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299: 5 Ways Your Lack of Confidence Is Hurting You, with Kathy Caprino

Finding Brave

Release Date: 01/09/2025

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Thank you for listening to our Finding Brave show, ranked in the Top 100 Apple Career Podcasts!

“You have a lot of knowledge and expertise, but if you continually doubt the strength of your opinions, or the importance of sharing your ideas, you are going to lose the ability to shape where your career is going.”Kathy Caprino 

Confidence is key as you step into being the most powerful version of you, and this is something I feel compelled to talk about ​given my particular lens as a former corporate VP, therapist (focused on systems and communication), researcher, and now in coaching and training with thousands of executives and professionals across 6 continents.

Thousands of people struggle with confidence issues, from not feeling “good enough,” to being insecure about their skills and abilities and suffering from imposter syndrome to experiencing “perfectionistic overfunctioning” that negatively impacts our health, well-being, life satisfaction and quality of life.

From working with teams, I know, too, that both new and seasoned managers and high-potential folks at startups and other types of organizations often fear they don’t know nearly enough to do their jobs well, and their confidence is flagging.

This is why today I’m ingfocus on the 5 ways that your lack of confidence is hurting you, and what you can do - practically and strategically - to overcome this challenge and build your confidence and self-trust now so that it doesn’t impact your success and professional fulfillment in the future.

In this episode, I reference my recent Forbes blog post, 5 Ways Your Lack Of Confidence Is Apparent And Hurting You, which I encourage you to read. If you find the information helpful in identifying and overcoming a lack of confidence in yourself, I would be so happy if you would share the article and episode episode with your teams, colleagues and friends who could benefit.

 

Highlights from this Episode:

  • How questioning your own ideas is holding you back right now in so many different ways [6:16]
  • The importance of recognizing the environment you are in before sharing your ideas, and an example from my own career that highlights this [8:37]
  • How the 7 damaging power gaps impact your confidence, courage to grow and your self-respect and self-acceptance today [13:02]
  • What agonizing over your performance and how others think of you will interfere with what you need to do to experience more success and reward [14:22]
  • Some places where you can get outside help if you’re feeling as if you’re “blowing it” in the workplace, and how this will help you move forward in your career [16:27]
  • What to do the next time you find yourself being hypercritical of someone, plus what I’ve seen from my experience as a therapist that explains why this is happening [17:44]
  • An example from my own life as a parent when I truly learned that it’s not possible to be perfect, and nor should we strive to be [20:55]
  • Where jealousy and the feeling of being threatened by others’ success often stems from, and how to begin leaving these emotions behind so that you can move forward [24:23]
  • Action steps to take to help you determine what you are good at and how that matters [29:40]
  • What unshakable success requires and why so many of us don’t have it [34:02]

 

For More Information: 

Kathy’s Post, 5 Ways Your Lack Of Confidence Is Apparent And Hurting You

https://kathycaprino.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathycaprino

https://www.facebook.com/ElliaCommunications

https://twitter.com/kathycaprino

 

Resources Mentioned:

American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy

Kathy’s 6-Session Career Breakthrough Coaching Program & Career Path Self-Assessment

Kathy’s TEDx Talk, Time To Brave Up 

Kathy’s Forbes Interview with Bestselling Author Gretchen Rubin, How Bestselling Author Gretchen Rubin Uncovers Life-Changing Behaviors And Touches Millions

Kathy’s interview with Dr. Nate Zinsser, Developing a Confident Mind: Key Strategies for Experiencing Unshakable Success 

7 Signs Of Perfectionistic Overfunctioning – How To Recognize It In Yourself And Change It

 

Finding Brave interviews with Dr. Zinsser (Parts 1 and 2)

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OTHER KEY RESOURCES:

 

KATHY’S DIGITAL CAREER COACHING CLONE – ‘KATHY CAPRINO AI” – IS HERE!

 

I’m very excited to announce the release of my new Kathy Caprino AI career and leadership coaching clone! Here’s more about it! >> https://kathycaprino.com/kathyai.

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Drawing on my 40+ years of experience — from corporate life, therapy, and coaching, to writing and speaking across 6 continents — I’ve trained Kathy AI using over 2.5 million words of my content, including articles, books, podcasts, interviews, and workshops seen by over 41 million people.

My mission? To make Kathy Caprino AI your trusted resource for real-time career, leadership, and personal growth strategies. Get tailored answers to your toughest career challenges and practical solutions to achieve your top goals.

We offer two affordable pricing tiers, with Tier 2 unlocking great bonuses like membership to my new Career Breakthrough Community, including free coaching calls with me, exclusive discounts on my courses and programs,, free LinkedIn support, and so much more.

It also makes a fantastic gift for friends, family, or colleagues who want to thrive professionally!

Check it out and subscribe today at kathycaprino.com/kathyai. Let me know what you think — and I truly hope it becomes a game-changer for you!

And for other career support programs, visit my Career Help page.

 

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TAKE THE MOST POWERFUL YOU VIDEO TRAINING AND LIVE COURSE - TO EXPERIENCE A BREAKTHROUGH IN YOUR PROFESSIONAL GROWTH, CONFIDENCE AND IMPACT

I’m thrilled and honored that many top organizations including an international division of the United Nations, the Institute for Management Studies, Holland America, Structured Finance Association, S&P Global, Alumni Learning Consortium, and others have brought in The Most Powerful You training program and workshops as a leadership and professional growth tool for members of their staff, and I’m speaking with other global organizations right now to do the same!

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Check out what The Most Powerful You training offers - both the LIVE 8-week course for professional women and video training program for organizations and teams.

If you believe this training would be instrumental for you and your team, I hope you’ll reach out to me and also ask your leaders, DEI managers and HR team to bring this training program to your company. It’s truly transformational for work cultures and professionals everywhere, and it generates amazing positive business results as well.

Thank you so much and here’s to all of us becoming The Most Powerful We.

 

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Order Kathy’s book The Most Powerful You today

In Australia and New Zealand, click here to order, elsewhere outside North America, click here, and in the UK, click here.

If you enjoy the book, we’d so appreciate your giving the book a positive rating and review on Amazon! 

Kathy’s Power Gaps Survey, Support To Build Your LinkedIn Profile To Great Success & Other Free Resources

Kathy’s Amazing Career Project video training course & 6 Dominant Action Styles Quiz

 

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QUOTES FROM TODAY’S SHOW:
“Your lack of confidence is most likely apparent to those around you, and it is hurting you. It is keeping you from growing.” [6:05]

“Greater awareness equals greater choice, and it is really important to get to the bottom of what you need to be aware of now.” [17:38]

“Kind, loving, and generous people are usually the same way to themselves. They’re accepting and they’re forgiving of themselves.” [18:08]

“What consistently repeats is not random. We co-create, we co-sustain, and we attract behavior.” [19:17]

“Do something empowering when you feel jealous of others. Look at what it really means, and then do something concrete.” [29:30]

“If you don’t recognize what you are good at, then you can’t talk about what you are good at. If you can’t talk about it and share it and put it on LinkedIn, put it on your resume, discuss it in your interviews and talk to your boss about it, you are leaving so much success, money, reward and advancement on the table.” [30:15]

“It’s not bragging to talk about what you’re good at and the outcomes that you’ve created.” [31:33]

 

Watch video versions of my interviews on Finding Brave!

Don’t forget – you can experience each Finding Brave interview episode in both audio and video formats! Check out new and recent episodes on my Youtube channel at YouTube.com/kathycaprino. And please leave us a comment and a thumbs up if you like the show!

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