Ashley Stahl
Ashley Stahl is a career coach, author, and speaker who has helped thousands of professionals navigate career transitions, discover their true vocational calling, and build working lives that align with their core strengths and values. With a background that includes counterterrorism work in Washington D.C. and extensive experience in career development coaching, she brings a distinctive combination of high-stakes professional experience and genuine empathy to her work with clients.
Stahl began her career working for the U.S. Department of Defense and in the national security sector, an experience that profoundly shaped her understanding of high-pressure work environments, leadership under uncertainty, and the kinds of mission-driven commitment that sustain people through difficult professional terrain. When she transitioned out of government work and into career coaching, she found that the skills she had developed in understanding human behavior and motivation translated powerfully into helping individuals navigate their own professional identities.
Her book You Turn: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, and Design Your Dream Career offers readers a structured framework for stepping back from the noise of external expectations and reconnecting with the inner signals — values, strengths, and genuine interests — that point toward fulfilling work. Stahl’s approach is notable for its emphasis on self-knowledge as the foundation of career success: before asking “what job should I have?” she encourages clients to ask the deeper questions about who they are and what they are uniquely positioned to offer the world.
Stahl hosts the podcast You Turn Podcast with Ashley Stahl, which features conversations with thought leaders on topics ranging from entrepreneurship and creativity to emotional intelligence and personal reinvention. Her writing has appeared in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and she has been featured on national television and radio programs discussing career development and workplace well-being.
Her work reflects a conviction that career fulfillment and authentic self-expression are not luxuries but necessities — and that the path to finding them requires both honest self-examination and the courage to trust what one discovers. For the many professionals who feel stuck, unfulfilled, or uncertain about the direction of their working lives, Stahl offers a clear-eyed and compassionate guide through the process of finding their way.
