Alyce Renderos on her own internal dialogue as the best parenting and founder tool

We spoke to Alyce Renderos, founder of Saltus Gifting, about the words her boss left her with on the way to maternity leave, the hard stop that reshaped her work ethic, and the inner voice she leans on when everything feels like a pressure cooker.

Before Alyce Renderos went on maternity leave, her boss told her directly that by the time she returned, the person who reported to her would be in her role.

The comment landed like a tonne of bricks.

"Deflated. Unappreciated. Angry," Alyce says. "At the time, I put everything I had into work. I was the person who arrived early, stayed late, was always the first to offer help and proactively sought opportunities for coaching and development. My whole identity was tied with my work."

The words sat in the back of her mind throughout her maternity leave. They also did something else.

"I am determined and sometimes stubborn, so it lit a fire within me to prove her wrong.”

“Looking back, it makes me sad that it was a woman, and a mother, who made those comments."

What happened next was a kind of forced reinvention. Alyce had always been organised and efficient. But when she returned to work after parental leave, she found herself operating at a level she hadn't reached before. The reason was simple.

"When you are the primary carer it's like you have a ticking timer on your desk. When it goes off, regardless of what is going on, you have to leave. I didn't have great boundaries prior to kids when it came to work because there was never a hard stop. So when I returned and had a forced, even if self-imposed, hard stop, I became determined to show the business I could still manage it all."

The shift was immediate. Less time to overthink. More perspective. Work was no longer everything, and somewhere in that recalibration, it became something Alyce could do better than before.

"There are always moments that test you though. Crazy stuff only ever occurs simultaneously."

One day stands out. A large client order to dispatch, all hands on deck, no wiggle room. At lunchtime, Alyce got a call from daycare. Her youngest had hurt himself. It turned out to be bad enough to need a trip to emergency and stitches from a plastic surgeon.

"There's no question I would always drop everything for my kids no matter what. But when you're a business owner, I think you feel an added layer of pressure because there's not always colleagues to fall back on, especially in the early days of business ownership."

She called the client, and the order went out a day late. The client was absolutely fine with that.

What made it possible was a habit Alyce had picked up in her event management days.

"I always build extra time into projects to allow for unforeseen circumstances. Usually it's to allow for issues with stock or couriers, but it comes in very handy for life events as well. The daycare sick calls never come when you're equipped for them."

Her son was fine the next day (her nervous system took a little longer!).

Today, Alyce runs Saltus Gifting alongside her husband, parenting their two boys. The boys are already on first-name terms with the business. They help pack gifts for The Carers Foundation, Saltus' community impact partner, and Alyce uses the moments to talk to them about who the gifts are for and why the work matters.

It fills her with pride that they're growing up watching it all.

"It's really important to me that they see me not only as their mum. I want them to see what's possible and raise them with strong values towards women, to see them as equal partners in life."

She and her husband are intentional about modelling teamwork. They are aligned on raising boys who understand the value of a strong work ethic, who learn resilience, who know that determination and hunger and passion take you places. And underneath all of that, there's something Alyce wants for herself, too.

"I just want them to see me doing something I love. I am a better mum because I work. I love the creative thinking, problem-solving, and most of all the connection that comes from what I do."

When asked how she actually does it, Alyce's answer starts with a line from a colleague — one she returns to when everything feels like a pressure cooker.

"Work is a rubber ball — if you drop it, it bounces. But your personal life is a glass ball, and if you drop it, it shatters."

On a practical level, she runs a tight system. Everything in the calendar, work tasks in Asana and Sunday nights with her husband to run through the week's logistics. Alyce takes early morning walks to map out the day, find inspiration and regulate her nervous system before the world wakes up.

But underneath the systems is something more important. Something Alyce has built deliberately, over time, that holds when everything else slips.

"It really comes back to my internal dialogue. Your mind believes what you feed it. Some weeks are completely derailed and there's nothing you can do about it, but I remind myself that I have always found a way to work things out, so why won't this be any different. Take a breath, let go and reset the next day."

‍The boss who told Alyce her job would be gone underestimated her. Alyce didn't just hold onto her career. She built something of her own, raised two boys who help her pack the gifts, and learnt that the most reliable tool she has — as a founder and as a mother — is the voice in her own head.

Tomorrow, after all, is always a new day.

Alyce Renderos is the founder of Saltus Gifting.

This story is part of the Movement Without Mental Load campaign by Travel Tots — traveltots.au