Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashley Asberry.
Hi Ashley, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I became a nurse to save people. I didn’t expect it would require losing myself.
At first, I was proud and hopeful. But the years piled up. The sixteenth hour shifts, the grief you never have time to process, the holidays spent in fluorescent light. I remember charting through my nephews birthday FaceTime, telling him, “Next year, I promise,” while a patient’s alarms echoed behind me. Moments like that stacked until one morning I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the woman staring back. I was exhausted, anxious, and terrified that if I stopped moving for even a second, everything — my career, my stability, my sense of who I was — would collapse.
Nurses carry a quiet fear: failing the people who depend on us, while failing ourselves in the process.
I lived in that fear for years. On the outside, I looked capable. On the inside, I was unraveling.
Travel nursing gave me freedom, but I used that freedom to outrun my life. I worked constantly, spent recklessly, lived in cities where I had no roots. I lost friendships. My marriage thinned to polite distance. I was surrounded by people yet profoundly alone. On paper, I looked successful. In reality, I was held together by adrenaline, overspending, and the belief that rest was something I’d earn “after the next contract.”
It all caught up to me the night I sat on the floor of my empty apartment, bills spread out like open wounds, realizing I was weeks away from losing my home. I finally whispered for help and no one came. Not out of cruelty, but because nurses are conditioned to survive alone, to push through pain until our bodies and spirits give out.
That moment shattered me and strangely, it grounded me. It forced me to reclaim myself before I disappeared entirely. I began telling the truth about the life I was living. I cut the lies I’d told myself about being “fine.” I rebuilt slowly rooting into stability, into honesty, into the parts of me I’d neglected for years. I learned that rising doesn’t always look triumphant. Sometimes it looks like paying one overdue bill. Calling one friend back. Sleeping through the night for the first time in months.
As I found my footing again, I realized my story wasn’t rare — it was painfully common. Nurses everywhere were carrying the same unspoken questions:
What if I burn out and never come back?
What if I’m replaceable?
What if wanting more makes me ungrateful?
What if this is just the cost of the job?
My collapse wasn’t a detour, it was the doorway.
And walking through it taught me the most important thing I know:
Nurses deserve lives that don’t require losing themselves.
That truth is what guides me now. Not a brand. Not a business. A human truth I paid for with everything I almost lost and everything I’ve since reclaimed.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. The hardest part was realizing how often I silenced my own truth just to survive. Nursing teaches you to keep going, no matter what’s happening around you even when the moment calls for breaking down, not pushing through.
I’ll never forget the morning one of my colleagues died unexpectedly at work. We cried in the break room for five minutes, hugged each other, and then… everyone went back to their assignments. Patients still needed meds. Call lights kept ringing. The unit didn’t stop, so none of us were allowed to. That was the first time I felt something inside me go numb. Like grief had to be scheduled, and I was already over my limit.
Then there was the financial part. I spent three years on the same unit, never called out, took preceptorships, floated without complaint. When my raise came, it was one dollar. One dollar for hours of my life I’ll never get back. I remember staring at the email, thinking, This is what my loyalty is worth to them? It wasn’t even anger. It was the quiet heartbreak of finally understanding my value in a system that benefited from me not questioning it.
And the physical toll… I still remember the shift I hurt my back. I felt something pull while turning a patient three times my size. The pain was sharp, but the pressure to “be a team player” was sharper, so I finished the shift. I finished the whole week. I didn’t file anything because I didn’t want to be seen as weak. By the time I couldn’t get out of bed without a cane, a doctor told me I had a bulging disk and needed intervention. I had sacrificed my own body to preserve an image of being strong.
All of these moments — the grief we rush through, the financial crumbs we learn to accept, the injuries we minimize — they stack up quietly until you realize you’ve stopped listening to yourself altogether. I wasn’t just burnt out; I was conditioned to doubt my own needs, to feel guilty for being human, to apologize for feeling pain.
The road hasn’t been smooth. It’s been a series of moments that forced me to decide whether I would keep disappearing or finally tell the truth about what all of this was costing me.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I run an online community called Stronger Nurse University on Skool. It’s free to join, and it’s where I teach what nursing school and hospital orientations don’t cover: how to survive your first year, navigate clinicals, step into travel and strike nursing wisely, and actually understand the money and contracts behind your career moves.
Inside, nurses get direct access to people living the paths they’re curious about — CRNAs, nurse practitioners, informatics nurses, educators, and nurse entrepreneurs. A few weeks ago, a nurse posted that she was drowning in her ICU assignment and didn’t know if she should quit or stick it out. Within an hour, ICU travelers, an informatics nurse, and a CRNA had all weighed in with their own stories, options, and hard-earned advice. She didn’t just get encouragement; she got a roadmap.
I also teach nurses how to vet coaches, use AI tools, and work with business and branding professionals without getting taken advantage of. Too many nurses are vulnerable to anyone promising a quick escape. I want them informed, not exploited.
Beyond the community, I started a nonprofit that focuses on advocacy, education, and scholarships for nursing students who just need someone to open a door. I didn’t set out to build a “brand”. I built the space I desperately needed when I was falling apart, and it turns out a lot of other nurses needed it too.
How do you think about luck?
Luck has shown up in my life in ways I didn’t recognize at the time. Most of what I used to call “bad luck” (the burnout, the financial chaos, almost losing my home) ended up being the moments that forced me to stop, confront myself, and rebuild with intention. It didn’t feel lucky then. It felt like collapse. But in hindsight, those were the turning points.
Good luck, for me, usually arrived through people. Early in my travel nursing journey, a nurse I barely knew pulled me aside and said, “Let me show you how to read your contract.” She walked me through bill rates, vendor cuts, cancellation clauses and all the language no one teaches you. That one conversation changed how I negotiated every job afterward. It saved me money, protected me from bad contracts, and honestly gave me a sense of agency I didn’t know I was allowed to have.
And in business, the biggest stroke of luck happened in 2024 at a Wealth Builders event in Atlanta. I met the business coach who ended up reshaping everything I thought was possible. His insight, his honesty, and the community he introduced me to expanded my world overnight. The resources, perspectives, and mentorship I gained there became the catalyst for everything I’ve built since.
If luck has played any role in my life, it’s this: the right people appeared precisely when I stopped pretending I could figure everything out alone. And almost every “unlucky” moment I resented at the time ended up being the doorway to something I wasn’t ready to see yet.
Pricing:
- Jet Set Nurse: Travel Nursing with Soul & Strategy $797
- Stronger Nurse Academy $497
- Jet Set Nurse: Strike Nursing with Courage & Clarity $497
- Accountable Coaching $2997
- Rise Strong $2997
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Strongernurse.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strongernursecollective?igsh=MXRmNDB3cjhyeW9ybg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StrongerNurseCollective?mibextid=wwXIfr&mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-asberry?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@strongernurseuniverse?si=UIy4UK9Tn_6nuvOR
- Other: https://www.skool.com/strongernurseuniversity/about?ref=3268a862b32e48218ada7cc6f265f923
Image Credits
Taylor Boone- The Art of Image Making, The Brand Alchemist
