Media personality and online host, Katie ‘Monty’ Dimond is refreshingly real and no stranger to workplace discrimination.
Katie ‘Monty’ Dimond decided it was time to do her career on her own terms after being cut from a Sydney breakfast radio team.
Falling pregnant not long after joining the team, she was pushed out of the show in a confronting case of workplace discrimination.
Rebuilding her confidence and channeling her creative energy she launched Show + Tell Online in 2013, a lifestyle project with a distinctly female focus.
She credits the generosity of her female mentors in helping her land the big breaks.
‘Having someone like Kate Langbroek endorse you, helped for sure.’
‘I really reached out to a lot of women. I grew up in Melbourne so a lot of the Melbourne women like Jo Stanley, Brigitte Duclos. I’m good mates with Chrissy Swan and Kate Langbroek. I would email them, trying not to be pesky but asking if I could have a coffee and pick their brain. I always remember how generous they were to me in the back of my mind, I’ve got to pass that on.’
Moving from Melbourne to Sydney, Monty took a highly-coveted breakfast radio role but things didn’t work out as she had hoped.
‘I thought yep, give it a go. But I fell pregnant early on and I lost my job. It was pretty full on discrimination.’
Monty was pushed out of the show but the experience spurred her to take greater control of her own career.
In early 2013 Monty co-founded and launched a new web venture Show + Tell Online, that keeps tabs on the latest trends in food, home and lifestyle.
Juggling a family and media commitments Monty’s key piece of advice for keeping stress levels in check is getting a handle on email.
A trip to Gwinganna Lifestyle Retreat in the Gold Coast Hinterland revealed to Monty just how addicted she was to her phone.
‘I really try to implement not checking emails in the morning, or checking them in a shop, so I have set scheduled times to check through email which I do stuff up all the time, but it’s in the back of my mind.’
‘Before Gwinganna, my routine was wake up pick up my phone – now my phone is no longer in my bedroom’.
Monty and her partner Sam, recently purchased property in her dream location of Byron Bay, but ask about her best investment and the answer has nothing to do with property or shares.
‘Holidays. I work to holiday.’
‘I’ve always been good with money, I grew up with a single mum and started working from the age of 14 and nine months, I would save up to buy the things I really liked. Sam was the opposite, he would save his money for a rainy day but I’m like… “We’re actually going to die one day, so let’s book that trip”’.
Listen to the entire interview at The Constant Investor or on iTunes.
