It started with two sessions and one recording handed to a mate.
MindShift Mentors was never meant to be a business. It became one because the thing we had found kept working for everyone we gave it to.
[IMAGE: Rob and Steve together, informal, outdoors. Not a studio headshot.]
Trust strip (slim band under the hero)
Listed by NSW Government – included in the Department of Communities and Justice mental health and wellbeing toolkit
Qualified practitioners – Diploma of Clinical Hypnosis and Strategic Psychotherapy, Institute of Applied Psychology
Based in Forster Tuncurry – working with people across Australia and beyond
How this started
Rob moved to town, and we got to know each other the way you do in a place like Forster.
At the time Steve was struggling. Thirty five years in the building industry, a business to run, and a head that had stopped switching off. The sleep had gone. He had tried traditional hypnotherapy before and it had not shifted much.
Rob offered to take him through a few sessions one on one.
After two, Steve was sleeping again. Not a bit better. Properly sleeping. And the weight of stress he had been carrying for years had come off in a way he had not felt in a very long time.
That should have been the end of it.
Except Steve passed one of the sleep recordings Rob had made for him on to a mate in a high pressure government job. It worked for him too. He passed it further up. And that is how we ended up in front of the NSW Department of Communities and Justice, who now list MindShift Mentors in their mental health and wellbeing toolkit as one of the support programs they put in front of their own staff.
None of that was a strategy. It was one recording, given to one bloke who needed it.
So we sat down and had the obvious conversation. If it travels that well by accident, what happens if we actually build it properly? Record the programs, put them in an app, and get them to people anywhere, not just people who can make it to Forster on a Tuesday afternoon.
In late 2025, Steve put the tools down after 35 years and went all in.
Kickstart for Sam
Both families behind MindShift Mentors have the same streak in them. A pull toward people who are doing it tough and have not got much in their corner.
For Steve and Nikki, that is Kickstart for Sam.
Samuel Brett Nelson was their son. Twelve years ago, Sam died suddenly from a heart condition nobody knew he had. He was ten.
The Samuel Brett Nelson Kickstart Charity was set up in his memory and it is still going. Registered with the ACNC and run out of the Great Lakes, it puts local kids into things that build them up. Intensive swimming lessons. Guitar lessons for kids doing it tough. The Confident Kids program at Forster MMA. Soccer scholarships and school programs. And mental health resilience programs in local primary schools.
Kickstart is about a kid getting a shot at something. MindShift Mentors is the same instinct pointed at adults. A portion of proceeds goes back into Kickstart and other children’s causes, and it always will.
[IMAGE: Kickstart kids program photo. Ask Nikki for the best one.]
[LINK: More about Kickstart for Sam – charity Facebook page or ACNC listing]
The MindShift Method
Cognitive Pattern Reprogramming is a practical, evidence informed approach that retrains how the mind responds to stress, pressure and emotional overload. It draws on Strategic Psychotherapy, Clinical Hypnotherapy and Neurolinguistic Programming.
The short version: it works on the present, not the past. You do not have to relive anything for it to shift. That is why Steve felt it in two sessions.
It comes in three forms.
Daily audio programs. 15 to 20 minutes a day through the app, across stress, sleep, anxiety, ADHD, phobias, habits, grief and more.
One on one sessions. Personalised work with Rob or one of our mentors, over Zoom.
SafeWork MindShift System. Our psychosocial wellbeing and compliance program for workplaces, and the same work that sits in the NSW Department of Communities and Justice toolkit.
[BUTTONS: Browse the programs /catalogue/ | How it works /how-it-works/ | For workplaces /safework-mindshift-system/]
Meet the Experts
Rob Edmonds
Co-Founder and Lead Strategic Hypnotherapist
Rob is known for his calm presence, practical guidance, and a deep understanding of how thoughts drive behaviour. He was 19 when a few hypnotherapy sessions cleared the public speaking fear and exam anxiety that had been quietly running his life, and it stayed with him through a career in business consultancy and finance. He watched capable people get held back by their own thinking far more often than by any lack of ability, and eventually went and got the qualifications properly, a Diploma of Clinical Hypnosis and Strategic Psychotherapy through the Institute of Applied Psychology.
Rob creates the Cognitive Pattern Reprogramming content behind every MindShift program and takes one on one clients directly. He is the founder and creator of Cognitive Pattern Reprogramming and The MindShift Method.
Qualifications and credentials
- Diploma of Clinical Hypnosis and Strategic Psychotherapy, Institute of Applied Psychology
- Founder and creator of Cognitive Pattern Reprogramming and The MindShift Method
[The three certificate images can sit here as a small logo row underneath, but the text list above is what does the work. Images alone are invisible to Google and to screen readers.]
Steve Nelson
Co-Founder
Steve spent 35 years as a builder in Forster Tuncurry before going all in on MindShift Mentors in late 2025. He came to this as a client first, not a practitioner, and that is still how he thinks about it. He handles partnerships, business development, and getting the method in front of the people who need it.
He is an ADHD man himself, as is his daughter, and treats it as an advantage rather than something to be managed.
Emelia Armstrong-Crews
Strategic Hypnotherapist and MindShift Mentor
Emelia brings warmth, insight and a real commitment to growth. She has experience in mediation, counselling, hypnotherapy, and working with people recovering from eating disorders. She is drawn to the forward focused side of this work, helping clients break unhelpful patterns and build something steadier.
Anneliese Hoogenkamp
Strategic Hypnotherapist and Mentor
Anneliese has a background in psychology, clinical hypnotherapy and trauma informed care. She works with people who are ready to stop talking about the problem and start changing it, particularly around anxiety, self doubt and overwhelm. Outside the practice she is a journaller and a walker, which is roughly the balance she helps other people find.
Jessica Young
Strategic Hypnotherapist, Trauma-Informed Therapist, MindShift Mentor
Jessica brings a grounded, compassionate presence and a background in trauma informed therapy. Trained in Gordian Therapy, she works on the root causes behind anxiety, overthinking and burnout rather than the surface of them. Her clients tend to leave understanding that they were never broken, just stuck.
Qualifications: Trained in Gordian Therapy.
Are you an expert who wants to build a program with us?
We co-create module based programs with subject matter experts who know their field inside out and want it reaching more people than they can see one at a time. If that sounds like you, get in touch.
One million lives
That is the number we are working to. Not a slogan, just the target.
The MindShift Method got to a government department because one person passed a recording to another person. That is still how this works, it is just bigger now. Through the app, through workplaces, through the experts we partner with, and through the kids Kickstart reaches long before any of it becomes a problem.
If you are the person lying awake at two in the morning, start anywhere. The first session is the hardest one, and it is still only 15 minutes.
[BUTTONS: Start with a free audio and eBook | Book a 1-on-1 with Rob]
Get in touch
Based in Forster Tuncurry, NSW. Working with people right across Australia and beyond.
Got a question first? Have a look at our FAQs or get in touch.
