The Cult of Heated Rivalry (That We Joined Too Easily) with Shelly Baldasti (PART 1)

If you've ever felt like you're running on fumes despite having a top-tier morning routine fueled by an iced matcha and perfect sleep score, creatively stifled to the point where you're Googling $8,000 retreats on the coast of Italy, or like your marketing is hitting a dead-end despite "doing all the right things", you might just be living out of alignment with your Human Design, especially its cognitive architecture.Keolani Young is here to teach us a Human Design 2.0 lesson today: Variable. This is an advanced aspect of HD as it reveals the way our brain physically digests information, the environments that support our creativity, and the places that truly nourish us. It also uncovers our perspective — the unique lens through which we see the world — and our motivation, the left vs. the right mind, the strategic vs. the receptive.If you're seeking a more intuitive, design-led approach to building your business, this episode is for you.Connect with Keolani:@keolaniyoung on TikTok @keolaniyoung on IG Get your free advanced Human Design chartSave $25 on a 1:1 reading: Legacy Human Design Reading Great Measure Podcast Visit Keolani's Website Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

Someone asked me a question last summer that stopped me cold in my tracks: instead of showing how anti everything you are, what are you FOR? What world are YOU actually building?I sat with this question for three months during my sabbatical in Europe. In today's episode, I share three different arcs I'm exploring:Circular economies, capping your income and redistributing wealth, and The Art of EnoughMedia as activism: what would it look like to change the world and flood our feeds with joy, imagination and silliness?Humanity as your brandIn order to build a new world and bring people in, you have to be the first citizen of your own first. Make it magnetizing, captivating, and SO articulate, it's a no-brainer for people to jump in.Tune in as I share the steps I'm taking to lay down the bricks, and the point of these pursuits.Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

This podcast launched in 2017. For almost a decade, it's operated under "In My Non-Expert Opinion". Now, it's time to take the mask off.This is Notes From the New World.Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

We all have that one friend who we sprint to when we need a breakup text drafted, spruce up our vanilla cover letter, or edit a flimsy apology, because we know how much words carry weight. They're spells. Today, Lois Mac, THE word wizard who focuses on strategic communication layered with uncensored expression, comes on to help humans stop performing expression and start saying the damn thing.Lois reminds us:When you lose your words, you lose yourself. Lois built her entire identity around language, then moved to a small Costa Rican town after having her first baby, surrounded by people who spoke only Spanish, and the woman who always had the right words suddenly had none... what she couldn't have known then is that was entirely the point.The creative elephant never forgets. When you're not saying the real thing, every piece of content, every project, every newsletter becomes a hostage to it; your creativity doesn't leave, it just sits in the corner, arms crossed, waiting.Trying harder is a one-way ticket to the void. The void is a compass that shows up when you've drifted so far from yourself you're basically a human LinkedIn post, arriving not to destroy you but to say: come back to your actual voice.Write the unsendable thing. A daily writing practice that's purely for you (no feed, algorithm, or audience) is where your public voice quietly gets built.Presence beats vocabulary every time. Deep, juicy, family-level friendships are built on showing up, staying in the room after saying the wrong thing, and learning to laugh at yourself, not perfect sentence structure.This conversation is for those in the middle of identity shapeshifting, multi-lingual multi-hyphenates, who need a permission slip to say the thing you've been swallowing. She gives us a gentle but firm reminder that the most radical creative act available to you right now is NOT the next launch, the next rebrand, or the next post — it's just being the person who's already here.Connect with Lois:Writing Wildly Retreats: a full writing immersion in the Costa Rican jungle where your most important writing finally gets to breathe (enrolling for June + Sept 2026, mention how you found it in the application!)Creative Living App: the app that turns your instinct to consumConnect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

Visionaries, this one's for you. For the ones who hold the vision of the future, the ones constantly evolving in a market that rewards sameness, and the sensitive souls who feel it all, aching to scream their message from the rooftop, but end up diluting their message for palatability, listen in.Nina Chin — Identity Mentor, Creation Consultant, and fellow 6/2 visionary — joins me to talk about the peculiar loneliness of time-traveling through your own business, why outgrowing your audience is part of evolving, and what it actually means to build wealth that redistributes rather than hoards.Themes from the episode:The Visionary Gap: How to hold the vision of the future while staying presentIdentity Shapeshifting as Evolution, Not Abandonment: Outgrowing your audience might be part of the processThe Myth of the Monthly Revenue Screenshot: We dismantle why the "consistent $50K months" narrative is a golden cageThe Wound of the Uncredited Visionary: We wade into the tension between wanting recognition for planting seeds three years ago and trusting the butterfly effect Wealth as Redistribution, Not Accumulation: We dream out loud about generous entrepreneurship — scholarships, family flights paid for, and wealth moving through hands that will do good with it2027: A BIG paradigm shift is coming. Nina shares why we need sit in silence, find safety inside yourself, and trust your visionIf you're ready to align your business with your actual design instead of someone else's blueprint, connect with Nina and give yourself permission to build something unheard of — because that's where the gold lives.CONNECT WITH NINAWebsite: Your Aligned SpaceLiving Proof: a space for sixthlines to turn lived experience into wisdom you can live and lead from (enrollment closes Feb 17th, 2026)Private Sessions: human design / creation consultation / purpose + legacy codesAltitude: a 1:1 space to step out of the noise, regain perspective, and see your next move clearlyInstagram: @its_Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

As social media seems to descend into a dystopia of tech overlords dominating algorithms, our attention, and our self-esteem, it's worth asking: should we really stay on these platforms... and why???KP Pilley — the social strategist behind the popular "9-Grid" offer — joins me to talk about taking your power back on social media, building ethical content worlds, and making it stupid-easy for people to hire you without posting 30 Reels a month.Themes from the episode:The 9-Grid: Your Digital Bulletin Board (Not Your Full-Time Job: Instagram's become this weird proof-of-existence thing, but the nine grid lets you treat your profile like a coffee shop bulletin board — nine strategic posts, then peace TF out. You don't need to live there 24/7 to run a successful business.Instagram's Chokehold on Our Worthiness: Let's be honest, Meta is making money off our insecurities. KP and I discuss how to use the platform on your terms and drive people to owned media where Zuck can't deplatform you for posting a caption with the word "sex" in it.Pain Point Marketing Is Dead: That girl boss panic-inducing marketing where you scare people into buying? It attracts nightmare clients who feel buyer's remorse the next morning. Real marketing talks to someone's most regulated self, not their freaked-out swipe-my-credit-card-at-midnight self.Your Editorial Stance Beats Any Algorithm: When you have a clear worldview, content becomes easier because you're not trying to rage-bait —you're just showing up as yourself.Relationship Marketing Isn't Transactional (And That's the Point): Orbit jumping and showing up in people's worlds doesn't always result in immediate sales, and that's okay — sometimes you're just planting seeds or having a good conversation.If you’re ready to ditch performative posting and build a presence rooted in your values (not Adam Mosseri’s latest metric), connect with KP for more resources — and maybe even a social media presence that finally feels like you.Connect with KP:WebsiteInstagramConConnect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

What happens when you let philosophy escape the ivory tower and live in your body? Today's guest is Ximena, a Mexican eco-philosopher who ditched academic elitism for something far more dangerous: thinking as a radical act of love.We get into why rationality alone made her chronically ill (yes, really), how capitalism hijacked our concept of time, and why resistance fueled by joy might be the only kind that lasts. If you've tired of activism that depletes rather than sustains, this one's for you. We're philosophizing, asking the bigger questions, and as Ximena so eloquently states: making the intellectual visceral.Key themes:1. The Intellectual Turned VisceralPhilosophy often gets confused with being SUPER cerebral, but it’s actually something you FEEL in your entire body. When intellectual work moves through your whole system, that's when transformation actually happens!2. Philosophy for Humans, Not Just PhilosophersAcademia gatekeeps philosophy with intentional jargon, but philosophizing is just having conversations with deep curiosity. It LITERALLY means love of wisdom. You're already a philosopher ;)3. Time, Capitalism, and the Productivity TrapCapitalism hijacked time itself, turning it from cyclical and embodied into linear, scarce, and productive, something to optimize rather than experience. We've internalized this timeline so deeply that rest feels like rebellion, and it's legit killing us.4. Resistance as LoveResistance rooted only in anger mimics the systems it's trying to dismantle, but real sustained resistance grows from love and knowing what you're for. The long revolution happens when we build the spaces we want to see, making resistance an act of imagination and joy rather than just critique.5. The Democratization of Knowledge as Radical ActPhilosophy trapped in universities serves power, but the tools of critical thinking are human capacities, not special skills reserved for people with degrees. Your questions are valid, your thinking is valuable, your philosophizing countssss!Connect with Ximena (and join the next round of ROOTED IMPACT):Substack (Ximena Ximena + Tuhella)Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

It's time to breakup with watered-down content and instead, ask our people to rise with us.In this episode, I announce the podcast rebrand (finally!), why I'm going all-in on 2-3 episodes per week, and what happens when you delete social apps from your phone for just ONE week. Spoiler: total clarity.I dive deep into why Rosalía's Lux, Sinners, and Heated Rivalry are proof that audiences are STARVING for work that challenges them — and why we need to stop underestimating people's capacity to pay attention.Plus: why "the more we are in the era of dopamine, the more I want the opposite" is my new creative north star, and how I'm building SUPERNOVA as a thinking lab where we synthesize obsessions into worldviews that actually move culture.Snippets from this episode:The podcast rebrand: After 8 years, I'm retiring "In My Non-Expert Opinion" because it was a shield I no longer need. I'm ready to own my voice, go full throttle, and podcast 2-3x/week.Deleting social apps = instant brain space - I took the apps off my phone for one week and the clarity was WILD. Ideas landed, brain fog lifted, and I realized: why am I not treating online platforms like contract jobs instead of letting them scatter my attention 24/7?Rosalía, Sinners, and Heated Rivalry are giving us credit to pay attention - These aren't light, bubblegum experiences. Rosalía dropped an album in 14 languages with the London Symphony Orchestra. Sinners demand you clock in to catch the symbolism. Heated Rivalry became a global phenomenon not because "the guys are hot," but because it shows radical intimacy and vulnerability on screen.We connect through challenge, not just agreement - Rosalía didn't water down Lux for mass appeal; she asked us to rise with her. The most powerful connection happens when artists challenge us to expand our capacity."What is most personal is most universal" - Carl Rogers said it, and Heated Rivalry proves it. We're obsessed because we see ourselves in the yearning, the walls, the avoidance. When you dig into YOUR inner treasure chest and build a captivating world, people will leave their old ones behind to join you.Question of the week: Why do we say "pay attentiConnect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

One of my besties Shelly and I pick up RIGHT where we left off from last episode. We talk at 1.5x speed, giggle and kick our feet like 14 year olds at a boyband concert, say "like" 4013 times, and get even further into the series that's causing a cultural phenomenon.Some questions explored:What did we think of the absolute QUEENS in the show?Why does this all feel so REAL?What's the deal with situationships?What are the upsides and downsides of fandom, especially one this rabid?How can we use this joy to fuel change?SEE YOU AT THE COTTAGE BABES.Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!

Folks... we’ve been indoctrinated. Heated Rivalry brainwashed us. As someone who is EXTREMELY contrarian (Aquarius Sun), hatesss hype, an absolute TV/movie SNOB, and is pretty suss of fandoms… I promise you, the hype is beyond worth it.It’s SO worth it, I had to debrief for nearly 3 hours with one of my besties, Shelly, to discuss what kind of glitch in the matrix is happening right now. What drugs were sprinkled in this script? What subliminal messaging did they use? WHAT IS GOING ON???!!!We’re happy. Glowing. More pep in our step. This show has absolutely altered our brain chemistry.DISCLAIMER: this is spoiler city. We discuss everything in the show.This is a 2 parter. Buckle up, sooo much more to come in Part 2!Connect with Chelsea:🪐 Pitch Perfect: the visibility immersion using strategic pitching to get you in the right rooms to shake shit up. $300 off until April 13th!☄️ SUPERNOVA waitlist: the thinking lab for the deep thinkers, world-builders, and curious visionaries who see futures that don't exist yet. 💻 Website🍿Popcorn Club: Monthly meet-up to debrief TV, movies, and the zeitgeist📜 Footnotes newsletter filled with rabbit holes💌 The Art of the Ask Podcast📱 IG: ⁠@chelseariffe⁠🧵 Threads: @chelseariffeSupport NFNTW: Your donations help cover costs of running the show; you can help fund NFTNW right HERE. If you're unable to donate financially, share it. It all adds up.Want to sponsor NFTNW? Email [email protected] to discuss partnership packages!