“It’s exactly what I dreamt of – a welcoming community space that houses a tea bar, creative retail market and a multi-modality clinic with a dispensary and workshop area,” Maddi said. "When I graduated, it was wonderful to walk in and start seeing naturopathy clients immediately in the business I had built.”

While natural health has always been part of her life, Maddi didn’t consider naturopathy as a career until she was in the United Kingdom.

“At school, I enrolled first in biomedical science, but before I finished the year, I had changed my preference to business and marketing. After finishing my first degree, I worked in Australia and then spent about five years working in the UK. Over there, they have big health and wellness festivals, and I visited many of them. And as I started to get increasingly dissatisfied with my profession, I looked into naturopathic nutrition studies, but it was very costly and not transferrable, and I couldn’t see myself in the industry at that time. So I stayed in marketing but completed yoga teacher training.”

When Maddi lost her job in the UK, she also lost her visa. “It was a difficult time because I wasn’t ready to leave, but one of the positives was the opportunity to find a new career.”

Maddi decided to dip her toe into naturopathy study, doing her first semester over eight months while she continued working full time in marketing in Sydney. She never looked back. The following year, she left her employment to study full-time, moving to Brisbane and finishing on the Gold Coast.

“After being at a big university with my first degree, I could not fault Endeavour as an institution. The lecturers were amazing, supervisors very knowledgeable, and our Gold Coast student clinic manager was so switched on and approachable,” she said.

Maddi was a student with a mortgage and working three casual jobs. When Covid-19 happened, that all came to a halt. Suddenly, she had more time for her studies.

“During the lockdown, one of my subjects was herbal manufacturing, which quickly went from being in a lab to being in my kitchen. I was always fascinated by products and wanted to create my own,” Maddi said. “I love tea. When I travel, it’s the souvenir I take home. So, I bought all the herbs and formulated eight different blends in my kitchen. I launched my tea business at Caloundra Market in August 2020.”

Since then, Maddi has sold her tea at markets in northern New South Wales, Gold Coast and Brisbane. Stores and salons across the country now stock it. As her tea business grew, her vision evolved into something more.

“Markets are full of creative and community-minded people. I started to imagine how to turn my tea brand into something bigger and better. I saw a physical studio that combines a dispensary, workshop area and clinic, giving people different ways to connect and heal,” Maddi said.

“It happened faster than I had planned, but I have loved bringing together a team of practitioners for the Well Collective. Everyone is as equally passionate about natural health, client-centred care, collaboration and community as me!

“I can’t wait to see how it blossoms in the future as I continue on this journey.”

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