Breaking Up with Perfectionism to Scale Your Life

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0:32I can't wait to see you there. Welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show, where I couldn't be more thankful and totally inspired to introduce you to a new friend. But she's just a new friend in real life. I have been absolutely deep diving, completely overdosing on all this amazing goodness. This is going to be an extension of conversations that I've been doing as a deep dive. Now, if anybody's noticed here on the podcast, 2025 presented itself with a lot of new opportunities. And the new opportunity for me was not just to document the journey, but to be open and document the journey. So as much as I tried denying it, as much as I tried putting it away, what I wanted to do was talk about the evolution of myself as an entrepreneur, get things out of my way and open up myself for new pathways of growth, which is why I could not be more excited to have a conversation.

1:19Actually, I say more excited. I'm gonna be excited when it's over. Right now I have, look, I literally have chills because I'm like, oh, we're gonna have some real conversations around high achievement, what pushes us, perfectionism, perfectionism, and get it. Look at that already. I said perfectionism. Already, I'm correcting myself. I'm not going to be perfect. We're not going to edit that out. We're going with it because I am sitting with the one and the only Karen Eldad. Thank you. And welcome to the Jasmine Starr Show. It is a pleasure to be here with you, my friend. Oh, I'm so happy you're right now.

1:49Before the cameras turned on, you had said, Jasmine, I'm a slow talker. And I was like, you're right at home, Karen. I want you to be 100 % you. I want you to work your magic. And so sometimes my personality is big. And so I don't want to overjump a conversation. I'm going to be your student today. So on that note, I was really intrigued because I had heard that one of the first questions that you ask during your coaching sessions, and we're going to get into your introduction and your backstory. But first, immediately, I love to start the shows by saying, why should somebody watch? What's going to be in it for them.

2:23But when I first queued up and I said, oh, this woman's different, is you said one of the first questions you asked during a coaching session is, do you view the world through abundance or an adversarial perspective? As in, I'm going to go and get it or there's enough. Why do you start with that question? And how does it frame when you start working with an entrepreneur? Because it gives me basically everything I need to know about them. First, most are under the delusion that they are actually looking through the lens of abundance. Most people who arrive at my coaching have been through some form of gateway drug coaching like Tony Robbins or have read some self-help books.

2:57They are familiar with the concept and they see themselves as optimistic. And by the way, behaviorally, the high D, high I in the DISC profile, which is the vast majority of my clients, are optimistic. They are on the more enthusiastic side of the spectrum. Okay, we're going to pause. She works with, describe the quintessential, I know you've with world leaders and athletes and celebrities and mega entrepreneurs. And talk to me about like the traditional scope. Like who is the person normally who walks through the door? Yeah, well, they're high achievers and high achievers, just so I'm really clear, can also mean super obsessive moms.

3:32There are people who are hyper focused and intense in any dimension of their life. They have a little bit of obsessiveness and that's what they all have in common. Whether you're a world leader or a special ops person or other form of politician or Olympic athletes. I've coached a lot of C-suite executives and a lot of founders, but I've also coached a lot of regular people. I consider myself a normie overachiever, but very, very hyper-focused or obsessive in some way. And that brings me to the worldview that's really dominant. The worldview that's really dominant is that I see the world as adversarial.

4:07I see resources as scarce, and I see myself as in competition with time and with others, which actually rigs the game against you. The value of today's episode is us being able to tell the truth about what this competitive mindset, the hustle mindset, the hardworking mindset, the immigrant mindset actually does and how to correct that so you can have a much easier time with your business and with your life. Okay, so sometimes I'm the voice of the people. And so when you say that, to correct that, sometimes I think that my edge is that. And so if I corrected it, do I lose my edge? No, you're making it a binary choice.

4:47This is classic scarcity thinking. Classic scarcity thinking is if not this, then nothing. But there's like 10 ,000 shades of gray there. You won't technically become lazy. You'll just become gentle. There's a very big difference between perfectionism and high standards. Now, as you can obviously see, I have high standards, but they don't hurt. If I showed up two minutes late today, I wouldn't beat myself up. I would apologize. If I send out an email, I write my own newsletters with a typo. I'm proud of it because you can tell that an AI didn't write. I'm not going to beat myself up for it. If I miss a workout, I'm not going to beat myself up.

5:27Perfectionists do. They really do think that once you basically lower the pressure on the gas, you're actually letting go. When the opposite is true, You're actually becoming more efficient. And you're speaking at this from a really real, raw place because you are a recovering perfectionist. Recovering. And that means lifelong struggle. I have accepted this. I like to say that I wanted to call my book Gilded Workaholics Anonymous. All of us, I don't know for me, I don't know what it's like for you. But if I start reorganizing my shelves, I will do that for four hours. I'll do it for four days.

6:03Yeah, literally. Like a reorg of the closet is, honey, I will see you tomorrow. And this is the rest of my day. And I don't know how I fall into those rabbit holes, but it's never enough. So you really have to learn how to work against these patterns. Now, let's talk about this in business. My first big break in business was 2023. Very recent. That was the first time we broke seven figures. Instead of thinking, okay, great, let's parse this out. Let's solidify this. let's systematize this like a real business person. I went, just keep opening the floodgates, let it come in until I'm so overwhelmed and my assistant's so overwhelmed and my director of operations is so overwhelmed that everyone, including myself, is saying we're gonna quit.

6:48Shut it down. I don't wanna do this anymore. In other words, we just don't have that valve. And so the real goal of Gilded is to show you that rushing for the wrong targets and playing the adversarial game is ultimately going to wear you down. You are actually going to be playing not to lose. You're going to be playing a mediocre game rather than playing to win, playing like a superstar. Okay, I want to pause here because I want to go back to adversarial because I would never, when I heard you ask this question, I would never immediately identify myself with I'm choosing or I subscribe to an adversarial mindset.

7:25But I also knew at the same time, I didn't subscribe to a fully abundant mindset. And when we talk about perfectionism, I would honestly people think that I'm so self-aware and self-unaware if they were to say oh you're a perfectionist I would say no I'm not no I'm not and I think that after digging into your work you were asking very specific questions that had said you're just a perfectionist in disguise you're identifying smells okay so we're going to come back we're going to come back to that but what I want to do now is talk a little bit about your story because somebody's watching and listening right now and they're like I'm not adversarial I believe that things are abundant I am not a perfectionist And so I really just would like to use those examples to actually get to the truer part of what might be getting in our way.

8:07But before we do that, I want to hear your story. Yeah, I'll tell you my story. But the first thing I'll say is, how's that working for you? Well, you're not in the middle of a smack dab, absolute dream life floating down a river. Then technically speaking, there's some scarcity working out and there's no shame in the game. The only shame is if you stay there and don't look at it. you already talked so deeply to just last couple of episodes, Dr. Natasha and Peter Krohn, that I already can see what you're up against, what perfectionists sort of dammit leave you. Okay, okay, okay. This is the thing with having your content out there.

8:40So Karen came, Karen came. She picked up what Dr. Natasha and Peter Krohn put down. And now what she's doing is she has all these insights into me. And so what I'm feeling right now is, oh my God, this might be very uncomfortable. And oh my God, I'm ready for it. Because what I've realized in both the Peter Crone and the Dr. Natasha episode is the feedback that people had given to me had simply say, let yourself be shown because we're learning in the process of it. So while I don't want to do that, I'm going to open myself up to do that with Karen. But before we do that, thank you for the space to do this.

9:14Thank you for seeing me calling me out and not letting me squirm. And so that is 100 % for me. Put your foot on that pedal. I'm ready to be open and I'm ready to learn. But before I do that, I want to hear more about your story so that the audience can jump in and see where you're coming from. Well, I'm one of those people who did everything right. I'm, and before you hate me, please listen in. It ends well. I'm normal. I was just raised to be a good person and a really good, diligent student. So I understood how linearly life could be played and what I was going to be rewarded for. And I've also been born with a lot of the faculties that align with that.

9:54So I was always a straight-A student. Then I became an officer in the army. Then after the army, I got a first degree at a very fancy school and then a second degree at a very fancy school. Then I married a very tall man, which as we all know is the holy high kahuna of all aspirations for women. And then I got lucrative jobs, mostly informed by my adoration for the movie The Devil Wears Prada. And there I was in a cutthroat industry, rising up the top, doing everything right and dressing appropriately. I don't think I ate since 1994, so I managed to stay trimmed too. And everything was just checkbox after checkbox.

10:32But after that marriage, I found myself in a city I hated, Zurich. I'm a New Yorker. Anyone who's been to Zurich will understand the distinction. And living with a man who was abusive. and in the unraveling because almost all my life started to feel stale and stagnant I'm in a pile of basically everything I've ever wanted everything I've ever been told to want everything I've ever been told to do I just can't deal I also have such a severe invulnerability problem it's so hard to admit that the pictures you see on Instagram are nowhere near the truth that I have nothing to no one to share this with.

11:08And so one day after a robbery in my house, where I discovered, by the way, after filing the police report that he had also not paid any of our bills, my ex-husband, my now ex-husband, I found myself in the shower, Colombian soap opera style, sobbing and thinking that maybe my only way out of this is to kill myself, which is a very unusual thought until now I've been a suicide counselor for so long, I realized how common this is and how much more aggressive this is for high achievers. We really don't know where to go. And that was when I started to really open up to, okay, I've done something here.

11:46Now, by the grace of God, I decided not to take my life in that shower. I snapped out of it. And I remember only having one thought, and that was this ends now. The way out of that would be years long, but I'm glad I took it. I burned everything to the ground. I actually continued the loss streak. All my things were lost in a fire. My cats died within two weeks of themselves. This was the worst year of my life. But I like to say that this was the year that allowed me to break open and actually do something with this life. What year was that? It was 2012. And so you find your way back to New York City?

12:21Yeah. Can't find a job for seven months. The industry has started to die while I was away, the publishing industry. Sleeping on friends' couches, which is very humbling in your 30s. I think it's very humbling at any time, really. And basically spending a lot of that time in books, the self-help books that I had rejected in my academic snobbish past. I was reading everything from Stephen R. Kobe's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to eventually in 2015, You Are a Battle by Jensen Shero. This is the years long process where I basically just start hustling my way back to life, right? Like odd jobs and more jobs and new jobs and different attempts at starting a business.

13:06But all this that while I'm using all of the money that I'm making on self help and on coaching, my life completely changed by 2016. Then I started to think Can I pause and ask a clarifying question? So 2012, you make the decision that this ends now, not your life. Yeah, but the former Karen of that time, that version is done in 20. And so then we flash forward to 2016. So do I hear it correctly that for four years, it was a process of becoming the new version of you with different jobs and self help. And so during these four years, are you ever comparing yourself or wondering like the academic, the straight A student, all this, like, how are you working through that?

13:47I wasn't thinking that my friends were, I was already deep in the I mean, really, from the moment I picked up Stephen R. Covey's book, I started to change my perspective and have greater and greater clarity and greater and greater compassion for myself. Then I started hiring coaches. I definitely started developing serious compassion chops. At this point, I do have a lot of friends who say things to me like, are you okay? And you need any money? And my old boss called and said, would you like your old job back? Everybody felt very, very sorry for me. The way they saw me was kind of like a tragic downfall.

14:20and all I could think was I'm out of that marriage. I've got my life back. I can start over. I'm brave. And I did it. I made it to the other side. So what happens in 2016? 2016, I start to write. I didn't really understand what I was doing, to be honest with you. I was writing in bed. I had already started like four different jobs so that I could stay afloat and pay for my fancy apartment and soul house memberships, which were always standards. um my idea of a broke person is a little different i guess and uh that's when i really started to come home from work and write and within two weeks i realized i had a program essentially what had happened was i i understood because i'd taken 26 coaching programs by then what was wrong with them just because of the way i think what wouldn't work for a person like me and i understand my archetype very well, high achievers very well.

15:15And so I started to put it in the right order. And then I started to write it the way I'd really like to teach it through my own story. That becomes live with enthusiasm. Then I have a great idea. Let's get a film crew here and record this. And I did. And then I downloaded my entire LinkedIn list. You could do that in 2017, just so you know, you could get all their emails. And there were 500 of them, five or 600 people total. I put that not in ConvertKit or MailChimp. I don't even know if they existed then. I put them in my email as a BCC, like the biggest BCC of all time. And I wrote an email saying, I have this program, and I'm really excited about it.

15:56It changed my life. This is the exact formula through which I changed my life. I'm willing to coach six people. If you're interested in the spot, let me know. I sold every single one out in 24 hours. A business was born. Okay, so I'm going to peel back because this is not part of the conversation, but I only ever think in terms of business. So what you did, I'm going to repeat it back. You went in as a market consumer, and then you noticed unintentionally and then later intentionally the market gap. And you said of all the offerings out there, I'm not going to be one of many, I'm going to have a hyper specific focus on high achievers.

16:31And so you went to where you thought most high achievers dwelled and who you could speak to specifically and understand that my archetype will align with that archetype. And so you're going to speak to your former self to catapult them to where they aspire to be by a framework through your perspective. And you sell six spots to 500 people in less than 24 hours. And a business is born. A business is born. And that starts the referral process. And then also like six is nothing. So I start to realize how much more I can sell within a year because, again, I'm also very different behavioral style than most of the overachievers I coach.

17:04I don't just jump into things. I had a full day job that was paying all of the bills, was paying for all the marketing. I was never stressed out about money, which is really important because it's the biggest business killer. And within a year and a half, the coaching business overtakes everything else that I'm doing. And I can easily just go, all right, done. Let's go with this. That's beautiful. So that's the origin story and your perspective. Yeah. Now, what I want to know now is after all these years, there's been, you know, starting from 2016, 2017, 18, 19, 20, you have a breakthrough in 2023.

17:40Yeah. Before we get to the breakthrough in 2023, talk to me about the people that you're coming into. And if they're coming to you, high achievers who will likely probably not be telling other people that they feel stuck or something is misaligned. Talk to me about the common patterns that you have seen through high-achieving entrepreneurs, why they intersect, and who we might be able to help right now on the show. Well, the biggest thing to understand is, and this is for all entrepreneurs, all entrepreneurs are naturally going to be rather obsessive. That means their targets are off. Now, you don't understand that your target's off because you think your targets are very, very good.

18:13But for example, for almost all businesses, the main targets are significance and certainty, also known as money and status. and these are targets that we all have to a certain degree. It's not unique to high achievers. It's just that high achievers have been way too obsessed with them for way too long. Now, in the entrepreneurship game, obviously, revenue and bottom line is very significant, but so are all the other numbers. And when we are already primed to being obsessed with the numbers, we overly focus on the numbers. As I coach people who are starting their business and they say things like, the number of signups and the number of likes on Instagram, and I don't have enough followers.

18:51I really am just with lots of love and lots of due respect saying you're looking at the wrong target. The real target is to become exceptional. It's mastery in your own domain. This takes time. There's nothing you can do about that. That's also why nobody can take it away from you once you've attained mastery. I understood that in my first years, Jasmine, the only thing that really mattered was learning how to be a very good teacher. Really understanding material, really understanding content and coming up with new and original content and original ways to teach people who are not understanding things through the normal filters.

19:30In other words, they have different configurations. And I wanted to make sure that I knew how to answer their configurations. Can I apply a pressure to that, though? Sure. Okay. So I think that defaulting is as high performing entrepreneurs, we focus on numbers because numbers are real. Now, I agree. The targets are off. I totally agree. But then when you go to something esoteric, like the real target should be becoming exceptional and obtaining mastery. That's so nebulous. Like, how does one realize I've obtained mastery? I am exceptional. By obtaining mastery is putting in your 10 ,000 hours.

20:01It means doing what you're doing or the service you're providing or creating the product you're creating 10 ,000 times. That's what's going to collect mastery for you. Now, let me be clear. I understand no money, no business. Right. But that doesn't actually necessarily mean no millions, no business. It just means your goal should be no plan B, which means you will do anything to support the mastery. You will do anything necessary, short of a lack of ethics, to support your mastery. And that's basically it. That meant that I knew that I would continue to have four jobs until the coaching business took off properly.

20:37And that I would continue to find the funds to invest in my skill for as long as it took. and I started to remove all the scarcity swords from above my head. It has to be this way, but in three years, it has to be this way in six years, et cetera, et cetera. No, my goal is to just have a great business that I love and that's serving people. That's it. I have to say thank you because literally on the drive here to the studio, I was making, I have like the ticket in my hand and I'm like, do I pay to go to this event? And it's literally in a week and the flights are bananas expensive. And I'm just like, I'm not sure.

21:14I'm not sure. I called JD and I'm like, what do you think? Do you think I should go? And then what you just said right now, anything necessary to support mastery. And all of a sudden it became so clear. I absolutely need to make that investment. I absolutely need to be there. I absolutely need to find a way to make it work because that's the anything necessary to support the mastery. And by the way, this is why I'm such a diehard for coaching. I keep telling people this is not an expense. This is a necessity. This is an absolute necessity. Nobody should think about this. I don't know from my client's experience, but from my own experience, my life would not be the same.

21:47I would pay this a thousand times. So people come in and you notice their archetype and obviously you're attracting the former version. I don't notice. I assess for archetype. I don't trust my instincts. Do you find that you are attracting basically the person who you once were? It appears to be. Okay. And so then what are the similar patterns? Somebody who's listening right now, are they identifying as an archetype who you're familiar with? This type can be described in behavioral terms. They're very fast-paced. They're very task-oriented. They're extremely influential. In other words, they're friendly, and most of them are talkative, sometimes to an overbearing degree.

22:22They're quite overwhelmed because of their perfectionism. They can't usually see their perfectionism as a flaw, but it's actually what's causing them to do other things behaviorally, like harsh self-talk and harsh talk towards other people, harsh standards towards other people. This is also creating communications issues and they're wildly reactive. The vast majority of them are reactive and they're reactive in two ways. By the way, it's two sides of the same coin. Either they're completely in recoil, they're in analysis paralysis hell, or they're the kind of people who land on you like a sumo wrestler, as I like to say.

22:59In other words, you didn't even touch them and they're like in your face. so preemptive striking or analysis paralysis are just two sides of the same coin they are tactic of retaliation and they're because of fear and that's basically it that's what's happening what's happening is they're competitive and they're competitive because of unresolved anger i can and i will energy is anger i used to have that too i either i became old or i became enlightened but it's gone now. So who was your anger directed at? I really don't think it wasn't anything in general. It was probably, I mean, my biggest core value is feminism.

23:37So it may have been about the systemic masculine imbalance in the world. But I really can't think of anything with which I was angry other than this sense that all of us have that we are powerless. And the sense that we all have that we are powerless makes us look for power externally, until we realize that that's a losing game and that the only way you can ever find it is inside by renouncing that. So if somebody's listening now and they feel powerless, how do they objectively and concretely feel or choose to believe that they are powerful? They make the decision to go for peace and they be easy on themselves.

24:14This is easier said than done, but the cultivation process is the process of self compassion which is really different it's not an action or a doing it's an active decision that you deserve peace and an operation from there if you're in a negotiation you're in a conflict and your agenda is like really like i want to get this thing and you just make in that moment the decision what's my fastest way to peace you resolve the issue it's exactly the same with tickets next week for your event. What if the premise is, what is my fastest way to peace? What is the most likely outcome that will drive better, peaceful results in my life?