Wholehearted Podcast

About Wholehearted Podcast

The WholeHearted Podcast is for the pragmatic dreamers, the responsible romantics and anyone who’s sick and tired of once being told “you’re too intense”, “you’re too much”, “you’re too ___ (anything).” If you’ve ever felt judged and rejected that you doubted yourself, dimmed your light so others won’t feel insecure. Or you’ve suppressed your dreams, numbed your passions or buried your talents. This Podcast is for you! Listen as Curious Traveller, Empath, and Storytelling Coach, Coen Tan speaks with amazing people who share their life stories filled with profound lessons. Get ready to open your heart to be inspired, uplifted and freed to live your life with passion and vigour and courage!

Publisher

Coen Tan

Category

education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

18 Aug 2022

Latest episode

28 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

51 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Aug 2026

   Why "Pick Your Lane" Might Be Bad Career Advice in the Age of AI with Ong Whee Teck

   Why This Conversation Matters You've probably been told to pick a lane and stick to it. This conversation makes the case that in the age of AI, that advice might be exactly what's holding you back. Ong Whee Teck spent his career in the corner offices of Accenture and Ernst & Young, and now consults for Kyndryl across ASEAN and Korea. But he's also written 11 books, taught himself to sketch by reading 150 books, composes his own songs, and built a five part framework for learning literally anything faster. In this episode, he unpacks why he refused to "specialize" even when every professional speaker he knew told him to, why story might be the most important skill of the AI era, and why the thing separating people who do a lot from people who don't isn't time. It's energy. What You'll Learn A five-part learning framework built from decades of self teaching — which means you can pick up almost any new skill faster once you know which part of the system you're actually missing. The one "technology" behind every world religion, every founding myth, and your own DNA — which means learning to tell a good story might be the highest-leverage skill you can build right now. Why being told to "pick your lane" could be the worst career advice going around — which means the specialists getting replaced by AI first may be the ones who followed it too well. A simple two-color calendar exercise for figuring out what actually fuels you — which means you stop mistaking a packed schedule for the real reason you're always running on empty. Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro 00:30 Wholehearted Meaning 01:14 Purposeful Happiness 03:23 Finding Your North Star 05:34 Obstacles to Wholehearted Living 07:45 Corporate Shift and AI 12:02 Money Time and Inequality 15:33 AI Transition and Key Skills 18:44 Calm Leadership Under Pressure 22:43 Systems Thinking and Craft 27:28 Storytelling as Technology 31:55 Identity Grit and Purpose 34:12 Be So Good They Cant Ignore You 35:50 Engineer Artist and Books 36:17 Writing Before ChatGPT 38:03 Orchestration As Skill 40:26 Books And Travelogues 42:13 Five M Learning Model 44:35 Learning Styles And Myelin 50:56 Polymath Versus Specialist 56:02 Operating Principles Shortcut 58:37 Deep End Learning Stories 01:00:26 Branding In AI Era 01:03:47 Energy Not Time 01:06:07 Quickfire And Farewell Connect with Whee Teck Ong Whee Teck is a former senior partner at Accenture and Ernst & Young, and currently consulting partner at Kyndryl for ASEAN and Korea. He's the author of 11 books, including The Job Apocalypse and The Story Essence DNA. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wheeteck/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/wheeteck/) Instagram: @wheeteck Subscribe now and share this episode with someone who needs to hear.

2. 

   10 Jul 2026

   Melissa Indot on Power, Identity, and Why Safety Lives in the Body

   Why This Conversation Matters Most of us think safety is something we find: the right city, the right job, the right relationship. Melissa Indot spent the first half of her life testing that theory. Born in Malaysia, raised partly in the UK because of her father's job with Shell, then shipped off to boarding school at a young age, she built an entire identity around being a foreigner wherever she stood. In this episode of the Wholehearted Podcast, she and host Coen unpack what she learned instead: that safety isn't a place at all. It's a state of mind you can build, no matter where you are. Who This Episode Is For This is for anyone who's ever felt like a misfit, whether that's because you grew up between two cultures, spent your childhood trying to earn approval, or you're currently juggling five different passions and being told to just pick one. It's also for anyone who freezes up trying to make the "right" decision, or who's never been able to explain the difference between a gut instinct and plain old fear. Key Takeaways 1.     There are three kinds of power, and only one of them actually works long-term Melissa lays out a framework she's built her life around: power over (control, dictatorship-style), power within (self-awareness and personal agency), and power behind (a quieter kind of leadership that makes room for other people's truths without losing your own). She argues that power within is the one that actually holds up, because it comes from knowing yourself well enough that you don't need to dominate a room to feel secure in it. Power behind, she says, is what happens in conversations exactly like this one: two people holding different truths without either one collapsing. 2.  Instinct keeps you alive. Intuition tells you what to do with your life. One of the clearest distinctions in the episode: instinct is fear-based and built for survival in the moment. Intuition, as Melissa describes it, is something older and quieter, generational wisdom she believes lives in the body and gets accessed by going still enough to feel it rather than think your way to it. Melissa reframes a trap a lot of people get stuck: waiting for certainty before they'll act. Instead of hunting for the "correct" choice, she suggests committing to whatever you choose and making the most of it. 3.  Being multi-passionate isn't a flaw you need to fix Both Coen and Melissa talk openly about being pulled in multiple directions at once, and the pressure to "pick a lane" that comes with that. Melissa shared about the unique perspectives that spending her life between the U.K. and Malaysia has given her. Coen shares how a random perfume-making class he took just for enjoyment taught him powerful lessons on storytelling, and recounts how a stray piece of wine knowledge that saved him in front of a client years after he'd forgotten why he even knew it. Their shared point: knowledge doesn't have to be useful on paper to be worth having. Connect with Melissa LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissaindot/ Instagram: @melissaindot Subscribe now and share this episode with someone who needs to hear.

3. 

   17 Apr 2026

   Owning Your BS and Facing the Truth Within

   What happens when the life you’ve built on the outside lookssuccessful, but inside, you feel drained, restless, and disconnected from yourself? In this episode of The Wholehearted Podcast, I sit down withCindy Tien for a deeply honest conversation about self-confrontation, identity, and the courage to tell yourself the truth. Cindy shares her journey from seeking validation through power, success, and external approval to recognizing the patterns, beliefs, and “BS” that were quietly shaping her life. This conversation is a reminder that the real work is not aboutfixing everything at once. It is about having the courage to face what is really going on inside, your blind spots, your stories, and the parts of yourself you would rather avoid, and realizing that truth, when faced fully, begins to lose its power over you. In this episode, we explore:● Why facing yourself honestly is the first step toward realchange, not fixing or performing ● The hidden ways we create “BS” through our blind spots, belief systems, and the stories we tell ourselves ● How chasing validation, power, and approval can look successful on the outside but feel empty within ● The emotional roots of jealousy, insecurity, and the need to be seen, and how they shape our behavior ● What it costs to live misaligned, constantly performing aversion of yourself just to belong or survive ● How unprocessed pain can show up as addiction, self-sabotage, and disconnection from your own body ● The difference between numbing your truth and learning how to face it with honesty ● How taking ownership of your patterns removes their power and opens the door for real transformation At the heart of this conversation is a simple but weighty truth.Transformation does not begin when everything is fixed. It begins the moment you choose to be honest with yourself. When you stop covering, justifying, or performing, you start to weaken the hold those patterns have and make room fora life that is grounded in what is real. Episode Chapters: 00:01:08 – Introduction to Cindy Tien: EQ Maven and Executive Coach 00:02:04 – Wholehearted living and its barriers 00:07:20 – From invisibility to aggression as a way to feel seen 00:13:00 – How childhood trauma shapes behaviour 00:24:18 – When your dream job breaks you from the inside 00:30:16 – Developing emotional awareness through survival 00:34:00 – The tension between femininity and strength 00:36:02 – When coping turns into self-destruction 00:42:21 – Your body will haunt you back 00:44:20 – Inside: Owning up your own BS 00:52:05 – The moment you stop lying to yourself 00:56:20 – How unhealed wounds affect who we attract 01:02:03 – The support that kept Cindy grounded 01:03:00 – Quitting everything with no safety net 01:03:47 – Connect with Cindy Tien 01:04:20 – Closing thoughts on owning our story Cindy Tien is an EQ Maven, Certified Speaking Professional,executive coach, and speaker. She helps leaders and teams uncover blind spots behind burnout, overwhelm, and behaviour patterns, while building emotional intelligence, resilience, and self-awareness. Her work is shaped by over 20 years of corporate experience and a personal transformation journey that fuels her mission to help others face themselves truthfully and turn pain into purpose. Connect with Cindy: ● Website: https://www.cindytien.com/ (https://www.cindytien.com/) ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/its_cindy_tien/ ● YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@cindy_tien ● LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindytien/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/cindytien/) ● Book: https://a.co/d/062Z89QL (https://a.co/d/062Z89QL) If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to reflect onone area of your life where effort has replaced alignment. What might shift if you chose wholehearted living instead? For more conversations on leadership, identity, and living froma place of love, follow The Wholehearted Podcast and share this episode with someone who may be standing at a crossroads. Stay curious, stay brave, and stay WHOLEHEARTED!

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

61,849

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

33 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 70 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

78

Social presence

0

YouTube

85

Engagement

71

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.