Balance & Beyond Podcast

What would you regret more: staying where life feels predictable or choosing a path that feels alive?

We sit down with former executive, best-selling author, and master coach Lisa Toste to unpack how she moved her family from Canada to a volcanic island in the Azores and redesigned work, health, and identity without abandoning ambition. This isn’t a fantasy montage. It’s a practical, warm, and funny roadmap for anyone who senses “there has to be more” but worries about the how.

Lisa shares the question that changed everything—what legacy do I want to live—and how she reframed risk by measuring regret, not just comfort. We explore the gritty middle: documents, language slip-ups, and rebuilding community. You’ll hear how she protected a fragile dream from “candle blowers,” curated inputs, and treated mindset like a daily practice using music, visuals, and sensory rituals. Her approach blends project management with nervous system care, turning uncertainty into a training ground for resilience her teens could witness and own.

We go deep on letting go of the single path and clarifying the feeling instead: ocean air, slower meals, fresh food, and connection. That shift opened doors she couldn’t plan for—beachside schooling, a second language, and a food culture that supported health. Whether you’re considering a big move or a quiet pivot, you’ll leave with tools to listen to intuition, gain family buy-in, and design a life that mirrors blue zone habits and true values. Ready to choose aliveness over autopilot? Listen, share with a friend who needs courage today, and if it resonates, subscribe and leave a quick review so more women can find their own brave step.

And if you want to follow Lisa and her island life, subscribe to her Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@LisaToste

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 Stone (Host)

You are in for a treat. Today I'm joined by the great Lisa Toste, a woman who's been part of my journey for more than six years. A former executive, best-selling author, master coach, recently turned gardener and YouTuber, and of course my own personal coach for many of those years.

I'm now delighted to also call her a friend. This conversation is a little longer than usual, but it's packed with wisdom you can apply to your own life. If you've ever found yourself wondering, is this all there is? This episode is for you.

Welcome to Balance and Beyond, Lisa. I am ready for an entertaining conversation full of laughter. So, how does an executive coach who's living in Canada, who's worked on Wall Street for big companies, end up on a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic?

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Ah, you decide it's the perfect time to redesign your life differently. So, I'm living in the Azores, which is the Portuguese Islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, yes, with a volcanic island, and my husband, 22 years, and my two teenagers, the very sassy bulldog, all came with me.

So it's a bit more complex than it was just me coming along. I had to have a few other people decide it was the right thing for them. And there was a lot of things going on. So it had always been a bit of a dream. My family is from here, but everyone has gone over to Canada or the U.S. Like there was nobody here. I'm the first one to say coming back. We'll see if there's more coming.

But there was a lot of variables that were happening in the world. My children were becoming teenagers, and I was really thinking about their lives, their opportunities ahead. I was thinking about my husband asked me a great question one day. He said, Who are we gonna be when the children leave? And I thought that was like we I just love good questions.

And I was like, you know, A+ great question, because it's true when you get so like with the kids, you know, because you come together without the kids, and then you know, you morph a little bit with the kids. And he had a great conversation. I was like, that's a really great conversation because you know, being very interested in the children.

And then I really started about who I was aging, you know, how did I want to age? How are we going to be? And then I'm not even gonna pretend like the cost of living. There was like all of these variables came in to make this, you know, just so much happening. And I thought about what um I think this is good to do is go back in history and think about like what sacrifices or changes family members before you may have come.

And I thought about my grandparents and what they did to make the change, and it helped not make this as scary as it really was to think about. And yeah, put all the variables together, thought about the cost of living, thought about where we wanted to go, how we wanted to live, how we wanted to age, what I wanted available for the kids. And we started this journey, and it wasn't like overnight that it happened.

I know you get some Instagram reels, but that's not my story. It took a bit of time, and that time was a gift. I wanted everything quickly as we always do, but that that journey helped get the brain ready for all the changes that come when you uproot your life and completely live in a new place. That's a long answer, but I mean, that's the shortest I could give you.

Jo Stone (Host)

No, it's a great answer. It's a great answer. And so you're a one, somebody who loves, as you said, you love great questions. Who did you have to become on that journey? Because deciding to leave live leave life in one place and move somewhere else, particularly when it's across the world, is not an easy decision. It's like I want to move towns and go 10 minutes up the road. So I'm guessing there was a whole lot of identity shoes that had to happen as part of that journey.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

There was, there was for me, there were conversations like that between my husband and I. There was for my children who were teenagers moving, you know, moving into different identities just because of their chronological age.

So I needed to be the someone who was willing to be uncomfortable for a bigger purpose. Right? And because it's not like I my life wasn't, I was very grateful with the life I had, right? We had just actually moved into a house which we just declared, this is it.

So this had the big pool in the backyard, it's where the grandkids are gonna swim. I'm telling you, these were words I said. Like, this is where the grandkids were definitely not moving again for sure. You know, we laid some roots down. My husband was building stuff, like, you know, with like 25-year materials grade standard, like we were not moving, you know?

And then you get those ideas, you hear that little in awakening, that little voice that it just gets louder and louder, where it's like, "Are you sure this is it?" "You know that there's more available, like you know that there's more available than this." And it just got louder and louder, and I had to really think about it. And so the identity shift was like, "What's the legacy I want to live?"

And when I asked questions about the legacy I wanted to live, it wasn't, it's like, how did I want to be that dynamic in the family? I go back and I think about my grandparents a lot because they made big sacrifices to come to North America, and that changed everything for me. The education I got, the jobs I got, it was just big. And I thought, what is the thing I do for my family that's equally as big as what they did? That's a big question, you know? And there they have pictures all over my house.

Like, they really moved me because of the sacrifice they made. It, I had a different upbringing because of it. So I thought about what's the legacy I want to live. And for me, it was my children had some health problems. They're healthy but like things, and food made such a big difference for them, right? The quality of health.

And I had challenges with the health that was available, health care that was available, I would say. So, it got me down the rabbit hole thinking, "Alternative health." And then what's available with thinking, and with with my health and who I want to be, and how do I want to age and blue zone? You know what I mean? You go down like a health rev and you're like, "Rebels, here we go."

I'm not very good with dipping my toe in something, as you know Jo, right? Just cannonball into something, right? And so, the conversation was like, "I want to leave like a food legacy." I wanted to leave like kind of soil wet. I wanted to leave possibilities for generations ahead, and that meant I needed to change. Very honestly, I saw how I was okay, my life was predictable. And it was a good predictability. It's not like I was complaining about the life I had.

It's just, if I could future pace and go, "Here, 10 years looks like this, 15 years ..." Like, I could just, "This is what aging looks like." And it was in a cold climate, so I sat on my butt a lot indoors, because I didn't like the cold. Living here and understanding my roots ... it makes sense.

So, I realised my physicality, my body, my mind, my identity would have to be different to get the things I wanted. And that wasn't easy, because I thought like, "I had the whole plan." I was in the corporate world for a long time. So, you know, the whole like, "Back in the day, Freedom 55, is what they called it in Canada." You know what I mean? Like, I had the plans, and then I kind of just took the plans and went, "Nope, started all over again."

Jo Stone (Host)

How did you learn to listen to that voice? Because so many women listening to this podcast have that little voice inside them that says, but what if there's more? But what if you could quit the job as a lawyer and become a teacher or become a gardener, like you have? How did you learn to listen to that voice?

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Okay, I'll give you two answers. One, because I didn't listen to it sometimes. And you're like, "I kind of got some information there, you know, like I really genuinely can recall times where, I guess my language, it'll sound weird to others. But, reasonably obedient. You know, I listen to my intuition, I definitely do, but only because I remembered times where I really had that information, and I didn't listen to it.

And then life moved on, and it's not as a punishment, but I really started to fine-tune a sense of, "There's something that I have access to that is beyond my intelligence." It is beyond what I what I went to university for, whatever I learned. And that seems to be like the more magical, interesting part.

So, I think it's this walk I do - that we both do - between intelligence and the brain, which I love, and like knowing that there's something even bigger than that, and the combination of the two is really, really important. So to give you an answer, I looked at, you know, blue zones and how we wanted to live. And and one of my biggest questions, I mean, I have a bunch of mindset work that I do, but honestly, I could just supersede it by just going, "What would I regret more?"

But honestly, if you were like, "Make a quick decision in less than 30 seconds" that would be one of them. "What would you regret more?" And I didn't want to be like 75 going, "What would have happened if I had done this?" That I felt would have been harder than me, telling the story to myself going, "Okay so, I did this thing." At least I would have learned from that. At least I would have been able to check off some boxes in life. I felt there was more value in that than the regret, and what it would have cost me.

Jo Stone (Host)

Which is a really different way of looking at it, because you said you had this predictability and this certainty, and you've walked into a whole lot of mess, and a whole lot of chaos.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

And as you said, who I was in corporate, I was a person who loved a good project plan, who loved a senior project manager, I liked pretty Gantt charts.

Jo Stone (Host)

She loves it! How have you navigated that transition from certainty, control, security into, "No idea", navigating a new country, a new language, a whole new dynamic, new ways of doing business, new ways of learning? How have you stepped into that mess?

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Yeah, that's such a great question! I love that! My brain's given so many answers. So, we're gonna pick the first few that come up because it's like look, yeah, because it is all new. I want to first say how I navigate it is I've decided the emotional state I feel is aliveness. Because, that's what I've taken out my label maker. If I owned one, my personality is the opposite. I really love people who do label makers.

Like, I just think, "God, I want that skill set." "I don't have that." But I take it out and I put that on my state, because I could be overwhelmed and all these other things. I mean, there's so much change going on right now in all countries - Portugal, Canada - all of them are going through changes.

And as I navigate the next document we need, because there's a document, or the next thing I need to do, or going from someone who spoke on stage, speaks and feels comfortable in her communication skills to, "Just what's that conjugation?" Is that a masculine or feminine word? Like, as I'm navigating those things, it's very humbling.

And so, I think it's the story that I tell myself. And the story I tell myself is: 'I'm using parts of my brain that I wouldn't if I was in my predictable life." Do you know what I mean? This is what aliveness feels like. This is why I don't have time to age poorly. We've got stuff to do! You know what I mean?

What am I role-modeling to my kids is definitely resilience, which is different. Like, they're watching mom start again in a different way. And the way to move and navigate. There was something that was happening with just documents, as you will when you go to any different country. And I was telling my son, who's 18, I was like, "Watch Mum do this, because then you can do it for yourself." 

So, I'm just deciding, instead of labelling it all "negative" or "difficult" or "challenging", or like "frustrating", "What aspects of this story do I want to call out?" "What do I want to label it?" "What do I want to role model to my kids?" "What's the story I'm telling myself about why my brain is gonna age better?" or "Why is this better for me?" or "Why is this the right thing for keep our marriage alive together?" Like, do you know what I'm saying?

I think if you do these things, to really be a very strong author, because if you tell other people what you're going through, it bucks up against their belief systems. Like, "So you're asking me about belief systems?" And so I'm gonna kind-of take that question in a little direction, and say that, "You really only want to share your dreams with people who either can just hold them for you, and not necessarily have to believe in them, right?" Or be able to help you navigate your belief systems.

So, just to answer your question, when I was young in project management, I realised, dependencies and risk management, all those things with my department for a multi-million dollar businesses, globally, I did all those things, right? So, this would be a nightmare for the younger version of me.

Until I understood that there will always be things, there will always be risks, there will always be dependencies that fall through, there will always be things that don't work. That was my whole job when I was a senior project manager. Like, it was based on the fact that things weren't gonna go right! That's why they hired me all the time. I really understood then the best thing I can count on is me, right?

So, if I was the variable that I could depend upon, and I made that the most important thing, meaning, "What's the story I tell myself?" "What's the beliefs?" "Who do I surround myself with?" "How do I constantly groom my belief systems?" Like, "What am I making these things mean?" All those questions are mental hygiene for making big changes. That's one.

And the second thing, I definitely just want to add in is, and I don't think people do this a lot in self-development, or whatever that language we want to call it, is I sat in what would happen if I don't. So, I think people, and I understand this, it sits like, "What's the risks if I do?" And those are very easy. And you have a whole bunch of people help. Add a few more on.

"But what else can go wrong?" And here's my "else". You shouldn't change. Because if you change, that's gonna cause me to think, "Maybe I need to make some changes, and that's super uncomfortable." "So stay where you are." Those are chats I've had. I sat in,
"What happens if I don't?" "What are we role modelling to my kids?" What are we role modeling to our clients?" "What am I?" "What happens?" "Yeah, just what happens if I don't?" And then I put the two of them together. And then, this one didn't seem so scary, because this life started to actually feel more scary than this one.

Jo Stone (Host)

That whole, "Risks that you don't take."

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Yeah, the opportunity loss, right? Like the, "What happens if I don't do this?" "Am I gonna regret this?" "Am I going to?" Is that gonna be a: "I wish I would have?" "Do I role model that to my kids?" 'Who am I, as someone who's a coach?" If I'm just like, "Here's what you should do. But I'll just do that from the comfort of my armchair, and you go do the rest." You know what I mean? And I didn't plan for all these things to come from it and people to notice it. And I never thought anyone was gonna even visit me here.

Like, I moved here expecting that I would never have people visit me because it's. you know, a bit of a trek to get to the middle of the Atlantic ocean. And lots of visitors, lots of people coming, lots! Which was a huge surprise to me! So, that's the other upside of when you do change. It's what's easier to see, is what could go wrong.

What's harder to see is those unexpected, really unique little miracles, or people you meet, or things that happen that you, just it never would have occurred to me. I never ever would have thought these things would have happened, that have happened to me here. They weren't on my project plan, let's put it that way.

Jo Stone (Host)

Surprise and delight! How did you protect this dream you had? Because, I remember you and I are very alike. I would say you were probably the most alike person to me that I've ever met, in terms of belief systems, personality, the whole thing.

Even when you said it to me, I was like, "whoa, okay, okay!" "This is out there, even for Lisa." 'This is really out there!" And then I was like, "Okay, well, if anyone's gonna do it, Lisa's gonna do it!" How did you protect that little tiny spark of a possibility, when you would have had so many nay-sayers chucking the, "But what about, what are the kids?" "And then how did you hold that steady?" Because that's something, that so many women have lying dormant in them.

And I love it! Brene Brown calls them "Candle blower-outer-as." People that, you know, blow the candle from your birthday party. Because how did you handle the candle blower-outer-as?

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Yeah,  I'd say, two ways, and the latter one's a great conversation we can have! The first one is: I watched who I told. And I didn't tell many people until I decided. You know me, I'm not new to doing like big crazy things, right? I tell people what I'm doing more than I ask permission if they think I should do something. I'm not really good at getting lots of people's opinions, right?

I always tell my kids, "If the person's living the life that you want, or if they've helped people live the life you want, or you know what I mean?" Like, you can ask their advice. But I wouldn't just randomly, "Hey everybody, what do you think it is to move to volcanic island volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean?" "Yay, nay, what do you think?"

At 50, when we're all established, my husband's business is "physical." I'm just, "Yeah, no, nobody." "Not one person said it was a good idea, nobody." I had two people who were supporting me, but they knew the crazy of me. And, you know, I don't do crazy, I mean, just the willingness to look at new things. So that's one. But, the second part of how did I protect is I conditioned it like it was my full-time job, Jo. Like, we should have that chat, because of a few things I did.

So, YouTube was one of the things I did, right? Where I would watch people living versions of their life out there, whether they had left, or whether they were going. I watched about things that I wanted to try on for size, that way. And that was so helpful to see it, because I'm really visual. So to see versions of it, "Oh, I wouldn't do that, but I would do this," And I just got in this world of having conversations about it.

And then when I got a sense, I didn't know exactly what I wanted, because when I started this journey, I wasn't coming here per-se. I was just going to go to the mainland. This kind of morphed a little bit, as it is. This is where my family's from, this island. But I thought it was for my son, and anyways, other reasons where he is there now.

I would condition it. "I know I wanted to be near the ocean." So, I would do things like in the morning, I would get up and I would open my window, even though I lived in a very landlocked place. There was not water for I don't know how far, Jo. Far. Okay. And there would be snow, and I would open it up and I would close my eyes and I would smell the ocean. Sometimes it hurt my nose because it was like minus-whatever outside, you know what I mean?

But I was like, "There's the ocean." Okay, and "Now the whole backyard is a huge ocean." Like, it's this big ocean behind me. I would listen to music. And I think that gets a bad rap because people - I don't know - can take it different ways. But there really are ways where you can feel it. I just understood: "What did I want to feel?" Financially, what did I want to feel? Emotionally, what did I want to feel for my family? What did I want to feel for how I age?

I went down all the F's of what I wanted to feel you know, all the different states. And then I just started basking in them with the music, with the food. I would go to a Portuguese bakery and just sit there and be like, "Cool, here we go." "We're in Portugal, for the next half an hour, as we drink this coffee, we are in it." You know what I mean? Or we do little things that sound crazy, but it started to normalize things before I got there.

And then it's, you know, I thought, "What did the way I want our family to be more of?" I kind of have a very old-world heart around certain things. Like, coming over and eating, and I'm a big feeder, and stuff like that, you know? And so I started really doing a lot of those things ahead of time that normalized it. I guess that's the biggest thing because as long as you think it's this wild, crazy thing, you're less likely to do it.

But to me, for so many reasons, I bridged the gap between where I was, where I wanted to be. I realize this sounds "coachy", but I'm this is this is the thing that you just do. You know what I mean? And then you normalize it. You realise, "I'm not that far away."

Jo Stone (Host)

There's a whole stack of nervous system alignment pieces you've done in that process, too. Like you said, getting your "No". The smells, and the sights, and the being able to imagine it so that your nervous system goes, "Oh, yeah, this is what Portuguese coffee tastes like."  tastes like. And it's "coachy", but I love that you continue to coach yourself. When we become coaches, we don't just coach other people. We end up living and breathing this stuff.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Because it works. It really works. We need to do it all the time here with the changes and my daughter went to a school where she didn't speak English. There we go. I'm at the phase now where the English and the Portuguese, because they're blending, neither one's great sometimes. Just give me a second, I'll get on the right one. We're doing English here. 

She didn't speak any Portuguese, and she went to a full high school of Portuguese. And so, who she was being, her vision boards, her discussions about what's possible, the beliefs - all of that. And she's the reason we came here early. I should probably like to say this, because everyone thinks I dragged my family to some archipelago in the middle of the ocean. I didn't.

That's actually one thing I should say that's really important. This is my belief system. If you have a dream in your heart, I thought it was just my dream. This is the mistake I made. I thought this was just "Selfish Lisa's" dream, which really doesn't make sense. Because, you know me, and my family is very important to me. What I can tell you now is everyone else had a dream connected to this, we had a huge path connected to this. I was just the one who had the idea first.

I was just like, the Olympics with the torch bearer. Like, it was just me going, "You know, I think we have sons in this amazing school in Europe, that he would not have been in if we were in Canada." My daughter is has another language. She has this different way of schooling here, which is extraordinary, And I never thought it would be like that.

I guess that's another thing. Even the idea of entertaining a different way of life has you re-examine your current one differently. And even if you don't take action, you at least get to understand what's really working for you and what's not. And there were some things that before we had this idea, I thought, "Well, we've got a really great high standard for this." And we didn't. I just didn't have another comparison that would have taken me from my ordinary.

So - the short version with my daughter, really quick - and this is my psychology that shifted. We had sold the house, and that was predictable with economics. That's the other thing I like: economy stuff, right? So, there was a timing of marketplace. So, that helped. I'm not gonna pretend like that didn't. And then we were just going to stay in a house, and we bought a beautiful property here that we were gonna keep for a couple of years here. Like, this is what I was thinking.

That's how much I was willing to not disrupt my children, right? "We're just gonna change our lives this way, but stay in Canada when they're in university, maybe we'll make some changes." And then, one day, my daughter had something happen to her at school, and she just blurted out, "Mum, I just want to go, I want to go to school in the island instead of here." Which never would have occurred to me in a thousand years, right? I just wouldn't have even suggested that.

But, how that turned out is, I was here one day and I thought, "This life is so beautiful" as I'm doing paperwork. "This life is so beautiful", it's like it's slow, and someone of our personalities would think a slower lifestyle doesn't sound great at al. But it's a different lifestyle here. And I thought, "Well, I'll wait till it doesn't disrupt the children's lives." And then that idea occurred to me that we know so well, Jo.

I'm like, "Oh, look at me thinking I know how it has to be." "This is the one way it can happen, and it can only happen this way." Like, I know that's the death of any great dream, is to decide, "This is how it has to happen." That's like my project manager on the Gantt chart. This is our most reasonable dependencies in written. You know what I mean? Like this is the way.

I mean, I get that thinking, I did that for many years, but that's not where the magic tends to be all the time. So, I was walking right out of the path. And if if my neighbors would have seen me, I would have looked like another crazy person, smelling the ocean air, right? I had that idea, "Oh I've just decided the one how, the one way it can happen." I thought, "Here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna get out of the way."

So I looked, I moved to the side physically, you know, like I'm moving over a puddle that didn't exist. I'm like, "I'm just gonna get out of the way." Bring it in your physiology, right? So, again, "I'm just gonna get out of the way and let life decide the best way for everyone to get their needs." I'm not gonna pretend like I'm the project manager of like the universe because I am not. I haven't been a project manager for 10 years.

I just want it to feel a certain way. I want it to feel great for my kids. I want it to feel great. Like, I just had ways I wanted it to feel. I go back two weeks later, Jo. My daughter pops up with, "I want to go take a look at the school there." And I thought she was in a great school, and we'd put her in this place. So we come here, and I thought the education system was the best here. And I'm not going into the education system, but like, it's by a beach, Jo!, So, they get to go to the beach during lunch, okay? Let's just put it that way, okay? I'm not even talking about how they teach math, okay? I'm just going on basics and the foods.

The girls sit down and they eat a whole plate of - it looks like food grandma's made. Do you know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? Like marinated, like she sends me these pictures, and they sit for an hour and a half. They eat, they walk. It's just a different lifestyle that the kids had.

And like, I will say for anyone who's decided they can't do something, just see if you can take the how you think it has to be, and put it on the shelf just for a moment. Because my thinking of "how it had to be" would have robbed my daughter of a childhood I could have never dreamt for her. And that would have been me deciding "It has to be this way." And she was meant to be here way more than me, even. Really, and so is my son. It's crazy!

Jo Stone (Host)

Which is such an interesting pattern we have of trying to control everything. But, you also have to take the reins and light that torch and put it up high for everybody else to see, to say, "Hey guys, what do you think about this crazy idea?" So that they can all spark their own torches.

So there's this duality of, "You gotta let go of the how, but you also have to give your dream permission to spark, to flame, to come alive." So that you never know where that's gonna go. If you'd have buried yours, and not communicated it - unlikely because you're Lisa. But, you know, if you were gonna, if you had buried that within and wouldn't let it out, then as you said, you're also robbing others of that opportunity.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Yeah. And I had always had this on my heart and tried to do it many, many times, you know, the citizenship, all that paperwork, and stuff like that. And it was just at a point, and I'm so grateful. Like, I guess that's the point. I know I'm being repetitive here, but this is for anyone where  it may be easier for us to do things alone. But what I hear a lot of times is, "But I have kids", or "But I have this", or "There's other people I have to consider". But what if you're the one that's meant to go first?

Like I've been saying, I could never have dreamt that this was the right thing. Because, do you know how many people lined up to tell me all the horrors I was going to be doing to my kids by moving them? Ho ho ho, you know what I mean? So I had them also self-select. They chose it. My husband's the one who's just like, "You really need to go? Go check it out for us." "We need to do this." Like, he was the motivator for a lot of this, also. So, it wasn't me dragging him.

I built the story for both of the children. I had them come see and make decisions on what they wanted for them, so they felt in choice around this. And it's not that it doesn't make some things challenging, and everything's perfect, it's still messy in the middle. But we're writing our own story. And if you can empower people that way, and one of the ways you can do that, is understand the cost of staying still, because there is one.

We're just not used to people making changes like that. Or we weren't, because I think there's a lot of people making changes now in the world. But like normalising, "What are your value systems?" "Where do you want to live?" "What excites you?" "How do you want to age?" "Where do you want to be?" "How do you involve do you want to be in your food supply?" Like, just questions like that.

It's cool to rethink. I mean, especially at 50 or 40, any age. It makes you feel very young again, I would say. That's my experience. I definitely feel very young, at almost 53, because there's a newness to things.

Jo Stone (Host)

Yeah, I love the way you said the word "aliveness". That's such a brilliant emotional state to intentionally cultivate and find. So many women are stuck in overwhelmed, frantic, stressed. What a different life! But, you don't always have to move to an island in the Middle Atlantic to access aliveness.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

No, I don't think so.

Jo Stone (Host)

Lisa's like, but I highly recommend it.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Yeah, I mean, it's fun. It's fun! I had family roots here. So, me discovering my identity, and I always felt as half North American. So, I always had that when you talk about identity, and why that's very important to me, is I wanted to discover this part of me.

I really lived in a world without that part, and I want to get this part of me, and kind of going back and grabbing some childhood dreams and some part of my culture that's very familiar to me. Very, very familiar with my upbringing, but I didn't experience it the same way. So, I think that's important too.

And then having different goals. Like, if you have children, what's the big exciting thing you're doing when they leave? Even if that's 10 years from now, 15 years from now, because one of the things I see is: women age more than men, so much of it is like, "Who am I now?" And so, for me, I'm always like, "I'm about to be 53 in 2026." But I'm already telling the story.

So if you ask me how old are you, I'm like, "53." But that's only because I'm telling the story. I've already done that three times so far, so it's funny, with what it's like to be 53 and what my experience is. Like, I'm living into it, so that I normalize it. It's like, "Have you ever seen like asphalt being paved?" You know, those big rollers. I'm just paving the story.

So, when someone wants to tell me "I'm supposed to feel old" or it's "Supposed to be over", or whatever crap story they're gonna give me, it's just like water off a duck. Because my nervous system, my brain, my story, my beliefs, my identity, I have worked on them. So this is my truth, and I'm not moving from it.

That, I think, is important. And if we don't do that, there's lots of things out there that'll happily tell you what to think, and what to feel, and how to be marketed to, or what other people's fears are. So I think, more than ever, us taking control of what and who we want to be, what we want to think about, how we condition, like really condition our thoughts.

I mean, I'm sure everyone listening to this understands. They know you, so they know wiring, and firing, and repetition. Like, that sounds so boring, unless you can find a really cool way to do it. There is music, sounds, smell, sight, like there's lots of ways to do it. That's kind of like a full-time job, because if we don't, someone else is doing it.

Like, it's not like we're not conditioning ourselves, it's not like we're not deciding who to be. Well, we could be listening to someone telling us "who we're supposed to be" in our 50's, which I very much recommend your 50s. I'm quite liking them, I'm just saying.

Jo Stone (Host)

I love it, I love it! Well Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your story. There were so many nuggets of wisdom woven in there. And what I hope that every listener takes away is the courage to listen to that spark, to cultivate your identity - whatever that is - just to follow the nudges, whichever way they go. And to let go of how your dreams have to come true.

I think you're the most brilliant example of just throwing caution to the wind, but doing it incredibly intentionally, and coming out the other side with that gorgeous laugh, that gorgeous big hair, and just, "Bring on the personality!" So, thank you for sharing your story, Lisa.

Lisa Toste (Guest)

Thank you very much, Jo. I appreciate it!

Jo Stone (Host)

What a conversation, so much gold! If you'd like to dive deeper into Lisa's world and her life of bold living on a volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic, you'll find the link to her YouTube channel in the show notes.