🍨 The Inside Scoop — Sophie Matrai 🇦🇺

Published in

Amazing Together

13 min readOct 7, 2022

ADPList Mentor Profile | LinkedIn Profile

If you are an introvert, wanting to get into the product designer field, wanting to improve your confidence, or wanting to get advice on how to progress in your career or you are simply looking to just have a chat on design, you landed at the right place!

Say hi to Sophie 🙋‍♀️, she’s a product designer from Sydney, AU & born in Hungary and currently working in Australia’s largest online tradie marketplace called hipages

Previously She was a passionate textiles & fashion designer and owned a bridal label also but made a career shift because she wanted to add meaning to her designs, solve big problems and improve people’s lives! 🎯

And also, she’s a proud stutterer advocate and passionate about raising awareness in the mental health & introvert space! That’s very interesting ✨

Bite-size facts about Sophie🤫

Fav emoji → 🙋‍♀️ (helooo!! ✨)
Guilty pleasure → eating cakes 🍰
Binge-watching → David Attenborough 🎞

Curious about our conversation? Let’s move on to the Q&A session!

Fauzi posing while interviewing Sophie:)

👋 Hi Sophie! Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

So my name is Sophie, formerly written as Zsófi, originally born in Hungary. Back there I studied textile design but then decided to move to Australia at the age of 19, with $500 cash to begin my new life with the only goal of finding happiness and peace. That’s where all the real adventures began!
It was quite challenging at the beginning. I worked at a lot of different places from cleaning in mansions to painting in the national army base. However later, I decided to eventually enrol on the Bachelor of fashion design course in Sydney. It was a lot of fun with great opportunities such as getting published in British Vogue, winning awards and showcasing my collection in Shanghai, China as a chosen graduate as well as at the Australian Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week which was the best highlight of my fashion career!
I even became well-known for my 3D-printed clothes. Such awesome memories where my creativity could fly. It was the first time that I also travelled to a third-world country.
(Check out Sophie’s fashion pieces here —> www.matrai.co)

When I finished my studies, I was fortunate enough to get into Camilla which is a high-end womenswear company. It was very creative, I finally got to use my artistic skills and I even got to design two Hungarian fairytale-inspired prints, partially using my mum’s & grandma’s handmade laces and illustrating folk stories, which got printed and sold in stores worldwide.

I also started my bridal label at the same time which I enjoyed, I did everything from sketching the clothes to creating them by hand…however, after a year of working in the fashion industry, I realised that this industry and the atmosphere is not for me. It was not aligning with the values I stood up for.
I felt I was part of a massive pollution chain where lots of fabrics got wasted and most people worked for very little money. Most fabrics ended up in the bin. The thought, that I contributed to climate change, air & water pollution and human rights abuses that I experienced, made me very frustrated.

I was stuck, financially unstable and depressed. I should have felt like the luckiest designer in the world, but I was not. I knew the money I earnt could not get me to my goals in the future. I studied fashion design for 7 years and now I had to move. But where to? I had all the creative skills, but no direction. I had no idea which area to focus on.
Then I stopped for a moment to rethink what is my true life mission.
I was determined to improve people’s lives and solve big problems. This was how user experience & interface design came into the picture, which was very much aligned with my values where I knew I could solve meaningful real-world problems and not to create problems like through fashion design and also contribute to the future of technology, sustainability and human lives.
I finally find an awesome profession where I could both use my creative skill set and the analytical side of my brain, haha which was important to me because, in fashion design, you don’t use much of it at all. You just utilize your amazing skill set for textile prints and create beautiful clothes for wealthy ladies, which they will throw out eventually.

In your bio you write that you are a proud stutter, can you explain what that means?

Yes, I’m a proud stutterer. I am very much passionate about raising awareness about mental health and introverted space. And why? Because for 28 years I’ve had an extreme stutter, sometimes more severe than other times. I also had strong anxiety & depression, with a childhood period when I almost ended my life in one afternoon.
I was struggling with a lot of childhood trauma constantly feeling that I am not enough, good enough, without any support, and abusive experiences which resulted in developing stammering.
I don’t know if you know how stuttering works, but you usually get a mental & physical block in the throat when you speak.
Many of us go through some tough times and develop trauma through specific events in our lives that create fear, shame, anxiety, and a swamp which we can’t move on from. Stutterers develop panic through uncomfortable situations, by calculating every single word. Every time, everywhere.
However, after many years of searching for the ‘cure’ through books, meditation, spiritual healing, hypnotherapy, and psychology, last year, I finally find a course that helped me to improve my speech & gain confidence which was called the McGuire program. There is even a documentary on that as well called ‘Stutter school’.

Through the course, I learned so much about mental health and dealing with stuttering physically and psychologically.
I met people on the course who told me they also wanted to end their lives before and showed me their visual scars.
This is something that many of us end up with if we don’t share our stories with the world and ask for help.
How many lives could have been saved if they got help?
My whole life changed from that moment. I always felt judged and I covered everything with just a smile and was on mute.
But now I felt I was reborn. Seriously, reborn!
Now I’m able to communicate and look into people’s eyes. I know how to present myself in front of others. How to speak more confidently. How to manage my stress and my anxiety level. And more importantly, I learned to accept who I am.
After finishing, I decided to help others, volunteer to teach stutterers about the right speech techniques, self-development, and how to gain confidence in life, partially through the ‘Beyond Stuttering’ book.
Furthermore, I decided to become a mentor on the ADP list and help other designers to find their groove.
Lastly, I started an IGTV Instagram Live series (@sophioia), a weekly session every Sunday for an hour with inspiring guests in specific topic areas of life by providing educational pieces that challenge the norms of social media and allow space for diverse perspectives.
I believe social media has given birth to a culture where people are performing a ‘perfect life’ persona rather than sharing their real selves and lives. However I think that in reality, most people have their struggles with various issues but these are rarely shared or discussed with anyone, or considered to be taboos. So yeah, it’s been an eye-opening journey.

Tell me something that would never come up in conversation.

Okay, a fun fact is that I have been writing a life diary since I was eight years old. It has every memory written down and documented about me. All the happy and sad feelings. Tickets to various trips & to Australia. Photos of my secret loved ones from school. Lots of drawings. Stickers from my childhood and so on. And it’s still being continued...

What was a pandemic hobby that you picked up?

Doing yoga and experimenting with cooking.
I craved doing some sort of exercise, even though I couldn’t go outside or to the gym while it was lockdown in Sydney so I decided to start yoga to increase my flexibility and maintain my physical health.
I really missed being in nature as we used to discover national parks all around us each weekend. However, now I couldn’t do that so I found other ways to enjoy my me time!

What kind of impact are you making in the world using your design skills?

Well, I feel I have been lucky enough to work in an industry where people have the hunger to learn and where the designers are diverse. I am very much of a people person. Until this moment, I mentored about 100 people during 2,900 + minutes of sessions within a year, by providing them constructive feedback on their work, and helping them along their journeys to get better at what they do. Or to help them get into the industry.
I believe because I have done various design projects in visual design, UX UI design, graphics design, fashion design, and a bit of photography and experience working with different talents, I can make a valuable impact and provide knowledge from different perspectives on each area that I touch.

Tell me about a time when you didn’t know if you would make it and how you overcame it.

So, in my whole life, I had imposter syndrome and questioned myself in every way.
Especially when I applied for jobs and went for interviews.
I found it hard to go to any with having severe stuttering and not enough experience in each industry which caused a lot of mental struggles that blocked me from believing in myself and representing myself in a way that I wished to.
It was a big problem.
However, in 2021 I experienced how powerful the mind is, through a hypnotherapy session where I learnt that if I believe in myself then I can move anything that comes my way. Literally. I had to hold up a hanging pendulum in front of my body and move it with my mind without moving the crystal physically. Shift it to left and right, front and back and stop it multiple times. I could not believe it. It physically moved!
That’s when I learnt that I am capable of anything! I just have to believe that I can do this!
From that moment on I gained so much confidence that I was able to perform as I wanted during all the interviews which led me to have 3 companies competing to hire me.

Where do you find your inspirations from?

Um, it’s a bit hard to say.
For product design, I would be looking at Behance and Dribble.
If I am about to paint or draw a picture, I usually get inspired by reading life stories and then I would paint their profiles where I try to tell their stories through facial expressions, skin textures and eyes. For fashion design, I often got inspired by architecture & nature.

What kind of mentorship do you wish to provide and why?

I am open to doing career development-related mentorships such as when someone wants to get into the design industry. I love supporting individuals at the beginning to find their groove and then when they want to step up to the next level.
I am also passionate about supporting people who are introverts those who are afraid of speaking up currently but want to raise their voice because I believe everyone is capable of that, they just have to learn the ‘How’. I’ve got a few techniques for that which I usually recommend.
I also built out a framework to help those who struggle in which industry they should get into, regardless if it’s design related or not.

What are the most common questions you get as a mentor, and how do you usually answer them?

Many people come to me with the inquiry that they have been studying UX design and they want to get into the industry, but don’t know how to make the first step.
Then there is another type of group who have got different design skill sets but they don’t know which one to choose and focus on.
And then there is another group who don’t know what type of profession they should do just overall, which direction to move towards.
I was struggling so much to find a career where I could be happy and where I needed to stop and assess myself.
Over the years I’ve gathered many resources in this area which helped me. So now I used those to create a Career Change Guide for others on how to find their dream job suitable fit to their values, interest, personal inventories, and labour market, which I have been using to help guide these youngsters and other people who are currently lost in what to do next.

Have you faced any difficulties while giving feedback to Mentees?

I haven’t experienced many difficulties in terms of giving feedback, however, there is something that I found very challenging.
Sometimes mentees don’t turn up to our sessions because they forgot that they booked a time or due to other reasons.
Where I get frustrated is when they don’t let me know in advance that they will miss the session and even though I private message them if they are coming or not, they don’t respond and I just sit and wait for 10 minutes quietly until I decide to close off the room.
If they don’t turn up, I’m very disappointed because mentors do take their time for these sessions and care about every single individual.

If there is one thing you could tell every single mentee you meet, what would that one piece of advice be?

Dream It. Believe it, Achieve it. This is kind of my life mantra, it’s really important not to just dream something or wish for something in life, for example telling to yourself “I wish I could become a pro designer sooner “, but you must believe in yourself. You must encourage yourself, motivate yourself, and believe that you will be able to achieve it by setting milestones for it.
Take baby steps slowly, experience the successful moments and then work towards your goal. You may be going to procrastinate and sometimes fall back, but you have to get up and keep going.

Why ADPList?

I joined as a designer mentee a few years ago, which helped me so much to improve my skill set on my knowledge and meet others from the industry. I appreciated everyone who helped me along this journey and become a better designer.
Tim Yeo, an Australia-based design leader was my first mentor who recommended giving mentorship a go.
I decided he is right. You are never going to be 100% ready for everything, but he believed in me. I had the courage and now the communication skills to begin this journey and I wanted to give back now.
So I clicked “Apply to become a mentor!”
That’s my conversation with Sophie, hopefully, you can get a lot of lessons or inspiration from her story. Before we end the conversation, let’s ask this or that question to Sophie as a fun closure.

That’s my conversation with Sophie, hopefully, you can get a lot of lessons or inspiration from her story. Before we end the conversation, let’s ask this or that question to Sophie as a fun closure

🤔This or That

Optimist or Realist → Optimist 💯
Explorer or Homebody → Explorer 🗺
Morning person or Night owl → Morning person🌤
Get it done first or Wait until the last minute → Get it done first ✔
Be social or Alone → Social 💃
Read a book or watch a movie → Read book 📖 “for now 😜”
Play games or Ask funny conversation → Have funny conversation 🤪
Travel in country or Travel abroad → Travel in country ✈
Beach or Mountains → Mountains🗻
Go forward in time or Go back in time → Go back in time 🔙 “but not my own life :)”

Thanks for reading this article! I hope you enjoy my conversation with Sophie as much as I enjoy it and get something beneficial from it. And again, if you have any questions to ask or want to book a mentoring session with Sophie, kindly check her available session here.

Leave a comment below if you found this helpful. Make sure to follow ADPList to get the latest news from us or inspirational stories like this from other mentors as well.