Map Your Ascent: Ashwini Balasubramanian on Change, Vulnerability, and Building Influence

Ashwini Balasubramanian, Vice President of R&D for Transportation and Energy Business at 3M and former Harley-Davidson leader, joins Jacqueline to discuss her debut book, Map Your Ascent, and the lived experiences that shaped it. The conversation centers on navigating change, especially through career pivots, motherhood, and moments of personal uncertainty.We discuss how to move from survival mode to thriving, why generosity matters more than transactional networking, and how vulnerability can become a leadership strength rather than a liability.

Key topics

• Ashwini shares the car accident that became a major inflection point in her life, pushing her to stop waiting for the right moment and start thriving instead of merely surviving.
• In the book, the core framework is the three Ps: personality, perspective, and presence.
• Personality is about understanding your wiring, belief systems, belonging, and which habits or assumptions no longer serve you.
• Perspective is about using different lenses to navigate change, broaden mindset, and adapt to new environments and roles.
• Presence is about showing up with impact, not just visibility, and influencing people, products, and environments in a meaningful way.
• Ashwini explains what it means to be rooted in transition, using her early career dress choices as a metaphor for fitting in versus becoming herself.
• Motherhood became another major pivot point, especially when pregnancy made testing work on vehicle test tracks physically difficult and forced her to adjust how she worked.
• A manager’s insight reframed her thinking: a temporary situation is not the same as a limitation.
• She shares how her friend Artie showed up consistently during a difficult season involving family needs, gestational diabetes, a new job, and an early delivery.
• The conversation highlights the women’s employee resource group Ashwini helped start and how vulnerability helped create community across multiple locations.
• Ashwini explains that shame fades when you recognize that many life circumstances are not self-inflicted and are often outside your control.
• The book’s generosity section argues that true influence is built through consistency, character, and care for people, not transactional networking.
• She reframes reputation as a byproduct of how you show up over time, not something you can manufacture like a brand.
• For people facing job market instability, she advises not to blame yourself, ask for help, and lean on the tribe you have built.
• The episode closes with Ashwini reflecting that writing the book was an act of trust in herself and a way to help others harness change more confidently.

Chapters

Chapter 1: A turning point

00:00 - Welcome, Ashwini Balasubramanian and the theme of mapping your ascent
01:04 - The car accident that changed how Ashwini viewed survival and ambition

Chapter 2: The three Ps

07:24 - The three Ps framework: personality, perspective, and presence
12:46 - Learning to stay rooted while moving through major transitions

Chapter 3: Motherhood and identity

16:04 - Motherhood, maternity clothing, and the shift from fitting in to being herself
17:16 - Pregnancy on test tracks and redesigning work around physical reality
20:27 - A manager reframes motherhood as a temporary situation, not a limitation

Chapter 4: Support and vulnerability

21:54 - How Artie’s steady support became a model for real friendship and care
25:08 - Starting a women’s resource group and turning vulnerability into action

Chapter 5: Generosity and influence

30:01 - Why generosity, not networking, is the foundation of lasting influence
33:48 - Why change rarely asks for permission and how to face career disruption

Chapter 6: Closing reflections

39:18 - The win in this season: saying yes to writing a book and helping more people

Get The Book: Map Your Ascent https://amzn.to/4zuJJZ1 (opens in a new tab)

Visit Ashwini's website https://mapyourascent.com/ (opens in a new tab)

Connect with Ashwini on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashwini-balasubramanian/ (opens in a new tab)