“Some days I'm sitting here and I'm making a toddler snack, and I think, ‘Oh my god, I used to commute to work on an aircraft carrier once upon a time. Where is that person?’”

That person is Sally Branson Dalwood. And while her former life in politics seems a world away (she lists working on the Obamas visit as a career highlight), she brings the same rigour and dedication to her new life as the founder of The Suite Set. The company makes a kit of specially formulated ziploc bags, designed to make packing the all-important hospital bag as stress-free and simple as possible for expectant parents. 

The idea for the business came about when Sally was preparing for the birth of her second son. She had cobbled together some prototypes, and written a packing list email that she found herself sharing to friends and family looking for guidance. But she wasn’t satisfied with the ziploc bags. “We went to the International Plastics Fair at the Melbourne Expo Center”, she recalls, “and walked around for a day feeding Magnus bananas, and breastfeeding in the toilets, and being actually the only person with children there, and one of the only women in the room. Having said that, I felt really comfortable there because that was the story of my life when I worked for defense - being the one woman in a room of 800 men.”

Sally had loved her work. Truly loved it. And when she went on maternity leave for the birth of her first son, she eagerly booked in her ‘staying in touch’ meetings, fully intending to be back on board when she was ready. Which she was. But things weren’t the same, and neither was she. “The entire time, I had that push and pull feeling that I wasn't doing anything right. At the level of the job that I was on, I just had this pain in my stomach that I couldn't deliver the quality of work that all of those people I felt obligated to deserved. I just couldn't deliver that work and be a good mother, and a peaceful, relaxed mother at the same time.” 

And so Sally quit her dream job. Here’s the story of what happened next...

Go to thesuiteset.com

Your background is in public affairs, public relations, and political relations. You described your time at Parliament House as one of the greatest moments of your life, so what did you love about that work?

The basis of all my work has been to serve. And I loved thinking that I was serving through being involved in policy, and bringing my perspective into Parliament House. It's funny because I have always worked in conservative politics. And I am a very liberal thinking person around access and equality, and people have always been surprised that I have worked with conservative politicians. But I feel very strongly that if you want change, you work from within. 

For me to work at Parliament House, and in the office of the Prime Minister, was an opportunity to serve at the highest level in my role in the country, and so I really loved that. For me, it was about meeting the most extraordinary people in everyday settings. I'm not actually talking about the politicians, I'm talking about the people in the communities who are advocating for change.

Was there a point at which you ever felt in that arena that you had your dream job?

I have been so lucky that at every stage of my career, except for one, I had dream jobs. I believe in every job, if it's meeting your values, it can be a dream job. So I have worked in not-for-profits, in Outback, New South Wales. I've worked in politics, I've worked as a power broker, as the state director of the National Party. And they were all my dream jobs. 

I was happily a stay-at-home mum, and I still work from home, and I started my business from home. But I had my children later. So I was 40 and one of my girlfriends who was a bit younger said, ‘You've lost your ambition, where's your ambition gone? Why are you happy to stay at home with kids?’ And I said, because at that stage, my ambition was for different things, that was really important at that stage of my life. 

Just because I wasn't talking about my ambition, or working in those positions of power, didn't mean that I had no ambition, it was just that my ambition was for other things. 

Where we are as women now is completely different from when I grew up. My mum worked her entire life and set some really good examples around working for me and for my brothers. But we're at this stage now that as women we have more professional choice, and if we can find the right support networks and the right mentoring and the right lifting up, we can design how our work can look. 

You’ve since launched your business The Suite Set, which is quite a pivot, as well as doing some consulting. Talk to me about pivoting in your career.

I was recently launching my website for my consulting, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, is this really flaky? I'm writing articles for Fairfax around startups, and hustle, and then I'm telling people how to manage crisis and special situations, and will people think ‘but she's got a small business that helps mums, how can she fix my really serious crisis?’ But actually, I've realised that is not how my brain works the best. I think firstly the joy of being in my 40s is that I've worked out that it doesn't matter anyway what people think. But the second thing is, you can be good at very different arenas by using the same skills and being really clear about how you want things to feel.

Motherhood was the catalyst for your career change, but that wasn't your intention initially. You went on maternity leave fully intending to be back at work six months later. So what did you think your return to work was going to look like, before you had your first baby?

My members of parliament were really super, super supportive, I cannot stress how supportive and forward thinking they were around my work arrangements. And when I did come back they made sure that instead of being in Canberra, or Sydney, my meetings were always in Melbourne, so I could still breastfeed, and that it could be as easy as it could be.

But even with all of that, my big issue was that I couldn't make the job I loved work for me and for my family. My husband had had a family business that was 15 years old, and he needed to focus on that as well. And it really was a very big ego lesson for me, that I couldn't make it work the way that I thought it would look.

What did that say about me as a champion of women, that I couldn't make it work for myself? And also, I didn't really want to make it work for myself, I didn't want to be away from my precious brand new baby. For me, that was a real shock. And it was a real identity crisis. I know that a lot of people talk about identity crisis when it comes to having babies, and that you're not yourself, and that you're ‘just Mum’, and we all know ‘just Mum' is bullshit. But for me, it was more that I was so shocked about how much I loved being a mum. And that my real love and passion for work couldn't carry me over those logistical challenges. 

There's some real empirical evidence that suggests that when women are on maternity leave, they do either come up with small business ideas, or they have radical career changes, because either something chemically and hormonally happens that they have a space or a time to be more creative, or on the flip side that their traditional ways of working, do not work for them anymore. That perspective shift, I think that's a really good chance to have a reassessment of what's important to them in their career ambitions. 

Was there a particular moment when you realised ‘this just isn't working’?

The entire time, I had that push and pull feeling that I wasn't doing anything right. At the level of the job that I was on, I just had this pain in my stomach that I couldn't deliver the quality of work that all of those people I felt obligated to deserved. I just couldn't deliver that work and be a good mother, and a peaceful, relaxed mother at the same time, I felt that there was just too much hustle.

I felt really strongly that that's not the environment that I wanted to bring my baby into. In a political job that’s very fast moving it's very hard to just say, "I'm doing two days a week." I felt that that was unfair on everyone involved, and it was unfair on me as well. I'm really shit at self care and I'm really bad at recognising my boundaries, I just go on and on until I crash. And I recognise that with children, I can’t work that same way.

How did you feel in the wake of your decision to quit?

My initial thought was just relief, which is how I knew I had made the right decision for everyone involved. I didn't feel that sick, deep, heavy, carrying around of that guilt. I felt relieved that I could get someone else in, who I identified and popped in the role, which was great. And he and I still talk regularly which is interesting, because I think how you end the role is almost as important as how you started.

But for me, I've still really struggled. I look at women who seem to be having it all, and I look at politicians who go off to Parliament House with their twins, and they take their toddlers and stand up and do this work. And I feel pretty shit about myself still to this day, because I think there's so much pressure to be all things to everyone, and how can she do it but I couldn't make it work? They’re the times I really need to remind myself, well that person has staff to support her, and that person has this, and that's a different role. And we're all living really different lives. So I've had to personally struggle with a little bit of jealousy around that, that they've been able to do it and I haven't. And that's not something that as women we voice a lot. Then it's coming to terms with the fact that this is my life now, and it doesn't look how I thought it would look. But it is actually the perfect life for me.

So how did The Suite Set come about? Did you have a contingency plan?

No, there was no contingency plan at all! I decided to leave my job and to just be a mum for a little bit. Between my babies I'd made this sort of little prototype of Ziploc bags. I had a lot of friends who started to have babies, and they were all women who I'd met in the press gallery, or at Parliament House, who were in their late 30s, early 40s, who were used to knowing what to do - and then they'd Google what to pack in their hospital bag and there'd be 75 different options, or they'd be tied to a marketing product, or nothing was unbiased and nothing was really robust.

I had this form email of, ‘this is what I've learned, this is what you should spend your money on, this is what you shouldn't spend your money on, this is what you need to pack’. And so that's where the instructions came in. When my friends started having babies, I just gave them my Ziploc bags and sent them my email. Everyone said, "Oh my god, this is a game changer.” But we knew that the bags weren't fit for purpose, we knew that they looked pretty crappy, obviously, because they were Ziploc bags, and they weren’t the right sizes. And so that's when we decided to start manufacturing them. 

So the Suite Set sort of grew from there in between Magnus and Fenton. After Fenton was born, we went to the International Plastics Fair at the Melbourne Expo Center, and walked around for a day feeding Magnus bananas and breastfeeding in the toilets and being actually the only person with children there, and one of the only women in the room.

Having said that, I felt really comfortable there because that was the story of my life when I worked for defense - being the one woman in a room of 800 men. 

You’ve built a lifestyle platform around the Suite Set, because obviously you're in product manufacturing, but you also provide content from interviews to blogs, and courses. So tell me about that decision, and how that aligns with your vision for the future?

That's very organic. I grew up with a very strong matriarchal line, and my grandmother instilled in me that if you're not serving, what's the point of being alive? So I feel that's an offering I can give to parents, because I want people not to feel overwhelmed. I want people to feel like it's quite an easy process. And if I at 38, with a background in research and deciphering information, could get overwhelmed by packing a hospital bag, what about people who haven't got those same skills that I have? 

We've got an online course around the baby's wardrobe for the first year, because I saw so many people on the site saying, what's the size zero versus a triple zero or four zero? And how many clothes should I buy? And I saw a lot of people who are going from having maybe middle income or low income, then going back to one income on maternity leave, but spending all their money on stuff that they really don't need, like 25 triple zero onesies. 

I'm no domestic goddess, I hate housework, and I hate laundry. So I kept buying the boys clothes. But then that meant I had to do so much more laundry. So I wrote a course around depending on the amount of laundry you do, how many clothes you need for each season of baby's life in their first year, where the best places for secondhand clothes are, the role hand-me-downs play, how to wash clothes, and be really careful around fragrance and things like that. 

So although it's a product-based business, most of my effort goes into information sharing. We've had really robust market research done by a market research company, around voices that new mums actually really want to hear. And it's not the mums with a really amazing house, and a really amazing body, and the really clean house, and the perfectly curated feed. It's the real life information, but without being too scary. It's that trusted voice. So that's what we're trying to do, really. And that's what we're trying to build the brand around. But it is all very organic, and it is in between raising kids.

Do you have any advice for anyone thinking of leaving their dream job?

Let's be frank, I look at a girl who has had the same political career as me, but hasn't got children, and I look at her wardrobe on a daily basis and I feel a bit sick about it. But if you're prepared to change some lifestyle habits to support your business ambition, then if you don't do it, it's always going to be a what if, and these decisions really have to be made on how you feel and how that flows on to the rest of your life. So if you have a nagging idea, or if you have something that you think might work, or if there's something that just will not leave your mind, you've got to give it a go. But renegotiate your priorities and reorganise your life, to be able to find the time to give it a go, or else you will always be wondering.

I would say do the research first as well. And have faith that things don't happen overnight. That is a really big lesson that I have to remind myself and particularly in the context of social media success, that businesses actually take years to grow. We've hit 4000 followers on Instagram, and it feels like it's taken a million years to get there. But it's come from a base of nothing. And I look at some other businesses that are run by footballers wives or people who've got high profile careers. Or they could have bought 30,000 followers. This is building a community of people who need and resonate with this information.