Your Brilliant Career

Best laid plans

Episode Summary

Ever tried to walk in a straight line after ten margaritas? Do you know what happens – that’s right… you fall over! My guest today, Georgie Abay, explains modern life is a lot like this. It might hurt when you fall, or you might just laugh, but we are supposed to trip up in life. Further, those challenging, unexpected, maybe even embarrassing moments… are when the real magic happens.

Episode Notes

Ever tried to walk in a straight line after ten margaritas? Do you know what happens – that’s right… you fall over!  

My guest today, Georgie Abay, explains modern life is a lot like this. It might hurt when you fall, or you might just laugh, but we are supposed to trip up in life. Further, those challenging, unexpected, maybe even embarrassing moments… are when the real magic happens.

Presenter: Gillian Fox

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Episode Transcription

Ever tried to walk in a straight line after ten margaritas?  Do you know what happens – that’s right… you fall over! 

Our guest today explains modern life is a lot like this. It might hurt when you fall, or you might just laugh, but we are supposed to trip up in life. Further, those challenging, unexpected, maybe even embarrassing moments… are when the real magic happens.

Today, if you need a burst of energy and a re-set, you will LOVE this episode.

You are listening to Your Brilliant Career. I'm your host, Gillian Fox executive coach, women's career expert, and entrepreneur. The podcast that teaches you how to get the most out of your career. 

We talk tactics, tools, and stories that all help incredible women like you achieve the success you deserve. 

If you want to learn more about how to create the brilliant career you've always wanted, I encourage you to check out the RISE Program. It's my four-month career development program. Through a combination of individual executive coaching sessions and group workshops, you'll discover how to overcome obstacles, create opportunities and reach new heights in your career.

Today's guest is the wonderful Georgie Abay. I say she is wonderful because she is everything I love in great women. She is honest, and she's kind and funny. She dreams BIG, she constantly lifts other women up, and even better… she has written a book for us all called Best Laid Plans.

In it, Georgie writes about those moments in life when we think to ourselves – 'well, that's just not meant to happen' – and then tells us why we must carry on. I think it's a great look at modern life and the challenges we all have as women. I just couldn’t put this book down myself.

In addition to being an author, Georgie was the Deputy Editor at Australian Vogue, and she has been a journalist for the last two decades. She also owns a media company, The Grace Tales. There is so much more to say about Georgie, but you just have to listen… so let's dive in. 

Gillian Fox: Georgie, welcome. Thank you for joining us this morning.

Georgie Abay: Thank you so much, Gill. I've been looking forward to this for so many weeks. So excited to be talking to you.

Gillian Fox: Well, let's dive in and talk about what I would consider one of the sparkly parts of your career, and that is working at Vogue magazine, which is such an iconic, glamorous, global brand, and you were the deputy editor. What surprised you most about that experience? Because you fought hard to get that role.

Georgie Abay: I fought so hard to get that role. I think it was a role that, when I was a tween and a teen, I used to hang out in the local news agency. In fact, my dad opened an account, which he quickly closed because I would go in, and I started putting all these magazines on his news agency account, so he obviously got the bill, and he quickly closed that down. But if you think about manifesting, not that I've ever sort thought much about manifesting, although I do sort of subconsciously do it a lot, I just manifested this career in fashion magazines for a long, long time.

Georgie Abay: But at school, no one ever told me I could work for a magazine or I could be a writer. It was very much sort of the very traditional careers were presented, and I know that, with so many entrepreneurs out there now, that will change, and I know there's just so many more career options. But I just sort of got in my head that I was going to work for a magazine, and I just put my head down and was really quite determined about making that happen. I also have a mum who has always been very, very supportive, and I got the opportunity to go to Dubai.

Georgie Abay: That was really, really a sort of pivotal turning point in my career, because I ended up going to work for Harper's Bazaar in Dubai, and I was like, "Mum, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go," and she said to me, "You need to go." And I think that's a really brave choice for a mum to put her daughter on a plane to a city that she's never ever been to before, completely alone, but I've always had my mum as a cheerleader. Then, that was sort of a real turning point. I took a really big risk going to Dubai, and that was where it all started, I guess.

Gillian Fox: Your mum sounds lovely, by the way, in the book. She just sounds wonderful, and I think it makes such a difference. I have a wonderful mum too, Geordie, and having someone in your corner like that growing up makes a world of difference, doesn't it?

Georgie Abay: Such a huge difference. I'm so grateful I had my mum in my corner, because I haven't always had women in my corner throughout my career. I've had some amazing women. When I first worked at Vogue the first time, because I worked there twice under two different editors, the first time it wasn't the best experience, and it wasn't the best fit for me. I, then, went over to Harper's Bazaar, and I worked under a woman called Edwina McCann, who's still the editor of Vogue, and she was just the most brilliant boss.

Georgie Abay: She is so great at what she does, but she was also nice, and it was just so refreshing. You can have this incredible boss, and she took me under her wing. I remember my first week, she gave me a bottle of champagne, and she said, "Here you go. Congratulations for surviving your first week," and I almost fell over, just because the gesture was just so kind, and that was just it. She was always so kind. Then, I went back to Vogue and worked as a deputy editor under her for a second time, and it was the most brilliant chapter of my career, one I'm eternally grateful for. It was a dream career. I got flown all over the world. I worked hard, and I feel so grateful.

Gillian Fox: Yeah. A lot of fun, and at the right time of your life to have all that fun, right?

Georgie Abay: Pre-kids. I was free. I had freedom. My entire focus was obviously my friends and family, but also a job that I loved and worked really hard to get. Yeah. I loved it.

Gillian Fox: In your beautiful book, Georgie, Best Laid Plans, you talk about your experiences at Vogue and many other things, but the book is really all about reminding us that life rarely unfolds the way that we want it to, despite our best efforts, our best intentions. We want it to be all smooth sailing, but it's not, and you kind of remind us that we land in the spot where we are meant to land at the end of the game, and I was just curious, was there a particular event or experience that made you realise this or inspired you to write Best Laid Plans?

Georgie Abay: Yeah. I mean, if I look at all chapters of my life, there's been a lot that hasn't gone to plan, but then I do feel like I've always landed where I was supposed to. I mean, if I look at my career, I got this dream job at Vogue, but when I landed there, it wasn't what I expected. I didn't fit in that first time, and so I left.

Georgie Abay: I thought, "Oh my gosh. That dream to work for Vogue is over, and I'll never work for Vogue again," and I ended up obviously going back a second time. And so the plan, it did work out how it's supposed to. It was just, there were lots of twists and turns. I mean, if I talk about the earlier part of my career, there were just so many rejections. It never went to plan until finally it fell into place. I think there was a lot of determination along the way. I used to email the editor of Vogue. I emailed her for two years before I got a reply.

Gillian Fox: Wow.

Georgie Abay: She never ever once wrote back. Determination is a word that I keep going back to, because when things don't go to plan, often we just think, "Okay. Well, I'll just give up now," and self-confidence plays a huge role in that as well. Your confidence is knocked when you get a rejection, you get criticised, or no one replies to you, so when things didn't go to plan and when I didn't get the job I wanted, which I didn't get the job I wanted for many, many years, there were a lot of years before I got that job at Vogue, you just have to keep going because life does have a plan, all of its own.

Gillian Fox: Yeah. I love it. It's such a good reminder for us. Reading the book was absolutely fascinating. I was interested, and I can't remember if it was in the forward or at the end, you talking about having this resistance to writing the book, and it was actually your aunt on the sidelines, going, "Georgie, you can do this. You can do this, Georgie", and of course you can do this. You're this incredible journalist. You've co-authored books. You've got The Grace Tales, but I do get it. But if I had to join the dots, Georgie, there must have been a point where you decide, "I'm committed", and you dive into this book, and you reveal some deeply personal things, everything from losing your virginity with the Italian.

Georgie Abay: The best virginity story.

Gillian Fox: So it was such a fun, great read, but I think we could all relate to being seduced by the glamor of the magazine world, having the designer outfits, and all of that, to dealing with bulimia, to funny boyfriend episodes. It's all there, Georgie. Tell us about that experience. Did you sit there going, "How will mum feel when she reads this particular chapter?"

Georgie Abay: It's so funny, because my mum's quite a private person. When I first told her that I was writing quite personal things, she's like, "You can't write that", and that's where we disagree. I mean, mum, when I first saw a psychologist, I think I was 34. Mum's not a believer of seeing psychologists. She's from a generation where you just sort got on with it. When I first started writing the book and I had the book deal, there was huge imposter syndrome, and I feel like I've had imposter syndrome throughout my career. I mean, I'm 40 now, and I still have imposter syndrome.

Georgie Abay: I think that's something that a lot of women face. We think, "Oh. No, no, no. I'm faking it. I can't believe I've got here. I'm faking it. I'm not really very good at this", and that's all that horrible inner self talk, which we really do have to work quite hard to fight. But it was my aunty, who is a published author as, well that she said, "Of course you can write the book", and she sort of held my hand. I would send her chapters as I wrote and just sort of say, "What do you think?", and, "Is this too personal? Do I sound too whingey?" I think we all need that person who's holding our hand and supporting us, whether it's a family member or girlfriend.

Georgie Abay: When I first started, it wasn't supposed to be as personal as it was, because I have so many incredible stories to share from all the women and men that I've interviewed over the last decade or two, that I wanted to bring into this book, but I find that personal stories, you connect more with personal stories. As I started writing, and I know when I read other people's work, I want to get inside that person's head, and I want to understand their own personal story. The book turned more personal than I'd first planned, but it was really cathartic, and I'm pretty open. I mean, I don't hide the fact that I've had bulimia. I don't hide the fact that I have imposter syndrome. I suffer from a lack of confidence like so many people do.

Gillian Fox: And you've achieved so much. Do you know what I mean? I think it's the behind the scenes that some people are fearful of talking about, that everyone's got a little bit of all of that going on.

Georgie Abay: I do. I've always been such an open book. Sometimes, probably too much, but I just think you've got to put all of yourself out there, and there's nothing to hide. Obviously, there's things that are deeply personal. My husband didn't want me talking much about our marriage, which I understand, because I wrote this whole chapter on marriage, and I left it out. He read it, and he's like, "You can't write that".

Georgie Abay: I want to be open about marriage. I want to say that there’s ups and downs and it's not always easy. Anyway, so we reworked that, which I totally understand. Obviously, that is our personal relationship. But no, generally I'm an open book, because as was my sort of ambition with The Grace Tales, I always want to make women feel less alone, and they feel less alone when they read something and they're like, "Oh my God. Thank goodness. I'm not the only person feeling like that".

Gillian Fox: Yeah. Definitely, definitely. The chapters, like when you're talking about the body image issues and stuff, and you reference the Sex and the City episode where Miranda gets the piece of chocolate cake out of the bin and starts eating it, and you're right. It was such a memorable episode, wasn't it? Because so many women could relate to that challenge of trying to be something.

Georgie Abay: The pressure on our bodies, and this doesn't ever go away. I mean, I look back. I had bulimia when I was in my early 20s, and I'm definitely in a much, much healthier space. Through age, you realise that life is short, and you just need to get on with it, but it's something that I'm so acutely aware of, having two girls, just how tough we all are in our bodies. If you think about the conversations that women have with one another, it's always like, "Oh, I feel really fat," or, "Oh, I'm trying to get into shape for summer". So much of our conversation focuses on weight, and we celebrate when people lose weight, and we praise women when they lose weight. It's just such a big one to tackle and I think, quite a few times, I've said to girlfriends, "Can we stop talking about this? It's not making me feel comfortable".

Gillian Fox: Yes. Yeah, that's so good, Georgie. I love that tip. That's so true. I think I need to be told that every now and then too.

Georgie Abay: We all do, because we all talk about it. Weight is just such a huge part of women's lives.

Gillian Fox: Yeah, yeah. Because of so many reasons, right? But one of the things that strikes me as the secret to your success, Georgie, is this belief that smart counts, and clearly you are very smart, Georgie, but so does effort, and you were talking earlier about the effort you put in to get that gig at Vogue. Is this your belief, that it is about effort, and that's what makes great careers?

Georgie Abay: Oh my gosh, absolutely. I remember interviewing the founder of Aden + Anais, that incredible baby brand. It was a $100 million business within, I think, 10 years. Anyway, Raegan, the founder, and she was talking about her daughters and how one was very academic, but the other was very determined, and she knew the determined one would probably do better, because if you've got that determination and I think, for me, it was always because I wasn't seen as very academic at school, and I'm definitely a more creative person, I just wanted to prove people wrong the whole time, because they expected me to get a certain result or to be a certain way, and so I was like, "Well, I'm going to prove you wrong", because it's awful when someone has a preconceived idea of who you are, and that's not something that you necessarily believe.

Georgie Abay: So, I think my whole life I've had just that sense of wanting to prove people wrong, which can be a positive thing, but also quite an exhausting thing, because sometimes you just don't want to prove anyone wrong. You just want to sit, relax, and not do that. Yeah, that determination, and for me, it's sort of like everything that I've achieved, it just has been down to hard work and just knowing that I can do it. I mean, even going back to my mum, I remember I went for a job at this magazine called Famous, which was a junky gossip magazine. It was when I first got back from Dubai, and I got offered the job. It was in the book I write about, how the interview with the editor opened with him saying, "So are you comfortable seeing images of Britney Spears' vagina?"

Georgie Abay: And I thought, "I've done a degree. I've had sort of four years of work experience, and I'm getting asked about Britney's vagina. This is just so depressing." I went to my mum, and I said, "I think I just need to take it. It's a job."

Georgie Abay: And she said, "Well, no. You're going to work for Vogue."

Georgie Abay: I said, "Mum, if I'm going to work for Vogue, everyone wants to work for Vogue."

Georgie Abay: And she said, "Well, you can work for Vogue."

Georgie Abay: Just having that belief that actually anything is possible if you put your mind to it, and I often think that with career changes. I've got girlfriends who have had babies and they're not sure what to do next, because they don't want to necessarily go back to the corporate job that they had. I always just say to them, "Just start small. If you want a new career, just start really, really small, and it'll grow and grow and grow". And I think just taking that first step and just putting one foot in front of the other, day by day, you can build up another career. It doesn't have to be this huge, big thing overnight. Everything takes so much longer than you anticipate. That's another thing I feel like I've learned.

Georgie Abay: Everything takes so much longer.

Gillian Fox: To create something meaningful, like your wonderful business, The Grace Tales, I'm sure there's been a tremendous amount of pure grunt and dedication, and you wouldn't have had that background, so you had to learn the whole digital platform from scratch and everything.

Georgie Abay: I had to learn, and I'm still learning because digital keeps changing so quickly, and I think that's another thing to remember. We constantly have to upskill. I mean, I always loved The Grace Tales. I started it, because it was something that I was so passionate about, and I really wanted to get more into the heart stories. I had a background in fashion magazines, and suddenly I just had this yearning to tell more heart stories and to connect with people on a deeper level.

Georgie Abay: But I ran The Grace Tales. I'm still running The Grace Tales, coming up to a decade now, and there's been so many nights. I don't really watch TV. I watch TV maybe on a Friday night, just because, number one, I get addicted to TV and literally sit in front of it for six hours, but number two, it's a huge time suck. We have to prioritise. We can't do everything, so there’s things that you can remove from your life to let new things in.

Gillian Fox: Yeah. It's a good call. It's a good call. One of the books that you co-authored with was with India Hicks, which I have to get this book, but in the book she writes to her five children, and says, and I'm just going to use this quote, "Remember this. Your childhood isn't who you are. It's just the opening chapter. You are the person who gets to write the rest of your story", and I thought this was a beautiful quote because we get so stuck on how our path has to define us. It's a great piece of advice when it comes to motherhood, which made me think of you and your girls, and I remember seeing the girls in business meetings, coming in for a little message or a cuddle. I know how important you consider your role as a mum. What sort of advice would you give your girls, do you think, when they're teenagers?

Georgie Abay: Gosh. So much advice. I mean, personally, I loved that. I'm so happy that you pulled that quote out from India Hicks, because I love the letter that she wrote to her children. She's just phenomenal. She's got five children, and she's just such an inspiration. I think I do take my role as a mum, as all mums do, so seriously, and it was the reason that I left Vogue. I just couldn't do it all, and I think it was a big decision to admit that I couldn't do it all, but it opened up the most incredible new chapter for me, that there was another chapter beyond my career in magazines, and that's been just so exciting and rewarding.

Georgie Abay: But to my girls, I want them to know that they can do anything they set their mind to. I think I see my role, and I really try and just focus on the confidence building, because I think that's what holds so many women back, the confidence. And especially after you have children, I've witnessed so many of my brilliant friends and peers just lose all their confidence, and just feel like, "Well, I just can't do it anymore", so I'm constantly telling them that they can do anything that they set their mind to and to believe in themselves. I know that we all tell our children things like this, but the confidence piece for me, raising two girls, is such a big one.

Gillian Fox: Yeah. I completely understand that, and I think it's so important. What parent doesn't want to equip them for success in the best possible way. And life is more complicated, growing up, than my childhood. That's for sure.

Georgie Abay: It's so much more complicated, isn't it? I think I never anticipated how much more complicated your career gets once you do have children, and I don't think you probably can anticipate that or realise it until you actually are in the situation where you're trying to do the two jobs, because I love working and I will never not work. It was sort of like, "Okay. How am I going to actually have the career that I want to have, but also be around for the girls?" And it's an ongoing challenge. I mean, I know that you could relate to this, Gil. It's just something that I think we're all trying to work out and changes all the time.

Gillian Fox: 100%m and I just don't think it's easy. It's just not easy, but I think the hardest part, and the part that you talk about in your book, is that initial part of parenting when you go back to work. It's just being thrown from one lovely little environment into this contrasting environment, where no one cares that you've got a baby.

Georgie Abay: No one cares. You've sat around in mum's groups where you've discussed everything, and it is nice to have a break from all of that, but equally I felt like I was always trying to, and this was probably all in my head, but trying to hide the fact that I had children. Even when I was pregnant with my first born, I was like, "Oh. Don't worry about this bump. This won't slow me down. This is nothing".

Georgie Abay: The Grace Tale readers have, and I write about this in the book, have written in and talked about how they try and hide their children. They don't want to talk about their children because they don't feel that there's the support or they will be seen to be not as good at their job as they once were. It's a massive, massive juggle, and yeah, you're right. Going back to work when you first have a baby, I think that is just such a shock, and it's hard.

Gillian Fox: It's such a shock. I remember, Georgie, working in magazines, and Ollie would've just been about one. I was incredibly busy, had this wonderful mum, and we plotted this plan. It was my mum's plan, where she would sneak down to the local childcare. You know how you could go to childcare for two, three hours, play in the sandpit, and do all of that? It was every Tuesday, like at 11 o'clock, and I would pretend, because I didn't want anyone to know, that I was going on an appointment.

Gillian Fox: I'd put my handbag, and I'd strut out the office, trying to look purposeful. Then, I'd look around to see if anyone was there, go down this lane way, and hop in. Take my high heels off, sit with my mum on the side of the sandpit, and play with Ollie for an hour, and then go back to work. I remember one day, having to go to Channel 7 afterwards, and I crossed my legs and I had all this sand on my legs, but the fear, do you know what I mean? The fear and the secrecy in it all is crazy.

Georgie Abay: It is so crazy. I mean, I remember Arabella being really sick, and sort of scheduling the last doctor's appointment available that day so I could work a full day, and that was sort of a moment that I thought, "What am I doing? My daughter's really sick. Why can't I just take her to the doctor? Why can't I just say, 'Hey, my child's really sick'"? It's just so layered. For me, it broke me. I couldn't do it anymore, and then I had a child very close to Arabella, 17 months apart.

Georgie Abay: I had a lot of health complications, which I write about in the book. I needed five blood transfusions after Lotti was born, because I had a postpartum hemorrhage. When things like that happen, again, very much not the plan. She was also premature. They're the big life shakeups where you reevaluate what you want to do going forward, and for me, two children under two, health issues with my second, there was just no way I was going to go back to the job, which to be honest, I'd grown out of. Working at Vogue was obviously very focused on fashion, which I loved in my 20s, but as I write about in the book, there was one fashion week where my outfit, I think it was over-

Gillian Fox: I loved that.

Georgie Abay: It was thousands and thousands of dollars, this outfit that I wore on one day. $5,000, and at the time I was probably earning about $3,000 or $4,000 a month, and it just didn't add up. I mean, I couldn't actually afford to dress that way, because I didn't earn enough to cover the cost of the clothes.

Gillian Fox: Yeah. I love it. You go, "And the event was five days, and if I had an outfit for every day, that's $25 grand, but I got my photograph taken, and they itemised every little piece of my outfit in the..."

Georgie Abay: And that's what they did, these street style photographers, you would get your photo taken, and then they would caption everything. When I had my photo taken, it should have made me feel excited. Every editor wanted to have their photo taken, but I just felt empty, because that wasn't my life. I couldn't afford that life. I fell out of love with it, so my girls was very much the anchor that I needed to be like, "Okay. It's time for a change, and this isn't the life that you're going to live anymore", but again, so grateful that was my career in my 20s, even if there were a few credit card bills, which I couldn't afford.

Gillian Fox: It's about being young, Georgie. It's about being young.

Georgie Abay: I've grown up a lot, thank God.

Gillian Fox: Can you tell us today, what are some of the key relationships that are really important to you and that have contributed to your career?

Georgie Abay: Definitely, my family, my mum, my husband, my dad, even my brother. I mean, I've got a very loving, supportive family who've always lifted me up. Then, my girlfriends. They're just the best. I have some very, very close girlfriends. I think we all need friends that we can call, vent to, and workshop things with, although interestingly, I was listening to a podcast by Oprah yesterday, because I'm making a few decisions on some things at the moment, and I just don't know what to do. I've been asking a lot of my girlfriends, and Oprah's advice was, "Do nothing and just be still, so stop asking". Sometimes we need to stop asking everyone around us what to do, just sit with it and be still in ourselves, so that was actually great advice, which I'm going to take on. But then also throughout my career, Edwina McCann has been incredible. I've worked with her for a number of years, and she was just so, so supportive.

Gillian Fox: She has such a good reputation, Edwina. Everyone speaks so highly of her.

Georgie Abay: And she deserves that reputation, because I loved working with her. She's the best boss I've ever had. Then, I guess throughout my career, I've just met great women. I always try and support women. I always try and be an empathetic leader. I think empathy is missing from a lot of organisations, so I generally connect with people who are on the more empathetic side.

Georgie Abay: Just the women in The Grace Tales community, to be honest, I love hearing. I mean, I had someone just yesterday get in touch. We ran a menopause summit earlier in the year, and she got in touch and said, "I just want to let you know that was life changing for me. I was depressed. I was about to leave my husband, and I listened to your summit, and it all clicked", and she was perimenopausal.

Gillian Fox: Wow.

Georgie Abay: So yeah, I think feedback from women in the community really lift me up, but I always try and support the women that I work with because then they support you back.

Gillian Fox: Georgie, you've had so many different chapters and wonderful chapters in your career. Are you thinking about what's next? Is it a new chapter?

Georgie Abay: I am. I love thinking about life and careers in chapters, because I think we sort can get stuck thinking that we've only got one chapter, and we just have to stick to it and we just have to do the same thing for the rest of our lives. I am not like that. I get way too bored. In fact, The Grace Tales is probably what I've done for the longest.

Georgie Abay: I mean, it's been a decade now, but definitely, for me, whatever I do going forward is around female entrepreneurs. I love supporting female entrepreneurs. I love working with businesses on strategy. That's something that I'm really passionate about. I love content creation, storytelling. I mean, for me, storytelling is just the ultimate. I just love sharing people's stories and getting inside their world and their hearts. But I think, I turned 40 this year.

Gillian Fox: That's a special one.

Georgie Abay: It's a special one. It is. It is. And I'm so excited by the decade that I have ahead of me, because I think I always, with my career sort of raced, thinking, "I've got to hurry up. I've got to hurry up, because my career is going to finish soon", and actually turning 40 feels really significant. It feels really exciting, like there's a lot ahead of me. Obviously, continue to work on The Grace Tales. I love doing my podcast, which after having a break, I'm getting back into.

Georgie Abay: Obviously, the book has been really exciting. I would love to write another book, but it was quite an intense process when you have two children and you work full time, so I think I need a bit of a break before another book comes out, but I do love the idea, and I still stand by this, that anything is possible. One day, I might write a fiction book. Who knows? Or I might do another coffee table book. All I want for my career is to work with incredible, creative, inspiring women, because that just makes work a joy.

Gillian Fox: Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more, Georgie. I think it's such a good aspiration. We talk about the modern career plan, and the modern career plan is not knowing what your next gig is, because it's responding to different things. It's staying agile and looking for that next opportunity, and that's what really high performing people tend to do, who have successful careers.

Georgie Abay: And there is so many opportunities out there, I think. Going back to confidence, it's just about having the confidence to go after those opportunities. We all struggle with confidence and imposter syndrome, and it's awful. I mean, even having written this book, I'm like, "Oh. No, no, no. I can't put it out to the world". It's just very frustrating, Gil.

Gillian Fox: Well, I think you've done a magnificent job, and thank you so much. I know all our readers, we'll put a link below so they can pick up a copy themselves. It was just such a fabulous read, so many funny moments too, Georgie. You have the best sense of humor. I think we've overlooked that bit, but it's there.

Georgie Abay: There is quite a few funny moments. Yeah, boyfriend. Losing my virginity in Italy, getting naked on work trips.

Gillian Fox: Meeting the ex-boyfriend.

Georgie Abay: That was mortifying, because when you picture seeing your ex-boyfriend, you want to be wearing a great outfit, and pink jeans and a jumper that says "Mama" is not a great outfit. I've never seen him again since, which is just great. We've never seen him again. That's his lasting memory. Not that it matters, but thank you, Gil.

Gillian Fox: Pleasure. Thank you, Georgie. It's been great.

Georgie Abay: Oh, thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I would love to give you something for FREE to help you with your career right now.  

If you look in the show description, there's a link there to my free 16-page guide on how to make your value more visible at work. In this guide, I share three strategies to amplify your accomplishments at work and practical ways to boost self-confidence.  

The insights and tips in this guide are the same I share with my one-on-one coaching clients inside the RISE program. If you would access to this guide, click the link in the description or go to https://www.yourbrilliantcareer.com.au/free-guide/.  

See you soon.

 

For Georgie's book - Best Laid Plans - head  here  or find it at your favourite book store.