What do you do when your master plan falls apart on day ten?

If you're Mon Marczuk, you stay anyway. You figure it out. You go from fired Emirates cabin crew in a city where you know absolutely nobody, to building a four-year career as one of Dubai's most respected cycling and strength coaches — and then you leave all of it behind to go nomadic, because something in you knows it's time for the next chapter.

In this episode, Mon and Hannah dig into what it actually looks like to build a global coaching career from the ground up — the delusional goal, the plan that didn't survive contact with reality, and the quiet, grounded confidence that carried her through anyway.

EPISODE SUMMARY

Monica Marczuk — Mon — is a global ride and strength coach currently based in Brussels, Belgium, where she holds a residency at ANIMO alongside House of Ride. Originally from Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Mon spent four years coaching cycling and Barry's Bootcamp-format strength training in Dubai before deciding to leave her base behind entirely and immerse herself in communities around the world — spending six weeks in Tangier, Morocco (where she developed and taught her framework, the Flow Method), before landing in Belgium for a three-month residency. She is also the founder of 23 Collective, a project bringing coaches and community together in new formats.

In this conversation, Mon walks Hannah through the full origin story: riding as a mental health tool after a difficult period in her life, hosting free Saturday night youth rides in Kitchener to create a sober, safe space for young people, and the moment she decided — six months into her coaching career — that she was going to share movement as a mental health tool with the world. Her plan to get there? Apply to Emirates Airlines as cabin crew, fly everywhere, and ask studios to let her coach for free. She got the job. She removed a meaningful tattoo to comply with the uniform policy. She was terminated ten days in when they spotted the remnants. She stayed in Dubai anyway.

Mon also gets candid about the personal experiences that shaped why she coaches the way she does — including a period of substance and alcohol use she hasn't spoken about publicly before, and how finding movement gave her tools she didn't have access to growing up as a child of immigrants. She talks about what it means to be a space holder and a multiplier of potential, why grounded leadership is her north star as a coach, and what it felt like to be selected by House of Ride as their One to Watch through an international competition.

You'll also hear Mon and Hannah get into the art of genre-blending in a playlist (Mon's hill to die on), the tracks that make her lose her mind on the bike, why she signed herself up for pottery and dance classes in Brussels, and the mantra she's carrying into this next chapter: everything that breaks, breaks in my favour.

Note: this episode touches on substance use and mental health. If you or someone you know is struggling, resources are available — please reach out to a trusted person or mental health professional in your area.

This one is for every fitpro who has ever had a goal that sounded completely unhinged to everyone around them — and did it anyway.

Connect with Mon

• Instagram
• Twenty3 Collective
• ANIMO Brussels
• House of Ride

Connect with Hannah & Yes You Can

• Podium Prep — Hannah's under-$100 mini course covering everything you need to know before your first audition (mic setup, audition track choice, studio outreach, full training manual, visualization exercises)
• Instructor Magic — Hannah's flagship mentorship program for group fitness instructors and studio owners — doors are open now, $100 off

Want to level up your coaching abilities? The SPRING SALE is HERE for all Instructor Magic courses, including 1:1 coaching! Get up to 40% off online education with lifetime access in the Instructor Magic Academy and suite of courses for instructors who want to level up, fill classes, and change lives.

What do you do when the career you want keeps saying not yet?

If you're Alicia Portelli, you open your own studio, close it when the universe makes it clear it's time, pack up your life and move to Singapore, build something beautiful there too, and then — nine years after first watching a coach on Instagram and thinking I want to work with that person someday — you move to New York and make it happen.

The plot twist? That coach is now her boss at AARMY.

In this episode, Alicia and Hannah dig into what resilience actually looks like from the inside — not the highlight reel version, but the fired-twice, start-over, teach-to-two-people version — and why hard things might be exactly the point.

EPISODE SUMMARY

Alicia Portelli is a cycling coach now based in New York, where she teaches at AARMY alongside Akin Akman — the coach who first inspired her back in 2017 when she watched a video of him riding to Our House with his hands off the handlebars. Originally from Sydney, Australia, Alicia spent years teaching across the country's top cycle studios before opening her own — JAMM — a community-driven studio that became known globally for the athleticism of its riders and the family it built. After closing JAMM in 2023, she moved to Singapore to lead the cycling division at one of Asia's largest boutique fitness studios, coaching across Singapore, Bangkok, Malaysia, Mexico, and beyond — before finally landing in New York in early 2026.

In this conversation, Alicia walks Hannah through the full, beautifully nonlinear journey: the stranger who double-timed in her class and redirected her entire career, the two studio firings that didn't break her, the Lululemon ambassador call where she blurted out "I'm going to open my own studio" with zero plans, the noise complaints that eventually closed JAMM, and the twelve-month visa process that stood between her and the job she'd already been offered at AARMY.

But this episode isn't only a career story. Alicia gets honest about her long battle with bulimia — how it shaped her need for control, how she eventually found her way through it, and how that experience quietly became the foundation for the way she coaches today. She also opens up about the cost of being so tunnel-visioned on career that other parts of life can get left behind, and what she's actively working to change about that.

You'll also hear Alicia and Hannah go deep on the creative practice of building a coaching identity — how to pull inspiration from everywhere without just copying someone else's homework, why simplicity on the bike is sometimes the hardest and most powerful thing you can offer a room, and what Michael Jackson, Fred Again, and a Pilates teacher's vocal authority all have in common.

Plus: book recommendations, the "rapid river" metaphor that made Hannah tear up mid-interview, and the playlist conversation that will absolutely derail your evening.

If you've ever been told no, wondered if the slow build is actually adding up to anything, or needed permission to start over one more time — this episode is it.

Connect with Alicia

• Instagram
• AARMY

Books mentioned:

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