She cried at the press conference.
It was after the indictment in a case she’d been building for months.
Victims of rape, sodomy, sexual assault. She stood at that podium to signal to the community: it’s safe to come forward.
And when she spoke, she teared up. Afterward, she was upset with herself. Thought it was a sign of weakness.
I thought the opposite.
She wasn’t falling apart. She was feeling the weight of what she was doing — standing between vulnerable people and the thing that hurt them — and her humanity showed through.
In courtrooms, boardrooms, locker rooms. In living rooms, at dinner tables, in the car on the way home — we’ve built a culture that treats emotion as a liability. Something to manage. Something to apologize for.
In business and in life, I’m trying to build something different. A culture where showing up as a full human isn’t a weakness to overcome — it’s the standard we’re all trying to reach.
Ashley didn’t think she was modeling anything that morning. She thought she was failing a standard.
She was actually setting one.
Guilty on 17 counts.
Proud husband.
#FullHuman #BuildDifferent #PsychologicalSafety #Leadership #ChipChats