When Life and Work Collide (and Still Create Something Beautiful)

By Inga Rose, Founder & CEO, Reference Medicine

I’ve never loved the phrase work-life balance. It makes me visualize a scale - something that needs to be evenly weighted, measured, and controlled, as if you could achieve equilibrium just by moving a few hours from one side to the other.

For me, juggling a growing company, a growing family, and the unpredictable chaos of real life, there’s no realistic view that this kind of linear balance can exist in any traditional sense. The truth is, no one living a full, demanding, meaningful life is ever in balance.

What I’ve come to believe in instead is life-work harmony - or maybe something even better: integrated purpose. The idea that your career and your personal life don’t compete with each other, but rather coexist in a way that shapes who you are and supports why you do what you do in all aspects of your life.

Because when life and work collide (and they always do), the only thing that really determines whether you bend or break is the environment around you.

This past year has tested that philosophy for me in every possible way.

It’s been one of the hardest, most humbling, and ultimately clarifying years of my life. About a year ago I lost my grandfather - one of the most influential and inspiring people I’ve ever known, and the reason I had the courage to start Reference Medicine in the first place. I wasn’t expecting his passing to hit me the way it did - he was 96, he lived a full and amazing life. But, his passing left a strong disorientation that rippled through every part of me: the professional leader, the mother, the daughter, and the human. 

At the same time, there were moments inside the company that made me question everything - whether it is worth it, whether the stress was too high a price to pay. When will it get easier? What goal post am I charging toward? Was I was still building something beautiful or just trying to keep something from collapsing? 

Meanwhile, life kept happening. Two daughters navigating the storm of adolescence and young adulthood - hormones, heartbreaks, hopes, and a revolving door at the ER. In the past year alone, we’ve racked up a running tab of cheer injuries (sprained knees, concussions), an appendix that decided to nearly rupture for dramatic effect, and even a tick bite that turned into its own little science experiment. You know things have hit a new level when the ER staff starts greeting you by name.

Overlay that with aging parents - cancer, heart scares, broken hips, and very public ambulance rides that made my stomach drop when the phone rang. There were nights I found myself drafting investor emails in hospital waiting rooms, and mornings when I’d try to shake off the smell of antiseptic before heading to the airport for another business trip. It’s safe to say there were moments this year when I was simply surviving.

People talk about “midlife crises” like a single dramatic event, a snap decision, or an impractical convertible purchase. But for me, it felt more like a series of quiet realizations. The biggest one: time is finite. I have three years before my oldest moves out and starts her own life. Three years before the family binge sessions of the newest Only Murders in the Building season look a little emptier. I can tell you with full certainty that the days are long, but the years are short.

And yet, in reflecting on the past 12 months, something extraordinary happened in the middle of all that chaos: I realized survival wasn’t just luck or willpower. It was architecture.

Harmony doesn’t come from quiet moments of presence - it comes from environments of support. It comes from the people and systems that hold you up when you can’t hold yourself.

At home, it meant hard but honest conversations with my husband about what really mattered, and what we were willing to let go of. Conversations that forced us to ask, and answer, heavy questions: How do we actually do this? What sacrifices are worth it? What does survival - let alone joy - look like for us right now? It meant redefining success not by appearances, but by how we cared for each other through the mess.

At work, it meant the same thing. What business initiatives are worth it? How do we actually do this? What does delight - for our customers and for the Reference Medicine team - look like for us right now? I realized that the culture we have been building had an even deeper purpose: a culture that could sustain not just me, but everyone in it. A culture rooted in care, aligned respect, curiosity, and compassion - not as nice-to-haves, but as intentional operational necessities.

Because no company culture runs on autopilot. It has to be consciously constructed, reinforced, and refined - over and over again. The same way families do. The same way we do. And it takes a supportive community to do it. 

This year reminded me that the real measure of success isn’t balance, or even peace - it’s the ability to design spaces where people can show up fully human. Where they can fall apart and still be met with grace.

When I started Reference Medicine, I knew I wanted to build a good culture for my team - a place where people felt cared for, trusted, and respected. What I didn’t realize was how much I would come to need that same culture. How much I would have to lean on it when life pressed hardest. And how, in my most difficult moments, the very environment I set out to create for others would become my own safety net.

Where prioritizing our own individual selves, and the people and things outside of Reference Medicine that matter to each of us, isn’t just encouraged - it’s applauded. Sometimes, it’s even enforced by teammates out of genuine care. A culture where challenge and care exist side by side.

That’s what I’ve been building - at home, at work, and in myself.

And while this year has stretched me further than I ever thought possible, I can say with absolute clarity: harmony is not found - it’s built.

The building blocks that saved me

There wasn’t a single turning point that saved me throughout this year. There was no grand revelation or wellness routine that suddenly made everything easier. What carried me through were structures - consciously designed, often imperfect, but deeply human systems of support.

They didn’t just help me survive; they helped me reframe what thriving actually means.

1. Building a Culture That Works When You Can’t

Early on at Reference Medicine, I built the company around the idea that our culture should feel like oxygen - something you don’t notice until it’s gone. This year, that belief was tested, and it held.

When I had to step back - whether for a family emergency, a health scare, or simply exhaustion - the team didn’t just keep things moving; they cared for one another in the process. That didn’t happen by accident. It came from deliberate decisions: 

• Transparent communication
• Shared ownership and knowledge, so there are ready and able back-ups for time-sensitive tasks
• Company-wide acknowledgement that some things can just sit and wait
• An insistence that empathy is operational efficiency.

We don’t treat culture as an afterthought. We made it part of the system design - how we communicate, how we celebrate, how we hold each other accountable. We made space for humor, grace, and honest feedback. Because when people trust each other, performance becomes the natural byproduct.

2. Letting Go to Let Others Lead

I’ve always been someone who runs toward the problem. Founder DNA, I guess. But at some point, I realized I was doing both myself and my team a disservice by holding too tightly.

So I started letting go - of projects, of control, of the belief that I had to personally hold every thread together. The moment I did, something beautiful happened: people stepped up. They didn’t just meet the moment - they redefined it.

Delegation isn’t a weakness. It’s an act of trust. And that trust gives others the room to grow into their potential while giving you back the mental space to lead with vision instead of survival.

3. Finding Friendship in the Chaos

It’s hard to describe how critical friendship became this year. Not networking. Not surface-level camaraderie. Real, unconditional friendship - the kind that lets you send the Slack message, “I can’t do this today,” and get a reply that says, “I’ve got you. What do you need?”

That kind of support doesn’t just happen; it’s cultivated through vulnerability. When you stop pretending to have it all together, people step in to help hold it together with you.

I learned that my professional world and my personal one don’t need hard walls between them. The people who understand the stakes - who see both your ambition and your exhaustion - become part of your architecture. They are the scaffolding that keeps the structure upright when the winds pick up.

4. Redefining What “Enough” Looks Like

In a world that glorifies growth, expansion, and “more,” I started asking a new question: What if enough is plenty?

Enough time. Enough energy. Enough accomplishment for this season.

That simple mindset shift reshaped how I make decisions. Personally, I started saying no to things that looked impressive but didn’t align with my core purpose. I gave myself permission to pause without guilt. And I started measuring success not by scale, but by sustainability. Saying no to things, so I have the capacity to be fully present for the things that I say yes to. At Reference Medicine, it’s no different. Saying “no”, allows us to shine with excellence for the things we say “yes” to. 

And believe it or not, what you get is a counterintuitive result. For Reference Medicine we’ve had our biggest year of growth yet, and for my family, we are truly thriving.

5. Designing Systems That Care Back

Finally, I realized that harmony isn’t about adding self-care on top of chaos - it’s about engineering systems that care back.

At work, that meant codifying flexibility into our operations: cross-training so no one person carries all the weight, creating cultural “check-ins” that keep connection strong, and designing processes that adapt to real life.

At home, it meant the same thing: routines that protect family time, rituals that restore energy, and systems (even small ones) that make room for joy.

Building what lasts

I didn’t survive this year because I’m resilient. I survived because I’m supported. And that’s what I want for the people around me - at home, at work, in this community we’re all building together.

Harmony isn’t an accident. It’s the product of intentional environments - built by people who care enough to design them well.

As I look to the future, I don’t want balance. I want to keep building spaces - at home, at work, and in the spaces in between - where people can thrive because they are seen, supported, and trusted. Where ambition doesn’t come at the cost of well-being, and success doesn’t require silence about struggle. 

The past year taught me that life and work aren’t opposing forces; they’re chapters of the same story. And when we design both with care, compassion, and conscious culture at the center, we don’t just survive the hard seasons - we build something extraordinary from them.

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