I have spent most of my life being serious.

Not unhappy.

Not cold.

Just… serious.

Focused.

Driven.

Intentional about everything.

I learned early that if you wanted something, you worked for it.

If you wanted to be taken seriously, you acted seriously.

If you wanted to earn your place in a room, you came prepared.

And it worked.

I built a career.

I built a reputation.

I built a life I’m proud of.

But somewhere in all of that building…

I forgot how to just be.

Not be productive.

Not be useful.

Not be on my way to something.

Just be.

I didn’t realize how much I had lost until Aubrie showed me.

My daughter arrived on July 5, 2022.

And from the very beginning, she has been the most unbothered person I have ever met in my life.

She does not care about your agenda.

She does not care about your timeline.

She does not care that you have asked her three times to stop doing the thing she is absolutely still doing.

And somehow…

somehow…

that makes me laugh every single time.

Not because it isn’t frustrating.

Trust me, sometimes it is.

But because there is something so free about it.

Something so fully, unapologetically alive.

She is not performing.

She is not managing impressions.

She is not calculating how she is being perceived.

She is just her.

Completely.

Joyfully.

Without apology.

And I realized something watching her.

I don’t know the last time I did that.

I have experienced joy before.

Real joy.

But it was almost always attached to something.

A promotion.

A milestone.

A goal finally reached after a long climb.

The kind of joy that feels like a reward.

The kind you earn.

The kind that shows up after the work is done.

At least that’s what I thought.

But Aubrie introduced me to a different kind.

The kind that doesn’t need a reason.

The kind that shows up in the middle of a random Tuesday.

In a dance party that nobody asked for.

In a conversation that somehow starts with a butterfly and ends with a princess who owns a dinosaur.

In the way she grabs my face with both hands and decides that whatever I was thinking about is significantly less important than whatever she is about to say.

Aubrie has never once asked herself if she’s earned joy.

She wakes up every morning fully convinced she deserves a great day.

Honestly, the confidence is inspiring.

And somewhere between watching her laugh at things that don’t matter and turn ordinary moments into adventures, I realized something about myself.

I had spent most of my life treating joy like a reward.

Something waiting for me at the finish line.

After the work.

After the responsibility.

After the goals.

After the next thing.

And if I’m honest, there was always a next thing.

Another milestone.

Another challenge.

Another reason to postpone joy until later.

But children don’t live that way.

And maybe that’s why Jesus talked so much about becoming more childlike.

Because children understand something we forget.

They know how to fully inhabit a moment.

They know how to find wonder in things adults walk past without noticing.

They know how to laugh without first checking whether they’ve earned it.

I think that’s what Aubrie has been teaching me all along.

Not how to be less responsible.

Not how to care less.

But how to carry all of those things without letting them steal my ability to experience joy.

She is three years old, and she has taught me things no leadership book ever could.

She’s taught me that laughter doesn’t need to be earned.

That slowing down doesn’t mean you’re falling behind.

That being childlike is not the opposite of being a strong woman.

It might actually be part of her.

I spend my days teaching her how to grow.

How to be kind.

How to be brave.

How to move through this world with purpose and grace.

And she spends her days reminding me of something I buried a long time ago.

That life is also supposed to feel good.

Not just productive.

Not just accomplished.

Good.

Light.

Full.

I think about the women who will read this.

The ones who have been serious for so long they forgot it was a choice.

The ones who hustle so hard they stopped noticing what made them smile.

The ones who are so focused on becoming something extraordinary that they forgot to enjoy being alive.

I see you.

Because I was you.

Honestly, I still am some days.

But Aubrie keeps pulling me back.

With her laugh.

With her curiosity.

With her absolute refusal to take anything too seriously that doesn’t deserve it.

And every time she does the thing I just asked her not to do…

and grins at me like she knows exactly what she’s doing…

I feel it.

That full, ridiculous, unearned, perfect joy.

The kind I didn’t know I was allowed to have.

The kind that doesn’t show up because I accomplished something.

The kind that shows up because I’m here.

Because she’s here.

Because today exists.

For most of my life, I thought joy came after the work.

My daughter is teaching me that maybe joy was supposed to be part of the work all along.

That’s part of my Herformation.

And maybe… yours too.