Spoiler alert: you don’t need to.
Some days I’m crushing it at work. Some days I’m crushing it at home. Most days I’m crushing it at both. That feeling that I can’t have it all? Sometimes it’s there, you know. Just comes and goes in seconds.
But here’s what I’ve learned after 17 years in events and nearly a decade of motherhood: that guilt isn’t yours. You didn’t create it. You inherited it.
The Guilt Is Not a Bug—It’s a Feature
Society designed motherhood to come with a built-in tax collector. Every time you succeed at work, it whispers: but are you a good mom? Every time you’re fully present with your kid, it nags: but what about your career?
This guilt isn’t a sign that you’re failing. It’s a sign that you’re breaking rules that were never meant to benefit you in the first place.
Think about it. When was the last time you heard a dad agonize over attending a work dinner? When did a father get asked how he “balances it all”? The guilt tax is only charged to mothers because we’re still operating in a system that expected us to stay home.
We didn’t. And some people still can’t get over it.
Stop Apologizing for Your Ambition
I run events across time zones. I coordinate global conferences and build partnerships that matter. I’ve built a career in crypto—an industry that moves fast and demands everything you’ve got.
And I’m done feeling guilty about loving it.
My son doesn’t need a mother who shrinks herself. He needs to see a woman who goes after what she wants. Who shows up prepared. Who gets on planes and comes back with stories. Who shows him that work can be fulfilling, exciting, and worth pursuing.
The best thing I can model for my child isn’t constant availability. It’s a life fully lived.
The Real Tax You’re Paying
Every minute you spend feeling guilty is a minute stolen from your actual life. That’s the real cost.
While you’re second-guessing yourself, you’re missing the chance to be fully present—whether that’s in the meeting room or at the dinner table. While you’re mentally beating yourself up, you’re draining the energy you need to actually show up for the people and projects that matter.
Guilt doesn’t make you a better mother. It just makes you a smaller version of yourself.
Rewriting the Rules
Here’s what I’ve stopped doing:
Explaining myself. I don’t justify why I travel for work. I don’t apologize for having ambitions beyond motherhood. I don’t perform guilt for other people’s comfort.
Competing in the wrong game. I’m not trying to be the Pinterest mom who bakes from scratch and hand-letters birthday invitations. That’s someone else’s dream. Mine involves keynote stages and deal closings and raising a kid who knows his mom is a force.
Accepting the premise. When someone asks how I “do it all,” I refuse the question. I don’t do it all. I do what matters. The rest can wait or delegate or simply not get done.
You Don’t Owe Anyone Your Guilt
To the mom reading this while pumping in a bathroom stall between meetings: you’re not failing.
To the mom who missed the school play because of a work trip: your kid will remember that you showed up a thousand other times—and that you had a life worth living.
To the mom feeling torn in two directions every single day: the fact that you care this much already makes you a good mother. Stop letting anyone—including yourself—tell you otherwise.
The guilt tax is optional. You can simply stop paying it.
And when you do? You’ll finally have the energy for what actually matters: building a career you’re proud of, raising a human you adore, and living a life that’s unapologetically yours.
This is the double shift. Not the guilt. Not the apologies. Just a woman doing big things and refusing to shrink.