Can you give yourself a new title when you’re the boss? Is apologising hindering your progress? And can you parent like you don’t have a career, and work like you don't have children?

I’ve found it hard to write this past month. One, because I’ve been very fortunate to do a lot of fun things, meaning I’ve had to work some unsociable hours to keep up (usually the hours I dedicate to writing). But also, because my mind has been whirling with many thoughts. And getting the clarity to cover just one topic, well, hasn’t come. So I’ve given up on that, and decided to share my many musings instead.

I’ve had some big anniversary moments. And significant dates can often bring up a lot of feelings.

My agency, Known, celebrated 10 years.

If you’re not familiar with the tale of why I have this company, and apologies if you’re bored because you have (many times), then either way I’ll keep it brief.

I had a job working at SEEN (the biggest – I think – beauty PR agency in London), which I loved. But my role got put up for voluntary redundancy. Despite being offered another role in the company (I think they liked me as much as I liked them), my dad was dying at the time, and I was travelling 5 days a week from Brighton to London and weekends to Eastbourne to see him. Do you remember that pre-covid world when we were all full-time office based and 6am starts and 7pm finishes were the norm? What a time to be alive. No seriously that grounded me with some seriously good skills for my industry and confirmed I have the right work ethic to build a business.

I decided to take the opportunity (and the cash) and spend some time with my dad while I still could. I didn’t actually know that we had limited time left (maybe my subconscious did), as his death was pretty sudden in the end.

But anyway, I have lots of kind and talented people around me and my sister and husband set me up with a Limited company and a brand, Known, in case any work did come my way. I thought I might be a freelancer. I really didn’t have a plan. But Jini Sanassy, who heads up PR for SpaceNK and all-round great human, recommended me for a couple of clients and I ended up building up some work.

I also fell pregnant at this time after a couple of years of trying unsuccessfully. So then, concerned that my clients would think I was a little unreliable (and potentially unavailable to them), I brought in a wonderful team member, Rosanna, who still works with me today. Thus, the agency was born. No business plan. No financial strategy. Just some great clients and luckily for me a great team. Known has then mainly grown through word-of-mouth for the last decade since.

That wasn’t a brief explainer after all. But it was quite a lot to cram in then, so is quite a lot to cram into this now.

We celebrated 10 years of Known and I think in some strange way it reminded me of that difficult time. I know I should have felt celebratory, but the whole thing left me feeling flat.

A few weeks before that I had my dad’s birthday too, and the day after Father’s Day. I’ve been feeling guilty as I also didn’t feel like fully embracing that. Which felt unfair to the amazing men I do have around me.

I’m also, like a lot of people, transitioning my son from pre-school to school, and my eldest son just seems to be maturing at a monthly rate. It’s a lot to process when you are navigating new moods, new behaviours and you therefore have to adapt how you present yourself to them. We all want to be the very best version of ourselves when it comes to parenting, but that’s tough when what good looks like is an ever changing thing.

So as much as it has been a very fun time. All of these moments combined, have made me think and feel a lot, like I said.

I know I need to change my role at work.

Fact. I cannot be in the granular detail of every aspect and strategically review what we are doing from the top down. And not to show off, but the business is now in seven figure territory (not profit unfortunately), but strategy is important. Strategy keeps people in jobs. And that’s what weighs me down the most. The responsibility to keep things going and growing so those jobs sustain.

But how do you just give yourself a promotion?

I called myself the founder 10 years ago as I felt like a bit of an idiot calling myself a CEO. CEO or Managing Director of myself it would have been. Seems stupid. But now, things have changed. I have three great partners, one being my husband, and we all need to carve out our roles. So, I’m actively looking at ways I can streamline my focus. These include:

Taking extra time out to coach the team. Spending my time investing in their skills which should give them space to grow in their roles and me in mine too.

Setting clear expectations. Letting them know what I expect of them, which gives them the opportunity to step into doing just that.

Giving myself the permission to do less. Not less really, as there are many things I do each day that nobody else in the company does. But it’s trying to shake off that feeling that everyone else thinks I’m not pulling my weight because they are not actually seeing the work being done.

I also have an apologising problem.

I find myself saying phrases like “don’t hate me for saying this” or “sorry, but it would be great if…” when asking my team to do tasks.

It needs to stop. I need to feel comfortable being in command. I am in charge and I need to stop saying sorry for it. Ultimately, I do have high standards and it’s those standards that keeps our company in business. We need to do everything to the best of our abilities, so people keep working with us. That’s the nature of the type of business we are: it’s service, and you need to provide an excellent one. The competition for what I do is fierce. I have a brilliant group of peers, other company owners who I speak to regularly and we all try and support and validate one another’s experiences of running an agency. And it’s tough out there.

I think you are either someone who cares about doing their very best at everything you do, or you are not. I envy people who can just give a little less of a shit. I don’t feel bad for them. My tactic instead is avoidance. I can’t ride a bike, or cook, or do many things. So, I tend to avoid them. I instead put my focus on the areas where I think I have the potential to excel and for me those two priorities are at work and being a mum, and not always in that order.

Why am I even apologising in the first place? I know I can still request action politely and with kindness in my tone. I do wonder if womanhood and motherhood make you feel guilty for asserting yourself in any way at all.

My catchphrase at the moment, especially as I encounter other working parents is, “we want to parent like we don’t have a career and work like we don’t have children” and it seems to resonate.

Particularly recently there’s been a big expectation to attend school or nursery activities during working hours. And as much as I feel gratitude that I work for myself and can attend all the sports days, settle sessions, concerts and parents’ evenings (which are actually in the afternoon), I have really been questioning what this world we’re all living in, is all about? And have also been putting a lot of pressure on myself to work early mornings and late evenings around them. I want to be the best mum I can be. But I also want to run my business to the best of my abilities too. I want to attend these things for my children, but I don’t want to move meetings for them.

Asking myself questions about my role as both a boss and a parent are probably interlinked. It can feel like you’re failing, but I don’t know about you, I think it also feels like some situations are not set up for us to succeed in, in the first place?

*I do not use AI to write my copy. I sometimes use it to add an SEO search term and create a URL to help drive traffic to my posts. I also sometimes use it to check for grammatical errors (when my husband is unavailable to proofread), without ever using it to change my content.