My working weeks can be long and arduous. I spend a couple of days in Melbourne most weeks and often feel completely and utterly exhausted by Friday.
So it’s a wonderful thing to receive encouragement from the sisterhood along the way. On three occasions this week, I was buoyed by the positive energy of women.
A friend sent me a lovely midweek email with the subject line: ‘Thinking of you’, to remind me to get some sleep while traveling for business. Book publisher Jane Curry, whose oldest son is at school with my youngest, understands the challenges of weekly travel. Before starting her own business she was a high-flying (literally) executive in the book publishing industry and was constantly sitting on a plane bound for a major international book fair or meetings in one of the world’s leading publishing destinations.
Another friend, Westpac executive and non-executive director on a number of boards Anne Templeman-Jones began her email to me with the message: ‘Hope you are well’. Anne and I were in the same cohort during the final year of our MBAs. She is the person that I speak to when there are career, business or even life blockages, and vice versa. She is one of the world’s busiest women but still takes the time to think of me. Every woman should have an Anne Templeman-Jones in her life.
Although I haven’t yet read the edition, I was reminded of my appearance in the latest madison magazine, on sale this week, by a series of positive tweets from a group of supportive women led by marketer and entrepreneur Sam Dybac of Sammway. A woman of many talents, Sam was the person who encouraged me to take part in madison’s story on 100 Inspiring Women for the 100th edition. The team from madison had invited me to answer a set of questions but that fell to the bottom of my to-do pile. Under the weight of the workload that accompanies publishing six websites, I forgot all about it. Sam literally badgered me until I responded. “You must be in this,” she counseled me. I did what I was told and feel honoured to be a part of the last ever issue.
Women looking out for women is what this is about. Do you have a group of women who lift you up?