Courage: Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway
To help celebrate the success of our 2019 graduates at our anual Achievers’ Assembly, the College invited alumna Nicole Lockwood (1996) to address the students; past and present.
Nicole is currently the Independent Chair of the Westport Taskforce, responsible for planning the port and transport infrastructure for Perth for the next 50 years. She is the Chair of the Freight and Logistics Council, MNG and the Sienna Wood Joint Venture, the Deputy Chair of Infrastructure WA and Leadership WA and a member of the Board of the Water Corporation.Â
Nicole took the first baby steps on her journey to management and high-level problem-solving here at Santa Maria College. In Year 9 she began her first group, Greensleeves. They were an environmental group looking at tackling the problem of CFCs and the hole in the ozone layer.
After school, Nicole realised that her best chance of affecting change for the environment was to study Law and Environmental Science at Notre Dame University. Upon graduation, circumstance meant that she practiced corporate, criminal and family law.
After six years her husband’s job took Nicole to Karratha where being home with a young child gave her the opportunity to reassess. She decided that local government was the best place to make a difference and she was elected to local council. She then went on the become mayor for two years at the height of the town’s mining boom.
The nature of Karratha’s industry meant she was heavily involved in the development of infrastructure and future planning. She discovered at this point that her real talent was connecting people to work through problems. With this in mind, upon her return to Perth she started as a director at KPMG, a global consulting business.Â
The life lessons that Nicole shared with students were:
- Continuously learn about yourself
- Don’t compare yourself to others
- Surround yourself with support
An interesting idea was that planning can limit you. You need to be open to opportunities that present themselves. Even if you don’t feel you have acquired the skills required yet. You will. This is daring greatly. Nicole emphasised this point with a quote from Theodore Roosevelt:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again… who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
We are grateful to Nicole for sharing her story and inspiring all present. She is a wonderful example of a Mercy girl making a difference in the world.
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Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.
