Where Miracles, Home, and Leadership Meet
Chosen family and the miracle of coming home.
Yesterday I got a voicemail from one of my oldest and dearest friends, Storm, and the excitement in her voice instantly made me smile. She was calling to tell me she is coming home for Christmas, and she is bringing her boyfriend with her. I have never met him, and she is bringing him home to meet the family made from love and belonging, the kind of unexpected miracle that does not always look the way we imagined, but arrives exactly when it is meant to.
Christmas in our house has always been busy, loud, chaotic, and full of motion. Over the years, as my girls have grown, I have learned to slow down and prioritize the people, the presence, and the heart of Christmas over the rush. What I did not realize until recently is that this is also the heart of leadership. True leadership is not about directing or managing. It is about creating a place where people feel safe, seen, and welcomed enough to exhale.
For the last several years when she comes home, Storm and I set out together in search of “Christmas Miracles,” big and small. We look for the good, the beautiful, and the moments that feel touched by grace. It has become our tradition, and clearly one she treasures, because she is already booking flights while I am still debating whether to finish putting away the fall décor.
Storm is not just my friend. She is my “Sista,” woven into our family a long time ago when my mom taught me what hospitality really looks like, opening your home, sharing what you have, and welcoming people because they matter. She carries that same spirit into the world. She is also a leader, an entrepreneur, and an international singer who leads with kindness, empathy, and sincerity. She has one of the most generous souls you will ever meet, and it shows in the way people are drawn to her. That same posture is what the best leaders give their people, room to belong without needing to earn it first.
Our home has always been a landing place for people who needed one, sometimes for a weekend and sometimes for a year or more. The reasons were never the point. The heart was. And in many ways, that is what every human being is searching for, at home and at work, a place where they are not just housed, but held. Where they are not merely present, but rooted.
Now, years later, Storm still chooses to come home for Christmas. She chooses it the way people choose a leader they trust, not because they have to, but because something inside them knows they are safe there.
Her excitement reminded me of something today. Sometimes the miracle is not a moment we wait for. Sometimes the miracle is knowing someone cannot wait to come home to you, because you built a place their soul recognizes.
In business, just like in family, people do not thrive in places where they are simply counted. They thrive where they are known. The real gift of leadership is building a place others feel drawn to return to, not out of obligation, but because it feels like home.
What if more leaders built cultures people longed to return to?