Balance & Beyond Podcast

For ambitious women who've given their all to corporate life, 'quiet quitting' isn't the lazy retreat it's made out to be - it's a revolutionary act of self-preservation.

After years of answering emails at 3 AM, giving 150% to everything, and carrying everyone else's emotional burdens, many high-achieving women are discovering an emptiness that signals they're finally done operating this way.

The breaking point comes differently for everyone. Sometimes it's fighting tooth and nail for a deserved bonus only to be denied because of factors beyond your control. Other times, it's being blamed for someone else's incompetence despite your impeccable standards. Whatever the catalyst, that moment when you declare "I'm done with the bullshit" becomes transformative. The beauty is that you don't have to blow everything up—instead, you simply stop letting work bleed you dry.

This revolutionary approach means taking lunch breaks, clocking off when the day ends, and recognizing that most "emergencies" can wait until tomorrow. It means detaching from workplace politics and acknowledging how much energy you've wasted on projects that ultimately never mattered. By building boundaries that protect your peace, your health, and your relationships, you're not giving up on ambition—you're evolving it. You're creating a sustainable way to lead on your own terms while recovering that spark you thought was lost. What if quiet quitting isn't failure at all, but the wisdom to save something in the tank for yourself and those who truly matter in your life?

Subscribe now to join our community of ambitious women who are redefining success on their own terms. Your revolution awaits.

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…

Jo (00:19.982)

Quiet quitting isn't laziness. It's liberation. And for women at the top, it might just be the silent revolution that saves you from burnout. That's right, you have probably heard of the term quiet quitting. But any time you hear it, it's associated with slacking off, checking out, rather than having the guts to quit, you just quietly slink away and stop doing anything that matters.

But the reality is, I'm seeing this beautiful trend for senior and ambitious women where it looks different. It looks like no longer answering emails at 3 a.m. when you happen to wake up, stopping the habit of giving 150 % to everything, choosing to detach and not be, choosing to detach from the politics that used to consume you.

But what's really interesting is it's not out of laziness that these women are quite quitting. It's actually from emptiness. They have spent so many years selling their soul to the corporate machine and they've realized that it's still not enough. And that emptiness they're feeling can be the signal that they're finally done. They are finally done operating this way and they're ready to find something different. Why is this happening?

There are years and years of caring themselves raw, of being overlooked, of being mansplained, used as the office sponge, the one who has to carry everybody else's emotional shit. So many women are living one sick parent or child's diagnosis away from collapse. Life is on such a nice edge and they are spending so much energy trying to control everything that it's not going to take much for them to tip over.

And that tip over could look like complete and utter burnout, but in most cases, it's just this continuing numbness, this horrible feeling of going through the motions, being a machine, but in reality, not really having any fulfillment or joy. And what is life worth living for if that is how you have to show up?

Jo (02:42.434)

And for many women that's become the reality. I am loving seeing this trend. I have seen so many clients lately that have just hit this wall and it's hitting a I'm just done with the bullshit wall. I had a client who was giving up weekends, constantly lurching from one crisis to another, 6 a.m. meetings with New York. And then when it came for bonus time recently, she had to fight tooth and nail to get what she knew she deserved. And she turned around and said to her boss, are you kidding me? How dare you try to deny me my bonus when I have done all of this. I have achieved all of this. I've achieved every metric and more you set out to. But the argument was, well, you your department's done well, but overall, you know, the economic situation, the company has a middle criteria.

And she just turned around and went, my God, I worked my ass off to ensure that my division met its targets and was profitable. And here I am being punished because those other schmucks over there couldn't pull their finger out and actually lead properly. She came to me and she's like, that's it Joe. I'm done. I am not putting up with this anymore. I've got my own plenty of experiences of being thrown under the bus. I still remember one time I came out of a meeting.

It's like, right, that's it. I was blamed for someone else's incompetence, which is just, someone where integrity is at the height of my core and who I am, being told that I was wrong, being told that I had, I was being mischievous, just cut me to my core. We can sustain more than most. I took it for so long.

Until that was the straw that broke the camel's back. And on the surface, it was just another meeting. This is another bus throwing incident. Like I had multiple every week, another multiple fire. But eventually it's like your nervous system just goes, that's it. That turning point doesn't always have to be dramatic. Sometimes it's just that internal, right? I'm not doing this. 

Jo (05:06.004)

And what I love, is that it takes women from being in a position of burnout, giving everything and doing so much and proving themselves and just going above and beyond constantly to boundary setting. And this is a moment where you decide, well, some do make this choice, but most don't, not to blow it all up, but to just let it stop bleeding you dry. There's a big difference.

For many women, they don't necessarily want to leave their job right now. They might not feel secure enough to blow everything up and walk away as much as they might like to. And so instead, there becomes this right. I am going to actually embrace this trend, whether they know it's what they're doing or not, but it becomes the smartest thing that you could ever do.

Because when you decide to quiet quit, it means you're going to take a lunch break. my gosh. I know right. A lunch break. Can you imagine taking a lunch break? You're going to clock off when the day ends and say, you know what? That thing can wait for tomorrow. We're not saving lives. Getting back that, you know, one slide for your deck is not going to make or break. Meanwhile, I'm going to have dinner with my family and go to bed at a reasonable hour.

And this quiet quitting trend is also women beginning to recognize how much of the energy is wasted on shit that never mattered. All it takes is for you to be involved in either a restructure or an acquisition or a buyout where you turn around and see something that you spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on left to rot on the vine.

And that's when you turn around and go, Why am I doing this to myself? Nobody else is asking me to put in 150%. No one else is asking me to work on the weekends. And so often for women, they're not being asked to put in as much as they are. It's this internal drive. And yes, it's noble and honorable that we have high standards and we produce high quality of work. And yes, you believe it's what your reputation has been built on.

Jo (07:32.046)

To a point. Eventually, the cost of leaning in too hard to this under-promising and over-delivering and having really high standards and surprising people because no one else could do the impossible but you managed to pull a rabbit out of hat. Well, in reality, that rabbit out of a hat was you just working all weekend and not seeing your family. What's the point? What is the point?

I don't want everyone to become disillusioned. I don't want you to lose your drive and your ambition, but I do want you to check yourself and realize if your current ways of working are not sustainable. And so many of you know that we hear this on the phone every single day. Yeah, Joe, I know I can't keep going like this. When I think about it, I've been going like this for decades, but something now is giving. Maybe it's your health, maybe it's your relationships, maybe.

It's how you interact with the kids. You turn around and say, enough. I am not doing this anymore. When you decide that's it, everything changes. You are going to find more joy right where you are. You build boundaries that protect you. Boundaries that protect your peace, your body, your nourishment, your relationships.

And you stop giving everything to this machine that will likely spit you out at some point and give you nothing to show for it. Building the right habits now by in effect quiet quitting, which is really just putting up boundaries and building a new leadership operating system is going to ensure that if you are numb, if life feels hollow, if this isn't the right job or culture for you, use this opportunity right now to build a new way of operating and show up differently.

By detaching from the politics, the fires, the meetings people are making of things, all the internal crap that's going on in your head, this becomes a doorway for renewal. It becomes a new way for you to show up and yes, give your best.

Jo (09:59.756)

It doesn't mean perfect by the way, give your best while you're there. However, save something in the tank for everyone else. And most importantly, for yourself. If you build this new way of operating with boundaries, with nourishment, with purpose, it will mean that if it is time for you to move on and maybe you are looking for a new role or you're waiting for the right thing to find you, you're going to step into that new opportunity with great habits, with great boundaries.

And you've practiced them in a place where you know the lay of the land, you know who everybody is, you know what actually matters. And that can sometimes make holding our boundaries tricky when you've been the yes person, when you've been the get shit done person, suddenly saying no is gonna get a reaction. But that's okay, because you're strong. And when you've got this internal drive that, right, I'm not giving any more to this place than I have to.

Then you can walk that really fine line of still staying engaged. But when it is done from that, right, I've had enough energy. That can be the momentum you need to hold those boundaries to spur you forward. What you're going to notice is your energy in time may start to shift. And while you may feel that your current job is sucking the life out of you.

When you quiet quit and see this as your next revolution, then it's going to become your evolution. And this means you might find that the job isn't that bad after all. So what if quiet quitting isn't a failure for you? What if this is wisdom? And maybe this isn't the end of your ambition at all.

Maybe it's the beginning of finally leading on your own terms and it's going to help you recover that spark that you thought you'd lost.