Elise Loehnen reveals the hidden price of being "good"

The feelings we turn against are those that define us

Three years ago, I went to Miami to record an episode of Hello Monday live at a digital media conference. My guest for that episode was Elise Loehnen, who back then was the number two at the women's media juggernaut Goop. The audience for this conference was mostly dudes, and to be honest, our conversation felt out of place. (I remember one prominent marketing professor made a joke about Goop.) But over a couple days in Miami, Elise and I got time for long chats about everything from our careers to whether we trust our intuition to what we were learning about parenting.

Did I mention this was my first business trip away from Jude? He had just turned a year, and was still so tiny back then.

Anyhow, that was a formative few days for me. In the mornings, I holed up in my hotel room and finished the book proposal for what would become The Family Outing. As it turns out, it was a pretty important event for Elise, too. On the flight home, she came up with a book idea.?

Not long after, she left Goop to write it, and that book has just come out. It’s called: On our best behavior: the seven deadly sins and the price women pay to be good. And, it’s about how we all unwittingly hold up the patriarchy, and what we can each do in our own lives to stop. I love Elise’s book. With confidence and vulnerability, Elise suggests that from very early times, we’ve all been programmed to obey certain rules. She maps these rules to the seven capital vices, and then reveals how they play out in our lives right now. In our attempt to be “good,” to avoid these sins like envy and sloth and greed, we sacrifice so much, and in the end, we hurt ourselves and each other.?

Elise’s book is an invitation to reclaim the things we sacrifice to fit in. And, in so doing, to rise into truer versions of ourselves. Our conversation is uncomfortable—I don't like feeling a lot of the feelings this book explores, let along talking about them. Envy. Greed. Anger. But that discomfort opens up pathways to a freedom I hadn't considered, an invitation to abandon my attempts to conform in pursuit of accepting myself more fully and enjoying and contributing to this life. You can listen to our conversation here, or below:

Office Hours: Embracing our emotions

Join us, as usual, on Wednesday to catch up, check in and chat about the episode. This week on office hours, let’s get into it: What are the emotions that trip you up? How can you reframe your reactions to situations and see yourself with a little more compassion? We’ll talk about it all on Office Hours this Wednesday at 3pm Eastern. We’ll go live from the LinkedIn News page.?You can find us directly as the link below: