Before I ever wanted to be a mother, I wanted to build something. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. There was fashion first, of course. For a long time, I thought I was supposed to become a fashion designer. But underneath that dream was another desire that never really went away. I wanted something that was mine. I wanted to create. I wanted to build. I wanted to know what it felt like to take something that existed first in my imagination and make it real. And then I met Daryll Griffin. For some people, the woman who represents possibility is someone famous. Maybe Michelle Obama. Maybe Oprah. Someone they watch from a distance and think, *There. That's evidence. A woman can become that.* I have women like that too. But I was fortunate enough to have my example close enough to touch. Her name was Daryll Griffin. Daryll was the kind of woman who looked intentional before she ever said a word. Her hair was done. Her makeup was done. The outfit was right. The shoes were right. The jewelry was right. Every detail seemed considered. She was beautifully manicured, incredibly feminine, and unmistakably powerful. And because I loved fashion, of course I noticed all of that. Eventually, she trusted my eye enough to let me shop for her sometimes. She appreciated my creativity and my sense of style, which meant more to me than she probably ever understood. Daryll could give me a compliment and I would carry it around for days. She once complimented my wedding dress in a way that remains one of the greatest compliments anyone has ever given me. It wasn't simply what she said. It was that she said it. When someone you admire that deeply looks at you and recognizes something beautiful in you, it feels different. Almost like Christmas morning. But clothes weren't why Daryll became one of the most important women in my life. Her life was. Daryll had built something. A real company. A successful company. She showed up every day and took responsibility for something that existed because she had helped create it. Until then, I had understood entrepreneurship mostly through imagination. I knew I wanted to build things. I knew I was creative. I knew I could sell. I knew I could come up with ideas. But Accolades was where I began to understand that vision and entrepreneurship were not the same thing. Vision is exciting. Building is repetitive. Building requires discipline. Building requires showing up when you're inspired and showing up when you're not. Daryll taught me that. She didn't tolerate lateness. She didn't tolerate inconsistency. There was an expectation that you would show up prepared, presentable and ready. And she didn't ask anything of other people that she wasn't willing to model herself. Every day, she arrived looking like Daryll Griffin. That may sound superficial to someone who didn't know her, but it wasn't. I came to understand that her presentation was part of her discipline. She treated the life she had built as something worthy of care. The business deserved care. The clients deserved care. The relationships deserved care. She deserved care. There was an intentionality about the way she moved through the world. Even gratitude had a system. Daryll believed in handwritten thank-you notes. Not occasionally. Not when somebody did something enormous. If someone did something kind for us, helped us, sent something, opened a door, extended themselves in some way—she acknowledged it. She taught me that gratitude wasn't only something you felt. It was something you practiced. Relationships were tended to. People were acknowledged. Nothing was simply assumed. There are habits I have now that I can trace directly back to watching her. But Daryll wasn't the only Griffin shaping me. Her son, Michael, was too. And our relationship did not begin warmly. Michael was David's best friend, and when I entered David's life, Michael was protective of him. David had been hurt before. And I don't think Michael initially knew what to make of me. At that point in my own life, I was still finding my way. So Michael watched me. Questioned me. Probably gave me more of a hard time than I thought I deserved. And then something changed. He got to know me. Eventually, the man who had initially been suspicious of me became like a brother. He gave me an opportunity to work at Accolades. He invested in me. He taught me. He pushed me. And Michael was not Daryll. Where she and I shared a certain emotional sensitivity, Michael was incredibly direct. There was very little wondering where you stood with him. If he thought you were wrong, you knew. If you weren't meeting the standard, you knew. If he believed in you, you knew that too. For someone like me—a self-described ball of feelings—that could sometimes be a lot. But there was safety in his honesty. Good, bad or indifferent, I knew where I stood. And together, Michael and Daryll became an extraordinary balance in my life. They taught me corporate America. They taught me business. They taught me presentation. They taught me discipline. They taught me that ideas are valuable, but execution is what makes them real. Accolades also became the place where I could continue my education. I went back to college later than many of the people around me, carrying all the insecurity that came with feeling as though I was trying to catch up. That environment supported me while I did it. I worked. I went to school. I learned. I developed. And somewhere along the way, I stopped being simply the young woman they had taken a chance on. I became valuable to the business too. That's important for me to say. Because mentorship stories sometimes get told as though one person had all the wisdom and the other person simply stood there receiving it. That wasn't our relationship. I brought something too. I brought creativity. I brought ideas. I brought energy. I believed things were possible before there was necessarily evidence that they were. Sometimes I would push for something because I could see it before everybody else could see it. And Daryll saw value in that part of me. She made room for it. There were times when my hope and creativity brought something out of her too. I know I contributed to that company. I know I mattered there. And I think that's part of why what we built together became so meaningful to me. It was reciprocal. She poured into me. And eventually, I understood that I had poured something into her too. Years later, she sent me a birthday message that made me cry. She told me that she was fortunate our paths had crossed. She told me that she had learned from me too. And one of the things she said she had learned from me was kindness. Kindness. I can't fully explain what that did to me. Because I had spent all those years thinking about everything Daryll Griffin had taught me. I hadn't spent nearly as much time considering what I might have taught Daryll Griffin. Maybe that's one of the most beautiful things about real mentorship. Eventually, you stop knowing exactly who was teaching whom. But there was another part of Daryll's life I was studying without realizing how important it would eventually become. Her family. For most of my life, I did not dream about becoming a mother. I know women who seemed to know from childhood that motherhood was part of their story. That wasn't me. People had talked to me about having children. There had even been people who wanted me to carry children for them. I simply wasn't interested. Motherhood wasn't some empty space in me waiting to be filled. Then there was David. And over years of loving him, something changed. I looked at this man—this brilliant, intellectual, kind, funny, thoughtful, handsome, open-minded, special man—and thought: *If I am ever going to create another human being, this is the person I would want to create one with.* I fell in love with David's mind before anything else. And somehow, loving the person he was made motherhood imaginable to me. Eventually it became more than imaginable. It became something I deeply wanted. And by the time I became a mother at thirty-five, I had already spent years watching Daryll be one. Every morning, Michael would come into the office and kiss his mother. That stayed with me. Out of everything I witnessed—the business, the clothes, the success, the clients, the meetings—that simple gesture became one of the most enduring images. A grown man. Successful. Confident. Working alongside his mother. And still walking in and kissing his mama. I wanted that. Maybe not the exact life. But that kind of love. And there was something else extraordinary about their relationship. Daryll built something and eventually handed it to her son. Michael now leads the company she helped create. Think about that. She didn't just build a successful business. She built something substantial enough to become an inheritance. Something her son could carry. Something that could help provide for his family. Something that would exist beyond the years when she had to be the person running every part of it herself. That was the first time I saw legacy in a way I could understand. Not as some abstract conversation about generational wealth. I watched it happen. A woman built something. She raised her son. She prepared him. And eventually, she gave him something to carry forward. But somehow, she hadn't sacrificed everything else to do it. She was also married. And from where I stood, she and her husband had something beautiful. I don't pretend to know the inner workings of anybody else's marriage. I know better than that. But I know what I observed. Two accomplished people. Two separate businesses. Mutual respect. Collaboration when it made sense. Advice. Partnership. Affection. They seemed to genuinely like each other. They were a power couple, certainly. But what appealed to me wasn't the power. It was the partnership. Before Daryll, I think part of me believed success required choosing. Businesswoman or wife. Powerful or feminine. Ambitious or present. Entrepreneur or mother. Build the company or build the family. Daryll made me question the entire premise. Maybe I didn't have to choose. Maybe a woman could build something significant and still love her husband. Maybe she could lead and still be soft. Maybe she could make money and still mother. Maybe she could care about beautiful clothes and serious business. Maybe she could be emotional without being weak. Maybe she could create something for herself and eventually create something for her child. Maybe I could have all of those parts of myself in the same life. Daryll was never a checklist. She was evidence. That's what Daryll represented to me. Possibility. And there is an important distinction between possibility and comparison. I have compared myself to plenty of people in my life. Comparison usually hurts. It tells you you're late. Behind. Not accomplished enough. Not educated enough. Not wealthy enough. Not far enough along. That's never what happens when I think about Daryll. When I think about her life, I don't feel smaller. I feel hopeful. I don't think: *Why haven't I done what she did?* I think: *So it can be done.* That's why I call her my North Star. A North Star isn't something you're racing against. It doesn't shame you for not already being there. It simply gives you something to orient yourself toward. Daryll showed me a woman could build. She showed me a woman could lead. She showed me that femininity and power did not have to cancel each other out. She showed me partnership. She showed me motherhood. She showed me legacy. And she showed me discipline. I probably need that lesson now more than ever. Because now I'm building again. SapioPath is an idea David and I are trying to turn into something real. There are days when I'm flooded with creativity. Days when I can see the whole thing. The company. The stories. The training. The conversations. The impact. The things we might create. Maybe even something we can one day leave to Lawson. And then there are the other days. The days when building isn't romantic. When there's a website to finish. A document to correct. Another decision to make. A call to return. Something doesn't work. Something has to be redone. The dream becomes work. And somewhere inside me, there is still something Daryll taught me all those years ago: *Show up anyway.* That's the part of entrepreneurship nobody puts on the vision board. You have to love what you're building enough to tend to it. Over and over again. And now I understand something else. I don't only want to leave Lawson money. I don't only want to hand him a company. I want to leave him an internal inheritance too. I want my son to know how deeply he is loved. I probably tell him more often than he would prefer. I kiss him constantly. At eight years old, he has already reached the: “Mom, please stop kissing me.” stage of our relationship. I hope it passes. Because somewhere in the back of my mind is still Michael walking into that office and kissing his mother. And I'm thinking: *Daryll, tell me how you did that part.* I want Lawson to grow into a man who knows who he is. I want him to believe he is capable. I want him to know that he is intelligent, kind, interesting and deeply loved. I want him to walk into rooms with confidence. Michael has one of the most extraordinary levels of confidence I have ever witnessed. Sometimes I've joked that Michael genuinely seems to believe God loves him more than everybody else. There is something almost astonishing about moving through life with that level of certainty. And I want some of that for my son. But I want to add something to the inheritance too. I want Lawson's confidence connected to empathy. I don't want him to know he is special because somebody else isn't. I want him to know: *I matter.* And: *So do you.* Maybe that's where every generation gets to take what it was given and add something. Lawson moves through many different worlds. He sees different levels of wealth. Different neighborhoods. Different cultures. Different countries. Different languages. Different ways of living. I hope all of that gives him a broad enough view of humanity that his confidence never requires hierarchy. I hope he becomes certain without becoming closed. Powerful without losing tenderness. Successful without losing curiosity. And loved enough that he doesn't spend his life trying to earn proof that he is worthy of love. I want him to know: *I matter. And so do you.* Maybe that is my version of what I first saw in Daryll. Not replication. Evolution. And isn't that what legacy is supposed to be? You give someone what you learned. They carry it forward. Hopefully they add something. And then someone else carries it from there. Daryll may never fully understand the reach of what she gave me. There are things I do as a businesswoman because I watched her. There are things I believe are possible in marriage because I watched her. There are things I think about while raising my son because I watched her raise hers. There are things I am trying to build for Lawson because I watched her build something for Michael. And now, all these years later, I'm trying to create a life that has room for the same things I once admired in hers. A marriage. A family. Meaningful work. Something we own. Something we build together. Something that might outlive us. And a child who still wants to come home and kiss his mother. I don't know if I'll accomplish every part of it. I'm learning not to treat someone else's life like a checklist for my own. But Daryll was never a checklist. She was evidence. Evidence that a woman did not necessarily have to fracture herself into pieces in order to become powerful. Evidence that something could be built and passed down. Evidence that discipline could support creativity rather than destroy it. Evidence that family and ambition could occupy the same home. Evidence that being deeply feminine did not require becoming less formidable. Evidence that the life I wanted might actually exist. Some people change your life because they tell you what to do. Some people change your life because they open a door. And then there are people who change your life simply because you are fortunate enough to stand close enough to watch them live theirs. Daryll Griffin did all three for me. She taught me. She opened doors for me. And most importantly, she let me see. Maybe that's what a North Star really is. Not someone whose exact destination you're supposed to reach. Someone whose light helps you imagine where you might go. Daryll Griffin showed me what was possible. And sometimes seeing what's possible changes the entire direction of your life.