I Thought I'd Have to Dance in a Sparkly Jumpsuit (Jo Moment)

I force myself to be visible for 30 days and discover three tough truths that change how I think about posting online. I stop chasing gold stars, lean into raw human content, and realise the fastest path forward is consistency, not perfection. 

• admitting the real reason I hide from certain platforms and what judgement fear looks like in practice 
• dropping microtracking and refusing to let likes and impressions define success 
• noticing how unpredictable algorithms are and why “hacks” distract from the work 
• shifting to holistic trends and a success measure I can control 
• learning that raw posts outperform polished ones because people want real 
• stopping the endless prep cycle and choosing action over gear and research 
• remembering most people scroll on and judge far less than I think 

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. 

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.

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Transcript

Stop Letting Metrics Define Success

Raw Beats Polished Every Time

Stop Preparing And Start Posting

Consistency Over Perfection

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Jo Stone (Host) 0:28

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. I forced myself to be visible for 30 days, and I learned three key things. None of them were what I expected. I've been posting regularly on LinkedIn for a while, but there's one platform I avoided like the plague. Actually, let's be fair, I didn't avoid it. I hid. I told myself that Instagram was not my place. It was too performative. I'd have to start dancing down the street in a sparkly jumpsuit with a feather boa. The thought of that and all the content creators, it made me cringe. So what I did is I hid behind a somewhat curated brand. Let the team handle it. Let's be consistent with color schemes and logos and all that. It all sounded logical. But the really hard truth was, I was scared. I could be visible on LinkedIn because I felt like that was my place. But on other platforms, I was scared of judgment. I was scared of getting it wrong, scared of looking like all the people I judged who were filming themselves walking down the street and posing and doing this and doing that and looking at their best angles. So I said no for a really, really long time. But I'm at a different phase now. I need to grow beyond my current ecosystem. I have this beautiful, intensely loyal group of women and I want more of them. So staying where I was isn't any longer an option. So I gave myself 30 days. Show up, be visible, and see what happens. So here's the very tough truths that I learned. And if you were considering being visible, whether it's on Instagram, LinkedIn, in your network, any platform, then you need to know these now because I promise this is going to save you so much heartache, so much angst. And ironically, it's going to get you better results. So the first thing I had to learn the hard way, and this is really hard as a high achiever who loves gold stars, is put down the metrics. I love a good metric. I love a good ROI. If I'm doing something I want to know, is it getting me the results? But it's really easy to be lured in by the numbers. Downloads, impressions, engagement, all these platforms have different ones, likes, shares. What I found is I would put hours into a post. I'd make sure it was valuable, strategic, well thought out, and it would tank. And then I'd chuck up something with no thought, never even spell check it, and it would blow up with 1.6 million views. This happened to me last year on LinkedIn. I literally spent three minutes writing a post. I was in the middle of a rage. I picked an old photo, no filter, no nothing, and hit go. And when I posted and ghosted, left the platform straight away. That was meant to mean that it wouldn't go anywhere. Well, the algorithms make no sense. And anybody who says I've hacked the algorithm and do this and do that, to me, it's just a complete waste of time because it's so easy for us to get consumed by all of that. So I stopped microtracking. I started looking at more holistic trends over time, looking at content trends or topic trends. And then everything shifted. Ultimately, I had to create a different measure of success. Not gold stars, not likes, not oh wow, this person who's really important like my post. No, am I showing up consistently? That was the unlock. Move the goalpost to something that's achievable, that's within my control. And surprise, surprise, I was able to get there. The second lesson, which is really hard as a recovering perfectionist, is that the posts that performed weren't the ones that I labored over. They were always the raw ones. The ones with the crappy photo, the ones that I recorded in the car, where I said just the thing and didn't give a stuff about what anyone else thought. The more me I was, the better they did. And that's really hard because it's so tempting for us to want to gloss and polish. And well, let me put a filter on that. Or let me just, can I, can I do something with that? But people don't follow me for perfect content. They want to see the wrinkles, the bags under the eyes, the hair in a ponytail, the wearing a daggy t-shirt. But seeing how much the rawness and the human did was a different level of permission that I didn't really know that I needed. Now, this last one, you're probably already doing this. I was spending a lot of time getting ready to be more visible. So you've got to stop doing that and just damn start. I spent a long time feeling into Instagram. I spent a lot of time researching, buying little$27 things. I bought new mics. I thought I need better lighting. I need some content pillars. And all of that really makes strategic sense. And that is where it's easy to get sucked in. Well, it does make sense if I'm going to talk about things to make sure they align with my brand and where I'm going in my ideal client. The only way to get better on a bike is to get on the dare bike. The same thing applies here. You have to realize that other people reading, watching, listening to your content, they don't care. They don't even remember. You might, but everyone just keeps scrolling. If I was to interrupt you, mid say Instagram session or Facebook or whatever your preferred platform is and say, what post did you see 10 ago? They're gonna have no idea. If you have something powerful to say, say it. Release the judgment because yours is louder than theirs will ever be. So spoiler alert, visibility isn't about being perfect. It's about being consistent and being real. You have something to say, people are interested, but they're judging you way less than you think. The women, your audience who resonate with you don't need you polished. They need you being you. So stop getting ready and just start. 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.