What if the life you’re living is not really yours? And what if the beliefs shaping your choices were never actually yours to begin with?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Arnold Beekes for a thoughtful conversation about childhood conditioning, unlearning societal expectations, and the long journey toward authentic self-awareness.

From a difficult childhood in the Netherlands to a life devoted to exploring the inner self, Arnold shares the experiences that shaped him and the insights that followed.

Arnold’s story is a reminder that personal growth is not always about adding more. Sometimes it’s about subtracting what was never truly yours. He speaks openly about feeling like a misfit, the difference between being alone and being lonely, and why pain can become a powerful catalyst for transformation when we choose to face it honestly.

This episode also explores the inner critic, self-kindness, and the everyday work of becoming more authentic in a world that often rewards conformity. If you’ve ever questioned the life you’ve built, or felt the pressure to fit into expectations that don’t feel aligned, this conversation offers space to reflect, reset, and begin again.

"Most people live someone else's life." This episode is an invitation to notice what has been conditioned into you, and to ask what becomes possible when you start living from within.

• Arnold’s childhood in the Netherlands and the experiences that shaped his sense of self.
• His transition into technology, leadership, and eventually psychology and personal leadership.
• What unconditioning means and why it matters for authentic living.
• The difference between being alone and being lonely.
• How pain can become part of personal transformation.
• The role of the inner critic and how self-kindness changes the process of growth.

Connect with Arnold

https://about.me/arnoldbeekes

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ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.

What if the life you were taught to want was never really yours? And what if walking away from it was the bravest, most clarifying thing you ever did?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Tom. coach, recovering alcoholic, world schooling dad, and accidental adventurer, for a conversation that is honest, grounding, and quietly life-changing.

Tom's story begins in the UK, shaped by all the rules that tell you what a successful life should look like: the career, the status, the social rituals that come with it, including alcohol. For years he followed the script. And for years, something didn't quite fit. It was the decision to get sober, and later to uproot his family and move to Malaysia, that cracked everything open. Not into chaos, but into clarity.

What makes Tom's approach stand out is the absence of drama around it. He doesn't frame sobriety as a battle or life abroad as an escape. In his world, intentional living is a quiet, deliberate practice, asking better questions, tolerating uncertainty, and building a life around memories rather than milestones. He calls it living deliberately, and once you hear him explain it, it's hard to think about your own choices the same way.

This episode goes deep on identity, not in a theoretical way, but as a lived experience of what happens when you strip away the external markers of success and ask what's actually left. Tom also speaks openly about world schooling, what it really means to raise children outside the system, and the fears that almost stopped him from making the leap at all.

"Live your life deliberately." This episode is an invitation to question the script, sit with the worst case scenario, and start building a life that is genuinely, unmistakably yours.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Tom's childhood in the UK and the early conditioning that shaped his idea of success
• The role alcohol played in his professional and social world and the turning point that changed everything
• What sobriety actually opened up, beyond the obvious
• The decision to move to Malaysia with his family and what it took to get there
• World schooling in practice, the reality, the challenges, and why they chose it
• How Tom rebuilt his identity and career outside the structures he had always known
• Why asking "what is the worst case scenario?" is one of the most liberating questions you can ask
• Living deliberately as a daily practice, not a one-time decision
• What it means to measure a life in memories rather than achievements.

Connect with Tom
💼 a2scoaching

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ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.

What happens when the discipline of a bodybuilding champion meets the complexity of artificial intelligence and both are applied to the events industry?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Anca Platon Trifan, AI strategist, international event producer, and bodybuilding champion for a conversation that is as unexpected as it is essential.

Anca's story begins in Romania, shaped by early dreams and a drive that never needed much external fuel. Over the years, that drive took her across industries, across borders, and eventually to a place very few people occupy: the intersection of physical performance, creative production, and technological strategy. She didn't arrive there by following a map. She arrived there by being willing to keep moving when the road ran out, including during a global pandemic that dismantled the events industry almost overnight.

Where others saw collapse, Anca saw a laboratory. COVID-19 forced a reckoning that she believes the industry needed and she used that time to build, to think, and to develop frameworks that have since shaped how she trains others to lead.

This episode goes deep on something the events world is still figuring out: what AI actually means for creative professionals. Anca is not here to hype the technology or to fear it. She is here to help people understand it, because understanding how things work, not just how they look, is where real power lives. She also brings her Fit for Events framework into the conversation, connecting physical discipline with professional resilience in a way that makes complete sense once she explains it.

"Consistency beats intensity every single time." This episode is a masterclass in what it looks like to build something that lasts.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Anca's childhood in Romania and the early influences that shaped her discipline and drive
• How bodybuilding became a school for mental strength, resilience, and leadership
• What COVID-19 revealed about the events industry and how Anca used it as a turning point
• The Fit for Events framework and how fitness principles translate into professional performance
• Navigating AI in creative industries without losing the human edge
• Why consistency and behind-the-scenes work matter more than visible intensity
• The unique pressures facing newcomers in events and what they need to hear
• Why the future of the industry belongs to those who understand the tools, not just use them

Connect with Anca

• 🎙️ Miss My Podcast: missmypodcast.com
• 🎪 3Find Event Production: 3findevent.com
• 💼 Anca on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ancaplatontrifan
  

☕ This podcast runs on coffee and quiet confidence that different minds build better worlds. Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/nikabrunet

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ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.

What if personal growth didn't have to feel like hard work and what if everything you needed to transform your life was already inside you?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Elin Mai, empowerment architect, international entrepreneur, and creator of the EGNI coaching app for a conversation that is energising, deeply practical, and genuinely unlike anything we've covered before.

Elin's story begins in North Wales, shaped by an entrepreneurial spirit that showed up early and never really left. Over the years she built a successful international business, but it was the inner journey running alongside that business, the questions about identity, energy, and purpose that eventually led her somewhere more meaningful. Today she works as a coach helping people build what she calls an inner blueprint: not a copy of someone else's success, but a deeply personal architecture for their own.

What makes Elin's approach stand out is what she refuses to do. She won't make growth feel heavy. She won't dress transformation up as suffering. In her world, personal development is supposed to feel exciting, even glamorous because if it feels like punishment, you won't keep going. And keeping going, she'll tell you, is everything.

This episode goes deep on energy, not in a vague, wellness-speak way, but as a practical lens for understanding why some seasons of life feel aligned and others feel like you're pushing against a current. Elin also introduces EGNI, her coaching app built to make the tools of transformation genuinely accessible, and speaks honestly about what commitment to self-development actually requires, including the fears that stop most people before they even begin.

"You have got the potential within you." This episode is an invitation to stop waiting for permission and start building from the inside out.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Elin's childhood in North Wales and the entrepreneurial energy that started early
• The transition from running an international business to becoming a coach and what that shift really involved
• What an empowerment architect actually does and why the inner blueprint matters more than any external strategy
• Energy management as a practical tool for personal and professional growth
• Why mindset, strategy, and personal branding are not separate conversations
• Self-limiting beliefs, the universal barrier Elin sees in almost every client, regardless of background
• Why growth should feel exciting and glamorous and what happens when it doesn't
• The EGNI coaching app, what it is, why she built it, and who it's for
• What readiness for change actually looks like and how to know when you're truly in it.

  
  Connect with Elin Mai

  • 🌐 elinmai.com
  • 💼 LinkedIn
    ☕ This podcast runs on coffee and quiet confidence that different minds build better worlds. Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/nikabrunet

    📌 Don't forget to subscribe for more impactful conversations like this one!
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    ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.
    
    

What if the moment your body starts changing is also the moment you finally stop shrinking yourself to fit spaces that were never designed for you?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Lindsay White. leadership coach, entrepreneur, and host of the Female Founder Unplugged podcast. for a conversation that is long overdue, quietly radical, and deeply necessary.

Lindsay brings together two worlds that are rarely spoken about in the same breath: menopause and leadership. Not as a crisis narrative, not as a cautionary tale, but as an invitation to understand what is actually happening in the body, why it matters for how we lead, and what becomes possible when female founders stop apologising for being human.

Her work sits at the intersection of hormonal health, authentic leadership, and the particular pressures faced by women building businesses in a world that still wasn't entirely built with them in mind. And in this episode, she brings all of it to the table, with honesty, warmth, and practical wisdom that you won't find in a standard leadership development course.

This episode doesn't just talk about menopause as a health issue. It explores it as a leadership issue, an identity issue, and, perhaps most powerfully, as a moment of profound personal reckoning. Lindsay speaks candidly about the Inner Saboteur, the self-worth patterns that quietly undermine even the most capable founders, and why authentic leadership is not a personality trait you either have or don't. It is, as she puts it, a deep work process.

"Hormones rule our bodies and mind." This episode is a reminder that understanding yourself, all of yourself, is not a distraction from good leadership. It is the foundation of it.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Lindsay's personal journey and what led her to work at the intersection of menopause and leadership
• How the modern workplace is evolving and where it is still falling dangerously short for women
• The specific challenges female founders face that rarely get named out loud
• The identity shifts that often accompany hormonal changes and how to navigate them with intention
• The Inner Saboteur Model and how to recognise when it is running the show
• Why authentic leadership requires deep inner work, not just better communication skills
• The generational dynamics at play in today's workplaces and how they affect women differently
• Why rest is not a reward it is a leadership strategy.
  
  Connect with Lindsay:

• 💼 LinkedIn
• 🐦 Twitter / X
• 🌐 lindsaywhite.com

☕ This podcast runs on coffee and quiet confidence that different minds build better worlds. Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/nikabrunet

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ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.

What does it actually take to walk away from everything you've built and start again, on purpose?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Melissa Way, leadership development specialist and event safety consultant, for a conversation about reinvention, resilience, and the quiet power of knowing yourself well enough to change.

Melissa's career didn't follow a straight line, and that's precisely what makes her story so worth hearing. From her early years navigating the complexity of NHS management where high stakes, people pressure, and systems thinking were daily realities, to a deliberate pivot into leadership development and event safety consultancy, Melissa has built a career shaped not by chance, but by continuous self-reflection and a refusal to stop growing.

Her journey is a reminder that the skills we build in one world are rarely wasted in the next. The discipline, the people skills, the ability to stay calm in high-pressure environments, all of it transferred. What changed was the context, and the courage to trust that the transfer was possible.

This episode gets into what genuine leadership development looks like when it isn't performative. Melissa speaks candidly about the role of self-reflection. not as a soft skill or a luxury, but as a professional discipline that sharpens everything else. She also brings her event safety expertise into the conversation with clarity and urgency, speaking to why understanding evolving regulations isn't optional for anyone working in live events today.

"You can never learn enough about yourself." This episode is for every leader who knows they're not done growing yet.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Melissa's childhood and the early experiences that shaped her approach to leadership
• What NHS management taught her about people, pressure, and purpose
• The turning point that led her to step away and build something new
• Why self-reflection is a professional discipline, not just a personal practice
• Her current work in event safety and what organisations consistently get wrong
• Why continuous learning is the only real career strategy that holds long-term
• How to find and protect joy and balance in high-demand industries
• What the evolving regulatory landscape means for event professionals right now.
  

Links:

• 💼 Melissa Way on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/melissaway
• Eventcare solutions : https://www.eventcaresolutions.com/

☕ This podcast runs on coffee and quiet confidence that different minds build better worlds. Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/nikabrunet

📌 Don't forget to subscribe for more impactful conversations like this one!
🌐 WEBSITE: pinknestpodcast.com
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ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.

What if the love you've been searching for has always started with the story you were told as a child?

In this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, Nika sits down with Eri Kardos, founder of Relearn Love, relationship coach, TEDx speaker, and author of Relationship Agreements, for a conversation that is tender, transformative, and genuinely useful.

Eri didn't stumble into relationship coaching by accident. She arrived there through years of her own unravelling and rebuilding, tracing the thread from childhood fairy tales and family patterns all the way to the moments in adult life where love felt impossible, confusing, or simply out of reach. What she found along the way became the foundation of her life's work: that love is not something that happens to us. It is something we choose, shape, and relearn.

Through her frameworks, her coaching practice, and her TEDx stage, Eri is helping people move from repeating painful patterns to understanding why those patterns exist in the first place and what it actually takes to change them.

This episode doesn't shy away from the uncomfortable. Eri speaks honestly about loneliness, not as a personal failure, but as a messenger worth listening to. She unpacks the seven relationship patterns that most of us are living out without realising it, and offers a framework for releasing what no longer serves us through what she calls the Relationship Death Ritual. It is practical, it is compassionate, and it is exactly the kind of conversation we rarely have loudly enough.

"You always have a choice in love." This episode is a reminder that relearning is not a step backwards. It is how we finally move forward.

IN THIS EPISODE

• How childhood experiences quietly write the rules we carry into every adult relationship
• What self-love actually looks like beyond the Instagram caption
• The seven relationship patterns and how to identify which ones are running your life
• The loneliness loop — what it is, why it happens, and how to break it
• Conflict resolution and emotional mastery as everyday relationship tools
• The Relationship Death Ritual and how to release what no longer serves you
• The Byron Katie Method and how to shift your thinking when you're stuck
• Why choice is the most powerful thing we have in love.
  

Links:

• 🌐 Relearn Love: relearnlove.com
• 📖 Relationship Agreements (Book): Available on Amazon

☕ This podcast runs on coffee and quiet confidence that different minds build better worlds. Buy me a coffee: buymeacoffee.com/nikabrunet

📌 Don't forget to subscribe for more impactful conversations like this one!
🌐 WEBSITE: pinknestpodcast.com
📷 INSTAGRAM: @pinknestpodcast
ℹ️ DISCLAIMER: This podcast is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.

Most people talk about autism awareness. Lindsay talks about something more powerful - acceptance.
And in this episode of the Pink Nest Podcast, she shares exactly why that distinction matters, and what it looks like to live it every single day.

Lindsay was diagnosed with autism at age 11. The years that followed brought misunderstanding, misdiagnosis, and the quiet exhaustion of navigating a world that was aware of autism in theory, but rarely accepting of it in practice. Rather than shrinking into that gap, Lindsay grew through it, evolving from someone who felt upset and unheard into a passionate advocate, community builder, and living proof that diagnosis is not a ceiling.
At the heart of this conversation is a question worth sitting with: what is the difference between awareness and acceptance and why does it matter so much? Lindsay unpacks this with clarity and warmth, sharing how the shift from one to the other can transform not just individual lives, but entire communities.
She also explores the daily realities of life on the spectrum, navigating social cues, managing repetition, and the mindset shifts that helped her not just cope, but genuinely flourish.
This episode also ventures into territory that doesn't get enough airtime: the profound connection between gut health and mental health, and why looking after your body is inseparable from looking after your mind. Lindsay speaks about gratitude, positivity, and the kind of community that holds you up when the world feels overwhelming, including her own Inspiring Essentials community, built for exactly that purpose.

"Don't give up. Better days are ahead." Lindsay means it. And after this conversation, you will too.

IN THIS EPISODE
* The years of misunderstanding and misdiagnosis and how she moved through them
* The critical difference between autism awareness and genuine acceptance
* Why societal change requires moving beyond awareness campaigns
* How Lindsay navigates daily life on the spectrum, social cues, repetition, and more
* The mindset shifts that transformed her relationship with her own identity
* Mental health stigma and why vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness
* The powerful link between gut health and mental wellbeing
* Building the Inspiring Essentials community and what it offers neurodiverse individuals
* Gratitude as a daily practice, simple, accessible, and transformative
* A message of hope for parents, individuals recently diagnosed, and everyone in between.

ACTION STEPS FROM THIS EPISODE
* Focus on gratitude daily, find one thing worth celebrating, however small
* Build or join a supportive community where acceptance, not just awareness, is the norm
* Prioritise gut health as part of your mental health and overall wellness routine
* Shift from awareness to acceptance in how you engage with neurodiversity around you.

Links:
📷 Inspiring Essentials on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiring_essentials/
💙 Positivity Around Life on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/positivityaroundlife/
🌿 Amare - Gut Health & Mental Wellness: https://www.amare.com/

☕ This podcast runs on coffee and quiet confidence that different minds build better worlds. Buy me a coffee : https://buymeacoffee.com/nikabrunet.

ℹ️DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or Pink Nest Podcast.