Charged. Awake. Alive.
I built Wild Ambition around what I have done since I was a kid: getting outside, moving my body, and coming alive in places that demand everything and give more back.
I am happiest with salt on my skin, dirt on my boots, or my heart still hammering from a climb. I have always found my joy there - in the silence after a hard hike when my brain finally decompressed, in the thrill of hopping on a surfboard, in the peace of being underwater with only the sound of my own breath. In the fullness of sitting with other women, hearing their stories, and watching us help each other thrive.
What I didn't expect was what it does to a group. On a volcano trail I watched women stop performing and start saying the truth to each other. That's the rewiring I wanted to build around: not the thrill alone, but the thrill, together, pointed at something.
That is what I want to share. Not an escape from ambition, but the place where ambition starts to feel honest again.
I walked the polished path too - the title, the salary, the right answers on paper - and still kept hearing the question underneath. The one you don't bring up at the offsite. The one that doesn't fit on a five-year plan. I went looking for the fire where ambitious women told the truth, where success wasn't a job title and rest wasn't a productivity hack. I didn't find it. So I started walking instead - volcanoes in Nicaragua, ridgelines in Colorado, long cold mornings with women I trusted. That's where life finally moved.
Wild Ambition is that fire, made real. Wild places, hard miles, small circles of women who've actually been there too. It's the most useful work I know how to build.
If any of this lands in your chest — the pull, not the escape — you're already one of us. — Debra
