The Motivate Collective Podcast by Melanie Suzanne Wilson

Short description: Garima Verma — writer, director, and digital strategist who's worked at the White House and as Stacey Abrams' chief digital officer — on why community building is harder and more important than ever, storytelling as an entry point for change, and holding grief and joy at the same time. Long description: Content note: This episode includes discussion of grief and the loss of a pa...

Episode title: From Rock Bottom to World Records: Sobriety, Faith and Rebuilding a Life with Christopher Charles Burns Short description: Christopher Charles Burns shares his journey from addiction and a broken marriage to sobriety, theological research, and two world records as the first independent Tongan researcher published in peer-reviewed journals. Content note: discusses addiction, infideli...

Episode title: From Rock Bottom to World Records: Sobriety, Faith and Rebuilding a Life with Christopher Charles Burns Short description: Christopher Charles Burns shares his journey from addiction and a broken marriage to sobriety, theological research, and two world records as the first independent Tongan researcher published in peer-reviewed journals. Content note: discusses addiction, infideli...

Creativity, Grief & Inner Wisdom with Branka Cubrilo, writer, artist, and journalist What do you do when the words desert you? In this deeply moving episode of The Motivate Collective Podcast, Melanie Suzanne Wilson sits down with Branka Cubrilo — novelist, journalist, broadcaster, interpreter, painter, and former yoga teacher — to explore what it truly means to live a creative life. When Branka's...

Five-time award-winning poet Julia Poet joins Melanie to share her story of young caregiving, grief, substance abuse recovery, and how she turned it all into her debut poetry collection Progression.   What do you do when life hands you one of the hardest stories imaginable — and you realise your greatest purpose is to tell it? In this episode of The Motivate Collective Podcast, Melanie Suzanne Wil...

Victoria, founder of Twisty Kits, joins Melanie Suzanne Wilson to share the story behind her wax-coated yarn sticks — a screen-free creative toy for kids that started on a single flight and grew into a full product brand. She opens up about moving to Australia, navigating job markets as a new mum with limited local experience, two years of pivoting her ecommerce brand, and the moment the numbers m...

What does sustainable leadership actually look like — and what does it cost when we get it wrong?   Hanna Bauer is the founder of Heartnomics and a globally recognised leadership transformation specialist working at the intersection of people, purpose, and performance. From the age of four, Hanna lived with a severe heart condition that shaped her worldview and eventually her entire career — navig...

What if your body has been trying to tell you something for years — and the physical symptom is not the problem, but the message? In this episode, Melanie sits down with Niamh Devine — Irish mind-body mentor, TEDx speaker, TRE practitioner, and former RTÉ broadcaster — for one of the most powerful and practical conversations this show has ever produced. Niamh left a successful broadcasting career...

What if the most powerful wellness tool you have is already inside you — and it costs absolutely nothing? In this episode, Melanie sits down with Kimia Shirkhani — executive operations partner at Cisco Meraki, certified yoga and fitness instructor, and MBA graduate with a background in industrial engineering. Kimia's story is one of resilience, reinvention, and a deeply personal journey that led h...

Here are the Libsyn fields for the Julian episode: Title: Learn to Be Comfortable in the Uncomfortable: Personal Development, Paintball & Purpose with Julian Maliszewski Description (Show Notes / Long Description): What does paintball have to do with personal development? More than you'd think. In this episode, Melanie sits down with Julian Maliszewski — personal development coach, former teacher,...

What if changing your brain started with lying on the floor and getting curious about how your foot feels? In this episode, Melanie Suzanne Wilson speaks with Beverly—former Facebook executive and Feldenkrais practitioner—about nervous system regulation, undiagnosed ADHD, perimenopause, and how a single movement class at a resort sparked a 12-year journey of transformation. In this episode: What B...

What does a former detective want every woman and girl to know about staying safe in the world? Melanie Suzanne Wilson sits down with Danielle Godfrey — Personal Safety Specialist, founder of Girl Aware, and former Victoria Police detective with 12 years of frontline experience — to talk about the realities of personal safety that most of us were never taught. Danielle shares what she witnessed on...

In each moment, we can be our old narrative or our new narrative. What we choose creates our future. In Part 2 of this conversation, Kitty Stitt goes deeper into the wisdom behind her debut book, Living Evolved: Write Here, Write Now — a guide to evolving from chaos to calm by releasing inherited stories and stepping into a life that is genuinely, authentically your own. Kitty and Melanie explore...

What does it look like to truly hold space for a community — month after month, year after year, no matter what? Kitty Stitt has been doing exactly that. Based in Forbes, NSW — a small country town five and a half hours west of Sydney — Kitty has facilitated a monthly Full Moon Women's Circle for 55 consecutive months, including one live from the River Ganges in Varanasi, India. She offers one-on-...

What if the ambition driving your business is actually running from something inside you? Mike Brcic is a serial entrepreneur with 25+ years across multiple ventures, including Sacred Rides Mountain Bike Holidays — one of North America's most successful adventure tourism companies, which he grew from a one-person operation to a global business before his exit in 2019. Today he runs Wayfinders, tak...

The federal budget dropped and Sarah Harding is back to break it all down — without the spin. In this episode, Melanie and Sarah unpack what the proposed changes to capital gains tax and investment policy really mean for everyday Australians, small business owners, and anyone trying to build wealth from the ground up. From chip shops to side hustles to first-time investors, this conversation gets...

Most leaders aren't struggling because they're not trying hard enough. They're struggling because they've been running on stress for so long that their nervous system has forgotten how to switch off — and that shows up in how they think, communicate, and perform. In this episode of The Motivate Collective Podcast, Melanie Suzanne Wilson talks with Dr Jimmy Fay — chiropractor turned nervous system...

The Motivate Collective Podcast — Show Notes Episode: Do Hard Things — Movement, Pain, Light & the Habits That Keep You Alive Guest:  Gary Miller — Olympic Ski Coach & HumanCharger Distributor  Host:  Melanie Suzanne Wilson Episode Summary Gary Miller has spent a lifetime doing hard things — coaching elite ski racers at the World Cup and Olympic level, surviving seven surgeries, and rebuilding his...

Your Brain on Fear, Dopamine & Social Media | Neuroscientist Sankalp on Mental Health, Meditation & the Age of AI What if the mental health crisis, the attention economy, and the rise of AI are all pointing to the same thing — the urgent need to understand your own mind? In this return conversation, Melanie sits down again with Sankalp, postdoctoral research associate at the University of Oxford's...

Dr. Froswa' Booker on philanthropy, social capital, conscious leadership, and why your relationships are your most powerful currency. A conversation for changemakers.   🎙️ The Motivate Collective Podcast Episode: Legacy of Love — Dr Froswa' Booker on Philanthropy, Social Capital & Conscious Leadership EPISODE SUMMARY What does it truly mean to love your neighbour? And what happens when the organis...

What if the most powerful currency in business isn't money — it's generosity? In this conversation, Melanie sits down with Suela Pirushi, Albanian-born founder and CEO of the Milestone Hub, author of  The Business Currency is Love , UN Women UK Ambassador, and PhD candidate in Epistemic Leadership and Human-AI Collaboration. Suela has worked across the World Bank, the Ministry of Justice, NGO mana...

  SHOW NOTES 🎙️ The Motivate Collective Podcast Episode: From Paralysis to Purpose — Aakriti on Resilience, Self-Love & the Psychology of Healing CONTENT NOTICE & SUPPORT RESOURCES Before you press play, please read this. This episode contains an open and thoughtful conversation about physical disability, depression, anxiety, mental health, and the long road to healing. Aakriti shares her lived ex...

Renee Borgelt lost her husband to suicide after 32 years together. Hear her lived experience of grief, healing through meditation, and finding purpose on the other side.🎙️ The Motivate Collective Podcast   ⚠️ CONTENT NOTICE & SUPPORT RESOURCES Before you press play, please read this. This episode contains an honest and compassionate conversation about suicide, suicide loss, grief, PTSD, and mental...

  The Motivate Collective Podcast — Show Notes Episode: The Psychology of Eating — Breaking the Habits That Keep You Stuck Guest:  Dr Denise THINKS  Host:  Melanie Suzanne Wilson Episode Summary Dr Denise THINKS — a food psychology expert with a PhD in educational psychology — joins Melanie to unpack the hidden patterns, conditioning, and emotional loops driving our eating behaviours. From the neu...

🎙️ The Motivate Collective Podcast Episode: Your Nervous System Knows — Dr Emma-Leigh Senyard on Trauma, Generational Patterns & Healing the Body That Remembers   EPISODE SUMMARY What if the anxiety, perfectionism, people-pleasing, and emotional reactivity you've carried your whole life didn't actually start with you? Dr Emma-Leigh Senyard is a Queensland-based psychologist whose work spans privat...