Episode #11 - Gia Lacqua
You can stop second-guessing yourself and make decisions you trust.
Here’s how.
In this episode, Gia Lacqua introduces strategic intuition as a grounded way to make aligned decisions without relying on constant outside validation. For ambitious women, especially working moms, people-pleasing and perfectionism can train you to outsource your self-trust. Strategic intuition flips that by bringing your own voice back to the center and helping you choose based on what actually matters to you.
Gia explains that this is more than a “gut feeling.” It’s learning to listen to signals from your brain, heart, and gut, and making space to notice what your body is telling you, even if you only have a few quiet minutes in your day. When you face a decision, start with a clear question, tune into your physical and emotional responses, and then sanity-check advice from others against your values so the final choice still feels like yours.
HERE ARE THE 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:
1️⃣ Self-trust is a skill you can rebuild.
2️⃣ Your body holds useful data.
3️⃣ Let values lead decisions.
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“You can be that person and the world needs that person.”
Guest Appearing in this Episode
Gia Lacqua
Gia Lacqua is a trauma-informed empowerment coach and women’s leadership expert who helps high-achieving women break free from the “never enough” cycle. She’s also an international motivational speaker, podcast host, and author, known for her work on redefining success with more alignment and less overwhelm. Through her Radical Prioritization framework, she supports women in focusing on what matters most so they can lead and live with clarity.
Full Transcript
speaker-0 (00:01.698)
Hi Gia, welcome to the Feel Good Club Show.
Hi, Tia. Thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
I'm excited. Let's get right into it. So you write that strategic intuition is for high achieving women, working moms, ready to stop second guessing, start trusting their inner compass, and lead with unshakable clarity in boardrooms, bedrooms, and everything in between. Why do so many of us, so many
ambitious working moms second guess or have a hard time trusting themselves even after years of success.
Yeah, such an important question. So I conducted a national research study last year with 750 working women across America. And one of the most jarring statistics, I can't say surprising, but jarring statistics was that 69 % of women feel that no matter how much they achieve, it's never enough. And the reality is that so many of us have learned to outsource our worth.
speaker-1 (01:16.352)
We are busy proving and doing and going and not being. And underneath that, and the work that I do is trauma-informed and very heavy in neuroscience. And the reality is, as you know, in the work that you do with happiness, our brains were not built for happiness. They were built for survival. So if you reflect back on your formative years, on your childhood, on your upbringing, think about the...
the habits that you develop that you might have carried with you into adulthood. So for a lot of girls, young girls, that involves people pleasing. It includes perfectionistic tendencies, meeting external expectations, being in control, which later we get labeled as control freaks. Essentially, your brain becomes wired to outsource your decisions for safety, for love, and for approval. And then as we get older, we...
Think of these as personality traits, as parts of our identity. And they're not. The reality is these are coping mechanisms that we've adopted and carried with us. And just because you now have the title and the paycheck and the corner office and the family, they don't just go away. In fact, success can reinforce the second guessing because now your stakes are even higher. So the reality is when you chronically outsource your knowing,
your brain actually gets better at seeking approval than recognizing your own inner truth.
Wow. I think about the big areas of an ambitious working mom's life, And career and kids. Yeah. And I would say for most, marriage or partnership comes in third. Career and kids are filling most of the time. Sure. And how common and how easy it is to.
speaker-0 (03:18.198)
to outsource, whether it be, and I was thinking, OK, yes, whether it's like you have a mentor or a coach and you go and you ask questions instead of that tuning in, or on the parenting side, you go get another, like me, how many parenting books I've read? I have a disabled child. all the things. So I can see how it's a hard time adjusting. And it's so crazy that that outsourcing makes us feel safe.
Mm-hmm.
Right? It's like we're looking for safety out there. So what exactly is strategic intuition? And how is this different than trusting your gut? Because we've heard that a lot. What exactly is strategic intuition?
Yeah, so it's funny. We've all heard of mother's intuition and people generally believe in that concept and it's really not that different. So the mother's intuition is knowing something is off with your child, right? Before other people do and maybe despite what the data might show or test results might show. And so strategic intuition is essentially
It's your whole body intelligence system and it becomes your ability to make bold and aligned decisions because you've stopped outsourcing your power and start trusting your full body intelligence system. And the reality is that it's not just a gut feeling. You actually have three brains. So it's, know we're, we believe we have one and as high achieving women, we mostly do spend a lot of our time in our head, but we have a head brain. have a heart brain and we have a gut brain and
speaker-1 (04:58.178)
So your brain obviously has the most receptors. It has 86 billion neurons. Your heart brain has its own intrinsic nervous system that includes 40,000 neurons. And then your gut brain is also referred to as your second brain, you might have heard, and that contains 100 million neurons. And so the reality is a lot of us think that the command center is the brain, but 80 % of the information that travels
between your body and your brain is afferent, which means it's coming, 80 % of the information is traveling up from your body to your brain, not the other way around. And it is giving you real time feedback. And so the idea of strategic intuition is just tuning into that full body information superhighway, if you will.
Mm-hmm. so practically, it's getting quiet, whether you're lying in your bed or you're sitting on a meditation pillow or you're sitting in your car or you're standing in your kitchen or you're at your desk, wherever. And it's noticing what is happening physically. And do you actually visualize your heart? And I mean, I do a lot of
Meditations connecting to my heart. So I feel very connected there. But are you visually connecting to this gut area of your body and the heart area of your body and tuning into what it's physically feeling like and then also signals and what it's telling you?
Yeah, it's a great question. So I think it can be very personalized. But yes, I would say first getting quiet and curious and listening and tuning in, which can be very hard, especially for high achieving women. I know for myself.
speaker-0 (06:52.846)
Yeah, when you have a to-do list with 77 things every day.
77 things that, know, every day something gets added. have the kids, you have, get it, the commute, the job, the meetings, the PowerPoint presentations, then you got to figure out dinner every single day. It's a lot. And so it really is just making the time and the space, five, 10, 15 minutes for yourself, morning, lunch, after work, at night before you go to bed to tune into your body. And sometimes the rest and the stillness
can create a lot of discomfort. know for me for a long time it did, which prevented me from doing this. So sometimes there's mindset work that has to come first in terms of allowing yourself to rest, allowing yourself to be still and getting curious. So for many years, I actually, love that you talk about meditation and I know it's a powerful tool and I can do some forms now, but for a long time, I quote unquote, couldn't meditate. Like it was not a thing. I couldn't do it. And then I got more frustrated with myself.
Because I could do anything. What do you mean I can't meditate? Because I couldn't get still, I couldn't get quiet. And so that in of itself was a signal for me, right? That I just dismissed it and I would go on to the next thing as opposed to saying, well, what is going on?
Gia, I can relate and I was the same my beautiful spiritual life coach years ago when my girls were really, really young. And I was like, I don't have time to meditate. I don't have time. And she was like, OK, when you're driving to work, you need to pull your car over on the side of the road because you're not with your kids and you're not with your sales and marketing team. And you need to pull out, leave a bit early and you're going to meditate for five minutes.
speaker-0 (08:40.654)
And I was like, you? She's like, yes. And so I basically started doing that because my coach was like, do this. And so I was like, all right. But someone had to make it that prescriptive, that directive. And I was going to be embarrassed on my next call if I didn't tell her. And it is, of course, that getting still. There's all we could talk about the trauma response. And immediately, also what I thought of is
At the World Happiness Summit in March, Dr. Arthur Brooks from Harvard talked a lot about the anti-boredom machines, are phones, because humans don't. The feeling of being bored and sitting still is not a pleasant feeling. It's not a fun. We don't get any dopamine. We're not getting any serotonin. But we are accessing this whole part of our brain, which connects to meaning and purpose and intuition.
You know common humanity could go on and on and so in this day and age we have to even be more cognizant and resistant to I could just scroll on Instagram for a bit. Let me just look at let me just check my emails like you got the 10 minutes and of course they're so addictive and we use them for work and we use them for parenting and don't beat yourself up if you are doing that you know.
So it may be that you need to put this in your calendar. Like you might have to make a meeting with yourself if it's not coming naturally, just like meditation didn't to you and I, right? Exactly.
It's just and that's I think it's a great point is just start somewhere pick that time and then I you know I started with walking meditation You know it could be five minutes and so whatever it is for you Whatever that looks like and I think it is just tuning into whatever is coming up whatever thoughts feelings that are coming up and Sometimes it is a vision sometimes. It's a voice for some people sometimes. It's an inner knowing or a tug or a pull
speaker-1 (10:44.746)
you know, before I left my corporate job, I just, had this feeling that like, this isn't it. Like I was meant for more. And even though I thought I was playing big, wasn't, was playing small, but I, and I couldn't articulate it, but there was this tug at my heart and I had to get really curious with it. And so it becomes in different forms for people. So I, I, yeah, just get curious and listen.
And is it usual or common that when you are taking this five to 15 minute, let's pause, right? The strategic intuition pause to listen and connect. Are you usually coming with a question? Like, you know, and it could be something simple. Like, do I say yes to that Mother's Day thing at my kid's school? Or do I start writing my book now? Or
There's all of these different things. Is it usually connected to a question? But you also kind of talked about the reaction piece.
Mm Yeah, it's a great point. I think there's there's kind of two parts to that. I think there's the general connecting with your body to see what's going on, things that you are overriding, suppressing, tuning out, making a quiet space and time just to see what is coming up.
just the regular feeling, body feeling, getting out of the head.
speaker-1 (12:11.188)
Exactly, getting out of your head and into your body and focusing on what you're experiencing and what you're feeling. You may feel great. You may be like, my gosh, everything is wonderful. Amazing. For most of us, that's probably not true. It's my back, my gut, my chest, whatever. So tuning into it, getting curious. Then what I would say, I think there is value when you do have those questions that come up, the more specific questions about should I take this job.
you know, the bigger questions obviously, and I'm not saying they're of course there's value in seeking input from trusted advisors from people you love, right? Right. If it's going to impact your spouse, right? I'm not saying don't have those conversations, have those conversations.
But the important part is your voice is in there, is in the mix, is in the calculation. And if not equally or even a bigger slice of that pie when it comes to making those decisions is really tuning into what is right for me and tuning into thinking about what your values are in life. What are the things that you must experience? What are your triggers? What are your priorities?
What is the impact I want to have? And that's the work that I do in radical prioritization is to make sure that our actions and behaviors actually align with what matters to us intrinsically versus the external validation.
And there are so many societal, cultural, family expectations placed on working moms. And someone else I interviewed was like, we get bombarded with all of this content about how to be a good mom and how to have your kids succeed. And dads get like 10 % of that.
speaker-0 (14:00.622)
content, algorithm isn't sending them all this. Yes. And I was like, how unfair? know, so much, so much so even more so because there's that out, you know, if you're someone who's on social media and getting all of this content, that strategic intuition, because all that content coming at us can obviously affect how we feel, think, decision make.
Isn't that interesting?
speaker-0 (14:28.982)
So this is so valuable, especially today with everything coming at us.
And I would just add to that real quick. My biggest frustration is when I love, like I have a lot of wellness and health information in my feeds and my algorithm. And I'm like, OK, well, this is education. It's information. It's good. And it is. But what gets to me is one post or reel will be about, here's why you should intermittent fast. And the next one is, you shouldn't be intermittent fasting. And here's why you should be fasting water. And here's why you shouldn't be fasting water. It's conflicting. And then you're like,
information overload and then you can't make sense of it. So I think it's just being conscious of where you're sourcing your data, the true information. The The
True information. Gia, you know, if you just made me think of is that when we tune into this strategic intuition, it's not just our wisdom, right? Because there there are genetics, there are epigenetics, there's wisdom from our ancestors that we hold in ourselves that it's this. It's not just us, right? So
Yeah, and of course, like there's this like collective wisdom of humanity. And so, yeah, that just popped into my head of like, it's not, not alone. and I know that you're trauma informed. So yeah, it's so good. So what's one shift a working mom can make today to start strengthening her own strategic intuition and imagine the working mom listening hasn't even started.
speaker-0 (16:11.822)
So maybe it's a two part. it's how can they start and then how can they strengthen it?
Yeah. So I mean, think part of it is what we talked about is carving out the five, 10, 15 minutes for yourself to sit, to be with your body, to notice what's coming up, notice what's going on, make a note of it. The other thing I would say is, you know, I tell women to use the silent second test. So the next time someone asks you a question, ask you to run the bake sale at school, pause for one second and scan your body.
Physically recognize what signs are coming up for you. Are you feeling tightness in your chest? Do you feel your gut sinking? Do you feel your shoulders dropping like? Is there that sigh that's coming up for you or do you feel this lightness and energy like Excitement right because that is your nervous system giving you a readout we just so often either turn it off like we ignore it or we tune out and so
We've been trained to override it with logic, with fear, and with the shoulds. And so we're not listening. And so the idea is just to listen long enough and let your intuition lead.
The logic, the fear and the shoulds. That's a lot and they have a lot of weight and we put a lot of importance. Yeah. I would also like other family members or right there's all the other people's thoughts and expectations and yeah and coming back to the yeah coming back to the shoulds. Of course I could see in working with the coach like what you do you know with women journaling.
speaker-1 (17:34.147)
lot.
speaker-0 (17:59.374)
around this, like I know you, you know, putting things in your phone or just writing. Obviously that yeah, that getting silent piece. What, what is some what can someone expect who starts to and I know you're, you're living proof of this and you're very passionate about it. When ambitious working mom really makes this a priority and starts tuning in to their three brains starts pausing.
starts noticing their body throughout the day, doesn't react, takes time, and is really, really clear on their values. I have my values right here. They're there. I know them. And I make decisions based on them. But really coming back to this strategic intuition piece, what is going to shift? What's going to be the transformation?
for a working mom.
Great question. So I love that you have your values posted. A lot of women that come to me that I work with don't know what their values are. So getting really clear on what are my values, the work that I do, it's what are your values, what are your core priorities in life, and what is the impact you want to have? That's the work I do with radical prioritization, which is essentially making the conscious decision to focus on what is truly important to you and releasing the rest.
But even before that, what I would say is in all the work that I do is, well, there's one core principle behind all the work that I do, and it is identity first, strategy second. And what do I mean by that? Your identity drives everything. It drives every decision that you make, how you see yourself, how you see the world around you, how you view others, what you think you're capable of, what you think you're not capable of. That's going to drive your thoughts. Your thoughts determine your emotions. Your emotions.
speaker-1 (19:57.608)
are actually what triggers your actions and behaviors, which are then going to determine your outcomes. So we have to start with identity. And so the key question I have for everybody listening and every high achieving woman is, who are you without the roles and the titles?
including title of mom.
Yeah. Including mom. Now they're all part of you, no doubt. Yeah. But just for this exercise, reflect on who are you aside from your job title, mom, wife, all of it. Put it aside for a minute and ask, who am I at my core? And that is the beauty of the work because we are then making decisions from that inner core versus the role that we are.
playing and the mask that we are wearing. And so what shifts is that alignment of and our alignment and our impact in the world and how we're showing up and the ripple effect that that then has on the people we work with on our children, right? On our community.
And I immediately think like I need more work-life balance is the wrong phrase is the wrong goal. Like this is about connecting to your essence and your inner child, right? Because before I think for girls, it's around age nine. We really start listening and I see it with my nine year old. gosh, how much she's listening to the world now versus she was just her own little being, you her above half.
speaker-1 (21:37.451)
yeah.
Of how much she the peers and everything. Um, yeah, so our seven-year-old selves, you know of just like who is our essence? So that is so so so valuable and and Even though you have the PowerPoint and everything you said Taking the time to do this and I'll tell you I wish I
Yeah.
Did this work before? Like 12 years, before I had my first kid. Yeah. You know, our kids come to us to teach us all the lessons.
lessons. It came, it came, and it came. But yeah, no, everybody I talked to has the same sentiment. The sooner the better, but absolutely. But yeah, it's who it's never too late. But who were you before the world told you who to be? Yeah, right.
speaker-0 (22:24.91)
It's never too late.
speaker-0 (22:32.642)
Yeah, yes, exactly. And you can you can be that person and the world needs that person. It comes into your impact impact with work impact with with your children and community, etc. So I know you have a awesome free gift for listeners. Can you tell us about a little bit about this quiz and masterclass?
100.
speaker-1 (22:53.304)
Sure, absolutely. So to help women really tap into their strategic intuition. The other thing is a lot of women are unknowingly settling because we are doing all the things all the time. The reality is we can't, I mean, we like to think that we can do everything in 110 % capacity all the time, but the reality is we're settling in places that we don't even realize it. Maybe it's our career, maybe it's our relationship, maybe we're not showing up as the mom we wanna show up as, maybe we're not.
taking care of ourselves the way.
so much. Right. Taking care of ourselves.
Whether that's physically, mentally, spiritually. I was for many years, wasn't even a priority on my list. Now I'm a core pillar and that has been transformational. So I have two offerings on my website that anybody can access, geolocco.com. The first is say the hard thing quiz, which helps you identify what you're not saying is actually keeping you stuck.
And then tied to that, if you would like, there's a 30 minute free masterclass also available on my website to go a little bit deeper for you, help you identify what you're not saying. Cause when you say the hard thing, that's when everything shifts. And that's when you can start tapping into your strategic intuition and aligning your life.
speaker-0 (24:12.98)
I love it. And where can listeners find you and follow you to learn more in addition to your website?
Yeah. So I would be very happy to connect with anyone who would like to. on Instagram at Gia Lackwa. I'm on LinkedIn. My website is gialackwa.com. My podcast is What the Shift. And I'm also launching a book in March, which is called Power Shift, and it is available for pre-order if anyone is interested. And it is about shifting from doing it all to focusing on what really matters.
I love it. And my last question is, what is one thing, in addition to strategic intuition, what is one thing that you do that helps you feel good as a high achieving mom?
Ooh, that's a good one. So I would say one of the biggest shifts I made when I started my own business and left the corporate world and went through my own healing journey and discovery process, I now have non-negotiable white space in my calendar. And I will say just before like when stillness was, you know, uncomfortable for me.
White space made me uncomfortable. If I had like free time, I think now it's called like time confetti and you get nervous because like, what am I going to do with this 15 minutes? What am I going to do with this hour? I have to be productive. I should be doing something, right? Because you should be productive. be doing something. Your list is never ending. And so for me, if I had white space, that meant that I was available. So to me, I block out that white space because it's not just for productivity, it's for presence. It's about.
speaker-1 (25:56.632)
taking care of myself and how I, which improves obviously how I show up in the world for myself and for others. So if I'm depleted, right, I am not serving at my highest level. I am not showing up as my best self. So that white space, and I don't have to decide ahead of time what I'm gonna use it for. I just know that I have white space.
I can do whatever my body is feeling in that moment. If it's lying on my PEMF mat, if it's going for a walk, if it's doing yoga, if it's reading a book, if it's just lying down and tuning into my body for 10 minutes, right? I just, know that it's there and that has been a game changer for me.
So great. Gia, thank you for coming on the show. I suspect you'll be back in the future. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and inspiration today.
Sia, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.