Why You Can Manage 1,000 People But Lose It Over a Lunchbox

You can run a team, lead through crisis, and keep a brave face all day then come undone over a lunchbox, socks, or a towel on the floor. We call it the “duck on a pond”: polished and capable on the surface, frantic paddling underneath. If that’s you, you’re not failing at life, you’re running on empty, and home is where the mask finally drops.

Joe is joined by coach Sabina to get honest about why high-achieving women so often give work the best of their energy and leave family with the scraps. We dig into the real drivers behind burnout and emotional blow-ups: the split between your professional persona and your personal self, the guilt and shame spiral that follows, and the “proving energy” that keeps your brain in constant overdrive. Think imposter syndrome, second-guessing, planning for every scenario, and trying to stay on top of everything, even when your actual to-do list hasn’t changed.

We also tackle the moment many women hit: “You don’t understand my job, there’s nothing I can do.” Sabina shares why that’s the exact cue to stop, not sprint, and how reflection, boundaries, and the right support can help you become calmer, more focused, and more present at home without automatically quitting your role. The payoff is real: better relationships, new memories, and a return to feeling like yourself.

If this resonates, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s paddling hard under the water, and leave a review so more women can find a better way forward.

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 To Balance And Beyond

0:04

Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for women who've outgrown the old model of success. The ones who look fine on the outside but know the way they've been living no longer fits. If you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming, this is for you. Honour the space you've created today. Let's dive in. The Duck on a Pond. An increasing trend we're seeing amongst women we work with who are holding it all together, cool, calm, collected on the outside, and underneath paddling like crazy and losing their shit. I'm joined today by the wonderful coach Sabina to talk about what is going on here with these two parts of ourselves. Welcome, Sabina. Hi, Joe. Lovely

The Duck On A Pond

0:53

to be here with you again. So tell me, Sabina, so many women are ducks on a pond, and with everything happening in the world, it feels like the paddling is getting faster. What are we seeing happen where women are spending so much energy holding it together at work and then perhaps paddling like crazy, but losing their shit on the people that they in theory love the most? What's going on here? Yeah, gosh, I don't know any woman who is running, you know, the show at home and also perhaps running a team or in a really busy job at work that can't identify demands are higher, right? So there is an increased expectation and pace at work. And particularly for the women that are, you know, parents, there there are a lot of demands of our kids these days, and they expect a lot from their parents as well. So to really simplify it, there is so much expectation at work that the women that we work with are often finding that they are going to work with their tanks empty. They are overriding the capacity that they have in their tank, performing at a really high standard, but maybe feeling like they're not. But the fact is they're performing at a really high standard. And then by the time they get home, they've run themselves into overdrive where there's literally nothing left in the tank. And then suddenly the smallest thing will trigger them. And then, you know, there's tears or there's shouting or there's yelling. And then, you know, home life is often the one to suffer because we wouldn't dare let work down. What happens, Sabina, when you mentioned we get triggered at home? I had a client recently say to me, Joe, I've just managed a 1,000-person restructure and I was in a puddle of tears over a lunchbox. Why is it that those seemingly innocuous situations that we should be able to handle should be the keyword

Why Home Gets The Meltdown

3:06

here? Why can they be the things that make us completely lose it? Whether it's anger or puddles, socks, cupcakes, lunchboxes, you know, taking the dog for a walk. What's going on here? Yeah, and it's often the most nonsensical, illogical thing that tips you over the edge. And that's the point. That's the point, right? It's because we've used so much of our brain power and expertise and professionalism and given everything and some at work, it comes back to what I said. There's literally nothing left in the tank at home. So the apparently most silly thing will just cause a meltdown of sorts because it's just one thing too much to deal with. And can't somebody else just step in or not ask anything of me? Because I know I've got to get up and show up and be professional all over again and deal with whatever crisis seems to hit me at work. And so there's this sense of when does the cycle finish? When does it finish? And at home, you know, you don't have to wear the mask and pretend that you've got your shit together. So um, unfortunately, it's often the lunchboxes or the socks or the pile of you know, the dirty sink that can that can be the hairline trigger to, you know, cause a bit of friction. I love that said very diplomatically. Meanwhile, the amount of people I know that are like causing World War III over a dirty towel on a bathroom floor is extraordinary. Yeah. Not not speaking from experience over here, Sabina. Um, no, no, no, no dirty towels on the floor of this family. No. So if we're these ducks on a pond, what has to shift? Let's talk about what has to shift at work and perhaps what has to shift at home. And maybe there's another layer here, what has to shift within ourselves so that we aren't living on such a knife's edge and just feeling like we're perpetually paddling faster against the current. Yeah, good question. I think it really comes down to taking

Closing The Work And Home Split

5:18

a moment to reflect and go, who am I? Is there really a difference between who I am professionally and who I am personally? And on the surface, yes, of course, there's a huge difference, right? There really is. But really, when all said and done, you are the same person, you are the same woman that gets up and interacts with yourself, and you're the same person that walks into the office or logs onto your computer. We have professional attributes and we have personal attributes that are displayed through the things that we do, but you are essentially the same person. And this paddling or this friction comes from when there is a split between putting so much energy that kind of feels unconscious, but so much energy into the professional persona of yourself that it's eating into the energy reserves that you have to be your best self at home personally. So it's almost like you're giving 150% of yourself, you know, at work, and then there's 50% left at home. But instead of being either professional or personal, what if you were to level out the playing field a little bit more and just dial back some of the expectation that you put on yourself at work in order to be more fully resourced and yourself at home? So that there's not this, I don't know why I'm saying this, I'm gonna say it, Jekyll and Hyde. It shouldn't be Jekyll and Hyde, but I'm just I'm trying to draw the, you know, the analogy of how can we be so switched on at work and then a hot mess sometimes at home, and then oftentimes not liking yourself very much for it, right? That's that's the truth. These are some of the conversations that we have with our clients that they're not really liking themselves that much because that's not who they want to be. And then, cue the guilt and the shame, and I yelled at the kids and I kicked the dog, and oh my god, my family's not getting the best of me, and then they spiral, and then it just gets even worse, doesn't it? Because that takes so much energy. Instead of thinking of yourself as having these two aspects, obviously we're multidimensional, but how can you bring more of yourself into balance, right? So that there's less energy expenditure in one area at the cost of, say, your personal life. So let's talk then, Sabina. You mentioned something in there around these attributes that we're putting 150% into work. I'm curious your perspective that a huge amount of energy that women are putting into work is not actually the doing of the task itself. It's all the mental gymnastics or the holding or the carrying or the anticipating

The Hidden Cost Of Proving

8:12

that goes on around the actual tasks. Can you shed some more on where this extra energy is going that perhaps is not as efficient as it could be? I think that's true to a certain extent, but I would also go so far as to say that while the women we work with aren't necessarily doing a lot of the heavy lifting at work, like they've moved through that in their career and they're doing less, they're probably still, well, we know that they're still doing things that they shouldn't be doing, let's face it. And part of what we coach people on is to recognize, is to actually catch yourself and recognize, oh, I'm doing too much. But to speak to your point, the the mental gymnastics that go on, that is often a sign of just not taking enough time to reboot and recharge and reset outside of work so that you can come back into work clearer, sharper, more focused, thinking more strategically, being a bit more laser-like. So when there is a lot of mental chatter, umpteen to-do lists, and thinking about hypotheticals and scenarios, that's that's really a cue. You're not rebooting the engine enough. I don't know. What would you say to that, Joe? What are you seeing? When you're coming into work depleted, you're never going to be able to make fast decisions. You're not going to be able to focus. You're going to be like a squirrel who's like, oh, that's urgent and that's urgent and that's urgent. But I also think a lot of that is driven by that need to prove that I've earned my spot or that I've got my spot at the table. And you second guess your own decisions because I have to be on top of everything. I have to be on top of my inbox and I have to know all the information. I have to be prepped for every question that I might be asked in the meeting, which is really a whole lot of proving energy. Prove that I'm worth it, that I'm smart enough, that I deserve what I've got. Imposter syndrome is another way that people could phrase this that churns so much energy. And when you strip it all back, that's what we find with so many clients that come through Balance and Beyond, is that their to-do list and their tasks haven't changed. But the mental energy and the weight that they put into those tasks, when they can put down the proving and they put down the second guessing, it becomes so much lighter. So it's this more internally felt change of managing what's happening under the water of their duck, as opposed to thinking that the answer is always outside and less lists. And it'll be better when I get more staff. It'll be better when insert excuse circumstance here. Yeah, that's right. And that mental noise and that proving energy means that effectively you've got too many tabs open in your brain because you're planning for eventuality one, two, three, twenty six, twenty eight, and three hundred and two. Um, so there's there's so many tabs, it actually becomes ridiculous and nonsensical and non-strategic, frankly, but you think you're doing the right thing. To speak to our programme, Balance and Beyond, what we teach clients to do is to understand that this is not just a mental gymnastics issue going on. You also need to look at your beliefs, like what is driving your need to prove yourself. How are you feeling emotionally? How are you feeling physically? Right? We often try and fight fire with fire, as in thoughts and worries with more thoughts and worries. Hint, that doesn't work. Um spoiler alert! Spoiler alert. Um so it's just it's really about again coming back to how do we how do we close the gap between our professional selves and our personal selves? And how can we make friends with each other, as it were, so that uh so that you realize that more balance across both areas of your life ultimately helps you to be a better person at home and also a more effective person at work. What would you say to someone who goes, that's fine for you to say Sabina, but you don't understand my job. I've got X many team, I'm in this industry, I've got a global role, the hours demand this, there's just nothing I can do. So the only choice I have is I've got to quit my job, I've got to go part-time, that there's no way for me to rob Peter and pay Paul. What do you say to someone who's there feeling guilty, yelling

Stop The Runaway Train

12:52

at the kids, doing all the things, and just feels completely trapped in their current circumstance? Yeah. Um, well, first of all, I would say I've been there, you know, as an ex-global human resources manager. I've experienced that myself. I've also coached hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of women. Um, I know that scenario well, both in the workplace, in in corporate, but also coaching private clients. That that is a cue for you to stop, right? So when we feel like we're on a runaway train, the impetus is to move faster, to get through your to-do list quicker, to try and get things done to be able to have space. But actually, that is really calling you to stop. What you are doing is not working, right? I do understand what it is to have a complex team globally, across time zones, to be a mum, etc. etc. etc. I do understand. I don't understand every person's individual situation, of course not, because I don't know what goes on behind closed doors. But we have coached so many hundreds of women between us that we know what's possible. For some people, they do need to leave their jobs. For some people, they need to use some other strategies to be more effective at work to suddenly fall in love with their role again. It might be something entirely different, but what is true of everyone is that if you keep running and hustling and lurching from one day to afternoon to evening to another morning, six months later, another quarter later, if you keep on running and lurching, nothing's going to change. You do have to stop and make a decision. This is not working for me. I need to do something different. I can either convince myself that no one understands and I've just got to carry on, which by the way is a little bit of martyr mentality, right? Um, it is a cue to go, okay, it's not working, and I need to do something different, and this is the work that we do, right? And everybody's journey is different, and yet there are some key similarities that we know really, really work and really, really make a difference so that you don't have to leave your job unless that is the right thing for you to do. You don't have to ditch your kids and leave them on the highway somewhere just to get a bit of respite. Although sometimes we might want to do that. Shh, don't say me. I love my children, I love my children, I love my children. What I do know is when I became very, very present and honest with myself and my patents and what was and wasn't working for me and what was important to me, everything improved. But I had to get up close and personal with what's not working and what do I want instead and what am I prepared to do about it. And all of my relationships, including the one with myself, have benefited from doing that reflection and work. I love that example, Sabina, that we we think the answers to outrun it, but that's just the trap that we find ourselves in. And so it's counterintuitive, but that is the response, right? To stop, to decide that there has to be a better way, and then to look for the right support, that the right guides find you at the right time that you need them, that can hold your hand and go, hey, blind spot here. Here's another way to do this. And then what we love, one of the favorite things

Presence And Repair At Home

16:42

we get to see on the other side of this is that that price that people feel they're paying, where their home life and their personal life is the thing that suffers, that is where things can recover so quickly that it's never too late to repair a relationship. It's never too late to make new memories with people if you feel that you haven't been present. So, isn't that one of the best things that we do is when we hear about people a random Tuesday where suddenly they're actually present at dinner and notice that their child's laugh has changed, or they look at their partner differently and go, wow, I've I didn't realize that that thing had appeared because they've been in their life running really fast, but not actually present in it. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's super common. It's just racing through everything, and what gets to shift is becoming more present and more connected, and both and all aspects of your life can start to change, but you do have to be willing to stop and do something different for that to happen. So to all the ducks who are out there, we see you, we've been you, and the flock has a different path out. So thanks for joining me today, Sabina. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for having me. All right, and uh to your flock, you know where to find us if you want that help. Talk soon.

A New Path For The Flock

18:15

I'll see you next time.