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Balance & Beyond

Balance & Beyond

Hosted by Jo Stone

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Episodes

234

Latest episode

Aug 2026

Language

EN-AU

About the show

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.

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60 recent
August 14, 20265 min

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 consultant whose zone of genius is spotting the pattern before the room does. She talks about listening to someone’s story and reflecting back what’s really going on underneath, the invisible rules, identity scripts, and the leadership dynamics that shape behaviour. With so many workplaces stuck in restructures, disengagement, and fear, she argues that clear-eyed pattern recognition and honest feedback have never been more needed in a boardroom.We also dig into a practical mindset shift: staying curious instead of staying loyal to a decision made by a past version of you. If something you thought you’d outgrown starts “knocking” again, Jo invites you to explore it, ask the question, and open the door just enough to see what’s there. No dramatic reinvention required, just a willingness to learn what’s true now.If you’re navigating a career change, returning to corporate, leadership challenges, or workplace politics, this bite-sized reset will land. And you can DM Jo at any of the links below if you want to talk about how she might be able to help you, your team or your organisation more broadly.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

August 11, 202615 min

You Can’t Think Your Way Out of This One

Save Your Spot at Get Your Brain Back in 5 Days https://www.balanceinstitute.com/brainbackYou 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 has been trained and rewarded to do.We unpack why overthinking and rumination feel like “being responsible” for high-performing women, especially when work uncertainty, economic uncertainty, and constant change crank up the pressure. Thinking has delivered results for decades: planning, anticipating, problem-solving, staying three steps ahead. So when life gets wobbly, the brain reaches for the strategy that’s always worked and does more of it. The catch is that another lap around the thought at 3 am doesn’t create better outcomes, it just keeps your nervous system activated and pulls you out of your actual life.We also talk about why common work-life balance advice can miss the mark. You can set boundaries, put your phone in another room, even meditate, and still run a full meeting in your head with no keyboard in sight. The real shift is learning when thinking deserves your attention, and building the skill of interrupting the pattern in the moment it shows up, at the sink, in the car, mid-conversation.If you want to practise with support, I share my free five-day WhatsApp series, Get Your Brain Back, starting 24 August, with one tiny five-minute practice each morning. Subscribe, share this with a friend who’s stuck in the loop, and leave a review so more women can find a calmer way back to presence.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

August 7, 20265 min

Who Is in Control of Your Brain? (Jo Moment)

Get Your Brain Back - A free 5-Day Experience to interrupt the spirals that steal your time, energy and attention. We start 24th August.🧠 Click here to save your free spotYour 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 don’t stick, because they rarely touch the real driver underneath overthinking. Our brains are incredible at producing thoughts, but they’re not designed to filter for what matters most or to dwell on the good stuff. Left unattended, they catastrophise, run wild “what if” chains, and keep us staring at the ceiling at 3am. If you’ve ever felt your mind hijack your calm, your sleep, or your presence, you’ll recognise this instantly.Jo shares a brutally honest moment of being “off with the fairies” while her daughter is talking, which lands as a reminder of what distraction actually costs us: the moments we can’t get back. With more inputs than ever and a new era of outsourcing thinking to AI, we explore a practical question that cuts through the noise: are you in control of your brain, or is your brain controlling you?Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

August 4, 202612 min

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 mandates, and the growing uncertainty of AI and automation, especially for white-collar roles in middle to senior management.When that pressure hits, it does not just change workloads, it wakes up old patterns. We talk about the urge to overdeliver so you feel indispensable, the way perfectionism spikes when stakes feel higher, and how boundaries collapse through after-hours emails, constant notifications, and never truly switching off. I also name the “invisible work” so many women carry: picking up what falls through the cracks, holding team emotions, and absorbing the impact of company decisions as if they are personal responsibilities.You will leave with language to recognise what is happening in your body and behaviour, plus a clearer lens for sorting strategic effort from survival mode. If you are noticing people pleasing, micromanaging, procrastination, shame spirals, or decision paralysis creeping back, you are not broken, the rules have changed and you can adapt without burning out again. Subscribe, share this with a woman who needs it, and leave a review so the Ripple Effect reaches the people it is meant for.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

July 31, 20266 min

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 normally swallow, wearing what feels a bit bold, letting someone be disappointed, and practising boundaries without a colour-coded life plan. Along the way, Jo shares how self-discovery often begins with small “hang on” moments, like realising your default answers are just old habits. That simple noticing becomes a powerful tool for personal growth because it helps you collect evidence of who you are now, not who you were trained to be.The deeper layer is the part many people don’t say out loud: the fear of being too much. Too opinionated, too bossy, too weird, too fast. We explore how your nervous system can treat honesty as a threat to belonging, and why the uncomfortable middle of change can feel unsettling even when you’re moving in the right direction. If you’re in that in-between space, consider the reframe: maybe you’re not lost, maybe you’ve stopped pretending you’ve already arrived.If this lands, subscribe to Balance and Beyond, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these bite-sized breakthroughs.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

July 28, 202620 min

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 the blind spots: we stop noticing the emotional labour, the cognitive load, the resentment, the constant vigilance or the fear of stillness that rides along with the “success”.I walk you through five common success strategies I see in women’s coaching and leadership work: the Sponge, the Controller, the Hustler, the Achiever and the Pleaser. You’ll hear what each one looks like at its best, what it costs over time, and the key question each strategy needs to face when life gets more complex. We also break down why generic productivity and mindset tips can fail, because two women can share the same symptoms, like overwhelm and exhaustion, but need completely different solutions depending on what is driving them.If you’re ready to stop playing whack-a-mole with your wellbeing, listen now, take the free success strategy assessment in the show notes, then subscribe, share with a friend and leave a review so more women can find what they need.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

July 24, 2026Episode 715 min

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 faster If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs. Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

July 21, 2026Episode 15715 min

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 “arrive” and realise it doesn’t feel the way you expected. That emotional clash often sends us searching for certainty through more books, more specialists, more podcasts, more hacks. The twist is that knowledge isn’t the main problem anymore. The real challenge is deciding what applies to you, first, and resisting the temptation to outsource your judgement to the loudest expert voice, the most convincing algorithm, or the latest trend in women’s health and wellbeing. Jo unpacks how decision fatigue shows up as productivity, how perfectionism keeps you gathering information instead of making change, and why “fixing” your hormones or routines won’t automatically solve a toxic workplace or missing boundaries. The goal is to find the one question that will move the needle most in your life right now, then take small, deliberate steps that rebuild trust in your inner knowing. If this resonates, listen through, then tap “send a message to Jo” and tell us what question is on repeat for you. Subscribe, share with a woman who needs it, and leave a review to help the Ripple Effect reach the people it’s meant for.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

July 17, 2026Episode 705 min

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 experiments to protect self-worth • using feedback and data to refine and try again • the question that reveals what we are ignoring If this resonated, share it with a friend who needs to hear it today. And don't forget to subscribe to Balance and Beyond for full episodes and more of these bite sized breakthroughs.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

July 14, 2026Episode 15613 min

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 midlife crisis narrative and name what the quieter, heavier version can look like for women: back-to-back meetings, constant notifications, school logistics, emotional labour, and a creeping numbness that makes you wonder where the fun went. Then we get practical and honest about what “France” really represents: lightness, freedom, presence, aliveness, and a life that feels like yours again. Instead of the false binary of blowing it all up or sucking it up, we explore how to use your fantasies as a signpost, uncover what you’re truly longing for, and make space for change that’s real and sustainable. If you’ve been thinking, surely I’m made for more than this, you’ll feel seen here. If it lands, subscribe, share it with a woman who needs to hear it, and leave a review so it reaches the people it’s meant for.Send a text message to JoThe Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance InstituteFor women who are already succeeding, but beginning to wonder if they're willing to keep losing themselves in the process.We know high achievers, because we are one. This podcast draws on Jo's 20 years in global leadership and thousands of hours coaching executives and ambitious women: the patterns she sees, how to untangle them, and what it actually takes to keep your success without paying for it with yourself.If something landed today, there's more where that came from.And if you know a woman this would resonate with, send it her way.🎙️https://www.balanceinstitute.com/podcast 🔗 www.balanceinstitute.com💼https://au.linkedin.com/in/stonejoanne📷 @therealjostone

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