Sunday evening, Nova's forehead was burning at 103 degrees — and what I didn't know yet was that fever wasn't going anywhere for five days.

We finally got her on antibiotics Thursday, and even then it stretched into Saturday morning before it broke on it’s own. The entire week, my husband and I traded off who was with her and who wasn't, because he leads a team that genuinely needs him and I am running a business, holding a couple fractional roles while leading my own team on client delivery and getting a new business off the ground with partners in North Carolina.

And somehow, for the first time in a long time, I didn't feel overwhelmed.

There's a moment midweek I keep coming back to. My son had been invisible for days — quietly patient the way kids get when they're trying not to need anything — while every bit of our attention funneled toward his sick sister.

I had unread emails, unread messages, things sitting there demanding my attention the way they always do when you’re building something, and he quietly strolled in my office.

His eyes met mine and I instantly put my phone down, closed my laptop and asked him to play baseball with me. His eyes lit up and I nudged him to go grab his friend next door to join us.

I could see he needed something, but he didn’t quite know what, and that was more important than what was waiting in my inbox. Taking that second to see him meant everything to him.

I set expectations with clients that week, too — not asking for forgiveness, never explaining myself in a way that required their sympathy, just clearly stating where I was and what I needed from them. Most people, if you’ve chosen to work with great ones, will meet you there when you communicate directly instead of going quiet.

Then, we ended the week with loss. Someone we cared about was gone, and grief arrived right on top of everything else…and it clarified everything for me once again. It reemphasized that I know with certainty on my deathbed I will never lie there thinking about an email I was slow to answer, but I may carry grief if I hadn't been present for my sick daughter or didn’t see in my son’s eyes that he too needed me to just show up.

At the same time, your business needs you. You’ve promised delivery for clients and your team is relying on your guidance. So how do you carry it all?

The thing that carried me through last week is the same thing I coach my clients through — other people's urgency is not automatically your urgency, and just because something is sitting unread doesn't mean it belongs at the top of your list.

So here's what I'd actually tell you to do if life hands you a week you didn't plan for.

First, write down the three things that actually have to move this week and let that list be the filter for everything that tries to crowd it. Your KPI’s shifted because life happened, that is normal so shift the plan.

Second, before you’re handed a week like this, set your response expectations in advance and keep them consistent. When you need to invoke them during a hard week, it doesn't read as an excuse, it reads as exactly who you are. People can't meet a standard you've never shown them. This might mean a 24-48 hour response time window, not just when you’re in crisis, but in general.

And third, get honest with yourself about what genuinely requires you versus what just feels loud right now. As you know by now most urgency is someone else's anxiety looking for a place to land and it’s your job to carry or release that. Your job is to notice the difference before you absorb it as your own.

None of this is complicated, but it does require you to do the intentional work.

If you want to sit with this further, Brené Brown's Unlocking Us "Living BIG" two-parter is worth your time — she and her sister go deep on what boundaries actually need to be in place to show up with integrity toward the people in your life. (Part 1 & Part 2) And, Natalie Dawson's conversation with Steven Bartlett on DOAC will challenge how you think about presence and what it actually means to be there for the people who need you.

I don't build my life around my work.

I build my work around my life — and weeks like last week are exactly why.