Transcript
Are You Caught In The AMBITION TRAP Without Knowing It? | Amina AlTai
From John R. Miles · Episode page · Watch on YouTube
· 45 min · 9,093 words · 103 timestamped sections
This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Are You Caught In The AMBITION TRAP Without Knowing It? | Amina AlTai", an episode of John R. Miles published November 13, 2025 (45 min, about 9,093 words). It mentions 2 people, works and ideas, including Gallup, Dell.
What this episode is about
Amina AlTai discusses the detrimental impact of the "ambition trap," where society equates constant work and busyness with worth, leading individuals to neglect their well-being. She shares her personal journey of shifting from a grueling seven-day workweek to a healthier three-day schedule, emphasizing the importance of self-care and the misconception that reduced work equals reduced value.
Key takeaways
- Slowing down is transformative; success shouldn't come at the cost of health or happiness.
- The ambition trap: chasing accolades may lead you further from actual fulfillment and authentic living.
- Promoting a book is a marathon, not a sprint — momentum takes constant effort, not a magic spell.
- We idolize hustle culture, yet neglect that self-care is the ultimate act of rebellion against burnout.
- Surprisingly, vulnerability in storytelling invites connection; many share similar battles, revealing a collective struggle.
What is discussed, and when
Notable quotes from "Are You Caught In The AMBITION TRAP Without Knowing It? | Amina AlTai"
I was curious about research and reports. And so I try to keep up on what Gallup is putting out in their most recent study of global workplace culture and basically what's happening out.
about Gallup · atYes. And I spent a lot of my career in case you didn't know in Fortune 500 companies. I was a senior exec at Lowe's and Dell. And I have to say I worked with some very engaged people and I.
about Dell · at
Who and what is mentioned in this episode?
Companies & orgs
Full transcript with timestamps
Last year as I was finishing up the book, I was working seven days a week. And now that I had a big burst of energy on the book tour that finished, I have a bit of a slowdown period. So I've been working three days a week for this. And that to me feels right. Last year when I was working seven days a week, nobody asked, "Are you okay?" This year when I'm working 3 days a week, people are like, "Are you okay?" Yeah, I'm great. But we're so indoctrinated to believe that going 90 miles an hour all the time is the way that when somebody slows down to take care of themselves, we think that's the problem. I think the biggest lie is that the more you work, the more valuable you are.
Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long- form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors CEOs creators innovators scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become passion struck.
I am absolutely thrilled today to have Amina Alai on Passion Struck. Welcome Amina. How are you today?
I'm awesome. Thank you so much for having me. And one of the things I love to do is to have a guest on the show who are also fellow podcasters and I got a chance to listen to some of your shows, love what you're about and was so excited to hear that you've launched a new book which I have here in my hands for those of you who can't see it. the ambition trap. How to stop chasing and start living. I can't wait to dive into this. How does it feel to have this book come out into the world?
It's honestly such a feeling of just major relief. And I'm curious if you felt this way, but it's when you're behind the scenes and you're working on something, it can be such a solo and singular journey. Even if you have collaborators, I had wonderful editors, but you don't get much feedback. And then it's finally out in the world and you're in these rooms with people just hearing how the concepts are landing and resonating. And that has nourished me so much, way more than I ever thought it would. It's been extraordinary.
I sometimes felt that there was more work on the back side of the book getting it out into the world than there was actually writing it. I don't think people realize how much you have to work to promote your book. I feel like my first time I made some really good moves and there are things that I wish I would have done differently. So, as I'm approaching my new books, it was a great learning lesson and a great foundation of what's next to come.
Not sure if you found the same thing true. It's so interesting because I thought the hardest part would be writing the book and I'm a former marketer, so I knew there would be a big heavy lift in the marketing piece, but
I assumed there'll be a flywheel moment and then there'll just be momentum and off it'll go. And I haven't hit that flywheel moment yet, so I'm still working quite hard to get it out there. So, that's the piece that's interesting to me. I thought there'd be more speed behind it and I wouldn't have to push so much, but it's still requiring quite a bit of my effort. I'm seeing
that's exactly what I found and I think what we'll hear from most authors. Literally, that's what I'm hearing from everybody. So, it's like, okay, it's not that I've done something wrong. Nothing's broken here. This is just something that requires a lot of energy.
Absolutely. Never stopping. I'm still Mine came out February of 2024 and I'm still trying to push it as much as I can.
Wow. Yeah. The author life, not for the meek. So, let's jump into the book. [clears throat] You write, "My workaholic tendencies and painful relationships to success were quite literally killing me. Why was it so important to open the book with such a raw and vulnerable story?"
This story stops people in its tracks. And it's interesting. So I open the book by telling the story of what I call my stop moment. So I was six years into my marketing career and the child of immigrants and was raised in achievement culture and told to just put your head down, work really hard, have the good on paper life and everything will be great. And unfortunately that didn't work for me. Things were looked great on paper. I achieved all the things that I wanted to. But I'd gotten really sick. And I'd been to seven different doctors and finally I get a call from one of them and she says, "Amina, if you don't go to the hospital now instead of going to work, you'll be days away from multiple organ failure." And being 28 years old and getting a call like this is just you never think that's going to happen, right? You're like, I'm in my 20s. I'm in the prime of my life. I have I'm so vibrant. This is the beginning of my
career. You never expect to get a call like that. And it was alarming, right? and it really changed the trajectory of my entire life. But what's shocking is the more I tell the story on podcasts and stages, the more people message me or line up afterwards and say, "I have a very similar story." So, I think it's super important that I share it. One, because it's so alarming, but two, so many of us have an experience that is similar. So, there's something here that we need to talk about that we need to unpack together. And it's such an attention-grabbing moment, too.
Oh, well, it certainly is. And speaking of attentiongrabbing, I love to ask like punchy questions. So, if you had to describe the ambition trap in just three words, what would they be?
Oh my god, that's the same gal, but three words is I don't know if I've got three for you. Never enough syndrome.
Never enough syndrome. Okay, I'll take it. You just described that event that happened with your doctor and I think there are a lot of people as you said, I being one of them, who you realize at some point or another, that your work is actually draining you. It's making you less healthy. It's like making you a nervous wreck. And in some cases, it's even shortening your lifespan.
Yeah. And I think a lot of us don't wake up to it until we start feeling the symptoms. And oftentimes, as is the case of me, they're so subtle at first that you just push them off as something else. And I'm not sure if this happened with you, but what I found is that over time, it went from low-level symptoms to then medium grade where I realized the world was changing colors, but I couldn't figure out what was beneath it to all of a sudden you have this hockey stick like you did with the organ failure where all of a sudden it like slams across you like a 2x4.
Yeah. You think that's pretty consistent with people you talk to? I do think it is consistent and it's the old adage that the universe whispers and then it shouts because for a lot of I am a stubborn person and I wasn't listening to the whispers and I had to let it get to the shout before I was willing to make a change and I'm super curious of your perspective but as someone who is a coach and has a front row seat to people when they are making changes what I notice about many of my clients not all of them because there's always an exception to the rule but it has to be uncomfortable enough for us to make a change So, a lot of us have to get to that shout moment to the where the universe is yelling at us because we're not listening to the whispers. It's not uncomfortable enough for us yet to make a change.
Amina, I have to ask you, what was harder for you? Rebuilding your health or rebuilding your relationship with success.
Oh, 100% rebuilding my relationship with success. The health was interesting. The health was a little bit more like 1 plus 1 equals two. And I know that's not the case for everybody, but for me it was. It was like the doctor said do this thing, take this medication, make this lifestyle change. And it wasn't overnight. It honestly was a slow ship to turn around. But over the course of a couple of years, I really was able to get my health back on track. It was just a bit more linear. Whereas when it comes to my relationship with success, it was not 1 plus 1 equals 2. It was not linear. There was a lot of cognitive dissonance, I think, that I experienced around my relationship to success.
I was curious about research and reports. And so I I try to keep up on what Gallup is putting out in their most recent study of global workplace culture and basically what's happening out there. They described that now six out of 10 people globally are emotionally detached at work and nearly one in five are absolutely miserable.
Yeah. 19% were dy miserable. I saw that same study. It's wild. Good. So, it's obvious if you look at that study as just one that the way we're working isn't working. If it was up to you and you could redesign work culture tomorrow, what would be the very first change you would make?
If I had a magic wand, [clears throat] right? Because I don't think it's simply about the introduction of certain tools or structures. I think it's about people's willingness to create spaces where everybody can thrive and everybody can feel a sense of belonging and everybody can feel a sense of psychological safety. But that requires us to dismantle a lot of our own internalized biases as well. And so I think the biggest thing is a willingness and openness to create cultures like that because the tools without that willingness are always going to fall flat.
Yes. And I spent a lot of my career in case you didn't know in Fortune 500 companies. I was a senior exec at Lowe's and Dell. And I have to say I I worked with some very engaged people and I worked with some very disengaged people. But the ones who were completely engaged, who seemed to love what they were doing, were the far minority. What is causing that large gap between those two? Do you think it's people just find themselves down, career experiences they never expected for, and they get into it so far, are making so much money, lifestyle, everything that it's hard for them to peel back or what causes this gap?
I think it is so multiffactorial as you just elucidated, right? Some people have golden handcuffs and they feel like I'm really far down this path. I'm making a tremendous salary. It's sucking the life out of me, but I can't warrant a change because I'm getting so much money here. I think a lot of it is also us being completely unaware about what our gifts are, what purpose means for each of us. I literally I have an entire career that is built around that exact person that follows the shoulds and the mustd dos and gets to the top of the mountain in their career, looks around and realizes this isn't it. None of this leverages my genius. I am not happy. I don't feel a sense of contentment. And now I finally want to do something that is true to me.
But so many of us can't give ourselves permission to even do that until we've gotten to the top of the mountain, right? Until we've checked every box and looked over our shoulder and thought, I can't try anymore. Which leads me to another piece, which is permission. I think so many of us don't have permission to go after that from the get-go. I had a lot of programming around career. I'm half Arab. I come from a very big STEM family. And the story there was like all you girls need to go to medical school. And my dad I remember taking me to the hospital environment and I was like there's no windows here like where the doctors I can't thrive here. There's no sunlight.
That was my first thought. And so I think there's a lot of conditioning we all have whether it's familial, cultural or systemic. And so I think that we have to really peel back the layers on that to understand who we are, what we want and how we can leverage that in the context of our careers. And I think the last piece is that it is a you don't have to have a job that leverages purpose, right? For me, I do I feel like actually that's super important for me. I spend more of my heartbeats at work than I do anywhere else. But not everybody that doesn't matter to everybody, right? Some people want to have what I call the good enough job, right? Where it pays them the great salary, they have the benefits that they need, and then they have lots of time off where they can spend with their families and invest in meaningful hobbies. And for them that is enough purpose that they're getting outside of
work that they don't need the purposeful work. So there's no right or wrong way to career, but I feel like a lot of us don't feel like or we feel like it is a form of privilege to have purpose in our careers and in lots of ways it is and we just don't feel like we can get to it.
I think a lot of us have an idea of what ambition is, but for the purposes of the ambition trap, [snorts] what does ambition mean to you today and how do you define it? Well, I really wanted to redefine ambition because I feel like the conversation around ambition is a bit of a dysfunctional one. I think culturally speaking, what I initially thought ambition was more for Moore's sake all the time. Like this neverending upward trajectory, right? More money, more power. And that's somehow going to make me more fulfilled. And guess what?
It doesn't, right? I have all of these super high achieving clients and I'm sure everybody listening is nodding along too. They're like, "Yeah, the more for more didn't work for me." And so I think that ambition is neutral and natural. It is a desire for more life. It is a wish to grow, a wish to unfold. And the thing about that is that's inherent in every single living thing on the planet. It's in our plant babies and our human babies, right? Our cells are all saying, "Hey, we want to grow, right? It's a very natural, neutral thing, but we make it right for some people and wrong for others." And that's part of what I wanted to dispel in the book as well.
Yeah, you're right. Ambition isn't a dirty word. It's an invitation to design your life with greater purpose and meaning.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So many of us see ambition as negative or selfish which Yeah. Go ahead.
I was I was going to say there's even religious connotations around it. What an example that I've been using is I watched the movie The Conclave which was about selecting the new pope and there's throughine of ambition and they keep saying oh my gosh I shouldn't have ambition to to be pope. Ambition is such a bad thing such a taboo thing. And that's why in the book I distinguish between painful ambition and purposeful ambition. Ambition like money is neutral, right? We just load it with meaning. And then there can be painful ambition that's driven by a core wound which we can talk about. And there's purposeful ambition that's connected to our truth that's coming from a place of wholeness. And that's a very different orientation.
Yeah. I thought Ry Fines did a great job in that as did a number of Stanley Tu.
Yes. So good. And I think he did great. But one of the things that or the lines that really caught me is that the pope they pick should be the one who doesn't aspire to have the job who just wants to be the humble servant. And what wouldn't we be better off in the world if more of our leaders uh were that person and that persona who got selected instead of the person who was climbing up the ladder to get the job. I just wonder how much different the world would be.
Yes. Because the come from is so different, right? The orientation is so different. I want this thing because I just want to have it versus I want to be in service. That's so different. That's such different energy, such different intention.
So, I love talking about gaps and you have a fundamental one in your book. I call it the fulfillment gap
in my own vernacular, but you really look at the difference between what you call painful ambition and purposeful ambition. How do you define that gap?
Yes. So, as I mentioned, ambition is neutral and natural. It's this desire for growth, desire for more life. And it's very funny because when I was writing the book, I was socializing the topic of ambition. And people fell into two camps. Either they were like me, which is camp A, I'm very ambitious, but that ambition has been so expensive and it cost me something or they fell into camp B. And camp B was, I fully renounce ambition because I've only seen a dysfunctional version of it, so I'm not ambitious at all. I don't believe that's true. I think that each and every one of us has ambition. It's inherent in all of right. It's just that desire for more life, that wish to grow. And so in the book, I distinguish those two pieces, right? The painful ambition versus the purposeful. So in painful ambition, we are driven to win no matter the cost.
And no matter the cost being the operative phrase because there's nothing wrong with winning, right? But it's when we'll step over everybody and hurt ourselves to get to the goal. In painful ambition, we'll instrumentalize our minds and bodies to get where we want to go. We move at unsustainable paces. We think in this black and white eitheror mindset. So there's a couple of trademarks, but ultimately it's all driven by a core wound. So initial injuries of the psyche that have us needing all of these things outside of ourselves to feel whole and worthy on the inside. And I can dig into those if that's helpful.
Yeah. No, I think it is. Okay. So the core wounds, this is work from Lee Borbbo who's a Canadian psychologist. And she says there are five core wounds. They are rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal and injustice. And these are essentially initial injuries of the psyche that we experience in our formative years. And each and every one of us has one, right? Even if you had the most miraculous upbringing with the best parents on the planet, we'll still have that initial injury. And as a result of that, we'll wear a corresponding mask. So for example, if you have a rejection wound, the mask you wear is avoidance or withdrawal. If you have an abandonment wound, the mask you wear is dependent.
So like overly reliant on others. If you have a betrayal wound, the mask you wear is control. And so we can see that if we're coming from either that wound or we're wearing that mask, we're going to have a really wobbly relationship with ambition. So I had a rejection wound and a betrayal wound. And so I was trying to control everything but avoiding throwing my hat in the ring for things. And you can imagine as you're trying to grow, trying to take up space, it's going to create some complications. And so the invitation in the work is to really look at those core wounds and even bringing awareness to them shifts things so dramatically and then can we instead be coming from that place of purposeful ambition that's connected to our deeper why that's coming from that place of truth that's coming from that place of wholeness.
So if I had to summarize it painful ambition is you're fueled by your wounds hustle external validation and purposeful ambition is you're aligned you're regenerative you're sustainable. So if someone is experiencing painful ambition but doesn't realize it, what might be one or two of the first symptoms that they might want to recognize?
And I think that it's important that we recognize this for ourselves, right? A lot of people ask this question and they're like, "Well, I'm noticing it for myself, but other people around me aren't noticing." And I think that the work starts with us. So when we show up differently, other people will notice and we're in a dance with everybody, so they'll move to accommodate us as well. But we're usually experiencing some kind of hit for it whether we're conscious of it or not. Right? So the hit for me was my health. Right? I was definitely coming from painful ambition trying to control every last eye dot every or control everything in my life and it's just not possible. And that's when my body broke. Right? So maybe you're experiencing physical challenges. Maybe you're experiencing a lot of conflict because of that voracious desire to succeed and how you're showing up with your community and your collaborators.
Perhaps you're noticing a lot of mental stress, right? And it's impacting your mental health, right? So, there's going to be signals along the way for sure. And we want to look and see where the rub is, where's the discomfort, and where is it coming from? And can we choose another way?
I want to go into kind of the background on systems that keep us trapped. And one of the quotes that I really like from the book is that ambition is complicated, especially for historically excluded people. So it begs the question, how do race, gender, identity intersect with ambition in ways that our listeners might not even realize?
Yes. Okay. So again, this is why I wanted to write the book because I wasn't seeing anybody talk about identity and ambition and those things are so intrinsically linked. There's something known as the ambition penalty. And what that is, if you're a woman, if you're a person of color, if you're a queer person, a person with a disability, anybody with a marginalized identity, we experience backlash for our ambition. So I'll share a bit more data. Men and women and the research was done in a gender binary. Men and women enter the workforce in more or less the same levels of ambition. Men are rewarded for theirs. Women it's seen as a detractor.
And ambitious women who negotiate their salaries are seen as aggressive and difficult to work with. Women of color are actually the most ambitious cohort in corporate America, but they experience the most push back for that ambition. So there's this double bind that we experience, right? We're told to be and not to be in the very same sentence. and we want to take up space, we want to grow, but oftentimes it's seen as really taboo. And so I think we have to talk about that complexity.
Yeah. Marshall Goldsmith wrote the famous book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
Amen. So for those people who are painfully ambition ambitious, how would you relate what he's trying to convey in that book to what they're missing? It's interesting because some people have said to me, if you're an immigrant, if you're a person of color, you have to work harder to be seen and to take up space, right? But again, it's what got us here is not going to get us where we want to go next. Right? Sometimes we have to use these tools to get where we want to go. And sometimes it's deeply painful and we take a really big hit for it. And I'm speaking from experience here. But I think that if we want a life of joy, of meaning, of ease, of comfort, those tools that we use to grapple our way to the top, they're it's very different than the tools that are going to get us to that next place that we want to go to. And so I think we have to be really compassionate with ourselves because sometimes people take a
framework like this and weaponize it against themselves and that's not the point at all. It's awareness. And sometimes we had to use these tools to survive in this system to get here, but now it's something else.
I want to talk a little bit about some of the Gen Z listeners who might be tuning in today. So, I have two kids who are in this quadrant, and I think both of them are really struggling right now because I think they both have ambition, but they're worried about all the complexities that are being thrown at them, especially how fast technology is chasing the workplace. And I know for my son, he was really worried about what college degree to pursue because he's AI is going to make so many of these different jobs so redundant. So what would your advice be to to people in that quadrant, that generation on how they can approach ambition differently knowing that the playing field is changing?
So I think that your son is asking all of the right questions. I think these are important questions to ask. And so what I would be thinking about is yes where is AI going to replace some of our work. I think in lots of ways AI is going to be complimentary already is complimentary versus completely replacing but of course it's going to replace some things. So thinking about where AI is going to make some roles redundant but also bumping that up against where our genius is. And we want to be thinking about our zone of genius.
Each and every one of us has a zone of genius and that's our highest yield contribution. That's where our gifts are innate. So thinking about okay well if we are making quadrants right what is AI potentially going to replace okay let's cross that out where am I in my zone of genius and how can that potentially be something that either AI can't replace or AI will work complimentarily with and how can I double down in that space so that way we're not because I never want people to work at in a space so outside of their gifts that it's going to feel like friction every single day and we also have to be really conscious of how technology is going to change our lives and is going to change our jobs. A great example is a lot of people are using AI for coaching and for therapy, right? But one thing that people are noticing about AI is that it has a lot of confirmation bias and it can be a big echo chamber,
right? There was a study that a therapist had done or an analysis that a therapist had done basically like affirming a lot of this. There was basically a kid that was like it was a scenario where this therapist was pretending to be a kid saying to AI, "Hey, like my parents are really hard on me." and then eventually says, "Oh, I think I should kill my parents." And then AI is like, "Yeah, you should kill your parents." Right? Just like really affirming the bias. And so this is where an excellent coach and excellent therapist is really going to differentiate, right? It's like they don't have that same echo chamber bias.
So thinking about where we can really bring in our human factors that a machine won't be able to replace, especially not right now, right? They're getting smarter and smarter all the time, but really thinking about where does my humanness really add the most value.
I think that is really important. It always makes me come back to Marshall's book because in my own life, man, I was burning up the ladder. I was climbing faster than anyone. Youngest vice president at Lowe's, youngest partner select at Arthur Anderson.
Yeah. And I met with this clinical psychologist who was evaluating a bunch of the top leaders at Lowe's. And she said that very phrase to me. And which my weakest point was my emotional intelligence of getting out of drive mode and getting into more connection and collaboration mode. And when I think about what AI will do and what it won't do, one thing it's never going to replace is human interaction. And I think if we're in work, we're always going to have to work with other people. So the more you can learn how to influence people in the right way, I think that's one of the greatest skills that anyone can learn because I don't think it's going to go away no matter what else happens.
Exactly. So beautifully said. So you have worked with leaders at the highest levels and for those who don't know your background, you were the front face in front of millions of people for a top brand. As you look across the space and companies today, where do you see hustle culture is the most deeply ingrained?
That's such a great question and I think it's in so many places, right? Even places that we think that it's not, even places that are saying, "Hey, our values are this, it's in the smallest ways, like even moving with a sense of urgency, right? That's hustle culture." Like valuing the written word over people's intuition, that's hustle culture. Instrumentalizing our bodies, that's hustle culture. And so, it's so pervasive and it's so insidious that it's it's everywhere, right? And it's so countercultural to choose another way.
I'm going to give you an example. Last year as I was finishing up the book, I was working seven days a week and now that I had a big burst of energy on the book tour that finished mostly in June, July and I have a bit of a slowdown period. So I've been working like three days a week for this and that to me feels right like I'm recouping my energy. I talk about how ambition goes in cycles. You have these peaks in the sun and then you have these moments where you go back underground to recuperate. And I'm in an underground moment. And last year when I was working seven days a week, nobody asked, "Are you okay?" This year when I'm working three days a week, people are like, "Are you okay?" Yeah, I'm great. But we're so indoctrinated to believe that going 90 miles an hour all the time is the way that when somebody slows down to take care of themselves, we think that's the problem. And so it's just so insidious
and it's so pervasive that I feel like we have to question everything. I hope I have this statistic correct from your book. I'm doing it off of memory, but I think it said in 2016 745,000 people lost their lives to hustle culture, which is a hard number to even fathom. If you think about that and how devastating it is, what do you think the biggest lie that hustle culture tries to sell us is?
I think the biggest lie is that the more you work, the more valuable you are. That's the thing that keeps us in motion. And I think this is why your work is so important, right? Like we all matter. We are all born worthy, but we believe that we're not because of our initial injuries of the psyche, because of everything that we experience out in the world. And so that then we are relentlessly seeking our worthiness outside of ourselves. And that is the carrot that we're chasing inside of hustle culture. And it's never going to fill the wound that's on the inside until we get the message and we feel it in our whole bodies that we are worthy.
We are always going to stay in that constant motion until we hurt ourselves like I did.
So there's another quote you have in the book. When we are living and leading from a place of pain and chasing ambition no matter the cost, we hurt everyone around us including ourselves. What advice would you give to leaders who are quietly thinking to themselves maybe I'm operating from that place? First of all, if you are, I think it's so important that we have compassion for ourselves and we forgive ourselves. Right? I said before, I don't want anybody to weaponize this framework against themselves. We're in a system that rewards this way of being. And it's countercultural. It's like swimming upstream to choose a different way. And we likely were raised inside of organizations and structures that said, "Hey, this is the way to be. This is the way you are successful. This is the way you thrive." So, if you're noticing that you're operating that way, first of all, compassion and forgiveness for yourself.
Where then is it getting in the way of you having the life that you want? Where is it really interrupting true success, true alignment, true fulfillment, true contentment? And then starting to mine those pieces for yourself and then seeing if you can show up differently for other people, too. A lot of the times people I feel like fall into two camps. And I don't want to make, you know, this about a binary, but I feel like either we will, it's like the impact on ourselves will make us change or the impact on other people will make us change. There are so many people that don't want to hurt other people, but they're willing to hurt themselves, right? And then there's people that are like, "Oh, the minute I hurt, I need to change it for everybody else, too." So, if you can't change it for yourself, think about the people that you're impacting negatively and like what their experience is going to be. Most people
don't want to hurt other people. And so, if you're noticing where your patterns are potentially hurting those people around you for that reason, can you make a change?
I think that's really important. However, in my career, I've met quite a few of the people who are in the camp where I call them in my own book, Passion Struck. I call these people blood suckers. They're typically painfully ambitious. This whole chapter is about this thing I call the mosquito audit. Whereas you're trying to revamp your life, one of the things you have to look for is the hidden influences that are around you. And often times we don't even realize these influences are there until they bite us. And one of these mosquitoes I call the blood sucker. And they're, I think, one of the most painful types because these are the people who will do whatever it takes to move up. And so they're trying to steal or take away from you all your blood, anything they can get with you for personal gain. If someone is working with a person like that and they're working with someone who's painfully ambitious, what is the best
way for them to interact where they're developing a relationship with them, but they're also protecting themselves and setting the right type of boundary?
Exactly. You use the perfect word, right? Boundaries are so important. I love the Apprentice Hemill definition of boundaries where they say, "Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously." And I think in the work context, it's the distance at which I can honor you and me simultaneously. And I think in a conversation where somebody has such a rapacious desire to succeed and is coming from that really painful place, it's so important to stick to the facts or what are the facts? The facts are we need this project plan done. The facts are this is the deadline, right? Because a lot of the time people like that will want to pull you into the drama too, right? Because they get some sort of um adrenaline dump from bringing you into the drama as well. And that's where boundaries become even more important.
So thinking about what are the what's the distance at which I can honor this person, the work, and myself at the same time and just resisting the urge to fall into the trap, right? Because when we're around people that operate like that, it often initiates an impulse for us to operate the same way. I noticed this about myself. I wrote a book on a more harmonious relationship with ambition. But when I'm around people that are really in the painful ambition, I notice there's an impulse for me to move at the same speed or to choose the same behavior. So, I just have to watch myself more, just be a bit more judicious, a bit more conscious. And sometimes that means I'm moving a bit slower, like still fast enough, right?
I'm still getting everything done. I've never missed a deadline. And so, just being conscious of how we're operating when we're around that because that behavior is contagious.
One of the things I really loved in the book was your idea of something that you call the resentment line. And you write, "We all have a threshold. When it's crossed, resentment sets in." How can any of the listeners out there recognize when they've possibly slipped below that line?
Yeah. So, the resentment line is exactly what it sounds like. It's the space that if we live below it, we feel resentful. And it's really about having our needs met and being in right relationship with those needs being met. So, let's say we're showing up at a job, we're giving a lot, we don't feel like the salary is commensurate. As a result of that, we live below the resentment line. To live above the resentment line, we have to know what our needs are and we have to articulate what they are and then we have to ask for what we need. And that's really hard for a lot of people because so many people don't know what their needs are and don't know how to ask for them to be met. I want people to just guess our needs and intuitit them and miraculously show up with them. I used to live that way for sure. I was like, "Oh, people can't read my mind around my needs." And so, we have to be really
clear on what they are for ourselves. And there's some exercises in the book asking you for different areas of your life, what do you need in order to show up whole, nourished, and fully and then stating those things. And listen, in a work environment, sometimes that's a little tricky. There's a certain budget that's allocated. And so sometimes we're working around that. But there's always ways to get creative, right? When people are negotiating comp and things like that, I'm always talking to people about, well, how can we get creative around how they can make you whole?
Whether that's a personal development stipend, some more days, some more PTO, right? What are the ways that we can build in more so that you can feel more nourished and like your needs are being met and you're not living in that resentful place? Because the thing about the resentment line too is we think that nobody knows that we're there, that we're kicking rocks down there. Everybody feels it and so it doesn't serve you and it doesn't serve the people around you. I want to go back to something you brought up earlier and that was you were talking about inner genius
and to me inner genius is something like purpose or meaning that a lot of people have a hard time discovering. You have three E, excellence, enjoyment that I'm hoping that you could go into in more depth and talk about how they relate to possibly finding your inner genius.
Yes. So in the book I have a framework called the three E and the E stand for the E like which is the space that we're average at the excellent which is the space that we're practice polished and really proficient and the exceptional which is the place that we're off thecharts genius. And each and every one of us has a zone of genius. But we live in a world where we think that genius is for the select few or that it has to look a certain way. It does not. It's different for all of us and we each have this magic special sauce. And so I invite people to to take themselves through that framework. It's really freeing to find the places that we're average at. So many people are afraid of that exercise. I'm like, it's the best thing ever because then we can figure out how we can give that to other people whose zone of genius that is, right?
Like why do we need to hoard everything when actually somebody could do that in a genius way? And then that frees us up to double down in our zone of genius. So you can take yourself through that three E exercise and you can categorize your work into things that you like and don't like for each of those three areas. And then the invitation is to spend more time in that exceptional or zone of genius every single day just starting with 10 more minutes a day because inevitably when I teach this framework someone's hand shoots up and they're like listen like it's a form of privilege to live in your genius. I can't do that. I'm inside of this corporate framework. But each of us could probably find 10 minutes a day and start to build from there and there and then over the course of a year our lives will be remarkably different.
Thank you for sharing that. And I had a philosophical question for you. Great. Contentment or achievement, what comes first?
Oh my gosh, that's such a good question. Okay, I think that achievement without contentment coming first is probably going to be painful ambition. And I literally I this is the first time I'm hearing this question. That's that's my first thought and I could probably piece this apart a little bit more.
But it feels like if we don't know what makes us feel whole and we're looking for achievement, then we're going to do that thing where we're chasing all the things outside of ourselves. But if we do know what creates that unconditional wholeness, we can build. And that to me feels like very different energy.
Yeah. And as a followup, just hit my curiosity meter. What brings you the most contentment in this series, in this season of your life?
I love this question. I think I'm really relearning that right now. I I just wrote a Substack about this about how my north star in my constellation of purpose for the last couple of years was the book. I've been working on this book since September of 2022. It's a long time. And now that I'm not writing it, the promotion for it to slow down a little bit. I have a lot of spaciousness. And in that spaciousness initially felt really disregulating because I'd been used to moving at this really quick speed for a while. Even though I've had spaciousness before in the past and I write about it, I teach all the things, it's been really disorienting because of this Northstar piece and because of the slowdown. And so what I've been letting myself do is get bored. And I think that that's actually such an important piece to find reg resonance in the boredom, right? And to let that be okay. And I think that's
also where magic happens. I'm actually redefining this answer for myself in real time right now. And I don't have a neat and tidy bow to put on it for you. Well, isn't it so interesting that so much of us are constantly on the go go that we never have that time for boredom? And I was recently reading an article about Jeff Bezos and how he starts his morning where for the first hour of his day, he specifically puts himself into a state of boredom just to think about what's going on in his life, what's going well, what's not going well, what's he grateful for, what could be improved upon. But I think most of us don't give ourselves space for that. And let's face it, there's we got to get to the gym to get to work on time. We've got kids, we got to get to school. So, how have you found even during those times where you were working seven days a week to to build some boredom into those periods or do
you think sometimes you can't and other times you have to recoup? I think that you can and I think you can micro dose it, let's say, because even last year where I was working seven days a week, I was still so judicious about taking really good care of myself. I was going to therapy, using my nervous system tools. I'm always in coaching myself. I was if I couldn't take off a weekend, which I couldn't, and couldn't is interesting, right? It's I don't know, maybe I could have if I organized my schedule differently. I couldn't figure it out, right? So, I couldn't take off extended periods of time, but I was finding pockets of rest, right? So, I would lay on the floor between client sessions with my weighted blanket on top of myself. I I might do squats between sessions or I might take a walk outside and notice like 10 things that I could see in the park, right? So, there's ways that I could bring rest and regulate my
or resonance for my nervous system that could be really helpful for me. And then I think also in those moments of rest resisting the impulse to stimulate ourselves because a lot of us will reach for the phone or we'll reach for Netflix or because we feel so uncomfortable with that feeling of boredom or spaciousness or the emotions that are underneath it. So resisting the impulse to busy ourselves mindlessly and actually sit with the feeling.
I think it's important for us to discuss collective change. And I picked this quote from you to to do. You write, "True success won't come from doing more, but from being more ourselves and doing this work as a collective."
What does collective ambition look like to you? Collective ambition, I hope, is purposeful ambition, right? where we realize that the more we each show up in our zone of genius, the more that we're each coming from that place of wholeness and we've looked at our core wounds that we can come together and drive true change around things that we need to drive change around. I think we've lived in such a scarcity mindset and a lot of manufactured scarcity of like only one person can win and only one person can do this thing and it creates so much fighting that then we don't address the real challenges. But I think if we remember that there's space for each of us has a beautiful contribution to make whether it's to our family, our community, or the greater good. And when we come together in our genius, we're so much stronger and we can tackle a lot of these big issues that we're experiencing. So less infighting, more
realization of our genius and more addressing the things that fundamentally are broken.
Well, that leads me to a fun question for you. you are suddenly selected, since we were talking about Jeff Bezos, to be on the mission to Mars. You're going to be one of the first people who gets to go to Mars. And for each one of the first settlers, they get to retire a cultural myth about success forever. What would yours be?
That our value is in our productivity. And how would you counteract that from spreading over time? O, maybe that's gonna be my next body of work.
I'm gonna sit with that one. I don't have the fully baked curriculum for that answer yet.
I mean, it's an important question because there are a lot of these myths that people talk about, but things end up spreading like wildfire in ways that are hard to contain at times. And absolutely the way to contain these things is when they first be start coming off of people's tongues, but it's difficult to do that especially on Earth where you've got so much connection now through social media and that's where these things take fire. But I think on Mars there could be a way to to somehow maybe build a world without social media. maybe build
a world where we get back to growing up with connections being the most fundamental things and learning from our elders and learning through example and not being in a world where safety is so rampant and everything else.
Yes. You know what came to mind as you were saying that was I'm watching the new Jason Mimoa series on Apple TV. I've forgotten the name of it, but it's about indigenous Hawaiians. And one of the things that Jason Mamoa was talking about was as they were being colonized, people's obsession with money and ownership and things like that. And going back to Mars and teaching about our worthiness and productivity and dismantling that myth is the knowledge of enough, right? I and this is what I talk about in the book around contentment. Contentment from Eastern traditions translates to unconditional wholeness or the knowledge of enough.
And I think if we're taught from an early age what unconditional wholeness looks and the knowledge of enough looks like, we're not perpetually seeking that more for Moore's sake. And that I think is is the thing that we need to be teaching from day one. I don't know what that curriculum fully looks like for kids and everybody, but I do feel like that's the essence from my perspective. Anyway,
I want to show the audience the book again, The Ambition Trap, How to Stop Chasing and Start Living. You end the book with an invitation. What's the invitation you hope each reader and each listener here will accept for themselves?
I really hope that people, first of all, I want to eradicate the idea that ambition is not for all of us, right? It is for each and every one of us. And we've seen this really dysfunctional version of it. And that's the story that I wanted to rewrite that it doesn't have to be harmful. It doesn't have to be dysfunctional, but we each need to find our harmonious relationship with it. And we each need to be more and more of ourselves. Right? That's the work really coming home to ourselves asking ourselves what's alignment versus achievement and living from that place.
And so I really hope that people can embrace this and this way of being because I do think that purposeful ambition could shift a lot of things for a lot of people and a lot of workplaces.
I wanted to thank you so much for joining us today. It was such an honor to discuss the book and congratulations again on its release and for joining us here on Passion Struck.
Thank you so much for having me. It was such a joy and congratulations on your books coming out.
Questions about this episode
What is "Are You Caught In The AMBITION TRAP Without Knowing It? | Amina AlTai" about?
Amina AlTai discusses the detrimental impact of the "ambition trap," where society equates constant work and busyness with worth, leading individuals to neglect their well-being. She shares her personal journey of shifting from a grueling seven-day workweek to a healthier three-day schedule, emphasizing the importance of self-care and the misconception that reduced work equals reduced value.
What is mentioned in this John R. Miles episode?
2 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Gallup, Dell. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.
How long is "Are You Caught In The AMBITION TRAP Without Knowing It? | Amina AlTai"?
The episode runs 45 min; the transcript is about 9,093 words in 103 timestamped sections.
More from John R. Miles
About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 2, 2026.