A Book Talk: Gilt Free

Consciously Unbiased had a very special guest, Keren Eldad, back with us on the show for a second time to talk about her second book, Gilt Free: Ditching Your Guilded Cage for Good. Keren is an executive coach who has worked with Olympic athletes, Special Forces operatives, Hollywood stars, and executives at companies including J.P. Morgan, Estée Lauder, and Nike.

You may remember Coach Keren from when we had her on the show last winter to talk about her first book Gilded: Breaking Free from the Cage of Ambition, Perfectionism, and the Relentless Pursuit of More. (If you missed that episode, you can catch the replay on LinkedIn here). She joined us again to talk about her latest book, Gilt Free.

Many in our Substack community may have checked the boxes for what society may mark as being successful, whether it’s a job title or number in your bank account or access to certain rooms. Eldad writes in Gilt Free, “You can do all of this—check every box, play every part perfectly—and still feel like you’re drowning. Which renders success a moot point. Because success without freedom isn’t success at all. It’s a cage. Gilded, perhaps. But a cage nonetheless.”

The topic of this Book Talk is about what happens after you’ve defined success for yourself—how do you really continue on that journey of living in alignment.

Keren shares:

• What alignment looks like in real life.

• How her own path to finding joy was hard won after years spent trying to measure up to what society told her was important before finding her way out of debt and ending an abusive marriage.

• What belonging to oneself really means.

• Common themes that keep leaders stuck.

• Some of her favorite anti-rules from the book, such as “Assume Everyone Likes You” and “Screw Talent, Choose Consistency.”

• And much more

You can learn more about Keren and her work here.

Thanks for watching!