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The Badass Leader: Helping High-Achieving Women Lead with Calm, Clarity, and Deep Self-Trust
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
Episodes
106 episodes
78: From Good Girl to Badass: The Identity Shift That Changed Everything
In this episode, I’m sharing something deeply personal—and honestly, a little vulnerable.I’m officially renaming this podcast from Unshakeable Confidence to The Badass Leader. And this isn’t just a rebrand. It’s an iden...
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Episode 78
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35:52
77: Success Without Suffering: 5 Lessons from Alysa Liu’s Olympic Gold
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 m...
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Episode 77
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21:10
76: How to Celebrate Yourself: My 47th Birthday Reflection
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,...
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Episode 76
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17:21
75: Why Success Feels So Hard (And How to Change It)
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...
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Episode 75
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38:31
74: Unchecking the Boxes: From Survival Mode to Living on My Own Terms
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… bu...
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Episode 74
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29:39
73: How Not to Repeat 2025. Three Internal Shifts for a Different 2026
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 t...
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Episode 73
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1:03:02
72: 5 Lessons About Growth From Three 10-Day Silent Meditation Retreats
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 c...
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Episode 72
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38:26
71: Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work. What works instead?
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 ...
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Episode 71
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17:41
70: MVP: Stop Beating Yourself Up: 3 Steps to Quiet Your Inner Critic and Build Calm Confidence
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 ...
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Episode 70
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58:51
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69: The Hidden Reasons Investing in Yourself Feels So Hard—and It’s Not About Money
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....
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Episode 69
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28:39
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68: The cost of Waiting: why things don’t change until you do
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 wo...
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Episode 68
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28:40
67: Stuck on the Hamster Wheel? The Real Way Out Isn’t Quitting
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 c...
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Episode 67
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34:36
66: 5 Signs Your “Independence” As A High-Achieving Woman Is Actually Holding You Back
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 th...
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Episode 66
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41:02
65: The Need to Be Seen: How Being Truly Seen Builds Calm Confidence
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 fo...
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Episode 65
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1:00:05
64: From Burned-Out Executive to Calm, Confident Leader — with Natalie Lee
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 togethe...
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Episode 64
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32:06
63: Stop Living From the Chin Up: How to Break Overthinking and Reconnect With Your Body
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 in...
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Episode 63
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47:57
62: How to Turn Shame Into Growth: A Real-Life Somatic Parts Healing Breakthrough
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 so...
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Episode 62
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36:28
61: The Power of Reflection: How to Turn Experience Into Real Growth
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 mysel...
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Episode 61
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35:42
60: You Can’t Stop the Waves—But You Can Learn to Surf Them: How to Stay Calm in Chaos
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:
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Episode 60
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37:09
59: Stop Asking “What’s Wrong with Me”: Understanding Healthy vs. Unhealthy Shame
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 b...
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Episode 59
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28:40
58: Burnout Isn’t a Personal Failure: The Real Reason You’re Always Exhausted
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.
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Episode 58
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59:05
57: From Overthinking to Calm: Inside My Coaching Process
In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain to share what it’s really like to work with me inside my coaching process. For years, I’ve been talking about Calm Confidence, but I realized I’ve never actually walked you through the exact framewo...
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Episode 57
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58:21
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56: Are You Settling? How to Stop Betraying Your Truth and Start Living in Alignment
For years, I didn’t even realize I was settling. On the outside, my life looked picture-perfect: senior leader in a Fortune 500 company, making more money than I ever imagined, married, traveling the world, and living by the beach....
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Episode 56
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55:19
55: Stop Beating Yourself Up: 3 Steps to Quiet Your Inner Critic and Build Calm Confidence
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 ...
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Episode 55
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55:31
54: Why Joy Is the Secret to Resilience, Confidence, and a Calmer Mind
When was the last time you felt pure joy—not achievement, not relief, but that spark of aliveness that lights you up from the inside?In this episode, I share how rediscovering joy became a turning point in my own journey. At one of the l...
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Episode 54
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34:01
