‘My next purpose’: Libby Trickett’s holistic new business lands major deal

After co-founding a new business inspired by her mental health journey, champion swimmer Libby Trickett has landed a major partnership with a leading global brand.

Champion swimmer Libby Trickett has turned her experience sharing her mental health battles into a flourishing new business promoting holistic health.

The four-time Olympic Gold medallist linked with women’s health coach Paula Hindle in February to found business Unlocking Her Potential, through which they run holistic health membership programs and will host their first retreat in Brisbane next weekend.

It comes as they announce a new partnership with leading global gym brand Snap Fitness, who will incorporate their holistic programs into the Snap app and feature them in their upcoming campaigns.

As part of their new business Unlocking Her Potential, Libby Trickett and co-founder Paula Hindle have launched a new riseUP retreat and landed a partnership with Snap Fitness.

“We want to reach as many people as possible with the messages of moving your body because it feels good, and not because we hate ourselves, and learning those foundations of meditation and journaling to dig into what are the things that are holding us back,” Trickett said.

Since retiring from swimming in 2013, Trickett welcomed three daughters – Poppy, Edwina and Bronte – and released memoir, Beneath the Surface, which detailed her private mental health struggles. She was also open about suffering postnatal depression.

“I feel like since finishing swimming I’ve been looking for my next passion or I guess a different way of putting it, my next purpose,” Trickett said. “I went through postnatal depression … and I think through the subsequent experiences of sharing that story and normalising those conversations around mental health, I really started to find something that was really meaningful to me and that I was really passionate about making people feel better about themselves.”

Libby Trickett teamed up with women’s health coach Paula Hindle to create a fitness and mental wellbeing business called Unlocking Her Potential.

She first met Hindle in 2018 when she joined her post-natal program.

Hindle, a clinical women’s health physiotherapist, began training in yoga teaching and holistic health after losing her husband to suicide nine years ago, initially to heal herself before beginning to incorporate her learning into her clinical work.

“I think (Trickett and I) both just realised we had the same visions and values and a very strong desire to support mental wellness in the community, with no fake stuff,” Hindle said.

“That’s the basis of our business – it’s just really with life experience realising that physical exercise isn’t enough, you really need to address all the foundations of health to be well.”

Libby Trickett with her three daughters. Photo: Instagram

“Libby and I both lead with vulnerability … there are so many women who exercise because they hate their bodies, or they are punishing their body, so we want them to really spend time focusing on self love and moving because it feels good.”

Trickett said next weekend’s inaugural retreat for 20 women will be “an escape from the mental load, to nourish yourself, to connect with beautiful women, to eat glorious food, to learn some of the foundations around yoga and journaling and meditation and just to disconnect.”

Their deal with Snap comes amid the gym brand’s mission to move the mood of the nation, encouraging Australians to reconnect with exercise and movement and the relationship this has with not only our physical health, but our mental health.

Originally published as ‘My next purpose’: Libby Trickett’s holistic new business lands major deal