The Woman Behind the Business — The Invisible Load of Success

What is the woman behind the business carrying that no one else can see?

Not the brand.
Not the polished website.
Not the smiling photo.

The actual woman making the decisions, holding the money stress, supporting the team, managing the clients, remembering the appointments, organising the family, and trying to keep everything moving.

From the outside, she may look completely capable.

But there is a difference between functioning and feeling free.

In this episode, Sharon unpacks the invisible weight so many successful women carry — and why better time management is not always the answer.

Sometimes the problem is not the diary.

It is the weight of the bag.

In this episode we cover:
• Why successful women can look fine while feeling completely exhausted
• The difference between functioning and feeling free
• Why rest does not always fix the deeper kind of tiredness
• The unpaid and invisible work women often carry
• The four loads behind the successful woman
• The practical load everyone can see
• The mental load of remembering, anticipating, and following up
• The emotional load of keeping everyone calm and supported
• The identity load behind pricing, boundaries, hiring, and saying no
• Why overwhelm is often too many loads sitting in one nervous system
• How to identify what should be shared, systemised, or put down

Key insights:
• Being capable does not mean you should carry everything
• Your business should support you, not swallow you up
• What stays invisible stays heavy
• Boundaries are often about identity, not just behaviour
• The next level may not require more effort — it may require less carrying

What are you carrying that no one else can see?

And what are you finally ready to stop carrying alone?

🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts
https://www.sharonfrancisco.com/podcast

Questions for the podcast? hello@sharonfrancisco.com

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👉  Also: The Entrepreneurial Bookkeeper — grow your business without sacrificing your health: sharonfrancisco.com/program

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Have a question for the podcast? Email hello@sharonfrancisco.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Sharon Francisco Show. Today I want to talk about the woman behind the business. Not the brand, not the beautiful website, not all the fancy stuff, not the happy photo where everyone says, Oh my goodness, how amazing do you look? The actual woman. The one who's getting everything organized, making all the decisions, holding the money stress, checking on the clients, worrying about the team, all the stuff that women do, even down to organizing dinner. What are we gonna have for dinner, mom? Remembering the birthdays, wondering if she's doing enough, and still trying to look like she has it all together. I know you know what I'm talking about. Because I think when we say successful women, like one clean, shiny thing, it's just not that. Sometimes a successful woman is just a woman with a very, very full handbag that no one else has tried to pick up. It's like that old saying where if you throw all your problems into the middle of the room, you'd quickly go and grab yours because you'd have a look at everyone else's and think, oh, I don't want to touch those. This is a bit the saying, the woman carrying the handbag that's way, way too heavy. And that's the metaphor that we're going to use in this session today: the handbag. You know, when you pick up another woman's handbag and think, what on earth's going on with that? It looks normal from the outside. It's a lovely bag, it's a nice colour, it goes with the outfit. Then you pick it up and you nearly lose a bloom and shoulder. And that's why so many women are, you know, looking really capable and beautiful on the outside, fine on the outside. Then you actually get close enough to see what's going on and what she's actually carrying. You think, no wonder she's tired. She's carrying everything. She's carrying the clients, the team, the bills, the family, looking after aging parents, the health staff, the marketing, the marriage, the staff member that doesn't feel exactly great this week, the client who's about probably to become a problem. You kind of get that feeling, maybe the appointment that you forgot, and the body that's changing, and the dreams we keep putting off. And then somebody says, You just need to be better at time management, and you want to stab them. No, this is not the answer. Sometimes she does not need a better diary. Sometimes she needs somebody to look at the weight of the bag because that's the bit we kind of miss sometimes. Because women will always say, Yeah, no, I'm fine. And we know that that's not the truth, right? Your business might be fine, your clients might be fine, your family might be fine, and your calendar might look just fine and dandy from the outside. But are you really fine? Because there's a difference between functioning and feeling free. A lot of women are functioning beautifully. They're doing all the things. They're showing up and answering the emails and smiling on Zoom and they're being kind and they're doing all the things, being helpful, holding it all. But then underneath, they're absolutely cooked. They're not broken, though, and they're not hopeless, just tied in a way. If you know what I mean by this, they're just tied in a way that an afternoon, extra afternoon sleep is not going to fix. It's kind of that bone tide. I've had so many conversations with women who look incredibly successful from the outside, and they have great businesses and you know, really good quality clients and teams, and they're built usually something from nothing. Then we start talking properly because that's what I love to do in my sessions. I want to really get to the real stuff. And it's like the real woman finally gets a little bit of room to talk, and she'll say things like, Yeah, I don't know why I feel so flat. I just feel like exhausted. And I know I should be happier than this because I've got a great business, I've got great clients, I'm happy, I've got a great marriage, everything's going well really well. But I feel guilty because I know how lucky I am, really. And we're told all the time, be grateful. And we are, like we really are grateful for what we've got. And then I just want somebody else to think for me for a minute, they're saying, I just, that's the one that really gets me. Because this is the kind of stuff where we start thinking about you just want somebody else to think for you, because there's so many thoughts that we're carrying. And it's the thinking and remembering and the planning and the anticipating and the following up and the and checking and worrying and all of those things, holding all the consequences. Because if you drop one of those balls, you'll soon hear about it. And this is why I wanted to look at the research behind this, because I never want women listening to think maybe it's just me, because it's not, it's not just you. So the Australian Bureau of Statistics found in 2024 that women spent four hours and 53 minutes a day doing unpaid work compared with three hours and 52 minutes for men. It also found that 36% of women often or always felt rushed or pressured for time. This is not nothing, guys. That is the extra layer of life that's happening around your business. Deloitte's Women at Work 2025 report found only around half of women described their mental health as good. And only four in ten felt able to switch off from work. Again, that makes total sense to me because many women do just don't switch off. They just change tabs, if you like. The business tab, the family tab, the health tab, the money tab, the client tab, the team club tab, the body tab, the guilt tab. What have I forgotten, tab? No wonder we're exhausted and tired. Lean In and McGinski's Women in the Workplace Reporting has also shown that senior uh women report frequent burnouts at higher rates, with six in ten senior level women reporting frequent burnout. And I know this to be true because I talk with a lot of women who are either going through burnout or have been burnt out, not once, not twice, sometimes three and four times. So when women say I'm tired, maybe we should stop rushing to fix her with a coloured coated planner. Said, you need to fix your time. Maybe we should ask, what are you carrying that no one else has seen behind what you're carrying? And are there any books that speak in? And there are books that speak into this beautifully too. Eve Rodsky, she wrote a book called Fair Play, talks about the unpaid and invisible work that often sits with women in family life and gives people a language for the work that is usually just expected to happen. And this is the bit that's really I care about a lot and I love, and it's the language because once you name something, you can actually start changing it. So let me give you a simple model on this one. I call this the four loads behind the successful women. The first one is the practical load. This is the obvious kind of stuff: the emails, the meetings, the client work, the invoices, the groceries, the appointments, the school things, the staff questions, the payroll, the household stuff. You know what I'm talking about here. This is the load that everyone can actually see. So this is the one that people try to fix. They say, delegate more. Lovely. Yes, I would love delegation. But that's the only, that's only one part of this whole puzzle. The second load is called the mental load. This is the stuff that no one sees, unlike the first one. So, who needs to be followed up? Which client is getting cranky for maybe a lack of attention? Who's on the team that's not quite coping at the moment? Maybe you've given them too much work and they feel like they're just carrying too much, but they're not really saying anything, and you're thinking, Oh, gosh, I might have given them too much. Which bills are due? What decisions have I been avoiding? Because we start to go into procrastination when we get overwhelmed. So we start avoiding stuff, and then that worries us. What have I said yes to that I should have said no to? The mental load is why you can sit on the couch at night feeling exhausted, even though you're technically resting, and your body is sitting down, but your brain is still going 100 miles an hour thinking about all the things that you're carrying mentally. That's the second load. The third load is the emotional load. This is the one that many women are so good at that they do it, they don't even notice that they're doing it themselves. So keeping people calm, smoothing things over, so being the calm in the storm, not upsetting the client, making sure the team feels really supported. Things like making your partner feel okay, being in the safe place or the safe place for people to land, being the cheerful one, the one that's always positive, being the one that can handle it, whatever it might be in the family, the business, the relationship, the work, whatever. I love, I absolutely love women who care. This is not the problem. The problem is that when you when your care becomes a full-time job that no one is paying for and no one is thanking you for, that's where it becomes a problem. Now, the fourth load is the identity load. This is the deepest one. This is where business gets really personal. Who am I if I say no? Who am I if someone is disappointed with me? Who am I if I charge properly? And who am I if I stop rescuing people? Or the one that fixes everything. That's why the price increase feels can feel really terrifying. It's not just the price, it's the fear about being rejected. That's why setting boundaries can also feel really uncomfortable. It's not just the boundary, it's the fear that people will not like us anymore if we set the boundary. That's why hiring also can feel really hard. It's not about the job ad, it's about the fear of trusting somebody else to do something that you built and that you can trust them to do the work the same way that you would do it. So when a successful woman says she's overwhelmed, I don't just hear, I have too much to do. I hear there are too many loads sitting in one nervous system. And this is where we have to tell the truth. The next level for a lot of women is not about doing more, it's not about being more impressive either, or proving they can carry even more. The next level is about asking. It's about actually asking about what's in the bag. What am I carrying that should be shared by somebody else? What am I carrying that should be systemized? Or what am I carrying that belongs to somebody else and not me? And what am I carrying because I'm scared of what will happen if I actually put that bag down? That's a really, really different conversation and it's much more honest conversation. So here's what I want you to do after this episode. I want you to have a think about this. Go and get a piece of paper and write down these four headings. The practical load, this is the one that everyone can see, the mental load, the emotional load, and the identity load. Then, under each one of these headings, write down what you're carrying. And try not to make this pretty or nice. Just write, write out what you are carrying under each one of these headings. And no pretending. You can't pretend with this one. You can't sort of make it look better than what it is. Be real with yourself. Just tell the truth. Because what stays invisible will stay heavy. What becomes visible can finally be dealt with. So once you write it out on a piece of paper, it becomes visible and it becomes real, not only on the piece of paper, but because you've actually written it out. And if you're listening to this thinking, oh my goodness, that is me. And I want you to hear this. I want you to hear this clearly. You are probably more capable than you realize, and you're probably carrying way more than people know. And you are probably ready for a business and a life that doesn't require you to quietly disappear behind everyone else's needs. Because I do not just care about the business. I care about the woman behind the business. I care about the energy, her money, health, joy, confidence, voice, her life. That's why I talk about all this stuff in my sessions. I care about the whole woman. Because the business should not swallow the woman up. The business should support the woman. So the question for today is this what are you carrying that no one else can see? And what are you finally ready to stop carrying alone? This is the Sharon Francisco show, and this is the kind of conversation that we're going to continue having here. Hopefully, it's been helpful. Bye for now.