Hey you!
This is “that’s what she said”, the newsletter that usually helps you think a bit sharper and make sense of web3 without wanting to throw your laptop out the window.
If you read the last piece on blockchain, I hope it made things click a little more clearly. Today, though, I'm taking a bit of a turn. I want to get personal and share something that’s been on my mind: my journey toward becoming more emotionally intelligent and, maybe more importantly, learning how to be a little gentler with myself along the way.
I know it’s a shift from the usual vibe, but sometimes the most meaningful conversations happen when we hit the pause and just talk. Ready?
💡 Where It Started
Everyone's talking about emotional intelligence these days, but while I was growing up, it wasn't exactly part of the conversation. For me, the lightbulb moment didn't happen until I was around 26.
Was that late? Maybe. Do I feel embarrassed that it took me that long? Definitely yes, but better late than never, right?
My parents grew up in the Soviet Union, where talking about feelings just wasn't a thing. So it makes sense that I wasn't exactly the most emotionally aware person walking around. Don't get me wrong, I'm endlessly grateful to my parents (especially my mom) for giving me everything they could with what they had. Still, when I think about myself and my future kids, I truly believe that one of the best things we can do for ourselves and the next generation is to actually get to know ourselves in order to live a meaningful and happy life.
What does that even mean, though? For me, it means paying attention to how I feel in different situations, figuring out why I feel that way, noticing how I react, understanding what really matters to me, and becoming aware of how my emotional patterns affect the people around me.
Turning 26 was a bit of a wake-up call. Something clicked, and I realised that no matter what chaos was happening around me, I had to put myself first. That's when I started the real digging, trying to figure out who I am underneath all the noise.
🧭 The Real Turning Point
There was already a lot of self-reflection happening, but the real game-changer came at the beginning of 2024 when I took the leadership course. Oh boy, it felt like a slap in the face... in the best possible way!
When I signed up for the course, I had the hope to sharpen my leadership skills, figure out what kind of leader I was, and what kind of leader I wanted to become. Yes, I did all of that, but what blew my mind was how much it helped me explore myself first — as a person — before diving into any leadership frameworks. That part was deeply transformational. Massive shoutout to Oksana Smilka for creating something truly incredible. I'm endlessly grateful for how much that course changed my perspective ❤️
Part of the whole experience involved taking these two assessments from TTI Insights: TriMetrix HD and Emotional Quotient.
The TriMetrix HD Assessment explores your behavioural style (how you prefer to behave and communicate), personal motivators or drivers (why you move into action), competencies (which skills you've mastered), and your acumen or decision-making style (what unique talents you have at your disposal).
The EQ Assessment focuses on emotional intelligence — your ability to sense, understand, and effectively use emotions for better collaboration and productivity. It looks at five key areas related to both how you relate to yourself and others:
- Self-awareness is the ability to recognise and understand your moods, emotions and drives, as well as their effect on others. In practice, it is your ability to recognise when you are red, clear or somewhere in between.
- Self-regulation is the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods, and the propensity to suspend judgment and think before acting. In practice, it is your ability to influence your emotional clarity from red to clear when the situation requires.
- Motivation is a passion to work for reasons that go beyond the external drive for knowledge, utility, surroundings, others, power or methodology and are based on an internal drive or propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.
- Social Awareness is the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people and how your words and actions affect others. In practice, it is the ability to assess if they are in a red, clear or somewhere in-between state.
- Social Regulation is your ability to influence the emotional clarity of others through a proficiency in managing relationships and building networks.
These assessments, combined with the course itself, helped me gain so much clarity. I walked away with a better understanding of my values, what drives me, why I do the things I do, and how all of that ripples out to affect the people around me.
Turns out, according to the DISC model, I'm a DC type with a Dominance score of 92, which basically means I'm dealing with a lot of impulses and mood swings throughout the day. So yeah, the area where I needed work was pretty obvious: self-regulation was my weak spot.
🫠 Low Effort → Unexpected Results
Suppose you’re expecting me to say that after the course, I created a master plan to become a super emotionally intelligent human being, then… nope. I did literally nothing. Okay, not nothing nothing! I knew I should work on my EQ, but life got in the way. Work, other courses, travelling, general chaos — you know the drill.
The only thing I committed to was this tiny promise: whenever something was pissing me off or pushing me over the edge, I’d shut up and give myself a few minutes to cool down. It's called the STOP technique. You just stop whatever you're doing and pause for a second, then take a deliberate breath while focusing on the inhaling and exhaling part. Then you observe what's going on in your head and how you're feeling without beating yourself up about it. Finally, you proceed mindfully by choosing how you want to respond instead of just having an automatic reaction.
That's it. That was my entire "emotional intelligence plan".
Here’s the wild part: when I retook the same EQ assessment at the end of 2024, my results surprisingly improved:
Did this one tiny technique really make a difference? I honestly don't know, but it seems like it did. And that's when it hit me: if doing this one small thing could move the needle, what would happen if I got serious about working on emotional intelligence?
That's exactly what I decided to do.
🌱 Building on What Works
The STOP technique had clearly done something, even though I'd basically put in minimal effort. Therefore, going into 2025, I decided to keep using what was working, but I also wanted to dig deeper into understanding my emotional patterns, not just managing them in the moment.
That's when I discovered the How We Feel app. It simply helps you track your emotions throughout the day and gives you weekly summaries of your emotional landscape. The tracking part alone was eye-opening. I started noticing patterns I'd never seen before, like how certain types of meetings/conversations left me drained, or how my mood would shift depending on the time of day I tackled specific tasks. The real gem was the AI-enabled self-reflection feature.
I don't use this app feature constantly, but when some situations got particularly stressful or confusing, I'd dive into the self-reflection prompts. The AI would ask these deeper, thought-provoking questions that helped me untangle what was really going on beneath the surface. It was like having a quick pocket coach who knew exactly what to ask to help me feel a bit more relieved and clear-headed.
I started to feel more stable towards the mood and emotion swings, so I decided to get even more structured in the second half of 2025.
💪 The H2 2025 Plan
So here's what I'm doing starting this July:
- Logging emotions. Using the How We Feel app has become part of my daily routine. I check in with myself a few times throughout the day. It’s like seeing a mood map of my week. When things get intense, the app’s “pocket coach” feature gently nudges me toward reflection instead of reaction.
- Daily journaling. I’ve started ending my day with a short journaling session (about 10-20 minutes per day). Just me, the Journal app and my thoughts. I write about how I felt during the day, what went well, what didn’t, and any small wins or frustrations I want to make sense of. It’s been a good way to connect the dots between my feelings and my reactions, and sometimes just unload what’s been buzzing in my brain.
- Weekly self-compassion voice notes. At the end of each week, I record a quick message about what I have accomplished within the week and why I should be proud of myself. It's so easy to be my own harshest critic, so this has become my way of softening that inner voice. I plan to listen back to the recordings at the end of the month to remind myself that even when I think I’m falling short, I’ve done more than I give myself credit for.
- Monthly meaningful conversations. I'd love to get better at truly listening to people and understanding their feelings. Once a month, I'm planning to have deeper conversations with my mates where they can share whatever's on their mind: work stress, relationship stuff, life decisions — you name it. My job is simple: listen, ask thoughtful questions, and just be present and observe. No rushing to give advice unless they actually want it. I am curious to see how this can change the level of my social awareness.
- Learning the fundamentals. To really get a grip on how emotional intelligence works, I’m also committing to reading a few foundational books on EQ and self-compassion. Not just to read them, as the plan is to actually pull out useful ideas and test them in real life. If something sticks, maybe it becomes a habit. If not, that’s okay too!
The beautiful thing about this approach is that none of these practices feel overwhelming on their own, but together they're creating a great foundation for emotional growth.
I truly believe that the best transformations happen not through dramatic overhauls, but through small, consistent choices that compound over time.
🤔 Why I am Doing This
I’m working on my emotional intelligence because I want to become a better version of myself and to simply feel more at peace with what I feel and how I respond. Life is messy, and emotions can be unpredictable, but I’ve learned that while I can’t always control what I feel, I can control how I react. That space — the tiny pause between feeling and reacting — that’s where real growth lives.
By the end of 2025, I hope that all these small, consistent practices will add up. I’m not aiming to become perfect or eternally calm (this will never happen!), but I do want to look back and feel like I’ve progressed; that I’ve become more emotionally aware, a little more self-compassionate, and better equipped to navigate both the highs and lows.
And of course, I’ll be reflecting on this whole experience in my end-of-year piece. Also, knowing me and my obsession with measuring progress, I’m already planning to retake the TTI Insights EQ Assessment in a year. I’m curious to see what the data will say, but more importantly, how I’ll feel about the person I’m becoming along the way.
Final Thought
If you've made it this far, thank you for letting me get a bit personal with you today! Maybe you're reading this and thinking about your own relationship with emotions. Maybe you've been putting off that uncomfortable conversation with yourself about who you want to become, or maybe you're just curious about what happens when someone decides to get serious about emotional growth.
Whatever brought you here, I hope something in my messy, ongoing journey resonates with you. We're all just figuring it out as we go, and sometimes the bravest thing we can do is admit we don't have it all together, and that's perfectly okay.
Until next time, be gentle with yourself. You're doing better than you think you are ❤️
That's what I said.
Cookies She Left Behind
- Chimp Paradox by Steve Peters. One of the most interesting books I read this spring!
- If you don't have time to read, please watch this DOAC episode with Steve!