Big Deal Energy

Closing Your Power Gaps with Kathy Caprino

August 04, 2020 Laura Khalil Episode 35
Big Deal Energy
Closing Your Power Gaps with Kathy Caprino
Show Notes Transcript

“Women tend to have three times as many mentors as men, but men have twice as many sponsors as women. Sponsors are the higher-level mentors that have clout and power, that will open doors for you that you cannot open on your own.” - Kathy Caprino 

How would you like to overcome key obstacles to reach your highest potential in the workplace? But what if you don’t know what these obstacles, or your “power gaps” even are? I’m so excited to welcome a friend to the show today, because she has quite literally written the book on this subject and is here to help everyone identify these gaps. 

Kathy Caprino, M.A. is an internationally-recognized career and leadership coach, writer, speaker and educator dedicated to the advancement of women in business.  A former corporate Vice President, she is also a trained marriage and family therapist, seasoned executive coach, Senior Forbes contributor and the author of Breakdown, Breakthrough and her latest book, The Most Powerful You: 7 Bravery-Boosting Paths to Career Bliss from HarperCollins Leadership and Murdoch Books was just released July 28th, 2020. With her Finding Brave podcast and other key resources and services, Kathy’s core mission is to support a “finding brave” global movement that inspires and empowers women to close their power gaps, create more impact and make the difference they long to in the world.

98% of professional women are facing at least one of the 7 damaging power gaps that keep them from thriving at work. By overcoming these gaps in your career that Kathy talks about, you’ll build the success and impact you long for.

Connect with Kathy: http://kathycaprino.com/

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linkedIn.com/in/LauraKhalil

Get on Laura’s Newsletter:

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Support the show (https://www.paypal.me/bravebydesign)

What You’ll Hear In This Episode: 

  • What bravery is all about for Kathy [4:45]
  • What are “power gaps”, and how uncovering them led to Kathy writing her latest book [10:42]
  • Why many women tend to have the inability to recognize their talents [11:39]
  • How we often communicating from fear, not strength, and the damage this causes [15:51]
  • Why we are reluctant to ask for what we deserve [18:50]
  • What isolating from influential support looks like [22:00]
  • What Kathy means when she says we are ‘acquiescing instead of saying stop” [24:29]
  • How losing sight of our dreams for the future is perhaps the most damaging power gap of them all [33:49]
  • Past trauma doesn’t have to define you [38:26]

Additional Links & Resources: 

Kathy’s New Book, The Most Powerful You: 7 Bravery-Boosting Paths to Career Bliss

Her Amazing Career

Support the show

Weekly Tips on Growing and Monetizing your B2B Business --> go.bravebydesign.net/newsletter


Kathy Caprino :

Women tend to have three times as many mentors as men, but men have twice as many sponsors as women. sponsors are the higher level mentors that have clout and power that will open doors for you that you cannot open on your own.

Laura Khalil :

Welcome to brave by design. I'm your host, Laura Khalil. I'm an entrepreneur, coach and speaker. I love thinking bait, exploring the power of personal development and sharing the best strategies from thought leaders and pioneers in business to empower ambitious women and allies to bravely rise and thrive. Let's get started. Everyone, welcome to this episode of brave by design. I cannot even say that I'm ridiculously excited for our guest today, but I am over the moon to have Kathy caprino back with us on brave by design. You will remember Kathy from a previous episode about finding opportunity in crisis and if you did not hear that That, go back and listen. It's incredible. But let's talk about what we're going to do today. Kathy caprino, first of all, beyond being a badass and no, she did not write that in her in her bio, but I'm adding it to her bio. She is an international career leadership and executive coach for professional women. She is a TEDx speaker, a senior Forbes contributor and a writer dedicated to the advancement of women in business, globally. Cathy's book is coming out in July this week that you are listening to this podcast. The book is out and it is called the most powerful you seven bravery boosting paths to bliss. We're going to get into the book today, and we're gonna have so much fun because I think Kathy is my sister from another mister Kathy Katrina.

Kathy Caprino :

Laura, what an intro. I am so happy to be here. I just wish I could sit here for four hours and talk to you. You are so riveting like you talk when it's gonna happen. Oh, thank you, Kathy.

Laura Khalil :

Yep, before This we spent 30 minutes catching up because

Kathy Caprino :

I think we could talk forever. I think we could we need to, we do need to

Laura Khalil :

Gabby when the world has opened up and I can come to Connecticut, you're gonna hear a knock on the door one day. And I'm gonna be like, I've arrived. Let's have a coffee. I

Kathy Caprino :

can't wait. I can't have me on the show. Again, what an honor. I so appreciate.

Laura Khalil :

Well, you know, the reason I want to have you on is we had such an impactful conversation a couple months ago. And I remember hearing about this book coming out. And I'm very interested in these power gaps. But before we get into that, can you tell us why did you write this book? Why does the world need it?

Kathy Caprino :

Okay, so the brief context around it is and I just do think this is an important part of it. I had the 18 year corporate career successful on the outside not successful on the inside right. didn't know how to fix it didn't know how to change it. Didn't know that it millions of people face this millions of women have these saved challenges, left corporate life after 911 became the therapist, marriage and family therapist and then found coaching. So I've been doing career coaching for professional and for about 15 years. And the past 10 years, I would say I really kind of, you know, I used to do market research, I love research, and I was just remembering the other day. I can't make a story short can I learn? Just remembering the other day my dad who's in heaven was a scientist. And when we would debate he'd say, what's the data? Give me the data? Yeah, I'd be like, I don't have any data. Well, I don't want to have the conversation. I realize I love data. So what I was seeing in coaching, and now we're talking working with thousands of women, whether it's a webinar or webinars or my courses or hearing from people on LinkedIn, here's the question I had, what is going on here? That almost every woman I hear from is having the same kinds of challenges and crises in Doesn't matter what country they're from, it doesn't matter how much money, they're making a million or they're making 20,000 how new they are to the professional world, it doesn't matter if they're entrepreneurs or private practitioners, or consultants or corporate women, what is going on here? So I pulled the viewfinder back to answer two questions. What is it that they're missing, that they are coming to coaching to get? And conversely, what do they think I'm helping them get when we're done with their coaching program that allows them to thrive at a higher level? And the answer was this. It's bravery and its power. Okay, so what is power? Yeah, so to me, let me start with bravery if I can, okay, so yeah, it's instant power. To me. bravery is the strength, the courage to look at what is not working and accept accountability for what you can change. Yes. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, but that's not enough. What we need is the internal and external power to be a change agent in our lives, to have the self authority, the self trust, the confidence, the impact to actually make the changes you need to make. Without those two, you can't thrive at the highest level. That's what I believe.

Laura Khalil :

So when you talk about this, when I say self authority, self confidence, self drive you're talking about is I hear something that's coming from inside you. That's not out in the world that you're generating to share. Is that Is that how you see well,

Kathy Caprino :

you know, as I said, I do believe there are two sides that are necessary. Yes, there's the internal piece where for instance, you know, you need to connect with that person who has, you know, network with influential people. Yeah, like You're too scared, but you make yourself do it anyway, that's the internal peace. But you do need the external peace. For instance, this is one of the gaps isolating from influential support if you don't have own there's so much cool research in this book. It's not just me talking, it's 30 plus experts now fields from Susan Cain introversion to but Sylvia and ulit has done a lot of research on let me just state this fact. Women tend to have three times as many mentors as men, but men have twice as many sponsors as women. sponsors are the higher level mentors that have clout and power that will open doors for you that you cannot open on your own. If we don't take that action, and start developing access ways to power outside of ourselves. We can play around with internal power all we want, but we also have to demonstrate power in the physical reality in the world.

Laura Khalil :

Kathy, I listened to your podcast Past finding brave, which by the way, guys is excellent. Power gap number four it you mentioned and I know we're kind of jumping all over, but I just you brought it up isolating from influential support. And I thought that was so interesting, because it's a very interesting reframe on how we get support. And often we think, Oh, I just can't get it. But when you say, isolating from it, that says to me, oh, wait a minute, I am part of CO creating this opportunity in my life. And I just want to say I found that so empowering to say okay, it's not on someone else to just pluck me out of the ether and find me. It's also on me to make myself found to make myself seen and to show up for opportunities. So I really love

Kathy Caprino :

that's how you interpret that because Can I share this? Yeah, I think we've talked about this before, every once in a while, not too often, but someone will say Aren't you blaming the victim here so I need to give us okay stick so we know what we're talking about. When I saw this qualitatively that these are the seven gaps. Mm hmm. And they are occurring over and over I did a survey to see, am I crazy? Or is this really happening on a global scale 98% of the almost 1000 women around the world that took the survey 98% have at least one of these gaps and over 75% have three or more. And what I can tell people is if you have them, you can't thrive, you get the highest level, you can't reach your highest potential. So the other piece that I want to say to people is I am not blaming the victim. What I'm trying to do is lift up all of us, all of us, so that we are no longer a victim so that we stay out of victimhood. So when you say the other piece I want to share is we don't want to believe it, but oftentimes we're co creating or attracting or sustaining That?

Unknown Speaker :

Yes, yes,

Kathy Caprino :

yes. Right. Yes. So the isolating from influential support. It's funny how these labels come, you know, you're a storyteller a writer, you want to choose sticky language that really has an impact. But as a writer, every single word chosen is chosen for a reason. And you hit the nail on the head, if you're not doing this work, if you are not, and I want to tell you, for every power gap, I share the sentence that I hear more often than not around this gap. And this one is, I hate networking. And I'm reluctant to connect with people. I don't know who might be able to help me. I hate it.

Laura Khalil :

How many times have we heard that? Or said that? I've said that?

Kathy Caprino :

I have said it too. And I know why we hate it. Many of us hate it. One. We're shy. Two. We might be an introvert three. We might hate our work, and we don't know what to say. That's at all enticing or juicy. What am I going to talk about? I hate what I'm doing. But if you don't do this work, People, if you are isolating, you are not taking the steps you must take, right? It's really as simple as that. I don't know how else to say no. Yeah, Kathy,

Laura Khalil :

I love what you're talking about co creating, and in response to blaming the victim because of course, we don't want to blame people for where they are. I mean, we are where we are in our journey. That's the truth of it. But I feel that I'm at least 50% of the solution. So why don't I at least try what I can try and try some things. You know, if you've done what you've always done, and it's gotten you this far, it may not get you to the next mile. And that's why books like this resources like this and Kathy are so vitally important. Kathy, walk us through. We've alluded to there being seven power gaps, walk us through what those are

Kathy Caprino :

not to, I'd love to all right. Number one, and it's funny, are they in order of how I see them? No, but I would say and I'm going to give you the percentage who said yes, they have this gap in the survey. But I will tell you this number one is the one I see with every single woman I've ever worked with. I'm not joking. And this is thousands. Number one is not recognizing your special talents, abilities and accomplishments. 63% said, Yeah, I have yes or maybe to this. And this is what we say when we have this. I have no idea how or if I'm special, unique or talented. I don't really think I have any special abilities.

Unknown Speaker :

Oh my god.

Kathy Caprino :

So can I talk about each one? One second? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker :

Okay. Oh,

Kathy Caprino :

yes. What I see here, which is has really floored me, is women and that Listen, I'm not painting every woman with the same brush. There are women who don't have any of these gaps 2% of women. But when you see this so often, you can really confidently say this is a real problem for women. They have a problem in two ways about this cause they're good at something And maybe because it comes easily to them. I don't know, I don't think this is the real reason. They think, yeah, I'm okay at it. But they don't want to go the extra step to say they're really great at it. And when I asked them why they say, Well, someone might think I'm not. Or if they're listing their special talents and abilities, and I say, Why don't I see these on LinkedIn? Why don't you say this is what you've done? They worry that someone's going to say, No, you didn't. So I say to them, okay, you revitalize failing businesses, right? You turned around a business and generated 10 million in business in growth sales. Did you do it or did you not do it? Right? I mean, a little bit of a slap across the face and there's, they say, I did it. Now. Sure. Sometimes we do things with a team. We're not really the one the only

Laura Khalil :

one.

Kathy Caprino :

Right That's okay. When you have done something and you know, you You've done it saying it. Such a reluctance. And there's reasons for this cultural societal, women's voices go underground when are about 13. And that's it, they don't really come back up. And when they're about 13, an amazing book the confidence code talks about before 12 and 13. Girls and boys are on par with thinking they can be a leader with raising their hand to share their ideas, and opinions. To pursue STEM. They're interested in science, technology, engineering math to think they could be an astronaut. Starting about age 12, or 13. Girls voices go underground, they're more reluctant to share your opinion are more more reluctant to take leadership roles. And the two other things they become much more concerned with their body image than boys. And there's much more social pressure that they feel social media pressure that they feel, and it makes girls go underground. Secondly, can I share this quickly? Because it frames all of these gaps. I interviewed there is Terry real and truly, it was one of the most life changing conversations. He's a best selling author and a couple of therapists but he's an expert in patriarchy. Okay. What he says is this in a patriarchal society, which we live in, and this is not to bash men, it's just a patriot. The dominant patriarchy

Laura Khalil :

has nothing to do with. It's not a man thing. Right? It's a system.

Kathy Caprino :

Yes. Right. It's Yeah. In a patriarchal world, we split ourselves in half, there's the masculine and I'm saying eating quote, what we think is the masculine, strong, dominant, assertive, confident, not emotional, not vulnerable. Right. And there's the feminine, pleasing, accommodating, malleable, right, yeah, emotional. empathic. Mm hmm. The challenge here is, what we've got is a situation where, when women are perceived as behaving in masculine ways, powerful, assertive, First of all, there's another study I interviewed guys in my Forbes blog about this, that when a woman is perceived as forceful her competency, her perceived competency and literal dollar value drops exponentially lower than a man who's perceived as forceful. So we don't just pop out of the gate with these behaviors. We are taught and conditioned and conditioned, that we need to be pleasing and accommodating, and not seem too assertive and not seem too confident. So that's where it all comes from. But the problem is, we're here today, experiencing an inability to recognize our talents.

Laura Khalil :

That's where it comes from. You've always been told to maybe stuff it down, hold it down, down. Understand number a little too much power again. Yeah, what do

Kathy Caprino :

we got? What's number two, communicating from fear, not strength. Here's what they say. I can't speak up confidently or with authority. 70% say I'm experiencing this Wow, believe it. Wow. And you know, back to what you were saying, I really wanted to loop this in. I am not judging anybody here, I have had all of these gaps. And to be honest, I'm still working on a few I've done every minute of the day. Mm hmm. For instance, when I have to say something really hard when I have to leave a vendor or a service provider, and it hasn't gone well, and I'm basically firing them. Yes, I agonize over how I'm going to say that I had to do it yesterday. It's challenging for me, thank goodness. And it's challenging for me also, I have to say this. We are what our childhood taught us to be unless we have unlearned. And so there's a lot of exercise in the book to look at. are you apologizing? Are you weakening your message? Are you in a meeting saying I would you know, I'd like to add this. I'm not sure if it's relevant, or I'm not sure if it's right. If you weaken your message, you're telling people not to listen to your message, right? If it's Writing from fear. But I know from my mom has heard me my 96 year old moms heard me say this a lot now, I grew up feeling like I needed to be brilliant for my dad and obedient for my mother. And when you're an obedient child of a Greek Mom, you don't speak from strength. You don't challenge. Wow,

Laura Khalil :

Kathy, I'm having some I'm like, a Lebanese mom and an Egyptian dad. And isn't that interesting to have people from different cultures and different ways of operating? Yeah, that really resonates with me. I think it was my dad, it was always you're very smart. But step in line.

Kathy Caprino :

Would you say those words?

Laura Khalil :

No, he wouldn't. He would never he wouldn't say that. But it was always very clear that what the man said was the last word. Okay, so imagine to your point going into work going into your career life and you go into an meeting and men are talking. And you think, well, they just said what they want. So I guess that's the last word. Right? This is how it goes. It has conscious. It's not just

Kathy Caprino :

greater awareness equals greater choice. We have to bring that behavior to the forefront like, wow, I just noticed I didn't say darn word in that meeting. And most of you know what I mean. Don't you ever have your heart beating when you really want to say something? Yeah, no, you're ready to jump in? Yeah, you jump in, you know? So that's power gap two, huh?

Laura Khalil :

Okay, so far. I think I've had both of these I'm scared because he said most people only have three but I

Kathy Caprino :

don't know. Over 75% have three or more or more. Okay, good, good. You're in the majority. Number three reluctance to ask for what you deserve. 77% this was the highest ranked one. And what people say is I'm not sure I deserve more. And either If I do, I don't know how to ask for it. Is that really just in work? Or is that in all kinds of relationships or across the board? I'm so glad you asked that Laura, I intervene. I used to be, you know, therapist in people's lives, changing their lives. The way I love to intervene is through career. But all of these things, we're a person when we show up to our career, yeah, you're not just going to be powerful over here and not powerful over there. Although, I felt like I rocked my personal life as a mom. But I didn't rock it in corporate life where it was very male dominated where I was working. But what am I saying here? Yes, it's everything. So I even bring up how many women don't ask their spouse for the health thing. I mean, the research shows, the last time I looked women are doing more than 75% of the domestic responsibility. I think with COVID it zoomed up to about 90%. I don't have data on that. I'll check. I'll get that number. But it feels that way. And I know you know it already. Doing the caregiving and the schooling. And so yeah, and it's even a reluctance to ask your son pick up your dog clothes, or make your own sandwich for lunch, you know? Mm hmm. So we often perfectionistic Lee over function do more than is appropriate, necessary and healthy and try to get any plus and all of it. Yeah, every high achieving woman I've ever met is a perfectionistic over function. The problem is it's it's going to flatten you, you're gonna wake up angry, sick, depleted, depressed

Laura Khalil :

for people who are listening is that, you know, is a light bulb going off in your head right now? Because you said perfectionistic over functioning. And, boy, I hear that and I think, Oh, yeah, I've done that. I for sure done that. I mean, I

Kathy Caprino :

if I did a survey, I think truly, it's got to be 99% of professional women who have had some success are that and why? Because it looks good at work. You know, Laura is the one to go to. She'll get it done. Right here. She'll know. Midnight, it looks great. You're the one the first in the last out doing the work that everybody respects you're the go to person

Laura Khalil :

and sometimes it feels that that's how you even get your seat at the table. Especially as a woman or as a minority, it can be even harder. I've got to go the extra mile because it's so hard to get recognized and we think about that is I love Your love your point to me that would be okay but the double edged sword is you don't have the boundaries to say no so

Kathy Caprino :

guard out of the gate doing that and then you realize you're a slave to it and that is what I call my my therapeutic you know, lens driven behavior. You are driven by a fear if you're driven have fear. You're not living in an empowered state and I think perfectionistic over functions are driven by fear. Wow.

Laura Khalil :

Kathy, I love that goes back to your earlier point about we co create our reality. What is number four? Number four

Kathy Caprino :

is that isolating from influential support, and that is not asking for what you need not reaching out and networking, not building a support circle and the reality is here people you can't achieve your most thrilling dreams without other people. You can't do it. No one's down. No one's doing it alone on an island, you know, having all the success they want, they're connecting.

Laura Khalil :

I also want to say something about that for the audience. As someone who especially during COVID now is here alone in the house, I'm in the house anyway, in my office and stuff, but you know, really isn't getting out. I will say, the best thing I've done during this covid period is go on LinkedIn, connect with people that I love what they post, send them a message, say, hey, I'd love to have a 30 minute meeting with you to see how I can support you. I meet with all kinds of people, because there's nothing I'm not trying to take anything from you. I'm not trying to You know, I'm just trying to say, Hey, I think you're really cool. Can I be a resource to you? And usually in that conversation people say, How can I help you?

Kathy Caprino :

Oh, I love it and it's uh you know you mean it, Laura I getting that I get that from people, you know, how can I help you and really, they want my sale, they want me to buy something. And oh, no energy of their words, you can feel that you are the opposite of that you truly want to be of service want to help, you might throw another I love it. There's another LinkedIn tip. I think that one way we elevate ourselves is to curate content, choose great content, and then share your own thought leadership about content. So for instance, yours listening to this, Laura's amazing podcast, share it on LinkedIn tag, Laura tagged me, but add something that shows your unique take on it. Yeah, you can say this is great. But what would be even better is why something hit you what it means. And I promise you you continue to do that. You find 100 people on LinkedIn that you love their content or 1000 people, and you share something once a day, you are being a thought leader, you're sharing your unique take. So this is how we can connect with people who are much higher level than us. Yeah. Somebody you tag is going to say thank you

Laura Khalil :

so much. I so appreciate that.

Kathy Caprino :

And we'll talk to you totally. I love it hard. It's really not it's really not. Okay, so that was number four. That was for number five is this one. Sometimes I can't believe how relevant these are. They are relevant writing this two years ago. Number five is acquiescing instead of saying stop to miss treatment, Oh, this one is hard to talk about. I have to tell you when I did the podcast on each power gap, this one I share in the book, my personal story of sexual harassment, oh God, and I just got to share this piece. I cannot say it without getting tears in my eyes. I was sexually harassed. And basically a guy wanted to take me out. These boondoggles to go see clients. But he wasn't asking any of the male vice presidents to do that. I said, What's going on here? And I asked around and they said, Oh, yeah, that's him. Any new woman that comes in? He's trying to have an affair with you. But the way they said it, they were so Cavalier. I thought, what if I want a snake but long story short, I was at that company a few years, right before I was laid off after 911 he writes an email. I'm having a party next weekend, I'd love you to come I'd love to see you naked in the pool. What? And this person is a senior level to me and can make or break the success of the products that were earning millions of dollars and I was overseeing Oh, my I'm actually now I'm speechless. The freakin audacity that he thinks he can write that in an email. And that I would like to see that. But here's the more stunning part of the story when I'm leaving to take all my things I've been laid off in a way that was brutal to me. I'm going through my emails. And I see this email. And before I could stop myself, I delete email. And as I did it, I had this terrible sinking dark feeling. Why are you deleting this? And all I could think of was, well, at least this is over. But there was a part of me that thought, and I'm sharing this with everyone because I think every woman on the planet might understand. There's a part of me that thought if I act on this after being let go with this company, it's not fair. Because I should have acted on it when it happened. Flash forward 20 years I'm talking to Terry real the therapist on patriarchy. And he unrelated Lee shares that, we've got to check it out. In the book, he shares that in a patriarchal society, there's this collusion ring, where somehow unconsciously We are colluding with the perpetrators and worse than at those in the minority or, you know, the non dominant culture. So in a family, it's children. Mm hmm. In our society, it's race, you know, in this it's male versus female. The non dominant culture protects the very people who are suppressing and abusing. Oh,

Unknown Speaker :

that is heartbreaking. And it feels true. It's so true.

Kathy Caprino :

I thought it was unfair. Mm hmm. What? How about unfair for two years, I didn't feel safe around this person. I didn't, I would go home to tell my husband I don't know what to do. Obviously, I'm not gonna sleep with this guy. What do I do? And because he is an I can't go to HR. I know they'll fire me right now. What do I do? That's acquiescing. Instead of saying, stop. I later did something. I want to tell you. I sought legal help and it went very well. I'll leave it at good.

Laura Khalil :

Kathy, I'm first of all, thanks for sharing that story that is really tough. And I know that there are a lot of women listening to this, who are saying Me too. One of the courses I teach I don't think I've talked about it much on the podcast. But one of the courses I teach is called courageous communication. And it's about teaching women I mean men can attend to but we tend to do it with women only teaching women how to respond to microaggression unconscious bias. And the reason we do this is so every time I give this class when I've done it in person, I have the women come up and write on the board. what has been said to you that you wish you knew how to respond to that and one woman gets up and she tells a story and I think I want to share it here. I have her permission to share it and paper anonymous, obviously, but it really resonates with what you said she when we don't respond to ambiguous sexual innuendo, it emboldens these perpetrators to keep up The auntie. And in her case, she was a young woman, civil engineer just starting her career. She had to go out to a job site. She drives out with a male colleague who starts to kind of ask her some weird questions in the car on the drive out there trying to assess if she's single, or what's going on. And he says at some point, well, you know, your parents raised a good girl. And so that's kind of weird. And you know, you don't know what to say to it. Right. So all we want to do is we want to kind of get away joy. Okay, let's get to the jobsite to get to the jobsite. This guy, he's driving a pickup truck. He says Hang on, I'll get you out. He goes around to the side to the passenger side door, grabs her by the waist and puts her on the ground. Now, all of us are listening to this thinking Get the hell away from this guy. So she gets away from him. She goes about her day. Ease never been given feedback that anything he's doing is remotely problematic. He's too much of an idiot to figure that out on his own. So by the end of the day, it's a hot summer day, and they've been out at the jobsite all day. And he looks at her as they're about to go back and she's thinking I can finally get home. I just need to do one more car ride. And he looks at her and he says, boy, you look real hot. Why don't I hose you down? And he does.

Kathy Caprino :

She allows him even though everything in her screaming No. And to your point, this power gap about acquiescing instead of saying stop is one that I think breaks the souls and damages the souls of so many women who don't learn how to stop awful story. But you know, I need to say this. everyone listening probably is saying she can't say anything because she'll be fired and she will probably she'll be pushed out usually penalized. But the thing is, people if I had said something about this guy would have been pushed out, no question. But then I would have gone to a lawyer and sued life. And it's funny that you say, Good girl. In my mind, I've always been a good girl. Ask that, right? If Good girl means I'm not going to fight, I'm not going to stand up. I'm not going to say this is wrong. Now, what I do want to say people, you've got to do it in a way that you're protected. So maybe you let yourself get hosed down and then you call a lawyer and, and I talk in the book, I interviewed Tom Spiegel, who's a former federal prosecutor. He said why wouldn't don't go see a lawyer is they think it means they got a suit up for you know, 10 year battle and nobody's that's not what it means. It means go have a consultation. Maybe it's $300. Who knows? But it's worth it and talk to him who supports employees, not employers, and tell them what you're going through. And I can tell you that just having a lawyer in your pocket, writes a letter, you might get a settlement you might get damages. So You can't always we have to assess the ecosystem and understand I need to say something and do something. And I'm going to figure out, am I you might need outside help for that. So I don't want everyone to think I'm saying, you know, she shouldn't have allowed that. You know, I when I was 18, I had my breast grabbed. I was working as an 18 year old girl, and I said nothing to anyone. Because we're scared, but that's when you need outside help, and you need the right outside help.

Laura Khalil :

That's great advice. That's great advice. And I hope that more women feel comfortable doing that, because it

Kathy Caprino :

helps them to we can I add one more thing? Because I think it's so important. Yeah. The first time I was in front of, I don't know, whatever it was 250 people talking about these gaps. A young woman raised her hand and said, Can I ask this question? She said, I've been working for whatever it is 10 years. I have not had a job that wasn't comprised of sexual harassment. And she said these words, is it your opinion, we should grin and bear it I've had that question live. So I said and probably not as gently as I should have. No. That's the opposite of my opinion. Think of what you're doing grinning means I'm smiling, grinning means it's good, you know, and baring it is what we've been doing right? You have to do the opposite of it. Mm hmm. Finally, I want to say I asked the audience, I want to ask you, men and women, how many of you have witness something in front of you, even to you or to someone else that you went home at night and you said, Oh my gosh, I got to do something, but I don't know what to do. Every single hand in the room shoots up. Oh, every single man and woman Wow, this is what we have to stop people. Thank you, Kathy.

Laura Khalil :

What is number six number six

Kathy Caprino :

is losing sight of your thrilling dream for the future. 76% have this and 25% said of all seven. This is the one that resonates most with them. Basically, you came out of the gate of out of college out of high school, you had a dream, I'm going to be something I'm going to do this, it's going to ask lighting. And you wake up and say, What the hell happened here?

Laura Khalil :

Let me ask you a question because this is where I think I want your expertise to help us know what's the difference between a dream and a fantasy.

Unknown Speaker :

Never been asked.

Kathy Caprino :

I mean, I this might be semantics. I think a dream can be a fantasy. Let me give you one. Okay. I'm 60. Now, as of June, I want to be an astronaut. And I'd like that to happen in six months. That's a fantasy. Yeah. Why? Because you can't do it. I mean, there's protocols in the framing and Craig gonna give that to the to space in six months. That's just fantasy. Okay. I have fantasies sometimes fantasies tease the way I want to be a singer in the band. That's

Laura Khalil :

a fantasy. Well, let me ask you a question because one time we talked and you said something really interesting. You said, you know, a lot of people come to they want to work with me and when they come to work with you They had common things they said they wanted to do. And I remember one of them you told me was they wanted to have a bnb. What and so, but then when you actually drilled into it, maybe that wasn't what they wanted at all. And so I think that's kind of where you're going with that. That's what I'm trying to get effect.

Kathy Caprino :

I love it. So let's take another one I hear I want to write a book.

Laura Khalil :

Yes. Okay.

Kathy Caprino :

So you can answer these questions yourself in my free career path assessment, where it says, What are the things you've thought about doing that you dreamed about doing? I think I might even say, fantasize. So when we drill down and I say, tell me about this wanting to write a book, what is the why behind that? They never say I understand the living reality of a writer and I want that. They say, Gosh, no, they say I want to leave my ideas behind. I want to be an expert. A lot of them want validation in their expertise. So when we even peel the onion deeper, I say Do you really want that through a book? Or are you really saying you're not validated now for what you know, and you're not validated in your job in your career? And they say that's what it is? Oh, yeah. So we have to now some people do want to write a book. But to your point, when you write down either what you think is a dream or a fantasy, we want to look at the why behind it. What do you think you're going to get to when you do this thing? And then can we get that in other means, but this losing sight of your thrilling dream here? I'll give you a quick example. Yeah, I was an English major. I was a writer on the paper. I worked at MIT radio news. I should have gotten out and what I really wanted was to work at a top fiction publishing firm in New York City, really, and I wanted to help authors birth their ideas. That's what I wanted. I took the NYU publishing course in the summer. Woohoo, here we go. Two weeks. I bailed two weeks. Really. I sent out my resume back then we didn't have the internet. And I got offered a job, a science marketing job at a science publisher. I don't want that. Why did I take it? It was the first job. I said, I got to take it. Two weeks later. I think it was Bantam house. I keep, say penguin Bantam a fantastic publisher. Yeah, bro. We have an editorial assistant position open. Would you like to interview? What do I say? Good girl. Kathy says, I can't possibly interview I just took this job. They'd hate me if I quit. Oh, God, I bailed on my thrilling dream. Two weeks into being in the real world out of college.

Unknown Speaker :

They

Kathy Caprino :

now I wouldn't be sitting here doing I wouldn't have had an 18 year career that derailed me so that I can actually talk about it. Right don't fail. And I talked about why we lose sight loving responsibilities. We get to age 40 and say, Well, look, I've spent 10 years 15 years doing this 20 years. What am I going to do? junk this. I'm a finance You know, I'm a CEO. So they do Don't know how to change and they don't know what they would change to, to get back on track.

Laura Khalil :

Okay, I'm just listening. I hope everyone is on Amazon right now or wherever you buy books, picking this thing up, because I mean, this is incredible Cavett this information and we haven't even got into the seventh. But let's go into the seventh now because I mean, this is so valuable.

Kathy Caprino :

so valuable. Thank you. Number seven. This is a deep one that it's hard to talk about as well. It's allowing past trauma to define you. And what number 62% say they're facing that. But when I talk to women, it's almost every person I've ever spoken to what do I mean by trauma? Mm hmm. trauma is on a spectrum. You know, there's trauma, PTSD, watching your friend blow up, you know, sure. There's that's 10 out of a 10, right, or whatever you want to label it. But there's other kinds of trauma. There's being told you're stupid. There's being usurped, there's being fired and you're 40 and a woman and they replaced your job. You Replace it with a 25 year old who knows nothing who's a guy. There's trauma, there's dirty little secrets. I never finished my degree. I'm lying about my age, if they really knew how little I know about this job, trauma. And the thing is what I see is that most of us haven't healed it and released it. And we are living walking around with the dirty little secrets that keep us from thriving. And you must read this chapter. It's Cheryl Hunter. I feature Cheryl hunter who had the most brutal, violent experience at age 18. And what she has done in turning that around turning her mess into a message. It's so inspiring. It's so inspiring. We can heal from our trauma, but we have to recognize how it's affecting us and take proactive steps.

Laura Khalil :

So Kathy, I'm sure everyone listening to this as I have has fallen in love with you all over. I'm not gonna be anything serious. Because you're such I mean, this is the truth. And you know, it's funny because you and I both meet people who are really at the top of their game, you know what I'm saying? And not everyone is a pleasure to talk to boy. Okay, listen, I'm not gonna make any of us say names, but I'm just gonna say it can be challenging at times, it can be really challenging. And what I love about you, Kathy, what I've always connected with about you, is that you are such a genuine, empathetic, open human being who is here to serve others and here to help the world. And it's so freakin obvious. When you spend three minutes talking you. I mean, it's just You're such a gift. So I really want

Kathy Caprino :

to thank you for joining us. Thank you and right back atcha I feel so the same about you. And I'm so honored and appreciative of being on your amazing show. Oh, thanks, Gary. If people

Laura Khalil :

want to learn more about you, I know that you I mean, obviously the book. What else do we want to let them know as you're launching this week are there any other things you have going on, you want to make them aware?

Kathy Caprino :

Why not? If you feel like checking more out, you can go to Kathy caprino calm. And if you are interested in another podcast, I know Laura's got y'all occupied with amazing stuff, but it's finding great.org and I have a course the amazing career project amazing crew project comm you can check all that out by going to those sites. I know you pick up the book people,

Unknown Speaker :

and I hope you do.

Kathy Caprino :

And tell us the name of it again. Yeah, the most powerful you said in bravery boosting paths to career bliss, and I know you'll have a link, we'll put a link to it. We have a preorder bonus if you order bought Well, it's gonna be late when it comes out. It might let it go for another week. Let's see if we can do that. But that link is the bonus is my seven day power boost challenge workbook. So it's a condensed way of looking at the seven gaps in what to think internally. And some action steps you can take right away and you can find that in Kathy caprino comm box Most Powerful you book. Love it. Kathy caprino thank you for joining us on brain by design. So happy to be here. Hi,

Laura Khalil :

I want to thank you for joining me and remember to subscribe through your favorite app so you can stay up to date, and I would love your review. If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and comment on Apple podcasts. You can also keep in touch with me online. You can find me on LinkedIn and I'm also on Instagram at force of badassery. All that information will be available in the show notes. Until next time, stay brave