You Were Built for More Than Guilt: A Working Mom's Case for Building Big
The world tells working moms to expect less. Here's why I believe the opposite — and how to build a business and a life that fit your season.
Somewhere along the way, working mothers got handed a quiet, heavy message: you can only do so much. Pick a lane. Don't reach too far. And whatever you do, feel a little guilty about the parts you're not doing perfectly.
I don't believe it. I never really did, but this year I got clear on why.
I think we were built for more than guilt. Built with real capacity, real strength, and real purpose. That doesn't mean grinding yourself into dust — I'm not interested in hustle culture, and I think it breaks people. But it also doesn't mean shrinking. Somewhere between "do it all until you collapse" and "expect nothing of yourself" is the truth: you can build a life and a business that fit the season you're in. You have far more power over that than you've been told.
For me, it started in 2004, when I left a corporate desk to go to cosmetology school. Everyone thought I'd lost my mind. What I was really doing was refusing the small version of my life. I built a salon company out of an old bank building. I built it again in a second location. I survived a walkout that took a third of our revenue overnight. And the thing that made all of it possible wasn't superhuman effort — it was three habits I'd teach anyone.
Know your strengths and go all-in on them. I'm a visionary and a problem-solver, and I'm genuinely bad at daily repetitive tasks. For years I treated that as a flaw to fix. It's not a flaw. It's a map. Build around what you're great at.
Refuse to do it all alone. Everything in my business multiplied the day I stopped trying to be everything and started building a team of partners. Rest and partnership aren't weakness. They're leverage.
And have the faith to leap. Some seasons don't change until you jump. Mine never did.
If you've been waiting for permission to build something bigger — this is it. You're not too much. You were built for more.
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