The myth of balance—and what showing up actually looks like.
People love to talk about balance like it’s a checklist.
✅ Time-block your day
✅ Family dinner
✅ Founder hustle
✅ Morning routine
✅ Presence, productivity, progress
But if you’ve ever tried to build something while raising kids, you know that "balance" isn’t the right word for what we’re doing. It’s more like controlled chaos. Or some days, just chaos. The only constant is the need to show up—imperfectly, inconsistently, but still there.
Some mornings I’m on fire. I get my head down, crank through design work, solve a product issue, move the needle. Other mornings I’m unclogging a toy from the garbage disposal and running late for daycare drop-off with cereal stuck to my shirt. The point is, both count.
Building a business isn’t just hard, it’s isolating. You’re carrying this mental load that’s impossible to explain to most people. When you add parenting into that mix—trying to be emotionally present at home while mentally solving six problems at work—it’s a lot. No routine fixes that. No "10 hacks to master balance" fixes that.
What helps? Being around people who get it.
Guys who are in the thick of it too.
Other dads who are also juggling their ambition with bedtime routines and wondering if they’re doing enough in both arenas.
One of the hardest parts of this season of life is that no one sees the full picture. Online, we polish it. In person, we downplay it. Even with our closest people, it’s easy to talk about work or family—but rarely both in the same breath. That’s why I care so much about creating spaces where we don’t have to pretend. Where showing up tired is still showing up. Where no one expects perfect balance but we still hold space for each other to grow.
You can be a present dad and an ambitious builder. Not every day, not in every moment, but across the long arc, you can be both. Sometimes showing up for your kids means stepping back from a launch. Sometimes showing up for your business means asking your partner for support you’re not used to needing. It’s messy. It’s imperfect. And it’s real.
So if you're somewhere in between crushing it and barely holding it together—same. Most of us are. But you're here, reading this, trying. And that counts.
It always counts.