Lucy spent 20 years as an international TV journalist covering war zones in Iraq, Ukraine, and the Middle East. Then she became a mum to a son with autism - and realised her career wouldn't bend around the life she needed.

But instead of scaling back her ambitions, Lucy rebuilt them entirely.

In this episode, we discuss:

→ The moment she knew journalism had to end - being told to get on a plane with no notice, zero schedule control

→ The turning point - realizing her nervous system directly affected her son's, making presence essential

→ The constant pivot - from Airbnbs to coaching to courses, leveraging her existing skills (storytelling, camera presence) to build a business that sold 50,000+ courses

→ The real price of building this way - 5am starts, navigating a big life change, and why it was worth it

→ Creating passive income and flexibility - building a business model that lets you be present without sacrificing ambition

Lucy didn't shrink her ambitions to fit motherhood. She rebuilt them around it.

If you're tired of choosing between being present and being ambitious, this conversation will show you there's a third option.

When do you finally get to start living your life?

When the kids sleep through the night? When they start school? When you have a balanced day?

My 2-year-old daughter was sick last week, nursery cancelled, work piling up. I had every reason not to go to the gym.

But I went anyway — and on the way there, it hit me: I've been waiting for a full stop that's never coming.

Here's the thing: life with young children IS the trenches. The coffee goes cold. You sit down to eat and someone needs water. You haven't drunk water yourself all day. There's always another nursery event, clothes they've grown out of, another illness coming. It's relentless.

So instead of waiting for life to settle before I start living, I'm learning to live IN the chaos.

I want to know that waiting until they leave home to discover who I am means losing 15 years of becoming. That the margins aren't second-best — they're where life actually happens. That I can start a podcast in my dressing gown without makeup, go to the gym when I "don't have time," build systems that make the impossible possible. That progress beats perfection every single time. That self-compassion isn't soft — it's what keeps me going when I miss a week.

Because maybe the goal isn't to wait for the full stop... but to build a life worth living in the commas. The chaos doesn't end. But you can live anyway — with systems, audacity, and kindness toward yourself.

What happens when a Fortune 500 exec stops hiding her identity as a mother at work and starts leading with it instead?

Lucy Watkins, mum of two, had a realisation: the same leadership skills she used at work - structure, empathy, communication, strategy - could transform her family life too. She stopped hoping things would just work out.

She started designing them.

The result? She went from burnout to impact, won an Employee Award for changing workplace culture around parenting, and created The Family Playbook - a weekly rhythm that helps ambitious parents move from surviving to thriving.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why "work-life balance" is BS and what intentional integration actually looks like
• How she built a Family Playbook the same way she builds team playbooks at work
• The visibility revolution: bringing your full self to work instead of compartmentalising
• Why motherhood became her leadership superpower (not her limitation)
• Weekly rhythms vs rigid schedules
• Energy management over time management, presence over perfection

Lucy doesn't treat family life as something that happens TO you - she treats it as something you LEAD. Because leadership starts at home.