In an enlightening episode of The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, I welcomed spiritual life coach and author Nadia Bernardy for an engaging conversation on personal growth, entrepreneurship, and embracing one’s unique superpower.
Nadia Bernardy opens up about her early career, pioneering for Airbnb on the west coast. As one of the first employees working in various roles such as social media, business travel, and press, Nadia embraced the company’s revolutionary model and immersed herself fully in its essence. However, a steadily increasing workload along with external and internal pressures led to overwhelming stress and the need for timeout from this successful but demanding career.
Recognizing her need for mental and physical rest, Nadia sought therapy and navigated her way towards a much-needed hiatus. Interestingly, as she attempted to negotiate her way to a sabbatical, Airbnb introduced the Refresh and Recharge program offering exactly what she needed – three months of paid time off.
This break served as the start of Bernardy’s transformative journey towards self-discovery and growing into her role as a spiritual life coach. With time on her side, she embarked on a soulful venture of self-discovery that led to her penning down her experiences and insights. The culmination of this journey is her book “But First, Dream Bigger,” which explores a 21-day path toward unlocking one’s potential and finding their life’s true calling.
Taking a compassionate approach towards self-growth, Bernardy encourages her readers to dedicate twenty-one days to pursuing their dreams. This timeframe, she believes, is critical in developing strong, sustainable habits that can steer one’s life toward their goals. Focusing on creative windows of time, she urges individuals to open up more meaningful time slots towards working on their dreams – transforming the way they see their daily schedules and priorities.
But Bernardy’s mission doesn’t stop there. She nudges women into a realm of boldness and confidence in relation to their business’s finances. Often, she pointed out, women find it easier to generate income through their spouses while battling resistance in their own businesses. This, she believes, should and can change. It is a matter of claiming their space in the business world and viewing their professional roles in a different light.
With the same pioneering spirit that propelled her work at Airbnb, Bernardy now champions the journey to entrepreneurship. However, she does so with a gentle warning that it’s not for everyone, and one should only venture forth if they genuinely love what they do. For Nadia, transitioning from a 9-to-5 job to entrepreneurship meant viewing that job as a foundation that could support her business until it became self-sustaining.
Throughout her conversation, Nadia emphasizes the importance of community, acknowledging the strength of Hawaii’s people in responding to devastating wildfires. It’s a metaphor we discussed for individuals or businesses facing their own figurative wildfires – resilience and community are key to overcoming them.
In the spirit of empowering women, we delved into the challenges faced by women in traditional corporate structures that often err toward masculine patriarchal behaviors. I myself encourage women to embrace their divine femininity, amplifying their leadership style instead of trying so hard to fit into a pre-defined mold. Nadia seconds this notion, imploring women to rewrite the narrative of women leaders.
Her most striking advice is for women to rewrite their childhood narratives around wealth – considering it a key to unlocking a wealthy mindset. Nadia strongly believes in questioning, challenging and, if necessary, changing deeply entrenched beliefs and views on wealth and income.
Towards the end of this engaging discussion, Nadia reiterates that women are perfectly capable of bringing in money in their unique ways and should abandon notions of having to emulate others. She invites women to express their individuality, share their work fearlessly, and resonate with their unique brand of leadership – in short, to pursue their own version of the “Human Beauty Movement”.
After listening to this conversation, I hope you are left with the possibility of a real-life transition from frantic hustle to fulfilling mindfulness, rooted not just in financial success, but firmly anchored in self-discovery and spiritual depth. Stream the full interview here. There’s a complete transcript on the page if you prefer reading instead of listening or watching.
*The Human Beauty Movement may receive a small commission from your support
