050: The Fire Within: Discovering Your Full Capabilities Against All Odds

What happens when someone pushes the boundaries of their potential? Ashley's journey—from working in a hot dog factory to becoming a Vice President of Human Resources—is a testament to the power of self-belief and determination.

Raised in a blue-collar family with no clear path to college, Ashley never envisioned an executive career. At 20, as a single mother, she walked into a staffing agency looking for work—only to leave with an opportunity that would launch her into the world of HR. "I wanted to be a mom my son could be proud of," she shares, describing how motherhood became the driving force behind her ambition.

In our conversation, Ashley reflects on how The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People transformed her approach to personal and professional growth. Now a certified facilitator, she’s introduced these principles across multiple companies, creating what she calls "a common leadership language" from the executive level down. Her biggest personal challenge? Redefining her relationship with food—moving from seeing it as a source of comfort to making healthier choices while still enjoying life.

At the core of Ashley’s philosophy is the belief that "we don’t fail, we learn." Her story proves that with mentorship, education (earning her bachelor’s, master’s, and MBA), and relentless commitment, it’s possible to break past limitations. Ready to unlock your own potential? Listen now and take the first step in your transformation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Pushing Past Perceived Limits
• 0:42 Food Challenges and Habit Formation
• 4:37 Implementing Seven Habits Company-Wide
• 7:17 From Zero to HR Executive
• 11:49 Continuous Learning and Education
• 14:15 Commercial Break

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I wanted to explore what my full capabilities were and at times I thought I had maxed those out. I had people who pushed me and put me in roles that forced me to grow and learn. Failure is never an option, right? I mean, we don't fail, we learn, right, so it is. How do I figure out if someone trusts me to do this? I cannot let them down. If you're telling me that this is my job, I'm going to give you everything I got.

Speaker 2: 0:32

There's no sense in doing things halfway what's the hardest thing that you experienced in changing your habits, short of getting off the couch? Right, but what? I guess what's one of the hardest things that you experienced personally and how did you overcome that?

Speaker 1: 0:49

yeah, great question. So the hardest thing was like food. I'll be honest, because I love food and it's entertainment. It's you know, you connect with people through food and so, and it's really it was training myself so I can still enjoy it and make good choices. Um, so I don't, and this is this is kind of a plug, but not really but have you ever gone through the training of seven habits that highly of, highly effective?

Speaker 2: 1:21

people. I've heard it numerous times but've never never invested the time into that so that program changed my life.

Speaker 1: 1:29

I'm actually a certified facilitator, like I now yeah, I now train others on this, um, but it was revolutionary in my life, so that started about eight years ago when I went through the first session.

Speaker 1: 1:45

And it is literally simple. Principles that when you put them together you're like, huh, sounds simple, but it's not that simple. But just that was a huge. That was a huge inspiration. That was a huge inspiration. So, uh, in my current job I had the opportunity to introduce this to the organization and I think it clicked in me again. I'm like, if I'm gonna tell people to believe in this, I gotta live it.

Speaker 1: 2:15

And that's really like I need to change habits and but, and I know how to do it, and I know how to teach other people how to do it, so just go do it. I love that. I had no idea.

Speaker 2: 2:26

you know the things I learned and, once again, I would try to be as transparent as possible. Right, you and I obviously have a connection here. I've known each other for quite a few years, but there's so much I don't know about you, and you know. You talk about the food thing and, yes, I mean, for me it's more the sweets, and yes, I have a tend to overeat and things like that. And, yeah, I have no self-control. You know, um, I don't know when to stop or I'll eat to the fact that I'm miserable or I'm sick. I know I just can't leave it alone. It's just, mark, come eat me, right, like going. So I and I think it was last summer I was visiting and, um, I think at that point you introduced me into, like the. Was it low sugar, no sugar, ketchup or something right?

Speaker 2: 3:07

I mean it quickly found its way into my refrigerator, and at a cost, because we know that it seems like in order to. If you want to eat better it. You know the cost is you can eat like crap really cheap, which sucks right, we're backwards in society when it comes to that.

Speaker 2: 3:24

But, yeah, you know, just sharing a piece of that. So, no, I had no idea that, a, that you did this thing and it's amazing. But as far as you said the food, and that was the biggest struggle in changing that, and you're right, what do people do? Hey, let's go grab a bite to eat together, or let's do this, or let's go have some drinks. Well, we know that those calories are really good for you, right?

Speaker 1: 3:50

and we know where that tends to store as fat. I mean, this is it's not what we're trying to accomplish, right, so right. It's a whole new discipline, and for me it was. It was a whole new discipline of putting that like as a priority. I've never done that before, so like it's like retraining your brain yeah, and that in itself could be a challenge, right?

Speaker 2: 4:06

I mean yeah, and then you have you have a family and with that family, then you have those, those influences right around you, right and um.

Speaker 1: 4:14

That can be a challenge in itself yeah, and not everybody wants to eat mom's healthy recipes, right?

Speaker 2: 4:20

sure, sure another one of mom's healthy recipes no, we went to pizza and breadsticks and all the things that go with that, not the healthy stuff.

Speaker 1: 4:29

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:30

So you touched on these seven healthy habits and bringing it into your workplace. You're in the manufacturing industry as far as the industry you're serving and your employer, but you are on the human resource side of things, correct, correct, yes, and that's where you've built your career yes, yes, so I this is.

Speaker 2: 4:54

This is my 20th year in human resources congratulations, that's a nice round number yeah that's awesome, um, and you introduced this to. You're able to introduce these habits to a team and teach them on that, um, the management team yeah, so we are one, one of six companies under a holding company.

Speaker 1: 5:17

okay, so, um, what was really awesome is I shared this idea with our board of directors and they were so open and they're like let's do it. We had the opportunity to bring leaders from all six companies through multiple groups and small courses and introduce it company-wide, so it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 5:41

Yeah, that's fantastic and the feedback you get from people, the team.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Yeah, so it's really helping build a common leadership language right. So when we, when we started at the executive level, it's like if we can't do it from the top right, we got to start there. We got to start there and build the stability. So we were fortunate enough to be able to have a consultant from Franklin Covey come in and lead some of those classes.

Speaker 1: 6:09

And then the last two I have done solely working down to like the supervisory level or, you know, engineering those strong individual contributor levels as well, but really just introducing. You know small things like just planning and communicating and preparation. You know small things like just planning and communicating and preparation, and it really focuses on self-improvement before you can improve relationships. So it's really, you know, build a relationship with yourself and then go build better relationships with the people you live with and work with.

Speaker 2: 6:45

Love it. I know myself I'm working on me, right. I may have to work on me before I can work on anything and help those around me. So I can really appreciate that and understand where you're going with that and how you're making that work for you but helping others make that work for them. But you went from zero to 20. What influenced your career journey? What got you started Right?

Speaker 1: 7:17

Yeah, and I have thought about this and it's just crazy honestly to me how I got here. If you would have said to 16 year old Ashley that at you know, in your mid 30s you would be a VP of HR.

Speaker 1: 7:36

I would not have believed you. You know I just I wouldn't have. I had, I had great influences. I was so I didn't grow up in a family that was like very college bound, right like Like I grew up very blue collar. My parents worked in manufacturing. Actually putting myself through college, I worked at the same hot dog factory. It was hired by the same HR lady that hired my mom 18 years before you know.

Speaker 1: 8:05

So I had the opportunity through high school and I think back about it, high school and my first couple of jobs people saw things in me that I didn't see in myself and I was like I can't thank those people enough, right, and so I try to do that now and I have the opportunity to be in a career that lets me do that.

Speaker 2: 8:29

But it's you know there was times where I was working three jobs going to school full time, you know and trying to just figure it out.

Speaker 1: 8:41

So I made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot of lessons, because my path was never straightforward. I was taking all the dirt roads Like I made it a little bit harder than it really had to be Right.

Speaker 1: 8:54

But, luckily, they all kind of like circle around to each other. Yeah, and then what really happened is um, surprise, hey, you're going to have a baby at 20. And so then I'm like like I have to be somebody for this human right, like I want to be a mom that my son can be proud of, build a life that's maybe a little bit easier pathways for him than how it worked out for me.

Speaker 1: 9:26

so I walked into this, so I decided to change colleges so I went from community college to university because I could take all my classes at night, I could parent, I could work and go to school, and that's what I did for four years. Um, and I walked into this temp agency looking with my baby okay, because, I was a single mom I was.

Speaker 1: 9:55

I ended up being a single mom at 20. So I walk in with this baby carrier and I'm looking for a job. That's in the same town as the university and this lady looks at me and she says well, how do you feel about working here? I didn't even know what that meant, right? So I got the job in the staffing agency and that's where my love for HR came from. So I started interviewing you know working with companies to do their job placements, helping with job descriptions. You know managing, you know people on site at other companies, learning about payroll, and I was like, oh, I like this. So, for the third and final time, I changed my college major. And here's, 20 years later.

Speaker 2: 10:53

So you know, you said the 16 year old Ashley, you know, would have dreamt you'd be VP and HR and do these things. What did you think you were? What path did you think you were going to be taking?

Speaker 1: 11:05

Um, I knew I didn't want to just work in a factory my whole life, which I do, just in a different capacity, because I do love the idea of how things work and how the world turns Right and it takes manufacturing to do that. I just wanted to be something I know that sounds something more.

Speaker 2: 11:29

Yeah, Like I just Respons't.

Speaker 1: 11:30

I know that sounds Something more. Yeah, like.

Speaker 2: 11:31

More responsibility. You know those types of things.

Speaker 1: 11:34

You didn't want to just pack your hot dogs.

Speaker 1: 11:36

whatever role you might've been, you wanted to yeah more challenges, and so I wanted, I wanted to explore what my full capabilities were, and at times, I thought I had maxed those out. And then, you know, I had people who pushed me and put me in roles that forced me to grow and learn Right, because I failure is never an option. Right, I mean, we don't fail, we learn Right. So it is, how do I figure out if someone trusts me to do this? I cannot let them down. Um, and we're going to. We're going to figure it out and we're if. If you're telling me that this is my job, I'm going to give you everything I got. There's no sense in doing things halfway.

Speaker 2: 12:26

So would you think that?

Speaker 1: 12:28

has has propelled me a little bit into more opportunities to grow.

Speaker 2: 12:32

Yeah, and so do you think that's what is, I guess, motivated you and keeps you motivated?

Speaker 1: 12:37

Yeah, I would say so, I am. I am naturally a motivated person. I always want to like okay, if I got here, what's next, what's next, what's next? Right, I'm always setting that next stepping stone, um, and figuring out how to just keep going. So, yeah, I, it's that fire, I have a little bit of fire.

Speaker 2: 12:57

that's like I know I can do it and I'm gonna figure it out so, as a single mother, 20 years old, you happen to walk in the staffing agency. They ask you if you're interested in working for them. At that point you realize, hey, I kind of like doing this thing. And that led you on a path of changing your education to be focused on HR. Now I know personally that you are driven to continue on. So you did your four years.

Speaker 1: 13:28

I did.

Speaker 2: 13:29

And that wasn't enough.

Speaker 1: 13:31

No. So then I decided to take on another year and got my master's of science in leadership, because I loved being able to help people grow and influence them to be their best versions of themselves, so that really tugged on me. So after that I actually started teaching undergraduate courses at the university. So then I decided well, I need to keep going again. So in order to expand what I could teach, I went and got my MBA as well.

Speaker 2: 14:09

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