I Quit Social Media and My Business Got Better

If in business, you're avoiding the things that you want to do in your business because you're afraid, or you haven't even started the business because you're terrified that you can't do it like all of that is a sign of misalignment. And misalignment, to me, is one of the greatest energetic depleters that we have.

Welcome back to entrepreneur school. I have another amazing guest for you today. She and I have been hanging out a lot lately. I've just recorded an episode for her podcast, so we'll make sure that that goes in the link for the show as well. But I want you to meet ash McDonald she is a therapist and nervous system first business mentor, helping high achieving women build businesses that feel as good as they look, with a background in psychology and a rebellious streak for doing life differently, Ash blends deep, emotional work with sustainable strategy. She and her family have taken their life on the road, world, schooling, adventuring and proving that you don't have to follow the rules to be wildly successful. She's here to talk about burnout, alignment and how to create a business that feels like freedom. And we're probably also going to talk about the fact that she's like bringing back the 90s, the way that she's living her life right now, which is one of the ways that you and I connected. Ash, thanks for being here.

Yes, thanks for having me.

Okay, I want to give you the floor to start with and like this is my favorite thing to do with guests. Now, if you could get on your soapbox and share one thing that's timely and important to you? What would that be?

Yeah, well, I love this. I feel like stealing it maybe for my podcast, and like, What a great question. And also, immediately, when you asked, I was like, Oh my God, there's so many soap boxes I want to stand on. I don't know, but most relevant to me right now is social media, and that's because I made a decision about three ish, three and a half months ago, to leave social media permanently, after being someone who has built businesses and, you know, done the whole normal social media thing since, honestly, since I was in college. Because Facebook came out when I was in college, that was it felt like a very radical decision. And ironically, this week, this very week that we were recording, I am back on socials because I had made a decision early on that I would leave permanently, but I would come back for one week every quarter, so four times a year, just to update and just to, you know, be able to see things. I think there are some values to social media, being able to see old clients, what they're up to, that kind of stuff. I'm on day two, and I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. I feel so shitty, like I don't know how else to put it, except for I had a moment yesterday when I was like, Man, I haven't felt this tired in a really long time. And then I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm back on social media. So my soapbox is, we have been duped. We have been duped into believing that social media is the end all be, all that it is so important, and it is literally trained to addict us, to affect us in a super, super negative way. And even as someone, as a therapist, I have very strong boundaries, so I was very good at social media in that sense, like I don't feel like I was constantly scrolling or anything negative, but it still does what it does. It still can instantly change your energy level. Can instantly change your motivation level. It can instantly change your emotions, which is the biggest thing like anybody else ever hop on and you see a

story of somebody who lost a child, and then all you can do is imagine that that might happen to you, and you go down a rabbit hole, and it is just so toxic. And I actually, my son is 11, my oldest son, and he asked me, he said, Mom, I really want to get social media. He doesn't even have a phone, so I don't know why he jumped straight to social media, but I, of course, was like, No, that's not going to happen. But I do not believe here's here's a secondary soapbox. I don't believe in the because I said so parenting, I think it's bold, I think it's a cop out, and I think it's terrible parenting. So I do not do because I said so I look for reasons, and I educate my kids. So I went and read the anxious generation, and when I read it, and I learned what it does to your brain, social media and all things, right, all tech related things, honestly, literally, how it changes the chemistry of your focus and your ability to stay, you know, stay focused, but also be able to do things for longer periods of times, to not multitask. It was wild to me, and so he inspired me in that moment, when I came back to him, I said, You know what I learned all this stuff in order to tell you why I think it's a bad idea for you. And in that decided it's a bad idea for me, and this week has just been another reminder as to why, you know, I felt like a completely different person the past few months, and within two days, I feel like crap again. So here we are.

Oh my gosh. Well, podcast over, that's all I needed you to say. So true and listeners know. And you know that I took the whole summer off as well, and I'm very like sparingly using it, but it's true, there's a difference between consuming and sharing, and how do you create a boundary there when it comes to, you know, the reasons why we tell ourselves it's important for our business, but I think it's such an important recognition to talk about that nervous system and emotional drain of it. And like my youngest daughter is in grade five, she came home the other day and said that her teacher had shared the news that Australia had banned social media until you're 16, like countrywide. And I was like, Cool. Yeah, right. And so I was like, So what do you think about that? What kind of conversation did you have about that? And then she and I were able to go into a conversation about addiction and dopamine and focus and all of this stuff. And it's like, it's so true, yeah.

And it exchanges your DNA like it we are not the same humans now as we were before this came about. And I just you know, especially as somebody who works so heavily with people who, you know, feel like their emotions are taking over, or feel like their trauma is literally seeping into every parts of their day, or feel like they can't find themselves after, you know, a long period of time, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that social media is one of the main culprits of it, and there are benefits and there are ways to have boundaries, but at the end of the day, even if you have the best boundaries, it still impacts you. Because you mentioned dopamine when you're scrolling, how quickly you go from one thing to the next is training your brain. That that's how much dopamine we need to get in any other moment of our lives, which almost makes it nearly impossible for us to find peace in presence, because we're used to presence, having to give us these massive hormone boosts constantly, any, not even just presence, but any moment of our lives, right? Because it trains your brain so quickly it trains your brain, plus you just leave yourself open to what everybody else thinks, feels, does, operates in and it's just a dangerous game.

Well, then let's take this a little bit further down the like business from the business perspective, right? Because I think that no matter I keep having this conversation and like coming at it from different angles is so important, because we still have something in the back of our mind that tells us that we have to be there like we have this for sure. And I'm curious to even like you allowing yourself your one week every quarter, is that because you're just like, there's still something there, and I can't get rid of it? Yeah.

So when I first considered doing this. I did an audit of my business because I knew I'm, you know, even though I love the therapy side of the world, obviously, being a therapist, I do also love science and I love data and I love that kind of stuff. And so I wanted to collect the data and just kind of like, meet myself in the truth of, like, does social media actually give me all the things in my business that I have come to believe that it does like I need to know factually whether it does or doesn't. And I'm sure this isn't surprising, but as it came down to it, it was like, honestly, over the past couple of years, I would say between seven and 10% of my revenue was directly from social media, meaning that that person found me on Instagram or Tik Tok or Facebook found me there, and that's how they came to work with me. That is a very small percent. I learned that most people were finding me via my podcast referrals. I have a ton of retention in my business as well. So when I looked at my income as a whole, 90% of it was not going to be affected at all. Okay, then I had to look at my time, and I had to get really honest with like, how much time do I spend on social media? Like, what does that really look like? And not just on it, but creating for it, or thinking about it, or strategizing for whatever the case may be, right? All of that. And it just didn't make sense. And so I took that data, and for a minute it was going to be like, I'm off social media entirely. I'm just not going to do it at all. And then, honestly, I was like, okay, so what are the pros and cons? Like, what comes up in my head? And for me, it wasn't so much business related as it was, you know, the benefits of seeing what, you know, there's a few people I've been reconnected with because we were on social media, then we went to high school together, you know, or people again, clients that I worked with and want to be able to see again. You know, that kind of stuff felt really

important to me. And so part of it was that, and the other part was honestly just reminding myself, which I think we always have to do, that there is no I don't have to be completely on or completely off. Like I get to make my own rules here, you know, like it's my business, my life. I get to decide. And that felt really good. And honestly, after this week, I'll reassess. Like, did it feel worth it? Did it make sense? Did it elicit anything? And that was kind of my goal, too, because this is my first week returning after the exit. And so I'll see. Like, do I get a bunch of sales? Do a bunch of people come out that are like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea. Like, I have had a few people subscribe to my email list, so people who fell through the cracks, who maybe didn't. Realize like I actually exited social media. So honestly, I don't think it had a lot to do with ensuring that business worked, because I did such a good job showing myself, one, where my revenue came from, and two, exploring. Okay, so if that's the case, where do I double down? And I've done just that. And quite frankly, the past three months, my business has been in an upward trajectory. And my time I like, if anybody ever asked, like, what's the greatest benefit from leaving social media, it's like, holy shit, the amount of time that I gained. Like, I've read 14 books in the past three months.

That's exactly what I replaced social media with, too. I was like, I got a Kindle and crushing books,

yeah, and it's so great, you know, like, I enjoy it, I'm happy, and I just, I feel so much better. In general, I did do kind of like a recap on my stories, though, and I was like, I have the zero pictures and videos on my phone, and I'm traditionally somebody who takes so many pictures and photos, because I was always, always on social media, like I was the person who documented everything, and I taught that. I taught like in order to make social media work document everything. And so it was kind of a bittersweet like, clearly I was present. That makes me happy, but also I need to get better at remembering that these memories are still important. I just need to do them, not for the sake of posting them on some sort of platform.

So much internal dialog that needs to happen with this whole shift.

Totally, absolutely. I think it's so important that, you know, at the end of the day, I don't think there's any right or wrong. So even though this is my soapbox, I don't when somebody's like, I'm on Social, I'm not like, oh my god, you're so stupid. Why would you do that? Like, I don't think that at all. And honestly, I know for me, you know, with my human design, I have an open head, and so that was one of the big determining factors for me, too, is just recognizing, like, being somebody who's so deeply influenced by stuff outside of me, I need to be extra cautious when protecting my energy that I only let the right kind of things in, and it just that's not the right thing.

So speaking of Energy, I know you like to talk about, like, how that affects you, just operating in your daily life, how has that maybe like, I guess, a hypothesis around when you redirect your time and energy into things that are more fulfilling and less draining. So social media as an example, but literally anything that we might identify as taking up that kind of time. How do you think that's impacting your one your general happiness and well being? And then how does that translate? How do you articulate how that translate into how your business is flowing?

I think that in general, alignment or lack of alignment, is one of our biggest predictors of energy, right? So when I say that, I mean that every facet of our life. So even within nutrition, like, if you're eating, obviously food that does not make you feel good, you're going to be energetically depleted. That makes sense. That's also true, though, if in your marriage, you're not having the kind of conversations that you know you need to have, and you're holding things in if in parenting, you're doing parenting in a way that you've been taught, as opposed to what you actually believe. If in business, you're avoiding the things that you want to do in your business because you're afraid, or you haven't even started the business because you're terrified that you can't do it like all of that is a sign of misalignment. Misalignment, to me, is one of the greatest energetic depleters that we have. I mean, we feel it right. When you take action in a direction of alignment, you feel this source of energy just explode within you, you have more momentum, more motivation. And so I think way greater than any sort of time management is our ability to manage our energy, right? Because at the end of the day like that, we can have all the hours in a day. But if we're so depleted and so exhausted and we bring nothing to the table, maybe even emotionally drained, we're not going to go anywhere, right? And so I'm constantly looking for invitations towards things that are of greater alignment in my life, as an example, like selling everything that we own and going and world schooling our kids for several years, like at the end of the day, was I terrified? 100% were there people judging me? No freaking doubt about it, most of them also wanted to tell me that they were touching me, which was awesome, and it was a lot. It was a huge decision and a huge sacrifice. But for me, that was alignment, and I've been able to witness the sort of, I don't know,

fruits of my labor, for lack of better phrases, of like choosing things that make sense for me, even if they don't make sense for everybody else, as I've watched, success that shouldn't happen, you know, and things that shouldn't happen, and I'm using air quotes here that shouldn't happen based on what society says, but do because you're in alignment.

That's so beautiful. And I think let's dig into that a little bit your. Experience with World schooling, and particularly what triggered that decision and how like, how did you feel in your body, even? Or how do you articulate how you felt? What did alignment look like at that time for you?

Yeah, so when we officially left America to go world schooling, it was 2022, and I had a three, five and seven year old. And, I mean, if anybody can put themselves back in that state of mind, right, that was like, right when the world was, quote, unquote, opening up post covid, a little bit kinda, I mean, we left mid 2022, and in America it was just frustrating. People were frustrating. That's the kindest way to put it. And as a mom and a therapist, I just looked around and I thought, oh my gosh, this isn't where I want to raise my kids. This isn't the experience that I want them to have. I also looked at my life though, I didn't grow up with a whole lot, and I didn't grow up traveling a lot in my life. And you know, there's this old belief system that, like, you have to do it before kids or once kids are gone, like, there's no way you can do that kind of travel when you have kids in the home. Particularly, like, yes, owning a business, it gives you freedom. It also doesn't, like, let's just be honest, like, use I still to provide for my families. There were so many things that said like, this would be impossible, but my husband and I, we actually started by just selling everything we own and moving to Costa Rica for the summer. That was our first decision. We're just going to move to Costa Rica for the summer, and we're going to do that in order to put our kids in different circumstances where they can maybe retain a little bit more empathy, maybe recognize that not everybody has the sort of lifestyle that we have. Maybe experience a little bit diversity, but also for us, like the Pura Vida lifestyle of Costa Rica that you heard about, I'd never been there until we moved there, so I had no idea. But you hear that there's just this like slow lifestyle to it. And I just, I imagined my family barefoot on the beach, just doing things differently. So we did that. We moved to Costa Rica for four months, and in all transparency, within the

first couple of weeks, I went from thinking this is a short stint I could handle this, you know, really psyching myself out like I'm literally packing pull ups, y'all, because I had little babies. I mean, I look now, I look back at pictures, and I'm like, they were so tiny, you know? And I like, Yeah, I'm like, I'm pumping myself up, like, I can do this. It's a short period of time, it's gonna be amazing thinking like that. It would be kind of a big feat, and it was. But within two weeks, I was, like, a completely different person. And when I say different person, I mean, I was so present as a mom. I was so joyful, like I just I remember having moments of like, oh, this is who I was supposed to be as a mom, not the mom back home that felt frantic and depleted and impatient and like it's too much. You know, the constant like meal planning, making meals every single day, and not that those things changed, but my environment changed because I was willing to be bold enough to make it change. And so within those first two weeks, we were like, this isn't just a four month thing, and we're not going back and we're going to do this dang thing. And turns out that was supposed to be a summer. So I'm like, I guess I'm going to learn how to homeschool. Figure it out as we go. And so we went from Costa Rica for several months over to Europe. We lived in Italy and London and France and Amsterdam and all over Europe. And then we came back to the United States for a little while, and then traveled around the United States. So we lived all along the coast of California. We lived in Washington State. We lived in Florida just we went to Brazil, Argentina, you know, we went to so many beautiful places. And my kids can speak a little bit of a bunch of different languages, and I have certainly grown so much. And hear me when I say it was not all like rainbows and butterflies either. Like I often tell people, because it's so easy for people to say, like, oh my gosh, I wish that

sounds so amazing. And I like to be honest and respond like, yeah, it took a lot of sacrifice, though, like my husband and I, you know, for the first year ish, my husband wasn't working, so it was just me, and that almost ended our marriage, if I'm being really honest, because it was too much. He didn't really love the role of just being with the kids. I didn't love the role of not being with the kids. I didn't love feeling like all the financial pressure was on my shoulders. He didn't love not providing. So it was kind of a hot mess. And then we switched it up, and he had a job and and so then we were like ships in the night, you know, besides weekends, because we didn't have childcare, we didn't have family. We're in different freaking countries, for crying out loud, like so there was a lot of sacrifice, and also so much growth. And we only just came back to America in August of 2025 so we are now living in Colorado. We decided to land, and it's only been a couple of months, and it's also very tough to come back and re acclimate. To a life that we have not been used to for a while.

Can you talk about your, like, your identity as a mother? Like, how has that shifted? What? How would you say you identified? Maybe, before you started, yeah, traveling versus, like, while and and now even

Yeah, well, I think in general, any role that we carry is going to shift constantly. So we all need to be aware of that like it's it's just always going to shift. But when I first became a mom, I really followed in the generational footsteps of my mom and the women before her, just because that's what I'd seen and I started, I kind of tried to put those boots on, if you will, of martyrism and and self sacrifice, and my kids deserve every single ounce of anything that I have to give. And this is my only existence. And within a couple years, I started to realize, like how unhealthy that was, and also how much trauma I carried from living that as a child. You know, there was many conversations growing up where my parents didn't mean it. I love my parents, but, you know, saying things like, I don't have nice clothes so you can have nice clothes. Or, you know, Christmas really put us in debt, or little things that really weighed on me, of like, feeling almost guilty for my existence. And I read a quote once that said something along the lines of, like, we choose to bring our kids to this earth, they don't choose to be here. So who the fuck do we think we are if we're going to put blame on them for what it costs us to have them here? And so that started to shift pretty quickly before we ended up traveling, and that was probably part of the fuel for my boldness to travel. Was like, I don't know if I can really separate myself from the like sacrificial this takes so much from me. It costs me too much sort of motherhood narrative. Because, in truth, I've always been a very ambitious, driven woman. I have two master's degrees. I've worked since I was 15 years old. I've had, you know, built and sold multiple businesses in my life, and so motherhood was it was interesting. I've always wanted to be a mom, always, and I love it. I mean, love being pregnant, love delivering a baby, which is weird to say. I love nursing my babies. But I was always

really conflicted between really wanting to build something massive and do these big, grandiose things in my professional life and also be a mom. And like not, never had that example painted for me, you know. So when we went and traveled, that part of me that kind of like all the societal expectations, it felt like just washed away in the Costa Rican ocean, you know, it just felt like they went away, and all of a sudden I realized parts of myself that I don't think I would have discovered, which is that I'm the best mom when I'm adventuring with my kids, and when there's not a plan and there isn't a schedule, and I'm not trying to fit them into any box, but we're just out living our lives and having fun. And that was really great. And then the homeschooling side of me came, and there was the first version of homeschooling where I tried to do my you know, I'm, I'm a Virgo Virgo. So I'm a triple Virgo rarity in that sense, and that means I'm incredibly organized person. I thrive on organization. I thrive on good esthetics. Okay, everything has to be really pretty and nice, and that is not homeschooling for anybody who's familiar with home. That really sucked for me, because I wanted like, here's our workbooks and here's our schedule, and we'll do this. And I have three children with three wildly different personalities who were like, absolutely freaking not. That's not gonna work. And so then I had to deconstruct that and reconstruct, like, how do I actually want my kids to learn and what do I want this experience to be like, and then it turned into, I remember one of my favorite days homeschooling the kids, and I spent a rainy day in Argentina, and I was trying to think of things that we could do, and thank Almighty chat GPT during my homeschooling era, because I actually went into chat GPT and was like, Okay, here's what we're learning right now. Here's what this child's into, what this child's into, what this child's into, and like, help us come up with

all these ideas. And we, essentially, we watched YouTube videos, we did all this stuff to determine an entire map and tour day of the best possible food in Argentina. And we woke up the next morning and from like, eight to 8pm me and my three kids with no freaking clue what we were doing, followed a written map that was created by us, and went and tried dozens and dozens of different cafes and restaurants, and rode on busses and taxis, and I learned, I mean, I could cry thinking about it. I learned so much that day more than I think I ever learned in my entire education. And I have $100,000 of past debt to prove that I have a pretty intense education. And I learned in that day as a mom, as a woman, as a friend to my kids, you know, and they learned. And so. So that's what homeschooling became to me. That's what motherhood became to me. It became very curiosity focused, you know, in the way that I and so, yeah, I mean, it's constantly evolving, for sure, but you know, what's really interesting is, just to throw another wrench in the conversation, there was a period in which, actually in 2022 when we traveled full time, I had the most success of my business. Point blank, we I made over half a million dollars that year, and I was working like less than 10 hours a week. And it was crazy. And I could get into all the details of that, but it was just this crazy year where I was so intuitively LED. I had no systems, I had nothing special, I had no team. It was just me, just having fun, and I was so energetically aligned to speak to that right. And then after that year, something happened. This is all hindsight, but internally, this message, kind of this narrative, took shape that I couldn't possibly have that kind of success and not have a more professional business and not have a team and not have systems and funnels and all of these things. And so in the year of 2024 my trauma took over, dressed up as perfectionism, and my internal narrative that I wasn't

worthy of that kind of success without harder work kind of took over. I think that that's really that was the crux of it, is that I was like, how did that happen? I didn't work hard enough for that. I didn't earn that. I'm not enough to receive that. Again. This is all hindsight. I wasn't having these moments then. I was thinking, I got to do better, like, I can't let anything slip through the cracks. Are going to repeat this year. And so in 2024 I got really perfectionistic and still traveling and still living our lives, but just kind of buckled down. And by the end of that year, I was completely burnt out, completely utterly burnt out, not from the crazy massive like, you know, people always say, like, I had the best year of my life, and then I crashed. Mine was not from that. Mine was from the trauma that ensued from having the best year of my life,

I feel so guilty for having a good year without having worked so hard in all of those stories,

without suffering. I didn't suffer enough.

Oh, my God. Okay. I want to go into that for a minute, but I need to take a second and reflect something to you, because I think this is really interesting that you talk about, like, your ambition, and that's what I think a lot of women struggle with, is that we believe that you can only be ambitious towards, like your career, or you can let go of that and be a really great mom. And it's so hard to understand what those two things might look like woven together, and you're talking about being adventurous and being present, like the most present with your kids when you're being adventurous. And I almost am like, that is such an ambitious way to parent. Like, to like, go out and be like, hey, screw everything. We're doing this my way. It's I will. I will nail this, yeah, like subconsciously, and then it opens you up to being connected and building those relationships with your kids and seeing them and understanding and not having all of the kind of things that we can resent on a daily basis. Like, literally, last night and I had to have a 20 minute conference call with four people to figure out how to even function this evening, between getting two kids to three different places over the dinner hour while I'm at a meeting and my husband's in the city. And like, who's gonna drive who? And can someone make us food and put it in a tupperware please? Like, like, operating like this is also exhausting.

It is, it is. And we walked away from that all, and now we're back in it and trying to figure out how to navigate it, you know, honoring our kids. You know, desires and wishes. I've got three incredibly athletic children, and it's been interesting because we've got this different perspective of like, I'm not willing to, like, fall victim to this, but I'm also not willing to just disregard my you know, my middle son is, like, Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt I am going to be an NFL football player. And we're like, okay, okay.

And he is, it's always Michelle,

serious So, and it's interesting, because my other kids are athletic too, but he is like, when he says it, he's like, No, I'm not. I don't want to be because I'm like, I know you want that. He's like, No, I don't want it. That's what's gonna happen. I'm just like, so we're trying to honor that. But also, know what, what I'm telling you, you know, like, I don't want to be in that position again, where we are just victims to our schedule, to somebody's Daytimer to, you know, we're not, we're sacrificing the things that matter the most, and so, you know, intentionally, it's just been about, we still have incredibly adventurous weekends. So that's been something that's been really important. When I pick up my kids, I do not think of work again, and we almost always go somewhere random, like, it'll just be like, what are we doing tonight? And it doesn't have to be. Spending money. I mean, we've ran, we did go to, like, a Walmart and pick up a bunch of sleds and went sledding one afternoon. You know, whatever it has to be, it's just like, we're not just gonna go home and, like, sit in front of a TV or everybody go their separate ways, or, you know, just be exhausted by life. I just don't accept that anymore.

That's so inspiring. Ash, thank you. Like for all of this context, it's true. I think that, like, I'm hearing this for myself and going, I also really love travel and adventure, and I am a whole different person when I'm in those situations, because, yes, I'm also a Virgo and I like organization, and I like the schedule, and I'm like, good at following it, and people in my family make fun of me all the time because that's the way that I operate. But I'm also like, have you seen my schedule? There's no option here, but it's kind of like seeing the opportunity to blend these things together now, and to to say, how do we have adventure more locally, more often, to put ourselves into the situation where our energy can be like how it is when we're traveling, when we like that more, if that's the version of ourselves we like better?

Yeah, I have to tell you that I sent this meme to my friend who's also a Virgo, and I think you'll love this, because it was, it said one version of her is like, I love routine, and the next version was like, until I'm bored, and then I love excitement, and then the next one was until I'm overwhelmed, and then I need routine. Bachelor Jen, and I'm like, there is no true statement to a Virgo. I feel like that is my constant existence is like, one day I need, like, a daytime I need everything scheduled in, you know, stone, and the next day I'm like, I'm so brittled by containment. Need to hop on a flight to anywhere and nowhere all at once. And so it's, it's funny, and also it's beautiful. Like, I feel like, you know, it's funny. When we got back here, it cost us a lot of money to live this life. Let me just be very transparent there, like we decided this is what matters for this season of our life. It's going to cost a lot. We're not going to save a lot. That's just where we're at. So when we landed here and we need to find places to live and we need to get resettled, and we don't, we have only suitcases, so we have to buy furniture and do all these things. I definitely had a lot of like, Oh, I'm behind, or did we mess up, or did we make the wrong choices? Or, you know, the stuff that just comes up, like, everybody else owns a home, and I don't own a home, and interest rates are crazy. Or, you know, whatever the case may be. And I've had to constantly come back to that truth again, like, when you are in society, like truly embedded in it that comparison, whether you feel that you're a comparing person or not, if you say that you're not, you're saying, I love you, but you're lying. We all do it, right? It seeps into your bones. What was different about us traveling was that it was like we were this tiny, little unit of five, and everywhere we went, nobody knew us. Everywhere we went, it was just like, there was nothing to compare

ourselves to we. Nobody was like us, you know, and that was beautiful and also chaotic at times. And now we're here, and I have to protect my bubble so starkly to not fall into comparison of like, what if we didn't do that, or, you know, especially when my oldest comes home, is like, I hate being the new kid at school, and I instantly want to feel grief and guilt, you know, like I did that to him. And then I'm like, no, because look at all the revelations that we've had. And I think I just want to say that, because it is really scary to make decisions and make choices and do life differently than the rest of the world, and it will never not, you'll never not have moments of like, Was that right? Should I have done that? But you have to constantly come back to like, your own deepest alignment. And I just wouldn't be the mom I am. I mean, even, you know, I hit that burnout I was talking about, and I ended up taking a five month sabbatical, shutting my entire business down completely. And this is the first time I took five months off of social media. I just shut everything down, and was just like, what happened? And that's when I kind of got clear on, like, Oh my gosh. Look at this narrative that took shape, and look how it played out. And I lost my intuitive, you know, way of building, and I kind of fell victim to, like, everything has to be perfect, and it was so yuck. And, you know, in coming back, I'm different. I'm a different person, I'm a different Mom, I'm a different business owner. Now, the way that I run my business is probably unlike what anybody else does, to be honest with you, and that's okay with me. And I'm not the same girl who just wanted to do and do and do and achieve and achieve and achieve, because I have found success in such different ways in my life. I have success worth celebrating every day, constantly, and it used to almost always only be related to my business, and now it's almost not ever.

Ooh, that's. So powerful truly like to truly embody that. I feel like there's a lot we all talk about that, and we all say, you know, success is subjective, and you have to choose your own path and create your own metrics and all of that. But then there's so much of that comparison that spills in and the shoulds and the conditioning and just like the way we were raised, and there's, there's just a lot, I think that's an important acknowledgement. There's just a lot to navigate with all of this

really totally and kind of full circle moment, bringing it back to social media. I mean, I think that we did not used to have access to see everybody's life, and, more importantly, everybody's life that they choose to show you know, I think one thing I'm really grateful for within the work that I do is I work with some incredibly successful women, women that they're incredible, and they have some success that I can't really even wrap my head around sometimes, like things that they've I'm talking like millions and millions, and They come to work with me, and I am blessed to be able to witness that. It's traditionally not so pretty behind the scenes, and I say that with love, but like, it's been a gift, because it's really easy to see somebody with a lot of money in a really big house and all the things that you think you want, and think, Well, that's it. She's got it. And traditionally, those are the women who come to me with the most trauma and the most heartache and the most struggle that they're hiding. And it's not me throwing them under the bus, because I think we all carry it to some extent, but it's so easy now because of the way of the world, because of social media that we you know, I read something that was like, we used to only compare ourselves to those who lived in the same neighborhood as us, or worked at the same company that we did. And so we were of relatively similar economic statuses. We were, you know, it was just pretty similar. And now we live in a world where we can see the the kitchen of multi billionaires, because they want to show it, the trips that they take were also witness to a lot of people having instantaneous success, which is very abnormal. So somebody who goes viral or hits, you know, tick tock famous, or any who gets on a reality TV show, whatever you want to see, you know, we see instantaneous success. And so what's happened within our brains is we've lost the ability to have patience. We've lost our ability

to to look at what we have and be grateful, and not like, oh, I write what I'm grateful for every single day, but true, unadulterated gratitude for, like, where we're at and what we're living. And I think it's, it's wild, and I, I'm more aware of it now, but I'm not, not susceptible to it like I, you know, made so many great new friends since landing here, and we go to their houses, and I compare. I look around, I compare. I want, I, you know, I look at other being on social media for two days, I see somebody has this success or that success, and I think, Oh, should I have done that? Should I thought of that? Oh, my God, I did think about that, but I didn't bring it to the forefront. Or, you know, it doesn't matter. It's very normal. I think what's what's abnormal is being willing to name it and take ownership of what's real and what's not real. And that, I think has been my journey over the past several years, is just jumping into the deep end of the discomfort to not live in a world where I'm forced to compare

Okay, so you're kind of answering this, but I'm going to summarize this in one final question for you, because you have access to the insider's view of the and your own experience on top of that, of the you Know, non sexy, crazy and trauma filled side of what striving for societally stamped success looks like if you were to reverse engineer like, is there, is there a way to actually avoid the actual crash and burn moment? Or is, you know, like, how do we acknowledge this? Yeah, without going through all of it? Or, like, maybe we all will go through some version of it. But like, to not have to be in a place where we're like, oh my God, I need ash to fix everything. Like, not I'm not saying avoid having to go get your help.

I think it's a yes. And honestly, like, I do think there's something really powerful about going through it. We all, you know, like I remember, God, the life that I have lived. Y'all so we were going through a bankruptcy seven years ago. We got sued. Was it Seven? Nine years ago? Nine years ago, we got sued. We didn't think we'd lose we lost an $80,000 lawsuit. We had to file bankruptcy in order to protect our assets. We almost were homeless. Let me set the stage. Kay, and I was on the ground. I was pregnant with my second who was a rainbow baby, after three pretty devastating miscarriages, and I was crying, I was hysterical, and I was just like, just at the bottom right. Oops, and my husband, I'll never forget this. He put his hands on either side of my face, and he said, This is just one chapter of a really good book, and that has been my anchor through life, that you never want to read a book or watch a movie that doesn't have something in it that makes you go, fucking get up. Fucking Get up right now, there's so much more to this story, and that was nine years ago, and since then, I've gone to jail. Since then, I've hit burnout. Since then, I've sold everything I own four times. Since then, life is still life to the shit out of me, but they're all just chapters of my really, really good book. And so yes, that I think we can prevent it, and also sometimes I think it's necessary evil to make a really good story. And actually have a tattoo on my arm that I got when we got back, because my kids and I created a motto when we traveled that says, no risk, no story. No risk, no story. Any one of my kids, what's, what's your family motto? And that's what they'll tell you. So the yes part of it, though, is that if we if we want to avoid that, if you want to reach an embodiment that is truly living the life you want, you have to be willing to chase the feeling, not the object. So you have to be willing to ask yourself, why do I want

this level of success? What do I feel is on the other end of this level of success? Or what do I feel is on this or what you know, you really ask yourself these questions getting kind of into the depths of what that is. My guess is, and I don't just guess 99% sure that you already have that feeling in your life now, but you're ignoring it because you believe it's at the end of a rainbow when it's right here. And the more that you can, like, really harness the energy of that, like, I know for me, my belief was, when I hit this level of revenue, I'm going to feel security, well, I'm going to call bullshit. As a therapist, you're never going to feel security because of something outside of you. You're going to feel it because you've you've created it inside of you. So over the past couple of years, I have been creating internal security, and not by way of, like, creating it out of thin air, but by looking for how it already exists in my life and really looking at it, really experiencing it, embracing it, you know, so even when I'm on the floor and I'm filing for bankruptcy, which I thought I personally would never do, because I don't want to be my family, and I have a million degrees because I thought that would keep me from being My family, and this is how could this happen? I found security in the strong, warm hands that held my face and told me that this is a really good story. I found security in the child in my belly that actually made it, and the three that I get to speak to every single day and meet one day in heaven like you can find the thing that you think you're after in your life right now, if you're willing to, and that's how you prevent hitting rock bottom, and you probably still hit rock bottom, and I bet it'll be a really good damn story.

Like goosebumps and I'm crying, and thank you for sharing that. And also, how sweet is your husband? He's the best the right words, oh my gosh, I love it. Okay, everyone wants to binge them. Ashley, now, so please, please tell them where to not go to social media. Where to go, where to get you.

Well, you can still go binge all the things that have happened in the past on social media, if you so do desire at ash McDonald, but my podcast is probably the best place. In fact, if any one of these little drops of like, holy shit, she's been to jail. Oh my god, she's filed for bankruptcy. Oh my God, I am such an open book. And so my podcast shamelessly ambitious. I have recorded every one of these episodes in detail. By the way, when I went to jail, I was six months pregnant with my third baby. All those details are in there as well. So I'm just an open book, and I really do believe that everything horrible that has happened to me is for a very good reason, and it's to empower other women in their lives. And so that's what I've created as a space to bring that forward. So that's probably the best place. And then ashMcDonaldmentoring.com. Is my website.

Thank you so much for the openness, the sharing, the depth of this conversation. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, gosh, you're so welcome.

You the confetti we are celebrating three years of this entrepreneur school podcast, I can't even believe it. We have over 150 published episodes, nearly 100 incredible guests, and so many aha moments with you along the way. If you love the show, please help us grow in 2020 Six. Make sure that you're following entrepreneur school on all of your favorite podcast players, and share this episode with your fellow entrepreneurs who need to hear it. Today, we're cooking up some exciting new episodes for 2026 and you won't want to miss them. Thank you so much for being here.