So, why am I passionate about coaching women just like you?

I currently spend my days leading large scale innovation at Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, my corporate employer for over 30 years. And in my coaching & mentoring practice, I support professional women to unravel their self-doubt so that they can build tailor made, self-styled careers – and lives. 

It’s a life that’s a perfect-for-me blend of my day job, coaching, family, travel and creativity. It’s the life I’ve intentionally styled for myself.  

But, I have to tell you – it wasn’t always this way.

My twenties were a complete circus. A full, three ring extravaganza. After starting work in corporate at 17 (at the same bank I’m at today), I decided to get engaged at 19. Then married at 21. Yes, I was young and dumb. I had a baby at 23. I chose divorce at 25. And then I married Scotty – who remains the love of my life – at 27 before determining that 29 was the age to head to uni full time to study accounting. (Please don’t judge my choice of degree. I’d had a big few years and didn’t need any more excitement.)

I came through that time equally empowered and exhausted. And with a truck load of internal stories that drove me for the next decade. I had it in my head that I had to work hard;. To show that I could stick at something. To make up for lost time. To prove myself. So I spent my 30s working like a woman possessed to climb the corporate ladder, chasing some elusive version of success. It was so elusive I couldn’t tell you what it was. But it never really mattered because the truth was, I never felt like I’d ever make it to a place where I’d feel calm, confident and in control

It’s no wonder that around my 40th birthday I started to question everything. 

I remember the actual day so well. It was one of those long, relaxed days between Christmas and New Year. Scotty and our son were messing around in the pool and I was propped on the couch in front of the air-conditioning, questioning my life choices. On that impossibly hot Melbourne day I finally understood that I’d built an (apparently) amazing career, but I hadn’t built a life. I was working 7 days a week, almost every week, in my corporate role. Why? To overcome an inner critic who told me I was a fraud (and that I was going to be found out at any moment).  

And those stories I was telling myself were keeping me invisible in my career. They had me stopping myself from seeking promotions and from uttering a word in meetings. There was no way I’d entertain public speaking. I hated photos of myself and would squirm if I saw a camera heading in my direction. Basically those stories had me hiding. 

Then there was the fact that my role as a mum was downsizing. Our son was starting to live his own life and I’d been filling up the increasing space with my job. I had no hobbies or creative outlets (whereas Scotty had heaps). And I was endlessly counting the days until our next trip to France. And it was all leaving me feeling frustrated, exhausted and dissatisfied.. 

Because if you were to sum up my life in one sentence, you could have said that I was a mum, with a job, who liked to travel occasionally. 

I realised that this was not what I wanted my life to look like. Not one little bit. I knew that I was meant for more. And that I wasn’t living out my full potential. I was certain that my life – including my career – could be so much bigger than it was at the time. I had to find the confidence to live my life my way. It was time to stop playing small with my time on this earth. 

So, I started working with a coach to help me to build more confidence in my career and creativity into my life. Why did I invest in a coach? Because I knew deep down that if I was going to grow on my own, I already would have. 

That decision started a journey known as ‘following breadcrumbs’. You see, when I was young, I liked to write. And as an adult, I loved travelling to France. So I started blogging about France. And then, because it’s so fabulous, I started writing about French style. My love of French style led me to becoming a Style Coach. And that taste of coaching saw me becoming a certified life coach and, ultimately, discovering self-belief coaching.

In the meantime, my confidence grew as I tried different activities and learned new things. And my coach supported me to go for bigger corporate roles, build boundaries and deal with the behaviours that are triggered by self-doubt. Behaviours like procrastination, people-pleasing, perfectionism and polling. As a result, my career exploded and miraculously became easier – two things that I’d never imagined happening at the same time.

And along the way, I learned that if you want a life that feels completely you, you need to get clear, learn how to dance with self-doubt, build a rock-solid mindset and take action.

That’s why the intentional combination of clarity, mindset & action form my signature framework for creating a self-styled life that’s both fulfilled and fabulous. I developed my coaching framework after watching so many women in the corporate world either burn out or walk out. And every time, I’d be blown away by the potential these women left on the table.

And today I’m passionate about supporting conscientious, nurturing  women – who also happen to work in corporate – to self-style their careers and their lives.