From $100k in Debt to Selling $700k in Courses w/ Ashey Stahl

Ashley Stahl is a force of nature.

A former counter terrorism professional turned career coach, bestselling author, spokesperson and podcaster, she’s had TEDx talks go viral and she now helps people write and book their own TEDx talks.

But she hasn’t been without her struggles. In fact, she’s gone into debt TWICE on her road to success.

And she has all the suggestions and tools anyone can use to bounce back.

Lucky for us, she shares them all in this episode.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Anna: Well, I recorded the intro separately and I’m sure in the intro, I talked about how I’m obsessed with you so, you know that!

Ashley: I, it’s like a mutual obsession. I feel like the first time we met was like more than a half decade ago which is very weird. Like at least five, six, seven years? I don’t know, it’s been a minute.

Anna: This is great. Just got, no maybe three years.

Ashley: Three years ago was the pandemic! This happened way before COVID.

Anna: Four years. I don’t, don’t, don’t age us like this. But I went back to, I was at Bricks ‘n Scones yesterday, which was the site of our first love affair meeting just so you know.

Ashley: [Inaudible], maybe it is?

Anna: So, at that, at that coffee, God I remember you telling me about getting stung by a bee. Is that true? Did you have a traumatic…

Ashley: I mean, I got bit by a tick. Is that what you’re thinking? Yeah.

Anna: A tick? No, no, no, maybe it was a spider? Anyway, okay. Point is at that coffee situation, biting conversation. You told me about your whole story, which I find fascinating. Because very young age, you had crazy success out of the gate. Tell us about what happened.

Ashley: Yeah, what, okay, so I grew up in a house where the news was always happening. And my parents were always watching it. And my dad’s side was one side of the political aisle. My mom’s side was the other and everybody fought on Sunday, it was a total cluster of a family dinner and always ended with like, crying and my mom trying to be the peacemaker. And I, I kind of just formed an opinion, because I did, whether it was backed by anything or not. And then by the time I got to college, I remember going to career services being like, “Who should I become in the world? Like, who am I? And how do I pick a major? And does your major matter?” Which now we know that roughly a quarter of people are even using their degree in their career, and with the rise of e-learning, and the cost of living and the cost of college, I feel like, you know, that number is gonna go down as relevant even more. And I just remember going into career services. And she just said all the things to me, like, “Do what you love,” and “Follow your bliss,” or like whatever people say, and so I did. I was like, “Okay, I love languages and humans, and I guess I’ll just major in a bunch of things that lend itself to that. So I studied government history and French. I was super impacted by 9/11, just like watching it having family on the east coast. So I just thought, like, “I’m gonna go all in on becoming Maya in Zero Dark 30.” Or, you know, Claire Danes in Homeland like, that’s who I’m going to be. And, and then I graduated during the recession. I felt like I jumped off a cliff with everyone where we all were really excited about our career and then no jobs were there. And I slept on my parents couch after grad school. I learned Arabic, I’m bilingual in French. I did all these things to prepare for this career, got my graduate degree in literal war studies. You know, didn’t even know there’s a Master’s in war, but I have one, you know, as one does…

Anna: I didn’t know that.

Ashley: …and, and then I just couldn’t get a job. And then there’s this moment that came where I emailed the university, and I said, “Do you have a list of people who live in DC?” And they email me 2000 names and emails. And I shamelessly woke up at 6am every day, because I knew it was 9am on the East Coast, catching people right in the morning. And I worked my way through those 2000 names and emails. I totally embarrassed myself. My email was too long. I was like, putting people on a pedestal and embarrassing myself. But eventually, I figured out how to talk to people. And I got 100 meetings, and three job offers and ended up moving to DC and living in a sketchy row house with bedbugs. But getting multiple job offers and making my way into the Pentagon.

Anna: Wow.

Ashley: And while I was there, during the Obama administration, so much happened. Like all my friends would ask me like, “How did you get a job? Can you help us? We’re so unemployed, underemployed. You should be a career coach,” they would say to me. I always thought like, “What does, what does that even mean? Is it like a hockey coach watching you career it up?” Like what am I like, clapping outside your office? Like, what does this mean? Then I did it. And now here I am. 12 years later, I’ve got all the online courses, the book, the podcast. I have a speech writing house right now, we just talked about which is really fun. I’m writing and booking people for TEDx. So we’re writing their talks and getting them booked. And that’s what I’ve been doing. That’s been kind of the crux of the journey.

Anna: And so you created one course right, and didn’t know much about online courses. And it just took off, right?

Ashley: Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I created a job-hunting course.

Anna: How?

Ashley: You know, I feel like these few times in your career, like, here’s my breakthrough, 12, 13 years into this, which I feel like you’ve maybe had the same one. It’s like, you can’t bat a hundred all the time. Like you, whether, especially if you’re creative, everything you create is not going to be hundred percent. There’s no way. But you can decide when you’re going to give something, your hundred. So when I look at my career, I give my book my one hundred. And that, and what’s so freeing about that, it’s kind of like a relationship that goes wrong. You’re like, “Okay, if you ever dumped me, I know I did my best. And there’s nothing I could have done.” There’s some peace to that. That’s how I felt about my book. When people don’t like it. I’m like, “Oh, my God, this was my best.” So you’re, you know, I am at peace with who loves it and who doesn’t. I don’t have any regrets. And I feel like that with my TED Talk. So I gave it my all. When it came to the online course, I just felt that feeling of like, the world needs this and I need to put it out there. And I remember watching a webinar on passive income and thinking like, “What the hell is passive income?” Like, I watched my parents earn very active income. Like they actively earned every dollar and my dad lost his company when I was a kid. And I just, that concept was so foreign to me. And I remember watching about how you can give a webinar and advertise a program and the webinar can run when you’re sleeping. People all over the world can watch it. You pay for ads and people can buy your product. And I failed at that for like a year and a half, went into so much debt. And then I succeeded. And I ended up going from $0 or negative, negative $100K, to be exact-ish. And overnight, I had huge success. I felt like overnight, but it was a year and a half after failing. And then I went from no customers, you know, maybe like 20 or 30 customers that bought my course, to thousands of customers in three months, we had 7000 buyers. It was $1,000 product. And yeah, it was a huge game changer.

Anna: So here’s what’s really interesting, I didn’t know the part that you, that you spent a year getting into debt spending 100 grand trying to get a course going, hat’s off. I, I am so afraid of spending. I, I really admire that you’ll do that. You’ll just go, “You know what? I’m going all in.” What, what did you spend on? Ads, like videos? What, what was it?

Ashley: I love you, Anna. I mean people don’t even think to ask me about that. But it’s such a good question for everybody listening if you’re creating a course. Like what did I waste all my money on? Number one was like websites, like everybody had it. First of all, there’s just like a trial-and-error graveyard of expenses that happen when you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s where I like, if I, I feel like the coaching space can be kind of toxic in the sense where it’s like kind of incestuous. And like a pyramid scheme where it’s like making money teaching you, making money. I also think it’s super powerful and potent when you get somebody talented. So there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s like, whatever it cost you to hire somebody who’s good to guide you, you’re probably gonna save that amount of money in mistakes, so just hire them. So I spent a lot of money on websites and graphic designers and things that I didn’t need. I spent a lot of money on technology, people who were automating funnels that were not good enough. But I didn’t know because I needed guidance. I needed another set of eyes letting me know what I was missing. It was almost like I saw the formula of what I needed to do to get a webinar out there. But I had no guidance. So I just kind of like made it on my own and it wasn’t working. And then I hired a mentor.

Anna: Yeah.

Ashley: And to be candid, I don’t really have the best or the worst things to say about him. The best things I have to say about him is he’s very talented. He knew what he was doing. The worst thing I have to say is that I don’t know if he maybe did something criminal at some point because he literally lived in like an alternative state that like nobody lives in. And he like, was like a 1990s marketer who like, did a lot of like red slashes and like flashing lights for you to buy stuff. And so I just remember hiring him being like, “Something feels illegal about you.” So I don’t think this is gonna last. But I don’t know what it is. It was just a feeling.

Anna: Is he still around?

Ashley: I don’t know so right. He helped me in some big ways, but he was also I was correct. He felt out of integrity in some other ways. So I ended up letting him go, but not before learning so much. I, I feel bad I kind of judged myself for saying like, “Oh, I learned so much and then I let him go,” but there was something out of integrity about him. So I just took the good and left what was not so good and became a better marketer because of him and I’m so grateful for that. But yeah, it was because he came in and he did a couple things. One thing he suggested on my webinar was a testimonial reel. So if you go to my website, I think, or maybe you go to my job hunt course called Job Hunt Academy, you’ll see a video reel of testimonials of people who got job offers from it. He, he was who influenced me to add that. And so at the end of me presenting my program, I had, you know, this reel of people saying, like, “I got five job offers, I got ten job, I got this, I got that.” It made it a very easy sell. And that moved me from breakeven to high profit. So it was like these small things that were really important for me to get down before I scaled and I kept wanting to scale because I wanted it so bad. But a lot of us I think live in hope addiction in our businesses, and not in reality. And I think I was in hope addiction until I hired him and got the right guidance.

Anna: Mm hmm. So suddenly, it’s like ca-ching, ca-ching, ca-ching while you’re sleeping. You’re learning what passive income is in a big way. And I remember you telling me, again at the faithful Bricks ‘n Scones, you told me about the bite thing, that you went and you spent, and you were like, “I’m gonna join Genius Network, I’m gonna do all these things.” And then you maybe overspent. Is that what happened?

Ashley: Correct. I super overspent. I, first of all, I just felt like, you know, we all–my friend, Gina, she always tells me you need to be, as she tells me, we’re all in different schools, some of us are in the school of health. Like in our life, our health is the thing that is teaching us something, we got to work through it. Some of us are in the school of love, like love is never working. And then a lot of us are in the school of money. I was in the school of money. And I’ve been in that school until recent years. I just, I don’t know, it’s almost like a person who goes on binge diets. It’s like, yo-yo dieting. It was like, I was so in debt and so much failure for so long that when I had success, I, it was like I had a, cake is my favorite thing to eat. And I hadn’t had a piece of cake in like forever. So I was like, no, no, no, you know, with my, with my revenue. I also think a lot of people in these business groups, while they are incredible people, what I found to be very interesting about a lot of them was that they would say things like you did it once, you can do it again. And I didn’t like that. Because what that did, was that made me throw a lot of money at my problems and not realize, like, sometimes you create something and the market is working for you. And that’s truly a moment in time. And when you have those moments, you need to be grateful. And you need to be aware that those are existing, and it’s not always something you can clone in time. Facebook ads change, all sorts of things change. And it’s more important than ever, that we, you know, really pay attention to that.

Anna: So many things that you said are interesting. You know, I think it’s like, I know a lot of people who had this experience, I did, we’re out of the gate, something really incredible happened. Like my first freelance magazine story was like, there was a bidding war. And it was made into a reality show pilot. And I’m like, “Oh, of course, this is just what my life is going to be like.” I didn’t understand it was never gonna happen again. Like, and, and my boyfriend talks about that, like his first TV show, huge, you know, huge bidding war, and they sell it for hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you think it’s the beginning, not understanding that the universe really doles out these things. And then it doesn’t–usually for most of us –continue to. Is that kind of what you’re talking about?

Ashley: I think that tipping points and magic moments are a very real thing. And like you can count on them. If you’re the kind of person that puts you out there, it’s just math, like you can’t knock on a thousand doors and have bloody ankles, or you know, bloody knuckles and not get a response. So I think you can count on magic happening if you’re continuing to put yourself out there. But you need to be mindful of your resources. And this is still something I’m learning like, I’ve become more of like a real estate investor. And more you know, caring about how I use my finances than ever before and it took me all of my 20s and early 30s to like really get it with that. And I’m so lucky that I have a business now with the writing, the TED Talks and booking people on stage, that like I got a second go at how to manage money and I didn’t have to hold on to that story that I peaked young and that the best wasn’t yet to come. Because I, I feel like I had such freakish success so early that I almost felt like, “Man, I tapped out.” Like there’s no way I can do better than this. And I, I peaked.

Anna: I peaked during high school.

Ashley: No, you didn’t, Anna.

Anna: No, no, no. I, by the way, didn’t peak at all. But you know that concept like the people who peaked in high school and you look at them today and you’re like, oh my God never left her hometown. Overweight and bald, right?

Ashley: Right. One hundred percent. Nothing. Like and it’s like that was the belief that I kind of had. I kind of felt, honestly, that’s how I felt. I felt like the, the like popular guy that was on the football team that like, like, lost all of his hair and all of his good looks at the high school reunion and was like talking about the good old days like, because, you know, I know we didn’t really share this so far here. But my business, you know, after I had huge success, I was really irresponsible with my money, the market changed, Facebook ads had less ROI. And I decided to hold on for way too long. And it ended with me losing all my money. And that was incredibly painful. So yeah, these are just a few things that I, I learned the hard way to check your ego at the door. And to know that sometimes it’s not that success is temporary because who you are is infinite. But it is important that you’re deeply aware that things can change.

Anna: Wow, so good. Now, let me, something you said that I think is so interesting, this idea that you gave your book your all. You gave your talk your all, and I was kind of around for both of those. I remember how hard you worked on that talk. I remember we did a dinner at Soho House and you–Gina was coaching you and helping you and I admire that too. Because I’m one of more of these like one off like “Oh, I’ll do a TED talk this month, and the next month I’ll do this, in the next month I do this.” But like this idea that you really pick your things, and you take them so seriously. So that no matter what the results, are you feel good about it. Is that, that’s kind of what you’re saying?

Ashley. Yeah, one hundred percent. It’s like, but you again, it’s like energy management, resource management. Like I know in my soul that I am not going to bat a hundred every time. So I really looked at my personal brand and was like what’s going to move the needle. Okay, I got on the cover of Wall Street Journal. That did something for my credibility. I got the two TED Talks. They’re in the top one hundred on the internet. That did something. But I gave everything to those things. In my book, I knew that that was legacy work. That I mean, a TED talk can spread and multiply just like a book, right? Like, my one thing that people don’t know–and I just learned this from booking and writing for so many people–is that if you give a TEDx talk and it goes, well, the TED channel picks it up. Then you get a second wind. And then once the TED channel picked it up, they have a whole network of translators. Those translators pick it up. Then you get a third wind in multiple countries and languages. So it’s like, how can we create these one and dones in our career that give us the credibility and the opportunity to create more mysticism in our career? My book is the same thing. Like I poured my heart into it like my TED Talk. And, and like my job-hunting course. And I mean, if you really look back, it’s been 13 years. Those are three things I told you, I gave A pluses to. Everything else, I’m maybe giving a 92 out of 100. But that’s somebody else’s 150 out of 100. Because I’m in my zone of genius. I know who I am, I know what I have to offer. And so I think my, my thing is not for people to create subpar work, but to manage their energy and to pour words time to pour it. And I think my course really showed that in my book. So same thing, like it did well in the US now it’s doing well in Asia. Now. It’s doing new book deals in different markets, you know, you understand how that works. And so I think it’s just really important that we know where we have the energy, the lifeforce energy and alignment to truly pour into something. Because when you do, it’s like you get what you give. That’s just how the world works in a lot of circumstances.

Anna: Yeah. I love that, that thing that you said about like, you can’t have bloody knuckles without having some, without having success. You’re knocking on that many doors. So, so in terms of bouncing back, so these are two really big financial highs and lows. How do you bounce back?

Ashley: Well, I mean, first of all, you surrender, like it actually takes time to recover. And I think that people aren’t very good at accepting that. Like I, you know, people want life to look like this slew of going from answer to answer to answer. And I don’t mean to sound rude about it or a lot less compassionate about it. But I really hope I get through to somebody because the truth of the matter is that that is not how life and success works. What life is, is a cadence of a question, and then an answer. And then a question and then an answer. People want to move from answer, answer, answer, answer, answer. And that is just not what process means. There’s a dignity to being in the human experience and to being in the process. And for a lot of people the process is going to look like really being honest about “Okay, you know, I just, you know, lost my business,” or “I just got tired of this offer.” And maybe you’re gonna be in the question for three or four years. And it’s not that I wish that for you. But it’s just a reality that we need to start accepting is that sometimes it takes time. And fulfillment really has a cost of admission. And people are not liking that they need to pay the tax on that. Like, the tax is experimentation. The tax is failure. The tax is going into the room when you have no clients feeling embarrassed that you don’t feel like you’re, you know, like on the same par as everybody else, or whatever mindset stuff you have going on that may or may not be true. I think that that’s really the taxes that just come first. So yeah, those are some things that I think about quite a bit.

Anna: So how do you know that you’re in a kind of, call it a failure slump? That something’s not working, that it’s time to pay the tax. How do you know?

Ashley: Yeah, you know, I think that life is an experiment that’s like, so the biggest two messages of my book, I would say, are it’s called U turn Y O U. Is life is an experiment, like, play the game. Or if you don’t, it’s not, it’s not gonna get you what you want. Usually. I know, I know, a very small, select handful of humans that like came out of the womb knowing what they want and pursued it. And it’s just been like a straight-line since. The second message of the book is “Don’t do what you love, do what you are. Don’t follow your passion.” And what that means to me is, how can you get super clear on where your gifts are? And there’s a way to do that. Number one, you can ask people like, “Hey, where have you seen me at my best?” Number two, you can try on careers, like clarity comes from engagement, right? It doesn’t just come from thought. What does engagement mean? It can mean reading a book. People underestimate the magic in books like, like, how many times have you written a book, Anna, where it’s like, “This is everything I have to say on this topic?” Like, I emptied myself out. And there’s so many experts that do that. And we kind of still want to talk to the expert, or we see the value of their time. But it’s like, you know, for $18.95, you’re getting everything they think pretty much on a certain subject. So engagement can look like reading books. It can look like taking courses. It can look like hiring a mentor and, or it can look like making a list of people who are out there doing things you’re inspired by and promising yourself you’re gonna have conversations with them. Conversations are a very high level, high ROI form of engagement.

Anna: Mm hmm. And that means reaching out to strangers, or strategically befriending people? What does that mean?

Ashley: Yeah, I think that means like reaching out to people that perhaps are familiar with, to you, like people from college, people with warm associations. Maybe it’s you helped on LinkedIn, and you use the event search and you looked at you went to UCLA, and you look for everybody that works in product for an AI company that went to UCLA ever. And you email all of them, letting them know you’re an alumni, so it can be a warm association. It can be people that you actually know, it can be like a friend of a friend works in this, can you connect me, then I want to talk to them for 15 minutes. I know we’re all burned out from the pandemic. I know we’re all overworked. I know the cost of living is high. And that’s why I think like letting, it’s just like a numbers game like anything else, right? Like, of every ten people you reach out to X amount are going to be down to talk to you. And that’s totally okay to accept.

Anna: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And so, so your book, how much is your book about sort of failing your way to success?

Ashley: Yeah, I mean, you’re definitely failing forward. I would say a lot of my book is about these concepts of how to get to know yourself so that you can choose a career that feels right for you. And then there’s plenty of content around what does it mean to be successful. What does success mean to you? I feel like there’s three real tenants I look at with people: The first is the what, meaning what’s your skill set? What’s your zone of genius? The second piece is the how, meaning how do you work best, right? Like, given that half of people leave their job because they don’t like their boss, what we can assume to be true here is that how your situation looks, how your job looks, matters just as much as what the actual tasks, what the job is. And how your job looks really is a matter of core values. So how can we, together, connect with what are our core values? What are these non-negotiable principles by which we live our life? What are these pieces of us? And how can we accept those, respect those and implement those into our career? And by the way, it’s not just words, right? Like there’s people out there that’ll say, “Oh, you know, I value adventure.” But then for one person adventure is skydiving and another one, it’s, it’s trying the new truffle fries down the street. You know, it’s like, everybody has different definitions. And I think that piece is important. So it’s, it’s the what of what is your skill set. It’s the how of how do you work. And then it’s the third element is your energy levels, like, you know, I have Lyme disease. It doesn’t really affect me that much. But I’ve always known that I get sick easily. I’ve always known that when I get sick, it’s like a six-week situation. Thankfully, I’ve done many things to help my health. And I don’t get that sick that often. But I remember as a kid being like, “There’s no way that I’m going to work a normal job and have two weeks of sick time.” Like, I need more than two weeks. And so I think that these are the things that we, we really need to pay attention to.

Anna: I love it. So, as we wrap up, what are your top three tips for bouncing back from failure?

Ashley: Hmm. Number one is just like, take some time if you can. It doesn’t mean that you don’t work if you have to work and pay your bills. But it can mean that you take the pressure off for you to be a high performer and you accept where you are. You know, and sometimes setting deadlines helps like, “Okay, for the next six months, I’m, I’m going to do this job, it’s part time, and it’s a slow simmer version of me, and I’m gonna be in a slow simmer.” It really helps me. I’m going to do with these other things with my time. So I think being honest, is like the first thing. About where you are and what you need. If you’re not honest, you’re gonna keep having to reset. And the second step is outside of taking that time to replenish, self-care, etc, etc. Have conversations, like have a quota for conversations if you don’t like doing them. Because it’s such a big deal that you’re able to explore what’s out there and make a decision from that space. I would say the third thing is to pay attention to your mindset about failure. Like, you know, I think who you are is really not where you are. And I’ve seen that so many times in my career. There have been so many times that I’ve been like, “Oh, I’m really failing or this thing isn’t working.” And then it’s like two months later, I have so much revenue coming in. And I have so much success and money–it does not define your success, obviously–but it does help. And it is validating to be met by the market with something you’re offering through the vehicle that is your career. But I think just remembering like, where you’re at really has nothing to do with where you can be in a month, in a year, in a moment. And to really let there be space for that.

Anna: I love it. And so because I’m obsessed with people sharing their stories in books, why do you think everybody who has a failure-to-success story should write a book? Do you think they should?

Ashley: I think, yeah, I mean, I think everybody, like there’s value in writing a book as far as like, it helps you process your life in like a very unique way. Or process your feelings, even if it’s not a book about you. There’s something about it. It’s like a personal development vehicle. But I don’t think everybody necessarily is meant to write a book. You really do need the inspiration. And you’re going to feel completely wild and insane if you’re writing a book you don’t even want to write. I mean, I wanted to write my book really bad. And I felt like I was on the edge of my own psyche. So I just feel like it’s not meant for everyone. But it is true legacy work. And if you have something to say, and it’s living inside of you. Everybody has a different creative process, right? Like, I remember telling people like, “Oh, do I have a creative process?” And my boyfriend at the time was like, “Yeah, you put the air down to 62 degrees and you wear sweat, the same sweatsuit and you go in the dark, and you have seven candles, and you have the same song playing for like seven hours.” And I’m like, “Oh, that is a creative process.” And I like to collaborate, right? Like I like to write a chapter of my book, hand it to a ghostwriter, have them rewrite it, and then I look at what they said. And then I, I take some ideas of how they structured it. So it’s like, I’m, I’m constantly exploring my own creative process. And I hope that people give themselves permission to do that, too.

Anna: I love it. So people want to find you, what is the best? Where can they find you online? What’s the best way?

Ashley: Yeah, I feel like I’m on Instagram most of the time at Ashley Stahl (@ashleystahl). LinkedIn. Or in my book, You Turn Y O U Turn. It’s two words. It’s bright yellow, can’t miss it everywhere books are sold. And my TEDx stuff is at ashleystahl.com/tedx. So if you want to get on the TEDx stage, that’s the place to go.

Anna: I love it. Well, Ashley, thank you so much for doing this. Y’all, thank you for listening.

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