BE AUTHENTIC: Why personal branding matters, w/ Kathy Caprino (Career & Leadership Coach)

from where you sit, this is the worst crisis you've ever faced. But from where I sit, it's the first moment you can choose who you want to be in the world. Now, who do you want to be?

You're stuck in a fixed job working four or five days a week. It pays. Alright. The work is okay, but deep down, you know, there is something more for you. You've got something you are interested in, but don't quite know how you're going to make a living off it. Maybe it is something, one might call a regular job, but it's not in your current field of work. How do you make this dream a reality? We live in the social media age, you know, having a social media presence is important in the 21st century, but you can't quite see how it might be useful in your area of interest or even which social media platform might be best. I'm Steve Oley, host and creator of escape. The nine to five. I've been where you are stuck in a comfortable paying job. I was not enjoying and I got curious, how do you escape the nine to five without losing the financial freedom? It affords you this week. I speak to Kathy cap. She has been doing career and leadership development for professionals for over 16 years and is one of the most respected voices in the career space on LinkedIn with almost 1 million followers. She is also a writer for Forbes magazine. Has her own podcast and has authored two books, but like a lot of people, she gave up her dreams very early on spending years in a toxic work culture before finding her calling in her forties. You'll learn from Kathy how to identify power gaps that might be affecting your success at work. Why you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water, if you haven't figured out what it is you want to be doing and how being authentically you is the only way to create a personal brand online. Kathy is bursting with energy and is a real firecracker You'll enjoy her story because she has been stuck in a nine to five job. She wasn't enjoying and has actionable steps to escaping the nine to five. I joined Kathy sharing her career journey.

So here's the story. I desperately wanted to be in the publishing world and, as a young person, I was an avid reader. I was a writer. That was what I thought I wanted. Let me be in publishing, but the idea was, let me help amazing authors birth, their books. That's what I wanted. Well, I bailed on that dream about four weeks outta college. Bailed on it and took the first job that I was offered. Um, that was marketing at a science publisher. I mean, it was so darn wrong in every possible way. And I talk about this because anybody who's trying to figure out what they should do with their career needs to listen to this. back then it was, I was on a Smith, Corona, typewriter. They didn't even have, you know, the internet, my God, I'm old. No, I'm not old. I don't like that word anyway, sent out resumes. And I finally three weeks into that job, heard from a huge publisher in New York. it was an assistant editor job and they said, you wanna come in and interview? And what do I say, Steve to myself? I can't do that. I can't leave this job after three weeks. I didn't go on the interview, suffice it to say I stayed in publishing and marketing for 18 years. And what I say about it is. It was a very successful career on the outside. It was not successful on the inside. so I made a lot of money, you know, big title, vice president managed global initiatives, but this is what happened. I had bumps all along the way, but when I turned 40, those bumps turned into full blown crises, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, chronic illness, zero work, life bounce. My kids were little, then they're 24 and 27 now, chronic illness and infection of my trachea. Who's ever heard of such a thing every three months for four years, toxic colleagues, narcissistic bosses, before I knew what narcissism was, but worse than all of that was waking up every day saying, is this really what I'm gonna do with my life? Because. I was good at marketing, but I felt like it had no contributive meaning what I was doing. I was marketing products that in the very end, I didn't think they were beneficial to the world, to the people, I didn't know what to do at 41. When you have a home. And I was promised by a senior leader, by the biggest home, you can, we were looking for a new home because you have a huge career here. That's what he said. That's what I did. And one month after moving into that home was nine 11. And one month later I was laid off and I really had, a breakdown moment breakdown year, frankly, I would say a few months of, uh, you know, I was just devastated. but this is what I love to share about this story. I'm sitting in my therapist's office. I was going to therapy about why I hate my work so much and why it's been this way for years and I'm crying. And he said to me, Dr. Henry Grayson, I know from where you sit, this is the worst crisis you've ever faced. But from where I sit, it's the first moment you can choose who you want to be in the world. Now, who do you want to be? Now? When people listen to this, when you're stuck, you don't have the answer to that.

Yeah, of course.

If you have the answer to it, you wouldn't be so stuck. So I said, I don't know, but I wanna be you. And he, we both laughed. And he said, what does that mean to you? And I said, I wanna help people not hurt people and be hurt. from that. Fateful conversation. He said to me, I've known you two years. I think you'd make a great therapist. I went home, I explored what it would be like to become a therapist. And, I live in Connecticut and there's two universities that have a marriage and family therapy masters. And what's really interesting is in my high level, corporate work, everyone around me had an MBA and I thought, well, I need to get an MBA. I would look at that curriculum and go, I don't care. I don't care about this stuff. So I went, I don't know what this means, but I don't care. And I remember my husband we're divorced now, but we're very amicable. He said, you know, you never read a marketing book. and I never did. But when I looked at the curriculum for marriage and family therapy, Steve, I flipped. I said, I don't care what happens? I gotta learn this. So I got a master's in therapy and I became a therapist. And that was the single most life changing thing I've ever done. My, my internship was with clients, dealing with rape incest, pedophilia, suicidality drug addiction, attempted murder the mother of one of my clients, cuz he's not coming in today. He's in jail. He tried to kill his girlfriend. at one point a client called me up and said, I'm gonna kill myself. I'm I'm driving my car and I'm gonna wrap my car around the tree. And I remember, you know how your brain can go so fast in a nanosecond. I thought to myself, I, I don't wanna do this. I'm not equipped to do this, but I snapped out of it. Helped her. She got the help. She need not just me, but a, a team of doctors. But I made the decision then and there, this is not the end for me. This is not the right destination. And at the same time, I was training as a coach and I started as a life coach, but then I began to see that when professional women would come and they were depressed or lost, I, I was lit up. I'm like, I can help this person. So I've been doing career and leadership coaching with mid to high level professional women for 16 years. And because I was, you know, a marketer and market researcher, I used to do market research in one of the jobs. I, I research things. If I see trends, I'm like, I gotta get to the bottom of this. So that's what allows me to be a writer on Forbes to have my podcast, to have written two books. And I love to come up with frameworks to help people, because I don't think this stuff is easy to navigate.

percent agree.

That's it? That's. That was the background that led me to where I am.

you've said a couple of things, that really resonated with me. I had, some time in marketing and was in a job where everything that I was marketing, I just didn't believe in it. I remember, signing up for an audio book on marketing and I listened to the first two minutes of the audio book and I just turned it off and I never listened to it again, but yet with, career coaching and, and stuff in the career space, this has been something that I've been interested in, in a sort of subtle away for 10 years. And I've always been like interested in watching Ted talks and, and reading up stuff. It's funny, this, the things that you're actually interested in you're properly already doing

Well, that's something I teach and train. If you're lost, look at who you were. Look at, who you've always been. Like if I look at who I was at 18, I was a writer. I was on the newspaper. I was number one on the tennis team. So it was very competitive. I was a singer, so I was comfortable on stage in performing. And I always say this, I guess I had a therapeutic ear back then because people, kids, teens would say, can I call you up? Can I talk to you? I have a problem. Or, my girlfriend is saying, I'm not nice. I don't really know what to do. I'm I said to my mom, why are they asking me? What do I know about it? But if I look back on who I was and what those special talents were had, I understood that that those are talents. Those are gifts. A lot of people don't wanna stand up on stage in front of a thousand people. They'd rather, you know, have a heart attack. If I had leveraged that stuff, I wouldn't have made the mistakes I made. I, I wouldn't. Gone down a career path that felt so wrong. So the very first lesson from my Motley experience is what you're great at. Not only what you're great at, we could be great at things we hate. I mean, I was great at running a big P and L I think, oh God, I didn't like it. So we can be good at things that we really dislike intensely. What you wanna do in your career is leverage the things that come easily to you that are your natural talents. That you're good at that that you're gonna enjoy doing for 30 years. So it took me, you know, a full 20 years to figure that.

The other thing you said earlier was, regarding frameworks. one of the big things underlying the podcast is actually behind the scenes, creating a framework for people escaping the nine to five. Because as you say these things, aren't easy. I know so many friends that aren't happy in their careers and what do they do? They go and do an assessment online, or they go and get a one off career advice session. And then they have this information and then it sort of sits there. And then they keep complaining about their jobs. And then they kind of unhappy in their jobs. So they quit and they go travel and then they come back to another similar job. But what they need is actually having that framework to help them take all those steps, I believe is really handy in

right. I agree with you. I would say it differently. I, I would say this and, and part of this comes from having been so stuck and being a smart person, but I couldn't figure it out has nothing to do with intelligence.

No,

but everything I do in coaching was informed by therapeutic work, but here's, here's what I've found. There are reasons we are stuck and it's not a matter of spoon feeding. It's a matter of digging deep and getting people unstuck. And that is challenging because we're stuck in a lot of different ways. And you know, I'm not trying to be self promotional at all. But my second book that came out recently is the most powerful you. And it's about what I have found are the seven most damaging power gaps that 98% of professional women have. And 90% of men. And if you have these gaps, you cannot thrive. You cannot, you might be externally successful, but you will not be internally successful. So for example, the power gaps are not recognizing your special talents, abilities and gifts. Two is communicating from fear, not strength. Number three is reluctance to ask for what you deserve. Number four is isolating from influential support. You know, I can go on and on. And what I've found is we've all been trained. We've been trained by our society. We've been trained by our families. And women have different challenges from men. I'm not putting all women in the same bucket, they're all men, but my goodness, uh, we're not men in skirts. We are socialized differently. And that training trains us to speak differently, to see ourselves differently. In fact, for instance, let me give you an example. I grew up with a Greek mom who, and she, she says, it's okay that I talk about it. You didn't challenge your Greek ma you didn't say mom, I don't agree. So I grew up not knowing and being scared of challenging somebody.

Yes. Yeah.

So it's a deep dive. You have to look at what you learned and sometimes trauma teaches us. So let's say you were doing well in your field. but you had an abysmal public failure. Let's say you were a doctor and something went terribly badly. Or, you know, you had a public presentation in someone called you stupid. This is trauma. It, it, I mean, people don't use that word, but therapists are comfortable with that word. Well, trauma teaches you go underground. You're not smart. you're not worthy. Another thing that keeps people from doing amazing work is that they inherently don't think they're worthy of it. There's a lot of coaches that don't know how to help you go deep. So they might be spoonfeeding you, but they're spoon feeding you the wrong stuff. In other words, get out there on LinkedIn and, you know, start networking. I work with a lot of introverts. They're like, I don't even know what you're talking about. I don't know how to say hello to someone on LinkedIn. Do you know what I mean? So.

Yeah.

it's deep work If you've been stuck 10 years, there's a reason you're stuck and it's not just going to change. You know, if you're 35, it took you 35 years to get there. It's not gonna change overnight. The final thing I wanna say about this is a lot of people say, I've read so many books and self-help things. Why am I still stuck? Here's why insight doesn't change your life. It's action. But it's a different kind of action that you've than you've ever taken before. It's not the same stuff you're doing. I'm gonna keep doing this because this is what I'm comfortable. It's the stuff that makes you go. I'm so scared. I'm gonna throw up in my mouth. Ah, that's what you need to do. So unless you're getting that kind of advice, unless someone's helping you see where you're blocked, and I have a power gap survey, take the survey. It's 15 minutes and work on the gap that gives you the most stuckness, the most pain, the most shame. it's a deep dive here to have a great career.

we've all had things go wrong in our career moments that we can still vividly. Remember, years later, I have two particularly bad memories from my career. One was as a pimply faced new graduate, my direct boss and the company direct. Sat me down and asked me to say how I thought things were going and what my strengths were. They then proceeded to tell me those weren't strengths at all and made me feel as if I was doing nothing. Well, I remember being made to feel so small and unworthy. And was this close to quitting? A few years later, I had one surgery out of the hundreds I'd done that went badly. My boss at the time implied, I was incompetent. And again, I left feeling small and unworthy. You've likely had moments in your career where things haven't gone. Well, memories that put a pit in your stomach, just thinking about them. I joined Kathy Beck asking how she helps people heal, recover, and thrive after past challenges at work.

There's something I learned in therapy that I adore and it's the statement. Greater awareness equals greater choice. You have no choice if you're not aware of what you're dealing with. So the very first thing, I mean, if you're really asking me, how do I help I have something called a career path? Self-assessment it's 11 pages of questions. I wish someone had asked me about 40 years ago. And if I'd answered these questions, honestly, I don't think I would've made all the mistakes I made, but it asks you for instance, every job you ever had, what you loved, what you hated, what you never wanted to do again, what your biggest struggle is. It asks you what's the most pivotal moment in your entire life, good or bad that changed you. It asks you, what are your non-negotiables. It asks you, what do you think your greatest skills and talents are? And what's incredible. Steve is so many people can't answer. What are you great at? What are you skilled at? I mean, recently I have, an anesthesiologist who's saving lives and in the career path assessment I ask what's your, what are your talents and skills? I don't know. You don't know. So one question I'd ask everybody is, do you think I could come in and do your job? You're a vet, right? Steve, could I come in and do your job? No. No. And would I be doing harm to the poor dog or the horse? Yes. So if anyone can't lop into your job and do it, that's a special talent that you have, you know, but to back to your point, I'm able to look at this now because something like 75,000 people have downloaded this, and I have seen thousands of these, it's a bit of a special secret sauce. I begin to sense. Where they've gone underground, what's wrong and I'll begin to go. Where is it I'm looking for it? Where is it? And then there it is. My mother died when I was seven and I, you know, had to run the family or I had a narcissistic dad or. sometimes for instance, if you've had a sibling, that's gotten all the attention, either positive or negative, often you have gone underground because you couldn't really focus on yourself. your parents were focused on the sibling. There's a million things that hurt us, frankly. So the very first thing is find a way to get really greater awareness of who am I? What, from the past, shaped me? Tony Robbins has a documentary. I'm not your guru. And in it, he asked this question and I was watching it and I, my heart stopped. He asked the audience, who did you crave love most from your parents and who did you have to be to get it? and I really believe he was talking about one parent, but what occurred to me instantly was I believed that for my dad, I had to be brilliant because he was brilliant. photographic memory, genius, seven patents. And for my mom, I had to be obedient. Well, I can tell you're right there. If you think you have to be obedient and brilliant, you're gonna suffer. So ask yourself that question, take the career path assessment. Then what I do. Some people who come to coaching therapeutic work is necessary. And sometimes we pause the coaching and they go and get that, you know, I'm still traumatized by how my mother treated me and it's showing up in everything I do. Okay. We're gonna pause coaching because you know, you have to be at a certain level of functioning to succeed in coaching. but sometimes we do it in tandem. but then what I'm helping people do is see how that pain from the past. And in fact, it's power gap, number seven, allowing the past to continue to shape you. And then we, we tease it out. We look at how is it affecting you today? And then we arrive at action steps this week. You are going to, sometimes it's even, I know this sounds a lot like therapy, but you need to have a conversation with your parents. You need to say, I don't even care how they're gonna respond. As long as it's safe, you know, we can't have them, but you need to say it. You need to say those words. You were never able to say that I could. I wasn't just today. My son on, on the phone told me he was talking to someone who felt like they were never heard as a child. And he said, mom, thank goodness. I feel you and dad really listened to me at the dinner table, or I could. I could be who I wanted to be with you. Oh. So then we're taking action. That's going to help you heal and move beyond I was talking to my sister about, something that happened when I was young, when I broke my leg, et cetera, and the way my mom dealt with it and I was telling her the story. and she said to me, so maybe what is this? Six years ago? She said, listen, I love you. And I'm here for you. And you can tell that story as much as you want, but it hurts my heart that all these years later, that still hurts you.

yeah.

I swear to you that hit me like a ton of bricks. All I can tell you was I had a spontaneous healing. It was like, you know, a, a light switch. I just flicked the damn switch. Excuse me. If can I swear now we have to make

you can sweet. It's all right.

Oh, darn it. I, I, whatever. Now I'm 61. Am I still gonna go back to that? Well, of hurt and how I went underground. Oh, good grief. And she's 97 in such a warrior spirit in such a supporter. I mean, get over it. Now, sometimes we can't just do that, but I had an immediate reaction that I am done with that. And I was, and you know, it really allowed me to feel very differently and, and she knows, you know, I said to her mom, I'm gonna be talking about how I felt like I couldn't challenge you. What do you think? And there was dead silence. And I thought, oh no, here I am a grown woman. And she said, yeah, I could see how you would think that. And she was raised with an authoritarian, parental system. That's how, what it was the

I also don't think it's, um, useful to completely blame our parents for everything. Like I look back at my parents and they definitely did some stuff wrong, but my parents come from conservative South Africa and it's a completely different, you know, and my dad did a hell of a lot better job than his dad who was literally non-existent. So rather than sort of complaining about what we don't have, I think we've also gotta remember what we do have as well.

I love it. And frankly, blame is not where we wanna go. What a waste blame is taking accountability off of yourself. We have to recognize they did the best they could. They were flawed. They were broken in some ways. Some of them, our parents didn't at all get what they needed. So you're, I'm so glad you're highlighting these things. If you just sit around blaming your parents, you're not moving on. You're not taking accountability. I mean, that was the point at 58 50, whatever I was. Am I gonna still blame mom?

Yeah. If you've had a particularly traumatic experience growing up, I encourage you to get some form of counseling or therapy. This is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. Having the courage to admit you. Haven't had the easiest path in life and need help for the rest of us. I still bet you've had experiences from your childhood that still affect you to this day. Kathy calls, these power gaps. If you'd like to check out her online assessment, visit Kathy capo.com/free hyphen assessment For someone who has had such a successful second half of her career, what fascinates me is how long it took her to escape. The nine to five, finding yourself stuck in a role she was deeply unhappy in for over 18 years. What stopped her from making change and what can we learn from her experience?

There are developmental stages. We are in, in our twenties and our thirties and our forties and our fifties. They're different. So when I got out of school and again, this is not to blame my parents, but they were depression, era, world war II, babies, you know, well, no, 1920 and 1924, they were born. I grew up in a risk averse experience. You know, dad was a GE guy for 30 years. So I, through osmosis thought, working for another company is the way you, you make money and you are happy cuz he loved his GE job. So in my twenties. I saw that I was really good at marketing. I got promoted easily. It was about success. Let me move ahead. Let me make money. and you know, I wasn't overly, acquisition oriented. I didn't need to be rich, but it was about let's get ahead. Let's move ahead. Let's have a nice apartment, have fun. I lived in Brooklyn then when the twenties were over and then it was early thirties, it was wanna have a family, got married, wanna live in a nice area for the kids buying houses. So what happens is if we're not careful, those outside needs, I want, and oh, I hate these two words, security and stability because we look outside of ourselves for those things. And I will tell you this as someone who lost her job, being promised the moon, nothing is secure and nothing is stable. That is outside of yourself. Nothing. Look at our world, look at what's happening war, you know, plague, nothing is secure outside of yourself. So if you take a finance job and you hate it, but you think it's secure, I, I would ask you to think again, only what you have inside of you that you're building to be of service of others is secure. So I stayed and then I got even more unhappy. And then I took a job that the last two years, I swear, they almost killed me. I mean, it was the most toxic workplace, but I wanted it because it was close to my home, five minutes away from my kids. And it was a lot of money.

Yeah.

So why do we stay? We stay because in the beginning of our lives, we're looking for success. Getting ahead, building a foundation, right. It's when you hit 40. This is when the meaning question starts to hit. Now I think different generations experience it earlier. My daughter's 27 and she wanted meaning from the beginning and now she has her own landscape design business, And so I woke up thinking, yeah, I'm successful. I'm making a lot of money. This has no meaning. I did not think of meaning when I was 20. it didn't even occur to me. And some people don't get me wrong. They're 50 and they're not caring about meaning. I mean, a lot of my VP colleagues in this incredibly toxic sick culture. They found it great because it was an easy job and they were getting paid a ton. They didn't have the experience of, I don't want this for my life. I wanna make a difference. But the ironic thing is I looked for another job in that vice president two year period. That was so bad. And I got another job offer, but it was 20 grand less. And the ego in me said, well, I'm not going backward. Why not get the heck out of the toxic culture and stay there for a year? And you know, no. So sometimes our ego trips us up sometimes. I mean, I remember saying I'm 40. What, how am I gonna reinvent? And the other reason is we don't know what would we did reinvent.

This is a problem you are likely facing, you know, you don't want to continue to do your current job, at least not in the way it looks now. You don't know what else you'd rather be doing? One of the challenges I had in changing from a career as a full-time vet is after a while, you start to define yourself by your career, Steve, the vet, Cathy, the marketer been the accountant, and the longer you stay in your field of work, the harder it is to reinvent yourself. One of the main reasons I was interested in interviewing Kathy is the incredible personal brand she's created for herself. With her website, Cathy caprino.com, her podcast finding brave her books and a significant presence on Forbes and linked in. How has she created her personal brand? And why is this important to anyone looking to escape the nine to five?

Years ago, when I was starting out in this business, I worked with a, a guy Robert Friedman of fearless branding, and he taught me a lot. But one thing he said was people experience a brand in three key ways. Functionally, what do they think you do? emotionally, what are the feelings they have in working with you and aesthetically? what are the colors, the fonts, what's the energy of what they're looking at from your, your email signature to your website. And I remember back then, so maybe it was 10 years ago and I was just starting out, focusing on women. And I remember speaking of brand, I said, I'm scared to say I'm a woman's coach. And he said, why? And I said, because it's half the population I'm gonna detract or, you know, rappel. He said, didn't you just tell me you spent a year researching women's issues. Yes. Didn't you just finish writing a book? Yes. Didn't you just say that when women come on your calendar, you're like, Woohoo. I know exactly what we're doing here. Yes. He said then why the heck wouldn't you wanna say you're a women's coach. So for me, I didn't set out saying this is my brand. I decided that everything I was gonna do was gonna be as authentic to me as possible because I lived an 18 year life where I didn't feel I could be me. I couldn't act like me. I couldn't share me. So that was the first thing that I wanted to live it and reflect values and beliefs and an energy that was me. And I tried to do that. Functionally, aesthetically and emotionally, and you know, anyone who follows incredible poets and thinkers, Maya Angelou has said people will forget what you say. They will forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Isn't that beautiful. So I would say, you know, The highest arcing way to look at it is I tried to portray who I really was in my heart in every way, and I think that's what builds a brand. You have to live it.

Through a mixture of creating a brand true to herself, and a few lucky breaks. Kathy had the opportunity to become a Forbes contributor. Her posts went Her posts went viral, and she's now an influential figure on LinkedIn as well. I ask Kathy her advice on personal branding and why this is important to you.

so what you do wanna think about, there's a difference when you, the personality are the brand

Yep.

upsides and there are downsides. So think about, do I need to be present? Does it need to be me? Is that really what I want? And sometimes in the beginning you want that recognition cuz

Yep.

your ego to be fed a little bit, but I would really think about. Is that really what you want, but why it's important is the brand is what is going to make someone say yes to you and no to someone else. They're either gonna go to your website and say, I gotta have what this person's giving. And you do that. So forget going viral, but you need to share your thought leadership as a brand. You need to find a way to communicate how you are different because our world is highly competitive. How is the lens that you have different? How is what you're delivering different. So for your brand, go look at the competition, compare yourself to the best of the competition. And look at where there's a gap where they're not saying what you would be saying, and start to say that and start to use those terms and start to develop your thought leadership. But the point is without a brand you're not recognizable.

Yeah.

And you know, there's all sorts of things about SEO. I never worried about SEO, but apparently if you type in women's career coach, I'm the first thing that pops up under the ads. And I think that's because there's 16 years of content there So I would say do, and if you're not a writer, okay. But putting out some type of thought leadership, what you're thinking is what your lens is. You could do a podcast, you could do a video series, people wanna consume and they wanna get to know you. So often people will say, I found you on fors, or I found you on finding brave your podcast. They've consumed what I'm delivering. And it speaks to them. That's why you need a brand

If you want to create something for yourself outside of a nine to five job, you're going to need a personal brand while not every venture needs a social media presence in the 21st century. It is becoming harder and hard. To justify, not having one. There is no hard and fast rule for the right platform, but you could consider what is your area of interest and choose a platform that best suits your medium. if you do music, maybe YouTube or Spotify might be best. If you do art, Instagram or Pinterest might be best. Or if you're considering providing a service, maybe Facebook or fiber might suit you best. I talk in the career space. So naturally LinkedIn is a good place to post. And I find Facebook great for creating the escape. The nine to five community. You'll have to do your own research to see what medium your competitors are using and what exact niche audience you want to reach. As mentioned in previous episodes, service, small target audience first, then once you've served that audience, well, you in regards to specific branding. If you have your own individual creative endeavor, you want to pursue it almost definitely will be best to promote your work under your own name. If however you have plans for scaling this into a service or business, it may be best to brand under a unique business name. Kathy has been in a nine to five job. She wasn't enjoying and now finds herself in the career space, which she's been in for over 16 years. And so it's only natural. I ask her to share some tips to you. The listener considering escaping the nine to five.

There's two tracks. If you truly have no idea. what you would do, which was me. There's a process that you need to go through and I would see a coach that knows how to help you, but you know, again, greater awareness equals greater choice. Look at what is missing. what am I longing for? what shifts do I need to make in how I'm showing up at work? Now, sometimes people wanna, let's say law, they wanna leave because it's toxic in their culture. What people tend to do is wanna Chuck the baby out with the bath water. In other words, I'm done with law. I never wanna do it again. You know, right now I do a ton of marketing. Most of my stuff is what I do is marketing, but it's for something I care. So you have to get really clear. Don't Chuck the baby out with the bath water. Look at what you do now that you could perhaps pivot or leverage. Right? So get some help to look at what is missing, but what do I wanna keep? What do I wanna retain right? Then I have this five step process. Talk about framework. Everybody should do this. If they're making any kind of change, the first is step back for an empowered perspective. You've gotta look at, wait a minute. I've done some great things. You've got to see what you bring to the table, instead of just seeing how things are so bad. Step back, then let go of the thinking patterns and behaviors that keep you stuck. You're not gonna change and you're not gonna have a better life and better career. If you're not stopping the negative cycles of what you're doing. I always attract a toxic boss. Well, you gotta look at you, right? The third is say yes to your most compelling vision. A lot of people say, that's absurd. forget that, but I'll go for this. As you're doing an evaluation, let yourself dream. Now that doesn't mean you're gonna Chuck everything and start a bed and breakfast. It means start to look at the things you think you want and the why behind that. And then step four is explore it. It means without risking your job and your salary and your income start trying things on in any way, you can shadow someone, take a class, immerse yourself with the people, entrepreneurs, whatever, so that you can try it on and try it on and try it on. And then when you hone the direction, you gotta get help because it's not just gonna fall in your lap. You've gotta create a plan, create it smart. if you do know what it is like, I wanna start a coaching business. Well, I would say first of all, closure of power gaps first, before you make a move, read my book. You know, to be an entrepreneur to get in the, an in the arena. You gotta be strong. You've gotta have good boundaries. You've gotta learn how to listen to yourself. So start closing your power gaps. Now don't make the leap before you start getting stronger. And then if it's an entrepreneurial idea, vet it, write the business plan. Join an entrepreneurial group. Entrepreneurs think very differently from corporate people. If you're gonna be an entrepreneur, immerse yourself in the entrepreneurial mindset, get some mentors, get some sponsors. and I would say, keep moving, keep refining don't risk everything. Don't don't go from a to Z, do it in, in increments. So it doesn't turn over your system and make you a nervous wreck.

That was Kathy Caprino career and leadership coach writer, speaker, and educator. Kathy was a blast interview. And I hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did Some tips from Kathy. If you don't know what you want to be doing, don't Chuck the baby out with a bath water. Look at what you could do now that you could pivot or leverage there's something in your work you could use going forward that you probably already enjoy doing. Start to look at the things you think you want and why you want that, then explore it without risking your job and your income start trying things on in any way you can shadow someone. Take a class, immerse yourself with people doing what you want to be doing. If you do know what you want to be doing, identify your power gaps before starting a business venture. Then if you're interested in starting a business, write a business plan, immerse yourself with those with an entrepreneurial mindset. Find mentors. Find sponsors. Don't go from a to Z. Do it incrementally. One thing you'll start to notice in this podcast is the more episodes you listen to, the more you'll notice, recurring themes, like making change and finding a mentor. This isn't a coincidence. It's because these things work. I've interviewed those. Who've made the jump and career experts, because I want you to have the best information. So you can learn from their mistakes and benefit from their successes. The challenge for this week is power gap. We all have weaknesses areas that affect our work visit Kathy Caprio's website. Dub do Kathy caprino.com/free hyphen assessment. To identify your power gap. A huge part of escaping the nine to five is doing the inner work to improve yourself. I'm not qualified to give advice in this area, so I've shared the link to her assessment in order for you to better understand where you can improve doing this is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of strength. So this week identify power gaps, If you need help on your own career journey and feel a little lost, I encourage you to join our Facebook group escape. The nine to five podcast there you'll meet a group of like-minded individuals on their own journey out of the nine to five job this week, we'll be discussing branding in particular, what platform you want to use? I encourage you to share your ideas. If you are stuck, ask for help, even if you're very early on your journey out of the nine to five, this is a good time to start engaging online. Trust me. I wish I had started sharing my ideas two years ago, but only really engaged on social media just before launching the podcast. The more time you give yourself to build an audience prior to launching a business idea, the better even if this doesn't end up being your thing, it gives you a chance to test the market prior to investing a lot of time and money into your side hustle. So pop into our Facebook group escape, the nine to five podcast links to this are in the show notes, I'm host and creator. Steve O. Thanks as always for tuning into escape, the nine to five podcast. See you next week.