Part 1: What Emergency Surgery Taught Me About Intuition

“Trust your gut,” I laughed inwardly as my last lucid thought flitted across my mind while I was going under for an emergency appendectomy last week. Not to worry, I am home from the hospital, recovering, and feeling good enough to write this week's newsletter. I think it was the irony of the phrase, my predicament, and the prescription meds that had me laughing. But the truth is, had I not trusted my intuition, I could have compromised my health in a very serious way.

On Friday, I became violently ill. Initially thinking it was food poisoning, I toughed it out overnight on my sister's sofa. I was at her house when I got sick and couldn't pull myself together enough to make it the short distance home or to an actual bed. But the next morning, that quiet inner voice said to me, “It's your appendix.”

Do you know how many times I've thought of an appendix outside of an academic paper? Zero. So it was odd that this was the thought that came to me in that quiet moment. I ran it past my sister, who said she thought I had a virus, and in true sisterly fashion, had been trailing me with disinfectant. Unable to dismiss the nagging feeling, I went to the ER and sure enough had an inflamed appendix that had to be removed that day.

I won't go into the gory details ('cause ew), but if your appendix perforates or bursts, it can be life-threatening. Fortunately, I got to the hospital soon enough that neither of those things happened. This was in large part because I listened to my inner voice, which had spoken so clearly and succinctly that morning.

And it brought to mind a question, riffing off Maya Angelou, I've been asking of myself and my coaching clients lately: “What would it be like if you believed yourself, the first time?”

That question feels especially urgent right now. We are living in an age of polycrisis. From economic and financial hardships to rising unemployment, from human rights atrocities to the rise of the right, globally we are all trying to navigate difficult terrain—and this is before we even get to the ups and downs of managing our careers, personal relationships, and well-being.

In the midst of all this, each of us is making about 35,000 decisions in a day. These range from the habitual, “Yes, I will brush my teeth,” to the routine “What am I having for lunch?” To the high-impact: “Will I take this job?” “Who on my team will get this promotion?” “What's the best way to manage this conflict?”

A lot is being asked of us daily, and there is an opportunity in both life and work to harness one of the most powerful tools we have: our intuition. What would your decision-making processes be like if, alongside gathering data, getting input from others, and testing assumptions, you first took a moment to tap into what Alice Walker calls “the little voice that knows exactly which way to go”?

While the idea of intuition can seem overly woo and like it has no place in professional decision-making, 85% of leaders regularly “trust their gut” when weighing options. From Oprah Winfrey to Richard Branson, from Steve Jobs to Ursula Burns to Bozoma St. John, some of the most successful corporate leaders have learned to hone their intuition, and we can too.

So, consider this week's note Part 1: the why of intuition. Next week, I'll be back with Part 2: practical steps you can take to hone your intuition.

In the meantime, I'd love to know what your relationship with intuition is: Is it something you regularly tap into? Is it something you'd like to lean into more? Or is it a concept that doesn't really resonate? Take this two-second poll and let me know.