Lori Munoz was a good employee.
She showed up, hit targets, and played the game. On paper, nothing was wrong. On the inside, she was hitting her head against the wall every time a new idea went nowhere or a push for change dissolved into organizational silence.
At some point, she stopped asking “how do I prove myself here?” and started asking a harder question: what is the right work environment for me?
That question cost her something. It meant admitting the problem wasn’t effort. The environments weren’t working. And no amount of extra hours was going to fix that.
So she left to build BrokersOfGood from scratch. Ten years later, she’s running a company built around her values: real partnerships between businesses and nonprofits and no performative sponsorships or polished pitches masking misaligned relationships.
What she learned building it is what I want to talk about today.
Reviving your intuition
Lori told me women are pushed toward rationality. Justify the decision, show the data, make the case. The intuitive signal gets deprioritized until it gets quiet. Lori’s intuition is loud now because she stopped ignoring it. She described it as a practice, not a personality trait. You can rebuild it.
Instead of managing her time, she manages her energy. Her morning walk is non-negotiable. Her nervous system is steady before the day starts. She hunts with intention, like a lioness, and rests without guilt between. Her output didn’t drop, and she shed what no longer served her.
For years, the operating belief was: work harder, and it’ll work. Dropping that story wasn’t easy. It meant sitting with the discomfort of “this environment is wrong for me” instead of reaching for a fix that kept her busy.
In coaching, I see that women who make the hardest moves aren’t the ones who push harder. They’re the ones who stopped performing for an audience that wasn’t worth it.
Lori didn’t optimize her way out. She got honest about what she wanted and what she was willing to do.
That’s available to you, too. Is your work working for you?
What’s one thing you’ve been ignoring that your body already knows?
P.S. If that question landed for you, you might be interested in how The Power Position Review can help you evaluate where you are to position you for what’s next.