High-Functioning Burnout: Why You Can’t Turn Your Brain Off

Megan Yelaney:
All right, welcome back to Business Not As Usual. I have an amazing expert guest today, Ash McDonald, known as the Entrepreneur’s Therapist, which is just the coolest title ever. She’s a therapist and nervous system-first business mentor for high-achieving women who want lives and businesses that feel as good as they look, which I love, love, love that phrase. With a unique blend of psychological depth and embodied strategy, she helps women expand their emotional capacity, receive more of what they truly desire, and actually feel the richness of the life They’ve built with self-led momentum. And we were talking and chatting about this episode right before I pressed record and I was like, damn it, I wish I pressed record right away when you started talking. I was like, wait, this is all so good. We gotta press record. So I’m really, really excited for you to just grace everyone with your knowledge and I think, uh, illuminate some things that we’re all doing that we don’t realize that is really holding us back.

Megan Yelaney:
So thank you for being on the pod, Ash. I’m so happy to have you here.

Ash McDonald:
Gosh, thanks for having me.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah. All right, so let’s dive into— before we get into the, the juiciness of today, um, how did you get started in this work? It’s like really specific and unique, and I would just love to know.

Ash McDonald:
Yeah, so, you know, at the end of the day, what I don’t think a lot of people understand is that those of us who have our own businesses, who have that sort of leadership token, the entrepreneurial mindset, if you will, we are different. There is stuff that is actually scientifically, biologically different about how we operate. And so I can relate to that. That is me. So I went to school to get a— I got a bachelor’s in sociology, and I went on then to become a therapist as well as a teacher. So my original path was to be— to get my master’s in counseling psychology, which I did, and then eventually get my PhD in sociology. I did stop at a master’s in sociology, but the idea behind it being that I would be both a professor and a therapist, which is just now coming to fruition in this life, which is just so great and so fun. Because I’m also a mom of 3, so I’ve got 3 kids ages 7, 9, and 11.

Ash McDonald:
So as you can imagine, the past 12 years have been really interesting and dynamic and hard and beautiful and lovely and all the things. A lot of duality, if you will. But I went into private practice and had my private practice for a very short amount of time before— and I didn’t even consider community mental health. It was like, I’m going to own my own business. This is what I’m gonna do. I had a lot of success out the gate. So then I became a consultant for other therapists who were like, how are you having so much success? So I started to teach them and coach them on how to have their success. And eventually I ended up moving my business into the online space because of kids, right? I had my first, I was like, this whole brick and mortar, having to show up someplace is not gonna work for my values as a mom and what I wanna do.

Ash McDonald:
And then eventually, uh, we actually decided to pull all 3 of our kids outta school and world school. We did that for 3 years, uh, world school. Schooled full-time and homeschooled our kids, traveled the world, and it also required me to have an online business. And so it’s been really beautiful. And throughout all that and, and my own successes, I started to really study and research and understand these differences that we carry as entrepreneurs and what it looks like, and also go through my own trials and tribulations of burnout and fatigue and exhaustion and identity reconstruction with every kid that I had and every pivot that I took and it just became, it became such a passion for me. And, you know, I’ve been doing this now for 12 years, a long time.

Megan Yelaney:
Oh my gosh, you’re an OG. I love it.

Ash McDonald:
I’ve had a blast working with, you know, the people that you see that you would imagine have the most success. And I think in a really beautiful turn of events, I’m, I get to see the behind the scenes where usually that success doesn’t translate, and I support them in translating it. And it’s been beautiful for me also in just normalizing, like, hey, it’s really easy to imagine that everybody’s lives perfect and that millions of dollars a year is going to solve all the problems, you know. And also recognizing at the end of the day, no matter how different our brains are, we’re human, and to approach it as such. Yeah.

Megan Yelaney:
Oh, that’s amazing and so beautiful. And I love— I mean, I’m not surprised, but I teach a lot of story and sharing your story and why you’re in this work. And so much of your passion now is because of your own story and because of what you went through, which is Amazing. And I love that. Um, so something that you started to mention that we talked about, well, also side note, I wanna learn about Worldschool cuz that’s just so fricking cool. So I’m gonna pick your brain about that separately. I was like, wait, I need to know more. Tell me more.

Megan Yelaney:
Um, but something that we were talking about beforehand was high-functioning burnout. And the second you said that, I was like, ooh, triggered. Maybe I’m doing that or have definitely done that. So, and I’m sure a lot of people here also when they hear that term are like, Wait, is that me? And I don’t think we realize how much these things that we’re doing or thinking are affecting us and slowing us down from reaching our goals. And I know I shared with you, but just for everyone listening, if they’re not like following me currently, I’m running this series, um, called The Road Back to $100K Cash Months, and it’s very, very vulnerable and scary, and it’s like rebuilding. And I know the number one thing I have to do is recalibrate my identity because the last time I hit that, I wasn’t a mom and it was wildly different and I cannot do it the same way. So it feels like I’ve never hit it before because it’s so new and different. So all that to say, I’m selfishly so excited to have you on because there’s, I know that’s what I need to prioritize more than anything, more than strategy.

Megan Yelaney:
I need that cuz the strategy will come from that. So all that to be said, I would love to chat about high-functioning burnout and what even that means. And then kind of how, how do you know if you have it or not? Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
So a little bit of a polarizing, maybe even triggering thought that I just want to drop right now is that most people do not have ADHD, even though the world wants to now claim everybody has ADHD. That’s, that’s sort of the, I don’t know what happened, but it got that or narcissism. Those two words became so spread. And as a trained therapist, I’m like, whoa, what are we doing? Most of the time what you have is actually high-functioning burnout. That is because somebody who is dealing with high-functioning burnout, as you can imagine, is a high-functioner. So you are probably constantly doing a million things at once, right? So if you imagine you’re the kind of person in the shower who’s thought of 17 different angles for your business, 4 different meals that you want to create for your children, a sport you want to sign up for, why you want to fix your marriage, you know, the list goes on and on and on, right? And that scatteredness that now we’re associating with ADHD which can be true, more often than not is not actually ADHD. It’s that your cortisol levels are so high that you cannot stay focused on one topic at one time, and it is just all flooding your brain constantly. The problem with this, and what I see most, is that people will have these eras in their life where they hit, you know, really beautiful levels of success, and then they have that messy middle, that period with which shit has changed, right? Whether it’s the landscape, the, the, you know, societal pressures, AI, having babies, divorce, marriage, I mean, you name it.

Ash McDonald:
So happen and we change who we are, but we’re still operating as that person who had like a one-track mind. Yeah. Don’t have the capacity for just like that one-trackness, if you will, or things have shifted.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
And we don’t adjust accordingly, right? And so things like decision fatigue and false emergencies, these things start to dictate our life. And what I mean by false emergencies is You know, the times where something that is actually so not that big of a deal, our body responds, our brain responds as though it is in fact an emergency, right? This decision is an emergency. This thing I have to do is an emergency. The to-do list I have is an emergency. Getting on social media and then seeing somebody else do this one thing is an emergency. This is why, you know, quite frankly, I left social media about 8 months ago permanently, um, because I was able to identify certain parts of my existence in my life that I wasn’t in control of anymore, and they were creating more of that high functioning burnout. So always imagine— I ask people to imagine it’s not burnout the way that we traditionally see it, where you’re really ill or you’re sick or you’re hospitalized or you can’t do something, you know. It’s not like that.

Ash McDonald:
It’s actually quite the opposite. It’s that you’re doing so much that, you know, you’ve got that slight headache 24/7, your eye is twitching every once in a while, which is a lovely sign. Maybe you’re, you know, you’re hitting— it could be one of two things. You’re going to bed at night and you’re just conking out like dead to the world, or you’re ruminating all night long. Neither one is the healthiest version of going to sleep, right? We should not pass out, nor should we be up all night long, you know. So there’s so many ways that this plays out, and, and unfortunately, society really, you know, it does a really good job with consumerism of like, oh, you have bad sleep, take this supplement. Oh, you never go to the bathroom regularly, you know, eat this thing, do this, as opposed to looking at the root as to why am I operating in this way and why is it resulting in these sort of things, including the fact that I can’t seem to reach the same success that I once had.

Megan Yelaney:
Yes. Oh my gosh. So much to dive into there. When you, when you were naming some of the, the things that, like, one thing that immediately I went, oh, well, I’ve definitely done that before, is the opposite of what you think burnout is, right? It’s not that you’re like, I can’t move. That’s an extreme, right? But the high functioning, it’s like you can’t stop. And I have so felt that. And even like, maybe not physically stopped, like maybe I physically have stopped because I need, I’m with my boys and I’m not working. But my brain hasn’t stopped.

Megan Yelaney:
I’m still tallying everything and all of that. What is like— I know this is very broad because there’s so much to go into here, but what are some of the, the first signs or things that you recommend people doing to start overcoming that? Because it feels so daunting. It’s like, how do I stop my thoughts from constantly going, especially when I’m with my kids or I’m wanting to be present? Any— anything around there that we can get started with?

Ash McDonald:
Yeah, I would say really, truly, and I kind of already mentioned this, but the two most major root causes to high-functioning burnout are decision fatigue and false emergencies. So what you wanna do is gain an awareness of these two features in our life, right? Decision fatigue, I think is, you know, relatively known, but the idea of like you’re constantly internally arguing with yourself to make decisions and sometimes we’re outsourcing that, right? We’re going to Chat Daddy thinking Chat Daddy has all the answers and that’s the only place that we’re going for any decision-making, right? Decision fatigue. And then that, the false emergencies, right? So declaring everything as an emergency. I recently recorded a podcast episode and I was talking about how I, I realized I was doing this. My oldest son recently decided he wanted to change schools and I’m working out, I’m in my home gym and I’m working out and my brain is just all the things, how it could go wrong, where we can go, who we should call. I’m, I’m like half doing Pilates, half Googling things on my phone, you know? And I realize, oh my gosh. And so I had to stop myself. And so what I often teach is my somatic wealth framework.

Ash McDonald:
And so it’s just a 3-part, super easy, I do it multiple times a day. So multiple times a day, that particular instance when I realize I am making this a false emergency. So step one is really awareness, looking at those two things. What are you making an emergency that’s not an emergency, or what are you ruminating on or trying to decide upon? Maybe multiple things. Those are two signs that you’re in a cycle, if you will, of high-functioning burnout. So we gotta gain that awareness. And then what I personally do and teach to all my clients is the somatic wealth framework, right? Which is a kind of like a self-coaching route. Loop, which is 3 Rs: to regulate, reflect, and rewire.

Ash McDonald:
So number 1, when I say regulate, it’s not like don’t go do a whole breathwork session or call somebody for a meditation. Literally ask yourself, how do I get out of my head and into my body? So in that particular instance, I stopped everything, I paused my workout, I put my phone down, and I literally started to jump. I was just jumping it out, right? So it could be jumping, putting your feet in the grass, it could be, you know, doing some sort of breath exercise, just Ask yourself, what do I have to do right now to get out of my head? I got to get out of my head. I have to just clear myself, get out of my head. So that’s to regulate, right? To reflect. And this is so important and we always forget this one, but nothing works if you forget this. Please hear me. That’s a little aggressive, but it’s so true.

Ash McDonald:
Reflect is to give yourself compassion. So imagine I have a girl, she’s 7, my youngest. If she came to me and said, Mom, I’m so overwhelmed, I don’t know what to do. I’m freaking out about this decision. That says all these things. And I went, let’s take a deep breath. So we’re doing the regulation, right? Let’s take a deep breath, get her out of bed, right? But then I go, it’s really not that big of a deal and you need to just let it go. I’m not bringing her any service whatsoever.

Ash McDonald:
Can she make any changes? No, she’s in a shame loop now. So when I say self-compassion, it’s literally to meet yourself in that moment. So in that particular example, I just said, of course you’re freaking out. Your kids and your kids’ education is Everything to you. It makes sense that this would be something that would become an emergency in your head. I’m just validating the emotions, seeing them, witnessing them, validating them. We cannot miss this. We are all ultimately a 12-year-old version of ourselves walking around in a, for me, a 38-year-old body.

Ash McDonald:
Okay. She is just in there trying to live life, trying to make it work. And in those moments, she’s thinking, What our subconscious does is try to protect us. So in her brain, it’s, if I fail at this, I fail at the most important thing in my whole life, which is my kids. Cannot fail at this. That’s what she’s thinking. So to tell her it’s not a big deal, get over it, completely avoids the reason why she’s freaking out in the first place.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
Right. Compassion. And then 3 is the rewire. And this is important because you’re really just asking what’s true. And so in that moment when I’ve regulated and I’ve gotten centered and like I feel warm and fuzzy because I get me and I love me and I’m doing a great job here, you know, then I ask what’s true. And I realize that what’s true in this particular moment is that I don’t actually have to make a decision about his school right now. Actually already set up 3 tours, which I just have to go to to get a feel for it and trust myself. So I’m just, I’m finding my truth in that moment, right? Whether that’s all of a sudden internally you’re panicking because one person canceled their membership.

Ash McDonald:
And now what’s really happening is you’re thinking, this whole business that I was creating is going to fall apart and I’m an imposter and nobody believes in me and I can’t believe— hey, why are you freaking out? Somebody canceled their membership. You really care about what you’re doing. Like, you really care. So what’s true? One person canceling does not mean the business is failing.

Megan Yelaney:
Hmm. Oh, I just got like chills from that. That was—

Ash McDonald:
everyone needs to pause.

Megan Yelaney:
Rewind about 6-ish, maybe 5-ish minutes, and listen to that on repeat. That was a whole masterclass in which I love a short snippet that we can actually apply. So thank you for that, because I feel like sometimes a lot of the somatic advice that I hear, while it’s beautiful, it’s like, I can’t— I don’t have an hour.

Ash McDonald:
It’s massive. And here’s the thing, people will ask me a lot, like, what is the work that you do and how do you change? I’m like, I cannot change the circumstances of a woman who values healthy children and presence in her family and a good marriage and health for herself and a solid business and, um, you know, philanthropy, all the things that she— I’m not going to take that away from her. What I help people do is exist in their own beautiful chaos in a way where they can breathe and they can see the meaning of it all is right. Like, I don’t want to change what your circumstances are. Your circumstances are beautiful, but you are allowing them right now to dictate your reality. We’re going to shift that Right. So I can go from freak out on the Pilates mat to, oh, I’m good. I did all the things I needed to do.

Ash McDonald:
I’m back with my workout now, and it’s like it never happened. And that exercise took a little longer to explain, took me 2 minutes.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah. And I love, by the way, when you said exist in your chaos, I’m like, that is a tagline for you if you don’t already use it. I’m sure you already do, but oh my gosh, that’s so good.

Ash McDonald:
I’ll take note.

Megan Yelaney:
I was like, wait, that needs to be a tagline. That was perfect. And I love how also a big like theme I’ve been talking about with clients lately is sometimes, not sometimes, most of the time we feel like we need to be perfect, but at what we teach or coach on. Yes. And it’s usually the thing that we’re, we’re so good at it because we struggle with it because we have to constantly do it. So I love that you’re like, hey, just because I do this nervous system work doesn’t mean I’m not a human and have like shit happen, you know? And it happened this morning. It’s so reassuring to everyone to hear. Do you think that Ash is less of an expert now because she had a tough moment.

Megan Yelaney:
No, you think that she’s 10 times an expert because of how quick she worked through that. That’s like just such a great example of storytelling that I wanted to pause and just help everyone like realize, like, that is a beautiful example of sharing a moment that would be a great piece of content, great email, great podcast. Like, it’s just such something we— I feel like so many people lately I’ve been talking to and coaching, they think they have to be perfect. I’m like, no, this is when you actually get to show your expertise even more is when you say, hey, I had a tough moment last week. Here’s how I worked through it.

Ash McDonald:
So that’s what makes you an expert. If I was sitting on a throne, like, look at what life can be, you do all these things, even if you’re like, I do want that life, I’m not relatable to you. Yeah, I, I’m not somebody that you can see yourself in. Therefore, I’m not actually somebody who’s of service to you, which is why I call myself the entrepreneur’s therapist. Because I think we’ve all been in a situation where you go to work with a therapist and they don’t know what it’s like build a business and have children and have a relationship you’re managing and friendships you’re trying to keep up and extended and all the things. Yeah. If they can’t relate, if they can’t really be there with you in that moment, I don’t know that they can really serve you. And maybe that’s polarizing belief, but I mean, I’m not going to work with a hormone specialist who hasn’t had issues with her hormones.

Ash McDonald:
I’m sorry. I’m not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Yelaney:
100%. Yeah. And that’s where, I mean, this is so you’re, you’re really helping my, my case too over here. Cause I’m always saying you have to share your story and your origin story at that because it’s it’s the why you do the work. People so care. They’re like, oh, this person gets me. They’ve been through it. They, they have more than a transactional purpose here.

Megan Yelaney:
You know, otherwise it’s just, oh, I have this expertise I went to school for. Nothing wrong with that. But if you have no personal, like, grasp on it or any connection to it, it can feel transactional where this is like obviously your passion, so obviously your passion, and you are meant to do this work, right? So, um, I love this. Oh my gosh. I can, I’m, I’m like looking at the time cuz I’m like, I’m gonna be talking to you for like hours and hours and hours. Gotta stay focused, Megan. Um, so that is huge. That exercise alone is gonna be so, so helpful for everyone.

Megan Yelaney:
Something that I wanted us to talk about that I know you talk a lot about in, in your signature speeches is The Edge Before the Leap. I love that talk name, by the way. Um, but really the in-between, like the space between knowing something has to change and actually making the move. And I feel like a lot of my clients and a lot of people listening are right here right now. So if you could just walk us through like that, I know it’s very broad and vague, but I know you talk about it a lot.

Ash McDonald:
So, well, I think, you know, we are still talking about levels of high-functioning burnout, right? It’s important that we apply this sort of theology, if you will, to, to, to the idea, the art of reconstruction, of identity reconstruction, because at the base of the false emergencies and decision fatigue and all these things, there’s often a misalignment that exists. And I say that what happens when we’re trying to build a life in the outfit of a version of us from several years ago— now you might be the same shape and size that you were several years ago, which is why I like to paint the picture of essentially trying to make a 1-year-old— or excuse me, a 3-year-old act like a 1-year-old. Anybody who has kids knows that between 1 and 3 is a massive difference. Yeah, the talking, the moving, the, the independence, the things they can do, the attitude, you know, it’s all very, very different, right? Oh my gosh. We could not be like, hey, 3-year-old, wear these 1-year-old clothes. You can’t eat salads very well anymore, so we’re going to do this kind of food. You can’t. So this is what it looks like when we’re operating, trying to be a past version of ourselves.

Ash McDonald:
It’s hard for us to imagine what that looks like when we’re picturing like, oh, I’m not that different. It’s been 2 years, 3 years since I had a kid. I’m not that different. Imagine it as a toddler. Imagine a baby trying to be a 3-year-old or vice versa. Right. And in that, that same art, if you will, we we have to be willing to sort of look at and address at the, at the core root of identity reconstruction is the ability to process emotions. And what I mean by that is often what has happened when we have had a massive leap in identity but we haven’t filled the gap to feel the, the, that the edge before the leap, if you will, is the ability to take the leap, to jump, right? If we’re in the right clothes, if we’re in an emergency, if we’re in a— we’re never going to feel comfortable in those things, right? It’s never going to feel like that we can do.

Ash McDonald:
One of the reasons why we end up there, one of the biggest sort of energy leaks, capacity leaks, whatever you want to call it, is not closing loops on emotions that we experience. So similar to where I said the reflection of the compassion for ourselves, a little bit more extreme, but the idea that so often throughout the day we are experiencing emotions, these ahas. I have to get into the fact that often right now one of the biggest reasons why we’re not closing emotional loops is because we’re using AI too much. Yeah, no, please get there.

Megan Yelaney:
Say it.

Ash McDonald:
Please go there.

Megan Yelaney:
We need, we need to hear it.

Ash McDonald:
No more human intuition. There’s no more, I felt this feeling, where’d this feeling come from, why do I have it, what do I need to feel it and get to the end of it. It is, I have a feeling, ChatGPT, what do I do with this? ChatGPT, what decision do I make now? Oh, I was laying in bed and I was thinking about my freebie. ChatGPT, what are the next 6 freebies that I could create? It is a constant sort of outsourcing of our everything. And that’s why right now everybody is in a messy middle. This is why right now everybody is like, I have no idea who I am or what I want. Everybody is pivoting and reconstructing their entire business because of AI, because of the era of AI that has completely detached ourselves from our own intuitive knowing, which is in part our own emotional processing. So we end up with what’s called emotional residue.

Ash McDonald:
When we do not process an emotion all the way through, even if it’s something as simple as like, I woke up and I am irritated, and you just like write it off or try to move through or get behind your screen without processing, like, why do I feel this like level irritation? Where is this? If you do not process that, it creates this emotional residue, right? So it is just constantly building upon us. Again, going back to the edge before the leaf. Who can make a massive leap or jump out of a plane and do that skydiving skit if you’re wearing a backpack full of bricks? Yeah.

Megan Yelaney:
Oh my gosh. And that’s like, it’s again timely. I feel like I’m just having you selfishly on for me today. So this is great. I woke up this morning with this like anxious feeling and I don’t, I never say like anxiety because I’ve never identified with having anxiety. I’ve never had those like moments that I’ve seen some family and friends have. So I never want to downplay that.

Ash McDonald:
That.

Megan Yelaney:
But I definitely had this like racing thoughts, all of that. And I almost did exactly that. So you’d be proud of me. I almost did that and went, well, let me just start working, it’ll get my brain off of it. And instead, which I haven’t journaled in a long time, I actually like wrote it all out and I was like, what is happening? What am I feeling? And then did a little bit of like movement too. But it was, it was really a decision because I was so close to just working through it. And I think a lot of people here have done that, and I’ve definitely done that a lot of times. And maybe it’s because I saw you on the calendar, I don’t know, but it’s something— something stopped me from going that route.

Megan Yelaney:
And I did feel such a shift, and I was able to go into the work with so much more clarity and resonance, you know. And so I think it’s, it’s that whole, I don’t have time. And that’s usually what I will tell myself, is my time’s already strapped. I’m only working 25, 30 hours a week. I need to be with my boys. Like, I don’t have the time, so I can’t take this extra 5 minutes. That’s just too much. And anytime I say that to myself, I’m like, this means you need it 10 times more because you just said that.

Ash McDonald:
Imagine that if you’re give— if you’re showing up to work with 70% versus 90%, what kind of work are you completing? That’s what I always come back down to. I have the authority to decide what I come to work with, what I come to school pickup with, what I come to a date night with. With. I decide that. And I see so many people living without any of that personal authority anymore. Again, that’s outsourcing piece. And they’re showing up to everything with 30%, 40%, 20%, because they don’t even know what it is that they want. And let me take the complication out of it.

Ash McDonald:
So I don’t use AI very much. I’m an anomaly. Um, not because I didn’t— I did, and then I saw And I was like, whoa, this is so dangerous. Like, I love writing and I got to this point where I was like, I’m going to go write an email and I wanted to ask ChatGPT what to write about. And I was like, that’s never been my truth ever. So do I see there’s pieces of value? I’m not like an anti— I mean, I kind of am, which is really funny because my husband builds AI bots.

Megan Yelaney:
Oh, that’s hysterical.

Ash McDonald:
Like, you could do a bot for this.

Megan Yelaney:
And I’m like, get out of my face. I hate it.

Ash McDonald:
But I just, I noticed parts of myself, really important parts of myself, just shedding away. Creativity, my writing abilities, my introspection, like things that are so valuable for me, I saw them go away. And this doesn’t necessarily have to be the truth for everybody involved, but I have to say it. I feel like ethically I have to say that I’ve just witnessed it causing such harm. Yeah. And, and overconsumption. So I also left social media. I just realized at the end, I did a whole audit of my business and everything to determine truly what was coming from social media and could I replace that in a different way? And maybe that’s not the case for everybody.

Ash McDonald:
That’s true. For me, it was like, oh, I actually can still have a very successful, sustainable business without this. And I said, okay, what were the costs? What are the benefits? What, what’s the value in this for me? All to say that the most uncomplicated answer to any identity shift at all is silence. How often are you folding a load of clothes while listening to a Voxer message, going for a walk while listening to a podcast, having dinner while watching TV with your family? I mean, you name it. We are constantly doing so many things at once, which is just fragmented energy. And we don’t know as a society how to sit in silence. So my, you know, morning routine— everybody has these like perfect morning routines. I do wake up, I do work out right away.

Ash McDonald:
That’s very important for me. I’m a Fit with Coco girl and I just always have to share her. I’m not an affiliate, but I just love her workout so much.

Megan Yelaney:
I gotta check her out.

Ash McDonald:
And, and then I set a timer and I sit in silence. I don’t journal. Okay.

Megan Yelaney:
Oh, okay, interesting.

Ash McDonald:
Because we have to remember what it’s like when we listen. You know, so many people are like, I want to be intuitive, or I want to be able to— I wish I knew what I wanted. And it’s like, honey, imagine how many times your inner self has tried to call you and you hang up the phone on her. So we have to remember this art. You know, I actually got the word art tattooed on my wrist so I could see it all the time. Because to me, like, art in our life is that silence. It’s that introspection. It’s that ability to hear all the thoughts, all the ideas, and we don’t have to make decisions from it.

Ash McDonald:
We don’t have to do anything from it. Showers— I give everybody the example of showers. How much comes through in a shower for you?

Megan Yelaney:
Yes. Oh my gosh, so true.

Ash McDonald:
I want a shower board that I could write on. Yeah, the beginning of Yeah, because you really can’t access anything else. Mm-hmm. You extend that, right? One of my best strategies for business, and I do write it off— hopefully my CPA is not listening and has patience— but I get massages as a part of my business strategy because it keeps me in my head only.

Megan Yelaney:
Oh, we can write that off. I, I need to check that with my accountant because I, I do the same. I get them every month as like a treat for myself.

Ash McDonald:
But I use them and I plug in time afterwards for the downloads because as a high achiever, as a, uh, you know, for anybody who’s all this stuff, I’m a triple Virgo. Hello. And I’m a mani-gen. So my body naturally, remember the circumstances, I’m not here to change. I naturally move at a very fast pace, faster than most human individuals. I mean, the things that I can accomplish in a day take most people many days. And that has always been my truth. I’m very grateful for that.

Ash McDonald:
It’s also my downfall. It is my downfall. So I have to find creative ways that get me to shut the fuck up.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh, that’s the quote. Seriously, because it’s— I think so many people listening, and I know myself, we don’t even realize, like, if I actually document my day, how of it is silence. And the most that, which is, this is going to sound so crazy, but the most silence I have is with my 2-year-old twins, which sounds wild, but it’s because we don’t really do screen time that often. It’s more of an emergency kind of thing right now. And we do play music, but even that, we’re like, we play music, but not constantly. Right.

Megan Yelaney:
And even this morning, there was a moment where I was just drinking my coffee and watching them. They were actually playing together, which sometimes happens. Most of the time they’re attacking each other. Together. And it was so cute and so sweet. And I was just like, wow, it’s so quiet right now. Like, this is wild. And it wasn’t because they’re quiet, you know, because they’re usually rambunctious and crazy.

Megan Yelaney:
They’re boys, so they’re just nuts. It was truly like, oh my gosh, we always have like something going.

Ash McDonald:
Like I have a—

Megan Yelaney:
like you said, a podcast or a Voxer note. Or you were literally speaking to me when you said that. I was like, guilty, guilty. And it was such a nice like blip And I really did notice that. I was like, huh, okay. And I just kind of like kept going. And now that you’re saying that, I’m like, oh, that was an intuitive nudge. I need to do way more of that.

Megan Yelaney:
And I think everyone listening—

Ash McDonald:
Yeah, it’s not silence and sound. So it’s consumption. So music is consumption because there are words, there’s lyrics, there’s meaning.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah, for sure.

Ash McDonald:
Right. There’s a lot of things that we don’t realize are consumption. Right. Like having a TV on in the background, which people think, oh, it’s so innocent. I’m just doing this thing while I’m doing this thing. You’re robbing yourself.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
You’re robbing yourself listening to it. When is the last time you listened to a podcast just sitting and actually listening to the podcast?

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Ash McDonald:
Never.

Megan Yelaney:
I can’t even think.

Ash McDonald:
That’s part of it, right? Yeah.

Megan Yelaney:
Maybe driving, but even that you’re driving, so it’s not like you’re sitting. Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
And I’m not saying, oh, never multitask again, because that’s kind of our superpower.

Megan Yelaney:
For sure.

Ash McDonald:
Habit stacking. Hello. I mean, there’s books written on this shit, like, yeah, but it’s where are you carving out time to build that self-trust back up? If you find social media to be imperative to your business, where are you creating boundaries around that? I know this is sort of like old and said and done, and yet it’s not. Yeah. Overconsumption is a literal epidemic right now. And more importantly, it’s inhumane. Our brains are not meant to take in this amount of information at any given moment, and we are frying ourselves. We are completely frying ourselves.

Ash McDonald:
And so yes, some of the decisions that I have made are drastic, um, but they also came after years and years of testing and trying different ways of doing that and utilizing things. And sometimes we just You have to just say enough is enough. This actually doesn’t fit me. And for what it’s worth, my business is doing beautifully and I’ve been off socials for, for 8 months. And so that doesn’t, again, that doesn’t mean that has to be your answer, but I think we’re so not willing to look at creative ways of living our lives because we are so overconsumed in terms of how everybody else is living theirs and what we’re supposed to do and Yeah, I was reading this book over the summer that was so freaking valuable, and I was talking about how we used to only compare ourselves to the people who are right in our neighborhood because that’s all we saw. And therefore, we were comparing ourselves to people of the same socioeconomic background, the same, you know, same everything. And obviously diversity is very important, so we see that too. But the difference is now I can see the kitchen of a Kardashian if I just flip on the TV.

Ash McDonald:
I can go go to any influencer’s life and instantly be comparing myself to things that make me feel so itty-bitty and so not enough. It’s toxic.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
Oh my gosh, really? When you think of nostalgia, when you look at shows in the past, like, I’m a big Gilmore Girls fan. I could— me too. Yeah, I have big houses, they don’t have fancy outfits, they don’t have phones. They don’t have phones. They don’t have— they have small, crowded, cluttered kitchens.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
We’re all aspiring to be robotic as opposed to aspiring to live our life full of art.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah.

Ash McDonald:
My biggest invitation is, is where to create more art in your life.

Megan Yelaney:
I love that. I just got such chills. I also love Gilmore Girls. My dad passed a few years ago, and that was funny enough, that was like our show, even though it’s a daughter-mom That was like our show together, which is hysterical. Um, and you’re so right. It’s like this homey, like loving feeling. And it’s so funny cuz as you know, when you have young kids, it’s no matter how much you try to tidy up, it’s just constant chaos. And so I tidy up at the end of the day and that’s it.

Megan Yelaney:
During the day, if I’m recording, it’s going to be crazy. And I used to feel like, oh, this looks so messy. I’m supposed to be this successful business coach, I can’t present this. And I was like, what? This is real life. This is me being able to have a business and be with my crazy, messy kids. Like, this is beautiful. Like you said, beautiful chaos. And so I’ve just been unapologetically showing the mess, the stained couch that I’m like, we’re not replacing until they’re a little older because it’s a waste.

Megan Yelaney:
Like, there’s so many things that you just said that I’m like, oh, okay, this makes me feel so much better about what I’ve been sharing in hopes that, hey, you don’t need this picture-perfect setting to make great money, make great impact, and, and really have a business that you love. So thank you for, for sharing that and kind of validating me, myself a little bit there. Oh my gosh, I love this. Well, we can talk for hours. I’m gonna have you back on if you are willing, because there’s so many other— when I was looking at everything that we could talk about, I was like, oh, how do I pick one? And I just think the, the overarching thing I want everyone to take away, I know we mentioned AI a few times, and it’s funny cuz I will definitely have a guest on soon about AI and how to utilize it, right? So two truths can be— there can be two truths at once. You can use it in a way that can very much serve you and your business, especially with systems. That’s where I’m— I use it a little bit more. And it can also be really harmful to your intuition and your creativity.

Megan Yelaney:
So be aware of that and start to notice those patterns like you did, you know what I mean? And so I, I think that’s the biggest takeaway. There were so many things that we talked about.

Ash McDonald:
About.

Megan Yelaney:
But I really want everyone to like question that. Like, are you running to chat right away when you have a question about your business, about anything honestly, but especially about your business? Are you answering or saying, hey, well, chat told me— it’s like, well, what did you tell you? What did— did you take that 20 minutes of silence or 10 or 5 minutes of silence and ask yourself before asking chat? I think that was— that’s the goal. That’s what we need.

Ash McDonald:
So, and just micro-commitments, you know. Yeah. Don’t listen to this and feel that immediate overwhelm that I know human nature has us feeling instantly, shame spiral, you know, what I want you to hear is like, hey, within my life every day, I’m constantly coming back to the somatic wealth framework because my body still wants to think things are emergency. My brain still wants to over-decide on a million things, but I’ve made small micro decisions, you know, to slow down for 15, to put a timer on for 15 minutes to sit on my front porch with nothing nothing to distract me, no phone, no nothing, right? To, to silence myself in those moments. But also things like doing one task at a time. Maybe every day you practice doing one task at a time, right?

Megan Yelaney:
I love that.

Ash McDonald:
Every day you practice these little things that I think really do add up, you know. No, no phone on your walk, for instance, or one night a week where you turn everything off and you’re not consuming. It doesn’t have to be drastic. To reintegrate, you know, and just really think about what is nostalgic to you, because I’m willing to bet there’s a lot of clues in that nostalgia. So if you are like, you know, I’m an ’80s baby, so like the ’90s is my nostalgia, you know, I just constantly want to be in the ’90s again. And I started to realize several months back, like, oh, actually about a year ago, that’s where my clues live. That’s the life I want to create. What is it about that life that’s so attractive to me? And that’s what I started to employ in my life, you know, whether it be the slowness or the types of music we were listening to or how I cook, you know, as opposed to like what’s the fastest meal I can create.

Ash McDonald:
It’s like, how can I spend an hour in the kitchen, you know? And I know that’s not accessible for everybody, especially with kids and stuff, you know, we’re all different seasons and phases. But gosh, look at what really turns you on. Yeah, I love that. Excites you. Yeah, do more of that.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah, I love that. And that that always, always, always is going to make you more creative. It’s gonna make your content more potent. Like it really is not another fancy hook. And hey, I give my clients hooks. We do all that. And this stuff is actually going to help you 10 times more. I actually wrote a post that’s coming out this week.

Megan Yelaney:
This is so in line, in alignment with everything you’re saying. And the last time that I got to the, the level that I’m building back up to, I pretty much unfollowed. Exclude a lot of people and just stopped watching what everyone was doing to a point where I, I went on a mastermind retreat with my fellow masterminders and was like, guys, update me what’s going on. I have no clue cuz I’m not watching you and I love you. And they were like, I love that. Wait, this is so, that’s smart. And I had 5 times my income that year. And sure, there was strategy and it was a good time in the industry and I literally had no clue what anyone else was doing and I, and there was no AI.

Megan Yelaney:
And so I was just like all in my own, like, self, in, in inspired by myself, you know. And I’m really trying to get back to that mentality because it was such a great, like, natural creative feeling. And following those nudges, that’s going to create the strategy. And I think we’re so nervous to trust that. We’re like, no, I need a formula. It’s like, that can actually be the formula. So I just, I love all this. This is so great.

Megan Yelaney:
Amazing. Well, where can everyone go follow you? I know you have a gift for us, the Energy Advantage playlist. So tell us a little bit about that.

Ash McDonald:
Yeah, so the Energy Advantage playlist was something that I created. It’s a private podcast, and there’s, I think, 10 episodes, and they’re like 3 to 5 minutes long. It is literally like my go-to tips and tricks that I use any given day. It is like a backstage pass to have me in your pocket saying, okay, I see you, here’s what we do now. So it is just very actionable. I just want to, you know, it’s not very explanatory. It’s just, you’re feeling this, this is what you do. You’re feeling this, this is what you do, to to gain more of that energy and more of that capacity that I know so much of us are after.

Ash McDonald:
You know, again, it’s, it’s taking the complicated out of it and making it really simple so you can feel some differences now. And yeah, I come on social one week every quarter to do updates, so you can still find me at Ash McDonald and binge the old, the oldies. But really, my podcast is probably the best place, Shamelessly Ambitious. Um, I use that basically like a journal entry.

Megan Yelaney:
I love it. Oh, I love that kind of podcast.

Ash McDonald:
I share everything. You’ll hear about when I went to jail, when I filed bankruptcy, the miscarriages that I have, almost, you know, hitting divorce a couple times, all of our world schooling journey, when I did ayahuasca, when I did ketamine. I mean, you will hear everything because I hold nothing back. It’s like, I think shamelessness exists when we’re willing to tell our truth. Um, yeah, so that’s a place to find me as well.

Megan Yelaney:
Amazing. We’ll link the podcast below as well as the energy playlist. I’m, I’m gonna go get that right now. I just went to the link. I’m like, I’m getting that and listening day. Um, maybe not on my walk. I’m gonna try to sit down for one. Listen, I’m gonna take your advice and be like, I’m gonna actually listen to this today.

Megan Yelaney:
Thank you so much. We’ll put all that in the show notes. Um, and also everyone, like, go message or email if that’s a little bit better for you. Tell me, um, what you loved about this. I know whenever I’m a guest, I love hearing that because this is such— you can just tell, like, you’re radiating this passion for this topic. And I know So if you— I know people are feeling that. And so message Ash, let her know how you’re feeling from it. Or when you come back from your social break, you’ll see it in your DMs.

Megan Yelaney:
Yeah, you’ll see it. She’ll see it. But thank you so much for this beautiful, beautiful conversation. I feel like I just got such a, like, fueled cup right now. So I’m very selfishly thankful for this. You’re amazing. Thank you so much.

Ash McDonald:
Yes.

Megan Yelaney:
Hey. All right, everyone. Well, we’ll see you in the next episode. Go check out the show notes.

Ash McDonald:
Bye.