Habits and Hustle - Episode 92: Kathy Caprino – Career Coach, and Educator on the Advancement of Women in Business

Episode Date: December 1, 2020

Kathy Caprino is a Career Coach and Educator on the Advancement of Women in Business. A certified LinkedIn influencer, Kathy guides us through the ins-and-outs of building up yourself, your profile, and your confidence to rise to the greatest employment challenge: How to sell yourself. Though her focus is on helping a woman find their strength in business and to shed the stigmas placed on them by our social stereotypes and biases, there’s something here for everyone. Everyone’s struggled with a resume, a cover letter, a profile, and confidence, too scared to talk yourself up and seem like you’re bragging. You’re not doing any favors for yourself with that, and you’re not doing yourself any favors by missing this episode. Judgment free and helping you avoid the mistakes she’s made, Kathy Caprino might just be who you need to realize you’ve got something special. Youtube Link to This Episode Kathy’s Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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San Antonio, Texas. Welcome to the Habits and Hustle Podcast. A podcast that uncovers the rituals, unspoken habits and mindsets of extraordinary people. A podcast powered by habit nest. Now here's your host, Jennifer Cohen. Today on Habits and Hustle we have Kathy Caprino. She wrote the book, The Most Powerful You, and I'm going to just quickly go over your bio very quickly. Kathy is a career and leadership coach, a Forbes senior contributor, a TEDx speaker, a LinkedIn influencer and host of the podcast Finding Brave, which is often ranked in the top 100.

And that's them right now. And she wrote the book, The Most Powerful You, that just recently came out a couple months ago, and we're thrilled to have you on the Habits and Hustle podcast. Thank you so much for having me, Jennifer. I so appreciate it. Oh, absolutely.

I think your book is very valuable. And I've learned a lot. And I've questions about career that I think people would be curious because that's what you do. You specialize. You're a therapist also, correct? I'm a trained therapist. I no longer do therapy, but I have to say that lens, the lens of how do we go deep? What are the challenges and usually challenges in our career are deeper than oh, let's whip up our LinkedIn profile. Although there's deep stuff there too. I know I saw that. I love that. I do. I do use the therapy training in the coaching work. I do for sure. Well, absolutely. A lot of this is like having a background in psychology and how your mind works and behavioral

in psychology and how your mind works and behavioral situations mental like you know in the mind is so helpful to being probably a really good career coach right. It really is and you know I run of course the amazing career project and everybody says wow I didn't really expect that we'd go this deep but to me that is what creates the breakthrough. Absolutely. If we're all rocking, we'd all be where we want to be. It's usually one of these gaps and one of these seven power gaps, and they often are formed years ago. Well, that's a great segue because we're going to talk about the seven power gaps, which you talk all about in your book, The Most Powerful You.

Can you just first define what that means? What is a power gap? Can I give you a little context how this emerged for me? Absolutely. Define it. So in doing this work for 15 years, and in the past five, I would say, I really started doing it on Zoom and it was very global. And I started to see this pattern that no matter who was coming for help, whether they were making 20,000 or 2 billion, whether they, whatever socioeconomic level they were, or education level, or field, or title, they started bringing the same kinds of deep challenges over and over. I found myself saying the same things over and over.

So two years ago, I said, wait a minute, what is happening here? And I wanted to ask and answer two questions. Number one, what is missing in the lives of professional women that they are coming to coaching with me for? And number two, what is happening in the coaching process that they are having a breakthrough and changing? And what emerged from that, Jennifer, was this two things are missing, bravery and power. And so I said, okay, I need to dimensionize this. You know, I love that your show is about it's wonderful to have insight

But insight doesn't change your life you typically Sin, right? So I said, okay great bravery and power and let me define that Bravery to me is the courage to look at what is not working and take accountability for Changing what you can change. But you need power to do that. Power is becoming that change agent in your life, being the author of your life and advocating for yourself and other people.

And there's all sorts of reasons why. And I don't mean to paint every woman with the same brush. And I think there's men listening to woman with the same brush. And I think there's men listening to and men have written me write a book for me for goodness sake. I have these power gaps. But women process them differently and experience these gaps differently. And you know, before I share the gaps, the reason for that, and this is not to bash men, this is not about that, it's to look at the system we're in, which is a patriarchal system. We're in it, societally, and we're in it in business.

And when we're in a patriarchal world, we split ourselves in half. We know what the masculine, and I'm doing it with quotes, is, and we know what the feminine is. Masking is strong, not vulnerable, not weak. A assertive gets it done, dominant. The feminine is soft, pleasing, malleable, accommodating, vulnerable, emotional, connecting. The problem with this is, and you know, at the research shows that at about age 12 or 13, girls are much more on par with boys in every way how they think of themselves leadership raising their hand to share their ideas at about age 13 they go underground.

They don't sign up for those leadership positions they don't think they can be an astronaut there. They don't think they should study stem science technology as much. So we're formed this way we don't pop out of the shoot like this. We're we're shaped. So the seven gaps then and I kept looking at, okay, here's woman number 400. What challenges does she have? So I started categorizing them. And here they are. And you know, later I did a survey on this because I thought, let me check quantitatively. If what I'm seeing qualitatively is, and the survey showed, so over a thousand women around the world have taken the survey, 98% have at least one of these gaps, and 75% have

three or more. And when you have these gaps, you cannot thrive at the highest level in work, And you pretty much can't thrive in life either, but we're talking careers. So here they are. Number one, not recognizing your special talents, abilities and gifts. Number two, communicating from fear, not strength. Number three, is reluctance to ask for what you deserve. Number four, is isolating from influential support. And there's so much research about how women are so different about this than men. Number five

is acquiescing instead of saying stop to mistreatment. Number six is losing sight of the thrilling dream you had for your life. But for your life, 20 years ago or 10 years ago. And the final gap is allowing past trauma or challenge to continue to define you. That's that. Well, I mean, you know, even reading them again, it's like I can relate to a few of those. I'm sure, like I guess I fall into the 75% but I think most people, and I would beg to even think that's probably even a low number because people are ashamed to even admit it.

It's really true, right? Or, you know, the one, when people say, what's the one that you think is most prevalent? When I look at the numbers, the numbers, the three most prevalent are reluctance to ask for what you deserve. That's 77%. 76% is losing sight of your thrilling dream. 76% said they have this, right?

And 71% is isolating from influential support. I see it differently when they come to me. The one that's the worst is not recognized as a rationality. But worse than that, Jennifer, so only 63% that said that, but really it's 100%. I'm sorry, it's 100%. And I can look at you on LinkedIn and see in three minutes what you don't know about yourself. I love that. Let's please let's talk about that. I saw that in your book and I thought that was so telling, right? You're saying that you can see by just looking at somebody's LinkedIn profile, it says so

much about that person. Okay, tell us what it says. Okay, so here's what I'm looking at. And you know, LinkedIn is my happy place. I call it the great cocktail party in the sky. You know, we should be on it. We should be having fun. And I have a big following there. So here's what happens. When I look, here's cocktail party in the sky. We should be on it. We should be having fun. And I have a big following there.

So here's what happens. When I look, here's what I'm looking for. And everybody, this is what people are looking at. So you need to attend to this. Number one, what's your picture look like? Are you looking like this? Are you smiling? Are you facing the world face out?

Do you have a cover image, which represents you at an even higher level? It's not just your picture. It's what you love. What is the headline under your name? If it's just your job, you're blowing it. Honestly, because you are so much more than just your job. And, you know, I have a kind of formula for what should be there and anyone can reach out if they have questions because we're going fast. But it should be you're overarching what you're doing in the world. So it's functionally what you're doing, who you do it for, and what are the outcomes you care about. So if you look at mine, you know,

it's finding brave host, coach, leadership trainer speaker dedicated to the advancement of women in business. You need to be tying that in all in. Then I'm looking at your summary. Oh my goodness. So so many people have you know two sentences and there you need the most plattitudinal words in the world, you know, seasoned marketing and listen, I've made all these mistakes. This is not, I've had all of these gaps. I had a crushingly difficult corporate life, even though it was very successful on the outside. So, this is not judging. This is, I'm hoping to uplift you all and have you realize how amazing you are.

But if you're using these cliched words, great communicator, responsive, you know, I listen well or, you know, obviously you do all those things well. We want you to shine. Why don't women want to do this? And I'll keep going when I'm looking for, you know, LinkedIn profile. Generic. The generic adjunct. Generic, everyone uses basically.

Exactly. And now when you're talking about each of your jobs. I'd love a one sentence that describes in an overarching way what you did and then bullet points about the account. Not supervised, managed, no, not the tasks, but what you've achieved that you're most proud of. The outcomes that moved the needle of that company. And if you can, it'd be great to have metrics.

So if you brought in three clients and it's worth $20, that's different from someone who brought in three clients worth $5 million. Right. Not that either, you know, not that the first is bad. But if you have scope and metrics, now people can go, wow, look what you pulled off. Right. Now we're also looking at how engaged are you? Do you have recommendations? Do you have recommendations? Do you give recommendations? Are you following people? What are your interests?

What are the groups? Do you have anything featured? So there's a whole section where you can feature your website or your article or your show. So what are we looking for that you're not just showing up to your job, your thought leader, you're someone who shares, you know, when we see that you have followers,

it means you're sharing something on your status. And that can be, let's say you don't feel you have anything to say yet, you can follow a hundred people on LinkedIn who inspire the heck out of you and share something every day that they're sharing. Right.

But don't just share it, offer something that shows your thought leadership. So Jennifer, you might say, loved Kathy's book, my post, the most powerful you and the one biggest takeaway for me was this. Now you're just not amplifying my voice. We're now listening to what you have to contribute. I love that. No, I love it. And I'll tell you why.

Number one, I have the worst LinkedIn profile in the entire world. And it's always like a, and I know I have to make it better. And I know I have to fix it, but I just don't. And so I'm curious. You know, that's a great question. I just, you know what? It's funny. I'm's funny, I'm a very extroverted in some ways. I don't like to, I'm not a big boaster when I have the right, like, I've done this. I don't like sending my bio out, like, I've done this.

I'm like that. It's, I think there's something to probably most women who've had success, they feel maybe ashamed of like, because they're boasting about it, because you come across arrogance or with an ego, conceded, now I wanna know something. I wanna know if women compare to men on LinkedIn, do women just generally have a worse profile than men, or is it pretty much even there?

You know, I haven't done the systematic research to answer that, but I will tell you this. I need to highlight and support what you've said. When I say to women, and I have this career path assessment that everyone feels that's of it, 70,000 people downloaded it. I love it. That's on your website, though, right? Yes, it's on your assessment, right? Yes.

And if you have links, I'd be happy. It's free. But it asks, you know, what are the jobs you've had? Every job you've ever had, what you loved, what you hated. And it asks, what are you great at? Right there. they can't answer it. Crickets. They either leave it blank or in their reason is this, when I'm on the phone with them and I'm telling you Jennifer, I work with people at the UN who are epidemiologists,

who are, you know, CFOs and management consultants, they're amazing. And I say to them, are you kidding me here? Look at what you have done in the past 10 years, 15 years. You don't know what you're great at. And this is what they say. I have an idea, but I don't want to say that I'm great. And I say why not. And listen, I hope everyone will look at my profile. And I want to tell you the difference between bragging and fact. And I even talk about it in my TEDx talk time to break, brave up. What women say is, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging.

This is training that we got, Jennifer. We got it. We got it as a child. My mom's 96 and got COVID and recovered, although she's weak now. She is a warrior. But when I was napa and when I was younger, you know, I sang, I was in the shows, I was a competitive tennis player and one time,

I was in a show, you know, musical. And someone came up to me and my mom in the grocery store. And they said, are you Catholic, a preno? Like I was a little celebrity at 60. And I guess I got all cocky later, but mom said, I don't like this. I don't like what you're looking like here. Toned it down.

This is what we get. And I can tell you men are not getting it. They're not. They're not told to tone it down. So, what I see now again I haven't done that survey. It would be fun to do. But I never have to tell my male clients, you know, you're kind of sounded a little braggarty there.

I don't have to tell them that, but they're very confident. They're very, you know, that there's so much research on this. This is not me making it up. For instance, do you know that the research has shown that if there's a promotion or a job listed, men will go for it if they only have 50% of the qualifications and women will wait until they have 100%, which is a huge mistake because you can shape the job. When you're impressive enough and exciting enough, they'll say, all right, wait a minute, we need to have you, but we'll do this differently. Men just don't struggle with this thing about it's bad to be confident.

Well, what's the difference? So give me some key things that are different between Braggory and Confidence. I have an example if I could. Now this might sound like I'm trying to get sales. It's not. But when people say to me, and they don't ask much anymore because there's a lot of me out there. So if you watch my stuff, you'll be like, I like her or I don't, which is one of the key reasons we should put a lot of stuff out. But if someone says, can you tell me

how you're different from other coaches? You know, why should I go with you? And I'll say, I'm gonna tell you four things. Now the difference I'm about to say, the difference in my opinion is this is fact, not bragging. Number one, I had an 18 year corporate career and I rose to vice president, managed big budgets. I've lived what it is to be a high level professional woman in a crushing environment. Number two, after that, I became a therapist, a marriage

and family therapist. So what you're going to get with me is not the superficial, you're going to get the deep dive. Number three, I have spent 15 years focused on professional women. And while this is not fact, I believe this is true, I think I know about professional women's challenges better than almost anybody because I have lived them for years and done work to overcome them. Number four, I'm an entrepreneur. So I'm in that arena of what it is to be of service and price things and content

create. And you know, you get slapped down a lot when you're out there. I write on Forbes and sometimes I write about very controversial stuff that people don't like. like what is feminism? Yeah, that's a... Oh, that's a lot of nonsense. Didn't recover from fur we. So I'm not asking you, Jennifer, honestly, honestly speaking, does that sound like bragging?

No, so you're saying you stack your deck with facts. And therefore, you can't... It's very hard to take a fact. That's a fact. And, and, and, and basically break it down to what are they going to say? No, you know, you work of my strategy. No, you didn't study therapy. So, and no, you don't take a deep dive. They don't know. Right. So you're stacking your deck with actual truisms. Truisms. And what I suggest everybody do is listen

to this TEDx talk time to brave up. But I talk about writing the 20 facts of you this weekend, sit with a pad of paper, and brainstorm the things that you're most proud that you did. Now here, even women will struggle, well, I'm not sure I did it. There was a team, okay, okay. But you know, did you lead it in a special way? Did you lead it differently?

Did you say things differently? Did you have a strategic vision that might have been different? Right. You're not going to do not take credit for where it's not due, but women won't take credit when it is due. Yeah, I agree with that. But the first power gap, still, I think like we're saying, is probably 100% when you see them, is that they're not even able to point out their uniqueness, their special qualities or special traits. How do people move through that, and is that

a way to do it? Is that to take those moments and write down the things that you're most proud of? And then from there, you can kind of dissect or kind of keep on narrowing down what those unique qualities are? Well, I think you're bringing up a really interesting kind of distinction.

The first thing is, what are you most proud of? So, you know, am I, and your prep form even asks that? And so that might not be the same as your special talent abilities and gifts, for instance. If you ask me what I'm most proud of, it's that I took a massive career that really, I mean, there was sexual harassment, gender discrimination, chronic illness, I was sick for four years, every three months, I would get an infection of the trachea, zero work life balance, toxic colleagues, narcissistic bosses.

I am most proud in my life that I turn that mess around and turned it into a message that I no longer feel so Thwarted and mistreated and beleaguered and confused and lost and So that's not necessarily I mean there were skills involved in that, but that's what I'm talking about blazing deals Boundless options. It's hot grill summer at Whole Foods Market from June 14 through July 4. Fire up the grill with quality cuts at the best prices. We're talking animal welfare certified meat. Check out the sales on Bone-In-Rib-I, beef kabobs, and New York strip steak.

Round out your barbecue with plant-based proteins, slice cheese, soft buns, and all the condiments. Plus, sales on fresh strawberries, peaches, and more. Don't forget to pie, either. Get grilling at Whole Foods Market Terms Apply. This episode is brought to you by GlobalX ETFs. Start your investing journey by exploring exchange-traded funds.

Exchange-traded funds, more commonly known as ETFs, create baskets of stocks, bonds, and other assets that you can buy in a single trade. At GlobalX, they specialize in ETFs that track emerging technologies, like the rise of electric vehicles, as well as strategies aimed to potentially generate income, and much more. To discover how you can add ETFs to your portfolio, visit GlobalXETFs.com. I think that actually, so in my opinion, what that says to me is, maybe your special

gifts or your superpowers is that you're very resilient and you're very resourceful. You're able to have that inner strength to be able to take that mess and turn it into the message or a different message. So in a way, I mean, so but if you're saying that's different, I appreciate that. So what should they do? What's good then? It's the practical thing. So take the career path assessment. And it's for your own edification. Now look at what those things are that gave you the most joy in that job. So for instance, let me take an example. My last two years, vice president job,

I swear it almost killed me. When I got laid off after 9.11, I thought I didn't do anything. I am a loser. And then after about a year of healing and realizing I didn't want to be at that job, so why was I upset that I got laid off? I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, I did some things here. I, so this is what I'm talking about, I revitalized a fading business. I helped by mediating marketing and our new clients. I helped bridge gaps so we generated more money from those clients and got new clients. So you break down what that was. Then you start pulling out what

skills were involved in doing that. So okay okay, there were bank clients we had, and they were all about to pull out. And part of it was, in my opinion, the marketing team wasn't budging about what these clients wanted. So, I'm new, and I come in and I go, wait a minute, if we could bridge this gap, people in the meeting, if we could

mediate these differences. So, what does that take? It takes listening. It takes empathy for both sides, which neither side had. It took dimensionalizing a wish. I wish you people wouldn't just do sweepstakes when you marketed this program because we don't believe in sweepstakes. And here's the marketing team saying, well, they work fantastically. Are you listening? A client's not going to go with you. So what does that take? Maybe it takes dimensionizing some new strategies

that both sides could actually buy. So all of you have these amazing talents, but they're embedded in a way that you need to dimensionize and tease out. Does that make sense? Yeah, more or less. in a way that you need to dimensionalize and tease out? Does that make sense? Yeah, more or less. So basically, there is like an element of writing down things

that you have achieved and that you were good, that you're kind of achieved or done well in your past career or is it an overall life, like what you've done well? But you know when people ask me that question, you know, not now as much, but you know give me an example of when you Were able to do this X or do that like what I was in job interviews right years ago It would always like stump me right like it puts you on the spot because you don't know where to kind of go. Doesn't that happen when that in this kind of situation too? Like even in your assessment, when people get asked that question, they can get totally

second not be able to do that. What do they do if they can't figure that out? If they're or they are. You're going to love your questions, girl. I mean, here's something. Sometimes, you know, I love this quote Einstein. You can't solve a problem on the level of consciousness that created it. Your consciousness is blocked. So what do you do? You get outside help. So another thing about LinkedIn, I sound like a LinkedIn rep.

Another thing women fought, not all women, but so many found so hard. Ask for recommendations. And I want to tell you, the very first one I ever got was after I left my corporate, I was booted out of my wife's president job, and I thought I was a crappy leader. Part of it was, I felt I was getting kicked. So I felt like I was kicking down. I just couldn't even live with myself. Out of the blue, a young woman wrote, and it's the first one I got, I think it's 2015 or 2016. And she wrote, you know, I wasn't in Kathy's team, but she was someone who was a role model for me

about what it is to be as whatever. And I remember I literally cried. I'm not getting because it healed a few years of really thinking I had been terrible. This is what recommendations do for you. People give you words and experiences and insights about how you impacted them that you have no idea about. And then you begin to use their words. Because it becomes fact to you. It's not like, OK, I'm bragging.

He said I was innovative and creative. And she said I was inspiring and strategic and move the needle in a way no one else did. So now women find this very hard. But there's specific language to use to ask for a recommendation. And I also say, don't approach everything with your hand out. Give. Think back on the 20 people you loved and give them recommendations. And yeah, it'd be great if they did it back to you, but just that very act builds your confidence.

But here's, if you really want some recommendations, I'd ask everybody to do this. Think about the 20 people in your past that loved you, that you know they thought so highly of you, that boss, that president, that colleague that here, and you reach out, and of course you don't just out of the blue 10 years later say, hey, would you give me a recommendation? You know, you say, Fred, we're Jennifer, it's so wonderful to see your show and how well you're doing. You know, I remember five years ago when we did this together and you were so impactful for me. And then you say something like, you know, I'm at a juncture now where I'm hoping to move in a little bit of a different direction and I'm beefing up my LinkedIn profile. And it would mean so much to me if you could offer just a few words of recommendation

or endorsement of the time we spent together and what you experienced in working with me. Is that so terrible? That's not hard, is it? More from our guest, but first a few words from our sponsor. The solutions to our country's biggest problems are closer than we think, and believe in people by Charles Koch is a guidebook to uncovering them. It's a look into the transformations that happen in society when we transform ourselves. From former gang leaders turned peace brokers,

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Order the book today at believeinpeoplebook.com, slash habits and hustle. That's believeinpeoplebook.com, slash habits and hustle. So one thing I saw also in your book that I'm a big fan of is asking for what you want, right? And not being afraid to ask for what you want. So that's basically what you're saying to do. If you can't find it within you, what a great option or something you can do to kind of take the bull by the orange is

ask the people closest to you or take people who've worked with you. And at a very sincere way, ask them for what they thought. So then how, let's say people have a problem, they are very reluctant because this is what I find with a lot of women. People are very reluctant to ask for what they want and so therefore they usually just default to what's in front of them or they acquiesce to something else. What are some strategies to kind of get over that fear where they could feel they can ask? All right, so this is where the therapist in me comes in.

When someone's in my course or we're working together and they are saying this is just so hard for me, I always ask this question. So can I echo back what I'm hearing? Yeah. You find it really hard to ask somebody to help you or you find it hard to advocate for yourself for what you need, right? They go, right. I say, how old is this problem? And I want to tell you that 95% of the time it's from childhood. So here's what this is hard to talk about, but this is the truth. You are what your childhood taught you to be unless you unlearned it. You are that person. So let me give an example. I grew up with a Greek mom, my warrior mom, and an Italian dad. Dad's in heaven. Mom was tough. Like, woo, I remember when I

was little, I opened a car door into another car door and the driver got mad and ran after us and my mother said, oh, go home and take an aspirin. I'm gonna never forget it. She's tough. What? You can't challenge my mother. No going. And I just said it the other day and someone who has a Greek mother goes,

boy, do I know what you mean? Greek moms don't like it, but you couldn't challenge mom because she grew up with an idea of what children should be. Quiet, respectful, demure. That's what it was. So, and you know, there's this really great question. I wish I thought of it. Tony Robbins, in his documentary, I'm not your guru. That's, who did you crave love most from when you were a child? And who did you have to be to get it? Immediately. I knew the answer. It was obedient for mom and brilliant for dad. So this is what I just want to say. And then I'll answer a bit of another part of your question. Are your parents trying to make you do this? Are

they trying to make you feel like you have to be brilliant to be loved? No. If dad were alive and he were sitting here and I asked him, dad, did I have to be brilliant to be loved? Would he say, yes, of course not. But it's the message I got because he was brilliant and he'd look at all my all-a's and an A minus and say, good, what happened with Ian? Right? And my sister, not Jewish. Jewish and breaks her very, very similar. Oh, so mom, I asked her, while I was writing the book, mom, I need your origin.

I'm gonna say I had to be obedient for you. What do you think? Dead silence. I thought, oh, I'm gonna get it. And she said, yeah, I can see how you would think that. So the thing is, for instance, if you had to be obedient, if you, and if you had a narcissistic parent or emotional manipulation where there was conditional love, if you weren't beautiful, you weren't loved. If you didn't make it number one on the

tennis team, you weren't loved. If you didn't get into Harvard, there wasn't love. This messes us up. And you haven't unlearned it yet. So what I ask, if you struggle so hard, no matter what people tell you to do, to ask for what you want, it's probably a childhood thing. Do you need therapy around it? It would help or it would help to work with a coach who understands what childhood does. Now I want to say this, it's always been hard for me to ask for what I... Well, I would say as a vice president I was easy to ask and I get that promotion somehow, that was okay. But generally it's hard, but I want to tell you the more you do it, the easier it is. So now, for instance, if I speak

somewhere and I get good feedback, I will ask the host, would you mind posting a recommendation as a speaker? The first time I did it hard, coughed up a hair ball. Second time, a little less hard. Now, it's what I do. So I promise you, it gets easier, but I would look at what is scary to you about it. Like even if someone says, like let's say asking for a promotion, here's the tip. It isn't about you. It's about why the organization is going to be better off that you're at a higher level level position. One thing people do, which is a mistake, I'm so good at my job I deserve to be better off that you're at a higher level level position. One thing people do, which is a mistake, I'm so good at my job.

I deserve to be promoted. That's so. If you're so good at your job, you're probably going to stay in your job for you to get promoted and another $20,000, it has to be good for the organization. So what you do is you build a case before you mention it to your boss. You build a case before you mention it to your boss. You build a case. First of all, competitive salary research. What is someone who has 20 years experience as a digital marketer?

10 years experience as a digital marketer. What are they making? Number two, why should I get this promotion? What is going to change? What am I going to be able to achieve and give to the organization that I don't already? Number three, who else things I should get this? Number four, it can't be an emotional thing. You have to leave the emotion at the door. It's really a legitimate, here's the case.

It's also, yeah, it's that you're building a case that benefits them. It's not a case that benefits you. No one cares about you. They do. At the end of the day, people are going to give you that promotion or anything because it will benefit them in some way. So flip the script. I think what happens a lot of time, and women do this. I think a lot that we get, we get, well, for I deserve it, I work so hard, I put through 80 hours in a week, I, you know, like, but at the, people are not

sympathetic to those things. If it doesn't, like you said, it will keep your job, maybe. It will keep you job. Or, you know, I mean, that's what I call perfectionistic over functioning. Maybe that you maybe you didn't I saw that. I need to work 80 hours a week. Maybe you could have done it in 60, right? I'm a recovering one. So, um, I know what that is.

People do it. Right. I'm women. I think not even I think people do that because they feel that's what's needed and expected from them. Right. Right. That's what they do.

And I would look around is everyone in this ecosystem doing that? So here's a statistic I would love to share. One study showed that right out of business school, men, 57% of men negotiated their first salary that they ever got, 7% of women did. Wow, that's a big difference. You're going to be behind. You're going to be behind men.

You're going to be behind other people who can speak up for themselves. You know, Cheryl Sandberg mentioned in her book, Lean In. She was going to take the first, you know, financial compensation offers, Zuckerberg gave her for Facebook and her brother said, are you crazy? You never take the first offer. And she was like, really? It's just how we're raised. Right.

Well, you're right. When I, when I, when I negotiate on my own behalf, I always end up with much less money, right? Because I feel like I, I talk myself or I talk with them out of the money that I even think I'm just, you know, I see a number and I feel guilty. And I'm like, well, actually, it's okay. If you can't afford that, we can, you know, let's do it at X amount instead. And, you know, it's interesting how we tend to do that as women, right? We can, we talk our worth down versus being a lot of times, not always.

It's always an exception to the rules, but instead of being strong and assertive and being very much confident in what we ask for, we feel guilty, right? So. That's an interesting term. Guilty? I'm dying to do coaching with you. When I ask you, just so listeners will understand.

Yeah, go ahead, ask me whatever you want. I'm a communicator, I listen to words. You don't say you feel embarrassed or unsure. You say you feel guilty. Yes. Does guilty mean guilt implies you've done something wrong and that maybe something not good is going to come out of this. Do you feel guilty to ask because you think, if they give me that amount of money, someone

else isn't going to earn some money, or is there some part of it that you feel it's a bad thing? Probably. I feel, I mean, not as much anymore, but as I've kind of evolved and morphed in like become much more comfortable. But I would definitely say when I was younger and like, it still happens today,

don't get me wrong, but not as often, where I feel badly because I feel like, oh my God, what is it? What are they going to think if I ask for that kind of money? Right? It's just kind of like, like you said, if you think they're going to think, right? Well, it's been great. I'm like, oh, is she crazy? Why does she think she deserves it? Or more than that, I think I don't wanna lose the opportunity.

So if I'm not afraid of that. So if I say it to, if I say a number that's too high, I'm talking myself out of the opportunity, versus if I go with a lower number, I have a higher chance of actually getting it, right? So that's where I think it really becomes a thing. I think I hope everyone's nodding their head. I think that is so incredibly common.

Another side dimension of this is, this is what I lived through. You know, I write for Forbes, I'm a compensated contributor, for instance. If I ask, I would like to be considered for this. What goes through my mind that I have to tame is they're going to be mad. Yeah, they'll be annoyed. And it's going to be bad for me. And you know, a little bit of that is what I grew up with. But isn't it true a little bit? Like some of this actually, it is kind of true, right?

Like, I have to, has this ever happened where you've asked someone, depends on, I feel like depending on your relationship with who you're asking and how you ask. What I've kind of learned is it's not so much what you say, it's kind of how you say it. So it's not exactly so much what you ask, it's how you ask it. So I've been conditioned to feel that way. So if I ask too assertively, I get a certain response. If I ask more kind of Lucy kind of easy going, I feel like the response is not as offensive, right? Because that's been my experiences, that's been my. So to your point, I feel it depends on someone, it's all relative to someone's past experience,

what they've been through. Mm-hmm. Well, I love to talk about that. So when I talk about communicating from fear, not strength, or acquiescing instead of saying, stop to mistreatment, why do we do that? Because many of us have been punished when we've stood up for ourselves or said, stop harassing me. Or if we look, we live in a society where strident women are punished.

This is not me being paranoid. It's fact. Let me give you an example and then give a tip, kind of what you're talking about. I interviewed the behavioral science guys, Joseph Granny and David Maxfield, and they do a lot of research and surveys and awesome research and they did a study where they filmed a woman actor Saying a forceful thing to the to the people in in her meeting and she said I Don't agree with the direction of the team here

they filmed a man saying the same thing exactly the same thing. Exactly the same words. And they showed it to mixed audiences. And here's the crazy thing. The woman, her perceived value in the workplace, what she is worth, dropped precipitously. Now, he's dropped a little. So apparently apparently we don't like forceful people. You know, we do. We do. Our perceived competency and her value dropped much more than his. So number one, you know, we see this. Forceful women are called biotches.

Look at what's happening. But what I say to that is, yeah, that's what's happening, but we can't sit back and be not assertive so that people won't punish us. We have to show the world what it is to be assertive and confident, but they also did this other study. Is there a statement you can make before you say a forceful thing that will mitigate the backlash?

They tried all these statements. And what they came up with was a value statement. So for instance, in that case, it would be, all right, folks, you know, I have to share. I really value honesty and transparency. So I need to share. I'm not on board with the direction here. I think why that works is that people are very threatened, even when you go into your boss, I'm like a raise and I'm like it now, they're

threatened and secure people, humans are insecure. So if you find a way to let them hear what you're saying without perturbing their insecurity or let's say your boss, man or woman only has a certain budget and giving you another 10,000 or 20 is not in the budget, that's going to perturb them. And I think that you know research shows women have a much stronger emotional cue reading. So if we even sense that the boss is bristling, you know, men don't sense that as much. There's tons of research. Well, if we sense it, we're going to back off. We're going to get nervous.

So I do think if you can find ways where you're not perturbing their system, like, you know, listen Fred, you know, I'd love to speak with you. I really do think that, you know, given what I've done the past year, I really deserve a promotion. That's gonna get him worked up or her. It's all too obvious.

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You get tasty breakfast, lunches, and dinners averaging over 2,000 calories per day. Get at least one food kit for each family member. For a limited time, save $200 plus get free shipping on 3-month emergency food kits at mypatriotsupply.com. It's time to prepare for what we all know is coming. Go to mypatriotsupply.com now. Mypatriotsupply.com. I agree. I love what you just said, though, and I think I think I deserve repeating. When someone needs to be assertive or forceful to first start it with a value. Because I think that really does make a massive difference in the response, a massive difference. So again, that's kind of how you table it, right?

It's how you're saying something versus because you can really get away with saying whatever the hell you want. If you first, if you, if you, if you table it or your appetizer is coming from an authentic place of kindness or value because people aren't as taken aback. And I think the other part is the threatened part. I think man or woman, people are insecure and threatened by nature when they have a job. And so that's something that you have to have kind of in the back of your head. But I guess most of where I was going to say to you, and maybe you won't like this because of what, but women empowerment and maybe I'll get backlash. But I will say something. And a lot of times as much as women should be big

proponents of other women in my experiences. And I think if you're if women are honest, a lot of times women aren't great to other women. That's where the most threat becomes obvious. A lot of time, it's easier when there is a male, female dynamic. A lot of times when women are, have you noticed, have anyone ever mentioned that to you in all of your years of coaching? Here's what I've been asked. you know, they call it the queen bee syndrome You have someone higher level as a woman and she throws other women under the bus Yeah, and I've been asked 2000 times and have I had it? I've even I've lived through this for sure

Right, and sure so here's my take on it. Are we born like that? No But in you know listen, it's a patriarchal world man man So many more men and I don't have the number off the top of my head in terms of how many CEOs are men in the Fortune 500. It's a tiny percentage who are women. So what's happened in the past, and I think things are shifting, you know, as women become more than 50% of the workforce, but in the past 20 years ago, you didn't see women at the top often. So when a woman got there,

my experience has been she's gonna hang on for dear life. And it is not everyone. There's been, I've had wonderful female bosses, I've had wonderful male bosses and flipped. But, and this is an MCEO, it could be anybody, an middle management or anywhere where the women, the women to women dynamic is that they want to hold on for dear life. They feel threatened by you if you're talented and really good or whatever the reason people

look likeable. And it becomes a really hard situation. I've heard that actually way more often than the alternative. I just have. I mean, I'm just telling you what I've been there better. It's been like a lot of times, I think it's very PC in a way to be like, yeah, women supporting women. I think, yeah, it's been much better, maybe, of late because, but I don't think it's 100%. I don't even think it's 75%. I think a lot of time women are competitive

with other women. So let me give you my thoughts. I think it happens a lot. And I think it's for the reasons we're saying, they've scraped hard to get where they are. And they don't feel like they want to bring other women into a potentially competitive situation. 100%. But I got to ask this because I'm, I'm, I look at gender. I look at how gender responds.

Have you ever asked this question? We need to do a survey. I think that men have male bosses who do that, but they don't internalize it the way women do. Good point. They don't go home and agonize about it. They're like, my cousin. Yes. Nice swear on your podcast. What an all he wants to do is hear himself talk. Well, that's a good point. That's a good point. I'd like to do a survey on that. I, yeah, you should do one. I'd like to do a survey on that. I really do want. Why don't you? I think I will. Because maybe, yeah, I think you should.

Because the women's EQ and maybe they're more emotional by nature. So it's talked about, right? More. But you're right. I don't know what the men to men, the British, and no idea. I remember there was one meeting, new CFO, big meeting.

There was a head of marketing, digital marketing and me and five other people. She was such a damn, excuse me, such a narcissist and you know, if you know one when you see one, I think, if not look at the symptoms. And I didn't like the way she was talking to me. I didn't like the way she was talking to anybody and I got so perturbed, I left and I said to this guy, let's call him Bob. Bob couldn't have cared less. And I said, I gotta ask you, I mean, did you see what I saw?

He goes, I don't care. I go, how do you not care? He goes, I'm gonna do my job. I'm gonna do it the way I want to do it. And it's gonna be great. I don't care. That was 20 years ago. That was so telling to me, Jennifer.

Right. And I think men are more like that. I think that's a good point. I think that's a very good point. I can even just talk about my husband. You know, sometimes when you go out with, you know, I go to a party or a dinner or whatever, and I'm like noticing a behavior, and I like come home and I'm like, can you believe

that this happened? She said this and that happened and then and he's like, who cares? Like it's like, it's like, it's like such a non-issue, right? That's it. Yeah. And I think that's a very good point. And I think I can say that all women make issues out of non-issues. No, but what's on our radar is different. It's different. It's different.

What's on our radar, it's a good way of putting it. I think it's also just, yeah, I mean, we're not, it's not about, I think, I think what's real is real, right? Like, that is just how it is, right? I feel like we're not, I'm not saying that every woman's emotional and men are not emotional. It's plenty of men I know who are drama queens, believe me, and play of women who don't care. But we're talking more of a majority minority situation. I got trends, we're talking patterns. Absolutely.

I have a question. Can I add something that's worth it? Yes, absolutely. Now that I focus on gender, what I'm seeing is unconscious bias. So for instance, what I want everybody to think about is, yeah, if women are talking about how terrible their female bosses are, we can't just go to the place where it's fact that women bosses are worse. We have to go, wait a minute. Is there a bias here in even how I'm perceiving it?

You know, it's absolutely. It's true. I actually just finished reading a book recently. I was talking all about this. I think people go into a lot of guests who come on here. We talk about this in business all the time because I think that's a real thing and it happens all the time in VCs when they're when people are investing in companies when they're hiring when they're when they're And every and a lot of aspects, right? There is that bias that you have to be Pugilant, aren't you? Yeah, you have to be conscientious of Yeah, I have a question for you kind of This is kind of a simple question, and maybe I'm just curious as being a leadership

and career coach, what is the number one question or issue that you see all the time? Well, you know, again, the bigger we're not bias. So when you look at my stuff, you know that I'm someone who helps someone who wants more different or better in their career.

So it's not gonna be a CEO who adores his or her job and it's someone who's like, oh brother, something has to change. The number one thing I find, the most common thing is, I have woken up in this career That I thought was gonna be successful and even if I have a lot of I mean I work with people that make a lot of money and have Big power some and some who don't but What they wake up and say is where I am is not where I want to be.

I don't mean just in the job, but how I'm being treated, what I'm working on, and I don't know how to fix it. That's the number one thing. Some of it is they definitely need a career pivot, but some of it, I call it the pendulum swing. This was me. You're so broken down and unhappy and resentful where you are that you think you want to go to the opposite ends of the

earth. Because so, for instance, corporate people will say, I'm done. I want to work in nonprofit or academia. Why? Because it's going to be, you know, Shangri-La, it's not. I have clients desperate to get out of nonprofit and academia. I'm like, no, you're just trying to run away. We're just trying to run away. We're not going to run away. What we're going to do is make you more powerful now, right now. What does success look like more success? A lot of people will say, I want to be, have more leadership.

They don't want to have more leadership. They want to get promoted because they think that will validate their worth. And I'm like, you hate this job. You don't really wanna be promoted, do you? Well, when you put it that way, no. So they have something wrong that they can't figure out how they got there and how to get out of it.

So it's like you have to help them find clarity, right? Like they're misguided in what they actually think the problem is usually it sounds like. And you have to help them find clarity. Like, have it when somebody is at a job and they have the golden handcuffs, right? And they want to leave it not fulfilled. They want to, you know, you might see that too. I would imagine quite often. But it was on.

No, I was saying, you know, if they stay five years, they're going to get a million invested stock options. And is that what you are making? Or just are making a lot of money and they're not fulfilled in their job. And they want to pivot pivot and they want to go to do something else, but they don't know what to do. I love this, but it's almost like diagnosing the way a doctor does.

So you know, you go to the doctor, I have a rash all over my body. Your doctor doesn't say, okay, you need to take lexapro. You know it. The doctor's like, okay, I the two questions for you. Let's approach not for a rash is by the way. But I know, I wonder if you knew. I wonder if I know. I know, I don't take it, but I know plenty of people.

That's so funny, but you know. Okay, so what I see this a lot, I'm making a ton, and you know, I had a client recently, he was making so much money, and he'd worked for three incredibly illustrious billionaires. And the third one was yet again, someone he couldn't stand working with. And the third one was yet again someone he couldn't stand working with. In working with him in depth, what I think we both saw, he's not willing to give up what

he has. The issue though is, I've said to him, why do you think that you can't make the money you make and work for someone you respect? Why do you think that you can't make the money you make and work for someone you respect? Why do you think that? But he wouldn't even do the work of marketing networking. He wouldn't do it. And you know, I don't tend to have that kind of client anymore because they know I'm gonna do a deep dive and that's not gonna stand. Right, I'm interested.

But when someone, I just had this with another woman, making a ton of money miserable, what we have to do is break down. Do you really think that if you made any kind of pivot, you're not gonna make this money? Let's make sure that's not an unfounded assumption because most people who are making great money can make it somewhere else. Right, right.

You know, what I love to tell people that I didn't know, when you're in a corporate situation, so many people think, this is it. This is it. This is the job I have to have. They don't think like entrepreneurs. You're an entrepreneur. I'm an entrepreneur. If something a big project of mine falls through, I don't just throw in the towel. I'm like, I got to figure this out. We're more flexible generally. We understand that there's opportunity everywhere. Corporate people don't.

They feel very stuck. So part of this is figuring out what is keeping you stuck? Why do you think you can't make 750 grand in in another area? But then I will be honest, there's been a few people that have said, I'm really not happy, but if I stay three more years, I'm going to make a million dollars in or two million. So I think when I started out as a coach, it was all Shangri-La, oh, do what you love and the money will follow. That is ridiculous. Sometimes it will, but only if you're smart and wise

and know how to do it and have a product or a service that meets a need. So there have been times where we've said, let's talk about how bad this really is this job And of course if they're being mistreated then we go to a lawyer, you know If it's sexual harassment if it's gender bias you go to a lawyer and we figure things out But in this one case it wasn't so bad So I said what if we made this better right where you are?

What if we address the three things that are making you unhappy? How would you feel about staying three years? And that's what she did. It got much better, and I'm all about make it better now before you leap. Because if you don't make it better now, power yourself up, you're going to have the same thing in the next job. Okay, then one final question, because I think let's talk about people next. Okay, then one final question, because I think let's talk about people who are stuck in this pandemic and they feel stuck, right? How do people enhance their career? Or what are some tips that you can give people, how they can pivot their career while we're kind of in a situation where people aren't going to the office

And we're kind of just all working from home doing the best we can love it. So I You know in this course that I have it's a lot of people in this boat look What the pandemic gave me was a realization. I don't want to be in this job anymore And that's what a big crisis does to us. We're like life is precious And I didn't even realize how precious in my time as precious. But what do I want? So it's a matter of teasing out and this is a mistake that people make. They might be unhappy in the environment they're in, but that doesn't mean they necessarily. She chuck their career, but they don't feel that. They're like, I'm done. I never want to do marketing or finance. I'm done and I want to be

you know, singing a band or whatever. So we have to tease out is it this job? Is it this boss? Is it this ecosystem or is it this career? And we can't really do that on our own. You need a little help, you know, go into a career coach helps. But let's say you realize, okay, I'm not going to leave yet because I'm too scared in the pandemic and I have a great paycheck coming in, but I'm pretty sure I'm done with this career. So this is an incredible time. First of all, there's more privacy, not everybody's seeing what you're doing on the phone. So here's the thing that's important.

Do you know that more than 85% of jobs are not gotten through applying online. They're gotten through networking. And there's an enormous percentage of jobs that are not even listed. So this is the time that you throw yourself into building a community networking and you start exploring. I call it try it on. You know, okay, you think you want to pivot and you want to get out of Event planning and you want to do this. Don't leave before you know try it on behaviorally financially, spiritually, Any way you can and that's by talking to people, you know,

Shadowing them when we're together, you know, we're not quarantined It's learning everything you can. Maybe you want a new certification. Maybe you're ready. I have a client who's ready to be a therapist. But let's not do that until we know this is what you want. That after a master's you're going to be happy. So this is just the perfect time to explore, explore, explore, explore.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with you more. You can take a class. You can take a certification online. to explore, explore, explore, explore. Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with you more. You can take a class, you can take a certification online. And if the networking, I am 100% in agreement with you on that. And if you're someone who's uncomfortable with that, we go to your favorite thing, LinkedIn, and start following the people that you admire the most. And try to get over that ability to ask,

or reluctance to ask people for their opinion or whatever. That's why they need your book to kind of learn more about how to get over the fear of asking. But I agree with that 100%. The networking element is how you find the best jobs. It's usually. But yeah, well, you've been a great Kathy. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for your probing questions. I love them. I love your your your your very welcome. I'm happy you liked them. Thank you for having me, Jennifer. It was so fun. Oh, a pleasure. It was the pleasure was all mine. How do people find you and learn more about you if they are inclined to do so. Thank you.

Well, the biggest place is Kathy Cabrino.com. My website, you can listen to my podcast at findingbrave.org. And I do have a career course that runs every quarter, every season called the Amazing Career Project. And that's at AmazingCoreerProject.com. Oh, great. Thank you so much, Kathy.

You've been a delight. Thank you again. Appreciate it so much, Kathy. You've been a delight. Thank you again. Appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media, and host of YAP Young & Profiting Podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and self-improvement podcast where you can listen, learn, and profit. On Young & Profiting Podcast, I interview the brightest minds in the world and I turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your daily life. Each week we dive into a new topic like the Art of Side Hustles, how to level up your

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