The Lesley Hawkins Podcast
Anchored by the question, "What’s one pivotal moment in your life?",
Lesley hosts candid, personal conversations that reveal the turning points that shape who we are.
With her signature empathy, wit, and warmth, Lesley creates space for guests to open up, sparking insights that challenge assumptions, stir reflection, and ignite growth.
Each episode blends honest stories, surprising insights, and moments of laughter, leaving listeners feeling inspired, seen, and more deeply connected to the human experience.
Episodes
44 episodes
Joe Lyons-Rising - Pain Remixed
Our guest experienced a loss that most of us cannot begin to imagine. By ten years old, he had lost both of his parents to suicide.What followed was a childhood spent finding his footing in whatever ways he could. One of those ways was n...
Michael Burgess - Nice It Up with Nerpy’s
For our guest, food is where his story began, working in his uncle's grocery store from an early age. After college, he returned to Jamaica to run his uncle's food manufacturing plant before eventually making his way back to Canada to build a c...
Nina Purewal - When Your Darkest Moments Become Your Greatest Work
She was climbing the corporate ladder, working all hours of the day and night, but one question kept surfacing: Is this all there is?So she did something radical by stepping away from everything, sold her house, left her career,...
Gina Phillips - The Power In The Pause
Our guest built a career she loved, working freelance across entertainment, sports, and news media. Then the pandemic arrived. And like so many in her industry, everything went quiet overnight.So she did what felt natural. She went into ...
Meeta Gandhi - Breaking The Cycle
We tell ourselves it doesn't happen here. Not in our neighbourhood. Not behind those doors. Not to someone like her.But domestic abuse doesn't announce itself. And for our guest, it wasn't just her own story, it was a pattern that had qu...
Aaron Logan - For The Love Of The Game
Hockey was never just a game for our guest. It was in his blood. Growing up, he had one dream: to one day be the voice on Hockey Night in Canada.But life had a different play in mind. He found himself in sales, comfortable but restless, ...
Brie Mathers - Love The Skin You’re In
As a teenager, our guest was a high-performance athlete. Her body was strong, capable, built for competition. Then it started to change and what followed was a battle with an eating disorder that reshaped not just her relationship with her body...
Dori Adams - Taking The Leap
Some people wait for the perfect moment to pursue an idea. Our guest decided that maternity leave was hers. While most people use that time to simply survive the newborn stage, she used it to quietly build a two-sided marketplace gig platform t...
Emily O'Brien - From Prison to Popcorn: The Story Behind Comeback Snacks
Our guest was a business owner. Driven, entrepreneurial, building her own social media company. Then she met a client and what started as a business relationship led to a vacation in the Caribbean. But when she returned to Canada, she was arres...
Rachel Barbaro - Listening to Your Inner Voice
From the outside, our guest was living the life. A beautiful family, a career as an executive in the public sector with upward momentum. She had the kind of résumé that screamed success, prestige, power.But something was off. A persisten...
Stephen Clements - When the Family Business Is More Than Business
His father opened a sports store in Toronto, and from an early age, the family business wasn't just where he worked, but where he grew up.But not everything built with love is easy to sustain. So he walked away, not from the work, but to...
Keeley Simpson - Turning Personal Experience Into Sound Financial Advice for Women
When our guest was in university, her family faced two crises at the same time. Her mother, a business owner, fell seriously ill. And without proper financial planning in place, a health crisis quickly became a financial one too.That exp...
Sonia Houle - A Brutal Diagnosis at 28 Changed Everything
At 28 years old, our guest received a diagnosis that stopped her life in its tracks. Breast cancer. And with it, medically induced menopause that no one her age expects to navigate.So she did what many high-achievers do when life becomes...
Leisse Wilcox - Nothing Will be Enough for You, Until You are Enough for You!
She built her dream life. A beautiful home. Three gorgeous daughters. A marriage that checked all the boxes. But inside, something didn’t fit.There was a quiet whisper she couldn’t ignore. A growing realization that nothing would ever b...
Farhan Lalji - From one hard conversation to a Hall of Fame career
Sometimes the path you’re meant to follow starts in the most unlikely place. For today’s guest, it began on Christmas Day, watching football games on TV while the rest of the world celebrated the holiday. That quiet tradition sparked a love for...
Chris Seney - Never Give Up!
At 37 years old, life was moving exactly as planned. A growing real estate business, his first child on the way, the future was bright.Until the diagnosis. What followed was a year defined by radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, and plenty ...
Evanka Osmak - Grief Changed Me
With a degree in civil engineering, she was set for a future of stability and success, and yet her passion lay elsewhere. So she returned to school to learn the world of sports broadcasting, and has since become a leader in the space, appearing...
Renee Lindo - Unlocking Women's Confidence Through Style
She was successful with a big sales role in the pharmaceutical industry. She had climbed the mountain and enjoyed all the perks that came with it, but something felt off. The view from the top wasn’t what she thought it would be.So she m...
Kevin Collins - My Journey with Easter Seals
From a young age, our guest understood what it meant to be seen through a label. Born with cerebral palsy, he could have allowed the diagnosis to define the boundaries of his life. Instead, he chose something different. At just eigh...
Pam Shainhouse - Learning How To Live Again
There are moments in life that redefine you. And for our guest today, two such moments changed everything about her and her life. Diagnosed with a bone disorder at just five years old, her disability shaped her identity, her persona...
David McPherson - Sobriety Gave Me My Life Back
It started as a few harmless pints in high school, but for our guest today, one early habit slowly became part of his identity. It shaped how he showed up, how he coped. Until one mistake changed his course. A moment that forced him...
Kate Stewart - From side project to meaningful impact
Some pivotal moments only reveal themselves in hindsight.For our guest today, what once felt like a career sidebar slowly revealed itself as something much bigger, a calling rooted in service, impact, and meaning.It began with tea...
Lindsay Knowlton - Leaning into fear and discomfort
For our guest today, two pivotal moments reshaped everything, one professional, one deeply personal, and both were sparked by the same choice: to lean into fear and discomfort and say “yes” to opportunity. The first began in ...
Dr Amanda Tobe - When Passion Becomes The Compass
Maternity leave created a pause; a moment to reassess, to ask a hard question “what do I actually want my life to feel like at the end of the day?”What started as a passion project, just five hours a week, became a process of ca...
Carli Yim - "You Can’t Pour From an Empty Cup"
For a long time, our guest’s identity was tied to one thing: performance in sport.Then a shoulder injury changed everything. What followed wasn’t just physical pain, but the mental and emotional toll of losing the role that defined who s...