Breaking the Burnout Loop: Ambition, Identity & the Cost of Overachievement with Amina AlTai

Everyone's Talkin' Money

Shari Rash

Business, Self-improvement, Education

4.6 • 631 Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when you get everything you thought you wanted—and you still feel exhausted, invisible, or like it’s not enough? In this episode, I sit down with executive coach, author, and chronic illness advocate Amina AlTai to talk about the ambition trap that so many women find themselves stuck in. We’re talking burnout, people-pleasing, invisible labor, and the deeply ingrained systems that convince us our worth is tied to how much we produce. Amina shares insights from her new book The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living, including why redefining ambition is key to healing, how codependency and chronic overachievement are related, and what high-performing women often get wrong about success. If you’ve ever felt like you're doing everything and it’s still not enough—this conversation is your wake-up call and your permission slip to do it differently. In this episode, you'll walk away learning: How the cultural definition of ambition keeps women stuck in burnout cycles Why burnout isn’t a personal failure—it’s a systemic setup The hidden cost of invisible labor, especially for women and mothers How your core wounds shape your ambition, your money mindset, and your relationships A practical framework to move from painful ambition to purposeful ambition Why even women who “have it all” still struggle to believe in their zone of genius—and how to reclaim it Follow Amina on Instagram @aminaaltai Stay up to date with everything Everyone's Talkin' Money on Instagram @everyonestalkinmoney Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to everyone's talking money, the show that's all about making life richer,
0:05.5	from your bank account to your mindset and everything in between. Whether you're here to
0:11.1	crush debt, grow wealth, or finally feel in control of your cash, you are in the right place.
0:18.5	Let's dive in and get you living life on your terms. You are one conversation
0:23.7	closer to financial freedom. Have you ever looked around at your life, your job, your title, your bank account, and thought,
0:48.0	I should feel successful. So why do I feel like I'm drowning? If that question hits a little too close to home,
0:56.2	you are not alone. Today's guest, Amina Altai, is here to crack open the truth about why so many
1:04.3	three, two, one. Today's guest, Amina Altai, is here to crack open the truth about why so many ambitious women feel stuck in a loop of doing more and feeling less.
1:18.6	She's an executive coach, a chronic illness advocate, and the author of The Ambition Trap, How to Stop Chasing and Start Living, a title that honestly says it all.
1:31.3	We talk about why women are expected to be everything and nothing at the same time,
1:36.8	how the culture of constant hustle is literally making us sick, and what happens when we finally
1:43.4	stop measuring our worth and how much we can
1:46.1	juggle? This is not your standard productivity pep talk. It's a deep, honest, and affirming
1:52.7	conversation about how to reclaim your energy, your brilliance, and your peace. Let's get into it.
2:00.1	Amina, your book, The Ambition Trap, hits at something
2:04.3	so many women feel, but rarely name, this exhausting loop of too much and not enough. So where does
2:13.2	that internal tug of war really begin? And how do we break it? Yes. In the Ambition Trap, what I wanted to
2:20.8	talk about was not just the mindsets that we all have, but also the system that we operate in that
2:25.2	reinforces a lot of these ideas. And so first and foremost, I thought it was really important that
2:29.9	we redefine ambition because I actually don't think we have a great working definition for it.
2:34.7	I think a lot of what we've culturally come to understand ambition as is sort of more for more
2:39.4	sake all the time, but it leaves us depleted and it reinforces a lot of these toxic systems.
	...

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