Emma Issacs

Guy Kawasaki:
I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. This episode's remarkable guest is Emma Isaacs. She's the CEO of a women's networking service that started in Australia, and is now penetrating the rest of the world. I learned of her because of her book, Winging It: Why Action Beats Planning Every Time.
However, my first reaction to have her here on the show was at best neutral, but honestly, mostly negative, because the name of her organization is Business Chicks. Yes, you heard that right - Business Chicks. I thought heads would explode if I interviewed the CEO of an organization called Business Chicks, but her members love the organization, and probably even the name, because it is so wrong that it is right.
In any case, who am I to pronounce judgment? Of course, I asked her about the name, and you'll respect her rationale. In any case, get past the name, because she has a great deal of wisdom to offer women who want to succeed and who want to make a difference.
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I'm Guy Kawasaki, and this is Remarkable People. Now, here is Emma Isaacs, the remarkable CEO of Business Chicks.

Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you for including a quote of mine in your book, I was flattered.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, of course.
Guy Kawasaki:
Every once in a while, you're reading along, you say, "Oh, I said that."
Emma Isaacs:
"Who's that smart guy?"
Guy Kawasaki:
Unless you put it only in my copy of the book.
Emma Isaacs:
I did.
Guy Kawasaki:
But then arguably, I would respect it even more if you ... So my first question is, do you own a car that is a stick shift?
Emma Isaacs:
You have done your reading. I do not, I do not. I own an automatic vehicle, which is large enough to house my 400 children.
It's a soccer mom car. I never went back to the stick shift, but yeah, thanks for the reference.
Guy Kawasaki:
So now, thousands of people are wondering, "What the hell is Guy talking about?"
Emma Isaacs:
“What are you talking about?”
Guy Kawasaki:
So maybe you can tell that story. That is a great story.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah. So in my book Winging It, which you’re referring to, I tell a story of having to go and visit a venue. I was scouting a venue for an event that we were going to produce.
I got on the plane, went inner state, got off the plane, I was on my laptop finishing off a pitch, I was on a phone call at the same time. I signed the paperwork for the car. The lady handed over the keys. I got to the parking lot and realized that it was a stick shift car, and I don't know how to drive those but I thought, "Heck, you know what? I have two options here: I can give it a go and try work it out from watching people that I've been in their cars in the past, or I can go back try and get another vehicle."
I chose the first option, and I basically taught myself how to drive that car over the course of the next forty or so minutes. I bunny hopped my way to that meeting, and I ultimately got it done. So yeah, that's one little story of where I showed up and I was winging it the entire time.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's not like getting off a boat at Ellis Island with nothing but a suitcase-
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, right?
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, it is a very illustrative story of winging it. So now that we have an illustrative story, maybe you can define winging it for us.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, so my backstory is that I'm what you might call a career entrepreneur. I've never actually worked for anyone else before. So that career teaches you a whole heap of skills and it teaches you how to hustle like nobody else. When you're not reliant on a paycheck and when you have no one but yourself to call upon, it teaches you a bunch of tactics and skills, and shortcuts, if you like.
I had my first company when I was eighteen years old, it was a recruitment company, so a staffing agency. We'd put temporary and permanent staff into different businesses. I led that company for seven years, we grew it into a really lovely small business. We won a host of business awards and built a really beautiful culture.
After about seven years, I got the entrepreneurial itch. I started to think about what might be next. I met a girl out one night, just at a party, and she said, "Ah, I've always wanted to travel to India. Have you?" And I said, "Ah, I've always had that same thought."
So the very, very next morning, we went to a travel agency and we booked our flights to India, and we backpacked there for three weeks, and got to know each other and build a friendship in that time. When I got back to my little apartment, I really just did some soul searching and realized I wanted to change things and shift things around.
I ended going to a Business Chicks' event, and like probably many of you and many of your audience, Guy, I thought, "That is the worst company name I have ever heard in my entire life. It's insulting to women. I'm a feminist, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a serious business woman. I'm not going to anything that calls themselves anything-chicks. It's terrible." She said, "You need to get over yourself, and you need to come along and experience this thing."
So I went along to that event and how I'd been able to build the first business was really through networking more than anything. It was through building relationships and putting myself out there and trying to do favors for other people and build my circles. I was really surprised I hadn't heard of this networking group.
I went, loved it, ran back to my recruitment company. I passed around my credit card. I said to all the women on my team, "Let's all become members here, and let's get three tables for the next event."
The next event came around, I heard the business was for sale, and I was twenty-five at the time, but I ran up to the woman at the end and I said, "I've never run an event before, I don't know how to run a membership organization, but I want to talk with you about this." Long story short, I ended up buying the business.
We started with 200 members, we now reach over 500,000 women across the globe. We just celebrated our fifteen-year in business, which is phenomenal. Pre-COVID, we were producing about 110 live events with up to 5,000 people attending them with speakers such as Sir Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Seth Godin, Liz Gilbert, Sarah Jessica Parker.
You asked about Winging It. I suppose, my career has given me a unique perspective on building this amazing community of women, so I've definitely been able to see what holds them back and what propels them forward. Also being able to study and work alongside some of the world's most successful people, I've seen how they conduct themselves both on stage and off stage, and traveling with these people has given me a huge benefit and line of site into how they do their business and do their life.
One of the common themes I started to find and see as I was writing this book, is that these people don't necessarily have all the answers to the questions that are in front of them. They certainly do not have a perfectly architected plan. They certainly do not have some sort of roadmap that you and I don't have, but they have backed themselves into opportunities, and they have cultivated their confidence enough to start and to keep on going.
So for me, when I sort of discovered these themes, I thought, "That's what I've been doing, or trying to do most of my life." I've been winging it, right? To me, winging it is just about having the confidence to go forth and progress without having all the answers.
It is moving through uncertainty and trying to get into action, and action might not be as grand as starting a huge new business on a scale like Canva. It might not be buying a property development worth $50 million, it could be just writing a first sentence in a novel you've been wanting to write, or it could be picking up the phone to heal a relationship with someone that you know needs healing. It's about action. So that's what winging it means to me, and that's what I've tried to encapsulate in this book.
Guy Kawasaki:
You just opened up so many cans, not of worms, but of opportunities in that one answer. We're going to go down several paths, okay?
Emma Isaacs:
Sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
So path number one is, why haven't you ever invited me to speak? Because-
Emma Isaacs:
I know. I'm sitting here feeling guilty now.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, you should feel guilty. Okay. So I'm available for you, that's path number one. Path number two is going back to the name, I too had that initial reaction. When you were first pitched to me, I said, "Why would I bring on a podcast someone who runs an organization called Business Chicks? Because most of the women I know would just ..." I don't even know. It would not be positive, let's just say that, okay?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, obviously, you've stuck with it. You are aware of the negativity of it. Walk me through why you decided to stick with that name.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, there's a dichotomy to it, and there's a depth to it, that you can't discover until you put in the work and go discover it, right? So when I bought the business, it was only a couple of years old, but even then, it had started to get some traction in Australia and people had started to fall in love with not only the concept, but the culture and the spirit of the business. So I started to think, "There's something there. There's a department, there's an asset there that we shouldn't just throw out immediately, right?"
I got into action and started building the community and started really growing it, and we grew across all the states of Australia, and really started to build in a meaningful way. Then, as time progressed, I realized that there was more brand equity there. Fast forward ten or so years, and we have a huge following. We have a huge legacy in Australia, and to throw that away would be very, very shortsighted.
So anyone who knows and has experienced the brand loves the brand. Therein lies a challenge for us, because we need to find people and convince them enough to come and play with us. Once their foot is in the door at the that event or once they've signed up for that masterclass, they will get it immediately.
I like the challenge of proving people wrong. I like the challenge, it makes it more interesting for me when people come and discover us and think, "Hang on a minute. This is actually a brand run by highly-intelligent people that have a depth to what they do, who care deeply about the work that they do, that are changing the world in their own little way, that are making a huge impact."
We've raised over $13 million for different non-profits. I love that, and I don't mind that we perhaps offend a little. I don't mind that it takes some doing because then the discovery is so much more meaningful. It's a game to me, business is a bit of a game. I don't know if that helps explain it a little bit, but it's a pleasant surprise. It's a pleasant surprise when people discover us and give us a go.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, you would not forget it. That's for sure.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, and listen, you know this better, and you saw it in the book as well; brands are not for everybody, and we have to understand that as business leaders, as entrepreneurs, what we do is not for everybody, and that is completely cool. You find the people who love what you do.
Not to get too philosophical on you, but I really truly believe that people will find you when they're meant to, and we're not for everybody, and I don't need to please everybody either. So that a little bit about the backstory.
Guy Kawasaki:
I really love this topic, okay?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I don't want you to think I'm obsessed with naming, but in the book, you discuss using a consulting firm to analyze this name. So what's the lesson of using a consulting form? Because at the end of the process, basically, did you ignore their advice?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, we did. So we engaged a branding agency here in the states, here in California, where I live, and we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with these guys, and they came up with hundreds of names, and they just all felt a little twee or a little ... It just, it didn't feel like us.
So we did go through that whole process, we went through months and months of examination, and them trying to head back to the drawing board and come up with other ideas, and they just didn't feel like us.
Ultimately, I made the call at the end of that exercise to say, "We haven't found it. We're just going to run with it. We're going to stick with what we know. We're going to back ourselves a little bit more," because I think what we were doing is just forgetting to believe in ourselves, and forgetting that we do have a fifteen-year legacy, and forgetting that we have dial up what makes us unique and amplify what makes us unique, rather than trying to bury that and attach to some other name that didn't have the same level of meaning. I don't know, you're the marketer here, you might completely disagree with me.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, no, no.
Emma Isaacs:
But that was the thinking.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm constantly learning. So if you could do it all over, if you were blank slate, you were thinking, "Oh, I'm going to start what Business Chicks has become,” do you think you would've picked that name?
Emma Isaacs:
I probably wouldn't, I probably wouldn't have. Here's the thing, we started fifteen-years ago, before community was a business, before anyone knew how to commercialize community, before anyone knew how to sell memberships. It just wasn't being done back then. We were ahead of that time by accident, completely by accident. Was not stroke of intelligence or brilliance on our behalf, but we started commercializing community fifteen years ago, and we started signing members and building value and building a brand from there.
By the time I got to that exercise with the branding agency and they came up with hundreds of different names, there were thousands of women's communities out there. So let me tell you, I probably should've done it back then, but by now, most every amazing name that personifies what we do as a business is pretty much taken. So yeah, I probably would, rewind the clock fifteen years, I probably would have chosen a different name.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I have another really tactical marketing question, because it fascinates me that you are doing things that I would not recommend.
Emma Isaacs:
Oh, great.
Guy Kawasaki:
So here's another thing.
Emma Isaacs:
Oh my gosh, hit me, hit me.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, but listen, I'm all about learning. My experience was that there is really no trial period. So you go to your website, and if you want to do anything, you immediately ask for $97. It's not join for free for thirty days, or come to one event for free or anything. It's thirty-seconds later. Put up or shut up.
Emma Isaacs:
Yes.
Guy Kawasaki:
Tell me about that decision.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, we probably need to change that. It's probably a really beautiful piece of advice, getting in coaching there.
What I would say is this, we started the business in Australia, and culturally, it's very different to the States. Again, we have been able to garner a huge level of support and revenue from those marketing tactics in Australia that perhaps, and probably, need revising here in the States, where we're just getting started and just trying to get going.
So in Australia, yeah, it's culturally acceptable to have a commitment up front. We see very little resistance to that. Again, in America, I'd say it's much more culturally accepted, whether it's Netflix or whatever, to have a trial period, Disney+, whatever it is. So I'm going to take that piece of coaching advice and I'm going to call my team today.
You raise a great point, and it is constantly a challenge to figure out how to best talk with your audience, and how to best work with them. It's something that we definitely have been challenged with as we've tried to get the brand and the business of the ground here in the States.
Guy Kawasaki:
First of all, I am not trying to position what I'm asking you as advice. I am literally asking you what the decision process was because it may be that, contrary to most people's assumptions, a trial period doesn't yield better results and maybe you should make people put up or shut up, and I'm all about learning. If that's the right thing, what the hell do I know for? I'm going to go for it.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, of course.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, so one more question I have along those lines. Not that I want you to think that I did a critique of your business, but-
Emma Isaacs:
You did.
Guy Kawasaki:
I really did study. Okay, so on your about page is this sentence, "Business Chicks is Australia's largest and most influential community for women." Now, when I read that, I said, "So that's awfully confusing," because if I were in any other country but Australia, I would read that and say, "Oh, this is not for me, this is for Australian women." Did you just leave that by mistake, or is that a plan too?
Emma Isaacs:
My guess is we left it there by mistake.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay.
Emma Isaacs:
My guess is, yeah, we left it there by mistake. Yeah, that's great. I've got two action items already to go and prioritize!
Guy Kawasaki:
Unlike the consulting firm that you blew off, I'm not charging you anything.
Emma Isaacs:
Totally! I’ll take it!
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay. So my next question about Business Chicks is that networking organizations like that, there have been plenty of those in the valley, right? Intended for Indian entrepreneurs, intended for women entrepreneurs, intended for left-handed, GMO, vegan entrepreneurs who wear Birkenstocks. It's been sliced and diced 16,000 ways.
Yet, Business Chicks, despite the about page, despite the onboarding process, and despite the name, has survived for fifteen years. I mean, that's a remarkable record. To what do you attribute the surviving of fifteen years?
Emma Isaacs:
Couple of things. When I first bought the business, I realized, very quickly, that the business model was completely shot. There was no business model, so I set to work alongside my team of interrogating that model and trying to diversify the revenue streams.
So we make money off of a few different business activities. We're talking about paid membership; the subscription model is one part of the business. We run a wonderful B2B part of the business, so partners and sponsors come and work alongside us. They see that we have an audience, we have a brand for women, so we partner with some of the largest brands in the world.
We run a digital business, so we have digital content online every single day, we have digital events, and obviously, live events when the world opens up again. So really, the diversification of revenue streams is what's fortified us and led to our growth. I think the innovation and the reinvention is something that we've really tried to work hard on.
So every single year, we can track new product we put to market. You're really trying to dial up shared experiences for our members, and really trying to track their journey as a member as well. So we're constantly thinking, "Guy bought X, Y, Z. What's he going to buy next? What's his next step in the user journey as a member?"
I think getting the business model right, I think understanding our members and diversifying the different revenue streams, and then it's really just about how do you engage a membership? How do you see people? How do you meet them at their needs? How do you be grateful for them coming along as part of the journey?
I mean, we've had members who've been with us for twelve, thirteen, fourteen years, and renew every single year, and come along to all the different types of events, and refer their friends and sign their company up for membership.
I think it's that. I think it's all those things. I think it's constantly about being a brand that's exciting and trying to lift the bar every single year, if you like. So trying to come up with new and exciting programs and curations. So I think it's all of those things. That's the customer-facing stuff.
From a business, we've definitely built a really solid infrastructure. For the last fifteen years, I've been really trying to fortify the business. We're in a really great cash position. I haven't diluted my equity. I'm still the 100% shareholder in the business. So we've got a really, really strong base and a really great reputation to work from.
So I think this year's been interesting to see quite a few communities fall to the wayside because they were… frenzy - they were just running to the next sponsorship deal, the next event or whatever it was. We've really tried to build a really solid foundation, and that's really equipped us and kept us strong this year, certainly as the pandemic has played out.
Guy Kawasaki:
Speaking of pandemic, so from the outside looking in, if someone had said to me, "So our organization focuses on in-person networking for women, or chicks," I would've said, “The pandemic is going to kill you.” So what are you doing? What happened?
Emma Isaacs:
So what we first did, we tried to have the first mover advantage. When the pandemic hit, we called an emergency meeting and said, "Listen, here's how this is going to go. I mean, firstly, we have no idea how this is going to go, but this is how it's going to go for us." What we did, I said, "We need to get a digital event up online tomorrow." The events team looked at me and said, "We don't know how to do that. We don't know what software we need to use. We don't know what platform to use. We need a couple of weeks. We need two or three weeks to work this out." And I'm like, "We don't have two or three weeks. We need to have an event live on the site in the next couple of days."
I called in favors from five or six of my friends who are speakers over the years, and I said, "Will you speak for us?" And they all said, "Absolutely, no problem." While we were branding it, while we were selling tickets, while we were getting things off of the ground, they were working out the tech in the background. So really trying to reverse engineering that thinking. What that did was position as people and a brand who had their stuff together, and it really positioned us to run a digital events business during that time.
How that played out was we have been producing three masterclasses every single week. There's a huge engine that needs to be turned on to make that happen. We've really tried to meet the community with the content they need, with the support they need, with the connection they need, running virtual meet-ups, running mastermind groups, and really just trying to be there for them throughout this time.
Have we made a ton less money from the exercise? Absolutely. My CEO and I sat down at the start of the pandemic and said, "What do we want to be remembered for during this time? Who do we want to show up as?" We've really said that we want to be there for our members, we want to support them, and so far, so good. It's really paid off.
Guy Kawasaki:
Getting off Business Chicks for a little bit and going to a broader topic, what are the current conditions facing women entrepreneurs today?
Emma Isaacs:
Look, I think we are working in a great time, in that there's been a lot of more airtime for female entrepreneurs. I think the media loves a story about a wonderful female entrepreneur, so that can only stand us in good stead. We still are challenged and plagued with some of the access problems or challenges that have been around for decades. It's access to capital, it's access to having the right people on the team, the right investor base, it's access to networks.
I often tell a story, I remember probably about ten years ago now, I was at a holiday dinner and there happened to be six of us there - three guys and three women - and we're all entrepreneurs. At some point during that dinner, I remember just listening in to the guys who were on the other side of the table and they were telling a story about the property deals they'd invested in that year, the start-ups they'd invested in, the companies they'd backed. They were just having a general sort of investment talk.
I was listening with one ear, and I said to my two girlfriends on this side of the table who were well-seasoned entrepreneurs with resources and very successful business, "Hey, listen. At any point during the past year, have these guys offered you in to any of these deals? Have they picked up the phone, or sent you an email to say, 'Hey, do you want to invest?'" I'm talking… these are serious business woman. One was on Shark Tank for many years, the other has a $50 or $60 million business. They're the real deal, and they said, "No, at no point have the guys ever said, 'Come in on this deal with us.'"
I turned to them and I said, "Hey, just learnings. We would love to be given a phone call, we would love to be given an email. Will you think of us next time?" They weren't trying to be difficult, they weren't trying to be nasty, they just had never thought to invite the women in to those conversations. So I think that is still happening a little bit, so I think access and networks is really the key thing that's plaguing most female entrepreneurs.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, those are external factors. What about internal factors? What about what's inside of women's heads that's preventing them?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, that's a good question. It's hard for me to answer that. I mean, obviously, from my position of consulting with tens of thousands of our members every single year, I see fear holds people back. There's still this idea that they're scared to try new things. There's a sense of having excuses that, “I would do things when I have money, or when I finish my degree, or when the kids have left to go to college, or when I have the knowledge.” So those sort self-limiting beliefs are definitely holding people back, and particularly women.
I'd say fear, I'd say excuses, and this idea of having to look a certain way and having to ... I think women are conditioned a lot of the time to have to put forward an image of perfectionism, right? They won't attempt something unless they get it right.
I'm a recovering perfectionist. I am the eldest of three kids, I did really well at all competitive sports, and I had success from a very early age so I'm a recovering perfectionist, and now I try and advocate that women subscribe to the sets of philosophies. I think they're some of the things, fear, self-limiting beliefs, and really trying to do things perfectly each and every time.
Guy Kawasaki:
Do you think men suffer from those issues?
Emma Isaacs:
I don't see it at the same sort of level, I don't see it at the same sort of level. I mean, if I had to add a fourth, I'd probably add guilt. For any woman out there who's trying to balance a family and start something or scale a business.
I have six young kiddos under the age of eleven. My role model in this, my mentor is my husband, because I'm always turning to him and either asking him or looking at him and saying, "Do you ever feel guilty?" And he's like, "No." It just does not come into his orbit.
I think they're uniquely gendered in varying degrees. I don't think men experience those same sort of limits women do. What do you think?
Guy Kawasaki:
I think they’re 180 degrees opposite.
Emma Isaacs:
Polar.
Guy Kawasaki:
That they're clueless. They, men, are clueless about this, and don't get me started, but ... So I'd like you to describe, let's say there are young women listening to this; what is the mindset that you would hope they would develop to become leaders?
Emma Isaacs:
That's a great question. I'd say the first thing that needs to be cultivated is a mindset of courage, and when I say that, the courage to speak up when you see something that you don't agree with, or the courage to speak up when you have an idea. We all know the stats when it comes to even just talking in meetings. Men dominate seventy-five percent of the airtime, and women have to pick up the remaining twenty-five percent. So I think having the courage to speak up and put forth ideas is a really key thing.
You’ll have to excuse my three children being in virtual school in the background, and doing a very good job at being so diligent. These are the times we live in, Guy.
The courage to put forth ideas and speak up is definitely a mindset. I think I talk about it in the book: a leadership mindset. I'd like to see more leaders stepping into is definitely having an attitude of vulnerability and being able to admit when you don't have the answers, and being able to admit when you make mistakes. I think the world's best leaders definitely have a mindset of vulnerability.
I think risk taking, I think any great leader is someone who can step forward into the uncertainty and take risks and encourage their people to come along for the ride. That's something that I've been trying to do my entire career with my team, constantly saying, "Hey, we can do better here. Let's try this, let's try that. Let's really try and step into areas we've never stepped into before." Yeah, so I'd say they're the three things.
Guy Kawasaki:
What are the genders of your six kids?
Emma Isaacs:
The first three are girls, so imagine that. I've got three girls and a little guy, then a girl, and then my six-month-old is a boy. So four girls, two boys.
Guy Kawasaki:
You are going to be busy.
Emma Isaacs:
It's a loud household, let me tell you that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Now, okay, so looking at it from a mom's perspective, a business leader mom, what are you trying to do differently to raise your daughters into leaders? Maybe you can contrast this to how you were raised. So are you doing something different for them that will make them into kick-ass women?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah. This is the nurture versus nature debate, right? One of my great mentors taught me very early on in my parenting journey that you can do whatever the heck you like with these children, but pretty much how they come out, their little personalities as babies and toddlers and young children is how they're going to be when they forty or sixty-years-old, so our job is guide and to lead.
I'm trying to role model. I'm just trying to role model the behaviors that I would want them to show. I'm trying to be kind to every single person I meet in the world, in the hope that kindness will be picked up by them. I'm trying to put role models in front of them, so I try and fill my home with interesting people who, of all diverse walks of life so that they can understand that the neighborhood in which we live is not representative of the whole world.
Travel is a big thing. I'm just trying to give them a really well-rounded experience, and I'm sure I'm failing every single day, but I'm doing my best. It's very, very different to the childhood that I was raised in.
My parents are the most wonderful, beautiful people you'll ever meet, and they're still married. I was going to say happily married but I'm not sure about how happily married, but they're still married. Sorry, mom and dad.
Guy Kawasaki:
I hope they listen to this podcast!
Emma Isaacs:
I had a very sort of lower-middle class upbringing. We never had any money, which was probably a blessing, to be honest, because it caused me to want to move out of that and to search for a bigger life. We were very suburban, and was largely white and heterosexual, and it's not what I want for my kids. I want my kids to know that they live in a global... it's a global space.
Guy Kawasaki:
The great temptation from the outside looking in, when looking at you is to say, "Oh, so she's running this successful business, she's written a book, she's highly visible, she has six kids, she has it all, so she must have the secrets of parenting and mothering that she can explain to me." Now, my impression of reading your book is that you basically say, "I have no freaking idea and I'm making it up as I go, so don't look at me for advice." Is that an accurate interpretation of what you do in the book?
Emma Isaacs:
It's an accurate summary. Listen, everything we've spoken about up until this point circles back to this whole idea that mindset is what matters. We certainly do try and have a light touch when it comes to parenting.
We are not helicopter parents that are sort of buzzing over the top, "Where are you now, and what are you doing?" We are quite free-range like that. I think that allows you some space when you're not hovering and stressing and worrying about every conceivable detail, so there's that.
I am a very, very calm person. I think that's probably the Australian in me. I try and be calm all the time and be comfortable in the chaos. Apart from that, I've got nothing for you. I mean, it's… You can edit that out.
Guy Kawasaki:
No, that stays in!
Emma Isaacs:
I know. What can I say? It's a challenge that we set for ourselves, and we try and attack everything, whether it's business or our family, with a sense of lightness, a sense of humor, a sense of fun, a sense of adventure. At the end of the day, I can't complain about it, because we created this ourselves, right? We brought it upon ourselves.
It's a really fun household. I mean, the kids, don't get me wrong, they're often bashing each other over the head with some sort of implement and fighting all day or screaming, and I'm often in the closet, rocking in the corner, but it's fun, it's fun. What else is there?
Guy Kawasaki:
Most people believe that less is more, but it could be that more is less.
Emma Isaacs:
Oh, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
Once you've gone from man-to-man or double teaming to zone, to use basketball analogies, life gets easier in a sense.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, it's true. My big girl is eleven now, and the eleven-year-old and the nine-year-old, and they do help out. They change diapers, they get the baby up from the crib, so it is a bit of a team kind of situation. It's a lot of fun.
Guy Kawasaki:
There are some thoughts in the book that I want to ask about in greater depth. So there's an attitude of fake it until you make it, wing it, say ‘yes’ to everything and figure it out. Do you ever regret that? Have you ever said ‘yes,’ and then, "Oh my God, I never should've said ‘yes?’ That was a mistake"?
Emma Isaacs:
No, no.
Guy Kawasaki:
Never?
Emma Isaacs:
No, I haven't, because… I'll give an example. When we decided to launch the business into the United States, and how that came about was I was sitting on Necker Island, and this is not to name-drop, but I was having… No… but it's an interesting origin story.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, I was at Necker Island and I said to Richard, "How was kite surfing with Barack? Oh, and by the way..."
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, I know, I know, I know. That would've been amazing. I wasn't there that week, unfortunately.
He just said to me, Richard said, we were talking about business in Australia, and he said, "Is it even possible to make money in a country as small as Australia?" That kind of punched me interest gut, and I thought, "Wow. For him, his whole outlook is he makes money off of his businesses in the States, in Europe and Australia to him is this tiny little country that floats in the ocean down there, so it's impossible to make money there."
That kind of planted a little seed for me, and I went back to Australia and I said to my leadership team, "We should explore doing something more here." So we started doing these discovery trips back and forth to the US. Ended up launching a bunch of events in New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles, and we had 6, 700 women in a room and it was really phenomenal.
Got back to Australia and my husband said to me, "That looked amazing. Would you ever consider moving to the States?" The thought of that completely petrified me, so I said, "Okay, yup, let's do it."
Six months later, we're on a plane, we had the four young kids. We'd landed in Los Angeles, where we now live. The experience of being here was fraught, we didn't know where to live. We had no credit, so we bought this huge house at a twelve percent interest rate. It was just a very, very, very stressful time.
You asked the question, do I regret it? I do not regret it, because the amount of learning and the uptick in challenge and… that experience that that has taught us, is irreplaceable in life. So had I had all the knowledge in the beginning, had I had all the answers, had I had all the data, I would not have made that decision. So no, I don't regret it.
You can't regret those learnings. It's impossible to do that. So yeah, my answer is a firm no.
Guy Kawasaki:
Similar question: you also advocate for, in this winging it concept, have you ever done something with insufficient planning or research and regretted it?
Emma Isaacs:
I mean, I suppose the mistakes that I have made in business are where I have lost focus, it's where I have diluted my focus and tried to do too many things at once. I certainly have done that, trying to start businesses on the side where my passion was not there, where I ... Yeah, it took off of my game.
I'm a very focused person, so there's lesson in trying to do too many things and spread yourself too thin. Absolutely, I regret those times. Yup.
Guy Kawasaki:
But that's not necessarily because you didn't do enough research.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, what is that? That's more about, I suppose, choosing your business wisely, and it's about understanding your unique skill set and your unique, I suppose, passions. It was just a case of not focusing intently enough and choosing businesses that didn't interest me as much as the one that I was in and have been for a long time.
Guy Kawasaki:
Third question along those lines, and I will tell you right now, I fully expect that I will get a handful of emails from women who are going to say, "Guy, you are such a male chauvinist pig. You asked her these negative questions that you never ask any other guests." Okay, so I know that's coming, and I hope those people who are going to write to me listen to what I just said, because I expect this.
Some of the stuff you say in the book are counterintuitive to me, so if a man had written that book and said the same things, I just want you to know, I would've asked the same questions, okay?
Emma Isaacs:
Okay. Yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
So the third question is, there's a part of the book where you talk about, "Don't listen to naysayers, don't listen to experts. They don't know, follow your dream, follow your heart," et cetera. So do you take anybody's advice at all?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah. Yeah, of course I do, of course I do. The part of the book I think you're referring to here is when I wanted to buy the Business Chicks business. It felt right. Every single cell in my body was activated. I felt like this was an opportunity I wanted to explore. I felt like it was something that I wanted to know more about. I went and had that conversation with that woman at the end of the event I told you about, and got really excited, and then started to do all my due diligence.
I engaged a management consultant who said to me, "There is no business in this women thing. Stick to what you already have." I spoke to my parents who said, "Oh, Emma. You already have a profitable business. It's doing really well, why would you go buy this one?" I listened to a few friends who told me it was the wrong idea.
When I dropped into my gut and I listened to my body and I listened to what I wanted to do, I knew it was the right decision. So yes, I did throw away that advice I was given, but no, of course I take advice, of course I do.
I mean, I think you just have to be cautious with who you take advice from. I think you have to also understand that instinctual leading and instinctual leadership is a really important thing to listen to, and when something feels right to you, you should honor that, you should follow it up and try and avoid the negative advice.
Guy Kawasaki:
I want you to note that the only piece of advice I really am giving you in this interview is that you check the about page where it says it's Australia's network. I think that is a confusing statement, that's the only piece of advice I'm giving you, okay?
Another piece of advice, this would be inferred piece of advice, is that you dropped out of college. You don't seem to have regretted that, and I would like to know, with hindsight, your thoughts about should you have completed college? Would I be a good thing? Would it have been a good thing? Should people listening to this who are younger, in high school, or college, think, "Oh, she dropped out. I'll drop out"? Or what's your take on college?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, I think it largely depends on what sort of raw talent you have. When you say that, it's not as if ...
I've spent my entire life educating myself, and the past education can come in so many different formats. Even back then when I dropped out of university and only lasted in college for six months, because I did want to get on my way, I wanted to roll up my sleeves, I wanted to get stuck in, I wanted to make some money.
Back then, I was reading two or three business books a week. I was listening to every single... back then, it was cassettes - it wasn't DVDs or anything else, it was cassettes in the car. I would listen to all these greats, the Napoleon Hills and the Tony Robbins, all of those seminal books. I got my education from other places.
I’d go to every single seminar, I go to every single conference, I go to workshops, I'd stalk people until they become my mentor. So it wasn't as if I turned off the education because I stopped college.
These days, colleges teach entrepreneurship. I fundamentally believe that you can learn skills of entrepreneurship. So do I regret it? Absolutely not. Will that be the path for everyone? Absolutely not.
But there is a strength to questioning the status quo that we have to go to college. There's a strength and a power in interrogating that and in being curious about it. I think what a lot of people do is we just are on autopilot and we do the thing that everyone else does, because it's the thing we've been told we have to do. So I think it just takes some introspection and weighing up the options, but you should never ever stop learning. That's the point. Your education is all around you, and you should invest in that, for sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
So if one or more of your six kids says, "Mom, college is not for me," would you say okay?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, I'm prepared for this, and obviously, I talked about role modeling, and my husband is an entrepreneur as well. We met through the entrepreneur’s organization many, many, many years ago, and he followed a similar education path.
While it's held him back a lot, it hasn't held me back. No, I'm just kidding. Now I've got three people who can never listen to this podcast.
Guy Kawasaki:
Your reducing customer base.
Emma Isaacs:
Your audience is shrinking!
Guy Kawasaki:
You mentioned Tony Robbins and Napoleon Hill. Did you read Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad?
Emma Isaacs:
Yes, of course, absolutely. Such foundational books for me.
I started my first company when I was eighteen. I bought my first investment property when I was nineteen. The day I bought my first investment property, I set a goal to buy ten investment properties.
I remember going home to mum and dad's house on the day I signed the papers on my tenth investment property, and my mum still looked at me and said, "Ah, that's great, Emma, but when are you going to finish your degree?" They're never going to get over it, right? I think to this day, they still ... It's just so ingrained in them that ...
Guy Kawasaki:
That is ... I'll tell you a related ... you'll appreciate to hear of this. So I know this apple employee or ex-Apple employee, and his parents wanted him to be a doctor, lawyer or dentist, but instead, he went into tech, very successful at Apple.
One of his functions at Apple was to work with the celebrities and bring them on board and this kind of stuff. So he was working Dr. Dre. So he tells his mom, "Yeah, I'm working with Dr. Dre on a project with Apple." His mom said, "Finally, you're hanging around with doctors!"
Emma Isaacs:
Doctors!
Guy Kawasaki:
While I'm telling you stories, since you read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I'll tell you a Kiyosaki story, who is a friend of mine. So I can't tell you how many times this happened, that people come up to me, Emma, and then they say, "You know, your book changed my life. I had no direction, I had no path, and then I read your book, and it set me on the right path to success."
So my first question to them is, "Which of my fifteen great books did you read that set you on the right path?" And they say, "Rich Dad, Poor Dad!"
Emma Isaacs:
That's so good.
Guy Kawasaki:
And that is not even my freaking book that they're attributing!
Emma Isaacs:
I hope you just nod and smile.
Guy Kawasaki:
Welcome to my life. Another of your themes that, this is kind of a sporadic interview-
Emma Isaacs:
With all my wisdom, I love it.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah. All right. I intuit from your writing, and from what I've seen, is that… I'll ask it in a neutral way, not that I don't suspect I know the answer, but do you think that balance is bullshit?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, I do. I mean, I think the construct, the idea of balance, is totally bullshit and I can say that because when I think of work-life balance, I just think of this poor person standing there with his two scales and they've got to be tipped absolutely perfectly every single day. It's infallible, it's completely flawed to think that we can have them tipped equally, in perfect equilibrium every single day.
I have always tried to not ask those questions like, "Am I balanced?" It's really… I think what people are trying to say to you when they want more work-life balance, they just want to have more life in their life, right? They just want to do the things that light them up. They want to have the energy to complete the tasks and do the hobbies that they enjoy.
For me, I never ever try and chase this elusive kind of goal of work-life balance. I'm just constantly thinking, "Do I need to work a little less? Do I need to be at home a little more?" And I'm just constantly evaluating and asking those questions.
So yeah, for me, the construct or the idea of work-life balance is something that keeps us all in a place and keeps us feeling less than. It's different for everyone, right? It's different for you, what balance means for you is completely different for me.
I think also what happens is we've come full circle and we've made it uncool for people to want to work hard and want to strive for more. These are all the things that I used to do as a kid. From an eighteen-year-old I would work eight, sixteen hours, and I loved that, and it actually energized me, but these days, the kids, they just want to work three hours a day and sit on a beach and make their millions. And by my way of thinking, it's not entirely possible. So yes, I do believe balance is BS.
Guy Kawasaki:
I will say that my analysis of my life - I'm sixty-six right now - is that at the start of my career, I was overworked and underpaid, and now, at this point in my career, I'm overpaid and underworked, so it all evens out.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, I love that, I love that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I have often told people that I am living proof that if you do one thing right in your life, evangelize Macintosh, you can coast for about forty years on that one thing.
Emma Isaacs:
Leverage that thing!
Guy Kawasaki:
That's right. I am loud and proud about that.
Emma Isaacs:
That's so great.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm sure that people will be inspired by this, so they would be interested in what books or people inspire you, Emma?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, great. I'm inspired by the mavericks of our time. I love this idea, I'm actually writing my second book right now, and so I've been knee-deep in research around what makes great cultures great. I'm really into this idea that companies need mavericks inside of them.
You know, you call them entrepreneurs or mavericks. What I see a blot of businesses doing is trying to silence those mavericks and trying to quieten them because they're hard to manage, but that's, I believe, where a lot of the innovation happens. I'm inspired by mavericks, so people like Elon Musk and Branson and Jobs and yourself, and anyone who has really tried to do things differently.
It upsets me that I'm not naming any women among that group, but if you did a Google search on mavericks, you come up with those three names, and actually, funnily enough, I was like, "Female mavericks," the other day when I was doing my research, and it came up with my name, so I was like, "Well, there you go!" That proves a little point, there we go.
From a female perspective, I love people like Diane von Furstenberg. I think she's just a phenomenal woman of style, and I've been very blessed to work alongside her, and she's a phenomenal operator. Arianna Huffington inspires me… say what?
Guy Kawasaki:
Martha Stewart?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, yeah. I don't know as much about Martha Stewart as the other ones. I've never worked alongside her before.
I suppose the people who inspire are the people who have strength of character both on-stage and off-stage. Liz Gilbert is a perfect example of that, she's just such ... They are their word, and they are who they say they are off stage because it's very, very easy to put on a performance, but when you come off stage and show up as the person that you are, that's really inspiring to me. So there's some of the people that I look up to.
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, I would add Jacinda ... I don't know her last name, from New Zealand.
Emma Isaacs:
Oh, Ardern. Yeah, yup, sure. She's just been re-elected as prime minister.
Guy Kawasaki:
I mean, she implements gun control in a few months, and she shuts down the pandemic. Many people who are negative or neutral about her, they say, "Well, it's easy. It's New Zealand, there's not that many people, it's a small country." I guarantee you, if Donald Trump was running New Zealand, let's just say that things would not be all great there.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, yeah.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's not the size of the island.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah. No, for sure, for sure. No, she's a phenomenal leader, and she's got to be inspiring. She's a young woman, has she turned forty yet? I'm not even sure if she's turned forty.
She's running a young family and running a country. She's clearly inspiring, whether you subscribe to her politics or not, she's inspiring, of course.
Guy Kawasaki:
Okay, last question. How do you come up with new ideas?
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah. I think, you know what's been really useful for me? Is perspective, and getting out of the day-to-day. So when I need to... not that I ever have a need to innovate, but innovation comes for me when I am outside of my office, when I take myself off to Honolulu for a couple of weeks, which I haven't done, obviously, for a long time.
When I take myself out of my day-to-day, so I always know if I'm getting stale, if things are getting routine, I need to get some perspective and take myself out of that day-to-day. So that's where, generally, I find inspiration comes from.
I find it comes from hanging around with super smart people and highly successful people. I think it comes from, yeah, just stretching yourself. Again, even just going to Necker Island. The fact of doing that broadens your thinking, it makes you think differently. So hanging around with people from different backgrounds and going to different places is the way I certainly find inspiration and get new ideas.
Guy Kawasaki:
I wish I had done this interview with you nine months ago, because around that time, I got to know Sir Ken Robinson, who lives in LA, and you would have loved him, I would've put the two of you together. He was truly a remarkable person.
Emma Isaacs:
You asked the question about regrets. We had been speaking with him for many years, and he was committed to speaking for us in Australia, and it's such a loss for the human race. I didn't know him in person, but I knew his work. A phenomenal human leaving a huge legacy.
Guy Kawasaki:
He was a neighbor of yours.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, I didn't know that.
Guy Kawasaki:
Yeah, it would've been easy, it would've been easy.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, it would have.
Guy Kawasaki:
You could've gone to the restaurant in The Getty and had a wonderful time.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I once interviewed a New York Times investigative reporter who wrote about the Boko Haram. She was not the society page of New York Times.
Emma Isaacs:
Sure.
Guy Kawasaki:
This was a kick-ass reporter. Because she's a kick-ass reporter, I asked her, "Have you got any interview tips for me as a podcaster?" She said, one of the things she always did was at the end of an interview, she would ask the person, "Is there anything that I did not ask you?"
Emma Isaacs:
I love that.
Guy Kawasaki:
So I'm asking you, is there anything I did not ask you that I should've asked you? Now-
Emma Isaacs:
You did great!
Guy Kawasaki:
... ask the question and answer it.
Emma Isaacs:
You did great. We covered a lot of ground. I felt like I was under interrogation a few times there. It was wonderful. I am equipped to go and look into a few things that I can improve in my business. I feel like I've had a personal coaching session, which I am grateful for.
Listen, no, I love talking about empowering people, and empowering particularly women. I think we could do another podcast on financial independence and wealth creation, and maybe we can do that with you, dear friend, but I think we covered a lot of ground. Next time, we'll talk a lot more about money and how to create some wealth, in a different way to you, which is just-
Guy Kawasaki:
Well, if you have a short answer, how to create wealth, I'm all ears. Go ahead. Tell us.
Emma Isaacs:
Yeah, no. One of the things I'd say to your younger audience is to start early if you can and start where you are, though, right? It's one of the things I started doing at this ... I've always had this self-limiting belief that I know a lot about property, I know a lot about business. I can make money through those two vehicles. But I don't know anything about the stock market, so I've been telling myself that for years.
At the start of the pandemic, I thought, “I need to educate myself and get onto this thing.” So I downloaded one of the apps, and I've been trading the share market ever since and doing really well from it.
I just think it's about, again, all these themes are starting, educating yourself, getting a circle of people and advisors around that you actually want to listen to. They're some of the recipes for a really full and fun life, so take that or leave that.
Guy Kawasaki:
I'll take it.
Emma Isaacs:
Good.
Guy Kawasaki:
Thank you so much.
Emma Isaacs:
It was really fun!
Guy Kawasaki:
It's been such a joy, such a joy. I'm going to check that about page every day to see-
Emma Isaacs:
Spam refresh! I'm on it, I'm on it!
Guy Kawasaki:
I'm going to forward you the email from people who say, "Why were you so tough on her? You're not tough on your male guests like that." Okay.
Emma Isaacs:
Send them my way, send them my way.
Guy Kawasaki:
It's going to happen! Okay, I'm going to send them to you, and you're going to respond for me.
Emma Isaacs:
Okay, perfect, deal.

Guy Kawasaki:
I hope you enjoyed this interview with Emma Isaacs, CEO of Business Chicks. As I said, she has a lot of great advice. One of the things that I've noticed, in interview after interview, is that people tell me, you have got to learn to fake it until you make it, or in Emma's words, "Wing it." That's the most important lesson I think you could take from this interview. Learn how to wing it, learn how to fake until you make it.
I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is the Remarkable People podcast. It's made remarkable by Jeff Sieh and Peg Fitzpatrick. Until next time, you know what I'm going to tell you - wash your hands, don't go into crowded places, wear a mask - Oh, I saw a great parody, and I am not a singer, but there are a few lines from this parody that are just stuck in my head. And the lines go, "Wear a mask, wear a mask, get your head out of your ass." Get your head out of your ass, wear a mask. Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
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