A success story

I shall set the scene: I am writing this on my phone with a baby on the boob, a raging eye twitch and possibly some Petit Filou about my person. My eldest daughter Mae has just had an inconsolable meltdown about her coat zip being too zippy and is now watching Paw Patrol with the intensity of a starved mosquito. I have a window of 67 minutes - broken into 12 minute chunks peppered with requests for Nesquik - as my 4-month old slips into a sleepy milk drunk fug.

In these 67 minutes I will be more productive, more focused and more creative than I ever was strapped to my desk as a copywriter for eight hours under brash white lighting, clasping a free biro from the stationery cupboard like it is LIFE.

This is not, however, what I thought success looked like. My fresh-faced and perky-bosomed 24-year-old self (working as a junior reporter on Practical Caravan) saw success in terms of dosh - lots of it. A yoghurt-smattered jumper was surprisingly not in that vision. She saw it as things, titles, red-soled heels and glass-walled offices with one of those cabinet for awards for just being, well, great.

But what is great? What is successful? Having struggled to make work actually work around my family, I quit my dream job as a senior creative copywriter at the L’Oreal Group in March 2015. (I didn’t leave hollering “because you are not worth it” for the record - they were a great company but they simply couldn’t flex around my childcare restraints.) To quit. It’s a cold word and one I never imagined would be linked to the word “success” but it really was the turning point for me when I actually questioned the mindset around work in the U.K. having lived in the Netherlands for five years. (A place that realises family - in whatever form; girlfriend and boyfriend; stepmother and step daughter; Mum and Mum; Dad and Dad; the family with 2.4 kids and a white picket fence - is central to society.)

In that moment I swapped a desire for all the money and all The Stuff (other than Wham bars) and exchanged it for choice. A choice of where I work, how I work and when I work. My goals were not hugely off piste - I needed to earn money to pay the mortgage and keep fish fingers, chips and peas on the table. But in terms of what I wanted, I swapped crispy notes for a spring in my step. 

And in that moment I set out on a mission to show previous employers how success can look with a little bit of flex. Working with my husband Matt around school drop offs, nap times, flu jabs, gurning-smiles-when-you-just-let-the-world-stop-for-four-minutes and all the other life-min that comes with bringing two small humans into the world, we made it work. We wanted to show businesses that far from giving less with this newfound flexibility, we gave more. (According to the government’s capital and mental wellbeing report the U.K. economy would be £156 million richer every year if companies got on board with flexible working). Everything, in fact - but not at the cost of our health or our children’s health.

Since leaving we’ve written a Sunday Times Bestselling book, launched a platform for ‘people who happen to be parents’ with 46,567 unique monthly visitors (in October) and have garnered a following of 135k on Instagram with sheer blood, sweat and tears with a coffee IV attached at all times. This isn’t some jazz hands ‘look at us’ exercise but we really wanted Mother Pukka to act as a living, breathing portfolio to show what success can really look like if you let people - men and women - actually live.

The author Douglas Coupland went a little further: “the current 9-5 system is barbaric and I truly believe we will look back at it in years to come as we did child labour in the 19th century.” This is because the majority of men and women who happen to be parents will work like a demon for a company that treats them like a human. The majority of men and women who happen to want a life outside of work will give businesses more, not less with a little bit of flex. If they don’t? Boot them out and streamline your business but don’t say no because of a fear of change. This is not a revolution, it’s simply about evolution in a digital era that is willing and ready. 

Once businesses put humans above business BUT for business benefit; seeking to get more not less out of employees with a little flexibility - then I’ll feel like we’ve all succeeded. That would be a successful outcome. The ultimate success story. To let people live and work. 

Let’s talk about flex, baby.

This post has been written in partnership with LinkedIn as part of its #ThisIsSuccess campaign