I’m very open about the fact that I’m a woman of many labels – entrepreneur, speaker, director, author, blogger and innovator – but to my children, I am simply mum. And of all the roles I’ve ever had, being a mother is the most challenging and yet the most rewarding. It is not linear by any means.
I left corporate life when I became a mum because I wanted to spend more time with my little ones. I genuinely thought I could run a business at night, and play with my kids throughout the day… Let’s just say it didn’t quite work out that way – they really didn’t want to go to bed at 5:30pm!
I’m also incredibly lucky to have a wonderful mother. In the 1960s my mum worked on one of the first computers in Australia at Monash University, so being a woman in the business world is every normal to me. I remember watching her head off to work in her suit every morning and thinking to myself, “Gee, that looks fabulous”. When I grow up I want to be just like her.
It never occurred to me that I couldn’t start my own business, and during tough times the thought of giving up never crossed my mind. I owe a lot of that to my mum and the incredible example she set. But if I took the time to calculate exactly how much I owe her in a monetary sense, what would that add up to?
Think of how many years you lived at home. If someone added up the cost of every sleepless night, every bowl of spaghetti bolognese and every load of washing, how much money would you owe your parents? In the lead up to Mother’s Day we decided to conduct a little in-house experiment and told three RedBallooners we wanted to get their thoughts on the cost of some of our newest experiences. What they didn’t know, is that we were actually calculating exactly how much they owe their mothers.
