Have you ever hit the thing you were chasing — the milestone, the launch, the moment — and felt the goalpost immediately move? Have you ever wondered if ambition itself could be both the engine and the thief?
This episode is a live one. Jess is in New York City at Argent's flagship store for the launch of her new book Making It Without Losing It — officially a USA Today bestseller — and she's in conversation with her longtime friend and founder of Pep Talk Her, Meggie Palmer. You're going to hear sirens. You're going to hear the room. You are, as Jess says, in there with them. And honestly? It makes this one of the most electric conversations in the feed.
They dig into the dopamine science behind why we're never satisfied at the finish line (hint: your brain is getting the hit somewhere else entirely), what it really means to be ambitiously present, and why Jess signed up for stand-up comedy classes five months postpartum just to remind herself it was okay to be bad at things. The room also gets in on it — with questions from the audience about corporate life vs. entrepreneurship, raising kids who know how to fail, and the uncomfortable but necessary exercise of writing your own obituary before you need one.
In This Episode
Jess and Meggie cover the core ideas behind Making It Without Losing It: the difference between anxious ambition and inspired ambition, why the smash is better than the cash, and how Jess went from measuring success by how many stages she could get on — to measuring it by how many stages she could help other women get on. Plus: live audience Q&A, a meditation on legacy, and the one question Jess keeps posted in her office that changes everything.
Highlights From the Room:
- The dopamine study that reframes everything — why your brain rewards the anticipation and the process, not just the result
- Anxious ambition vs. inspired ambition — one comes from feeling behind; the other comes from feeling called
- The piggy bank smash — and why the build might actually be the good part
- Stand-up comedy at five months postpartum — what Jess needed to shock her nervous system back to life after her daughter was born
- "I don't do it all" — Jess's most honest answer to the question everyone asks
- The relay, not the race — what are you doing today that makes enough progress for the person behind you?
- Your obituary, written now — the silent retreat exercise that Jess keeps on her office wall and asks readers to try at the end of the book
- Don't just complete your goals. Outlive them. — the framework for thinking about legacy that doesn't require a crisis to activate
About Meggie Palmer
Meggie Palmer is the founder of Pep Talk Her, a platform and community on a mission to close the gender pay gap — helping women negotiate more, earn more, and get promoted faster. A former journalist turned advocate, Meggie brings the same sharp, warm energy to every conversation she hosts. Find her and her Thank You Thursday practice wherever she shows up online.
Resources & Links
- 📖 Making It Without Losing It by Jess Ekstrom: Available now — USA Today bestseller
- 🎤 Mic Drop Workshop: micdropworkshop.com — helping women become seen and paid as thought leaders
- 💼 Pep Talk Her: Follow Meggie Palmer for salary negotiation resources and community
- 👗 Argent: Premium women's workwear — argentwork.com
- 📸 Follow Jess on Instagram: @jessekstrom
- 🎙️ Making It with Jess Ekstrom: Subscribe + leave a review wherever you listen
Produced by Making It with Jess Ekstrom & Walk West | Recorded live at Argent NYC
🕯️ Soulful Sidebar: What Would Your Obituary Say?
At a silent retreat Jess didn't fully read the fine print for, the theme turned out to be death and dying. She almost left. She didn't. And it cracked something open.
The exercise: write what you'd want your obituary to say. Not as a morbid act — as a compass. Am I living the life that people would say this about?
Most of us wait for a diagnosis or a close call to ask that question. But what if you didn't need the crisis? What if the awareness — right now, today — was enough to course-correct?
You don't just get to complete goals in this lifetime. You get to set goals that outlive you. That's not a burden. That's the whole point.