Her List of 22: One Dad’s Life-Changing Wake-Up Call

This true story happened more than a decade ago, but the lesson should still resonate with us today. It centers on Mohamed El-Erian, a multimillionaire who, until May 2013, served as chief executive of PIMCO, one of the largest investment funds in the world. Why did he step away from such a prestigious and lucrative role? Because he was also a dad.

When El-Erian first left PIMCO, speculation swirled. Then, not long afterward, he publicly shared what he called his “wake-up call.” The most important factor in his decision was his daughter, who was 10 years old at the time.

The moment that changed everything

It began as an ordinary interaction at home. He asked his daughter to brush her teeth. She didn’t. He asked again. Still nothing.

As his frustration grew and he confronted her about her disobedience, the real issue surfaced. She went to her room and returned with a piece of paper.

On it was a list of 22 items — significant moments in her life that her dad had missed: her first day of school, her first soccer game, a parent-teacher meeting, a Halloween parade.

El-Erian felt terrible, though his first reaction was defensiveness. He had good reasons for missing those moments — travel, important meetings, urgent phone calls, responsibilities that felt unavoidable. But as he later reflected, he realized he was “missing an infinitely more important point.” His work and family commitments were badly out of balance, and the cost was a positive relationship with his daughter.

What he changed — and what the story still asks of us ...

So he made a change. He took on work that required fewer hours and less travel. He began regularly making his daughter breakfast, driving her to and from school, and taking more time off to be with family. He wrote that they were “doing a lot of wonderful talking and sharing.” It was definitely a hopeful new beginning.

It’s fair to admit — as many people did then — that this story would be easier to imitate if El-Erian weren’t earning eight or nine figures at the time. He acknowledged that reality himself. Not every father has the financial freedom to make dramatic career changes.

Still, we should all tune in to the heart of that 10-year-old girl. Her list wasn't just a tally of missed events; it was a plea for presence and connection. Reordering priorities doesn’t always mean quitting a job; it often means rearranging a calendar so people, not projects, get the prime slots. It means deciding what will get the first yes and what will be a keep-for-later.

Those decisions add up. The opportunities to build trust, to attend firsts, to be a regular presence in a child’s life are limited; once missed, they’re hard to reclaim. That’s why tuning in now matters: relationship regrets often sting longer than career regrets.

Maybe you can’t overhaul your career. But that doesn't mean you're powerless — far from it. Start with incremental shifts: delegating a task at work to free up an evening, setting boundaries on after-hours emails, or carving out dedicated "unplugged" time each week. Add a few non-negotiables as signals that your family isn't an afterthought but a core priority worth defending.

Even small steps we take will honor the limited window we have to nurture those relationships. It's about choosing intention over inertia, because while careers can be rebuilt or pivoted, we don’t always get another chance to be fully present in our kids' lives.

We hear it often because it’s true: our kids’ childhood years go by so quickly. Years from now we’ll remember the time we showed up much more than the meeting we kept. Let’s do all we can to be there while we can.

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