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Shamelessly Ambitious I Helping Ambitious Women Prevent Burnout + Create Nervous System First Success in Business, Motherhood, & Life
Shamelessly Ambitious is an honest, grounding, and vulnerable podcast for ambitious, emotionally intelligent women who are done proving themselves, tired of living in constant high-functioning burnout, and craving a life and business that actually feel good.
Hosted by Ash McDonald—therapist, nervous-system-first business mentor, and speaker this show blends clinical expertise with lived experience to deliver nervous system tools, embodied strategies, and radical permission so you can expand your capacity, root into emotional steadiness, and build sustainable success that supports your whole life.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stretched too thin, caught in productivity guilt, or stuck running on stress, this podcast meets you where you are—with therapeutic insights, embodied practices, and heartfelt stories that create real shifts. Whether you’re navigating motherhood, entrepreneurship, or the messy middle of redefining success, each episode helps you slow down, regulate, and return to a felt sense of safety in your body.
With over a decade of experience at the intersection of therapy and leadership, Ash pulls back the curtain on what really works—offering grounded guidance you can apply in real life.
What you’ll hear:
- Honest conversations about burnout recovery, nervous system regulation, and redefining success
- Somatic tools, meditations, and practices that build inner safety and capacity
- Stories of motherhood, mom-life, ambition, and the courage to create a life and business that feel rich and real
If you’re asking the following questions, you’re in the right place:
- How do I stop tying my worth to productivity?
- How do I know if I’m experiencing high-functioning burnout and what do I do about it?
- How do I balance motherhood and leadership without losing myself?
- How do I calm my body when I feel overwhelmed or overstimulated?
This is the podcast for when you’re ready to reclaim peace, expand what you can hold, and create success that doesn’t cost you yourself. Tune in and take the next step toward a regulated, rooted, and deeply fulfilling life.
Shamelessly Ambitious I Helping Ambitious Women Prevent Burnout + Create Nervous System First Success in Business, Motherhood, & Life
157. Why Real Success Takes Time: Rewiring Your Brain for Patience
Hi sister friend. Back at it again... and today, we’re slowing all the way down. Because somewhere between instant coffee, instant Amazon deliveries, and instant validation, we forgot that most things worth building take time.
This one’s your permission slip to take the long way, to build something that lasts, to stop chasing the dopamine hit of “fast results,” and to start measuring success by how alive and at peace you feel, not by how fast it happens.
Real success, I mean the sustainable, fulfilling, nervous-system-safe kind... is slow. It’s mornings where you show up with zero proof it’s working. It’s boring consistency. It’s quiet trust. Let’s talk about that.
TOPICS & TANGENTS:
• How social media rewired our brains for instant gratification
• Why we mistake impatience for failure
• The hidden cost of “I need it now” energy
• Why most people quit before the results land (it’s not lack of strategy, it’s lack of stamina)
• The difference between capacity and compulsion
• What it means to practice active faith instead of frantic action
• Building a pace you can hold for years... not just a season
• Success measured in peace, presence, and patience
POINT OF THE STORY:
Patience isn’t passive. It’s power. It’s self-trust in motion, the willingness to stay with what’s working long enough for it to work for you.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
• My chat with Sophia Parra on Marketing Unfiltered — all about high-functioning burnout, what happened when I tried to be “more professional,” and how I rebuilt my business with nervous-system-led marketing.
• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt — a must-read on how tech reshaped our brains and attention spans.
• If Only I Had a Bigger Kitchen — reflections on simplicity, home, and redefining “enough.”
• The Regulated Woman — my signature mentorship for women ready to grow slow, steady, and sustainably.
POINT TO REMEMBER:
The kind of success that lasts? It’s unsexy consistency. The mornings you show up without proof. The long road that makes you come alive.
Take the long way. You’ll actually enjoy the view.
Are you loving it? Send Ash a text!
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) ...