78. COMEBACK - Andrea Byrne – ITV Newsreader - projecting confidence when you don’t feel it – YES you can still do your job – how to have NO GUILT ‘me time’

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Hello Bright Minds, my guest today is Andrea Byrne, one of the faces of ITV News and a past coachee of mine.  She anchors the BAFTA award-winning daily news programme Wales at Six, as well as ITV’s national bulletins. This includes ITV Weekend News, Lunchtime News, Evening News and News at Ten and Prince Harry is among the many high-profile names she has interviewed.

Andrea also presents the current affairs programme Wales This Week; hosts her own fertility podcast ‘Making Babies’; and is a Tedx speaker. She has recently been nominated for several broadcast awards for her documentary work.

She is an ambassador for ‘The Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme’ and a Non-Executive Director for Hockey Wales. Andrea is married to Wales and Lions legend Lee Byrne.  She is passionate about wellbeing and pioneered the introduction of Mental Health First Aiders in ITV’s newsrooms.

Away from the newsroom, she is a keen yogi, a novice stand-up paddle-boarder and a budding novelist!

In this conversation with Andrea you’re going to hear about:

• Remembering how good you are at your job before you start back.
• Why it’s a good idea not to expect too much of yourself when you first return to work.
• It not being selfish or wrong to want to have time to yourself or not liking every moment of parenthood even when your child was very hard ‘won’ as Andrea’s daughter Jemima was.
• Pitching to be involved in projects and activities that are outside of your role.
• The time it takes to adjust to working parenthood.
• And a few random bits about the psychology of perfume and what wearing stretchy clothing does to our minds.
• We do also talk about baby loss and miscarriage towards the end where Andrea shares something harrowing that happened to her when she was about to do a very significant day of broadcasting.
• And as always you’ll get to hear the wobbliest moment and peak moment of my guest’s return to work experience as well as her three top tips for returning to work after a break.

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