what turning 49 taught me about leadership
This past weekend, I turned 49.
I woke up Sunday morning to dozens of birthday messages—texts, LinkedIn notifications, Instagram DMs, emails from colleagues and clients, singing voice memos from family and friends. Each one was thoughtful and kind, and I'm genuinely grateful for every person who took the time to reach out. Seeing those messages made my day so special and reminded me how lucky I am to be able to call so many professional colleagues and clients true friends who I genuinely love and respect.
But here's the truth of this past weekend…my birthday wish. I turned off my phone, looked at my husband sitting across from me at the kitchen table, and made a decision.
We spent the entire weekend together. No super specific agenda. No formal plans. Just... present. And a commitment to a new mini 24-hour adventure together.
If you know anything about Q4 in my world, you know this time of year is chaos. My husband and I are like ships passing in the night—working in different cities, quick weekend get-togethers, exhausted phone debriefs at 10pm, constant juggling of calendars and commitments. Sound familiar?
So when my birthday fell on a weekend this year, I had a choice: respond to every message immediately, post the obligatory gratitude content, maybe a dinner with friends or colleagues... or just be with the person who matters most. And block out the outside world… just for 24 hours.
I chose the latter.
No big celebration. Limited social media posts. No networking events disguised as birthday dinners. Just us, reconnecting in the quiet spaces we can barely make time for.
And honestly? That choice is the foundation of leadership.
Before you think this is another self-care sermon about boundaries (it's not), let me tell you what I actually learned from spending my 49th birthday mostly offline—and what it has to do with the leaders I work with every single day who are wildly successful but quietly struggling.
The Leadership Lesson No One Talks About
After 15+ years of coaching leaders, building businesses, and watching leaders succeed and others implode, I've noticed something that rarely gets discussed in leadership development circles:
How you show up in your personal relationships is exactly how you'll show up in your professional ones.
Not similar. Not kind of the same. Exactly the same.
And most leaders don't realize their personal relationship patterns are quietly sabotaging their professional success.
Let me break this down with some uncomfortable truths I see often:
The Mirror Effect: What Happens at Home Shows Up at Work
Leaders who gossip with friends will have teams that gossip.
If you're texting your best friend about someone's incompetence at work, your team is doing the same thing about each other (and probably about you). Culture doesn't start with a company values poster—it starts with how you talk about people when they're not in the room.
Leaders who have poor relationships with their spouses will have poor relationships with business partners.
Can't navigate conflict at home without shutting down or blowing up? You won't magically develop that skill in a board meeting. Avoid hard conversations with your partner? You'll avoid them with your co-founder or collaborative partners too—until the business partnerships eventually implode.
Leaders who micromanage their families will micromanage their teams.
If you can't trust your spouse to handle household decisions, or you're constantly checking on your kids' every move, that same control pattern will show up with your direct reports. And it will drive your best people straight out the door.
Leaders who have balanced, healthy relationships built on mutual respect and trust at home will foster that same dynamic in the workplace.
This is the one everyone wants to skip to without doing the foundational work. You can't manufacture trust at work if you don't know how to build it at home first.
Emotional Intelligence Starts Where No One's Watching
Here's what turning 49 has helped me reflect on: emotional intelligence isn't about how you perform in high-stakes meetings. It's about how you show up when it doesn't "count" for business.
It's choosing to be fully present with your partner instead of mentally drafting tomorrow's presentation.
It's recognizing when you're bringing work stress into personal conversations and having the self-awareness to hit pause.
It's making space for relationships that don't advance your career, expand your network, or generate revenue.
Because here's the truth: if you can't regulate your emotions with the people who love you most, you won't be able to do it with employees, clients, or investors when the pressure's on.
The way you make decisions at home—rushed or thoughtful, reactive or strategic, ego-driven or collaborative—that's your default operating system. And it will absolutely show up in your business decisions.
The Cost of Always Being "On"
I see this pattern constantly with the leaders I work with: they're brilliant strategists at work and completely disconnected at home.
They'll spend three hours analyzing market data, or putting out constant fires, but can't have a 20-minute conversation with their spouse about what's actually bothering them about their relationship or address other uncomfortable conversations at home.
They'll invest in executive coaching for themselves and their teams but won't do the inner work required to show up better in their personal relationships and when I gently remind them of the importance of relationship issues outside of the workplace, they quickly deflect “back to business”.
They'll talk about "alignment" between business & life but their personal life and professional life are operating in completely different value systems.
And then they wonder why they're successful but exhausted. Why they've built something impressive but don't feel fulfilled? Why their teams are productive but lack real cohesion or accountability.
The answer is usually hiding in their personal relationships.
What I'm Learning at 49
Spending my birthday quietly with my husband wasn't about escaping, it was about protecting what makes my work sustainable. It was about investing in deep meaningful relationship building.
Strong personal relationships aren't a nice-to-have for leaders. They're the foundation.
They're where you practice the emotional intelligence you need at work.
They're where you learn to navigate conflict without destroying trust.
They're where you figure out how to be both strong and vulnerable.
They're where you test whether your decision-making process actually works when emotions are high and stakes are personal.
And if you can't get it right at home, you won't get it right in the boardroom—no matter how many leadership books you read or frameworks you implement.
Three Questions to Ask Yourself
As you head into this week, I want you to sit with these questions:
How would your spouse or closest personal relationships describe how you handle conflict? Now think about your last difficult conversation at work. See any patterns?
When was the last time you were fully present with someone you love—no phone, no mental to-do list, just there? If you can't do this at home, you're not doing it with your team either, no matter how much you think you are.
Are you practicing the same values at home that you expect from your team at work? Trust, respect, accountability, communication—do these show up consistently in both places, or do you have a double standard?
The Real Work
Leadership development that ignores personal relationships is incomplete.
You can't outsource emotional intelligence to a single workshop. You can't learn authentic trust-building from a podcast. You can't develop real self-awareness without examining how you show up in the relationships where your guard is down.
The leaders who understand this—who do the hard work of aligning their personal and professional lives—they're the ones who build sustainable success. Their teams are stronger. Their partnerships last. Their decision-making is clearer.
And they don't wake up at 49 wondering why success feels hollow. They wake up fulfilled and satisfied and happy for the choices made in prior seasons of life.
So here's my challenge to you: stop treating your personal relationships like they're separate from your leadership development. They're not a distraction from the work. They're the foundation of it.
The way you love, communicate, and show up at home is the blueprint for everything you'll build professionally.
Make it count.
Here's What I Want You to Know
If you're reading this and feeling that uncomfortable recognition—seeing patterns you've been ignoring, realizing your personal and professional lives are operating on completely different value systems, wondering how you got so far while feeling so disconnected—I want you to know something:
You're not alone. And you're not broken.
You're just finally ready to do the work that actually creates sustainable success instead of impressive-looking exhaustion.
I've spent my career in the space between business strategy and being human. Between the spreadsheets and the hard conversations. Between what looks successful from the outside and what actually feels fulfilling on the inside.
And I can tell you this with absolute certainty: the leaders who integrate these two worlds—who align their personal relationships with their professional values—they're the ones who build something that lasts.
Not just businesses that scale. Lives that are truly fulfilling.
This is the work I do. This is why I show up. And this is exactly what being "in your corner" means to me—I'm here for the strategic planning AND the moments when you realize the real problem isn't your org chart, it's the conversation you've been avoiding at home.
The market data AND the emotional intelligence.
The business decisions AND the personal alignment that makes those decisions clearer.
Because you can't separate who you are at home from who you are as a leader. And frankly? You shouldn't have to.
And if you need someone in your corner while you figure out what that looks like? I'm right here.
If this reflection hit home and you're ready to align your personal and professional life in a way that actually feels sustainable, I'd love to connect. Just reply to this email. Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is admit you can't do it alone.
As I enter into my final year around the sun in my 40's, I am feeling more grateful than ever, more founded than ever, and more excited for the year ahead than ever.
As always, I am cheering for you too and always “in your corner”,
~ Kasey
P.S. If this resonated, share it with a leader who needs to hear it. And if you want more insights that live in the space between strategy and being human, don't worry, more "In Your Corner" blog articles will hit your inbox every week designed for leaders who are done with the hamster wheel and ready to build something real.