Speed Was My Advantage. Now It’s My Kryptonite. It’s Becoming Yours Too (Jo Moment)

Before you blink and 2026 is already underway, join our January 23rd workshop to uncover the unconscious rules shaping your work and redesign how you lead, respond, and create space in your career: www.balanceinstitute.com/rules 

We explore how speed becomes a nervous system rule that feels like safety, why AI amplifies it, and what it costs when pace outruns capacity. We share practical ways to upgrade the rule so you keep your edge without burning out or abandoning yourself.

• speed as competitive advantage and hidden safety rule
• the anxiety of slowing down and earning rest
• AI as productivity amplifier and risk to nervous system limits
• signs of dysfunction including numbness, irritability and hollow wins
• habit of slowing for others while abandoning ourselves
• the dream metaphor of leaving without our shoes
• the upgrade: keep speed, remove it as the dominant rule
• practical shifts to build safety beyond pace

“I'm unpacking these rule upgrades in my free workshop starting January 23rd. Help you build safety in places other than speed and create the space and agency so many women are craving.”

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

Transcript

Welcome And Intention

Jo Stone (Host) 0:04

Welcome to Balance and Beyond Moments, your weekly dose of insight, wisdom, and mindset shifts, all in 10 minutes or less. Whether it's a powerful truth, a fresh perspective, or a spark of inspiration, this is your space to pause, reflect, and reset. Let's dive in. If you've ever been praised for how much you can get done in a day, if speed has always been your edge, and lately you feel like the roadrunner who can't stop, this moment is for you. I've always believed that my competitive advantage was speed. I could think faster, decide faster, execute, read, work, you name it, even brush my teeth faster than anyone else. And I hand on heart believe that that made a big difference early on in my career because I could churn stuff out and produce at a much faster rate. Not to mention my perfectionist meant that I was executing at a much higher standard. That speed got rewarded with accolades and momentum, opportunity and advancement. But what I didn't realize at the time was my nervous system started equating that speed and pace with safety. By this I mean moving fast got me rewarded. It kept me safe. And it didn't just feel productive, it felt protective. The rule I'd created in my body, mind, and spirit was if I move fast, I'm safe. And I mentioned earlier brushing teeth. I found that I would walk fast, I would type fast, I used to talk fast. It was like I was outrunning a ticking clock, counting down to something I don't know what. But there was this deep internal sense that if I slowed down, I'd miss something, whether it was an opportunity or I wouldn't be as relevant, I'd lose momentum or the greatest fear. What if I become average? Because it was impossible for me to slow down because my nervous system literally wouldn't let me. And let's be honest, if I tried to slow down, I would try to slow down while still being productive. And how can I slow down and be fast while I'm slowing down? Because we've all heard slow down to speed up. So, all right, I'll do it, but only if there's a payoff at the end. When you do try to slow down, when you have this deep rule embedded in your system, is you have to earn your rest. It doesn't come naturally. It takes a lot of permission and negotiation. The stillness inside your environment or your head starts to create anxiety instead of relief because you always wonder what you've missed or you're not doing something. And so, of course, if your system is threatened in this way, it's going to push you straight back into motion. And hence this cycle of insane levels of busyness and exhaustion that so many women sit in. Now, here's what I'm noticing with AI is it is playing directly into this wiring. What do I mean? I mean AI gets you even faster output, faster thinking, faster execution than you could ever do previously. It gives your nervous system a hit. It's almost like productivity crack for your soul. And the story you already have is if I'm fast, if I'm going at speed and pace, I'm safe. So now AI makes you more valuable because you get to go even faster. But the challenge is, we all know that there's a limit to how fast a nervous system can actually run before it breaks down and how long it will chase a very undefined and never-ending finish line without some form of negative consequences. Here are some signs that I've been through myself that you're past the edge of where this nervous system pattern is tipping over into being dysfunctional for you. If you find yourself exhausted, that no amount of rest or holidays ever fixes. If you can't ever really switch off, I don't mean sit on the couch and watch Netflix because you're exhausted. I mean the fact that you're still scrolling, you're still feeding your brain something. This constant need to earn your rest, to have done enough, to have the kitchen bench clean before you'll sit down. And beyond some of these behaviors, other more subtler signs that you may not have realized are there is a deep numbness, whether it's an inability to feel joy or just a general meh at everything, no matter what it is. You don't laugh as much as you used to anymore. You're more irritable. And there's this quiet lack of fulfillment that even if you reach a goal, you get something you've always wanted. You go, ah, that was nice. There's no joy or gratitude or appreciation for it in the moment. These signs are everywhere in high-achieving women right now. Here's a nuance, though, that we tend to miss. And this is what I see in myself and clients all the time is that we're actually very good at slowing down for other people, considering what are their needs, what's their timing, doesn't work for you right now, or come right back. How do we make them more comfortable or them more emotionally regulated? And then in order to do that, we abandon ourselves immediately. This showed up for me in a dream recently, which is often a way that my nervous system communicates with me. In this dream, I was very intentional about taking my shoes off before entering a shop. Now I've just come back from Asia, so it's probably a bit of recent environmental context in here. That's a metaphor for I'm very careful, respectful, and conscious about how I enter spaces. I'll think about what's the right timing, how can I do this? What am I here for? What's my strategy? But in this dream, when I left the shop, I ran out without putting my shoes back on. And then later realized I didn't have my shoes and had to go back for them. I moved on without picking myself up. I took care of the space and I forgot myself. And this is the real cost that we see of speed and pace, which is only now being accelerated. We move on so quickly that we leave ourselves behind. Our needs, our desires, our processing, our integration. Speed doesn't just move us forward onto the next task or behavior. The dark side is it actually separates us from ourselves. This is part of the way we end up feeling so empty and unfulfilled, is we're not actually whole anymore. So in 2026, I'm not removing speed. I'm removing speed as the dominant rule, essentially upgrading my operating model where I no longer abandon myself for the momentum or the tasks that I want to achieve. This year, I'm going to learn to pick up my shoes as I exit the shop from my dream and come with myself. So, speed as a proxy for safety is very much part of the old operating system. And if you are not careful, AI is going to pour rocket fuel on that. And you are going to find yourself so sped up that you don't know what happened. It worked and now it doesn't. If you want to succeed in 2026 and actually find the headspace, the fulfillment, the joy, and importantly not burning out that you're after, this is a rule that you must upgrade. If this landed and you can feel the world speeding up around you, I'm unpacking these rule upgrades in my free workshop starting January 23rd. Help you build safety in places other than speed and create the space and agency so many women are craving. Hope to see you there. Thanks for taking this moment for yourself. 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. See you next time.