Life beyond Radford

I’ve been living in Melbourne just on 5 years now. My family and I live about 10km from Melbourne’s city and I live with my partner George who’s a structural engineer and our son Raphael who’s 2 and a half. Being self-employed, I work from an office based out of my home and I have a showroom in Fairfield where I display my collections and hold my client appointments.
I work full-time in my company Meggan Morimoto Monday – Saturday, however I keep Tuesdays as a special day that’s just for my son and I to spend quality time together. An average day for me would be to get Raphi up, fed breakfast, dressed and off to day care, I then do some form of exercise to start my day and get my mind right and endorphins flowing, boxing and reformer pilates are my favourite! Next, a quick brekkie; a decaf long black (don’t judge me on the decaf) a couple of boiled eggs and then I knuckle down to work.
My role within my company as the Founder and Creative Director has been predominantly focused around setting up the company in regards to; creating the concept, sourcing manufacturers, sketching and designing collections, refining samples, putting systems and processes in place and building Intellectual Property within the Company for functionality and asset value. Where as now those foundations are all in place, I’m heavily focused on collaborations, building relationships and a client base to bring in revenue. I do however contract others for tasks that aren’t my strengths to free up my time for activities that are. The most important thing for me is to have a schedule so I know what my focuses are for each day and I can hold myself accountable.
Come 5.30pm I pick up my son from day care and the nighttime routine kicks in. Dinner, playtime, bath, books and bed for Raph. Most nights once I’ve gotten Raph down I’ll then jump back into my office for a couple of hours so I can place orders I’ve received that day and face-time my team in Italy if necessary. The time difference between us and Italy is a shocker, so our evenings are when my Italian team clock on and the only time I can catch them before they start their work day.
Once this is wrapped up, there’s an hour for me, my skin care routine, which is my nighttime ritual and bed where I attempt to turn off my brain. The days are long and full, but I have a really fun life and thrive off being under the pump, so it works for me.

I have many fond memories of my school years at Radford, but if I had to name one it’d probably be year 9 camp. Setting off on an adventure with a group of other students from your year, predominantly outside of your close friendship circle, was an incredible way to challenge yourself, push your boundaries mentally and physically, make new friends and approach closing the gap in any high school hierarchy. In my experience it had a positive impact on merging social groups, which through such vulnerable years of every adolescents lives is so great for feeling included and belonging.
Radford College taught me that there are many different types of intelligence and exposed me to many life skills I’m grateful for today; Appreciating a community, commitment, challenging myself, self-belief, accountability, focus and kindness to name a few. I also had the opportunity to participate in curriculum activities like softball, rock climbing and horse riding where some super fun memories where made.
Lastly though I made some life long friendships whilst at Radford, I have lots of great memories with friends as a teenager and still creating memories with some of them now 15 years on!

Throughout high school I was training to become a professional ballerina. As part of an intensive full-time dance program, most days of the week from year 8-12, I used to leave school after period 4 to train until 8pm every night. This was not an ordinary situation for most students, but Radford where amazingly supportive. Unfortunately, I suffered a number of injuries, so I made the decision to hang up my ballet shoes. At 18, I spent a few Months in London before moving my life to Sydney where I spent the next 6 years. A Life without dance felt quite lost to begin with, so not really sure where I wanted to end up, a family member encouraged me to complete a Diploma of Property Services and Agency Management and from there I spent a few years working in real estate before moving to Brisbane.
At 24 I was scoped out by Chris Mourd, Head of the Network at LJ Hooker Corporate to become a real estate business coach. From here I completed A Diploma of Business Management, a Cert IV in Training and Assessment and was mentored by the very talented Penelope Tarrant, The Founder of Real Estate Recruitment Australia. By the time I was 27 the role transferred me to Melbourne and I’d worked my way up to being The National Business Coach for LJ Hooker Corporate with a portfolio of over 700 business owners to coach across Australia. It was my background in business coaching that gave me the confidence to start my own business.

The advice I’d give to students is remember there are all types of intelligence; academic, social, mental, emotional, creative, athletic and because of this try not to compare yourself to anyone else amongst your peers as you’ll all have different strengths and weaknesses. Allow your self not to feel the pressure of worrying to much about ‘what you’re going to be when you ‘grow up’ and focus on learning and growing as an individual and what’s next for you will become apparent.
I think with each generation there is a shift in mentality around this topic. When we where at school I think the parents of our generation where more programed to teach their kids they had to choose their path before they finished school and speaking as a Mother now myself, all I think that creates is stress and anxiety in young minds; because you know what the reality is, most of us had no idea what we wanted to be because we hadn’t yet been out in the big wide world to gain enough life experience to realise what we where truly interested in or what we where really good at.
Studying hard so you have options is really important, however I’m a big advocate for traveling in your first year out of school to broaden your life experience and come back with a clearer idea of who you are and what’s next for you, whether that be going to UNI, TAFE, an apprenticeship, working and choosing not to study – there is no wrong answer and certainly none better than the other in my opinion, as it’s about what’s best for each individual. I’m 32 now and it took me until 28 to finally work out my ‘dream career’ but every step of the journey leading to this was just as amazing because it grew me into the person I am today. This is a total cliché however so many people told me when I was in high school to enjoy it as it flies by quickly and before you know it, you are out in the big wide world to work and be independent for the rest of your life, so embrace your school years and have fun doing it!

My Mum was actually the year 7 coordinator when I started year 7, so guess it was kind of awkward at first as people realized that she was my Mum. My mum/Mrs Smith is the sweetest though, I don’t actually know 1 student that didn’t adore her, so that made it pretty easy.
The worst thing was probably that I could never get away with anything!!!! I guess that’s the challenge when all your teachers are your Mums friends. It was like I had 50 parents at the school, because what ever I did.. or didn’t do, they’d be sure to tell mum!
So this one wasn’t the worst thing, probably more weird for both of us looking back, but I still remember rocking up to my first Japanese class in year 7 and Mum and I staring at each other saying ‘what are you doing here’? I’d accidentally ended up in her class. In that scenario, Mum was harder on me than the other kids (although that doesn’t mean a lot as anyone who’s knows my mum know she’s basically Susan from Neighbours), I guess she didn’t want them to think she was giving me special treatment. On the plus side, she was able to study at home with me for tests, so I always killed it in Japanese! Having a Japanese Grandmother helped too mind you.
A couple of little perks of having mum work at the school where my brother and I used to sit in her car with the heater blaring on freezing winter mornings until the bell rang, being able to run up and get her to sign my dairy if it’d forgotten and asking her to quickly zap my lunch in the staff room microwave!
But I think the biggest advantage for me was that I because I knew a lot of the teachers quite well and looked at them more like family friends, I think that’s a unique learning environment to be in. Mostly though, knowing I had my Mum close was a real comfort. My Mum and I have a very close relationship, so getting to go to school where she taught was really special.