It started with a flood of tears - but became a runaway New Zealand business success.
"I so wanted to be a shoe designer but I hadn't worked out how," says Kathryn Wilson. "I was out shopping with mum at Manukau City and we were sitting in the food hall discussing what I could study in NZ to have a career in footwear design.
"I was in tears because I knew I wanted to design shoes and felt an urgency to do it before anybody else started something similar in the New Zealand market."
This mother-daughter conversation, which took place nearly 20 years ago and proved an important one in Wilson's life, has come to light with the release of a Suncorp New Zealand study - From Risk to Reward - looking at what is important to New Zealand businesses, what might be holding them back, how they feel about risk and how they see themselves evolving over the next five years.
The research was conducted by UMR Research and shows a majority are positive about the current business environment, although some uncertainty exists as the September general election approaches.
Suncorp New Zealand's executive general manager of customer experience, Campbell Mitchell, says for businesses to grow and succeed they need to know who their customers are, have good people working for them, access to funding and capital and a passion for what they do and their customers.
Passion is something Wilson is familiar with. "I didn't get into this to make a quick buck; financial rewards have always been secondary to the fact I'm doing what I love," she says.
Today her "innovative and playful" shoe brands - Kathryn Wilson and Miss Wilson - are increasingly well-known and popular with women looking for something different.
Around 12,000 shoes are made every year and sold in over 100 boutique stores throughout the country while Wilson, now 37, has become more than a designer - gaining a reputation as an influential businesswoman in demand as a speaker at business forums and conferences.
"I believe you have to remain an optimist especially when you are the leader of your team, "she says. "If you do that and have the right people and culture in your business, confidence will flow from there."
Wilson still does her own designs - with pencil and paper - and runs a lean business model employing 20 people, three retail stores in Auckland and an online store.
All her shoes are handmade and manufactured overseas in several countries including Italy, Spain, China and Turkey. Yet for all her success, her mind often goes back to that talk with her mother all those years ago.
"My mum was great, she helped me work through what I needed to do and was very encouraging; she always said I should do something I loved and to have fun doing it - choose a job you love and you never have to work a day in your life.
"It was a pivotal discussion," she says. "I have had a love of shoes from a young age and always knew this was what I wanted to do."
Wilson remembers attending a footwear industry meeting soon after graduating with a degree in design and telling everyone she was going to be a shoe designer: "At the time the industry was in dire straits and manufacturing was moving offshore. They told me to pick another career.
"My attitude to that was, 'Just watch me, I'm going to do this'. People telling me I couldn't do it made me more determined to succeed; I was always so certain people would buy my shoes, I had no fear of failure."
Wilson says while she keeps an eye on the economic conditions both in New Zealand and globally, she believes it would be crazy to let these factors stop her or bring her down.
"These things keep you on your toes," she says, "but there is no point in taking the fun out of it."
Although she says she lives, eats and breathes her job ("because my name is on the brand"), Wilson manages to strike a healthy life/work balance. She works 8.30am-5.30pm four days a week, leaving time to spend with her two-year-old daughter Lola and husband Liam.
Mitchell says this was reflected in the research, with many businesses saying they want a balanced workplace where success and lifestyle go together.
The study shows 60 per cent of business owners in New Zealand believe their businesses are in good shape compared to 13 per cent who think they are bad and 28 per cent who are unsure.
Almost half - 46 per cent - think the New Zealand business environment is good, 42 per cent are unsure and just 12 per cent think it is bad. However only 24 per cent believe the global business environment is in a healthy state (23 per cent say it is bad) with most, 54 per cent, unsure.
Mitchell says the fact more businesses are optimistic about their own situation is evidence they think they can beat the odds and are prepared to back themselves.
For more information go to suncorp.co.nz/from-risk-to-reward.html