Learn to Empower Yourself with Emotional Intelligence

Damianne President: Kathy, do you identify as a woman in midlife?

Cathy Mott: Yeah, I’m on the other side.

Damianne President: So tell me, how do you define joy for yourself these days? Really? 

Cathy Mott: Joy for me is every day that I wake up, and I love the work that I do. I love the people that I interact with. I think the biggest source of joy for me, though, is being at peace with myself. And then my relationship with God. Like, those are the components of joy for me.

Damianne President: Yeah, thanks for that. And when you filled out the pre interview form that I shared, you described joy as walking in your God given purpose. That phrase really stood out to me. And I’d love to hear more. about what you mean when you talk about God given purpose?

Cathy Mott: Great question. So, my personal mission statement is I want people to feel God’s love through me. And what I mean by that, the way that I interact with people, I always want to make them feel special. I want to make them feel valued, heard, and appreciated in the moment. And then as they walk away, they say, hmm, there’s something special about her.

And then upon further inquiry, they find out I’m a Christian woman and walking in my purpose. So part of the work that I do as an executive coach, emotional intelligence coach, I get to interact with people on a very deep level. And so I feel like I’m able to use my God given gifts and talents to help people become a better version of themselves. 

Damianne President: You talked about executive coaching. What are some of the things that you focus on in coaching?

Cathy Mott: The main one I focus on is emotional intelligence, because emotional intelligence has four components: self awareness, self management, awareness of others, and then managing the social setting or the relationship. And all of those things are foundational to great leadership. And so that’s typically where I will start with them, unless I’ve been hired to coach an executive on a particular behavior pattern that they have already ascertained this person needs to improve upon. But I always start with the emotional intelligence piece. 

Damianne President: That’s interesting. And what do you usually find as being the main opportunity when it comes to emotional intelligence? 

Cathy Mott: Most people are disconnected from themselves. They don’t have a relationship with themselves. So my tagline is I specialize in introducing people to themselves. I help them meet themselves face to face, to fall in love with themselves, discover their natural gifts and talents, and lead from a place of confidence, inspiration, and authenticity. 

Damianne President: We’re meant to be talking about mindfulness and self reflection, but I am just intrigued by what you’re sharing about emotional intelligence as well and about people getting to know themselves. And I think that’s related to self reflection and even to mindfulness too, because you’ve got to be present. So let’s stick with that theme for a bit.

 In terms of people getting to know themselves, what do you suggest for listeners as one of the first things that they can do in their everyday lives?

Cathy Mott: I love that question. So if we’re interested in getting to know another person, we spend time with that person. And if we really enjoy their company, we’ll create space and time, even more time to spend with that person. I’ve trained over 10, 000 people globally and I’ve coached hundreds of executives. And what I found is most people are disconnected from themselves and are afraid to spend time with themselves, whether meditating, mindfulness practice, listening to themselves, they’re actually afraid. 

I had one client where her project or goal that she wanted to work on in between our two week sessions is spending one minute with herself. And she couldn’t do it. It took her about six weeks to get to the point where she could spend one minute with herself. And that is actually what motivated me to write the book, Shh, Just Listen to Great Things Happen in the Silence, because it’s a 30 day emotional intelligence workbook where I talk about 30 different emotions and how I experience them. I walk through the four quadrants of emotional intelligence. Then I create the space for the reader to do the same thing. So, right about when they experience that emotion, walk through self awareness, self management, awareness of others, the social setting. And I ask two questions at the end of every emotion. If I had to relive this situation all over again, what would I do differently? And then what was the learning, the opportunity for learning or the lesson that the emotion was trying to teach you? And so then the reader has to answer those two questions as well. 

I thought about all of the people that are afraid to sit with themselves, and at least if they wanted to sit quietly with themselves, they’d have a companion. After they read my story about an experience with a particular emotion, they could go inside of themselves and talk about when they experienced that emotion. So the goal was to really give people a resource to begin to sit with themselves and explore themselves from the inside out. 

Damianne President: Let’s give an instruction to people who are listening. 

Damianne President: What does it look like to spend time with yourself for one minute? Is there guidance or is that individual to each person? 

Cathy Mott: It can be individual to each person, but I can share, like, when I was in my mid 30s, I couldn’t spend time with myself. I didn’t get here overnight. I didn’t grow up with a mindfulness, meditation practice.

 My story is, in my mid 30s, I went into a depression. I’d married young, had three kids, being a mom, being a wife, and didn’t really know who I was. So I’ve taken this journey, and the first time I had to sit with myself alone, it was painful, it was daunting, there was nothing on the inside, and I hated that.

 So I sought therapy, I began journaling, and I went on this quest to find myself. And once I did, I promised myself that I would never go back to a point of depression again. As a result of that, I’m intentional about doing things every day to make sure that I’m taking care of myself, that I’m listening to my inner voice and honoring it, and that I’m even listening and taking care of my ego when it bubbles up during a coaching session and it wants to scream, Well, let me tell you what I would do, or let me tell you when that happened to me. And I’ll say, not right now, Kathy, I’ll take care of you later. So it’s really having that intimate relationship with self and being your biggest cheerleader, your own best friend.

Damianne President: I created a podcast series on how to be your own best friend. And a lot of it is around what it could look like for you to be a best friend to yourself and thinking about it personally, what do I value in a best friend and how can I show up for myself in that same way? And so what you’re talking about really resonates with me. 

 I was going through that journey myself. And I had thought that I was a good friend to myself. Then I realized, Oh, but there are all of these little ways that you’re not being a good friend to yourself and you wouldn’t let somebody else get away with it, but you are letting yourself.

Cathy Mott: Right. Right. That’s so true. Treat you that way. Yeah. Yeah. It goes back to the whole, love your neighbor as you love yourself. And most people love other people more than they love themselves. Like the negative self talk that they entertain within, they would never say that to a friend. And so it’s really developing a relationship with yourself where you can hear yourself, send you the messages that when someone has crossed the boundary, you know, you get that internal nudge to say, say something, or when someone has disrespected you, you get that internal nudge.

 Being fully present to listen to yourself and to know yourself really puts you in a place to be fully present for others. And so it’s not only a gift that you give to yourself to get to know who you are, but then it becomes a gift that you can give to others.

Damianne President: Absolutely. I have an app on my phone called Habits and 10 times a day, it reminds me, listen to the voice in your head right now. And the reason for that is really to start noticing what’s just below the surface sometimes that can be rather insidious, but we don’t really pay attention to it. It’s really a way for me to be intentional about mindfulness.

And so let’s talk about mindfulness and self reflection, which have been themes that have already come up. Mindfulness and self reflection can sound really simple, right? There’s a lot of conversation happening around mindfulness. It’s almost an overused term but I think it can really get challenging for people to think about what does it look like in their everyday life. And so I’m curious if you have any strategies or any practices that listeners can use with themselves for mindfulness and self reflection.

Cathy Mott: I do. So I’ll start with mindfulness. I remember in 2013, I went to school for, uh, they call it transformational coaching or executive coaching. And the very first thing we had to learn how to do was a meditation or mindfulness practice. And because as coaches, we would coach three domains of our clients, so mind heart, and the body. We started with a mindfulness practice where we do our deep breathing and we would ask ourselves, what am I thinking? And so in and out, and we would focus on our thought process. The next one is, what am I physically feeling? So we would do a body scan because all emotions manifest themselves somewhere in the body. And the last one would be, what am I feeling emotionally? And so I’ve come to appreciate that my emotions bubble up from the gut or even sometimes below the waist, and then they will bubble up and I can’t name them until they bubble up to my throat. 

Damianne President: Very interesting. 

Cathy Mott: I love it so much. And then afterwards, I’m there 10 to 15 minutes, I grab a journal and I just write. I’m not worried about grammar. I just write. So I’ve been journaling for about 25 years. I love it. I absolutely love it. So when I am sitting with my clients and their facial expression will change, I’ll ask a question and their facial expression will change. I will ask them, what are you experiencing? If I know for certain they’re a thinker, I’ll ask him, what are you thinking? Or if they’re a feeler, what are you feeling? 

And so that mindfulness practice, I’ve continued that. And then I do also meditation where I’m just fully present with myself and I’m listening to myself. I have this metaphor that I use for myself when I get to a certain place in my meditation practice, where I feel so comfortable in this space, I say, I could be here all day. It’s like coming home. And sometimes it feels as if someone is opening my heart and pouring in love. 

Damianne President: Just a few minutes ago, I had a course and I shared something that I’m, I’m struggling with. And the coach asked me some open ended questions around, what was I feeling, what was happening in my body and then noticing my expressions and asking about it.

At some point she said, what are you feeling now? And I was like, I feel so much love. And it’s not love of the particular person but it was big love, like love for humanity. It was love for I want care and I want the best for all of the people that whose path I touch, whose path I cross. So when you talk about getting to that place of love, this is what came up for me. 

Cathy Mott: Yes. Yes. You know, I’ve been married 41 years and my husband always says I meet no strangers, and I’m always hugging people. And I’m a pretty good read of character, whether or not people want to be hugged or not.

Um, and people in my congregation say, you give the best hugs. Because I’m sharing that love, my mission statement. I want people to feel God’s love through me. So I have to always make sure that I replenish. And then you asked about the self reflection. 

 When I first started engaging in self reflection every night before I went to bed, I would review my day in my head and ask myself, did you like how you showed up in that particular situation? If you had it to do all over again, what would you do? What’s preventing you from showing up the way you want to? Are you proud of situations where you showed up? So I would review my day. That’s when I first started. Now I have mastered it to the point where I can do it almost in the moment. 

Damianne President: Yeah. So Cathy, we’ve talked through a few themes and given people some ideas of strategies that they can use. How does that connect to joy? Why is that relevant? Why is mindfulness and reflection and being your best friend relevant for joy? 

Cathy Mott: Joy to me is definitely internal. I also believe it’s a fruitage of God’s Spirit. 

Cathy Mott: So, when I talk about a relationship with myself and being connected with myself, I have a very robust self care program. So I’m up early in the morning, 5, 5: 30. I do Bible reading, prayer, meditation, journaling, and I exercise. So, living a life that allows me to do that every day is joy. Connecting with God daily is joy. Reading his love letter to us is joy. And so, when I interact with other people, I fill my bucket, if you will, or my cup. And so, a full cup spills over, so I always go out, I always say, I’m going out to ooze all over people. So, all of the things that I do to care for myself leads me to joy.

Damianne President: My invitation for people listening is for them to think about what could a routine look like at some time of the day that could help them access joy. Maybe that’s a morning routine. Maybe that’s an afternoon routine. Maybe some people would not be joyful to wake up at 5: 30. I know some of those people and I am one of those people right now in my life, but there are certainly routines at other times of the day where I could access joy every day.

Cathy Mott: Yes, they can. So the 5 a. m. routine started as a result of, at the time when I started this 25 years ago. When I went into my depression in search of myself, I had three small kids at the time, so I needed to get up before they did. So it wouldn’t have been my choice to get up at five, but if I wanted to have some quality time with myself and with God, I knew I had to do it before my children got up. So according to whatever your schedule is, it doesn’t have to be large pockets of time. It can be five minutes. You start with 5, it feels good, you may be able to find 10.

The other thing I tell, or encourage my clients to do, If you go through a drive thru and you splurge on a coffee or frappuccino that you normally wouldn’t get, do you communicate to yourself that, Kathy, this is for you? I’m doing this for you. So when you do something out of the ordinary that’s special for yourself, do you communicate that?

And then when you take a five minute break from mindfulness, meditation, or self reflection, do you communicate with yourself so that you know we’re in a relationship together and this is part of the love that I want to express to you, so that we do have joy? So it could be five minutes. 

I worked with one executive and she was a mom of three small children and she would arrive at work 15 minutes early and sit in her car and read a devotional and then read a book for 10 minutes. And she started to communicate with herself, this is for you. So it doesn’t have to be what my routine is. Because my routine started because it fit me at the time. So it could be whatever your routine is. It could be five minutes of meditation, or five minutes of using a meditation app, or it could be walking around your office building for 10 minutes and communicating with yourself, I’m doing this for you so that when we move our bodies, we feel good. So whatever that relationship is with yourself that you want to improve upon and what are the things that make you feel special. 

So I have two daughters and when they were teenagers, I was trying to teach them about self care, doing things for yourself. And I told them, make sure your self care routine doesn’t depend on anyone else, because if they’re not available, does that mean you don’t get to engage in self care? So it’s really building that relationship with yourself and feeling confident that you can sustain and build a healthy relationship with yourself. I’ll be the first to say, in the beginning, it’s daunting, but the reward is so great. 

Damianne President: Yeah. And I also have a podcast episode on how important this is, this relationship with yourself in terms of building resilience as well. Because you start to learn that you can depend on yourself and what’s the biggest fear that we have? That whatever we do, we’re going to die, right? And so you start learning that you’re not going to die, like you’re going to survive those challenging situations that come up and it really builds that resilience so that you can handle stress better. 

Damianne President: Now you’ve developed an app which helps people engage with their emotions and manage their anxiety. Tell us about your app and how might listeners use it or similar tools to deepen their self awareness, if you will. 

Cathy Mott: Okay, I love the question. I’ll share a story with you. This was the motivation behind developing the app. I was coaching a chief nursing officer over a healthcare system who reported to the CEO. This was during the tail end of the pandemic and her CEO had not turned on his camera in two years, and she hated it. So I asked her what conversations have you had with him about turning on the camera? And she says, well, none. And I said, what prevents you? She says, he’s busy. I can hear him typing in the background and opening his mail and I don’t want to disturb him. So I said, can I share with you what my intuition is telling me? You can say yes or no. She said, absolutely.

I said, I’m sensing fear. She said, absolutely. So I pull up the Wheel of Emotions. And I asked her, when you’re in his presence, how do you feel? And she said, inadequate and worthless. I said, okay. Now she could only name that after looking at the wheel of emotions. I said, okay, well, what do you want to do with those emotions? She says, inadequate, I’m going to toss out the window because I know I’m great at my job. And worthless, that’s how my father used to make me feel when I was in his presence as a little girl. And he kind of reminds me of my dad. And maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with him.

 I said, well, what’s your next move? She says, I’m going to have the conversation and ask him to turn on his camera. She had the conversation. He turned on his camera. Their relationship improved, and she got a promotion, and she just hired me back in June to come and teach emotional intelligence to 75 of her team members.

But the thing that made me say, I have to do this for the masses is without having something to look at, most people can’t name their emotion. If you can’t name it, you can’t tame it. She never would have been able to say, I feel inadequate or worthless. But seeing it, she could name it. So I took that same coaching conversation that I’ve had with hundreds of my executives and I’ve watched them soar, I put the same coaching conversation into an app. I am using it in corporate America, but now school districts are purchasing the app for their students to help them manage their anxiety. 

In working with the students in the school districts, 95 percent of them said they suffer from anxiety. When we are experiencing an emotion that is intense, our blood flow is focused on the back of the brain and the amygdala. When you begin to ask a series of logical questions, all of a sudden the brain says, Oh my goodness, we need to send some blood up to the frontal cortex of the brain so we can solve the questions or answer the questions. And that lessens the intensity of the emotion. And from that space, you can decide what do I want to do with this emotion? And so that’s how the app is set up. 

It starts off with what am I feeling today? It has the six core emotions. And then you open it up, you choose, and you tap on a core emotion. There are all the subsequent emotions that fall under that one emotion. So anxiety falls under fear. Then there’s an option where the user can take a selfie. And then the questions start. What’s causing me to feel this way? What do I want to do with these emotions? Most people don’t know they have choices. So there’s a drop down box that gives them choices. Who would I like to share this emotion with? So they can choose a support person, therapist, counselor, teacher, mom, dad is in there, and several more. And then the big one is, What do I need from my listener? Because most people will try to fix our emotions. If we’re sad, don’t feel sad, the sun is shining today. But there’s several prompts. I need understanding, or validation, or comfort. Challenge my thinking. They can select to share with their listener what they need before they come to the conversation. And then the last question is, what were the benefits of working through this emotion? When they hit finish, then their link pops up to send to their listener. And then the app also keeps data on how much time you spend in each core emotion. 

So it’s a wonderful app. The school districts love the data that it provides because they have an idea of where the kids are, what core emotion they’re spending most of their time in, and then they’re providing additional training and support for those particular emotions.

Damianne President: And to confirm, anybody can use this app, right? 

Cathy Mott: Yes. It’s on Apple and Google, My Journey Within. So it allows individuals to journey within themselves and interact with their emotions one at a time. 

Damianne President: I really love this. And the reason for that is because with kids and adults, I think often, we’re not used to talking about emotions, so I’m happy to hear that it’s going in schools. And also, the other big part of this is we’re not used to asking for what we need. Like, that’s not part of how many of us behave. We expect people to mind read, or we think it’s somehow wrong for us to ask for what we need. 

Cathy Mott: Yeah, that’s so true. It’s so very true. And it’s so sad. And then That goes back to the relationship you have with yourself, feeling like you’re not deserving. So I’ll share a story with you. 

I mentioned I’ve been married 41 years. And so my husband and I were sitting in different parts of the house, and all of a sudden, I get an invitation from the app from my husband. And the emotion that he’s feeling is disappointed. And he said, what I need from you, my listener, is validation. Sometimes I feel guilty for feeling this way. 

All of the prompts to the listener are set up that it creates vulnerability. So all of the prompts have a vulnerable message to it. So when I got the invitation to join him in a conversation and he needed validation, I knew exactly what to do, even though I’m a coach, because my natural inclination is let’s look at the positive. When I went to engage him in that conversation, I knew exactly what he needed from me, and it was one of the best conversations we’d had in 40 years. So it really is amazing, the way that it’s set up and how it works. I’ve trained over 10, 000 people globally and discovered that most people can only name four to six emotions. So we experience over 400 emotions in a day and over 34, 000 emotions in a lifetime. Most of us have the vocabulary of a toddler when it comes to emotion. 

Damianne President: So what are the six core emotions? 

Cathy Mott: Anger, fear, sad, joy, surprise, and love. 

Damianne President: Okay. That’s interesting. 

Cathy Mott: The other thing I will share with you and your listeners, all emotions manifest themselves in the body. That’s why body language is so important. And I’ll give you an example. If someone is about to go on stage and speak in front of a group. They’ll readily say, I’ve got butterflies in my stomach. What they’re saying is I’m having an emotion and the physical response is butterflies in my stomach.

Damianne President: I have two more questions. 

[29:21] Cultivating Joy and Resilience in Midlife

Damianne President: I’m watching the time.

My first question is for women who want to cultivate a more intentional, joyful relationship with themselves in this phase of life, midlife, what do you advise? Where do they start? 

Cathy Mott: Spend time with yourself, so I will share the way I found myself when I was in my mid thirties, and then I’ll share to you, I’m now 60, I’ll share to you how I have lived this life since then. I’d married young and had kids right away, and I patterned my life after my mom, who was born in 1935 and thought marriage was everything, and a woman is defined by that. So, let’s say 15 years into the marriage, I don’t know who I am. And so the depression was an empty void. So I went on this quest to find myself. There’s a beautiful park behind my house and a nature trail. I took time off from work. I went out on a medical for depression. And every day I would walk that park and just listen to myself.

Then after I did that for so long, every day, I would go to Barnes and Nobles. I would get an autobiography and read. I wouldn’t purchase the book. I would put it back on the shelf because I wanted to make sure I would get up and get out of the house. I would buy myself a cup of coffee. Then, I began to try things that I never had time to try.

I would go to the beach. I would hang out and even do sleepovers with my girlfriends. I would just try different things and note. I like this. This makes me feel wonderful. I don’t like this as much. And so I went on, I took a year off, and I thanked my husband for this because he was supportive. And I found myself.

And it came from the journaling, the early morning routine and doing things that I didn’t get an opportunity to do or things that I never thought about doing. And I’ve pretty much lived that way for the past 25 years. I still do a lot of different things. I’ve taken singing lessons. I’ve taken Improv acting classes. I just continue to do different things to help me find maybe additional gifts and talents that I don’t know about. I date myself. Every time I do some something successful at work, a workshop or close a contract. I take myself out to a nice restaurant. 

Damianne President: Alone. 

Cathy Mott: Alone.

Damianne President: Alone. Because you’re taking yourself. 

Cathy Mott: Alone. I’m taking myself. And so when I walk in and the host or the hostess says, just one, I say, me, myself, and I. We’re complete. So sometimes I know that women feel bad when that question comes up. Just one. In my way of validating myself, it’s me, myself, and I. And people will laugh.

I recently met my sister for dinner and the host, when I walked in, says, we’ve been waiting for you for a half an hour now. I said, oh, but I’m worth the wait. And he laughed and he said, you know, that makes me feel good about my self esteem. I’m going to use that. So it really is that relationship with self and really dating yourself, spending time with yourself, getting to know who you are, watching how you respond to new things that you’ve never experienced before, or things that bring you joy. 

The interesting thing about joy is people are afraid to linger in this emotion. So, anxiety is fear that we turn over and over in our head about a particular situation and it grows, so much to the point that people can live weeks, months in anxiety. When we experience joy, we don’t linger in it. Because we’re afraid the other shoe might drop.

So when we do experience emotions such as joy, happiness, love, also be intentional about lingering in those emotions so that we become more comfortable with it and our bodies become more comfortable experiencing those emotions. 

Damianne President: I’m smiling because I love this, I love this idea and I can tell everything 

Cathy Mott: in your body language said.

Damianne President: Well, I’ve shared this on the podcast before, but part of my goal is to savour and another of my goal is around awe. And I think those are all connected to joy too. Like that whole savouring, like deliciousness, oozing, like sensuality, all of those things that people don’t sit in. And it’s in all of the small things. People often think that sensuality also has an element of romance, but it can be all with yourself. And that’s something that’s exciting. 

Cathy Mott: So actually in my book, there is a chapter on ecstasy, the emotion of ecstasy, and I start off the chapter by saying, why is this emotion only confined to the bedroom? And then I talk about, I’m taking singing lessons, I have this fabulous instructor. But he holds no punches on his feedback on areas I need to improve upon. And I’m singing a song, Whitney Houston, I Believe in You and Me. And normally when we’re in a lesson, he’s saying, no, go back, do this, go back do this, go back and do this.

But it went a long time and there was no corrections. And I got to this point where I had to hold this note for 28 seconds. And I talk about the moment I fell in love with my voice. It was sheer ecstasy. And so there are other things in life that bring ecstasy. We just have to allow ourselves to experience it to the full so that it isn’t in the bedroom, the only place that we experience ecstasy.

Damianne President: On that note, do you have any invitations or anything that you want to make sure listeners come away from listening to this episode? 

Cathy Mott: So my invitation is if you want to improve, and enhance relationship with self, you have to carve out time to get to know yourself. You have to have the emotional vocabulary to connect with yourself.

So I invite you to download my app, My Journey Within, at the Apple Store or the Google Play Store. And also my book, Shh, Just Listen. It’s an emotional intelligence workbook. It’s like a journal and I wrote it. So that people will have an opportunity to just sit with themselves.

There’s this quote that I read that says, The relationship with self is one of the most important relationships you’ll ever have. And that it defines all other relationships. So really take the time to develop the relationship, even if it seems scary. Even if it’s uncomfortable. I guarantee there will come a day that you will reward yourself because you did it. Or you will regret that you didn’t do it. 

Damianne President: If you’ve enjoyed listening to this episode, please help me share it with more people by leaving a review. You can find an easy link for reviews in the show notes. And the next episode we’ll be diving even deeper into the theme of resilience. We’ll talk about how to thrive for through life’s challenges by embracing forgiveness and self compassion. Until next time, remember that change begins. With one small step. Half a great week