The Performance Paradox - Looks Like Work, Season 3, Ep 22

Yewande Faloyin on the Looks Liek Work podcast season 3 episode 22 The Performance Paradox

What if burnout isn’t a personal failure—but a design flaw in how we’ve been taught to pursue success?

In this paradigm-shifting conversation, Yewande Faloyin, founder of Otito Leadership and certified energy leadership coach, joins Chedva to dismantle one of the most dangerous myths in high-achieving cultures: that peak performance is all about pushing harder. Yewande’s story takes us from the halls of McKinsey and the tech teams at IBM and Morgan Stanley, through a crash course in burnout, and ultimately into a more integrated, sustainable model of leadership—one rooted in energy, wholeness, and deep personal alignment.

With her background in both logic-heavy systems and intuitive personal development, Yewande brings rare clarity to the traps ambitious people fall into. If you’ve ever hit a wall and thought, “Maybe I’m just not strong enough,” this episode offers a different lens: what if it’s not about strength, but about orientation?

Together, Chedva and Yewande explore how we can shift from chasing external outcomes to embodying mastery, and how rest—true, integrated rest—can become our most strategic advantage.

Yewande’s Powerful Questions:

Where in your life are you ticking boxes without examining the energy behind them?

  • What would change if you viewed rest as performance, not weakness?

  • Is boredom pointing you toward your next evolution?

Key Topics:

  • Burnout as a message, not a malfunction—and how it led Yewande to energy leadership

  • How boredom can be a compass, not a red flag

  • The Performance Paradox: mastering orientation over obsession with outcome

  • Why rest is more than self-care—it’s performance strategy

  • Letting go of the “checkbox” mentality when it comes to wellness

  • How integration (mind, body, spirit) creates actual transformation—not just coping

  • Leadership that starts with internal congruence instead of external approval

Key Lessons:

  • Burnout doesn’t mean you’re broken—it may mean you’ve outgrown your current model of success

  • High performance isn’t about constant motion—it’s about deliberate alignment

  • Rest is not indulgent—it’s necessary

  • You can’t fake integration—your energy will always reveal the truth

  • Leadership is deeply personal, and no one else’s blueprint can define it for you

 

“You could choose to rest, I could choose to rest—and yours could be effective and mine might not be, because of the how.”

 

Listen to this episode on Spotify | Apple | Wherever you get your podcasts

Resources & Mentions:

  1. Website: Otito Leadership website

  2. Yewande on LinkedIn

  3. Energy Leadership certification (IPEC)

  4. You’re Gonna Want to Sit Down for This - bi-weekly email packed with lessons and free tools

  5. Book recommendations from this season of LLW

  6. Catch up on previous seasons of Looks Like Work wherever you get your podcasts: Spotify | Apple | Podbean

  7. Subscribe to the newsletter: chedva.substack.com

  8. Check out The Curiosity Lab and CuriosityGPT

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From AI Research to Alternative Healing - Looks Like Work, Season 3, Ep 21

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Finding Heart in Hard News - Looks Like Work, Season 3, Ep 20