So growing up in a small town outside of Belfast, Ireland, my guest today, Emma McElroy, was kind of obsessed with sport and with athletics and with a couple of brothers who were similarly wired.
She was just encouraged to go and pursue it and become incredible at anything she wanted to do.
And she didn't really realize until later that that was what she now calls, in her words, of privilege, to really step into her own identity, to not have to conform to some sort of role that maybe society or others thought was the appropriate way for her to be.
She eventually ended up going on to Cambridge, worked in London, and then found her way to Nike and was rising up the ranks really quickly there until everything changed.
And she made an abrupt jump into the world of entrepreneurship and founded something called Wildfang in Portland, which has now grown to have locations in LA and New York has launched a really powerful, not just brand, not just about fashion, not just about things that you wear, that you put on your body, but also about ways for people who have very often been ignored and left behind by that entire world to actually find things that honor their identity, that allow them to step into who they are and express themselves fully in the world.
And that journey to creating and building Wildfang, the moments that led up to that, is where we go in today's conversation.
Super excited to share it with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is good life project.
I grew up kind of in the countryside, just outside of a small town, and I think every kid feels like their childhood's normal, right?
So it depends on what normal is for you.
But I'm very grateful for where I grew up because Northern Ireland is an interesting place that gives you perspective, you know?
So, yeah, I grew up through the eighties, born at the start of the eighties, so grew up through most of the civil war and the conflict come from a very working class part of the world.
I mean, when you were a kid, were you, what was it?
Because probably a lot of people know the history in the eighties.
Probably a lot of people don't.
But there was an incredible amount of strife, of violence.
Were you immediately aware of it or involved in it or around it in sort of like a day to day way?
Yeah.
So, yeah, there was a 30 year civil war, 30 year conflict, and in some parts it still exists.
In small ways, the peace agreement sort of brought the two sides together.