Unpolished Wisdom

Range, Not Change: Expanding your Identity Without Losing Yourself with Marcus Marsden

Marcus Marsden is Managing Partner of The Works Partnership and author of Start With Who. He'd built a career helping leaders ask the hard questions — until life asked them of him. In 2019, Marcus unexpectedly found himself leading a company he'd never planned to run. Four months later, COVID shut the world down. In this conversation, Marcus opens up about the difference between change and range, why going against his gut became his greatest leadership tool, and what he learned about comfort zones when crisis takes that option off the table. This is the Season 1 Finale of Unpolished Wisdom — and there's no one I'd rather close this season with. 🔑 In this episode: - Identity range vs identity change in leadership - Leading through crisis and uncertainty - Stepping outside your comfort zone as a leader - The power of difficult conversations - Executive coaching and self-leadership - Building resilience after loss in business 🎙️ Unpolished Wisdom is a podcast hosted by Dr. Katrina Gisbert-Tay, executive wellbeing coach and somatic practitioner, exploring burnout, identity, leadership transitions, and the messy middle of personal growth.

Physician, Heal Thyself with Dr. Loo Hui Voon

Dr. Loo Hui Voon is the doctor people find when they've already seen everyone else. An integrative and functional medicine physician, she's built a practice around seeing the whole person — the body, the gut, the trauma, the invisible threads connecting it all. But for a long time, nobody was applying that same lens to her. In this quietly powerful conversation, Dr. Loo and Dr. Kat explore the exhaustion of being the person everyone leans on, the grief medical practice asks you to witness and never process, and the small rituals that make it possible to keep showing up with an open heart. For anyone who holds space for others — and has quietly wondered who holds space for them.

The Power of the Pivot: Reinvention, Identity and Starting Again with Siva Shanker Jayaraj

In this episode of Unpolished Wisdom, Dr. Katrina Gisbert Tay speaks to Siva Shanker Jayaraj. Siva grew up in a kampong in Malacca with no address and no plan — just an unshakeable belief that having nothing to lose was its own kind of freedom. That belief carried him to Nike, where he spent 11 years building some of the boldest brand experiences in Southeast Asia. Then one night, watching The Greatest Showman on a long-haul flight, he asked himself the question that changed everything: was Nike the circus, or was I? This is a conversation about walking away from the rocket, betting on yourself with no safety net, and what it really means to build a life on your own terms.

When Your Body Keeps the Score with Dr. Suhina Singh

Dr. Suhina Singh grew up in apartheid South Africa where danger wasn't an exception — it was the baseline. Hypervigilance became her identity. Competence became survival. And for decades, her body absorbed everything her mind refused to feel. Then the pandemic hit. Chronic inflammation, unexplainable pain, and a nervous system finally at its limit forced her into what she calls her first emotional education — a journey that revealed Complex PTSD, possible neurodivergence, and a lifetime of suppressed grief. In this episode, Suhina opens up about forgiveness as physical medicine, learning to name emotions she didn't know she had, and what it finally feels like to stop performing and simply be.

Choosing Yourself in Every New Beginning: Motherhood, Identity and Creative Reinvention with Bianca Yuzon Henares

What happens when life doesn’t follow the timeline you thought you had to keep? In this conversation, Bianca Yuzon Henares, multidisciplinary artist, dream pop musician, and mother - shares her journey of creative reinvention, identity, and learning to begin again in unfamiliar spaces. From moving countries to stepping into motherhood she never planned for, Bianca opens up about the belief that once shaped her choices, that time was running out, and how letting that go changed everything. We explore what it means to rebuild a sense of self in the midst of transition. The tension between ambition and presence. The quiet shift from measuring worth through output to finding wholeness in who you are now. This is a conversation about starting over, about motherhood and identity, about the courage to stay with the unknown long enough for something new to emerge. Key themes: creative reinvention, motherhood and identity, starting over, self-worth, artist life, personal transformation