You Look SO Strong

I remember my endurance athlete days with a particular kind of fondness, the kind that comes from surviving something hard enough that the memory of it feels like a trophy.

I can remember one particular HOT, LONG race. I was tired. Really tired. The kind of tired that settles into your legs and your lungs and eventually starts whispering things to your brain that your brain has no business listening to. I was low on fuel. Even lower on motivation. And I was dragging.

And then I saw the sign.

Someone on the sideline, holding it up with both hands, and when I ran past, they looked directly at me and yelled it like they meant every word, specifically for ME, "You look SO strong!"

Now. I know what I know. They were saying it to everyone. Every tired, shuffling, determined soul that passed by got the same sign, the same words, the same enthusiasm. It was encouragement by volume, offered generously and without discrimination to anyone willing to receive it.

But in that moment, I needed to believe it was all about me.  So I did.  I took it in like it had been written specifically for me. Like someone had studied my particular brand of exhaustion and determined that, actually, it looked a lot like strength on the outside. And something shifted. I found a pep in my step that I genuinely did not have thirty seconds earlier. I could feel the determination begin to swell from somewhere I thought had run dry.

And I thought, what if I actually DO look strong right now?  What if the tired and the grit were showing up together in a way that someone watching could only read as strength?

That thought carried me further than my legs would have on their own.

What We Speak Has Power

That moment on the race course has never left me because of what it revealed about the relationship between words and reality.

The sign didn't change my circumstances. My legs were still heavy. The finish line was still far away. Nothing logistically shifted in the moment those words landed.

But something inside me did. And that internal shift produced a very external result.

Words, spoken over us, spoken by us, spoken around us, have a physiological impact. They are not just sounds. They land in the body. They shape what we believe is possible. And what we believe is possible determines what we actually do.

Self-aware leaders understand this. And they take it seriously in three directions.

1. What We Speak Over Ourselves

The inner voice is always talking. The question is whether we're listening to it critically or intentionally.

Most leaders, especially in hard seasons, have an inner critic that is far more vocal than their inner encourager. The voice that catalogs every mistake, every gap, every moment of uncertainty. The voice that asks am I really equipped for this at exactly the moment when confidence is most needed.

Self-aware leaders learn to speak back.  Not with empty affirmation, but with honest, grounded truth. 

• I have done hard things before. 

• I am more prepared than I feel right now. 

• I can be tired and still be strong. 

These are not delusions. They are the accurate counterweight to a critic that has been given too much airtime.

What you speak over yourself in the quiet moments, in the car, in the morning, in the middle of a hard season, becomes the narrative your nervous system operates from. Choose it with intention.

2. What We Speak Over Others

The person holding that sign may never know what those words did for me in that moment. They'll never know I was about to mentally negotiate my way out of finishing strong. They'll never know that their completely generalized, offered-to-everyone encouragement landed like a personal message at exactly the right time.

That is the thing about speaking something good over someone. You rarely get to see the full impact.

Leaders have this opportunity constantly, and underuse it consistently.

The team member who is visibly carrying a heavy load. The employee navigating something hard at home while still showing up. The new hire who is trying hard and quietly wondering if they're measuring up. The high performer who never gets told that what they do matters because it has started to feel expected.

What if you told them they looked strong?  Not generically. Specifically. "I see how hard you've been working through this. I notice the effort you're putting in. I want you to know it's visible, and it matters."  You may never know what that lands on. You may never see the pep it produces. But it will produce one. Words spoken with intention over the people we lead are never wasted.

3. Modeling Perseverance and Grit

The third direction is perhaps the most powerful, and the most often overlooked: Leaders model what is possible.

When a leader perseveres visibly, when they keep going through the hard season, when they show up with steadiness even when things are uncertain, when they demonstrate that tired and strong can exist in the same body at the same time, their team is watching.

They are watching to see if it's possible to stay the course when things get difficult. 

They are watching to see how their leader handles the moments when the finish line feels very far away. 

And what they observe becomes their own internal reference point for what perseverance looks like in real life, not in theory.

Grit is not just personal. It's contagious.

When a leader models it, not performatively, but genuinely, with all the humanness of being tired and choosing to keep going anyway, they give their team permission to do the same. They say, without saying it: 

• Hard doesn't mean stop. 

• Tired doesn't mean done. 

• You can look strong even when you don't feel it.

That is one of the most powerful things a leader can offer. And it doesn't require a sign.

Reflection Questions

• What am I speaking over myself in the hard seasons, and is it honest encouragement or unchecked criticism?

• Who on my team might need to hear something specific and genuine spoken over them right now?

• What am I modeling for my team about what perseverance looks like when things get difficult?

• Is there someone in my life, personally or professionally, who held up a sign for me at exactly the right moment? Have I thanked them?

I don't know the person who held that sign. I don't know how many people ran past them or how long they stood there. But I know what happened in my body when I chose to receive what they offered.  I know what it felt like to be told I looked strong, and to decide, in that moment, to believe it.

Speak well over yourself. Speak well over your people. And keep moving forward.  Even when you're dragging, because you are stronger than you feel.

You matter. Especially when you hold up the sign for someone who needed it more than you'll ever know.

We would love to support you and your team in anyway we can.  Please reach out if you are in need of leadership/self-awareness guidance.