How She Went from $700 to $280 Million Without Losing Herself | Joyful Ambition & Anti-Burnout for CEOs

What happens when your business is thriving… but your personal life is falling apart?

In this powerful episode of Unstoppable Success, Jaclyn Strominger sits down with entrepreneur, marketing strategist, and Pretty Damn Ambitious founder Bianca King for an honest conversation about ambition, burnout, relationships, business growth, and building a life that actually feels good to live.

Bianca shares her incredible journey from walking away from corporate commercial real estate with just $700 and a laptop to building a marketing agency that has helped generate more than $280 million in client revenue.

But this episode goes far deeper than business success.

Bianca opens up about burnout, inherited ambition, redefining success, and the life-changing moment that forced her to rethink everything after her husband unexpectedly collapsed in their kitchen and later underwent open-heart surgery.

Together, Jaclyn and Bianca unpack:

• The difference between inherited ambition and true purpose
• How relationships built Bianca’s business
• Why community is essential for growth
• The hidden dangers of hustle culture
• How to scale without burnout
• The “Dual Seasons” framework for navigating life and business
• Why awareness and alignment matter more than grind
• How to build success with more joy and ease
• Why your business should support your life — not consume it

This conversation is deeply honest, incredibly insightful, and filled with practical wisdom for entrepreneurs, leaders, women in business, and anyone trying to build meaningful success without sacrificing themselves in the process.

If you’ve ever questioned your path, felt disconnected from your work, or struggled to balance ambition with fulfillment, this episode will resonate deeply.

Connect with Bianca King on Linked In 
🌐 BiancaBKing.com
📈 AmbitionAxis.com

Transcript

Introduction to Bianca King

Jaclyn Strominger 0:02

Hello, Everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of Unstoppable Success. This is a podcast where we hear from amazing leaders and professionals who have had unstoppable success. They get to share their tips, their insights, and their wisdom with you so that you can have unstoppable success. I'm Jaclyn Strominger, your host, your Unstoppable Success leadership strategist. We have a great school community, and we'll make sure that we share that because we want to have you always having unstoppable success and people to connect with. But today on the podcast, I get to introduce you to Bianca King. Let me just tell you how amazing she is. So she is the CEO and founder of Pretty Damn Ambitious. And she's a business strategist who has helped generate over $280 million in client revenue through her 17-year marketing agency, OMMG. That's crazily good. Um, she's on a mission to prove that ambition and joy can coexist, helping women entrepreneurs scale their businesses without a burnout. And she is actually going to share with us some amazing tips on sustainable success. And she has a great framework that she was also going to share with us. So welcome Bianca to the podcast. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. So excited to have you. So I I have to start out because you have you know, you went from, I think, you know, I was reading in the notes, it was like from like 700 to 280

Leaving Corporate & Starting With $700

Jaclyn Strominger 1:41

million. Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:46

Yeah, for sure. So it but yeah, let me let me take you back to the 90s. I started my career way back in the 90s, and I started working in commercial real estate. There I was able to, you know, do the thing, you know, find the corporate ladder, do everything that we were taught to do in the tr the traditional success arena, if you will. I worked on a team that closed over $1.4 billion worth of assets. Uh, this is way back before people were even talking about billions back in the early aughts. But in my mid-30s or so, I started to burn out and decided it was time to just do something different. And I'm like, okay, I have an MBA in e-commerce marketing. I'm helping market $100 million assets. How can I translate that into something that would work for me? And so I was like, I'll just start a marketing agency.

Jaclyn Strominger 2:39

There goes the shingle.

Speaker 1 2:41

Right, there it is, right? Right. Very naively, I did that. So what I did was I tenured my resignation and took $700 and bought a Southwest plane ticket, round trip ticket to Austin. I live in Dallas and a Dell laptop. Again, they were like maybe three or four hundred dollars at that point, and quickly landed my first client right after I left commercial real estate. And I thought, I thought that was it. I'm like, this is great. Like $700 investment. I've, you know, I've I can even tell you how many times I, you know, X that whatever 24 I thought my that first uh six-month contract was $24,000. So $700 to $24,000. I was like, this is it. Like I've made it. I was actually doing it during the Great Recession and quickly found out that those numbers weren't going to sustain themselves. And so yeah, that that's that's my story from 700 or corporate to 700. So after that, you know, over these past 17 years, will be 18 years next month, my 18th year in business. I've helped small businesses literally across the world with their marketing. We have been fractional CMOs, we have been marketing departments. And with that, we have really been able to drive client revenue and ROI just out the roof. And so that's where the 280 million comes in. I haven't made 200 million dollars, but my but my collective clients over the years, we we've made 280 million dollars for them in in revenue.

How Relationships Built Her Business

Jaclyn Strominger 4:10

That's that's quite fascinating. So I'm gonna ask a question. So, because I think that some people be like, okay, so you jumped on a plane to Dallas and you got your first client. How did you get the first client?

Speaker 1 4:22

Relationships. And ironically, it was a commercial real estate company. So, so yeah. So I had a I had a person who I had been working with when I was in the real estate company, international commercial real estate company, Cushman and Wakefield. And she knew just kidding. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I worked there for almost a decade. For almost a decade, I worked there. And she, you know, knew I was moving on and so forth and understood kind of what I was doing. And she was like, hey, you know, do you mind just hopping down to Austin? I actually live in Dallas. I went to Austin. Do you mind hopping down to Austin and to see if possibly we can work together? And I was like, Yeah. And so talk to the the owner and the broker manager, all of that. And they're like, Yeah, absolutely. We want to hire you as a consultant. And that that was it.

Jaclyn Strominger 5:08

Okay, so I talk about this all the time. Did you hear what Bianca just said, listeners? Relationships. That's it. The relationships, talk about relationship capital. Foster that always just foster that. Okay. So now you are fast forward. We we've been you've been generating loads of, you know, and helping people market their businesses. Yeah. And you've

Burnout & Redefining Success

Jaclyn Strominger 5:40

now hit like a new season, so to speak. For sure. Right. So talk about that this new season, so to speak.

Speaker 1 5:48

Yeah. So it's probably about 2019. And I was like, okay, uh, this feels familiar. I think I'm burning out again. And so I had essentially brought all of that toxic culture that I had learned in corporate into my agency, right? Working the late hours, you know, just doing everything to ensure that I would have not only the success that I had in commercial real estate, but more, because obviously it's it's my own thing. So it has to be better, right? Especially if you're ambitious like me. And so I was feeling that burnout again. And the what I call the pandemic pause really helped me stop and reevaluate what I was doing with everything in my life, right? Like like a lot of people. And I was taking a course and I remember because I am very much about mentorship and having a coach, having the people around you who can actually see your blind spot so that you can you can accelerate your success. So I was taking a course and I was just thinking about hmm, I would be so cool to work with like a bunch of badass women coaches. And so that's how pretty damn ambitious was born. And I had been informally mentoring women, and I was like, well, this is perfect. Like, you know, all these years in the agency,

Pretty Damn Ambitious Was Born

Speaker 1 7:00

I've been doing this, and and now I have like a real platform to really do it. Now, I am not a coach. Like you, you're certified. I I bow down to you.

Jaclyn Strominger 7:09

It could be certifiable. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1 7:12

I hear you on that one. Um, but I call myself a business mentor. I am not a coach. I feel like coach coaches should be certified in in some type of way, most of them, at least, I would, I would say. And so that was kind of how Pretty Damn Ambitious was was born. And so we help women, entrepreneurs, with their businesses, helping them scale with more joys joinies, is how I like to put it, so that they're not bringing some of those toxic culture items, if you will, into their business like I did. Most of the women that we serve, they're either still in corporate and they're trying to transition out of it, or they previously were in corporate. So I totally understand how they could easily kind of get caught in the same trap that that that I love that you're doing, I love that you're doing that.

Jaclyn Strominger 7:57

And it and it's funny that sometimes we bring in what we we bring in the things that we know, even though we don't want to bring those in because it's what we know. Exactly. Yeah. Right. And so being able to break out of that is so important and to be able to help other other people, you know, uh see those differences and and to and to grow. So yes. You know, so where are you what where what's your what's your ultimate, you know, if you could say to people right now, you know, the biggest lesson, because there are things that I'm thinking about, but you know, are three tips that you could give somebody to have that unstoppable success? Because you've had this this ambition and you you've grown businesses. Right. So what could you should what is like you know, three tips that you could share?

Speaker 1 8:49

Yeah, three tips. That's a great question. So, first tip would be awareness. I I think a lot of women, especially women of color, women that are immigrants,

The Truth About Inherited Ambition

Speaker 1 9:00

we have what I call inherited ambition. We are working off the success of our mother or the family member or whomever who wanted us to do the thing. We don't have sometimes a full awareness of actually doing the thing that is really true and dear to us. So having awareness, is your ambition or the thing that you're trying to have success with? Is it yours or is it inherited? Right. That's the first thing. The second thing is once you understand what that awareness is, then you've got to align yourself to the new thing of success, right? Making sure that you have the different people and relationships. Yes, I'm gonna say that word again, um, and and things in place so that you can stay focused on that target that is actually yours, not something that you know you you inherit it. And then last would be community. Like I just relationships are the most powerful thing any person can have. It doesn't matter if you're in business, you know, like we are for ourselves, or if you're in corporate or whatever. Billions move because of relationships. It's just simple as that. Nurturing those relationships, really making sure that you're doubling down on social capital, as as you said. Yeah. That those were the three, the three tips I would absolutely say.

Jaclyn Strominger 10:18

Okay, you're so speaking my language here.

unknown 10:22

I love it.

Speaker 1 10:23

I love it. That's why we're here. That's why we're talking, right?

Jaclyn Strominger 10:26

Because, you know, community is so important and having that is and it and and I and I want you to, I want to kind of go back because I I could say this, but I would rather you share it in your your life. What types of communities do you think are important?

Speaker 1 10:46

Yeah, so this is really interesting because I I have a private podcast that I do, and let's see if I can actually remember what what I talked about. So I feel like a lot of us have the community of, you know, it's our our girlfriend, we got to lunch

Why Community Matters

Speaker 1 11:00

and and all of that. And that's very important. You want that social support, right? But if you're actually trying to build something, you also need the community for lack of better word that can kick your butt, right? Right. The people who can give you real feedback lovingly by by by all means, right? So you kind of need, from my perspective, you you need both. You need that community of people who can support you in kind of your everyday decisions, or or you just want to just hang out and just, you know, laugh, have a you know, glass of champagne. But then you need the people that are in the other type of community that essentially would help you see your blind spots, hold you accountable, and help you reach your goals.

Jaclyn Strominger 11:39

Yeah. So how did you find those communities? It took a while.

Speaker 1 11:46

It does. It takes it, it's it took a while. And not only that, like I've I built it, right? I have amazing, you know, siblings and and friends and my husband and all of that. And they have been tremendous support and helping me through my entire career from, you know, starting off as an administrative assistant in commercial real estate all the way to, you know, the level that I got. But they can't understand what it takes to build something from an idea to millions, right? So making sure that I've cultivated those other relationships, other entrepreneurs that are like that look like me as well, right? Other entrepreneurs that have gone through the fire, and even some who are maybe not as far ahead. And I'm just helping them because I know what it takes. That, you know, that's the way I've been able to do that. Like really just again, leveraging my relationships and making sure that I'm like, hey, I'm the beacon here. Come join my community as well. If you're if you're looking for help in these areas.

Jaclyn Strominger 12:45

Okay, so listeners, this is so important. I I I cannot stress this enough. Community is so important, awareness is important, alignment is important, you know, and I and if you have not taken the time, like go sit with a glass of wine or something or a cup of tea, whatever you your beverage, maybe light a candle or something and really get clear and know and like be aware of the things you want. I think what Bianca, what you said is so true. Are you going after something that is truly something you want or as you said, inherited, right? Is it something that you give is it somebody else's ambition or is it your ambition? And is it something that you truly want or somebody else wants?

Speaker 1 13:39

Yeah. And it's hard to decipher sometimes, you know. You know, as children, especially if we have parents that are very prominent in our life, they're like, okay, you're gonna be a doctor, like, okay, I'm gonna be a doctor. And then you get to medical school and you're like, I don't want to be a doctor. I hate blood. Right, right, exactly. I hate blood, I passed out of the, you know, and now you feel all this weight of someone else's ambition, and you're like, nope, I gotta do it because my family sacrificed and they did X, Y, and Z. Then you get into the profession and you're miserable. Maybe you're making money, but you're but but you're miserable. So you're miserable. And that's what I'm saying about inherited ambition, you know, and then also too societal, right? You know, if you're a mom and you know, you know, how moms want to keep up with other moms, it's like just do you. I know it's hard sometimes, but you've got to figure out how to remove the judgment or at least lessen it so that you can actually be aware of what you want and then align with it.

Jaclyn Strominger 14:34

Yep. I I absolutely love that. Now, I I love that you just said that you know, knowing and aligning with it is so truly important. Now, before the show, we were talking a little bit and you shared you had, you just gave a great keynote and you're you're talking about um seasons. So I want you to share that because I think it is truly, as you were talking about seasons, I'm thinking of color mapping, but not the same.

unknown 15:00

Yeah.

Speaker 1 15:01

Yeah. Um, just really quick part of what I'm talking about, awareness and uh in alignment, that's part of what I call the five days of joyful ambition. That's one of my frameworks that that I'm that I that I worked on. But but let me tell you this story. So it was May 3rd, 2023. My husband collapsed in our kitchen. And the reason why I know it was May 3rd, 2023, because I was featured in Essence Magazine the same day. And we were celebrating and doing all the fun stuff. And we were coming back

The Dual Seasons Framework

Speaker 1 15:30

together, and I was literally hitting the button on the microwave, and I heard this loud crash behind me. And my husband had delved down and passed out. And my husband's a big man. He's like 6'2, over 200 pounds, like, you know, so it was a big crash. He was holding a glass and he lacerated his hand really badly. And so I was like, okay, you know, I got into fix it mode, wrap his hand, let's go get to the emergency room. So, fast forward, why did he pass out? He has AFA. So we go to the cardiologist. Why does it what's going on with the AFA? Oh, by the way, he also has a blood clot in his heart. Okay. And so we're going back and forth to all of these different appointments. Meanwhile, my both bit both of my businesses were in what I call full summer. Like everything was firing, everything was great. Like I was getting so many opportunities, just all of it. And on the other side, my life was slowly descending into winter with with each diagnosis. And so ultimately we found out after a lot of imaging and going back and forth that he had a uh aneurysm on his aorta and would need uh open heart surgery. And so my husband had open heart surgery on October 13th. And yeah, and it took, it took uh over a year for him to recover from that. And so as I was going through all of that, I'm like, wow, this is really kind of dual seasons. Like my life was over here in this uh beautiful summer, which quickly went to winter with his health diagnosis. And then my business was over here in full summer. How do you reconcile the two? And so I had to figure out a way to what I call quote unquote kind of throttle back my ambition. Instead of focusing my ambition on my business, I focused my ambition on him and making sure that he got well, right? I ended up being, I wanted to make sure that I was the CEO, excuse me, the wife, not the CEO. And so from that, I came up with this framework called dual seasons. And I created an assessment that you can take so you can determine, you know, what season your life is in, what season your business possibly is in, and then what I call the

Business Summer vs Personal Winter

Speaker 1 17:30

wise response, what is the next step that you should be taking in order to make sure that you're honoring both of them? Because even though we talk about alignment, you don't want to force alignment. Everything has its season, and this really kind of helps you understand that in a in a very kind of concrete way.

Jaclyn Strominger 17:46

All right. So, how did you define your winter and your summer?

Speaker 1 17:51

Yeah. So my summer was everything was completely ablaze in the best possible way. Yeah. My both my agency had a ton of clients and more clients were coming in. I was actually had more clients than I can actually handle because we're boutique and it's that way on purpose.

Jaclyn Strominger 18:09

Which is really nice, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 18:10

Pretty damn ambitious was starting to take off. Again, we got featured in Essence. And prior to that, I had written an article for Fast Company. And so I was starting to get all of this, all of this traction. So from my perspective, it was like I was basically reaping the fruit of all of my labor, right? That I I had been working. So that was the summer, right? And so winter, from my perspective, is anything that's challenging or difficult that you're going through. Like seeing my husband see getting diagnosed after diagnosis was really hard. You know, it was hard for me personally. But then also knowing, you know, he's and he was never like symptomatic. He, from my from our perspective, he was kind of asymptomatic. We had no idea that this was happening. And to see what we thought a seemingly healthy person was having to go through all of this, that was like winter. You know, that was just very difficult and challenging to to to face. But ultimately, it was the best thing because now we understand on the other side of it how sick he actually was. Because he's like, I feel, I feel like 30. And I'm like, wow, that's great.

Jaclyn Strominger 19:11

You're like, uh oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I have to keep up with you. Right.

Speaker 1 19:16

No, it's great. I'm I'm I'm yeah, I'm I'm so happy. Like it, yeah. Again, it was it was the I'm like, I always say, I'm I'm glad you passed out in our kitchen.

Jaclyn Strominger 19:24

Because it because it saved us life. It saved us life. Well, I was gonna say, because it was better to be there than God forbid, if he was driving or I mean, who like, well, lots of right, but we don't know, we don't want to go down the that no, we're not going down the rabbit hole. Right, that's right. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 19:45

He's doing he's doing exceptionally well. He is, he is, yeah, he is doing really well.

Jaclyn Strominger 19:49

So I I I mean, I do love these ideas of seasons because you're talking about winter, and I'm thinking about things really going into dormant. It's cold, it's like you've got the snowstorm, so to speak. Well, in Dallas, you don't necessarily have it, but you might have more hail per se. But but it's also that time where you know things are it's not, they're not blooming.

Speaker 1 20:10

Right. Yeah, you said it perfectly. Yes, you it's it's dormant, it's even dead, right in the middle of that word, right? But but things aren't growing, you know, things are stagnant, you know. You're you're really trying to just kind of deal with what's in front of you for sure. Yeah.

Jaclyn Strominger 20:27

So I'm curious, like, do you think that most people do you think are going through that winter summer almost all the time where there's one part of their life that is is in that summer mode and the other part's in their winter mode? And it's hard to have them both at the same because of where you put your energies.

Speaker 1 20:46

Indeed, yeah. I I think sometimes, and obviously we go through the entire range of of seasons, spring and fall too, there as well. But I think a lot of times we are out of alignment in what we are trying to do. Otherwise, I think there would be no need for the coaching industry, right? Um, I mean, think about it, right? So if someone's personal life is like perfect, but their business is in shambles, right? And they're like, okay, I need a coach for that. Or they're like, okay, my personal life isn't that great. So maybe I need to go get a therapist to help that, right? I take, I think typically we are more out of sync of seasons than we are in sync. And this is why I create a diagnosis because it's like, okay, we sometimes equate burnout with the friction of what's going

Burnout vs Misalignment

Speaker 1 21:30

on in our dueling seasons. Whereas, you know, if since you're a coach, clinical diagnose burnout is completely different. We may want to use the terminology that we're burned out, but maybe we're not burned out. Maybe it's just the friction that we're feeling between those dual seasons.

Jaclyn Strominger 21:45

Right. It could be you're out of alignment or and and I share this a lot of times with a lot of of clients, we're we're focusing our attention on the wrong activities. That too. Right. Versus, you know. The income producing activities are the activities that are that are our superpowers and not delegating the other things as much. Yeah. So that's that's really key. So you have this framework, and you have, you know, the this group that you're you've designed. Like talk about the group and the community, because that is something that I think is, you know, is again, I think communities are so important, and bringing those two together is just brilliant.

Speaker 1 22:34

Oh, thank you. So my community is small and it's small on purpose. We only accept 50 women at a time. That's so it can actually be communal. I I have belonged to and still belong to a lot of groups where I'm a one of a thousand, and it doesn't really feel like it's a community. It feels like people are just kind of spamming and just, you know, asking questions, and sometimes they go into the void and no one answers them and so forth. So I really wanted something that was very intimate, where that I can actually understand and know what's going on in that woman's life and so forth. So I can really be able to uh help her in a significant way. And so we have people who come and and go, we have people who just stay indefinitely, which has been great. Yeah, yeah. So, so so that is is really what my community is about. Now, what I espouse is life first, business second. The business is the tool that helps create the life that you want, not the other way around. And I think most coaches, I have to say, and people in this kind of industry, especially if they have that, you know, if they're if they're thinking about business-minded ways to look at things, they're always about the business, like business, business, business. It's like, no, if you can get your life the way you want to, the business is just the tool to do it. That's it. It's it's like money, you know, it's the same thing. It's just it's just a tool to get to the ends that you actually want.

Life First, Business Second

Jaclyn Strominger 24:00

Yes. I totally agree with you on that. And and I've read a couple of different books that are aligned with that as well, where we really have to think about what we want in our lives and where we want to go. And the and I and I think what you said, you know, it's it's you know, life first, business second. It's also we want to think about you know, life first and and business second so that when you someone asks you about what you do, it's your life comes first.

Speaker 1 24:35

Life first. Right, exactly. Yes, yes. It's it's really interesting that you say that because I'll, you know, I'll I'll meet someone. And I remember last year I was in NAFA with a friend, and people would be like, Hey, hey, how do you do? You know, how are you? And what do you do? And I'm like, Oh, I'm Bianca. I do as little as possible. And they would just be like, What? Wait, what, what, what? And then uh when I do still meet people, you know, now, and then they, you know, find me on LinkedIn, they're like, I didn't know you were right for entrepreneur. I don't didn't know you do this, but because I don't lead with that. That's not what's important to me. Like living this best version of my life that I have, this one moment around the sun, I think I I think we get possibly more, I don't know, is is is my goal because I've done the other version and it and it was not satisfying to me.

Jaclyn Strominger 25:25

And and I and listeners, this is actually a really key point. Is is what you are doing satisfying? Yeah.

Speaker 1 25:31

I mean, is it bringing you joy, is what I say.

Jaclyn Strominger 25:34

Right. Does it you does it? How does it feel in your heart? Like, you know, it really truly matters if you are walking and do whatever you're working in and it yeah and you dread it.

Speaker 1 25:49

Right.

Jaclyn Strominger 25:50

Yeah.

Speaker 1 25:51

Time to pivot. Indeed. If we think about how much time we spend working, especially here in America, right, or North America as well. Do you really want to be miserable just doing it the entire time? You know? So that's part of the reason why I'm like, okay, I need to redefine ambition. And part of that was uh when I wrote for Fast Company, and that definition is the joyful, diligent pursuit of success informed by your ideals. And then I'll add that, you know, agency is your compass and joy is the foundation, you know. If you can figure out a way to really understand what you're doing as far as ambition-wise, like the awareness, like I said, and then align to what you actually want, I mean, your life can really change in a meaningful way. Now, I'm not saying everything is joy and rainbows. We're not walking around here riding golden horn unicorns and all of that, but I think it's the underlying foundation, as I as I'm as I'm saying, you're working towards something that actually feels good to your body, feels good to your to your mind, and you're not working to work, you're working to build a life.

Redefining Joyful Ambition

Speaker 1 27:00

Ah, that's where it is right there.

Jaclyn Strominger 27:03

And I love that working to build a life. And it's so true, and it is so important. You know, so Bianca, I could talk to you for hours about this, and I think what you're doing is absolutely fantastic. So tell our listeners how they can connect with you and get more of your greatness.

Speaker 1 27:20

Sure, absolutely. Well, they can go to Bianca Beasinboy King.com. If you go to Bianca King, that's this gorgeous Filipina actress, and she is not me. So make sure it's BiancaBeking.com. And if you're wondering if you're in two seasons, the dual season framework that I talked about, you can go to ambitionaccess.com and hopefully it'll be in the show notes.

Jaclyn Strominger 27:44

It will be. I will put the I will put the link in the show notes to your website and to the that assessment. Listeners, please do me a favor. Connect with Bianca, number one. Take the assessment, number two, and then three, share this episode

Final Thoughts & Connection Points

Jaclyn Strominger 28:00

with your friends, your colleagues, and your associates because this is such an important message that is out there. So do that. And if you have not subscribed already, obviously that's another thing. Subscribe. And lastly, we have a brand new speaking of community, unstoppable success, community on school. So make sure you head over to school. All those links will be in the show notes, show notes and join us there so you can actually get more of unstoppable success. And you never know, we might even have Bianca as one of our roundtable discussion experts. So love it. With that, thank you, Bianca, for being an amazing, amazing guest. And listeners, thank you so much for listening. This is the Unstoppable Success, and we hope you keep leaping to your greatest success.

Speaker 1 28:52

Thank you.

Jaclyn Strominger 28:52

Thank you.