Zuzana Lipová, M.D., MSc.

Certified Coach, mentor, motivational speaker, published author

Zuzana, most people on Slovak Instagram know you as dr.Lipova and on your account with over 43K followers are you advising women and girls on conscious dating, attachment style and how to rewrite some of our old patterns.

What has led you to this path and this choice of focus in your career?

I have always been drawn to working with people, and I have always been curious about psychological discoveries, phenomena, and paradoxes. The more I studied the human mind, the more fascinated I became. Originally, I wanted to become a psychiatrist and pursue medicine, which I did study and graduate in.

During my studies, however, I completed a coaching training program, and what was initially meant to be a side job gradually turned into a full-time career. Once that train started moving, it was hard to stop.

Later, when I interviewed at a hospital, I still somewhat idealistically believed I could manage both my business and a psychiatry specialization. But the working conditions they offered made the decision very concrete. Either I would step away from the business and the work I love, or I would try to do it all and risk not being fully present as a mother, a doctor, or an entrepreneur.

Given my values, I realized that at that stage of my life it would have been too high a price to pay for my original goal. So I chose to stay in coaching. Relationship topics found me almost on their own. At the beginning I worked with a variety of themes, but relationships were where my clients experienced the strongest results. They started recommending me to each other, and over time it naturally became my core focus. Eventually, most of my sessions were about relationships, and that is also what shaped my profile and how people know me today.

You help thousands of women daily with their love lives, how to date more consciously and how to choose the right partner. How was the start of your journey?

It started with my own desire to understand why the same patterns keep repeating in relationships. What is love and what is trauma? What is intuition and what is anxiety? My personal experiences became a springboard, but I have always wanted to work with evidence-based methods, not only with what happened to work for me. That is why I pursued postgraduate studies in psychotraumatology, completed therapeutic training in family therapy and attachment-based therapy, took courses in biofeedback and neurofeedback, and began connecting knowledge about the body and the brain with real-life experience and practice.

Once I started combining science, therapy, and hands-on work, it suddenly made sense not only to me, but also to the women around me. My first clients came through word of mouth, and I quickly saw that relationships can be a powerful gateway to self-worth for many women.

Have you ever thought you will be working with such a big audience and so many women? How does it feel to be amongst the top Slovak dating coaches?

I wanted to be a coach who truly brings real value to other people’s lives, not just a placebo effect or quick tricks. I enjoy working with goals and visualization, so I believed I could make it happen, but honestly, I could never have imagined the form it would take. What I was actually dreaming about back then was which training I would complete next and what further studies I would be able to afford.

I think the large audience came as a by-product of doing what genuinely fascinated me, as it often does. It certainly feels good, but I stay grounded. I see myself more as someone who serves others, and I experience it as a natural exchange of value: what I give, people respond to.

You have recently published new book – ´Manuál vedomého randenia´,and during the first days it became nr.25 on the most sold books in Martinus. How does it feel to be a successful author?

Yes, Manuál vedomého randenia ( Manual of conscious dating) reached 16th place in Martinus’ bestselling books ranking for the 14-day period already during the pre-sale.

I have to say it’s incredibly rewarding to know that people like it, that it’s an easy and engaging read, and that they found themselves in it and now know what to do in their situation. It seems those three years of writing late at night were worth it.

You have also developed your own AI tool- an online tool to help women in their dating life whenever they might need it. What inspired you to jump on the AI wave and create your own?

One thing I was fortunate to realize relatively early in business is that if you’re not moving your company forward, you don’t just stay where you are, you fall behind. I want to adapt to market demands and to my clients’ needs. I could complain about not being technically skilled and about AI replacing coaches. Or I can take control and do everything I can to make sure my services fit the modern world we live in.

On top of that, I simply couldn’t keep up with answering and advising everyone on social media. People say, “It’s just one message,” but when you receive dozens every day, some of them long, detailed situations spread over five messages in a row, it stops being simple.

Many times I found myself thinking how much I wanted to open and respond to more messages, but after a full day of work, I just didn’t have the capacity to absorb one more thing. Back then I used to think I’d love to clone myself.

And voilà, fast forward a few years, and it’s actually possible to “clone” our mind. 🙂 (editorial note: follow us on updates on exclusive discount on Dr. Lipova´s services. More coming soon.)

You seem to be always learning new things in psychology and dating. How important would you say constant education is in your line of work?

Oh, it’s extremely important. They say the more we know, the more we realize how little we know and I couldn’t agree more.

I see so many skills and areas of knowledge I still want to gain, but education is only one part of my work and the core is serving my clients, so I have to spread my learning out over years.

At the same time, I see faster progress in my clients every year thanks to my own growth and the new knowledge I keep integrating.

What was the biggest challenge on your professional journey so far and how did you manage to overcome it?

My biggest enemy were my own insecurities.

Growing up, I didn’t have enough support from home or from my surroundings for what I wanted to do, so I was driven mainly by my own ambition and determination. And even though I went after my goals and achieved them, internally I kept battling doubts about whether I was truly capable.

I believed confidence would come with success, but it didn’t. At one point I realized I needed to learn how to find self-confidence within myself, because not even a Nobel Prize would give it to me if I kept the habit of constantly questioning myself.

EMDR psychotherapy helped me a lot, as did working with my self-talk and the body – breathwork, stretching, meditation, and overall relaxation, where I feel connected to myself.

How do you deal with failures and obstacles that might happen during your journey?

Autobiographies help me a lot – reading about successful people who faced obstacles and still found a way through. It also helps me to remind myself that life moves in waves: sometimes we’re up, sometimes we’re down, and the key is learning how to swim through them without being carried away by either the highs or the lows.

When it comes to external obstacles, I allow myself a moment to be shaken. I also let myself feel sad, frustrated, powerless, or angry, but I don’t take it out on others. Instead, I process it through sport, rest, and by feeling the emotion in my body rather than suppressing it, running from it, or fighting it, as I used to.

After the initial stress passes, I focus on the options I do have, and I always look for the opportunity hidden inside the obstacle. Sometimes the greatest gift goes unnoticed because it arrives wrapped as failure or disappointment. Yet it often contains lessons that can bring us closer to our goal – lessons we wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

So when we wish for something, it’s worth remembering that life may actually want to deliver it, but first it needs to teach us what we’ll need to handle it. And we don’t always like that part, so we give up on the goal rather than go through the discomfort, face failure, and learn from it.

When I was at my lowest, I kept reminding myself of a sentence: many people give up “one meter before the finish line” and what if I was already looking at my last meter? In hindsight, there were probably more than just one, but without that sentence I might have quit at the very beginning.

If you could give a one piece of advice to our readers who want to succeed, what would it be?

Learn to pay the price that success requires – without forgetting your values.

Many people don’t succeed because they’re not willing to pay the extra cost their goal demands, and then it remains just a dream. Maybe it will require some of your free time, maybe giving up a few parties, or investing money into your business that you would otherwise spend on fancy things.

At the same time, don’t compromise your values. If family or health is one of your core values, don’t believe the idea that you must neglect yourself or your family in order to be successful. It’s possible to prioritize well, keep close and supportive relationships alive, and still invest time in movement and health while building a career.