Balance & Beyond

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 Jo
The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute
For 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

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 Jo
The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute
For 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

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 Jo
The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute
For 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

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” is the wrong default, how Australia’s psychosocial safety focus can help shift responsibility back to workplaces, and why we need to stop measuring productivity as hours. With AI changing what work looks like, the new benchmark is value: judgement, creativity, learning, problem solving and the quality of conversations, even when that doesn’t deliver the dopamine hit of ticking a task off a list.

We also go deep on the inner work. How do you hear your own voice when the collective definition of success is so loud? What does it take to build boundaries in a boundaryless world, tolerate the discomfort of disappointing people, and make brave career choices like moving to a purpose-led role or building a portfolio career? If you’ve been asking “Do I even want to be here anymore?”, you’re not alone.

Subscribe for more honest conversations, share this with a woman who needs it, and leave a review to help the Ripple Effect reach the people it’s meant for.
Want to learn more about how to redesign your relationship with work?
Connect with Dr. Kat Page here: https://www.drkatpage.com/
Send a text message to Jo
The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute
For 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

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 conversation will hit. I’m Jo Stone, and I’m sharing the real reason so many high performing women feel stuck: it’s not a lack of tools, it’s loyalty to an identity that once kept you safe and now keeps you small.

We unpack “Friday Night Jo”, the version of me who stops cushioning, stops apologising in advance, and just says the thing. What shocked me wasn’t backlash, it was relief. Directness took less energy, not more, and it became more useful for my clients because it landed cleanly. We talk about over responsibility, people pleasing, and the fear under the fear: if you stop being the helper or the reliable one, what if the version that emerges is “too much”, selfish, or a bad mum?

You’ll also hear Lindsay’s story and her “Crazy Craft Lady” identity shift, a grounded example of how confidence and boundaries aren’t a performance, they’re a bridge back to who you actually are. We call out the most believable trap of all, “not a good time”, and why ready isn’t a feeling, it’s a decision. If you’re searching for balance, burnout recovery, better boundaries, and a way to feel like yourself again, this is your nudge.

Subscribe, share this with a woman who needs it, and leave a review so it finds the people it’s meant for.
Send a text message to Jo
The Balance & Beyond Podcast Hosted by Jo Stone, founder of The Balance Institute
For 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