Girls Get Real

"Don't ask for permission, just beg for forgiveness." In this episode, we chat with the incredible Lily Wu on her attitudes towards entrepreneurship, creativity, and beyond. Lily is currently Startup Partner Lead at Stripe, 2x 7-figure entrepreneur, and is a co-founder of NFT project Wow Pixies. We learn how growing up with artist parents shaped her attitude towards risk and creativity, how she found jobs and projects that help her live her dream life, and her newfound passion for the dynamic new world of NFTs.

It's been a couple of months since we ended Season 1 on an incredible note, we're finally back - feeling recharged and ready for the next leg of this adventure. We're no experts, and are so excited to be beginning a season with inspiring, authentic, and fun guests! 

We share our reflections on how the lessons from Season 1 has guided us through the last year and discuss life updates that set the stage for Season 2. We started Season 1 in a time of massive change, Robin was going through a break up and starting a new job, while Roslyn was entering a new relationship and finding closure in her previous one. One year on, both of us have found ourselves going through even bigger and better transitions yet again. 

Season 2 will mirror the challenges we face in our lives at that very moment. We can't wait for you to join us in this journey of self development and discovery!  

This is one of our most intimate conversations to date. In our chat with Kanchana Gupta, we cover all grounds from deeply personal musings on meaning and mortality, to the practicalities of career change.

We talk:

• Discovering your core values
• Unlearning your upbringing
• The importance of mentorship 
• Using serendipity and intuition as guides
• How spirituality can help us cope with life's setbacks

Kanchana is a corporate consultant turned visual artist who has exhibited her artworks in 3 solo and many group exhibitions. She is a mother to 2 children, spiritual seeker, an avid hiker and reader and also the founder of an upcoming platform that helps women find right mentors outside their organization. Kanchana has traversed and continues to manage multiple paths and careers. 

As a former TV producer who left Singapore to journey across South America, Malika Avani is no stranger to adventure and taking big risks. We were immediately drawn to her stories of self-exploration, self-discovery, and healing across South America. From hitchhiking to the Amazon across no man's land to discovering ancient healing modalities, Malika has found her authentic purpose as a nomad and wellness facilitator. She shares her reflections on identity, community, and understanding yourself. 

Malika is currently a facilitator of authentic and vulnerable safe spaces of expression through drumming, singing, voice works grounded in earth-based circular ritualistic living. She is the founder of The Healing Drum, a vehicle to impart knowledge and wisdom through cyclic womb-based living centred around the indigenous soul, ancestry, heritage and the self. Malika is currently based in the ancient Mayan city of Valladolid, Yucatan, Mexico.

We're all in the same boat — languishing. When you don't feel that sad, but that happy either. We both felt low energy for a bit and couldn't figure out. We're learning how to be ok with being, to be ok with not being great all the time. We are slowly gaining our energy back after what has been a stressful period for the two of us. We talk about listening to your mind + heart, feeling your feelings, and how we cope with uncertainty in uncertain times. We want to start a conversation on coping with languishing, how to sit with these feelings. And most importantly, show that you're not alone.

Deepika Mulchandani is a registered counsellor and psychotherapist based in Singapore and Bali. Deepika helps clients work through their distress by drawing a combination of perspectives and techniques from research-based modality including Family & Systems Therapy, Attachment theory, Mindfulness and Yoga-based principles. We uncover some of the signs of a strong, resilient relationships: emotional awareness, recovering from conflict constructively, and cultivating a safe space. We discuss how parental influences and upbringing informs our partner choice and our "protective behaviours" in the face of stressful situations. For the women who don't fit the mould of femininity, Deepika stresses how important it is for us to reclaim our own values and define what it means to be a woman.

What is Toxic Masculinity, what does Healthy Masculinity look like? We all know the trope — men are taught to 'man up', be confident, and avoid expressing their feelings. In this intimate episode, Edric Subur, shares how toxic masculinity hurts men too. We take a deep dive into his tumultuous growth journey of unlearning deep societal conditioning to reach a healthier masculinity. He sends the liberating message: yes, you can be masculine while embracing vulnerability, weakness, and feelings. He shares how Tony Robbins, burning man, and men's circles helped him in this journey. We uncover the power of community, support, and safe spaces in getting to your most healthy sense of self. Formerly at Twitter and Google, Edric is now the founder of Warmspace.io, a social platform that engineers serendipity for deep emotional connections.

Matchmaking, but with a modern take? Our episodes on conscious breakups were so popular, so we knew we had to put out another episode on dating — especially with Robin back in the dating game! We chat with the founders of Not.A.Dating.App (NADA), an innovative solution for people who are tired of dating apps. We discuss what's wrong with dating in Singapore, the NADA approach vs popular, algorithmically-fuelled dating apps, the dating pool in Singapore, and our worse date stories (buckle up!) We share our dream list of things to normalize in dating, along with what's ok and what's not. If you're frustrated by dating culture or simply seeking ideas for better dates, this is the episode for you!

What does it mean to hold space for others? How do we have healthy routines while protecting our emotional and mental health? We look to artist Charmaine Poh to share her unique learnings. In her work, she tackles challenging issues such as body image, gender and sexuality, and marginalized communities. We have a soul-nourishing discussion about empathy, cultivating a healthy internal life, and coping with criticism. 

As a multi-disciplinary artist, Charmaine works across photography, film, and performance to create spaces for narratives that are often unseen and unheard. She has been published in The New York Times, CNN Style, and in 2019, was recognised as one of Forbes Asia 30 under 30.

2020 has been a year of unparalleled inner work. In this episode, Robin and Roslyn discuss the pros and cons of intention vs goal setting, and planning for a 2021 of happiness and contentment. We share the values sorting task, reflection prompts, and our intention setting approach. 

After an amazing friendsgiving weekend, we felt inspired to share our approach to finding your people, wherever you are. We never expected to meet so many new, amazing, authentic people this year. We share our approach and reflections on meeting new people and cultivating friendships. We dive into where to spend your energy, vulnerability, pursuing depth, empathy, celebrating people around us, resolving conflict, our wishlist of things to normalize. We go deep on some recent experiences which have shaped our views on healthy friendships.

We chat with Dr. Tetiana Kodliuk, a data science leader who has been recognized as Top 100 Women in Tech in Singapore as the Chief Science Officer of AI Data Security company Dathena. She does this all while raising a beautiful six year old daughter. Learn how she manages to stay healthy and happy, growth tools she uses, and how she crafts her own definition of success.

What makes sleep healthy? We chat with Dr. Carol Yuan-Duclair, a sleep physician with 10+ years of experience, to address all your questions about sleep. Learn how to develop a good sleep practice and healthy sleep mindset so that you can win at life. We talk sleep analytics, best waking times, melatonin, and debunk common sleep myths.

We chat with Jamie, the founder of The Kind Friend, a wellness company that aims to help people live a more mindful life through uplifting content, mindfulness journals and a like-minded community. Prior to this, she was an educator and then the regional partnerships lead at Carousell. Jamie has been a life-long journaler and advocate of journaling for mental health, having gone through depression and failure. We explore how journaling can help in stress, anxiety and chaos in times like these, covering various exercises and techniques that are effective.

In episode 2 of the Girls Get Real Show, we discuss both Roslyn and Robin's first hand accounts of the healing journey and tools that helped. We get real with feeling tough feelings, setting boundaries, and digging deeper on unhealthy behaviors and attachment styles. We explore rediscovering and focusing on yourself, while having a healthy relationship with your ex.

Discover the story of Robin Lim and Roslyn Teng - from childhood friends to business partners and now, podcasts hosts. Learn why we saw a massive need for a personal growth-focused podcast for womxn in Asia. We then dive deep into a highly requested topic - breakups. We go through Roslyn's lessons in her 2019 pre-breakup experience, how it happened, and how she managed it consciously and with courage. We discuss Robin's current experience going through a breakup, and explore the challenges of a present day covid-breakup.