The Both And — How I Stopped Choosing Between My Work and My Life

I used to come home from work ragged.

My kids got what was left of me at the end of the day. My husband learned to tell them, stay out of Mom's way. And then the phone would ring, and I would pick it up and become a completely different person. Hello, how can I help you?

My daughter caught me once. The look on her face told me everything.

I was either a mom or I was at work. I was either giving everything to my clients or giving everything to my family. I thought that was just the deal. The cost of doing both.

And then a coach said something to me that I have never forgotten.

She said: you don't have to go either or. You can be both and.

I know that sounds simple. It is simple. That is the thing about the most useful ideas — they are almost embarrassingly obvious once you see them. The trick is seeing them.

What the both and meant in practice was this: I stopped treating my work self and my personal self as two separate people who had to take turns. I started bringing the same woman to both rooms. The one who listened. The one who was curious. The one who knew that the answer was usually already there if you stopped long enough to hear it.

And something strange happened.

When I stopped performing the version of myself I thought my clients needed, they trusted me more. When I stopped performing the version of myself I thought my family needed, they felt me more. Not the performance. Me.

I also learned to schedule my life the same way I scheduled my clients. My kids' football games and basketball games went in the calendar as appointments. Non-negotiable. Because the moment I said this matters and this matters, I stopped having to choose between them.

Both and is not a time management strategy. It is a question of identity.

Are you trying to be two different people in two different rooms? Or are you bringing the same woman everywhere she goes, and letting that woman be enough?

She is enough. I promise you that.

I spent 28 years in real estate. I raised three children, mostly while they were all under four years old at the start. I served on boards and gave talks and built teams. And the best version of all of that happened when I stopped dividing myself up and started showing up whole.

That is what the both and gave me.

What would it give you?