I closed a huge chapter and here's what happened next.
What leaving a 'dream job' taught me about ambition, identity and building the life I really wanted.
image: pinterest
I closed a big chapter.
A job I loved. A team and community I adored. An identity I’d worn like a second skin for well over a decade.
There was no scandal behind it. Just an exhausted, over-achiever who had hit their capacity limit across every part of their life paired with an inner knowing that it was time to move forward. That working in the way I had been was really, no longer working for me and a deep belief that it could feel better than this.
That it was time to build something more aligned, more spacious, more mine.
And then?
Well then, everything kind of cracked open.
Not quite your classic Hollywood breakdown, more like a slow burn, identity crisis of staring into my morning coffee wondering who the hell I am when I’m not SB from lululemon. A lot of questioning if I’d made the right decision. A lot of second guessing myself. A lot of just wanting to call a handful of trusted people and have them tell me what I should do so I don’t have declare it myself. I felt like I was wading through mud for months. Stuck in the messy middle with no clear way out, and with a seemingly impossible and persistent question to answer:
How can I have it all?
How can I design my life to give everything I can to motherhood and still balance that with my own ambition and independence, without breaking myself in the process?
And so, with a bit of courage, a whole lot of faith and perhaps a little (or a lot) delusion, I got to work.
It wasn’t just about building a business; it was about building my life.
I built space in the form of the sabbatical. I reclaimed my time. I got really, bloody intentional about how I wanted to use it and what I was willing to say yes to. I invested in my own learning and growth, through going back to uni and mentoring, coaching and therapy. Instead of building someone else’s community, I started building my own.
And somewhere through the process, I stumbled upon this thing called a portfolio career. I remember the hopeful spark of life it gave me when I first read about it over at
‘s stack. It ignited something in me and after a while this idea of a portfolio career felt less like a cool, buzz word, and suddenly more like my way out.I realised that the thing I had been longing for without even realising it, was freedom. Freedom to choose. Freedom to do it my way, in the way that honoured my strengths, my experience, my life circumstances, my values, my parenting style, my family. And that traditional work, or at least in the way I knew it and saw it, wasn’t going to give me that.
So I started building.
Building the individual parts that collectively, would generate for me the space, the sense of contribution, the alignment and the income to move forward. Instead of waiting for a dream role to appear, I built it myself. Because I believe that being ambitious as hell and being a present, connected and supportive parent shouldn’t have to be mutually exclusive.
And I did it by zooming out - looking at my strengths, what lit me up, what I felt purposeful doing, what people often came to me for, the work I was most drawn to, what I was known for. And I started building streams of work in those spaces. I’ve never been the type to pick just one lane, and the expansiveness of this, just felt energising. I loved the variety, I loved the diverse thinking, I loved the challenge.
And from all of that, EMBER was born.
Being a multi-hyphenate, multi-passionate generalist who’s never been content to sit neatly in one lane, it’s taken me a while to find the language that captures what I’m actually doing here (and I think this is still a work in progress). The risk of being a generalist is you can be seen as a jack of all trades, master of none, when really, the depth is there, it’s just distributed.
image: pinterest
To help me define what Ember really is, I like to imagine a tree.
At the core, the trunk — it’s people leadership.
It’s always been leadership for me. It’s the work I come back to, again and again. It’s what I’m drawn to, what I’m good at, and what people know me for.
The roots - that’s where all the goodness lives.
It’s the diverse experiences that feed my work. Make me who I am. The parts underground, often unseen, but which are essential to the whole of me.
Like these:
I studied Human Movement at uni, born from a love of sport and performance environments.
I’ve taught teenagers in high school classrooms.
I’ve led teams across retail floors and regions, opened stores, developed leaders fast, and built many successful businesses, and also closed business that weren’t.
I’ve driven community marketing strategy and brand expansion for one of the world’s most iconic lifestyle brands.
I’ve built successful brand and social impact partnerships, pioneered sports marketing strategies for regions and found creative (and some may say persistent) ways to get product into the hands of some of the world’s most famous celebrities or sports stars.
I’ve generated communities and held 1000s of quality relationships.
I’ve worked at the intersection of leadership, brand, culture and customer experience, always building what was possible through people.
And for many years, formally or informally, I’ve been a coach. Helping people see themselves more clearly, work through blocks and challenges and lead and live more courageously.
These are my roots. Each of them provide the tree with strength, texture and depth.
They’re why I can do what I do now. Not just with knowledge, but with wisdom and some serious, time in game, real experience.
And from here, with the support of the trunk, the work began to grow. Not just in the one direction. Like any healthy tree, it reached out and upward into distinct branches.
This is how the portfolio of work I’m building is taking shape:
Leadership Coaching + Mentoring
For leaders (and aspiring leaders) who want to grow with clarity, courage, and alignment. This is deep, strengths-based work, that is rooted in core values, focussed on growth and grounded in the challenges of leading teams and let’s be honest, ourselves.
Fractional + Project Based Consulting
Think of me like a fractional GM — an experienced, strategic sidekick who can plug in across departments to lead big, cross-functional work forward.
That’s looked like designing in-house leadership programs, building brand partnership strategies, elevating customer experience, designing marketing campaigns and aligning teams around shared vision.
Big-picture thinking, sleeves rolled up, without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Speaking + Workshops
I design and deliver keynotes and workshops that challenge thinking, open up honest conversations, and move people to action.
With a focus on leadership, culture and team performance, I create space for teams to think deeper, connect better, and lead more powerfully.
The Shift
Co-created with incomparable
, The Shift is a transformational 6-week leadership experience for new and emerging leaders who are navigating the messy, high-stakes early years of leadership. This isn’t a generic, cookie-cutter leadership training, this is leadership development that’s human, real, and radically useful. Practical tools, honest conversations, and a supportive cohort to help people lead with confidence, clarity, and impact.Each branch is connected to each other.
And each one gives me a different way to contribute.
And together, they’re beginning to give me the things I’ve craved most: freedom, variety, impact, and alignment.
This is what a portfolio career looks like for me.
It’s not just a career pivot, but a complete re-imagination of how I want to work, live and most importantly, parent.
When I walked away from lululemon, I didn’t really know what I was building (or let’s face it who I was outside of it!), I just knew that I wanted more. More space, more meaning, more connection, more time for my family, and even more so, more time for me.
What I’ve built isn’t done, and it’s not perfect. It’s a work in progress, and I have no doubt it will continue to evolve and grow, because if I know anything about myself, I’m never fully done. Every week I’m learning. And every week, it’s a rollercoaster of emotions, but I’m so motivated by what is possible for my life if I can make this work.
And just like through my sabbatical year, I’ll continue to show up here with learnings, fumbles, wins and insights, in the hope that in sharing that it might be helpful for someone else navigating a similar season of their life.
Can’t be bothered reading my journey, but just want to know where to start?
Here’s a few hot takes that got the ball rolling for me:
Define the core - Get clear on your why, your core expertise, and your natural strengths. What sits at the heart of your work? What are you uniquely positioned to offer? What is the work you always find your way back to when no one is watching?
Map your roots - Take a long, honest look at your career (and life) experiences. Everything counts. Your unique combination of skills, values and lived experience is the foundation for your future. Identify how they all can connect and contribute to something bigger.
Shape the branches - Once the roots are clear, look out and up. Consider all the diverse ways that your core purpose can come to life and how it can give you income diversity, creative freedom and options.
Design your time and capacity intentionally - This is less about what you do and more about how you want to do it, and how much of it do you want to do? Be real with yourself about capacity, time, energy, scalability and joy. For me? While I love coaching people 1:1, it wouldn’t be enough for me on it’s own and that I also needed work that gave me access to more people, more strategy work, more business growth to truly stay engaged.
Let yourself be seen - you can’t build a business behind a rock - Whether you like the spotlight or not, investing into your personal brand is essential to growing your business. You have to show up, share the story, work through the ick and keep doing it day after day. What I’ve learnt is that it’s like a muscle and the more that I do it, each time it gets a little bit easier.
Leverage your network like it’s your job (because it is) - Connect, connect and connect some more. Ask for intros. Take the coffee date. Follow up. Be bold in sharing with people what you’re doing and how they can help. Your next client is either someone you already know, or is connected to someone you do.
And look here’s my last (and probably the most important) one:
Be prepared for the inner work - This will test you. It will challenge your identity, bring up all your shit and call you to grow, every single day. You have to back yourself in and show up with buckets of possibility and a bit of blind faith. It won’t feel comfortable, but it will feel worth it. And one day, you’ll look up and go and go, “Oh shit. Here it is”.
I love that you've taken my personal branding tree metaphor and made it your own 😍. It's been lovely being a small part of your journey. Big things to come for you, I can feel it.