Mary started her entrepreneurial journey at 16 by turning her tutoring side-hustle into a language school in her hometown in Poland. Over the past 8 years, she has lived in 8, and worked in over 40 countries across 4 continents, collaborating with over 90 nationalities.
As the youngest PCC Certified Coach in the world, Mary is often described as completely nuts for self-development. As a purpose-driven professional, she is on a mission to equalise access to opportunities for young people. When she remembers her early years, her age was enough to question her skills, her gender was enough to question her potential, place of origin often sparked a question if she was a production worker and lack of a fancy school diploma hindered her chance in often automated recruitment processes.
As a result, she decided to take a journey against social preconceptions, and with her upcoming book, ‘If you have a brain, you have a talent, she challenges long overdue concepts of talent development, gaps in DEI understanding, and challenges individuals to take ownership of their growth and gives them the tools to do so.
Working as an Executive Coach from a very young age, and then, hired by Heidrick&Struggles, she took an accelerated path from trainee to leading global initiative and reporting to the company’s COO, She understands the intricacies of the talent industry across all levels of the organisation, different cultures, and generations.
With a passion for neuroscience, she sought to understand how, in the face of the dynamically changing world, our thinking processes evolve. This helped her realise that to keep organisations and ourselves relevant, we need to redefine the nature of professional development and focus on holistic and purpose-centric growth.
A teacher and athlete at heart, Mary is devoted to shaking the talent industry globally and inspiring systemic change. Named one of 20 women in business to watch in 2021, T500 Shortlisted – the most promising minds in digital space in the Netherlands in two consecutive years, Mary has created a model to assess future potential, enabling young professionals to leverage personal experiences, identify their purpose and fully integrate mental health in the development path, all in one ‘’holistic development control centre’’ on the Creative Brain platform.
Her second venture, the Upliftul app, focuses on democratising social capital for modern entrepreneurs. It instantly matches members’ business questions to experienced peers, thus simplifying decision-making for modern entrepreneurs. The app was created to scale a value-first networking approach used by its 3 co-founders and serial entrepreneurs themselves, to get where they are now.
For more details, visit My Creative Brain and Upliftful App.
Today, we sit down with Mary to learn a bit more about her journey as an entrepreneur.
Q. Tell us a little more about your journey as an entrepreneur – how did you get started? What inspired you?
Mary: I think I have always been excited about the prospect of building something. As a kid, I remember, I absolutely loved drawing. Around the age of 8, 9, when the kids started getting pocket money, I noticed that handmade greetings cards were so much more expensive than regular ones and didn’t look that complicated to make. They cost about 7-8 PLN (about $1.3 back then) and, to give you a reference point, I’d get 1 PLN pocket money. So, never being much of an ask for permission type of individual, I figured I’d make a few, and on my way from school, telling nothing to my parents, I stopped by the two stores in the village that sold stationary. Both agreed to sell my cards on a commission basis.
At 13, I started tutoring English, which at 16 I turned into a language school – my first official business. I deeply enjoyed seeing the growth in people and if I think about it now, that side hustle, as we’d call it today, was the beginning of my journey in, broadly speaking, the development field.
Q. What are your long-term goals in business? Paint a vision for the future
Mary: I am a very purpose-driven person. My vision for the future is to equalise access to opportunities, especially for young people. No matter where you come from, what you look like, your age, gender, ethnicity, social class, etc., you should have equal access to opportunities for professional development, no questions asked. Whether you capitalise on it and are willing to put in the work – that is on you, you should always have an option and most importantly realise that everything is a choice.
Q. What motivates you?
Mary: I think being an agent of change is what motivates me the most. Making a positive impact one person at a time is very fulfilling to me. Helping someone get from ‘confusion, overwhelm, imposter syndrome and often limiting societal preconceptions to ”yeah, I’ve got this.” is what energises me. Seeing people achieve things they never thought they could before is the most inspiring moment ever.
Q. What business-related book has inspired you the most, or, what is your favourite book?
Mary: My all-time favourite book is Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It’s one of the first books that made me fall in love with development. I reread it every few years to refresh my memory and it rekindles my passion for exploring the brain and understanding more about self-development and how to become the best versions of ourselves.
Q. What strategies do you use to optimize your performance or mindset?
Mary: I very much live by what I do. I believe that in today’s world, we all need, first of all, to take ownership of our development. What does that mean? It’s not outsourcing the responsibility of our success onto others, our employers, parents, or school.
To take ownership of our growth means to recognise me for the holistic human being that I am, with all good and bad, resolved and work-in-progress elements, both professional and personal, and then strategically design my development path that aligns with my definition of success and not what society perceives as such. It’s thinking bigger than this and next role and wider than just the field/company you are with now.
I believe that taking ownership is the only way to develop a strategic plan for yourself to become who you want to be and remain relevant. You have to be able to see yourself as a whole. Most people think that the goal they set is the end destination. But I think that goals are strategic steps in a dynamic plan that will evolve together with you.
That’s why I work with, what I call, three-month focus zones, that are the core of Creative Brain’s development model That allows me to reassess my progress, calibrate my focus and realign with what’s needed vs possible to continuously be on the most relevant and accelerated track to where I want to get. How has my environment changed? How has the business environment shifted? What do I need to focus on more, do differently or do better? What skills do I need to make the most out of the context that I am in right now and to help my team maximise their potential? This strategy helps me have a clear idea of my purpose and provides me with an infinite fuel that helps me handle overwhelm and enjoy my work.
Q. If you were to write a book about yourself, what would you name it?
Mary: I would probably call it a “tattoo”. I’ve had this idea for a while; I think that everything that happens in our lives gives us invisible tattoos. The way that we process information, our thought patterns, and the way we respond to reality is something we must embrace instead of avoiding. Turning our experiences into something that makes you you is how we can see ourselves holistically and I think tattoos are a symbol of that.
Q. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve ever made?
Mary: My education. Everything that I have invested in my education, whether it was a master’s degree or formalising my coaching education, was definitely the most worthwhile investment I’ve ever made and I would do it 100 times over.
Q. Where do you see the future in your niche/industry 3-5 years from now?
Mary: So much can happen in 3 to 5 years. I think we’re already seeing huge shifts. I think that there will be a big change in how people see work as a part of life. Also, I think there will be a push for shifting to organic organisations where the gig economy will become more relevant and we’ll be scaling up and down, depending on the needs and context, thus allowing people more freedom to pursue their creativity.
I think that the organisations that will experience success are the ones that enable people that work for them to align their purpose to strategic objectives, with the keyword being Align, not convinced or explained. Younger generations are also much braver now and willing to stand up for themselves, so if their purpose doesn’t line up, they are willing to leave and find a place where they can live by their purpose and bring the best of themselves to their work even without having a safety net of another job lined up.
Q. What is your ‘one-sentence’ piece of advice you’d like to give to someone who wants to become an entrepreneur, coach, or business owner?
Mary: Try it. That’s it. Treat everything as an experiment and embrace a growth mindset. If something goes wrong, actively search for a lesson that will help you evolve. If all goes well, actively search for a lesson that will help you evolve. [laughs] It’s a win/win situation when you approach everything as an experiment. That’s one thing that can make a huge difference.
To keep up to date with Mary and her journey, connect with her on LinkedIn, My Creative Brain, and Upliftful App.