Award-winning attorney and executive coach shares how caregiving transformed her approach to leadership and inspired her new devotional
Chanel T. Rowe has built a career that defies easy categorization. The award-winning attorney has worked at the highest levels of corporate America, from the SEC to Johnson & Johnson, before founding her own law firm. But it’s her journey as a caregiver that has shaped her most profound insights about leadership and balance.
As the author of Finding Balance, a new devotional for caregivers, Rowe brings a unique perspective to the conversation about purpose-driven leadership. Her approach blends legal expertise with spiritual wisdom, offering a roadmap for professionals navigating the complex demands of modern life.
What does leading with purpose actually look like in day-to-day work
Purpose is the opposite of comparison. It’s the opposite of watching what everyone else is doing, and truly aligning with who you are, who you were created to be, what God’s purpose is for your life. When we are in alignment with ourselves and God’s will for our life, that’s when we truly become change agents and trailblazers, because no one can do it like you, and there’s only one you.
The more we focus inwardly on developing ourselves and understanding why we are here, the more we will rise to those levels of status and respect, but it starts with us.
How did you realize that influence must be conscious, not just corporate
For me, it’s always started with service. Service has been a driving force in my career path since I was a student, leading in organizations, volunteering, looking where there was a need that I could meet uniquely, and always being conscious of the things that bothered me, because I really believe that God makes us agitated by the things that we were sent to fix.
As I paid attention to the things that drew my heartstrings and served, doors started opening, networks started happening, opportunities came calling. I would get recruited from here to there, I’d get tapped for this or that, and it was really because I was answering a call of service. That has transformed my career.
Yes, I’ve had some really great opportunities, some really high-paying opportunities as well, and certainly they were somewhere on my vision board. But I have to say, it’s all been my heart for service that has really opened the major doors and aligned me with the right partners to help me accomplish all of those goals.
What motivated you to write Finding Balance
For me, it was caregiving that rocked my boat. It happened early in my life, in my early 30s, but at a really pivotal point in my career. And it shaped everything. When I tried to resist it, I answered the call, but tried to keep it in its own section. I’m a caregiver over here, but I’m a big-time lawyer over here. It didn’t work.
I was burning myself out, burning out caregiving, burning out as a lawyer. That’s when I really realized, this is a part of who I am, and I needed to navigate it by first being honest with myself and accepting that role. Once I really sat with that and accepted that, God opened other doors. He showed me other ways to creatively make money, to gain support.
There’s a growing population of caregivers, as we have baby boomers turning 65, 4 million each year. Chronic sickness is on the rise. Many of us are going to be sandwich generation children, taking care of parents and kids at the same time. I wanted to give a substance of encouragement, something that I didn’t have on the journey, and bring awareness to this group and their needs.
How do we find balance with life’s relentless pressures
There’s no days off, especially for a woman. We are the ones carrying the weight of most of this, but surprisingly, about 40% of caregivers are men. And they’re even more silent about the burden. It’s something that stays in your mind everywhere you go. Whether you’re there physically or distant, it’s a mental pressure that impacts your mental health, your physical health, all the things.
For me, yes, I can tell you I work out, I eat well, I try to sleep well, I do the self-care things, but it’s so much more than just those physical self-care ideals. It’s really about aligning your mind, body, and spirit with your path, with your journey. I deeply believe in having a spiritual life. You know, I’m a Christian, but whatever it is that you do, you need to believe in something higher, because it’s heavy, and it’s hard, and there will be days when you feel like I can’t go anymore.
The balance really is a mindset that says, I don’t have to carry this weight alone. I’m doing my very best. My best is enough, and every day I get back up and I try again, and I keep a good energy in my heart, and walking with that energy and seeking an energy from outside of myself has really been the paradigm shift for me to carry the weight of it all. Because otherwise, it’s just exhausting.
What is caregiver-conscious leadership and how can companies apply it
From a corporate perspective, I see it as a cultural competency, and one, understanding who your employees are. Right now, one in five workers in the workforce are caregivers, and they have unique pressures. Up to 70% of them are suffering from clinical levels of depression and anxiety, these people are suffering quietly. How do you optimize someone who’s carrying so much? How can you lead in an empathetic way? How can your company provide avenues to support?
They can also have programs to help caregivers, whether that’s extended backup care, whether that’s flexible work arrangements, whether that’s specific paid leave, because this population is also managing high-pressure financial strain, as well as emotional strain. And they’re also getting sicker because of the stress, and then they become a burden on the company’s healthcare plans.
What this means is identifying that this population is making up a large part of your workers, and building programming, usually employee resource groups, whether they’re support groups or tangible resources that will help them show up better and be more productive in the workplace. Unfortunately, 70% of caregivers struggle to balance work and caregiving. The more you optimize these folks who need their job and tend to have tremendous leadership capacity, the better productivity you’re going to get from these workers.
What advice would you give struggling caregivers
I would love for every caregiver to pick up my book. It can be found on my website, caregiversdevotional.com, and it will be on Amazon and Barnes & Noble this Saturday, November 15th, in honor of National Caregivers Month. Within that, you will find my story of how this all unfolded for me, how I’ve navigated a very high-pressure career with high-stakes caregiving.
I go through a number of topics that caregivers face, whether anxiety, depression, grief, emotional regulation, self-talk, death, finances. They’re all wrapped in biblical principles with some mental health reflective questions so that you can dig deeper and expose some of these issues so that you can heal these issues, so you can show up better in your workplace, for your family and for yourself.
Number two, I would say the more you talk about it, I’ve found that the more I’ve shared my story, the more community has come around me, people who have said, look, I’ve never said this out loud, but this is my story, too. Judges, doctors, everywhere, and they’re like, I am under the weight of all of this, I don’t know what to do, but in that community, there’s healing. There are laws and changes that can be made that can improve the experience of caregivers.
And just bringing awareness to the growing need for support. There are countries outside of the U.S. that have real structures that allow caregivers to either have paid leave, to have flexible work schedules, a number of things that we could do better here, as our population of caregivers is growing quicker, and they’re also getting younger. You don’t have to lose yourself in this journey. It can make you a better leader, a better woman, a better man, a better person, and you deserve to be seen and cared for.
Finding Balance is available at caregiversdevotional.com and will be on Amazon and Barnes & Noble starting November 15th. Follow Chanel T. Rowe on Instagram @chanel.esquire.