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.
Balance & Beyond
The Real Reason Gen Z Makes Us Uncomfortable
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Ever felt the sting of doing everything “right” only to be told you’re too direct, not ready, or simply invisible? We dig into how good girl conditioning collides with workplace reality, why women are penalised more for risk, and how to speak up without burning bridges. With leadership strategist and author Dr Jodi Vandenberg-Daves, we trade vague advice for a concrete playbook built on values, allies, and smart timing.
We start by naming the bias: men are often rewarded for potential and maverick moves; women are measured on flawless performance and punished harder when bets go sideways. Instead of pretending the game isn’t rigged, Jodi offers a practical reset—anchor in your values to choose the battles that matter, craft asks that serve your mission, and enlist an amplification crew who backs your ideas in the room. We share tactics like pre-meeting side conversations, planned support from someone with clout, and post-meeting recovery if things go off-script. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s impact with less collateral damage.
From there, we widen the lens. Younger cohorts—Millennials and Gen Z—bring autonomy, purpose, and an insistence on mental health that many of us were never allowed to name. Rather than dismissing them as soft, we ask what can be learned: how clear values fuel motivation, why questions drive better systems, and how two-way mentoring turns friction into progress. We also confront midlife ageism, where seasoned women are asked to lift more without authority or are sidelined altogether. Jodi’s counsel: move from heavy lifting to leverage, protect your energy, keep mentors at every age, and stop downgrading yourself because you’re not the most tech fluent person in the room. Your edge is systems thinking, ethics, relationships, and results.
This conversation is a guide for values-led women who want to change their corner of the world without sacrificing themselves to it. Expect research-backed insight, field-tested strategies, and real examples of structural wins—from lactation spaces to transparent advancement—that prove culture can move.
To follow Dr Jodi's work, visit https://www.jodivandenberg-daves.com/
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Welcome to the Balance and Beyond Summer Sessions. Conversations to reignite your vision for the year ahead. Each episode, I speak with women who've built success without sacrifice and turned burnout into breakthrough. Their stories aren't about doing more. They're about becoming the woman who builds a life she actually loves. If you're ready to step into 2026 with clarity and conviction, take a breath. Let's dive right in. Welcome to Alance and Beyond. And this week I am joined by the wonderful Dr. Jody Vandenberg Daves, who's a leadership strategist, coach, consultant, facilitator, editator, editor, author of many things, including a new book coming out, which we will talk about later. Welcome, Jody. Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me, Joe. You've done some fascinating work, and we're gonna dive straight in today. I would love to get your view of how have women, when we talk about the conditioning that we have had as girls growing up in particular eras, how have we, how has that impacted us? How have we had to play the game about being nice, good girls, not rocking the boat? Would love to get your thoughts.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, thank you for that question. Um it's something I've spent a lot of time studying and teaching about and and kind of marveling at because you know, you mentioned kind of coming of age and different generations, and I'm a trained historian, and you know, there definitely are some differences. But one of the frustrating through lines is just what you've mentioned, which is uh there is this kind of um good girls just put their heads down and do the work. And good girls are always paying attention to other people's needs. And we we that starts pretty early in life. Um, there's a lot of language now about even eldest daughters as this extra responsible party in families uh responsible for other people's feelings. And then, you know, as we move through our lives and into uh, say our workplaces, which I know is what you talk about a lot on the podcast, um, we are in situations where we actually internalize the notion that we can't take as many risks as men. And the research shows that. We we are blamed more for taking risks when things go wrong. There's many studies that kind of show that. And even though we may not know those exact studies, we kind of know it. There's also a lot of research showing that women tend to be promoted on the base, or men tend to be promoted on the basis of potential, while women have to have performance because there is a way in which men are still presumed to be these natural leaders. And I think there is this idea that good girls follow the rules and do the work so they don't kind of get out of the lane and get punished. And men are the geniuses, and men are the outside of the box thinkers, and men are the mavericks. And there's more acceptance in most of our societies for that kind of maverick role of men. They are just, they tend to be sometimes rewarded for it. Whereas women, as I've heard in some of your podcasts as well, are sometimes rewarded even at early ages for being responsible for other humans and how they feel and whether they're doing okay. So I think those are some key things. Yeah. That makes me really mad hearing that. It's really hot to hear it. And I'm like, oh, it's not fair. We shouldn't be that way. I know you're a women's studies professor. We just we make people mad.
Jo Stone (Host):So how do we start to shift this? And often we're told to lean in, to just speak up, but there's an important side to that that we have to also acknowledge, isn't there?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Um, we unfortunately, I'm gonna make you mad again, but we tend to be more punished for speaking up. And we we have to, that's the problem. You know, why don't you negotiate more for a raise? Because, you know, the research shows that men are more likely to negotiate for that. But there is less latitude for women not to be sort of who do you think you are if you negotiate for a raise? Um, and again, there's a lot of research bearing that out. Um, but I think that there isn't an easy answer. If there were an easy answer, we wouldn't have so many books and podcasts and all the other things. But I think some of it lies in really knowing what our core, this is what I talk a lot about in my book that's coming out. We can anchor in our values and what's really important to us and what where the lines are drawn, what's including our own self-worth or the needs, you know, whatever it might be, the the sense of mission, the um being uh kind to our fellow humans, figuring out what our kind of values are that we can stand for can one be one way to find our power in lots of different situations. And that's something that came up again and again in my book. The other piece that's I think just incredibly important is really teaming up with other people on this. Um, and I and it can be any people. There are many men who want to support women and all genders in the workplace as well. Um there's, for example, during the Obama administration, the women on that team had a pact where they would amplify what the other women said so that this thing didn't just automatically happen in which a woman says something and then a man says it later, and it's suddenly a great idea that he came up with. So there's amplifying one another, but also I just did a webinar today on moving beyond perfectionism and imposter syndrome. And I talk about people kind of finding their perfectionism mitigation team where they're really working with other people to help set those boundaries, help kind of do audits of what are the role, what is the role that is my role that I really want to lean into and why am I volunteering for everything else. We need to have other people kind of reminding us here's those boundaries you said you needed, here's the value you bring, here's how, let's strategize about you, about that big conversation you need to have. Let's strategize about that, you know, talk with your boss about your workload or about your raise. It's really not doing it alone. You know, it's really not doing it alone. And I think it's it's also having some systems awareness so that we know that we don't, this is not all personal and about us. Um there are patterns of whatever it is, old boy networks or lack of transparency in how people get ahead, or a pattern of sort of microaggressions against women that if you start looking, oh, it's not just happening to me, it's happening to her, it's happening to her. Um stepping back and seeing that workplace cultures or workplace norms and systems and policies might be part of the problem. And we can maybe chip away at that, but it helps us take things maybe a little less personally, and that also can help us stand in our power. Absolutely.
Jo Stone (Host):And as you said, when we do go to speak up, I know uh when you and I spoke previously, we we spoke about it there can be a risk if we speak up. And to just say to women, lean in, you'll be fine, without giving them almost recognition of that, whether it's that inner internal wiring of, but hang a second, that's not so safe. We almost end up gaslighting ourselves. Like, no, it'll be fine. Everyone's telling me I should just ask, ask. Meanwhile, there's this internal terror because of the perfectionism, because of the conditioning, because of workplace culture and values. What's your view on how do we mitigate or how do we acknowledge those risks of actually speaking up in the first place?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think we do need to acknowledge it. And part of acknowledging it is if we if we if we can kind of step back, we can go, well, that didn't work out the way I had planned. Now I need some damage control. You know, now I need to go have a side conversation. I've also had, you know, again, some of the women I interviewed in my book who talk about having the side conversation first. Finding someone who is a little bit open to your point of view on something who maybe has a little bit more clout, but not speaking up in a meeting and challenging that person. And maybe sticking your neck out where you're the only one. Or if you are, conversely, if you are going to stick your neck out in that meeting, you've had that side conversation with that person who might back you up, maybe the person with more clout, or maybe even just a peer who can back you up. And I've seen this, we've kind of I've done it, and we've done it for one another in my in my former employment. And it can be helpful because we know that, you know, that we have one another's backs and we we've kind of had the, we've had the background conversations to know what's going on. As important as it is to stand in our values, yes, we need to know when we're taking a risk. And some of us take those risks more than others. Women of color often have to take more risks than white women speaking up in an organization, especially if it's a predominantly white organization. People who just are younger and less secure in their careers often take more risks. So, how do we also build, it's not just what we can do individually, but how can we build resilient mentoring cultures that help empower people and actually honor their questions, their, you know, practice speaking up, practice asking questions, and train the people who are answering those questions not to say, well, that's because that's how we've always done it, but to really work with these younger women, we're talking about women uh in this podcast, to um to honor that question and not just not squelch it, you know, and maybe it's a disruptive question, but like, where is that question coming from? So the work is not just on us, the work is on training leaders and mentors and shifting the culture to make space for women's voices and women's difficult questions. Part of the strengths that we bring at the strength that we bring as leaders is often the rules were not made by us. And so we can have this context awareness, this systems awareness. We can look at things a little bit differently. We might be asking different questions about the ethics of how a particular thing is done. And no one likes to be challenged on their ethics, but there might be ways around to say, is it, you know, is this really the way it needs to be done? And again, it's kind of gathering, feeling out your allies, um, feeling out who has some sympathetic points of view on this. And maybe it can be the right thing to do to speak up in a meeting and just say, I'm going for it. But it's not, it's not always because of exactly that, that risk. And even if you felt really great in the moment, you might find the reaction overwhelming and you might be really panicky about whether you just burned some bridges. So just to amplify your point, it's not easy. And I wish I didn't have to tell us to do extra work to get our voices heard. But it it is part of the reality for many of us.
Jo Stone (Host):And I think that's a really important point. It shouldn't be the way, but perhaps in many places, especially if you are in a male-dominated industry, it is how things work. And the way that we can start to dismantle the system is if we play by some of our own rules and do things a little differently and create more of that, it's a buzzword, but more of that psychological safety for women to step up, whether it is with allies, where it is by the side conversations. I think that's an important point. And so many women I know get enraged, they shouldn't have to do it. And so they become the bulldozer. They become the one who yells in the meeting or the one who is super direct and then get told they're too direct and put everyone offside. So we're always walking this tightrope, aren't we? Between being pushy and a pushover, being bossy and being a bitch, and it can be tricky.
SPEAKER_00:It is very tricky, and yes, you're absolutely right. And it's so frustrating. And it's again, it's one of those, one of those through lines. But I do believe that um, well, it's it's also it's very men can engage in that behavior. And part of I once taught a course on masculinity with a colleague, and one of the interesting things I learned because he was a psychologist, is that there are a couple of different emotions that men in our culture at least are sort of allowed to express, and those are anger and lust. And those are the ones women are not allowed to express, but men are not really allowed to express all the other ones either, or encouraged to do so. But the idea of being that person who can get angry in a meeting and who can or who can storm off or who can, you know, put somebody down or just stand on principle in this angry way, those are things women have a much harder time getting away with. And when we try, we're often marginalized and people talk behind our backs and things like that. Um, so I think that it actually works better in many ways to not try to emulate those styles. They don't, they often don't feel good for any human kind of performing that stuff, um, unless you really like to be power over people. Uh, I guess there are some people who do, but I think it it works better to um to use our own superpowers that we often build in the ways that we are socialized around um emotional agility, sensitivity to other people, the gift of relating to people and knowing their stories and knowing their situations. And, you know, we have to be careful that we're not only doing the relational work in the workplace or the emotional labor, as Rose Hackett calls it and other people call it. Um, but we need to it's okay to kind of lean into that in a sense as potential superpowers, because the transformational leadership that we need now that everybody's writing about in leadership theory circles is a lot of stuff that women have already been doing, which is really that listening, cultural humility, other forms of humility, team building, um, having a critical eye for systems as we're managing really rapid change in all our organizations, um, mentoring, really like whole life, whole human mentoring, including um making accommodations for people's lives, everything from mental health to caregiving for children, caregiving for elders. The people who've been able to look at those systems in part because they've maybe been a little bit of an outsider, often have this critical intelligence that organizations really need. You know, and it might not be something you're doing that you don't even realize you're doing as a change agent. You know, I just uh was with this young woman who, before she had her first child, saw to it that there were nursing accommodations in in her workplace. And it was, she spearheaded that. What an amazing thing to accomplish, an actual structural change in your workplace. You know, she happened to do it before she became a mother, but oftentimes it is when we become a mother or a caregiver or something in our life changes that we suddenly look at these systems like, wow, this is built for people who are fully able-bodied. This is built for people who can work on a rigid schedule from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. This is work built for people who never need to nurse, whatever it might be.
Jo Stone (Host):Yeah, it's uh that fresh perspective can be so important for us to bring. Speaking of fresh perspectives, one topic that is consistently brought up in the media, in leadership circles, is talking about some of the new generations coming into the workplace. We've got Gen Z, millennials, I can't remember what labels they all have these days. But you spend a lot of time with this group. We often hear that they're stereotypically lazy, they're not driven. What's your view on their what are their values? What is actually going on with them? And we've I mentioned, you know, this quest for purpose. What are we seeing in this generation?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'll say that I have had the privilege of being up close with with a lot of young people who are very driven by purpose, especially if they're showing up in the, you know, just a couple years ago I left my university position. So, you know, I was in a field, um, a social justice kind of field where I would see a lot of those students and um very um, very passionate about changing the world, very anguished about the state of the world. But actually, yes, the research shows that millennials and Gen Z do tend to be more value-driven. In in the US, they're the most diverse generations, ethnically and racially. Um, and millennials tend to like a lot of collaboration and a and a sense of purpose. And Gen Z tends to like a lot of independence and autonomy. But they, you know, a lot of these young people grew up watching The Office as satire, my three grown children did that. They didn't see the workplace as this beautiful place. It's kind of like prove it to me and prove it to me that your authority is something that and your rules are things that I should necessarily care about. But I want to do something meaningful and I want to have purpose. And that's the values piece. But you know, when I think about these younger generations, the, you know, the first thing, if you ask me what's going on with them, they're anxious. They're and they're and uh globally research is showing that. There's just high levels of mental health challenges and anxiety. And, you know, we've there's been a lot of negativity thrown at those generations, and there's the climate crisis, and in many systems, there's massive economic inequality and other social injustices that they're seeing. Um, but they're, you know, they're really not sure what their lives are going to look like. And they are, there's a lot of anxiety. And so they are a generation that's also, they are generations that are more not only willing, but often insistent on talking about mental health as real challenges and taking mental health days from their workplaces, which, you know, a lot of us grew up not knowing we could even do such a thing. So they're they're pioneering in that respect. They're insisting that you will pay attention to the fact that I have a life. Um, you know, and that said, I feel like we have the cultural construction around generations, obviously, they're all different and diverse in their own ways. And then we have a lot of kind of negative discourse around intergenerational friction, um, you know, move over boomers and things like that. And um, so, you know, not unlike generations that went before them, I think that they're not as cognizant as they could be of what could be offered by older generations and how as women in the workplace we could build some solidarity around that. So that's part of an important theme in my book is that I actually look at it's it's called Leading with Courage, a career-long guide for idealistic women. And it really looks at um the generational stuff, but also the journey of establishing credibility when no one will take you seriously because you're young. And then, like, what does it mean to be maybe having children while you're doing this or not, but navigating all that stuff, navigating maybe leadership roles, um, institutional power if you have it or if you don't, and then and then facing ageism, leaving a legacy, you know, being a mentor. I try to look at that whole arc to create some empathy around different life stages and different generations that are still working in the workplace today.
Jo Stone (Host):I wonder if you speak of this quest for purpose. I know quite a few very senior leaders who can struggle with the that quest for purpose. And as you said, I need a mental health day because many of us grew up in this era of you push through, if you're sick, you show up, you sacrifice everything you have for your career. I wonder if there's almost a triggering going on because I'm seeing a mirror where a lot of women are getting to, let's call it the second phase of life, 40 plus, and going, hang on, I've busted my guts for the last 20 years.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
Jo Stone (Host):I've then been maybe made redundant, or I've been pushed aside. Why am I selling my soul to the devil or the corporate machine? And what if there is another way to be? And I wonder if there's almost a beautiful mirroring happening of these generations coming in who are saying, I deserve to have a life, and older generations who almost are saying, but you don't, you haven't earned it. I've earned it. There's this really interesting friction. But I think there's a lot we could learn from each other, don't you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, absolutely. I do, I I like the way. You put that into words. Yeah. And I have seen that. And it's partly the mental health discourse that older people are seeing, like, wow, I was coping with that all along. I didn't know that it had a name. And I didn't know that I could be compassionate with myself about it. I just thought I was lazy, or I just thought, you know, I didn't I wasn't good enough or whatever it was. Yeah, I think that that's really powerful. Um, really powerful. And I think for younger generations, there's something you said I'm trying to remember, but for younger generations to know, there are things that that we went through too. And part of it is that some of the struggles were invisible and we weren't allowed to talk about them. You know, how many LGBTQ people spent their entire careers in the closet, for example? How many women endured sexual harassment or racial harassment with no recourse? Not that we always have the recourse today, but uh there, you know, we have had some laws, we have had some movements, some of it's being undone as fast as possible in the US, but you can't fully legislate people's social norms around those things either. And so um, yeah, I think there's just there's really so much to learn. Yeah.
Jo Stone (Host):And if you were somebody leading this group, as many of this listeners of this podcast either have children in that category now and they're getting a first-hand insider look to this, or they're seeing them come through the workplace. Is there any tips you'd give apart from being open and looking to learn from them as we can, whether it's putting down some of those prejudices and biases we have, or yeah, thoughts?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I feel like it's really checking in with them about getting their take on these workplaces and building spaces for them to be brave and honest about saying it and helping them honor their questions. A lot of what I talk about when I'm talking to the young people in my book and in my work is honor your questions because it's questions, it's critical questions that bring the change we need sometimes. It's not all going to happen at once, you know, but we but we need to, you need to make a space for asking those questions. Um and then it's also, I think, helping them name and claim their strengths and their gifts, um, because it can be hard to see them, especially since so many of them deal with so much anxiety. And and giving them space for a learning curve for um in in whatever they're doing. And these younger generations often do want a lot and expect a lot of mentoring. You know, in in my generation, I don't remember even using that word a lot. Um and I don't really remember having very many, like I look back and I go, oh, some of those people did mentor me, but it was not something I could approach with intentionality. Now we have, I think, the gift of younger people ready to embrace some of that, some of them are anyway. And and it's such a beautiful, you know, two-way learning street for that to happen.
Jo Stone (Host):Yeah, so much we can learn, as you said, both from those who've come before us and those coming after us, we need to do our best to put down those uh prejudices or biases and say, well, what is here for me, which makes us all more accepting and compassionate in the first place. Part of that arc you mentioned is something that many listeners of this podcast are beginning to see play out in their careers. And this is as they start to approach their mid to late 40s and into their 50s, this, oh my God, I'm not being looked at the same way anymore. What are your views on how is ageism playing out in the workforce? And if you are somebody in that cohort, what can we do about it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, it is playing out. And like other things, it helps to recognize it and not necessarily take it as personally. I sometimes remind myself, well, or ask myself, and I don't really want to know the answer, how did I treat older women when I was in my 20s? You know, I like to I like to remind myself of that. Um, but yes, how and I think that also helps depersonalize it, right? Um, but I think it's um it's a number of things. It's you know, when I turned around 50, I started, I was facing some burnout in some some areas of my work. And, you know, you get to a point where around then that you have often a lot of networks and a lot of accomplishments, hopefully things that you've, you know, you've been proud to be part of. And but people want you to do more and more, often without real, you know, advancement opportunities, just like, hey, she's good at that. Let's throw more of that at her. And I really consciously thought to myself, this is a chapter where I need to think about less heavy lifting and more consulting. And I didn't mean I meant in my workplace, not going out and being consultant yet, although I've done that. Um, but I meant within my workplace that it wasn't up to me to do all the heavy lifting and all the proving. Now, sometimes that heavy lifting wasn't done with me, even if I was done with it. But it still helped, you know, it still helped to take that have that intentional piece because it was taking a little of my power, despite of, you know, in spite of the systems, right? I didn't, I was fortunate too. My job was pretty secure in higher ed. That's not, you know, as true for everyone. But I think it's also um figuring out how you're going to have some mentoring continue in your life, because some of the older women I interviewed from my book talked about losing their mentors and how that was that was really difficult, how much they didn't realize that they needed those slightly older people or even same-age people. Um, and so maybe it's sometimes being mentored by younger people, but also figuring out ways to share what you know and be a mentor to other people. Find spaces where, you know, fill out spaces where people do see you and do see the value that you bring. And then I always turn it back on it's not just the individual woman's job to do this. It's our job to, you know, have our kind of the ways we invest in people's professional development and in our workplace culture should include making sure that we're leveraging the talents of older women. And the thing I think is important too is people need to not make assumptions about what older women want or can or can't do. Some people do need to slow down for health reasons or because they just want a more balanced life. Other people, wow, my nest is empty. I can't wait to just really dig into this. This is what I want to be doing, right? And um, there's a there's a there's a wisdom, there's an institutional knowledge or a field knowledge. Um, there's just a sense of history and perspective. There's often really wide networks. So employers need to think about organizations need to think about how to leverage those talents. Um yeah, it's kind of what I said about just the whole thing with with the good girl thing, it's it's some of the same things. Find your wing women, your wing people who can help make sure that your value is still amplified in your space and you can do that for other people as well. If I had the magic solution for ageism and ageist sexism, I would be rich. But I think that those are some things that can be helpful. I always like to balance it between the individual strategies and like how do we team up, you know, and do this.
Jo Stone (Host):Yeah, I think one other thing to stack on that is that I'm a big believer in ensuring we have enough self-belief because we've got so much evidence behind us as we do get older, as you said, wisdom, perspective, knowledge that we forget, we then focus on, well, I'm not techie enough, or I'm not uh not up to speed with this. And then we almost start doubting ourselves. I'm seeing a lot of older women actually start losing confidence despite often being the most knowledgeable person in the room because they've shifted the goalposts and now decided, well, I'm not completely okay with AI. So therefore I'm now not as good as that 23-year-old who's just come out of somewhere. So really owning our own expertise, building our own self-worth and continuing to do so. I believe that's a lifelong task and gift that we have to continue to give ourselves rather than just give it over to an employer or an organization to fuel us.
SPEAKER_00:We've we've got to do it ourselves. Oh, you said that so well. I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. Yeah. And and figuring and spending doing that, those, those hopefully lifelong habits, career-long habits of of reflection about what am I bringing of value? And again, if you need someone else to remind you of that and reflect that back to you, um, do that as well. I'm I'm jumping around on the screen here. But I think um I I think that um I think I forgot what I was gonna say as I was watching myself jump around on the screen. Sorry, oh good.
Jo Stone (Host):It wasn't jumping around on Zoom, so you're fine.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
Jo Stone (Host):Well, what I might I might just wrap up and um and just ask people where they can find out about more about you. Yeah. Um my website, Jodie Ven. Hang on, let me let me just put the question in there so we can edit it out. Sure.
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Jo Stone (Host):Dorothy, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today. So many key takeaways. If people want to learn more about the work you do and maybe rage a little bit more, where can they find out?
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Rage and and come together and solve as much as we can. Yes. Um, jodievandenbergaves.com is my website. I do an ongoing women's leadership intensive where we we develop this context awareness and strategies. It's called Unlocking Your Leadership Potential. I'd love to have some of your listeners check it out. And then my book is um is coming out or is out, and it is um Leading with Courage, a career-long guide for idealistic women, where you'll find these stories and strategies, and it's very much for values-driven women, especially kind of progressive, inclusive values that I think can anchor us throughout a career. Um, and and I find stories of women who did just that.
Jo Stone (Host):Wonderful. We'll put all those details in the show notes. Go and check out everything Jody has to say. I think it's such an important conversation to have, and courage is what we are going to need very much so in the future. So, Jody, thank you for joining me. Yeah, thank you so much. I love the conversation. Thanks for being here today. If this episode moved you, share it with a woman who needs it. And if you're feeling generous, a quick review helps these stories reach more women. To go deeper and to start shaping your 2026 vision, visit balanceinstitute.com. See you next time.