Your Ambition: Biggest Asset or Biggest Liability?

This show is powered by Others Over Self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. From Others Over Self, it's Hardcore and At Ease, a show about people who are keeping their edge without going over the edge. I'm host Shelley Rood, and if you're tired of feeling like your personal values and your organization's demands are constantly at war, then today's episode's for you. We're exploring what it means to align your ambition and what ancient wisdom traditions knew about bringing your drive to the world without losing yourself, revealing why that persistent discomfort has a name and the simple exercise that helps you reclaim your edge. This is Hardcore and At Ease. I still remember the moment I'm walking into a hospital room. The lights are dark, and I was expecting to see my baby with the nurse because my husband, um, had just left, and our baby was just about 2 weeks old at that point. What I wasn't expecting to witness was our baby just fighting for air. He was suffocating on his own fluids. He was swaddled in a blanket, you know, which it's like a baby straitjacket, but he had a breathing tube in his nose and he had spit up and there was that fluid coming out of either side of his, of his face. And oxygen alarms were just crying out and there was Nobody in the room to help him. The next few seconds really stretched out like an eternity for me, and I remember having just 3 conscious questioning thoughts. What was happening? And I flew over to his bed, and I could see that his little eyes, they were just so wide, and his entire being was just wiggling like a worm. His body was obviously revolting what was happening to him. So thought number 2 came of, why can't you breathe? And I leaned in and I noticed for the first time that his mouth was closed and there was this sticky pink substance that was caked across his lips. So as fast as I could, I tried to pry those little lips open. You know, you can't even fit your pinky inside of a newborn baby's mouth, it was that small. And so this goo painfully, just so slow, started to give way, and it was clinging like bubble gum. And I, um, I finally was able to give him a way to breathe again. And I remember in that moment taking a breath myself at the same time that he took his. And on that exhale, the third thought reached the front of my mind: where is the nurse? This happened at the very start of the COVID pandemic. The institution had policies, there were protocols. Everyone was trying to adapt to these changes that were happening, not just daily but hourly. People would come in and make an announcement and then leave, and things would have to change. But despite all of this chaos, the one thing that didn't change was the fact that this newborn baby needed to be cared for, and there was no one there. Only 3 days in the pediatric intensive care unit, their visitor policy changed again, and my husband and I We weren't allowed to both be with our child at the same time. These stay-at-home orders were enforced by the government. The hospital was operating with this skeleton crew. It was so hard to find anybody. And even the shift handoffs between the nurses, they used to be maybe 5 minutes. Now it was like this high five or a wave from afar, a 5-second hello and a nod like, over there's the patient chart. And they did that so that the human interaction could be minimized. Nothing about this was right. This wasn't right for my baby. This wasn't aligned with my values as a mother. But even deeper than that, this wasn't aligned with my personal values of how we treat and care for one another as humans. Where's the nurse? I wasn't about to leave my baby's side, so I just stood there. Leaning over his bed, I bent down and I remember breathing with him, rubbing his soft little baby head. And after a few minutes, I, I did call my husband and I told him what had just happened. And he exclaimed, "It's the glue! She used too much glue!" Yes, I knew that. She used too much glue. See, our son Oliver was born with a cleft palate, meaning he didn't have a roof on his mouth. And they don't repair that until the child's nearly a year old. So Oliver was given a prosthetic palate, which is like a baby denture, and you put that in so that he can breathe and he can eat more normally. And just like a denture, that tiny piece of plastic, after every feeding, it's washed, and then you have to glue it back in place. And the nurse said, "You used too much glue." That one act violated my deepest convictions about what was right for my child. And here's the thing, it worked out fine. My baby was healthy. The incident didn't cause any damage. There was no lasting physical consequences. I knew that I had made the right choices and did the right things, but something inside of me still felt broken. I felt betrayed by the nurse, by the hospital, by the entire system of care that seemed so willing to just stand by and do nothing while this precious little life was ending. Just a near tragedy. And for years afterward, I carried this weight, this nagging sense that I had been betrayed when it mattered most. The nurse eventually came in, and when she did, she significantly downplayed the seriousness of her actions. The charge nurse told me that I was just exhausted from being a new mom. She wanted me to leave the baby, go home, and rest. Woman, you're crazy. And then I had this hospital brochure about what a caring and technologically advanced environment I was trusting my baby in. Man, I of course didn't leave to go home like the nurse had recommended, and, and I knew I knew at that time, in that moment, I wasn't weak. I wasn't being dramatic. I wasn't being too sensitive. Yes, Oliver was fine, but I had experienced something that has a name. Both my husband and I were experiencing this. It's something that affects millions of ambitious, high-achieving people every single day, and it's something that until recently we didn't have words for. There's a name for this. If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably someone who pushes through difficult situations. You're ambitious, you're driven, and you shove those feelings away to get things done. You've probably experienced moments where you had to do something that didn't feel good or it didn't feel right, but you did it for the company, you did it for the team, you did it for the mission. You tell yourself that it's fine, you rationalize it, you move on., but you also just can't let it go. Maybe there's this lingering discomfort related to those really sucky moments. You've got this sense inside of you that, um, it just went cold or it got damaged in the process. Maybe like me, there's this feeling that maybe you had compromised something fundamental about who you are. If that resonates, then what I'm about to share could change how you understand your own experiences. And if you listen through to the end, you'll learn how to get back that little bit of yourself that you lost along the way. Today we're talking about moral injury and why your ambition, which is absolutely your greatest asset, can become your biggest liability if you don't understand how to protect it and how to protect everything that you stand for. Here's what I wish I had known back in that hospital room. Moral injury is the psychological wound that occurs when we perpetrate, when we fail to prevent, or when we witness actions and even inactions that violate our deeply held moral beliefs. This is not my coaching terminology. I'm not that smart. This is legitimate psychological science developed by researchers like Boston University, Harvard, the Veterans Administration. Yeah, I just put them up there with legitimate educational institutions. That's all right, we'll keep going. Dr. Jonathan Shay, a MacArthur Fellow, Harvard-trained psychiatrist. He first identified the concept of moral injury in the 1990s while he was treating Vietnam veterans. But here's what's revolutionary: moral injury is not just a military concept anymore. Since 2020, researchers have documented instances of moral injury across healthcare, business, education, and every industry where people face ethical conflicts. Before we get into the weeds here, it's really important that you understand that moral injuries, first of all, they're real. They're clinically proven. And second of all, research shows that for many ambitious leaders, moral injury is not a one-time event. It's an accumulating pattern. The chronic form of moral injuries can involve daily or weekly small compromises that build up over time. And this means that the longer that you're exposed to, or you're operating in an environment that doesn't align with your personal values, the greater the risk of moral injury. So now you're starting to see how this ties back to why we create our tactical center. So even though a lot of the clinical work is happening through agencies like the Veterans Administration, even if you've never served in the military, moral injury is a concept that affects your life. By familiarizing yourself with this term, you're setting a foundation that will improve your quality of life and those around you. Moral injury is a major psychological condition requiring very specific treatment protocols. We're going to go through them, but it's not going to be what you think. They've developed assessment tools, evidence-based treatments, and even dedicated research programs. Dr. Brett Litz at Boston University is the leading researcher in this field. He's got over 300 publications and has documented that at least 25% of what we call burnout in civilian populations is actually moral injury. The assessment tool he created is called the Moral Injury and Distress Scale, and it's been validated across military, healthcare, and even civilian populations. Sometimes if you're at the top of that scale, it might even require intervention. Let's gain a solid understanding about what moral injury is and what it isn't. It's not PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder requires life-threatening situations. That create fear-based symptoms like hypervigilance and flashbacks. Moral injury happens when our values get violated regardless of physical danger. It's not trauma in the traditional sense because trauma typically involves that something is happening to you, whereas moral injury often involves something that you did, you failed to do, or you witnessed. In my case, I witnessed an action or an inaction. I witnessed an inaction from a nurse that violated my moral expectations. It's also not burnout. Burnout is about exhaustion from overwork. Moral injury is about psychological damage from ethical conflicts. That is legit. 25% of burnout is actually moral injury. It's not about being too sensitive. Brain imaging studies show that moral injury affects different neural circuits than other psychological conditions. This is not a personality flaw. It's a measurable psychological injury. These symptoms that center on guilt and shame, self-condemnation, loss of trust, and even spiritual struggles— these are not fear-based symptoms like post-traumatic stress disorder, but these are moral and identity-based wounds. Now, I am bringing a lighthearted approach to this because I'm not a clinical psychologist and I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't want to be one, but I am a coach of ambitious people who want to keep themselves from going over the edge. So it's necessary that my clients have a solid understanding that moral injury is measurable psychological science. It's not just a coaching concept. Because this is the backbone that we lean into, and it's what gives us our ability to be at ease in this very broken world. So let's dig in a little bit deeper. For ambitious leaders like you and me, man, we are taught that push-through mentality, and it's a strength. And you're right, it is, until it becomes that very thing that creates lasting psychological damage. Just think about it. You've probably been in situations where you were asked to implement a decision that you knew would hurt really good people. Like one time when I worked in broadcast television, I had to furlough somebody. She had a lot of financial commitments in her personal life that I knew about, and I still had to cut back her paycheck. That was really hard. That was a decision that I knew would hurt good people. Maybe you were asked to stay silent about practices that you knew were wrong. One of my old bosses wanted to change over from a really reliable, well-established vendor to his brother's startup business. I knew that there was something wrong there. Maybe you were asked to compromise your standards for short-term results, or maybe you were asked to choose between your values and your career advancement. I had a manager that paid for me to attend galas, like fancy dinners, and he only paid for me. My spouse wasn't allowed to come. And the purpose, I realized over time, was that so I would serve as a beautiful company representative that would talk with potential clients, always businessmen, and they would want to talk to me because I was alone as a beautiful woman. Now, because you're ambitious, because you're committed to the mission, and because you don't want to be seen as someone who doesn't play well or can't handle the pressure, we just push through these situations. But here's what's actually happening: every time you act against your deeply held values, something inside of you gets injured. Not dramatically, not obviously, but consistently. And because we're so good at compartmentalizing, we're trained that way, right? We're trained to be rational and objective. We don't often recognize the injury until it's accumulated into something much larger. So maybe it shows up this way: cynicism that wasn't there before, a loss of trust in leadership or institutions, feeling disconnected from your purpose. A sense that you've lost something fundamental about who you are. I am hyper-rational, and there's a very popular research-backed program that labels hyper-rational as a bad thing. And I struggle with this because I'm not sure that being hyper-rational is actually something that needs to be fixed. In fact, one of the— in fact, one of the characteristics of this is mostly showing feelings through passion and ideas. Does that sound familiar? And at the same time, I cannot deny this research-proven outcome that hyper-rational thinking pushes others away. It makes maintaining deep relationships very hard. Like, we are hard to love. We are hard to love, which is one reason why, like me, you might find yourself with very few friends or failed marriages or a really, really tight social circle. And I bring this up because I know what it's like to be in a very dark place surrounded with very few positive things, even my music. There was a time when I was grieving a marriage of nearly a decade, and at the same time I was in the Army's intelligence school and I was wrongly accused of plagiarism. Man, by the end of that whole thing, that plagiarism accusation got dropped, of course, but I was marked by that accusation and it changed the trajectory of my career. I was surrounded by chaos, and the only way that I could be resilient and just push through it all was to block out my feelings. And it worked. It totally worked, right? Yeah, for a time, until I started to look at myself as a person, and I didn't like who I saw. So the name of this program that is attaching hyper-rationality to your negative mind is called positive intelligence. And I bring this up because according to their teachings, the way to counter hyper-rational is with an exercise that frankly couldn't be any worse. It's called name the feeling. Oh, I don't have any feelings, number one. Um, and I don't even like people who do feel all the feels, number two. But at the end of the day, when we lose our ability to process emotion We make isolated decisions and our ambition becomes our biggest liability. Now let's pause for a quick break. And when we come back, I'll help you rationalize your way into healing from moral injury.

Hi, I'm Doug Slocum, the author of the book Violent Positivity. I was blessed to spend 35 years in the US military, the Air Force, working with some of the most amazing men and women you'd ever want to meet. Well, throughout my life, throughout my career, I learned lessons. I developed this leadership style that I like to call violent positivity. And this book was my opportunity to tell that story, but also put forth those principles. violentpositivity.com. More information on how to order the book. You're listening to Hardcore and at Ease with certified business and life coach Shelley Root.

Now back to the show. There are two ways that moral injury typically develops. The first is the obvious conflict, like my hospital story. You know in the moment that what you're being asked to do or what's happening violates your values, but you don't have a choice. You're in it. The second way is through gradual erosion. This is actually more common and it's more dangerous for ambitious leaders. It's the slow compromise of values over time, the rationalization, the it's just business mentality, and it slowly erodes your moral foundation. You find yourself doing things that, you know, the old you typically wouldn't do, and that's not good. It's the crusty old vet that just hates everyone and everything. I see this with leaders. Who find themselves like 3 years into a role and wondering how did they become somebody that they don't even recognize. One of my clients right now is trying to save her marriage because she admittedly loves being at work more than she loves being at home. And another associate that I've known for many years, he's so passionate about his current role that he's adapted this mindset of 'If you're not with me, you're against me.' And it's so hard to just watch him trying to make change while he's pushing away the very people that have only ever supported him. And one more rationalization that's not talked about enough is the emotional abuse that we as a society are tolerating or even participating in because it's normalized in a Netflix and chill type of culture. These types of situations are not dramatic moments. They're the small accumulation of compromises that over time create significant psychological injury. And here's the insidious part: others often see it in us before we see it in ourselves. Our spouses notice when we've become cynical. Our team notices that we've lost our spark. Our friends, they're calling us because we're isolating and we've become really defensive instead of conversational. And they stop calling us. But we rationalize all of this away. We tell ourselves it's just the stress of the job, or it's just a busy season. Maybe it's just the price of doing business. But you can't argue with the data. During COVID 25 to 50% of healthcare workers, depending on the research you look at, experienced clinically significant moral injury when they were forced to ration care or work without adequate protection. But here's how that's relevant for you. Researchers found similar patterns in business professionals forced to make decisions that violated their professional ethics. Recent studies in business settings identified moral injury across banking, finance, technology, and even consulting. Key triggers include being asked to cover up misconduct, participating in discriminatory practices, or violating professional ethics for profit. Brain imaging studies definitively establish moral injury as neurobiologically distinct from PTSD. Now pay attention here. Research shows that moral injury primarily involves brain regions associated with social cognition, self-reflection, and moral processing. These are different circuits entirely from PTSD because those are fear-based symptoms. We're not talking today about pop psychology. This is legitimate psychological science with real clinical implications. And when you find yourself on the wrong side of moral injury, it can be the thing that pushes you over the edge. But we don't have to go there. There's the good news. There is one way and only one way to heal moral injury, and it is surprisingly simple. The way to heal it is to understand the why. It's not simple as in easy, but it's simple because the path is clear. Most psychological healing requires complex interventions. Moral injury healing requires one fundamental thing: understanding why you made the choices you made in the context you were in, with the information and the constraints you had. This isn't about excusing bad behavior on, on your part or the nurse's part. It's about developing a coherent narrative that allows you to maintain your sense of morale while identifying and acknowledging the reality of impossible situations. When I finally understood why my baby's life was compromised in the hospital. The lack of shift training, the reduced visitors policy, the skeleton crew schedule. I finally felt like I knew the why, and I could release a lot of that anger and a lot of that blame that I had placed on that nurse, on that hospital, on that entire institution and everyone that worked there. This brings us to what I call ambition alignment, which is the second element of the Hardcore and At Ease framework. It's the red ring on the target, which is why I'm wearing red today. And it's so important because the red ring on the target is touching the bullseye. You're so close to hitting dead center. Your ambition is your greatest asset. It drives excellence. It creates impact, and it pushes you to achieve things that others won't even attempt. But unchecked ambition becomes your greatest liability when it drives you to compromise your fundamental values for achievement, for success. And this isn't a modern leadership problem. Ancient texts from nearly every major tradition— I'm talking Greek philosophy, biblical wisdom, Buddhist teachings, You can even go into the Chinese classics. They contain hundreds of warnings about unchecked personal ambition. You don't need to go any further than the Nazi regime. The fact that cultures across the globe have independently identified this as a core human challenge tells you that there's something important about why your ambition needs intentional alignment. True ambition alignment involves deep self-awareness in several key areas. Things like power dynamics, influence ethics, resource stewardship, and authentic communication. These aren't just business concepts, they're moral frameworks that when understood, they help you pursue these beautiful ambitious goals without creating moral injury. Now, we won't go deep into these today because each one of them deserves its own exploration, but here's what you need to know. It's possible to be both intensely ambitious and morally aligned. It's not only possible, it's essential for sustainable high performance. Now, as we come to a close, let's briefly address what makes ambition alignment particularly challenging for leaders like us. First, there's this pace of modern business that often it doesn't allow for moral reflection. These decisions, they have to be made quickly. Markets are moving, competition is fierce, another person is injured. There's this pressure that we have to move fast and figure out the ethics later. But what we don't see is that as we're moving fast, the moral injury is accumulating, whether we acknowledge it or not. And the leader who consistently chooses profit over people, well, they're going to eventually lose that ability to inspire people. And the leader who tolerates dishonesty because it gives them a competitive advantage, well, they're going to eventually struggle with their own integrity. And the leader that sacrifices their family for their career advancement, well, they're going to eventually question whether that achievement was worth the cost. And because we're ambitious, because we're taught that this push-through mentality is strength, We often don't even recognize patterns like these until they've created significant damage, and that's the true pain of it. I want you to go back and listen to episode 2 with Donald Miller because he does an absolutely incredible job of reframing resilience as not just plowing through failure, but actually allowing failure to happen, learning from it, recognizing it, and then owning a process where you can do it fairly quickly so that you can jump from one ambition to the next to the next. Because the question isn't isn't whether you will face moral conflicts as an ambitious leader. The question is whether you'll recognize them, whether you'll understand them, and can you navigate them in ways that preserve both your effectiveness and your integrity? So here's a few practical next steps for you to take. First of all, I want you to recognize that moral discomfort is information. It's not weakness. That nagging feeling that something's just not right, or that memory that you have that you just can't let go of, it doesn't feel good in your brain. That's your moral injury warning system. So don't rationalize it away. Pay attention to it. And secondly, understand that maintaining your values is not about being a perfect person, and it's also not about having regrets. I got a lot of those. Sometimes you'll make decisions under pressure or in a place of life that you really wish that you could have handled differently. Some of your values, they're even going to change over time. So the key here is learning from those moments and using them to clarify what to do differently next time. And your third step is to get honest about the cost of moral compromise. So let's make this an exercise. I want you to do this every single year because every year we're rewriting our personal mission statements. And jump back to episode 3 if you missed that one. At the very end of every summer, so that's halfway through each year, you should sit down, set a timer for 20 minutes, and physically write out when you pushed through a difficult ethical situation and what that cost you. Did it cost you a relationship? Did it cost you your sense of purpose? I look back at some of my time that I spent in a particular industry, and I liken it to having worked in the tobacco industry. Did it cost you your ability to trust others or to trust yourself? After my divorce, I remember telling people I don't even believe in marriage anymore. I still don't hold that belief, but it was real for me at the time. Now don't just think about it, actually write it down, because seeing it on paper changes how you process it. And while you're thinking about these challenging moments, you don't have to just stick to the past 6 months. If these deeper memories are starting to come up to the surface, do it, man. Think about that. Take the time, process those thoughts as well, because this honesty about the cost of moral injury becomes the foundation so that we can build better decision-making systems as we go forward. Now, here's what I want you to remember from our time today: you are not weak for feeling moral discomfort. You are not being dramatic for questioning ethical compromises. You are not being too sensitive for caring about doing the right thing. You are a spiritual being, And what you're experiencing, it has a name. It's real and it's measurable. And most importantly, while it may not be preventable, it's healable. And we do that by understanding the why. Your ambition is absolutely your greatest asset, but only when it's aligned with your authentic values and only when operating from this foundation of moral clarity. Now, in upcoming episodes, we will go deeper into the Hardcore and Addies framework, and there's more exercises that we have to help with your ambition alignment. But we can't stay heavy like this all the time, or that'll push us over the edge. So next week, we're back with another guest. This time, it's Laverne Santangelo, and she's sharing how she went from living in a state of constant urgency to strategic calm. That sounds so nice, doesn't it? So for today, just sit with this: you are awesome. You're just an awesome, hardcore person, and you've made a habit of shoving down your feelings. There's a name for what you've experienced. You're not alone in it, and there is a path forward because your ambition is your greatest asset when morally aligned. As we wrap up, there's one more thing that I want you to think about doing when you're creating that personal mission statement. Start with just one non-negotiable value. Not 10, please, you overachievers. Just pick one. What is the one thing that you absolutely will not compromise on, even under pressure? You know, when I called my husband and told him about that hospital situation, his immediate reaction was extreme disappointment in the nurse. Are you even trying to think? That's what he wanted to say to her. Like how we question what our teenager is doing when he obviously knows better. She should have known better than to use that much glue. So for the sake of others, sometimes we need that outside perspective to recognize when we're not operating from our values. And speaking of building that foundation, I've been rereading Donald Miller's Hero on a Mission, and it's brilliant when you want to understand how to really align your personal story with your values and not lose your ambitious edge. The way that he breaks down staying the hero of your story while you serve others, it's, it's the, it's what we need for sustainable ambition. That book is an affiliate link in the show notes. And I genuinely think that it's essential reading for leaders that are working through this alignment. So if this episode helped you put a name to something that you've been experiencing, I would love to hear about it. Tag me @TheShellyRood or Others Over Self and use #HardcoreAndAtEase because seeing how you're processing these concepts, it helps me understand what's resonating. And that's all for now. I'm Shelli Rood. You can count on me returning next Tuesday with an episode on saying no in order to protect your edge. Until then, stay hardcore, be at ease, and trust the process.