"Business will thrive when you do."
Cathy Spaas is a world-class expert and speaker on high sensitivity and a retired coach to professional artists and performers. Through her groundbreaking Claim Your Shine modality she supports these highly sensitive empaths so that they can reach and sustain success in their highly-demanding industries.
As a former elite international showjumper, Cathy is no stranger to the spotlight herself, and the unique pressures faced by those ascending to the upper echelons of their profession.Cathy advocates the superpowers that come along with being Highly Sensitive and has coached hundreds of highly sensitive clients to make incredible breakthroughs in their life and career.
She is a highly sensitive, highly gifted, chaotic, outgoing yet introverted mom of 2 young children and has an amazingly supportive husband. She is a horse girl (has 8 horses, 2 dogs and a cat) who loves the outdoors, skiing, dancing, and spending time on self-care. She adores her family and has created an amazing life for herself by following the 7 steps of her Claim-your-Shine modality.
Cathy has her own show ‘Spotlight Stress’ where she interviews celebrities on dealing with failure and success, and is currently writing a self-help book explaining the strategies she used with her high ticket clients.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Cathy Spaas: Happiness wasn’t always a given for me. Even as a child I had lots of friends, yet I never really felt like I would fit in…
Being around horses and animals was my safe place where I could unapologetically be myself. Even though my parents were loving and I was a fierce child, it never felt quite right. For years I’ve searched for ways to find happiness, I had tried everything from therapy to spiritual classes, only to discover I was exhausted and nothing had really changed…
After suffering from a severe burnout in 2016, which I can describe as my personal turning point, I found my inner light and understood what it means to come home to yourself. Ever since, I’ve set out on the path to help other highly sensitive people like myself create the life of their dreams, and teach them how to have massive career impact without sacrificing their health, relationships, or boundaries. Defining what success means to you, building a life around that which brings you true happiness, and letting you discover your superpower is the biggest gift I feel I can share.
Our culture doens’t support talented people.
That’s why I support professional performers, artists, and actors to reach and sustain success and happiness in these highly-demanding industries. My personalized program helps them achieve their goals across the key areas of work, relationships and health, and navigate the shifting challenges of career and life to thrive at the highest level.
My show ‘Spotlight Stress’ is all about having an open conversation with celebrities to discover the routines for their personal success, share insights, and provide practical tips and tricks you can immediatly integrate in your daily life. The book where I share all my secrets and the practice I’ve used for my high ticket clients, is on it’s way to be launched during spring 2023.
2021 and 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into business on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past couple years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned?
Cathy Spaas: Business will thrive when you do.
These past few years I’ve discovered that when my energy is low, clients wont come. When I believe I have nothing to offer, or nobody is waiting for my program, or now is not the right time… Nobody will show up to work with you. Probably not even if you pay them to. 🙂
Mindset and alignment are my go-to practice when I feel I need to uplevel my business (or personal life for that matter).
Are you comfortable in your own skin?
Do you feel like you are ready to take over the world, no matter what? If you believe there is no other option than to succeed, than thrive you will.
The pandemic seems to keep on disrupting the economy, what should businesses focus on in 2023? What advice would you share?
Cathy Spaas: I’m not a business expert. What I’ve learned from collaborating with actors who were stuck without a decent role for years, and after working together for a few months, started landing lead roles again – is that it didn’t had much to do with how hard they worked, or even about taking different actions (although sometimes they might).
They shifted their subconscious beliefs and raised their vibration, resulting in a magnetic energy attracting the things they desired. We didn’t work on their acting skills, not even on selling themselves. Very often our conversations would be about what was going on in their minds while doing the audition. The treadmill that wouldn’t stop over-thinking other people’s opinions for example. It got in the way of their performance.
You can try to give your everything, but if you aren’t taking ownership of the moment, the moment is gone. Fully embracing everything you are, and everything you want to be, and aligning your energy frequency with that – is the formula to success.
How has the pandemic changed your industry and how have you adapted?
Cathy Spaas: Artists didn’t have jobs, concerts and movies were postponed or got canceled. This generated a lot of stress for these deep thinkers, leaving them with nothing but their thoughts, which often leads to anxiety when not properly managed. My own family required more of my personal time, so I had to scale down my business and solely take on high ticket clients. Sometimes less actually is more.
What advice do you wish you received when the pandemic started and what do you intend on improving in 2023?
Cathy Spaas: These coming months I am training in corporations on the topic of spotlight stress. I wish this huge need had come to my attention sooner, because supporting their human assets by helping their employees build their confidence and find their superpower, is their number one priority during these challenging times.
Online business surged higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for 2023?
Cathy Spaas: I feel like possibilities opened up by making online the new normal. Coaching online was my standard before the pandemic, but high ticket clients could get sceptical on the quality of the coaching sessions not being in-person. You can understand their way of thinking, yet xperience thought me that the degree of attention was a lot higher with just you and me in front of a screen. There were a lot less distractions for them, making it easier for me to get to the core faster.
This way of working will be the new normal these coming years, making it a lot easier for someone like me to work with artists and companies all over the world since I don’t lose that much time anymore on traveling.
How many hours a day do you spend in front of a screen?
Cathy Spaas: Someday a lot, some days none.
I’m very committed to my personal time so I can be the best mom, wife, writer, speaker, and trainer I can be. Huge fan of doing more in less time.
The majority of executives use stories to persuade and communicate in the workplace. Can you share with our readers examples of how you implement that in your business to communicate effectively with your team?
Cathy Spaas: Personal examples are my go to stories to demonstrate my strategies to my clients. By sharing my own struggle and displaying the transformation in it, it’s easier for them to see how they can integrate this for themselves as well. Practice what you preach, be human, and you will inspire by being you.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as the real challenge right now?
Cathy Spaas: People letting their heads down due to the recession feels liks a dangerous thing. You can lay down and surrender, or get creative and start creating.
In 2023, what are you most interested in learning about? Crypto, NFTs, online marketing, or any other skill sets? Please share your motivations.
Cathy Spaas: To me personally making my show and book a big success so more people can get hands-on tools is my number one priority. Online marketing, YouTube, and Instagram are probably the most usefull skills to be learning about at this point.
A record 4.4 million Americans left their jobs in September in 2021, accelerating a trend that has become known as the Great Resignation. 47% of people plan to leave their job during 2022. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued and misunderstood in the workplace. Do you think leaders see the data and think “that’s not me – I’m not that boss they don’t want to work for? What changes do you think need to happen?
Cathy Spaas: First of all I believe those kind of leaders don’t evaluate themselves at all. It’s easy to point fingers elsewhere and stay oblivious for the deeper meaning. Awareness is the first step, along with creating a culture where it’s okay to make mistakes, where we can be acceptant of ourselves, and each other. Being free of judgement creates a whole lot of space for people and businesses to grow.
My new training program is built on these challenges to support personal leadership on all levels of the company. There is so much power in taking ownership, and creating a safe environment is a big part of that solution. It’s all about failing forward.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Cathy Spaas: It would be reaching as many people as possible, and inspiring them by planting seeds. People are always free to chose if they want to receive the seed, nourish it and give it time and care to grow – or not.
What does “success” in 2023 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Cathy Spaas: Success to me is spending quality time with my friends and family, but also traveling and supporting others on their journey. I get energized by teaching others the strategies I’ve used to help hundreds of clients make their personal transformation, and I can’t wait to get out there to impact businesses with this knowledge and practice as well.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Cathy Spaas for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Cathy Spaas or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
