By Julie Condliffe

In a world saturated with expert opinions, endless content, and never-ending advice loops, clarity often feels elusive. You consult your mentor, speak to your therapist, sound it out in the group chat. You scroll endlessly, save quotes, download guides. And still, the direction you seek refuses to arrive. Because the answer was never out there. It was within you all along.

When Expertise Isn’t Enough

I’ve been at rock bottom—not just emotionally, but publicly and professionally. And when everything collapsed, the most dangerous part wasn’t the loss. It was the noise. Everyone had a prescription for my comeback.

Start over. Rebrand. Be louder. Stay silent. Step back. Step up.

Everyone had a voice except me.

So, I followed the crowd. I moved in five directions at once, all of them away from myself. I was performing competence while internally unraveling.

Until one day, I did something radical in today’s culture of constant input: I stopped. I unplugged. I listened.

In that sacred silence, beneath the metrics and pressure, I heard her—the woman within. She did not scream. She whispered.

And what she whispered was this: “You already know. You’ve always known.”

That moment shifted everything. Not because it gave me all the answers, but because it reconnected me to the only source that could discern which answer was right for me.

Intuition as a Business Strategy

Rebuilding my professional life didn’t begin with a strategy session. It began with a deep return to self-trust. And in that process, I uncovered three truths about intuition that have since shaped my leadership, my coaching, and my business.

1. Intuition Is Not Vague—It’s a Forgotten Language
   We’re taught to speak the language of logic: projections, performance, KPIs. But you were born with another language, one that speaks in gut feelings, tension, peace, and knowing. Over time, we’re conditioned to mute it. Sensitivity is dismissed. Instinct is framed as unreliable. But intuition is not fluff. It’s a form of intelligence, one that, when sharpened, becomes a decisive, strategic edge.

In every pitch, partnership, or pivot, your body knows. Your inner guide senses. The question is: have you remembered how to listen?

2. The Body Remembers What the Mind Tries to Override
   In professional settings, we often override our instincts in favor of logic, politeness, or external validation. But the body never lies. When something’s off—a deal, a dynamic, a direction—your nervous system will register it before your conscious mind can name it.

That “anxiety” you feel before a meeting might not be imposter syndrome. It might be insight. That discomfort in your gut might not be fear—it might be truth.

If more leaders learned to read their internal signals, fewer would burn out from following the wrong opportunities.

3. Your Inner Guide Deserves a Seat at the Table
   In boardrooms, brainstorms, and life-changing decisions, we often consult everyone but ourselves. But imagine the shift if you trusted your own insight with the same conviction you trust Google, advisors, or colleagues.

Your intuition is not your enemy. It’s your ally. Before you crowdsource, pause. Ask yourself. The internal guide—quiet, calm, and often drowned out—may have the very clarity you’ve been seeking elsewhere.

The Moment That Changed Everything

Shortly after my public fallout, I was offered an opportunity that, on paper, looked like a return to form. The role came with status, great pay, and the chance to re-enter rooms others assumed I should be desperate to return to.

But something in me whispered, no.

Not out of fear. Not out of ego. But with calm, unmistakable clarity: “This is not your way anymore.”

Saying no to what looked like restoration became the gateway to real reinvention. That decision wasn’t strategic—it was soul-led. And it marked a shift in how I’ve done business ever since.

Trusting that whisper led me to build from peace, not pressure. To walk in alignment rather than in image. It cost me certain applause, but it restored my integrity. And that restoration has been priceless.

The Silence That Saved Me

After the collapse, I did not need more advice. I needed silence. Not the empty kind, but the sacred kind. The kind that allows you to reacquaint yourself with your original voice—the one that led you before titles, metrics, and expectations shaped your self-worth.

So I began a daily practice. Ten minutes of stillness. One simple question: “What do I already know?”

Not what do I think, or what should I do, but what do I know in my body, in my gut, in my spirit?

At first, the answers were subtle. Then came the flickers. The quiet knowing. The patterns I had dismissed. The red flags I had justified. And every time I followed that voice, things aligned—not always quickly, but always meaningfully.

As a professional woman, especially in business, I had been trained to speak externally with confidence. But I had to relearn how to speak internally with conviction.

A New Model of Leadership

What does all this mean for business? It means leadership must evolve.

We no longer need women who simply fit into traditional systems. We need women who reshape them by leading from within. In a world obsessed with outward mastery, inner authority is a competitive advantage.

You do not need to become someone else to succeed in your next chapter. You need to become still enough to hear the woman within again.

She already knows.
She always did.

This is Part Three of the five-part ARISE series, a reinvention journey for women ready to lead from soul, not survival. In the next feature, we turn outward again, exploring the fourth pillar: Sacred Vision, the ability to see differently, even when the circumstances haven’t yet changed.

Until then,
You, my love, are unbreakable.