Project Joyful

Hosted by Tracy Tutty

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248

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Aug 2026

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This podcast is dedicated to the art of joyful living. More than being happy, rediscover that soul filled joy moment by moment. Fall back in love with your work or find work that feeds your soul.

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August 15, 2026Episode 24614 min

Why I Craved Chamomile Before I Got Sick

Introduction Tracy Tutty craved a tea she doesn't usually like. Three days later, she understood exactly why. In this episode of Project Joyful, Tracy shares the story of a chamomile craving that arrived before a stomach bug did, and uses it to explore something bigger: what it looks like when the body already knows what it needs, long before the conscious mind catches up. As a Medical Herbalist, Tracy also breaks down chamomile's specific physiological actions, the compounds behind its antispasmodic, anti-inflammatory, and calming properties, and why this plant did so much more than settle a stomach. This episode is part of the Herbal Ally series inside Project Joyful. In This Episode ● A chamomile craving that showed up two days before Tracy got sick, and what she did with it ● What actually happens in the body during a stomach bug, and why chamomile met the moment so precisely ● The specific phytochemicals in chamomile, apigenin, bisabolol, and chamazulene, and the roles they play as an antispasmodic, carminative, anti-inflammatory, and calming herb ● Why the body often communicates in ways the conscious mind isn't yet equipped to hear ● What it means to notice a signal and not act on it straight away This Episode Is For You If ● You've ever had a craving you couldn't quite explain ● You're curious about herbal medicine and want to understand the actual mechanisms behind traditional remedies, not just what they're said to be good for ● You're interested in the relationship between body and mind, and how each communicates in its own language ● You want a gentler way to listen to your body, without turning it into another thing to get right About Tracy Tutty Tracy Tutty is a Neuro-Identity Coach, Medical Herbalist, and the host of Project Joyful. She works at the intersection of subconscious transformation, nervous system coherence, and herbal wisdom, helping high-achieving women build a more embodied, sustainable relationship with their health, leadership, and life. Share This Episode Loved this episode? Share it with someone who could use a reminder that their body knows more than they think. Connect With Tracy Website: https://www.projectjoyful.com Instagram: @tracyctutty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty Herbs for Health Want to build a real relationship with plant medicine, one herb at a time? Herbs for Health is Tracy's free monthly email. Each month is built around a single herb, its traditional and medicinal uses, how to make a remedy at home, growing tips, and important safety guidance. Join here: https://tracytutty.com/herbs4health

August 8, 2026Episode 24517 min

The Leadership Cost of Constant Mental Anticipation

Most conversations about overthinking focus on managing it. Breathing techniques. Time blocking. Telling yourself to stop. This episode goes somewhere different. Tracy explores what is actually happening in the body before anything has gone wrong. The paragraph reread three times. The meeting rehearsed twice before it happens. The sentence rewritten and quietly put back exactly as it was. Because two versions of this pattern get treated completely differently, one is called self-doubt and the other is called diligence, and Tracy makes the case that underneath both, the same system is running. In This Episode Why one piece of feedback, about one specific thing, can get rewritten into a verdict about everything else you have delivered and everything you have not started yet. What is actually happening physiologically when a mind treats an old, unproven verdict as though it were current fact. Why familiar reads as safe to your nervous system, even when the familiar thing is a belief that was never true. How attention gets primed to find evidence for whatever identity is already running underneath, and why that is not a character flaw. The real difference between preparing for something and quietly trying to control an outcome that has not happened yet by exhausting yourself in advance. Why calling this imposter syndrome misses what is actually happening, and what recalibration at the identity and nervous system level actually makes possible. The Central Distinction Preparation is not the problem. It is the disguise. The work is not learning to prepare less. It is learning to tell the difference between getting ready for something, and defending against a verdict your system decided on a long time ago. This Episode Is For You If You reread something that was already finished, looking for what someone else might find wrong with it. You rehearse conversations before they happen, more than once, until they feel safe enough to survive. You have called this being thorough for years and never questioned whether it was something else. You sense there is a version of your competence that does not need to be re-proven every time, and you want to understand what would actually let you rest in it. About Tracy Tutty Tracy Tutty is a Neuro-Identity Coach, Medical Herbalist, and leadership thought leader working at the intersection of subconscious transformation, nervous system coherence, and biology-informed leadership evolution for high-achieving women in corporate leadership. Through her private coaching experience Revitalise, Tracy helps women recalibrate the subconscious, identity, and nervous system patterns beneath overperformance, creating embodied, sustainable leadership from the inside out. Share This Episode I would love it if you could share this episode with a woman who quietly rereads her own work more than she needs to. She might be a peer, a colleague, someone whose name came to mind while you were listening. Send it to her. Because this conversation belongs in more rooms than the one it is currently in. Connect With Tracy Website: www.projectjoyful.com Instagram: @tracyctutty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty #ImposterSyndrome #WomenInLeadership #NervousSystemLeadership #BiologyOfLeadership #NeuroIdentityCoaching

July 31, 2026Episode 24419 min

Why High-Achieving Women Become Hyper-Responsible

You gave clear instructions. She said she understood. So why are your hands already fixing her work before you've decided to? Here's what's really happening. In this episode, Tracy unpacks the redo. That quiet, automatic moment where you take a task back from someone rather than naming what actually went wrong. Why this rarely has anything to do with the person who got it wrong, and everything to do with a nervous system that learned, a long time ago, that absorbing the gap was safer than naming it. Tracy traces hyper-responsibility back to where it actually started. A clever adaptation, the girl who noticed what was needed before anyone asked, who kept the people around her happy, and safe, by quietly handling things herself. What that pattern costs a woman's body and leadership decades later, when it's still running in a boardroom instead of a childhood home. And what a mana enhancing conversation, and how naming what's true without diminishing the person hearing it, can offer instead. This episode is for the woman who has ever caught herself fuming quietly at her desk over something she could have just said out loud. And for the leader who's ready to discover what her team becomes capable of once she stops absorbing everything herself. Tracy is currently opening registration soon for a free event, When Preparation Isn't the Problem: Why you still second-guess yourself when you're the most prepared person in the room. If you've ever walked into an important meeting knowing your material inside out, yet still found yourself rehearsing your opening, reading the room, or leaving wondering whether you showed up at your best, this briefing will explain why. Details coming soon, keep an eye on Instagram and LinkedIn below. Connect with Tracy: Instagram: @tracyctutty LinkedIn: search Tracy Tutty, or visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty/ hyper-responsibility, high-achieving women, women in leadership, nervous system coherence, executive coaching, embodied leadership, corporate leadership, neuro-identity coaching, biology of leadership, overperformance

July 25, 2026Episode 24315 min

What Regulated Leadership Actually Looks Like

Most of us were taught that regulated looks like calm. Even voice, steady face, nothing rattling you in the room. But Tracy has sat across from a CEO who looked entirely composed during a restructure and wasn't. And she's coached someone who cried on a call with her own team, then spent days convinced she'd failed as a leader in that moment, when her body was actually doing something closer to the opposite. Two people. Two very different reactions. And only one of them was actually regulated. In this episode, Tracy breaks down what regulation actually feels like in the body, why it doesn't look the same for everyone, why tears in a boardroom can be the nervous system working exactly as it should, and why the composed, unbothered version of leadership we've been taught to aim for might be the one furthest from the truth. You'll hear: • Why a team can feel the difference between a regulated leader and a dissociated one, even when both look calm from the outside. • What co-regulation actually is, and why your nervous system is always reading the room whether you notice it or not. • The difference between constriction and expansion as a felt experience, and why there's no universal picture of what regulated leadership looks like. • Why the embarrassment that follows an emotional moment at work usually has nothing to do with your body, and everything to do with a manual you never agreed to. This episode is part of Tracy's ongoing exploration of the Biology of Leadership, the physiological and subconscious patterns beneath how high-achieving women lead, perform, and experience success. Follow Project Joyful for weekly conversations on nervous system coherence, embodied leadership, and the recalibration of overperformance in high-achieving women. #ProjectJoyful #BiologyOfLeadership #NeuroIdentityCoaching #NervousSystemCoherence #EmbodiedLeadership #WomenInLeadership

July 18, 2026Episode 24213 min

What Happens in the Body Before You Speak Up

There's a moment right before you speak in a meeting where you can feel it building, and then it doesn't come out. Or it comes out smaller than it was in your head. In this episode, Tracy explores what's actually happening underneath that half second, the gap between the impulse to speak and the decision not to. It's not confidence. It's not the room. It's an internal bar, built early and built well, that quietly decides whether a sentence is allowed to exist before you're even aware there was a decision to make. Tracy walks through the three ways this shows up (the gesture that never becomes a raised hand, the sentence rehearsed until the room's moved on, the sentence that gets rounded on its way out) and reveals the one mechanism underneath all three. She also names a cost that's easy to miss: the same bar that makes you exceptional in one room may be exactly what's keeping you at the next level, and quietly costing you at your own table too. This episode doesn't ask you to become louder, or more at ease. It's about noticing the impulse arrive, and getting to choose from inside it, rather than being overridden before you knew a choice existed. If this episode found you, I'd love to hear which part landed. DM me on Instagram @tracyctutty, or send me a message on LinkedIn (link below). If you're ready to explore this further, this is exactly the work we go deeper into inside Revitalise. Connect with Tracy Instagram: @tracyctutty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty/

July 11, 2026Episode 24119 min

How Herbal Medicine Supports Sustainable Leadership

What if the missing layer in your leadership wasn’t a strategy, a skill, or a mindset shift, but something happening inside your body that no leadership programme has ever addressed? Most leadership development focuses on what you do and how you think. Very little of it considers the biological environment inside which all of that doing and thinking is actually happening. Your energy, your immunity, your sleep, your cognitive clarity, your capacity to remain present and resourced through sustained demand. And yet that biological layer is shaping the quality of your leadership every single day. In this episode Tracy explores: • Why the biology beneath your leadership shapes everything, including your thinking, your presence, your energy, and your immune resilience • How herbal medicine works with your body’s own intelligence across multiple body systems, not just stress and the nervous system • The difference between adaptogenic, nervine, and trophorestorative herbs and what each one does in your body • Why herbal medicine alone, as powerful as it is, addresses only part of the picture • How combining plant medicine with deep Neuro-Identity evolution creates change that is faster, easier, and more lasting because all parts are being supported simultaneously • Tracy’s own story of using herbal medicine to support her body through sustained corporate leadership pressure, and the missing piece she discovered that changed everything Episodes from the Herbal Ally Series • Episode 228 · Valerian Root: More Than a Sleep Herb • Episode 223 · Tulsi: The Adaptogen for Modern Stress • Episode 215 · Milk Thistle: Your Herbal Ally for the Season of More • Episode 206 · Schisandra: The Five Flavour Adaptogen for Aligned Leadership Links and Resources Herbs for Health · Monthly Email Series Each month Tracy showcases a different herb, its properties, its clinical relevance, and how it might support you. Sign up here: https://tracytutty.com/herbs4health Revitalise · Private 1:1 Coaching with Tracy For high-achieving women ready to recalibrate the subconscious, identity, and nervous system patterns beneath overperformance. Learn more: tracytutty.co.nz/Revitalise If this episode resonated with you, Tracy would love to hear from you. And if you know another woman in leadership who deserves to hear this conversation, please share it with her.

July 2, 2026Episode 24020 min

The Nervous System Side of Executive Presence

Most conversations about executive presence focus on what you do. Speak with confidence. Hold eye contact. Command the room. Control your body language. This episode goes somewhere different. Tracy explores what is actually happening inside the leader while she is doing all of those things. Because two women can walk into the same boardroom and deliver the same presentation, and the room will respond to them differently. Not because of what they said. Not because of how prepared they were. Because of what their nervous system was doing underneath while they were saying it. In this episode, Tracy reframes executive presence not as a communication skill or a personality trait, but as a biological state. And she introduces a distinction that changes the conversation entirely. In This Episode Tracy explores the nervous system side of executive presence through a layered, biology-informed lens, including: Why the word for word scripting, the room scanning, and the over-explanation of a decision you have already made are not confidence problems. They are biological information. What hypervigilance actually means in a leadership context, and why it shows up as thoroughness and high standards rather than anxiety. How the nervous system defines safe, and why that narrow definition keeps intelligent, high-achieving women in patterns that are exhausting but familiar. Why reading a room and tracking micro-expressions are genuine leadership skills, and the crucial difference between choosing to use them and having them running on by default. How a threat response draws on the same cognitive and physiological resources that produce clear thinking, decisive communication, and authentic authority. Why most executive presence training is reductionist, and what recalibration at the identity and nervous system level actually makes possible. And the science behind co-regulation: why the room's nervous system begins responding to hers the moment she walks through the door, before she has said a single word. The Central Distinction Executive presence is not the absence of nerves. It is the absence of self-protection running the meeting. It is what becomes visible when a woman's internal resources are no longer consumed by managing threat, and become available instead for thinking, connecting, deciding, and leading from the full depth of what she actually has. This Episode Is For You If You deliver excellent presentations and still leave the room feeling something closer to relief than satisfaction. You script out what you are going to say word for word, not because you don't know the material, but because something in you needs the words to already exist before you walk in. You find yourself over-explaining decisions you have already made and don't need permission for. About Tracy Tutty Tracy Tutty is a Neuro-Identity Coach, Medical Herbalist, and leadership thought leader working at the intersection of subconscious transformation, nervous system coherence, and biology-informed leadership evolution for high-achieving women in corporate leadership. Through her private coaching experience Revitalise. Share This Episode I would love it if you could share this episode with a woman whose leadership you admire. Send it to her. Because this conversation belongs in more rooms than the one it is currently in. ✨ Connect With Tracy Website: www.projectjoyful.com Instagram: @tracyctutty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty

June 20, 2026Episode 23920 min

What High Performers Misunderstand About Energy

You're doing the things: yoga, meditation, maybe magnesium on the bedside table and a sleep-tracking app telling you you're getting enough rest. Yet there's still a low-level hum of anxiety that doesn't seem to shift. This episode explores why. The answer isn't in the practices themselves. It's in the physiological state you're bringing to them. The difference between a wellness practice and the nervous system baseline you keep returning to underneath it is the missing piece in most conversations about energy and restoration. We'll explore your autonomic nervous system, why a chronically activated baseline can override even the most consistent wellness habits, and what it takes to make those practices create lasting change. What We Cover in this episode Why the practices aren't the problem Yoga works. Meditation works. Both are backed by solid physiological evidence. So why aren't you feeling different? We start by honouring what you're already doing before exploring what's happening beneath it. Your autonomic nervous system and the dance between the two branches The sympathetic nervous system governs activation, alertness, and stress response. The parasympathetic nervous system governs rest, recovery, and restoration. In a healthy system, these branches move fluidly according to life's demands. We explore what happens when that flexibility is lost. Why a chronically activated baseline overrides restoration When the sympathetic nervous system has been activated for years through high responsibility, visibility, and consequence, it can become the body's default setting. Even after a restorative practice, the system quickly returns to that familiar baseline. The heating and the fan A simple analogy that makes the relationship between wellness practices and nervous system baseline instantly clear. Why the email arrived in child's pose When your to-do list appears during meditation, it's not a failure. It's often evidence that your parasympathetic nervous system is finally creating enough space for unfinished thoughts to surface. The herbal medicine parallel Conventional medicine often addresses symptoms. Herbal medicine looks for the underlying condition creating them. Energy restoration works the same way. A guided extended exhale to close We close with a simple practice that gives your nervous system a direct experience of the parasympathetic state—not another task to add to your list. The Practice from this episode The extended exhale stimulates the vagus nerve, a key pathway of the parasympathetic nervous system. Inhale for four counts. Exhale slowly for six to eight counts. Let the second exhale become a sigh. Notice what shifts. Work with Tracy If this episode has landed for you, the link to explore working with Tracy privately is below. https://www.tracytutty.co.nz/Revitalise Connect with Tracy Website: projectjoyful.com Instagram: @tracyctutty LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty About Project Joyful Project Joyful is the podcast for high-achieving women in corporate leadership who want to understand the biology, subconscious patterns, and nervous system science shaping the way they lead, perform, and live. Hosted by Tracy Tutty, Neuro-Identity Coach and Medical Herbalist. #ProjectJoyful #BiologyOfLeadership #NervousSystemHealth #HighAchievingWomen #NeuroIdentityCoaching

June 6, 2026Episode 23723 min

The Hidden Difference Between Being Busy and Being Activated

You finish the meeting. The presentation went well. The emails are handled. And yet your brain is still moving. Still scanning. Still preparing. Still holding what has not happened yet. In this episode of Project Joyful, Tracy explores the hidden difference between external busyness and internal activation, and why so many high-achieving women in leadership struggle to truly switch off even when nothing urgent is actually happening. This conversation unpacks the Biology of Leadership beneath: • mentally rehearsing tomorrow’s conversations during the drive home • opening emails on Sunday “just to get ahead” • waking at 3am thinking about a meeting agenda • arriving on holiday while part of your nervous system is still at work • feeling tired in a way that rest alone does not fully resolve Tracy explores how the brain’s default mode network, cortisol patterns, subconscious preparation loops, and nervous system conditioning shape the way high-performing women experience leadership, responsibility, and rest. You’ll also hear: • why your nervous system learned to stay in anticipatory readiness • the physiological difference between genuine demand and chronic activation • how high-functioning leadership patterns become identity-level adaptations • why nervous system coherence changes the way teams experience leadership • the hidden energetic cost of constantly staying “across everything” • how embodied leadership allows performance without self-abandonment This episode is not about becoming less ambitious, less prepared, or less capable. It is about what becomes available when your nervous system no longer needs to stay permanently braced for what might happen next. If you have ever felt physically exhausted despite “handling everything well,” this episode will likely feel deeply familiar. Connect with Project Joyful on LinkedIn for deeper conversations, leadership reflections, podcast clips, and Biology of Leadership insights. ABOUT TRACY TUTTY Tracy Tutty is a Neuro-Identity Coach, Medical Herbalist, and leadership thought leader helping high-achieving women recalibrate the subconscious and nervous system patterns beneath overperformance, chronic stress, perfectionism, and emotional self-protection. Through the Biology of Leadership, Tracy bridges nervous system science, subconscious identity work, emotional regulation, and embodied leadership to help women succeed without chronic self-abandonment. #BiologyOfLeadership #NervousSystemRegulation #HighAchievingWomen #LeadershipDevelopment #CorporateLeadership

June 12, 2026Episode 23831 min

Why Your Body Knows You're Over Capacity Before You Do

Have you ever found yourself crying over a spreadsheet, snapping at an email, or feeling completely depleted by something that wouldn't normally bother you? What if the problem wasn't the spreadsheet? What if your body had been trying to get your attention long before that moment arrived? In this episode, Tracy explores why high-achieving women in leadership often miss the earliest signs that they're operating beyond their body's sustainable capacity. Drawing on neuroscience, physiology, nervous system regulation, and the science of allostatic load, she unpacks how your body continuously monitors your energy budget and often knows you're over capacity long before your conscious mind catches up. You'll discover why tears, irritability, sleep disruption, jaw tension, and emotional reactivity aren't signs that you're failing. They're physiological data. Intelligent signals from a highly adapted nervous system doing exactly what it was designed to do. This episode is for ambitious women in leadership, finance, and corporate environments who are carrying significant responsibility and want to understand how to lead sustainably without sacrificing their health, wellbeing, or sense of self in the process. In this episode, you'll learn: • What allostasis and allostatic load actually mean and why they matter for leadership • Why your body begins preparing for demand before the demand arrives • How a depleted energy budget affects emotional regulation, resilience, patience, and decision-making • Why crying is one of the body's most sophisticated self-regulation mechanisms • The difference between a demanding season and chronic physiological depletion • Two simple nervous system regulation techniques you can use in under a minute • Why awareness creates choice when it comes to sustainable leadership • How to recognise the signals your body is sending before they become symptoms Resources Mentioned Join Biology of Leadership, Tracy's free three-day live online experience exploring the hidden biological factors influencing leadership, performance, resilience, and wellbeing: https://www.tracytutty.co.nz/LeadershipBiology If you'd like to join us, simply DM Tracy the word JOYFUL and she'll get everything set up for you. Connect with Tracy Website: https://www.tracytutty.co.nz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracytutty #BiologyOfLeadership #NervousSystemRegulation #WomenInLeadership #ExecutiveWellbeing #LeadershipDevelopment

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