How to identify how you're special and amazing, and powerfully leverage your talents

All right, folks, hello. I'm trying to figure this out here, Wyatt. There we go. That's what we need. How are you? This is Kathy Caprino and welcome to my Facebook Live. Thrilled that you're here. Sorry I'm a little late today. I had to give a course today and we had to move the schedule. So thank you for joining me as always. I would so love it if you would indicate your questions here so I can answer them live. I'd love to dedicate some time to that. And we are talking about today. How do we figure out how we're amazing, how we're special, how we stand out in the world and then how do I leverage that? How do I make money in it or how do I utilize it so that I can come forth and I'm going to call it Shine Bravely. And this is all what I'm talking about in my TEDx talk this Friday in Atlanta. I hope if anyone's near Atlanta, who's listening, join us. Join us. It's TEDxCentennial Park Women. You can find that@tedxcentennialparkwomen.com I'm going to be talking about time to brave up. It's just a topic I'm so incredibly passionate about. So jazzed about it because I feel like we are not brave enough yet. There's all sorts of reasons about that. But come. And then I'm having an in person meetup after the event. So I think we have 15 people coming and these are people, many of whom I've never met but are on my list or in my courses or have been on my webinars. So come, come, come. Love to see you. Love to meet you in person. All right. Let me tell you what I know about why so many of us don't know how we're amazing and talented. So I have something called a career path assessment. Over 65,000 people have downloaded it and I have personally reviewed hundreds and hundreds of these. It's a set of questions I wish someone had asked me 30 years ago. And if I had answered these questions honestly, I would not have made the mistakes I made in my life and in my career. I would not have because it would have helped me gain awareness of everything that I am and everything that I care about. So if you're interested in this, I believe every professional on the planet needs to fill these, answer these questions and then act on the answers. And we're not. So you can take this@kathy caprino.com free assessment. So there's a lot of Questions there, like every job you've ever had, what you loved, what you hated, what you never want to do again, and what you want to bring forward. So often we just simply, when we're in pain or we don't like where we are, we have a toxic boss, we just want to chuck the whole thing. And what we don't realize is that throws the entire baby out with the bathwater. And that is not what we need to do. We want to hold on to what's working and what we love and let go of everything else. But there's a question in this career path assessment that 90% of the people who have filled this out cannot answer. They either leave it blank or they offer these really vague answers. So here's the question. How are you special? What are your special, special amazing talents and how do you stand out in the world? 90% leave it blank. So. Or they'll say really, you know, non specific things like, oh, I don't know, I'm kind of nice, kind of funny, I am organized, I give good parties. I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about who you are in the world that is unlike anyone else on this planet. And there are reasons we can't answer this. I know that, and I didn't know the answers to this question 30 years ago, but I want to help you answer this question. How are you special? What are your amazing talents and how do you stand out in the world? So let me give you a few tips about how we can do that. The, the first thing I have noticed in working with all of these people, thousands, is there are many clues to who we really are. If we look back at when we're 16 or 17 or 18, and, you know, a lot of people will say they take what I say incredibly literally, and I'm honored for that. But, you know, if you weren't happy at 16, but 17 and 18, you were rocking it then. That's the period to look at. I don't mean literally 16, I mean as you are being formed as an individual. For me, that was 16, 17 and 18. If you look back on who you were, there are clues. There are clues to what you loved, what made time soar, what you were known for, what people came and asked you questions about expertise that you had, how hours flew by when you were working on these things or focused on these things. There were clues. So I want to give you an example. When I was 16, 17, 18, I loved to write. I was passionate about Books and writing. I wrote for the newspaper. I was a competitive tennis player. You know, number one or number two on the. On the singles team. Went to the states in doubles in New York. I liked to compete. I liked the discipline of practice and expertise. Right. I also was passionate about psychology. My dad used to say, oh, you really always want to figure out why things are the way they are and why people say and do what they do and. And that used to frustrate him. Yeah, that was me. I loved it. And also, excuse me. I was a singer and a performer. I was comfortable on stage. I loved it. I loved using my voice in that way. And people would. Boys and girls would call me up or come over and they'd want to ask me, you know, can I ask you this question either about a relationship or a direction they. They wanted to take? And I remember saying to my mom, why are they asking me? I'm the same age. I don't know. But even then, people found in me, I think, a good pair of listening ears where I could help them sort through the chaos. If you flash forward 40 years, that is me. And that is the work that I do. You know, I'm on stage, I speak, I write 15,000 words a month, it seems. I'm passionate about psychology and personal and spiritual development. I love to help people sort through the chaos that can be our lives. Me, the thing is, I didn't honor those talents. I didn't understand that they were my special gifts. So I wasted 18 years and then some, not understanding that the talents that come naturally to you are exactly the talents the world needs. We're not supposed to pursue something that's incredibly difficult for us. Why would we do that? Right? So let's ask you. When you were young, what did you shine at? What were you known for? What did you love? And I promise you, there's something there that's a clue to what will make you happier in your life and career now. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, you know what I found? Every single person is. It's interesting. I feel that every person is unique in the world, but also there's universal issues that every human being faces. So in some ways, we're very much alike, but in other ways, we're precious, as you know, the most precious diamond and unusual and unique. So I'm talking here about how are you unique? And one way to look at that is to look at everything that made you who you were. So, for instance, your cultural training, your ancestral background, you know, I'm Greek. Half Greek, half Italian. Can't you tell? I mean, I'm using my hands constantly. I absolutely adore Italian culture and Italian language and singing and anyway, your cultural and your ancestral influences, the pivotal moments that happened in your life that changed everything. And we all have them. The relationships that crushed you and healed you and uplifted you, the experiences that you had that left you changed. Who are you? You know, I have so many interesting to me, life experiences that have shaped how I see the world. For instance, my mom was Greek Orthodox. I was raised Greek Orthodox, but my dad was Catholic. He would come to church with us, but really as a favor, I think, to mom and to show deference to her religion. But, you know, growing up with that. And then I went and sang in St Patrick's Cathedral for a year in the choir. And not being Catholic and singing in St Patrick's Cathedral, a mind blowing experience. I'll leave it at that. So many experiences in my life have created a situation where I'm not in a specific group, but I'm on the fence looking at the specific group. And all of that has helped me do the work I do. What about you? What has shaped you? What are the influences that have made you who you are? Because that's what allows you to operate in the world differently from anyone else. That's why if you're an HR manager, you're doing it differently from anyone else. That's why if you're an IT director, but you've had specific experiences, traumas, tribulations, accomplishments that have shaped how you operate and how you see things. We need you to understand what those are, what shaped you and made you who you are. And the only person on the planet that is thinking the way you're thinking and seeing the world the way you're seeing it and relating to people the way you are. So what do we do here once we start to identify, you know, okay, let's say someone. Well, here's an example, actually, people will come to me and say, I'm desperate to write a book. You wrote a book. Breakdown, Breakthrough. I really want to do it. And I'll say, great, are you writing? And they'll say, no, I'm not writing. So I want to give you lesson number two here about once you start to recognize who you really are, it's time to leverage it. Oh, and I want to give you another tip about figuring out who you really are. If. If you feel like you've gone underground, which many women have, I interviewed Gretchen Rubin from my Forbes blog And she said something fascinating. She was a lawyer and now she's a writer. And she said she used to get her college's alumni newsletter and she would read with mild interest what the lawyers were doing, but she would be passionately interested about what the writers were doing. And in fact, she was green with envy. She was green with envy because she wanted to be a writer. So look at what you're green with envy about. I promise you there's a kernel, a sign, a clue of who you really are, but you aren't leveraging it yet. So I have an example that my daughter's given me permission to share. Julia. She graduated from college in May and she studied politics and geology and she's passionate about environmental education. And she went out and she got an amazing part time job in environmental education and loves it. But you know what she told me recently? She said, mom, I'm looking at some of my friends who've graduated and some of them are doing the most artistic, creative things. And I realized I'm jealous. And I had this nagging feeling that if I don't do something artistic, I'm not going to be happy. And she knows this because we shared about it. I went, hehehe, really? What do you mean? Knee jerking? The idea that, oh my gosh, she's gonna give up her four year, you know, college education and become a potter. And we laughed. And I immediately said to myself, really? That's gonna be the response I have? That's it. After all of this, all of the reinventions, all of the suppression that I experienced because I didn't pursue what I loved, I'm gonna have that reaction. No, I'm not. So I said to her, well, what does that look like to you? What do you think you want to do? You know? She said, I want to get back into making jewelry, get on a pottery wheel, start, start honing that craft because I love to make pottery. And by gosh, she did it. She. And she got an amazing part time job in a pottery studio. So the she to me is, is doing what I'm talking about. Shining brightly, shining bravely. It's not that she wants to chuck her whole environmental and politics and geology education. It's that she's an artist and she wants to leverage her art. I believe that's the kind of step we need to take once we realize there are talents and abilities and skills that I'm not using. Oh, just lost everybody. Here I am back. What people say to me by the thousands is this, yeah, I think I Know what I want? I'm an IT manager and I want to be a psychologist or I'm a web designer and I really want to be a teacher. And it goes on and on and on and on. But what they think is they have to chuck everything about what they're doing, chuck it right out the window. And they're afraid they're going to go broke. How am I ever going to make money? They can't see it. And I know what that's like because that was me. And at 40, when I was a vice president in marketing, number one, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do even if I did win a million dollars. Number two, what was the transition plan going to be? How was I going to do this? So when we don't have the answers to these questions, we just stay stuck and miserable and live lives of quiet desperation. Well, I want to give some tips about this. Here's what we do. You need to take one small, bold step every day. That is it. You don't need to chuck your entire career. You don't need to go broke. You don't need to turn your entire system upside down. You start to, you need to start identifying what are three potential directions that might allow me to leverage my deepest talents in a bigger way. And I would say this, for some people, leveraging what you're amazing at is not how you earn your full time living. For some people, it's what they do every weekend or every week on the side or a month, a year. Let's say travel is you're passionate about going to other cultures and immersing yourself in it and then writing about it. Well, some people work out their full time work that they like, but they're able to take a month off and do that. So what I really want to impart is you don't have to worry that you're going to go broke and lose everything by pursuing how you're amazing. It's one tiny small step. So another piece to this, people will say to me, you wrote a book, Kathy, I'm dying to write a book. And I'll say, are you writing? And they say, no. Well, you can't write a book if you're not writing. So what does this mean? Start writing. Start writing your blog, write one page, write an article, write a guest post, start writing. And you know, people have said to me, what I really want to do is become a writer. And what they think in their mind is they're going to quit their engineering job and write for a Living. And it's going to be bliss. And they're going to make a million dollars. Forget it. Writers write because they can't not write. So if that's really what's inside, you find an hour or two every weekend to write. Singers sing. You know, I've talked about this. I'm a singer. I need singing in my life, but I don't. I've made money, a little bit of money as a singer. I've been on some records. I don't want to sing for a living, but I have to have it in my life. I have to have music in my life or I'm depressed. So I sing in a group, a wonderful group, the Wilton Singers. Singers sing, dancers, dance, engineers, engineer, architects, architect. So find a way. One small step, volunteer in an organization that's rocking it in the area you're thinking of, or shadow a professional who's doing it, or an entrepreneur or an artist. Shadow them and talk to them and ask them, what is the identity like and maybe how can I even help? Volunteer to take on a different kind of project in your work that's going to focus more on your amazing talents. Right. And here's another thing that just came up in my amazing career project course today, two hours ago. A lot of people, too are completely stuck in this example. It's a web designer who would like to be more involved in the arts and how arts intersect with community. So we're talking about how do we flesh that out, how do we make that transition? But one thing occurred to us. Why not use the skills that you're using now to generate income and pivot? Point it away from the direction you were in, towards the direction of, in this case, arts as it intersects with community. Make websites for artists. Help nonprofits in the art community world. You know, do graphic design for them. So, you know, we just interviewed in our Cathy and Mo Best Work, Best Life weekly podcast. And I hope you all check it out. That's@kathynmomo.com we interviewed Jenny Blake, awesome, brilliant, inspiring woman. And she's written a book, Pivot. And you know, her motto is this, if change is constant, then we better get better at it. Don't you love it? And she talks all about why we need to embrace pivoting instead of resist change. So many of us in corporate life, in entrepreneurial life, whatever it is, we resist the pivot. But the pivot, the slight change in direction, the ever so slight shift can be the answer to, you know, all your dreams for where you want to go. But you have to embrace it. You have to embrace the pivot. So I want to leave you with this. Do you know how you're amazing? Do you know how you're gifted? Do you know how you're special? Do you know how you stand out in the world? So I want to tell you, so many women don't. And I'm going to offer this to you this weekend. Don't wait. Don't wait till next week. Don't wait till 2017, this weekend. Sit down with a pad, a white pad of paper and a pen for an hour. Shut off your phones, close the door, nobody's coming in, and think about who you really are in the world, what has made you you, what has formed you and shaped you. How do you think and react to the world that's. That's only you. That's so different and so unique. Write it all down. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just do a brain dump on that piece of paper and then look at it and say, what am I jealous of with other people? What is it that I really want to bring forward? And then calm. That inner hysterical gremlin that says, ah, you're gonna go broke. You're gonna chuck everything out. Uh, calm down. I hear you. I know you're there to protect me, but, no, I just want to take one step to honor who I really am that's special and different. And if you can't come up with anything, what I'd love to suggest is this. It's brave. Identify 10 people in the world that love you, that think the world of you, that would do anything for you, and ask this, use this language. You know, I watched Kathy Caprino's Facebook Live video, and she gave me a challenge to understand more deeply how I'm amazing in the world, how I'm different, how I stand out. And I gotta say, I'm really challenged with it. I'm wondering if you could candidly just share with me what you think is special about me, how you think I stand out. I promise you, the people who love you have so much to say about that, and I want you to take it in. Women have a hard time hearing this. They have a hard time talking about themselves. Not all women. I'm not trying to paint all women with the same brush, but so many women are really challenged. They're challenged about talking about how they're special because they think it's braggarty and that they think that they're being arrogant. This is not being arrogant. This is you getting in touch with how special you are. And I'm going to leave you with this. Take in that feedback and in fact, do something even more brave as well. And on LinkedIn, ask for some recommendations. Find 10 other people who've worked with you, who you've collaborated with. You can go back 10 years, 20 years. Ask them if they would be so kind as to write a recommendation on what it was like to work together and then read these recommendations and take it in. I remember I got one after my really toxic VP job that I swear almost killed me. And I thought I had been a terrible leader. And that crushed me because being a good leader and a manager and an inspiring and uplifting person is really important to me. And I felt like I chunked it two years. Terrible. And this one woman wasn't even in my division and she wrote, kathy was always inspiring to me. Every time I'd walk by her office, you know, I would feel inspired and uplifted. And I swear that healed seven years of pain. So ask for help. If you don't know how you're special, ask for help. And then I want you to realize this. The talents that come easy to you, exactly what the world needs. So if you can't do it for you, do it for the world. And then start to take one step to leverage the amazingness of you and your world will change. I hope that's helpful for those of you who aren't live and watch it later. Write me your questions below the video. If you're stuck seeing how you're amazing, let me know how you're stuck. Or share how you think you're amazing. I would love you to do that. Women are so afraid today to brag because of the backlash that we get. Research study after research study proves that society perceives women negatively, more negatively than men, when they're forceful, when they're passionate, and particularly if it seems like they've lost the control or lost their temper. But we're very afraid to brag. Very afraid. We don't want to look arrogant. I want you to brag. Brag on my page and tell me how you think you're amazing and what you'd like to do to start leveraging those natural gifts and talents that make you who you are. I hope that's helpful. And I will see you next Tuesday at noon. Thanks, everybody. Bye.