Hi, I’m Serena Fordham, and this blog post is an extension of my Amazon Bestselling Book “ProspHER(ish): The diary of a fcuked up female-founder” written to help women succeed in their businesses and careers – while ultimately achieving their dreams and fullest potential.
Not the plan
This is not the blog post I planned to write. My alarm went off this morning, not with a gentle, melodic chime, but with the frantic barking of my two dogs at 3 a.m. One of those “it’s windy and therefore a cause for alarm” barks. A quick trip into the garden in the dark to let them out, a fruitless attempt to get them to quiet down, and then, just as quickly as it started, they were calm again. Me? Not so much. I didn’t get back to sleep.
My second alarm at 7 a.m. went off, and I was in that frustrating half-awake, half-asleep limbo. The morning was just getting started. My daughter, bless her heart, dropped a bomb: no clean school shirt. My husband wasn’t around, so I was the one to rummage through the laundry, frantically searching for a dryer sheet, only to find the clothes were still damp. My son, having seen his pre-made lunch, declared it inedible, so I had to slap together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in record time, which, of course, resulted in a sticky mess all over my hands.
From bad to worse
Then, the dog food bag broke. Spilling across the kitchen floor, it created a crunchy, oily mosaic. At least the dogs were happy, eagerly helping me “clean” it up. The final straw came when my son, on his way to school, fell off his bike. He came back in tears, with grazed knees and a broken chain. I spent a frantic few minutes trying to fix the bike, getting my hands covered in grease, and then comforting him, all while watching the clock tick past my departure time.
I was supposed to be on my way to London Tech Week at Olympia, ready to network and learn, but instead, I’m here, writing this, still in my pajamas, sipping a lukewarm cup of coffee. The FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is real, but so is the need to just take a breath and wallow in the chaos.
This is me
As a female founder and mum with a disability, things often don’t go to plan. And I’m willing to bet it’s the same for many of you. We see these polished photos online—the smiling faces at conferences, the perfectly styled outfits, the “I’m living my best life” posts. But what we don’t often see is the reality behind it all. The spilled coffee, the last-minute crises, the exhaustion that comes with juggling everything.
So, this is me, being fully transparent.
This is me, sharing a messy, frustrating, and very real morning. This is me, embracing the fact that sometimes, life doesn’t cooperate. And that’s okay. It’s a reminder that it’s perfectly fine to have a day where you do nothing but rest and recharge. There’s always next year for London Tech Week. For now, I’ll be here, scrolling through LinkedIn posts of everyone else enjoying the event, and I’ll be fine with that. I hope that by sharing this, you’ll know that you’re not alone on those days when everything seems to go wrong.
Share your story
Do you have a story like this where the day didn’t seem to go how you’d imagined it? Please share it with me here.
#reallife #authenticity #femalefounder #londontechweek2025 #epicfail #networking #event #tech #education #empowerment #womensupportingwomen
