How My Journey Began

Priyal Thakur - The Catalyst

Growing up in a conservative, authoritarian family opening up about how we ‘felt’ was not a regular occurrence. And the concept of emotional awareness? No such thing! Throughout the years, I questioned my self-worth, confidence and abilities which forced me to seek external validation rather than looking for answers within. Due to the emotional childhood neglect I faced & years of conditioning, I started communicating a powerful message to my deepest self: “Your feelings do not matter”. I always felt this sense of loneliness. What followed were lost friendships, broken relationships and the lack of direction. I was bright academically and I was performing decently well professionally, but I always felt like I wasn’t whole, that there was a part of me that was missing.  

My bottled up emotions too remained unaddressed & unmanaged and only emerged at times that made very little sense to me. As I grew older, I realized nobody had ever taught me to actively deal with my emotions and that I wasn’t the only one who lacked this key life skill. I acknowledged I lacked basic EQ skills to recognize my own harmful patterns and identify my habitual reactions, coupled with the realisation that I actually had a choice to respond differently. 

I realized if I couldn’t be authentic with myself, how could anyone else be authentic with me? I knew I had to change something and started researching about why I felt this way and what could fix it. I came across the concept of emotional intelligence when I first read Daniel Goleman’s books which helped me break away from the belief that logic and reason were supposed to come before emotions. I realised that if we could align our thoughts, feelings and actions, we could live an intentional, purposeful and meaningful life.

Today, having spent a couple of years in leadership development and coaching, I implement the science behind EQ to create better leaders, more engaged teams and healthier, happier workplaces. 

I’m a certified emotional intelligence coach based in San Francisco, Bay Area, USA. I’ve been certified as an EQ Practitioner by Six Seconds, the largest global organization supporting the growth of emotional intelligence (EQ) by researching and disseminating effective tools and methods. I make efficient use of these valuable tools as a Catalyst to identify the need gaps of my clients & provide tailor-made, constructive & practical working solutions for them to navigate volatile situations. 

I’m also a Certified EQ Assessor for the "Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence" assessment. This power-packed framework is used across 127 countries for a broad range of training, coaching, selection, and development needs used to yield qualitative results. 

If you’re looking to develop an authentic connection between the mind, brain, emotion and action, you’re in the right lab, one that guarantees successful experiments.