Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition and the Relentless Pursuit of More with Keren Eldad [Episode #990]

 

This Week’s Episode Special Guest: Keren Eldad 

Kimberly interviews  Keren Eldad (Coach Keren) about her new book, ‘Gilded: Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism and the Relentless Pursuit of More.’ They explore themes of emotional well-being, the societal pressures of ambition, and the journey towards personal fulfillment. Keren shares her insights on the emotional needs that drive human behavior, the importance of spirituality, and the influence of Kabbalah on her philosophy. The discussion emphasizes the need to break free from the hustle culture and find a more authentic path to success and happiness. In this conversation, Coach Keren and Kimberly also explore the themes of ego, anger, boundaries, career reconfiguration, authenticity, and personal growth. They discuss how understanding the ego as an opponent can help individuals improve themselves, the importance of breaking up with anger, and the necessity of setting boundaries to honor oneself. They also delve into the evolving nature of purpose and the significance of authenticity in personal and professional life. The discussion emphasizes the idea that true growth often requires breaking free from societal expectations and self-imposed limitations.

About Keren Eldad 

A thought leader in the coaching world, Keren Eldad (“Coach Keren”) specializes in taking high achievers out of the futility of constant pursuit and into the greatest levels of success and fulfillment. Her coaching clients include Olympic athletes, politicians, Hollywood stars, supermodels, Special Forces operatives and serial entrepreneurs, as well as renowned global organizations such as Estée Lauder, J.P. Morgan, and Nike… 

 She is also the founder of THE CLUB, a community of leaders, entrepreneurs and coaches who encourage and support each other to reach their fullest potential and make their greatest contribution.

Recognized as a Top Ten Executive Coach by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Real Leaders Magazine, & Goop, Keren maintains gold-standard coaching credentials on top of her advanced academic degrees from The London School of Economics and the University of Jerusalem. She is also a former C-suite executive, who has lived and worked in 17 countries and on four continents, and now coaches leaders all around the globe in four languages: English, Spanish, Hebrew and French. With half a million views on her TEDx talks, and speaking engagements all over the world, Keren’s message seems to transcend borders. She hopes it resonates with you.

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Guest Resources 

Book:  Gilded: Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism, and the Relentless Pursuit of More 

Website:   https://kereneldad.com/

Social Media 

Instagram: @coachkeren 

 

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Gilded and Its Themes
02:49 The Golden Cage of Ambition and Perfectionism
05:58 The Illusion of Success and Fulfillment
08:50 Emotional Needs and Their Impact on Well-Being
12:04 The 12 Steps to Overcoming the Hustle
14:56 The Role of Spirituality in Personal Growth
17:52 Kabbalah and Its Influence on Philosophy
24:57 Understanding the Ego as an Opponent
26:26 Breaking Up with Anger
28:48 Navigating Boundaries and Self-Honoring
36:15 Reconfiguring Career and Purpose
38:34 Authenticity as a Power
43:38 The Trojan Horse of Personal Growth

 

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KIMBERLY’S BOOKS

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• Recipes For Your Perfectly Imperfect Life
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• How the Power Foods Diet helps with Weight Loss with Dr. Neal Barnard EP. 877
• How Not to Age with New York Times best-selling author Dr. Michael Greger [Episode #873]
• How to eat to reduce anxiety with Harvard nutritional psychiatrist Dr. Uma Naidoo [Episode #867]

 

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Transcript: 

Kimberly Snyder (00:00.857)
Hi everyone and welcome back to our Monday Interview Show. I am so excited for our very special guest here with us today. Her name is Karen Eldag and she has a new book out called Gilded, Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism and the Relentless Pursuit of More. Karen, as I said in the subtitle, I started to get goosebumps.

Coach Keren Eldad (00:22.552)
Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (00:27.481)
Karen is a top 10 executive coach by the International Coaching Federation, Real Leaders Magazine, and Goop. She has degrees from all around the world, the London School of Economics, the University of Jerusalem. She has lived and worked on 17 countries and on four continents. She coaches leaders all around the world. She speaks four languages, English, Spanish, Hebrew, and French.

Wow, Karen, thank you so much for being here with us today and congratulations on your new book.

Coach Keren Eldad (01:02.35)
Thank you so much. The pleasure and the honor is mine.

Kimberly Snyder (01:06.455)
You know, one of our cornerstones here, Karen, is emotional well-being. And when your book came across my desk and I started to dive in, I thought how perfect and how much it would resonate with so many of our audience members, because we get a lot of questions about burnout and, you know, as you say here, more and always just feeling like we’re never doing enough in our life. We can never just sort of feel that centeredness.

So I feel like your topic is really, you know, one that resonates with a lot of people right now. As a coach or in your personal life, what drew you to this subject matter to focus on for your very first book?

Coach Keren Eldad (01:49.944)
Well, like most teachers, I teach what I myself had to learn. And in my case, it was. Yeah, I mean, we are teachers. We are teachers. You’re a remarkable teacher. I’ve admired you for so long. And I think that all of us are teaching the same thing. We’re teaching people to take the journey from the head to the heart. That little bio, it’s mad impressive, right? my God, Karen, four languages, 17 countries. You must be remarkable. And you know what? I am.

Kimberly Snyder (01:55.755)
Yes, wounded healer.

Kimberly Snyder (02:08.983)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (02:20.024)
but none of it matters. For my mental health to actually start to take precedent, for my happiness to actually start to move to the forefront, I had to get over that. That’s not actually what I used as an asset. It’s what I had to overcome in order for those patterns to move to the background and for me to not bump into a crash, I mean, into walls anymore. This is the big correction of most of the superstars who are listening right now. Whether you identify as an overachiever or you identify as a regular person, for the record,

Kimberly Snyder (02:40.258)
you

Coach Keren Eldad (02:49.664)
I never really thought of myself as an overachiever because I’m quite lazy by nature. I’m very slow paced by nature. Other people have a hugely impressive productivity pace. We were talking right before this session about your eighth book in 11 years. I tell you something, just thinking about that makes me want to go to sleep because this is my first book and it’s been two months and I just, I really just want to go back to my bedroom and go to sleep. But whether we identify as overachievers or not, all of us are susceptible to a society that’s telling us to get more.

get more, get more, work harder, do more, be more accomplished. And this is so exhausting and such an awful way to live that ultimately I wrote Gilded as an analogy, as a metaphor for the golden cage that we all find ourselves trapped in by our own success, by our own ambition, a trap of overwhelm. And I hope that it helps people to take the same 12 steps I took and the same 12 steps I teach my clients to take to get out of there.

Kimberly Snyder (03:30.585)
Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (03:36.205)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (03:48.834)
and to get from their brain back to their body, to their heart.

Kimberly Snyder (03:50.009)
So beautifully said, and I love how you connect this work to Heart-Led Living, which is really about this expansive true self where we can really feel that truth of who we are without having to have a long list of achievements. So I resonate with everything you say, especially the part about society. So two things came to mind when you were speaking, Karen, in my

personal journey. So first of all, I was an overachiever. I am a perfectionist. So I really resonated with your book and, you know, correlating doing enough with love, with validation, with worth. I went backpacking for three years around the world. That’s sort of where I started to break my mindset. And when I came back, very, a lot of Israelis, especially in India and Thailand, this is back in the day when Koh Phan Yang was like unpaved. This is over 15 years ago.

Coach Keren Eldad (04:35.35)
must have met a lot of Israelis.

Kimberly Snyder (04:47.479)
So the first thing is when I came back here and I started a free blog and it wasn’t my intention, but I got pulled into Hollywood. I started to work with these big celebrities and to this day, I’m not a screen person so I don’t watch movies or TV shows. So sometimes I would ask myself, huh, this is interesting. I wonder why my life turned out this way. But one of the biggest learnings was I could see how much society sort of, you know,

Coach Keren Eldad (04:55.48)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (05:13.089)
just idolized this idea of fame and money and, everybody thinks this person’s so beautiful. And being in the inner circles, I could see how much suffering there was, a lot of isolation, insecurities exacerbated, millions of people are looking. So I remember thinking, and again, this is over 15 years ago now, society has it wrong. This is not, when we get there,

Coach Keren Eldad (05:39.192)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (05:42.593)
This is not it. And there’s this quote in your book upfront, and I don’t want to, I think you actually have all your, I think you actually have to have all your dreams come true to realize they’re the wrong dreams. You quote, Matthew Perry at the beginning of the book. So that was the first thing was like, I remember I was early on and I was still striving, but I was like, wow, this is interesting because these people have all the money and all the fame and they’re, you know,

Coach Keren Eldad (05:47.689)
Matthew Perry quote.

Coach Keren Eldad (05:56.654)
May you rest in peace.

Kimberly Snyder (06:09.857)
I don’t want to generalize, they’re having the same struggles as all the rest of us. Yeah, exacerbated. Everyone’s watching them.

Coach Keren Eldad (06:14.68)
That’s right. And even worse actually. Magnified, exactly. I went to see Brett Goldstein, who is one of the writers of Ted Lasso and one of the actors in Ted Lasso and the writer of another great huge TV show at the moment. And he did a stand up performance here in Austin last year. My husband and I went to see him.

And Innity said, I thought that when I broke through in Hollywood, I would find this amazing nirvana where everybody was having an amazing time and all I found were closed rooms where people were anxious and always smoking. And I had the exact same thing too, except it was different. I broke into something different, which is the high echelons of the intellectual class, essentially the boardrooms and the government societies.

Kimberly Snyder (06:47.245)
Wait.

Kimberly Snyder (07:00.697)
Great.

Coach Keren Eldad (07:00.992)
when I was very, very young and I found exactly what you found in Hollywood, people who technically had it all and were giant balls of nerves. And then I started to ask myself, because I also became one of them, how did we end up here? Why is this such a phony baloney reward? Why is anybody falling for this? And most importantly, how do I get out? This was the beginning of the unraveling of my life, which as you know, I talk about in the book.

Kimberly Snyder (07:09.219)
What? Isn’t that interesting?

Coach Keren Eldad (07:28.504)
but also is the story that many of my clients follow through on. And it doesn’t have to be from exaltation to liberation. It doesn’t have to be so dramatic. It can just be, I’m living a life that is not right for me. I’m living a life that looks right for my parents, for my immigrant parents, just like you, for the life society wanted for me, and it’s not my life. How do I get to the other side? That’s pretty much the work.

Kimberly Snyder (07:51.897)
Back to from the headiness, the mind into the truth in our hearts. So the second thing I wanted to share with you, Karen, so that was at the beginning of my career, but I was still striving and still, you know, kind of obsessed with book sales and just looking at, you know, I think to grow all these things. Fast forward to about a month ago, and I shared this on another podcast where I saw another author.

from my publishing house and I’m not on social media a lot, I do go on and answer comments. So I see some things. And so I saw this other author from my publishing house. Well, I’ve admired because she sells a ton of books. She has an enormous podcast, but I saw her from where I am right now, Karen. And I just saw her really like, just so animated, but just so much efforting. felt like doing this.

social media posts to get attention and like, you know, it resonates with the masses. Like there’s a lot of people that like that and great for her. Like she’s, you know, doing, you know, she’s in her path and she’s successful. But I had this very clear feeling, Karen, and it was, I don’t want that. You know, whereas in the past I’d be like, amazing what she’s selling. means I should could sell like this and she could have this many downloads and all this stuff. And I said, wow, all this hard work.

has an introspection, which I know is a big part of your book as well, has led me to this place where I can honestly say, I’m so content with just having spaciousness and peace and being in nature and having created a really, you know, such deep love in my family life and my day-to-day living. And this feels good. But from decades of that chasing, and as you say in your subtitle, this ambition, this perfectionism, you know.

It really is possible. And I love that you’re teaching that and coaching that as well, because so for a long time, you know, I think I would have read this and been like, my gosh, like, I really want that. So I’m here to say, you know, this resonates, this is possible. And we need to talk about this because if anyone out there is feeling that lack of fulfillment, you can get to a place where you can feel so much more aligned with your life.

Coach Keren Eldad (09:56.323)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (10:06.114)
Yeah, I’d love to help people get there. That’s the whole job. I think I too have found nirvana. Not just because I’ve come to terms with my lazy energy, my natural desire to be in bed half of the time, but also because the hustle is antithetical to my soul. I dislike it very much. I don’t naturally move fast or break things. I have a lot of energy for…

things that I truly love, but I don’t want to do things that are inauthentic to my soul or inorganic. I don’t like the sales game. I don’t particularly like taking score. I don’t think that’s actually natural to me. And I only realized this and started to play my own game by crashing and burning on the first one. Maybe you had a different experience, though I’ve listened to you, I’ve heard you speak several times. I think you also first got basically turned off of the first experience.

Kimberly Snyder (10:51.822)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (11:01.688)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (11:01.898)
Saw on your flesh and saw not only in others but on your own on your own self how this ends up and then made the conscious decision to graduate past that and Like I like you I also watched the others and I think God bless them if they have the energy and if that’s where they are karmically That’s awesome. Go get it But I will play a different game and it turns out that this game works very very well, too My business is doing exceptionally. Well, so let’s talk to people about that

Kimberly Snyder (11:27.641)
Mmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (11:30.232)
how to identify that they’re in the wrong energy and how to get to energy that’s probably gonna help them a little bit more in their life.

Kimberly Snyder (11:36.473)
Beautiful. And I love how you phrase that there’s a different way. And it’s not saying right or wrong, you know, this person shouldn’t be doing this. It’s just saying, you know, if it doesn’t feel like I’m, know, someone’s life is fully aligned, there is a different way and we can still rise up to much success. And I’ve experienced that too, Karen. You know, now when I, when I’m not trying, like trying so much effort and you know, things grow and my brand grows and

Coach Keren Eldad (11:54.531)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (12:04.537)
The books naturally get out there without always kind of like, you know, the horse that’s like looking to the sides and, you know, I should be doing what this person’s doing. I should be doing more. So I like how on page 42 in the book, you talk about the six emotional needs, back to emotional wellbeing, one of our cornerstones, certainty, significance, uncertainty, love and connection, progress and growth, and contributing beyond yourself.

Are these six attributes, how did you come up with this list? Is it something you found in research or something that you found in working with clients?

Coach Keren Eldad (12:39.404)
Yes, in research. Yes. This is not my idea. This is a Jungian idea that has been elaborated upon even by Tony Robbins. But essentially, the system is like this. We all have six human emotional needs. These are not Maslov needs. These are not survival needs. So it’s not your need for a roof over your head and water and air and shelter. This is the needs for you to feel emotionally safe. The bottom two are usually running the show for most people.

Kimberly Snyder (12:55.833)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (13:03.437)
Mm.

Coach Keren Eldad (13:06.818)
When people are running from the head or what we’re talking about from the head produces hustle and ambition and struggle, usually they’re over-exacerating the bottom two needs. And these are the needs for certainty. This is the need to know that we are safe, that our marriage is safe, that our work is safe, and that we will not be eaten by a tiger. The second is the need for significance. It’s the need to know that we are seen, that the world is buying our books and that everybody likes us on Instagram.

Kimberly Snyder (13:34.617)
Right.

Coach Keren Eldad (13:34.894)
Now both of these are a giant trap because they’re actually fear. They’re not needs, they’re terror. The second one, significance, is a fear of being unloved, of being rejected, of being thrown away. The bottom one is the terror of loss, its loss aversion exacerbated. So if those two are the ones you’re dialing the most, you can’t even feel the next four. Uncertainty, your need for variety, your need for problems. Love and connection.

Kimberly Snyder (13:57.656)
Right.

Coach Keren Eldad (14:02.446)
No one who wants certainty wants real love because real love is real scary. Nobody who wants real significance, who wants their likes to go up can actually tolerate growth. In other words, can tolerate risk. And finally, the need for contribution beyond the self. This one, this one always makes me laugh, Kim, because I coach teams, I coach executive teams, and I coach the leaders of those executive teams. And they almost always invariably tell me, Karen, I live for other people.

Kimberly Snyder (14:16.203)
Right.

Coach Keren Eldad (14:29.344)
It’s what I am. I just live my life in service. And I’m like, first of all, I’ve assessed you. No, you don’t. And secondly, even when you do do a really nice thing, you want credit for it. You want a big plaque that says, Jim did this. So that’s really not contribution beyond the self. Contribution beyond the self is like our real energy. Our real energy doesn’t shout, it whispers. It’s knowing. It’s calm.

Kimberly Snyder (14:54.349)
Beautiful, beautiful.

Coach Keren Eldad (14:56.566)
And so what my book is designed to do is to help you actually make that switch. It’s to help you start identifying how much you’re over protecting low level bogus needs and how much you’re sacrificing growth and love the best things in life so that you can make the switch and start playing for those instead. Thank you for calling that out. That’s my favorite part of the book.

Kimberly Snyder (15:15.021)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (15:18.777)
It is one of mine. You can see I folded it down. And it’s interesting how it aligns with what you said earlier, because when you’re talking about certainty and fear, you know, from a yogic, Vedic perspective, those can be, you know, sort of imbalances in your Mooladhara, your root chakra. And so you can muscle your way through, like you said, and still create success and abundance. But if you start to really ground that into a deep center,

Coach Keren Eldad (15:21.272)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (15:48.493)
then the energy rises and the Kundalini and the Shakti, right? You can create abundance as well, but in a much more easeful way, like you said, playing a different, totally different approach.

Coach Keren Eldad (15:51.949)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (15:57.368)
Yes.

A totally different game. By the way, what I define as real success, I think that’s when you are repressing. It’s not real success. You’re just manifesting money. But money without fulfillment. Money that needs to be maintained all the time. Money that needs to be worried about all the time. I don’t want it. That’s like telling me that I have a husband and I now need to look over my shoulder and check his phone all the time. Excuse me, I don’t want that relationship. I would really like a love that is infinite and abundance that is infinite.

Kimberly Snyder (16:10.361)
Mmmmm

Kimberly Snyder (16:22.357)
gosh. Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (16:28.802)
And the only way to get to that is to fully align that energy.

Kimberly Snyder (16:34.937)
So how, how do we do that in your system, Karen? I noticed, and I appreciate that there’s these really great chapter summaries. There’s a lot of intro-spection, which I think is really powerful for a step and first of all, being aware. So yeah, tell us a little bit about, know your whole book is about this essentially, but just from moving from point A to someone’s listening, wow, I have that fear. I have a fear I’m to lose my job, my relationship.

Coach Keren Eldad (17:03.245)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (17:04.664)
I’m always terrified about paying the rent. How do we move to that infinite place of abundance, which feels so alluring.

Coach Keren Eldad (17:12.888)
Well, I’m going to give you a couple of the steps, but first I want to say I’m like you, I’m a teacher at heart. So I present things in systems. This particular system follows the same structure as Alcoholics Anonymous. There are 12 steps in Alcoholics Anonymous. I wanted to call my book Workaholics Anonymous, also known as people who make too much effort for too little results. If you’re done with that, that is the first step. The first step is to admit that your attempts at a life that feels good to you are not.

Kimberly Snyder (17:23.416)
Mmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (17:42.518)
working. This is really hard to do because most of us think we’re very right and we’re doing all the right things and we’re doing quote unquote everything. I hear it all the time, I’m sure you do too. But you’re not. If it’s not yielding the results that you want, you must see that this is not working. And that admission is absolutely important. In Alcoholics Anonymous, it’s exactly the first step. The first step is admit that you do not have this under control because what do all addicts say?

Kimberly Snyder (17:43.353)
Hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (17:52.779)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (18:11.114)
I can control this. I got this. I’m fine. Right? So you have to admit that there is a problem to begin with. And to admit that there is a problem does not necessarily mean that your results are off. By the way, like you said, some people do attain success and fame and they therefore don’t recognize there’s a problem. Watch your feelings. If you’re stressed out all the time, if you’re falling asleep to catastrophizing thoughts about the other shoe dropping,

Kimberly Snyder (18:15.362)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (18:26.413)
Sure.

Coach Keren Eldad (18:38.316)
and about losing love and about losing all your money and about the next deal being the last one, about how am gonna pay the rent? You are in an anxious cycle. Pay attention to aimlessness. Aimlessness means that you are doing all the things, but they don’t have any flavor. Pay attention to jealousy. Pay attention to resentment. Whenever we pay attention to these and we can admit that something is off, we can graduate to step two. The second thing.

Kimberly Snyder (18:47.161)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (18:55.405)
Hmm?

Kimberly Snyder (19:03.725)
When you say jealousy and resentment, you mean because we’re not feeling good, so we’re looking out.

Coach Keren Eldad (19:09.336)
You’re looking out, yeah. You’re scrolling endlessly and all of these influencers on Instagram seem like they’re having the best time ever, which by the way is ridiculous to believe. And it’s really hurting your heart. I’ve had lots of clients say to me, LinkedIn is hurting my heart. Everybody looks like they’re way ahead of me. This person is killing it on their book tour. How did they do it? And I always look at them going, why are you believing this nonsense? You have a problem, which brings us to step two.

Kimberly Snyder (19:21.121)
Yes.

Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (19:30.977)
Right.

Coach Keren Eldad (19:38.744)
The second step that’s really critical that I’ll just reveal now from the book is stop lying. Admit not only that you have a problem, but that you’re also posturing that what you are trying to project to the world, which is that you got this, is not true. And that will lead you to a state of vulnerability, a state of admitting your mistakes, a state of objectively looking at yourself, which will allow some light in. And then from there, we can really start doing the work with you.

The first chapters of the book are designed to help you do this. They’re designed to basically flatten the playing field, bring you down to the studs so that you can build a house on a real cement framework again. And that’s how the system works.

Kimberly Snyder (20:21.465)
You know, I can’t, I’m getting goosebumps again. I can’t help but feel as you’re describing it in a different language, but there is this synonymous quality with some of the Vedic and yogic teachings when you’re talking about flattening it. It’s like this rebirth energy, Shiva, right, working with the fire of transformation, you know, seeing and just letting the house burn down in a way, and then rebuilding up.

Coach Keren Eldad (20:44.61)
Let it burn down, Just like I did in my life, yes. And you know the truth is all teachers are teaching the same thing, we’re just using a different language. I use the language of Kabbalah and sometimes, or Kabbalah as Americans call it, and I also use cognitive behavioral theory. It really doesn’t matter as long as the philosophy is aligned with the truth. Vedic philosophy is aligned with the truth.

Kimberly Snyder (20:58.242)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (21:09.261)
Well, some, I’ve read some of the analysis on why the 12 step programs work so well for alcoholics. And part of it is that, you know, different to some other rehab programs, there is a, potentially one of the reasons is there is a spiritual quality, you know, where there’s this surrender to a higher power to realizing that as humans, can be, you know, a big struggle, but then we start to feel this universal or God spirit, whatever energy you want to call it.

sort of come in, we can start to realize that we’re so much more than we think we are, which is the title of my last book. So how does spirituality, if any, play a role in your ethos and your philosophy?

Coach Keren Eldad (21:42.882)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (21:53.102)
It plays a big role. There’s an entire segment that’s dedicated to faith. This is not about forcing anybody into faith. You can define any entity around you as you wish, but it is to tether your life to something bigger than you, to serve something higher than you, because none of us can live in this egoically way, in this egoic way forever and be happy. It’s not possible to be

flesh and blood and to think that this is it will literally just trap you in a hell of your own making. If instead we start to understand that, you know, just believe because it’s nicer to believe. Literally, just believe because it’s a gentler thought than we are all alone here and there is no meaning. This is, by the way, philosophically this is known as Pascal’s Wager. It’s a lengthy intellectual debate.

Kimberly Snyder (22:34.082)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (22:42.253)
Mmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (22:48.706)
But ultimately, the basic is if you have a choice between not believing in anything because you don’t have any proof for it and believing because you don’t have any proof otherwise, choose to believe. It’s better for you. That’s sort of how I feel about faith. And it’s part of parcel of this ascent because the journey in Gilded is designed to help you to ascend, to get out of the traps of this Hall of Mirrors tiny little, very, very limited life experience.

Kimberly Snyder (23:02.573)
Mmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (23:18.094)
to the greatness of your soul.

Kimberly Snyder (23:21.217)
And that proving, like you said, trying to prove all faith exists is from a very limited human mindset versus sort of the surrender into that we can’t measure everything, we can’t know everything. So when I was doing research for the hidden power, the five hearts, you said we’re all sort of speaking about the same thing. There was this amazing intersection around the ways in which all these different spiritual traditions were talking about the heart.

Coach Keren Eldad (23:32.033)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (23:47.437)
whether it was from Vedic times, which I really connect with, to Buddhist and sacred heart of Jesus Christ. And there was a whole section that I read about, if I could say right, Kabbalah, because I’m one of those people that say Kabbalah. can you share? Yes, she did. So Karen, can you share a little bit about…

Coach Keren Eldad (23:52.835)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (24:03.532)
It’s okay Madonna did this to us.

Kimberly Snyder (24:11.533)
the influence of the Kabbalah on your particular philosophy and how that’s woven through the book. Teach us a little bit about this really ancient, beautiful, a lot of it’s based in heart and connection. I love this stuff.

Coach Keren Eldad (24:14.871)
yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (24:27.758)
Well, what I really love about Kabbalah, what was very useful to me, and by the way, I love Buddhism as well as an approach, and I love the law of attraction. I’m a huge, huge Esther Hicks fan. What I love about Kabbalah in particular is that it personified things. It told stories, and it helped me to grasp these very big concepts in a way that I could understand. So for example, Carl Jung speaks about the ego, but in Kabbalah, they call him Satan. Satan, Satan, or Satan in Hebrew.

Kimberly Snyder (24:53.785)
Mmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (24:57.292)
does not mean devil, it means opponent. Your son plays chess, right? He is not playing against a terrible person who’s trying to kill him, he’s playing against an opponent. And he does not prefer somebody who does not know how to play chess, he is always looking for someone who can play very well, right? That’s, that…

Kimberly Snyder (24:59.095)
Mmm. Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (25:04.182)
Yes, yes, my older son.

Kimberly Snyder (25:19.093)
yes. Yes. He’s like 40 year old. He’s eight years old. Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (25:23.298)
But still, it’s so remarkable for me to understand the ego as an opponent, as a very, very strong chess player for myself. It helped me to really start to personify the ego, not as myself turning against myself, but as a very strong player who’s trying to make me better. There are many concepts for Kabbalah that are taught this way that are essentially the exact same idea, but the packaging is very, very appealing. And I enjoyed that philosophical approach very much.

Kimberly Snyder (25:33.197)
Hmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (25:53.206)
It’s been tremendously useful and very heavily influenced by it as a teacher.

Kimberly Snyder (25:59.761)
So again, back to this awareness, first of all, to know that there are these, because I grew up not really knowing that, there’s this ego perspective and then there’s this heart-based perspective we can shift into. Right. And so I love that, you know, that conversation. And then, you know, some of the topics you talk about, about breaking up with anger. I thought that was really interesting.

Coach Keren Eldad (26:13.997)
Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (26:26.786)
Well, that actually brings me back to Vedic. Breaking up with anger is something that I spent a lot of time in yogic practice around. I think it is the main problem for most of us who work too hard. We’re angry. Yes, I think so. It’s funny because, and I know a lot of people listening are going to identify with this, we don’t look angry, we don’t seem angry, and we don’t feel angry. But we do have this I can and I will energy. And that is anger.

Kimberly Snyder (26:29.945)
Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (26:39.117)
Did you have a lot of anger in your own life?

Kimberly Snyder (26:51.287)
Hmm

Coach Keren Eldad (26:56.556)
We are righteous. We care very much about being right and much less about being happy and peaceful. That is anger energy. The teacher Ram Dass, who was a tremendous spiritual teacher, talked a lot about breaking up with anger. And by that he did not mean learn how to manage it. He meant renounce it, leave it for good. One of the last chapters of the book is dedicated to breaking up with anger.

because one of the last steps we will have to take is to break up with our own righteousness. The righteousness, if it stays in place, will contradict what you said not 10 minutes ago, which is needing to know. If you need to know something and the ego resists any newness, you can’t really ascend. So this is one of the last gates that you’re gonna go through. You’re gonna have to renounce your righteousness and your indignity towards the world and your resistance of

Kimberly Snyder (27:36.505)
Mm.

Coach Keren Eldad (27:52.682)
events as they are occurring.

Kimberly Snyder (27:54.487)
Hmm. So Karen, it sounds like part of this is making the choice and realizing it’s not serving us anymore. But what if, you know, someone feels like it’s such a deep pattern to feel resistant or like, this person’s not understanding me or, kind of as you’re describing, how do we really shift? Like, how do you see your clients really breaking up with anger besides making the choice?

Coach Keren Eldad (28:20.364)
They don’t, there’s no choice. There’s simply no choice. So the way I like to play this is basically describe this as a negotiation. Let’s say that you want to go from point A to point B, but person Y is in your way. And you think that you really need to reason with them in order to get them to come with you to point B. That’s not true. You just need to get to point B. You have to find ways around them in order for you to get to point B. They, if point B is righteous,

Kimberly Snyder (28:41.945)
Mm.

Coach Keren Eldad (28:48.942)
truly righteous in the sense that it is peaceful and it is honest and it’s integrous, they will join you there. If not, you cannot interfere with their free will. That’s pretty much it. So you have to find and use all the tools that you will learn in the book from forgiveness to pausing to doing the work, the Byron Katie work to exercising out of this righteousness in order to get to that point. You cannot make them the problem. They are never the problem. The problem is the problem.

Kimberly Snyder (29:07.692)
yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (29:18.617)
Karen, Byron Katie was a guest here a couple years ago and she did the work on me and I love her for her questions. So let me ask you a tangible question to point this out, okay? So there’s one thing when we’re like, this person is sort of in my path. Something I’ve struggled with, which I think a lot of our audience does based on the questions that I get is boundaries. So sometimes,

Coach Keren Eldad (29:43.981)
Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (29:46.113)
I’ll say yes, or sort of like go into this roundabout long thing because I feel bad about saying no. So I’ll give you a specific example. There’s sort of a nice but pushy mom at my son’s school and she’s like asking to do stuff and I’ll go into this big long text because I feel bad and you know, and then I kind of get mad at myself like why didn’t I just keep it simple? And so there’s that like anger like you said can kind of build up.

And then I said, well, next time I’m just going to say, you know, I want my, I’m letting my child lead. And you know, sometimes you can say something loving, but hard, you know, he just doesn’t want to spend time. He doesn’t want to do a playdate.

Coach Keren Eldad (30:25.984)
Yeah, that’s correct. So what did you do wrong?

Kimberly Snyder (30:30.317)
So I feel like I betrayed myself. Instead of being honest, I kind of just went into, like I said, this long thing and it kind of opens up the door for it to come back and turn back.

Coach Keren Eldad (30:40.78)
That’s exactly right. You sent that long ass text. That is self betrayal. You sent a long ass text and that’s self betrayal. Yeah, so here’s how boundaries work. Boundaries are don’t send the long ass text. Boundaries are the opposite of self betrayal. They’re self honoring. Self honoring is, by the way, the honoring of yourself and the honoring of this mom. And the most honorable thing you can do for her is not say yes. It’s tell the truth. The most

Kimberly Snyder (30:44.417)
Yes, I sent a long text and like, was trying to explain myself out of it.

Kimberly Snyder (30:57.771)
Yes.

Kimberly Snyder (31:08.121)
So I didn’t say yes, but I didn’t tell the truth. just kind of, I didn’t.

Coach Keren Eldad (31:11.018)
Exactly, you didn’t tell the truth. My default, and I get it, we’re very well socialized animals, we’re all so sweet. Believe me, when somebody says to me, Karen, do you like my dress? My impulse is to say, absolutely, even if the dress is fugly. So nowadays I’ve learned to say things like, I don’t know if that color is doing you justice, or you could improve this by. In other words, I find a kinder way to respond that is more honest to me and more honest to them.

Kimberly Snyder (31:24.377)
But you don’t!

Coach Keren Eldad (31:40.974)
Unfortunately, this makes you just a tiny bit of a social pariah, but it is better than betraying yourself. It just is. And that’s the more you can do this, the more you’re practicing self-compassion and not self-betrayal, the more you will gain self-respect and the more boundaries will be a part of your life. And for what we do for a living, contracts are super important. Negotiation is really important. Boundaries are everything. So learning how to do this is really an honoring of the self.

Kimberly Snyder (31:47.606)
And…

Kimberly Snyder (32:09.963)
Yes, I think a lot of us are taught, you know, being nice is really important. And this is something I’ve learned more and more about, you know, wow, there’s a lot of people pleasing. And then sometimes it’s like, like, it just, you know, it doesn’t feel like

Coach Keren Eldad (32:22.285)
Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (32:25.772)
I’m not about being nice, I’m about being kind. And being kind is telling you the truth.

Kimberly Snyder (32:30.593)
Wow. Even like other times care about the dress.

Coach Keren Eldad (32:32.93)
And it’s my job, by the way. Can you imagine if I just sat there with like a really big celebrity and told them what they wanted to hear? What nonsense is that? That’s how they end up even more addicted.

Kimberly Snyder (32:42.893)
Well, that’s why a lot of them have yes people around them.

Coach Keren Eldad (32:45.088)
Exactly. That’s why you finally need somebody who sits there going, you have a very serious problem. Are you going to get out of your way? Yes or no.

Kimberly Snyder (32:52.803)
But sometimes do you say to yourself, it would just be easier and kind to just say to that person, yeah, it’s a nice dress. Like in saying, have to always be honest.

Coach Keren Eldad (32:58.092)
Of course, of course, but it would be ineffective. Yeah, but it would be ineffective. And by the way, it would also be unethical. I would never do anything unethical.

Kimberly Snyder (33:07.946)
Even about, even just say giving someone a compliment, to the core, you wouldn’t let that slide.

Coach Keren Eldad (33:13.71)
That part’s a little hard, but I have learned, especially from teachers like Byron Katie, like Martha Beck, that a little lie, even a little lie is problematic. Now, I’m not perfect. Nobody is. I still lie occasionally. you know, if I’m having a bad day, I’m not automatically going to say I’m having a bad day. I’m just going to say, yeah, it’s fine. Everything’s okay. Just like a normal person would. But more than not, I do adhere to this practice.

Kimberly Snyder (33:21.955)
No.

Kimberly Snyder (33:41.955)
So what do you do when you do feel a moment of fear or, I don’t want to hurt this person or I’m, you know, back, like something in your old system, like before you really came into this work and what you coach people to do. What do we do when there’s that like, yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (33:54.348)
Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (33:59.83)
Yeah, the tug of war. Okay, so here’s what you do. First, you have to have a tiny little bit of time before you respond. So before sending the long ass text, you pause, you pause. It’s called the pause principle. I’m about to teach you the three steps I take in my head 17 seconds before sending long ass text. one, is the problem the problem of how I’m about to respond a bigger problem? What is the answer to that question?

Kimberly Snyder (34:08.717)
Sacred pause.

Kimberly Snyder (34:24.811)
Is the problem, say that again, is it?

Coach Keren Eldad (34:26.124)
Is the problem the problem or is how I’m about to respond? Uncollaboratively lying, embellishing, overworking, people pleasing. Which one is the bigger problem? Your response.

Kimberly Snyder (34:35.89)
so clearly like now I’m like, I can’t believe I said.

Coach Keren Eldad (34:39.404)
Response, very good. Step two, is there any other way to see this? Number one, she might not have such an obsession with me that she needs to hear back right now. Number two, this may not even be about me and her. It might be about the children. Number three, this may be a nice opportunity to say no thank you, but who knows, maybe down the line there will be a clearer yes. Number four, nothing is broken. It’s okay, we’re grownups. Everybody’s gonna get over this. In other words,

We go into all the other scenarios before we make this the only way out. And that brings me to the third question. What’s the opportunity here? Here it is. Chill out. Send a no thank you text. Don’t answer.

Kimberly Snyder (35:21.987)
So, yeah, I love it. And also so brief.

Coach Keren Eldad (35:25.804)
Yeah, it’s really simple. It’s really simple. it’s just about the wherewithal to notice the moment in which your heart is starting to get tangled in knots and taking the time to pause before responding. Because if you respond from the knots, it will be incorrect.

Kimberly Snyder (35:47.853)
That’s right. means your response. find if, you know, I have to get coherent in my heart first. and I should have, you know, really spent more time in that pause. so that’s, you know, that’s a probably easier one to unpack. Like next time it comes up, I’ll do this. What about if someone is listening and they’re like, Hey, you know, Karen, I, I don’t think I’m in the right career. Would you like, there’s all these different chapters you have detoxing your mind.

Coach Keren Eldad (36:12.291)
Yeah.

Yeah, seven is all about reconfiguring your career. So that’s very common.

Kimberly Snyder (36:18.329)
But that’s seven. Are you suggesting we go through in chronological order or can people sort of jump from chapter to chapter?

Coach Keren Eldad (36:25.888)
I would go in chronological order because otherwise you’re just going to use force and I don’t want you to I want you to soften, soften, soften, soften and then answer. So it’s really a process. But chapter seven is about purpose and really it’s it’s the longest chapter there because this is the most common thing about our times Kim. Everybody is pivoting their career. Everyone is going to pivot their career several times. It’s literally the scourge of the millennial and of the Gen Z-er.

Kimberly Snyder (36:34.969)
Okay.

Kimberly Snyder (36:44.482)
Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (36:56.165)
So a longer process of inquiry is required and there are longer exercises to help you do just that. But the first is to just begin with the pause principle. Just challenge yourself to think about this not as a bad thing, but as a good thing. In other words, is the problem the problem or is the fact that you’re beginning to freak out about it a bigger problem? The problem is the problem. You freaking out about this is gonna make it much, much worse, right? So.

Kimberly Snyder (37:04.823)
Mm-hmm.

Kimberly Snyder (37:23.137)
Yes.

Coach Keren Eldad (37:24.502)
Hopefully that chapter and a deep inquiry will take you the rest of the way. For the record, I changed my career at 40. This is an eight-year-old endeavor of mine, and it’s been the greatest grace of my life. So I couldn’t recommend this more.

Kimberly Snyder (37:38.701)
What were you doing prior?

Coach Keren Eldad (37:40.416)
I was the marketing director. Well, was a marketing director at several companies, but mostly in the luxury industry. I know nothing to do with what I do now.

Kimberly Snyder (37:46.605)
Mmm, mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (37:50.881)
And permission to shift, right? And we see this a lot, especially with women where maybe they want to focus on their career. Maybe then they want to focus on, you know, raising children and juggling or then going back to career. You know, it shifts as we move through our life. There’s a fluidity. We can just stay true to ourselves and let it evolve.

Coach Keren Eldad (38:08.867)
Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (38:13.378)
Purpose is not legacy. Purpose is not one and done, just as I don’t believe soulmate is one and done. These are things that evolve throughout our lifetime. The only problem is resisting the flow, resisting the flow of life.

Kimberly Snyder (38:19.801)
Mmm.

Kimberly Snyder (38:29.155)
How is your relationship with your husband or how is this work woven into your personal life?

Coach Keren Eldad (38:34.92)
it’s perfect. It’s ideal. You know, it’s so funny because when you did say to me before we started talking the new book, once I have an idea, it starts writing itself. Unfortunately for me, I am already experiencing this, but because I’m so lazy, I’m resisting it. It makes me sleepy to think already about writing a second book. But I am already thinking, if I am honest, about writing Gilded Relationships because the very same traps that carve us into, us into a corner in our careers.

Kimberly Snyder (38:57.485)
Mmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (39:03.276)
boxes into a corner in love. Just as I once found myself in the wrong career and massively burned out and never satisfied, and then brought myself to this new, gentler existence and the career of my dreams, gilded is essentially that story. I also tell a side story, which is that I was once in a terrible, terrible marriage, and that marriage was born of the exact same hustle and drive and status seeking.

Kimberly Snyder (39:28.078)
Mmm. It looked good on the outside.

Coach Keren Eldad (39:31.714)
but looked good on the internet, but really felt terrible at home. And that’s one of the other things that happened in my previous life. I remember once sitting across the table from him and thinking, how did this guy ever get to sit in the same table with me? Which is a very weird feeling. Today, my relationship is, if I’m sitting across from Ryan at the table, I think, what did I do in my last lifetime to deserve this guy? It’s just so different. It’s so good.

It’s so real. This is what I want for everybody. And I want everyone to understand that the shadows you’re buying that are creating a career that is unfulfilling and a financial life that is unfulfilling are the exact same shadows that you’re buying if you are in a relationship that is unfulfilling.

Kimberly Snyder (40:18.233)
Wow, it just, you just brought tears to my eyes. I really had that experience as well, Karen, you my past relationship. then, I mean, there is this through line, right? It’s like authenticity rises. You feel different in your spiritual life. You feel different in your career life, in your purpose, in your family life, in your relationships. So, yeah, wow.

Coach Keren Eldad (40:33.837)
Yeah.

Coach Keren Eldad (40:42.251)
Everything changes.

Kimberly Snyder (40:46.859)
Okay, so thank you for sharing that with us. How amazing.

Coach Keren Eldad (40:48.684)
My pleasure. I hope you all meet Ryan. He’s very special. He’s never been to Jerusalem yet. Can you believe it?

Kimberly Snyder (40:55.892)
my gosh, why not?

Coach Keren Eldad (40:57.868)
We haven’t had the chance to go. We will very soon.

Kimberly Snyder (41:01.337)
Authenticity, can you talk about that as a power?

Coach Keren Eldad (41:06.006)
Yes, it’s the only power, it’s the only one worth cultivating. I was recently on a podcast called To Be Magnetic and that’s all they talk about, it’s their catchword. I think authenticity means two other words that are very big catchwords, vulnerability and integrity. A very simple word for authenticity is just honesty. Honesty is the truth of who you are. And most of us think that we’re being authentic when we’re nowhere near authentic. We lie like hell, we lie all the time.

Kimberly Snyder (41:13.55)
Mm.

Kimberly Snyder (41:33.571)
Right.

Coach Keren Eldad (41:36.044)
We put on pretenses. We uphold an ego identity for a very long time. And some of us have upheld it for so long, we actually think that’s who we are. So for example, sometimes when somebody gets fired, they start behaving like they’ve lost someone died. And that’s not what happened. It just means their ego is over identified with themselves as their work. This is just a lie. Your authenticity is that part of you.

Kimberly Snyder (41:54.371)
Right.

Kimberly Snyder (42:00.482)
Wait.

Coach Keren Eldad (42:04.908)
that is non-negotiable, that has always been and will always be, that is really familiar to you, that is always seeking harmony and love and peace and friendship. And I know that sounds super kumbaya, but that is the truth of who we are. Every time we deviate from that, we are outside of our authentic power and we move into force. Force looks like power, but it is not power. Does that make sense?

Kimberly Snyder (42:34.379)
Yes. And of course the amazing book by David Hawkins, Power vs. Wow. If anyone

Coach Keren Eldad (42:38.71)
Exactly. Power versus force.

Coach Keren Eldad (42:43.402)
And Gary Zukov’s entire work, right? Which is all about people exerting force, hustling, working really, really hard, which creates insatiable energy. I have to have this. I have to have them. I have to get this instead of power, is like, yay, brownies. It’s just really chillaxed energy. Yeah.

Kimberly Snyder (43:03.745)
Yeah. Things come, things go. So actually getting dumped or getting fired could actually be such an incredible blessing. You could learn so much. You could sort of like take that sacred pause, like you mentioned, and, you know, sort of contemplate your next step and maybe more abundant or expansive place is waiting.

Coach Keren Eldad (43:22.666)
Exactly. You let it flow.

Kimberly Snyder (43:25.505)
Well, Karen, thank you so much for sharing some of your wisdom. Is there anything else about Gilded that we didn’t get to cover that you’d like to share with our audience before we close out here?

Coach Keren Eldad (43:38.53)
Well, I really appreciate the chance for anybody to check out the work if it’s helpful to them. I do want to say that the work is a Trojan horse. I think most teachers who teach you the truth are not actually helping you to get better and stronger and richer. We’re helping you to break free. And so come, you will find everything you’re looking for. But ultimately, my hope is that you experience this book as something that gives you

Kimberly Snyder (43:55.511)
Hmm.

Coach Keren Eldad (44:06.816)
not the things, but the courage to reject everything in your life that is not true to you so that you can build something much, much better.

Kimberly Snyder (44:16.089)
So powerful, right from your heart. We feel it, Karen. Thank you so much for your courageous authenticity and choosing this subject matter to write about, which I believe will help many. Once again, everyone, the book title is Gilded, Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism and the Relentless Pursuit of More, Karen Eldad. Karen.

Coach Keren Eldad (44:23.022)
Thank you.

Kimberly Snyder (44:40.537)
Gotta ask, even though you say, know, whatever books are sold, I’m sure is the answer. But tell us where we can get your lovely book.

Coach Keren Eldad (44:43.608)
Correct.

wherever books are sold.

Kimberly Snyder (44:48.601)
Where you go? So we will link directly to it in our show notes. It is out now. Is there an audio version as well? Amazing. good. So we can listen, we can read. Thank you again, Karen, so much. I so enjoyed chatting with you and thank you so much for sharing really vulnerable parts of your story. I just loved it. So everyone, please check out the show notes.

Coach Keren Eldad (44:55.628)
There is. And I’m told it’s very good.

Coach Keren Eldad (45:07.758)
Same, I look forward to seeing you again.

Kimberly Snyder (45:15.523)
Again, we’ll link directly to Karen’s work and her book at mysaluna.com. We’ll be back here soon for another interview. Remember, we are switching to a once a month Q &A format, which will be the first Thursday of the month with top tips around the four corners, Jones, food, body, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth. Thank you again so much. Look forward to connecting with you all more. And till then, sending you much love. See you back here soon.