Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

What if your superpower of “I’ve got it” is the very thing keeping you exhausted? In this episode, I unpack the quiet trap high-achieving women fall into: mistaking capacity for compulsion. We talk about why saying yes feels safer than slowing down, how your body always pays the bill, and the simple filter I use to ensure I don’t lose sight of my defined version of success.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:

• Capacity vs. compulsion: why “I can” isn’t the same as “I should”
• The hidden cost of being capable: energetic and emotional price tags
• “Your body pays the bills”: what over-functioning does to your nervous system
• Discernment as a regulation skill: pause, ask, and act with intention
• My success filter: will this bring me closer to or further from peace
• Breaking the “helpful one” identity without burning everything down
• Micro-habits that create exhale moments instead of more adrenaline
• Real-talk examples from retreats, pods, and everyday life

POINT OF THE STORY:

Strength is not carrying it all. Strength is knowing when to set it down. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should, and trust me… and your nervous system knows the difference.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Mixermind (the curated, connection-first visibility community I’m part of)
• Bonus for my community: join via my link and you’ll get a 1:1 visibility strategy session with me on how to use Mixer Mind intentionally and map your 2026 visibility plan
• My chat with Katie Grimes on her podcast Anything for Love — we dove into cycle syncing, rest, and turning your hormones into your biggest business advantage. It’s such a good one to queue up after this episode.

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Hi friend. If last week had you wondering “okay, but how do you run a business without the apps?”... This is the step-by-step guide. I audited where my sales actually came from, rebuilt my visibility around what works (and feels good), and let the rest go. Spoiler: less than 20% of my revenue traced back to social media and I was spending about 80% of my energy there. No more.

This episode lays out the exact mix I’m using now: podcasting, email, collaborations, real relationships, and a curated community that keeps high-quality opportunities flowing without the scroll.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• The audit that shattered “I need social to sell”
• What replaced the feed: podcasting and a weekly email with teeth
• Borrowed trust: podcast guesting, bundles, and cross-promos that convert
• Speaking, workshops, and warm intros over cold DMs
• In-person networking that actually gives you energy
• A curated connection hub (the “mixer mind”) and why I became a facilitator
• How I think about “platforms” now, and why consistency > virality
• Building a visibility flywheel you can sustain for years

POINT OF THE STORY:
Visibility isn’t a platform, it’s a trust engine. Audit where your best clients really come from, double down there, and let your strategy serve your values, not the algorithm.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• Visibility audit (track sources for every sale)
• Podcast guesting, bundles, and email swaps
• The Mixer Mind — a curated connection community with peer pods, panels, and mix-and-mingles
→ I believe in this space so deeply that I became a certified facilitator

→ Join the FREE Mixer Mind event- Where’s The Money In 2026?

→ Join through my affiliate link and receive a one-on-one call with me to personalize your visibility strategy and get the most out of the Mixer Mind.

• Speaking + guest workshops as authority builders

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Hi friend. I wanted to drop in with a little surprise… something special outside our regular Tuesday episodes. This bonus meditation is one of the most-loved practices inside The Regulated Woman, my signature program designed to help you live, lead, and create from a regulated nervous system.

This short guided practice will help you seal your energy leaks, call your power back, and ground yourself when you’re feeling scattered or drained. Because sometimes it’s not what we’re doing that exhausts us, it’s where we’ve left our energy behind.

Take a few quiet minutes, pop in your earbuds, and let this be your moment to come home to yourself.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• Why we feel “tired for no reason”: energetic leaks and emotional residue
• How to recognize where your energy is escaping (overthinking, pleasing, proving)
• The visualization: golden light, energetic recall, and sealing your field
• Gentle somatic grounding through breath and body awareness
• Returning to wholeness: protecting your peace without closing your heart

POINT OF THE STORY:
Your energy is sacred. Every time you bring it back to yourself, you strengthen your capacity for presence, peace, and power.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• The Regulated Woman — my signature program for nervous system-first living
→ Includes a full Regulation Library of meditations, visualizations, and breathwork sessions
→ Available as a Self-Paced Experience or Live Experience with monthly therapeutic calls

• Practices also inside The Regulated Woman:
– Midday reset for overwhelm
– Meditation for when you feel rushed
– Walking meditations for calling in support, safety, and abundance

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Hello hello, my love. Reporting live from my social free era with coffee in one hand and a board game under the other. On my 38th birthday, August 28, I broke up with social media for at least one year. Two months in and I do not miss it even a little. Not the scrolling, not the performative selfies, not even the dopamine glitter.

This episode is the tea and the receipts. Why I left, how I did it without burning my business to the ground, and what has shifted in my brain, my rhythms, and our home now that my thumbs are not living on an app. Let’s talk about presence, peace, and how good life gets when you are not trying to be everywhere at once.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• The birthday decision and what “off” really looks like for me
• Parenting with integrity: saying no to my son’s social media and holding myself to the same standard
• The book that shifted everything: how attention, intuition, and coping get rewired
• Addiction, dissociation, and why “I have to for business” kept me stuck
• Comparison fatigue: kitchens, lifestyles, and wanting what you never wanted
• Friendship fallout and the highlight-reel problem
• Presence over performative living: documenting less, remembering more
• Business without socials: remembering companies existed long before apps
• What I’m doing instead and how I’m staying visible without a feed

POINT OF THE STORY:
Social media can offer connection and sales, but if it steals your peace, energy, and presence, the cost is too high. Choose the life you want to be inside of, not the one that looks good from the outside.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

If there’s one thing that’s quietly changed everything for me, my nervous system, my relationships, my business, it’s what I’m sharing in this episode.

This part-three conversation wraps up our relaunch mini-series with the simplest, most unexpected reframe that turned my constant striving into something softer, steadier, and so much more peaceful.

It’s a way of seeing yourself and your life that makes room for ease, curiosity, and joy again. The kind of shift that asks you to see things a little differently.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:

• Why “being the expert” kept me stressed, tight, and over-strategized
• Curiosity vs. threat: the nervous system science behind beginner energy
• Re-entering life post-sabbatical and feeling that old buzz again (hi, cortisol)
• Rebuilding business rhythms by asking what feels good to try
• Marriage and motherhood with fresh eyes, more surprise, presence, and ease
• Escaping information overwhelm (goodbye, social media) and returning to what’s true
• Filtering everything through a beginner’s mind to make life easier, not smaller
• Where this podcast is headed: the self beneath the success

POINT OF THE STORY:
You can’t white-knuckle your way into regulation, but I can promise you that the beginner’s mind invites safety, play, and possibility, so your system can soften and your life can expand.

RELAUNCH GIVEAWAY (10/29 – 10/31):
Free Access to The Energy Advantage (Mini - less than 15 minutes!) Training where I reveal the exact framework I used to double my energy, work less frantically, and actually end my days with something left in the tank.

Here’s how to get instant access:

1. Leave a review for Shamelessly Ambitious on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
2. Screenshot your review.
3. Upload it using this short form.

Once you do, you’ll get immediate access to the mini-webinar — From constant exhaustion to overflowing energy: the fastest way high-achieving women can reclaim their capacity in 2025.

Rooting for you, your way, always 🖤

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

Even after I slowed down, healed, lost 40 pounds, and felt like a brand-new human, the old patterns still tiptoed back in. Not the dramatic face-down-on-the-floor kind of burnout, just the sneaky version that makes you pause and say, “Oh, interesting… you again?” It was enough to make me curious.

This part-two debrief is me pulling back the curtain on why urgency creeps in even after rest, how cortisol becomes our go-to fuel source, and the small, doable resets that actually change the pattern without blowing up your entire life. Think of it as the gentle, real-life guide to breaking the burnout cycle… and all the tiny daily shifts that we all need.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• When old patterns creep back after rest
• Cortisol addiction and why stress starts to feel like energy
• How “busy” becomes an identity we get praised for
• Childhood wiring: control, chaos, and early responsibility
• Relational fawning: regulating everyone but yourself
• The urgency we learn young (and why I still watch our mornings)
• Tiny resets that help: the 90-second nothing timer, sense grounding, and vagus-nerve hums
• Values vs. ideals: hearing your life tell the truth
• The Somatic Wealth Framework: Regulate, Reflect, Rewire

POINT OF THE STORY:
You can’t out-sabbatical a nervous system pattern. The shift isn’t a life overhaul; it’s honest values + tiny, embodied resets repeated today.

RELAUNCH GIVEAWAY (10/29 – 10/31):
Free Access to The Energy Advantage (Mini - less than 15 minutes!) Training where I reveal the exact framework I used to double my energy, work less frantically, and actually end my days with something left in the tank.

Here’s how to get instant access:

• Leave a review for Shamelessly Ambitious on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
• Screenshot your review.
• Upload it using this short form.

Once you do, you’ll get immediate access to the mini-webinar, From constant exhaustion to overflowing energy: the fastest way high-achieving women can reclaim their capacity in 2025.

Rooting for you, your way, always 🖤

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

What was meant to be a little pause turned into almost a year and a half off the mic.
August 2024 to October 2025.
Time is fake, apparently.

In this catch-up episode, I share where I’ve been, why I chose life (again and again) over momentum, and how I rebuilt my days around values that actually feel like mine, even when it meant letting go of things that once defined me.

If you’ve ever felt torn between who you’re “supposed” to be and the life you actually want, this one’s a full-blown compass reset.

TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• The unexpected 18-month break and why returning mattered
• Worldschooling adventures from Washington to Brazil
• Building community and life in Colorado
• Choosing what fits instead of chasing balance
• Values vs. ideals: letting your real life show what matters
• Perfectionism as a sneaky burnout driver
• Stepping away from social media and finding peace

POINT OF THE STORY:
Regulation isn’t about perfect calm.
It’s about choosing what matters when it costs you something, over and over again.
When your values get honest, your life gets simpler.

🎁 RELAUNCH GIVEAWAY (10/29–10/31):
Get free access to The Energy Advantage mini training (under 15 minutes!), where I share the exact framework I used to double my energy, work less frantically, and actually end my days with something left in the tank.

How to get instant access:
1️⃣ Leave a review for Shamelessly Ambitious on Apple Podcasts or Spotify
2️⃣ Screenshot your review
3️⃣ Upload it using the short form

Once you do, you’ll get immediate access to:
From Constant Exhaustion to Overflowing Energy, The Fastest Way High-Achieving Women Can Reclaim Their Capacity in 2025

Rooting for you, your way, always 🖤

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...

Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!

A real, unfiltered look behind the scenes of what it takes to build a life and business that actually feel good. Shamelessly Ambitious is where ambition meets regulation. Honest conversations, nervous system truths, and the messy, beautiful reality of being a woman who holds it all: the family, the business, the vision. Sometimes it’s deep, sometimes it’s messy, but it’s always real.

Rooting for you, your way, always 🖤

LINKS:

— Become the Regulated Woman
— Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
— Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
— Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
— Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1
— Therapeutic Mentorship
— Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)

MORE ABOUT ASH
I am the definition of duality — I swear like a sailor and break rules like it’s my job, but I also hold incredible space for my clients and work my ass off to help them achieve the success they’re after. But I'm also here for the non-preneur woman, too. My background in counseling gives me a unique perspective on what it means to show up, serve, & create connection for those who feel like they've never belonged before.

LINKS:

• Become the Regulated Woman
• Get emails that feel like your best friend (if your best friend was a therapist and actually told you the truth).
• Use code BB20 to get The Burnout Breakthrough for only $7
• Follow me on IG (dropping in once a quarter for updates & gossip)
• Website: ashmcdonaldmentoring.com

Work with me 1:1

• Therapeutic Mentorship
• Business Therapy (therapy + strategic mentorship)
• ...