About Me
02 / The story
Emilia Niglas is an international model and the host of Adulting With Emilia, a podcast about growing up in a world that never handed anyone a manual. Her work sits at the intersection of media, psychology, and entrepreneurship — and honestly, everything being alive asks of us: money, relationships, learning, health, and all the things nobody sits you down to explain. She wants to know it all — asking the questions most people carry quietly, and collecting perspectives from people who've lived what she hasn't.
Her life gave her an unusual head start on the subject: traveling from a young age, moving from Estonia to the Dominican Republic at fourteen, modeling internationally since the same year, living alone abroad at sixteen, internships in Los Angeles, seasons in Dubai — and a childhood spent finding her way into rooms most people only see from the outside, asking questions and listening to how life actually works when the cameras are off.
But the real starting point came after graduation, when she realized school hadn't prepared her for any of it. She felt a little lost in the world — and then discovered that almost everyone does. That's when the questions became the work.
Those are the lessons school left out. Those are the stories she brings alive.
03 / In her words
A Note from Emilia
Hi, I'm Emilia.
A week before my eighteenth birthday, I texted my stepdad at 4 a.m. It started as “I want to be a millionaire by my twenties” — I'd always talked about how successful I was going to be. But that night it hit me: life wasn't someday anymore. It was starting now, and I had no idea how I was actually going to do any of it. It suddenly felt so real. I was freaking out: I need a plan.
I was convinced that being an adult meant knowing — money, relationships, success — and that by eighteen, everyone somehow had it. Then I started to understand how little I actually knew. And then came the real discovery: almost nobody knows. Some more, some less, but no one wakes up one day fully set, all the knowledge downloaded, ready to be an adult. Everyone is figuring it out on the way. The more rooms I've been in, the clearer it gets — it's like a big secret everyone's been hiding: there is no manual.
And here's what I think we lost somewhere: we used to share our stories. Now everyone wants to be proud of where they've arrived, and we forget to share the whole journey — the mistakes, the pivots, the lessons. Even our parents often try to be the perfect example instead of telling us what actually happened. So we end up making the same mistakes they did, when one honest conversation could have saved us the trouble.
That's why I interview people and bring their stories alive. Thanks to my family and the incredible people around me, I have access to rooms and conversations most people don't — and keeping that to myself would feel selfish. The value of sharing and learning together is bigger than anything I've done on my own. Everyone has lived something I haven't, which means everyone can teach me something. It's just a matter of asking good questions — and there are no stupid ones.
So there's no manual — but in a way, we're writing one together, by finally talking about these things. And honestly, the manual isn't even the point. The world is a huge map with endless ways you could go. What matters is the compass inside you — your inner voice, learning to know yourself and what you love, and the trust that whatever you choose, you're going to figure it out. That's what I'm building, out loud, decision by decision. I'm not a guru — my mission is the thing I'm still learning myself. I share the journey as it happens: the lessons, the experiments, and the mistakes too.
If you've ever felt behind, or wondered whether everyone else is just better at this than you: they're not. And you're in the right place.
Welcome in.
04 / Elsewhere
Come find the rest
The conversations live on the podcast, the essays on Substack, and the modelling work has its own room.