Balance & Beyond Podcast

2024 has been a big year, and to celebrate, we're dishing the dirt on the biggest trends we've been seeing.

You’re going to uncover three core themes Jo has experienced herself and seen mirrored in clients.

We start with the joy of money! What if your childhood beliefs about money secretly held you back from financial success? This episode explores how subconscious money wounds, like the fear of out-earning our parents or linking wealth to negative traits, can sabotage our potential. Jo reflects on her experiences with clients and how confronting these fears can significantly raise our financial ceilings and enhance our work-life balance. This journey of transforming money beliefs this year underscores the necessity of continual personal development for achieving both financial and personal growth.

Discover the profound impact of identity shifts and personal transformation as Jo shares insights into balancing effort and recovery and the magic of engaging with the quantum field to invite synchronicities and creativity. She also recounts her journey towards making decisions with newfound confidence and the power of allowing intuition to guide us. 

Join Jo for a thought-provoking conversation that will inspire you to embrace change and operate from a place of certainty and intuition.

Your special invitation!

This December, I’m hosting the 30 Days to a Brighter You Challenge—a powerful, month-long experience designed to help you create meaningful shifts in your life, one small step at a time.

Each day, you’ll get a focus word, quick tools, and access to a supportive community to help you feel more grounded, confident, and ready for 2025.

Spots are limited, and we kick off December 1st! Head to www.balanceinstitute.com/december to join us—only $99 with the coupon code PODCAST

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse 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. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

Can you believe how fast the end of 2024 is approaching? In this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you some of the key lessons that I've learned this year. I'm a pretty reflective person, anyway. But, as it pans into November/December, I often find myself sitting here and saying, “Okay, what have I learned?” “What were the lessons?” Some of them smacked me in the face, some of them were hard won, some of them came more easily. 

And, as someone who runs a business designed around personal development, then it would be remiss of me to be able to share with you what it is that I've been going through, both professionally, and personally. Because, when you run a business like mine, often those two things come together. 

Of course, I have an identity separate from my business. But many lessons are served up to me in a variety of ways, sometimes through business, and through life. And then, obviously, they always intertwine in different ways. This is a two-part series. So, this episode, I'm going to get to share with you my big reflections, and then, next week, we're going to have Jaclyn and Sabina both come on the show, and share with you what they're seeing. Both personally and professionally, from working with a very specific group of high achieving ambitious women. 

So, as usual, I like things in threes. Let's talk about something that has always been coming up for me. Because I'm a human, and it's something that's repeatedly coming up with clients, and this is that “money work” that keeps popping up. And when I say “money work”, I don't mean managing your money, I don't mean moving it around, or optimising it. 

I mean, our sense of self-worth is so heavily tied to our financial abundance. And I have seen clients on many, many occasions realise, through the money work that we do, that they're self-sabotaging themselves. They are unintentionally, they're subconsciously, not doing the things that will make them the money. Whether that's not calling the client they need to call, whether that's not doing the thing that they know is more closely tied to their income, or their zone of genius, than something else. 

And so, many of these wounds come from our childhood. Whether it's being told that, “Money doesn't grow on trees” Or that there was never enough, or maybe there was more, and you feel guilty for that. Whatever has happened to you continues to play out in all areas of life. And particularly, when we are someone who doesn't necessarily make widgets, many women in my world are known for their income, and it is earned from their brain. 

It's what they're capable of producing, or achieving, as opposed to necessarily building something physically with their hands. Although, we do have those. It then can be this really difficult thing to untangle how much you earn from your self-worth. And, if you have ever found that you have hit a money ceiling, if you've hit a plateau, if you find that you're getting money and then losing it, or spending it as fast as you make it, then chances are really high that you've got some money wounds that are buried deep in there. 

And what I love is, in the work I do, I get to do that. We get to raise those ceilings. I had a beautiful example on our retreat, where somebody worked out that they didn't feel like they could earn more than their parents, which is a really, really common wound that we have. Because, then it doesn't feel safe to do that. What will our parents think, if we've shown them up? And we were able to, in the course of probably a 20 minute, 30 minute discussion, actually raise her money ceiling? 

Now, by learning kinesiology, and being able to test these things, I was able to qualify, and quantify, that her money ceiling was moving up. So, we literally moved her money ceiling up. As in, how much money she could earn, and hold, by $500,000 in 30 minutes. So, this was the energetic level that she felt safe in, because money is so closely tied to our sense of self-worth, and therefore, our sense of self-worth is also really closely tied to safety. 

So, for many people, they believe that money is evil, and that's from their upbringing. Maybe they've only ever seen that people with money were bad people, and there's this subconscious fear that, “If I was to earn more money, then I'm going to turn into one of those people.” Now, I know I used to be like, “What are you talking about?” “This is crazy!” “Bring on the money!” “I want a nice house, I want cars, I want holidays!” But, these patterns are not conscious. They are operating at a really, really deep subconscious level, and because it's so closely tied to safety, it will just keep bumping up in really innocuous ways. So, that's been a really big lesson. 

We've done lots of work with clients in a variety of ways, in our varying containers, on money. And we just see that it's something that you have to continually work on. And we had somebody who said, “I've gone from money is the root of all evil” and her new belief around money is that “Money is okay.” But, you still can't have too much of it, because there's not enough to go around, and you're taking it from the poor people. 

So, yes, we can move the dial. But, how do you really embed and solidify some new beliefs about what money is? And you get to borrow these new beliefs and build them? And that's a large part of what I love doing. It’s seeing women as they raise their money ceiling, as they increase their sense of self-worth. Well, we see people get 40-50% pay rises on the regular. We see people given equity. We see all of these things shift. 

And the irony is, they're usually getting more money while doing less, and that's because they've done the energetic work, they've done the self-confidence work, which then allows them to amount to the “quantum of money” that they're able to hold, and move up. So, that's been one of my really interesting lessons for this year, just seeing the little insidious ways that that one pops up. 

Secondly, I mentioned this, you know, continual need to do the money work, and one of the things that I have focused on really heavily this year, is continually up-levelling my identity. Now, to explain what that means, we have an identity which is different from your ego. We have an identity that has been built up over the years. 

Maybe you're a “talker”, or you're the “funny one”, or you're the “quiet one”, or you're the “serious one”, or the one who knows everything. Whatever it is, you know, you might have various labels ascribed to that identity. Maybe you're a mother, or you're a daughter, or you're a sister, or you're a friend, and we build up this sense of who we think we are. 

But, interestingly, the vast majority, until you start doing this work on yourself, the vast majority of your identity actually wasn't chosen by you. It was put on you by circumstances, by your family of origin story, by society, by your first grade teacher, who said this comment, and you went, “Okay, yes, I am that person.” 

Now, when you are up-levelling, I'm pretty much on a three-month cycle of having to consistently go, “All right.” “I used to believe this.” “Does that serve me anymore?” “No?” “Okay, what do I do now?” “Who do I now need to become?” Because, just a lot of the work with raising your money ceiling for me, has really been about, “Who do I need to become in order to do the thing, or execute the thing, or create the thing that I need to create?” And it's all about, “Identity comes first.” 

Now, I've always been someone who doesn't mind change. But, as a business owner, I've really had to step into things like owning my intuition and making fast decisions. And I can make fast decisions. I've had two examples in the last few weeks, where I decided on a Monday that I actually needed to put on an extra retreat, because I had so much demand for one. By Thursday, it was launched. 

So four days on from, “Oh my gosh, I need to do another one in a different city, put it all together, put all the marketing together and launch it to clients!” and it's sold out in five hours. So, you can actually move really, really fast, when you decide that that's what you're going to become. And likewise, I realised within the business, “We need another head.” “We need another hire.” So, “Okay, I'm going to put it out that this is what I want.” A unicorn landed in my lap, and I made the decision on Monday to hire someone. She started on the Friday. 

So, when you stop second guessing yourself, and I'm not prioritising speed at all costs here, I don't want you to think that I'm hustling and working 24 hours a day. That's not what this is about. This is about really continual expansion of my toolkit, and me consciously thinking to myself, “Who do I need to become better today?” 

And, importantly, it's not just about picking up new things and saying, “Oh, I'd like that characteristic of that person to be me.” It's actually about uncovering who am I really on the inside? One of my favourite words has become “alignment”, and the more I've become in alignment with who I truly am, the more I'm dropping the masks, and the old parts of me, and letting go of things, and putting things down that I think that other people think that I am. 

You actually become much faster, because you've got rid of all the resistance. And so as you get rid of resistance almost like when a rocket ship you can see it, you're going into space it almost starts breaking up. That's what starts to happen. Bits of you just kind of crack, and they can't keep up with the pace of change, and you can become a lot more malleable with, “Okay, well, I tried that on, that didn't quite feel right.” “So, I'm going to put that part down.” “I'm going to pick this thing up now.” 

And whether it's about making bold decisions, whether it's about business decisions, whether it's about how I want to show up on the podcast, or in my business, or with my team, or with my family, or with my friends. It's this continual focus forward, not worrying too much about the past, reflecting in terms of, “How have I grown, and where have I come from?” 

But it's not this: “What did I do wrong?” “What did I fail?” “Where did I make a mistake?” “Where should I have done differently?” “Where should have been different?” “Where was that not fair?” Because, that is just a huge energy suck, and I have left behind any remnants of being a victim, or not being in my power. 

As part of an old identity, I used to often think I didn't have the time. And you know, “This is happening to me, and it's not fair.” And “My god, why do bad things always happen to me?” And I've decided that that's not congruent with who I am. And so, yes, you know, sometimes those patterns can run deep, and you find yourself. 

I found myself on the side of the road in Italy, with a flat tire, in an area where no one spoke English, going, “Oh my God, really?” And then I went, “Okay, you asked for big challenges, so buckle up.” “Here you go.” “How are you going to get out of this one?” And you've got a 14 year old beside you. So, this is a really good chance to role model how you can cope through adversity. And this isn't something that really used to be part of my, I guess you would call it goals, or what would you say, sort of, I guess, “process of managing myself.” 

But, identity almost comes before your thoughts, and I have my favourite equation, which is that, “Our thoughts, drive our feelings, which drives our behaviour, and gets us our results.” But, your identity has a huge, huge role to play in, “What are those thoughts?” And that's the real way to actually make change. It’s to not just say, “Right, I'm going to think this.” 

Let's say that you're a shy person. “I am brave”, “I am bold”, “I am loud” and you're really trying to step into it. But, it feels fake. Whereas, once it's become part of your identity, well then, it's just a no brainer. An easy way to describe an identity shift is going from somebody who doesn't eat meat, to becoming a vegetarian. A vegetarian is an identity. And then, being challenged on why don't you eat meat? “Because I'm a vegetarian.” “It's just who I am.” “Eating meat isn't something that I do.” 

And the more you can make the shift with, “I embrace change” or “I pivot quickly”, or “I access my intuition”, or “I step into my power.” Whatever the things are for you, the more you're able to really get this beautiful momentum and slipstream happening, which is where the best change happens. Now, I'm not saying it's always easy. I'm saying there are bumps in the road. When you change really quickly, it can feel like whiplash for those around you, so you have to manage that. You can leave them for dust in the rearview mirror. 

But, the really important point is staying true to who you are. And that's really been a big part of my journey over the past 12 months. And, no surprise, we're seeing this play out with clients, we're seeing it play out in trainings that we run, and it's this beautiful, almost collective up-levelling of, “Who do I want to become?” “What do I want to feel more of?” And that has just changed the course of lives on multiple, multiple occasions. Not just mine. 

Now, the last one, the last lesson that I've had, I guess, aligns with continual up-levelling, and even the money work aligns with continual up-levelling, and even the money work. And that is the way that I perhaps would have up-levelled. Previously, it would have been to push harder, and to grow faster. And what I uncovered this year was, we've all heard the old adage, “Slow down, to speed up.” 

However, when you're someone who's a high achiever, who can go fast, who likes going fast, that's really, really hard, and I would say slowing down has been one of the hardest things that I've ever had to do. And the way that I've come at it, if you've listened to any prior episodes. Often, for me, some of the ways that I can make really big shifts are through my physiology, or through my body. And I found on one of the 10K runs that I was doing earlier this year, that my body started to break down. 

I was running four times a week, my husband was going through some health stuff, we had kids in the heart of winter, we had a crazy, insane schedule of activities. And then, I had business stuff going on, and there were just too many units for me to hold. And I often don't pay enough attention, but I often don't give enough credit to, let's say, the “emotional holding of the house” that I'm doing, and think, “Oh, let's just do it.” “I can do that.” So, that doesn't actually take any units away. 

But, as I tried to run this race, and I literally ran towards the end, my leg, my muscles, just everything was like “Nope, you're done, this isn't working.” I started saying, “All right, how do I do this differently?” And I remember one of my coaches said to me at the time, “Jo, you need to spend as much time focused on recovery, as you do by effort.” And that just smacked me in the face, because I went, “What do you mean?” “I do well for recovery, but it's not my priority, and I tend to fit it in and around other things.” 

And so the last, probably six months, I've had this really intense focus on “Where do I need to take care of my body?” “Where do I need to hydrate it in the right way?” “Where do I need to feed it the right vitamins, supplements, and nutrients, and make the time for that, and the effort for that?” “Where do I need to rest and actually focus?” 

Sometimes, not just on, let's call them, “High cortisol-inducing, intensive physical” activities, and start embracing more of the yogas, and meditating more consistently, and we have bio-maths, and all kinds of biometric pieces spending time on that, that are actually going to regenerate me at a cellular level, instead of just focusing on “Faster, More, Harder, Push, Sweat.” 

And this has looked like more mindset work. It's looked like more emotional work. It's really feeling that pull in me, for impatience, which will be my life's work. I'm very well aware of that. I've completely accepted, and surrendered to that. But that, “I can slow down and it doesn't make me mediocre” and “I can slow down and it actually will make what I do better.” And also, what I've learned is that, when you slow down, you actually have more space to, let's say, “Play in the quantum field.” 

And, if you want to get a little “woo” here, what I have learned more and more through, whether it's through my kinesiology, or my energetic work, or my spiritual work, is that many of us are operating on this 3D Plane which is our senses. What we can smell, hear, touch. And, it's with effort and sheer willpower, that we are going to drive and force everything. 

But, what if there was another realm that you could play in, where you can start to call things in, and where it didn't have to be hard? And this is more of a spiritual journey that I've been on, for the past couple of years. It really is, “How do I tap into this?” Whether it's my higher self, other versions of me, whether you call them things like “manifestation” to bring to me what I need. 

But, the only way that's ever going to happen, is if I make time to slow down and listen. Because, when there's no space, there's no space for anything new to come in. And this is where I talk about “synchronicities”, the world of magic and miracles, my clients often call it. You can't make this shit up. All this stuff that just magically starts happening, when you come into my world. 

And, as somebody who is really the energetic, you could say, guide of the entire container, if I'm not making space in my life for what is going to come in, for ideas, for intuition, then I'm missing so much. And so much, whether it was the new program coming through, you know, I could have really, really pushed that. But, when I felt Balance and Beyond starting to come, I knew I needed to create space for it. And I could have really pushed, and kind of got that thing out, maybe in a couple of months, and been wracked with indecision. 

But, I actually booked myself into a hotel for three nights, and came armed with post-it notes, and cards, and whiteboard markers, and I literally, this is going to sound strange, but many of you get me, I literally had this light bulb moment download, and the entire program almost vomited out of me in two hours. And I must've looked like a crazy person, if I'd have filmed myself. 

But, everything came in. And it only came in when I made the space for it. Everything came in and it only came in when I made the space for it. So, I've got so many examples in my life of, the more I slow down, and often slowing down isn't often a word that resonates with me, because I have so much of that impatience in me. But, when I start making space for recovery, I make space for intuition, I make space for guidance. I've actually gone so much faster. 

So, really, having that continual evidence that when you make space, good things come. When you make space, things actually come faster, why don't you want to operate in these multiple realms that are available to you? You call it “quantum physics.” Einstein discovered it. You look at a Joe Dispenza, they talk about a lot of these things. “How do I start playing in the quantum field, where every possibility exists?” “”And why wouldn't I want to play with that?” On the off chance, just on the off chance, that it might work. 

But, when I'm hustling, when I'm in my masculine, when I'm forcing, when I'm pushing, none of that guidance comes, and you can start to almost be really hooked, and addicted, to that guidance, because it is so right, and it is so magical. And when it comes in, you call it “intuition”, “downloads”, “ideas”, “inspiration”, whatever you want. When it lands, you just know. You just know that's the right thing, it's the right decision, that's the right next step. 

And there is such a beauty, in beginning to operate from this place of certainty, that I have really loved stepping into. This year, I've made quite a lot of big decisions. And they felt, I don't want to use the word “effortless”. But, they've come with ease. I've had no regrets, I've had no second guessing. It doesn't mean it's been easy. But, it means that I've got this different level of confidence, and groundedness, in what I do. So it takes a lot more to throw me around, or to throw me off course, and for me to lose sight of who I am. 

Such big insights and, to be honest, ones that you never know what's going to come in a year. And I had a whole lot of mind-blowing revelations last year, but I could never, ever have predicted that this was the direction that my life would have taken, that the business would have taken, and what's more important to me is, “How am I continuing to evolve?” 

So, I would love to share these with you. I'm very excited to have Jacqueline and Sabina come on next week, and share with you more of their revelations. But, this is an opportunity also for you, to maybe slow down a little, maybe create some space, and reflect on what has been a lesson that you've had from this year. Maybe some of these resonate, but maybe there's something else for you. So, I hope that you can have some space today to do that, and I look forward to seeing you back again, on Balance & Beyond. 

OUTRO: Thanks for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond Podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world. If you’re keen to dive deeper into our world, visit us at www.balanceinstitute.com to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance, and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Balance & Beyond Podcast.