Soft power. A term I had never heard before, and then I heard it twice just last week. The meaning seemed evident, and I have been mulling it over in my head ever since. However, when I dug a little deeper into the origins of it, I realized it had been coined as a term for navigating the geopolitical landscape. What it means to not use brute force.
At work, I referred to these as soft skills: navigating relationships through tactical empathy, being a good listener, and simplifying complexity. Signal to noise. But as I get older and think about our community, Forty Fifty, women in midlife, I recognize this is likely the beginning of knowing how to use it for ourselves.
I was on a solo sojourn when I finally recognized what it felt like to be grounded. It didn’t come easy... but I think the reality is, as we all know all too well, without pain there is no growth. Standing in your own truth, your own power, feels like being a boulder in a hurricane. It doesn’t come with ease, but when you feel it, it feels incredible. Like you have actually found yourself. Of course, like most things, this too is a temporary state, but once you have found it, you can’t unsee it, and can always come back to it. So now, when I can’t sleep at night, I try to remember what it felt like to be in that power, because it did feel soft, determined, and entirely stable.
Soft power lives in us. In the way we carry ourselves through grief, transitions, reinvention. It’s in the quiet authority of someone who’s been through enough to stop performing and start telling the truth. Becoming so rooted in yourself that others naturally gravitate toward what you offer. Clarity, calm, a sanctuary.
And then there’s the collective version: when women live their values out loud. Solidarity, resilience, truth-telling. That creates a force that others can feel because it’s magnetic. This is how movements grow, not from shouting, but from showing. It’s how generations have been quietly shaped—by mothers, grandmothers, aunties, chosen family—offering a blueprint for courage.
When we talk about midlife power, we rarely talk about this. But we should. Because soft power is not passive. It’s strategic. It’s effective. And it’s especially potent when wielded by women who are no longer interested in pleasing everyone, but deeply interested in what’s real.
So if you’re out there quietly making different choices, stepping back when everyone else is charging forward, speaking up when silence used to feel safer, trusting what your body is telling you before checking what others think—this is it. Lean into it.
In solidarity,
Ali, Forty Fifty
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This is beautiful!! I’m actually writing a book about this and it’s so good to see others talking about this as well.. the momentum of appreciation of soft power is actually picking up!! Www.softpowermanual.com
Love this, Ali, and love you :) Your post made me think about something that happened earlier today: I unexpectedly found myself with a couple hours of free time. Immediately I started thinking of all the productive-culture things I could do to fill it. Then I thought about how exhausted I already felt by the midday summer heat and asked myself, "How can I try less?" This is a question I've been trying to make a habit of asking myself. So I came home and watched Girls while eating vegan brownies. I can do all the productive things later, when it's not so hot and I feel like trying more.