At DrivenWoman we are great fans of learning and inspiration. Often everyday life is so busy that there’s no time to open a book so inspiring podcasts are a great way to immerse yourself in a wide range of topics and wisdom whilst going about your daily life. This way we can all carve out time for personal development even when you think you are too busy!

To help you get started we share our favourite inspiring podcasts. We’ve put together this list of ‘25 Most Inspiring Podcasts For Ambitious Women‘. The list is pretty hot (in our humble opinion), but by no means a complete one and we’d appreciate any ideas or additions you may have in the comments below. It’s based on the following criteria:

• Podcasts that top the rankings by (and with) some of the world’s most successful women.
• Podcasts we personally like – oh yes, this list is somewhat subjective. We’ve left out some popular podcasts simply if they don’t resonate with what DrivenWoman is all about, or if they feel too ‘pushy’ or un-relatable.
• We always want to feature new podcasts with inspiring women who are up-and-coming and keep our eyes open for women who challenge the status quo rather than who simply go after fame and fortune.
• Sites created by both women and men, but clearly with a style and content that we imagine resonates with women in our community.
• All podcasts are in English but we have deliberately tried to include many European podcasts as most lists are predominantly occupied by American content.
• The list is not a ranking and not in order of preference.

Our aim is to keep this list fresh and interesting, not repeating every other podcast list that is out there. So hopefully you can find something new to listen you haven’t discovered yet. Please add your own favourites in the comments.

25 Most Inspiring Podcasts For Ambitious Women

Purpose Girl

Women’s purpose and happiness coach Carin Rockind shares a lot of her personal stories and invites interesting women from all around the world as guests to share theirs on ‘Purpose Girl‘ podcast. Topics range from finding confidence to uncovering your purpose and finding your voice, all very relevant for ambitious women who want to live a life of fulfilment and meaning. Carin’s energy is contagious so be prepared to be inspired and lifted.

Moxie Cast

No matter how jazzed you feel about your life, it’s easy to slip into the “blahness” of daily living. Mandy Lehto’s MoxieCast is an antidote to boredom and lethargy. Mandy’s guests bounce off from her positive energy and zest for life to zap inertia and jump-start your best self.

One of our favourite episodes is ‘Taming your Mind Monsters’, with Hazel Gale. Hazel’s a former world and national champion in kick boxing and boxing respectively, who drove herself to breaking point, ignoring the physical signs that she was burning out. She numbed her fears of weakness and not-enoughness with punishing workouts. Her body had other plans, but Hazel didn’t want to listen. It was a fight she couldn’t win. “I had to crash,” she says. “You can’t wage war on yourself and emerge victorious.”

Unleash Your Extraordinary

How can we build the people we dream of being, so that we can create the life – and impact – we dream of? A life where we’re fulfilling our potential and having a blast along the way. Jess Ratcliffe takes you through the phases of personal development in ‘Unleash Your Extraordinary‘, a podcast with a ton of advice you can put into practise. We love Jess’ approachable and joyful style and how each episode is made of one powerful topic you can tackle straight away, in a true DrivenWoman style.

10% Happier

Dan Harris hits the nail on the head with ‘10% Happier‘ podcast. He’s a skeptical newsman who had a panic attack live on Good Morning America, which led him to something he always thought was ridiculous: meditation. And now, in this podcast, Dan asks smart people: Can you be an ambitious person and still strive for enlightenment (whatever that means)?

Dan’s inspiring podcast guest list is impressive from Dalai Lama to Gretchen Rubin, and he mixes topics such as meditation and mindfulness with difficult subjects such as dealing with loss or suicide. Our favourite episode has got to be ‘Vulnerability‘ with Brene Brown where she discusses her own struggle with perfection and how being emotionally guarded keeps you away from living life fully.

Mindvalley

A confession. We have a little personal development crush on Vishen Lakhiani, the founder of Mindvalley and have followed his work for years. So we are definitely big fans of his show the Mindvalley Podcast. Vishin talks about super charging your personal growth and invites leading experts such as Marisa Peer and Robyn Sharma to discuss the importance of mindset and creating a daily schedule for growth. As you know, at DrivenWoman we believe nothing happens unless we consciously create time for this. To get started, we very much enjoyed this episode where Ruth Soukup where she explains How To Overcome Fear By Understanding Your Fear Archetype.

The One Thing

This is a must-listen podcast for all goal setters & achievers out there. It’s about productivity but under the very businessy look & feel lies a more spiritual aspect of The One Thing. Only when you are passionate about something can you actually become massively productive. One of our favourite episodes is ‘Stop Apologizing For Your ONE Thing‘ with Rachel Hollis (best selling author of Girl, Wash Your Face).

Black Girl Podcast

‘The Black Girl Podcast‘ is an audio series created by Scottie Beam, Gia Peppers, Sapphira, Bex, and Alysha P. Media phenoms and friends, the five decided to make their hilarious conversations about life issues, sisterhood, pop culture, love, growth, and the pursuit of their dreams to the public. Their differing opinions and life experiences lead them to understand themselves, and the world around them, a little bit better.

One of our favourite episodes is called ‘Ego‘ where the girls discuss the difference between ego & confidence, the caution of “faking it till you make it,” and how ego can easily encourage delusion and “false realities”.

The School For Mothers

Danusia’s mission is to help mother’s find fulfilment and raise a family has lead to the creation of one of the best podcasts for women (who are mothers). She shows that you are a whole woman first, and a mother second. School for Mothers -podcast explores what’s possible so mothers can have kids and a career, without the guilt or second-guessing. Expect intelligent, irreverent, empowered and, frankly, diverse mothers talking about their lives; from the struggles, downright miracles to their whoop worthy wins.

The inspiring podcast features a wide range of mothers all around the world, and amongst our favourite episodes must be, of course, the episode ‘DRIVE’ where our founder Miisa Mink talks about finding your … you guessed it.. drive!

MindStyling 

MindStyling is a podcast made to help people re-style their minds and give them tips to achieve their goals on their own terms. Dr Becky Sage and Amy Armstrong interview entrepreneurs and leaders who aren’t scared to push boundaries and set their own path. Their aim has been to help lessen stress in the workplace after this year.

An extra exciting part of this podcast is that you can hear all about our DrivenWoman founder, Miisa Mink, and her entrepreneurial journey.

Second Life

Here at DrivenWoman we are all about going after your dreams, even if it means a major life and career change. ‘Second Life’ podcast spotlights successful women who’ve made major career changes—and fearlessly mastered the pivot. Episodes such as digital marketeer turned Parachute founder Ariel Kaye were super inspiring, but we found the episode with Jennifer Lopez a little less relatable.

How I Built This

Guy Raz’s ‘How I Built This‘ podcast has got to be one of our all time favourites. Guy interviews successful entrepreneurs and founders to learn the early part of their journey and how they managed to hold onto a big vision and pursue ideas when nobody else believed in them. Whether you are an entrepreneur or a career girl this is an inspirng podcast as it gives you a reality check – big ideas are never created with the snap of your fingers. If you are about to give up on an idea you are passionate about, listen to this first!

Our favourite episodes are with female founders such as Whitney Wolf (Bumble), Melanie Perkins (Canva), Julie Rice & Elizabeth Cutler (SoulCycle) and Katarina Lake (Stitch Fix).

Being Boss

Being Boss is a podcast for creative entrepreneurs, freelancers, and side-hustlers, whether you’re wanting to quit your day job or have been your own boss for a while now. Authors Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon dig into the mindset, habits, routines, boundaries, branding, marketing tactics, business strategies, systems, and processes that help you make money doing what you love. They interview bosses such as Brené Brown, Marie Forleo, Ramit Sethi and Danielle LaPorte! They also cover a ton of practical stuff from growing your Instagram followers to how to set up a photoshoot.

Think and Grow Chick

Aka ‘The Courtney Sanders Show‘, top millennial speaker & women’s empowerment coach Courtney Sanders touches on entrepreneurship, lifestyle, finances, personal growth and spiritually. She shares personal stories and great advice, and many episodes feature a very drivenwoman-esk title, such as ‘How To Build A Side Hustle Without Burning Down the Rest of Your Life‘ and ‘Why You Fall off Your Routine and What to Do About It‘ We love her fresh and fun style and she makes personal growth topics very relatable.

The Big Ones

Fine tune your morality muscle ‘The Big Ones‘ with Earios founders Maria Blasucci and Amanda Lund, as they discuss life’s BIG ONES. Each week will be a new ethical question ranging from historical decisions to relationship dilemmas to brain busting moral choices. The questions can be complicated but they’re always fun to discuss because they force you to look deep, deep within yourself.

Pleasure Studies

‘Pleasure Studies‘ Indie icon Feist knows a thing or two about love, loss, and everything in between. Through in-depth interviews with pro athletes, new mothers, artists, and polyamorous pornography performers, she explores big themes such as self-reinvention and creativity, the power of the natural world, youth, old age, wisdom, and the passing of time. We hear the stories of people who have followed their dreams, lived long lives, endured devastation, and come out the other side with a greater understanding of what it means to be alive.

The Lively Show

With over 10 million downloads The Lively Show with Jess Lively is clearly catching many ambitious women’s attention. Jess will “uplift, inspire and add a little presence to your everyday” and she talks about life, wellness, relationships, money, career and all other topics a woman who is consciously creating a life they want would be interested about. Jess invites a host of guests to her show but we also love her updates where she shares personal stories from her everyday life and explains how flow and law of attraction play a role in everything.

The Goal Digger

Jenna’s ‘Goal Digger‘ podcast has got to be on this list! She’s built a successful business, amazing expertise and a great community around her brand. It’s a live-workshop style business podcast for creative women, who want to train from the experts how to dig in, do the work, and tackle their goals along the way. And you will appreciate the branding and photography too, the whole experience is beautifully designed.

A Brilliant Gamble

Everyone knows that change is now a constant. But actually letting go of habits, beliefs, processes and attachments that no longer serve you is another matter. Blaire Palmer, is at the forefront of new thinking about leadership and change. As one of the youngest female producers of the BBC’s flagship “Today Programme” Blaire spent a decade breaking stories and shaping the UK news agenda before her fascination with leadership and change led her to train as one of the UK’s first corporate coaches.

Inspirational, funny and thought-provoking, on ‘A Brilliant Gamble‘ podcast, Blaire challenges audiences to re-think everything they thought they knew about what it takes to make a change. We were honoured to have our founder Miisa Mink as a guest in the episode called ‘Driven woman‘.

Finding Brave

We are great fans of Kathy Caprino, a leading women’s success coach and a long time contributor to Forbes (you should follow her Forbes blog if you aren’t yet!). ‘Finding Brave‘ podcast is as brilliant and inspiring as her writing: insightful, passionate and deeply wise.

Kathy deals with topics ranging from finding the courage to follow your passion, to practical subjects on growing your business and developing your career. One of our favourite episodes is the interview with Marissa Orr ‘Lean Out: The Real Truth About Women, Power and Workplace‘.

The Broad Experience

‘The Broad Experience‘ claims to be a conversation about women, the workplace and success. It’s a 20-minute podcast hosted by Ashley Milne-Tyte that tackles some of the big issues facing women in the workplace – things we think about, but don’t always talk about.

What we like about the show is the direct and honest conversations about the ‘unspoken’ and often overlooked small details of life and work. How women are spoken to, what are the expectations that are not mentioned openly, ageism, (non)supportive partners and so on.

Squiggly Careers

Helen and Sarah, the founders behind career development agency Amazing If, created the Squiggly Careers podcast to help everyone take control of their career with practical, action-focused advice that will help you make better choices about your future. Each episode is with tips, tools and techniques that you can put into practice straight away, helping you to be your best at work. Expect topics such as great interview techniques and how to work out your values.

Fire Drill

Financial independence is high on many women’s dreams & goals list in our community. ‘Fire Drill‘ podcast was started by Gwen and J, two twenty-somethings who saved a few hundred thousand each by their late twenties, owned rental properties, and plan to retire early. Gwen experimented with solopreneurship but decided it wasn’t for her and went back to work in the corporate world, and J paid off nearly $100k of debt and is on her way to financial independence. Expect guests with epic side hustles, real estate investors and other inspiring people sharing their journey to financial independence.

Money Girl

Another financial podcast for women to highlight is ‘The Money Girl‘. Its ‘quick and dirty’ tips and tools help you to put ideas into action right away, something that’s very close to our heart here at DrivenWoman. Too often money podcasts can be too self serving and elitist. This is a top-rated, weekly show that’s been downloaded over 40 million times.

The Good Life Project

‘The Good Life Project‘ Every week, we share inspirational, intimate and disarmingly-unfiltered conversations about living a fully-engaged, fiercely-connected and purpose-drenched life. From iconic world-shakers like Elizabeth Gilbert, Brené Brown, Sir Ken Robinson, Seth Godin and Gretchen Rubin to everyday guests, every story matters.

Filling The Void

‘Filling the Void‘ Riding roller coasters, baking sourdough bread, needlepointing — what are the things you do for pure, simple joy? From the creator of the hit Netflix series Love comes a feel-good audio series about hobbies that fill the void. Discover your hidden hobby alongside Lesley Arfin, as she interviews her guests on the things that make them happy.

We think this is a list of highly inspiring podcasts – but let us know in the comments any others that you love. And if you love these resources you may also like our posts on top women’s networks, books, blogs and retreats in the field of personal growth and development.