Transcript
Speaker: Hi, Leah. Hey, Meredith. How are you doing? Thank you so much for doing this conversation with me. I appreciate it. It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on. So I was on your podcast or we recorded a couple weeks ago and you have a really cool podcast where you do intuition strategist tarot card readings for business owners, which we should definitely talk about in a second. But before we jump into that, like for folks who don't know you, who are you and what do you do?
Speaker: And it was a pleasure having you on the Intuition Strategist. I am Leah Goldman, the Intuition Strategist. I help leaders trust their gut to make fast, confident decisions and get aligned results. And I do this by combining 20 years of corporate strategy experience that I've had in my career with the tools and techniques that we can use to tap into what I call the invisible data that informs our intuition.
Speaker: and we can use our intuition and act on it to make change that we want to see in our teams, in our leadership, and in our life. How did you get into this? What was your work before you started this?
Speaker: Would you call it a consultancy? How do you describe the work? I do consider the work, I do advisory and consulting work. I think I'm like a consultant at heart. The first formative era of my career was in strategy consulting.
Speaker: So I work with leadership teams as well as the leaders themselves. So like one-on-one engagements as well, but all with the goal of Getting clear on what is the core of what you want, where you're going, and how do you actually operationalize that to get the results that you want. And so I've made my way here first through, i'd say my early start as an engineer, then into strategy consulting,
Speaker: then in-house in tech leading strategy teams across all different parts of the tech value stream, and then decided to go on my own, try entrepreneurship.
Speaker: And that's when I created Corporate Tarot Cards as a tool to help leaders understand what their intuition is telling them so that they can have confidence in the decisions they make to move forward.
Speaker: and then offer services around that. So everything I do involves corporate tarot cards as a starting point to understand where you are and then moving ahead with a real actionable strategy.
Speaker: So what type of engineer were you? I am an industrial and systems engineer, which is like the business side of engineering. How did you get into that path? Like when you were growing up, did you know what systems engineering was? Were you like, I really want to do that? Or were you just... No, I had no idea what an engineer was. So I'm the eldest of the millennials for context. And growing up, I always really loved people. I loved learning languages. I loved communicating with people. I was always parts of different organizations and teams. And i actually thought that I was going to go into political science. And so I was like, oh, i want to learn all these languages. Maybe I'll work for the UN n or something like that.
Speaker: And then it was in high school when I had some government classes and social studies type subjects with the debate team. And I realized that's actually not the environment I thrive in, a constant debate. And I was like, actually, isn't that what this career path might look like? Maybe I need to investigate some other options.
Speaker: Turns out I was also really good at math. So I was always in AP math and physics classes. He thought people were saying move into tech and I'm the class of 2000. So this was like height of the bubble. And so I said, maybe I'll try engineering. My friend's father was an engineer. So I like at least knew generally what an engineer does. And then I went to University of Florida, took an intro to engineering class and said, oh my gosh, actually, i kind of like this. We had to tour each different department in the college and
Speaker: Didn't love nuclear engineering, but I thought it was cool that we could test our hair and figure out what elements were in it and that I drank too much Diet Coke out of a can so I had trace elements of aluminum in my hair.
Speaker: But loved industrial and systems engineering because it was like... an optimization problem. It was a simulation we had to do and we had a little competition. i won, i got a pencil and I was like, oh, I might be good at this. And then I saw a video that basically said, as an industrial engineer, you can do anything.
Speaker: I've had someone who works for the airline, a consultant, someone in a factory, all these different career paths. And I thought, oh, I can make a decision that gives me more options for other decisions in the future. I don't have to decide everything right now. And that was really the beginning. And I loved it.
Speaker: That's super cool and interesting. I do feel like when I think of systems engineers, for whatever reason, most of those systems engineers I know are men. Was it like male dominated when you were in college or not really? Maybe it's just been a skewed perspective I have.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd say engineering as a whole was definitely male dominated, but... My major wasn't. I think maybe this was a turning point of attracting more women into STEM. And so industrial engineering, I think, attracts a lot of people who are curious about business and maybe the technical side of business and how things all come together and are organized. It would be interesting to see the stats on that of like, what are the gender demographics? But i was definitely not the majority. I'll tell you that. I've always been...
Speaker: one of a handful of women in a room, that's for sure. so you got your degree in this and you moved into the workforce. What was your journey from practicing that and then eventually moving into the work you're doing now? What did that look like?
Speaker: I mentioned I had all these different choices. I could be any kind of flavor of industrial and systems engineer. And I had an internship where I was on a manufacturing shop floor in the summer in the South, wearing steel toe boots when I figured out that is not the right environment for me. And the glamorous life of a consultant or so I thought was more of the path for me. So that's where I went.
Speaker: and spent over a decade in consulting at the same firm. i Loved it because there were always different problems, always new challenges, always something to learn. And I started there in the supply chain practice at the time, and I specialized in product lifecycle management. So I got to learn all about how do different industries think about their products and product development and total lifecycle cost of a product.
Speaker: And that was interesting because I was first at an aerospace and defense company. Then I went into consumer products. Then I went into communications and high tech, cable, mobile. And so as...
Speaker: the industries evolved and as this concept of product design and lifecycle management really evolved, I got to specialize a little bit more, especially in the downturn. We were doing a lot of what we called value-based deals. So that became a specialty of mine where clients couldn't pay up front.
Speaker: And so we would do a lot of risk-based deals to see how much we could save them. and how quickly, and then get paid a percentage of that, which were like super high stakes, a lot of pressure, a lot of experimentation of like what's going to get the biggest return as quickly as possible.
Speaker: And that actually really focused on the communications industry. So I specialized at that point in cable and telecom, which was fascinating because this is when cable started being threatened by what they called over the top distribution like Netflix and everything we use now was just emerging. And so it was really interesting to work there.
Speaker: And I loved it. But then in 2016, my daughter was born and I said, this is maybe the time to decide where do I want to be and what does this part of my life look like? So I decided to hang up the frequent flyer badge and be focused here in Boston, where i live now.
Speaker: And that's when I moved in-house in tech. And I could actually apply all the things that I had done in my consulting career in-house and I could see what is it like to be on the other side of the table and have to make change and influence decisions when you're an insider and not the hired outside expert. And so that was a really interesting change of perspective, similar work. And yet I could then also have more ownership of outcomes and really see how
Speaker: It's not just the strategy, it's the implementation because you have to live with the decisions that you make. And so I did that work in different areas of the firm.
Speaker: i did some business transformation on a big... customer experience program, and then I led services strategy. So all the people around the world who make the technology actually work for customers, I led that strategy team. And that's when I was asked to lay off my second team, as often happens in tech. I thought that's one experience that I don't necessarily want to do twice. So I added myself to the list and then left and had some time to reflect on what is it that interests me? What do I want to do next? I had...
Speaker: really seen industries change throughout my career. And this was 2023. This was post-COVID, lot of change of what work is like, a lot of discussion about future of work. And I realized that I'm actually fascinated by leadership and decisions and all the work that I had done.
Speaker: upon reflection, really pointed at decisions that we make and how do we make them? And what are the decisions that work? How does change really happen? a lot of change management work that I had done in the past, I realized, is leadership. And so I had read a lot of books about leadership, different philosophies and perspectives.
Speaker: While I had my summer vacation, i took that summer vacation in Fire Island in New York at the beach where there was nothing to do except read books and go to the beach. And at sunset, everybody has a glass of wine by the dock.
Speaker: And that's when I started experimenting with reading tarot cards on the dock at sunset. And I thought this is something I enjoy in my personal life.
Speaker: I wonder what it would be like to try this. Maybe this is my new job. Could this be my career path? and turns out I learned a lot about the questions people have, the decisions that they're making.
Speaker: And when you read tarot on the dock in the summer in New York, you get a lot of people thinking about their careers in their business and asking about those types of decisions.
Speaker: And that's when it it occurred to me that this is a tool that does not exist in business. There is no way to pose these questions and understand what your intuition tells you.
Speaker: as you do with tarot. And I thought, maybe this is what I need to create. And thus the idea of corporate tarot cards was born. And I thought, yeah, I need to go make this happen and explore what this means for leadership.
Speaker: That's cool. Thank you so much. I didn't plan on it, but I have like my tarot card too. Yes. I love tarot too. And I feel like it's such a cool aspect of the work you do. i love tarot for so many reasons, but especially at work and like the work Medberry does where we're helping with executive strategy and storytelling and content.
Speaker: I think about archetypes a lot. And for you, what you created, so for listeners, you have your own deck. It's not like the classic Rider Waite deck. It's your own custom. What was that process like of you sitting down and figuring out, okay, these are the tools and the cards that I want to be utilizing when I'm running these sessions with clients?
Speaker: So my cards are my own creation. They are corporate tarot cards and they are actually modeled after the traditional death. What you just said about storytelling and archetypes is 100% the core of what I do because when you read,
Speaker: you're telling somebody a story, right? You lay out these cards to help answer a question and each card and its position in a spread, which is the way you lay the cards out, that represents something. And so you tell this story to the querent, the person who's asking the question, and they can decide if they agree with it or disagree with it or what parts of that story resonate with them.
Speaker: And that is the shortcut to intuition. And so as I was using that exact deck that you just showed me, the Rider Waite deck, and that's what I was practicing with, the stories in the cards are very resonant because each card has its own meaning, right? The suit, the number, if it's a major or a minor. And for those of you who are familiar with tarot, there's depth in it with these images and kind of layered meanings and what does it mean when you see two cards together? I love that part of storytelling of the readings and your question about how did I make this deck?
Speaker: I actually left that summer thinking I was going to write a book because one of the reasons I made the decision to leave my corporate job was my yoga and meditation teacher. She started teaching a writing course and I thought that would be a fun experiment. What if I leave my job and become a writer?
Speaker: So I started taking her class thinking I will write my point of view on leadership, whatever that is. And as I came back from the summer and these experiences and was reflecting on, okay, what does this mean for the book?
Speaker: I was laying my ideas out that I had written on index cards and I was laying them out on my bed And I had a pile for power.
Speaker: i had a pile for curiosity. I had a pile for any concept in leadership, right? Autonomy or authority or all these different ideas. And as I was looking at them, I realized that these were not chapters in a book.
Speaker: These were the cards. And I needed to map these ideas that I had into The cards in the traditional tarot deck. So what you get in a box of corporate tarot cards is a 78 card deck that has much like a traditional tarot deck, major cards and minor cards, I call them.
Speaker: strategy cards and tactical cards. And they have suits that have the same meanings as the suits that you see in a traditional deck. But instead of pentacles, I call that the suit of ground about being grounded and physical as an example. And so I translate this language of tarot into language that we feel comfortable using in a boardroom or in a management conversation or a performance review. And that's the language in the cards. And instead of images, they are words. They are exactly those words that I saw laying out on my bed. And so it really came together. i'd say maybe 80% of the deck was really crystal clear to me of oh yes, this card equals this new card. And then there were some that I had to
Speaker: reflect and really think, okay, what is the meaning of this traditional tarot card? And what does that represent in this corporate or business context? And then it was a bit of like prototyping and experimentation and asking every friend and family member I have to be like, here, sit down for a reading. I'm going read your corporate tarot cards to like kind of fine tune it and make sure that the language was really right.
Speaker: That's cool. And I feel like one thing that was really cool about the experience for me of getting a reading by you was that, I think I mentioned this to you, but Jessica Doerr, who's a famous tarot reader and writer on Substack, I had just done a session with her.
Speaker: my first ever professional tarot reading in that way. And it was just really cool. She has a really thoughtful approach to it. And then the cards that you read for me were actually corresponded almost exactly to some of the cards she gave me.
Speaker: And it was like so fun. fun aside though, i guess one thing that like when we've talked even offline, one thing I was curious about is I think the role of intuition in business, it's so important and it's mysterious. And one thing that I think about and I've found with it is that it can be a complex element of business because if you're talking to a board, you don't say this is my intuition. You bring the data.
Speaker: And I think that there are some female leaders in particular, like I think maybe I mentioned to you, Emily Weiss of Glossier. Yeah, yeah. I actually had the author of the book Glossier, Melissa, on this podcast. And I like Melissa a lot and I loved that book.
Speaker: I do think it was hard on Emily because as someone who's been in business for a long time and as a female leader, who I consider myself intuitive for sure. i think that sometimes women in leadership roles, people are suspicious when you lead with intuition at times. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: And I think it really has an important role. Like it's there, however we dress it up. It's an important part of how we approach this work. And what I think is so cool about your work is that it's being really direct about the fact that our intuition or gut can really lead us in ah helpful, correct directions and point us toward what needs investigating. Yeah.
Speaker: Do you ever encounter a lot of resistance? So you go work with a team, some folks who are really excited to work with you, they feel like I really need this is going to be helpful and other folks who are like, arms crossed being like, yeah i don't know, those cards aren't resonating. What's it like to work with different folks at the same team who might have different levels of receptivity to talk about intuition? You bring up so many good points. And yes, I think the work that I had done in consulting, and you brought me back down memory lane, kind of thinking about how I started my career.
Speaker: and there's always an element of change and managing change with people. And what I'm doing is new. And it's not something that has frequently been discussed as a teachable skill.
Speaker: in business. And that's really what I'm doing. I'm teaching people how they can learn to trust their intuition, that it's credible, it's reliable, you can understand what it's saying, and when you need it, it's going to show up.
Speaker: And you can make decisions based on it because you know how it works and you know how it speaks to you. And when you make those decisions, you have confidence and you can act with conviction. and Therefore, that's like a very new topic. So yeah, i always do encounter some level of resistance.
Speaker: Typically, the teams that I work with have leaders who, like you, say, I understand intuition and I've used it and I know that it's an edge.
Speaker: Our culture has taught us that intuition is not data. And the practice that I teach actually frames intuition as an algorithm that is using data to give you an output that is not numeric, quantifiable, hard, analytical data.
Speaker: It's a sensation or an idea or an urge to create something. And that happens all the time with innovation and disruption and new ideas, right? When you're doing something new and different,
Speaker: there's not necessarily the data that says this is going to work because data is inherently historical, right? You're only observing what's happened in the past. You can't necessarily quantify how that will happen in the future, especially in a future that we are living in and we are so aware of that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. And so when i meet people who have skepticism or doubts or fears about intuition. This is how I address it It's that engineer in me, that systems thinker is like, all right, here's why this is real. And it's not magic, although magic might be a way that it manifests, right? And we all have beliefs and observe the universe in different ways. And yes, there's also neuroscientific research that says this is how our
Speaker: Human physiology works and it's part of being human. And that's why I speak about human AI. And that's what we're talking about. It's human actionable intuition. And that's the skill that differentiates innovative and disruptive leaders who don't necessarily use the playbook or the guide to tell them what to do. They know that they can make decisions and lead others to make change that they want to see.
Speaker: So much to unpack there. When you talk about like an algorithm or human AI, can you say more about that? What does that mean? So this is how I describe how intuition works in my workshops and my practice. So the be algorithm, you could think of it, your intuition is an algorithm that's been trained your entire life on your experiences and your expertise.
Speaker: And every conversation you've had with a mentor, every course you've taken, every project you've completed, that's all what I call invisible data. And for those of us who work with systems and tools that are using data, you have this pool of data that forms the basis of any kind of analysis.
Speaker: That's what your intuition is trained on. It's all of those lived experiences. And then every time you encounter a new experience, you're getting new data that's presented to you, new invisible data. That could be somebody's body language when you walk into a room, or it could be a new person you're interviewing and how you feel a certain way about that encounter with them. So all these experiences come into your algorithm, your intuition, and it starts to make patterns and senses likeness or dissonance with your existing data set.
Speaker: And so when you find new data that is aligned with your past experience, you might get an aha moment. Yes, this clicks. Maybe a new idea comes. yeah That's one type of output that could be created by your intuition.
Speaker: But if you get data that is mismatched or is dissonant with your existing data, you might get chills or a spidey sense or something that just feels off, right? That sensation is the output of your algorithm.
Speaker: And so we can learn how to maintain a good quality data set of our invisible data and make sure that our intuition is tuned to make the decisions that we want to make. And we can also learn how to interpret what our output is telling us. I use the acronym HIT. H-I-T is my framework for how to learn how to trust your intuition.
Speaker: You first need to learn how to hear it. So when you get that output of the algorithm... It's a sensation or it's an idea, but we live in a world that's very noisy. So how can you turn down the noise and turn up the signal and really be able to hear your intuition?
Speaker: Then interpret. What does it mean? How can you understand what your intuition is telling you so that you can make a decision based off of that information, whether it's a match or a mismatch or a whole paradigm shift? And then lastly, trust it And that's when you know that over time, you have evidence that your intuition is reliable and it's going to show up.
Speaker: It's credible. It's giving you outputs based on that quality data that you've informed it with and that you can act on it. There's so much there. I know when we first talked, I think you mentioned the book Thinking Fast and Slow. Am I remembering that right? Daniel o' Kahneman's book. I read that a while ago. I think when it first came out, but I remember I loved it. If someone is listening to what you're saying and they're like, I'm really curious about this. I want to learn more. Are there other books or resources that you might point them toward?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman was the book that I read that really helped me pattern make and make sense and understand these systems. And he speaks about system one thinking and system two thinking, which are your fast and slow systems. And in my work, fast thinking is your intuition.
Speaker: Slow thinking is the strategy. And so that's why i call my business and the work that I do intuition strategy because we need to have fast thinking and then slow it down to be strategic and execute those strategies.
Speaker: Another book that's fantastic that I recommend is a recent book by a professor, Dr. Laura Huang, and it's called, you already know the science of mastering your intuition. She also wrote another book called Edge. She's a professor at Northeastern University, actually in Boston.
Speaker: And so she's really has the science as well as practices to be able to start to master your intuition, like she says. So those are two great books that are like primers. I think Thinking Fast and Slow is very advanced. It's like a thick one, but they're both very accessible.
Speaker: One question I have is, you're talking about like pattern recognition based off of, as you call it, like the data set of all of your experiences. So i think some people are naturally a little more intuitive than others in some ways. And some people have also done a lot of work.
Speaker: They have gone to therapy for a decade. They journal every morning. They do yoga five times a week. Those folks may be have a different level of attunement than someone to whom is interested in this, but maybe the ideas are like kind of new concepts.
Speaker: Yeah. So when you're coming into work with, whether it's an individual or with a whole group of people, I presume that you're trying to meet them where they're at and calibrate to like, what's the vocabulary that they're going to grok onto? What is the like level of attunement that they're working with?
Speaker: How do you go in and feel that out and then support them wherever they're at? So I do a blueprint. I call it a clarity blueprint. And that's really the first step with any engagement that I have is it's something that I do. It's like a 15 minute assessment. And that helps me to understand where they are. So I use frameworks that help people name where they're at. I use the language of crossroads. So are there decisions? What really brings you here? What are the decisions that you're thinking about that you want to be able to use your intuition on? And sometimes that's, we need to make
Speaker: big numbers this quarter that we've never hit before. Sometimes it's, I need to articulate a vision for my team. I'm new in a role or whatever it might be. Maybe I want to become an entrepreneur and I don't know where to start. So people want to get that direction from their intuition. And that's typically what brings them to me. and so I start right there. We name it very clearly because once you have the language to say, yes, here's where I am, here's the pressures that are on me, here's where they're coming from, here's how much time i have, how urgent is this decision, how much runway do I have to execute it?
Speaker: Because really, it's all about the execution time and less about the decision time. So how do we make faster decisions more confidently? And I understand where they are, just as you said, in how fluent are they in understanding what their intuition is telling them. And some people- have had practices for years, right, who meditate and journal and have mindfulness practices, whatever they may be, that help them quiet the noise so they can hear the signal.
Speaker: Some people used to do that and don't anymore and want to return to something like that. And some people have never felt it to be really accessible for them. So wherever they are there is a next step. And that's what we do is, okay, so what is the next right step for you, given how fluent are you, where you are, and what you're naming as the crossroads you're at?
Speaker: right I want to do some rapid fire questions that we do for a lot of entrepreneurs. So come on. All right. So first, what are you focused on right now? I am focused on workshops. So I've been doing a ton of workshops in different formats with different groups. Some are like networking groups. Some are formal workshops with teams. But I love experimenting with that and finding new ways to have a fun, creative workshop.
Speaker: that delivers something really unique for my clients. What are you trying to get better at right now? I'm trying to get better at consistency around things that I do. So I love new shiny objects, but I know it's about the reps and the dedication and the consistency. So that's been something I've been very focused on is like sticking with something and doing it consistently.
Speaker: What aspects of the work come easiest for you? Conversations. I find it's really easy for me to talk about what I do. And I'm curious about people's experiences with intuition and their practices and business. And so, yeah, I ask a lot of questions and just having conversations comes really easily.
Speaker: And what aspects of your work are the hardest for you? Finding answers. consistent quiet time for myself that I'm not doing and I can reflect and have my own time during business hours. That's been really challenging. Interesting.
Speaker: Okay. Final, really easy. Where can people find you and follow you if they want to reach out or check out your content? Several places. One would be my website. intuitionstrategist.com.
Speaker: You can find all sorts of information there. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Leah Goldman. And you can also find me and schedule your Clarity Blueprint if you're interested in learning more about this work at clarityblueprintwithleah.com.
Speaker: Amazing. Anything that I didn't ask Leah that you'd want to say? I'd love to leave your listeners with something actionable. That's what I like to do with my readings and in the work that I do. And I'd say if you want to start to do something today that can help you tune into your intuition, i would suggest to spend some time in nature after you finish this podcast.
Speaker: turn it off and take a walk and reflect on what's coming up for you. And if there's any feelings or sensations that you're curious about, and then just start asking some good questions about them and see what your intuition tells you. Awesome. Thank you so much, Leah. I loved getting to chat with you about this.
Speaker: Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.
