Start With A Win - STOP Letting Imposter Syndrome Hold You Back / Jenna Capozzi

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

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I think that's just such a great way to get out of our heads for a second and just look at, okay, take a moment. How can I attack this problem? And pause and slow things down so that we stop experiencing imposter syndrome, because I think it's being magnified in this day and age. Now, I think if we just get more into action and be okay with falling, you're going to fall. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack leadership, personal growth and development, and how to build a better business. Let's go. Ever wondered how someone can go from producing blockbuster films to shaping the next generation of leaders? Today, we talk about that on Start With A Win. Coming to you from Area 15 Ventures

and Start With A Win headquarters, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. We're joined today by Jenna Capozzi, the powerhouse behind Forte Femme. With over 30 years of executive experience leading iconic brands like Samsung, Target, and BMW, Jenna has now shifted her focus from Hollywood's limelight to empowering leaders with the skills they need to make a real impact. Whether it's through her extensive background in entertainment or her passion for mentoring, Jenna is on a mission to help other leaders lead with purpose and confidence. You won't want to miss her insights. Jenna, welcome to Start With A Win. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Hey, this is one of my favorite topics. And I mean, you are a pretty, pretty strong leadership and business coach here. You have a lot of great history behind you.

My first question is, how did you get into doing what you're doing? Because it takes a special person to help leaders get better. Absolutely. Well, I can answer that two ways. The first way is that I, um, I was really bored in life, like absolutely bored, right here. I am making great money, doing commercials for big brands, but I was sitting at a red light in Florida as you do forever and sort of questioning my existence. I was like, man, I'm looking around this world going, how am I contributing? You know? And so I started to think with, I need to change. And then I was looking at, well, who do I need to help to change? And I was like, well, this planet really needs a lot of help. I really admire women. I think women have a lot of,

a big care factor as mothers, as wives, and they are great leaders. And so I started to entertain the idea of if I'm going to help change this planet, I need to get better messages around the world faster. So instead of it being the Jenna Capozzi show, I think it should be Jenna Capozzi helping all these leaders in different zones of influence to start communicating so we can get better messages out there. And frankly, I want social media to have way better messages than what my kids are really picking up on day to day. So that was sort of where it started. Totally. And by the way, I love how your website opens inviting all female powerhouses. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There's some women who are in e-commerce and they don't want to be the face of anything or step out of their comfort zone and communicate. That's totally fine. They're not necessarily the ones I'm going to work with because I'm not about just increasing the dollar about how do you increase the dollar, but really how do you take responsibility for whatever

zone or area, whether it's five people you're helping or a hundred people or millions of people, we just all need to really help each other. Like I'm done with what we've been doing. It's just not working. Yeah. I mean, you just, you know, good enough is not good enough and coasting doesn't work for anybody. It makes me sad. It doesn't work. Exactly. So, I mean, it seems like we've gone through a lot of, um, you know, what's the minimum necessary versus what's the maximum possible. Absolutely. Why, why do we always trend towards this minimum necessary thing versus going after maximum possible? What, what do you think about that? You know, I feel like, and maybe you can speak on this as well. I feel like at a young age,

even at high school, the messages we were learning is to just worry about yourself, just worry about yourself, leave them alone, Just worry about yourself. And if you have enough people just only worrying about themselves, what do we got? We have like an only one sort of society where we're not even taking any responsibility for anybody else. That feels lonely. You're not able to help. You're not able to like create groups. You're not able to get anything done. And I feel like that's the false information that's out there. You know what I'm saying? And that's really where it's, it started. It's like, people can walk down the street and see somebody just sleeping on the street and it's so normalized, you know, and

then we just kind of step over them or we just keep walking or we don't pay attention. It's like, I just sort of had that pause of like, this is not good. You know what I mean? Like, what are we going to do to actually help each other? And I think it is changing that mindset of thinking only about yourself. Oh, totally. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's like everybody got into this. Okay. Is okay. And I'm like, no, it's not. I mean, I want to be amazing for crying out loud. And I know there are so many people out there and you know, you're, you've focused kind of honed in on that 40 plus women leader or somebody who's got that leadership inside of them to really pull that out and get going. Um, and you, you have something that you say it's, and this reminds me, I'm Gen X, I think

like, you know, star Wars and things like that. Um, you know, the Yoda has this saying, you know, of doing, but, um, you say, don't think just do, he says, don't try just do. Just do. Yeah. Tell us about that. What, what, what made you latch onto that saying? And, you know, cause a lot of people just dance around topics. You're like, screw that. We're doing. Yeah. I think that my successful action in life, if I look back, like I didn't have a normal childhood by any means.

You know, my father was killed when I was two. My mom was a single mom. She managed my uncle, who was a famous jazz singer. I grew up in nightclubs and traveling hotels. Like things didn't feel very safe and normal, but we always had to take action. So as sort of a survival technique, it was just take action. You know, if I wanted to do something, I would just do it. But here, here's what I, how it kind of all connects together is that what I've observed is that I might have a bright idea to do something

and that will happen in a second, but I'll spend minutes trying to think of all the ways to talk myself out of it. And so I was sick of living a life of not taking action on the bright ideas. And when I decided to just take action, I started to see some significant changes in my life. So like that moment I told you about sitting at the red light, right? I just turned 51 years old. I'm bored as can be. And I'm like, that's it. I'm going to take action. I left my very lucrative job, retired from an industry I'd been a part of for 30 years and just completely dove into online business and coaching and helping women. And there were some very lean months,

absolutely. But I had to not think. I had to just keep doing the next action, the next action, the next action. And that was how I got to six figures in two months. I don't even care about the money. I reinvested all back in the business. But oh my gosh, I was able to help 12 women off the bat who had wins. And then another 15 women. And then another 30 women. And now I've created this community that people can be a part of. And so I think if I had taken time and a moment to think about what was right or what was wrong, I wouldn't have started. And here's the other thing I just want to say is like, and you probably have experienced this as we got a little bit older. It's like, because my self-confidence is also, I like myself more.

I kind of trust myself to just make it go. Okay. You know, like there's really nothing that can kind of hit and hurt me at this point, except for thinking too much and not taking action, you know? And so I think that that's kind of come with the self-confidence of like, okay, you know what? I'm just going to go for it. Like worst case scenario, go get another job. Worst case scenario, do this. But like, I just didn't want to even want to think of those things and just do. So that's where it comes from. You've given me so many questions to ask you with what you just said. And one of the things, I mean, let's, let's go down this first road of confidence because you've said confidence a few times you coach women over 40. Um, you know, one of the biggest challenges we

have in developing leaders is getting that confidence breakthrough going that so many people have. You know, Mel Robbins has, you know, countdown from five or whatever. We have all these different key leaders talking about do this to flip the switch of your confidence. Why are we missing that so much? I mean, it's like you need somebody behind you with a big boot to kick you in the rear when you're thinking about something to get you to go do it. I know. I wish I had the answer to the real why. I think that's going to be kind of the mystery of all mysteries. But what I do know or what transitioned for me is that when I stopped sort of looking out and I looked in for a second and I was like,

wow, I'm actually kind of cool. Wait, I'm, I'm actually smart and I can get things done. And I started to like myself more. I think one of the key things too, is that I would set out to achieve a goal and I would achieve it. And then I would set out to achieve another goal and achieve it. And for me, I think that's where that self-confidence came up. If I'm like, I'm going to get up at 5 AM tomorrow and I'm going to go for a walk with the dogs on the beach. It seems silly, but if I don't do it, there's a little like, ah, man, I failed myself. But if I do it, I'm like standing up a little straighter or a little like, yeah, I got that done. Let me go see what the next thing is that I'm going to go accomplish for the day. You know?

And so I don't know. I think it starts when we're younger. You know, we kind of come into this world of having to fit a mold of something or some idea of something. And there's a lot of false information out there. But I think when we just kind of find our true sort of who we are and just start liking ourselves, the confidence goes up. I love that.

It's you're turning those micro wins into macro wins. That's that. It's you're, you're turning those micro wins into macro wins. That's right. That's a good way to look at it. So cool. I, you know, they just getting, getting your feet out of bed and putting them in your shoes. That's a micro win getting out the door with the dogs, micro win. And next thing you know, by the end of the day, you know, you're like Jenna, you're getting these macro macro wins going on. So, um, Hey, tell me about, so we've also kind of danced around this whole theory of questioning yourself of doing things. Everybody wants to go get the big win. Uh, but nobody really starts taking action like you're talking about. So, um, how do you just tolerate, okay, it's good enough. I'm going to

go do it just to build upon the good enough, because obviously we don't want good enough to be our final destination. But at the same time, if we overthink everything and go till perfection, we never start. Absolutely. I'm really kind of riding this wave right now of just, there's no option. Like creating a life in such a way, it's funny because I see that what you have behind you, stay hungry. It's like creating a life in such a way that I just don't have an option. I don't have a fallback job. I don't have, oh, I'm going to go do something else. Like there is no option but to win at this. And it's like, if we don't, and maybe it's the age where I'm at too. It's, if I'm not living life and having the problems of life, I'm not living. We have some

sort of BS concept out there that you're not supposed to have a problem or a barrier, or it should be just very smooth. That's like, no, no, no. With every problem that I overcome, I'm just going another notch. The barriers are okay. They sort of tell me I'm on the right track. Because no one's ever handed anything. I'm sorry if movies and social media made it seem like it's an overnight thing. It's not. It takes chutzpah and endurance and overcoming things.

And I think that is what I want to encourage people to step out of. Welcome the problems. Welcome the wins. Welcome the losses. How do we learn from it? But there's no option. Set up your life with no option. And one thing that women do run into, and I do run into this with some of my clients,

they'll have a husband who makes good money, but they want to create something else. But they're not creating that urgency for themselves. Right? Like I'm the breadwinner. I have no option. I make the money and people are like, Oh, how do you do that? And I'm like, Oh no, that's very much on purpose because I need that push to go to the next level. And so for some of these women where yes, the basic bills and rent and all that is covered, they have to find that urgency, that love that needs so much to, in order to push themselves to stay hungry, like you have right there behind you, you know, and that's what I think is needed to really get us to that next level. Awesome. I want to get into what you're doing with helping

women here because, um, you know, you, you talk about community building and that's, that's what you do is you really help people get into, you know, uh, like mastermind groups and coaching and mentoring and things like that. Um, why is it so crucial for women to have female leaders and mentors and be part of these communities of growth purpose? Yeah. I think for women, well, my experience is that I came out of a very male dominated industry, Hollywood, and I loved it. I love working with men. I enjoy it. I'm very overt, very straightforward. It worked very well for me. There was also an interesting side to it. I had to be 120%. There was no way I could talk about

what my kids were doing or what was happening or someone was sick. None of that could come to the table. When women leaders are starting to accept that we are multifaceted, that we can work and be moms and be wives and handle the households and get the costume ready for the school play and make sure we have the birthday cake and do it all. It needs to be celebrated. It's not a comparison to a man. It's not a dig on a man. It's just a different hat. And I think when we celebrate this multifacetedness to us and you bring that into our leadership, I feel like we are able to help people. Like I was just on a podcast with a woman who just had a newborn, right? And I was like, bring the baby on.

Bring the baby on. The baby slept under the entire way, but that's the reality of it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I think that is what I really feed off of is granting women the space to be all that they are and to bring that to the table in leadership and show the true colors, the hard part, the good part, whatever. I'll help, you know, here's a helping hand.

Let me get you to the next step because there's something to be learned, you know, from what, how you manage your time, manage your family, keep it upbeat, managing hormones. I mean, I'm dealing with everything that's happening to women in their 50s right now, you know, and it's not easy and it makes you seem a little crazy. But if we can communicate about it and help each other, hold each other up and be leaders about it, then it's just calming. I see where it's calming women down a little bit. Yeah, I mean, why hide from something that's real?

Seriously. Let's own it and celebrate it and move forward. Move on. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's awesome. I mean, what is your strategy for doing this? How are you helping empower women leaders? Yeah. I think this has been my first year of doing this. I've learned a lot. I would say my three takeaways is that they really need a community, which is why I've created this online community for only 47 bucks, right? Because they need a community and they need people that they can collaborate with, do much better in a team. The other takeaway is to have each of them really find out what is their uniqueness? What is their, their superpower, so to speak, you know,

and this came upon, I came up with this about two weeks ago, to be quite honest with you, I was sort of looking at myself going, what am I doing? What, what, what is it that I really bring to the table? What is it when I really walk into a room? And after sort of dissecting it with a friend of mine, I realized like all I do is create uplifting experiences, whether it's through the community or whether it's through a retreat or whether it's through coaching or whether I'm at a dinner party or whether I'm sitting there having a conversation with someone, I want to uplift and inspire in some way and create those experiences. So I've been helping women more recently find what is their, what I like to call their juju, their thing, that product,

because then you can, maybe I haven't made the million dollars I want to do yet. Maybe I haven't hit helping the 10,000 women that I want to help as a goal, but man, I had four uplifting experiences today and I feel really good about those. You want to share any of those? Well, I was just on this podcast that I started with a, with a girlfriend of mine. And, um, you know, she was talking about a specific problem and I just gave her a different way to look at it. And I just saw her whole face change and it just got lighter for her.

And I'm like, okay, uplifted, you know? That's great. Yeah. I love that. I mean, it really, all it, you know? That's great. Yeah. I love that. I mean, really all it takes is something as small as that, but if you're stuck in your little box in life, right. We don't get to experience those options and understand the opportunities around those. Absolutely. We have to step, like get, get like three feet behind yourself for a second and just look at the world. I tell him, I was telling my son who's 16 and he was going through, you know, he wants

to have a girlfriend really badly. And I, and he said, what do you do mom? When, when it just all seems so upsetting, you know? And I said, honestly, I almost like go to space and look at earth and I'll just sit here and go, Oh, look at that cute little blue ball with all those people on it. And for some reason, because I can get up high and just kind of look down, it doesn't seem as scary and as overwhelming. And it's not just on top of me and I can start taking my problems apart. I think Cody Sanchez talks about, she goes, I go to the balcony, I go to the balcony and I

just look down at all the problems in my life and I just kind of go, okay, now I can start sorting them out and getting through that. And I think that's just such a great way to get out of our heads for a second and just look at, okay, take a moment. How can I attack this problem? You know? That seems like a really interesting perspective because when we zoom out like that, it, I mean, first of all, it takes us away from the imposter syndrome. It seems like.

Right. I mean, first of all, it takes us away from the imposter syndrome, it seems like. And so many people get in, especially as you get through life and maybe you get to a certain position in a business or something like that, you're like, should I be here? Oh my gosh, it's these little things. But even like your 16-year-old son has got imposter syndrome around, am I good enough to have a girlfriend, whatever it might be. Right. So how can we, you know, how can we take that moment and pause and slow things down so that we stop experiencing imposter syndrome? Because I think it's being magnified in this day and age. Yeah. It's just being, it's trying to be normalized. And I think that just paralyzes people. I don't agree with it. I don't even like let the term really be set around me

because I just think it's overthinking. You know, I think if we just get more into action and be okay with falling, you're going to fall. Right. You know, what are you going to fall upon in a fall upon concrete or in a friend's arms or on a couch or on a bed, like you're going to fall, you want to fall. That's how we learn. That's how we wake up. You feel more alive when you kind of fall than you do when you're just like trying to cope and make sure everything's okay. You know, but with, with, with those kinds of things, I just say, you know, do something different. If you keep doing the same thing and it's not working for you, take a moment, step outside, just do something different. Just by doing something different, you're going to have, you're going to wake up and you're going to, just do something different. Just by doing something different,

you're going to have, you're going to wake up and you're going to have just a different result. That's it. Might not be a good one, but you know, you're going to learn from that one too. But that's why it all sums up honestly into this don't think, just do thing, because look, if you make a bad decision, you can change it and make a different decision. You know, I coach my daughter's soccer team. She's seven, by the way. And, um, you should hear me screaming on the sidelines. My husband has to stand really far away because I'm very loud, but I'm literally screaming to these girls. Don't think do like soccer's easy. Just get the ball in the goal. You know, like that's all you have to do. Don't be complicated. And it's cute. And we went a lot actually. There you go. Yeah. Look at those action takers for crowd.

They yell it at each other too. It's super cute. I probably should do a social media video of it because it's really cute. There you go. A tick tock of a bunch of seven-year-olds yelling at each other. Just do it. You know, make Nike or something like that. I mean, I love their commercials. So good. Yeah. So, I mean, you are empowering people to take action, to change their lives, to better themselves instead of just coast and stay put. What can we find on your website and where is it at? Yeah. So my website is jennacapozzi.com, but nobody could spell Capozzi. And I realized that when I do these podcasts, it's ridiculous, even though I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes. So I decided to create a free gift for everyone, which is called lead with Jenna. And it's a leader builder and it starts people. Um, it gives them information to start looking at how to come up

with their goals and their purpose. And then a little bit of marketing stuff just to get them warmed up to the brand. If they want to like at the end of it, they can book a free session with me and I'll give people like a free 30 minute session. I don't know how many more of those I'm going to do because my calendar is starting to really book up, but I'm meeting the most incredible, interesting women from across the planet. Really. I've had people from Austria reach out to me in England and it's been really cool. And on, on there, it will take them to the website and on the website, they'll, they'll see, I have my community and I have a retreats and coaching. And you know, if they just want to chat, they can chat and anybody can reach out to me on Instagram, which is Jenna Kaposi underscore retreats. And I'd love to just chat with people.

Awesome. This is great. Jenna, the, uh, I was flipping through your website. My next question is when are you going to write a book? Well, it's the thought is in the works. All right. I have to slow down a little bit, but it's going to be about the multifaceted woman and really celebrating all the things that are us. Cool. Yeah. I love it.

I love it. Everybody, um, keep, keep on Jenna, get that book done. We look forward to seeing it out there in the world one of these days, but thank you for that. Uh, that gift you've offered up to all the listeners, everybody go to our website and check that out. Um, I have a question. I ask all the incredible leaders on start with a win. And I know you are from the moment you open your eyes, you are go, I'm sure. But Jenna, how do you start your day with a win? So I think this is the most brilliant question.

And, you know, my husband and I get up and we both kind of immediately get into what it is we have to do to get the kids and everything out. But this morning, and I realize I've been doing it quite often. I get up and I go right into my daughter's room and I climb into bed with her and I snuggle with her and I just take a moment and I am just thankful for her. And then my husband will come in and he'll just hug both of us. And the next thing you know, my son's in and then our Doberman pincher's in. And so I think it's just sort of, um, the win is these, you know, these humans that I have around me that I really like. And it reminds me of why I'm sort of pushing hard and doing everything that I'm doing. I would say that's, that's sort of the top of mind one. That's amazing. And those are moments you can't get back once they're gone, they're gone. So

take advantage of them while you can, Everybody, you know, appreciate the time that we're in right now, because you're going to look in the rear view mirror one of these days and go, oh, that was a fleeting experience. I wish I'd prolonged it a little bit. So especially with the kids. Oh, you want to make me cry, Adam. This is from somebody whose kids are all out of college now. Yeah, right. But anyhow, Jenna Capozzi, jennacapozzi.com or leadwithjenna.com. Make sure you check her out online. She's also on social media.

You'll be watching those soccer games, Jenna. Yes, exactly. Sounds exciting. You'll make the social media trending one of these days on them. So anyhow, Jenna, thank you for all that you're doing to inspire the leaders in this world, particularly if you're in that 40 plus women crowd, check out Jenna and thank you for starting with a win. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.