I’m no stranger to struggle and at a young age it left me with one thought thats gotten me to where I am today.
“If I can help one other person have a better life because of what I’ve been through, it’s all been worth it.”
I'm Nadia, a mental fitness and performance coach based in Melbourne. I help ambitious people build success that doesn't cost them their health, their relationships or their ability to enjoy their lives. Because frankly success that costs you all of that is hardly success, I don’t care what the norm would have some people believe.
My Story
Where it started
The daughter of man who fled war for something better and mother who has been plagues by serious mental illness her whole life. Within 12 days of being born my mum was in hospital and from that moment my care givers changed constantly. My ever changing home life and inconsistent parents taught me how to read people, it taught me to be resilient, hard and frankly expect everyone to leave and assume their is something about me inherently impossible to love.
By 16 I ran away from home, my dad remarried and though now I can see my step mum was just a young women with her own untreated issues. At the time she was my emotional abuser who wore me down until the point where I decided I’d ether die or leave this place their was no in between.
I always cared deeply for others the beauty of the ethinic households I grew up in is the community we are taught, the gift that is to help others. After leaving home at 16 the idea that everything I’d been through could be alchemised into something that helped others drove me to work hard and become something.
Studying it while living it
While I studied psychology, I was still struggling myself. In my twenties I battled disordered eating, relied on drugs and alcohol to cope, and lived with a mind that never stopped. My degree answered some of my questions, but the system seemed brilliant at diagnosing problems but good for very little else.
It left me thinkign surely their is more than this? I want a world where we get ahead of the problems and pursue something great. Not this whack a mole of illness.
Six years in construction
I built a career in HR in large construction and infrastructure businesses, from reception to HR Business Partner. It was a very male-dominated world, and I loved it. It taught me more about pressure and how people actually operate than any textbook.
Around then I started learning about functional health, nutrition, sleep and breathing, and experimenting with these modalities myself. This is where I started to move from fixing problems in my life to pursuing goals and joy.
I use to get tonsillitis multiple times a year, have severe acne, back pain that required heavy medication constantly. All of which began to evaporate. I was mentally, emotionally and physically performing in a way I could never have imagined.
The leap
I use to get tonsilities multiple times a year, have severe acne, back pain that required heavy medication constantly. All of which began to evaporate. I was mentally, emotionally and physically performing in a way I could never have imagined.
His reply stuck: “Maybe that happens. But what if you never find out what you’re capable of?”
In 2022, I went all in. No more side hustle and the comfort of a 9/5 but time to go all in on my dream and back myself to make a real impact on others and my own life.
Then I burnt out
At 28, I hit the wall. Brain fog, exhaustion, a body that had simply had enough. It taught me what I now teach every client: pushing harder isn’t always the answer, and recovering properly is part of performing well. It’s also where my focus on capacity and nervous systsem came from: having the room to hold everything you’re building without it costing you your health, happiness and relationships.
What I do now
I started out helping people through anxiety, relationships and family challenges. This is so cliche but I always wanted to change the world. I would say “I want to be the female Australian Tony Robbins”. And at a certain point I realised the best way for me to do that?
Is to work with people on influence, leaders and other ambtious people who hold authority and influence in their lives and the lives of those around them. If I could help then gain success because money matters, authority matters, a career and a bussiness matter. And also show these people how to sustain as I have this success while also having great health, fuffilling relationships and enjoy their lives.
That is a world I wanted to live in, to bring my kids into and have had a hand in building.
Today I work 1:1 with business owners, leaders, professionals and athletes, I have a program that lays the foundations of this to anyone with the Internet and I run workshops for teams.
The short version. If you skipped the story, here’s what’s behind the approach.
Psychology degree, Swinburne University
Certified performance neuroscience (flow) coach, The Flow Institute
Oxygen Advantage breath work facilitator
Mentored in functional health by Holly Sinclair [CONFIRM: happy to name her?]
6 years in construction HR, from Receptionist to HR Partner
Mentored by Cold & Conscious founder Stivka; led weekly breath work sessions
Coaching since 2017, full-time since 2022
Featured on 15+ podcasts
Say no to normal.
We’ve been taught that making it means achieving more, earning more and pushing harder. I love ambition, and there will be seasons where work gets more of you. But if one part of your life is thriving while everything else pays for it, is that really success?
I think success is bigger than what you achieve. It’s a life where more of you gets to thrive: your work, your health, your relationships, your sense of self and the actual experience of being alive.
So let’s make ambition bigger:
Building a successful business is ambitious.
Developing a career your proud of is ambitious.
Being an incredible parent while you build it is ambitious.
Being fit and healthy at 60+ is ambitious.
Having a relationship that still thrives in 20 years is ambitious.
Being happy, fulfilled and having a peaceful mind is ambitious.
Knowing yourself well enough to stop chasing things you don’t actually want might be the most ambitious goal of all.
What working with me is actually like
Your work, health, relationships, environment and past don’t operate separately, so I don’t coach them separately.
The whole picture.
I’ll help you understand why you do what you do, then give you practical things to change it.
The why and the how.
Psychology, performance neuroscience, nervous system regulation, breath work and functional health each have their place. I use what the situation needs.
A tool belt, not a hammer.
Clients say I’m honest, no BS and willing to call them out, and that they feel safe enough to tell me the truth.
Direct, but safe.
I want you to understand yourself well enough to back yourself long after we finish.
The goal is that you don’t need me.
Want to work together?
The easiest place to start is a conversation. We'll talk about where you're at, what you want and whether I'm the right person to help.