About Me

Hello I’m Denny Nesbitt and I help mums to change career

More of us than ever are recognising that life is too short to be unhappy at work and are making changes so that we can have fulfilling careers that enable us to have lives outside of work too. A large number of these career changers are mums. We’re having children later in life, after climbing the corporate ladder and find, for one reason or another, that those careers we worked so hard at no longer work for us.

For mums, more than anyone though, career change is not straight forward. There are many practicalities and commitments to be considered, and that’s before we even get into our emotions, like guilt and fear. As a mum who has been unhappy at work, struggled to work out what to do next and come out the other side, I understand how hard it is. But I also appreciate the wonderful perspective, no bullshit attitude and ability to get stuff done that mums’ have, which makes now the perfect time to change our lives for the better. As mums we have to design our careers with our life in mind if we’re going to be happy and that presents us with a wonderful opportunity. Honest.

I help mums design and build careers and lives that feel right to them. Typically my clients will say the following things when we first start out. Do any sound familiar?

• • I used to really like my job. But now it just doesn’t fit in with my kids and my family life. I can’t keep up with the long hours and the juggling act.
  • My perspective has changed. My career just doesn’t feel right to me anymore. I want to do something more … well, I don’t know what. But I know this isn’t it.
  • I want to go back to work but I can’t find anything that fits in with the kids.
  • Shit I’ve always hated my job but I just put up with it because we need the money and I can’t afford to take a paycut.
  • I don’t have the confidence to do something else. 
  • Doesn’t everybody hate their job. I feel so selfish. I just need to suck it up. 
  • I don’t have the time to retrain or look for another job. I can’t even go to the toilet in peace, let alone update my CV.
  • I’ll look for another job once the kids are a bit older.
  • I’m going to win lotto. It’ll all be fine. 

I’ve pretty much said, or thought, all of these things at one point or another.

My story

My background is in marketing and business development. I started out in the glamorous world of beauty PR, in London, and drifted into the more corporate realm of professional services marketing. To begin with I really liked my job. I worked with clever, interesting people, every day was different and I was paid pretty well. As I got more senior in my career though, I began to struggle. I resented the long hours and the impact that work had upon my life. I tired of hearing the same points made in meetings that were never actioned upon. And mostly I just hated the fact that I couldn’t be me at work. I always felt that I needed to be more. More strategic, more extrovert, more assertive, more creative. I basically just didn’t feel good enough.

Like a lot of people who are unhappy at work, I told myself to suck it up. Nobody likes their job, you work to live not live to work, I said to myself. And I looked forward to the weekends. But, of course, sunday always comes around. I even quit my job once without having another one to go but didn’t really have a plan for what else to do and four months later found myself back in professional services marketing as my mortgage break came to an end.

By the time my maternity leave came around with my first child I was really looking forward to “a break.” And then the world of work became a distant memory when I was hit by the sledgehammer that is motherhood!

Becoming a mum for the first time made my job look like a walk in the park. I found everything a struggle – lack of sleep, failing to breastfeed, no me-time, fights with my husband, baby who catnapped. Part of my problem was that I was a perfectionist. And so when things weren’t quite as perfect I imagined them I blamed myself, just as I had at work.

Returning to work 
I know we’re not supposed to say this but by the time my maternity leave ended I was looking forward to going back to work. I was fortunate to be able to go back part-time and I told myself that I was really going to throw myself into my work during these three days, I’d be really efficient and strategic and I would enjoy having adult conversations again. The first few weeks were great … but then I felt the old unhappiness return. I was still a square peg in a round hole, and even with the new set of priorities that motherhood brings, it still bothered me. The old familiar unhappiness was accompanied by sadness because I missed my son and also complete exhaustion. There were the logistics to deal with – drop off, pick up, days off when my son was sick and somehow fulfilling the role that I had picked up during mat leave of household operations manager. You know, menu planning, shopping, laundry, organising birthdays and Christmas, organising immunisations, organising, organising, organising.

Also, my job may had changed to three days a week on paper but I felt like I was trying, and failing, to fit a 5 day job into 3 days. The pre-mum me had been able to work long hours to keep it all together but that was harder to do now. I resented late nights in the office that kept me away from my son and having to answer emails on my days off. The hours wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I was doing something that fulfilled me and where I felt I was making a difference. I realised that if my job was going to keep me away from my family, it needed to feel worthwhile. It was finally time to tackle the question that had been bugging me for years.

If not this, then what? And how the hell am I supposed to do whatever that is?

After years of pondering about changing my career and daydreaming about what that could be like, I got serious and engaged a life coach to help me work out what next. I didn’t want to be in this situation in 10 years and knew it was worth the investment in myself. I went into the coaching experience telling myself it was about finding a new career – and I did – but I also found so much more.

I realised that I had spent too long worrying about what other people thought and trying to meet expectations that belonged to other people and not me. I examined what was really important to me in life and in work – something I had never done before as I just coasted through life. I looked at how I was spending my time and whether I was prioritising my needs and values. Shock horror I didn’t even know what my needs were. I created a vision for my life and career and started taking action towards it.

A life that’s more like me
I’m now a qualified life and career coach myself. I loved every minute of the coaching process and realised I wanted to help other mums be happy in their work and life. I could finally own the fact that there wasn’t a problem with me but I had been in a career that wasn’t right for me. And that I wasn’t being fair to myself, or my family, to keep sucking it up. I think we all have the right to be happy at work, especially mums who are already doing the most important job there is.

OK, so here’s my professional stuff

And my personal stuff

I am mum to two amazing boys and wife to a pretty awesome guy. My kids drive me crazy at times – my seven year old is at the high extreme of active and wants to be a professional sprinter and my five year old is obsessed with fishing and dogs.  My husband has been the most amazing support to me while I have been on this journey and did not once tell me to suck it up.

I live on the South Coast of NSW about an hour and a bit south of Sydney. We made the move after deciding the Sydney rat race and high cost of living was not serving us as a family or allowing us to meet our personal ambitions. So when I am not coaching I am hanging out with friends in this wonderful community I find myself in and building sandcastles on the beach with my boys.

I believe that kindness is an under-rated quality, a to-do list can be a girl’s best friend as long as she’s not a slave to it and that it’s ok to not be the life and soul of a party. Now that I’ve reached my forties I am finally comfortable with the fact that I’m an introvert who, oddly enough loves karaoke but is not good at sport and can’t bake. And whilst, I don’t have all the answers and my life feels messy most days, I am getting better at accepting myself for who I am and honouring those things that I value.

Let me help you do the same.