What if you had spent so much of your life outside your comfort zone that your challenge was in settling back into being comfortable?

Meet Monica!

Up until the age of 13 Monica had an idyllic life. One of 8 children with two great parents she was perfectly happy. And then her father passed away suddenly. On the surface life didn’t change, other than missing her dad.

Monica found herself becoming the ‘clever, naughty kid’ after that. “I adopted this persona of always being outside the comfort zone, always being rebellious.”

Monica balanced jobs and school from ages 14 to 17, and then decided to take a gap year as she had no idea what direction to take next. Career advice was varied and not useful!

After finding herself working 5 jobs in Cairns, a push from her mum had her moving back to the city and getting a job at a trading house – the start of something wonderful for Monica!

“And it was just the dynamism of this really complicated global working environment a whole new language to learn – bills of lading, 90cl, futures, phytosanitary certificates, regulations and steamship owners that were German. Russian and Pacific Islanders. It was an interesting process, and I went to work as a shipping clerk.”

Monica describes one of her key attributes as curiosity, which combined with an ability to make friends and retain information had her soon selected to be part of an international fast track program!

“That just then opened up a whole world! This month, you’re going to go to Singapore, and you’re going to learn about our insurance business. Next month, you’re going to go to Hamburg and you’re going to have learn how we manage our asset fleet of breakbulk ships, or every variety of ships and how many ports we own around the world. You are going to learn the economics of the cattle/beef industry, from paddock to burger. As a 22-year-old kid I just soaked all this up.”

Monica’s career went from strength to strength, a combination of confidence and talent seeing her succeed in whatever she set her mind to. She moved from Brisbane to Perth to Sydney and then to New York as part of her career progression.

For 8 years in US she thrived then as she turned 30 she reflected on her next step and incidentally started to meet women 10 years older and whilst “successful” in their careers and earnings they were unhappy. That was the first trigger in her decision to come home to Australia, but there was more “I think something sat with me from meeting those all the women and I got a glimpse of my future self.

“I actually got sick because I’ve flown a lot and I picked up a virus, I think on a trip back from South America. And I remember I flew into Miami and was feeling just not quite well. I went to whoever the doctor was according to our health plan, and before I knew it, they put me into the ICU because what I’d actually picked up was a viral infection in my heart muscle.”

It was not long after that Monica moved home to Brisbane and moved in with her mum, who sadly passed away 4 months later.

Monica struggled to get a job in Brisbane – a recruiter suggested her experience and her New York accent may have been intimidating to the branch offices in that smaller city – but instead of moving to a bigger city Monica embarked on an MBA – and 2 years later topped the Dean’s list. Another year on she married a pilot and move to Dubai where she embarked on another 9-year adventure in Arabic foreign wealth funds.

Her marriage lasted a decade and she moved back to her beloved Brisbane in 2012.  “The divorce gave me cause to reflect.”

Monica shared with me at this stage that if it is work related, she has no issue solving problems, but struggled more with being uncomfortable / vulnerable on a personal level.

“One of my brothers suffers with bipolar. In the last five years, I took my brother in and he came to live with me. And I started to get a real appreciation of mental illness as an illness not as something that people should just get over.

“I got the understanding of just how cruel and hurtful people going through both ends of that cycle are. I felt useless. I just felt like it was something I couldn’t fix. And that really, for a long while, it really affected me. And it took me a while to develop a mindset about removing all my unconscious bias that it was about my brother. It’s not just get out of bed and do something. That’s my method. That’s not healing. 

“It took me a long while but I’ve reframed my whole mindset around, this is an illness. And if he had cancer, I would be there in a heartbeat with whatever it needed done. And so I just had to accept it was something out of my control, and I had to manage it. Like I would manage the volatility of the marketplace, and say, whatever version of my brother turns up today, I’ll be okay. I think that was helpful. And that’s helped me a lot more in this last phase of my career. Because I think now, I’m much more of a humanist.”

And Monica’s advice to others about stepping out of their comfort zone?

“It’s hard, but you can’t let it disable you. I would implore them to go to a time where the first experience has been discomfort, like when they learn to drive, the first time you ever get behind the wheel of a car, you think you’re never going to be able to do this. The first time you go out for a run, you think I’ll never be able to run more than 20 minutes. The first time you touch a computer, are you ever going to be able to type? I think there’s lots of examples in our lives where we’ve had discomfort, but we just work our way through it. And for me, I think turning up is 90% of the game. So turn up”

Great advice Monica!