Kathy Caprino identifies seven power gaps that trap professionals in unhappy careers, from inability to name your talents to fear-based communication. Only 7% of women negotiate their first salary compared to 57% of men. She outlines steps to close each gap and rebuild momentum.
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Hello, everybody. Hope you're having a great day. I'm Kathy Caprino. I wanted to do a quick video today that talks about some information that I think will be useful for any professional who wants something more different or better. They want more impact, they want more reward, they want more respect. They want more balance and flexibility and control and authority, all of it. And I think that this information, which is about the seven damaging power gaps that professionals face, it's going to be relevant to men and women. However, I would say that in the women I work with in coaching and training, these gaps hit women harder than men, and women process these challenges differently than men. But I do believe that both men and women will find this valuable. So I want to talk about again the seven damaging power gaps that keep professionals from building the career and living the career and the professional identity that they dream of. So let's talk about what these seven gaps are and how you can tell why it's so important. I think is in terms of the people I work with. And when I look back on my previous corporate career, I knew things weren't working that much. I knew. I knew that I wanted something different, but I didn't know what it was. And I sure as heck know how to get there. I didn't know what was broken in, how I was approaching my career. So these gaps are going to help you understand what is not working and close that power gap. And I do want to say this, too. I call them power gaps because that's how I see it. A gap where energy and confidence and authority and control is just leaking out and sucked out. And as with, you know, look at any gap in the road, it widens over time if it's not addressed. And that's exactly what happens here. So let's talk about the seven. The first is not recognizing your talents and abilities. And gosh, this is about the most damaging thing and why I know it's kind of an epidemic is I have something called a career path assessment that anyone can Download. Something like 75,000 people have downloaded it, and I'll link to it below. It asks questions that every professional should answer before they make one move. And I wish I had answered these 30 years ago, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have made the mistakes I did, the crushing mistakes. But in this career path assessment, there's a question, what are your special talents? What are the ways in which you stand out? And I want to tell you that at least 90% of the professional I professional women I work with who've answered this survey cannot answer that question. They leave it blank or they say I actually have no idea. You can't have a great career, you can't rock. You can't have confidence, you can't have success. You can't make the money you want if you have no idea what your special talents are. And you know, I've done lots of videos and I have lots of posts on how do you figure that out? But how you know you have a challenge on this is you tell yourself I'm not special or talented in any way. If you say that to yourself, you know you have this power gap. And again, for tips on how to close these power gaps, reach out to me. I have one on one career coaching programs, I have courses, I have all sorts of training materials. This is just about helping you identify if you have this gap number two, power gap number two, communicating from fear and weakness, not strength. And you know you have this when you tell yourself I can't speak up authoritatively or confidently. This is so many women that I work with. And I'm telling you, even CEOs on down. It's not just junior level people or people starting out. It's women with outside influence. But they don't feel they can speak up. And how do I see this? They don't know how to talk about what they do, what they've done, what their accomplishments are. They're afraid of appearing like a braggart. They're afraid of saying, yeah, this is what I did. And of course we don't want to be a narcissist and claim credit where credit is not due. But where it is due, you got to talk about it, right? So that's gap number two. Gap number three is a reluctance to ask for what you deserve. Gosh, gosh, there's so much research. Let's look at one statistic. The research says that 57% of men negotiate the very first salary out of school and only 7% of women do. I mean if you just look at that statistic, that is one of the key reasons women fall immediately behind in compensation and benefits. If you are behind your male colleagues right out of the gate, you're going to be behind for your entire career. And one study I read said it's going to take something like eight years more of work for you to even catch up. You got to learn how to ask for what you deserve and you got to learn how to build a case. It can't be an emotional thing. Woohoo. You know, I feel like I'm great and I deserve it. You have to build a strong case and you have to know how to ask. So you know you have this gap. If you tell yourself, I deserve a raise in promotion, but I have no idea how to ask for it or where to begin. The fourth gap is isolating from influential support. So, wow. What this, what this means is if you are not networking, if you're not on LinkedIn, building connections, if you're not going to industry meetings and association meetings and conferences and putting yourself out there and building tribe of people that would take a bullet for you, who would be your ambassadors, and if you're networking in the wrong room, if you're only networking with people at your level who do not have influence and clout to open doors for you, you're not going to have the success you dream of. And you know you have this power gap. If you say to yourself, I hate networking and I hate connecting with strangers, it's so awkward, uncomfortable. And I know a lot of you who are introverts are going to tell me, yeah, this is even harder for me. And it is, and I see that, but we have to work through that. You cannot let your introversion and or your shyness stop you from reaching out to influential support. It's going to hurt you. Gap number five is acquiescing. Instead of saying stop, Man, I want to tell you, I've had all of these power gaps. I work on all of these power gaps continually in my own life. But in my corporate career 18 years ago, boy, did I have this. I faced discrimination. I faced sexual harassment. I saw it around me. I saw abuse and unethical and illegal behavior. And I didn't know how to say stop. Well, now I know, and it's powerful. It might mean you go to a lawyer and you get a settlement. It might mean you go to a lawyer and say, wow, this is what's going on in my place of work. What do I do? It might mean that you go to hr. It might mean that you complain to your boss, but you have to understand the ecosystem and figure out how best to say stop. But you gotta say it. You can't acquiesce. We are seeing what happens when we don't speak up for ourselves or others. And you know, you have this power gap when you say to yourself, it's so unfair what I'm going through, but I have no idea how to challenge it. And I can't. Gap number six is losing sight of a thrilling dream. I want to tell you because I work primarily My sweet spot is mid to high level career people and midlife career professionals. They had a dream in the beginning. I had a dream in the beginning when I went to school. My dream was, I'm going to work in publishing and be a top editor. Hang. I just bailed on that dream. The very first job out of school. If you lose sight of the dream that you have, you're gonna suffer. You've got to identify what is the vision for what you're doing in the world. And if you lose sight of it and don't honor it, you're just gonna suffer. You gotta get back in touch with that dream and then take micro steps to get to that dream. You know you have this gap when you tell yourself, I, I have no idea what would make me happier or how I'd even get there. Okay, gap number seven, and this might be the most potent and the most crippling one, is that you're allowing the past trauma you've experienced to define you and to continue to flatten you. The women I hear from, and also the men almost always have something that happened in the past that they can't get over. Either they were fired or laid off, or they had a toxic boss, or they were backstabbed or they were passed over, or they were discriminated against and they cannot get over it. And you know you have this gap when you tell yourself, when you admit to yourself, I'm devastated by what happened and I can't get over it. So I would love you to think about. I'm going to post my Forbes article that outlines all of these down below. Please look through these gaps. Please identify what you're suffering with now and take a step to close that gap. I hope this is helpful. Please share with me what you got out of this and I hope this moves you forward. Thanks so much and I'll see you soon.
