Claim OwnershipThe Badass Leader: Helping High-Achieving Women Lead with Calm, Clarity, and Deep Self-Trust
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© 2026 The Badass Leader: Helping High-Achieving Women Lead with Calm, Clarity, and Deep Self-Trust
Description
Hosted by executive coach and former Fortune 500 leader Coco Duan, this podcast explores what it truly takes to become a badass leader—someone who leads with calm, clarity, courage, and deep self-trust.
Many high-achieving women are already badass.
They just don’t feel like one.
Because the Good Girl conditioning that helped them succeed is still running the show—driving overwork, people-pleasing, perfectionism, and constant pressure to prove.
Through this podcast, Coco helps you unlearn those patterns so you can stop performing and start leading from your real power.
Each episode offers practical tools and insights on topics such as:
• Regulate your nervous system to create internal safety and expand your capacity to handle pressure
• Unlearn Good Girl conditioning (play safe, please, and prove)
• Reclaim your voice, boundaries, and sense of self
• Realign how you lead—so you can show up calm, clear, and deeply self-trusting
With 20+ years of corporate leadership experience and deep personal transformation, Coco has helped women around the world step into the leaders they already are.
A Badass Leader.
Learn more about her 1:1 Badass Leader Program:
https://www.cocoduancoaching.com/vip-coaching
105 Episodes
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Send us Fan Mail Can you create extraordinary success without suffering for it? For most ambitious women, success has always come with pressure, sacrifice, and relentless pushing. We were taught that if we want to achieve something meaningful, we must grind harder, endure more, and prove ourselves constantly. But what if that belief is simply not true? In this episode, I share the powerful story of Olympic figure skater Alysa Liu, the first American woman in 24 years to win Olympic gold in wo...
Send us Fan Mail This episode is a special one — my birthday edition. As I turned 47, I found myself reflecting not just on how I celebrate, but what I’m actually celebrating. For years, my birthdays were about doing something fun — snowboarding, traveling, being in nature. And I still love that. But this year, something deeper shifted. Instead of only celebrating with activities, I chose to celebrate the woman I’ve become. In this episode, I share a simple yet powerful exercise that moved me...
Send us Fan Mail If you’ve achieved a lot in your career but still feel exhausted, pressured, or constantly “on,” this episode is for you. I recorded this on Lunar New Year — the year of the Fire Horse, a symbol of momentum, boldness, and ambition. And it made me reflect on something important: for many years, my success was powered by frantic fire — pressure, over-functioning, and constant striving. Today, my ambition is still alive… but the fire feels different. It’s grounded. Regulat...
Send us Fan Mail We don’t wake up one day and decide to live in survival mode. We adapt. We cope. We push through. We prove. We please. We perform. And one day, we realize we’ve built a life that looks successful on the outside… but feels exhausting, tight, and heavy on the inside. In this deeply personal episode, Coco Duan shares the story behind her new book Unchecking the Boxes—and the five-year journey that took her from living in constant survival mode to building a life on her own terms...
Send us Fan Mail We’re only weeks into a new year, and already so many people are thinking: I can’t do another year like that.” Not because you didn’t try. Not because you don’t want change badly enough. But because the way we’ve been taught to change asks us to start in the wrong place. More goals. More discipline. More willpower. A better planner. A perfect morning routine. It sounds promising—until life happens. Until your nervous system takes over. And suddenly, you’re back in the same pa...
Send us Fan Mail Growth is something we all say we want. More clarity. More confidence. More calm. A different life than the one we’re living now. But growth doesn’t happen because we want it. And it doesn’t happen because we consume more books, podcasts, or tools. In this episode, I share five powerful lessons about growth that emerged from a deeply embodied experience: completing three 10-day silent meditation retreats over four years. This isn’t an episode about meditation techniques — an...
Send us Fan Mail Every January, we start with so much hope. “This year will be different.” “I really want to change.” “I just need to try harder.” And yet… by the end of January, nearly 88% of people have already quit. Only about 8% stick with their resolutions for the whole year. If that’s been your experience too, I want you to hear this first: There is nothing wrong with you. In this episode, I unpack why New Year’s resolutions so often fail—and why it’s not about discipline, m...
Send us Fan Mail When I look back, I realize that for so many years, my loudest voice was my inner critic. No matter how much I achieved, it was never enough. I would replay meetings for hours, beat myself up over small mistakes, and carry shame for days after setbacks. Maybe you can relate. In this episode, I open my heart and share not only my own journey of shifting from self-criticism to self-compassion, but also the exact process I now teach to my clients. Together, we’ll explore how to ...
Send us Fan Mail As we close out the year and step toward 2026, I want to talk about something that quietly holds so many high-achieving women back from real change: investing in themselves in a meaningful way. Not a facial. Not a yoga class. Not another vacation. I’m talking about investing in your emotional well-being, your nervous system, and the deeper inner work that actually changes how you live and lead. In this episode, I share a very personal story. Back in 2017, I was de...
Send us Fan Mail As we approach the end of the year, many high-achieving women find themselves exhausted, overwhelmed, and quietly hoping that next year will be different. Maybe you’re telling yourself: “Things will feel better when work slows down.”“Once the kids are older, I’ll have more time.”“After the promotion, the raise, or the job change, I’ll finally relax.”I hear this all the time—and for years, I told myself the exact same story. In this episode, I share the real cost of waiting. N...
Send us Fan Mail Do you ever feel like life looks successful on the outside—but inside, you’re exhausted, stuck, and quietly wondering, Is this really it? Like you’re running hard, doing everything “right,” yet somehow your life feels out of your control? I know that feeling intimately. I lived it for years. In this episode, I talk about what’s really happening when you feel trapped on the hamster wheel—and why quitting your job or blowing up your life is not the answer (even if it feels tem...
Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Unshakeable Confidence, I’m talking about a pattern so many high-achieving women struggle with—being “too independent.” For years, I was proud of being the strong one who never needed help. But behind the strength, I felt heavy, overwhelmed, and painfully alone. What I didn’t realize was that my independence wasn’t confidence—it was protection. A survival strategy I learned when support didn’t feel safe or available. I share personal stories from my childho...
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I’m opening up about one of the most essential human needs that most of us never learned to name — the need to be truly seen. Not for what we do. Not for what we achieve. Not for how impressive we look on paper. But for who we are at the deepest, most human level. I share the story of the first time in my life I ever felt genuinely seen — not for my accomplishments, but for my emotions, my struggles, and my inner world. It happened five years ago with my ther...
Send us Fan Mail In today’s episode, I sit down with my dear friend and longtime client, Natalie Lee, who is now a Vice President at Louis Vuitton and one of the calmest, most intentional leaders I know. When we first started working together almost three years ago, Natalie was leading Asia Pacific during the pandemic, pregnant, living in Hong Kong without family support, and running on empty. On paper, she was a high-performing executive. Inside, she was overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and...
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I’m inviting you into one of the most important conversations we can have as high-achieving women: how to stop living from the chin up—stuck in our thoughts, analysis, and overthinking—and finally reconnect with the incredible wisdom of our bodies. For years, I lived purely in my mind. I pushed through exhaustion. I made decisions that looked good on paper but felt wrong in my gut. I ignored every signal my body was trying to send me—until burnout, poor decis...
Send us Fan Mail Have you ever received feedback that shook you to your core? In this deeply personal episode, I share one of the biggest emotional breakthroughs I’ve had in years — how I turned a painful moment of shame into powerful growth through somatic parts work. It started with a piece of honest feedback that hit harder than I expected. What followed was a cascade of emotions — shame, disappointment, and sadness — that revealed old survival patterns I didn’t even realize were sti...
Send us Fan Mail After returning from a month in Asia, I spent time reflecting—not just on the trip, but on how reflection itself has shaped my growth. For most of my life, I didn’t reflect—I ruminated. I replayed moments in my head, judged myself harshly, and wondered what was wrong with me. Reflection felt like a waste of time. It wasn’t until I started therapy and coach training that I learned what true reflection is: intentional, productive thinking that integrates our experiences and tra...
Send us Fan Mail I recorded this episode from Lombok, Indonesia — a small island next to Bali — where I’ve been surfing twice a day for two weeks. Between the salt water, the wipeouts, and the stillness of the ocean, I realized something simple but profound: We can’t stop the waves. But we can learn to surf them. In this episode, I share three “real-life waves” I’ve surfed lately — from unexpected home repairs to an injury on my first day at surf camp — and how nervous system regulation and p...
Send us Fan Mail For years, I carried an invisible weight — one that whispered, “What’s wrong with me?” When I froze in meetings, when I couldn’t leave a painful marriage, when I burned out and couldn’t make myself care anymore… I thought I was broken. What I didn’t realize was that what I was experiencing wasn’t weakness — it was shame. And shame is one of the biggest barriers to healing and growth. In this episode, I share how unhealthy shame quietly drives perfectionism, people-pleasing, a...
Send us Fan Mail If you’ve ever woken up after a full night’s sleep and still felt tired… If you’ve ever found yourself saying, “I just can’t do this anymore,” even when everything looks fine from the outside… This episode is for you. In this deeply personal conversation, I share my own journey through burnout — from corporate success to complete exhaustion — and what I’ve learned about what’s really happening beneath the surface. Burnout isn’t a lack of willpower, discipline, or strength. It...
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