This week, my oldest daughter turned 10.
Double digits.
It’s one of those milestones that quietly sneaks up on you. It made me stop and reflect on the last decade. Not just on how much she’s grown, but on how much I’ve grown alongside her.
Before becoming a mom, I thought parenthood would teach me how to raise children.
Instead, it’s taught me how to become a better human.
A better leader.
A better friend.
A better partner.
A better version of myself.
As I looked back over the last ten years, I realized nearly every leadership philosophy I hold most deeply today was reinforced, not in a boardroom or executive offsite, but by two little girls who have been unknowingly teaching me every single day.
Here are the ten lessons motherhood has given me.
1. Presence matters most.
I still remember rocking Hadley to sleep after one of the hardest days of my career.
I was exhausted. My mind was replaying difficult conversations, unfinished work, and problems I couldn’t solve.
As I paced around her room singing softly, she looked up at me, smiled, nestled into my chest, and drifted off to sleep.
In that instant I thought, This is all that matters.
Not because work didn’t matter.
But because she reminded me what it was all for.
Children know when we’re truly with them. So do our teams.
The greatest gift we can give another person is our undivided attention.
2. Stay curious.
One of my favorite parts of motherhood has been seeing the world through my daughters’ eyes.
They ask questions adults stopped asking years ago.
Why?
How?
What if?
Somewhere along the way, many of us replace curiosity with certainty.
The best parents—and the best leaders—never stop wondering.
Curiosity creates understanding. Understanding creates connection.
3. Love grows deepest in the messy moments.
Some of the moments I treasure most weren’t the easy ones.
They were the fevers.
The tears.
The fear.
The uncertainty.
The nights where nothing went according to plan.
Those are the moments that reveal the depth of love.
Leadership is no different.
Years from now, people won’t remember the quarter you exceeded your targets.
They’ll remember who stood beside them when things got hard.
4. Quality over quantity.
This is probably the hardest lesson on this list.
Sharing custody means I don’t get to see my daughters every day.
I wouldn’t have chosen that.
But it has forced me to ask a different question:
How do I make the time we have truly count?
It changed the way I work. It changed the way I schedule my days. The lesson has been surprisingly transferable. The best distributed teams don’t build trust because they’re together every day. They build trust because when they are together, they’re intentional.
Quality doesn’t happen accidentally. It’s designed.
5. Assume good intent.
My daughters are wonderfully different. They’re spirited, opinionated, deeply feeling.
Which means…they also have conflict. I’ve learned that my first job isn’t to decide who’s right. It’s to get curious.
What’s underneath the behavior?
What’s the emotion they don’t yet have words for?
Children often lack the language to explain what’s happening inside them. Truthfully, many adults do too. Assuming good intent doesn’t mean ignoring harmful behavior. It means choosing curiosity before judgment.
That one shift has transformed both my parenting and my leadership.
6. Keep perspective.
There will always be another email, another deadline, another meeting, another fire to put out.
There are only so many nights your child falls asleep in your arms.
Motherhood has reminded me over and over again to remember what all of this is for.
Leadership requires the same discipline. Never become so consumed by the work that you forget the people the work is meant to serve.
7. Know your strengths. Build your village.
My daughters need far more than any one person could possibly provide. So I’ve stopped trying to be everything. Instead, I’ve focused on building a village.
Family. Friends. Teachers. Coaches. People who love them, challenge them, and help them grow.
Sometimes that even means asking for practical help, like having someone clean the house so I can spend Saturday morning making pancakes instead of scrubbing bathrooms.
Leadership works the same way.
Know where you create the most value and aean into those strengths.
Surround yourself with people whose strengths complement your own.
You were never meant to do it all alone.
8. Keep iterating.
One of the first things experienced moms told me after Hadley was born was:
“There’s no manual.” There are books, lots of them. But none of them are written for your child.
So parenting becomes one long experiment.
You try.
You learn.
You adjust.
You try again.
I’ve always believed that clarity comes from action. Motherhood has only strengthened that belief. Progress rarely comes from waiting until you’re certain. It comes from paying attention and continuing to learn.
9. Model being the adult you hope they’ll become.
Our kids are watching. They’re watching how we treat our friends. How we handle conflict. Whether we apologize or ask for help.
Whether we rest, whether we keep our commitments, whether we take care of ourselves.
Early in my leadership career, one of my managers told me something I’ll never forget:
“Take your vacation. Really unplug. Your team is watching.”
Children don’t become who we tell them to become.
They become who they see. The same goes for our team.
10. Believe in them enough to let them struggle.
I recently read a line from an entrepreneur and father that made me laugh before making me think:
“My job is to make childhood as hard as possible.”
Of course, I don’t think he meant making life miserable. He meant resisting the urge to remove every obstacle.
Often our instinct is to rescue…to smooth the path and make life easier.
But confidence isn’t built that way.
Confidence comes from discovering, I can do hard things.
So give them chores they own, expect them to contribute.
Hold high standards with empathy and trust them with responsibility.
Leadership is no different.
One of the greatest gifts we can give another person is our belief that they’re capable of more than they currently believe about themselves.
High expectations—paired with support—are one of the purest expressions of love.
As I reflect on these last ten years, I realize motherhood hasn’t just shaped how I parent.
It’s shaped how I lead.
It has taught me that whether we’re raising children or leading teams, our work is remarkably similar.
Be present.
Stay curious.
Assume good intent.
Hold people accountable because you believe in them.
Build a village.
Protect what matters.
Keep learning.
Most of all, remember that leadership isn’t about getting the most out of people.
It’s about helping them become the fullest version of themselves.
I thought I was raising my daughters.
The truth is, they’ve been raising me too.
What’s one lesson the people you lead—or love—have taught you that changed the way you live? I’d love to hear it.
Hadley and I starting her “Yes Day” for her big birthday!