Speaking and Communicating Podcast

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It's this ability to sense and to know on a deeper level what's going on with another person. So you then go and you serve, you support, you allow them the space they need. Humans are relational beings. Welcome back to the Speaking and Communicating podcast. I'm your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills, both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning into.

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Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development and by the end of this episode Please log on to Apple and Spotify and limousine rating in a review now Let's get communicating with our guests today joining us from New York Michelle Howe is the founder of empath evolution She's a former CPA who's here to help us redefine success and expand our joy

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And before I go any further, please welcome her to the show. Hi, Michelle. Hello, Roberta. I'm so glad that you are. Hello to you too. Welcome to the show. Why would you move from helping us make more money, would assume, to such a very different career path, which is what we're going to talk about today? Well, being a CPA, we do different things. We compile your taxes.

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We do your reporting. We might consult with you to see if you're more profitable, where you're making money, where you're not. Give you the bottom line. Do your operating system. So very traditional. I loved that because to me was a puzzle and it was logical. It made sense. The numbers are on a piece of paper. This is nothing to be disputed. But underneath all of that, I've always been very inquisitive, very analytical. Yeah, that goes with my CPA analytical. Very much into understanding the human psyche.

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since I was young, I always just analyzed people just for fun, right? And then I would read and that was like my pastime. I would just read all these books on intuition, emotional intelligence, finding your way through life, know, the power of now, all these different things that are really more holistic oriented. And it wasn't till I had married, had the career and whatnot.

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that I realized I was doing consulting with entrepreneurs. I realized I was more interested in the person than I was in the business that they were creating. The business was like the easy part. The person and their development and what they were trying to get, getting that information from them, feeling through what was possible for them and guiding them, I loved that. And then I went through a few different scenarios in my life, which proved to me that there was more going on than met the eye.

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that we are more multifaceted than we ever could imagine and that, you know, things are not black and white. Things are brown. Things are some varying shape of that and that people are complex. And I looked around and I figured out I had a couple of different really blows in my sense in a way that I was very empathic. I was not logical. Even though the work I was doing was logical, I was very relational.

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I was very understanding what this person was about, what they were about, how to make this work. Like I was very much about bringing things together and definitely taking action on them and seeing the writing on the wall. But I could tell you there were layers of different people. could tell you I could reach people that I didn't know how I reached them, but I could reach them. I could engage differently based on the person that was in front of me. And I didn't know that was actually a skill or a thing.

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But I could, and I would go to different conferences and I'd come home and I'd be like, you won't believe who I met, honey. Like I'd tell my husband, and I learned this, and then they told me that. And then he's like, why are these people telling you all these stories? The worst day, I'm meeting a person and they're telling me something that's very delicate, that's very personal, and they're sharing that. And I didn't really understand, he didn't understand what it was, and I'm like.

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I don't know, but people feel comfortable telling me and I'm fine listening to it. Like my conversations with people are all deeper. I don't necessarily incite it. It just, when I meet someone, it's like this magic happens and there's an exchange and the exchange is beautiful. Throughout my trials and tribulations, I discovered at the age of 40, that was an empathic thing. Like I was able to really connect. And when I say empathic,

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empath. mean, you are connecting with people at deeper levels. There's a recognition, there's a non judgment, there's a spacing, there's an opportunity to lift a room or lift a person, shift things. There's a lot of us out there. Some people understand this as a challenge. And other people just move through it with ease, not a big deal. Right. But it's a beautiful part of life because

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It allows you to really connect and really see another person. And in that heart to heart connection with another person, you can really impact change at that level. Impact where they're going, impact what they see. You know, it's very hard sometimes when you are that person to fully see what your potential is. You've got like a radio station going on in your head about what you aren't, where you're not good, what needs to be improved, you know, what so-and-so thinks of me.

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You know what my mother or father says to me, but oftentimes people can get hung up on that and they hide it. It's hidden behind a facade or a mask that we put on. But when you are working, whether with a coach or with a counselor or with somebody who can hold space for you and who has the wherewithal to see what your potential is, and there are amazing people that can do this, where you can go.

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expands exponentially. Yes. I'm glad you brought this up, especially because you were a CPA. Did you find that if you start working with them and you're working with the numbers and you just analyzing the numbers, when you look deeper, like you said, they were sharing with you and you were seeing them at a deeper level. Did you find that then it changed the trajectory of the numbers on paper? Everything about them changed.

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from the interaction, everything. They were able to release emotional pain, emotional wounds, stagnant energy, things that blocked them. Did the numbers change? Sometimes it was that obvious that the numbers changed. Other times it was just the person walking in the door would be different, completely different. Their goals would get achieved. They would reach things with more ease, more self-awareness, self-assurance.

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I would go in there, this is an example. So I went in to work with this woman with her operating her accounting system, setting it up, training her to do it. At first you're gathering data, you're talking to her, you're seeing what things are and whatnot. Well, through the process of all this, here it comes again. She's super excited to see me seeing this as she needs this. This is going to infuse her business. This is going to change how she's managing things. Before too long, as I saw her go, her energy and her, she went up.

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So excited, so happy. like, oh no, we're in so much trouble. Because when people are not able to maintain an emotional balance, like in the middle, when they are susceptible to highs and lows, if there's a high, there's going to be a low. And a deep low. Yes. So I'm like, OK. So the first time we met, she was all like, I'm like, OK. The next time I come over, being in that space with her,

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giving her the opportunity to explore her finances and get answers opened up some other things that were happening beneath the surface, which is more emotional oriented. She was a pool of tears. I might jaw dropped them like, oh gosh. Okay, well, I know what to do to help someone bring somebody back together. Like they're going through a shift. It's an intense inner shift. It happens to many of us multiple times in our lifetime that we are going to be

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feeling lost or defeated or emotions are just coming to the surface we don't know what to do with. So she was going through a huge purge. Her mother, her father died before when she was in uterus. Like it was that deep and I learned how to navigate those things because I found myself in those situations. It had nothing to do with accounting. It had nothing to do with that. It was just who I was was present there.

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I knew how to manage that situation so that she could move through that and get to the next phase of her life without that heaviness. Because when you carry that kind of stuff, you know, sometimes it doesn't show up for decades. Sometimes it doesn't show up. We don't even know it's there. But other times, you know, we're going through big shifts and all of these open things, they all show up and they all need to be processed and they all need to be released.

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I could speak to a group of women and after the talk I would beeline it to a specific person not knowing why I'm there. Oh, my brother just died a couple of days ago. It's this ability to sense and to know on a deeper level what's going on with another person. So you then go and you serve, you support, you allow them the space they need. I've had friends and I've told people before everybody needs

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You'll know you have an empath friend when you can pick up the phone and just hearing their hello, complete sigh of relief. You've got somebody on the other line who can hold space for you, listen to you, and sky's not falling. You know what mean? Everything is. And then you have friends that if you're not in a great place and you call them, you leave the phone call worse than when you started the phone call. They serve different purposes. Yeah.

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Yeah, this is a thing. So I mean, I go back to your question. Did it move their numbers? It moved their life. It was more than numbers. And I'm sure that if I was tracking for the numbers alone, what I've seen of her since we worked together, she's doing all kinds of other entrepreneurial things. It released what she was holding enough for her to move to the next thing that she could do. Yes, that is what we're wondering because you know how whenever

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You are the founder of the empath evolution. Whenever you talk about things like empathy, emotional intelligence, and the soft skills you need in order to lead people, do you find that sometimes leadership coaches, when you have conversations with them, they say, oh, Michelle, some of our leadership clients, they go, I don't have time for this. Can we just get the work done? You know, there's a left brain and a right brain. We do need to get to the bottom line work that needs to be done. There's no doubt.

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about it. But the question is, what are we forgetting as we do that? What are we losing track of? Like life is not just about the numbers. Knife is not just about the process. It's about the process of doing life, the experience of doing life as we make money, as we bring these strategies into place, as we take action. How are we going to present ourselves? Some people are very single minded.

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Single-minded, this is the way it is, this is what we're doing. Like they don't like to look at their human factor. They don't feel like they're in their power when they're in their human side. They excel at action, movement. They excel, they want to stay where they excel. The moment you bring in any soft or topic that they're not comfortable. I mean, if you ask those people, how are your relationships going? How's your family life doing?

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How is your life, how do you feel inside? Many of them, I dare say, have closed down the feeling aspect of how they go through life. They go through life like a robot because they get compensated, they get kudos, they get success when they get stuff done. And this is how we're gonna do it. This is what we're gonna do. Like they forget that humans are relational beings and that life is to be lived, not to be earned.

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is to be lived and explored. like, it's almost like they're missing some part of the human experience that they decided to turn off the light on it. It's not important. It's taken too much of my time. You know, and they do that sometimes intentionally, sometimes subconsciously. They don't like to explore areas that are not strengths for them. They don't like to live in those areas. They only live where they feel they're strong.

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Because in order for you to even want to explore relating with people, there's a certain amount of vulnerability that comes with that. There's a certain amount of quiet, understanding, holding space. And some people really have a difficult time holding any space. They feel inadequate to help resolve that situation, address that situation.

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They just are all thumbs and I can go back to generationally. We've gotten to a point right now where emotional things, relational quality of relation, not top down, do what I say, be quiet. We're encouraging our children, even as adults, we're encouraging personal development. We're seeing that as a valuable thing to do. But this

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is a luxury. This was not how past generations were. It was more survival. And the people that survived are the people that could shut down their emotions, their this, their that. There was things to be done. Right. So they just kind of plowed through things and they had plenty of trauma. But in those days, nobody knew what that was. Like it wasn't what to do with it. Yeah.

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Because even if they do have the vocabulary for it, they didn't know what to do with it. They were just in so far. They just needed to do what needed to be done for life to carry on. Yeah. Right. There was no, in a sense, the luxury of exploring, reflecting, feeling, right? They would drink to feel better, right? We have more tools available to us now. Similar situation, but.

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We've come a long way in actually the conversations that we have and the exchanges and the level of understanding we have around the psyche. Everything could look perfect on paper, you're successful, but you have a miserable life. Well, the internal experience of a person being that person who they feel they need to be and their reality on the inside versus what they project out in the outside.

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could be two very, very different things, which is sad, but it's real. Right. It's very real. And the thing is, when you were explaining the case of someone who's so successful in their field, but they shut down the emotional, the human side of their lives, it's interesting because usually when you get promoted at work, because you really excelled in what you do. But then when you get to that chair,

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the first thing you need to do is to lead people. The human side that you are shutting down in order to focus on the, I'm an expert in this area. So then it becomes this catch 22 of this is the reward for the fact that I'm really good at this, but now that I have to lead a team, this human part needs to kick in. How do we then reconcile the two?

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person who's efficient, efficiently, effectively doing their job, doing amazing, you know, getting everything right. And then they get promoted to a position that may or may not be in their strengths because now they're being asked to lead other people. And that is a different set of skills. It's not always about doing, it's about listening, it's about managing, it's about mentoring, it's about grooming people to do the job.

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It's about lifting them up, seeing where they're good at and what they're good at and guiding them through. And it does take a specific kind of leader to do that. You know, those skills are not, they're really hard one that a person can be and step into that. Of course, you know, we all want to see the person who's well-developed 360 degrees, but if someone can function at an action level and is very interested in the facts and only the facts,

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Their emotional intelligence, their relational intelligence is very underdeveloped. Of course, it's not a blanket across the board, this is the way that it is, but these are all factors in whether someone is really an effective leader of people, not just leader of systems, leader of people. And maybe you need different types of leaders to make the unit work well. You know what I mean? Some people are more relational, some people are more bottom line.

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but it's also respecting that strength that everybody brings to table because it's all important making the unit work instead of dismissing or not allowing. And for some people change is gonna take a long time. They're not in it to change. Everything around them is to change for them. They're not in it to change it. They can talk about change, but actually living change and bodying that change.

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appreciating that change is hard for some people to do and other people just are kind of like, absolutely not. I'm not doing, you know, I'll talk the talk, but this is how I've grown. This is who I am. This is what it is. It's bring me to change now at 50. I'm not going to do it. What I will say is that some people get up in arms, what they don't understand, what they they're threatened by what they don't understand or they're threatened if they feel

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Like they're not in control or their weakness is exposed or they're exposed in some way. And in that instance, it really does take a careful communication of how everything that is done is a win-win across the board. And it's not a waste of time. It's a different deliverable. It's a different approach. They're doing all kinds of surveys now. What is the quality of our workplace? What's the environment?

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You know, some people don't find anything toxic. They just go with it and they plow through it, right? Other people, the space that they're in, the people that are around them, those dynamics matter. They matter. They're living it. They're breathing it. This is like the canary in the mind. As we become more and more connected and aware of our emotions and who we are, we start to really become more picky about

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Where are we putting ourselves? What are we focusing on? What's the purpose of what I'm doing? I'm not just here to take direction or command from somebody for something that doesn't matter in any level. Just because I'm good at something doesn't mean I get fulfillment from it. Just because I get paid for something doesn't mean this is nourishing to me. This is supportive of me and my life. So I do think that nowadays, 360 degrees, people are looking at

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How is this work? How is this relationship? How is this thing in my life supporting me and the vision I have for my life? Right. When you were talking about the client that you had who after she dealt with the emotional part of herself, she started just flourishing and discovering other entrepreneurial skills. If you have team members,

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And that is addressed. Don't you think they will also bring all these ideas and the team as a whole will thrive rather than if you feel anything, suppress it. We are here to work and yes, what are you supposed to do? Michelle, just listen and do what you're told and sit in your cubicle and be productive. Well, that's old school. It's never going to return back to that. Professionals of today are looking for growth, engagement, opportunities, impact.

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They are looking to be vibrant in what they do. They're looking to be engaged in what it is, to be part of something that means something. I don't blame them. You want this for yourself. Why? Because you work every single day. It has to mean something to you. You know, I look at some people and they're like, maybe if they just had the money part, right, they wouldn't care about the rest of it. But I think that's very sure excited.

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very short-sighted. It's not going to work for very long. It's very plain vanilla. They're not going to last. If they're measuring whether or not to take a job or not relates only to money and money is their top qualifier, you know, what is that financial reward going to ask them to do? Oh, I need to switch a job. It all comes down to the money and the money is essentially never going to be necessarily fulfillment. They need other things in their life.

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And one of the biggest things we need in our life is purpose. If we have no purpose, our life is shallow. And if our life is shallow, we can do that for a certain period of time, but then we're gonna kind of take hard hits, meaning who's in our life? A bunch of shallow people. What are those shallow people adding to my life? More shallowness? Like, where's the love? Where's the belonging? Where's the quality of my days and my times? It's a scary proposition.

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because I do think there is a segment of people that measure everything by money. And disclaimer, we are not discouraging money. mean, we are not discouraging ambition. just like we don't do, we are not saying that if a leader takes five minutes to find out the emotional bandwidth of his team, he's not focused on productivity. We're not saying that. However, just like surveys have shown that

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When people leave and they have their exit interviews, even when they try to throw money at the problem, say, stay Michelle, we really need you. We're just going to double your package. Sometimes it doesn't work and they still live because they say, I cannot stay. The environment is too toxic. And you know how we've always defined success as more money, more money, more money. You say that success is from the inside, especially now, like you said, we're not going back.

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If success is from the inside, there are people who just have come to the point where they say, even if you pay me triple, what I feel on the inside, I'm just not gonna betray that anymore. I think we've come to a point where some people are just saying throwing money at the problem is just no longer the solution if this is not fixed. Well, they're definitely prioritizing the way they're feeling.

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They understand there are other opportunities. The price that they pay for living in a toxic workspace is going to A, diminish their health. Their health is their number one priority. You can't buy health. You have to live your health. So how you feel day to day matters. The task before us is to get corporate leadership programs to start really leaning into

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Quality of workspace toxic versus well-being being a factor that is promoted and Embodied in how all of the engagement happens some of well-being its respect its process It's leaning towards our strengths. It's positivity. You know, you have their lives in your hands They come and they do tasks for you

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and they do management and they do administration. If they're engaging with toxic people, who's undermining who, all you have to do is look at some of those reality shows and see how some places are so, like you don't want to be in certain spaces. You can't trust anybody because everyone's in their vying for their own interest instead of a collaborative effort. Yeah.

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living like that, just always constantly watching over your shoulder. The stress level holds, Michelle. Can you imagine? Well, yeah, I can imagine it. I know a lot of my clients, have corporate, corporate, corporate, and I've seen people burn out and I've seen people squash who they are in order to do this. And maybe this was their only choice. But there comes a point of reckoning where you stop. You're like, something is going to break.

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And you need to re-prioritize what is important. Even, you know, the most aware of us that are out there, if we're doing well and we have this goal out here and this ambition and we're fueled by it, we keep going, it's almost like we disassociate with the body. We are single-mindedly wanting that. Whereas, I said, life is multifaceted. It's not just how you show up at work. Work is part of what you do.

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but you have other elements of your life that need to be put into some sort of balance to say the least. Otherwise the person you become, your own development, it stagnates. It's singular to your definition of who you are. Your identity is singularly tied to that career, to that ambition. And that's a dangerous place to be because sometimes things implode, right? Sometimes.

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things don't go according to plan. There's one woman that has been the leader for a long, time. Her singular focus was that work. No marriage, no children, no nothing. Just that high level executive position in a company, right? She comes down with this major health crisis, major, where she's been gone for six months now. I just look at it and I say, I respect the fact that you're highly intelligent.

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I respect the fact that you're a hard worker. I respect the fact that you have broken through all these barriers or ceilings. But what are you doing? What is your life for you? Where's life giving back to you? I've always felt bad for her. This is a conscious choice on her end. And the stress that comes along with some things, it happens to be this as a woman. mean, men can experience stress just in the same way. But for some reason, I think when women experience stress, it's

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It takes a harder hit to us than to the men. I can't, I'm not scientific enough to prove that. I've listened to enough things. like, I just think we have more going on. Like I know how I carry stress and I watch my husband and I'm like, he's not missing a beat. I'm like, I can feel like the tightness taking toll and you know, it takes a toll on your life. And I think we underestimate what that really is.

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because our eye is on the prize or on the ambition or on the drive, I think we really need to take another look at how we are feeling in our bodies. Just one last word of wisdom, Michelle. How would you define success in like two sentences? Success to me is ease, easing into what life brings my way and

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seeing the beauty of what that is each step of the way. That's what success really is. That way we're not so headstrong to redefine it, to change it, to like we're living with it and sculpting it as we go. We're not all born in the same circumstances, in the same place, with the same opportunities. We're all very unique. So success is me finding that place where I live joy. I live my joy. I don't have to

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be given joy, I live it. And I'm not expecting something different or something better. I've got my eye on something great, but I have something great today. And now I'm continue to live something great. Like it's just a next stage, a next thing, right? But it's all good. Like even in the worst of situations that could happen to you, you're still not letting that.

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destroy your happy factor, destroy you. The outside is not the determinant of the inside. The inside prevails first and the outside is created from that. So that was way more than two sentences, but. Which we appreciate by the way, because that was a lot of wisdom right there. Thank you so much. The success from the inside. Michelle J. Howe.

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the founder of the Ampeth Evolution. We appreciate you sharing your wisdom with us today and the stories that have made it very clear for us that truly success is from the inside. Thank you for being here today. You're most welcome. And before you go, would you like our listeners and viewers to reach you and what is your website? Sure, Ma, I would love to hear from you, what you enjoyed from this interview, what you would like to learn more about.

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My contact information is on my website. My website is mpathevolution.com. There's a quiz on there. There's a monthly event that I do that I would love for you to attend. It's called the Recalibration Room. And we go a little deeper with a small group of people just to see. I love going deeper. And we explore the things that we need to express. We need a prompt. Put ourselves in a position where

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Let's look at this. What does this mean to you? What is this about? So I just bring questions to the table and explorations and then we gain some wisdom from it and every person has that wisdom in them, period. EmpathEvolution.com. Thank you so much, Michelle. You're most welcome. Don't forget to subscribe, liberating and the review on Apple and Spotify and stay tuned for more episodes to come.