What if I told you that only 26% of U.S. mayors are women—and today’s guest is one of them? Get ready for a masterclass in leading with authenticity and purpose.
In this episode of Beyond the Quo, host Stacey Luces interviews Dr. Jeri Muoio, founder and CEO of Great Cities for All, and former two-term mayor of West Palm Beach, Florida.
They explore themes of authentic and servant leadership, emphasizing trust, purpose, and community involvement. Dr. Muoio shares insights from her extensive career in public service and education, stressing the importance of listening, building relationships, and empowering others. The discussion touches on the challenges women face in leadership roles, balancing work and personal life, and encouraging risk-taking.
This masterclass in leadership offers invaluable advice for anyone looking to lead with courage, empathy, and lasting impact. The episode concludes with practical advice for becoming involved in community service and fostering positive change.
🎧 In this episode:
• 01:10 Journey of Transformative Leadership
• 03:07 Inspiring Leadership and Building Trust
• 22:51 Core Values and Personal Growth
• 29:47 Career Progression, A Mother's Panic and Resilience
• 33:19 Balancing Parenthood and Career
• 34:57 Legacy and Impact Reflections
• 43:21 Community Service and Volunteering
• 46:12 Empowering Women and Future Generations
💡 Key Takeaways:
• How servant leadership shifts the focus from authority to service, empowering teams and creating lasting impact.
• Strategies for women to lead authentically and confidently in industries or roles where they’re underrepresented.
• Insights into overcoming challenges like the “likeability trap” and finding balance between likability and competence.
• Why success is often on the other side of fear and how messy action leads to growth.
• Lessons on resilience and vulnerability as a parent, partner, and leader.
You’ve already done the quo—now it’s time to go beyond.
🔥 Feeling inspired? Don’t keep it to yourself!
• Subscribe to Beyond the Quo and leave a five-star review.
• Share this episode with someone ready to embrace their authentic power.
• Follow Stacey and her guest to continue the conversation.
✨ Connect with Stacey Luces:
• Website: www.staceyluces.com/podcast
• Instagram: @Stacey.Luces | @BeyondTheQuoPodcast
• Rising Beyond Power Collective: https://www.skool.com/risingbeyondglobalcommunity/about
📩 Connect with Dr. Muoio:
• LinkedIn: @ jerimuoio

“60% of leaders feel isolated. 70% are dealing with stress and anxiety. Yet, we didn’t just watch the Artemis mission, we felt something. The real question is… why did that moment break through everything else in our life?”
In the episode of Beyond the Quo, Stacey Luces reflects on unexpectedly feeling deeply invested in NASA’s Artemis mission on the eve of the crew’s reentry, arguing it cut through modern overstimulation and collective stress to spark awe, perspective, hope, and a sense of possibility.
She connects this “pattern interruption” to the realities of midlife leadership, widespread isolation, chronic stress and anxiety, and exhaustion that erodes meaning…and warns of the quiet, cumulative health consequences of burnout, citing workplace-stress-related deaths and her own autoimmune crisis and emergency surgery.
Stacey challenges listeners to use this moment as a signal to reassess alignment and purpose, offering strategies: capture and write down moments of awe, identify where you’ve been head-down too long, consider where your current pace leads in five years, intentionally reintroduce expansion through new ideas and experiences, stop outsourcing possibility to screens, and lead with more reflection and vision rather than only output and speed.
🎧 In this episode:
• 01:13 Noise And Overwhelm
• 03:37 Leaders In Midlife
• 06:34 Pattern Interruption
• 07:27 Awe Hope And Love
• 09:24 Burnout Consequences
• 15:33 Strategy Expand Intentionally
• 17:24 Lead Differently Now
• 18:36 Hope And Horizon
💡 Key Takeaways:
• Moments of awe are not random, they are signals. That feeling you had watching Artemis? That pause. That perspective. That sense of possibility and hope…That is data. It’s showing you where your life feels too small, too tight, or too disconnected.
• Ignoring misalignment doesn’t keep your life stable, it reshapes it. The cost of staying the same isn’t neutral. Chronic stress leads to: Burnout. Health breakdown. Emotional disconnection. You are already being shaped by the decisions you are not making
You’ve already done the quo—now it’s time to go beyond.
🔥 Feeling inspired? Don’t keep it to yourself!
• Subscribe, share and follow Beyond the Quo and I’d deeply appreciate your five-star rating so more people can listen and learn!
✨ Connect with Stacey: staceyluces.com IG @ Stacey.Luces LinkedIn @StaceyLuces

“What if nothing is wrong… and that’s exactly the problem?”
In the episode of Beyond the Quo, Stacey Luces explores “functional burnout,” a stealth form of burnout where people remain highly productive while slowly disconnecting from work and life. Drawing from her own dramatic health crisis and recovery, she explains how burnout can be insidious, showing up as numbness, flatness, constant need to escape even after vacations, and a gradual erosion of joy, especially among high-performing executives and midlife “strong woman” caregivers in the sandwich generation.
She challenges the comfort of an “okay” status-quo life and outlines small, practical shifts: name what you’re feeling without minimizing it, identify where you feel numb, tell one person an unpolished truth, and remove a couple of energy drains. She also urges leaders to model healthier norms, and invites listeners to notice where they’re still performing but no longer connecting.
🎧 In this episode:
• 00:44 Functional Burnout Explained
• 01:37 Health Wake Up
• 04:20 Executive Burnout Signs
• 06:26 Vacation Escape Trap
• 07:37 Strong Woman Erosion
• 10:42 The Drift of Fine
• 11:53 Why Status Quo Hurts
• 14:41 Shift Strategies
💡 Key Takeaways:
• Burnout isn’t always loud - it’s often a slow, invisible disconnection.
You can be successful, productive, and praised… and still feel flat, numb, and detached from what used to matter.
• “Nothing is wrong” is one of the biggest warning signs. When life is just fine, career okay, relationships okay, everything acceptable…that’s where people get stuck for years, even decades, without questioning if it actually fits.
• Small, honest shifts, not dramatic change, are what break the cycle.
Naming what’s not working, telling the truth to one person, and removing even one draining element can begin to restore alignment and energy over time.
them.

You’ve already done the quo—now it’s time to go beyond.
🔥 Feeling inspired? Don’t keep it to yourself!
• Subscribe, share and follow Beyond the Quo and I’d deeply appreciate your five-star rating so more people can listen and learn!
✨ Connect with Stacey: staceyluces.com IG @ Stacey.Luces LinkedIn @StaceyLuces