Matt McCarthy: A Life of Fulfillment | Dealing With Trauma | Emotional Intelligence

So if you're a trauma survivor, you're not going to have any more bandwidth in your life than Pagger Woods did. So put it into perspective and narrow down the numerical so you're focusing on. When it's narrow, then you can start to lay out steps that it takes to get to those goals and work on those steps that the tasks underneath those. And if you don't have a million different things competing for your common intention, you've created this phase. You're able to get through those tasks.

Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast. I'm excited to have Matt McCarthy here to talk about personal development and overcoming barriers. Welcome Matt. Hi Melissa, thanks for having me on. I was doing some research and about 90% of top performers and leadership roles possess very high emotional intelligence.

As a personal development coach and founder of Questful Consulting, can you share a little bit about how you integrate emotional intelligence into your coaching and why you believe it's very important when we work in personal development. Yes, so emotional intelligence takes on a couple characteristics for me. One is in understanding the people around you, being able to observe their emotional state so you can best lead, manage, work with those others around you.

The other part that I think it's lost sometimes is understanding our own emotions and being aware of where we are when we're interacting with others or even just throughout the day by ourselves. Many times our emotions, we may not recognize them in our brains and we may have to actually examine our body to understand where our emotions lie.

Are we tight in certain areas, are jaw, are we feeling tingling, are we feeling various things that may actually be indicating you're having some sort of stress emotional reaction. And when you're in that situation where you're feeling stressed, you're more likely to react. More than may not be the right word, but not suboptimal. So I'm teaching clients to be aware of their bodies, to be aware of when they're feeling various emotions. You can also look at it from the other side.

When they're feeling positive emotions, they may have something like a warmth in the chest, they may have certain feelings in their head region, things that show them, hey, you know, I'm feeling excited in a positive way and to utilize that, leverage that into just

accelerating what they're working on. So are there specific tools or strategies you use to help people increase their emotional intelligence? So I typically am not focused directly on emotional intelligence. But if it's okay with you, I'd like to get into really what the focus of my research and coaching has been over the past several years. Would that work for you? Yeah, absolutely.

So I myself got into the area of coaching and understanding barriers to achievement because I was running into barriers myself just to be told. So I embarked on a lot of research that was looking at a number of areas to figure out where I am again, suboptimal in terms of getting things done. Why am I feeling blocked in some areas? Why am I feeling like I'm not giving the traction that I needed to? And I went through a number of different areas that this expert says this, this expert says that.

Is it nutrition? Is it the amount of activity? Is it am I setting the wrong kind of goals? Am I just not bringing on enough grit with my mindset? But I came across an area of research that's a little bit more recent and that's the area of trauma. So trauma, we can get into a definition later if we would like, but trauma actually carries some residual results in your body and in your mind that keep you from accomplishing what you were working on.

They can also keep you from having that understanding of your own emotions. And it's a very physical response in addition to the emotional, mental things that you might think of when you hear about trauma. So that's what I focus on with my clients is helping them understand where trauma is creating blocks in them. Are they recognizing a tendency to fight, fight, freeze, fawn in kind of the stress response?

And if they are to understand how to utilize simple techniques that will reduce that stress level so that they are able to start stepping forward again? That's great. So can you share with our listeners some of these techniques that you're speaking of? Yeah, certainly. So some of them are ones that you develop over a longer term so that you're having fewer of these outside stress responses, but for short term.

In the moments when you're in that immediate stress response, one of the first things that I teach to do is it's simple. It's one breath, one thing. What that looks like is you feel yourself stressing up, you feel your body tensing out. Okay, take a moment, close your eyes if you want. And breathe in through your nose usually four or five, six seconds. However long you can make it go. You can hold it for a couple of seconds and then let it out as slowly as possible.

And by the time you're done with that, you may not be fully out of that stress reaction out of that alarm reaction as I like to call it, but you're certainly at a lower state in that stress perspective. And then immediately do one task related to whatever that stressor is. And you get double benefits. One, you get that reduction of stress. But two, you actually get a little bit of a dopamine hit because you accomplished something.

You've moved yourself, maybe it's a baby step, but one step closer to what you're trying to accomplish. So it's a simple technique that I like to get people started with. So breath work is a common technique that one breath, one idea. So is that like one of the top techniques, there's some other things that you use with your client. So mainly just breath work is there other things you could share? So it's the first thing that I teach. And it's the beginner slope.

If you have experienced trauma in your past and are getting the anxiety or stress or panic responses that are common with a trauma survivor, you have to have some real quick, real quick hit techniques to be able to get yourself out of that in the short term. And think about it like somebody with asthma who uses an inhaler. This is your rescue inhaler, one breath, one thing.

But as you know, to keep that asthma metaphor going, if you have asthma, you're also looking at how can I reduce the number of occurrences? How can I reduce the intensity? And that's where everything else is centered. That becomes a large number of techniques and changes that I recommend going through. However, the sequence and the actual techniques that are used will depend on the person, their background, their goals, what they're trying to accomplish, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it makes a lot. For example, if you'd like. Yeah, that'd be great. So one of the things that I talk with my clients about is nutrition. And that sounds very basic boring. But for somebody who's experiencing a lot of anxiety, there are some real big physical benefits. So it's a long list. I'm just going to try and pick out a couple of areas. And one would be sugar. So blood sugar spikes.

If you, if you're having a lot of sugar as either part of a meal or just as part of a snack, your blood sugar will go up. Okay, that's great at the moment that it's going up. Your body is going to do its best to utilize all that glucose in your body is energy. But you're not likely to use all of it. And so what happens is your body over-corrects and you go into what many people call a crash. When you're in that crash, you have brain fog. You can't think clearly.

You're physically less able to move well. So just by doing that, you're creating a little bit more just by eliminating sugar or at least reducing it, you're reducing those spikes and crashes. You're going to be more even. Your body will adjust to a better, you will actually be in a better mood. If you think about, think about a kid on Halloween. They go out, they collect all the candy. They eat as much as they can of it. They're hyper for a half hour or whatever it is. Then they crash.

They're not only tired. They're grumpy, they're cranky, they feel terrible. That kid's not going to be able to finish homework after doing that crash, right? Think about yourself in that same position. If you're eating sugar on a regular basis, drinking sugar, the same thing. That would be one example. A principle that I'd like to bring in. So where is reducing sugar is a tactic. The second one is a principle. And that's in creating space in four particular areas in your life.

And when I mean space, I'll give you a couple examples on it. It's allowing yourself a little bit of a buffer or a little bit of wiggle room in these areas. So one area is going to be your time. One area is going to be emotions. One area is going to be mental and one area is going to be financial. So I'm going to hit it financial because it's a lot easier to understand.

If you're running your personal finances on a day-to-day basis and your finances are always tight, the minute something unexpected happens, you will go into a stress response. Okay, you get an unexpected bill and you just finish paying your bills and there's not enough leftover. You don't have room in your credit cards and you're going to go into a panic. What am I going to do? Well, the panic is going to spill over to every other area of your life.

You won't function as well doing whatever it is you were supposed to be doing that day. However, if you're that same person, you have a savings account. Maybe it's 5,000,000, 15,000, 100,000 in the bank that unexpected bill comes. Okay, that's fine. It's a bummer, but I can handle it. You don't get the same stress response and you're able to move on with your day.

Now, most people who are living paycheck to paycheck aren't instantly able to build up of 5,000, 50,000 savings account quickly, but doesn't mean you don't do it. You work on it slowly and you work on various ways of eliminating things that may hit your cash flow so that you can start saving. So that's one application of this principle. Another might be time. Again, another easy one to understand.

If you're running back-to-back meetings all day, you don't have time to react when something unexpected comes up. In fact, you're probably really not running optimally anyway because oftentimes after a meeting, it's a whole process, what was talked about, take notes, any action items afterward. You have no room for that. And again, some new tasks comes in, you just don't have time.

Now if you're creating a buffer, even by having 5 minute blocks at the end of each meeting, it's still a lot more meetings that I personally prefer, but that 5 minutes can be enough to give you time to relax, to take the on notes, take a minute and look at the agenda of the next meeting, for a purpose, so that you can at least reposition yourself.

If that time is a two hour block where you have time to decompress, a lunch, chat with a colleague or a family member or friend, that's even more beneficial. It creates space. And like I mentioned, emotional and mental space is also super important. Yeah, I love it. I think, you know, when I think of trauma, everybody has some form of trauma. Some is greater than others. And I think of it like a muscle as well, right?

So we all, you know, we are going to go through some form of challenge in our life. And I think kind of what you were saying at the beginning is learning how to deal with it through, like you were mentioning, breath work or other tools. And I look at it like a muscle as well. So you need to practice doing the breath work and getting, you know, the right nutrition

that's going to keep you with the same blood levels. And then just creating space in your life. Absolutely. I think those are great points. And when we take trauma and we layer on kind of goals, so getting to really your goals, if we, if we talk about trauma and layer in some key components of goal setting, what do you talk to your clients about? So there may be a goal, tying it back to nutrition is to lose weight. But they have gone through a lot of trauma with their help.

How do you help them achieve the goal that they're doing after? How, while working with them on any traumatic things they've been through? Yeah, so that's a really good question. Well, as when it comes to goals, one of the first things that I asked my clients to do is I asked them to list out their goals. And it brings up something interesting. It's usually a long list. There's something around health, maybe several around health.

There's going to be something around financial, something around careers, something around, maybe they run a business and they have seven goals that they are trying to achieve. Somebody who's gone through trauma will not have the bandwidth to be able to attack that many goals all of once. And so gently, I work with them to pair down their list of goals to preferably one to three. And one to take the time to help them focus on those one to three goals for a period of time.

That's one that's creating emotional space, mental space. So we're back to that area again. The other thing to think about is when you have that many goals, you're not going to be able to achieve them because there's just not enough time of the day, not enough bandwidth or money. And if you fail as a trauma survivor, you're going to end up usually bullying yourself a bit or beating yourself up and maybe a bit is understanding it. You're traumatizing yourself again.

So it becomes a vicious loop by trying to aspire too much at a time. And if you think about it, the people who are the top performers in their field, they typically they typically have a narrow focus. I mean, you think of say a basketball player, a golfer.

I mean, people who come to mind, you know, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, you have, you know, in business, you, I mean, you might have an Elon Musk, but he's probably kind of the exception to the examples since he's in everything, but I'll just take Tiger Woods for a second during his primary golf career. What was he doing? He was playing golf. He was playing golf. He would work on his fitness so that he could play golf. He'd work on his mindset so that he could play golf.

He wasn't trying to accomplish a million different things. Sure, he probably had people working with him on his finances and, you know, just various areas of life, but he's outspossing a lot of that so that he could focus in on his golf. That's how he got so good. So if you're a trauma survivor, you're not going to have any more bandwidth in your life than Tiger Woods did. So put it into perspective and narrow down the number of goals that you're focusing on.

Then when it's narrow, then you can start to lay out steps that it takes to get to those goals and work on those steps, the tasks underneath those. And if you don't have a million different things competing for your time and intention, you've created the space, you're able to get through those tasks or practice or, you know, whatever it is that's going to get you to what you're trying to attain. Yeah, I would absolutely agree.

I think a lot of times as a type A person, I'm guilty of setting a lot of goals in various different buckets. But when I'm setting goals, I think something that I do very well is set some that are, you know, achievable. So I'm achieving things and some that are more stretch goals that may need to go to the next year.

I know subtle different people I mentor, I always tell them like if your goal is January and you're trying to lose weight and you need to lose a hundred pounds, start with ten pounds first and then, you know, ratchet up the number.

Don't start with that large number right out of the gate because as we know through, you know, all the historical data, gyms usually by the end of February, people are no longer going to the gym and they're, you know, back sitting on the couch and not moving their body.

So I absolutely agree with what you said is setting goals that you can focus on and make them in a way that there's some that you can check off where it's not going to trigger or retraumatize you that you're not achieving with goals that you set out to do. So I love that.

I want to switch gears a bit and talk about, you know, being empathetic when it comes to people that have gone through really challenging things maybe they lost a spouse or, you know, they've lost a job and they're trying to get back in the marketplace. How does that show up for people if you've gone through, you know, very traumatic thing you've lost your last two jobs and you start a new job and, you know, your mindset is sometimes that, oh my gosh, I hope I don't lose this job.

How do you retrain people to really focus on the future not so much on past trauma or what they were or what has happened to them? So I'm going to dodge your question a little bit just to be fair. When it comes to somebody, I'm going to use your specific example, but I'm going to put on steroids, said, lost a job or two. I've lost five through corporate cutbacks in my past.

And I think when it gets to that point, it's kind of that adage the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I think oftentimes if we are putting ourselves in a position where we are, I guess, tied to corporate interests and it's disproportionately tied, they need us as resources. We need them for our entire livelihood. I think when we're in that position, we need to be looking out for what our situation is.

And we need to be more than we are for the company. Now, I want to make sure that this doesn't come off the wrong way because that could often sound like quite quitting or lack of integrity at work and that's not what I mean at all. It's that as an employee, if you're getting a paycheck, which is, this is the characteristic we're describing, if you're getting a paycheck, you have to understand that your app will employ. That means that house of cards could come crashing in any moment.

And if you remember that financial buffer we were talking about, that's where that becomes helpful so that you can have yourself in the mindset that, okay, I could lose this job. I've been working there for five years and there's kind of riding on the wall and going on. And the next day the headlines come out 10% of XYZ company is being laid off and you can say, all right, well, I prepare for it. And in fact, my first layoff, I was actually prepared for it. I had been doing side work.

I was in IT at the time. And I'd been doing side work as an IT consultant for small businesses. Doing it during off hours. And I had built up enough business that it didn't necessarily cover my entire monthly need. But it was fairly close. My soon to be future boss was crying as she was letting me go. And I was just saying, I'll be okay. I had built up a buffer in cash flow. So winding forward, the more those that hit, the less buffer you're able to hold on to.

And it does become this repeated financial trauma, a recession hits or a personal thing happens. And suddenly that financial is the term house of cards quite a bit. And suddenly that comes crashing in. To me, that's where it's super critical for each person to be building in the space in their lives, the financial, the time, the emotion, the mental space because things will happen. Things that we don't prefer will happen. There's even a mindset space that you can build in.

I hear it referred to as rather than having attachment to an outcome, have a preference. And then if your preference doesn't come into play, it's okay. I was an attached to it. And you're able to move forward. So the time, the time when you have to think about these things is one, before you get laid off or before that big thing happens. And two, taking care of yourself once it has happened.

Now once you get that next job is you were kind of the direction you were going, once you get that next job. Usually it comes with kind of a burst of enthusiasm and a sense of, okay, we're back on track. And it's usually an easier time to go through. But that's also again when you need to continue to look at building that space. Now do you ever work out, let's say you're setting a goal or it would just stick with the job?

Do you ever work out worst case scenarios where, okay, what if I lose a new job or I lose my new job? What's the worst case scenario? I'll do things like what could be the worst case situation with whatever the situation is. And a lot of times I find that what I think is the worst case situation isn't really that bad after all. So what if you lose your job? You find a new job and what if you lose that job? You find your next job.

And I think sometimes it's really, you know, a mindset as well in being comfortable with the challenges or, I don't want to use the word trauma, but the challenges that come up in life, because there's going to be challenges and there's going to be setbacks. And then the day that you think you have everything organized, then, you know, maybe there's a recession or the COVID pandemic happens. And so I think kind of what you were saying is preparing yourself for what if you lose your job.

And like preparing for savings account, save some of your money. What other things are you interested if you do lose your job? Maybe you wanted to take that vacation or drive to a different city or, you know, paint whatever those things that you sell do. Oh, when I retire or, you know, all these things that are on our bucket list or our to-do list.

And so just kind of in closing some final thoughts or any other tools that you want to share with our listeners that they could use in working through trauma and obstacles in their life. Yeah. So, I think one thing that I would land on in terms of a wrap up but new thought is the idea of what are the goals that we're setting and are the ones that are truly meaningful for us.

Because I think, particularly after the recession or particularly after COVID, culturally, I think we had the sense of lack of fulfillment, I mean, culturally, most people, just observationally, at least. And if we look at a lot of the goals that people are setting, you know, it's that lose 10 or hundred pounds or it's that promotion or, you know, reaching X amount in sales or maybe it's, hey, I just want a new car or a different house. Those are the goals a lot of people are setting.

But if you look at how that impacts or doesn't impact as the case may be your fulfillment, it becomes a treadmill that we get ourselves on, setting these goals, getting them or not. And when we do get them, that's the peak of the happiness. It just tapers down hope from there, which is kind of a sad state. And so I try to encourage goals around things that bring fulfillment. And there's also some of the tactics that or principles that I'm teaching as a coach.

So some of them are community just being part of a tribe, contributing back into the tribe, doing things that you might want to call altruistic or selflessly. That brings fulfillment. Getting into places where you have a sense of awe, some people do it through religious or spiritual practices, some it's getting into nature, but it's understanding that we're one of, right now, eight billion or so people on this earth and we're one of maybe trillions of creatures on this earth.

And we're just this little part. And it's actually a fulfilling sense to know, look, there's so much more. So working with clients who in a way that helps them get into that sense of fulfillment rather than that sense of simply hustle, achievement, accomplishment that's temporary. Yeah, that's very well said. I would absolutely agree. So I'm back to the car example, you buy the car and then to your point, you're like, okay, I got the car.

Now I want a new house and then you get the house and now I want to, whatever the next thing is. And I think you have a really good point there is leaning into things and paying it forward, which is funny enough Matt. That's why I started this podcast is to pay it forward. And so this is my gift to the world with my network.

And I think you're spot on with leaning into things that give back and give into because materialistic things like you said, it's only a temporary, you know, high and then eventually over time, the car, the brand new car feel goes away. So I love and I think that's a fantastic point. And any other final thoughts or anything you want to share before we close up? Yeah, I'll share one more thing.

So getting back to the trauma, I know some people may not really know what to think of their background. Do I have trauma? Do you know, was it really trauma or was it really having an impact? I created a quick assessment that I'd like to share to your listeners if they're interested. They can just text the word assessment to the number three, three, seven, seven, seven. And it'll come out to you by email.

It'll let you walk through a set of questions to help you understand whether trauma is having an impact on you and to what degree? And certainly if it's appointed enough at you, I would highly recommend reach out. There's a link at the bottom of that assessment. It goes to my calendar. I don't have a calendar. I'd love to talk with you about it. And then lastly, I also speak at organizations, events, and if anybody is listening is interested, they can reach out to me at info@questfold.life.

Thank you so much for being here today, Matt. And thank you so much for sharing your time. And that's the Executive Connect podcast. [BLANK_AUDIO]