1-800-GOAL-DIGGER

What if you are not bad at selling yourself, and the real problem is the picture you have been carrying of what a salesperson is supposed to look like? I was in a session at work watching a senior sales rep talk about the traits that make someone good at this job. What stayed with me was not her list. It was that she saw herself as a salesperson. No question in it, no doubt about it. She said it t...

What if some of the qualities you think define you, being strong, independent, ambitious, capable, always holding it together, are not simply who you are? What if some of them are who you learned you needed to be? In this special Season 2 highlights episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER, I’m revisiting some of the conversations that stayed with me most this season, from the emotional cost of being “the str...

In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER, I share a relationship from my younger years that looked generous from the outside. He was 23 years older than me, financially successful, owned two businesses, bought me expensive gifts, and took me to beautiful restaurants. But after five years together, I realized something I could not see clearly at the time: He was generous with what was easy for him to g...

A listener left me a voicemail asking what advice I would give someone who has a meaningful project, business, or content she wants to share with the world, but is afraid of being seen. The timing of her question could not have been better. That same week, I had been feeling discouraged about the growth of this podcast. I wanted more people to see what I was creating. She was afraid of being seen...

Mel Grauds never thought she was a gym person. She avoided gym class, did not grow up athletic, and spent years believing fitness simply was not for her. Then she became a personal trainer. In 2020, after burning out as a registered nurse, Mel walked away from a stable healthcare career in the middle of a pandemic and started what would eventually become Melrose Training. She had no clients, no fo...

From the outside, Chelsea’s journey looks like an extraordinary climb: an astrophysics degree, more than twenty years in finance and strategic planning, a move across continents, a coaching business, a family she calls her anchor, and a life she says she is deeply in love with. But her story began with a young mother, an abusive home, and two years living in a women’s refuge. In this episode, Chel...

When I was younger, I never questioned whether I would become a mother. I assumed it was one of the natural stages of becoming an adult. Twenty years later, I am not a mother, and I am no longer certain that I ever will be. In this solo episode, I explore the question I still have not answered: do I want to raise a child now, or am I grieving the mother I always assumed I would become? I talk abou...

When a listener named Mel asked me how to future-proof ourselves in the age of AI and how I stay grounded beneath it all, I thought this was going to be an episode about technology. It wasn't. It became a conversation about fear, identity, and the pressure to keep up in a world that keeps changing. In this solo episode, I reflect on what working in enterprise technology has taught me about AI,...

From the outside, Tiffiny was the woman who had it all handled. A master's degree, a demanding consulting career, a marriage, a body she competed with on stage. On the inside, she was barely keeping her head above water, and the hardest part of her life was the one nobody could see. In this episode, Tiffiny shares the day at her kitchen table that changed everything, the months of knowing befo...

I treated myself like a product to be sold. I did discovery on myself, but not compassionately. In this episode, I unpack what a senior marketer's offhand comment, that personal branding is a little bit contrived, forced me to confront. I talk about Misty, the alter ego I built out of everything I thought I was missing. Why performing is exhausting, because performing is not for the performer,...

What if everything you've been told about building your personal brand is the wrong place to start? Ali Leung spent her career building some of Canada's most recognizable brands, Unilever, Meta, Weight Watchers, and Shopify. She knows exactly what goes into making something that looks impressive from the outside. And somewhere along the way she realized that knowing how to build a brand ta...

This week I am not bringing you a polished episode. I am bringing you an update, told to the small circle of women who actually press play and stay. Two things happened. A woman called me brave, and it made me sad. My mentor watched me feel stupid, and told me the feeling was irrelevant. It took me a few days to realize they were the same story. This episode is about the difference between feeling...

In October 2023, Nehal got a 5-minute phone call that ended 23 years of her professional career at one of Canada's top five banks. 6 months later, her 16-year marriage was over too. This is the story of what she did with the wreckage. For most of her life, Nehal did everything "right", the secure job, the marriage, the family that looked, from the outside, like the one everyone wanted. Then the ca...

For a long time, I believed that success required stripping myself of softness, performing confidence instead of actually having it, and calling that strength. This episode is the one that explains why Season 2 looks the way it does. Why it went inward before it went anywhere else. Because the truth is: before you can lead a room, you have to lead yourself. I explore what nobody tells women about...

⚠️ Content note: This episode discusses addiction, suicide loss, grief, and guilt. If this feels too heavy today, it is okay to come back when you are ready. If you or someone you know is struggling: call or text 988 (Canada & United States). Any time. Any day. This is the episode I did not know if I would ever record.   The real reason behind the long silence between seasons is notthe puppy....

What if the definition of success you have been chasing was never actually yours? In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER, Mika answers the question: What is the one thing you know now that you wish you could go back and tell your younger self? Through a deeply personal letter to her 12-year-old self, Mika reflects on the pressure to achieve, the comparisons many of us grow up hearing, and the way fa...

What if confidence has nothing to do with being the loudest person in the room? In this episode I challenge one of the most common narratives women in male-dominated fields hear — be more assertive, speak up more, take up more space — and offer a completely different framework. Real confidence is not performed. It is built. Through accumulated evidence, kept promises, and the discipline of showing...

Yesterday was Mother's Day. And while everyone was posting tributes and beautiful photos, I found myself wanting to say something different. Something more honest. Because not every mother-daughter relationship fits inside a caption. Not every love story between a mother and her daughter is simple. And not every daughter knows how to say what she actually feels, because what she actually feels is...

In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER , I open up about a birthday gift that brought up something much deeper than it appeared on the surface: a pink hairbrush from my mother. What begins as a personal story about feeling quietly criticized becomes a deeper reflection on the standards we inherit, the ways we measure ourselves, and how those internal expectations can quietly become the way we judge...

In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER , I explore the beliefs we inherit before we are old enough to question them: beliefs about worth, emotion, ambition, rest, and who we are allowed to be. Through personal stories from my childhood and reflections on confidence, validation, and self-knowledge, this episode asks: were these beliefs ever true, or were they simply handed to us? Real confidence is n...

In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER, I’m speaking to the woman who always looks strong on the outside but feels heavy on the inside. The one everyone leans on. The one who keeps going, keeps carrying, keeps holding it all together, often without anyone stopping to ask how she is really doing. This is a deeply personal episode about how strength is often not a personality trait, but an adaptation....

Mentorship is often talked about like it is simple. Find someone inspiring. Ask for guidance. Learn from their wisdom. But real mentorship is rarely that clean. In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER , I talk about what mentorship actually looked like for me during one of the most disorienting transitions of my career: moving into tech sales, learning a completely new industry, asking for help, find...

Many women have asked me how I transitioned from the translation industry into tech sales. But almost no one has asked the deeper question: how did I stay once I got there? In this episode of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER, I talk about the identity disorientation that follows a major transition. The part where the move looks right on paper, but internally, you feel stretched, unfamiliar to yourself, and unsur...

Welcome back to 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER. This episode is my honest return to the podcast and to a version of myself I knew I wasn’t fully done with. I talk about why I stepped away, how my understanding of ambition has changed, and why I wanted to create a space where women can be honest, not just impressive. This is a conversation about the hidden emotional weight behind ambition, the pressure of alway...

I am a changed person. Yes, a dog changed me. I am officially a bona fide dog mom, fur mama, mother of the howlhold. I know you are probably wondering where I’ve been. I am safe. Thank you for your concern. I have just been so preoccupied by raising my pawpect little fur baby.  And to re-introduce the 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER show to you all, this episode is going to be a little different. You guys and g...