Cantabrians Abroad /

Cat Moody thought she was on the right path, now she is living life differently

Cat Moody’s drive for excellence took her all over the world, but also towards breaking

point. Now the Christchurch Girls’ High School Old Girl is living life differently.

Afew years ago, Cat Moody was riding the sort of career trajectory that would make any teacher or workplace mentor immensely proud of just how sky-high their talented protégé had flown. Still in her thirties, Moody was a senior consultant in Washington, D.C. for the Public Sector Consulting Practice for Deloitte, the world’s largest professional services network. ‘I did a lot of global stuff,’ says Cat as she reflects on those times, ‘so I was doing a project for the World Bank in Bangladesh, a project for the Rockefeller Foundation on 100 Resilient Cities, which was work in Athens, Jordan, and Oman. Then also some work in the States, in Louisiana on education policy and Colorado on academic medical centres.’

Cat’s résumé included degrees from Canterbury University, two summers clerking at an elite law firm as a student, jobs advising both the New Zealand and British governments on economic policy, turning down a scholarship to Harvard to take up a rare opportunity at the World Bank, and then winning the class prize while earning a Master in Public Policy from Princeton University, another revered ‘Ivy League’ university. In short, Cat Moody had been excelling at the very highest levels of student and workplace achievement for two decades.

But despite all the apparent success, Cat felt ‘off ’ after four years at Deloitte. And after several years in a row of roles where she’d often eat three meals a day at the office, something was wrong, something was missing.

Realising consulting was ‘destroying my will to live’,

Cat says, ‘I didn’t remember why I wanted to do any of this. Seventy-plus-hour working weeks, insane travel, demanding clients – there’s only so long you can do that for. So, I turned down a promotion, and threw all my toys in a massive tantrum.’

She could see the path to partnership at Deloitte, but it wasn’t a life Cat wanted. ‘I didn’t have one minute in the day to think about what I actually did want,’ she says.

Cat began seeing a therapist – something she highly recommends and says is seen as ‘no big deal’ in the United States compared to New Zealand. ‘I felt like I’d done everything I was meant to do: got good marks, all these shiny certificates and things you’re meant to do and told to do, in New Zealand and overseas too – I was even voted Prom Queen at Princeton – and I came out of it and asked “What does this all mean?”, this massive existential crisis.’

For Cat, seeing a therapist is akin to seeing a personal trainer at the gym. While the latter can teach you how your muscles work and challenges and guides you to improve yourself physically, a therapist can help you understand how your emotions and thought processes work, and challenges and guides you to improve yourself mentally and emotionally. ‘If you’re fine having a personal trainer, there’s no difference having a therapist.’

After taking three months off, Cat returned to Deloitte part-time (unheard of without having a kid or cancer, she