https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-c7p6p-1b4eb52
Mandi Leigh: Leaving the Life You’re Good At
Mandi Leigh spent years working in the film industry, beginning as a production assistant on Supernatural and eventually becoming an assistant director. She was good at the work. She loved it. But another part of her life was becoming impossible to ignore.
“I love working in film, but I love life more.”
Mandi had always been a singer, but when she began playing guitar and writing her own songs, music started pouring out of her. In 2024, she packed her guitars, her dog and a mattress into her Dodge Journey and toured through British Columbia. She discovered that traveling from town to town, sharing music and connecting with people, felt more like herself than anything she had done before.
Eventually, she took a much bigger leap, leaving British Columbia and moving across Canada to Toronto to build a life around her music.
In this episode of Driftwood Conversations, Mandi and I talk about what it means to leave something you’re good at, the fear and uncertainty of beginning again, family expectations, self-worth, songwriting, touring, and the strange moment when you realize you may have stepped into the life that feels like your own.
We also talk about her EP, Emotional Highs; the full-length album she is recording; her family’s leatherwork tradition; and the two words tattooed on her hands: contradiction and balance.
Mandi didn’t leave film because she failed at it.
She left because another part of her was asking to be lived.
Driftwood Conversations is hosted by Hilary Sloane
Hilary Sloane- Journalist and Photographer 