"Who am I?"

Throwback to a time when I sat in a car park thinking, ‘who tf am I and what am I doing?’

I was mid-way through maternity leave with my second kid, my wonderful mother-in-law had recently died and I was taking a 24 hour break from mat leave to attend two important work events: the CIPR awards and a leadership conference.

It started well, we won an award! 

And the next morning I found myself, parked up, ready to walk into that conference room with colleagues I loved working with, who were all so good at what they did, the imposter syndrome was real. And I knew I would need to leave regularly to pump some milk (thank heavens for my PA Keely finding me space to do this). 

I gazed at the Wonder Woman keyring my step sister had kindly sent me. Who am I in this moment? Who do I want to be? Do I just want to slip in and out? Get it over with? Ensure my presence was noticed? Anyone returning from parental leave will likely recognise the insecurity you can feel in these moments.

So who was I? I walked into that space, placed the chunky Chartered Institute of Public Relations Excellence Award on the table in front of me and used the introductory icebreaker to tell the conference about my team’s achievement.

You know who you are in these moments. 

It’s the things that you do, not the over-thinking before or after the event. 

I am proud of myself in that moment. Despite huge uncertainty, I stepped into my power, owned it, took up space. 

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My name’s Emma. I connect people and ideas. I’m a Communications Consultant, Coach and trainer.