It’s 11:30 a.m. on a beautiful and unseasonably warm day in Marina del Rey, half an hour before the starting time for the Yacht Girls Book Club meeting, but several women are already standing at the gate leading to a vintage yacht docked at the California Yacht Club.

Nicole Vaughn, a first-time attendee who has driven from Woodland Hills with her friend Cani Gonzalez for the meeting, had been looking for author events on Eventbrite when she found the Yacht Girls Book Club’s “Brunch and Sound Bath,” which also includes a signed copy of the featured author’s book, a boat ride and swag bag for $65. “I read ‘sound bath, poetry and manifesting,’ which sounded intriguing, so I said, ‘Why not?’” Vaughn says.

Once the gate opens, Vaughn, Gonzalez and the others stream in, alone or in pairs. The mostly female attendees range from 30 years old to over 70 and are attired in outfits including cutoffs, tank tops, straw fedoras and glamorous full-length dresses. There are approximately 60 first-timers and returning members.

Brittany Goodwin, another first-timer and Mid-City resident who does social marketing and media for HBO Max, also heard about the meeting on Eventbrite. “I saw the word manifestation [in the ad] and I was there!” she enthuses, taking in the colorful array of arriving women. “And today is the full moon, so it’s very appropriate.”

That’s because the speaker is local poet and author Melody Godfred, whose latest book, “Moon Garden,” attracted the attention of Aloni Ford, Yacht Girls founder and organizer of the meeting.

“I thought Melody would be perfect for the official relaunch of the Yacht Girls,” Ford said in an earlier phone conversation. “Her message of self-love and living more authentically is the reason I started the book club in the first place.”

That was in 2018, when Ford, an Altadena-born manager of professional athletes and boating enthusiast who has lived in Marina del Rey for the last decade, was tired of conversations with women that only focused on relationships. “I wanted conversations with like-minded women that were intellectual but fun. And talking about books seemed to be the ideal way to achieve that.”

For that first meeting, Ford gathered six women — female friends, her masseuse, a favorite aunt. “We discussed Ruth Ware’s ‘The Woman in Cabin 10,’ so I held that first meeting on a local yacht cruise.” After the discussion, the women agreed they wanted to continue meeting, and brainstormed names until Ford suggested Yacht Girls, and the book club was launched.

Some of those “OGs” — Ford’s term for the original Yacht Girls who attended those first few meetings — now embrace each other, introduce the friends they’ve brought, and recount previous discussions of memoirs and books on self-care, building self-confidence and financial literacy. Tarzana resident and OG Felicia Smith still remembers her favorite book discussion. “It was ‘Let Your Fears Make You Fierce’,” she says, reaching for her phone to show the book is still in her audiobook library. Ford recalls that a highlight of those early years was a discussion of Gabrielle Union’s memoir, “We’re Going to Need More Wine,” which was held at Malibu Wines & Beer Garden and attracted more than 300 participants. “I tried to match the venue with the author whenever I could,” Ford says of those early meetings.

But then COVID-19 struck and, although she wanted to continue the book club via Zoom, Ford admits, “I’m not a Zoom kind of girl. I need the interaction, the face-to-face connection with women.” In the interim, Ford pursued other interests, including yachting, a hobby she picked in 2023 that birthed ideas for Yacht Yoga and other female empowerment gatherings of the Yacht Girls.

Ford’s chosen venue for Yacht Girls Book Club meetings is the “Northwind,” a 100-year-old, lovingly restored 130-foot vessel that once hosted Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 and is open to the California Yacht Club’s members, of which Ford is one. After check-in, attendees are invited to take a ride on a smaller vessel docked nearby, enjoy the buffet luncheon on the main deck, get a tarot card reading from Ruby Sheng Nichols or take in the sun, ocean breeze and marina views from the upper deck, which is outfitted with umbrellas, tables for four and comfortable lounge seating, all arranged with a view of the ship’s stern, where Godfred is preparing to read and where Amber Melvisha is setting up a sound bath, which will accompany the reading.

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1. Felicia Smith listens to Melody Godfred recite poems from her book “Moon Garden.” 2. Members of the Yacht Girls Book Club enjoy brunch. (Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Godfred, 43, is delighted to be with such a diverse group of kindred spirits. “I’ve been craving in-person experiences lately,” she says, “especially with people outside my bubble. This absolutely fulfills that desire.”

Olympia Auset, a book club OG and founder of a nonprofit South Central organic grocery store, is pleased with the turnout. “There is a real spirit of community in this book club,” she says, after quietly taking in the scene.

That spirit is exemplified by Ford, a gregarious hostess who moves through the various groupings of women in a diaphanous full-length blue dress, introducing Godfred to a group of attendees and hugging both first-timers and her OGs enthusiastically. It feels a little like a reunion, with everyone a part of the extended family. “I come for the networking, to meet women of all different levels,” observes View Park resident Alicia Sutton, an OG who proudly displays her original Yacht Girls badge. “We have more in common than we think. We are a group of women of all colors.”

As the women — plus Ty Jessick of Santa Monica, a friend of Ford’s and the lone man at the event — settle into their seats, Ford greets them again, recounts the Yacht Girls’ early days and her vision for the book club’s next chapter. “This is an opportunity to unplug from our daily lives,” she tells the assembled group, amid nods and murmurs of agreement. “We schedule so much but we must not forget to schedule joy. Today you may meet your new best friend, a business partner, or just someone who loves books. After our first post-pandemic meeting last fall, we wanted to relaunch the Yacht Girls Book Club in a big way. And after today, I’m definitely back in those book streets again!”

With that, Ford hands the mic to Godfred, who shares her own story of immigrating to Los Angeles with her parents from Iran when she was three months old, of being a “recovering attorney” who was managing two businesses and raising three children with her husband but not taking time for herself. That self-neglect resulted in a health challenge, which eventually led to Godfred reconnecting with her passion for poetry and self-exploration. “It was a signal to start honoring my truth more fully,” she explains.

After introducing the inspiration behind “Moon Garden,” which contains 12 sections of spiritual poems, insights and affirmations tied to Earth’s lunar cycles, Godfred answers questions posed by Ford and the audience. Then, she invites participants to get comfortable in their seats while she reads selections from the book that encourage surrender, rest and contemplation during the winter months. The sound bath and a chiming bell provide a resonant echo in which attendees visibly relax, most with their eyes closed.

Members of the Yacht Girls Book Club enjoy drinks on the upper deck of the “Northwind.”

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

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The meeting breaks up around 2 p.m. and is followed by music-filled, informal mingling, where the participants discuss the book and the afternoon. From their tables in the “Northwind’s” aft section, Vaughn, seated with Gonzalez and a group of new acquaintances, says she definitely will return.

“This book club may attract women who are high achievers,” Auset says as she gathers with other regular members for a photo, “but we all need to make time for self-care and community.”

The next Yacht Girls Book Club will be held at noon June 13 at the California Yacht Club with brunch included. The featured book is “Proof of Life” by best-selling author and visual artist Jennifer Pastiloff. Pastiloff will be in attendance. Tickets required.

Woods is an editor, author, book critic and a regular contributor to the Times.

The world can be a difficult place for women, people of color and poor people, says UK-born mogul Emma Grede — and she’s been all of those things, so she knows.

Today, Grede is best known as a serial entrepreneur whom “Forbes” named one of “America’s Richest Self-Made Women” in 2025. She’s the chief executive and co-founder (with Khloé Kardashian) of the size-inclusive denim brand Good American, the founding partner of loungewear-shapewear company Skims and host of the podcast “Aspire with Emma Grede” — among other business roles. But growing up in the rough East London neighborhood of Plaistow, Grede was broke, the daughter of a struggling single mother. She battled dyslexia and dropped out of high school and then the London College of Fashion before immersing herself in the working world of fashion.

In her new book, “Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life,” Grede chronicles her rags to riches journey while harnessing the lessons she learned along the way to help others achieve what they want in business and in life. The book is part memoir, shot through with personal stories featuring a cast of characters, as Grede puts it, “straight out of a Guy Ritchie movie.” And it’s part self-help book offering a new mindset for success, one that encourages managing our emotions, clarifying what we want for ourselves and changing the way we think about what’s possible.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You say having a clear vision for the future is key for achieving success. What’s your unique process for “grounding your vision,” as you call it?

I really think deeply about, what do I want and what is important to me? And I really make sure that what I’m using my energy for is about what I want and what’s important to me. What type of life do I want to live, how do I want to spend my time? The process takes me weeks and months. I write things down. I started this process in my 20s. So I had a plan for my 30s, I had a plan for my 40s, and now I’m working on the plan for my 50s. It starts with a headline: Like: “It’s the X Y Z decade.” I’ll name it. And then I break it down by the years. Then I break it down even further into quarters, and I keep it on a note, in the notes section of my phone, and then every Sunday I revisit it so I can really ground myself in my goals. And the important part of it is that I say no to everything that isn’t getting me closer to my goals.

On your podcast, you interview successful people about their habits. What are some of your lifestyle habits that set you up for success?
I’m really a very routined person, meaning that I have the same routine almost every day and I’m really militant about policing it. I get up very early in the morning, just before 5 a.m. I work out at 5:30. I do a mix of strength training, so I’m lifting weights three days a week and the other two days a week I do reformer Pilates with a trainer, which I really love. I have to do it in the morning because I just will never work out otherwise. The rest of my day, I help get my kids ready, get them out the door, and then I’m in the office. The rest of my wellness routine really evolves around some regular appointments. I do think about recovery and take recovery quite seriously, so I’ll do a weekly massage, where I do cupping. I love a lymphatic drainage massage too, that’s like one of my favorite treats to myself. I love skincare, that’s one of my little indulgences. I love all of the red light masks and any kind of red light therapy, I’m really into that. I make a lot of time for self-care and for looking after myself.

You say that women are generally reluctant to talk about money. Why do you think that is? The honest truth is, we’re not always raised to talk about money. I’ve done a lot of work on this; not just around the book, but as a leader of a lot of female employees. I’ve really had to sit down and say: Why aren’t my female employees coming to me for pay raises at the same rate as men? Why aren’t they as comfortable stating what it is that they should be paid or what they think they’re worth? I think a lot of it is cultural conditioning. That’s why I wrote this book — it’s not about blaming women, but [meant] to expose the conditioning that keeps women small, that keeps women in a place where we believe that perhaps that’s not for us, that nice girls don’t talk about money. I think it’s really important for women to understand that you can still do really deeply meaningful and impactful work and care about money.

How is managing emotions, particularly for women, a key strategy for success in business?
I don’t make decisions from an emotional place. I haven’t allowed the things that happen in my head — whether it’s fear or anger or guilt — to get in the way of a good decision or an opportunity for me. I do think that women are more, perhaps, emotional, relational, we’re allowed to be much more so in culture and in the world. But we have to make sure that doesn’t stand in the way of our making progress. We’ve been socially conditioned to avoid the exact behaviors that would create wealth and visibility and leadership and opportunity. And so we literally have to dismantle the lies that we’ve been sold about all of those things so that we can just get on with it.

What are those behaviors, exactly?
Having audacity. Maybe sitting in discomfort. Ambition requires you to be uncomfortable. If you think that you’ve got to be comfortable all the time, or that you have to make other people around you comfortable and that pleasing people is higher up on your list of things to do than pleasing yourself, that’s a problem. That’s going to stop you getting where you want.

You grew up in a hardscrabble neighborhood in East London. What role did that play in shaping the businesswoman you are today?
You know, it wasn’t until I wrote the book that I understood that implicitly. I thought that was my personality, that I had a higher moral baseline and that I was just a person of their word, a person who didn’t suffer fools, a person who doesn’t take much s—, but a person that’s really firm and fair. And what I’ve come to understand is: So much of that is from that place. Because in East London, you learn that there is a moral baseline, that there is a right way of behaving, and you’re taught to respect your elders and to sort of look after everyone. All the kids would play out in the street every day, you could walk into any neighbor’s house and they would feed you or you could get a packet of crisps. It really set me up as somebody who understood what was important in life. That you should tell people the truth. And if you say you’re gonna do something, you should do it. That has really seeped into the way that I do business.

You’re very clear that there is no such thing as “work–life balance.” That said, how do you parent four kids as a successful serial entrepreneur? What gives?!
Well, that’s the exact answer to the question — what gives? I do speak a lot about the trade-offs and what has to happen if you’re going to be successful in your business and successful in your life. I think that Oprah said it best: “You can have it all, but maybe not all at once,” and I’ve really understood that my life has seasons. There are moments when I am all work and 110%, and there are other moments, like after you have a baby, where you need to take it slowly and have other priorities in your life. I think the best news is that life is really long, and there’s times for both. The hard thing is having a level of acceptance for the moments and making sure that you are deciding the trade-offs. And I think the best thing to do is to really think deeply about your vision and what’s important to you and make sure that your trade-offs line up with that.

See Emma Grede live, in conversation with Deborah Vankin, at the L.A. Times Festival of Books at USC on April 19 at 4 p.m., on the Los Angeles Times Stage. Free.