Author: Katy Goshtasbi

Not long ago, I attended the Content Marketing World (CMW) National Conference. This time not as a speaker, but as a guest of a former client who’s now a regular on their stage.

I expected to meet some remarkable people. And I did. What I didn’t expect was to gain such clear insight into how I can help content marketers elevate their results and deepen the impact of their work.

After sitting through just two breakout sessions, something clicked.

Each conversation circled back to one powerful truth: emotions drive connection, and connection drives business. The presenters emphasized how emotional storytelling shapes stronger brands; stories that reflect not just products or services, but the humanity behind them. When your audience feels something genuine, they lean in. They remember. And they buy.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

That level of authenticity requires something many organizations overlook: leaders who are willing to be seen. CEOs, founders, and executives must open up, share their stories, and allow their teams to craft campaigns that show the real person behind the brand. Often, that happens on video, where tone, presence, and vulnerability can’t be faked.

But during Q&A, a familiar challenge surfaced again and again:

“What if I can’t convince our clients/executives to market this way? What if they’re disconnected from their own emotions?”

That’s exactly where my Breakthrough Session (BTS) comes in.

Let’s be honest, most people are numb to some degree. A BTS is designed to quickly and effectively help clients identify the emotional blocks holding them back and release them.

The result? Greater clarity, confidence, and openness.

When leaders experience this shift, everything changes. They show up on camera differently; authentic, grounded, and relatable. Campaigns start to resonate. Audiences respond. And results follow naturally.

Now, you may think that you don’t have that kind of power over a CEO; to get them to see the need for a BTS. Maybe you even think that you may insult them if you suggest a BTS. Good news! You don’t suggest a BTS because you think someone is broken. NO one is broken. You suggest a BTS in the same way you would suggest any other tool to your clients, like making a good video. You use your expertise in marketing to suggest a BTS for them to connect, sell and grow the business. Why? Because an effective BTS speeds up the connection, sales and growth process.

A BTS is a smart business tool. For example, one CEO client didn’t feel committed to his 30,000+ employees, his family or his life. After his first BTS with me, he started showing up differently: he sent email replies to his team faster, was kinder and more patient in meetings, more fun at home and at work. His staff started noticing his compassion and his deep listening. As a result, his team started showing up more committed. The company marketing output began to deeply emotionally resonate. Sales went up.

I explore this process in depth in my latest book, The Emotional Resonance Factor®, available in paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats.

Because when your message connects emotionally, your marketing stops being noise and starts becoming influence.

You know, I used to have a rule: No connecting flights. Ever. If I couldn’t get somewhere directly, I simply didn’t go. Life felt too full, too busy, too precious for layovers and delays.

But sometimes… something calls you so deeply that you break your own rules.

That “something” recently took me all the way to Vermont to record the audiobook version of my book, “Emotional Resonance Factor®.” And honestly? It became more than a trip. It turned into a pilgrimage. A sacred journey. One that surprised me, moved me, and-if I may be bold-healed something inside me. And maybe, as you read or listen, it will awaken something inside you, too.

Let me take you there, just for a moment. Maybe you can even imagine yourself alongside me.

Day 1: The Grounding

Imagine this: after a 10-hour delay (yes, ten), I finally arrive in Vermont. It’s late, I’m exhausted, but there’s a quiet pulse in the air. A sense of calm. Of readiness.

The next morning, despite jetlag, I bounce out of bed with anticipation buzzing in my body. Stepping out onto the back patio of the rental house, nestled deep in the Vermont mountains, I feel something shift.

Have you ever felt land that holds you? That says, “You’re safe. You belong here”. That’s what Vermont did. I could feel the ground beneath my feet speak to me: “You’re okay. You’re supported. Let’s begin”.

At the studio, I warm up-tea with Manuka honey in one hand, a wine cork in the other (a quirky but genius vocal warm-up tool!). And then it begins…

The headset goes on. I step into the booth. And suddenly, I’m not just reading my book-I’m inhabiting it. I’m speaking to you, to the women I wrote this for. To the men who walk beside us. I’m not just narrating. I’m storytelling, Soul-telling.

Then something unexpected happens…

I reach the dedication and… I choke up. I can’t speak. Emotion swells. My heart leads, not my voice.

And later, when I read the words that remind my readers of their strength, of their worthiness-it wrecks me. In the best way. I had to pause, breathe, feel. It was as if I were talking directly to someone who desperately needed to hear those exact words, in that exact moment.

Maybe that someone was…me, too.

Day 2: The Deepening

Day Two arrives, and with it, clarity. I know what’s coming. I welcome it.

Tea. Honey. Cork. Check. Headset on. Let’s go.

And this time, I can see her clearly-the woman I’m speaking to. Maybe she’s an executive, running hard and fast, juggling a hundred delicate spinning plates. Career, kids, partner, aging parents, a team to lead, a heart to protect.

I read to her. With compassion, with sisterhood. I want her to feel held. I want her to remember who she is.

And I think of the men, too-the ones who love us, support us, see us. My own husband’s face flashes before me. These men who are strong enough to lift women up, not hold us back. This book is for them, too.

As I read the final lines, I tear up again. Not from exhaustion-but from gratitude. For you. For anyone who picks up this book or listens to my voice and lets me into their world.

Because when you do, you’re giving me your time, your trust, your attention-and that is sacred.

Day 3: The Integration

Day Three is just for pick-ups-little sound edits. But the energy has shifted. Something’s landed.

We celebrate. We laugh. We breathe in the mountain air.

And as I walk out of the studio for the last time, I feel… peaceful. Proud. Changed.

This audiobook wasn’t just a product. It was a process. A ceremony. A love letter.

And maybe, just maybe, if you ever feel a whisper calling you to write your own book or share your voice in some way, I hope you’ll listen. Because of this journey? It’s transformative.

And trust me-your story matters. You matter.

With love,

Katy

P.S. If you ever need a reminder that you are powerful, that your words matter, and that your soul is so worthy of being seen-come back to this. Or better yet, let me read to you.

Want to be the first to listen to my audiobook?

Go HERE and let me know. We’ll let you know as soon as it is available for download.

For the paperback, go HERE.

As I travel and share the message of my new book, Emotional Resonance Factor®, I’ve been blessed to receive some truly beautiful questions from the community. One question keeps surfacing that feels especially important. I want to share it with you here in case it lights something up inside you, too.

Question:
For those who are just now hearing about “emotional resonance,” how would you explain it in simple terms? And how is it different from emotional intelligence?

This is such a thoughtful question and one I love answering. It opens a doorway into a deeper way of understanding ourselves and how we connect with others.

Emotional Intelligence vs Emotional Resonance

Emotional intelligence is a foundational skill.

It’s the ability to recognize and regulate your emotions while understanding how those emotions affect the people around you. It includes self-awareness, empathy, and emotional regulation. These skills help us communicate more clearly and stay grounded in relationships.

Think of emotional intelligence as something you learn and practice. It’s what helps you notice your own reactions and choose how to respond. It’s about understanding feelings so you can move through the world with more grace and clarity.

Emotional resonance is something different.

It’s not about managing emotions. It’s about being attuned. The meaning of emotional resonance lies in the experience of deep emotional alignment. It’s what happens when your internal world responds to someone else’s presence or truth in a way that feels natural and unspoken.

You’ve likely felt this before. A conversation that stirred something in you. A moment that made you soften. A connection that felt immediate, even without words. That’s emotional resonance.

What Emotional Resonance Feels Like

Emotional resonance is based in energy, not effort.

It happens when you’re present and aligned with your own truth. It’s the quiet feeling of being seen, felt, and understood on a level that doesn’t require explanation. It’s when your energy matches someone else’s in a way that feels honest and grounding.

Resonance isn’t something you can perform. It arises naturally when you are fully connected to yourself. The more you live in integrity with who you are, the more you become available for this kind of connection.

Why Resonance Begins Within

You can only experience emotional resonance with others when you’re already in tune with yourself. That’s where it begins. You cannot fake resonance. It cannot be forced. It comes from being clear and honest with your inner world.

Each of us carries a unique emotional blueprint. It’s shaped by our experiences, our gifts, and the work we’ve done to return to our own truth. This is why what resonates for one person might not for another. That difference is not only natural, it’s sacred.

The Gift of Alignment

When you are in resonance, you are in alignment.

From that space, the right people, ideas, and opportunities tend to find you. Not through pushing, but through openness. Resonance feels like ease. It draws connection, not by reaching outward, but by standing firmly in who you are.

You don’t need to prove anything. You don’t need to perform. You simply need to be present and true. And in that space, real connection happens.

That is the true meaning of emotional resonance.

It’s not just how we connect with others. It’s how we come home to ourselves and create space for others to do the same.

With love,

Katy

What is it about leading during unpredictable times that makes you break a sweat? How can you make leading during shaky times work out for the highest good? Let’s discuss three insightful tools and steps for leading with grace and ease during uncertain times.

The Problem

As a human being, no one enjoys having to change. Change is not predictable and thus, often very scary. The only way uncertainty feels even worse is when you have to not just focus on yourself, but lead others through it as well. In these cases, you are dealing with unpredictable and scary environments where you can’t control the outcome…and others are counting on you!

In times of uncertainty, leaders tend to shrink back literally and figuratively. Sometimes this may look like being stuck, almost paralyzed by self-doubt. Doubt is not a bad thing. In fact, doubt can oppose dogmatic certainty because doubt allows for compassion, understanding, patience, trust and tolerance; opening doors to fresh leadership ideas and solutions.

“Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt”.— Ralph Feinnes, Conclave

Other times, this ‘lack of leadership behavior’ can result in making poor decisions based on fear and a mentality crippled by lack or desperation. None of this is inspiring your team, much less allowing the business to grow and succeed.

Tools and Steps

1. Go Silent…Seriously

During times of uncertainty, great leaders know the answers rest in silence. Being in action constantly is depleting your energy and it doesn’t produce results. It can just serve to add to the chaos that already exists.

Great leadership comes from the confidence you exude as you lead. Confidence is a by-product of peace you exhibit when you show up. This peace only comes from getting quiet, going inside and studying yourself and the situation at hand. 

I coach all my clients to find their blind spots and ensuing emotions. Only then can they move forward powerfully. 

How?

Disconnecting from the fear and chaos is the key. Taking the time to intentionally sit still, alone, and feel into the situation, problem, and all the ensuing emotions, is a mandatory part of succeeding in uncertain leadership times. Only when you sit still can you confront your own thoughts, emotions and blind spots…and eventually the “why didn’t I see that” solutions. This may seem easy. When clients have me as their coach, I drive ownership and accountability for them so they make time to sit still. You’ll need to see the value in getting uncomfortable and making time to sit still by yourself. 

Consider as you sit still: How truly uncertain is the actual situation? How much of it is just your negative emotions and baggage versus objective facts and issues? How is this stunting effective problem solving and decision making? What emotions are coming up for you- anger, fear, sadness, guilt, shame, hurt? What viewpoint are you missing?

2. Get Curious

Most leaders work within environments where everyone is telling them what they want to hear- usually “yes”. Rarely does someone stand up to a leader and call them on their leadership challenges. This is a big problem because as the leader, you can’t see options when no one is giving you valuable feedback and challenging your thinking. Again, unless you have a strong coach who will be that person for you, you need to do this for yourself. 

How?

Come at every dilemma or problem with deep curiosity and wonder, like a child would do. This curiosity will abate your natural tendency to judge the situation and those employees who contributed to the situation. This awareness will allow you to start the process of seeing options that you normally would have missed. This entire process will require you to be very self-aware and catch yourself.  You must act as your own coach.

Consider: Adopt the mantra, “Isn’t that interesting?” and/or “How curious is that?”. Filter every issue through a question format instead of a statement/sentence. The latter puts you in a place of judging based on the finality of a statement versus the openness of a question.

3. Get Creative

As a leader, what landed you in the problematic situation you have won’t get you to the solution you need in uncertain times (or even during more stable times!). Find a way to get excited about unsettled, uncertain times. Yes, excited. Excitement fuels momentum to create a better mousetrap. This will allow you to find a solution(s) by seeing the bigger picture AND all the details. 

How?

Consider: What could be the upshot of all this uncertainty? Dig deep and stretch yourself. Tap into your creativity exercises parts of your being (and brain) that are often ignored. This can feel uncomfortable. If you can’t find a single upshot, then you are not doing it “wrong”. You just need to repeat steps one and two above more often in order to relax and allow yourself to find creative solutions. Stress does not allow for confidence nor creativity.

In summary, never underestimate the power of uncertainty. You can be calm enough to generate intelligent and creative solutions in the face of the unknown. You can handle the pressure, discomfort and fears because your central nervous system can handle it. You are stronger than you think. You have resources and support. Use them and let your life be easier and your career and leadership epic, effective and inspirational, regardless of what is going on externally.

Want to talk about it? 

My role is a strategic thinking partner for my client leaders. Let me support you.

“This article was first published in the ABA Law Practice Division Webzine on August 14, 2024”.

When I ask lawyer clients (or any client regardless of profession) what’s their biggest wish or hope for their practice/business/career, they often emphatically exclaim that they wish to have a more smooth and stable one. Who wouldn’t want a smooth and stable practice, business, career? It sounds wonderful.

But what does it really mean to have a smooth and stable practice? Specifically, what do you have to do to achieve this level of success? Just as important, how can your practice success impact your wellbeing and personal life and vice versa? Let’s explore this topic and provide some tips to get you started down this path of success in your practice.

The Problem

When professionals think of having a smooth and stable practice, they often immediately think of hitting a particular revenue goal as the answer. For most of us the focus is on money as the measure of professional success. After all, if we can generate enough revenue that must mean we are successful. This measure of success often fails to self-generate and lead to easy growth, because the foundation for your smooth and stable practice that generates revenues has to be laid first.

Most of my clients are so busy, they can’t find the time or energy to see beyond the everyday practice issues. Doing so would broaden their focus and perspective to practice success indicators, beyond substantive practice success, leading to more money. These success indicators focus on your traits as a human.

Society doesn’t do us any favors by referring to other human traits as “soft” skills. It leaves us believing falsely that “soft” skills are related, perhaps, to a particular gender, or maybe are just a nicety. Stop and think, when did the ability to communicate, solve problems, make sound decisions and inspire others to action become an optional way of being? In fact, our human traits are the way we bond with one another in order to create an atmosphere of trust and safety allowing your professional skills to have a solid foundation from which to shine.

The Solution

Higher revenues are a good indicator, or outcome, of a smooth and stable practice. Before you can get to higher revenues though, your practice has to have a strong emotional footprint, meaning you and your team need to have high emotional intelligence.

With artificial intelligence having such a focus in our personal and professional lives, a natural counter-focus should be on your own intelligence as a human being. Your intelligence can be defined as your cognitive intelligence, or IQ, and your emotional intelligence, or EI.

EI refers to a distinct combination of emotional and social skills and competencies that influence our overall capability to cope effectively with the demands and pressures of work and life — in other words, how we deal with stress, life’s obstacles, deadlines, decision-making, problem-solving, time management, reading the room, and any other myriad life issues that have the potential to relate to and influence our success. All of these are foundational to having a smooth and stable practice that generates high revenues easily. How many times have we seen lawyers not be able to generate revenues and bring in new clients because they can’t manage their deadlines and stressors and can’t communicate effectively? I’ve seen too many instances of this.

While your IQ piques at 17 years of age, your EI grows as you age. There is no correlation between your IQ and EI; that is, just because your IQ is high doesn’t guarantee that your EI is as high, and vice versa.

EI is estimated to account for up to 45% of people’s success in life. When looking at successful leaders and lawyers globally, you’ll find that they have in common extremely high EI. They don’t always show up as managing partners or CEOs. High EI leaders show up as leaders regardless of their positions.

These same high EI leaders generate high revenues/compensation because higher revenues are a natural byproduct of the emotional energy they show up with. This energy is infectious. This energy comes through their emotions, getting others excited to be around them, hire them, support them, respect them, listen to them, etc.

Perhaps Neal Donald Walsh said it best: “Emotion is energy in motion. When you move energy, you create effect. If you move enough energy, you create matter. Matter is energy conglomerated. Moved around. Shoved together. If you manipulate energy long enough in a certain way, you get matter. Every Master understands this law. It is the alchemy of the universe. It is the secret of all life.”

So how can you use emotional energy to create the effect–or matter–of higher revenues? Here are 5 tips to get you started.

1. What’s Your EI Baseline? At the beginning of every client company engagement, I start by providing each lawyer/employee with an assessment that we can then use as a reference point for growth. This assessment serves as a baseline.

2. The hallmark of emotionally intelligent people is that they have high self-awareness. High self-awareness requires you to be able to answer some basic questions about your practice as a baseline. For instance, how are you and your team/employees doing currently in terms of emotional intelligence?

3. If you establish a baseline, you’ll know where to grow from and you can set reasonable and realistic goals and expectations that can be communicated easily to your team to build upon. Otherwise, how would you know where to start and what areas/who on your team needs more focus and attention?

4. What do you feel is the most natural part of your practice? For instance, are you a natural at building your staff and team and leading them? Maybe you are great in the courtroom putting your communication skills to use with the jury, judge and opposing counsel? Knowing the answer to this question will allow you to know where you naturally put your energy easily. This is likely the part of your practice you enjoy the most and can emotionally express well to your audience.

5. Slow and Steady Wins Always. Nothing good happens overnight. Tapping into your and your teams EI is likely a new venture for you, requiring you to look at your career, business and practice from an entirely different angle. Be patient with yourself and celebrate the small wins.

Building a smooth and stable practice is a function of having the foundational element of high EI, not IQ, for you and your team. EI is not a fad or buzzword. It is a function of being human, having, and expressing, emotions. It’s the energy that attracts the right people to your practice through you.

The first step is having self-awareness by knowing that increased revenues are an indicator of a stable and smooth practice and not the path to it. Next tapping into what you naturally put your energy (and emotions) into in your practice is key. Lastly, moving slowly, methodically and with patience allows you to deliberately be the power that fuels your ideal smooth and stable practice.

When you employ these three tips, you will notice that your well-being and personal life has taken a turn for the better, also. The simple reason being that anytime you can emote, you connect with others positively leading to better life outcomes for everyone involved. Emoting is a function of you self-expressing and living your most authentic life. Authenticity doesn’t just draw more money into your practice, it draws harmony and healthy relationships into your life. For a related article on EI, please go here.

Are you skeptical deep down and wonder if your mindset really is the most important part of your professional (and personal) success—and failure? Do you often find yourself questioning what actions you need to take to bring in more money, be successful, and reduce your stress so you can sleep peacefully at night?

I had these two questions lurking in the back of my mind for a long time. I just ignored them. I knew my mindset was important, but I wasn’t convinced of the power of my mind to direct all my actions, behaviors, and outcomes.

It wasn’t until I experienced the NLP Master Practitioner’s Training that I became a real believer.

The journey began with curiosity. The training promised not just theoretical knowledge but practical tools to harness the power of the mind.

I was intrigued… Could this really be the key to unlocking my potential?

The culmination of the training was a powerful experience: breaking a wooden board with a single strike. This was not just a physical act but a metaphor for breaking through mental barriers, our obstacles that stood in the way of our goals.

As I stood there, board in place, a tiny doubt crept in. Could I really do this? But as I focused my mind, channeling all the techniques I had learned, something incredible happened. I broke the board with ease, and in that moment, I truly believed in the power of my mind. I could achieve anything.

The Power of Mindset

If you’re skeptical about the power of mindset like I was, I urge you to explore the power of your mind. The transformation I experienced was profound. Our mind is indeed the most powerful tool we possess. It can direct our actions, shape our behaviors, and determine our outcomes.