There’s a moment when your career collides with real life.
Picture it: Late afternoon. Two adult career schedules. Three kid activity schedules.
I remember the call.
Back and forth with my husband— who’s leaving work to pick up our son?
At one point I said, “He’s standing on a soccer field alone. You have to go get him.”
That was it.
Up until then, I had been building. Learning. Figuring out what I was good at.
Now life has presented new challenges. Didn’t I love solving problems?!
The answer was simple.
My husband didn’t have flexibility. His job didn’t allow for it.
Mine…barely did.
This was the year 2000.
Corporate flexibility meant one thing:
Job sharing. Two people. One role. Split hours (wink, wink: really 30 hours each)
Was I frustrated? For a minute.
But I wasn’t starting from scratch.
I already knew:
What I liked to do. What I was good at. Who I could ask for help- my network.
That mattered.
So I stopped trying to force a work-life structure.
And started creating something different with my kids.
We launched Teens Against Poverty.
A simple non-profit business idea:
Create events kids actually wanted to go to, like bowling nights, dance parties, hayrides, bonfires and give the proceeds to local charities supporting families.
It worked.
Not because it was perfect. Because it was real.
We wanted every dollar to have impact.
So we had to get attention without spending money.
That meant one thing:
Earned media.
Local coverage. Community buzz. Word of mouth.
At the same time, something else was happening.
Kids were figuring out social media before adults were.
Bending the rules to get on early platforms. Finding each other. Building communities.
It was unstructured. A little chaotic. Wide open.
I didn’t know it at the time.
But I was building a new skill set.
• How to tell a story the moves kids (which is like herding cats) and adults • How to reach the right audience without a budget • How to move quickly in a social environment that hadn’t been defined yet
Sound familiar?
During the school day, I was still doing the work I loved.
Problem-solving. Working across tech and media. Translating ideas.
After school, I was applying it in a completely different way.
With my kids. With their friends. In the community.
It wasn’t separate.
It was connected.
That’s the shift in this phase.
I stop asking, “What job fits my life?”
And start asking, “How do I shape work to fit what matters now?”
No one handed me that model.
No one said, “This is a path.”
I had a foundation. I knew my strengths. So I built something that worked.
I find that’s where people hesitate. It can be scary.
Waiting for permission. Waiting for proof that it’s possible.
Doesn’t come.
You make it possible.
Build your foundation.
Pay attention to what fits.
Then build what’s next, even if it doesn’t exist yet.
