I Used to Think Resilience Meant Never Letting Them See You Struggle
What happens when you can't tell the difference between being okay and getting very good at looking it?
I’ve been thinking about resilience lately.
I see this a lot: leaders who have worked hard to be resilient, who are proud of it even, and who are also noticing that it’s starting to feel less like a strength and more like a weight they’re carrying.
I know that feeling because I’ve carried that weight myself.
So, I want to share something I’ve been sitting with, not because I have it all figured out, but because I think it might be something others need to hear.
The version of resilience I grew up with
For most of my professional life, resilience looked like a specific thing: the ability to take the hit and keep going without letting it impact you and to stay even-keeled when the pressure is high and the room is watching.
And there’s real value in that. The ability to stay composed when things are difficult is genuinely useful. I rely on it. As leaders, we have too.
But what I’ve noticed is that it’s taking a toll.
What happens when the performance takes over
I’ll speak from my own experience here.
There was a stretch of time where I was very good at appearing steady. And I mean really good at it. I could walk into a room full of investors and keep my composure under pressure. I could step onto a stage after a full day of traveling across time zones and appear unphased. I could keep things moving when everything in me wanted to stop.
The problem wasn’t any of that. The problem was that I stopped being able to tell the difference between actually being okay and being very well-practised at looking okay.
I don’t think I ever even really realized what was happening until much, much after the fact — or when I started to show cracks in my ability to keep it together.
And when you’ve lost that awareness, it affects everything. You can’t ask for what you need, you ignore the signals asking you to slow down, and you keep going because that’s what resilient people do.
The leaders I speak with describe versions of this all the time. And the funny thing is, it’s not that they’re in crisis. It’s usually just become such a natural part of life that they don’t even question it necessarily. Or maybe they do, subconsciously or quietly in their own minds. But they’re definitely not admitting that out loud.
The version of resilience I’m more interested in now
It’s taken me a while to land on language for this, but the definition I keep coming back to is something like: the ability to stay in honest relationship with yourself under pressure.
Not absorbing more or bouncing back faster.
Staying honest about what’s actually true for you. Especially when the honest answer is that you’re finding something hard.
This is a different kind of resilience than the one most of us were taught. It doesn’t look as impressive in a room, it’s more honest, and it requires more vulnerability. But it’s the kind that’s actually sustainable, because it’s rooted in something real rather than something performed.
I’m still working on this.
The shift for me came from doing the work of actually understanding how I’m wired — how I’m designed to make decisions, how I manage pressure, and how I naturally show up when I’m at my best versus when I’m running on empty.
Because when you understand yourself that clearly, honesty with yourself becomes easier. It actually becomes your natural state, your embodied state. You’re not performing anymore — you’re simply being.
And the natural result of staying in honest relationship with yourself? Integrity. It’s what allows you to say without fear “I got that wrong,” or “I’m carrying a lot right now.”
A small thing worth trying
If any of this is resonating, there’s one question I’d invite you to sit with.
When did I last tell someone the honest truth about how I’m actually doing?
If you can’t remember, that’s not a failing — it’s information. And for a lot of the leaders I work with, it’s actually a pretty useful place to start.
You’re carrying a lot — that much I’d bet on without knowing the details.
If you’d like a space to talk honestly about what that looks like for you right now — what you’re carrying, what’s feeling hard, what might actually help — that’s exactly what the Inflection Session is for. A complimentary one-to-one conversation. No agenda, no performance required.