A Life That's Yours

Dr. Kelly Baxter did everything right. Trained for years, achieved prestigious MD, hit the milestones, and found herself burned out inside the exact job she'd worked her whole career to get.

In this episode, Dr. Baxter unpacks why that happens more than we admit: how perfectionism keeps high achievers feeling inadequate no matter what they accomplish, and how success can start to feel like a trap when it collides with what you actually value.

She also introduces a distinction worth sitting with: moral injury versus burnout. Burnout is running out of gas. Moral injury is knowing what your patients (or your work) actually need, and being boxed out of providing it by a system built for efficiency, not care.

We talk about:

• Why "the illusion of control" hits hardest for new professionals who did everything by the book
• The difference between moral injury and burnout — and why naming it correctly changes how you seek support
• Why self-care isn't the soft add-on — it's the thing that determines whether you can actually keep showing up for the people who need you

If you've ever hit the goal and felt the exhaustion get worse, not better, this conversation names why.

Connect with Dr. Kelly Baxter at Ovella Health and Instagram.

Have a question this episode brought up for you? Email me at [email protected] — I read every one, and I pick a few to answer in future episodes.

Join the conversation on Instagram and Facebook.

This podcast is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

You take the vacation. You do the digital detox. You come back rested, and somehow it feels exactly the same. That's not a burnout problem. That's a misalignment problem.

In this episode, Chelsea breaks down why rest, self-care, and time off can only ever be a band-aid if the thing you're recovering for is a life you never actually chose. She walks through how to tell the difference between needing rest and needing a real change and why getting curious about what drains you and what energizes you matters more than another fix.

What you'll take away:

• The questions to ask yourself before you go looking for solutions
• How Awareness — not another five-year plan — is what actually moves you forward
• Why staying differently can be just as bold a choice as leaving

Join the conversation on Instagram or Facebook.

This episode is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

What happens when the life you chose, and deeply wanted, changes your relationship with yourself?

For Hanna Finissi, founder of Soul Trust Ignite, success got complicated when she became a mother.

In this episode:

• Why motherhood challenged Hannah’s identity and definition of success
• What self-connection looks like when your time is no longer entirely your own
• The difference between caring for yourself and recreating your old life
• How awareness can help you recognize when your definition of success needs to evolve
• Giving yourself permission to define what success looks like in this season

In this conversation, Hannah and Chelsea talk about the identity shift that came with motherhood: realizing she was no longer first, losing access to the routines that once kept her grounded, and learning that connection to herself had to look different in this new season.

They explore the pressure to “get back” to who you were, the temptation to prove you can still do everything, and what happens when you stop trying to force an old definition of success onto a life that has fundamentally changed.

Because sometimes the goal isn’t getting back to yourself.

It’s becoming aware of who you are now and giving yourself permission to author success from there.

Because success isn’t something we define once. It evolves as we do.

Join the conversation on Instagram and Facebook.

This episode is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

What happens when you’ve done all the work to redefine success, and then an opportunity comes along that makes you question it all over again?

In this solo episode, Chelsea shares a confession: when a company recently reached out about a lucrative leadership opportunity, her old definition of success came roaring back.

The title. The compensation. The validation. The ability to say, See? I can still do this. For a moment, checking the box felt a lot like wanting the opportunity.

That realization became a real-time test of the Success Gets Complicated framework: Awareness → Authorship → Agency.

Chelsea walks through how to recognize when you’re outsourcing your definition of success, separate what you're capable of doing from what you actually desire, and reclaim authorship before making the next big choice.

Because success isn't a destination you arrive at, or a definition you create once and keep forever. It evolves as you do.

And sometimes the boldest choice isn't proving you can do something.

It's deciding you don't want to.

Are you outsourcing your definition of success?

Join the conversation on Instagram or Facebook.

This episode is Sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

What happens when you get the career you were supposed to want and realize you don’t want it anymore?

In this episode of Success Gets Complicated, Chelsea Simpson sits down with Margaret Vap to talk about the complicated space between achieving success and actually wanting the life that comes with it.

Margaret built the kind of career that looks undeniably successful on paper, including a high-powered role at L’Oréal. But eventually, she had to confront a harder question: Was she still choosing this life or had she simply gotten really good at succeeding inside someone else’s definition?

That awareness became the beginning of a very different path.

Margaret shares what it took to leave corporate success behind, author a new definition for herself, and build a life around yoga, horses, retreats, and the Montana landscape, including the creation of Cowgirl Yoga.

Through Margaret’s story, Chelsea explores the three shifts at the heart of Success Gets Complicated:

Awareness — Recognizing when the life that looks successful no longer feels aligned.

Authorship — Questioning the expectations, identities, and definitions of success you’ve inherited—and deciding what you actually want.

Agency — Making bold choices based on that definition, even when they don’t make sense to everyone else.

Because sometimes success gets complicated not when things go wrong, but when everything looks right and you realize you want something different.

Are you outsourcing your definition of success?

Because success isn’t something we find. It’s something we author.

Connect with Margaret: Cowgirl Yoga.

Join the conversation at Success Gets Complicated.

This episode is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

What happens when the job that looks like success on paper starts costing you more than you're willing to pay?

In this solo episode of Success Gets Complicated, Chelsea explores one of the hardest places to reclaim agency: a toxic workplace.

Because “just quit” isn't always realistic. Sometimes you need the paycheck, the benefits, the vesting, or simply more time to figure out what you actually want next.

This episode explores:

• Why accomplished people can stay too long in unhealthy environments
• How capability can become a trap: just because you can handle it doesn't mean you should
• Small ways to reclaim agency before you're ready or able to leave
• Why you may need to emotionally demote your job from a career to simply a job
• How to stop over-investing in an organization and start investing that energy back into yourself

Maybe success isn't proving how much you can tolerate. Maybe it's recognizing the choices you still have—and making them intentionally.

Are you outsourcing your definition of success?

Join the conversation at Success Gets Complicated.

This episode is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

Success gets complicated when the life you worked hard to build stops feeling like your own.

In this episode of Success Gets Complicated, Chelsea Simpson sits down with Devin Lebrun, a builder at the intersection of health and human performance, to explore what happens when achievement, identity, and expectation become so intertwined that you lose sight of yourself.

Devin shares his experience navigating the demands of corporate life, the realization that he had lost himself along the way, and the vision quest that forced him to confront a bigger question: Was he living his definition of success, or someone else’s?

Together, Chelsea and Devin explore:

• How to recognize when you’ve outsourced your definition of success
• What it means to unmask and reconnect with who you actually are
• The role of breathwork and community in moving through isolation
• Why agency isn’t one big decision, but a series of choices we make every day
• How to accept where other people are in their own journey without needing to change them
• What becomes possible when you stop performing success and start authoring it

This conversation is for anyone who has built a life that looks successful on paper but has started quietly wondering whether it still fits.

Because sometimes the next chapter isn’t about achieving more.

It’s about deciding what’s actually yours.

Connect with Devin Lubrun.

Global Breath Network

Join the conversation with Chelsea at Success Gets Complicated.

Website Success Gets Complicated

This episode is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing.

What happens when the life you built falls apart...

...and you get the chance to decide what comes next?

In this episode of Success Gets Complicated, Chelsea Simpson sits down with Brett Ashley McMillan—Founder, Expert Nurse Injector, and Med Spa Owner of award-winning Juniper Face + Figure in Bozeman; entrepreneur; professional writer and actor; wife; mother of four; and Total Girl’s Girl.

Brett shares her journey from rock bottom to building a life and business rooted in purpose, authenticity, and a definition of success that is truly her own.

But this isn't simply a story about overcoming adversity.

It's a conversation about what can happen when the version of success you were chasing no longer works—and you choose to author something different.

Together, Chelsea and Brett explore the role of humility, vulnerability, community, and personal agency in rebuilding a life. They talk about the expectations we carry, what failure can teach us, and why thriving doesn't mean having everything figured out.

Because sometimes rock bottom doesn't just show us what went wrong...

It gives us the opportunity to decide what we want to build next.

• What Brett's experience at rock bottom taught her about success.
• Why authenticity and humility became central to how she lives and leads.
• The expectations we carry—and what happens when we begin questioning them.
• How reclaiming agency can change the direction of your life.
• The role community and support play in rebuilding.
• Why purpose can change what success looks like.

Before you go...

Finish this sentence:

If I stopped measuring success by what I thought it was supposed to look like, I would...

Share your answer and join the conversation @successgetscomplicated

This episode is sponsored by Broken Antler Marketing

Connect with Brett McMillan @juniperfaceandfigure

Why I Started Success Gets Complicated

What if the greatest challenge isn't achieving success...

...but making sure you're living a definition of success that's truly your own?

In this opening episode of Success Gets Complicated, Chelsea Simpson shares the story behind the philosophy that inspired the podcast, a near-death experience that changed how she viewed ambition, leadership, and what it really means to live a successful life.

Rather than asking "How do I become more successful?", this episode explores a different question:

Are you outsourcing your definition of success?

Chelsea introduces the idea that success isn't something we discover once. It's something we continually author as we evolve. Through honest reflection, she shares why Success Gets Complicated exists and invites listeners into a community that's willing to talk about the parts no one posts on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Because maybe the most meaningful conversations don't begin when we've figured life out...

They begin when we realize our old definition of success no longer fits.

• The near-death experience that changed Chelsea's life.
• Why success isn't a destination, it's an evolving definition.
• How easy it is to inherit someone else's definition of success.
• The question that became the foundation of this podcast: Who is writing your definition of success?
• Why the most important chapters often begin when success gets complicated.

Before you go...

Finish this sentence:

Success gets complicated when...

Share your answer and join the conversation @successgetscomplicated

This episode is sponsored by: Broken Antler Marketing.