About me.
My background, approach, and the work I do today.
Founder of Mali Teatar · Author · Educator
I’m a playwright, theatre director, actor, producer, educator, and creative entrepreneur.
Everything began with acting.
I grew up in a small town in the north of Croatia — Čakovec. Like every child, I was surrounded by stories, questions, and rules. The world of adults felt strange and contradictory. It took me years to begin understanding the basics of human behavior — and even longer to understand the mechanics of authenticity.
Growing up in a small town, there wasn’t much space for being different. You were expected to blend in. To become the majority.
In high school, I felt a strong pull toward theatre. That was the first time I truly understood what it means to say that the world is a stage and we are all performers. Theatre became my first language – not only as an art form, but as a way of studying how people think, feel, move, and communicate.
I began to see that all communication is learned. Trained. Rehearsed.
From the moment we are born, we absorb patterns that subconsciously shape how we relate to the world.
Later, studying early childhood education at the University of Zagreb, I encountered the psychological foundations behind what I had already experienced intuitively on stage. As a father and as an artist working in children’s theatre, those insights continue to deepen.
They now form the foundation of my Playfulife concept and coaching work.
Embodied Transformation
There is another important chapter in my story.
I was a fat kid – easy to joke about, easy to label.
For years, my body was something other people commented on. In my twenties the jokes stopped, but the weight didn’t.
At 27, weighing 117 kilograms (258 pounds), and after several serious health issues, I had a very clear, almost brutal conversation with myself: enough. This path ends here. If you don’t want to die, this way of living has to stop.
What followed was a slow five-year transformation, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Not a burst of discipline or some heroic routine. It was exploration. Trial and error. I tried everything: training systems, nutrition approaches, psychological tools…
Something helped, something not, but most important thing was: I slowly realized that the real shift doesn’t happen in the body, but in the mindset. The breakthrough came when I found the right techniques and methods and understood how to apply them in a way that was sustainable. I didn’t just lose weight. I changed the way I think, decide, and build habits.
The body changed, yes. But more importantly, my standards changed. My decision-making changed. My relationship with myself changed.
That experience shaped everything I do today. It taught me that change is not about intensity. It is about alignment between mindset, system, and action.
This process eventually resulted in my book Get Fit & Never Quit, but more importantly, it reshaped my belief system. I had already understood that communication is learned – but now I realized that most of our limitations are learned as well. And what is learned can be restructured.
This experience showed me that sustainable change doesn’t come from motivation at all! Motivation is unstable. Change comes from identity and daily practice.
Much later in life, I began to see that change does not require force. It can emerge through play. Play softens the ego, reframes struggle, invites curiosity, and opens space for new patterns to form. In many ways, I had been working this way as an artist all my life.
From Personal Change to Professional Practice
I formally trained in theatre and directing, but most of my real education happened on stage, in rehearsal rooms, classrooms, gyms, workshops, and long conversations with children and adults alike.
Over time, my work expanded beyond theatre into education, storytelling for families, and personal development. I trained and worked as an educator and fitness coach, exploring how change happens not only in the mind – but in the body.
That mix of art, pedagogy, and embodied practice still defines everything I do.
I’ve created theatre performances, books, workshops, digital platforms, and coaching programs for children, parents, educators, creatives, and anyone interested in growth that actually lasts.
My approach is playful but precise. Structured but human.
I take the work seriously – not myself.
At the core of my work is a simple belief:
Play is not a distraction from growth.
It’s how growth happens.
Growth requires structure.
It requires consistency.
And it requires the courage to examine what we have learned, and what we can relearn.
That is the work I do.
If you’d like to understand how I approach it in practice, you can explore my method below.