Have you ever met another mother who is so spectacular and efficient that you’re at once inspired and overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy?

I work with a woman like that. Her name is Sarah.

By day she is a high-powered lawyer who effortlessly runs circles around her male counterparts. The woman gets more done in two hours than most of us do in a week. She does it with a sense of humor but also with a hard edge when necessary. No one messes with Sarah. At least not more than once if they value their personal safety.

She leads a group of professionals who respect her. She’s nurturing when required but is no pushover.

And if this wasn’t enough to make her remarkable, she has four kids. Let me write that again for emphasis: SHE. HAS. FOUR. KIDS.

Two of them are preschool age and at least one of them is still in diapers.

I know this is an overused expression, but I don’t know how she does it all.

I crossed paths with Sarah during my first week at my new job. I was blown away by her before I knew she was a mother. And before I knew the extraordinary lengths and personal peril that accompanied her last pregnancy and birth.

Maybe this is sexist. Or momist. But I truly believe that women and mothers, specifically, are genetically hard wired to multitask. They juggle to survive. With practice, they become damn good at it.

Sarah could sling rings and fiery torches for P.T. Barnum. You know, if the whole lawyer thing doesn’t work out for her.

But the moment I really fell for Sarah came about a week after I was on the job. We were in the throws of a big announcement and I was struggling with technology that was new to me.

I was trying to hard to make a good first impression and I was so afraid of failing. Sarah, located on another floor, picked up on my struggle. She reached out with an email. “If you need help with the formatting, just let me know and I’ll come up there.”

My first reaction was that there was NO way I was going to ask this woman, who is professional royalty in my eyes, to lower herself to helping me with a computer program that a 3 year old could probably master.

But that was before I was desperate and running out of time.

I sent out a distress signal. “HELP!”

She wrote back instantly, “On my way!”

She arrived less than 5 minutes later and resolved my problem in 30 seconds, teaching me a trick that the most seasoned administrative assistant on my floor had never even heard of.

And that would have been enough. More than enough.

But then she knocked me over with a gesture of kindness.

Before she left my office, she closed the door part way and in a hushed tone asked, “Are you OK?”

I quickly confessed to her that I was feeling overwhelmed and that I’d hoped no one had picked up on it.

“You’re doing great,” she reassured. And then … here’s the killer … she said, “It’s going to get better. I promise.”

Gulp.

Amazing, right? She cut to the core of my insecurities and sent me the message I needed: You aren’t alone. This will be fine.

And you know what? She was right.

I had the same “work family” for more than a decade. As someone with no “real” family in town, those folks celebrated the best with me and supported me through the worst. When I left the paper, I didn’t dream of finding anything like that again. I knew, of course, that my support system would be just a few blocks away.

But Sarah and others in my new office have shown me that my family will only grow as I move farther away from my comfort zone.