Tim Talks: Behavioral Health is a fast-paced podcast featuring candid, 10-minute conversations with leaders across the behavioral health field.
Hosted by Timothy Zercher, CEO of A-Train Marketing, each episode dives into what’s actually working in marketing, practice growth, and leadership — with a sharp focus on ethics, sustainability, and smart strategy.
Designed for behavioral health providers, practice owners, and executive leaders, Tim Talks delivers real insight from real operators shaping the future of care.
Dr. Ashley Smith - Psychologist, Speaker & Founder, Peak Mind: The Center for Psychological Strength
•Tim Zercher•Season 1•Episode 80
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What if the biggest thing holding you back isn’t the market, your competition, or your circumstances… but your own mind?
On this episode of Tim Talks: Behavioral Health, Timothy A. Zercher sits down with Dr. Ashley Smith to explore how high performers can break through fear, self-doubt, and limiting beliefs. Dr. Ashley shares how her personal journey with progressive vision loss shaped her mindset, leadership approach, and mission to help others unlock psychological strength.
They discuss anxiety as a signal of growth, why our brains focus on the negative, how leaders can challenge internal narratives, and why discomfort is often the price of real progress.
If you want to think bigger, lead better, and stop letting fear call the shots, this episode is for you.
Timothy Zercher
Well, Dr. Ashley, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking time out of your busy, busy schedule.
Dr. Ashley Smith
I'm excited to talk with you.
Timothy Zercher
So let's dive right in. What first pulled you into the world of psychology and human behavior? And how did that evolve then into the work that you do today?
Dr. Ashley Smith
If I'm being fully honest, it was the only textbook that didn't make me want to fall asleep when I was in college. So I figured I must be a psych major. And then it turns out I really fell in love with the field. I can't think of anything that is more relevant to our experience as humans than understanding how we work. And from there, I became a clinical psychologist. So I did a lot of one-on-one work with people. And my own journey, I have a really rare degenerative retinal disease that makes me increasingly and legally blind. So I had to go through my own process of coming to terms with things that are out of your control. And how do you still find happiness and success despite whatever cards life deals you? So the professional expertise, my personal experience really put me in this place where I'm very passionate about making psychology accessible. So out of the therapy offices, out of the ivory towers, and really accessible in our businesses, in our systems, and just in our daily conversations. And so that led to the founding of Peak Mind, the Center for Psychological Strength.
Timothy Zercher
That's awesome. A cool story of how you find yourself.
Dr. Ashley Smith
Yeah. And practicing what I preach, right? I know this stuff works, not just because the research says it, but because I've field tested it as well.
Timothy Zercher
And that is always the best place to speak from, is is an actual experience, right? So you talk a lot about how our minds can deceive us. What is one common kind of mental trap that you see high performers fall into again and again?
Dr. Ashley Smith
There are a couple of things that I want to call out and I'll be super fast with it. One is that all things considered equal, our brains focus on bad over good. It's called the negativity bias. And high achievers, we know this, right? If you nail nine presentations, but you kind of flub up one, that's the one we focus on, right? So our brains sort of weight bad more than good. The other thing is anytime we're doing something new or uncertain, we're gonna feel anxious. And anxiety means danger. That's why we have anxiety. It's our built-in threat detection system. But a lot of people misinterpret that. They feel anxious, they think, oh, this means danger, or they feel doubt. So they think, oh, I shouldn't do it. When really all that anxiety means is you're doing something new and unfamiliar. So when we can start to recode that as, oh, this means this is growth. This is where I need to go. Anxiety is a good thing. I think that's really important for being able to reach your full potential to chase bigger goals and to live a bolder life.
Timothy Zercher
That makes complete sense. So you've lived through, as you mentioned, some real, real limitations while helping others overcome what might be often just perceived limitations. And how has that shaped the way that you coach leaders and teams?
Dr. Ashley Smith
Yeah, I mean, it really comes back to, I think our minds really want to keep us safe. That's why they evolved, right? To keep us safe while saving energy. So they're lazy in the way they process things, they take shortcuts, and it's all stay in your comfort zone. And for me, I do have a real vision impairment. There's nothing I can do about the defective gene I have. But even then, the limitations that I thought I had for a long time were just not real. And until you start to question your mind, and I don't even just mean logically, because if you start to kind of argue with it, you're gonna stay stuck. What I mean is you have to say, prove it. So my mind told me you can't leave the job I was at at the time. Well, I have, and I've started my own business since then, and it's been successful, or you can't travel. I can't drive a car legally or safely, but I've been able to travel around the world. So a lot of times these things we hear this, you can't. People like me shouldn't. And those are just rules that your mind learns somewhere along the way. They're just the bounds of your comfort zone. And we have to start to say, prove it, prove it. What will happen if I do this? And then we can see you're actually capable of so much more than you thought. And sometimes you will fail. And then we get to be able to recognize, oh, that's not the end of the world. I can pick myself up and keep moving forward. And sometimes failure or those limitations are actually the key to your success. You just have to go through them to learn those lessons.
Timothy Zercher
Yeah, I love that. I love that. And and probably you're gonna fail way farther than you thought you would get anyway. You'll thought you'll you'll actually meet that limitation far beyond where you think it is.
Dr. Ashley Smith
Absolutely. Yeah, the whole like shoot for the moon, you land in the stars kind of thing. I say go for it, like go for a big goal. What do you have to lose other than some discomfort? And if we could all get a little more comfortable with what I call inside ick. So that's feeling anxious, or those thoughts like you failed, or that's embarrassing, those feelings, like if you can just tolerate that and not let it stop you or dictate your actions, then you can do pretty much anything.
Timothy Zercher
Yeah, it makes complete sense. Makes complete sense. What works best for you right now in terms of gaining new partnerships, new clients, new speaking engagements? How do you go about gaining gaining your growth?
Dr. Ashley Smith
Yeah, I think there's a lot of experimentation there, right? Try things and see what works and what works for some people doesn't work for others. What I find personally is it's relationships. When I'm able to have a conversation with people, when they hear me speak or read my writing, then they feel like they know me a little bit and really approaching things as this one human to another. We all have an interest here in seeing our businesses be successful in supporting the people that work for us and with us. And I find that really being collaborative, transparent, friendly, and easy to work with is helpful and really building those relationships.
Timothy Zercher
That's what all marketing sales, all of that really comes out building relationships, right? Whether you're doing it one-on-one or one-to-many, it's that's the same thing.
Dr. Ashley Smith
Absolutely.
Timothy Zercher
Yeah. So because we're a marketing agency, we always ask at least one very specific marketing question. But what is one marketing tactic that you're either just watching really carefully in the marketplace right now or that you are considering actually using for you and your team?
Dr. Ashley Smith
I've always I'm kind of dabbling with social media because that is that people say you need to do social media, but then it feels a lot like shouting into the void sometimes. So I'm personally really looking at where is it worth my time, effort, and energy. And I'm starting personally to dabble with Substack. As a writer, it feels like a way to do the long-form content that I really enjoy doing that feels more authentic to me. And I'm hoping that that will bring in additional people or new people to my world.
Timothy Zercher
That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate you joining. Appreciate the work you're doing and helping people pass their limits and move beyond their limits. So thank you.
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