Hi, I’m Nicola.
It’s so lovely to meet you!
I’m a Creative Business Coach, Award-Winning Artist & Mentor for Creative Hearts who want to Flourish, Flow & Prosper.
I support Creative Hearts—particularly highly sensitive souls, neurodivergent folks, values-driven artists, and creatives navigating complex health challenges—to build sustainable, fulfilling creative practices and businesses that honour their unique needs.
If you’re looking for more joy, inspiration, fulfilment, profits, clarity and support, you’ve come to the right place.
Let’s pour a cuppa and get to know one another, shall we? :)
Welcome!
I’m founder of the Creative Hearts Community, creator of the global year-long creativity school, Flourish: The Art of Creative Living and mentor and coach for Creative Hearts.
As an Autistic woman navigating dynamic, complex health challenges, I understand firsthand what it's like to choose and require unconventional paths in order to flourish.
My passion is supporting Creative Hearts—particularly sensitive, neurodivergent, and values-driven artists—to build loving relationships with themselves, express their creativity, trust their inner wisdom and carve out a life that's personally meaningful and fulfilling to them.
I offer multiple resources for educating, inspiring, and supporting Creative Hearts. You are invited to take the free Creative Archetype Quiz, get my free Creative Living mini-course, sign up for my Inspiration Letters and nurture your creativity through my courses, programs and retreats.
My creative business coaching is tailored to support sensitive, heart-led creatives to develop, grow, and expand their creative offerings, follow their heart and find fulfilment in their creative work and life.
NicolaNewman.com
(she/her)
Who Am I?
As a creative mentor & coach, I bring my experience from over twenty-five years in business to help my clients bring to life what they long to create in the world.
Do you want to birth your next creative project, pivot direction or begin a new business from scratch? Together, we’ll shortcut your learning curve and bridge the gap between where you are now, with where you want to be. I’ll provide the support, resources and encouragement to make building your heart-centred and creative business or life more fulfilling, profitable and even fun!
Whether it’s in your creative life or work, I will support you to cultivate more playfulness, creativity, gentleness and flow — all while honouring your values and being gentle with yourself along the way. I’ll support you to tune into your heart’s desires, create offerings and creative projects that serve you and your clients, and overcome any fears and mindsets that may have been holding you back thus far.
I currently live on the unceded land of the Juru people of the Birri Gubba nation in North Queensland, in our 1940s Queenslander home with my husband Andrew and our Cavoodle puppy Lacey Jane, as we continue to renovate our home. We also sail our 22-foot Sonata around North Queensland waters when we can. I have a Bachelor of Fine Art and a love of business and have been running my own creative business for over twenty-five years. When I'm not working with my lovely clients, you'll find me reading, sketching in my sketchbook, listening to podcasts, sailing to a new harbour, watching for dolphins, or exploring coastal environments.
I love supporting my clients to nurture their self-belief, be brave, follow their hearts and create more…
More creativity. More freedom. More joy. More prosperity. More fulfilment. More dream clients. More rest. More simplicity. More flow.
Who I work with
My clients are typically keen to find confidence and clarity in bringing their creative dreams to life and want someone to guide them, offer mentorship, and a safe place to process their ideas, dreams and challenges.
I particularly love working with neurodivergent creatives, highly sensitive people, and those navigating chronic health conditions who are building creative practices and businesses that honour their unique needs rather than forcing themselves into conventional structures that don't serve them.
My coaching & mentoring style is nurturing, practical and insightful
I'll support you to follow your heart, rather than your fears, and give you tools to develop a more compassionate, supportive relationship with yourself. My approach is trauma-informed and strengths-based—informed by both research and lived experience. I believe we need these principles in our creative lives, because creative living often requires both courage and tenderness. My coaching is often described by clients as inspiring, thoughtful, transformative, encouraging, practical, & gentle.
The way I work is I offer resources, tools, practices, feedback and shared experiences, however, I don’t follow a set blueprint. I believe there are many ways to build a successful, sustainable and fulfilling business and creative life, and I will help you to uncover the processes and paths that work best for you.
I will listen to you, validate your experience and feelings, and help you to see the bigger picture of where you are on your journey, while also offering resources to help you with the smaller details and practical actions you’ll need to take along the way.
I value evidence-based tools and draw on philosophies from mindfulness, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), mindful self-compassion, somatic therapy and neuroscience. Some of the authors I enjoy are listed here.
You can see some of my artwork online
My painting practice is something that grounds me and brings tremendous fulfilment. It’s a form of meditation I’ve practised for over twenty-five years. I’ve held over 17 solo exhibitions around Australia and been commissioned by The Star, The Great Barrier Reef Research Foundation, Mirvac, Toyota Finance and private collectors. My artwork has been featured in Country Style and The Sunday Mail, among others. You can view and collect my artwork here.
My books
I find writing is a way of exploring my rich inner world and a form of self-expression that often results in inspiring others to follow their hearts. I’ve written four books and I’m looking forward to continuing to write more during this next decade. I’ve written both practical guides and inspiring stories about creative living & business. You can learn more about my books here.
What people say
Read what people say about working with me here.
Interested to work together?
My Mission is to Support Creative Hearts
…to dissolve creative blocks, develop a loving relationship with themselves, nurture their creativity and reframe the beliefs and patterns that keep them from following their heart and making the creative contribution they would love to make in the world.
My approach is trauma-informed and strengths-based, embracing gentleness, playfulness and self-care to navigate self-doubt and instead cultivate deep self-trust so you can truly enjoy the creative process, bring together your body of work, make money doing what you love and leave a creative legacy you're proud of.
My Guiding Values…
Be Gentle with Yourself
When we are gentle with ourselves, we give ourselves a sense of safety and from that place, we can be brave to step into the unknown and follow our heart. Being gentle with ourselves is a powerful antidote to fear and self-doubt.
Follow Your Heart
The world is full of messages telling us how to live. Yet, you have the answers within. When you follow your heart, you can live and work in ways that suit your personal rhythms, deepest values, nervous system and unique personality.
Make Space
Making space to follow our curiosities, express our creativity, and listen to our hearts, allows us to intentionally discover and focus on what is truly meaningful to us.
Prioritise Your Creative Work
Focusing on our most important work, putting our heart into what we do, and serving others is a pathway to a deeply fulfilling life.
Define Success on Your Own Terms
When we know what success means for us, it frees us to live unconventionally. We can be brave, follow our heart and create a life that is true to ourselves.
Live in Seasons
We need to cultivate seasons of rest, playfulness and curiosity, as well as seasons of focus, action and momentum. Giving ourselves permission to create AND to reflect, rest and process is paramount.
Surround Yourself with Support
Once you have an inkling of what your heart desires, surround yourself with support – communities and people who will lift you up along the way.
Nurture Your Curiosity
Nurturing your curiosities and following your bliss leads to inspiration. Instead of striving to feel motivated, when we nurture our curiosity, we overflow with inspiration that naturally pulls us forward.
Here is What I Do
I Support Heart-centred Entrepreneurs & Creatives to…
Follow their heart's desires
While working alongside your unique personality, values, creativity, nervous system needs, and personal rhythms in the process.
Prioritise their most important work
By supporting you listen to yourself and uncover what matters most to you.
Find focus, direction and clarity
By holding space and asking powerful questions to help you find your path.
Dissolve mindsets that have held them back so far
By sharing insights and new possibilities, so you can move forward and flourish.
Define success on their own terms
By encouraging you to tune into your own wisdom and come back home to yourself.
Be gentle with themselves
By helping you slow down, trust, create, reflect and rest along the way.
Nurture their curiosity & creativity
By sharing practical tools, painting practices and creative exercises to tap into your flow.
Build practices that honour their unique needs
Whether you're neurodivergent, highly sensitive, or navigating chronic health challenges, we'll create structures that work with you, not against you.
Cultivate their self-belief and be gentle with their fears
So you can create the business and life your heart desires.
I believe we don’t have to follow the crowd.
We can choose to create our own business & life,
full of what delights us & brings us alive.
Now you’ve discovered a little more about me, you are welcome to:
Join my Creative Hearts Community
Receive my Inspiration Letters, where I share personal stories, helpful resources and updates on what I’m offering
Apply for a business coaching session with me
Join my program Flourish: The Art of Creative Living to nurture your creativity and learn to paint
Check out my books
Or make yourself a cuppa and enjoy browsing through my blog
Here’s to flourishing in your creative life and embracing the incredible opportunities life has to offer.
I’m truly delighted to virtually ‘meet’ you.
With with warmest wishes,
Nicola xo
PS. As well as being passionate about creative living, I have formal qualifications too:
Bachelor of Fine Art (Queensland College of Art, Griffith University)
Diploma of Visual Art
Diploma of Business: Frontline Management for Artsworkers
Certificate IV Workplace Training & Assessment
I've been running my own creative business for over twenty-five years, held 17 solo art exhibitions, and supported Creative Hearts around the world to build sustainable, fulfilling practices.
Twenty years from now
You will be more disappointed
By the things you didn’t do
Than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.
Dream.
Discover.
~ Mark Twain
Professional Bio
Nicola Newman is a creative business coach, award-winning artist, Autistic woman, writer, painting teacher and retreat host. Through her year-long creativity school, Flourish: The Art of Creative Living, and her Creative Hearts Community, Nicola has helped Creative Hearts around the globe prioritise, nurture and express their creativity while building sustainable practices that honour their unique needs.
With lived experience as an Autistic woman navigating complex and dynamic health challenges, Nicola brings a trauma-informed and strengths-based approach to creative business coaching. She particularly loves working with neurodivergent creatives, highly sensitive people, and those navigating complex health conditions who are building creative practices and businesses that work with their nervous systems rather than against them.
Nicola has held over 17 solo exhibitions across Australia, been commissioned by Lendlease, Mirvac and The Star, and her work is held in public collections including Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery and Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital. She produced a three-part documentary series on contemporary Australian artists including Tony Albert, and Eleanor and James Avery, and has created multiple online programs supporting creative practitioners.
Living and working on the unceded land of the Juru people of the Birri Gubba nation in North Queensland, Nicola and her husband Andrew currently restore their 1940s Queenslander home and sail their 22-foot Sonata around North Queensland waters. Previously, they spent three years cruising the east coast of Australia full-time aboard their 35-foot sailing yacht. Earlier in life, Nicola bought a small acreage to grow organic food to support her complex health needs and spent months travelling the country in her van.
Through her courses, programs, podcast, books, coaching, retreats and blog, Nicola supports heart-centred creatives and entrepreneurs devoted to following their heart's desires, dissolving creative blocks, and creating their own version of a flourishing creative life—while embracing gentleness, rest and playfulness along the way.
She has been featured in magazines including Country Style, ABC Organic Gardener, GQ, Salt, Profile and Green Living, and interviewed on podcasts including Why Not Art, in-Between, and The Mojo Radio Show. She hosts immersive painting retreats on tropical islands including Lady Elliot Island and Magnetic Island.
Nicola holds a Bachelor of Fine Art from Queensland College of Art, Griffith University, a Diploma of Visual Art, a Diploma of Business, and a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment. She has been running her own successful creative business for over twenty-five years. When she's not working with her incredible clients, you'll find her reading, listening to podcasts, sketching, sailing to a new harbour, watching for dolphins or exploring coastal environments.
More than anything, she is passionate about supporting her clients to nurture their self-belief, be brave, follow their hearts and create more… More clarity. More creative projects. More joy. More prosperity. More freedom. More profits. More dream clients. More rest. More simplicity. More flow. More fulfilment.
Meet Nicola and get ready to create more freedom, creativity and playfulness in your life and business at www.nicolanewman.com.com
