From an eight-year-old little girl who ripped up her school report card to a businesswoman who runs three businesses and keeps them all growing.
Imagine communist Yugoslavia, strict schooling and tough parents in the early 1980s. Hard work is required of all, including the children in every home.
School was something Mary attended but never became excited about. Culturally her parents did not place a high value on education, so as a result she was not nurtured or encouraged to do well in school.
Not surprisingly, Mary was scoring ‘C’s and ‘D’s in her second-grade report card. When Mary re-wrote her school report card so she could show an enhanced version to her parents, they didn’t even notice that the writing was from an eight-year-old.
Ashamed? Maybe! Guilty? Maybe!
That didn’t stop her from achieving the success she has achieved to date.
Mary, the eldest of three, and her parents emigrated to Australia in 1980. With no English language skills under her belt, she learnt the language at a migrant centre and completed two years of high school. Her parents’ vision was for her to be a mum and a homemaker.
Mary’s first job was a receptionist where she met her former husband working in the family business.
They were married at a very young age and had two children early on in their marriage.
Life was amazing, she had a beautiful family, successful business, hard-working husband and they were the envy of many of their peers who were in their early thirties. There were not many twenty-five-year-olds driving a Porsche 911 turbo, with their two kids sitting in the back seat.