Career Change for Women | Career Coaching, Career Path · Brittany Cates | Career Coach, UX Designer, Podcast Host, Entrepreneur

From Self-Doubt to Success: How Overcoming Loneliness Led Ellen Twomey to a Thriving Tech Career

·47 min·3 clips

Ellen Toomey attended one meetup, met Josh, and was hired despite fearing she could not fit the job’s schedule.

1. Career Change for Women features Brittany Cates and Ellen Toomey discussing loneliness, self-doubt, career transitions, and technology work. 2. Brittany Cates identifies herself as a career coach and former career shifter, while Ellen Toomey is presented as Brittany’s former coach and a technology consultant. 3. The episode asks whether loneliness and self-doubt can become catalysts for changing careers rather than reasons to remain stuck. 4. Toomey recalls being a stay-at-home mother who studied a new programming language while her children slept. 5. She repeatedly imagined that she was “the only woman in the world” writing code at night, then recognized that belief as untrue. 6. Toomey describes hearing women say they were not technical because they could not use a remote, and challenges that association between technology and a “male hoodies in a basement” persona. 7. After working in technology, teaching engineering and technology, and staying home, Toomey returned to technology through mostly remote work. 8. Toomey says attending her first meetup required coordinating dinner and childcare for four children before she met Josh, who was hiring. 9. Josh accepted Toomey’s proposal to work onsite once a week and remotely for the rest of the week. 10. Toomey says fear of rejection made her question whether employers would accept her need for a schedule unlike eight-to-six office work. 11. Ryan Holiday’s book Ego Is the Enemy gives Toomey a way to identify thoughts about how other people are judging her as ego-driven and unhelpful. 12. Toomey describes corporate roles at Accenture and a consultancy serving General Motors as environments where she did not feel understood. 13. Teaching gave Toomey control over her classroom, while motherhood later prompted her to reconsider how teaching and learning fit her life. 14. Toomey says she freelanced, started multiple businesses, and built Sustainable Catholic Schools, a financial-aid software product for Catholic schools. 15. She credits Four Steps to an Epiphany with helping her choose a business problem connected to her personal pain about women’s participation in technology. 16. Toomey says her UX course evolved into coaching after women enrolled but did not progress, leading her to focus on mindset as well as skills. 17. After her daughter was born four years earlier, Toomey describes severe postpartum depression and says therapy helped her examine whether she was building toward happiness. 18. The interview uses a conversational coaching format in which Cates shares related experiences and Toomey answers questions with personal stories, frameworks, and reflections. 19. Women considering technology careers, flexible work, or entrepreneurship. 20. Listeners seeking technical tutorials or employer-specific job advice.

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