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Tami Simon: In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Rha Goddess. Rha Goddess is a friend to so many. She is the entrepreneurial soul coach behind hundreds of breakthrough changemakers, cultural visionaries, and social entrepreneurs. Her vision to revolutionize the way we live, work, play, and do business. She’s the founder and CEO of Move the Crowd. She’s the author of the book The Calling and audio series, with Sounds True, Making Money, Making Change. And Rha Goddess has authored a new book. It’s called Intentional Ambition: Redefining Your Work for Greater Joy, Freedom, and Fulfillment. Rha, welcome.
Rha Goddess: Thank you so much, Tami, for having me. It’s so great to be here.
TS: Tell me a little bit about what brought you after the writing of The Calling, which was really focused on these three short sentences that I love so much: stay true, get paid, do good. As soon as I saw those three short sentences with a period, you know, stay true, period. Get paid, period; do good, period, I thought, Rha’s my person, like yes. What brought you from that to writing a book about intentional ambition?
RG: Hmm. You know, this is interesting because the first kernel of this book came through when I was about halfway through The Calling, and one of the things that I was noticing in the conversations that I was having with the leaders that we serve every single day was that there was sort of this crisis around the definition of success.
In other words, when people were thinking about being able to say yes to purpose, they were considering, what were all of the things that they had to let go of? What were all of the things that they had to unlearn? What were all of the things that they had to really say no to in order to say yes to themselves?
And there was something about the narratives of what people had endured that continued to stay with me. And I could feel, like I said about halfway through the writing of The Calling, I could feel the sort of inkling and the nudge and even the message that said, the next conversation is ambition.
Now, at that time, I had no idea, Tami, that we were gonna wind up going into a pandemic, right? Which I affectionately called the Sacred Pause. But we had no idea that that’s ultimately where our world was going to take us. I would certainly say that it was through that journey that it became even more clear to me that the opportunity to really talk about where are we now, right?
Five years later and a world of change later, and a world that is still changing at such a rapid fire pace. What are the grounding definitions that we’re planting our feet in and what does that mean for us in terms of the way we wanna live our lives and the way we wanna do our work, whatever and however we define that work as.
And so, you know, sort of like it was, it was writing me or it was calling me, right? And I finally surrendered and chose to answer.
TS: In the beginning of the new book, you write, “How many of us have a dysfunctional relationship with ambition?” And I’m wondering how, how you see that, how you see the dysfunction.
RG: I think there are things that we have really bought into, whether they come from our cultural lineage and the histories that many of us come from when we think about the legacies of our grandmothers or great-grandfathers, and the ways in which they perhaps have built their stories of professional advancement, to what we get societally based upon where we live or based upon what organizations we choose to work inside of, excuse me, based upon who become leaders of authority in our lives, in terms of the doctrines that they espouse and the ones that we take in.
And a lot of what I saw in terms of, you know, if we talk about the sort of negotiation phase, which is how I describe it in the book, where we’re coming to the table of work or we’re coming to the table even of life in many cases, and it’s somebody else’s terms, somebody else’s conditions. That there are all these inputs that aren’t necessarily us, but that we have carried and shouldered and operated from as if they were.
TS: When I tune in to wounded ambition, and this is a phrase that you introduce, how in many of us, this rising natural calling force is wounded in some way, I think a lot of people have the idea like, you know. I don’t think it’s gonna work for me. So I don’t wanna take that risk and be disappointed and rejected. And so I’d rather not go for it because it’s just too risky. So I’ll do this thing that I am capable, competent, and can support myself in. It’s not my true intentional ambition, but I’ll be all right and I’ll do fun things on the weekend. And I’m curious what you think, because I think a lot of people find themselves, that’s the place they’re in.
RG: Yeah. I think about, it takes me immediately to Bronnie Ware’s work around the top five regrets of the dying. And the number one regret that people have is I did not live in my authentic self. I was not true to my own wants, dreams and desires and aspirations. It’s the number one regret that people have on their dying beds. Right? And I think when people make that decision, you know, I’m just gonna kind of go along to get along. Right?
You know, I was writing this phrase today as a matter of fact, that our resistance to disappointment is actually what creates disappointment. In other words, the avoidance of disappointment is actually the thing that keeps us in resignation, right? Which is a form of disappointment, a form of like sustained disappointment. I think the interesting part, Tami, is many of us have lived there for a really long time and not realized that we were resigned. That we sort of have just gone, this is the way it is, this is what’s possible here. You know, there’s not a whole lot more that I think is possible for me, so I’m just gonna kind of stay in what I think is the safety zone.
But the challenge with that is that life will come for you. You don’t have control over that, right? The situations or the circumstances of life at some point cause all of us on some level to confront like where we are not really being expressed as our full self. And I think what makes the, this conversation post-pandemic so unique is that we went through something together on a global level that was so unprecedented that forced every single one of us on some level to sit down and ask some of these bigger questions.
And so where perhaps on any normal day, we’re not questioning any normal day. We’re going through the motions, we’ve made the decisions, we’re assuming you know that the status quo is good enough. We begin to question and we begin to challenge in ways maybe for many of us that we never had before.
TS: I wonder if you can talk to that person who said, you know, I tried to follow my ambition and I got slammed down and it was terrible. And I’m not doing that again, Rha. I’m not doing that again.
RG: Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is to have compassion for that. Because the truth of the matter is, is we have all been in experiences where we’ve wanted to let our light shine and it hasn’t been well received and that has shut a lot of us off. But the challenge of that is that it still takes a toll.
Like we don’t, we don’t get away scot-free when we don’t live in our truth. And whether it’s, we never realize full happiness and fulfillment internally, right? Like we might not say that to anybody. Like we might look great on paper if you looked on the outside looking in. Our smile might even be genuine.
But if you really get to the truth of it, for those of us who know we’re not living in our full potential, something’s missing and we can’t run from that forever in ourself because at some point we have to reckon with it. Even if it is on our deathbed, we have to reckon with it. Right? And so, you know, I would say to you person who has tried and maybe tried more than once and been slammed down, is that part of what is important is that you can continue to try, and that you continue to dream and that you continue to aspire. And to actually see that as a part of your power, right?
Because when we say I’m not gonna dream, or when we say, well, I’m not gonna say yes to that part of me that just is dying to be expressed as myself, there is a cost. We as the world do not get whatever the brilliance or the power or the beauty is that you are here to bring, but there’s also a cost to you because now you’re living on halftime, right?
You’re living at some substandard of yourself, and at some point that does take a toll, whether through physical illness, whether through loss of relationships, even through loss of opportunities. There are so many examples I can sort of cite where people have held on to a job like so tightly, even though everything, every fiber of their being, every sign on the wall has said that this is not where you’re supposed to be. And it isn’t until the job is ripped from their fingers, from their grasp, from their clutches that then they are forced to have to kind of go, OK, who am I now? What am I now? In hindsight, if they’re able to get to the other side, there’s deep gratitude for it. But in the midst of it, it’s painful.
TS: In Intentional Ambition, you write about your own experience in 2017 and you write about how it wasn’t just coming up against a career wall, but a life wall as you describe it. And as I was reading about what was going on in the life and career of Rha Goddess in 2017, you were working almost 20 hours a day at a certain point? I was like, come on, how can someone work almost 20 hours a day?
RG: Yeah.
TS: What was going on? And then what was the shift in the passage that you went through?
RG: Yeah. My, I had just lost my father who was larger than life in my, in my world, and in my reality. He was my hero. He was the person who inspired me to want to care about the world. He was the person who, at a very young age, taught me what did it mean to actually be a citizen of the world and to care about more than just my own affairs, to be of service, to be of commitment?
Through his example, as well as through the loving, nurturing way in which he raised my siblings and I. And you know, for the last 21 years of his life, my sister and I cared for him. We’re responsible for every facet of his well-being. And the last days of his life were incredibly tough. Navigating a healthcare system, let’s just say that left a lot to be desired in terms of how it treats many of people we know, many of our loved ones, in the final stages of their life. And so we were scrambling and really trying to create a scenario where he could have a soft place to land in his final days. And the lack of dignity that was being afforded and the nature of his care created all kinds of, as you can imagine, thoughts and feelings of emotions.
So on some level, running on pure adrenaline, running on decades of distorted determination. And I talk about this as you know, Tami in the book, the legacies sometimes that we come from, can cause us to endure certain things when we compare ourselves to the legacies of indentured slavery or indentured servitude or chattel slavery, or what we know our grandparents or ancestors experienced immigrating to different parts of the world and the ways that they’re treated. And I was pushing myself beyond what was feasible and I was in tremendous grief, but I didn’t wanna grieve, like I didn’t feel like I wanted to go there. I didn’t know if I could pull myself out of that hole.
And I did everything I could to not focus on me and what was unraveling inside of me as a result of losing someone who was so important to me at the time. And so I worked, I just threw myself full force into work and I did everything I could to pack just about every waking day. And as much as it sounds crazy, like to work 20 hours a week or 18 hours. We know people who do this all, at least I do.
I know people who do this all the time, and the degree to which they have to repair their minds, their bodies, and their spirits once they break down. And that restoration process can take a lifetime, depending upon how hard you’d run and how far you’ve pushed. And so for me in 2017, it came to a head and that there just became a morning where I could not get off the couch, you know?
And I had been carrying a grade of exhaustion for years because of the nature of my father’s reality and his subsequent passing and all of the dynamics with the family, you know, all the things Tami, that we don’t always talk about, but that are very, very real. And so I was forced, I hit that life wall and I was forced to really look at every single facet of my life and all of the messaging that had inspired me to operate in ways that were self-destructing, even if they, on the surface seemed noble.
TS: You used this phrase in describing what led you to that moment, “distorted determination.” And one of the things you write about is this whole notion that many of us have, I think, which is you have to hustle, grind, work really, really, really, really, really hard, hard, hard if you’re going to realize your true ambition. And you’re questioning that. And you’re saying, really? And I wonder if you can speak a little bit to that. Because I think that’s an ethos that is still very, very much like, OK, if you want that thing, then practice X number of hours every day for X number of years and maybe the doors will open for you.
RG: Yeah, that, that part and, and I think the many of us have bought in and don’t even realize that we bought in. And so we expect to suffer. And I think there’s an interesting conversation about even the way we distinguish what is sacrifice versus what is straight up suffering and where we trade in ways that are painful and ways in which, when we go to the bank to extract what we’ve invested, unfortunately the balance is not there.
And what you know and what do we do, right? And I raise this because having had the privilege to serve people who have reached the pinnacle of success in their respective fields, in various fields of endeavor, when we really dig into it, there are things that they acknowledge they just can’t get back. There’s deep regret around that and deep sadness around that, and a deep, reflective posture that says, wow, if I could have done this differently, I would have, if I had known that I could do this differently. I would have. And I think, Tami, this is the fundamental shift that is taking us into this space of wanting to reimagine work.
And that is, there is something that happened to every single one of us through the pandemic that I think has had us all question whether or not we’re willing to put our mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being on the line anymore. And this questioning of whether the deal or the agreement that we strike with work requires trading our joy or happiness in our fulfillment in the name of success.
TS: Where do you know in your own experience and when you’re coaching with people, that line is between sacrifice and suffering? Because quite honestly, I’ve been a big enthusiast, I guess I could say that, about the word “sacrifice.” That it has the word “sacred” in it. And when you’re devoted and you love your work, you know, stay true, do good, of course you have to sacrifice. But that’s not the same as suffering. And, and how do you make the distinction for yourself and your clients?
RG: Yeah, it’s a great question and it’s one that I had to deeply rethink when I had my breakdown in 2017. You know, I think about this idea of purposeful effort when we are inspired by a vision, when we are called to something, right? And every part of our being feels ignited or attracted or pulled towards this idea, towards this aspiration, towards this goal. And I think about the beginning stages of it, right? Where we’re just ideating and we don’t feel like we have a lot on the line, right? Like in other words, we’re just exploring, we’re just inspiring, we’re just feeling it out. We’re wanting to see what’s possible.
And I think about the evolution of those ideas, right? If I think about my entrepreneurs and all of the, what happens in the entrepreneurial journey, right? Or even in organizational leadership, when you get to a certain level of responsibility or you get to a certain level of success where all of a sudden it’s pressure and you don’t have the same permissions that you thought you’d have, and it’s a very funny thing in that it plays a trick on the mind because when we’re aspiring in our mind, we think I’m gonna be more free. I’m gonna be more expressed. I’m gonna have more power. I’m gonna have more influence. Right? And I can tell you in the thousands and thousands and thousands of conversations I’ve had with entrepreneurs and executives alike, that often what shows up is prison.
Often what shows up is scrutiny, a kind of scrutiny that actually encourages one to sit down on their own humanity, to say to themselves that I can’t afford to be human, right? Because I’m the first woman of color who’s ever sat in this seat. Or, I can’t afford to be human because my dad immigrated here in the 1930s or the 1940s. Right? And there’s something about the psychology of aspiration where when we are, and if we are even Tami, right? Because many of us don’t get there. And that should be a question to us. How is it that we have built a society that basically blatantly says that only 1% of our population is thriving?
Well, what is, what does that mean? Is that you, you know, how does that become the collective aspiration that we all work in service to 1% of the world? So even some of the things, again, that we’ve been conditioned and bought into, whether we’ve realized it or not, have to become questionable for us. So this fine line between sacrifice and suffering, suffering is where the pain becomes so intolerable that you completely disconnect from your humanity, you disconnect from yourself, your own wisdom, your own voice, your own body, your own spirit. You disconnect from your own identity. You disconnect from the people you love because you’re so exhausted, you have no bandwidth for it, right? So I think people are gonna have to feel into the truth of their own experience to start to examine the degree to which they are able to recognize where those lines are and where they aren’t.
I’ll just add one more small layer that further complicates it. Some of us are carrying childhood trauma. Some of us are carrying deep legacies of trauma, of violence, of violation. That also distorts our understanding of where the line is. But the first thing I will say is that the minute we acknowledge, we can acknowledge that we have disconnect. In other words, we don’t feel anything no matter what we do, or worse, more we’re consuming to numb, then we have to question whether or not this is suffering and more than just doing what’s necessary to get ahead.
TS: You’ve written about how when it comes to actually making the changes that we know we need to make in our life, that you’ve seen these two different types of people. There’s the type of person who changes only when they’re really up against the wall. It sounds like that’s where you were at in 2017 when you couldn’t get up off the couch at a certain point from exhaustion. And then there’s another type of person that you describe as the belly-full type. They won’t make a change really, and take a risk to follow their true ambition and their true calling, unless they’re quote unquote belly-full. They’re sure that all of their security needs are met. And I’m particularly interested for a moment in this second type, because it seems like if that’s the case, you might spend your whole life, you know, focusing on security needs like you, you never get beyond that. But what if you are a belly-full type?
RG: Yeah, it’s a great question. There has to be an exploration around really understanding what is important and what matters. And I’ll say a little bit more about this, right? In the conversation of resignation, and I talk about resignation 1.0 and resignation 2.0, right? Resignation 1.0 is where we become resigned, where we sort of go, OK, this is the way it is. I’m never gonna achieve X, X, X, X or it’s never gonna get any better than this. I have achieved X, X, X. And so, you know, this is what it is. There is this complacency, right, which is really resignation, right? That sort of masks itself as complacency or comfort that people get attached to, right? I talk about as the stasis, right?
Like in other words, there’s an inertia, right? And it takes a lot to get one to move. I think the challenge that we face sometimes as belly-full people, is we can be lulled into this false perception that complacency equals progress or that complacency equals growth. And so what you experience sometimes as a belly-full person is that you then kind of come from this orientation of scarcity, right?
So in other words, your belly is full, but then you keep eating and you know what the experience is. Imagine you’re sitting at a dinner table and you’ve emptied your plate and you’re asking for seconds and you’re asking for thirds. And unfortunately, this is so much of the way our society, right, in terms of consumption operates, is that there’s this is this insatiable need for more and for belly-full people there’s a point which at with which that starts to give diminishing returns and you actually become a prisoner to that commitment, right? To having your belly full.
And so in the interrogation of understanding what it means to need to have certain supports, it’s really about what supports are vital for me to move? Recognizing and understanding that you have a commitment to growth. You have a commitment to moving that lives at the core of how you’re assessing what you need, which is very different than, I’m here. I’m comfortable. I’m just gonna get as much as I can get. I’m just gonna take as much as I can take. I’m just gonna consume as much as I consume. And there is no commitment to growth; there is simply a commitment to acquisition. To amassing. Because we’ve been taught that that equals success.
TS: That’s very helpful. You know, I think of the yogis that would say, you know, when your stomach’s three quarters of the way full, you’re done eating. And you know, it doesn’t have to be the exact math, but to be that type of belly-full type. And then you move. And then you move.
RG: Correct.
TS: OK.
RG: And that, that’s purposeful, right? That’s purposeful.
TS: Yeah.
RG: As opposed to sort of by default.
TS: Now, when it comes to ambition, I wanna clarify this a little more because as a word, I find it interesting, like I know people have called me ambitious, and I’ve been like, what? That might be a bad thing. And they’re like, no, it’s not. I’m like, yeah, you know, I mean, I’m a, I’m a a person of service. I’m not, this isn’t about me and my ambition. And I notice sometimes when I think, oh, that’s a really ambitious person, I actually mean it, unfortunately, with my judgmental mind, slightly derogatory, like they’re ambitious, meaning who knows who they’d walk on to get their thing. And they’re just like, it’s all about their thing. So I wonder how you see this dark side of that term.
RG: Yeah, I mean, I do make a very clear distinction in the book between what I call wounded ambition and true ambition. And I think wounded ambition comes from, for many of us, being conditioned to believe that the things that we intrinsically want are not good enough. Or not enough. In other words, they don’t make us respect-worthy or they don’t make us, you know, and I think about, right, like, and I use the example of the doctor that wanted to really be a painter, right? And oh, but artists don’t get respect, but doctors do. So I’m gonna go the doctor route because what I’m really seeking and wanting is respect. And I don’t believe that I’m going to get that as an artist.
And there’s lots of messaging and conditioning and even familial challenging that comes with that, depending upon your cultural lineage. And so in that particular case, you’re wanting something that you believe you’re supposed to want, or you’re wanting something that you’re told you should want, and that your merit as a human being is based upon your ability to want that and pursue that.
And so there’s wounding in the desire because you’re wanting something that isn’t really what you want, but more something that you’re told is what will make you worthy. And then there’s also wounding in the drive because you’re getting all kinds of messages about what’s necessary in order to make it. Right?
And so we’ve talked about this messaging of sacrifice. Success requires sacrifice, right? And dare I say, in some context, success requires flesh, right? And I talk about that in the context of rites of passage. I talk about that in the context of the ways in which certain environments, no matter what you do, somebody’s gonna block the door, right?
Or no matter what you do, you’re gonna have to surrender a kind of power that leaves you feeling stripped of your humanity or stripped of your dignity, right? If we think about the Me Too movements, and certainly if we think about a lot of the other experiences we’ve had in our world that rocked us to the core over the last five years, right?
But I think this opportunity to look at what is true ambition comes more from this place of inspiration and the possibility that actually I can be ambitious in a way that is more intentional and committed not only to my own thriving and growth and development, but to the thriving and the growth and development of everyone around me and the larger world, right?
So it’s also about the nature of what you’re wanting and the nature of how you’re pursuing what you want, right? That we are reckoning with and reconciling with when it comes to this idea of ambition.
TS: So just to be very specific when it comes to the, how the person is following their inspiration. In your view, when does it get greasy, if you will? Like, that’s like the greasy kind of ambition. What is that person doing?
RG: You, you’re seeing harm; you’re seeing carnage, right? You are, you are feeling even disconnected from your own moral compass and values. And some of the most challenging examples of leadership that we are witnessing in our world, even in this very moment, have to do with people who are at the very core of disconnected, right at a fundamental level, disconnected from their humanity.
And I don’t say that as a judgment. I don’t say that to be cruel. But I say that when we can turn a blind eye to somebody else’s suffering, there is something about us that is not connected to the fact that we are a part of the very suffering we’re perpetuating in the world and we’re at cause for the very suffering that we’re perpetuating in the world.
And the mental justification is we tell ourselves that this is what’s necessary, right? This is what’s necessary. And so when we look at wounded ambition and Tami, you know, in the book I talk about the five wounds, right? Imposter syndrome, righteous competition, right? Playing small, hiding out. I talk a lack of ownership and disenfranchisement and then hiding out.
And the way in which the messaging around each of those strategies for advancement has fueled people to achieve things. But when you come to sort of reckon with how they got there, there is a lack of fulfillment or a lack of connection that they’re struggling with and suffering from, whether they realize it or not.
TS: Rha, I think it would be helpful, would you review those five types and maybe explain each one a little bit? I think it’s such a great part of your work on intentional ambition.
RG: And so imposter syndrome I describe as the inability to see yourself. Right? And you know, we think about it as this sort of way in which we walk around, no matter how much we accomplish or how much we achieve feeling like a fraud. Because we feel like a fraud, and we sort of operate with this fear of being found out as a fraud or being proven a fraud. We become obsessed with perfection or we become obsessed with proving that we’re worthy. And when we think about so many of the success stories that we hear in terms of personal narratives among some of the most incredible game changers of our era, and, and before, there’s often that narrative in there, right? And, and then there’s a point of reckoning where they’ve gotta discern, am I gonna continue to ride on this fuel? Which is, you know, I, I like to call it cheap fuel, right? We talk about sort of super high octane unleaded, right? Versus like, you know, diesel, which is really dirty. No disrespect, diesel, but here we go. You see what I mean? And I think the challenge with those kinds of strategies is that there’s, there’s again, a sense of scarcity operating at the center is that it’s never enough, right? So that’s the first one is imposter syndrome.
The second one is righteous competition, which says that the aspiration above anything else is to be right, because when I am right, it gives me the right to be entitled to operate in a way that is entitled, which is to dominate, to go to the front of the line, to cut people off, to steal, to manipulate, to, right? You know, we, we can name all the things that come with right entitlement, and the whole belief is that this is what I have to do to stay on top, or this is what I have to do to get ahead and stay ahead. And so it consumes itself with this idea of either maintaining or achieving status and the obsession with status and the degree to which my status either makes me safe or gives me the power to control or dominate others or situations or circumstances. Right? And so this fight to be smarter than, you know, and sort of, we know the way in which our society sometimes can operate, where it’s like, oh, the smart people are over here, or they’re rewarded or treated a particular way. And I wanna do that in quotation marks because we all carry multiple forms of intelligence, but that’s not what we’re taught on a societal level. Right? But again, this idea of achieving academically or achieving professionally through this notion of being superior because you are smarter is what lives at the core of that second wound.
The third wound is interesting in that it’s multifaceted, right? Lack of ownership and disenfranchisement is about at the core, believing that vulnerability is a weakness and that accountability is a weakness. And so we are taught to never take responsibility for what we want, while at the same time working ferociously to achieve it, right? Or we’re taught to stand in the way of what someone else wants because we don’t believe they deserve it, right? And so there’s some elements of right entitlement operating in disenfranchisement. But when we think about it on a personal level, it’s also about the things that we deny ourselves. Because we’ve been taught to believe that it isn’t OK to want what you want and it isn’t OK to be transparent about what you want. The whole intention is to kind of be able to maneuver in ways where the other person has no idea what you want, which ensures that you can safely secure whatever it is before they get hip or become aware, right? And, you know, we start to talk about all the kind of manipulation and mind games and, you know, we look at more traditional forms of power and, and the texts that support those forms of power and speak to those forms of power. You often find this lack of ownership and disenfranchisement dynamic operating.
And then the fourth wound is playing safe, playing small, which is about the comfort zone. We talked about this. This is about the danger, sometimes, the danger of belly full, if we’re not honoring the original intent of why we’re garnering support and why we’re creating spaces where we feel a level of confidence in being bowed or bolstered in a particular kind of way. And so when you’re playing safe and playing small, you have no skin in the game. You’re operating inside of your comfort zone. Growth is not something you’re pursuing. You’re pursuing comfort. You’re pursuing predictability. You’re pursuing consistency. You are pursuing lack of risk. But at some point that also begins to turn on itself, right? Because you get bored or you become resentful, right? Because you feel like you’re doing things or engaging in ways that are beneath your full potential. But often we’ve been taught that if you wanna get ahead, put everybody else, right, in front, or you know, or just be, you know, be good all the time. Don’t take risks, right? If you don’t take risks, then people will always look at you as capable, right? But for many of those people, you’re doing work that you don’t necessarily really care about. And so, you know, there’s a lot of question about whether or not you’re, you know, people are getting your best, whether or not you’re giving your best to you or to the situation involved.
And then the fifth is the hiding out. And the hiding out often is a reaction to trauma, which is when we’ve stood in the spotlight it has not been a pleasant experience. We have had the experience of being torn down. We’ve had the experience of being humiliated. We’ve had the experience of being controlled in ways that were painful. And so we shun the light. We shun attention and we become really good at building everybody else’s dream. We become really good at making sure everybody else looks great. We become really good at making sure that everybody else takes credit for our ideas. But again, at some point that builds on itself and starts to turn on itself. And we become deeply resentful about the fact that we aren’t acknowledged for all it is that we offer and bring while at the same time we deflect. Right?
TS: Now you have this very brilliant two-page chart in the Intentional Ambition book where you list these five different ways our ambition can be wounded and the transformation into true or intentional ambition. And you know, I realize here I’m challenging your left brain to track all of this, Rha, but you seem to be doing a terrific job. And just briefly, would you share with us the transformation from the wounded to the true form of ambition with each of these five.
RG: For sure. So we have the five wounds and then we have what I call the five redemptions. Sounds like a singing group, doesn’t it, y’all?
TS: I like it. They are redemptions.
RG: Right? And they are corollaries for each of the wounds, but they’re also their own progressive transformative journey, right?
So the first is courageous imperfection, and the opportunity to really transform this need to be perfect and this need to prove, but rather to approach the things that we desire, the things that matter to us from a place of, I don’t have it all figured out but I’m willing to let my curiosity lead. I’m willing to let it be a little messy in honor of the merit of what I believe it is I am pursuing, right? And so the courageous imperfection is acknowledging that we’re on the court, right? That we’re not choosing to opt out, but we’re on the court in a way that enables us to make mistakes, enables us to figure it out as we go. And that is like the first entree into this new way of pursuing what matters most to us.
The second, you know, so righteous competition, if you imagine on the left and on the right side the second redemption is enlightened humility. And enlightened humility says rather than using what I know as a weapon, I use it as an opportunity to contribute to a larger whole. That represents a vision for what I wanna see. So I know some things, but I don’t know everything. And I’m appreciative of the fact that I don’t know everything. And I welcome the knowledge and perspective and insight of others because I recognize that there’s something about the collective brain trust that makes us all better, and it makes us all grow further and achieve higher as a result. And so I’m not threatened by, or I’m not operating from a place of, not like there’s not enough room or not enough space, or operating from a place of needing to have hierarchy in order to feel satisfied with myself. I’m saying that I am, I’m willing to own and take responsibility for what I know and what is mine to bring, and I welcome others to contribute their piece to the pie and to the puzzle.
The third redemption is what we call sacred embodiment. So we go from lack of ownership and disenfranchisement to sacred embodiment. And sacred embodiment says, I’m willing to own and take responsibility for all of who I am and all of whom I’m not. For where I am really strong and where I am still a work in progress. I’m willing to be accountable for what I do well, but I’m also willing to be accountable for where I stumble, and I’m willing to own that. And I actually recognize that and see that as a source of power in the sense that I get to be a co-creator in my solutions. I get to take accountability for the potential of leaving things better than I found them. Right? And in those cases, vulnerability and transfer and transparency are seen as superpowers, right? As opposed to hindrances.
The fourth redemption is my favorite. It’s the corollary for playing small and playing safe, and that is unapologetic devotion. This is about what does it mean to lean into what you’re pursuing and have real skin in the game to pursue what matters to you, to honor your convictions, to honor your values, to honor what’s important, and to be willing to pursue and go for, and, and really devote oneself to what it, what it really is that makes a difference in your life and what it is that you believe makes a difference in the lives of others, and that you’re willing to be known for, that you’re willing to be acknowledged for, that you’re willing to be seen for that, and that that’s OK.
And then finally, the corollary for hiding out is shining bright and standing tall. And this is about the willingness to take up space, the willingness to be seen, the willingness to be acknowledged, the willingness to be appreciated. The willingness to be praised. The willingness to matter in your own life and in the lives of those that you serve and engage in. And that it’s not a ugly thing or a selfish thing or a nasty thing or a mean thing, but that it can be a really beautiful thing to appreciate yourself in a way that enables you to appreciate and contribute to others.
TS: I love the five redemptions. I love them. Thank you, Rha. There’s one more topic I really wanna talk to you about, because as an entrepreneurial soul coach, there’s an area that you teach on that I don’t think very many of the people that I interview who are soul coaches address, certainly not in the same way, which is you talk about the systemic roadblocks to success that some of us suffer and have to face.
You call it “being thwarted,” and I know over the last few years, one of the areas of focus of your work has been working specifically with women of color and ways in which their expression is thwarted even—and this is what I want to talk to you about—even going through the embodiment of these five redemptions, we can enter spaces where we will be thwarted.
It’s not just an internal work that is needed. There is a remaking also of our world that’s needed for us to be able, and I’m using my own language here, but to shine bright and stand tall. I mean, I can shine bright and stand tall and still get clipped at the back of the knees because of the, you know, Jewish, lesbian, queer light that I am. And I have to be ready for that. And I want to remake a world where that won’t be the case. But I wonder when you work with people, how you address this, this thwarting of our intentional ambition.
RG: Yeah. I think the first thing is that it is important to acknowledge it. And it is important to acknowledge its impact, its effects on our psyches, on our spirits, on our sense of ourselves, right?
And to recognize that there is systemic work that must happen, right? The individual work must happen; the collective work must happen. And ideally, this is what gives us the capacity to then do the systemic work. But the first thing is you’ve gotta be willing to bear witness to it. You’ve gotta be willing to understand it.
I think the big thing, and I talk about this in the book as well, is for many of us who have experienced systems, and I do wanna say that it isn’t reserved just for women of color or people of color, depending upon what environment you in, you’re in. I think more of us than not, Tami, have experienced some form of thwarting. Somebody just didn’t like us. They didn’t like my, our hair, or they didn’t like something we said, and they have kind of made it their mission, right, to get in our way. Right? And I think it’s important that we recognize that though it feels incredibly personal, right? As any abuse of power can feel incredibly personal, that it is systemic; that what we’re bumping up against with and what we’re operating with are a network of beliefs and ways of being and operating and moving in the world that are interconnected and woven to produce a very specific reality, right, called “you will only go so far.” And part of what becomes crucial when we are bumping up those against those systems is to distinguish those systems from who we are; is to distinguish even the narratives that are produced by those systems from the truth of who we are.
So as you know, in the book, one of the things I talk about in terms of the first step of renegotiating is reclaiming. And so much of what we struggle with, our narratives that we have adopted as a result of butting up against these systems that tell us, I’ve gotta be 10 times better in order to be half as qualified; they’re never gonna give me my due. That, right? There’s all these narratives. And what’s happened for so many of us is we’ve internalized them and they’ve become the things we say to ourselves before anyone else in the larger world even says them to us.
And so the work of moving through those obstacles has everything to do with, first, being able to come home to our own truth. Being able to reclaim our own sovereignty, right, as human beings. And then to discern what is really important to us. Because even when we’re operating in those systems, Tami, we’re often aspiring to their standards.
And that’s also what makes it painful, right? Because not only are they setting the standard, but then they’re sending you every possible message that you can’t measure up. And the more that we believe both of those things are true, the more that we operate inside of and unknowingly sometimes, and unfortunately, perpetuating those kinds of realities.
And sometimes we do it knowing that we do it, but we’re in a place of scarcity around the job opportunity. We’re in a place of scarcity around the title or the role, which can sometimes have us hold on far, far longer than is healthy. Right? And so we’ve gotta bear witness to that. We’ve gotta tell the truth about that.
And then we’ve gotta first start by coming back to our own personal wholeness, and then we’ve gotta start to challenge what we’ve inherited in terms of the definitions. Right?
TS: Can you give me an example from your own experience of something that was an inherited narrative about, you know, some achievement or something and how you rewrote it for yourself?
RG: Yeah. My father used to say to me all the time, they’re never going to give you your due. You, no matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you try, no matter what hurdle you jump through. Just expect that they’re never gonna give you your due, right? So you gonna have to outwork ’em, you gonna have to outrun ’em, you gonna have to outthink ’em.
And this is a very common narrative, Tami, you know, as I speak to people across the diaspora, right? Depending upon the nature of the situation you come into. And what it created for me was a willingness to labor and not be respected; to labor, and not be appreciated; to labor, and not have my efforts acknowledged for years and years and years inside of organizational structures.
So what it did was it lowered my standards in such a way that I did not take care of myself in those environments. I did not appreciate myself in those environments. I wasn’t respecting myself in those environments. As a matter of fact, I took on the role of being my own oppressor in those environments.
Oh, you should have done that better. Oh, you should have said that quicker. Oh, you should have been perfect on that presentation. Because you know they’re gonna hold that against you. Right? And it was, this was all my father’s messaging, and I love, you know, who my father is to me, God rest his soul.
But this is what I had internalized, and this is what I then began to perpetuate as my reality. The problem with that is when we operate inside of that, not only does it become a self-fulfilling prophecy, right, but we agree to trade our happiness, our sense of self, and our sense of fulfillment to prove somebody else wrong, to prove somebody else wrong who may never get it.
And that’s the place where it becomes really harmful to stay in systems that have no desire or room or space to acknowledge anything other than the status quo.
TS: In the beginning, Rha, I called you Rha the Liberator. And I always find that in talking with you. And one of the ways you’ve helped ignite a liberation process in me has to do with buying into “the scare of scarcity.” And that’s a phrase that you use in Intentional Ambition. And you’ve mentioned this scare of scarcity a couple times because I think it’s so much a linchpin, if you will, in what keeps us from standing tall, shining bright, really claiming our aspiration is this notion of, well, there’s only room for how many people to have those kinds of roles and aren’t those roles already taken? And, you know, that I won’t be the one that rises to the top of this scarce. And so here, as we end, help us break this trance!
RG: Yeah. The greatest gift that we can give ourselves, Tami, is to heal the lie of not enoughness. And all of the ways in which not enoughness permeates our existence. Whether it is there or not enough, there is not enough or we are not enough on some level.
All of us are operating from this place of preventing loss. And so when we look at those places where we’ve confused sacrifice with suffering or where our tolerance threshold, our threshold for tolerance has become so distortedly high that we have mentally, spiritually, emotionally, actually checked out in order to survive it, it is because we believe on some level that we are preserving some form of loss. We’ve been taught in our society that it isn’t OK to accept any form of loss. Like even if you didn’t want it, your worth or your merit is still based on how well you can hold onto it. And that ridiculousness is what, that’s the bubble we have to burst, right? Is that belief that we need everything. We need to be everything. We need to have everything. We need to want everything. We need to do everything.
We just need what matters. And we get to define what that is. And if in our definition of what matters, we begin with a belief that we are whole as opposed to we are broken or we are wounded, which is so much of the narrative that so many of us are trying to reconcile because those seeds have been planted deep at a very, very young age. Right? Whether through spiritual doctrine, whether through cultural indoctrination, whether through societal or systemic obstacles that we bump up against, our ability to embrace the truth that we are actually whole, our ability to embrace the truth that we actually do deserve to be happy.
And I could almost weep when I say that one, Tami, because a lot of people don’t even know that they deserve to be happy. They can’t even locate that anywhere in their body, and certainly not a belief that your work can be a source of joy, happiness, fulfilled. Well, that for the 1%, right? We come back to 1% of the population. Sure. But the 99% of us know. And it’s those ideologies that have us hostage, have us held hostage, have us creating and being the wardens of our own prisons.
When we are able to break that open, when we’re able to challenge that, then we do start to make different choices. We do start to make different decisions. And I do think that that is part of what’s happening post the pandemic, Tami. I think we are unhooking from the traditional success story.
Now, we may not be clear about what the new narrative is yet, but we know that we’re no longer willing to uphold the old one. And my book is for those who recognize they’re not going back, but they may not yet be quite clear about how they wanna go forward, or they know how they wanna go forward, but they wanna be affirmed in the way in which they move forward. They wanna be intentional in the way they move forward. So this is all about you getting to create a new narrative about who you are, about what you want, about what success really means for you.
That may have nothing to do with all of the material trappings that you find yourself surrounded by, right? And a willingness to come to the truth of what really matters for you, especially given what you’ve navigated over the last five years. No matter what kind of pandemic you had, we’re different now. We’re a hip, we’re awake, we’re aware, and it is time for a new story, one that we control, not one that’s being fed to us, and that’s the opportunity and central to our ability to break open the not enoughness, right?
TS: Rha Goddess. She’s the author of The Calling and a new book, Intentional Ambition: Redefining Your Work for Greater Joy, Freedom, and Fulfillment. And Rha, I’m just gonna say it how it is. I love you. Thank you. I love you. Thank you so very much. Thank you for how you stand tall and shine bright.
RG: Thank you, Tami. My pleasure.
TS: And thank you, Sounds True One friends. We’ll just take a two-minute break, and if you have questions, we’ll lob a few of them Rha’s way. So two minutes and we’ll be back.
