Ep 465: Breaking the Cycle of Empty Ambition
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To realize the future America needs, we understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future. We are Marines. We were made for this. Many people are very much enjoying their neurosis and I always say, "Have another helping, go for it. Another year in purgatory, let's go." I get it. I understand loss aversion. I understand that's the game that the brain plays, right?

It's so obsessed with guarding what is that it's not willing to consider playing to win all that could be. But the game of life, just like the game of finances, is about making the decision to turn your head in the direction of wins. And if you're willing to do that, we'll take you there. Hey, everyone. I'm Jean Chatzky. Thank you so much for joining us today on Her Money.

Today we are going to talk about ambition. It is the fuel that powers success, the drive to do more, be more, have more. But what if that ambition isn't leading us to happiness? What if instead of fulfilling us, it's trapping us in a cycle of constant striving, perfectionism, and an ever elusive sense of happiness?

of satisfaction. Today, we are diving into the concept of empty ambition, that insatiable pursuit of success that often leaves high achievers feeling exhausted, unfulfilled, and wondering, is this all there is? Joining us for this conversation is the woman who has

quite literally written the book on it. Karen Eldad is back here with us. You know her. She's been here before. She's an executive coach, TEDx speaker, and author of Gilded, Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism, and the Relentless Pursuit of More. Karen, I feel like I need this book.

Oh, Jean, I can't tell you how much I'm delighted by that incredible introduction. And thank you so much for having me back. I can't wait to talk about this. Let's start with the big question. What is empty ambition? How is it different from healthy ambition? Oh, I love this question. It's actually the difference between high standards and perfectionism.

Healthy ambition is wonderful. It feels great. It's fulfilling. It's purpose-driven. And it really has you waking up eager for the day and inspired on a regular basis. Unhealthy ambition.

is the opposite. It's punishing. It's painful. It's never enough. It's very hard to sustain. It feels like you're up against some kind of a ceiling almost all the time. It's filled with self-sabotage. And in it, I like to say, three out of every five exchanges in your day just don't feel right.

That's the way you start understanding that the dream life is actually not a dream life, that your ambition is in the direction of self-sabotage rather than in the direction of freedom. Why do so many high-achieving women fall into this cycle? I think it's because we were always rewarded for achievement and we took the dopamine hits and then they became basically a custom for us.

that we've simply fallen for a normal bodily trap.

And that is to fall for the false rewards that ambition has offered us for a very long time. As a result of that, this has built us a life that gave us some form of status or validation. And then we really, really are reluctant to let go of it. The loss aversion kicks in and becomes extraordinarily painful. So many people will arrive at this juncture. They know very well, by the way, it's known as a midlife crisis for me. Yeah.

They know that this doesn't feel right. They know that they're asking actively, is that all there is? They also are aware of the fact that they do feel aimless. And though they can't really put a finger on that aimlessness or that restlessness, they do know that it's running in the background. However, fully confronting it, they're also somewhat aware will cost them. It will cost them everything that they've built thus far. And that's...

therefore it's not easy to stare it straight in the face. My book calls you to do that, to just take a strong look at it and to be brave and to go through it because what's on the other side is way better.

How do you know, what are the early signs that you're caught up in this pursuit of empty ambition? Because the way you describe it, it seems to me that for a while it is healthy, right? For a while we're being rewarded in the way that we should be rewarded. And then all of a sudden something changes. Or maybe it's not all of a sudden. Maybe it's a gradual shift.

and things start to morph a bit. How do you know when it's gone too far? Well, I concocted a questionnaire that I actually included in the book, but there are really two ways to tell, Jean. The first is your results.

Are they pleasing to you? Are they not pleasing to you? And believe me, everybody knows if they have enough money. Everybody knows if that money is satisfying to them. Everybody knows if their career is hitting all of the bells that they wanted it to hit. And everyone is very well aware of whether their marriage really feels good to them or whether it doesn't feel good to them or whether there is no partnership at all. So those results are tangible and you can assess first whether ambition has fulfilled its promise in the external results.

The second way to assess your results or just where your ambition has led you is your feelings. If your dominant emotions are in the categories of restlessness, aimlessness, anxiety, catastrophizing, worrying that the other shoe will drop constantly, those weird nightmares, right? And feelings of loneliness, frustration, or jealousy, right?

Technically speaking, you are very likely to be on the wrong side of ambition. And you do want to address this before it spirals into something a little more chaotic. Are there a couple of questions from your assessment that you think are really telling that maybe you could take us through now so that our listeners could hear them? Yes. One of them is just very basically, do you lie in bed awake often?

worrying about the other shoe dropping, about something really bad happening, about something being revealed? Do you worry, for example, that you won't be able to afford to retire? If that's going on in your head, you're very likely in the clutches of wrong ambition because you're in a relentless pursuit of more. Many clients ask it to me in the form of, when do you know that enough is enough? That in and of itself is a problematic question. And the second is, does the success of other people

hurt your heart. When you look through the Instagram stories, is there some pang of jealousy that's really dominant for you? Why do they have this figured out? Why don't I? Those are very indicative of a gap. Can I just go back to that very first example that you used? Do you worry that you won't be able to afford to retire? I sometimes think

Based on the numbers as far as how much Americans have saved and how long we're going to live, that's actually a very rational fear. That there are many people, hopefully not as many among my listeners, but there are many people who just haven't done the work when it comes to putting aside enough for their own retirement. Yes.

How do you know if the fear is rational or if the fear is simply, I want more, more, more? In the particular case of my clients, they are very well above the American average. They have absolutely nothing to worry about. So we know that this is an irrational fear. We know that also worrying about the other shoe dropping when you already know how to make money is an irrational fear. Worrying about a catastrophe is not rational when you already know how to master this.

On the other hand, however, it is still illogical because what you're doing is you're pursuing the problem rather than pursuing the solution, which would be a much more proactive approach. I heard on your show the average American has saved for retirement something like $78,000 at some given point.

Which is not enough if you plan to live to be 90. Exactly. Or get sick, ever. Just letting you know, my mom just went through cancer. I really... I'm sorry. Thank you. She's, thank God, free and clear. This is a very expensive disease. So it's a very important thing to understand that you're much better off focusing in the direction of solving the problem than of making the problem more exacerbated by your thoughts about the problem. That's not going to be helpful to you.

What is going to be helpful to you is actually thinking about closing the gap using podcasts like this, using many, many resources that are at your beck and call, using examples of people who have resolved this. So in both cases, this usually is indicative of the fact that you're thinking in the wrong direction. And here's what it's really costing people. It's costing you happiness. Happy people simply do not think this way.

They just don't. They have healed this wound. They have found their way out of this. And they have therefore become much more proactive, which, by the way, incidentally, is directly in the world of positive psychology correlated with greater financial success.

Yeah, no argument from me on that or the fact that when you're faced with a truly tough financial problem, you can't run away from it, right? We have this fight or flight response and you have to fight. You have to come up with a methodology and a plan to actually tackle it and get you through it. In the title of your book, you use the metaphor of a gilded cage. Can you explain that imagery?

Well, the Gilded Cage is a metaphor, the reigning metaphor of my former life. And I'd like to remind you that when we last spoke, we talked about the fact that I was broke as a joke. I had a real problem. And I decided to point everything in the direction of breaking free of that program and really, really relating a new way to myself and to this life.

And since then, I've come a very long way and I've done it. I think anybody can. If I can, if I could figure this out, anybody can. Don't be afraid of financial issues. Really just be afraid of staying in a place that you don't belong in, that's filled with distress. The Gilded Cage is the metaphor of people whose lives look fine on Instagram, but

and are nowhere near fine on the inside. They know that they've been playing to keep up with the Joneses, that they are dissatisfied with their results. They are actually living some form of lie. There are very aggressive ones from the world of extreme wealth, and there are very aggressive ones from stories like this from the world of regular people like me. You're a New Yorker, so you may have heard the story of the Millers last summer.

The Hamptons were abuzz. Oh, yes. And all of New York City was abuzz with the story of Brandon Miller, who was 43 years old and took his own life. Turns out that even though he and his wife, Candace, an influencer, were living the most highfalutin of all lives, Park Avenue apartment, $8 million Southampton home, boat,

big parties, the works, were actually $17 million in debt and not getting anywhere better, and not even able to discuss the depression amongst themselves. This is a gilded cage. This is a classic trap. But it could have just been me. $37 to my name?

Piling up credit card debt to go to a party that I had no business going to, doing my darndest to social climb when I should have been focusing on putting my head down, developing some real skills in building business or in building wealth and actually moving my life forward rather than

bothering with the shadows for that long. I did. And here we are. You did. And here we are. And yet, it's a very difficult thing to do. Right. And as you said, this book asks a lot of people, it asks you to not only look at yourself, but look at yourself. Honestly, how did you get yourself

to the point where you were willing to do that because I think there are so many examples of people living these lives that are outwardly excellent and inwardly empty.

That it's not just Instagram. I remember going in and buying my first house in the suburbs and seeing people buying houses that they couldn't afford and then just not furnishing them. They had the beautiful house with nothing inside. How do you get to the point where you actually can tackle this?

Gosh, I love that you brought that story up because it reminded me of my childhood. I grew up in Argentina and there were always magnificent women dressed to the nines with their hair done coming out of beautiful cars who had nothing.

literally nothing and we're keeping that facade up and it's so heavy to carry that plumage while you're paddling wildly underneath like a crazy duck. It's just so painful to be in that state and that brings me to my breaking point. For most people it's going to be some form of trauma. In my case it was. I got divorced because the marriage was abusive. I found myself in a shower in

really having suicidal ideation, which is really horrific to go through, coming out of it, losing all of my things in a fire, and then losing both of my cats in the same couple of weeks, which is a very unusual sequence of events. But I think it demonstrated to me that I was clinging on to basically nothing of worth, and it allowed me to finally take that long, hard look. This is a tiny book, just like the Alcoholics Anonymous book,

But it's 12 steps that if you are willing to take them in earnest, they will cost you. They will be painful. And one of the ways to get there is trauma. Then there's just another way, which I think is simply wanting more for your life, making the decision consciously from a place that has not yet lost, quote unquote, it all, that this is not good enough for me and I will not live another moment of my life this way. I can't do that for you. Maybe.

Many people are very much enjoying their neurosis, and I always say, have another helping, go for it. Another year in purgatory, let's go. I get it. I understand loss aversion. I understand that's the game that the brain plays, right? It's so obsessed with guarding what is that it's not willing to consider playing to win all that could be. But the game of life, just like the game of finances, is about making the decision to turn your head in the direction of wins, right?

And if you're willing to do that, we'll take you there. How does perfectionism fit into all of this? I think perfectionism is the main problem. I think it's the holy high kahuna for high achievers of all kinds. Let me define high achievers. I want you to know that it doesn't mean, I don't know, Jeff Bezos or like extreme achievers or Olympic athletes or anything outrageous like that. It literally means people who are intensely focused in a certain direction. That can actually be...

Extremely analytical people, it can also be just extremely fast-paced people. It's a behavioral style. Those people, and you will identify with it if you are, usually tend to have perfectionist or obsessive tendencies. And this is the heart of all malaise. Perfectionism is high standards gone bad.

It's high standards turning into an arbitrary measuring stick, as Brene Brown has so well taught us, that you're constantly trying to measure yourself against, which makes you an incessant scorekeeper. Scorekeepers are by default playing not to lose. If you're constantly measuring what your bank account is, the finite pile, then you're already technically playing not to lose. You're guarding your assets. Right.

which is really different from a person who's in creation mode, growth mode, rather than fixed mode, allows you to expand and to grow that wealth and to grow yourself in the direction of your dreams. Perfectionism is going to kill all of that because it's inherently a fixed mindset. And it's also very, very harsh. It's really painful to live with. Most perfectionists are

really mean to themselves, and as a result, quite judgmental of others, which is also very painful. I think what you're describing is sort of the antithesis of self-compassion. We're so hard on ourselves. We're so hard on others. Why is it

so difficult if you are an ambitious person to be compassionate to yourself? Oh, it's pretty simple. It goes back to your first question because the harshness has worked for you. You've gotten away with it for a really long time. You have beaten the crap out of yourself to the point where you've become some form of successful. The great thing about middle age is that you start to realize that you're going to run out of steam. This is not going to work for very long. You'll hit a ceiling. It'll be a mean ceiling.

to yourself or to others, but it'll be a ceiling. That perfectionism essentially becomes a very, very difficult relationship with life. And hopefully most of us are ready to kill that identity, especially because it's not delivering on its promise anymore. If it got us fantastic physiques in our 20s, try it in your 40s. See how you like it. It's not going to work. What is it about middle age that makes it hit you?

middle age. I mean, I went through, and I've talked about, I went through a big crisis at 40. I'm now 60. And I gotta say, I don't

think I'm necessarily less ambitious now than I was then. Maybe I'm kinder to myself. But there's still something about admitting that you're an ambitious woman, whether it's ambitious for career or love or money, that sounds kind of yucky.

Did you watch The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel? Oh, I so watched it. I not only watched it, I re-watched it. I love that show so much. And the roast, oh my God. Magnificent. We could spend the entire show talking about the roast. A perfect episode. A perfect last season, by the way, but also a perfect last scene. Four minutes, the last episode. That little spiel, I am ambitious and ambitious.

You might think that it's icky, but you know what I think is icky? It's not going for your dreams. Now, here's the difference. After middle age, and now I'm starting to circle 50, as you start to really mature into yourself and you let the former identity die, that obsessive, ambitious young person who was really interested in reinforcing status and certainty in their lives, you have a surrendered form of ambition. It's more about the glory of the doing, about the fun of the creation, about the

fun of the creating rather than about the dopamine hits that you already know and you know this by now are not lasting they're not the prize the prize is the glory of being in

in the doing of what your life's purpose is. Last night, I had the great fortune of going to see again for the fourth time the Broadway musical Jersey Boys. Love it. It's just so wonderful. And at the very end of it, the last scene is when Frankie Valli is getting inducted into the Hall of Fame with the Four Seasons, and he looks directly at the audience and he says, people ask me, what was the high point? Was it all the records? Was it when Sherry broke onto the radio? Was it now the Hall of Fame? Was it all the women? And he says, no.

It's four guys under a street lamp discovering their sound. That gets me every time. That's ambition. If you want the glory of writing a book and creating a business that lights your heart on fire and enjoying this life so much that you never want to leave, that's where you want to be. But if you're just trying to get another Hamptons house, I don't know what to tell you.

It's never going to ring your bells, ever. We are going to take a quick break. But when we come back, we're going to talk about people pleasing and continuing this conversation, redefining success for ourselves. For those of you who are loyal listeners to the Her Money podcast, you know I am all about saving you money, but that I also enjoy...

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We are back with Karen Eldad, author of the new book, Gilded. Karen, I think one of the most fascinating ideas in this book is the Faustian bargain. This idea that we often trade authenticity and peace for achievement. Can you break it down?

Yeah, I love to. First, I want to say that I apologize for using the term Faustian bargain so often. I'm also a big Frasier fan, and I understand that this is a very elitist term, and not everybody knows that Dr. Faustus is a play that was written by Chris Marlowe, the guy who was ripped off by Shakespeare many, many years ago, about a man who traded his soul to the devil for riches and for accolades and for glory. Oh my gosh, and I'm just going to put a pin in that right there just for a second, because

Already in this show, we have told people they have to see Jersey Boys. They've got to rewatch the fifth season of Mrs. Maisel, specifically the roast and the last episode.

They have to watch Shakespeare in Love to truly understand the relationship between Marlowe and Shakespeare. And I'm going to add one more to that list. Go back and watch America Ferreira's speech in Barbie. Yes. Right? Like, that's just a perfect playlist from this episode. Totally. And I encourage anybody who...

only considers self-help and business development to be coming from books, to really understand that the best of our culture serves this to us in stories.

And that's why I love TV so much. I always unapologetically just adore television. If it's good television, it'll teach you just as much as a phenomenal book will. And the Faustian bargain is the trade-off of all trade-offs that makes us essentially contort into place. It makes us lie, just lie. People-pleasing, which you brought up right before the break, is, I think, lying with a spritz of Febreze. When I tell people...

how I feel about them in an attempt to coerce them into liking me so that I may maintain my position before them, I am making a tiny Faustian bargain. I am trying to maintain a position that I don't even want usually because it's filled with lies. And that is how we end up in a gilded cage.

We trap ourselves in so many ways. One of the other questions that I ask in my questionnaires is, do you find yourself often bragging? Why would you ever brag? Right. You'd brag because you're trying to maintain some kind of facade. You want people to see you a certain way. You're name dropping because you're trying to make people think that you're super cool. And that's not helpful. What I would always tell people is try as much as possible to just start telling the truth and it's really going to start breaking you free.

The women who think, gosh, if I backpedal my ambition, it will make me less successful. What do you say? I think that you're making a binary assumption. And the assumption is,

If I don't work very, very hard, I make less money. Most people make this trade-off in their head. That's how they understand work. But this is absolutely a fallacy. It's actually when I learn to work in accordance with my soul, and when I actually learn to understand money and like money and invest money, I will actually have many, many more levers to pull. This is a cop-out. It's just...

insisting on doing what you know and insisting that what you know is the only correct truth instead of actually reaching to those of us who've discovered that's not the correct trade-off. It's a very common assumption, by the way, that when we relax your perfectionism, you're going to let go of your habits forever. You're suddenly going to become a blob who never leaves your bed.

Why? How so? I think you'll actually be way more relaxed and be much more likely to uphold the standards that are useful to you from a place that doesn't cage you anymore. My standards are still pretty high. It's an interesting point, right? That you make this change and then you're in a

You're in a new place, but you have to stay in that new place. Let's say we get through it. We get through the empty ambition. We break free. We're in a newer, better place. What are the daily habits, daily practices that can keep us from falling back into those harmful old patterns? You're catching me on a very good day. I just had a conversation about that with a client. There are three habits that I would cultivate for the rest of my life.

The first is self-soothing. Self-soothing is a derivative of self-compassion. It's when I learn to talk to myself as I would speak to a child. Have you ever been mean to a child, Jean? I hope not. I hope not either. I would never be malicious or mean to a child. So I don't talk to myself that way anymore either. When I make mistakes in an email, and I make mistakes...

Even in newsletters, I'm a human being. I never say what I used to say to myself, which was, oh my God, you deserve to get fired. You don't deserve to live. What kind of a person does such things? No, it's okay. Help is on the way. You can fix this. Nothing is broken. It's going to be fine. That's called self-soothing. A second thing that I do as a daily practice is I keep a picture of myself. I even put it in the book of myself as a baby in the office.

I would never be mean to a baby. I'd like to remind myself constantly that she is still here. And you don't talk that way to yourself. You ask of her for her glory. You do not speak defeat on her life. And the last one is, this is a weird one, might be controversial, but it's distraction.

The third thing that I practice with immense love to remind myself that there's nothing serious going on here is that I can substitute my fixations that are not helpful with fixations that are helpful. Here's an example. Many of my clients suffer from many isms from low-grade alcoholism, opioid use, scrolling, workaholism. I find them all to be numbing addictions, right, because they're all trying to escape the

the facing of something that you need to face. So I've found much more proactive addictions. One of them is great television. For example, just a few weeks ago, I spent, I think, no less than four or five hours binging a show called Nobody Wants This on Netflix. It had zero value for my life, and it was delightful. Delightful. Delightful. So I'm trying to say...

Instead of the things that you know are driving you in the direction of self-puration and really just destructive patterning, just find ways to substitute this with habits that will really make your life sore. So you can start moving yourself in that direction. And that's all this is. It is a practice in the direction of your joy. And this doesn't mean joy forever. It doesn't mean instantaneous joy. It means this is a practice. And if you're willing to practice in this direction, you will break free.

Amazing advice. I am so happy to be able to tell everybody that Karen is going to be with us for a mailbag later in the week. She'll be answering your questions. So you're going to want to make sure that you tune in for that. And Karen, since you've given us so much this show, I'm going to give you something. It's a television recommendation. Come on.

Colin from Accounts. It's an Australian show. There are two seasons. Hopefully they'll make a third. So joyful. I can't wait. I think I've seen it on Paramount because I am watching the new season of Madlock star and Kathy Bates, which P.S. I am as well. Yes. Love it. Give her all the awards. She's phenomenal. All right. Clearly, we will get together and talk about our TV favorites.

at a later date and off the air. For now, let me just say thank you so much for being here. We appreciate you and we'll see you on our mailbag. If you love this episode, please give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. We always value your feedback. And if you want to keep the financial conversations going, join me for a deeper dive.

Her Money has two incredible programs, Finance Fix, which is designed to give you the ultimate money makeover, and Investing Fix, which is our investing club for women that meets biweekly on Zoom. With both programs, we are leveling the playing fields for women's financial confidence and power. I would love to see you there.

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