By Dr. Abiola Salami, Worldclass Performance Strategist This article is the first in a five-part series exploring the how women shrink, inspired by my book NO MORE SHRINKING (A Performance Tool for Women Who Are Done Playing Small).
The Most Expensive Sentence a Woman Can Say: “I’m Fine.” By Dr. Abiola Salami, Worldclass Performance Strategist This article is the first in a five-part series exploring the how women shrink, inspired by my book NO MORE SHRINKING (A Performance Tool for Women Who Are Done Playing Small).
Introduction
She was asked a simple question in the meeting. “How are you managing all this?” She smiled.
Adjusted her chair. Lifted her chin. “I’m fine.”
That sentence cost her more than she knew. Because “I’m fine” is rarely the truth.
It is a shield. A survival code. A quiet surrender disguised as strength. And for millions of high-performing, educated, competent women, it has become the most expensive sentence of their lives.
Shrinking Doesn’t Look Like Weakness. It Looks Like Excellence Under Constraint. Shrinking is not crying in corners. It is not incompetence. It is not a lack of ambition.
Shrinking looks like the woman who keeps the team afloat but is “not quite ready”. The female leader carrying emotional labour like unpaid overtime. The executive who edits her truth to remain likeable. The founder who downplays her vision to avoid being called too much. The wife who swallows exhaustion so peace can survive another day.
Shrinking wears heels, credentials, calm language, and composure. That is why it’s so dangerous.
It hides in plain sight.
The Shrinking Tax No One Warned Her About
There is a tax women pay when they shrink. And it compounds. I call it The Shrinking Tax.
You won’t see it on payslips. But it shows up as the promotion you didn’t pursue because “the timing isn’t right”; the salary you negotiated softly so you wouldn’t seem ungrateful; the idea you refined for weeks, only for someone else to present it loudly; the boundary you never enforced, so it kept getting crossed and the dream you postponed until “things settle down” (they never do)
The Shrinking Tax steals income, influence, energy, health, intimacy, and legacy. And the most brutal part? It is often praised as “She’s so strong.” “She handles pressure well.” “She doesn’t complain.”
“She’s low-maintenance.”
What they are really saying is:“She absorbs pressure so the system doesn’t have to change.”
“I’m Fine” Is Not Strength It Is Conditioning
Many women were never taught to take up space. They were taught to earn it.
Earn it by being agreeable. Earn it by being useful. Earn it by being exceptional but not disruptive. Earn it by holding everything together quietly.
So when a woman says “I’m fine,” what she often means is:
- “I don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth.”
- “My exhaustion is inconvenient to this room.”
- “I’ve learned discomfort is the price of belonging.”
- “If I stop performing strength, everything may fall apart.”
This is not a personal failure. It is a cultural design flaw.
Why This Is Not a “Women’s Issue”
When women shrink organisations lose innovation, families lose emotional health, leadership pipelines thin out, decision-making narrows and society loses half its strategic intelligence.
That is why men must read this too.
If you lead women, hire women, love women, raise girls, or partner with women; you are already part of this story. Silence is not neutrality. Comfort is not innocence. If the women around you are always “fine,” ask yourself: What does this environment reward and what does it punish?
The Lie We Call Progress
Yes, there has been progress. More women in rooms. More titles. More visibility. But visibility without power is stagnation with stage lights.
A woman can be present and still absent from the decision. She can carry responsibility without authority. She can be applauded publicly and ignored privately. Progress that does not touch voice, safety, pay, boundaries, and decision rights is cosmetic. And women are exhausted from performing gratitude for half-freedom.
The Quiet Rage Beneath Politeness
There is a moment every woman reaches. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just this thought: “If I keep shrinking, I will disappear inside my own life.”
That moment is dangerous. Because she can numb herself and call it maturity. Or she can wake up and call it truth.
No More Shrinking was born in that moment. Not as a slogan. Not as empowerment theatre. But as a confrontation.
Why This Had to Become a Stage Play
Some truths cannot stay on the page. They must be embodied. On Saturday, 28 March 2026, No More Shrinking moves from fiction into flesh onto the stage, into the room, in front of people who can no longer look away. This is not entertainment. It is a leadership experience delivered through theatre.
You will see the internal negotiations women make daily, the cost of being “the strong one”, the rooms where voices go missing, the silence that keeps systems comfortable and the moment a woman decides she will no longer disappear politely.
People will laugh. Some will feel exposed. Some relieved. Some indicted. That’s how you know it’s honest.
A Direct Word to Leaders and Decision-Makers
If you control budgets, policies, promotions, platforms, or pay this is not a support women event. This is a leadership mirror.
Bring your leadership team. Sponsor a table. Put your organisation in the room where culture is challenged not celebrated prematurely.
And when the lights go down, don’t clap and go home unchanged.
Do something that lasts order No More Shrinking for every female leader, start conversations policies alone have failed to fix, stop outsourcing courage to women while protecting male comfort and replace performative support with structural action.
Cupcakes don’t change power. Panels don’t move decisions. Posters don’t protect women. Silence is still safer than truth. The same people are still in control. So stop decorating injustice and calling it progress.
A Word to Women Reading This
If “I’m fine” has become your default answer, if strength feels heavy instead of empowering, if you are tired of surviving beautifully, this is not a call to burn everything down. It is a call to stop disappearing inside success.
You are not dramatic. You are not ungrateful. You are not asking for too much.You are asking for room to breathe, lead, decide, and live fully. And you are not alone.
Get a ticket for yourself and for a woman who needs permission to stop shrinking. Sponsor a table and bring your leadership team into the conversation they keep postponing. Order the book in bulk for the women you claim to value. Bring a man. This story is incomplete if only women carry it.
Because the most expensive sentence a woman can say is not “I’m tired.” “I need help.” “This isn’t working.”
It is: “I’m fine.”
And after this month, after this play, after this reckoning, fine will no longer be enough. We will have a group of powerful women who are stepping into visibility, power, and consequence.
Visit to get www.tppafrica.com/nms-the-play/ your tickets and table
About Dr. Abiola Salami
Dr. Abiola Salami is the Convener of Dr Abiola Salami International Leadership Bootcamp ; The Peak PerformerTM Festival Made4More Accelerator Program and The New Year Kickoff Summit. He is the Principal Performance Strategist at CHAMP – a full scale professional services firm trusted by high performing business leaders for providing Executive Coaching, Workforce Development & Advisory Services to improve performance. You can reach his team on hello@abiolachamp.com and connect with him @abiolachamp on all social media platforms.
For private coaching, boardroom recalibration, or executive healing strategy, connect email me directly at hello@abiolachamp.com to begin your private Executive Coaching Session.
