This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil

We talk a lot about dreaming bigger — but not nearly enough about what it actually costs to play it safe. Fear of failure keeps brilliant ideas stuck in our heads, careers stalled, and confidence quietly eroding.

In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil is joined by Lorraine H. Marchand, innovation expert, Wharton professor, and author of No Fear, No Failure. Together, they unpack why failure isn’t the enemy — avoidance is. From reframing fear as data, to designing smarter experiments, to creating cultures (and inner narratives) where learning beats perfection, this conversation is a permission slip to try, fail, learn… and keep going.

If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by getting it wrong, worried about failing publicly, or trapped by environments that say they want innovation but punish mistakes — this episode is for you.

Why fear of failure shuts down growth faster than actual failure ever could

How to reframe failure as learning (and why that changes everything)

Why women are more likely to internalize failure — and how to stop

How to test ideas without burning it all down

What “failing forward” looks like in real life (not just on LinkedIn)

How to stop being afraid of other people seeing you try

Because growth doesn’t happen without risk — and playing it safe has a cost.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Shopify has everything all in one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tiww 

Connect with Lorraine:

Website: https://www.lorrainemarchand.com/ 

Book: https://www.lorrainemarchand.com/no-fear-no-failure/ 

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorrainemarchand 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever read something that felt like it was pulled straight from your own brain? That was me reading Nora McInerney’s Substack about what she calls restless life syndrome — the persistent, low-grade feeling that you’re meant to be living at least 14 different lives… and somehow squeezing them all into this one.

So naturally, I diagnosed myself. 

In this unfiltered and unhinged episode of This Is Woman’s Work, I’m sharing my own wildly impractical, slightly delusional, deeply human “restless life” list.

This isn’t a five-step plan. It’s a permission slip.

Because maybe your 12 open tabs, your urge to burn it all down, and your conviction that fulfillment is one hobby away aren’t signs that you’re broken. Maybe they’re signs that you’re awake.

If you’ve been craving reinvention, dreaming of multiple lives, or quietly wondering what else is possible beyond productivity and responsibility, this episode on restless life syndrome will hit home — and maybe light a tiny, rebellious fire.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Shopify has everything all in one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tiww 

Connect with Nicole:

Subscribe to Nicole’s Substack: https://nicolekalil.substack.com/ 

Join the Inner Circle: https://nicolekalil.myflodesk.com/newsletter 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What if being a “good woman” isn’t actually virtuous — but conditioned? In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil sits down with Elise Loehnen, New York Times bestselling author of On Our Best Behavior: The Price Women Pay to Be Good, to dismantle the centuries-old rules that still dictate how women are expected to behave, desire, rest, earn, and lead.

Together, they unpack how the seven deadly sins — yes, those — quietly shape modern women’s lives, ambitions, bodies, money stories, and relationships. Pride, envy, greed, sloth, lust… turns out they’ve been weaponized against women for generations, rewarding self-sacrifice and punishing visibility, appetite, and power.

This conversation goes deep — into patriarchy, good-girl conditioning, reputational harm, money shame, envy as information, and why women are often both the enforcers and the casualties of these ancient rules. If you’ve ever felt exhausted by trying to be good, likable, selfless, and low-maintenance all at once… this episode is your permission slip to stop.

Because goodness that costs you yourself isn’t goodness. It’s conditioning.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Shopify has everything all in one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tiww 

Connect with Elise:

Substack: eliseloehnen.substack.com 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/eliseloehnen/ 

Book: https://www.eliseloehnen.com/onourbestbehavior 

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pulling-the-thread-with-elise-loehnen/id1585015034  

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve been taught to avoid it — to hide it, shame it, or outwork it. But what if failure isn’t the thing that destroys confidence… what if it’s the thing that builds it?

In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil sits down with Jane Chen, co-founder of Embrace Global and author of Like a Wave, We Break, to talk about what happens when success collapses — and why that moment might be the most honest, transformative chapter of your life.

Jane shares the raw story of losing the company she poured a decade into, how her identity unraveled alongside it, and the healing journey that followed — from redefining resilience and self-worth to learning how to listen to her body, sit with discomfort, and rebuild from a place of authenticity instead of achievement.

This conversation dives deep into:

Why failure is a confidence builder, not a confidence killer

How achievement can become a trauma response

Separating your worth from your results, titles, and accolades

Knowing when to keep pushing — and when it’s time to stop

The role of self-compassion, community, and psychological safety in leadership

Why breaking isn’t the end… it’s often the beginning

Because confidence isn’t built by never falling apart. It’s built by trusting yourself to rise again.

This episode is a powerful reminder that failure, fear, and doubt aren’t detours — they’re part of the path. When we stop chasing perfection and start honoring what’s real, we build the kind of confidence that actually lasts.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Shopify has everything all in one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at shopify.com/tiww

Connect with Jane

Website: https://www.janemariechen.com

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Like-Wave-We-Break-Falling/dp/0593582349

IG: https://www.instagram.com/janemarie.chen/?hl=en 

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janemariechen/

FB: www.facebook.com/janemariechen 

Tiktok: @janemariechen

TEDtalk: https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_marie_chen_what_losing_everything_taught_me_about_resilience

Related Podcast Episodes:

Share the Love:

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve ever wondered “Do I actually matter?” — not in a motivational-poster way, but in the deep, existential, 3am-staring-at-the-ceiling way — this episode is for you.

In this powerful conversation, Nicole Kalil sits down with Rebecca Neuberger Goldstein, award-winning philosopher and author of The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us, to unpack one of the most fundamental human needs: the need to matter.

Together, they explore why mattering may be even more essential than happiness, how our desire to matter shapes our lives, relationships, and conflicts, and why the pressure to prove our worth often leads to comparison, competition, and division. Rebecca introduces the concept of “mattering projects” — the deeply personal ways we justify our lives to ourselves — and why there is no single “right” way to matter.

This episode challenges the idea that mattering is loud, performative, or scarce, and reframes it as an inside-out experience rooted in integrity, connection, and self-justification — not productivity, perfection, or approval.

💥 What we cover:

Why the need to matter may be more fundamental than the need to be happy

The difference between fleeting happiness and long-term flourishing

What a “mattering project” is — and how to recognize yours

Why comparison and competition distort our sense of worth

How mattering becomes dangerous when treated as a zero-sum game

Why the person you most need to matter to… is you

How women have been taught to confuse usefulness with worth

The ethical guardrail: you matter and so does everyone else

Mattering isn’t about being extraordinary, productive, or universally admired — it’s about living in alignment with what you can justify to yourself. You matter not because you prove it, but because you’re here, shaping lives through how you live, lead, and relate.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Connect with Rebecca

Website: https://rebeccagoldstein.com/ 

Book: https://rebeccagoldstein.com/the-mattering-instinct/ 

Substack: https://rebeccanewbergergoldstein.substack.com/ 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, we were sold a lie: get good grades, be smart, keep climbing—and success will magically follow. But in a world of nonstop disruption, AI, political chaos, and careers that don’t come with ladders anymore, IQ and EQ alone aren’t cutting it.

In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil sits down with Liz Tran, executive coach, former venture capitalist, and author of AQ: A New Kind of Intelligence for a World That’s Always Changing, to unpack the intelligence that actually determines who thrives when everything keeps shifting: AQ (Agility Quotient).

AQ isn’t about being perfect, flexible to the point of burnout, or endlessly accommodating. It’s about how well you adapt to change, uncertainty, and the unknown—without losing yourself in the process. Liz breaks down the four AQ archetypes (Firefighter, Novelist, Astronaut, Neurosurgeon), how proactive vs. reactive change impacts your life and career, and why adaptability is no longer optional—it’s survival.

This conversation will change how you think about intelligence, leadership, confidence, and what it really takes to succeed when the rules keep changing mid-game.

Bottom line: Intelligence isn’t just what you know—it’s how you respond when what you know stops working.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Connect with Liz

Website: https://liz-tran.com/  

Book: https://liz-tran.com/#aq 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/liztranwrites/

Quiz: https://liz-tran.com/#quiz

LI: linkedin.com/in/liztran1 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The health and wellness industry loves to tell women they’re broken — and then sell them the fix. In this unfiltered and slightly unhinged solo episode, Nicole Kalil calls out wellness culture for what it too often is: rebranded diet culture, influencer-led misinformation, and shame dressed up as self-care.

From green juice guilt to inflammation fear-mongering to TikTok experts blaming women for their own illnesses, Nicole takes aim at an industry that claims to prioritize longevity and quality of life — while obsessing over looking younger, smaller, and more “acceptable.” She shares her own expensive experiments with wellness trends, what actually helped, what didn’t, and why one-size-fits-all solutions are a massive red flag.

This episode is a permission slip to trust your body, question the algorithm, and stop outsourcing your health decisions to people with discount codes and zero accountability. Because real wellness isn’t about perfection — it’s about agency, discernment, and self-trust.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Connect with Nicole:

Subscribe to Nicole’s Substack: https://nicolekalil.substack.com/ 

Join the Inner Circle: https://nicolekalil.myflodesk.com/newsletter 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If meetings are draining your energy, killing momentum, and stealing your calendar — you’re not imagining it. They’re broken. And they’re costing us trillions.

In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole is joined by Dr. Rebecca Hinds, organizational behavior expert, Stanford PhD, and author of Your Best Meeting Ever, to expose why meetings are one of the most expensive, overlooked products inside any organization — and how to fix them.

We get into:

Why bad meetings are literally an old-school sabotage tactic (thanks, WWII)

The real cost of ineffective meetings — and who pays the highest price

The 4D CEO Test for deciding if a meeting should exist at all

Why status updates don’t belong in meetings (ever)

The science behind why meetings over 8 people stop working

How to measure meetings by return on time invested

Why you don’t need fewer meetings — you need better ones

And how to influence meetings even when you’re not the one in charge

This conversation is part wake-up call, part permission slip, and part playbook for anyone done pretending “this is just how work works.”

Meetings aren’t neutral. They shape culture, power, and whose work gets seen — so if your meetings are broken, your organization is too. The good news? You don’t need more authority to change them — just more intention.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Connect with Rebecca

Website: https://www.rebeccahinds.com/ 

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-hinds/ 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Talking about sex shouldn’t feel like a performance review you didn’t prepare for — and yet, for so many women, it does. In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil gets publicly uncomfortable (on purpose) to talk about what we’re really craving when it comes to sex — not hotter, not louder, not more performative… but healthier.

Joined by internationally renowned human sexuality professor and author Dr. Nicole McNichols, this conversation cuts through cultural noise, outdated scripts, and unrealistic expectations around women’s desire. Together, they unpack why exhaustion, mental overload, hormonal shifts, and decades of conditioning disconnect women from their bodies — and how to rebuild a sex life rooted in honesty, agency, and pleasure.

This episode isn’t about doing more or trying harder. It’s about unlearning shame, understanding your body, honoring your evolving needs, and creating a roadmap for sex that works for you — at every stage of life.

Why “hotter sex” is the wrong goal — and what healthier sex actually looks like

The mental load, exhaustion, and emotional labor killing desire (and what to do about it)

Dr. McNichols’ Hierarchy of Sexual Needs and why pleasure starts internally

Getting out of your head and back into your body (hello, sexual mindfulness)

Mismatched libidos, desire discrepancies, and how to stop making them mean something’s wrong

When curiosity, communication, and consent unlock deeper connection

Healthy sex isn’t about performance, frequency, or checking boxes — it’s about presence, permission, and pleasure that evolves with you. When women reclaim agency over their bodies and desires, connection deepens, shame loosens its grip, and intimacy becomes something we get to experience — not something we’re expected to perform.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/bg2602-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Connect with Dr. Nicole McNichols:

Book: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/You-Could-Be-Having-Better-Sex/Nicole-McNichols/9781668053775 

IG: https://www.instagram.com/nicole_thesexprofessor/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nicole_thesexprofessor

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you’ve ever turned a simple request into a full-blown production — congratulations, you’re one of us. In this short, unfiltered episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil shares a painfully relatable story involving kindergarten, lasagna, glitter, and a catastrophic failure to ask a clarifying question.

This episode is a reminder (and a loving call-out) for all the women who default to over-functioning, over-planning, and over-complicating things that were never meant to be that deep. Sometimes the bravest, smartest move isn’t doing more — it’s asking the damn question.

Because clarity beats chaos. And noodles in a box beat four trays of lasagna.

If you’re spiraling over something that feels way harder than it should be, this episode will hit you right in the overachiever feels. A funny, human reminder that better communication — and one simple question — can save you a whole lot of unnecessary stress.

Thank you to our sponsors!

Sex is a skill. Beducated is where you learn it. Visit https://beducate.me/pd2550-womanswork and use code womanswork for 50% off the annual pass.

Connect with Nicole:

Subscribe to Nicole’s Substack: https://nicolekalil.substack.com/ 

Join the Inner Circle: https://nicolekalil.myflodesk.com/newsletter 

If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform!

🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices