The Wrong Kind of Strong (Jo Moment)

We challenge the old script of “strong” that rewards endurance and performance while draining the inside. We celebrate a new strength built on boundaries, nervous system capacity, and ambition aligned with the life we actually want.

• the limits of an inherited model of strong 
• external strength versus internal strength 
• the small daily trades that hollow us out 
• shifting from can I to do I want to 
• setting clean boundaries without rescue or reasons 
• building nervous system capacity and restful worth 
• channeling ambition toward aligned work and life 
• choosing where to stand instead of what to withstand

If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today 
And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs

The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute

For women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.

We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.

If something landed today, there's more where that came from.

And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.

🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast
🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com
💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne
📷 @therealjostone

Transcript

Welcome And Intent For The Moment

Jo Stone (Host) 0:04

Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments, your weekly dose of insight, wisdom, and mindset shifts, all in 10 minutes or less. Whether it's a powerful truth, a fresh perspective, or a spark of inspiration, this is your space to pause, reflect, and reset. Let's dive in. International Women's Day is almost upon us. And this is the time when the internet fills up with that same phrase. Here's to strong women. May we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them. And it's an awesome phrase. Don't get me wrong. I mean every word. But there's a particular challenge that I have with the way we have framed strong women. Because the women I work with are already strong. They deliver, they've got their stuff together, they don't drop the ball. But they are exhausted in the way that a long weekend or a trip to Bali just can't touch. Because the version of strong that many women are trying to be, that they're trying to raise, was built for a different season. It was that version of strong that came from our ancestors, the women who had to push to be in the boardroom, who had to be on the construction site. Our mothers, our grandmothers. I know my grandmother was one of the first women to work at a race course. She worked on the gates and didn't really care that her husband got ridiculed down at the pub on a Friday night. She took his paycheck and then gave him back some pub money. So she was very, very different. She was that kind of strong. She was forceful. She had to be. But that version that has been handed down to us is perhaps not the version that we need today. Because that external strong, it delivers, it gets outcomes, it never misses, it commands respect. But too many of us have focused extensively on our external strong at the expense of our internal strong. And when you have internal strength, you know when to stop. You're not run by fear. You don't collapse your boundaries. And unfortunately, most high-achieving women have external strength, but they're quietly bankrupting their internal strength. Now, this isn't a character flaw, it's not weakness. It's what we've inherited. It's what a whole generation never really questioned. And now, as those of us heading into midlife, if you'd call that into our 30s and 40s, we're starting to wonder is it this all worth it? This life that we have that many of us, our mothers, didn't have, where we're university educated, we've got good jobs, we've got it all. It's coming at a cost that for many women is too great. And here's the thing about the cost that we pay it's not dramatic. It's not this sudden band-aid that comes off because if it did, none of us would be here anymore. It's the meeting runs over, and so we stay because we're worried about how it might be perceived if we leave if it's early. It's that 10 o'clock email that isn't necessarily urgent, but we'll send it now so that our brain doesn't have to keep thinking about it overnight and wake up at 3 a.m. and start drafting it. It's that boundary that we almost set, but then right at the last moment, we were worried about somebody else's reaction. And so we just said, I'll do it. I'll do it, I'll take it. And we sacrificed our own exhaustion and depleted ourselves at the expense of keeping everybody else happy. And this hollow out becomes pervasive. This slow trade we do of internal capacity, internal joy, internal fulfillment for deliver the thing, keep everybody else happy, juggle all the balls, which is essentially external performance, just makes us feel like a shell of a human. So this International Women's Day, I want to celebrate not the woman holding it all together and pretending she's fine, but I want to celebrate the women who decided that that external version of strong had an expiry date. She doesn't want less. She has not forgotten her ambition. She hasn't gone soft. She is not weak. But she has realized that actually hollowing out on the inside to perform and play a role that she thinks she has to play on the outside isn't strength. That's just a really, really convincing disguise. These women who are building a different kind of strength, and shout out to all the women in my ecosystem who are putting their hands up and doing this work that isn't necessarily easy, but she has stopped proving that she could handle it. And she has started asking, do I want to? She's setting boundaries that make other people uncomfortable. And she's not running in and rescuing them or becoming a martyr about it. She said no to something without a reason, without justifying it, without explaining herself. And she's stopped living from her head and is starting to build capacity in her nervous system. This work is internal. It doesn't photograph well. It doesn't make a great insta photo. Did lots of internal work today, dug out that thing from my past that made me feel like crap, and I'm learning to let it go. Because that Instagram post probably has you full of snot, covered in tears, and definitely not looking like your best self. But it changes everything. This is the real work. It's not about working less or becoming smaller. It's a completely different operating system where effort is no longer our most intelligent input. Our head is not the only place that we live from. Rest is no longer something that we have to earn. And our worth is not measured by how much you can carry before you break. These women don't become less ambitious. In fact, we usually see their ambition really fuel when it's channeled in the direction of the woman they want to become and the life that they really want to lead, not the one that they think they have to lead. They get so much energy back because they stop burning it on managing everyone else's comfort or discomfort, being competent, juggling all the balls, holding everything in everyone. And there is room now when you put all that crap down for what actually built them clean boundaries, owning their yeses and owning their no, doing work that really matters. It is an alignment with who they want to be and how they show up. That's the version of strong that I want to celebrate this International Women's Day. So here's to strong women. May we know them, be them, and raise them. And may we stop confusing endurance for strength, because endurance might keep you standing. But strength, especially internal strength when combined with the external strength you already have, lets you choose where to stand. And that, my friend, is the work. Thanks for taking this moment for yourself. If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs. See you next time.