emma Grede?

  We'll be watching. I mean, congratulations. I'm so impressed with you and I think it's so nice when you meet someone that you're like, you know, watching and following and they're not fucking disappointed. You're so lovely.

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  Thank you, thank you, Emma.

• 1:07:43Emma Grede?

  Okay, now all we need to do is a few rapid fire things. All right, let's do it. What's something you ate recently with zero guilt?

• 1:07:51Speaker 02

  I never feel guilty about food.

• 1:07:54Emma Grede?

  That's freedom.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  And I don't think you should. Because if you're eating it for pleasure, eat it for pleasure. If you're eating it for health, eat it for health. Just be aware of what you're doing.

• 1:08:05Emma Grede?

  That's about as French an answer as anything I could ever get, let me tell you. I think there's just some countries in Europe that have ways of like answering things, like France is one of them. Italians have the same. Actually, sweet, like my husband will say, it'll be whatever it is. What kind of fucking answer is that? Like, don't ever say that to me again.

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  No, but listen, to answer your question.

• 1:08:27Emma Grede?

  It's very French.

• 1:08:28Speaker 02

  Even though I eat everything without guilt, the most recent thing I've eaten entirely for pleasure. So I'm in L A right now, obviously, because we're in L A. But you know Van Luen's, the ice cream place?

• 1:08:38Emma Grede?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:38Speaker 02

  Okay, I love them. I love Van Luen. So I got, so they're, they're out of my favorite one, which is the chocolate fudge brownie. And I'm so pissed off. And I go on Uber Eats every day. I'm like, is the fudge brownie back? And it's still not back and it's been three weeks. So I got the cookies and cream tub and I ate the whole tub because I had to find, get a chocolate fix. So that was my most recent pleasure purchase.

• 1:08:56Emma Grede?

  That, that's your vibe. So it's chocolate, fudge, ice cream situation.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  With chocolate sprinkles on top and like chocolate brownie. Okay, Haagen Dazs, if you're listening.

• 1:09:06Emma Grede?

  Treble chocolate in it.

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  Emma, Haagen Dazs used to have this flavor called chocolate midnight cookies.

• 1:09:11Emma Grede?

  That's acceptable.

• 1:09:12Speaker 02

  And they discontinued it.

• 1:09:14Emma Grede?

  That flavor.

• 1:09:15Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:09:16Emma Grede?

  Why does that always happen?

• 1:09:18Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:09:19Emma Grede?

  Why do they discontinue things?

• 1:09:20Speaker 02

  Listen, business idea.

• 1:09:21Emma Grede?

  Yeah, let's go.

• 1:09:22Speaker 02

  Okay, reviving, reviving discontinued ice cream flavors.

• 1:09:25Emma Grede?

  Oh, please. And can we also do foundation shades? Because I swear to God. If we could do ice cream and foundation, I'd be really happy.

• 1:09:36Speaker 02

  It's perfect.

• 1:09:36Emma Grede?

  Let's go. We're the discontinued company.

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 1:09:39Emma Grede?

  Just a whole bunch of shit that's been discontinued. And we can go out on social and ask people like, what was discontinued and what can we bring back?

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  Emma.

• 1:09:47Emma Grede?

  It's a business, babe.

• 1:09:49Speaker 02

  Girl.

• 1:09:50Emma Grede?

  Billions of dollars.

• 1:09:50Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 1:09:52Emma Grede?

  Done. It'll be called greedy glucose.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  Oh, nice.

• 1:09:57Emma Grede?

  Greedy goddess.

• 1:09:57Speaker 02

  Greedy goddess.

• 1:09:58Emma Grede?

  Greedy goddess. That's, that's the name of the company. You heard it here first.

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  That was such a good flavor, man.

• 1:10:03Emma Grede?

  It was a good flavor. And if you were stranded, oh, no. Sorry, I didn't see this question. This is a good one. If you were stranded on an island, what foods would you hope grew there?

• 1:10:17Speaker 02

  Um, spaghetti?

• 1:10:21Speaker 02

  No, actually.

• 1:10:22Emma Grede?

  An ice cream.

• 1:10:22Speaker 02

  Okay, an ice cream and spaghetti. Um, eggs. Because, let's be serious for a second. Eggs are an amazing superfood, Emma. They contain protein, healthy fats, choline for your brain. They're proper. So actually, if I was stranded, I would hope some sort of animal food would grow there, which would mean I could survive. Because if there was only bananas, I would not survive very long. Because you need protein to survive. So I would hope there was a protein tree somewhere.

• 1:10:45Emma Grede?

  A protein tree?

• 1:10:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:46Emma Grede?

  Just a couple of random chickens running around. Describe being a mom in three words.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  Ooh. Happiness, hardcore diapers.

• 1:10:59Emma Grede?

  I'm not a fucking diaper. And what is a book that changed your life?

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  Seeing is forgetting the name of the thing one sees, which is a biography of an artist called Robert Irwin. And I didn't understand art before, and that book made me understand art. Very niche, amazing book, beautiful. So this guy was obsessed with making art that didn't need any of the normal props that art uses. So like a frame. And then he was like, how can I make art without a frame? And then he thought, a wall, how can I make art without a wall? Light is, can I make presence as art? So he stripped everything away. It was incredible. I'll send you the book, such a good book.

• 1:11:42Emma Grede?

  I love it when people come up with a book that I've never even heard of.

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a very good book.

• 1:11:46Emma Grede?

  Because I read them, I stack them up.

• 1:11:48Speaker 02

  You do, do you actually?

• 1:11:49Emma Grede?

  But most people come out with like very similar books, but that's a great.

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  It's a great book. And he's so obsessive and he would spend years figuring out what exact type of screw to put in the back of the canvas so that the canvas was so perfectly flat that it almost merged with the wall.

• 1:12:05Emma Grede?

  Obsessed.

• 1:12:06Speaker 02

  So cool.

• 1:12:07Emma Grede?

  Obsessed. All right, last question for you. What is something that you aspire to when you were starting out that you no longer aspire to?

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  Hmm, I think I aspired to pleasing everybody or making everybody like what I was doing. Cause I'm a good girl, I'm a recovered good girl. So at the beginning of the Lucas, I was like, I'm gonna make something really great and everybody's gonna love it. And we're all gonna be a happy family. And today I don't aspire to that anymore. I aspire to serving the people that are ready for this information. And if you're not ready, it's okay.

• 1:12:48Emma Grede?

  That's like a mic drop right there. Amazing.

• 1:12:51Speaker 02

  So good.

• 1:12:56Emma Grede?

  If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click Follow on your favourite 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 Emma Grede is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Grede. Executive producer, Ashley McShan. Derek Brown. And me. Our executive producers from Odyssey, Leah Reese-Dennis, Asha Saluja, Lauren Legrosso. Producer, KK Sublime. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Peluso is our booker. Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox. Kurt Courtney. Andrew Steele. And Carlos Delgado. Social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Bale.

• 1:13:40Emma Grede?

  Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sidney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company and WME. Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Hilary Schaff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson-Rose, Tim Meekeal. Shaun Cherry. And Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemmagreed. Grede is spelt G-R-E-D-E. That's aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E, with Emma Grede. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emmagreed.me.