There's a difference between trying hard and training hard. One is an inevitable path to burn out while the other creates the capacity to sustain the life it feels like many people tell you to stop wanting. This week, it's just Thea on the other end of the line here to convince you that it's truly okay to want the high-effort life.

After speaking at the Boss Mares Lead the Herd Workshop in Fort Worth, Thea came home with a singular clarity about what rural women entrepreneurs actually need to hear: validation that wanting it all: the ranch, the business, the marriage, the community, the energy to show up fully in every role ... it isn't selfish. And the path to getting there isn't hustle culture power moves OR soft-girl simplification. It's a solid and strategic commitment to training for it.

This episode neutralizes the two narratives we've been sold as far as a solution to our overwhelm and exhaustion to either push harder or want less. Thea walks through her four-stage planning order of operations (Prime, Plan, Process, Preserve) and makes the case that planning itself is the training ground for the do-it-all life you're trying to create. You don't climb Everest on grit alone. You train for it. The same goes for juggling livestock, kids, a business, and your own sanity.

Listen In For…

1. Why the "high-effort life" isn't a flaw to fix but an innate calling worth nurturing, and the permission you need to stop apologizing for wanting to do it all, and well.
2. The two false solutions keeping women burned out: hustle-harder masculinity or simplify-everything softness.
3. Planning as practice, not product: Why the process of planning itself, and not the perfect plan, is the strategic advantage that separates women who sustain momentum from those who white-knuckle it through every day.
4. The four-stage planning order of operations (Prime, Plan, Process, Preserve) designed specifically for women whose lives include weather, livestock, broken tractors, and kids who get sick on meeting days.
5. Why high achievers tend to skip the small steps and how that skipping catches up when you hit the end of your capacity (usually around motherhood, though it's not motherhood that breaks you).
6. A case for Thursday as your optimal planning day: How to use recency bias and week-ahead visibility to audit, adjust, and iterate without decision fatigue.
7. Muscle memory for decision-making: How consistent planning trains your brain to pivot quickly when plans inevitably go sideways (because they will).
8. The Mount Everest principle: You don't just show up and climb. You train. And if you want the high-effort life without burning out, the training is non-negotiable.
9. Why women under-resourced and exhausted can't solve the world's problems.
10. Boss Mares grant opportunity: Applications open now for 2026 business funding designed by Western women for Western women entrepreneurs.

TL;DR (Minute by Minute)

1. 00:00 – The undervalued relief of "me too" and why conversation matters more than tactics.
2. 05:30 – Speaking at Boss Mares Lead the Herd: Why 2026 feels different and the algorithm needs your five-star review.
3. 09:15 – The number one takeaway: Permission to want the high-effort life without shame or compromise.
4. 14:00 – Tall poppy syndrome and crabs in the bucket: Why we think we're "too much" and how that holds us back.
5. 18:30 – The hidden cost of talent: How high-achievers skip the small steps.
6. 22:45 – The two false solutions: Hustle harder vs. simplify everything, and why both make you the problem.
7. 27:00 – What you actually want: Not just to have it all, but to give it all and experience it all.
8. 30:15 – Why under-resourced women can't change the world (and why that needs to change).
9. 33:00 – Planning as practice: The strategic advantage you're overlooking because it sounds too simple.
10. 38:30 – The four-stage order of operations that scales from daily to yearly: Prime, Plan, Process, Preserve.
11. 45:00 – Priming first so you can stop being reactive to urgency and start responding to what you value right now.
12. 49:30 – The messy first draft principle to hold your plans loosely and remove attachment to perfection.
13. 52:15 – Why Thursday is the ideal planning day (recency + foresight = strategic gold).
14. 55:00 – The preserve step for real-time auditing and iteration so your don't lose what you're learning as you go.
15. 58:45 – Boss Mares grant applications open through March, plus final encouragement to stop apologizing for wanting more.

Where to Go From Here

1. Your turn: What resonated? Did the high-effort life language hit you in your soul? Share this episode in your stories and tag Thea @thea.does.all.the.thing and maybe we can normalize ambition without apology.
2. Stop winging it, start training: Download the Master Playbook, Thea's 47-page planning methodology created for women with livestock, kids, and lives that don't fit into tidy productivity systems. It's free, it's thorough, and it works. Tap Here to Learn More and download for FREE!
3. Fund your vision: Boss Mares is accepting applications for 2026 business grants (last year they provided nearly $55K in funding for women-owned Western businesses). Applications close end of March. Don't sleep on this. Tap Here for more information and access to the application.
4. Help us reach more women: Leave a five-star review and share one thing you loved about this episode. The algorithm rewards snacks, and we're feeding it so more rural and ranch women find this conversation.
5. You're not too much: You're exactly enough, and your high-effort life deserves the structure that supports it all without you feeling like shiz. Subscribe, share, and keep showing up because we are just getting started. Seriously.
6. Looking for something more? Consider joining the Cowgirls Over Coffee Membership.