Leadership, Intuition, and Learning to Say No - Looks Like Work, Season 3, Ep 12

Looks Like Work

28 Jul

What if leadership didn’t require force?
What if intuition counted as data?
What if saying no didn’t mean you were flaking out—but finally listening in?

This episode is for anyone who's spent years outsourcing their knowing to deadlines, deliverables, or dusty definitions of “success.”
It’s for the spreadsheet skeptics. The ex-consultants turned barefoot thinkers. The women who’ve been told softness doesn’t scale.

Tal Shavit is a leadership and intuition expert, and in this conversation, she invites us into a more whole, integrated way of leading—one that includes the spiritual, the feminine, the playful, and the wildly unproductive moments that make the real breakthroughs possible.

We talk about:

Saying no to a 60-day silent meditation retreat (!)... because joy felt more true
Why jealousy is a sacred clue—not something to suppress
The difference between productive rest and rest-as-performance
Co-leading with 11 women and unlearning top-down leadership
Bringing your whole self into rooms that never asked for it
Trusting inner guidance in real business decisions (not just vision boards)
The hidden emotional cost of hustle culture on millennial women
Creativity as the lovechild of vulnerability and safety

Tal offers one of the most freeing reframes of the season:
👉 “In a world of no failure, and no cost… what is the most exuberant, energizing vision you have for your life?”

This episode is a field guide for building lives and careers from the inside out.
A reminder that if you want to build something lasting, it has to be rooted in something honest.
And that intuition isn’t fluff—it’s strategy your nervous system can trust.

"Top athletes spend between 20 to 40% of their time in complete rest... A huge part of the build is through the rest periods."

Tal Shavit is a writer, entrepreneur, and researcher of intuitive decision-making, self-connection, and well-being. A former McKinsey consultant, and co-founder of startups in education, health tech, and the arts and is a founding team member of DoubleYou Female Leadership Network and co-founder of McKinsey’s Circle of Women Founders.

Tal Shavit's work bridges research and practice, shaping new approaches to leadership and inner wisdom - advancing thinking on somatic intelligence and decision-making. A dedicated yoga and meditation practitioner for over 25 years, Tal continues to explore the art of deep listening: to the body, intuition, and heart.

Resources & Mentions: