94. COMEBACK – Laura Scougall – ITV – redundancy risk on maternity leave – being open at work about demands at home (autistic son) – how to get back to sleep

Hello Bright Minds, my conversation today is with Laura Scougall, Head of ITV Academy. Knowing Laura is a chatty, confident person we decided to make it a freeform conversation without any pre-agreed questions so it’s a bit of a random episode that covers a lot of ground.

We talked about:

• How to get back to sleep after being up with a baby or an 18 year old in my case.
• Coping with being placed at risk of redundancy and dragged out of your maternity bubble to think about finding another job.
• Not introducing yourself in meetings with an apology.
• Why I walk around my garden barefoot when I first wake up.
• The daily additional stress of being a working parent of a little boy with autism.
• Being totally open at work about what’s going on at home.
• Having the confidence to ask colleagues to reschedule a meeting that you can’t make last minute.
• Being generous with positive feedback.

Laura’s wobbly moments and tips for coming back to work after maternity leave which includes leaning into the chaos.

I hope you get plenty from it and if you do, please would you leave a short review and a rating wherever you listen. Thank you so much.

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