The Hidden Cost of Being First

The cost of being first should not be your emotional freedom

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting at my daughter’s gymnastics practice.I’m typically the parent who drops her off — my wife is a therapist and often sees patients well into the evening. I’m fortunate to have more flexibility, which I honor and cherish.

As I sat there, I looked around the room — the other parents, mostly moms, representing a beautiful range of professions. And yes, I’ll say it: housework and raising children is a profession in its own right. There’s one mom in particular I’ve struck up a conversation with over the past few weeks. She carries herself like a junior executive — tall, commanding presence, confidence you can feel when she walks in. She works in finance — a space still not built with women in mind.

Lately, we’ve been talking about not just burnout, but change — the slow, subtle erosion of emotional vitality. What does real resilience look like? What does emotional shutdown feel like? And I realized — even though we come from different worlds — a middle-aged white woman in finance, and a middle-aged Black man who’s worn many hats — we share something deep: the experience of being the first in certain rooms, of carrying that visibility and its weight.

That conversation sparked this reflection: How do we build resilience without going numb? Because across race, gender, class, ability, orientation — we are all first in some way. And the pressure that comes with it can either deepen us… or hollow us out.

 The Weight of Being First

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being the first — or the only — in a space where your presence speaks before you do.

The first woman in a boardroom.
The only Black person on the leadership team.
The first openly disabled person in a visible public role.
The only immigrant voice in the meeting.

When you carry this kind of visibility, you also carry its weight

The pressure to perform twice as well to be seen as equal.
The vigilance to avoid confirming stereotypes.
The responsibility to represent more than just yourself.
The subtle (or not-so-subtle) sense that your mistakes will not be read as personal, but cultural.

And over time, this weight tempts you to shut parts of yourself down — not out of weakness, but out of necessity.

You numb, in the name of resilience.
You learn to flatten your emotions so you won’t be rattled by every glance or microaggression.
You pull back your joy so it can’t be misunderstood as arrogance.
You guard your vulnerability so it won’t be weaponized.

But here’s the trap:
Real resilience isn’t numbness. It’s vitality. It’s elasticity. It’s the ability to feel fully and return to center, again and again, without shutting yourself off from life.

The Trap of Emotional Numbing

Emotional numbing happens slowly.

At first, it looks like professionalism: “I’m not here to make friends."
Then it looks like wisdom: “I know better than to expect this space to understand me.”
Eventually, it becomes a defense: “I can’t afford to feel right now.” And this is more than anecdotal.

Research in occupational psychology shows that emotional suppression is a common coping mechanism for individuals working in environments where they are hyper-visible or under-represented (Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983).

Over time, this suppression isn’t neutral. It predicts:
- Higher stress
- Increased burnout
- Reduced job satisfaction
(Grandey, 2000; Brotheridge & Lee, 2003)

In fact, emotional labor — the effort required to manage feelings to meet professional expectations — is highest for those who embody "the first" or "the only" status (Wingfield, 2010).

You may find yourself:
- Diminishing your own joy
- Withholding opinions because you’re tired of fighting
- Pulling away from trusted relationships out of fatigue
- Becoming cynical about whether any of this effort matters

The research confirms what many of us feel: the pressure to “represent” while navigating stereotype threat and emotional labor can detach us from the very purpose and vitality that brought us into the room (Steele, 1997).

One leader put it this way:
“I stopped noticing when I was happy — I was too busy making sure I wasn’t failing.”

Real Resilience ≠ Emotional Shutdown

It’s easy to confuse resilience with emotional shutdown.
But resilience is not hardening. It is flexibility. Psychological resilience is not defined by toughness, but by the capacity to adapt while maintaining emotional vitality (Bonanno, 2004).

Think of it this way:

A resilient leader is like a rubber band — flexible under pressure, able to return to form. A numbed leader is like glass — perfectly shaped on the outside, brittle within, one good hit away from shattering.

When we numb:
- We lose connection to purpose.
- We lose joy in the work.
- We lose empathy for others.
- We begin to believe we are alone.

Ironically, leaders who practice mindful emotional regulation, not suppression — show greater long-term well-being and leadership effectiveness (Glomb et al., 2011).

The Emotional Intelligence Pathway

So how do we build real resilience — the kind that lets us lead well without losing ourselves?

Emotional intelligence (EI) offers a path.

Decades of research (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2004; Goleman, 1995) shows that EI is strongly correlated with resilience, leadership success, and mental health outcomes — especially in roles marked by emotional labor or hyper-visibility (Bar-On, 2006).

Self-Awareness
- Recognize when you’re defaulting to numbness.
- Ask yourself daily: What am I feeling right now?
- Notice patterns: When do you check out emotionally? Why?

Self-Regulation
- Learn to process emotions, not suppress them.
- Leaders high in emotional self-regulation show less burnout and greater adaptability (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002).

Motivation
- Reconnect with your deeper “why.”
- Authentic motivation protects against emotional exhaustion (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Empathy
- Stay open to emotional connection with others — even when trust has been eroded.
- Empathy is one of the strongest protective factors against burnout (Maslach & Leiter, 2016).

Relationship Management
- Cultivate honest relationships where you can be fully human.
- Model resilient presence, not brittle performance.

Practices to Stay Emotionally Alive

Here are a few practices I’ve found helpful — and I’ve seen others embrace them, too:

Micro-Check-Ins: Pause 3x/day to ask: What am I feeling right now? What do I need?
Journaling or Voice Notes: Give yourself space to process what the room doesn’t see.
Identify Safe People: Have 2–3 trusted people you can show up to fully — not performing resilience, but living it.
Rituals of Renewal: Movement, prayer, nature, art — anything that returns you to emotional vitality.
Boundaries: Get clear about what you will and won’t carry — emotionally, relationally, spiritually.

Final Reflection

Being “the first” or “the only” is an act of courage.
But it is not an act that should cost you your humanity.

Resilience is not about being unfeeling. It is about being fully alive, even in rooms that sometimes ask you not to be.

You cannot control everything others project onto you.
But you can choose how you walk through it: grounded, present, emotionally awake.

And if the research teaches us anything, it is this: resilience is not about shutting down emotions — it’s about building the capacity to feel them wisely, and return to vitality time and time again.

Let’s not confuse numbness for resilience.
Let’s lead — and live — with vitality.

Reflection Question:
What helps you stay emotionally alive in spaces where you feel pressured to go numb? I’d love to hear your reflections — reply and share your wisdom with our community.