Earlier this week, I was invited to speak at my local Zonta’s Annual International Women’s Day Dinner.
It was a huge honour, and not just because my fellow guest speaker was Marnie Baker – CEO of Bendigo Bank (she is absolutely incredible btw). With over 200 (mostly) women at the dinner, I was so fortunate to be able to look out into the crowd and see familiar, encouraging faces who have supported me and championed the things I’ve done over the years.
Zonta is a fabulous organisation that, thanks to volunteers globally, seeks to empower women; advocate for equality and education for girls and women; and attempts to end child-marriage and gender-based violence. The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Count Her In’ : accelerating gender equality through economic empowerment. I did not know about this theme until after I agreed to be involved with the dinner and I’ve got to admit, I was immediately intimidated and very much wanted to pull the pin.
Robyn from Zonta asked me to simply speak about my own career journey and how that has evolved into most recently signing a two-book contract with Penguin Random. This seemed incredibly self indulgent to me until someone helpfully pointed out that I will be 48 years old in two months, and I need to appreciate that this is an unusual stage of life to embark on an entirely new career path.
So, rather than giving everyone a verbal resume and boring them to death, I instead attempted to provide a snapshot of what I’ve learned in my working life to date…over many jobs, and over many years. And by doing so, I sort of, kind of, met the brief of the evening. A few people who attended asked me to share the speech, and the 8 points I discussed, so I thought I would pop them here for anyone who may be interested.
Without further ado: A MANIFESTO
Or, 8 small thoughts that helped me get from there, to here…
1. Little you knows best.
I once read that the occupation you first wanted to be when you were a kid is the thing that will truly make you happy. I’ve always questioned this, because when I was four I wanted to be Ginger from Gilligan’s Island. To be fair, the idea of a tropical island and a wardrobe of fabulous frocks is still incredibly appealing, but it’s certainly challenging to achieve and sustain. Around the same time as this though, I learnt to read, and I loved making up stories of my own. When I was seven years old, I first said out loud that I wanted to be an author. Yes, if you do the maths, it’s taken me just a little while to get here. But I genuinely think I knew what was right all along.
2. Believe in you.
Over the years, I had other people tell me it wasn’t possible – after all, writing novels is a hobby, not a career. And I also had moments when I didn’t believe in myself and those limitations held me back. It’s taken 40 years to make that dream come true and, honestly, I’m still terrified that this might be it. Well, it was fun while it lasted. The hardest thing, aside from writing thousands of words that no one has asked for, is saying your dream out loud. And not even admitting to other people, but admitting it to yourself. It was, and still is, a daily practice to convince myself that I can do this thing that I so desperately wanted to do. I’ve learnt to surround myself with people – with incredible women – who have mentored me, and believed in me and I go back to them regularly for a desperate pat on the head … more often that anyone would realise, but it really is the self-belief that makes all the difference.
3. Get out of your own way.
Self-belief may also be considered fake it til you make it, or as the kids say these days, ‘deulu’ – that’s delusional, in case you were wondering, but I feel like delulu has more of a whimsy to it, don’t you think? Whenever people seem to be slightly ‘blocked’ in moving forward, it’s often their own doing. Oh the excuses we will make when it comes to stepping out of our comfort zone! My house is never so clean as when I’m facing the blank page. The fact is, and I hate to break this to those in the audience who are not of advanced years, but no one knows what they’re doing. Except maybe Marnie. It’s said that men will apply for a job if they meet approximately 60% of the criteria but women will only apply when they meet 100%. Women are also far less likely than men apply for a role more senior than their current position. We often think because we don’t have the degree, or the exact skillset, or we’ve not worked in that specific industry before, or even that we’ve had time off for family and haven’t worked for pay in a while, that we won’t be able to do it.
That we won’t be allowed to do it. I promise you right now, you can do it. Truly.
If that sounds a little Pollyanna to you, it is.
4. Never underestimate the power of naive optimism.
Without it, I wouldn’t have done even half of what I have. It’s easy, as you get older, to be a little more jaded. To have dealt with the knock backs and no’s and unenthusiastic responses. It’s therefore easy to dismiss the younger people in our lives with their grand ideas. You might be wrong though, the world might have changed since you last tried. They might be wrong, but that’s part of life and learning and adventure. In 2005 I started Bendigo Magazine. Four years later, pregnant with my first child, I started Little One Magazine which – within a year – was selling in over 15 countries and was over 240 pages per issue. Had I known then what I know now, I probably never would have tried. It was really, really hard. However, it taught me about publishing, about writing and producing to a deadline, and managing people and expectations, and perhaps most importantly how there is always a deeper story behind the one that’s on the surface.
5. Follow your curiosity.
I started Bendigo Magazine because I loved glossy images, and magazines, and writing, and learning about people and places, and I thought it was a great way to combine all of those loves. It was. But I had no idea what I was doing. I would look up to all those women I admired, who were doing amazing things, and I thought one day I would be like them. I too would have my shit together. Then someone called me an entrepreneur, which shocked me, because I thought you needed to be business savvy and ambitious and power hungry to be one of those. Eventually, I got old enough, that I started being called a mentor. That was a shocking moment…that I could possibly be of any assistance to another person. I still didn’t know what I was doing and would have loved a hand and some sage wisdom from someone who knew more than me!
The thing is though, everyone is so very different that what works for one person may not work for another – and I say this with regards to work, health, family and life in general. People can tell you what worked for them, but no one can tell you what will work for you.
You need to stay in your own lane.
You need to navel gaze a little and figure out what’s easy, and fun, and interesting, and then you need to do more of that.
6. Expect the unexpected.
For years I was a planner and a goal setter. It worked really well for me, but it also made me burn out in a massive way. The truth is, I didn’t really believe in luck. A quote, long attributed to the Roman philosopher Seneca, is: ‘Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.’ I lived by this for the longest time. Preparation is the work, opportunity requires you to put yourself out there. Keep going. Don’t stop. There’s a saying in the writing world – one that is rife with rejection – that the only ones who fail are the ones who stop trying. The thing is though, you can’t control the world that way. You’ll always be disappointed. There simply is an element of luck involved sometimes. Or at least, an element of the unexpected.
I started writing a novel in 2019, and finished it 2020. I polished, and I pitched to publishers and agents. I got a lot of no-thanks. So I wrote another novel, and in 2022, I started pitching that one. In September of that year, I sent it to Penguin. They had opened up their ’submissions’, which meant any person who’d written something that fit within their specifications could send their work in. This is known, in the industry, as the slush pile. Not a very promising entry point.
The admin person at the Penguin office in Sydney was printing the submissions, and an editor happened to be standing next to the printer, waiting for something else. The first page of my work came off the printer and she noticed it. She liked the title. The second page came off. She liked the first sentence. She ended up taking the entire manuscript home with her and read it all that night. The next day she gave it to her publisher. Within two months, I had an agent and a two-book contract. In less than a year, my book was on shelves all over the country. An absolute dream. Yes, there was hard work, plenty of preparation…and yes, there was an opportunity: the submissions opening for the month. But it was also pure luck. She was standing there in that moment, and that was the book that was chosen. I’m writing in a genre now that I never could have planned for, and I often wonder if I have tried to fit neatly myself in that box, tried to control the outcome a little more, would things have worked out the way they have?
7. Rest is important.
I know I just told you all not to quit, and to keep preparing and putting yourself out there and believing you can do it. But please don’t do it if it means your physical and mental health will suffer. I was born into the wave of 1970s feminism that told us we could be anything we wanted to be, and we could have it all – although Oprah famously said ‘you can have it all, just not all at once’. This, combined with the innovation that is the internet, which shows us all the many things that are possible, can result in us feeling as though we are useless if we are not productive or making money. It means, that in our quest to have the Best Life Ever, we are exhausted and we’ve never learnt how to properly rest. I read recently that rest is anything that doesn’t require effort. So your catch up with old friends, that new hobby, that bush walk, that book you read, that bike ride, can all be considered rest but only if you’re doing them for the right reasons. The moment you slam a “I should” on the activity is the moment is doesn’t count as rest. That’s why doom scrolling has become so appealing but – for the record – that isn’t always restful either. I encourage you all, every day, to do the thing that you fear others will judge as ‘lazy’ and indulgent, or simply fun-for-no-purpose. It’s life changing.
8. It’s never too late.
You know that saying the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is right now? I feel like is true of humans also. Last year, at Clunes Book Festival, I met a 92 year old woman who was thrilled her poem had been selected as part of an anthology of erotic prose. It would be her first published piece. She is now working on a collection of her own. It’s never too late. Everyone in this room has a thing they’d love to do. A place they want to visit. A skill they’d like to learn. Or, like me, a career prospect they’ve always dreamed of, but never thought possible. Do it. Work towards it. Say it out loud to the people you love. Admit it to yourself. You only get one shot at life, and you don’t want to end it with any leftover wants or dreams. This year’s International Women’s Day is all about counting on women, so to all the women in the room, I would just like to say this: count on yourself first. What a gift you will then be able to give to the rest of the world.
