There’s a lot of dopey financial advice out there. Jill Schlesinger is here to call it out, answer your questions, break down the financial news that actually matters, and help you manage your money without losing your mind. No jargon. No judgment. Just clear, actionable financial guidance about saving, investing, buying a home, managing your career, and deciding how to spend your hard-earned dollars. When it’s time to panic, Jill will tell you. When everyone else is panicking and you shouldn’t be, Jill will tell you that too. Your money. Your move. Let’s go.

Arthur C. Brooks believes we are living through an age of emptiness—a time when more people feel distracted, disconnected, and unsure of what will actually make their lives meaningful. In his latest book, The Meaning of Your Life, the Harvard professor and New York Times bestselling author examines why so many of the things we chase in pursuit of happiness can leave us feeling unsatisfied once we get them.  In this episode, Emma Grede sits down with Brooks to unpack what is driving our unhappiness and what science actually says about building a meaningful life. Brooks reveals the two questions he gives his Harvard students to diagnose whether they’re experiencing a meaning crisis, why our brains struggle in a world of constant comfort, and how to use social media without letting it drain you. You’ll learn:Why achievement rarely satisfies us for as long as we expectWhat money can—and cannot—do for your happinessThe five-year exercise that reveals whether your priorities match how you spend your timeWhat to do in the first and last hour of the day to protect your attention The step most people skip that makes new practices stickHow to pursue a big goal without becoming emotionally attached to the outcomeThe simple ritual to shift your baseline happiness by 15 percent in 12 weeks

Jennifer Garner is an award-winning actor, producer, longtime Save the Children ambassador, and co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, an organic children’s food brand. After rising to fame on Alias, she built a career spanning more than three decades before entering entrepreneurship at 45 and helping grow Once Upon a Farm into a $724 million publicly traded company.Jennifer joins Emma to talk about the side of success people rarely see: losing years of her life when Alias made her famous, disappearing from friendships, and how the constant presence of paparazzi warped her confidence. Jennifer shares:What Jennifer is only now realizing about approval and earning her placeHow years of rejection and several failed ideas prepared her for entrepreneurshipWhat she’s learned about holding anger without burying itHow to recognize the value you bring without conventional qualificationsWhen fame and visibility can help a business, and where they cannotWhat it actually looks like to protect a company’s missionWhy your biggest chapter doesn’t come with an age limit

In this solo episode, Emma shares how she thinks about money, from the lessons she learned growing up in East London to the principles she uses today. She gets into her personal financial priorities, why your earning power can matter more than your savings, how to negotiate from a position of strength, and why no woman should ever outsource the understanding of her own finances.In this episode, you’ll learn:What your financial priorities should be in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50sWhy your ability to earn can be more valuable than your savings early in your careerHow your beliefs about money can influence what you earn, ask for, and keepHow to negotiate salary, equity, and other forms of compensation more effectivelyThe difference between earning money, building wealth, and protecting what you’ve builtWhy investing early matters—and what can happen when you waitHow to think about financial independence as freedom, security, and choice

Emma sits down with Krissy Cela, founder and creative director of Oner Active, for an honest conversation about building a bootstrapped business on track to generate close to $300 million this year. Before Oner, Krissy spent a decade building a fitness audience and business from a student laptop, long before either was considered a conventional career path. Today, she owns 50 percent of one of the fastest-growing brands in the category. But what happens when your life asks you to become someone you don’t yet feel qualified to be, and people still look for reasons not to credit your success to you? This episode is about starting before you feel ready, letting go of the need to prove yourself, and growing into the leader your business requires.In this episode, Krissy shares:Why feeling underqualified should not stop you from building something bigHow she turned an online audience into a loyal customer communityThe early legal and partnership mistakes that shapes how she operates todayHow people-pleasing weakened her leadership, and what changed since she stoppedWhy the ones who doubt you are rarely the ones who end up matteringFor more, subscribe to our weekly newsletter at emmagrede.com.

Erin and Sara Foster have spent more than 15 years working across television, fashion, media and investing. Today, they are behind the hit Netflix series Nobody Wants This, the fashion brand Favorite Daughter, a production company, a venture fund and a growing slate of projects—but their success did not arrive according to a master plan.In this episode, they join Emma to unpack the failures, pivots and unlikely opportunities that eventually brought everything together. It is a conversation about staying in motion when the path is unclear, discovering your strengths later than expected, and refusing to treat someone else’s success as evidence that you are falling behind.In this episode, Erin and Sara share:What nobody tells you about the years before anything worksThe power of saying yes before the path is clearHow they built Favorite Daughter without being traditional “fashion girls”The different ways scarcity and abundance shape their relationship with moneyWhat Erin learned from seven years of IVF and 20 rounds of treatmentWhy it’s never too late to find your lane and how failure can redirect you toward the career you were meant for

Every woman should understand the partnership she's entering before a crisis forces her to. This episode is that conversation.Laura Wasser has spent 32 years as one of the country's most sought-after divorce attorneys. She’s the person people call when a marriage is ending. But what makes this conversation so valuable is that almost everything she knows matters long before anyone gets divorced.This episode is about understanding what you are building when you merge your life with another person. Laura explains why marriage is already a contract with or without a prenup, how to protect yourself whether you earn more or less than your partner, and why knowing your financial reality doesn’t make you cynical or unromantic. It makes you an equal participant in your own life.Laura shares:How to have the what’s-mine-is-yours conversation about income, debt, assets, spending, and childrenWhat should go into a prenup—and what does not belong in oneHow a prenup can protect both the higher earner and the partner making financial or career sacrificesThe signs that you're giving away power inside your own marriage without realizing itWhy earning your own money doesn’t mean you’re financially protectedWhat to do when you realize you have no idea what is happening with your family’s financesHow to end a relationship with less fear and a clearer sense of what comes nextWhy divorce doesn’t have to mean you’ve failed—and how her online platform is making the process more accessible and less intimidatingFor more, subscribe to our weekly newsletter at emmagrede.com.

Emma Chamberlain started posting videos at 16, before anyone fully understood what the creator economy would become. Within a couple of years she’d become one of the most watched people on YouTube with over 12 million subscribers, ambassador deals with Louis Vuitton, Cartier and Lancôme, and a Spotify-exclusive podcast. She helped define a new kind of fame, built one of the most recognizable personal brands of her generation, and turned an authentic love of coffee into Chamberlain Coffee, now sold in over 8,000 retail doors across Walmart, Target, Costco and Sprouts. Now, at 25, she’s asking a more complicated question: what happens when the business, and the person, need to grow beyond the identity that made them successful? Today, she’s answering why, after years of relentless momentum, she’s giving herself permission to step back and rediscover what actually fulfills her.In this episode, Emma shares:Why she moved into the co-CEO seat, and the fear that came with itThe real business story behind choosing profitability over growthWhat she’s learned about running a brand built around one personWhy she stepped away from her podcast at the height of itThe personal cost of giving an audience constant access to your lifeWhy she believes influencer culture is approaching a major shift

Reshma Saujani a leading advocate for women’s economic power, the founder of Girls Who Code and Moms First, and the force behind the new documentary No Country for Mothers. After helping change the culture around girls in technology, she has turned her attention to the policies and assumptions that continue to push women—especially mothers—out of the workforce.In this conversation, she joins Emma to talk about the cultural and structural forces shaping women’s ambition, motherhood, money, and power. They get into the real cost of childcare, paid leave, and workplace inflexibility; why mothers are still penalized for showing up as their full selves at work; and how the internet has turned “trad wife vs. girl boss” into a culture war that keeps women fighting each other instead of fighting for meaningful change.In this episode, Reshma and Emma discuss:Who benefits from pitting women against each otherThe motherhood penalty and why it differs from the gender pay gapWhat real workplace support for women and mothers should actually look likeWhy fighting for a better system and taking responsibility for your life can both be true at onceWhat it takes to create more choice, freedom, and economic power for womenHow to build a world women don’t have to shrink their lives to fit the systems around them

Kristin Cavallari became a household name before she'd even graduated high school, and spent the next two decades building a life, a business, and a family under constant public scrutiny. But this conversation isn't just about the version of her life you've seen on screen. In this episode, Kristin sits down with Emma for a candid conversation about money, financial independence, and what it actually took to leave her marriage on her own terms. Together, they unpack the financial planning most people never talk about, the power of building something that's truly yours, and why Kristin believes money isn't about lifestyle—it's about freedom. Kristin shares: Why knowing her "number" changed the way she thinks about money and success How the success of Uncommon James gave her the confidence to leave her marriage Why she walked away from her divorce giving up money instead of taking it—and why she'd do it again Why she recently replaced her entire C-suite—and the leadership lesson every founder eventually faces How she's building Uncommon James on her own terms while raising three kids How twenty years in the public eye taught her to stop living for other people's approval How much freedom does financial independence really give you? And what would change if you knew you could always choose yourself? Drop your thoughts in the comments. And subscribe to Aspire with Emma Grede so you don't miss what's next.