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Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is 53 year old journalist Samantha Downes, who last year took up the post of senior news reporter at The Express after many years working freelance. She joined The Express in November after specialising in pensions and investment journalism as an investigative reporter for both trade and national publications including the Financial Times, City AM, and Pensions Expert.

She’s a mother of two teenage girls and writes about midlife, parenting and money issues for her own substack. She’s written two books and has another underway and is also a financial commentator on TV and radio. We met a couple of months ago at the House of Lords at a breakfast hosted by another podcast guest, Baroness Helena Morrissey – episode 102 – to launch a report about the gender ISA gap.

I think you’ll love Samantha’s honesty about returning to employment and her raw self-reflections about ambition. I really could have listened to her for much longer than we had time for and at the end of the episode I share my thoughts on why and how mothers careers come in and out of bloom – and it’s not to do with the age of their children.

References

The power of small wins – HBR article by Teresa Amabile & Steven Kramer.

Visualisation podcast episode with Maya Raichoora.

Danna Greenberg paper - Identity and the Transition to Motherhood: Navigating Existing, Temporary, and Anticipatory Identities.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, I wonder whether you’ve seen the Netflix hit Buying London with Daniel Daggers and his team of agents at his property firm DDRE? It’s a lot of fun and very glamorous and my guest today is one of the team who you won’t have seen on screen. I met Serge Cowan on a flight to Nice last September when he was going out to look at a property in Monaco and we got into a deep conversation about his life, including his four children. Serge is a global real estate advisor at DDRE who has sold properties in 27 locations and deals with DDREs international sales. Serge’s 16 year old daughter Emily makes an occasional entertaining double act with him on Instagram and there’s a link in the show notes.

In 2002 Serge set up a property business which he told me he felt like he was married to. His wife worked with him too and alongside their professional life they spent five years trying to have a child. In 2007 along came baby Maddie who was born with cerebral palsy who very sadly passed away in 2017. Maddie’s early years also coincided with the recession of 2009-2012 which hammered the business Serge had built. By 2018, a year after Maddie’s death he realised the marriage wasn’t right and their divorced was finalised in 2024.

You’re going to hear us talk about:

• A father’s perspective of the strain and emotional difficulty of raising a profoundly disabled child.
• Battling the SEN system and local education authority for a child with cerebral palsy.
• His marriage coming to an end and walking away from the business he’d built
• Serge’s experience of ‘chronic anxiety’
• Negotiating with French estate agents

I hope you enjoy and extract something useful from my chat with Serge.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Baroness Helena Morrissey, ex CEO of Newton Asset Management, founder of the 30% Club and founding ambassador of AJ Bell’s Money Matters campaign to help women feel good about investing. She’s also the mother of nine children and author of A Good Time to Be a Girl.

• We talk about how to ask for a promotion and the power of holding silence when you do.
• The gender ISA gap, pensions and investing for children.
• Helena’s experience of returning to work after nine maternity leaves.
• The psychology of what we wear at work.
• Helena’s top tips for returning to work after a break.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, today I’m talking to Francesca Woodhouse who is the MD of UK Workplace Advisory at Edelman and mother of four children. She works full time and is married to Lewis who also works full time as a Head of Communications. You’re going to hear Francesca talk about:

• The need to proactively managing your career.
• Moving between freelancing and employment.
• Key habits that support working full time and caring for four children.
• The difference having a true partner at home makes to your life.
• Francesca’s experience of being a disgruntled middle manager.

Before we glide into the conversation with Francesca, three thank yous to listeners who’ve left a review of COMEBACK COACH on Apple Podcasts since the last episode:

Simone wrote: “Wonderful podcast on the realities of corporate career life. Always get great inspiration and some actionable tips to try out.”

Lizi left this review: “I really enjoy listening to the podcast and hearing how other women manage the career and family juggle but mainly I just love hearing Jesica’s take on the world. It’s impossible not to feel uplifted, energised and inspired listening to her.”

And thank you to Geeko1003 who says: Jessica expertly navigates the emotional and performance issues for everyone at work. The tools, tips, and insights help to create an inclusive workplace.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, in this episode we go beyond the comeback and discuss the habits, resources, ways of working and ways of thinking that help support career development when you have young children.

We recorded this episode in front of a live audience at Arcadis, London - one of our treasured clients.

My guests are all professional women who have 13 children between them and they've all previously been on the podcast. They were tremendously candid for which I am truly grateful.

• Emmie Faust – exited founder, investor and founder of Female Founders Rise. Past coachee of Jessica. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 52.
  
  
• Amanda Newman – Accenture. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 21.
  
  
• Rachel Maguire – Earl Kendrick. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 19.
  
  
• Liz Twiney – BlackRock. Past coachee of Jessica. COMEBACK COACH past podcast guest episode 13.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Brights Minds, I’ve been thinking a lot about displays of emotions at work because of the increasing number of women I’ve been coaching over the last 12 months who’ve described being taken by surprise by their tears and worrying about the implications. It tuns out there’s some pretty complex psychology at play when it comes to how crying at work can potentially affect our reputation.

I’m Jessica Chivers, a psychologist and executive coach. For the last 20 years I’ve been coaching leaders, senior professionals and high potential individual contributors during career transitions and challenging times. The work always involves an element of increasing their understanding of themselves and I’ll often bring in evidenced-based insights from the world of psychology and related disciplines to help with that ('psychoeducation').

In this episode I cover:

• My new comeback coaching research published by the British Psychological Society.
• Why we cry (including some gender differences). [05:41]
• What’s been happening for the women I’ve been coaching who have been crying at work. [08:19]
• What co-workers are likely to be thinking when they see a colleague cry (where I explain ‘cognitive scripts’ and ‘attribution theory’) [11:06]
• What the research tells us is the best thing to do to mitigate any negative downsides of crying at work. [18:30]
• What managers need to do when they see a team member cry (where I explain some nasty gender biases) [22:11]
• What repeated crying at work might be telling you. [25:37]

REFERENCES

• Becker, W., Conroy, S., Djurdjevic, E. & Gross, M. (2018). Crying is in the eyes of the beholder: an attribution theory framework of crying at work. Emotion Review, 10(2), 125-137. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073917706766
• Elsbach, K.D. and Bechky, B.A (2018). How observers assess women who cry in professional work contexts. Academy of Management Discoveries, 4(2), 127-154.
• Gelstein, S. et al (2011) Human tears contain a chemosignal. Science, 331, 226-230 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1198331
• Malle, B. F. (2006). The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution: A (surprising) meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 895-919. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.6.895
• Tiedens, L.Z. (2001). Anger and advancement versus sadness and subjugation: The effect of negative emotion expressions on social status conferral. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80(1): 86-94.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, my guest coachee today is Amber (not her real name), a past coachee of mine who I worked with years and years ago and is now on the brink of making a second career change. She wanted to have a space to think about how to navigate relationships with different organisations that she’s in parallel recruitment processes with. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of working with coachees years down the line after their first coaching engagement and it’s so wonderful to see how they’ve changed and to reconnect.

If you would like to have a (free) one-time coaching conversation with me that we will record and share as an episode of COMEBACK COACH, take a look here.

Link to tickets for the LIVE-IN-REAL-LIFE GATHERING for the recording of episode 100: BEYOND THE COMEBACK - Raising your career through the Primary School years (26/2/25).

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace

Ask me a Q

Hello Bright Minds, I am really happy to be back with a very vibrant episode to kick off season eight where Marketing Director Caroline Smith from the toy shop, The Entertainer talk about:

• Making sideways and strategic ‘downward’ career moves.
• Finding unexpected fresh drive and ambition after maternity leave.
• Job search challenges and strategies.
• Being the wildcard candidate.
• Nourishing your professional network.
• Using LinkedIn to showcase your expertise.
• Discipline and structure during the job-search journey.
• Caroline’s advice for making a comeback.

>>>> If you're listening before 19th February 2025 you're in time to get a ticket for the LIVE recording of episode 100: "BEYOND THE COMEBACK: Raising your career through the Primary School Years" in London on 26/2/25.

MORE FOR YOU

• DM Jessica on instagram @comebackcommuk
• Get Caremail (free, every other Sunday at 7am)
• Read Mothers Work! How to Get a Grip on Guilt and Make a Smooth Return to Work by Jessica Chivers.
• Watch five coachees talk about working with us
• Connect us to your HR team - bring the Comeback Community™ employee experience to your workplace