the bossbabe podcast - Are you addicted to work and achievement? Exploring the concept of “never enough” and how to finally unlock alignment.

Episode Date: June 16, 2026

In this episode, Natalie sits down with Keren Eldad — coach to some of the world's highest achievers and author of Gilded and the new Gilt Free — to unpack why external success never delivers the safety it promises. Keren shares the three core wounds beneath achievement addiction, the "gilded cage" so many high-achieving women are trapped in, and the surprising income threshold where what you want out of life finally starts to change. You'll learn how to recognize the wound driving your hustle, why "assume everyone likes you" became her most viral piece of advice, and the riptide rule for holding onto success without letting it consume you. If you've ever achieved everything you set out to and quietly wondered why it's still not enough, this episode is the reframe and the way out. Time Stamps:  03:50 The gilded cage: when the shiny life is the trap 07:50 "Yes, we're addicts" — achievement as addiction 15:30 The 3 core wounds behind every overachiever 18:18 The success coach who still spirals when business slows 21:34 The $500K line that changes what you actually want 27:50 "Assume everyone likes you" — the rule that went viral 38:11 The riptide rule for holding onto success 48:28 Why scaling might be the wrong goal entirely 53:46 What real credibility in coaching actually looks like Links & Resources:  Pre-Order The Freedom-Based Business Method. Follow Keren: @coachkeren  Grab a copy of Keren’s book - Gilded: Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism, and the Relentless Pursuit of More Listen to Natalie on COACHED by Keren Eldad Sign Up For Our Free Weekly Newsletter & Get Insights From Natalie Every Single Week On All Things Strategy, Motherhood, Business Growth + More.  Drop Us A Review On The Podcast + Send Us A Screenshot & We’ll Send You Natalie’s 7-Figure Operating System Completely FREE (value $1,997).

Welcome back to the Boss Bay podcast. My guest today is Karen Eldad. She goes by Coach Karen, and she is one of the most sought after executive coaches working with really, really high achievers. She is the author of two books that honestly read like they were written for every single one of us in this audience. She works with the overachievers, the founders, the ambitious moms, the people who were wired to go after everything a little too hard, who might wake up one day with all the things they were chasing and still feel like it's never enough or if they're actually living a life that doesn't feel like theirs. She calls it the gilded cage, the shiny life that is quietly trapping you. And this is a really honest episode. We really, really go there. We dissect why so many ambitious women work themselves to the ground

into a state of burnout. And we uncover a lot of the core wounds that are driving that for so many of us. It was really, really, really powerful. I walked away from this episode with so many aha moments and a reminder that this work is never done. In this conversation, we truly are getting into all of it and why success is not going to save you. Like I said, this conversation really hit home for me. I think it will for you as well. And while we are on the topic of books, her book, Guilt Free is out now. really recommend you grab a copy. And when you were there, pick up a copy of the freedom-based business method because my book is out. It's on shelves. And already we are getting the most

incredible reviews. So I just want to say a huge, huge thank you to every single one of you who've supported. So with that, let's dive in. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Natalie. It's just an honor. Pleasure to be here. I'm really excited to talk to you because I feel like we wrote very parallel books. The messaging in both books is a lot of similar languaging and I think mine's a hybrid of your two books together. I first want to start by asking you, who is your typical client? What do they come to you struggling with? My typical client is an overachiever. And by that I mean not a person who has succeeded above and beyond, but a person who has a really screwy relationship to effort and work. One of those people who is wired intensely and goes after something with all their

force. So they are alpha moms, they are superstar Olympians, they are founders, they, anything they do, they just do a little bit too hard. And I realized that when I started to realize what I am. And what they're usually contending with is the dissolution of the dream that they had, this unusual, relentless ability to work and to pursue will land them at some point at a point of arrival where all is good and everything has been resolved forever. And so they're frustrated first with their results not landing, but they're also feeling aimless. They're feeling lonely. They're feeling like they've betrayed themselves. They're usually in some kind of a Faustian bargain, a deal with the devil. They sort of know that what they've been aiming at has not hit the mark.

And by not hit the mark, do you mean that they've ticked all the boxes on paper, but nothing internally? Both. Number one, they're working really, really hard and they don't understand why it's not working, why they're not landed in the dream life? Why don't I have multi-millions of dollars and followers and the top billing and the New York Times bestseller list and the husband or the wife? Or, and that's the most aggressive, most avert case, you should be very lucky if that happens to you. Or they have gotten on. all of the accoutrements, but for some reason, they can't stop chasing and they never feel like it's enough, and they're actually starting to feel on the inside very differently from what life

looks like on the outside. These are both forms of what I call a gilded cage, or what many people call a gilded cage. It's a very, very shiny facade that is actually trapping you. The illusions are confining you. They've actually become something that you need to maintain and sustain, and at some point the bargain, it doesn't work anymore. Yeah, there's one thing you say in the book. It's in chapter one and you say, the reason so many successful, capable people end up exhausted, brittle and quietly unhappy, even when everything worked, is the illusion that hooks high achievers, which is the belief that success will save us.

Yeah. And it sounds like that's what you're talking about. They believed if they hit all of those things, if they ticked all of those boxes, they will be saved, but from what? They will become impressive, and essentially impressive to them is freedom. Most of us, inadvertently as children, hated not looking impressive, hated not hitting the mark, and suffered the slights, the rejection of not measuring up and of not excelling. So we then spend the rest of our lives doing our very best to make sure that you do like me. And you do think I'm fantastic. Unfortunately, that becomes your God. And it is a very, very mean master.

So where do you start with clients like that who come to you? They have this hungry ghost. They are never satisfied. They're constantly keeping up with the Joneses. They have all the things. And I'm going to assume, because I also have seen it a lot, they have outwardly all the flashy things that probably they're struggling to afford and continue keeping up with. Yes. Where do you start with that person? So the first thing we start at is the first place that any person you deal with who has an addiction you start at, which is you have to admit that you have a problem. And until you do, as long as you're trying to convince me, I can stop whenever I want, then I cannot help you. And my job is not to convince you or to push you.

As my rabbi always says, if an old lady doesn't want to cross the street, do not drag her. And so instead what I encourage people to do is really reach the point of admission. And the beginning of my programs is always about blowing open your self-awareness by allowing you to reach a state at which you can say, Karen, this isn't working. Can you help me? And as soon as you can do that, we can start moving you through the next steps. By the way, the beginning of Gilded is literally about that. It's to help you to recognize that your life actually is not as good as it seems.

and I have to tell you something hilarious, Natalie. A couple of people when I gave the many, many talks I gave after, at launching, Gilded, they literally like chased me down the hall after my talks to tell me, to tell me this doesn't apply to me. This doesn't resonate with me at all. You're wrong. And I thought, isn't it interesting that you thought to chase somebody down the hall to tell them that?

So the more triggered you are by the material, the more likely you are to spend more time there because you probably have to admit something. What do you mean by it's not as good as you think? Your life has got a glitch in it. I'm sorry to say you're covering something up. I'm sorry to say something is not working for you. Something about your life is a lie. And it's very hard for us to confront that

because we understand inadvertently that if I confront that lie, it will all fall apart. Look at what you did. When you started to understand that your freedom was actually a farce and you had built yourself a hell of a cage, you had to then confront that and understand that everything that you've built was something that was probably going to need rebuilding or at least a contention with. And then you had to go through, as you told on my amazing podcast coach, I hope everybody listens to that episode with Natalie.

You said you had to go through a dark night of the soul. Well, here's the deal, Natalie. Most people will do anything to avoid that dark night of the soul, even absurd things to avoid it. It's my hope that we bring them to a place that feels safe and contained, and we give them an example so remarkable and so happy that they will continue to come along with us and they will willingly go into that dark night. You mentioned addiction, which is definitely the right word to describe what a lot of us get caught up in, in work, in achievement. Yes, we are addicts. Yeah, yes. I definitely would say that.

But what's hard about, and all addictions are hard, what's hard about this addiction specifically is you get so well rewarded for it. And so how do you even think about breaking an addiction that rewards you so handsomely with the money, the followers, the status, the fill in the blank? There are only two ways to get out of this addiction. Number one is you're going to hit a crash. It's going to cost you something. Your wife's going to leave you.

This is what I see all the time. your wife's going to leave you, the company dissolves, your business partner stabbed you in the back. That's usually like the circumstances where they just have to confront that this is not enough and they're actually not safe. They're on quicksand. So first is trauma. But the second is really the decision, the conscious decision that whatever this is is exhausting me and I can't really do this, that takes, I think, an enormous amount of strength because you really do have to say, screw the money and the number of followers, I can't live like this anymore. And honestly, both cases are valid.

It just depends on which one hits you first. And what's the other option? So what does it look like to be still doing what you love, to be fulfilled creatively, to have a purpose in work and not be addicted or not be struggling with it? Well, as I found, it's quite wonderful. To live from a place where enough is not even a question anymore, where you are living in service of something much bigger than yourself, and therefore you're not worried so much about the ground beneath your feet evaporating.

To make choices that are authentically yours, to marry someone you love and you want to be married to, to have the kind of business that you want to be in, to get to wake up and do something that truly feels like your soul's calling, there's genuinely nothing like it. So the work is really, really worth your while. And you know what's not good enough for me? Is anybody who says, no, no, my marriage is fine.

And actually, it's okay to have some difficulties because they're supposed to be like this. Or business, nobody really loves working. This is just it. No, it's not. I'm letting you know that paradise is available to you here on earth and making a choice that is beneath that is you shooting yourself in the foot. And you talk about in the book getting to that choice starts with first deciding what that is. And you talk specifically about a statement. And you say the statement might look like a new neighborhood, new city or new home.

It might look like a new relationship or a courageous ending of one that no longer fits, a skill, a business, reworking how you spend your time. Sometimes it's simple and as radical as saying no to busy work and yes, to rest, pleasure and spaciousness. That's on statement making. But for someone who hears me read those words and just thinks there's no way I could get to that, no way I can imagine having that conversation or leaving that relationship or maybe I just can't even conceive what clarity looks like because I've been living a life I think I should be living for so long. Well, first of all, enjoy that because it's a false statement. In other words,

if you want to stay there, it's not my job to shake you out of it or to force you out of anything. You're getting something out of this bargain and you will stay there so long as you get to not fail. what you're really saying is I'm afraid to try. I'm afraid to try even a micro-statement move. And I'm afraid because I'll get shut down. There's not very much anyone can do for you in that state. But if you start to really feel that perhaps you can do something about it, something small, it doesn't have to be, have the conversation or say, I want a divorce. We don't have to go there. No sudden moves. But I did always want to. take an interior design course and you actually move on it. You are already making a micro

statement for the reclamation of your soul. And then the more you take moves like that, the more they compound and ultimately become what you are. And how long before someone comes to you with re-admitting they've got a problem to being in a position to make a statement for something else, are we looking at? In my program, about six weeks. Okay. And what kind of work are they doing in that Six weeks between... In the first half, they're doing deep mindset and healing work in a very safe container, and that means that we traverse not only mindset beliefs, hiccups, but also inner child, shadow work and reparenting. And then once you're really coming to a place of greater wholeness, you have a place of greater strength, because now you have your back. And you also have some new

premises upon which you can really build a stronger world. And again, that's what Gilded is about, is to give you new premises, new ways to think, that help you to play really to win instead of playing not to lose. And that's such a central concept that I'd love to share with people, Natalie, if you'll allow me. As you know, I'm a huge fan of the movie Crazy Rich Asians, which is undoubtedly the greatest movie of the last 10 years.

And in it they make a very clear point that entire movie is a game theory movie, which is many people think they're playing to win when they're in fact just hedging their bets, covering their duriers and, playing it safe to just keep what they have. But if you're ready to really, really be an overachiever, in other words, get the achievements and the happiness,

then you're going to have to put your money where your mouth is. And for that, you need new premises. You need new premises that are less scarcity-based and more abundance-based. You need to believe in the possibility that this conversation will go well, and that's what's waiting for me on the other side is probably not death in order to actually move.

and that's when you can make bigger and bigger statements. So when you're playing not to lose, is that very much scarcely you're holding on to everything that you have? Playing to win, is that taking bets on yourself? Absolutely. Scarcity is basically, so as you know, scarcity is there are finite resources. We're all competing for them. And if Natalie has cat, Karen has less cat.

So this is very, very hard for anyone to grapple with and usually what it creates is catastrophizing when we are imagining new scenarios. The abundance mindset, in stark contrast, wires you for thinking and considering more than one possibility, hopefully, multiple possibilities. And some of those possibilities might actually not only not be catastrophic, but might be good. When you start to game that way, then any action that you back up with, it will most likely land farther along than where you are. That's the whole game.

We're not saying I want you to go from I will die to I will become a multimillionaire who thrives. We just need you to get from I might not die. And there are a couple of ways in which this turns out a little bit okay. That's it. That makes a whole sense. One thing you said in there is around inner child healing and reparenting. And I'm very curious, this achievement addiction. Do you notice that it stems from like a few of the same core wounds?

Of course. What are those? Well, there are five very common core wounds, but the three most likely. And if you're not familiar with Jungian core wounds or these ideas, I'm happy to give references or anything like that, or the work of Dr. Carolyn Elkitt, other Jungians who are interested. The three most typical core wounds are the worth or conditional worth wound, the invalidation wound, and the abandonment or betrayal wound. So the conditional worth wound is what I have. I was an adorable child. Learned very quickly that if she wins spelling bees, she gets chocolate cake or gets A's, she gets stickers. And then I get praise for my parents. This makes you a junkie of achievement, a dancing bear. And so that's what you're aiming at again and again and again. To become aware of it is 50% of liberation from it. Just start understanding, oh, that's what I'm doing. That's why I get so freaked out when there's a lull in my business.

I think that they're going to take the chocolate cake away. Number two, abandonment or betrayal wound, very common in children who had parents who were addicted to something. They were emotionally unavailable, unavailable, let alone parents who left. That is when you really do worry very much about abandonment, and so you preempt in your behavioral patterns against abandonment, and that makes you hyper-controlling, hyper-vigilant, really an over-functioner in almost every way, and a caretaker who usually had to take care of the parents or stepped into adult role when they were a child, and they become like that in their marriages, in their businesses, et cetera, et cetera. And the third core wound, which again, of course, also stems for childhood, is invalidation.

If you were told, many times as a child, by our antiquated school system that you are inadequate, actually, you're not that smart. Or your parents told you you weren't that smart. You will start to cancel yourself out. And then no matter what you get, you will not, that imposter syndrome is not going to leave you. You'll literally disqualify yourself before you even try. The secret here is to just start understanding that these are my automatic behaviors to, and then to really engage with the beliefs around them and with the actual circumstances. And when you become aware enough to be able to do that, which hopefully my first book allows you to do, you're going to start to have a smoother right around here.

And you're saying, really, if you just... just become aware you can reduce this by 50%. Absolutely. Let's talk about business for a second if it's okay. So last year, something very terrible happened to me, Natalie, very, very terrible indeed. After a year in which my business completely blew up and everything went really, really well for me, in the fourth quarter of the year, my business went back to normal. And I was very sad. I said to Ryan, my husband, is it possible it was all a fluke?

Is it possible I'm not as successful as I think, oh no, I didn't arrive, did I? In other words, I was immediately starting to make it mean I am not. not good. I am not safe. This is not safe. I cannot trust this. Conditional worth wound. I am only safe. I am only worthy when I am seen and validated and met with the right response. Because I do what I do for a living, I caught it pretty quickly. And I also cut it through my behaviors, not even the way I was berating myself or how sad I was. I move into what I call Monica from Friends mode, and I start cleaning everything obsessively and organizing stuff. And when I started to realize I'm doing that, I went, oh, no, you're scared. You're scared. Okay, let's challenge the premises. Is the business

unsafe? Are you likely to end everything now? Is it likely to never come back to the spike levels? Really? And when I caught that, I realized this is all in my head and I can relax. And instead of moving into hustle mode and overwork mode and produce more offers mode, you know what I did? I went to Miami because nothing bad ever happens in Miami. I recovered and I got back to work and everything's okay. Yeah, it's so interesting how you can even yourself fall back into those patterns as soon as you reach another level and you want to hold onto that thing so tightly. It's almost like the universe as well, we'll teach you a lesson.

Absolutely. And the holder, the more controlling you are, the more you grip, the more you're perpetuating the unfreatment based business. as you know. Because technically you're literally building yourself just a shinier cage, which is, by the way, why I wrote a sequel. I wrote a sequel because a lot of people read Gilded became much more preference-based, much more successful. But then I realized they were using the book not to become more free, but to become shinier, to become even more impressive. And so I thought, well, you know what, why don't we help you push your money where your mouth is the real way?

Yeah, I love that so much. And so speaking of that, in the new book, you talk about the new all. So the new definition of success is an external. And you get into a few different things. Alignment, authenticity, aliveness, which is also mastery, impact and peace. But I'm curious, do you feel like you have to reach a certain level of external success to be able to play in those arenas? Because I think for myself, when I was in that survival mode of trying to pay the bills, trying to cover rent, I don't know that I had those five things or was I just looking at it wrong. No, you're completely right. You said this on the podcast episode that you just came on with me, which is money does buy you a lot of great stuff.

And actually, this is backed by science. The scientific research, I work a lot with disc assessments and with motivators' assessments. And we've learned that people's motivators change. In other words, their success hallmarks change only after they make more than $500,000 per year. That's a random number, but that's the number. Wow. In other words, until they reach that state, they're not really looking or asking for greater meaning and for greater freedom, for true freedom. And that's when you start to see their motivators start to change in their hierarchy of desires.

And that's actually exactly what happened to me. I like to say that it's a great privilege to be able to speak this way because I am financially free. And unless I had been at a certain level where I really could trust that I can feed me. myself no matter what and take care of a medical emergency no matter what, then really I couldn't have this conversation. And so that's why I always say do things in the right order. There's a time for building this and getting that business that's soluble and that financial freedom off the ground. And then there's a time for real freedom. Yeah, I did not know that about the $500,000 number, but that makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense. Because it really is when it

it takes a lot of that survival off the table, you are in that privileged position of being able to question the, look at the bigger questions in life. So I think that's really, really, really powerful. So thinking about that, first, would you say the book is for that person who has made that? Okay, that's really, really interesting. I think a lot of people listening to this. Or people who are married to people who make that. Thank you very much. Right. Faustian bargain is a Faustian bargain. True. I think a lot of people listening to this podcast probably are at that point.

They have made the money and they're starting to question, okay, who am I now? What do I care about? So it's a, it's a beautiful place to be. And what I will also say that I feel like is true is that first amount of wealth that I built was because of the core wounds. And so they served me really well. You know, I think about the way that I grew up and what I choose to have that childhood again, probably not. And at the same time, it has served me incredibly well. to have those core wounds and to have this tenacious drive because I will sometimes have conversations with other people who never had that and it took them a lot longer to get there. Do you see that being a commonality in the people you work with? Totally. And I want to say just something a little bit about the core wound, about the inner child strategy.

What happens is you never really get rid of them, but you do befriend them. You do find tremendous compassion for them. You like a lot of the things that they brought with them. I mean, my core wounding, as I like to say, kept me thin and kept other standards of mine quite high all of my life. So I'm quite grateful to her in many, many ways. It's just that she doesn't run my life anymore. And that's what you really want.

The whole art of coaching is not about solving your specific problems. It's about solving the way you think so that you can attain a state of wholeness. From a state of wholeness, you make better decisions. From better decisions, you produce a better life. And so wholeness really is not all my problem solved forever and I got rid of all of those things. It's I know how to live with them and they are not a definition anymore. You'll become the master of your own mind rather than your mind being your master. It does make me think about raising kids because so often, you know, I'm constantly, oh, I don't want to fuck them up.

I don't want to X, Y, Z and listen, I know it's always going to happen. We're human beings raising human beings. and I think it is probably important for them to have some level of resilience, you know? It is important for them to have challenge even if they grew up in privilege and they're not growing up in scarcity. Yeah, that's absolutely right. And that's a very wise thing to understand. You will never be perfect whether you like it or not because they are children with their own agency. And it's also exactly, it's not just that they need friction, they need individuation in order to become the human beings that they are. So they will rebel against you. and that's a natural part of the process.

The only thing that will really help you through this process is awareness that it's coming and that it's natural and that it is. And the ability to stay present through that is going to really allow you to weather this through all of your days. Yeah, and I think it takes a little bit of pressure off of like, you know what, you don't need to do a perfect job, but you need to set them up to be resilient enough to handle challenges like this when they inevitably do arrive.

Yeah. Yeah. The biggest problem in our society today, I think, Jonathan Haid, talks about all the time, is coddling. And to not coddle is not to not love. It's to allow these superstars to be the superstars they are. And that brings me to, like, the central premise of Guilt Free, which is always make the opposite presumption, challenge your presumption. If you're really afraid that you'll fuck them up, then inadvertently you may have to contend with the belief, I could fuck them up because they're actually fragile, delicate. little doilies. But are they fragile, delicate little doilies? No, they're superstars. I don't know, Naomi personally. She looks like a superstar. And they will grow up to be superstars. You were a superstar. So how about we have a little bit more faith in them and operate from there? When we start operating from the opposite premise, not the premise that scares us, the scarcity premise, but the premise that has promise, the abundance premise, we have very different results. Yeah, I think it's a very freeing thought. Yeah. I think it's really freeing. It's also much more accurate. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's not just

freeing. It's not like a nice thing to think. This isn't toxic positivity. It is backed up by real transformational results. It's really powerful. I like the opposition thinking too, because one thing you do in your book is an anti-rule or an anti-rule for the Americans listening. And one of them I just absolutely loved was assume everyone likes you. And I think this is really, really, you. And I think this is really, really powerful. Can you talk a little bit about this rule? Sure. It's gone viral. I'm really excited that people love it. And I really want people not to just absorb this as insight, but understand that this is something that you need to practice for the rest of your life if you want to be free in business and if you want to be free in life. Many of us are inadvertently, and this is why this is

the lead psychology, whether we are aware of it or not. And if you think about it a little bit, you will become aware of it. Every time we enter a new room or a new dynamic, we assume we are bracing for rejection. We are bracing for them not to like us. We are bracing for this business and this party not to reciprocate to us and to somehow disappoint us in some way. This is already a failing premise. If you enter a new conference with the assumption that people are not, or that some people may not receive your message and may reject you, and there's always going to be the possibility that you get on that stage or you get into that room and you will notice the one person who's sitting there with their arms crossed who genuinely does not enjoy you.

But that's just one person. The elite psychology is to be able to turn your other cheek, as Jesus taught, and to scan your room for all the other people who might actually like you. The assumption that people like you is the groundbreaking assumption that allows you to be visible, that allows you to take chances, that allows you to start businesses, and that allows you to climb that ladder with much greater ease and much, much more fun. In the book, I give the example of Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy Fallon, I have never found very compelling, interesting, or funny, except for the Barry Gibb talk show, which was very, very funny.

I never understood how he then got from what I personally, as a follower of comedy, don't find so funny, to the head of the Tonight Show, to the Tonight Show gig. And when I learned about him, I realized that actually it probably had a lot to do with his personality. He is one of those people who, since he was very, very young, took a shot and believed that he belonged in the room. When a big-time agent called him, he didn't freak out about it or behave like he was discombobulated. He really accepted the call and was super friendly and thought that she would like him. Why, why not? And when he got on Saturday Night Live, unlike most people who were afraid of Lauren Michaels,

he befriended Lauren Michaels. He wasn't afraid of Lauren Michaels. He went up to him every night after the show. When you make that assumption and you really do take action from it, The things that will happen to you are nothing short of magical. I've made that assumption in two areas of my life that have changed my life. Number one, dating. Until probably my late 30s, I dated inadvertently and got married inadvertently,

hoping that somebody would like me, hoping that some nice man would find me charming enough to close that deal. I remember, by the time I met Ryan, I'd been coached for so long that I showed up on my date thinking, you know what, I like me. And I like my outfit today, and I think maybe I should focus on whether I like him. And that really changes your energy and changes the exchange. And the second place that this really changed my game was in business. It's not just that I assume people will like me and will want to buy something from me.

It's also I assume that my peers will like me and support me. I personally DMed Gay Hendricks to get on my show, because we both like cats and I figured I'd like to talk to him about cats. And it turns out he is as friendly as he looks and he responded. All of the great magic of my career has been sort of like that moment. I just took a chance and I assumed that nine out of ten times I'm going to get a positive response and it's right. I love this so much and I think it ties a lot back to the conversation we had at the beginning too around and I call it playing status games, you know, building all of the shiny, things, the gilded cage, I wonder if you're approaching things more from people are going to like me

and you already have that inherent self-worth, maybe you are less likely to feel like you need all the things to be liked. Do you think there's a big thing? Of course, because you have inner safety. You see, that's what people are not understanding when they're in that cage. They're actually building themselves more quicksand. They're not safe. And so every move that they make, even assume people like you is still a Machiavellian move. It's an attempt to conquest, to conquer people, to get them to like you. That is not the assumption that people like you. The assumption that people like you, some people won't and that's fine. Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, I've seen people play what I call relationship chess, where it's always about this person can help me

get to this person and this person will introduce me to this person and I should befriend this person because, you know, at some point that relationship will pay off. And I've seen this. And I think it must be one of the emptiest ways to live. Because I can't imagine those relationships feel fulfilling. And I almost wonder, is it coming from that place of assuming people won't like you for you? And so you feel like, well, if I go into these relationships with a purpose, it doesn't matter if they like me because I get something out of it. But that's the point.

You think that you need to get things out of people because you think that if you don't get things out of people, you have nothing. In other words, you're already playing from an empty cup. As I quote Naval Ravikant in the book, you want to play like a shark, you will eat well, but you will be surrounded by sharks. And at the end of the day, it's not just unfulfilling, is dangerous. It's a really dangerous way to live, and you end up alone, essentially, with no one you can truly rely on, nobody who really has your back. And if that's the life that you've created, then what exactly is it worth? It's my hope to talk about this in moralistic terms and harsh terms in guilt-free, which even has a disclaimer, because I want people

to fear that state. I want people to understand that this does not end well. And it's my real hope, or my earnest hope, that they absorb the framework in this book, the gold framework, which are four mindset moves, G-O-L-D, for freedom, so that they arrive at results that are not only better, but that actually produce a life that will have your back. I want to talk more about that, because that is Very powerful, the shark analogy. Hmm. I want to talk specifically about what you said with, they assume they need to get something from other people because it's not going to come from them.

It comes back to that scarcity piece. Yeah, because without that, I have nothing. I am nothing. That's how they think. That's why they're taking from other people. Anyone who is a taker is operating from an emptiness, from lack, from a, a cup that is unful. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to fill the cup.

But unfortunately, that's a cup that comes with a bunch of holes. Nothing is going to stay there. Compare that to somebody who knows that they have everything, no matter what. They have themselves. They have courage. They have dignity. They have integrity. They love.

There are people who can love. That's really it. No one can take anything away from a person like that. And you don't use people. You use things. I really, really hope that landed. really want people to hear that because I want to bag it up and say I've been lucky enough to be invited in some really fancy rooms and I have met fancy people who operate like sharks and I've

met fancy people who don't. The ones who don't, they carry themselves differently. They don't walk into those rooms thinking what they can take from every single person. They go in very open heart. Here's what I have to give. They are not coming at you with all of these things that they want from you. And I find that whether they have more relationships, I don't know, but they have seemed to have way more fulfilling ones. I think sometimes I thought arriving in the fancy room means I've arrived. And for me, what it was is that big lesson of the two types of people in that room. I coach a lot of people in the fancy rooms. And let me tell you what I've found in those rooms, anxiety and smoking. So pick your poison. Yeah. And what I've also noticed is the

conversation in rooms of ambitious achievers, whether the room is fancy or less fancy, the conversation's always the same. And it's always this feeling of never enoughness, never feeling good enough, not feeling like they're a hungry ghost over and over and over. Anxiety and smoking. Yeah. Smoking is a euphemism for all other addictions. Numbing through social media, numbing through alcohol, numbing through pills, numbing through busyness. that's what you find in those rooms. And the difference is to be self-possessed enough to love them and to show them the love that they deserve and need in that moment, but also to know that you already have everything that you want outside of that room. So you're cool. I love this conversation

so much. And there's another thing that keeps coming through this too. And I've talked about this. The way you summed it up in the book really deepened my understanding of this, of a feeling of if you really hold your wins or the things you want to win so tightly, they're so much less likely to happen or when they do happen, you've anticipated them so much. The only thing you can feel on the other side of it is let down. Because it never reached the height. There's a quote about anticipation I would recall if my brain was working enough.

But I want to read it out to you here. It says the moment you grip your winds too tightly, they slip through your fingers, the moment you floor with them, they tend to stay. Yes. The analogy I like to give is the analogy of a riptide. To learn how to be good at life is to learn how to manage a riptide. And as you already know, I like Miami very much and go there very often. And every time you're on those beaches, there's a sign that says, if you get caught in a riptide, do what? God knows I'd be terrible. Nothing. Okay, great. Do not attempt to swim. Okay.

What most people do in life when they get anything is they start to work as hard as possible, to keep it, to find their way back to safety to shore. Like in my lull in my business, my instinct, my human instinct was, how many offers can we fire off, how many levers can we pull as quickly as possible to get back to safety? But I know that to get good at life is to understand the riptide, which means you wait for the riptide to take you all the way out, until you are out of the riptide and safe to swim back to shore and you will have multiple ways to get back safely.

You cannot do it with the reptide. You will get exhausted and you will drown. And so to me, that's the most important understanding for all overachievers is your control, your perfectionism, your pursuit are working against you. They are not allowing you to surrender. They are not allowing you to flow. and anyone who knows anything about manifestation, the law of attraction, should already understand this is the Achilles heel. So I tackle it very early on.

So then where does someone begin? They're hearing this and they're like, yeah, okay, you've defined me this entire podcast. I'm delighted. So here are the steps. Four, you begin with getting your worth up, your deserve level up and you're worth up. And that can be a confidence game or a self-compassion game. I work people through several ways to get their deserve level or good enough level up in the first step, which is G, good enough. The second step is openness. You have to learn to play the abundance game. You have to open your mind, learn how to think for totality of possibilities versus one really bad possibility. That again requires work, and I have lots of tools and mindset ways, hacks to get you there.

The third is you'll, when you're feeling like a little more open, the third step's going to be natural. You're going to start feeling more frisky or lit up. You will start to align more and more with your purpose and your preferences because you've already started to make more and more statements, micro statements, that claim a stake in what you truly desire. And then, in this part, you got to do, you have to then move into a state of devotion. And this is where you stop relying on talent or on luck, as I like to say, Crew winning, choose consistency.

You have to dedicate yourself to the game, and you have to care way, way, way more about the game and about just repeating the steps that you've already started to take than about the score. The score is where you move all the way back to step two, and you're clinging again. That means you've got to go back into flow.

And so these are designed for you to really find where are you in the process and where can you move one step further towards your manifestation and your happiness, your ease at any juncture. I love this so much and you've mentioned manifestation and law of attraction a few times. I'm curious what your practice with that looks like. I mean, I live with Esther Hicks first and with my husband second. I'm a very big law of attraction person. It took me a really long time to wrap my head around it because as a person who thinks of themselves in fancy academic

terms, you know, I was educated in your universities in the UK. I kind of thought this was woo-woo and spiritual and nonsense, but now I understand that it's very simple, it's a framework, and it's truly, I mean, you can measure anything by it. It just works. The practice that I work on the most, the component of the law of attraction or manifestation that I work on the most is surrender, the state of surrender. Surrender has really helped to counteract my biggest Achilles heel, all overachievers Achilles heel, which is control. Control, taking score. How much money are making? Have we hit our bells? How much do I wait today? Etcetera, et cetera, is really counterbalanced when you understand that that means I'm not in flow and I'm not allowing all the goodness of the

universe to reach me. The misconception around surrender is that that means you now no longer work. You don't do anything anymore. You just give it all up. That's not what surrender means. What surrender means is you give up the suffering. You give up the yearning, the struggle, the obsession, the obsessive counting, the taking score. You just allow yourself to want the thing and to find the easiest path of least resistance towards it. Most of my practices dedicate just at that step. How do you differentiate between surrender and apathy or disassociation?

They feel completely different. You see, apathy or disassociation means that the thing that you desire either becomes painful to think about. or you, and to the point where you become angry around it. So the emotional currences around that are negative. Surrender means you still want the thing, love the thing, and think about it in glowing colors. You just don't suffer anymore. You're not mad about it.

You don't need to detach from it or to just kick it out of your sight. So it still feels neutral, but you still want it. Yeah. It feels good. Yeah. Your desire feels good to you. detachment or apathy means your desire feels terrible to you, so terrible that you've decided to disconnect from it.

That makes sense. Do you feel like when we talk about in this book getting to the other side and doing things from a very different place, that inner freedom, do you think that comes from more of a neutral place of, so one thing I find when I'm running my business now is we'll set a launch goal. I'm very neutral as to whether we hit it or not. Yes. I would like to, but if we don't, yes.

My day after lodge looks no different whether I do or don't hit it. You know what I mean? Totally. So I like to call this fuck it energy. Yeah. And forgive the swearing if you're delicate. You and I have a mutual friend, Jasmine Starr. We were just talking about this.

I told her I was doing a second book. She immediately did what she does best, which is, all right, so this is how you sell this many books, and this is how this book converts to a funnel. And this is how we should. And I went there. I literally looked there and said, I don't care. I genuinely don't care. That's not how I play this.

I don't really think about the launch period as the life cycle of the book. These books are evergreen. They will sell for years and years to come. They will find their audience. And I will, and if I really won't care because either way, I'm going to continue to do what I do. In other words, it will not bother me either way. And that's a state of real devotion. not just surrender, devotion, because you care about the work and about the service that the work is providing

more than you care about any outcome. I had the privilege of seeing this in action this week. I went to see Jerry Seinfeld perform right here in Austin. I've seen him many, many times before. And as he closed the show, Natalie, he's 75 years old. Can you believe it? It looks amazing. Yeah. The energy, the show that he gave. He left his heart on that floor. all I could think of was thank you so much for that because I really thought this is a guy who 20, 30 years ago didn't need to work another second of his life has no reason to do this other than for us, other than for us to give us the opportunity to thank him and to see him in person. That's what this is all about. The love of the game. Love of the game. Yeah, I have a mentor

or who I asked that question to. I said, what keeps you doing what you're doing? Because you've not needed to do this for many decades. And he said, it's the love of the game. That's freedom. Freedom is I get to do this, not I have to do this. Esther Hicks, 74 years old, every weekend, showing up, showing people love, answering their questions,

with discipline and with attention. Why? She definitely doesn't need to work. I really love that. And again, when you see it as a game, I think that's how you start to hold things. less tight. Yeah. Because it's a game. Well, you're going to die, so stop taking yourself so seriously. I love this so much. So guilt free is available now. It's actually spelled G-I-L-T. Yes. Because of course,

we're talking about fake gold. Yeah, I love it so much. People can go grab that. And then tell me a little bit about your business model. We've talked about the book. We've talked about the premise in it. Tell me a little bit about your business model. If someone's interested, what is your business model. My business model is private coaching, which I know is Kuku-Maluku at my level, but it's what I love to do, and it's what I want to do. So I have two ways of working with me. One is private. One is semi-private.

That still means in semi-private that I am leading every one of the sessions. The cohorts are under 10 people, and you will still see me privately a couple of times. Because I don't believe in templated advice. I don't believe in the peer, the mastermind guiding you. If you are coming to me, you probably need personal support and real help. And that's why I continue to do what I do. that is the principal business model, that's the offer, that's the main offer. I love that so much and I actually don't think that's crazy at all. I think that is real proof that you

walk your talk, whatever it's called. I mean, a lot of other coaches are like, you're not going to scale that way. Okay, I get it, but I am going to enjoy my life that way. I question the word scale. What does scale even mean? Why should we all want it? Exactly. Like, Ryan and I already have everything. We bought another house last week. Like, what else is there? I agree. Whenever, whenever someone comes to and says Natalie, how do I scale my business? I say, well, why do you want to scale? What does scale mean to you? What do you want? Tell me about this elusive word of scale. Because often what I hear is I want what I'm seeing everyone else have. I want what I think I should want. I remember having a client who had a one-to-one practice and she loved it. She was dietitian. She absolutely loved it. And she thought that she had to

graduate from one-to-one to group programs. And then she filled those. And she thought she had to graduate from that to work on the business, not in the business. She brought in all of these dietitians to deliver the work on her behalf. The revenue went up. The profit margins went down. She was taking home less money. She was more stressed than ever and she wasn't doing the stuff she loved. That was one of the first light bulb moments I decided to write my book.

Because I said, who has told you there is a blueprint you have to follow? If you loved one to one, why did you do it? Like fire all the dietitians. Get rid of all these programs that require you to be a full-time marketer and get back to doing the one-to-one that you love. Her profit margins went up, her happiness went up. Yeah. Calendale looked and felt way more in alignment. So I love when people own the business model they're meant to have. One of my biggest disappointments in coaching has been hiring a very, very expensive coach who gave me templated advice. In other words, you have to scale, you have to

turn this into a coaching business where you hire other coaches to do your work and the offers need to scale and the offers need to be diluted in the following. flowing ways. And I actually, because I'm a very diligent student and I paid her so much money, was like, sure, I'll do that. And none of it felt organic to me. The first thing is, how do you want to scale? Why do you want to scale? The second thing that you said that I really hope people heard is, when you make a lot more money, your profit starts to get squeezed. So you better understand what you're doing here and what you're doing this for. In my particular business model, what's really great is our profit margin is very high. And that's comfortable for me.

And I will scale to the point where I cannot take on more private clients, but our profitability will stay really, really solid. That works. I think that's great. What I often tell people, because a lot of people come to me for the passive income, they see the Instagram and they say, I want the passive income. And I say, well, firstly, you're not going to find that with me. You're going to find it in the stock market. Really, you know, your drawdown rate is the only form of passive income. And secondly, what I will tell you is if you are going to move from being delivering.

your product to having these products that deliver themselves, you don't immediately get free of your business. You switch from, let's say, their coach, being a coach full time, to being a marketer full time. Is that what you want? Is that what you want? Exactly. And otherwise, stock market, you'll become much richer, much faster. It's the only quote unquote, passive income by you're not working for it. Assets. Assets and stock market. So how do you think about your business model then? Obviously, you're writing the book because you want to have a bigger impact, but I'm assuming it's also top of funnel for you and helping clients to,

I talk about conversion events in my book, which it's a way of delivering massive value to a whole load of people and then you will have people self-select if they want to work with you. Is that a conversion event for you? Of course. I wrote the books, in all fairness,

for my clients. And again, it's only based on, I see the need and I write it for them. But what it is is a tremendous top of funnel because it allows many, many more people than usual to, hear your message, not only through the book, but through the vehicles that promote the book. And that allows your top of funnel to just, I mean, I could never create a pipeline like this

for myself. Like to be magnetic has created for me. Like my friend Natalie has created for me. There, you are introduced to many more people. They are introduced to your work. And if they resonate, they can start to meet me, either take or not take the onboarding and so on and so forth. So yeah, in that sense, it's tremendous. It's tremendous. I highly recommend this. Yeah, it's great. And I wanted to touch on it too because I think it then explains the business model. It helps explain why you do what you do and how you make decisions. It comes back to what purpose does this fulfill in my business. Cool. So I'm not going to focus on hitting this arbitrary list or X, Y, Z or selling the spook to people who are never going to read it, who aren't my eyes.

ideal client, I'm going to focus on this book fulfilling its purpose, which is finding the exact people who should read it and then come to me. Whereas so often I feel like even when people launch podcasts or YouTube channels or social, I was just talking about this on a podcast this morning, the goal so often can be, I want to get all the followers, I want to hit this milestone, I want to be recognized in this way. And I always say, well, is that going to grow your business? And if not why are we doing this in the first place? We're not doing this as a hobby. If it's not going to pay the bills. That's right. And by the way, that's why I don't enjoy hobby job people. In other words, if you're independently wealthy or you've married very rich, you're not, this is not the process for you.

Yeah. We're practical people. Yeah. I really agree. I have another question to ask you on the coaching realm, because you are the best of the best. You've been doing this for a long time and you have helped walk people through incredible transformation. I wonder, do you ever see the coaching industry in the way in which it's exploded and see some people who perhaps shouldn't be coaching. Yes. How do you feel about that? Very much against that. And I'm outspoken against that.

One of my core values that I espouse is integrity. And what I really cannot stand are people who do not walk the walk. Charlottons, fraudsters, and snake oil salespeople. This is a wild west of an industry. And it's still a wild west of an industry. But there are two ways to gauge for authenticity. The first, unfortunately, whether you like it or not is gold standard. accreditation, which is the International Coaching Federation. But the second, which I think is much

more important, is people who know whereof they speak and live whereof they speak, which means, number one, they have actually been through something. So with due respect, don't give me a 28-year-old life coach who talks about relationships when they're not married. There is nothing that bothers me more, nothing that bothers me more than an executive coach who has never been an executive. This is atrocious. And by the way, it's a lie. You should feel. terrible about it. The second is people who have themselves. I'm not saying we are perfect humans, but we are not cheaters. We are not swindlers. We are not liars. If you are encountering someone like Andrew Huberman who is a known swindler and cheater, then you should not work with that person.

And it is okay to speak up against that versus someone who walks in integrity, who has not done anyone wrong and who has not committed really big lies. That's, I'm not saying like, I don't know, I don't care if Jennifer Lopez says that she uses olive oil instead of Botox. You know what I mean? That's a nonsense lie. It's just if you're positioning yourself as a guru as a beacon of good living, as a beacon of integrity, then you better be a beacon of integrity. I think that is a really great note to end on. I really appreciate you sharing your honesty on that. And I wanted to to ask your opinion because I think it is really important when you are selecting who you want as your coach, as who you do want to take guidance from, you know, like you said about the business

coach that you worked with, you know, do I want a business that looks like theirs? Do they have similar integrity and do they have similar goals that I have? Do I want what they have? I think we have to have our own discernment in those arenas to ask those questions. I think it's really important. Yes, it really is. And I want to. And I want to. to thank you for being the person who does walk the walk. You're the real deal, buddy. And it's a true, true pleasure to see the incredible and important work that you're putting in the world. Thank you. Likewise, you're incredible. And this was the most amazing conversation. So I'm going to link guilt-free below for everyone to grab a copy. Have your podcast coached. Is there any other place

you'd like people to find you? What if they want a book a consult with you? The best way the book a consult is to go to caraneldad.com. And my name is spelled with two E's, Kareneldad. And you can get a free consultation and I will spend 30 minutes with you on me. The other way is at Coach Karen. My Instagram, I'm one of those people who really does like Instagram. And so I'm very, very happy to be of service there too. I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.