1-800-GOAL-DIGGER

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...

For a while, I was talking about my husband so much on the show, so why not share more? No, just kidding, baby likes his privacy. What I want to talk to you about today IS how to communicate better. A task I assigned to him to be better at. Ladies and gentlemen, have your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, your other half, side guy or side chick, whatever you fancy, listen to this episode, and...

I have double standards. When I talked to you guys in episode 14 about Simon Leviev, the Tinder Swindler guy who pretended to be a diamond dealer, a billionaire businessman, conned multiple women he met on Tinder saying his life was at risk from enemies in the diamond trade, I was livid. But that’s until I discovered Anna Sorokin, aka Anna Delvey, the woman behind the Anna Delvey Foundation, ADF....

I dished out my husband in the last episode "A Valentine's Day Special" saying that he asked for gold stars when he does anything around the house, or that he can't read the room or speak my love languages. I was frustrated okay? In episode 15 of 1-800-GOAL-DIGGER "Love Is Finding Myself", I redeem myself by sharing a story of our first trip together to Mexico. While waiting for our fight coming b...

Roses are red. Violets are blue. Valentine’s Day? Teddy bear, chocolate, or 999 roses bouquet? I just had a random thought, what if Tinder or Netflix crashed on Valentine’s Day? Oh and the real holiday is actually February 15, because all the chocolates are 70% off! See time codes and show notes below: [01:26] Minty’s Voicemail [03:01] Advice For Single People [03:20] Single People, Cherish While...

Happy Chinese New Year! If you feel like you didn’t start your new year right, fear not! Because you get a second chance celebrating Chinese New Year aka Lunar New Year because it’s based on the lunar calendar. Damn, us Asians are smart. We get two new years, twice the celebrations, twice the good fortunes and prosperity. See time codes and show notes below: [01:29] Kendra’s Voicemail [02:30] I Tr...

The other day someone asked me “So what do you do for a living? I said, “My best. Tom. I do my best, okay? That’s what I do.” In this episode, I talk about the impact of the typical social media measure, the external validation, the number of listens which has not gone skyrocket so in turn it affected me like the stock market. See time codes and show notes below: [01:15] Feeling Depressed [02:47]...

These past few days, I experienced some sort of outburst due to my childhood trauma that caused emotional damage. Listen, the full moon was in Cancer. We are still reeling from the Mercury going into retrograde last week. And Venus is also in retrograde until Jan 29. So I guess I was overly sensitive. All the bottled up feelings flooded out and I legit cried my eyes out for two days straight. List...

Just when I decided that I am doing Dry January, Tuesday I received an unexpected gift box from a “workplace proximity associate” that contained 6 bottles of vino, a belated year-end thank you gift I suppose. I texted her and said thank you but also as an FYI I am doing Dry January LOL. To which she replied, there is always February. In today's episode, I answer Madison's voicemail about binge dri...

Congratulations, we’ve made it to 2022. Did you have a relaxed holiday break? Did you do anything to self-care? Was there any family drama? Or did you like a little goodie two-shoes reflect on the past year, celebrate the wins, and plan ahead to start a mindful new year? In this episode, I reflect on 2021 by going through my photo album and pick out one thing worth noting for each month. I also qu...