288 🌻 Break Free from Perfectionism & Burnout with Keren Eldad

Episode Transcript
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>> Keren Eldad (00:00):
I would not admit that something was wrong. I just

(00:02):
wouldn't admit that something was wrong until it became so
obvious to me that everything was wrong. I was in an
abusive marriage. Abusive. He threatened
my life, my cat's life, which I think was worse than
threatening my life. I remember,
though, the shit didn't hit the fan until
we were robbed. All of my things, of course, magically
disappear and I realized that he hadn't paid any of our bills.

(00:25):
So it wasn't until really like absolute trauma
started to happen that I started to go, all right, this
is not normal.

>> Wendy Valentine (00:32):
Hey there beautiful. I'm Wendy Valentine, your host
of the Midlife Makeover show, where it's never too
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(00:53):
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you decide.
Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover Show. I'm, your host, Wendy
Valentine. If you've ever felt like
you're doing all the things, chasing success,
juggling relationships, checking off life goals,
and yet, deep down, something still
feels off, then you're going to love
today's episode. Our guest is the brilliant and

(03:56):
charismatic Karen Eldad, AKA Coach
Karen. An internationally recognized
executive coach who helps high achievers
break free from the neverending hustle
and finally feel fulfilled. Her client
list reads like a red carpet.
Olympians, CEOs, supermodels,
Navy SEALs, and even Hollywood stars.

(04:18):
She's coached powerhouse brands like Estee, Lauder, ooh, My
Fave, Nike, and JP Morgan. And her
work has been spotlighted by goop, the
ICF, and Real Leaders magazine.
Coach Karen is also the founder of the club,
a global community of, leaders and change makers
devoted to next level living.

(04:38):
Today we're diving into the emotional traps that even the
most successful people fall into, like
perfectionism, burnout, and what Karen calls
the gilded cage. This conversation is
packed with wisdom, laughter, and life changing
insights. Please welcome Coach Karen to the show.

What a nice introduction. Thank you so much, Wendy. It's a pleasure to be
here.

Red carpet.

Yeah.

So I shared with you. I'm a recovering
perfectionist. What about you?

Recovering is the active verb.
It never quite goes away.

Right, I know it doesn't.
How did you. At what point in your life were you
aware? Like, oh my gosh, I'm being way too much of a
perfectionist. I've got burnout. I can't do this
anymore. I've got to change this.

Well, it was very easy for me to spot because my entire life
collapsed. And when your entire life collapses, as you
well know, Wende, you kind of have to smell the
coffee. You sort of have to confront the fact that
something is off here. In other words, that you've done
everything, quote unquote, right, and it still went
tits up. And when you have to confront that,
like the juxtaposition between I've chased

(05:54):
all the dreams, I've checked all the boxes, but everything
went wrong. You do have
a chasm that you cannot
miss. You literally can't miss it. So one of the
ways to spot that you are in a perfectionist,
quote, unquote nightmare is your
results. The second is actually your emotions.
And you'll see that the gilded superstars that

(06:16):
I get to work with are exactly the same as the rest of us
in that sense, except much, much more,
prone to the lull, the
humdrum, the quiet version of this. And
that is when you start to confront emotions
that are not congruent with your results. Your results,
look good out.
But you feel way off. You feel

(06:39):
aimless, you feel restless, you feel bored, you feel
worried, you feel anxious. You're constantly thinking about
starting over, but you can't actually take that
plunge. That's when you can also see
that there's a big chasm and you're likely in the clutches of some
form of perfectionism.

Do most, most people in that state, do they.
Does it appear as though they have their shit together on the
outside, but on the inside they're just crumbling?

Exactly. That's. That's it. And again, there's two
ways to see it. You can actually be outwardly crumbling
as I was. Divorce, massive
debt, my cats died and there was a fire.
Which actually don't have anything to do with this, but I do believe they
have something to do with the momentum and in your life.
And, you can also have the chasm

(07:24):
internally. Everything looks great on
Instagram but does not feel good.
You're numbing all the time. You're scrolling for
three hours at a time like some Gen Z
or typical of our generation at
all. And so that's, that's another thing that you
just have to confront. It's a sign. It's a sign that something's
wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that interesting though, that
sometimes we don't wake up until our
bodies are screaming at us, until there's
absolute chaos in our lives. And then we're like,
okay, fine, I'll listen.
And then we're so knocked down. But sometimes that's not
such a bad thing. Sometimes we need a breakdown to have a
breakthrough.

Not sometimes. Always. My book chapter
called Pray for a Shitstorm, and I really mean it.
In many cases, some people are not
moving until trauma comes to their door. And in that
sense, I hate to say it, but trauma is
exactly what you need.

Yeah. Yeah.

And you know when you tell your story, for example, about
the divorce and menopause.

Yeah.

All I could think of Was best thing that ever happened to you.
Best thing that ever happened to you. Best thing that ever happened to you. And
today, if I could go back and I saw the
size of the blessing that was coming, I would say the same
thing to my younger self.

Yeah, I know, I know, I know.
Steve Jobs had said, you can't connect the dots looking
forward. You can only connect the dots looking backwards.
And when you start to look back, you're like, wait
a second, everything. Thank God that
all happened.

That's right. But that takes skill too, by the way. And that
takes a skill known as gratitude. Not everybody can
look backwards and connect those dots. They are still riddled
with bitterness and resentment. And unless you detox
that and replace it with gratitude, you're not moving to the next
level.

Yeah, yeah.
Do you find that there's a commonality with, with
perfectionists and also people
pleasers, codependents,
overachievers, they're all the
same thing.

They're all obsessive types of behavior and they're very
linked to other forms, of expressing the
perfectionism, which is workaholism.
Perfectionism is the heart of codependency.
It's exactly what codependency is about. Everything needs to look
right for me to feel good. It's ridiculous. By the way,
anyone who's ever been in a good marriage knows that that is
absolutely the most insane notion you've ever

(09:48):
had. So you got
to get rid of that. And my book is like
your book. It's the exact process I used. And it's
my 12 step program. I
call it Perfectionist Anonymous or Workaholics
Anonymous. That's, that's what this is all
about. You break free from one thing, you'll break free in every
dimension.

Yeah. Isn't that interesting how if you'll change
one area in your life, it's not like only that
one area changes. It spills over into the other areas.

Everything. The only thing I wanted to work on
was money because I thought that if I fix the money and
become very wealthy, everything else fixes itself. And it
turns out I was right. If you correct one
relationship and one way in which you're expressing
your behavior.
You will correct everything else. So
the Carrie Bradshaw nonsense, by the way, almost all

(10:40):
that show was nonsense. But you can't have all
three departments of your life working at once. Health,
relationship and money. Completely false.

I know. Yeah. And
I also think too, I mean, I would think the
opposite of perfectionism. M is
embracing being messy.

Yes, exactly. That's why everything works all at once.

Right.

It's not so for those listening, it's not that everything
corrects itself and you become flawless in all departments,
that you become completely okay with all departments,
which is actually what makes them work.

Yes. There's, I
haven't read your book yet, but I'm going to read your book, and I can't wait to. I need
your book. I told you before we hit record, I was like, I need
your book right now. Because I was like, you know, especially
in kind of going back to the point you made
earlier, sometimes you need a total breakdown. But now after you've.
When you've experienced them in your life and like these huge

(11:36):
breakdowns, you're like, okay. You also know the signs,
too, to look for, to avoid those big
breakdowns. And I try myself to be more
proactive. I'm. I'm a little bit more in
tune now than I was 8, 10
years ago. And this shit was, you know, hitting the
fan. Now I'm able to go, okay, girl, let's. Let's
take a, you know, a step back. Let's relax a

(11:58):
little bit. You don't have to have everything
perfect all the time. And, and
that's. I think it's practice.

Yes. It takes an enormous amount of practice and
discipline. This is exactly like the gym, but for your
mind. And you get to keep a really great
ass if you don't go to Soul Cycle or Solidcore a couple of
times a week. The same thing with your mindset. You don't
get to keep a really great mindset without being in the
meditation and the books every single day.

Yeah, that was.

By the way, that means I've replaced one obsessive tendency with
another, but this one is actually healthy, so I have no problem
with it.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say earlier, about
uncertainty. I think sometimes with
perfectionism comes needing to know everything
that's going to happen minute by minute by minute.
And for me, I can speak about. For me, it
was. My perfectionism kept,
me from moving forward. I would freeze and not

(12:54):
do anything, because if it's not going to be
perfect, then I'm not going to do it at all. Do you find that
with a lot of perfectionists?

Yes. And let's define perfectionism for a second. The first thing to
say is that uncertainty bugs all of us. We are all
humans with a brain. And with a brain comes a
tendency to hedge your bets against uncertainty. Because
the brain, over thousands of years, has evolved not to make us
happy, but to keep us safe. Danny
Kahneman wrote magnificent books about this, won a Nobel
Prize essentially for proving that our brain, while

(13:24):
we think it's very logical and highfalutin, is in
fact filled with bias and terror
at almost all times. Basically, I like to think of my brain
as my mother. My mom is a very well meaning person,
very nice person, but she'd be really happy if I never
left the house ever again. Day
6 When you understand that, and that

(13:45):
that's the default of most people, you can then start
understanding. Perfectionist is a very aggressive case
of this Perfectionist, as Brene Brown has
said, are essentially living with a fictitious
yardstick in their mind. And that
yardstick always needs to be met. You
arbitrarily decided upon the standards
of that yardstick, of course, based on the cultural

(14:07):
nonsense you've been fed since you were a child.
And every time you, you don't hit that
yardstick, you start to self mutilate, to
literally self sabotage. And in the case of
overachievers, this becomes truly the game that
they've been playing. Now the problem with the game that they've been
playing is they've actually gotten away with it and gotten
rewarded for it for a very, very long period of time, which

(14:29):
has caused a delicious addiction.
Yes, love hitting that bell. I
love hitting that mark every single time. Look how
much everybody on LinkedIn is talking about me.
I did it again. I did it again. And so unfortunately
that starts to reinforce itself into my,
my byline of the book, which is the relentless pursuit

(14:50):
of more. It's an ever ending
bottomless pit and it's a thankless pit
because when you don't ring the bell, you start literally
turning in on yourself. This is
perfectionism. And when you start to understand that
that's very different from high standards, you can start to
break free. High standards do not come with the self
sabotage. They do not come with the self inflictment of

(15:13):
punishment. So they're just fun.
They're literally, fun. I enjoy reading this much because
it rings my bell versus I have to read
this much M. Because if I is
a completely different set of standards. And
that's, that's how you can start to distinguish between the two
and start seeing which one is toxic.

Where do you, where do you begin? Where? I mean,
okay, we talked about earlier about how to know if
you're actually in that sense, state of perfectionism
and that it's never enough. It's never
enough, it's never enough. Where do you even
begin to start to kind of break that
cycle.

Yeah. So the first step is the exact same step as
Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm pleased to tell you I've poached it.
And it's admit that you have a problem.

Yeah.

The first things that I've done for you today, in today's
little mini session is shown you what the signs are. Number one,
your results are not congruent with the size of your
desire. In other words, you, but you,
to yourself in the mirror, can admit, actually
this doesn't feel as shiny as it looks.
The bag is fake and the marriage,

(16:19):
is fake. And we haven't had sex in seven years. And the truth
is I hate my job. So if you understand that,
you're already in one portion, able to
start to move forward. And the other one is, I don't feel good.
I just don't feel good. I cannot put my finger on why I
don't feel good yet, but I don't feel good. This
does not feel right to me. Elizabeth Gilbert famously wrote Eat,

(16:39):
Pray, Love about a, disintegrating life
essentially that she couldn't put her finger on. And
today we know it was simply dissatisfaction and being in the
wrong marriage with the wrong gender. And so when you
start to understand that that's way off for you,
you can start to move into the pilgrimage
of the next 11 steps. But that's

(17:01):
very critical. And in the case of most overachievers, I
hear them say the same things that alcoholics say, which
is, I can quit anytime, this isn't a
problem. And every time I sit there going,
enjoy purgatory.

Yeah. Yeah. You have to get real with
yourself, right?

Yeah.
I don't have a horse in this race. It's up to you.
I, I would not admit that something was wrong. I
just wouldn't admit that something was wrong until it became
so obvious to me that everything was wrong. I was in
an abusive marriage. Abusive. He threatened
my life, my cat's life, which I think was,
threatening my life. I remember

(17:39):
though, the shit didn't hit the fan until
we were robbed. All of my things, of course, magically
disappear. And I realized that he hadn't paid any of our bills.
So it wasn't until really like absolute trauma
started to happen that I started to go, all right, this
is not normal.

Yeah, yeah. It's like you live in a state of
denial in, in a lot of areas in your life, not
just with the perfectionism.

Yeah. My favorite teacher, Esther Hicks, always says nothing
happens out of the blue. It Happens out of the oblivion.
It's like when somebody says, I can't believe you cheated on me. And I'm
like, can't you?

Yeah, exactly.

Sure about that?

Yeah. Yeah.
What about with certain cultures or,
especially with how you're raised, like it's expected of you.
I mean, being raised maybe in a family where
you must be a physician, you must be an attorney
and you must achieve this, like
perfectionism is forced upon you
and that if you are not perfect,

(18:38):
then m. You're not worthy.

Ah, some form of perfectionism and expectation is forced upon
all of this. The first thing I want to say is a real
disclaimer. You are not responsible for your circumstances.
I'm not saying that anybody has ever caused cheating on them or I didn't
cause being in an abusive
relationship, but we did participate in it by agreeing
to it, by complicitly agreeing to
it for certain periods of time. Because we always have

(19:04):
agency. All of us have agency. Yes, some people
have less at some given times. We have to allow for
that and understand that and meet people where they are. But
your only chance, your only shot out of it is to
accept some modicum of, responsibility here or
personal agency here, an ability to
sidestep this or to choose differently.

(19:24):
In the case of cultural
expectations, I coach people from Jeddah to Sydney
and believe it or not, the cultural expectations are the same.
I'm always absolutely shocked to find this,
but you should be married by a certain
age is a cultural expectation across the
board. And while in some cases it's disciplines like
be a doctor, be a dentist, be an accountant,

(19:48):
I know very, very well, child of immigrants,
the particular configuration doesn't really
matter. The expectations of you and of society are
always the same and they are, be successful,
have your shit together, look a certain
way to society, be good vis a
vis society. And everybody internalizes

(20:08):
that a different way, but then decides
inadvertently to either comply with it or
not. And those who decide to
comply with it are, I hope,
by the time they're in the middle age years,
Strong enough to ask whether that
actually works for them. That's, happening to most of
us in midlife. We become not physically

(20:31):
big enough, that happens to us in adolescence, but emotionally
big enough to go, do I actually like
this? That's what happened to me. That's what the career
pivot is about. I remember going, okay, I get
that this pays my bills and I get that this looks good on
LinkedIn, but do I actually want to be here? And the answer was no.

Yeah. Yeah.

Now what?

Yeah, it's almost like having an out
of body experience. You don't even feel, you feel so
disconnected from yourself and your life. And
as we all do, like every single day, we're going, we're doing
the things, and you're just like, okay, another week goes by, another
month and another year, and you're like, wait, what am I doing? What am
I doing?

Yeah, it feels like an outer body experience is
right. I, I'm going to throw a really middle aged
reference here. There's a Madonna video,
a Substitute for Love, it's called, where she's walking into a
room and the, the faces start melting. And I remember
watching that and thinking, I know what she's feeling
here. I know what they're being, what they're conveying here.

(21:31):
Everything just makes no sense anymore. You're just
wandering around in your own society going, this is not
my life.

And even though, like I said, like, even, you're checking off all the boxes,
you're doing all the things that society wants, family
wants, you know, your bosses, you're doing all the things
and you're quote, unquote successful, but
deep down you're just like, I don't really
connect with any of this.

Or is this all there is? Or in case.
You've got to be kidding me.

Yeah.

And I became suicidal. Some people do.
This is a very common occurrence. The
important thing is that at some point you just go, all right,
now what? Literally, now what? You use
m information rather than as a deterrence.

Hey there, it's Wendy.
Before we dive into today's episode, I
have something exciting to share.
I just launched my brand new
substack blog,
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name? I dig that. Midlifeology.
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(22:35):
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(24:00):
Wendy
valentine.substack.com
that is Wendy Valentine substack
and hit subscribe. I can't wait to connect
with you. Do you find that as
people kind of realize, okay, I have this issue
with perfectionism and it'll never be enough,

(24:21):
that after they realize that, that they start
to make the connection, like I said, with. With looking
backwards and is it relevant? Does it
really matter where it all stems from?

Absolutely not. That's where coaching differs
very sharply from psychotherapy,
or older forms of therapy,
namely the. The more advanced forms or the newer
forms are CBT, Behavioral
Therapy, EDMR, etc. Etc.
But coaching doesn't really believe

(24:54):
in looking back. What we are looking at is your set of beliefs. That
doesn't mean that we're not going to talk about what happened because we do
have to talk about what happened. We have to understand how you form these beliefs and.
But it's not relevant to the
understanding where, where you got these.
What really matters is what are you left with and where do you want to
go. And we care much more about where you want to go. And if you

(25:14):
are solving for where you want to go, most
of it is not relevant. It's really important
to heighten the desire over
the doubt and the rumination, make the desire
more important. So the emphasis is. Is in a different
area. Perfectionism in and
of itself is just a set of beliefs. And you have to

(25:35):
make the decision at some point that they're not useful to you.
At that point, you should get help. Because
most of us, first and foremost, are not able to see our own
blind spots. I can't either, by the way. I'm
exceptional. Other people's blind spots, but
my own, I gotta tell you, takes me a while to go, oh,
I'm doing that again, aren't I? And the second thing

(25:56):
is, you. You will really be guided
by someone who actually knows the way out. You'll
shorten the time period.

I know. I think once you realize it, and
especially at this age, you're like, I don't have time
to f. Around with a bunch of. Exactly,
let's go like.

And I always say like, what's your time worth to you? You can do this
by yourself for sure. It'll take you a decade. It will take
you a decade.

Yeah.

Or you can have a real master walk you to the other
side, call you out on it. Basically like a friendly trial
lawyer going, nope, that's not it.
Objection. I'm throwing this out of court again and
again until you get it. You really get it. And you get it
pretty quickly.

Yes. I mean, sometimes it's nice. Either a someone else
is calling you on your. And then you start to call yourself on your
own.

Yeah. Where you could be one. We're on
your side. we're truly on your side. We want you to have everything
you want.

I think there's like, you know, nowadays, be your
authentic self. Be authentic, be true. What does it really
mean?

What it means is beyond be unbeholden
to the pretenses and the covenants
of cultural lies. That's what authentic
self really means. It means drop the force, drop
the effort, drop the contortions. drop
the lying. That's the most important thing.
Authentic self is not posture more
aggressively and take everything at the dinner table.

(27:18):
This is not what authentic self means. Our authentic self
is sweet and harmonious and desirous of
peace and relaxed. And the only way to
get there is to stop lying. One of the best
things about Middle Ages, you can't really lie so readily
anymore. No, it's,
it's true. We are

(27:39):
aging. We are what we are. We are
settling into our forms and just to continue
to posture here, that's where the lying becomes much more
aggressive. All the midlife cliches. Right. Are dating
very young people, buying this
idiotic car, getting plastic
surgery, etc, Right. These are all
aggressive forms of lying or more aggressive forms

(28:00):
of masking the truth.

Yes, more perfectionism.

We are getting older and we are closer to death.
What if, instead you started to understand? Nope. I'm just going to
embrace this. I'm going to accept what is. I'm going to go with
it, not against it.

Yeah. You know, you were saying earlier about
the results and when you. I mean, I
spent 45 years being an
extreme perfectionist for
everyone else and I didn't
realize, even though, you know, it's not totally,
totally didn't totally matter where it
stemmed from. But being abandoned

(28:37):
as a young girl, I
wanted every. I had to be perfect to keep
everyone. I thought that if I was, that.

The perfectionism didn't actually serve other people. Wendy.

I know, I know. So then that was the light bulb.
I was like, wait a second. As I looked around at my life at
45, I was like, wait a second. I. I have been
busting my ass for these people, and it doesn't
matter.

So.

And I'm, like, miserable.

So in other words, I'm not getting out of this bargain.
What? I thought I was going to get out of this bar because it's
a fian. Bargain. It's a deal with the devil.
You betrayed your own soul to try to get
their acceptance and to try to get them to love you
and. Or, I guess, put you on a LinkedIn list or something.

And you were getting it.

Exactly. We have to understand that the truth is,
that's why it doesn't really matter what the circumstances
were, is that we picked a pattern of behavior that
doesn't work for us. And that's. That's the real
crux here. That's the real discovery.

Yeah. You. You can't. What is the saying? You can't solve a problem
with the same level of thinking that created it. Right. It was an
Einstein that said that. Yeah. And you
can't. And I remember thinking that back then, going,
okay, I'm going to do, like, the George Costanza thing and.
And just do everything opposite.

I teach that. I literally teach that, Wendy. I teach that all
the time at seminars. I always refer to that
magnificent episode when he
realizes that every decision he has ever made
has been wrong. And Jerry says to him, if
every instinct and decision you've ever made has been wrong,
then the opposite must be right. And what does he
do? What does he do in. The only thing

(30:15):
that technically George Costanza does is tell the
truth. Because his default is to lie.
This magnificent episode is a
perfect analogy for
everyone's life. Instead of people pleasing,
meaning saying yes when you mean no, say
no.

Yes. Like, why? The worst that could happen.

It's that simple.

Yeah. There's that, one part where he's like, no,
I'm having tuna today. Yes, a
tuna sandwich.

And then Jerry tells. I remember thinking that it's
not tuna. it's salmon. yeah, exactly.

Yeah. But it's such a good point, like you said,
because if everything you've been doing is not working
and you ended up with crappy results, why not try
something different? And as we know, I mean, it's shocking that
it's only been maybe 35 years that they
finally figured out you can rewire the brain, you
can make new neural pathways, but as

(31:10):
you start to do these different things, you do
literally create A new person, you create a new
brain.

Yes, I remember. I mean, all my life, for
example, I was told to have a safe job and
to operate a certain way around money. This did not
work. When I started to do the exact opposite,
everything started to work.

Yeah.

So P.S. suze Orman is wrong about everything.
Do not listen and really make the
decision to truly understand wealth.

Yeah, I mean, if you think about it too,
we're all brainwashed in some form or fashion. We're
either brainwashed to believe we have to be perfect and we
have to keep going for more and more and more. We're brainwashed to
believe that we're good enough, smart enough, or we're the
total opposite. So then
you what's like once that light bulb goes off, you're

(32:01):
like, wait a second, I can brainwash myself into
believing whatever the hell I want I about myself, about
life, about relationships, about anything.

Yes. And that includes social covenants that you do
choose of your own volition. Ethics are
chosen, but you can choose them because we are
civilized people. One of the covenants I'm agreeing with,
for example, right now, is wearing clothes. Technically,
I don't need to wear clothes. And why not? It's more
comfortable. But we in a society, so we
can understand also that we can choose

(32:33):
the parts that do work for us, and we can
choose the ones that do not work for us. And the ones that
do work for us are usually the ones that are in harmony with our
authentic nature. We are peaceful, we are
harmonious, we enjoy
pleasantry. So, civil society
enjoys pleasantry. You can make these choices. There's
nothing wrong with that. You're not hurting anybody.

Yeah. I think of life as like a buffet.
Right. You can go up, sample what you want, see
what you like, see what you don't like. If you like it, go
back for seconds. If you don't like it now, you know, but just
as we, like our moms would say, like, why? You're
not going to know unless you try. But that's what
I think. So Beautiful in your

(33:15):
40s and 50s and beyond is that
you know what has not worked in your life in the
past. And this is a great time to figure out what you
do like and what you want.

Yes. Yeah, we still have time.
And, we're still pretty good looking.

Yeah, you're not too bad, right?
With or without clothes, it doesn't matter, Right.

I always say that's the best thing, is to realize that you actually
have a lot of time. You have a lot of time. And
when you understand that you have a lot of time and that
you don't really want to Repeat the last 30 years, you can
look at different choice. And why wouldn't you? Why
wouldn't you?

and just like you were saying earlier about the emotions, that's what it comes down
to. on how you feel on the inside,
despite what. What's going. Because you. I mean, there
are. You're gonna have shitty circumstances. You
always will. People pass away.
There's. You have illnesses. There's always going
to be tough times. But if

(34:14):
you feel good about yourself and who you are, then.

That's right. And if you learn to develop also a true
understanding and belief in yourself, you can
withstand those times.

Correct.

They don't bother you as much. You can
navigate them very differently. And you've made such different
choices that as a result of that, your foundation
is far more secure. My
financial foundation is different now. My skill set
is different now. My marriage is completely different now.
I can rely on these systems because these systems were

(34:46):
built with truth. They were not
on nonsense. So I'm not standing on quicksand
anymore.

Yeah, because you're a new Karen,
I guess. New Karen. What
do you. What do you struggle with now?

Almost everything that everybody else struggles with, I just struggle
with it for much shorter periods of time. So, for
example, if. If I do get a tax bill, I got a
huge tax bill this week. It was amazing.
I still go, what? Shocked? And
then I go, how wonderful. What a pleasure. In other
words, I'll move very, very quickly through the emotions,
through Byron, Katie's, the work, through the pause

(35:25):
principle that I teach, et cetera, and reframe very, very
quickly. And that's the gift of
understanding the work and doing the work. That's, it
shortens the time period. Very few of us will
experience Satori sudden enlightenment, like
a great teacher like Byron, Katie is
professed to have experienced. Or Eckhart Tole. And
by the way, even he says that when his parents died, he was

(35:47):
extremely sad. We. We don't really
completely outgrow the
emotional foundation of. We don't
absolutely overcome the ego, but
we do make his effect
far shorter on our
overall soul existence.

Yeah. I mean, in the end, we're still human beings. Being human.

Yes, exactly. My cat dies. God
forbid. Poo. Poo. Poo.

No, no. Yeah. Knock on one.

I'm not gonna go, wow, how wonderful. I'm so happy. She's in a
better place immediately.

Right.

But I'll get there.

Right? Exactly. Yeah. I agree with you. I
think it shortens that time
when you do the work. It's
so much easier as you move forward in your life.

Yes. I will tell you what I have completely overcome, though.
It's the opinions of others. That anxiety
just doesn't affect me anymore at all. You just
don't take things personally anymore. You really, really don't.
That part can completely go away.

Yeah. I think especially when you've
been through some really tough times in life.
there's this always little reminder like, God,
you watched your brother die, you watched your husband die.
You watched all of these things. It's like, you can
kill this shit. Who cares if Susie doesn't like you?

It completely changes. It really, really does. You almost
start to find those moments comical.

Yeah. Which I think allows you to be even
more bold in your life.

That's right. Because nothing is really serious. We're all gonna
die. Yay.

No.

Yeah.

No, I say that all the time too. I'm like. It probably sounds
so morbid if, I'm like. But we are.

I don't mean we should die. And I don't mean things should be
expedited for death. I do mean
ultimately you should understand that. And that does not move
me into nihilism. That's the most important thing. That doesn't mean
that, disregard for life. It's the exact opposite. A deep
reverence for life and a deep reverence for life will
have you looking for joy and gratitude

(37:50):
far more concentratedly.

Yeah. If you think about it, you know, I mean, it's
shocking that one day someone's going to
forget Karen Eldad and Wendy Valentine.

Oh, yeah. Probably within 24 hours of my.
It's true.

Stop going to our Instagram. Then we go. Yeah,
but you know, like, it's. But like you said too, it makes you
appreciate more of your life and that you want
to do more, to spread more love, to share
more love, receive more love, just to eat up as much
as you possibly can. And if you're lucky to
get 100 years of your life, man.

Amen. Exactly. All of them
fabulous. Yes.

Yeah. And we, I mean, yes, like, we all have our
shitty days, but it's how you handle those shitty days
and knowing that you'll wake up tomorrow, hopefully,
and then you can have a good day.

That's right. And they, ultimately are a deposit. Because
without shitty days, what are great days
even worth?

Mm. Yeah. This is so good.
I gotta read your book.

I. I hope you love it.

Yeah. I Know I will. Yeah. And I said to you before
when we started, I do love your Instagram. Like, you have good
content.

Thank you.

You're not just dancing like you're doing.

I've never danced. I actually only
recently discovered TikTok thanks to my social
media assistant, who told me that it's a
big deal.

I know. And I just.

By the way, none of this. This is literally when I start to feel
my own age, where I'm like, I just don't care. I
genuinely do not care. You guys do whatever you want to do.

Yeah. It is such a. It's such a
wonderful feeling when you can step in
to your light fully.

Yeah.

Without. Without worrying about, is it
good enough. Is someone gonna say this because you appreciate
your position?

One of my favorite thinkers is Yuval Noah Harari. He's the author
of the biggest bestseller of the last decade,
sapiens. He wrote 21 Lessons for the 21st
Century. His new book is enormous, too,
obviously. And, he said he was asked
by a reporter, would you rather be born in
1976 or would you rather have had the opportunity to be
born in 2000? And he said, are you kidding? I wouldn't

(40:05):
trade for anything. And I went,
yeah, I know. And
that's reverence. That's reverence for your position. That's
deep acceptance of your position. That's the ability to
see with gratitude and appreciation
your position, rather than with regret your position.
And that's what life is all about.

Yeah, exactly.
And what's the number one regret of the dying? Is
living life for everybody else.

Yeah. Living the not according to what I wanted to
do. Yeah. I hope if. If that doesn't
make the hair on the neck of everybody listening stand
up, I don't know what will. But that's what happened to me. I
remember right before I turned 40, just going, am I
really going to continue to do this?
Really going to marry some other jackass who looks good on
Instagram? Am m I really going to not do anything

(40:54):
interesting or important with my life? No.
I'd rather jump into an abyss and fail
than do this again.

I know. Even
failure doesn't even seem like it's that big of a deal.
I mean, what is failure, really? Right. Like, we always.

Middle age is a very long period of time. It's
defined as 35 to 55. But I've seen the transition
at 60. And you have to really then look for
expanders. Look for examples of people who did try and
actually pulled it off, like Diana Nyad, who
Was the first person, of course, to swim from the Keys to
Cuba. Incredible story. At
64, I think she was

(41:32):
postmenopausal. Everybody was like, there's no way
you're going to. No one can do this at 28, let alone
at your age. And she's like, hold my drink, and I'm willing to
die trying. And that there are several. Ina
Garten comes to mind. Julia Childs comes to mind.
such magnificent stories. Brene Brown
comes to mind. There are wonderful stories of the

(41:52):
midlife transition. 46 and over.
Look at them. Look at them. Hold on
to it and jump.

Yeah. There's a lot of momentum out there right now.
It's. It's. It's beautiful to see.

Yeah. And because of these superstars who came before us,
let's give them credit where credit is due.

Yeah. Sometimes I always think about the, The
butterfly. Right. Like, you couldn't. You
can't cut the chrysalis and take the butterfly out,
otherwise the butterfly would be crippled and it would
die. So the butterfly has
to struggle to get out of that chrysalis
in order to fly and be free. And it's just like us.

(42:31):
like, sometimes. Yes. I mean, whether 30,
40, 50, sometimes we have to
really go through a lot of shitty
times to finally realize
our magnificence.

But, you know, I don't know if you noticed, on the COVID there's a gilded
cage, but the door is open.

Yeah.

My goal is for them to understand that that door was always
open.

Yes.

Actually just choose to walk out. Many of us
do not need the trauma. We really don't. I could
have literally just gone to hell with this and walked
out at any given time. Yeah. Just that
my ego didn't allow me to.

Yes. Yeah. Sometimes we
are our worst enemy.

That's why the mindset work is so important. Because
then the mind starts. Stops running you.
You start using the mind. Ram
Dass once said, I believe that the mind is a
magnificent servant, but a horrible master.
The work of coaching is to turn it into your.
Your obedient employee, not

(43:34):
your master anymore.

Yeah, exactly. To have the voice in your
mind being your best friend, your
cheerleader, instead of your critic.

Yeah. You should see.
There's, like, a choir of Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders in my
head. Go, go. I'm like,
wow, thanks, you guys. It's so much better
than the. That was in my head before, man.

good night. Oh. Oh.

And she constantly told me I was fat to
hell.

Yeah. Right?

Yeah, I know.

And sometimes. Yeah. It's getting quiet enough
to be able to hear that. Yes.
Sometimes you don't want to. Like, you don't even admit it, but
it's like, okay, that is how I talk to myself.

It is. But that, Again, admit it. Admit
it. Shame dies in the light.

Yeah.

Truth will set you free. It's gonna piss you off first, but the truth
will set you free.

Yeah, Exactly. You're amazing.

Thank you. You are, too.

Thank you. Very inspiring. I can't wait to, Can't
wait to see what else you do. What's your next book?

It's. So my husband came up with the title
Gilded because he's brilliant, which
of course, means not real gold. Covered in gold.

Yeah.

And, I was toying for a while with the sequel being called
Gold, which, let's be honest, is kind of boring and stupid and
predictable. And then Ryan said, what if it's
guilt free? Get it?
Guilt free? And I
went, that's it?

Yeah.

That's what we're going to talk about. Wholeness. In the next book,
we're going to talk about what happens when you've climbed down
this ladder and broken free. Now what do
you do with your life? This is the natural sequence
of things.

Yeah. Guilt. I like it.

Thank you.

Yeah. Well, that's a huge
topic. I mean, Holy pain point, right?
Like guilt and shame. So many
of us walking around with that, so. Yeah, I know.

I think the Jews, and the Catholics in particular,
are gonna really enjoy that.

Books would be flying off the shelf. Exactly.

I was like, if those two subsets alone
decide to pick this up, we're good.

You're awesome.
All right, so where can we find you? Where do we get the book?

The best place to find me is on Instagram. Although we are on the
TikTok. that's because I like it. And that's
at Coach Karen. And Karen is spelled with two E's, of course.
Karenldad.com and by Gilded. Wherever books
are sold, though, 99 of them are definitely going
through Amazon. It is.

I know. I'm learning that too, as
I'm. As. with my book. It's like, yeah, I read that
70% of them are sold on Amazon. Isn't that crazy?

70 is nothing. It's 99. In my case,
it's 99. including the audible. That's just how it is.

I gotta up my advertisement on there.
Yeah, that's. Oh,
thank you so much, Karen.

It's a huge pleasure. Good luck with everything. I'm here for you.

Thank you
did this podcast and inspire you, challenge you,
trigger you to make a change or spit out your coffee laughing.
Good. Then there are three ways you can thank me.
Number one, you can leave a written review of this
podcast on Apple iTunes. Number two,
you can take a screenshot of the episode and share it

(46:57):
onto social media and tag me Wendy
Valentine. Number three, share it with
another midlifer that needs a makeover. You know who
I'm talking about. Thank you so much for listening to
the show. Get out there and be bold. Be
free. Be you.

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