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What if the reason you feel overwhelmed isn’t a lack of discipline, but a lack of capacity? In this powerful solo episode, I’m inviting you to lead your life like a calm, regulated CEO. Not from hustle. Not from force. But from safety, presence, and nervous system support. So many women are trying to build big lives on exhausted systems, then wondering why everything feels hard. Today, I’m breaking down the shifts that help you expand your capacity, regulate your nervous system, and lead yourself with clarity and power.

You’ll learn what capacity actually is and how your nervous system shapes what you can hold, the key difference between discipline and regulation, and the CEO Reset model for coming back to calm in the moments you feel overstimulated. I’ll also share the three daily rhythms that create sustainable energy, the boundaries that protect the CEO within you, and the core truths to anchor into every day, especially if you’ve been feeling snappy, scattered, touched-out, or like you’re constantly behind.

In this episode I dive deep into:

• What capacity really is, and how your nervous system shapes what you can hold (2:18)
• Discipline vs regulation, and why regulation comes first (3:57)
• The CEO Reset model for returning to calm, grounded leadership (6:01)
• My in-the-moment CEO Reset protocol for overwhelm and overstimulation (6:57)
• Three daily rhythms that create safety, clarity, and sustainable energy (11:35)
• Three non-negotiable boundaries that protect the CEO within you (15:44)
• Core truths to anchor into daily so you stay centred and empowered (18:08)

Episode resources:

• 1:1 Strategy Session with Melissa (Book In Here)
• Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Open Wide by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Comparisonitis by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Time Magic by Melissa Ambrosini and Nick Broadhurst (book)

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The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy.

[00:00:00] The Melissa Ambrosini Show. Welcome to the Melissa Ambrosini Show. I’m your host, Melissa bestselling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, open, wide, comparisonitis and Time Magic, and I’m here to remind you that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word. Each week I’ll be getting up close and personal with thought leaders from around the globe, as well as your weekly dose of motivation so that you can create epic change in.

Your own life and become the best version of yourself possible. Are you ready? Beautiful. Beautiful.

Hello and welcome back to the Melissa Ambrosini Show. I’m Melissa, your host, and today we are talking about leadership, motherhood, and building success that doesn’t cost you your nervous system. This episode is called Your Nervous System, is the CEO. And if you have been telling yourself that I just [00:01:00] need more discipline, or I just need to get it together, I just need to try harder, I want you to pause because what if you don’t need more discipline?

What if you need a regulated system that can actually hold your life? If you are a mother and a business owner, you’re not managing one workload. You are managing two full ecosystems, and I see you and I get it, and I feel you and I am with you. And your nervous system is the place where all of it gets stored.

So in this episode, I’m gonna give you a simple in the moment protocol for overstimulation and a daily rhythm that will change how you lead, how you work, and how you mother. And just so you know, if as you are listening you realize, okay, I need this personalization for my actual [00:02:00] life, my season, my business, my nervous system, I am offering one-on-one strategy sessions right now.

And they are calm, practical, and tailored, no pushing, no pressure, just clarity and a plan that works for you in this season of your life. And I’ll share more about that later. Okay, let’s dive in. If you ever have had a day where you are doing all the things. You are showing up for your clients. You are getting your kids where they need to go.

You are staying on top of the admin. You are answering the messages, and yet your body feels tight, your mind feels noisy, and one more request makes you wanna either snap or disappear. That is not a discipline issue, my friend. That is a capacity issue. And capacity is not a character trait. It is a nervous system state.

When your nervous system is overloaded, the part of you that plans prioritizes and communicates [00:03:00] clearly and follows through can go offline. You can still function, you can still produce, you can still mother, you can still run a business, but everything costs more. So we’re gonna talk about how to lead your life in a way.

A great CEO leads a company by reading the data. Setting priorities and creating conditions for performance. Because if your nervous system is the CEO, everything changes when you start treating it like one. So I wanna share with you why more discipline is not the answer. Now a lot of high capacity women have learned to override themselves.

I’ve been there. You can push through fatigue. Yes, you can push through overwhelm. Yes, you can push through resentment. Yes, you can push through the feeling that you are stretched thin. Yes, yes, yes. And for a while, it works until it doesn’t, because discipline is a top down [00:04:00] skill. It lives in the part of your brain that can plan, problem, solve, and choose.

Regulation is more bottom up. It’s your body, your threat response, your sense of safety, your capacity to handle input. So when your nervous system is activated, discipline turns into force. And force might get you the outcome today, but it will cost you tomorrow. And this is especially true when you are carrying two ecosystems like I am.

Like many of you are business and motherhood. In business dysregulation can look like starting the day with good intentions and then getting hijacked by messages or procrastinating on the one task that actually matters or overworking then crashing or feeling like you can’t think clearly or commit to a decision or perfectionism overexplaining or over-delivering and in motherhood dysregulation can look like being [00:05:00] touched out and then feeling guilty about it.

Yes, been there snapping faster than you want to. Or feeling overstimulated by noise, mess questions, needs, or needing quiet, but not knowing how to ask for it or ending the day depleted and reaching for coping strategies that don’t actually restore you. So if this is you, I want you to hear me. You are not broken, you are not weak, you are not, quote unquote bad at routines.

Your nervous system is doing its job. It’s responding to load and leadership starts when you stop shaming the response and start supporting the system. And this is a big part of what I do inside my one-on-one strategy sessions. And by the way, we look at your real life and ask, where is your nervous system carrying too much?

Where is your business model or your schedule asking you to run on adrenaline? And then we rework it so your [00:06:00] success is sustainable. So I wanna share with you the CEO model. A good CEO does three things really well. Number one reads the data. Two sets priorities. Three creates conditions for performance.

Your nervous system does the same when it’s regulated. You can make clean decisions. Hold boundaries respond instead of react, create without forcing and parent with steadiness. When it’s dysregulated, you might still be doing, but you lose executive function, you lose perspective, you lose patience, and you lose clarity.

So the goal is not to become someone who never gets activated. The goal is to become someone who knows how to return to safety and steadiness faster so your CEO can lead again. And now I wanna give you something super practical. [00:07:00] This is the in the moment protocol, the CEO reset that you can do. This is for the moments when you are over overstimulated.

It might be the school morning rush, the 20 minutes before a client call, or when the kids are talking over each other and you can feel yourself tightening. When your phone is buzzing and your brain is scattered when you’re trying to cook dinner and someone’s asking you 47 questions, this is not a long meditation.

This is leadership in real time. Okay? So the CEO Reset, it’s an acronym, the C stands for check the room orient, look around slowly. Name five neutral things that you can see. A door, a window. A plant, a chair, a color. This helps your nervous system locate you in the present moment. It’s a subtle signal that I am here.

I am safe [00:08:00] enough right now. The next one, e. Exhale longer than you. Inhale. Do five deep breaths where your exhale is longer. So you inhale for four hold, and then you exhale for six. Do that five times you are downshifting your nervous system. Never underestimate the power of your breath. The next step, o own the sensation.

No story attached. Put one hand on your chest or belly and name what’s true without layering meaning to it. For example, my jaw is tight, my chest feels heavy, my thoughts are racing. I feel heat in my face. This is data not drama. The next step are reduce input. Choose one tiny reduction. Turn the volume down, put your phone [00:09:00] face down.

Close one tab. Step outside for 30 seconds, ask for two minutes. You’re not fixing your life. You are lowering the load. You are turning down the load. Do whatever you can do. Something that I love doing is if I’m feeling like this, I turn the music off in my house. So we have beautiful jazz music playing in the background of our house all day, except for when my baby is sleeping.

It’s very soft and it’s very calming to my nervous system. It’s beautiful. I love it. It’s piano, jazz, and it’s just so gorgeous. But sometimes if I’m really overloaded, that needs to go. So that’s something that I do. Next step e execute. One next step. So choose one next step that is kind and effective. So I’m gonna reply to one message that’s important.

I’m going to feed everyone and [00:10:00] delay that decision. I’m going to do the email, not the perfect email. I’m going to reset for five minutes before I reenter. Those things are game changers. The next step s speak it out loud, one sentence, calm and simple. I’m overstimulated. I need two minutes. I can do this just not at this pace.

I am safe. I’m not behind. I am activated. Speak truthfully out loud from a calm space. The final step T transition, your body, tiny movement to complete the stress cycle. Shake out your hands, roll your shoulders, walk to the end of the hall and back, or go outside, stretch your calves, splash, cool water on your face or your wrists.

Jump up and down. It doesn’t matter what you do, just move your body. Two minutes, three minutes. That is it. So that is the CEO reset. Let me just recap. [00:11:00] C, check the room E, exhale longer than you. Inhale. O own the sensation. No story attached. Reduce input, E execute one. Next step S, speak it out loud and T transition your body.

And if you want help implementing this inside the real constraints of your life, your kids sleep, your workload, your season, your energy. This is exactly the kind of thing I support women with in my one-on-one strategy sessions. Because it’s one thing to hear a protocol, it’s another to actually make it work in your day-to-day life.

Here’s a real world reminder for you and one that I have been reminded of many times. High achieving Women often don’t realize they’re in trouble until the body forces a stop. And here’s the thing, you don’t need the crash. You don’t need the wake up call that comes through illness, exhaustion, burnout, or breaking down.

You can choose earlier. You can say, I’m [00:12:00] going to build success on steadiness. Not survival. You get to do that. So here’s the daily rhythm that changes everything. Regulation isn’t only what you do when you’re overwhelmed, it’s what you build. So you are overwhelmed less often. Here’s a simple rhythm that I’ve shared with my clients, designed for a mother building a business.

Three anchors. We’ve got morning, midday, and evening. So in the morning you set the CEO. This takes about three to 10 minutes before the day takes you, you take the day. So this is what you’re gonna do. You can pick two of these things, 90 seconds of longer exhales, a warm drink, like warm water in lemon, in silence.

No phone. One line in your journal. Today’s success is whatever it is. Or you can do your Holy Mama Journal, whatever you choose a pace word. Steady, clean, spacious, and you pick one body cue, a hand on a chest, or a [00:13:00] slow neck roll. This is a small act of leadership and you just do this first thing in the morning.

This is how you set the CEO for the day so your day doesn’t swallow you. The next step midday. We clear the static. This can take you about two to five minutes. You are gonna stand up, look outside, or in the distant vision for five long exhales, and then you’re gonna ask yourself, what’s the one thing that makes everything easier?

And then you choose one, and that might be like cancel one non-essential task or meeting or send one decisive message or drink water and eat something that stabilizes you. Most women don’t need a better plan. They need a midday downshift. So try those. Then the final evening shift is you close the loops.

This could take anywhere between five to 12 minutes, and you can choose one of these, [00:14:00] so you can write a tomorrow list and brain dump everything. So if there’s anything that is swirling around in your brain, get it out onto paper or into your project management software. Get it out. Get it out. Get it out.

This is going to help you sleep better. You could do a 10 minute tidy with music, so. Pop the music on, get the kids to help you tidy the whole house, your office reset the whole house. We do this every single evening, and it makes such a difference when you go to bed and the whole house is reset. It’s like your nervous system can relax and then when you wake up in the morning and it’s all beautiful and set for the day, ugh.

It’s such an amazing feeling. So do that. Do the reset with the whole family. Put your favorite song on and dance while you do it. Another thing you could do is take a shower and have some slow breaths whilst you’re having a shower. Put your phone away 20 minutes earlier than usual. And if you don’t wanna do 20 [00:15:00] minutes, start with 10 minutes.

But just put your phone away earlier in the evening. And then just before you close your eyes and go to sleep, I want you to say one sentence of self-love and self-respect, hand on heart, something like I did enough today. Your nervous system needs completion, give it to it. So those are the three daily rhythms that change everything.

So do the morning one where you set the CEO, the midday clear, the static, and then the evening closing off the loops. And if you’re listening and you’re thinking, I want a rhythm that actually fits my schedule, my kids and my business model, that’s another place. A one-on-one strategy session with me can be incredibly supportive because we can build a custom daily rhythm that’s realistic, not aspirational.

Now I wanna share three boundaries that protect the CEO. If your nervous system is the CEO, boundaries are your operating system. Here are three that change everything. Number one, no decisions [00:16:00] when you are activated. If you are flooded, you delay you regulate first and decide later. Never make decisions from an activated place.

Okay, pause. Do it later. Number two, one input at a time. No Slack email podcast all at once. That’s not multitasking. That is nervous system debt. I feel like before children, I could multitask in that way. Like I could have two stimulus going at the same time. Like I literally tried it the other day. I was like, okay, I’m gonna watch something or listen to something and I’m going to order new underwear online.

Whatever it was. I can’t even remember what I was doing. But that was too much for me. I had to pause what I was listening to so I could just focus. I don’t know whether it’s like once you have children, that level of tolerance for that shrinks, but I’m not sure. But for me, it’s too stimulating. So don’t wear multitasking like a badge of honor.

Just [00:17:00] do one thing really well present in the moment. Go for it, and then move on to the next. So the third one, visibility with recovery. So if you record a podcast, if you go live on Instagram, if you have clients, if you are speaking on stage, if you are pitching, if you are launching, I want you to schedule decompression Time performance without recovery creates resentment.

And if you think of elite athletes or Taylor Swift, there is no way she would not have decompression time after all of her shows. I am sure she would be getting massages and she would be doing Epsom salt bars and all of those things just like athletes would after they have their games. So treat yourself like an elite athlete or Taylor Swift and make sure you schedule in decompression time.

So these are the three boundaries that protect the CEO. Number one, no decisions when activated. Number two, one, input [00:18:00] at a time. Number three, visibility with recovery. You don’t need to be harder, you need to be supported. So let me land this with a few truths that you can take into the rest of your day.

Number one, capacity is not a moral issue. It is a nervous system State. Number two, discipline fails when the system feels unsafe or overloaded. Number three, use the CEO reset that I just shared with you. That is a game changer and build the three anchors daily into your life. So set the CEO, clear the static, and close the loops and just remember that you are allowed to build a life that holds you, not just a life that you can survive.

Here’s an invitation for you. I want you to choose one moment that usually overstimulates you mornings, late afternoons, bedtimes client calls and decide in advance when that moment hits. I will do the CEO reset. [00:19:00] Commit to that. And if you want support making this real, not just something that you like hearing on a podcast, you can book your one-on-one strategy session with me.

We’ll look at your business, your life, your nervous system patterns, and we’ll create a simple plan that restores capacity and protects what matters. And all we have to do is head to melissa ramini.com forward slash strategy to book that in. Thank you for being here, and I really hope you got a lot out of this episode.

If you did, please follow the show and leave me a review on Apple Podcasts and send me a screenshot of your review to hello@melissaambrosini.com and I will send you my wildly wealthy guided meditation as a thank you for taking the time to leave that review. I am so grateful. You have no idea how grateful I am.

Now jump on over to Instagram at Melissa Ambrosini and come and tell me what you got from this episode. I love connecting with you and I love hearing your biggest key takeaways. So jump on over there and share it with me. And if there’s someone in your life that you can think of that would really [00:20:00] benefit from this episode, please share it with them right now.

You can take a screenshot, share it on your social media, email it to them, text it to them, do whatever you’ve got to do to get this in their ears. And until next time, don’t forget that love is sexy. Healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word.

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