Balance & Beyond
Balance and Beyond is the podcast for ambitious women refusing to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive and where you have the power to define success on your own terms.
The Wobble Nobody Warns You About
That wobble you feel when a bigger role lands, the visibility ramps up, or the stakes suddenly feel higher? We’re not convinced it means you’re failing. We think it might mean you’re growing.
We talk about the difference between branches and roots: the external markers of success we can all see, and the internal strength that actually holds you steady when the wind blows. If your “old way” of succeeding relied on white knuckling, perfectionism, over-functioning, and proving yourself, it makes sense that those habits come calling the moment things get hard. They worked before. Th...
The Donkey That Died Trying to Have Both (Jo Moment)
You know that moment when two things you care about collide and your chest tightens because either choice feels like proof you’re failing? I had it this week: my child was in tears needing me, and I had an urgent client deadline for an opportunity I genuinely wanted. The pressure wasn’t just the clock, it was the story in my head about what each choice meant about me.
I found clarity through a blunt old parable about a donkey stuck between water and a carrot, unable to choose and collapsing in the middle. It sounds drama...
When Everyone Has AI, What Makes You Valuable?
AI is getting very good at sounding certain, and that is exactly why we need to talk about the one thing it cannot replace: your judgement. When a tool can produce an impressive argument in seconds, it becomes tempting to hand over your decision making, your confidence, and even your inner voice to whatever sounds most authoritative in the room. For women who have spent years chasing validation, perfectionism, and “doing it right”, that pull can hit hard.
We unpack how AI can keep us stuck in our heads, and why the most valuable workplace skill is shif...
Why Being Bad at Something is Good (Jo Moment)
When was the last time you were genuinely bad at something, not “stretching”, not “challenged”, but properly clumsy, slow, and unsure? I’m teaching my 16-year-old to drive, and it has been equal parts hilarious and confronting. She walked in confident because she’s watched driving her whole life, then met the real-world reality of steering, blind spots, speed, and a body that won’t yet do what the brain understands. That messy gap is what I call beginnerhood.
What surprised me most wasn’t the wobbly lane keeping, it was how quickly her early excitement faded once she realise...
Why Your Cognitive Load Is So Hard to Put Down
You can look fine on the outside and still feel like your brain is running a thousand tabs in the background. I’m talking about cognitive load: the remembering, anticipating, noticing, double checking, and quietly carrying the responsibility for outcomes at home and at work. And here’s the harder truth: sometimes the load feels so heavy not because you have too much to do, but because you’ve become the person who holds it all.
I tease apart why “mental load” doesn’t capture the full picture, and why two women with the same life logistics can experien...
You’re Allowed to Change Your Mind (Jo Moment)
Twenty minutes into a run, I catch myself doing something ridiculous: negotiating with my own brain about whether I’m “allowed” to stop a podcast and put music on instead. It’s such a small decision, yet it exposes a huge pattern many of us live by, especially high achievers who pride themselves on follow-through.
We talk about the sunk cost fallacy in everyday decision making, and why time already spent can start running the show. When we’ve invested effort, earned qualifications, built a reputation, or told people “this is who I am”, changing direction can feel like inval...
The Pick-Me Girl Grows Up
If you’ve ever watched someone else get the opportunity you knew you could handle, the sting might not be about your capability. It might be about conditioning. We’ve been trained to chase gold stars and wait for a shoulder tap, and for high-achieving women that pattern can run for decades because it keeps “working” right up until it starts costing us our freedom, fulfilment, and energy.
We talk about the system that rewards being picked and why it creates a life that looks successful on the outside but can feel strangely flat on the inside. When the...
I Said I'd Never Go Back (Jo Moment)
You know that decision you made with absolute certainty, the one you swore was final? Today we hand you a permission slip to revisit it, without shame, without guilt, and without needing to justify yourself to anyone. Jo Stone shares a familiar “every few years” season where she starts questioning everything: who she is, what she wants, what she values, and whether the paths she ruled out still deserve a hard no.
Here’s the twist: Jo feels pulled back towards the corporate world after once saying she’d never return. Not as an employee, but as a consul...
You Can’t Think Your Way Out of This One
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You know that moment when the meeting ended hours ago, but your brain is still sitting at the table? You’re making dinner, driving the kids, lying in bed and somehow you’re also replaying the look someone gave, rewriting what you should’ve said, and rehearsing tomorrow like it’s already happening. If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t switch off, we get right to the point: your mind isn’t broken, it’s doing what it...
Who Is in Control of Your Brain? (Jo Moment)
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Your mind can be sharp enough to solve big, gnarly problems at work and chaotic enough to obsess over bananas five seconds later. We’re talking about that relentless, background “thinking” that so many women carry every day: the mental load, the distractions, the spirals, and the quiet exhaustion that comes from never truly switching off.
We dig into why the usual tips...
The Workplace Shift Nobody's Talking About
If you want to know which patterns are showing up for you in light of this shift, take our brand new free Success Strategy Assessment.
Work feels like it is speeding up while the ground keeps shifting underneath us. One minute we are told to move faster, take more risks, and “fail forward”; the next minute we are trapped in red tape, risk aversion, and a culture that rewards visibility over real value. I unpack what I am seeing across workplaces right now: low-growth pressure, restructures and acquisitions, return-to-office mand...
No One Tells You How Hard It Is To Be Yourself (Jo Moment)
“Just be yourself” sounds empowering until you realise it gives you nothing to do. If you’ve spent years being the capable one, the reliable one, the person who can carry everything, you might not even notice how often you edit yourself to stay safe and loved. Jo Stone unpacks why this common advice can feel hollow for women in midlife, and why the real work is less about thinking your way into authenticity and more about living your way there.
We talk identity shift and reinvention as a series of tiny experiments: saying the thing you’d normal...
The Hidden Strategy Behind Your Success
Discover your dominant Success Strategy here.
You can be capable, reliable and wildly productive, and still feel like your life no longer fits. That tension is often not a motivation problem. It can be a success strategy that worked brilliantly for years, then quietly started costing more than it gives back.
We dig into how patterns like over-helping, over-planning, over-working and over-perfecting become default settings in the brain. When a strategy brings rewards like validation, promotions or praise, it can shift from something you do into something you believe you are. The tricky part is...
When Your Whole Life Feels Like It's at a Crossroads (Jo Moment)
We talk about why so many of us feel stuck at multiple crossroads at once, from work and relationships to health and identity. We share a simple filter that cuts through overthinking by separating irreversible choices from decisions you can test and adjust.
• feeling overwhelmed by interconnected decisions and too many options
• why more information and more choice can create decision paralysis
• using the one-way door vs two-way door framework
• examples of reversible decisions in career and health choices
• treating two-way doors as experiments so outcomes become information
• giving ourselves permission to make mistakes and move...
Why So Many Successful Women Are Questioning Everything
If you feel like you’re holding a dozen competing problems and somehow still making no real progress, you’re not broken, you’re overloaded. Jo Stone speaks straight to high-achieving women who look fine on the outside but privately know the old model of success no longer fits. The cultural conversation used to centre on burnout and pushing through. Now it’s fractured into a “soup” of questions about career change, perimenopause and hormones, neurodiversity, parenting pressures, ageing parents, and even how AI is reshaping work.
We talk about the quiet grief that can hit when you finally “...
The Most Valuable Failure I've Had This Year (Jo Moment)
I cancel a workshop after ticket sales fall flat, and I unpack why that “public failure” ends up being one of my most valuable lessons this year. I show how to separate disappointment from self-doubt so we can move faster, learn more, and stop paying the hidden cost of personalising outcomes.
• cancelling a workshop after strong early signs but no sales
• perfectionism wounds and the urge to make it mean something
• how personalising failure becomes expensive over time
• why speed matters and self-doubt slows us down
• the difference between disappointment and losing confidence
• treating outcomes as e...
What Your Escape Fantasy Is Really Trying to Tell You
Your feed isn’t random. If you’ve been obsessing over chateau renovations, Tuscan villas, eco farms, bookshops, or van life, it might not be wanderlust at all. It might be the clearest signal you’ve had in years that the old model of success no longer fits and that something in you is asking to come back online.
I talk through why so many high-achieving women in their 40s and 50s are having an “escape fantasy” moment, even when they have the career, the family, the home, and the life they once wanted. We pull apart the classic...
Why Work Doesn't Work Anymore
Work is louder than ever, and plenty of us are calling that “progress” while quietly wondering why we’re exhausted. I sit down with Dr Kat Page, organisational psychologist, leadership adviser and author of Good Work: Transforming Your Work from the Inside Out, to name what’s actually broken and what we can redesign so women don’t have to keep paying the price with their health, time and identity.
We talk about the modern intensity trap: constant interruptions, longer days, and the very real second and third shifts many women carry. Kat unpacks why “be more resilient” i...
The Day I Stopped Filtering Myself
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
You can be wildly capable and still feel like your life doesn’t fit anymore. If you’re the woman who keeps everything running, explains yourself three times, softens your truth, and carries everyone else’s emotional load, this c...
The Four Versions of Me That Were All Hiding the Same Thing (Jo Moment)
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
I share the secret belief that kept me stuck for years: I thought my circumstances made me the exception to change. I unpack the roles I hid behind and the moment I realised the real shift had to...
Why So Many Women Are Afraid to Feel Their Feelings
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
You can look successful and still feel like you’re carrying a hidden load that never lets you fully exhale. We’re naming that load for what it often is: years of swallowed anger, grief, resentment and overwhelm that...
Are You Giving Away Your Power? (Vault)
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
I’ve just come off three and a half weeks of single parenting and it shows me exactly where I wobble and what actually helps me stay steady. I share the tools that keep my personal power, cut the gu...
You Call It Personality. I Think It’s Something Else
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
You can be wildly capable and still feel like something unseen is running you. We talk about the kind of fear that doesn’t look like panic, it looks like competence: the way you rewrite the email, keep the pace frantic, say ye...
The Spreadsheet Wasn't the Problem (Jo Moment)
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
We talk about the hidden reason smart, capable women stay stuck even when they know exactly what to do. We share a personal story about the moment “research” turned into fear avoidance and the decision that changed everything.
• noticin...
The Success Trap Nobody Warns High Achievers About
Doors are now open for the July 6 intake of Balance & Beyond!
If you've recognised yourself in the patterns we've explored in this episode and you're ready to move beyond awareness into real change, we'd love to support you. Find out more and book a conversation with our team here: https://www.balanceinstitute.com/balance-and-beyond
You can tick every box and still feel strangely flat. The house, the title, the money, the promotion, the “finally” moment arrives and instead of joy you feel… relief. I’m Jo Stone, and I want to name what so many...
Three Things That Changed How I Experience Life (Jo Moment)
Turning 47 comes with a surprising data point: it’s supposedly the peak age of unhappiness, yet I feel like an outlier. I share the three changes that help me unlock more happiness without needing an easier life.
• the research on midlife unhappiness and why it might show up around 47
• reframing the traits I used to hide as my zone of genius
• dropping the chameleon habit and saying the thing
• noticing how over-relying on intellect keeps me stuck in my head
• building trust in intuition and body signals as another intelligence
• learning presence by understanding the ne...
Why You Can Manage 1,000 People But Lose It Over a Lunchbox
You can run a team, lead through crisis, and keep a brave face all day then come undone over a lunchbox, socks, or a towel on the floor. We call it the “duck on a pond”: polished and capable on the surface, frantic paddling underneath. If that’s you, you’re not failing at life, you’re running on empty, and home is where the mask finally drops.
Joe is joined by coach Sabina to get honest about why high-achieving women so often give work the best of their energy and leave family with the scraps. We dig into t...
The Asterisk On Everything You Do For Yourself (Jo Moment)
We realise how often “self-care” comes with an asterisk, where we only do things for ourselves if we can justify them. We challenge ourselves to find what actually makes us feel alive, not just what keeps us functioning.
• asking what we’ve done this week just for us
• noticing the qualifiers that turn self-care into damage control
• spotting guilt, shame, and “insurance policy” habits in our routines
• sorting habits into draining activities versus nourishing activities
• recognising when nourishing only brings us back to baseline
• exploring what “feeling alive” can look like in 30 seconds
• remembering the version of...
You Don't Have a Rest Problem
Register now for The Overdrive Reset - a free 8-day WhatsApp experience designed for women who are exhausted from constantly carrying, managing, fixing, anticipating, and holding everything together.
Short daily voice notes.
Real pattern recognition.
No wellness fluff.
Starts 29th May.
Join here: www.balanceinstitute.com/reset
Your calendar says “rest”, but your body treats it like a threat. If you’ve ever sat down for a break and stood back up minutes later with no real reason, you’re not broken and you’re not doing self-care wrong. We talk honestly about why...
What If Joy Was The Real Finish Line (Vault)
Register now for The Overdrive Reset - a free 8-day WhatsApp experience designed for women who are exhausted from constantly carrying, managing, fixing, anticipating, and holding everything together.
Short daily voice notes.
Real pattern recognition.
No wellness fluff.
Starts 29th May.
Join here: www.balanceinstitute.com/reset
We rethink goal setting through a simple lens: how we want to feel, not what we want to prove. We share how slowing down, focusing on 1% shifts, and managing inputs brings better results with more joy and less grinding.
• setting a goal that matters eve...
It's Rigged: The Game Keeping You Feeling Behind
Register now for The Overdrive Reset - a free 8-day WhatsApp experience designed for women who are exhausted from constantly carrying, managing, fixing, anticipating, and holding everything together.
Short daily voice notes.
Real pattern recognition.
No wellness fluff.
Starts 29th May.
Join here: www.balanceinstitute.com/reset
When was the last time you went to bed with nothing nagging at you, no unfinished loops, no sense that you “should” be doing more? If your gut answer is a tired laugh, you’re not alone, and you’re not failing. I’m unpacking the uncomfo...
The Real Reason I Over-Explain Everything (Jo Moment)
Register now for The Overdrive Reset - a free 8-day WhatsApp experience designed for women who are exhausted from constantly carrying, managing, fixing, anticipating, and holding everything together.
Short daily voice notes.
Real pattern recognition.
No wellness fluff.
Starts 29th May.
Join here: www.balanceinstitute.com/reset
We uncover a hidden pattern that links being understood with being safe, and how that wiring can keep us living in our heads. We talk through the success it can create, the cost it can carry, and a mantra that helps the body catch up w...
Why You're Rehearsing Conversations Instead of Having Them
You know that moment where you “win” the conversation in the shower, deliver the perfect line in your head at 2am, then smile politely in real life and say nothing? That loop isn’t harmless. It’s conversation debt, and it quietly drains your focus, your sleep, your relationships, and your sense of self.
We talk through why these avoided conversations stack up with your boss, your partner, your team, your friends, and your family and why the weight is never just one chat, it’s the whole pile. We also unpack the shift that changes everything: by the tim...
The Secret I've Hidden About Motherhood Until Now (Jo Moment)
Mother’s Day hype can make it feel like becoming a mum should complete you, and we push back on that idea with honesty and grit. We name the script that shames women for wanting more, and we argue that loving your kids and loving yourself can sit side by side.
• rejecting the idea that motherhood alone must feel “enough”
• separating love for our kids from loss of self
• telling the truth about ambition, travel, and relief
• unpacking judgement and the “Boss Woman” label
• naming the cultural script that rewards disappearing
• describing the quiet internal cost of perfo...
What No One Tells You About Leaving Corporate
The next promotion can be the moment you realise you’re done climbing. Not because you’ve lost your edge, but because you can finally see what the next rung will cost your energy, your health, and your sense of self. I’m hearing this from smart, senior women again and again, and it’s why I’m sharing what I’ve learned from making the jump from corporate to entrepreneurship after 20 years inside the system.
I break down five lessons that don’t come from a quick Google search: how to stop relying on external validation when there are n...
What If Acceptance Creates More Freedom? (Vault)
I share what three and a half weeks of single parenting reveals about distraction, time pressure, and the sneaky pull of doomscrolling when you’re craving connection. I also walk through the tools I use to stay present, protect my energy, and keep life lighter without settling or lowering my standards.
• noticing the spike in social media use and news consumption under stress
• recognising reactive mode and fragmented time as a creativity killer
• breaking the doomscrolling loop by moving beyond the brain’s quick rewards
• finding fun in everyday moments through presence and real connection
• adjusting t...
How to Stay Sane in a World That's Gone Bat Shit Crazy
The world feels like it’s running on rocket fuel and a lot of women are holding it together with white knuckles. I break down what’s happening underneath the overwhelm using simple neuroscience.
We zoom out to name the macro stressors many of us are swimming in: global and political instability, economic unpredictability, constant corporate restructures, and the creeping question of what AI means for our jobs and identity. Then we go underneath the surface, into nervous system regulation and stress physiology. Your brain is built to keep you alive and conserve energy, so uncertainty lights up a...
The Two-Word Swap That Changes Your Whole Day (Jo Moment)
I notice how fast two words, “I have to”, can flood my body with heaviness and resentment before the day even starts. I use a simple reframe, “I get to”, to interrupt that loop and take my power back in the middle of real life.
• the dog-walk moment that triggers the “have to” spiral
• why obligation creates shame, guilt, resentment and a victim mindset
• how “I get to” shifts choice and control in seconds
• the subconscious mind effect and the captain and engine room metaphor
• why state control matters when the world feels chaotic
• a practical chal...
How to Upgrade Your Brain's Ancient Wiring
Your brain isn’t failing you. It’s doing its best with ancient wiring in a world of endless emails, Slack pings, AI pressure and a culture that rewards output over wellbeing. I’m joined by Dara Simkin, co-author of Full Stack Human, to reframe what so many high achieving women privately fear: that they can’t keep up because something is wrong with them. Dara’s take is both grounded and liberating, we don’t need more optimisation, we need an upgrade back to being human.
We unpack the Full Stack Human “tech stack”, starting with play as a serious...
The Sentence Every High Achiever Needs to Hear (Jo Moment)
We unpack why tying your identity to your job makes you fragile, especially as AI speeds up role change and redundancy. We share how to build a more fluid sense of self so you can pivot without losing confidence or peace.
• a single line that reframes job identity as risk
• how high-achieving women get rewarded into identity fusion
• the hidden costs of overwork and never switching off
• why AI exposure can hit older, educated, higher paid women
• what redundancy triggers: grief, over-responsibility, loss of confidence
• why more qualifications are not the real fix
• building a fl...
