Why People Often Self-Destruct (with Kathy Caprino)

Audio Transcription

Jason. On today’s show, we’re interviewing Kathy Caprino, the bestselling author of the book breakdown breakthrough, and she’s talking about leaving corporate America and why people often self-destruct my friend. How hard is it for some people to start their own company after leaving Corporate America? It’s extremely hard. People don’t know where they want to start. They also don’t know what to do. Well, if you’re out there saying, I want to be self employed, but I don’t know what the first steps, I don’t know where I would start on today’s show. Kathy Caprino shares with us why heightened self awareness is key to becoming successful and why people often self-destruct.

Some shows don’t need a celebrity in a writer to introduce the show. This show down to math eight kids, Koch created by two different women, 13 multimillion million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the thrive time show

[inaudible] from the bottom. So you had get started from the bottom. Yes, yes, yes and yes. Based on today’s show, we have a special guest, an incredible woman by the name of [inaudible],

Kathy Caprino. Welcome on to the thrive time show. How are you?

Oh. Oh, thank you for having me, clay. I am good today. Today was one of those days where there things you’ve been hoping for start coming out, coming through. So I’m, I’m happy as can be.

Kathy Caprino, are you, are you a musical person? Do you, do you like music?

I love music and I’m a singer on the side. Did you know that

that rock music, do you like to listen to, to kind of get you into that positive Mojo?

Oh Wow. It’s of, it’s going to be crazy. Um, but I grew up kind of singing a little opera so I, it’s not when everyone’s expecting to hear, but it would be Mozart or is the baldy or you know, I get jazzed by that to be honest. Sometimes I listen to pop and jazz and all sorts of other things.

All right, so you are into the music now and I’ve got, for the listeners out there who are not familiar with your backstory, um, can you share with the listeners about your, your career and where you believe that your career really started?

Yeah. So I’d love to start with where it is today, but it sure wasn’t like that before. So today I focus on writing, speaking, training, teaching all and PR. My sweet spot is midlife women and it’s all about helping them advance and find brave and close their power gaps and basically do what they came to this planet to do and have more confidence. Enjoy doing it. The reason I do that now is I had 18 years of the opposite. I was in corporate America and now I know what the problem was, but I didn’t then I never loved it. Clay, I never at home, I was in marketing and publishing and then I did market research for so many years and then I was a product management VP and you know, you can be successful on the outside and that’s what I was, I made a lot of money, you know, manage big budgets, global stuff, big staff.

But I never really felt I was in the right place and I didn’t understand that. And unfortunately as time went on, I got very sick. I faced like every crises I talk about crisis. I talk about from chronic illness to I had sexual harassment, gender discrimination, like everything you hear about but you couldn’t possibly believe one person would experience. And that was me, but I didn’t know what to do cause I made a lot of money. I had young kids, my husband at the time was a famous jazz percussionist but traveled a lot and I thought we needed my, you know, I considered myself the moneybags so I did nothing, nothing to move myself forward. I tried, I went to a therapist and no clear career counselor and he said after $1,000 of testing, well good for you. It looks like you’re in the right field. And I thought, I’m just going to poke my eye out with this tick. What do you mean? How can this be? So I did nothing in except moved to a bigger house, more affluent area. And one month after doing that was nine 11 and one month after that I got laid off in a way that just strip me of everything.

Well you are a, a very uh, thoughtful and, and well educated person. Could you, could you explain to us, um, how you were able to take your education and your background and then pivot and leave corporate America and then to make your way as an entrepreneur, how did, how did you hit the exit ramp? What did you, what did you do?

Yeah, so I love this story to be honest. So I’m weeping after getting laid off and not as a vice president, not understanding how am I ever gonna recover from this? And I’m in my therapist’s office the next week and I’m crying. And he says something I’ve quoted a thousand times. He said, I know from where you sit, this looks like the worst crisis you’ve ever faced. But from where I sit, it’s the first moment you can choose who you want to be in the world. Now who do you want to be? And the funny thing is, my answer was what I hear from thousands of women a year, I don’t know. And I said, I don’t know what I want to be, but I want to be you at. That just came flying out of my mouth. And he laughed and he goes, okay, what do you mean?

And I said, I just want to help people not hurt people and be hurt, which is how I characterize my corporate life. And from that one hour conversation, he said, I’ve known you for a little while. I think you’d make a good therapist. I W we talked about it. I, you know, I’d been laid off and I had decided I’m never going back. I’m never going to go back to corporate life. It’s just too painful for me. And I went home and I researched it. It’s marriage and family therapy and talk to my husband then. And he said, yeah, I think it makes sense. And there were, I connected some dots from my past. I’d always been interested in psychology. I was getting a minor in psychology as well, as well as an English lit degree. Uh, people always came to me and shared, you know, even when I was 16 boys and girls would say, can I come talk to you and I again, what am I doing?

I know nothing. But there were, there were threads and I always was so interested in why people do what they do. So I got that degree, became a therapist, and I would say that that training has been life changing for me in every sense of the word as an entrepreneur, as a career coach, as a writer, as a researcher. But the reality was being a therapist was not what I wanted to be after. And I learned that after about two, three years of doing it, I realized after doing it that it wasn’t a fit, that identity wasn’t a fit for me. And that was because I had dealt with in my practice and my internship, rape, incest, pedophilia, Sisley side, Allity attempted murder and I, I really did.

Wait a minute. Wait on you. You dealt with all of that in your internship.

Yes, honestly.

Well, I just, how often was like every, every day a new, a new crime against humanity or every week or,

well, it was just a wonderful social services agency. And these were people that couldn’t afford, not that that’s a correlate correlation, but many of these people were drug addicted or had, had terrible things happen to them. And when you have terrible things happen as a child, it most often affects your functioning. So I mean, not every day was like that, but in one year of an internship, I had all of that. And then in two following years of my own practice, I had a lot, lot of depression. And the crowning moment was a client calling me up and I always put my little kids down to dinner and she said, I’m gonna kill myself right now. I’m going to wrap my car around a tree. And in that moment, and I said, Oh, well, oh my gosh, I’m not equipped and this is not what I want in my life. I mean, I went to the selfish place. Thank goodness that only lasted a quarter of a second. And, um, we helped her with a team of other people, but I had to yet again admit I this is not the career I want and, and what do I do? And I found coaching, career coaching. First it was life coaching, then it became career coaching and I adore it and I don’t do therapy in my coaching practice, but I would say that therapeutic training was a life changer.

So you earned a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy and became a career coach and you said that as a therapist, you know, you’d kind of figure out why people do what they do. So, uh, Paul Hood, one of our show sponsors is here with us today. Paul Hood, CPA. Paul, how are you doing? I am doing great. And Paul,. So I am amazing loving sitting here listening to you. I have three rapid fire questions for you and I’m sure Paul will one up me here. But these are three questions I have about why people do what they do. I manage hundreds of employees, hundreds of employees. Why do certain employees hit the self destruct button? Like, why do they, from your perspective, somebody, a man or a woman who’s doing very well, starting to make six figures or close and then they show up drunk or they don’t show up or they did just figuratively, literally, they throw it all away every six months. Why do they, why does, why does some people do that?

I actually have an answer for you. Yeah. And there’s, there’s, I don’t want to oversimplify and there’s a lot of reasons people self destruct, but one of them comes from a gay Hendricks who wrote the book the big leap. Everybody’s got to read this book. It’s on my list of books to recommend. And he talks about the upper limit problem we have, which is, and I’m paraphrasing, but we all through our upbringing and our histories have an upper limit to how much love, health, success, wealth, all of it that we can tolerate. And when we hit that barrier, we’ll often actually sabotage it. So I mean, one example is look at lottery winners. An enormous percentage in it three years after they win the lottery or back down to what they were they had in the bank before. We, in order to have fantastic success and nurture it and not be afraid of it and be strong enough, I talk about finding great, you gotta be brave.

You gotta be courageous to have that kind of success. Most people don’t have the tools for it, so they do something that implodes their success. On the other hand, there are some people that have had very tough things in their life. If you’ve been raised by a narcissist, for instance, you don’t know how to speak up for yourself often. So, um, you know, there are many reasons why people are drug addicted or substance abuse, addicted substance abusers, and you know, a lot of people will turn to substances or alcohol because they can’t take the stress of what’s going on for them internally.

So let’s just say that I’m listening today and I discovered, and I’m listening. I said, you know what? Gosh, I’ve hit my limit. You know, let’s just say mentally my limit was $80,000 a year or, or you know, 10 customers or whatever that number is. And I, and I know as a, as a listener, I go, you know, Gosh, I’m gonna hit that self-destruct button. Here we go. I always do this. How can somebody learn to expand their capacity to you? First

of all, you not, you’re not aware of your barrier. That’s the problem. You hit it and self-destruct before you’re aware of it. So if I think one way we get aware of it is watching our, I think that one key to this whole discussion, clay, is you gotta become so much more aware of yourself than you are today to be, to have a successful career and a happy life. Most of us know our kids, our spouses are, you know, are the people that work for us more than we know ourselves. So if you, if you are about to implode, there are going to be warning signs. You’re not sleeping, your anxieties killing you, your depression’s out of hand. You’re drinking more at night. You have to see the signs. You’ve got to look at your life and nurture your life and open your eyes. And if you start to recognize signs of the pressure mounting and you’re going to explode, then you got to get help. There’s a quote I love. Einstein said, you cannot solve a problem on a level of consciousness that created it. That’s why people don’t have the success they think they deserve because their consciousness can’t hold it. So you need outside help. Go get a therapist. Go get a coach. Go get a mentor. Go get a sponsor. Um, hell. Have someone in your life who can help you see when you’re, when you’re taking a detour.

Now Mike, my third question here before Paul One-ups me with a better question. Oh, I got you. Clay is there’s a lot of women out there, a lot of single ladies, a lot of married ladies, a lot of single ladies, a lot of married ladies. No, it doesn’t. And a lot of them they’re saying, I Kathy Caprino, I’m am living in a world that’s, you know, mostly men are in charge. You’ve got, we’re going to have a Carly Fiorina on the show here soon. The wow. Former CEO of a Hewlett Packard, uh, Sarah Blakely, the youngest billionaire, female Oprah billionaire. There’s a lot of women who’ve, who’ve broken through this, this glass ceiling. But for some women out there who maybe, um, you know, can’t, uh, have access to [inaudible] or they think they can’t, what does it cost to hire you or somebody like you to career coach them? And what does that look like?

Oh yeah. So I, I once got um, with talked to on a radio show and they actually had me on kind of the lambaste how expensive it is. So I hope we’re not going there.

Oh No. I know you

can find great coaches at a wide range of, of pricing. You can find $100 an hour coach as you can find. So I’m at about 500 an hour and six 75 for executive coaching. And you know, there’s all sorts of reasons why we charge what we charge. And, and one thing I got to say, while that’s w that’s what people would pay for private coaching with me. Yes, I am absolutely committed to not just working with those who have that kind of money, but, so I do my podcast, which is free to anyone. I do videos, I do free webinars. One is coming up next week, no, actually Wednesday. Um, so I am committed to serving a wide range of people, but my one on one time comes at a premium. But what it looks like is an, and the way to find a great career coach is look at their website, look at their thought leadership. Are they putting things out in the world that you nod your head and go, oh, Kathy or clay, you’re speaking my language. I feel like you’re inside my head. Yup. And number two, do they have a proven model for change?

Do they have a proven model for change? That is the question

word land-based a means to criticize, harshly, chastise censure, condemn. I would say if anything, uh, Katelyn, I mean this sincerely. Um, I, I pay for coaching. You know, I’m, I’ve had, uh, Carlton Pearson, the legendary, uh, televangelists, you know, I’ve hired him to teach me speaking. I’ve hired Wes Carter. My attorney represents Joel O’Steen, Dean and TD Jakes and big people and all the top, you know, the top advisers, the top coaches, the top consultants I’ve worked with, that’s about what they charge per hour. And I think that’s a really good price to pay if it unlocks it, you know? But if you’re stuck in a Rut and you can’t unlock, you’re just stuck. They’re going around in circles. You’re like a ship without a rudder. Just going around and around. I don’t know. I mean, if you’re stuck in that $500 an hour, that’s, that’s a good deal. How long do people work with you usually? Is it like a year or is it six months? A couple of weeks.

So varies. And, and you know, I, I’m right with you. I, and I feel like the entrepreneurs listening, I think, oh one way to assess your value is what are the results you have and, and how can you measure that value? And they do. I’m all about breakthroughs. That was my book breakdown breakthrough. I want you to have a breakthrough in the first hour that we talk. And if that isn’t happening, I’m not really doing the job I want to do. Um, so really some people come for one session and that’s all they can afford. Some people do my 10 sessions, some people come for a year. It really, it really varies. But the whole idea is how do we break through to another level of consciousness really. I mean, that sounds very highfalutin, but it’s really what are you doing? What are your power gaps? Because, um, I’ve done a lot of research on what holds people back. And I’ve seen for women, there are seven damaging power gaps. And I can see those power gaps in about literally five minutes of talking to someone when they share with their, with their challenges are. So it’s breakthrough. So like I’m with you. I just went to a coach, a singing coach who some of, some of her clients have been Steven Tyler Bon Jovi, and you know, my senior friends are like, Warren, what,

what makes you say you deserve that?

I could see it in their eyes. I’m like, look, she took me. I’m going because I want, if I’m going to pay money, I’m, I want the best.

Kathy,

earlier you spoke about these power gaps are too. Can you break down what are these power gaps? These are seven power gaps, I believe. Uh, talk to me about the power

to tell you. Yeah, they are. Number one, gap. One, not recognizing your special talents, abilities, accomplishments. Number two, communicating from fear, not strength. Number three, reluctance to ask for what you did.

Very reluctant number. Hello. Okay, got it. Okay. Four

for isolating from influential support, isolating. Number five, acquiescing instead of saying stop. Got It. Number six, losing sight of your thrilling dreams. And number seven, allowing the past to define.

Kathy Caprino we appreciate you for being on the, on the show. Uh, so much for taking time out of your, your busy schedule and uh, we’d like to end each and every show with a boom, which around here, boom stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum. So are you prepared to, to bring a boom from Connecticut?

I can bring a boom and thank you so much for having me. It was so fun. Here’s the boom. You are special. You are valuable, you are needed in the world. But are you operating as the author of Your Life? Are you finding brave every moment? Which means doing the scary thing that every day that you can, that you would say, if I can do that, I can do anything. That’s what you need to do to actually bring yourself to the highest level in whatever you do. Find brave. I hope that that’s helpful.

My brain just exploded. I’m going to go duck tape my head after I listened to this podcast two or three times to break down all the knowledge bombs. Kathy Caprino, thank you for being on the show. I hope you have a great evening.

Thank you so much.

If you are out there thinking about leaving corporate America to become self-employed, um, Jason, you coach with clients, what do you think the toughest aspect of being self-employed is for, for your clients? Great clients who you’ve helped to, to grow quite a bit in, into, uh, gain financial success, but, but what is the most difficult aspect of being self-employed for most people from your perspective? Um, from my perspective, it’s a lot of people have an employee mindset. They have worked at like a nine to five job their entire life. Yup. And so once they become self-employed, they’re missing that direction. So they have to make themselves the leader and hold themselves accountable for the first time. And that’s where some people fall short. Not that it can’t be fixed, but that’s typically what I find is like the, the main driving issue.

Um, and I will tell you this about Elan. Elon Musk has a, a quote, but he talks about how he says you just have to work 80 to a hundred hours per week, right. Every week to get that traction. And I agree with that. When you’re starting your company. So if you’re out there today and you’re saying, I want to leave corporate America, but I don’t want to work like that, I would recommend buying a franchise. I would recommend you look into a franchise because the data shows that nine out of 10 startups fail according to Forbes and all of the other research materials you can find out there, nine out of 10 startups fail. But the research also shows that nine out of 10 franchises don’t fail. And you might say, why? Well, it’s because they have a proven system and that’s why it’s a franchise.

A franchise is just a proven system that somebody is doing over and over again. And essentially you’re getting permission to use the business model, the logos, the branding, the marketing, the accounting, all the, they have the processes, the workflows. So you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. So again, if you’re out there today and you say, I want to become self employed, but I don’t want to work 80 hours a week and I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, look into franchising. Now, if you are out there and you say, I want to leave corporate America and I do want to reinvent the wheel and I do want to have my own brand and my own thing, then get ready to work 80 hours a week. But that is the reality of the situation. Ladies and gentlemen, we like to end each and every show with a boom and so now without any further ado, Jason, are you prepared to bring the boom?

I’m so ready. Here we go. Three, two, one oh are we can’t end by paraphrasing a quote. Let me, let me read this notable quotable t again from Elon Musk. Elon Musk writes work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to a hundred hour weeks every week. This improves odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in a hundred-hour weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing, you know that you will achieve in four months when it takes them a year to achieve. Think about that. Think about that. If you’re gonna, if you’re going to start a company today, if you’re willing to leave the wage cage of corporate American to start your own thing, you’re going to have to grind a, today I woke up at 3:00 AM it is now at the time we’re editing.

Today’s podcast is now by 15:00 AM. And let me just tell you my schedule for today and that way I’m going to give some context to this because I’ve got a busy day and maybe busy to me means busy. Maybe my bid, my version of busy doesn’t mean busy to you. So here we are a, today we’re at 5:16 AM uh, I woke up this morning at 3:00 AM and here’s my schedule at 7:00 AM I will hop on a call with a 13 point assessment with a client who had, or someone who’d like to be a coaching client. And we were always booked out. So we have like one opening a month. And so my job is to figure out who’s the best fit. Then at 8:00 AM I have yet another, a 13 point assessment. And then again at nine o’clock another one, and then at nine 30 I’m going to be me.

Or no, sorry, nine o’clock here it looks like I have a call, a coaching call with one of my clients. And then at 10 o’clock I’m meeting with a client to help them franchise their business. And we’re meeting from 10 to three and then at three o’clock I leave to pick up my son and to take them to his DJ Gig, uh, at the, uh, the hub gym where he’s deejaying. And then I’ve just got a full schedule today. Well, what time did it start? I started today at three and in case you, maybe you missed that part. I’m ending my day at three now. That’d be 12 hour, a 12 hour day. I never work less than 12 hours a day. So that would be 60 hours a week. I never work less than 12. But I liked also sneak in. I like to work from 3:00 AM to 9:00 AM on Saturdays as well.

So just throwing it out there for you. I never ever, ever, ever, no, I never, ever, ever work less ever then 66 hours a week ever. Why? Because I like it. I’m good at it. Also, I believe that from my perspective because I am a literal, uh, a person who believes that the Bible is a literal thing. And the Bible was originally written in what? Language? Hebrew and the Old Testament, right? The Old Testament, which I believe is part of the Bible, was written in Hebrew and in the Hebrew text, if you look it up, if you had a chance to look up the Bible, it says, it talks about how work should be worship. Well, the issue is that in the Hebrew language, in the Hebrew original language, the word work meant worship. So it says work as unto the Lord, right? And the Bible says, work as unto the Lord.

Well, I believe that means I’m supposed to worship as unto the Lord. I believe that my work and my worship of the same thing. I also believe that in both exodus and genesis where it talks about working six days a week and resting on the seventh I believe that’s a literal thing. So I have always worked six days a week. I don’t understand the concept of working five days a week or four days a week or three days a week. And a, what’s interesting for me as a, as a coach and consultant is that I have interviewed now and Jason, you’ve seen this, we’ve interviewed billionaires, millionaires, we’ve interviewed Wolfgang Puck Room, a John Maxwell, we’ve interviewed, we’ve got just huge personalities. Yeah. And what’s crazy is none of them have ever told me that they’ve worked less than 60 hours a week and a root to their success.

None of them, not a single one, but don’t. Most people who want to become successful want to see if they can be the first one in the history of the world to become successful while working less than 60 hours a week. Like from the jump. Right, right. And you, you like, you like the Joe Rogan podcast. I love it. And he interviewed Elan Musk and Elon Musk says, you gotta work 80 to a hundred hours a week. That’s true. Steve Jobs talked about the importance of work ethic out. Thomas Edison said that that success, he says it’s 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. So if you’re out there today and you want to achieve massive success, you gotta be willing to put in massive work. You can’t be out there wanting to reap a harvest and not be willing to put in the work. I call this the sixth day principle.

Rest on that Sabbath. Rest on that seventh day. Take a day off. Yes, but you gotta grind. You gotta rise and grind. He got to put it, you just got to work six days a week if you want to escape the wage cage now, then once you get to where you want to go after you’ve made the tradeoffs, then you can do whatever you want. You can have the doctor’s east schedule, but doctors, he worked seven days a week before he was able to achieve time and financial freedom. There’s just no other way. So now, ladies and gentlemen, any further ado? We typically in the show with a boom.

I guess we’ll do it again. So here we go. I call it a song boom, and the Kia boom, it might sound familiar, but here, here we go. I think I have heard of this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. [inaudible] boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. [inaudible] everybody now [inaudible] [inaudible]

no, I got no box. Wow.