Have We Misunderstood Strength?

Strength is one of those words we use so often that we rarely stop to ask what we actually mean by it.

I've been thinking about strength lately.

Not strength as we usually define it.

Strength as we quietly recognize it in other people.

The colleague who never complains.

The leader who carries everyone else's responsibilities.

The parent who always finds a way.

The entrepreneur who refuses to quit.

The friend who insists they're fine.

We rarely hesitate to call those people strong.

I've done it myself.

The longer I've sat with that word, however, the more I've found myself asking a different question.

When did endurance quietly become one of our primary measures of strength?

I don't remember anyone announcing the change.

There wasn't a movement.

There wasn't a new leadership philosophy.

No one told us this was the standard.

Yet somewhere along the way, it became one.

We admire the people who carry the most.

Work the longest.

Ask for the least.

Keep going, even when no one would blame them for stopping.

I've never questioned the value of perseverance.

The people I admire most possess it.

Building a business requires it.

Keeping a promise requires it.

Healing requires it.

Learning requires it.

The things that matter most usually ask something of us over time.

What I've been questioning isn't perseverance.

It's what we assume perseverance tells us.

We've become remarkably good at recognizing endurance.

I've become far more interested in what fuels it.

Because endurance doesn't always grow from the same place.

I've met founders who spent years building something they believed would outlive them.

Musicians whose discipline quietly shaped decades of mastery.

Parents whose love carried them through impossible seasons.

I've also met professionals who stayed in careers they had already outgrown because becoming a beginner again felt more uncomfortable than beginning somewhere new.

And leaders who kept saying yes long after they had nothing left to give because carrying everything had quietly become part of their identity.

From the outside, every one of those people looked resilient.

Their stories couldn't have been more different.

That realization stayed with me.

It didn't give me an answer.

It changed the question I had been asking.

For years, I wondered,

How much can someone endure?

Today, I find myself asking something different.

What allows someone to keep going without losing themselves in the process?

That question eventually led me to psychologist Susan David and her work on Emotional Agility.

One idea stayed with me.

She describes emotional agility as our ability to experience difficult thoughts and emotions without allowing them to dictate our actions. Instead, we acknowledge those experiences while choosing responses that remain aligned with our values (David, 2016).

That perspective didn't diminish perseverance.

It expanded my understanding of strength.

Real strength isn't simply enduring more. 

It's knowing when to adapt, recover, reflect, realign, and rise with intention.

Interestingly, the research points in a similar direction. Studies on resilience suggest that long-term well-being depends not only on persistence, but also on psychological flexibility, emotional regulation, and the ability to recover after adversity (American Psychological Association, 2023; Seligman, 2011).

Angela Duckworth's work on grit reminds us that perseverance and passion remain essential ingredients of long-term achievement (Duckworth, 2016). I don't see those ideas in conflict. I see them completing one another.

Perseverance gives us the courage to continue.

Reflection helps us recognize whether we're continuing in the right direction.

For me, that's where realignment begins.

The strongest leaders I've known rarely spent much time convincing anyone they were strong.

They listened before they spoke.

They admitted when they were wrong.

They changed course when new information called for it.

They created environments where other people could think, grow, and contribute.

Looking back, I don't remember the leaders who appeared the strongest.

I remember the ones who helped other people become stronger.

Research on emotional intelligence has consistently shown that self-awareness, emotional regulation, empathy, and thoughtful decision-making strengthen leadership effectiveness and trust (Goleman, 1995).

I've been thinking about strength differently lately.

The longer I sit with it...

the less interested I become in how loudly strength appears.

The more interested I become in what quietly sustains it.

Because what sustains us often shapes us.

And what shapes us eventually becomes part of the legacy we leave behind.

Perhaps strength has never been about carrying more.

Perhaps it's about carrying what matters.

I'd love to hear your perspective.

When did your definition of strength begin to change?

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Michelle Berns is the founder of Strategic Talent Associates, creator of THE ALIGNED RESET™ framework, and founder of The Guided Intuitive. With more than 25 years of experience spanning leadership, communications strategy, organizational development, coaching, wellness, and transformational development, her work explores the intersection of human intelligence, leadership, psychology, intentional living, and AI, helping leaders and organizations make wiser decisions in an increasingly complex world.

Learn more:

Strategic Talent Associates - https://www.strategictalentassociates.net

THE ALIGNED RESET™ - https://www.thealignedreset.com

THE GUIDED INTUITIVE - https://www.theguidedintuitive.com

References

American Psychological Association. (2023). Building your resilience. https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience

David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Avery. https://www.susandavid.com/book/

Duckworth, A. (2016). Grit: The power of passion and perseverance. Scribner. https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam Books. https://www.danielgoleman.info/

Seligman, M. E. P. (2011). Flourish: A visionary new understanding of happiness and well-being. Free Press. https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/