Hello, Lyssa here, I’m your host on this episode of the Coaching Studio. It is my pleasure to welcome Cathy Mott. She is an MCC with the International Coaching Federation and author, executive coach, keynote speaker, facilitator, and trainer who has worked closely with senior leaders for more than 25 years. Social and emotional intelligence coaching is her primary focus.

Cathy has distinguished herself by her ability to create safe places for her clients to explore and to find their identity as leaders as they walk through the four quadrants of emotional intelligence. Not only has Cathy coached hundreds of C suite executives but she also has trained thousands on a national and international level.

Cathy was the host of coaching, oh I’m sorry Cathy was the host of Coffee with Cathy on cable tv and she’s been featured on CUTV News talk radio, as well as, in CEO Magazine. Recently she wrote a book, Just Listen: Great Things Happen in Silence, which is an emotional intelligence workbook that engages the reader and guides them through their journey. Cathy’s ultimate passion is found in empowering her clients to create a life of authentic leadership. Cathy comes to you from Michigan where she lives with the love of her life for the last 38 years, surrounded by her beautiful family, which includes 8 grandchildren and her dad who’s made it to 90.

Cathy, I also want to really quickly read a really lovely review that I got of your book online. The review reads, “there’s nothing more valuable than knowing yourself and living by your truth and Kathy helps you work through that process with vulnerability and strength combined. This book slash workbook has been one of the most important tools on my journey of self-discovery and each time I go through it I learn more and more. What a beautiful tribute to your book and welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Uh great question. So prior to coaching, I was in healthcare um for 13 years, I was in a culture change. So the organization I worked with was leading a huge culture change initiative, Healthcare organization, and we decided that we wanted to shift from providing patient service to providing a patient experience, which means how do you engage the patient mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally to create a personalized experience.

So through the course of this change management, I would go on to train 3500, over 3500 associates over the course of eight years on how to create this experience. It was a three-day training program called The Personal Connected Journey where we pulled them off-site for three days and we engage them mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. During the course of this training, we recognized that the managers and the leadership team needed to be coached on how to receive their associates back into the work environment and how to be great leaders.

So the organization began using me as a coach and so a couple of years went by and finally, they said, hey, we’re going to send you to school for coaching. Um, so that you can become certified through the International Coaching Federation. So I indeed went to school for coaching. Absolutely loved it, loved, uh, it’s just, it ignites my soul and spirit. I love to coach. Um, and so they began to fly me around the country, coaching their executives.

And then I got a new boss who said no more coaching and so yeah, and coaching is like breathing to me. So I made a decision to leave the organization and start my own coaching practice and I’ve been doing it for eight years and I absolutely love it.

Mm. Service mindset is, you know, I know some coaching organizations, large coaching organizations who will just coach with the same methodology for each and every person. Creating the experience for me is it’s very personal to each individual. So what makes that individual unique? What makes them tick? You know, what is it about them?

Like I always say I’m the life in leadership coach that specializes in introducing people to themselves. So because each individual is unique, each coaching engagement will be unique. I don’t feel like I provide a service. I feel like I create an experience for each and every client, it’s much deeper than a service.

Yes, absolutely. And you know, in the world of coaching, we do typically what we do is when you work with larger organizations, they’ll do a chemistry call. And when I first started coaching, you know, I thought this chemistry call was all about my credentials and what I do. And it took me some years to really understand that a chemistry call is just that, it’s about the chemistry between you and this potential client. And so now I show up at the chemistry calls and I’m just me and I’m here to meet and engage with this individual and allow the chemistry to flow.

And either I will be the right coach for this individual or I won’t. And it doesn’t mean that I’m not a good coach. It just means that they needed a different chemistry and so being in that space to be open enough to know that you are good enough as you are and allow that chemistry to flow and not so much being in my head about all the credentials that I have, but who I am as an individual.

Maybe for me that was the biggest surprise about coaching is, you know, you think you’re getting into coaching so that you can help other people, but before you can help other people, it’s so about getting to know yourself and being able to help yourself.

I think that’s what I love about coaching the most in the whole. So the training program I attended, it was called the Transformation of Coaching Program and that’s what it was like for me. Because before I went for official training, a lot of the coaching I used to do was telling people what to do. And once you really learn um the ICF standard of coaching and the principles of coaching and you stick to um the cadence of coaching and those markers for ICF.

Coaching becomes this beautiful environment, where it’s all about putting myself as the coach aside and really focusing on that individual in front of me. Helping them find their natural gifts and talents so that they can create a path that they want to create and helping them build the confidence that they need to travel that path. But I couldn’t do that unless I had done that for myself during the training and all of the work that it took to become a ACC, PCC, MCC.

And for each level of success that I’ve had in coaching, I had to get to know myself that much more, or even take a deeper dive into myself. And I feel like that MCC level of coaching, is a level of selflessness that I hadn’t had before. Because, you know, at the PCC level you’re still thinking, am I doing this right? Did I get this right? And at the MCC level, I feel like none of that even matters. It’s me and that coachee.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think what’s so interesting is during my MCC training, I would repeatedly hear, “Coach the who not the what,” “Coach the who not the what, ” wasn’t the first time that I’ve heard that throughout my time in training, um but I really begin to understand what it meant. And so I can remember years ago, you know, sitting in a coaching session and the coachee would say something and I’m in my head saying that happened to me, but it’s not about me, how come I can’t tell them, it would be so good to tell them the story they would benefit.

And now, you know, when I’m coaching someone, I’m so just looking for the who. Like I hear the, what, what they’re telling me, but I’m looking for the who. And it’s not even about me, like looking for the who. And I think, you know, even outside of the coaching space, when I interact with people, I’m always looking for who they are and I believe that my life is richer.

I have richer relationships, relationships it’s more rewarding. I just absolutely love it because I feel like everyone wants to be seen, heard, and valued. And when I approach people and interact with people, I’m looking for their value. I’m looking to see them. I’m listening to them and that’s a way of life for me, not just in the coaching.

And I absolutely, I absolutely believe that. I think that sense of self-awareness, I think it’s such a funny dichotomy in our culture and I speak our culture as an American, kind of American Western culture, is this dichotomy between how we kind of think a lot about what we’re thinking about, but we don’t really do the deep work of self-awareness, and emotional regulation.

And part of the reason is because, we don’t even, well and Noah is a great example of a boy who’s getting this modeling of it’s okay to have an emotion. And also to wonder what that emotion is about. In our culture, so many people, men, and women, or wherever you fall on the spectrum, don’t get that sort of support to even be curious about what they’re experiencing.

I agree. Yeah, I agree. And you know I, in the work that I do, I feel like and I’m open to be wrong about this, but a lot of times when I interact with people, I feel like people are disconnected from themselves. They will talk a lot about other people or about other things and really struggle to talk about who they are or how they feel.

And so, again, I go back to that desire to introduce people to themselves. You know, I’ll ask people, how would you describe the relationship you have with yourself? And for some individuals for most, that’s a foreign thought. They’ll say, well, what do you mean? Or I have to think about that. And so it’s the whole love your neighbor as you love yourself. If I am not a friend of myself, that limits the kind of friend that I can be in other relationships.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I’ll go back to when I left my job in corporate America, I had a coach and I’m not sure I would have made that decision without one because I was afraid, you know. I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my coach and I kept saying, you know, have this boss and you know, she called corporate office and said no more coaching and I love coaching. And I said, I don’t want to be the kind of person that hangs around an organization and just complains about her boss.

Because I feel like that’s counterproductive. You’re hearing that story over and over again. You become the victim. And so my coach asked me, she said, well what do you want to do? I said I just want to jump. And she said, well what if that verbiage is not serving you well, she said, what did you just lean into the discomfort of leaving? What would that be like? And I said, if I just lean into it then I still have some control, I can always pull back if I decided to. Mhm. And she said, okay, so what do you want to do with that? I said, I think I’m going to lean into the discomfort.

And when I ended that coaching session that day, I turned in my resignation. And I had been with that organization for 13 years. Still grateful to the organization because, you know, over the course of the 13 years I would say they invested over $100, 000 in my training. So I’m still grateful to the organization. But yeah, coaching is amazing. I still have a coach. Um yeah, I think it just, I don’t know, it opens the door or the window to your soul so that you can get to know yourself.

I served on the International Coaching Federation Board of Directors for the Michigan Chapter and that was one of the first initiatives I introduced to the Board of Directors, that every coach should have a coach and even new coaches who were just starting out, maybe they could barter and trade with one another so that they could have that experience.

And another reason why I think it’s important for me to have a coach is, I always want to remember what it feels like to be on the other side of that powerful question. I want to continue to sit in the silence and let them discover. I also want to remember what it feels like when that powerful question causes pain. And I want that my coach to be patient with me, um I want to be in that space of no judgment. I want to be in that space of security. And so I want to remember what that feels like so that I can continue to create that for my clients.

Okay. I think coaches can need to hear from me the importance, and I tell this to everyone, the importance of self-care. Especially if you’re a business owner, you’re running a business. Self-care is so important because as a coach you’re holding the space for other people’s discovery, you’re always pouring into other people.

Um and then as a business owner. So I’ll say like when I left corporate America and started my own business, you are every department, your marketing, advertising, your payroll. Um So I’ve since you know, moved on and have been able to hire people. But still, I think all coaches need to know how important self-care is. Because whether you’re operating from a full cup or an empty cup, you still have to show up for your clients.

And yeah, you still have to show up and the joy and satisfaction that I get from helping people discover themselves. Oh my goodness, if I could bottle it and sell it, I would. But I always want to feel that. And so I know what it feels like to be empty and give from an empty cup and that’s painful.

And so I think running a business and coaching and facilitating and training, that statement, there’s more happiness in giving than it is in receiving. That’s only if you have something to give. And there are certain things that I have not done in life because I want to have the joy of giving. Like I used to do hair, you know, um, for individuals for. And people would always say, why don’t you go into the hair business and get your license? And I would say no because I always want to enjoy it.

Sometimes I feel like if you do things too much then you know, the joy is no longer there. I never want to feel that way with coaching. So I consistently, fill myself up. I consistently, you know, every Friday is Cathy day and take that day off. I don’t live by a calendar. If I go get my nails done or go for a massage, they’ll have to be like a walk-in because I don’t want to live by a calendar. And then every year I take some kind of certification or some kind of schooling or education to pour in or fill my desire to learn and grow. I’m a lifetime learner.

So I just try to stay full mind, body, soul, and spirit. So I try to do things to completely replenish my cup on a daily basis. And then, then there’s that Friday’s Cathy day. So self-care would be it for me, that’s what I would tell coaches.

Okay, so I’m excited because I am working with two really large healthcare organizations with my book. Shh… Just Listen: Great Things Happen in The Silence. And I am teaching um health care providers. So all of the individuals, their front line, the nurses who worked through the pandemic, using my book, I’m teaching them emotional intelligence. And then 30 days later we’re doing a book club meeting.

They get the book after the first meeting, and then 30 days later we’re doing a book club meeting to help them process all of the emotions that they may have experienced working through a pandemic. So I’m super excited. The first one um starts on Thursday. And hope to train hundreds in these two organizations.

I am also attending a school, it’s called Well Coaches to become a health and wellness coach as well. And to do some training and facilitation at a large organization around well coaching and coaching in general. So those are some of the things I’m up to this year.