As a high achiever, working more and pushing yourself harder than anyone else got you pretty far in your life. But now, it feels like you're always stressed, always rushing, always just reacting.
It feels hard to shut off your mind when you get home, to truly be present with your loved ones, and at the same time, you know there's more success available to you, but pushing harder just isn't getting you there…
It very well could be your nervous system that's holding you back and keeping you operating beneath your highest potential. Masha Kay is a nervous system coach who's helped hundreds of high achievers just like you to recalibrate their nervous system blending neuroscience, somatic work, and nervous system rewiring, and now she's here to explain exactly how to do it. Because it's only when you're in your most regulated state that you can access your best performance and your most joyful life.
05 Regulated 24/7 Is Just Perfectionism in Disguise
WORK WITH MASHA (https://mashakay.com/work-together)
Nervous system work has gone mainstream, and Masha Kay has a warning about it. Perfectionists can turn regulation into one more thing to get right. In the final episode, she explains how to tell whether the work is helping and what a six-month
process looks like. She also answers the objections that keep busy leaders from starting.
In this episode:
● Why being regulated all the time is biologically unrealistic, and why it feeds the same wound that drives overachieving
● The three markers Masha tracks (frequency, duration, and intensity) and the two qualities she says matter more: curiosity and compassion
● Why she works with clients for a minimum of six months, and how the phases move from befriending to rewiring to integrating
● What to expect if you're afraid that opening up to support means being pushed too far
● Her response to "I don't have the time"
● How nervous system work differs from talk therapy, journaling, and breathwork
● The kind of client Masha loves working with, and how to connect with her
29 Oct 2026
04 Your Regulated Self Is a Leadership Superpower
WORK WITH MASHA (https://mashakay.com/work-together)
You can only reach your executive functioning when you're regulated. Masha Kay explains what that means for decision-making, creativity, and collaboration, and why high performers often don't realize how much more is available to them. She also compares two meetings about the same stressful problem, one led by a dysregulated leader and one by a regulated one.
In this episode:
● Why your nervous system sits between you and your executive functioning, no matter how many books you've read
● Why the shower is where so many good ideas show up
● A lawyer client who found creativity and problem-solving coming faster once she built in pauses
● A client with strong short-term results who couldn't reach long-term strategy until she was more regulated
● Why speaking up in meetings and on stage can be a capacity issue and not a practice issue
● Side-by-side meetings about missed sales targets, one with a dysregulated leader and one with a regulated leader
● Why putting on a brave face raises the tension in the room
28 Oct 2026
03 Your Nervous System Decoded
WORK WITH MASHA (https://mashakay.com/work-together)
Masha Kay walks through a simple framework for understanding your nervous system: a ladder with three rungs. She covers what happens on each one and why the bottom rung, dorsal, often gets mistaken for something else in high achievers. You'll also hear how to think about bad days differently.
In this episode:
● The three states of the ladder (ventral, sympathetic, and dorsal) and what each one does for your safety
● What "story follows state" means and how dysregulation distorts the way you read people
● How dorsal shows up in high-functioning people, including lost motivation, disillusionment, and pulling away from friends
● Why the gym is Masha's analogy for building capacity, and why someone who is burned out needs to restore capacity first
● A physician client who thought she needed a new career and found a different answer
● What Masha says her clients are really after underneath their stated goals
● How curiosity and compassion change what you do after a bad day
28 Oct 2026
02 How Corporate Breaks Your Nervous System
WORK WITH MASHA (https://mashakay.com/work-together)
Corporate used to be the stable choice. Masha Kay explains why the trade-off of giving up agency for stability no longer balances, and why dysregulation at work has several layers. She also covers what AI means for leadership and why most
corporate wellness programs fall short.
In this episode:
● The three layers that make corporate life dysregulating: the structure of the job, your personal history, and global uncertainty
● Why a new boss or a new company can leave you just as dysregulated
● Why Masha believes the old stability-for-agency exchange is disappearing
● What her clients are saying about AI, and why soft skills are becoming what separates the next generation of leaders
● Why you can't outsource communication and emotional steadiness to AI
● The difference between wellness programs that help you regulate and programs that build capacity
● What a company of 1,000 regulated people would look like (Masha says it would not be 1,000 calm people)
28 Oct 2026
01 High Achiever or Overachiever? Is it Burnout Or Something Else?
WORK WITH MASHA (https://mashakay.com/work-together)
You've done the therapy and the journaling, and you still feel like there's another level you can't reach. Nervous system coach Masha Kay says that kind of plateau is a capacity ceiling, and the pattern behind it formed one level below strategy and
knowledge. In the first episode of Wired for More, Masha explains what chronic dysregulation is and why working harder at what already works can make things worse.
In this episode:
● How Masha defines a high achiever versus an overachiever, and why one runs toward something while the other runs away from something
● The quarter-life crisis a year into her actuarial dream job that sent her looking for what was really driving her
● Why burnout is what happens after a long stretch of chronic dysregulation
● Why Masha says almost everyone is dealing with some level of chronic dysregulation
● How dysregulation spreads from person to person, and why a stressed leader sets the tone for a whole team
● The upside-down U stress curve, and why doing more when you're overwhelmed pushes performance down
● Why the goal is a flexible nervous system and not one that is perfectly regulated
Contact WIRED FOR MORE with MASHA KAY
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