The top 3 things professionals want more of and how to get them

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Brave Up Tuesday. I'm Kathy Caprino. Thank you for being here. Finally, I think I've got the whole orientation worked out. Got a new little tripod piece. So I think we're good. And I really hope you join me live and ask your questions so that I can answer your questions live. It's what I love to do. So I hope you'll, you'll come every Tuesday at noon if you can. All right, today we are talking about something I just wrote a Forbes post on yesterday. And that post was the top seven things professionals want more of but can't seem to get. And I can't talk about all seven here in 30 minutes, but I'm choosing three that I hear every day from course members, from clients, from people who write in. And I've chosen those three because there's a lot of pain around these three. Pain and confusion and anxiety. So what are the top three? They are money, time and exciting work. Money, time and exciting work. This is what I hear professionals are desperate for more of. Can't figure out how to get. Don't know, you know, how to think about it differently. Don't know how to act differently to get these three things. So I'm going to dive right in. And again, you can read more about it on the Forbes post. I hope you'll follow me on Forbes. My blog is called career bliss. 21 million views so far. It's really good stuff. Good interviews with truly illustrious, amazing thought leaders. Pretty amazing, I have to say. I love, I love writing it. So let's talk about it. Let's jump in with. Hi, Kathryn, thank you for being here with Money, Money, Money, Money. Okay, so there. What I'd like to do in this 30 minutes is talk about these three things, but give you several strategies that I hope will shift your relationship with these three things. So let's talk about money first of all. And I want you to know everything I'm talking about. I have lived. This is not just some prescription that's, that's vague and unproven. I've lived all this. I've taken all of these steps, and this is what I go through in my amazing career project video training, which I want to tell you about later. But the challenge with money is it's an internal challenge and it's an external challenge. So in order to generate and earn and command more money and save it and relate to it powerfully, you have to do things unto two levels, an internal shift and external behaviors. If you do one without the other it's not going to work. So let me jump right in about what I mean in working with so many people who are incredibly talented, highly functional, in some cases top of their field, but they still struggle with money. I have come to see it this way. We have mindsets about money and also programming, energetic programming about money. And these came from our childhood. These came from what we saw around us in our tribe, in our families. And these messages and energetic experiences came without our even knowing it. In most cases. Most people can't even answer the question, you know, what is your relationship with money? What do you feel about money? They can't do it. They have never really thought about it. So I'm inviting you to sit down this weekend with a pad of paper, my favorite exercise. And I'm thinking because I just did a TEDx talk, as some of you know, it's called Time to Brave Up. And I give this exercise, sit with yourself and write down on a piece of paper. But I give a different kind of exercise in the talk. I hope you'll check it out. Time to Brave Up. It's called With a Piece of Paper. I want you to think about what is your money story? Everything you think about money and where you got it. So you're going to have two columns, thoughts about money and where did I get these thoughts and ideas. So I want you to think about, for instance, how your parents or your authority figures or your caregivers dealt with money openly and unconsciously. And you can tell, you know, I know even in my parents they were very different about money. They felt very differently about it. And some of this, when you look at your parents, there are generational themes. Like my dad who's passed away, my beloved dad, you know, he was born in 1920, he went through World War II, he went through the Depression. Well, I think that generation's theme was not self actualization, it was security, food on the table, being safe. So you do have to understand, you know, parents aren't trying to blow it. They're not trying to give you the wrong idea. These are the beliefs that they grew up with and were shaped by what was going on around them. So for instance, my dad had a risk aversion, he was very frugal and he worried about money. You know, of course he would. So sit down and think about what did I learn about money? You know, for instance, look at the language you use. If you. Do you ever drive by a big house and go, oh, they're filthy rich. Well, if you put filthy in the same Sentence as rich, you're not going to be wealthy because you think it's filthy dirty, something to push away. So the very first step is understanding what, where you got your money story, what your parents and caregivers did and thought and said about money and what you internalized from that. So there's a second piece to that. Some of what we feel about money is unconscious. We can't grasp at it by sitting down and thinking about it and writing it down. It's unconscious. It's in and it's in our energy system. So if, for instance, you know, you're nervous about money, but you don't have any idea where that came from, that's an energetic issue. And that's something, you know, I call and others call wealth programming. So I've written about this in Forbes. I interviewed a wonderful author, Margaret Lynch, I believe is her name. How can I be, how can I be forgetting that? I think that's it. She wrote a book, Tapping into Wealth. I want to give you three books that are going to help you understand what you consciously think about money and also get at the unconscious programming. The first book is the Energy of money by Dr. Maria Nemeth. Everybody should read this book. It's not just about money. It's a guidebook for life. And she talks about everything from what is your money story to how different it is from thinking about an idea versus bringing it into being. It's incredibly different energy. And if you don't understand that, you're going to struggle. And she talks about money being one of the six energy forms in life. Amazing stuff. And how you do money is how you do time and how you do enjoyment and how you do vitality. It's amazing. So read that book. The second book is Gay Hendrix, the Big Leap, and I want to tell you about this. He talks about in the Big Leap that most of us have an upper limit problem. And what that is is there's an unconscious limit barrier to how much money, love, success, health that you are comfortable with. And when you go over that barrier, you're going to have anxiety. And if you're not aware of it, you're going to sabotage and you're going to instantly get right below that barrier. I mean, look at all the research on lottery winners. Within three years, almost invariably they're back down to the money they used to make. It's amazing. And I remember after reading that and thinking about it, speaking about my parents again, they did not speak about money in the house. It was a kind of a taboo topic. And they certainly never wanted us to know what dad made or talk about it. We were, you know, middle class. But I overheard a number of what dad's salary was many, many years ago. I don't, I didn't even remember hearing that until reading this book. I realized that that number was the salary I was stuck at for years, man. Stuck from the unconscious programming. So read this book about the upper limit problem and why. Why it's challenging for us to push that up and have more success. It's an amazing book. And the third is Tapping into Wealth by Margaret lynch. And it's about, it's called an Emotional Freedom Technique eft and you're literally tapping on meridian points on your face that are the same as acupuncturists tap into as well. And the book is about how to uncover and release trauma that you've had around money Goal trauma, debt trauma. It's unbelievable. I devoured the book and there are videos that she sends you to and you can watch her. I devoured the book in a weekend and I learned so much about, you know, I've, I've had a lot of debt. I'm very transparent about that. When I left the corporate world and became a therapist and a coach, I did things and we're going to talk about money. Even more behaviors I did. I made a lot of big mistakes, lost a lot of money and I'm paying all that debt back. So I'm really proud of myself. But there's something called debt trauma that when you're in a lot of debt, there's shame and there's vulnerability and there's insecurity. It's an amazing book. So what I'd love you to do is do your best to uncover what your mindset is about money. If you do not do that and if you do not shift your beliefs, your relationship with it, you're never gonna have enough. You're never gonna feel like you have enough. I have people in my life who have a million in the bank and they still don't feel like it's enough because they come from a scarcity mentality. They're scared to death. Well, if a million isn't enough, 5 million won't be enough, I'm sure. So this is so important. Understand your internal set points around money because if you don't, you going to struggle now. It's not enough to just do that now. You have to take action that's aligned and empowered with your new mindset and your new wealth programming. And this is where I see people go so awry. So what do we have to do? Let's take two different scenarios. If you're in the corporate world, and if you're an entrepreneur or a consultant or you're working on your own or a coach. So in the corporate world, I can't tell you how many people don't know how to talk about themselves in highlighting their gifts and their talents and their contributions. And if you can't do that, you're going to cripple your ability to make more money. You're going to have a hard time when you interview and you ask for what you deserve. I mean, there's so much written about this. I think even Sheryl Sandberg in Lean in talked about when she got the offer at Facebook, she didn't even want to negotiate in her. Her. Was it her brother? I think her brother said what? Let me tell you something. You never take the salary that you're given. You always negotiate. And he helped her be stronger about that. Women in general have an incredibly hard time advocating and negotiating for themselves. They're not comfortable with it. We're not trained to do it, and we don't know how to speak powerfully about ourselves and build a case for it. Money's not just going to flop from the sky. It's not. You have to meet the universe halfway. So part of that is understanding what your gifts and talents are. Look at your job today. What are the contributions you've been making? Write them out with metrics. Write the facts of what you've contributed. And this is what I talk about in my TEDx talk. The 20 facts of you. What you have done that no one else did. The needles that you've moved, the contributions you've made, the new businesses that you've turned around, the clients that you've gotten in. And then write these down with metrics that show the scope. If you brought in a client, was it worth a million dollars? Tell us that. Right. Did you revitalize a fading business which then generated 30 million? What are you doing and how are you doing it? And then start talking about it. Now, here's the problem. Women in particular are deathly afraid of sounding like braggarts and being forceful. And in my TED Talk, I talk about exactly why that is. This is not something we made up. There are cultural and societal influences that make this be. But you got to get over this. You have to understand that sharing about how you're gifted and what you're doing and the exciting work that you're doing is not bragging it's sharing. So number one around money, you got to ask for it. And if you ask for it, like let's say in your. And don't wait for your annual review, go in and talk to your boss and say, you know, I've done a really thorough review of where I am, salary wise. I've done a competitive review of what people who are project managers or whatever you are, director, finance director, make. And it appears to me that I'm about 15 to 20% below the average. And I just wanted to share with you, these are the things I've done and the needles that have been moved and the money that's been made or the impact. And I feel that all of these contributions warrant that I get a raise of 20%. If you do that and you do it with confidence and you've practiced it and you've, you know, worked with a, you've role modeled it and what's the word I'm going for? You've practiced with another person and you've practiced with them, giving you some pushback. If you're really confident inside that that's what you deserve, I promise you pathways will be created. If your boss says, sorry, no, go find out why. Why is that? I mean, sometimes there's a lot of reasons, like if I give you a promotion, you'll be too close to what I make. But at least you'll know and you will have asked. Maybe you'll get on a pathway, maybe he or she will say, you know what, that's possible, but not now. It's possible in three months. Let's revisit it. Don't just walk away and say, okay, okay, what has to happen for that to be accomplished? If they shut you down and you really believe you're worth 20% more, then you need to start interviewing. And frankly, everyone needs to interview every three to four months. You should be bringing yourself to market so that you know what you are worth. Okay, so that's the corporate world. Let's talk about the entrepreneurial world, consulting, coaching. I can't tell you how many people, even illustrious best selling authors, don't know how to get what they deserve. I have a friend who's an incredible author and she's still not making good money as a speaker. And we talked about it. Part of it is she doesn't know how to ask and she's not sure she's worth what she's asking. If you're not sure you're worth 10,000, 5,000, 20,000, you're not going to get it. Because the energy of what you're sharing is doubt, it's weak energy. If you believe, however, you're worth 20,000, and that's, you know, we don't just pick those numbers out, out of the sky. You look at what other people are making and what you're contributing in the field and your thought leadership. But if you really believe it, you got to hold fast. And I found that with people who sell packages and programs and services, like coaches or consultants, when we raise our fees, it's like there's a vacuum. It's like the air in the universe is sucked out for a little while. All of a sudden things will disappear. Your clients will disappear because they're used to paying you $100 and now you're asking for 200 an hour. Things will shift. You got to be tough and hang through that period. It's not going to be a seamless transition. I have found every time I've raised my prices, things disappear and shift and shuffle and then you're attracting the higher level. It takes time and it takes courage. It takes you braving up. So for people who are offering services and packages and are trying to figure out what to charge, do a competitive analysis. Look at how long, you know, let's say you're a career Coach. Look at 20 other career coaches. What are they charging? Why are they charging it? What supports and validates why they're charging it. I mean, some people, you, you can't believe what they're charging because there's no validation for it in the marketplace anyway. You know, let's say the person has a best selling book and a TED talk that has 20 million views. Well, that person can command huge fees when they speak and huge fees to work one on one. So do a competitive analysis. Put your stake in the ground about what you think you're worth. Then you have to ask for it. So another piece around money that I'm going to leave you with is looking at the time boundaries. If you do not have well developed boundaries, you're going to struggle with money. You're going to struggle with it all your life. So what do I mean by that? A lot of coaches tell me, for instance, my friends are asking for help for free. I don't know what to say. You got to know what to say. So think about it. What's your time worth? If you give this friend an hour for free, what does it say about the worthiness of your time? You know, I want to give an example, however, about this. When I launched my Business, Elliott Communications. And it started to grow, and I started to hear. And, you know, I have four blogs, so I hear from a lot of people. What became apparent to me is there are a lot of people that can't afford any kind of coaching or my programs. So I made a conscious decision. Do I only want to work with people that have money to work with me? Affluent people or people that have discretionary income? Do I only want to help that population? And the answer is no. I want to help everybody who comes to my website. Everybody. So I made the decision that. That I was going to create as many free resources that would move people forward as I could. And that's videos, and that's, you know, six different quizzes and assessments. There's my career path assessment, which is free. 11 pages of questions I wish someone had asked me, and if I had answered them, I wouldn't have made the mistakes I made. That's, you know, sign up for my newsletter. You'll get that. Fill it out. You know, posts and ebooks and guidebooks and LinkedIn profile guidebooks. Everything I can create for free for people who cannot afford to work with me or take my programs. And that was a commitment that I made to myself. So when people want to work with me, they understand that it's at this level and this price. But here's a lot of other things. If that price is out of range or out of budget, you have to figure out, how do you want to deal with people who say, well, I don't have the money to work with you. You know, a lot of people in the helping professions cave when this happens because they believe they've gone into it to help people and it kills them that, you know, they're there at $200 an hour or 150, and some people can't be helped. You're going to have to figure this out. You cannot give your whole precious private time away for free and scale a business. So think about that and create your boundaries. You know, in the beginning, I then said, I'm going to give friends a 20% discount. Now, that isn't a standing rule. I only do that in certain very few circumstances because I don't have a lot of. I don't have a lot of private time to coach because of my other commitments. And I'm good with that. So think about your boundaries. If you have trouble saying what you're worth, if you're constantly discounting it, if you're constantly giving your time away for free, that's the message you're giving to the universe that my time is not worth money. All right. I hope those strategies are helpful, really. It's about the internal shift and then the external behaviors that are aligned with an empowered, respectful, loving relationship with money. If you don't respect it, if you resent it, if you hate it, if it never feels like money is good to you, you're going to have to shift that if you want more money. All right, anybody have any questions? All right, number two, time. So many people and I work with, you know, a predominance of women. So many women say, I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to have the career, either the corporate career or launch my business the way I want to and be the mother I want to, or caregive my elderly parents. I don't know how to do it. I. I met someone recently who said at my TEDx talk. Actually, you know, I'm. I'm involved in four different boards, three different volunteer positions. I run a business. Yeah. How's that going for you? I'm exhausted and drained, and I can't even get out of bed. Yeah. So let's talk about time. I want more time. Here's how you get it. The first thing, I think of it in two ways, the present and the future. Let's start with the future. It's really important regarding time that you figure out when you're 90, looking back, when you're 60, looking back. And I tell you, it goes very fast. I'm 56. I can't believe how fast it goes. What do I want to make sure I haven't blown? What do I want to make sure I've done right or I'll have deep regrets? So I want to say this. Right is your definition. It's not my definition. It's not your mother's definition or your father's or your boss's. It's your definition. So I want to give you an example of this. I rose to the level of VP in corporate life. There were chances I could have gone higher in other companies, other positions. And my kids were little then. They're 19 and 22 now. I made a conscious decision that I did not want to travel constantly, that I didn't want to move across country while my family was another place, that I didn't want to phone in bedtime stories. Now I'm not judging anyone. Everyone has the right and the freedom to choose the way they want to craft their life. I did not want to do that. I wanted to be in the fabric of their life. And there was quite a period of time where I wasn't. I'd leave at 7 in the morning, I'd come home at 7 or 8 at night. And I was so drained and so exhausted and chronically ill. You know, I didn't know these lessons then. It was a mess. And you know, I would muster all the courage, not courage, energy to be with them and put them to bed and bathe them and then I'd collapse on the couch and I couldn't even function. This is not living. This is not what I wanted. But I didn't have the courage. Then I finally braved up and my own business is exactly the way I want it. I structure it. You know, I talked in the Forbes Post that in this last corporate job I would come in and my entire, you know, in the morning and my entire day was scheduled by someone else with meetings that I had no say in. I hated that. I so hated that. Quality of life for me is not when someone schedules my time, it's when I schedule my time because I'm focused on what matters to me. So I want you to think about time in terms of if I'm 60, looking back and I've blown it, how will I feel? So for me, that was I'm going to be in the fabric of my kids lives and I'm going to make decisions that are going to honor that and they're going to be tough decisions. I'm going to say no to a promotion. I'm going to say no to those trips, those travel meetings that were boondoggles that didn't need to be taken or someone else could go in my place. I was going to say no and I was going to deal with the consequences. I'm asking you to think about what matters most to you in your life that you don't want to blow and then start making decisions around time that honor those priorities. It's a matter of prioritization. So that's a future issue. The present issue is timing. So I'll have clients come to me and they're pregnant and they want to launch a business and they're like, I'm so tired I can't even get out of bed. Timing is everything. You're launching a life. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Love it. Timing is everything. And listen, when you're pregnant and when you're launching a life, that's an enormous endeavor. I'm not saying all women should stop everything they're doing. Not at all. I'm Saying, be kind to yourself. Understand that you're marshaling every resource, physical, emotional, spiritual, behavioral, to launch this life. That's probably not the time that you want to launch a business or even dramatically chuck out your career and change it. So timing is everything. The second thing is I know people who are in a chronically toxic situation and they're so fed up with it, and I know what this feels like, that they want to chuck literally everything. I'm an accountant, and I want to become a therapist. I'm a finance director, and I want to. Aw, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. You know, I'm a finance director. I want to run a bed and breakfast, but I'm 50 and I don't have any savings. Okay. We have to. We have to look at the timing of your decisions and your wishes and the other factors and influences that are going to make or break this. You know, if you. So there's so much to say. I believe in positive thinking, but positive thinking isn't a business strategy. It's not a business strategy. So if you're 50 and you have no savings and you've got two kids going into college and you want to stop being a finance director to run a bed and breakfast, it may not be the time to do that. So what do I say about this? Always do what you must to stay afloat, financially, emotionally, spiritually, but plant the seeds for your future self. So understand, is now the right time for this change? And if not, if I have to do a different kind of planning, if I have to actually get a certification for a year first, and then I have to fund that, then find a way to plant the seed so you feel like you're growing towards that better future, but you're not chucking everything with only a prayer. You know, I've done all this, and it doesn't work. The other piece about time is sometimes we overly attach to a particular dream or a specific outcome, and we don't understand that, how we are behaving, actually sabotaging that outcome, or that the timing isn't right. And you know in your heart the timing isn't right, but you're still hanging on to the belief, I'll make 100,000 as a coach or a therapist or a baker, I can do this. Sometimes we let fantasy dictate because we're so unhappy. So what you want to do is start making yourself happier in the position you're in now. You use your time now. If you can't leap, if you can't Change if you can't pivot, if you can't reinvent. Use your time now to shift yourself so that there's more joy and happiness in what you're doing now and plant the seeds for your future self. So that's what I'd say about time. The third thing is exciting work. Okay, I'm going to give you two tips. I see this in my amazing career project course. A lot people are, as I said, ready to chuck. You know, I'm a lawyer. I'm ready to just give it up and go work in a non profit or you know, so many people when they are unhappy and it's about a toxic boss or a toxic culture or they're bored out of their mind, don't understand that what's important to do is to leverage what you're great at, that you love to use. That's how you find exciting work. Don't chuck everything out. Maybe there's 10% of your being a lawyer or a paralegal or a finance manager or you know, even running your business where you're not making enough money. And some people like, I'm done with it, I'm chucking the whole thing. No, look at what is working. Look at the 10%, the 20%, the skills that you love to use, not the skills that you hate to use. That's what makes people so miserable. Look at the skills and talents you love to use and don't chuck those. Bring those forward. And here's the other thing to think about. You know, when you go into work every day or I work from here, this is my home office. Not everything I do do, I absolutely adore. But the reason I love it in total is that I'm working for outcomes that I care about. So, you know, I do a lot of marketing. I was a marketing VP in the corporate world. I do a lot of marketing. But I enjoy the marketing because the marketing is letting me share my messages and my programs and services which I wholeheartedly believe in in the past. Many things that I, that I was working on, many things I. What? How do you say that? Many projects I was supporting I didn't believe in. I didn't think there was contributive value. In fact, I didn't think people should spend their money on it. Well, how can you market something when you don't really believe in the outcome of it? So look at the skills and talents you love to use and then identify outcomes you will care about that will enliven you and juice you up and then start to find opportunities. Tell everybody, you know, hey, you know, I'm a paralegal and I work in this area, but what really enlivens me is this. This. Do you know anyone who would be helpful to talk to or. I'm a lawyer and, you know, right now I'm focusing on maritime law, but really the passion is blip, blip, blip. And I'm so excited. If you know anyone who needs help with that or any volunteer causes that. That might be helpful for me to get involved with and start reaching out. Start reaching out on LinkedIn. Start taking. Find 10 people who are doing. Who are achieving the outcomes that you dream of achieving and talk to them. Take them out to lunch, ask them to talk about themselves. How did you get there? What's your trajectory? Exciting work for the vast majority of people is not a thousand steps away. They think it's, ugh, it's someone else's life. No, it's two steps away. It's identifying what is exciting for you and then claiming it. You can even find much more exciting work in the job that bores you silly today. Let's say you're not thrilled with your own department or division, but over there, they're doing something amazing. Go volunteer, talk to your boss, talk to that boss, talk to HR and say, you know, I would really love to get more involved in leadership development. And, you know, I'm studying, I'm taking one course on that. You know, is there a way I could possibly get more involved here in developing leaders? It's so much closer than you think. So how we doing on time? My clock is over there. Ooh, I'm over. Thank you. I hope this is helpful. I hope these are concrete strategies that are gonna let you start doing things differently. Shifting how you view money and how you feel about money. Right. And then building the boundaries to claim more money. Because you have to believe in yourself and love yourself and understand your worth in order for that to happen. I hope all of this will help. I want to leave you with some resources. Again, the TEDx talk is time to brave up. I'll put a link. It's in this page down below. You can see it, but you can just Google Caprino, tedx and you'll find it. Forbes blog, Career Bliss. I hope you will follow that and comment on it. And the amazing career project. So I want to tell you, as you know, if you follow me, I offer an online course twice a year, and there's usually 20 to 50 people in that course. And I meet with everybody once a week. It's amazing. There's group support. It's incredible. If that's if you want hands on help from me and group support. But some people want to understand the 16 essential steps to building a happier life and career without doing a group program. And my amazing Career project video series is perfect for that. It's the same 16 week content, but you do it privately. You do it, you know, you can watch it on any device and it's self paced. There's lifetime access to those videos. And so if you're a solo learner, if you enjoy doing it in the privacy of your own home without, you know, you don't need group interaction, you don't need my help or support. The amazing career project is for you. It's amazing. Careerproject.com okay, hope you'll check that out. Let me know what you think. Oh, thanks, Katherine. Thanks for being here. I so appreciate it. And is that Harry? I need my glasses. Harry shared my video. Aw. I really do appreciate it. I'm so grateful for your being here. I truly hope that these ideas move you forward. Truly you deserve everything in the world that you're longing for and 2017 is the time to get it. But we have to brave up to do do that. All right, my friends, thanks again and I'll see you next week. Bye.