CANADIAN PHYSIQUE ALLIANCE July/August SUMMER ISSUE | Seite 73

Where do I begin!
I was born in Kosovo and came to Canada at a very young age
when war broke out back home. My childhood life was perfect.
My family was well off and parents gave me everything! I was
in a private medical school and I felt that the world was my
playground. When you are young, you are naive and don’t really
understand or fear things. I didn’t understand the tensions
between the Albanians and Serbians.
I was 12 when the war came, and I was separated from my
family, herded onto a train at gunpoint. My comfortable happy
childhood disappeared and I lost everything including my
innocence. I was one of the lucky ones and relocated to Canada.
For 6 months I didn’t know if my family back home was alive or
dead. Thankfully, as I found out later, they had survived.
Despite everything in my life that was going on at that time I
still had so much hope, passion, and love for everything and
everyone around. I lived here with my lovely aunts for 2 years
without my parents before my family was able to come to join
me here in this beautiful country that I now call home.
I have struggled just like everyone else. Trying to learn a new
language, new culture, and starting from the bottom with
nothing. That’s where I found a love for fitness. I remember
buying fitness magazines and going to the gym and trying to
do the workouts that they had published. I had no real idea
what I was doing but I continue to train and stay active between
school and work. I wished one day to be a fitness model just
like the girls on those magazines. If you dream it and work hard
you can make those dreams a reality. My dream started to come
true a couple of years later when I started my journey into the
bodybuilding and fitness world. I remember doing my first
show and to be honest, I really had no idea what I was getting
myself into. I’ve always trained all my life so I just wanted to
do something different. It was love at first step and I became a
nationally qualified figure competitor. It is a true honour to be
on that stage and compete against so many wonderful athletes
and I can proudly say that I did it naturally.
Being on stage and a part of the health and wellness industry
has opened many doors. One of them was the opportunity to
work for the best supplement company in the country, Allmax
Nutrition. I am so grateful and blessed to wake up every day to
do a job I love and to work for a company where we are all one
big family.
Juggling family (I am a mother to two beautiful young ladies),
business, and my own personal fitness is not easy at times but it
is possible. If you want something bad enough, you can make it
happen! Nothing can stop you but yourself. Success requires a
lot of hard work, focus, and discipline.
As I look back years later, I am grateful for every opportunity,
every challenge, every success and every failure. They have all
been a part of making me who I am today!
MIMOZA
PHOTOS:ZOOM IMAGE PROS H&MU:ABSOLUTE TOUCH INC.