The Honest Place

In this episode of  The Honest Place , I speak with  Anna Kalbasko  about why wanting more can feel so emotionally loaded for women. Anna is a therapist, coach, and founder whose work explores self-trust, inner work, and the role of trust in how we relate to ourselves and others. Together, we talk about: why ambition can come with guilt and shame visibility, impact, and money the fear of being too...

What happens when achievement has become the thing that holds you together — and then one day, that strategy no longer works? In this episode of The Honest Place, I speak with Olga Nikitina — startup co-founder, entrepreneur, immigrant, mother, and host of her own podcast about depression, insomnia, burnout, and rebuilding. Olga and I first met as founders in Silicon Valley, where so many conversa...

In this episode, I reflect on why being a beginner can feel so vulnerable — and why we so often rush toward expertise, credibility, and legitimacy before giving ourselves permission to begin. I speak about: moving to the UK and finding my first job in a completely new country starting a period care company in the US without industry knowledge building in women’s health without a clinical backgroun...

In this episode, I reflect on the difference between  belonging  and  fitting in  — and on how much of our lives can be shaped by trying to be accepted, rather than feeling truly at home as ourselves. I speak about: growing up in Siberia, where fitting in and not standing out felt like the safest way to move through life immigration and how moving to a new country changed my understanding of what...

In this episode, I reflect on a difficult but important question: Why are we so afraid of failure? I speak about shame, identity, self-worth, visibility, and why failure can feel so much bigger than the outcome itself. In this conversation, I share: why the people around us can sometimes be even more uncomfortable with our failures than we are what I learned from starting and closing companies and...

In this episode, I reflect on motherhood through a question that feels so real to me: Motherhood: losing yourself or finding yourself? I speak about becoming a mother as an immigrant, hoping motherhood would bring belonging, the very different experiences I had with my two children, and the ways motherhood can both take parts of us away and reveal parts of us we might not have found otherwise. I a...

This is an edited recording of a live Honest Place conversation. In this episode, I reflect on boundaries and on a question that has been very alive for me lately: Are boundaries rejection, or are they an act of kindness? I speak about overfunctioning, belonging, resentment, family patterns, and the ways many of us learn to confuse endless availability with care. I also reflect on Brené Brown’s li...

This is the first conversation from The Honest Place, a reflective space for honest conversations about self-worth, identity, leadership, ambition, parenting and the inner questions we often carry without saying out loud. In this episode, I reflect on the question: why do we never feel enough? I speak about self-worth, internal pressure, impossible standards and read a few lines from Brené Brown’s...