Unruled: What Building a Business Around Motherhood Taught Me About Power

For years, I believed success required availability. Not just competence or results, but constant presence, quick replies, flexible boundaries, uninterrupted attention. I thought being taken seriously in business meant being perpetually “on”.

That belief followed me quietly as I built my company, shaped by a lifetime of people pleasing and the early understanding that stability could disappear without warning. Growing up, I learned to anticipate others’ needs, and over functioning became a default mode. Ambition, I thought, meant proving yourself relentlessly.

Even then, something in me resisted the traditional blueprint. I didn’t quit my teaching career the moment my business began to thrive. I stayed for nearly two years, leading Year 13 and supporting 200 eighteen year olds while gradually growing my company. I experimented with reducing my hours, carving out Fridays off, and taking the final week of every month away from work, long before motherhood forced the issue. I was asking myself: why must success always come at the cost of exhaustion?

Then IVF arrived, and every uncertainty was magnified. Fertility treatment has a way of amplifying fear. The unknown stretches across your body, your calendar, and your sense of self. In my mind, I heard a familiar voice: this will cost you, in time, in momentum, in credibility.

As a self employed woman, there was no maternity leave, no sick pay, no backup if I had to step away. Would my clients tolerate motherhood? Would they drift toward someone “more available”? The pressure to maintain an idealised professional persona was enormous.

Society sends a quiet, persistent message: you can have a meaningful career, or you can raise a family. Expecting both is greedy or naïve. But what if the rule itself is broken?

When my daughter was born, the anticipated fracture never arrived. Instead of division, I felt clarity. My priorities sharpened. My focus intensified. My working week shrank dramatically. I worked roughly one and a half days a week for her first 20 months. One and a half. On paper, it seemed impossible. In practice, it reshaped everything.

So what does one and a half days a week actually look like? I divided my work into highly focused blocks. Mondays were for strategy and client coaching, high impact one to one sessions that required focus but could be contained within a set window. Wednesdays were devoted to content creation, planning, and essential administrative tasks. I batch wrote emails, scheduled calls weeks in advance, and automated as much as possible. Every task was evaluated: does this move the needle? Anything that didn’t go away.

I learned to communicate boundaries upfront. Clients knew I was only available at specific times. I gave them clear expectations about response windows and delivery timelines. And here’s the surprising part: it worked. Instead of clients leaving because I wasn’t always on, the right ones stayed, and new clients who aligned with my values found me. They respected my time because they respected their own.

This new schedule also required a daily rhythm at home. Morning routines were sacred: breakfast, playtime, and reading before my work blocks began. Afternoons and evenings were devoted entirely to family. No checking emails in the background, no sneaky tasks while my daughter napped. I learned to be fully present in every moment, at work and at home.

A turning point came when my daughter caught a highly contagious childhood virus. Days blurred into sleepless nights, constant cuddling, and juggling medicine with a packed work schedule. My instinct was to apologise, overcompensate, and push through. Instead, I communicated honestly with clients, explaining that I would be less available for a short period. The response was overwhelming: empathy, understanding, and shared experiences of parenting challenges. No frustration, no judgement, just humanity.

That moment crystallised a truth I had long suspected: the business I had built was no longer sustained by overextension. It was sustained by alignment. Working fewer hours didn’t reduce productivity. It concentrated it. Constraints forced decisions, cut indecision, and made me ruthless in prioritising what actually moved the needle.

Motherhood didn’t dilute ambition. It disciplined it. It taught me to value my time as the rare, finite resource it is. To lead from intention, not exhaustion. To refuse the notion that success requires sacrifice at every turn. And the benefits didn’t stop at my business. They permeated my life: calmer mornings, clearer priorities, and a relationship with my daughter that was fully present rather than fragmented by guilt and distraction.

Over time, I experimented further with my schedule. I learned that some weeks required flexibility, switching a day here or there if needed, sometimes squeezing in a short call during nap time. But the key was always planning, batching, and protecting the majority of my week for what mattered most. The result is a sustainable rhythm that allows me to be both fully present for my daughter and fully engaged in my business.

I want my daughter to grow up understanding that real power doesn’t require self erasure. That ambition can coexist with presence. Those boundaries aren’t barriers, they’re foundations.

If I could speak to the woman I was before IVF, before motherhood, I’d tell her this: fear isn’t a warning, it’s an invitation. An invitation to stop measuring yourself against rules that were never designed for you. Motherhood didn’t disrupt my business. It dismantled the myths holding it back.

Today, my work life balance is intentionally structured but flexible. I have a thriving business, meaningful client relationships, and time to nurture my family. Each week is designed around life, not around unrealistic external expectations.

What emerged from this journey is sturdier, more intentional, and more sustainable: a business shaped around a life, not the other way around. Unruled, not because it rejects structure, but because it refuses to obey expectations that no longer serve.

And that, I’ve learned, is where real power lives.