17 | Women Fantasise About Being Sick: What It Signals About Modern Work

17 | Women Fantasise About Being Sick: What It Signals About Modern Work

There is a thought that many high-performing women have quietly entertained, and almost never say out loud. Sometimes I wish I could just get sick for a week. Not seriously. Just enough to stop. Just enough that the world would stop asking things of them without needing an explanation. In this episode, Dr Kristy Goodwin unpacks why this fantasy is more widespread than we admit, what it is actually signalling, and why it is not a resilience problem. It is a design problem. Drawing on research into anticipatory labour, cortisol recovery patterns, and the neuroscience of mirror neurons, Kristy reframes the illness fantasy as a loud biological signal: high-performing women are operating beyond their bandwidth in systems that only grant permission to rest when the body forces it. You will leave this episode with a clearer understanding of why your body is sending these signals, and three practical ways to start reclaiming rest as a performance strategy, not a reward. Resources: Nicola Jane Hobbs’ Book The Relaxed Woman (https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-relaxed-woman-9781846048067 [https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-relaxed-woman-9781846048067]) Nap Ministry- https://www.instagram.com/thenapministry/?hl=en Amplified Program- https://drkristygoodwin.com/executive-coaching/ [https://drkristygoodwin.com/executive-coaching/]

16 | Why You Feel Exhausted Even When You're Doing Everything Right, with Amelia Phillips

Amelia Phillips is a sports scientist, nutritionist, bestselling author, and co-founder of the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation. For over two decades she has worked with women on the science of energy, recovery and performance, and today she brings her precision lens to the conversation Spacious Success listeners are hungry for. In this episode, Amelia and Dr Kristy Goodwin go deep on what is actually happening inside the bodies of ambitious women in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, the data Amelia is seeing in her programs, and the practical steps that make a measurable difference. They cover the cortisol test that revealed only 5 out of 65 women had a healthy stress response, the difference between chronic stress and adrenal fatigue and why the treatment approach is completely different, why vitamin D deficiency is rampant in Australia and how it directly impacts energy and mood, the reframe of discipline as freedom rather than restriction, and how to protect your energy capital so you are not running on empty. This is not generic wellness advice. It is evidence-led, biology-first and built for the woman who is done guessing. Key Topics Covered * The red thread through Amelia's career: health, women and behaviour change * What the data shows in the Inner Vitality program: the four stress response types * The cortisol curve explained: chronic stress versus adrenal fatigue versus dysregulation * Why only 5 out of 65 women returned a healthy stress response * The micronutrient deficiencies most commonly found in high-performing women: vitamin D, magnesium, ferritin, iodine * Can't sleep versus won't sleep: two very different problems requiring very different solutions * Discipline as a framework for freedom, not restriction * The daily breath, weekly pause, seasonal restore model for stress management * Energy capital: deposits, withdrawals and what that means for your week * The Superwoman Myth: Amelia's take on why nobody actually feels like a superwoman RESOURCES Amelia’s Website (https://www.ameliaphillips.com.au/ [https://www.ameliaphillips.com.au/]) Energy Quiz (https://v360.health/sp/energy-quiz-2/ [https://v360.health/sp/energy-quiz-2/]) Vitality 360 Program (https://v360.health/ [https://v360.health/]) Healthy Her podcast (https://www.ameliaphillips.com.au/podcasts/ [https://www.ameliaphillips.com.au/podcasts/]) Follow Amelia on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/_amelia_phillips/ [https://www.instagram.com/_amelia_phillips/])

15 | The AI Addiction Problem: Why AI Tools Are So Hard to Put Down

You have probably noticed it. One quick prompt becomes eleven. You close the tab forty-five minutes later with that particular hollowness that follows too long on a screen. And you wonder: is it just me? It is not. And it is not a willpower problem either. In this episode, I walk through the five neurological mechanisms that make AI genuinely hard to put down: dopamine loops and instant feedback, intermittent variable rewards, your brain's novelty detection system, the psychological need satisfaction that self-determination theory explains, and the long-term risk of cognitive offloading. Each one is rooted in how your brain actually works. Stacked together, they explain why AI has become one of the most compelling tools most of us have ever encountered. I also share three practical strategies for using AI with intention rather than compulsion, including a prompt limit protocol that interrupts the dopamine loop before it takes over, a think-first approach that protects your most valuable cognitive capabilities, and a framework for designating AI-free thinking zones in your work. The goal is not to use AI less. It is to use it on your terms, not its.

14 | Your Story Is the Strategy — A Conversation with Tory Archbold

Behind every polished exterior is a story worth telling. Tory Archbold built one of Australia's most successful PR agencies, representing global names including Drew Barrymore, Zara, and Lancôme, while simultaneously fighting a twelve-year battle behind closed doors that nobody in her professional world knew anything about. In this conversation, Dr Kristy Goodwin and Tory Archbold cover the full arc: from Tory's early days launching a PR agency on rejection and a single coffee date, through the stalking and legal battle she concealed while running a 22-person team, to the 2013 emergency surgery that put her on life support and forced her to finally meet herself. They explore what Tory calls the near-death gift: the clarity that comes when everything is stripped away and you are left with only what actually matters. How she rebuilt her life from the inside out. How she now leads a global community through Powerful Steps. And why she believes your story is not just an asset: it is your strategy. This episode is also a conversation about the courage it takes to share the shabby alongside the shiny: why vulnerability in leadership is not weakness but magnetism, why the women who rise highest in Tory's experience operate from the heart rather than the ego, and how her three-coffee-date framework has built a global network from a $2 coffee and the willingness to ask for help. Kristy also shares the personal connection: Tory is the reason she now shares her own Code Red story in keynotes. A reminder that the people who push us toward our most uncomfortable truths are often our greatest catalysts. If you have ever hidden a chapter of your story because you were worried what it would do to your credibility, this conversation is for you.

13 | We Don't Have an Ambition Gap. We Have a Wellbeing Gap.

Smart, successful women are half-joking about becoming trad wives. And while the joke gets a laugh, the data behind it is not funny at all. In this episode, I want to challenge the narrative that high-performing women are losing their ambition. The research tells a different story. Women are not leaning out because they want less. They are leaning out because the current model of success is biologically incompatible with the way women are wired, and they are doing the maths. I walk through what the numbers are actually showing, from the McKinsey and LeanIn.Org Women in the Workplace 2025 report to the GLWS Gender Wellbeing Gap 2025 findings, and I explain why the trad wife trend is not a retreat from ambition. It is a symptom of a system that has never adapted to the women now running it. We also go into the neuroscience of why sustained overload degrades performance at a biological level, why women in leadership are carrying a compounded cognitive load, and what the data says organisations need to change if they want to stop losing their best people. The episode closes with a practical Power-Up: how to name your own Success Tax calculation and start making intentional decisions about what you are and are not willing to pay. If you lead people, this is the conversation your organisation needs to be having. If you are one of those people, this episode will give you language for something you have probably been feeling for a long time. Inquire about Dr Kristy speaking at your event: https://drkristygoodwin.com/speaking/ [https://drkristygoodwin.com/speaking/]  REFERENCES Arkinstall, C., & McGibbon, A. (2025). The Gender Wellbeing Gap 2025: A GLWS Insights Paper. Global Leadership Wellbeing Solutions. https://www.glwswellbeing.com/genderwellbeinggap/ [https://www.glwswellbeing.com/genderwellbeinggap/] Australian Government Office for Women. (2025). Status of Women Report Card 2025. Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. https://genderequality.gov.au/status-women-report-cards/2025-report-card [https://genderequality.gov.au/status-women-report-cards/2025-report-card] Deloitte. (2025). Women at work: A global outlook. https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/issues/work/content/women-at-work-global-outlook.html McKinsey & Company, & LeanIn.Org. (2025). Women in the workplace 2025. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace Women's Agenda. (2025). The 2025 Women's Ambition Report. https://womensagenda.com.au/ USA Today. (2026, January 29). More women are leaving the workforce. Caregiving and childcare costs are key reasons. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/01/29/women-leaving-workforce-caregiving-responsibilities/88370584007/ [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/01/29/women-leaving-workforce-caregiving-responsibilities/88370584007/]