Posts Tagged ‘women at work’

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6 Core Steps to Figuring Out What You Want To Be

Saturday, January 5th, 2013

Image Courtesy of Pakorn on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

In response to my Forbes, Huffington Post and AARP Work Reimagined posts, I hear one type of comment over and over again, more than any other, and it goes something like this: “I just don’t know what I want.  Despite all my efforts, I can’t figure it out what I want to do.”

I find this an amazing phenomenon – that so many Americans have lost touch with who and what they want to be professionally.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not judging anyone here, because this was me 12 years ago.  I built an 18-year corporate career in publishing, marketing and membership services, and for most of it, I was outwardly successful.  But throughout it all, I was inwardly very unhappy and kept asking “Is this all there is?   I loved my family life, but my career was deeply unsatisfying.  Despite my efforts to get help to figure out what else I should professionally (I saw a therapist and career counselor, took costly quantitative assessment tests [which I’m not a fan of, by the way], etc.), I couldn’t figure out what else to do.  I finally did figure it out and forged a very fulfilling path, but it took years and some very costly missteps.

After 10 years of serving as career coach and trainer to help professionals build more satisfying careers, I’ve uncovered why people are so resistant to career change.  And I’ve created a successful model with a step-by-step program to help professionals  build a career that delivers both the “essence” of what makes them happy, along with the right “form” of it to suit their financial needs, values, life intentions, standards of integrity and more.

So how do we do it?  What are the six keys to figuring out what you really want?

1)  Pull yourself out of the tiny box you’re trapped in

All people who are stuck feel this way because they’ve made some costly or rigid assumptions about what they need to be happy or what they’re capable of creating. These assumptions (often unconscious) keep them trapped in a tight little box with a lid that won’t budge.

Some of these limiting assumptions are:

-  I need to earn $XXXXXX to live the life I want

-  My marriage or family won’t survive my making this change

-  I’ll be too old by the time I make this change

-  I don’t have what it takes to reinvent myself or even repurpose what I do

-  I’m a loser and a failure – I can’t compete

-  I’m too unskilled or out of touch with current trends

-  I have nothing important to offer

-  I’m not special

-  I’m too beat up and burnt out

-  Nothing else will be better

How can you get out of the box? 

Certainly not by yourself.  You simply can’t identify your special talents, capabilities and potential alone and in a vacuum.  And you can’t solve your problems on the level of awareness that they were created.  You’ve got to involve someone else in the discussion about your life, and make it someone you respect, who’s knowledgeable, successful and fulfilled in what they do, and who doesn’t have an agenda about where you net out. Find someone today who can mentor, advise or coach you about what’s possible, and help you see what’s holding you back from identifying the power you have to make a difference, and the vast number of options that are truly available to you.

If you’re trying to do this all by yourself, you just won’t make headway.

2)  Don’t throw the baby out – look at what IS working along with what IS NOT

Many people wake up in midlife to the fact that their careers are dissatisfying and unsuccessful, and they’re so upset about it, they want to chuck the whole thing out.  Don’t make that mistake.  Conduct a thorough assessment of what you would like to preserve and maintain in your current career, and get rid of only the parts that make you feel angry, sad, frustrated, and thwarted. After all, you’ve been in this career for some time now – it’s not all bad.  You were attracted to it once, and you are utilizing some talents and skills that you want to continue to draw on.

As an example, I spent years as a copywriter and marketing professional in publishing. I didn’t enjoy writing copy for scientific books and journals, but I was good at it.  Now, I use all of those copywriting skills daily (and enjoy them), for my own business, and as a marketing consultant helping career women, entrepreneurs and small businesses promote their brands and services.

3)  Address your problems now, before making a change

I make this a mandate in all the career coaching work I do – that the client begin today to address and resolve what’s making them miserable in the current job or career before they leap.  Until you feel more empowered and  become more controlled, authoritative, and masterful in your current situation, you can’t expect to attract a better situation in the next chapter.  You’ve got to do the inner and outer work to earn a “fantastic” career – it’s not just going to fall in your lap.

I’ve found that once my clients do the work to address their problems in the current situation, their challenges tend to evaporate and often they don’t need to leap to something completely different.

(To learn more about how build your self-confidence, risk-tolerance, self-mastery and capabilities, visit The Amazing Career Project and download my free homework tool “Assessing and Closing Your Power Gaps”).

4)  Develop a supportive network and community that loves you

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but the reality is you cannot get where you want to in life and work if you don’t have help.  No matter where you are in your career, you need people to help you launch to the next level.  Start building a more powerful network of loyal colleagues who admire and appreciate you and would be more than happy to help you do what you want.  There are many ways to develop a community that will support you, including utilizing LinkedIn fully, offering endorsements and testimonials to people you respect, attending association and networking meetings of professionals in your field, reaching out to former colleagues who you admire, taking a class with other exciting, like-minded professionals, and the list goes on. (Here are a few helpful resources —  my free LinkedIn Primer  and Resume Guide — to get you started.)

5)   Build your personal brand and tell your story well

Before you can figure out what you really want and get it, you have to know who you are and tell a compelling story about yourself.  Of the thousands of professionals I meet and work with each year, only a tiny fraction can answer these questions in a compelling and engaging way:

What are you fabulous at and known for?

What do you offer and do that is significantly different from what the best in your field do?

What were you noticed for back when you were a teen and young adult?

What skills, talents, abilities make you stand out?

What life experiences have shaped you in special ways?

What are your Life Intentions?

What are your core values – the non-negotiables you need in life to be happy and fulfilled?

Whom do you love to serve and support, and why?

When you’re 90 years old looking back, what do you want to have given, contributed, stood for and achieved?

If you can’t answer these questions, you won’t figure out what you really want because you just don’t know yourself well enough and others won’t know how to help you.  To learn who you really are, take my free Career Path Self-Assessment.

6)  Now…connect the dots

After you’ve done all this work, it’s time to connect the dots (listen to the amazing Steve Jobs talk about how to live before you die and “connect  the dots”).  Figure out what paths will truly make sense for who you are and what you want to achieve in life.

Gain clarity about the best path for you by conducting online, offline, passive and active (in-person) research, to answer these critical questions:

What are my passions, and which of these make sense as a livelihood and which are better as hobbies?

Based on the passions, talents and skills I have, what are the careers best suited to me?

What are all the factors I need to address in planning my next direction (money, timing, energy, geography, family needs, support, enjoyment, health, etc.)

In this process, am I making any erroneous assumptions about myself and my life that I need to rethink?

Do I know what it takes to be successful in this new direction, and am I committed to it 100%?

Do I really want to start my own business, or am I just running away from something?

How will I fund my career change or transition?

Where will I find the ongoing support I need?

Don’t make the same huge blunders that so many career changers make.  Do the inner and outer work required to 1) discover who you are and what really matters to you, 2) overcome the obstacles in the way of your success, and 3) identify and “try on” the paths that make the most sense for you and your life.

And get the help you need to reach your highest potential.

It’s takes a great deal of effort to LOVE who you are, and to relish your life and career.  But what an incredibly enjoyable and rewarding path when you do.

 

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Posted in Amazing Career Success, Breakthroughs, Careers, Empowerment | 1 Comment »

What It Really Takes To Be Inspiring (and Inspired)

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For some time, I’ve been following inspiring women leaders, entrepreneurs, business movers-and- shakers, writers and others on the cutting edge of thought leadership, and I’m still awed and amazed at how much there is out in the world to be inspired by.

In my line of work as a women’s career coach, executive trainer and writer, I’m fortunate to connect with women like Whitney Johnson and Judy Robinett who invest deeply in ideas, business and people and help their dreams become reality.   And with women like Janet Hanson and Claudia Chan who have a calling to spotlight other women’s growth and promote women’s success like a powerful brand.  And Tory Johnson who, after a brutal firing years ago, found her calling to become a powerful and empowered voice for working women in America.  And Brené Brown, whose TED talk on shame and vulnerability rocked the world and continues to make waves of important contribution.  The list goes on and on.

But years ago, I remember being rendered speechless when someone asked me, “Who’s your role model?  Who inspires you?” The sad truth is that, at that time, the answer was “No one.”  I was so out of touch with what I authentically cared about in the world, and felt so alone, despairing and isolated (because I truly hated my corporate work, and myself in it, and just couldn’t figure a way out of it), that having a role model or connecting with women who inspired me was the farthest thing from my mind.

What snapped me out of this isolation and disconnection was my own brutal layoff after 9/11, and my decision then to stop playing the victim, take control, and reclaim my passion, power and purpose in life and work. Figuring out what I wanted to be and do in the world, and mustering the courage and commitment to pursue that was what it took for me to reconnect to the land of the living and find true role models – women who were ten steps ahead of me doing what I longed to do.

In the past year of writing my ForbesWoman blog and contributing to Huffington Post, AARP Work Reimagined and other organizations, I’ve observed some common traits of inspiring people who are achieving amazing success, making a difference, contributing positively to our culture, and supporting women’s growth.  In fact, I’ve found that there are 13 core traits of highly successful and inspiring women (see my Amazing Career Project for my video #2 about these 13 traits).  But three traits continue to rise to the top of this list.

Bar none, the following are the top three traits you’ll see in people who inspire, enliven, empower and uplift us.

The three core behaviors or traits of deeply inspiring people:

1)      They have forged their own authentic path — taken a hard, unpaved road that goes against the grain and demanded a tremendous show of guts, strength, commitment, and perseverance

In other words, these people have taken a brave, new direction and are living full-out what they talk about, study and research.  They are the true embodiment of courage and fortitude in the face of opposition, criticism, judgment, and what sometimes seem to be unbeatable odds.  They don’t just talk about what they’re fascinated by – they’re immersed in it and exude it, body and soul.

2)      They are supremely  “other-focused”  – they derive an enormous sense of satisfaction and reward – and spend most of their professional time and energy — helping other people, or organizations and enterprises, grow and flourish

These individuals aren’t just talking about what they’ve done – they’re focused on turning their “mess” into a “message” or helping others succeed and overcome the deep challenges out there in the way of greater success, fulfillment, peace, contribution, and progress.

3)      They are riveting storytellers –

These inspiring leaders and ground-breakers spend their time sharing and revealing something very different from the same old platitudes and principles we’ve heard over and over.  From their individual set of traumas, experiences, longings, failures, triumphs, and histories, they have a unique way of looking at the world, and they share their special vision through powerful stories that pluck at our heartstrings and stimulate our thinking and our emotions in ways that literally no one else can.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

I’m happy to say that I am now inspired all the time by men and women who are 100 steps ahead of me, doing what I long to, in the way I long to do it, with authenticity, clarity, grace and power.  All I have to do is watch one new TED Talk or interview someone making significant positive change, and I’m thinking again of what’s possible.

There are so many people in the world who can serve as your role models and help you make the huge impact in the world that you want to, that I’d say this — If you can’t find someone to inspire you, it’s time for an internal shift to heal the disconnection and isolation you feel, and get yourself back in the game of life.

After all, we believe what we see.  To be inspired by another is to be reminded that what stirs us so deeply about someone else is, in fact, possible within ourselves.

For a full Resource list of books, articles and websites that have inspired me on my journey, and to help you discover your own authentic path, check out my new Amazing Career Project and download my free Career Path Self-Assessment.

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Posted in Advice, Amazing Career Success, Following Your Dreams, Inspiration for Change, Kathy Caprino, Leadership | 2 Comments »

Entrepreneurial Women Rocking the World

Saturday, May 19th, 2012

Celebrity Hairstylist and Entrepreneur Sally Hershberger

In my numerous roles as career and executive coach, writer, speaker and professional trainer dedicated to women’s advancement in business, I have the good fortune of crossing paths with many entrepreneurial women who doing truly great things in the world.  From building multimillion dollar enterprises, to creating groundbreaking new products and services, to sharing vitally important messages that transform the world, these women are making their marks in a very big way, and have powerful lessons to teach all of us who wish to do the same.

To support these women and to help other women come forward with their talents and gifts, I’m excited to announce the launch of my new series on my “Career Bliss” Forbes blog called “Entrepreneurial Women Rocking the World.” This series will highlight the stories and insights of famous and soon-to-be-famous women who are changing how things are done in the business world, shaping their own futures as they truly want them, and paving the way for all women who wish to create abundant success — financially, spiritually, personally and professionally.

My first post in the series highlights the accomplishments and lessons of celebrity hairstylist and successful entrepreneur Sally Hershberger.  Here’s her story and her Top Seven Success Tips:

Top 7 Success Tips from Celebrity Hairstylist and Entrepreneur Sally Hershberger

Having met Sally in March and watching her in action, I immediately saw in her an energy that I admired and appreciated – she’s confident, authoritative, and commanding, but in a way that attracts you to her, not repels you.  I hope you enjoy the piece, and are inspired by her journey and insights.

Please follow my Career Bliss blog and stay tuned for more features and stories about exciting entrepreneurial women including:

Tory Johnson
Mary Lou Quinlan
Sara Blakely

and many more!

And if you have suggestions for top entrepreneurial women you’d like to see highlighted and who are rocking your world, feel free to reach out and offer your recommendations.   I’d love to hear from you.

Here’s to making our marks in the world, without reservation, fear or doubt.  The time is now!

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Posted in Breakthroughs, Careers, Empowerment, Entrepreneurship, Following Your Dreams, Kathy Caprino, success | No Comments »

Don’t Chuck Your Career Before You Take These Steps

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

I’ve spent eight years working with mid to high-level professionals and executives to achieve greater career success, growth and leadership, as well as to transform their careers completely.  I know a good deal about the process personally too, as I’ve traversed a number of diverging career paths over the past 20 years, including publishing, marketing, market research, marriage and family therapy, coaching, speaking, and teaching.

If you asked me my views on career reinvention five years ago, I would have said some very different things than I do today.

So what’s different?

In the past three and a half years, I’ve learned what’s required (for myself and others) to navigate through highly challenging financial times while at the same time successfully creating a more fulfilling professional life.

I’m not talking about pie-in-the-sky, follow-your-bliss nonsense here.  I’m talking about real-life positive career and life change that lasts and continues to reap benefit and reward.

The Myth of Career Ecstasy

Today, as new clients come to me – both men and women — I see an alarming myth that thousands of midlife individuals have been suckered into believing.  It’s hitting boomer folks hard, and truthfully, I don’t see this same myth prevalent in younger generations.  I call it the “myth of career ecstasy” – the damaging, misguided notion that all it will take to make your life happier and more rewarding is to chuck out your old, unsatisfying career, and land in a new one, despite what else is falling apart in your life.

Here’s how the story goes:

A midlife professional woman comes to me after 15+ years of corporate work.  She’s awakened to the following realizations, and they hurt:

  • It feels as if her work has no contributive value in the world any more (for instance, she feels she’s “selling” something that doesn’t matter at all or isn’t of positive influence in the world)
  • She’s bored out of her mind doing the work she knows best and desperately wants a change
  • Her family needs her substantial income of $100M+
  • Her husband and children have grown accustomed to her overfunctioning and her perfectionism, and don’t want things to change too much. (Note: she handles over 75% of the domestic responsibility as well as her full-time job, and she’s worn out, stressed and depressed.  And her overfunctioning has held her husband back from contributing his fair share, financially, domestically, and otherwise.)
  • She feels an urgent need to change her personal and professional situation
  • She’s in a financial trap, not having saved enough money to take several years off to re-strategize, gain new education or training, and reinvent her career path
  • On top of these stresses, there are relationship, behavioral and other issues with her family members (elderly parents, children, spouse, etc.) that need urgent addressing
  • Despite the fact that numerous dimensions of this individual’s life are truly in “breakdown” mode, she believes that it’s a new career she should focus on, as (in her mind) that will bring her life the joy, peace, excitement, meaning, health, and purpose she longs for.

The problem is, it’s simply not true.

In her case — and for hundreds of thousands of women professionals in the world today — it’s not a wholesale career change that will bring you the satisfaction and fulfillment you want.  Instead, it’s taking hard, urgently-needed action that addresses the root causes of your troubles that will make the difference in your career and life.

Busting the Career Ecstasy Myth: The Top Six Steps You Need to Take to Change Your Life for the Better

Here’s what needs to happen for your life to change for the better… and it isn’t job change, for now.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE ON FORBES.COM

What are your top three life and career challenges today and are you addressing them head on?

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Posted in Advice, Careers, Empowerment, Kathy Caprino, Leadership, Support for Change, Women in Business | No Comments »

Busting the Myth That Women Are Less Ambitious Than Men

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Image by Jennifer Kumar via Flickr

I’ve heard over and over in the past several years frequent reference to the idea that professional women aren’t as ambitious as men.   Disappointingly, I even heard Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook (whom I deeply admire) mention this reported “lack of ambition” in women on The Charlie Rose show recently. To Mr. Rose she declared, “Until women are ambitious as men, they’re not going to achieve as much as men.”  There have been scores of articles written on the topic, including a 2004 Harvard Business Review piece, “Do Women Lack Ambition?” 

As a very ambitious professional woman who supports the advancement of other ambitious women, I’m truly sick of this myth.  I can tell you, from working with and speaking to thousands of professional women in the past eight years, it’s simply not accurate.  Ambition is not the issue, and lack of ambition is NOT what holds women back.  It’s the COST of ambition – and the struggle women face in pursuing their ambitions — that is at the heart of why we have so few women leaders today, and why women are achieving less and not reaching as high as men in corporate America.

The more we support this incorrect conclusion, the more disservice we do to the advancement of women.  Again, ambition is not the problem; it’s the enormous personal sacrifice women today must make (that men do not have to) in order to reach the top that halts women in their tracks.  And it’s the reality that even when women stay on a traditional career path and do “all the right things” they are unlikely to advance as far or earn as much as their male counterparts (see Catalyst’s recent study The Myth of the Ideal Worker).

Only when we address the root problem that keeps women from their professional ambitions, will we pave the way to greater progress.

 The Cultural Problem with Ambition

As an executive and leadership coach of hundreds of women each year, I know this:  Women do indeed start out their careers with similar levels as men of wanting to be the best and the brightest in their fields.  However, research studies that claim to examine women’s “ambition” as a term and a concept won’t reflect that, because of the complicated nuances and connotations of the word “ambition.” 

A recent study from the Center for Work-Life Policy showed that at the start of their careers, 47% of young women claim to be “very ambitious” vs. 62% of young men.  So we see a difference in self-reported “ambition levels” here even at the beginning of their careers.  I hear from professional women each day that the term “ambitious” has negative connotations for them.  Women shy away from using this term or claiming (or appearing) to be ambitious.  They want to reach the top, but are reluctant to describe themselves as ambitious because they fear it will make them appear arrogant, power-hungry, self-absorbed, with a “win at all costs” mentality.  Unfortunately, their fears are well-founded.  Success and likability are positively correlated in men, and negatively correlated in women (see Sheryl Sandberg’s TEDTALK on why we have so few women leaders and the Heidi vs. Howard Roizen study at Columbia University).  Women must worry about how ambition “looks” because appearing ambitious negatively impacts their success.  Men do not face this challenge.  On the contrary, it is culturally expected and honored for men pursue their highest goals and do what they can to reach their highest success.

But if we were to conduct solid, well-constructed research around the behaviors that make up “ambition” – mastery of a skill and desiring outward recognition for that mastery – we would see that an equal number of professional men and women start out their careers wanting to reach their highest potential and wanting recognition for their achievements.

What Gets in the Way of “Ambition” for Women

As women age, a bigger problem around “ambition” emerges.  In corporate America today, pursuing ambitious goals and outcomes presents deeply challenging choices and personal sacrifices for women that it does not yet generate for men.  Many more women have to sacrifice marriage and children in order to become top leaders, while men do not.

Per a 2010 study of the Center for Work-Life Policy, only 32% of women vs. 47% of men over 40 self-report to be “very ambitious.”  Why? Because the personal and family sacrifices are too great for women to remain on their most ambitious track.  The CWLP study showed that a full 41% of women who actually make it to the executive suite arrive without an intimate partner, and 40% arrive without children.  

In a recent New York Times article A C.E.O.’s Support a ka Husband, the author cites a new study “The New C.E.Os,” that looks at women and minorities who are chief executives.  The study reveals that of the 28 women C.E.O’s of Fortune 500 companies, only eighteen had children. That’s a far lower rate than the 87 percent of married women in the population at large who have children of their own, according to Census data.

The NYT article states:

“Statistics suggest that aspirants to America’s top corporate jobs had better have a spouse, partner or someone else willing to be devoted to the aspirant’s career. “How do you compete without a spouse? Basically, you can’t,” Richard Zweigenhaft said. Mr. Zweigenhaft is professor of psychology at Guilford College in North Carolina and the co-author (with G. William Domhoff) of “The New C.E.Os.”

My research bears this out as well.  Unless women have a solid support network at home, rising to the top is riddled with insurmountable challenges.

What needs to change for women’s ambitions to be achievable?

Women have made far more headway in the workplace than at home.  Women are still judged harshly and even “hated” when viewed as aggressive or highly successful in the workplace.  And the pressure is still enormous on men to succeed at all costs.  Only when our rigid gender roles shift allowing both women and men to honor their authentic choices and longings will we see a change in our current professional and leadership dynamic. 

Women will surpass their current rate of 16% in senior corporate leadership in the U.S. only when:

-  Our society stops putting men down for supporting their wives’ professional ascension (and staying home to care for their children if they choose)

-  Women stop shying away from raising their hands for the most advancement-oriented and ambitious projects, goals and endeavors that will advance their careers

-  Women grow more comfortable displaying behavioral and emotional characteristics of ambition

-  Society grows more comfortable with highly successful women

-  Both men and women shake off the rigid gender role limitations in place today

-  Women stop having to pay a price of success in terms of being less accepted, liked, and supported, and having to sacrifice their family and personal lives

-  Employers start listening to the facts about the current obstacles impeding women’s success, and take powerful, positive action to revise their work cultures

-  And finally, both men and women gain more courage to do what it takes to live and work as they want to. 

In the end, how can professional women reach the highest levels of corporate leadership? 

Stay in the workforce.  Stay true to both your personal and professional goals, and find a way to balance what you need and want most.  Don’t buy into the myth that you’re not as ambitious as your male colleagues.  You are.  If you want to be the best in your field, commit to finding a way to honor what you care about most in your personal and professional life.  If it’s not possible in your current work situation, find another that will support your advancement.

Make it happen.  And ask your employer for effective leadership and executive support and training that will change your existing work culture, and modify how you and others think about women, men and ambition.  It’s up to you.

What’s your biggest obstacle standing in the way of your ambition, and what are you doing about it?

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Posted in Kathy Caprino, Leadership, Men vs. Women at Work, Women in Business, Women in Leadership | No Comments »

Why There Are So Few Women on Fortune’s “40 Under 40” List

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011

Fortune Magazine just released its “40 Under 40” list – a collection of the brightest and best innovators, leaders, “disrupters,” and job creators in the world under 40.   These folks are truly changing life and work as we know it.

But there’s a deeply disturbing problem with this list – where are the women?  The first woman listed is #20 – Marissa Mayer – VP of Google — and there are only 5 more.  Also extremely curious is that Fortune chose to feature on the cover two women (out of three individuals), when their list was only 15% female.  What were their reasons? 

You can’t imagine what it’s like to be a career and executive coach and trainer for professional women, and see a list like this.  It fires me up – makes me furious, motivated, frustrated, re-committed – a full gamut of emotions.  All of us who care about the advancement of women want to do more, impact more, change more, so that women — who are 47% of the U.S. labor force today yet only 15% of corporate leadership — aren’t grossly underrepresented in a list of top young movers and shakers in the world of business.

How can more women advance to the top of their fields?

Those who work intensively with professional women know there are key reasons why women are not making in large numbers to the top of their fields today.  Gender roles at home and the highly disproportionate distribution of labor around childcare and domestic responsibility is one.  And we also know there are critically important shifts that have to occur in women’s behavior, thinking, and actions to catapult them to the top.

These changes will not happen overnight, or even in our lifetimes.  But we can’t let up – we have to create new pathways for women to rise to senior leadership in every field and every industry.  Most people on the planet understand why it’s vitally important to have more women in leadership.  But very few know how to make it happen.   

8 Essential Steps for Women to Rise to the Top of Their Fields

Click below to read my latest piece on Forbes.com about the 8 essential steps for women to rise to the top:

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN ON FORTUNE’S “40 UNDER 40” LIST

Please let me know your thoughts – share your candid opinions.

Arriving at the top doesn’t just happen.  Women have to commit themselves to being the best and stretching beyond all imagining.  And we need empowering programs and initiatives that help train women how to overcome their challenges to rising to the top.

Are you ready to do what it takes?

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Posted in Careers, Empowerment, Kathy Caprino, Leadership, success, Women in Business, Women in Leadership | 1 Comment »

Are Your Values Keeping You From Earning More Money?

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

Last week, I had the immense pleasure of conducting a coaching training course for the CT Women’s Business Development Council.  I shared the day with an amazing, inspiring group of women who work throughout Connecticut and are heart-committed to helping others get on more solid ground with their finances.  (By the way, if you don’t know about the Women’s Business Development Council, do check them out!).

In the program, we conducted a number of role-play exercises illustrating the power of coaching, and one exercise truly took me by surprise.  In this exercise, each of us explored our intrinsic, heart-felt values – what we care about deeply and what we need in our lives to feel fulfilled and to craft a life worth living. 

After the exercise, we evaluated how these values are supporting us, and also how they may be clashing, in fact, with our desire and need to make more money, and to save and invest wisely. Fascinating discussion…

In doing the internal work of this exercise myself, I was reminded that I value the following traits very highly in my work:

1) Helping people make positive, lasting change (value: making a difference)
2) Authenticity and individuality (value: truth-telling)
3) Offering help and insights based on reality (value: realism)
4) Delivering programs informed by research (value: expertise/diligence)
4) Endeavoring to offer something of value that exceeds what my clients pay (value: service)

When I compare my values and behaviors to those of some other service providers, I see key differences.  A large number (not a majority perhaps, but many) consultants and providers these days seem to value making money over all else, by:

-  Using hard-hitting marketing promises to convince clients about what they can achieve (no matter how likely those outcomes are)
- Accepting clients who are desperate financially, but don’t have the ability to recoup the money they invest in the coach/consultant
- Encouraging clients to put out programs and materials that offer less than high value or strong content
- Making abundant success sound very easy and very accessible to all
- Talking about how they personally made their money, not what the client needs to do in these times to make their own money
- Using fear tactics to scare clients into thinking if they don’t hire the consultant/coach, they’ll fail

On the contrary, when I looked very closely at my own values as well as my outer behaviors, I realized that my intrinsic values have prompted actions that in some ways clashed with my desired outcome of inviting more money into my business. As an example, I tend to give far too much away for free and then feel resentful and angry, and I have a hard time honoring my own boundaries about the type of coaching projects I will and will not accept.

After a long, hard evaluation, I now understand that what I want to change is not my values, but the way in which I express them.  For instance, I’m focused more keenly on being of service to people who are in synch with me about what they value and the outcomes they wish to produce.  I’m also more committed to working with those who are happy and able to pay fairly for the time and support they receive. 

The ultimate goal, I think, is to honor your values fully, while engaging in conscious behaviors that are in alignment with who you really are and what you want in life.

It’s a very powerful exercise to understand exactly what you value, and explore how these values prompt unconscious behaviors that hold you back from achieving core goals such as greater financial success.  I’d recommend doing this exercise today!

Question for the day: What do you value deeply in your life and work?  And how might these values be (unconsciously) promoting behaviors that hold you back from creating a higher level of desired success. Please share what you discover!  

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Posted in Breakthroughs, Careers, Empowerment, Kathy Caprino, Living Real, Marketing Support, Uncategorized, Women in Business | 3 Comments »

The Myth of Career Bliss: Why Chucking Your Career Doesn’t Solve Your Problems

Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

I’ve spent eight years working with individuals to achieve successful professional growth, change, and reinvention.  I know a good deal about the process personally too, as I’ve traversed a number of diverging career paths over the past 20 years, including corporate marketing, market research, marriage and family therapy, coaching, writing, speaking, and executive recruitment.

If you asked me my views on career reinvention five years ago, I would have said some very different things than I do today. 

So what’s different? 

In the past three years, I’ve learned what’s required (for myself and others) to navigate through highly challenging financial times while at the same time successfully achieving a more fulfilling professional life. 

I’m not talking about pie-in-the-sky, follow-your-bliss nonsense here.  I’m talking about real-life positive career and life change that lasts and continues to reap benefit and reward.

The Myth of Career Bliss

But today, as new clients come to me – both men and women — I see an alarming myth that thousands of midlife individuals have been suckered into believing.  It’s hitting baby boomer folks hard, and honestly, I don’t see this same myth prevalent in younger generations.  I call it the “myth of career bliss” – the damaging, misleading notion that all it takes to make your life happier is to chuck out your old, unsatisfying career, and come up with a new one, despite what else is falling apart in your life.

Here’s how the story goes:

A midlife professional woman comes to me after 15+ years of corporate work.  She’s awakened to the following realizations, and they hurt:

  • It feels as if her work has no contributive value in the world any more (for instance, she feels she’s “selling” something that doesn’t matter at all or isn’t of positive influence in the world)
  • She’s bored out of her mind doing the work she knows best
  • Her family needs her substantial income of $100M+
  • Her husband and children have grown accustomed to her overfunctioning and her perfectionism, and don’t want things to change too much. (Note: she handles over 75% of the domestic responsibility as well as her full-time job, and she’s worn out, stressed and depressed.  And her overfunctioning has held her husband back from contributing his fair share, financially, domestically, and otherwise.)
  • She feels an urgent need to change her personal and professional situation
  • She’s in a financial trap, not having saved enough money to take several years off to re-strategize, gain new education or training, and reinvent her career path
  • On top of these stresses, there are relationship, behavioral and other issues with her family members (elderly parents, children, spouse, etc.) that need urgent addressing
  • Despite the fact that numerous dimensions of this individual’s life are truly in “breakdown” mode, she believes that it’s a new career she should focus on, as (in her mind) that will bring her life the joy, peace, excitement, meaning, health, and purpose she longs for.

The problem is, it’s simply not true. 

In her case — and for hundreds of thousands of individuals in the world today — it’s not a wholesale career change that will bring you the satisfaction and peace you want.  Instead, it’s taking hard, urgently-needed action that addresses the root causes of your troubles that will make the difference in your career and life.

Busting the Career Bliss Myth: The Top Six Steps You Need to Take to Change Your Life for the Better

Here’s what has to happen for your life to change for the better… and it isn’t job change, for now. 

1)  Power up and speak up – Figure out who you really are, and what you’re intrinsically worth as an individual in this world.  Start honoring what you want to create in your life, and make your partner at home a real partner so you’re not doing everything at home and everything for everyone else around you (see Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s powerful TEDTalk on this and two other key behaviors that will propel women forward in the workforce).

2) Build a stronger, more empowered relationship with money – take control of your finances.  Know down to the penny what you need to earn, and learn how to save more, manage better, and grow your money. 

3) Determine your three TOP life priorities, then make sure you’re attending to those before you even consider career change.  For instance, if you’re dealing with a serious health issue, or a child’s behavioral problems, or the need to move, or you’re facing foreclosure, you must attend to these priorities first.

4) Stop procrastinating and get going – look at where you feel most disempowered and helpless in your life and your career today.  Take steps to address these power gaps.  Unless you do this in your life and job now, your problems will follow you no matter what new career path or job you take.

5) Re-purpose and re-focus your skills and talents – In these very challenging employment times, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater and chucking your whole career spend some critical time with a trained and skilled career coach, mentor, or advisor who can help you identify what you’re truly great at and enjoy doing, and determine the best, most appropriate way to bring forward these talents and skills in a job that fits your needs. 

6) Then develop a S.M.A.R.T. transition plan to get you from where you are today, to where you want to go.

 In short, don’t look to career reinvention to solve your problems.  It won’t.  Only you can solve your problems.  And the time to start dealing with them is now.

What are your top three life priorities today and are you addressing them?

 

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Posted in Books, Breakthroughs, Careers, Challenges, Empowerment, Kathy Caprino, Support for Change, Women in Business | 9 Comments »

What My Five Careers Have Taught Me: Top 10 Lessons of Career Reinvention

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

I’ve significantly revised my career numerous times over my 25 years of working, and each time, I’ve learned some powerful, surprising lessons — about myself, my capabilities, perceptions, misconceptions, and about what it takes for me to attain what I want.

Each career shift led me down a new path, and often, the destination wasn’t at all what I’d hoped or planned.  Huge mistakes were made, certainly, but what I’ve learned has been of great value and utility, allowing me to focus ever more closely on what matters to me.

As I examine my trajectory, my career paths have involved the following fields, industries, and skills (or a combination of these):

  • Copywriting and marketing – in scientific publishing
  • New product development and market research – in book clubs, publishing and membership services
  • Marketing – professional book clubs
  • Product Management –  in consumer membership services
  • Marriage and Family Therapy
  • Life/Career Coaching
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Women’s Career/Executive Coaching
  • Writing, Speaking
  • Marketing Consulting for Entrepreneurs
  • Executive Recruiting

In remembering who I was as a youngster and young adult, and all the endeavors I loved throughout my life and the roles I’ve assumed, I can now see core, recurring themes about who I am and what I love to do,  including:

  • Understanding human behavior
  • Helping address people’s needs
  • Serving as a empathic listener
  • Discovering and testing new models and creating new solutions
  • Transforming chaos into order
  • Identifying compelling messages/benefits and finding well-matched receivers of those products/benefits
  • Communicating through writing, speaking and performing
  • Using positive thinking and positivity models to be of help
  • Connecting people with endeavors they thrive at
  • Supporting people through dramatic change

I’ve marveled at how my deepest values, preferences, and interests have remained almost unchanged since I was a child, and I’ve seen this same phenomenon in hundreds of folks I’ve coached.

The key lesson I’ve learned through my career reinventions is this– what you loved as a child and young person you most likely still love.  And the key to having a fulfilling professional life is to find the right form in which to honor the essence of who you are and what you love.

As one of my favorite authors, Maria Nemeth, of The Energy of Money says, we’re all happiest when we’re giving form to our Life Intentions in ways that support our lives and help the world.

 So what have my numerous careers taught me?  Here are my top 10 lessons:

1)      Starting over as a beginner is a refreshing, and empowering step that keeps you engaged and enlivened

2)      Being a non-expert reconnects you to your humility

3)      You need a great deal of help from others to be who you want to be

4)       You have core skills and talents that long to be utilized in this lifetime (and you’ll be sick and sad if you deny them)

5)      If you’re doing something you love, but the form of it doesn’t fit your life needs and priorities, you’ll suffer

6)      You can’t hurry love – you won’t succeed if you’re in a desperate rush to be great at something you love

7)      Applying yourself to something new reaffirms your courage, gifts and weaknesses, and what you need to heal in yourself

8)      There is absolutely no security or stability except in what you feel inside of yourself

9)      There is no perfect career – there’s only the perfectly imperfect journey of applying yourself to something you love and value

10)   Embracing a new professional identity changes you because of the new realities you create (which is completely different from dreaming about it from the outside, for all eternity)

I remember being moved after reading this beautiful passage from Viktor Frankl’s powerful book, Man’s Search for Meaning, (a MUST-read book for everyone), and it has stuck with me all these years:

“…The person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest.  What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person?  For the possibilities the young person has, the future which is in store for him? “No thank you,” he will think. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered.  These sufferings are even the things of which I’m most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.”

In the end, it’s about living life to the fullest.  If finding new work is something you dream of, all I can say to you is, “Do it.”

What new work do you dream about doing?  Do you have the courage to make that dream a reality?

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Posted in Breakthroughs, Careers, Challenges, Following Your Dreams, Inspiration for Change, Kathy Caprino, Support for Change, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »

The Wrong Kind of Help – Six Key Traits of “Help” that Hurts

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

As an empowerment researcher, I’ve studied for eight years what constitutes “helpful” help versus advice or counsel that diminishes and demeans, or sends you in the wrong direction.

The sad news is that thousands of so-called “helpers” in our world today – our family members, friends, service providers of all walks (doctors, lawyers, financial consultants, therapists, coaches, counselors, intuitive, healers, etc.) – simply haven’t done the inner and outer work they need to, to offer empowering, uplifting support.  Instead, the assistance they give is the disempowering kind, dragging us down, keeping us stuck at the same problematic level we seek to rise above.

In my therapy training and work as a career coach, I’ve learned (and tell my clients openly) that only they can discern if the help they’re getting is right for them.  And they should walk away immediately when it’s not.

Each individual has his/her own unique personality, values, beliefs, traits, needs, and priorities – and these coalesce in a way that is individual and special. So the help you receive needs to honor that individuality – and make you right, not wrong. 

My advice to folks seeking help is this – if after the first meeting with the helper you feel empowered, excited, and validated,  and if the help allows you to progress in satisfying ways, then it’s a good match.  If on the other hand, you feel demeaned or misunderstood, challenged in negative ways, and discouraged,  then it’s time to change your helper.

What Kind of Help is the Hurting Kind?

The following are hallmarks of assistance that is wrong for you – and ends up being hurtful not helpful.

You’ll know “bad” help when:

  1. The helper claims s/he is an expert about you (it’s not true – you’re the expert about you)
  2. The help is one-size-fits-all, that applies the same tools and approaches to everyone  – it’s not tailored to your individualized case or scenario
  3. The helper assumes you need “fixing” or believes you’re the problem
  4. The help you receive keeps you stuck  –  you keep experiencing the same the problems over and over
  5. The helper is enmeshed with you – s/he does not support you to grow beyond the help they give
    (I hate to say it, folks, but there are many therapists, coaches and consultants out there who WANT you to keep you coming back because of the money it makes them or because they want you to need them.  I see this in some exorbitantly-paid therapists and consultants all the time.)
  6. Receiving help is a negative experience that drains you of your vitality, hope, and excitement for life. (Or, on the other hand, the help is so overly-optimistic that it doesn’t reflect reality and leads you astray).

 My world is about helping professional women achieve their highest visions.  As I’ve moved into the leadership arena, I’ve seen a lot out there that calls itself “leadership coaching” for women, claiming that it helps women advance.  But what I see instead is a good deal of faulty advice or information that tells women they’re wrong for how they feel and what they want. 

To counter this, I’m launching a new yearlong, 12-part Career Enhancement Program for corporate women for corporate organizations, designed to enliven and support professional women to attain the career visions they hold most exciting and fulfilling.  I aim to provide the highest form of help I can – assistance that achieves the following goals:

Empowering Support:

1)      Validates you – Makes you right (not wrong); focuses NOT on “fixing”you, but honoring who you are at your core

2)      Tailors the help to your specific values, beliefs and needs – not one-size-fits- all

3)      Strengthens and stretches you, helping you see your greatest talents and strengths as well as growth areas

4)      Takes you to a new level – so you overcome previous challenges and are ready for new ones

5)      Encourages you to be more of who you already are – authentically and with integrity, so you can help others
expand and grow as well

6)      Fills you up so you want to experience even more of life and work – gives you a deep and thorough understanding of who you are and where you want to go, realistically.

If your organization is committed to inclusion and diversity, and wants to support professional women’s growth, I hope you’ll reach out – I’d love to offer this 12-month Career Enhancement Program to you and your colleagues.

In the meantime, please remember that getting outside your own head and asking for support to overcome your specific challenges is vitally important.  But choosing the right kind of help– the kind that allows you to move toward the highest and best version of you – is the most important choice of all.  And only you can choose the best help for you.

What kind of help works best for you? And have you ever received help that hurts?

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Posted in Advice, Careers, Empowerment, Kathy Caprino, Leadership, success, Women in Business, Women in Leadership | No Comments »

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