Kathy Caprino - The Most Powerful You: 7 Bravery-Boosting Paths to Career Bliss

PRAISE FOR

The Most Powerful You

If youve ever asked yourself, Why cant I get what I want in my career?, this is the book for you. The Most Powerful You answers all your questions about why youve been stuck and struggling to experience the happiness you want! This is the book to help you get more of what you want and deserve, and teaches you how to get it!

DR. CINDY MCGOVERN,
author of The Wall Street Journal bestseller Every Job Is a Sales Job: How to Use the Art of Selling to Win at Work

Using her own story and those of the inspiring women shes coachedalong with strategies from some of the nations top thought leadersKathy Caprino writes with heart and deep experience to reveal what is holding so many women back from building the careers they long for. The Most Powerful You is a much-needed guide to reaching your highest potential.

TERRY REAL,
author of The New Rules of Marriage and founder of The Relational Life Institute

So much advice we hear for women about how to build a more rewarding career just isnt practical and misses the real-life picture of what holds women back in todays business world. The Most Powerful You gives you research-based guidance and straight talk about how women can thrive at the highest level and offers a seven-step power-boosting guide that addresses these blocks at both an individual and societal level.

JUDY M ROBINETT,
author of How to Be a Power Connector: the 5+50+150 Rule for Turning Your Business Network into Profits and Crack the Funding Code: How Investors Think and What They Need to Hear to Fund Your Startup

If youve ever felt stuck in your career, you need this book now! Kathy Caprinos insight, experience, and heartfelt advice will make you feel like you have your own personal career coach guiding you to break out of your rut and achieve ultimate success.

GAY HENDRICKS,
author of The Big Leap and Conscious Luck

In this book, Kathy Caprino brings together empowerment, compassion, and actionable adviceplus riveting real-life storiesto show you how to unlock your full potential and finally thrive in your work. Its career advice with an emotional impact thats sure to resonate and help long after youve turned the last page.

MICHAEL STALLARD,
author of Connection Culture: The Competitive Advantage of Shared Identity, Empathy, and Understanding at Work and president and cofounder of Connection Culture Group and E Pluribus Partners

2020 Kathy Caprino

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published by HarperCollins Leadership, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC.

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates.

ISBN 978-1-4002-1749-6 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-1748-9 (HC)

Epub Edition May 2020 9781400217496

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020937436

Printed in the United States of America

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Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that the endnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication

CONTENTS

1. POWER GAP 1
   Not Recognizing Your Special Talents, Abilities, and Accomplishments
2. POWER GAP 2
   Communicating from Fear Not Strength
3. POWER GAP 3
   Reluctance to Ask for What You Deserve and Want
4. POWER GAP 4
   Isolating from Influential Support
5. POWER GAP 5
   Acquiescing Instead of Saying Stop! to Mistreatment
6. POWER GAP 6
   Losing Sight of Your Thrilling Dream for Your Life
7. POWER GAP 7
   Allowing Past Trauma to Define You

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED to my beloved children, Julia and Elliot Lipner, who have taught me so muchabout unconditional love, compassion, perseverance, bravery, finding humor in the difficult, rising above our fears, and most of all, shining our light in the world.

Most people think that shadows follow, precede, or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses, and memories.

ELIE WIESEL

S ometimes, the most seemingly unremarkable words can change your life in a minute. Just one sentence or one small question can alter everything that comes after. It can allow you to see possibility for your life where there had only been hopelessness.

Back in October 2001, I heard these words from my therapist, and they were enough to change my life forever. He said: I know this looks like the worst crisis youve ever faced, but from where I sit, its the first moment in your adult life you can choose who you want to be in the world. Now who do you want to be?

It was a crystal clear, blue-sky late October day, a month following the tragedies of 9/11, and I was sitting in the office of my psychotherapist, Dr. Henry Grayson, crying into my soggy tissues. Just that week, I had been laid off from my senior role at a marketing firm in Connecticut. While I should have been totally relieved and doing a happy dance all the way out the door, I felt the oppositeflattened and lost. Id worked so hard to make this job workkeeping late hours, trying to please people I didnt understand, doing whatever the leaders asked even though I didnt believe in what they wanted. I couldnt seem to find a way to succeed in this role without feeling I had lost connection to myself and my integrity.

For two years in that joband, actually, throughout my entire eighteen-year corporate careerI struggled with challenges that I couldnt figure out how to overcome, even though I appeared successful. In my late thirties, I became chronically ill with tracheal infections. Shortly after, I began to face a number of crises you hear about for women, but dont think youll ever experience: sexual harassment, gender and age discrimination, zero work-life balance, controlling bosses, punishment for speaking up and being assertive, being marginalized for not playing the game, and more.

I knew I needed outside help and I pursued it, but for reasons I didnt understand then, I just didnt make the changes I needed to make. I couldnt figure out what exactly to do to better my career and be happier at work. One key reason for my stuckness was my fear that if I changed my career, Id lose a good salary and the benefits my family needed. And I didnt want to throw away a long-term career and lose everything Id worked so hard for without having a clue what else I could do. So I stayed stuck.

A Brave Moment Emerges

My therapists words Now who do you want to be? allowed me to finally, for a split second, experience brave sight, the first step on the path to becoming more able to take the reins on your life and career. Answering the question Who do you want to be? helped me think not about who I had been, but what I could become.

That moment of brave sight helped me see that the sad, insecure person I was on that day was not the end of my story. From that fateful conversation, I started taking braver, more powerful steps and embarked on a new path that changed me forever.

In response to my therapists question Who do you want to be? I blurted out, I dont know! I just want to be you! We both laughed for a minute, and then he asked a very powerful question: What does being me mean to you? I thought for a minute, and then replied, I want to help people, not hurt people, and not be hurt.