As one of the top interview coaches and mother of two, Siew Ling shares how parenting has sharpened her professional skills, why she believes work life balance is a myth, and the values that guide her at home and at work.
Finding a good work and family balance may be said to be a juggling act, but interview and communication coach Siew Ling Hwang prefers to see it through the lens of fulfilment instead. Juggling parenthood and a growing coaching practice that has helped interviewees of all ages and professions develop their communication skills to ace interviews and oral exams, the mother of two girls, an 18-year-old and a 12-year-old, has learnt to let the two flow together naturally. In this honest chat, she shares how her children have made her coaching practice better and stronger, how motherhood has influenced her career, and the principles she lives by as both coach and mother.
Q1: From coaching clients to raising daughters in their teens, how do you find these roles overlapping or feeding into each other?
A: I actually learn a lot from both roles, and they are very much intertwined. My work as an interview and communication coach is built on listening, analysing, encouraging, and guiding. It doesn’t matter whether I’m working with an executive preparing for a high-stakes interview or speaking with my daughters-the foundation skill is the same: stepping into their world and seeing things from their perspective.
Family members, especially our own children, are often the most challenging “clients” because we carry biases, preconceived notions, and deep emotional attachments. For me, my daughters are like the ultimate training ground. I try my best to treat them as individuals in their own right, setting aside the fact that I’m their mother, especially when they come to me for advice or serious conversations. At the end of the day, both coaching and motherhood come down to empathy and adaptability. Every person is different, and every situation calls for a different style of communication.
Q2: Has motherhood influenced your career?
A: Absolutely. My career has taken many turns-investment banking, investments, training and development, entrepreneurship, and now coaching-and motherhood has shaped many of those choices. At different stages of my children’s lives, I had to pivot, and those pivots pushed me out of my comfort zone.
Looking back, I see how these decisions gave me courage and exposed me to diverse industries, geographies, and people. Today, all of those experiences come full circle in my coaching work. They allow me to relate to clients from many different career paths and job roles, and to understand the pressures they face.
Q3: What is one coaching technique that works surprisingly well in parenting too?
A: I call it the “hmm” strategy. It’s what I tend to say at home during serious or potentially difficult conversations. Instead of rushing in with advice or instructions, I hold my thoughts back-almost like packing them into a little box in my mind-until the other person has finished speaking.
When my children were younger, I struggled with this. As a parent, the instinct is to guide quickly, to solve things right away. Even now, I sometimes catch myself wanting to jump in. But over time, it was actually my daughters who honed one of my most valuable coaching skills: the ability to truly listen.
So I nod, I say “hmm,” and I let the silence do its work. Silence, I’ve learned, is a powerful communication tool. With children especially, when you give them the space and time to speak, they often find their voice in ways you don’t expect. From that point, that is when the magic starts to happen. With the right dose of encouragement, knowledge of what makes them tick, and a gentle nudge in the right direction, they often arrive at their own insights and solutions.
That process is far more powerful than anything I could have told them outright. When people feel truly heard and trusted to think for themselves, they begin to build confidence in their own judgment. For me, that’s the ultimate goal-not to provide the answers, but to create the conditions for them to discover their own.
Q4: What does work-life balance look like for you in practice, day-to-day?
A: To me, work-life balance doesn’t really exist in a neat, equal sense. It’s less about balance and more about constant adjustments and daily prioritisation. At different points, our children need more of us; at other times, our careers demand greater focus.
So I don’t chase balance-I aim for fulfilment. Fulfilment, to me, comes from three things: working hard and excelling at what matters, practising gratitude, and staying adaptable. When I focus on that, both my family and career feel aligned, even if they’re not perfectly “balanced.”
Q5: What would you say is your parenting ethos?
A: I like to think of it this way: I want to raise children I not only love, but like. For me, that means being guided by two principles-what I do for them because of love, and what I expect them to learn in order to grow into people who are kind, respectful, and the kind of friends others would want, including myself.
Perhaps another way of putting it is tough love. I believe in nurturing them with warmth and support, but also in setting boundaries and expectations that help them grow into independent, driven and empathetic individuals. I want my daughters to know that while they will always have a safety net in me, they also need to learn to make tough decisions, face consequences, and develop resilience.
At the same time, my ethos is about modelling the behaviour I hope to see in them. If I want them to be empathetic, I need to show empathy. If I want them to be driven, they must see me working hard for what I want to achieve. Children watch far more than they listen, so I see parenting as both guidance and example-setting.
Ultimately, my goal is to raise daughters with a strong work ethic who are not only independent and confident, but also gracious and authentic in the way they show up in the world.
Closing Reflection
For Siew Ling, being a coach and a mother are not parallel journeys. One does not begin where the other ends. She is both at all times, and the personae is the bridge that brings meaning and context to each. “Whether I’m working with clients or speaking with my daughters, it comes down to the same principles: empathy, adaptability, and the courage to listen,” she says.
“Balance” is a word she has increasingly resisted in recent years. After all, with so much in life being uncontrollable, how does one find, let alone achieve, a steady state? In its place, she looks to fulfilment, with its three tenets of gratitude, hard work, and flexibility. She hopes she has shown her daughters that parenting can make you a better professional, and that a career need not be a liability to family life. Above all, she hopes that they believe, as they get older, that they can be both ambitious and empathetic – because they have seen their mother be just that.
You can follow up with Siew Ling Hwang at www.discoveringpotential.com.sg and follow on Facebook @discoveringpotentialsg and on LinkedIn
