New life in full bloom: How Sharon reinvented herself after 50

When Sharon Ho was retrenched after more than 20 years in corporate marketing, it came as a shock.

She’d built a career she was proud of, earned a high six-figure salary and worked internationally across travel, tourism, hospitality, airlines and NGOs.

But she also knew something had changed.

“I wasn’t willing to play the political games that sometimes come with corporate life,” Sharon says.

“That simply wasn’t what I wanted for my next chapter. So, while being retrenched was initially a shock, underneath it I felt something else: I was ready for what came next.”

Then COVID hit.

For someone working in travel marketing, that could have been another hammer blow. Sharon now sees it almost as good fortune.

“In hindsight, it was almost a blessing in disguise. Working in travel marketing, I probably would have been caught up in the industry’s upheaval anyway.

“It gave me the space to stop, explore and ask myself: ‘What do I actually want to do next?’”

That question changed everything.

The answer would eventually take the Malaysian-Australian woman in her 50s somewhere that, to outsiders at least, looked a long way from corporate boardrooms.

Flowers.

The florist who had been there all along

Except Sharon’s transformation into a florist wasn’t sudden at all.

Flowers had been part of her life since she was young. In fact, she used her very first pay cheque to begin training as a professional florist.

Even during her corporate years, when her career took her to different countries, she would occasionally take a sabbatical and work as a florist.

“It was always something I came back to,” she says.

And it wasn’t only the finished arrangement that drew her back.

“What captured me most wasn’t just creating something beautiful. It was how I felt when I was working with flowers. Everything seemed to slow down. I would enter this incredibly calm healing state where, for that moment, nothing else mattered except what was in front of me.”

So when Sharon was ready to work out what came next, flowers didn’t seem nearly as unlikely to her as they did to other people.

In August 2024, she established Flowers with OnthegoSharon.

Some people probably wondered whether she’d “lost the plot”, she admits.

After all, going from a high six-figure corporate marketing career to florist isn’t the most conventional career move.

Nor was Sharon immune from doubts about it.

“Of course it was scary,” she says. “And the truth is, as an entrepreneur, I don’t think those moments of doubt ever completely disappear — whether your business is small or has grown significantly. There are always moments when you ask yourself, ‘Am I doing the right thing?’

“There were certainly worries about money and whether I had made a terrible mistake. I had spent more than 20 years building a career, so walking away from that security was a big decision.”

But there was an important difference between Sharon and the young woman who had once spent her first pay cheque learning floristry.

She had another 20-plus years behind her.

“I realised I wasn’t starting from zero.”

That meant skills, relationships, mistakes, experience and life lessons. The corporate career wasn’t something she needed to discard before becoming someone new.

She could bring it with her.

When the flowers became something else

Sharon began running workshops and noticed things happening around the tables that had little to do with producing the perfect floral arrangement.

People talked. They collaborated and made decisions. Some who arrived reluctant to participate began to engage. People who might not normally have had much to say to one another found themselves talking.

Working with young people in vocational education was particularly revealing.

“Give them the freedom to create and you see their focus, ideas and individual strengths come through,” Sharon says. “They showed me that purpose can look very different from person to person.”

Then there were workshops involving people living with disability and cognitive challenges, and carers.

Those experiences stayed with her.

“I’ve seen incredible resilience in people who may sometimes be underestimated or defined by their circumstances,” she says.

“Sometimes the most important thing isn’t what someone produces, but simply being present, having a sense of connection and being given the opportunity to contribute.”

The flowers were becoming a way in.

A creative activity could open conversations around resilience, empathy, bias, accountability, leadership and belonging without requiring people to sit down and announce that they were about to discuss any of those things.

“The flowers are simply the starting point.”

Since 2024, Sharon has conducted more than 100 workshops involving around 1000 people across corporate organisations, schools, vocational education, community groups, seniors and disability settings.

By then, “florist” no longer seemed big enough to describe what she was doing.

What grows beneath the surface

Now Flowers with OnthegoSharon is evolving again.

The new name is The Understorey.

In nature, the understorey is what grows beneath the visible forest canopy. You might not notice it first, but there’s plenty going on down there.

That struck a chord with Sharon.

“So much of what shapes us sits beneath the surface — our experiences, culture, relationships, emotions, beliefs and the things we carry through different chapters of our lives,” she explains.

For Sharon, that includes where she came from. She grew up in Malaysia and is of Chinese heritage, something she believes has influenced her more than she initially realised.

“I feel very blessed to have grown up in Malaysia — a genuinely multicultural country where Chinese, Malay, Indian and many other cultures, religions and traditions live alongside each other,” she says.

“Of course, there can be tensions, but from a young age I learnt that living harmoniously with diversity isn’t just an idea — it’s something you practise every day.”

Respect for elders, family and community were part of that upbringing. So was the importance of relationships, listening and living with difference.

Her Chinese heritage brought another influence: an appreciation of tradition, symbolism, balance and the connection with nature.

Sharon is now drawing more of that into her work through Chinese flower symbolism, Feng Shui and storytelling.

There is even a Chinese character that fits almost perfectly with what she is building.

根 — gēn — means root or origin.

“Our roots are often beneath the surface, quietly shaping who we are, how we connect and how we respond to the world,” Sharon says.

“My heritage has been part of my understorey all along. I’m simply becoming more conscious of it now.”

Still learning in her 50s

There’s another direction Sharon didn’t necessarily anticipate when she picked up the flowers again.

The more she worked with people experiencing grief, isolation, loss, questions of identity or periods of major change, the more conscious she became that empathy and good intentions have their limits.

She is now undertaking accredited Mental Health Studies at Swinburne.

“Empathy is important, but I don’t believe empathy alone is enough. I want to develop the theoretical and practical knowledge to understand when someone may need support, how to respond appropriately, and importantly, when something is beyond my role and needs to be referred to the right professional.”

She’s careful about the distinction.

Whether she’s working with a group or an individual, Sharon does not present herself as a medical or mental-health professional and doesn’t diagnose or provide clinical treatment.

“For me, knowing where that line is is just as important as knowing how to support someone,” Sharon says.

It also means that in her 50s, after a long corporate career, professional floristry and now more than 100 workshops, she’s back studying again.

Sharon likes that.

She doesn’t regard her age as a reason to narrow the possibilities from here.

In fact, when asked what she would say to a woman in her 50s or 60s who fears her most interesting years might be behind her, Sharon goes back to something somebody once told her.

“I remember when I was 30, someone said to me, ‘Life starts at 30.’ Well, if you ask me now, I’d say life truly starts at 50,” she explains.

“By then, you’ve accumulated so much experience — whether you’ve had a big corporate career, raised a family, run a household or navigated life’s challenges. And even if you don’t think those experiences amount to much, they do.

“The skills you develop through managing a household, raising children, caring for others and navigating everyday life are huge skills — they just don’t always come with a job title or appear on a résumé.”

Her own list of what might come next isn’t exactly modest.

Sharon the national facilitator.

Sharon the international speaker.

Sharon the trainer of trainers.

Maybe even Sharon the author.

But when she talks about what she really wants to discover next, the answer is much more personal.

“I want to be Sharon who walks alongside herself — the woman who has spent much of her life supporting others, but has learnt that she needs to support herself too,” she says.

“I want to be Sharon who loves herself enough to care for herself, prioritise her own wellbeing and recognise that she matters too.

“Because if my cup isn’t full, I don’t have enough to pour into others.”

And when people ask when she plans to retire?

“Never.”

Find out more about Sharon Ho’s work and The Understorey, or follow her floral and creative work on Instagram at @onthegosharon.