Before We Get There is a podcast about resilience, pivots, and the unfinished paths we all walk. Host Nicholas Braman sits down with creatives, athletes, chefs, entrepreneurs, and others from Singapore and across Asia to surface the moments that reshape them, what stops working, what becomes clearer, and what keeps them moving forward before anything feels settled. New episodes every other Thursday. Learn more at https://nicholasbraman.com/podcast.
In this episode of Before We Get There, host Nicholas Braman interviews Pashmina Binwani, the Malaysian creator and writer behind The Gone Goat. She didn’t learn to cycle or hike until her late 20s. Then she quit her corporate job with 10,000 ringgit in the bank and spent three months alone in the Himalayas.
Almost 10 years later, she’s traveled overland from Iran to Europe, cycled Kyrgyzstan for 45 days and built a career on stories from the places most people pass through. They talk about being called brave when it doesn’t feel that way to her, doing work people still treat as a hobby, and what happens when every mountain starts to look the same. Between trips, she goes home to be bored for a few months. Lately, she’s started picturing a future with less travel in it.
Pashmina's links:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegonegoat/
Blog: https://www.thegonegoat.com/ Podcast links:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2h9gsrWKH9C1KY1OzR12kr?si=2a4d19970632465f Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-we-get-there/id1775182252 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beforewegettherepodcast/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nicholasbraman Website: https://nicholasbraman.com/podcast
00:00 Quitting Predictability03:37 Leaving Corporate Behind06:49 Blogging Becomes Work08:48 Why Brave Feels Wrong12:34 Reset Buttons and Burnout19:12 Authenticity Over Algorithm24:05 Identity and Representation29:36 Status Money and Freedom34:05 Less Travel Next Chapter40:50 Planning the Next Leap44:09 Where to Follow
1 Oct 2026
52. Lines Of Tropical Sensibility with Ng Yi-Sheng
In this episode of Before We Get There, host Nicholas Braman interviews Ng Yi-Sheng, a poet, playwright, novelist and activist who has spent three decades writing the parts of Singapore that official stories leave out.
He grew up loving fantasy and science fiction at a time when Singapore's literary scene looked down on both. It took a novel from Colombia, read during national service, to show him that his dad's kampung stories counted as literature. Since then he's written about pre-colonial kingdoms, queer Singaporeans and ghosts, and he's learned what it means to end up on a gray list instead of a blacklist.
We talk about why he never settled on one form, what it was like to publish SQ21, why he came home from New York, what he thinks makes Singapore Singapore, and why his newest readers are kids.
Before We Get There is a podcast about the moments that shape us, the ones we plan for and the ones we don't. New episodes every other Thursday.
Yi-Sheng's links:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yishkabob/
Website: https://www.ngyisheng.com/ Podcast links:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2h9gsrWKH9C1KY1OzR12kr?si=2a4d19970632465f Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-we-get-there/id1775182252 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beforewegettherepodcast/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nicholasbraman Website: https://nicholasbraman.com/podcast
00:00 Poetry In Prose
04:26 Finishing Utama
06:05 Genre And Respectability
08:46 Oral Tales And Colonial Lens
12:07 SQ21 Coming Out Stories
17:23 Queerness In Fiction
22:45 Censorship And Gray Lists
28:39 Activism And 377A Aftermath
32:50 Why Stay In Singapore
36:13 What Makes Singapore
43:41 Where To Follow Yi-Sheng
17 Sept 2026
51. What Is This Behavior with Lav Chloe
In this episode of Before We Get There, host Nicholas Braman interviews Lav Chloe, a Malaysian content creator known for her accents and impressions.
She went viral in December last year from a one-take video she made for her friends and meant to delete. It passed a million views, then kept climbing, and it became her whole career.
They talk about the line she walks doing accents without mocking anyone, and why she so often ends up defending people in her own comments. She makes the case that Malaysian humor comes from something heavier, generations of hardship turned into a way of laughing at pain. They also get into being wired differently and diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, why she resists being called an influencer, and where she wants to take all of this next.
Lav's links:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorude_/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sorude_ Podcast links:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2h9gsrWKH9C1KY1OzR12kr?si=2a4d19970632465f Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/before-we-get-there/id1775182252 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beforewegettherepodcast/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nicholasbraman Website: https://nicholasbraman.com/podcast
00:00 Podcast and Lav intro04:20 Respectful Impressions06:25 Handling Haters10:07 Privacy And Boundaries16:10 ADHD Diagnosis Journey21:58 Culture And Awareness26:08 Neurodivergence As Magic28:11 Malaysian Humor Roots36:49 Authenticity Over Performance43:15 Five Year Definition Of Success44:21 Where To Find Lav
Who has been a guest on Before We Get There
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Marion Muller
Shanice Stanislaus
Neonomora
Cassandra Ong
Aisyah Rafaee
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
44,702
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Spotify
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 53 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
44
Social presence
90
YouTube
76
Engagement
32
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