I spent this past week in Sydney for what became a bit of a turning point for me.

Since I wrote this now notorious article for Mumbrella I admit, I’ve been kind of a mess. Not in all sense of the word don’t get me wrong – I haven’t been borderline suicidal or anything, but I have tended to wonder (on a daily basis) how one split decision and one article could affect the rest of my life. A tad dramatic I know, but after a while you start to believe what you read on the comments thread or twitter: “your career’s over” I’ve been told.  Anyway, after a few months of no sleep and knots in my stomach, this all came to a head when I was asked in a follow up to the article to appear on a panel at Australia’s largest Media, Marketing & Entertainment Conference , “Mumbrella 360”.  Why the hell did I agree to that, you ask? Well the short answer is I didn’t! But through a comedy of errors I was forced to accept and was pinned as the “baddy” in the great gender debate of the conference, entitled “ Gender Equality: Time to put up or shut the f*** up”.  FML.

The preparation I put in to prepare for the day was crazy – flying to Sydney to be put through my paces with a PR coach and practice sessions with women from my office who disagreed with my point of view but luckily still talk to me!  There was some people I even kept this information from in fear of a lecture or more accurately to avoid, “what the f are you doing that for?!” type comments.

Luckily my fear of being attached by an angry mob outside the conference was unfounded and in actual fact the session itself was surprisingly restrained. I would argue dull even, no claws anywhere in site!  The conversation never ventured anywhere that would make me nervous and the practice questions I was taken through weren’t even touched upon.

I have really come out of the experience feeling amazing.  What I thought would re-open wounds from the initial article has actually made me more confident in voicing my opinions and also open my eyes to others.  Where I would previous avoid going head to head with people on the issues I now welcome the discussion and remind myself that differences of opinions are what make life interesting!

Following that initially daunting day I hadn’t even stopped to prepare for the other task of mine at the conference – speaking and (supposedly) inspiring young Uni grads on my career progression in media, apparently to entice them to join up!  I honestly think that had I not done the panel the day before that I would have faltered.  Somehow I felt like I’d made the transition from young naïve girl, to someone actually worth listening to. Seriously – within a day.  Ironically I hadn’t even thought about the grad speech but that became I feel, I huge milestone in my life. Having a story to tell to people I don’t even view as that much younger than me. I realise I do have a story to tell, even if it’s only just beginning.