In this episode I'm joined by Clare Capano to dive into the struggles of success without compromising yourself, your integrity, and your health, especially for working moms.
Using her Clarity Success Method, Clara, a beacon for all who juggle leadership roles, personal growth, and motherhood. She shares her insights on the pivotal role of mindset, leadership, and productivity in crafting a life that resonates with who you truly are.
Get ready to recalibrate your brain as we venture into the realm of neuroscience and the astonishing power of an abundant mindset. Discover how the reticular activating system can become your ally in sculpting the life you envision, with a nod to the cultural roots of mindfulness practices now backed by Western science.
Get in there and give it a listen for more.
Resources:
Manage Your Stress Mentorship
Discovery call
You can find more about Brain-Body Resilience and JPB:
On the BBR Website
On Instagram
On Facebook
Sign up for the BBR newsletter
In this episode I'm joined by Clare Capano to dive into the struggles of success without compromising yourself, your integrity, and your health, especially for working moms.
Using her Clarity Success Method, Clara, a beacon for all who juggle leadership roles, personal growth, and motherhood. She shares her insights on the pivotal role of mindset, leadership, and productivity in crafting a life that resonates with who you truly are.
Get ready to recalibrate your brain as we venture into the realm of neuroscience and the astonishing power of an abundant mindset. Discover how the reticular activating system can become your ally in sculpting the life you envision, with a nod to the cultural roots of mindfulness practices now backed by Western science.
Get in there and give it a listen for more.
Resources:
Manage Your Stress Mentorship
Discovery call
You can find more about Brain-Body Resilience and JPB:
On the BBR Website
On Instagram
On Facebook
Sign up for the BBR newsletter
Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the Brain Body Resilience Podcast. I am your host, jpv, and this is episode number 168. We did not have an episode last week because I took the week off to go to the beach with my husband for my birthday, which many of you reached out to wish me happy birthday and send your love, and I am so incredibly grateful for that. I had an incredible weekend. It was lovely, the sun was shining, we went to the beach and my heart was so full hearing from everyone and all of the the birthday wishes. I'm so grateful. So we're back, and today I have. Since it's not the first episode of the month, but it is the first episode we're doing for the month, I have a new guest.
Speaker 1:Today's guest is Clara Capano, who I'm going to read her bio here understands the difficulties working mom's face while building a business and raising a family. After years of living as an overachiever and facing disconnection, burnout and undue stress, she found a better way of building success without losing her sense of self or what was most important to her. Now she teaches mom pernures the clarity success method to help women everywhere make more money, become more present and create both a business and a life that they love. Now, I know not everyone that listens is a mom, not everyone that listens is an entrepreneur, but I think that there are some really fantastic little nuggets in here for everyone. So, without further ado, I am going to get into this month's guest episode. Enjoy what is up.
Speaker 1:Hello there, my name is Jessica Paching Bunch, you can call me JPB, and this is Brain Body Resilience. This is a podcast dedicated to growth, human development and stressing a little bit less, so you can go ahead and live a little bit more. Hello and welcome back to the Brain Body Resilience podcast. I'm your host, jpb, and today I have a very special guest with me. We're here with Clara Capano and I am really excited to get into this conversation. Clara, I'm going to have you dive in and introduce yourself. I know you have. We have a lot of questions we're going to go over, but I'm going to start with just what you do and why it's so important to you. Yes, well.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate what you're doing and you know together being able to impact lives is so powerful. So I am a professional speaker, best-selling author and trainer, and I always like to say that I bring clarity to complexity. What I do is I really help professional women in to simplify success and to let them know that they can create success all on their terms, and I focus on three main areas, which are mindset, leadership and productivity.
Speaker 1:I love it. So I have a couple of questions we're going to dive in here. I read in your kind of bio that we have here that you talk about a better way to build success without losing yourself, without losing a sense of self. What does that mean? What is the better way?
Speaker 2:So, you know, so many times we lose our identity. You know we are striving for this concept of work-life balance, and I just don't believe that that exists. And I think you can have momentary, you know, glimpses of this thing called balance, but what happens is we end up again losing our time. We lose our self, we lose our minds, as we're trying to, you know, do all of these things and what I find is that we can overcomplicate everything, and what I really help people do is and I created my own clarity success method that really, again, tries to simplify everything An example of this would be getting your vision together, because once you know your true vision, that becomes your compass and it's going to simplify how you make decisions, because all of your decisions need to be in alignment with your vision.
Speaker 2:So, starting with that, looking at time. You know time is one of the great equalizers. We all have the same amount of time, but we need to focus not on how we're spending but how we are investing our time. So one of the things I also do is I help them break down what is their real job description. You know, most of us, especially if we're entrepreneurs we haven't even written our job description, which is why we're doing 10 jobs instead of the one job that we hired ourselves to do. So it's just again really getting granular and being very intentional in the way that we show up every day. So we're doing the right things, because when you have the clarity in front of you, it allows the strategies to work much more simply.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love everything you said there. This is amazing. I think that's such an important piece Across the board. Clarity is something that I think we overlook, and it can be a hard process to get there, and sometimes it takes some help from the outside to be able to sift through some of that. Can you talk about success? I would like to know. What does that mean to you? What does success mean to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is something I ask a lot of the people that I meet with too, and this is the beauty of what I love to do is reminding people and also teaching people that your definition of success is yours and that you don't have to live by somebody else's definition.
Speaker 2:So, for me, I've had to change my definition of success over time. When I was younger, it was all about checking off the boxes, you know, getting the right job, the right title, the money in the bank account, the car, all of those things. Well, what I've learned now, and where I sit now in my 50s, is I've redefined it and it's all about impact. And one of the things that I do is I actually ask myself three questions at the end of each day, and that helps me to know if it was a successful day. So, at the end of the day, I ask did I show love today, did I inspire today and did I contribute positively to the world today? Because those are the things that, if I do, those that's what success really means to me. And again, am I leaving the impact and really helping to change lives?
Speaker 1:So in your work is that you said that's a question that you ask the people you work with. Do you help them to find their own questions? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think a lot of it comes back to that vision. You know, when I work with people, one of the first things that we do is get that clarity of their vision. What is their why, you know? What is it that they are truly showing up to do? What's that fire in their belly? Because we have to be able to connect with that.
Speaker 2:And I'll just give an example from my own life. You know my son, who's now 18, when he was two years old, I became a single mom. Well, obviously he is my biggest priority and that was a big part of my why. But I wasn't showing up for that, I wasn't present. When I was with him, I, you know, was everything, was, you know, like the hamster on the wheel, and I had to get really clear that I wasn't living in alignment, because I can't sit here and say that this relationship with my son is the most important relationship when I was treating it as a third, fourth or fifth year relationship. So I think, again, when you start to get clear on what really is most important to you, what are your values and, again, what your vision is, that's how you start to define what success is really going to look like for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that and I love that. You you mentioned you threw values in there. I think that's such a hard thing for some people to kind of sift out for themselves and understand what are my values. The difference between what my values are and what I value can be really difficult for people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it can be. I remember I went through an exercise. One of my mentors took me through an exercise and he was kind of like a guided meditation and he said you know you're going on a trip and you know your values are in your bag, and then, oh, you're halfway over the ocean and the pilot says you have to drop some of your baggage. Which ones would you drop? And the whole thing was going from, say, 20 or 25 values that I had written down, to 15 to 10, you know, to getting to those top five things that are most important.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also important to know that your, your values, your your why, can be progressive, meaning it can change over time, and it will change over time as you evolve. You know, when I was in my 20s, before I was a mom, it was about making money and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but now it's more about legacy. So I think that's something, an exercise that we have to go through at the different chapters of our life, because your why will change and it's perfectly fine for it to change.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that so much, just the idea that your values aren't written in stone. It's not something concrete, it is an evolution, as we are, as life changes, as we evolve and grow. I think that's a really important, important point for people to to understand. I think it can be really hard for for folks a lot of folks that I work with trying to get there and then trying to hold on and and feeling like if they, if they waver, if they kind of make those changes or they something is not serving them anymore, then they have made a mistake or they aren't able to hold on to it. So I think just that piece of of reminding folks that we're all, we're all in an evolution, we are all constantly changing and we get to choose the pieces that serve us.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I love how we position that of it no longer serves you, and that's what you have to do is do that reflection on yourself Because, again, the things that serve you in your 20s may or may not serve you in your 30s, 40s and so on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. So I'm trying to decide where to go here. I would like to back up to your your beginning. What brought you into this work?
Speaker 2:It was sort of a big circle. I I don't know how to put my finger on it, but when I was young I knew this is what I wanted to do. There was just something in me that knew I wanted to be out there, but I didn't want to be an actress or something like that. But I just I always had this feeling that I was meant for something big. When I was in my teens I went through about of anorexia and I remember sitting in the doctor's offices and you know, being 13 years old and having all of the doctors and nurses basically talk over me and I had this moment of I really want to help people do a better job communicating, because there is such a disconnect between everything. And then I went on my merry way and when I went to college I was like this this sounds interesting. Well, it did exist. It existed under the umbrella of what was called industrial psychology. Now we call it organizational development. But I didn't know that. And so when I started telling people I think this is kind of what I want to do, it was you're not going to make any money doing that. You know. Just that's a therapist and you know all these things. And so I listened to everybody, unfortunately, and I went more of a safe route. I thought I was going to do something more traditional, like be a lawyer or something like that, something that was going to give me security and make everything all better, and so I went on that path.
Speaker 2:I ended up not going to law school. I actually fell into the field of real estate, and that really is what started to show me the power of entrepreneurship and the power of writing your own ticket and, you know, because I learned that there really isn't a lot of job security and I'll actually bet on myself all day long. And so, after doing that, I started again growing. Both of my parents are in education, so it also must have trickled down through me, and so I love to teach.
Speaker 2:And so, as I moved into leadership positions in the realm of real estate, I started then doing more teaching and coaching and speaking at conferences, and I found that that's what I love, and so I started really working on that. And then, in 2004, I got my first certification as a coach. I did go and get my masters in 2011 under organizational development, and I just sort of started growing it. And then, I would say, during COVID, when I was gifted with about a six month hiatus from being on the road. That really gave me the time to lean in to my brand and really take it to the next level, and that's when I launched my shows, I launched my third book came together and I just really started doing more of the speaking, especially around areas of, you know, burnout, the mindset of a CEO and helping women you know own their own inner lioness and learn how to, you know, take that inner power they have and start to roar out loud.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you so much for sharing that and that last bit of of we as women I think, are, I don't think we are socialized to to shrink and to hide ourselves and not stand proud in our strengths and and achieve as much as we can, and that, I think, is such an important piece. You mentioned mindset, so how much of an impact does someone's initial mindset have on their success going forward?
Speaker 2:It's everything.
Speaker 2:Your mindset is the key to your success or your failure, and the reason it's everything is because it is the only thing you can control.
Speaker 2:We cannot control the economy, I can't control my clients, I cannot control anything other than the mindset that I choose to wake up with each and every day. And when you understand that and you take that power, that internal power, and choose to go into the day with more of an abundant mindset versus a scarcity one, it's going to change the lens in which you see the world. And the truth is is that starts to also from a scientific perspective. It starts to rewire your brain and there's tons of science around it. So for the people out there that are like, oh, there's woo, woo mindset stuff, there is scientific backing behind it showing that when you choose that, you know people like Sean Acor who wrote the happiness advantage you know scientific proof that when you're in a state of more positivity, you perform 37% better. You know the reticular activating system that, filtering your brain, starts to connect you with the other items that are out there. So it's not just a mental thing, it's a scientifically proven fact.
Speaker 1:You are speaking my language here. We I work in neuro psychology and neuro imaging research and this is what my message is to my people all of the time. So I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I think that it is dismissed. There's and there's a lot of really poor information out there about mindset and it's just. I think it's kind of a buzzword that gets overused and misunderstood a lot and it is everything and and I think having that understanding of it's not just a buzzword it is how you are creating the patterns in your brain, in your body, how you your your entire perspective right and you do have agency. You have the ability to choose some of that, and that, that piece, I think, is the most important.
Speaker 2:It is and, in all honesty, this was something that I was not born with. You know, I always refer to myself as a realist because, you know, that's what us pessimists call ourselves when we don't want to be pessimistic, very cynical. And I remember when I was first, you know, introduced to this concept, it was like, oh my God, all this woo, woo, are we going to be sitting around chanting around the drum circle? So I really was one of the naysayers.
Speaker 2:But as I started my consulting field, one of the things that I do is I love to study the patterns of successful people, and one of the things I started noticing is all of them were talking about mindset, all of them were doing meditation, all of them were doing visualization. So I had to start thinking Okay, well, if all the people that I admire, maybe there's something more to this. And that's when I started to lean into the science side of it, because that was going to be the proof that I need it. Now I can see it, and it's been amazing to see not just my transformation, but people who knew me before all of this. When I see them, one of the first things they say is something's different about you. You know, I never used to have people say, oh, I'm so attracted to your energy. But that's what I hear now and it's powerful, powerful and if you just allow yourself to be more open to it, you will start to see how it's a chain reaction in everything that connects with you.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I do want to note something in there that I think is is a frequent misconception or idea that that some of these things the meditation, the mindfulness, the visualization are just kind of esoteric, kind of woo woo practices. These things have been around for thousands of years in cultures outside of the Western lens and I think it's fantastic that we have the advanced technology to be able to have neuroimaging research to show what's the functional changes in the brain so that we can have that tangible evidence. But that is just our Western understanding of these principles that have existed for again thousands of years and things. You know, all of these practices have worked all of this time. We just didn't know about it or accept it because it didn't have that stamp of approval from science Exactly. And I think that that is always really fascinating to me that we are continually learning more about this and it's and it's not new, and I love that, that it has a foundation that is so old and proven. It is again for thousands of years Exactly, which just?
Speaker 2:the only thing you can control. So you know. Look at the results you're having. Well, you can control them.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I know you work with moms, working moms and I am so happy you're here, because I am not a mom and I know that my experience just doesn't translate, because I just don't know what that is to be working and have a person that you were trying to shape and raise and care for and keep safe. And so how can working moms shift their mindset? I think that can be a really hard thing when you don't have that space to yourself, the time, the energy for yourself. So how do you work with working moms to become more purposeful and productive?
Speaker 2:So it is a process and I appreciate your acknowledgement of that. I think all of us, you know, go through our own challenges. I just speak to the working moms, since I went through that and, in all honesty, everything that I work with them on are things that I went through. There was a time I was not being a good mom and I remember those moments of ugly crying on the bathroom floor, feeling like I was failing at everything, and so I tried to again take those moments no-transcript of real challenges and say, okay, how can I change things? Because, again, we can only make the change if we want to do it. So it's things such as again getting clear on your vision, and I know we talked about this, but the truth is, when you get clear on your vision, you start making decisions, such as working with people who respect you and respect what you do. Before I did this, I had a team that I was working with and this was when my son was actually first born, and there was a lot of judgment of me having to leave the office early to go home. So, you know, I could care for this three week old child and, even though I was still accessible by the phone and email, you know, and after some time I left and I went to a different company and it was completely different because they also had a family first vision in their culture and everything. So again, it helps you to get clear on working with the right clients.
Speaker 2:Time you have to be honest and I think this is the number one area, mother or not, we are not honest about our time. We go into each week and it's like, okay, it's a work week. That doesn't mean it get clear. Do you have 15 hours or 50 hours? There is no right or wrong. It's what's the highest and best use for that. So you have to get clear on what are your hours of operation and you have to put those in Boundaries boundaries with your family, but also with your clients. You know putting deadlines into place. You know we treat people, how to treat us, and you know the last thing I wanted is to have to be at a basketball game or a lacrosse game and again on the phone negotiating, so but you have to put expectations in and let people know.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I would tell people is very simple you know I'm going to be unavailable or I'm going to be on an appointment from three to five. Please know you can leave me a voice message, I will be checking my voicemail. They don't need to know that my appointment is a lacrosse game. It's none of their business, you know. So you have to be able to do those.
Speaker 2:And then the other thing is again, quality communication. I teach them how to communicate so people again know, not just with their clients but also with their inner circle. You know now, when my son was two, I couldn't do this. But as he got older, I could communicate my goals with him. I could communicate my schedule with him and say, okay, I'm going to be unavailable for the next 30 minutes. Is there anything you need from me before I go into my bubble so you can start to work with these?
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I really notice is especially your close circle. They can forgive a lot of the small missteps when you're there, when you tell them you'll be there. So if you tell them we're going to have dinner together, you better be there phone free, be there and be present, because it's not about being there for everything, it's about being truly present for the right things. So those are some of the things that I really work with them on and, again, it's not one size fits all. So I don't have this hand. Okay, we're going to just do step one, step two and step three, because everybody's dynamics are different, and so I take them and, even though we work sort of the the framework, it's let's come up with your vision, let's come up with your optimal schedule. You know who are the players in your circle and how are we going to talk with them. So it's very personalized because, again, one size doesn't fit all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Our individual experiences shape how we function, the way that we understand the world around us. Exactly Something that stood out to me there the idea that you know you schedule an appointment. You don't have to say that it's a little cross game or whatever it is. I love that. And the boundary of I'm going to be busy for 30 minutes Do you need something before that? I see a lot of guilt with the moms who I know personally or that I work with, one saying I have this appointment and feeling like it's not work related. So it's kind of like oh, do I, I don't know, kind of wavering on whether it's a hard boundary because they don't feel like they can put that time out there, that it's. They don't feel like their time is their own.
Speaker 1:And then with the boundary with their kids, feeling guilty then about spending that time for themselves or not with their children, and I really appreciate that. I appreciate hearing that just because I know moms deal with so much shame and so much guilt about everything.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what it is. And again, I'm, you know, born, born and raised Catholic. So you know, guilt's in my blood and you know, going back to one of the things that you said earlier, I learned and this is something that I made peace with guilt doesn't serve me. You know, I'm a good person. I'm not perfect, but I'm a good person and I'm a great mom. That doesn't mean I don't make mistakes. So we have to learn to be kinder to ourselves and also put some checks and balances in. So a lot of times, when opportunities come to me, I ask myself, you know, does this make good business sense? Does this move me toward my vision or away from my vision? So, again, you can start to put those in and just knowing you're always going to upset someone. So, at the end of the day, you have to do what is going to be best for you and what you hold important.
Speaker 2:Have I missed things? Absolutely I've missed things. You know, as a speaker, I'm on the road 30, 35 weeks of the year. I've missed things. But I have to pick and choose. And this is where, again, the communication you know talking with my son of saying I'm not going to be able to be there for this game because I'm going to be on the road, but this is what I can do, so again you have to. It's all about. You know the give and take and the trade offs and you have to let go of it trying to be perfect. You have to let go of trying to do it all, because you never will. But when you make the right decisions and you can do that, 90% of the time you're doing awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:When I wrote my last book is, you know, part of in my title, is, you know, helping women get rid of the guilt? And I remember sitting down with my son, who was 16 at the time, and asking him All right, so what makes a good mom? What you know, how do you define a good mom? And I was so surprised when he came back and said things Somebody that listens to me, somebody that supports me with my dreams. It was not someone that's at every basketball game. It was not someone that has dinner on the table, not all these things that we are killing ourselves to do. Those are not the things that truly matter. What matters is that you're there for them when you need to be there for them and that you're teaching them to be whole human beings as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, that that part. I have a friend and colleague of mine who who says, you know, we all just want to be seen, heard and known, and you know, what you said there just reminded me so much of that. The important things aren't the little things that we're killing ourselves for and worrying about and thinking about after the fact and yes, so I was. My next question was how can working moms start to release some of that guilt and societal pressure? Yep, and I. You gave us some great examples there. Do you have any other kind of you know? You know.
Speaker 2:Well, part of it is also just, I think, time and age.
Speaker 2:You know as you do get older and more mature, you do start to let go and I think you know that's one of the lessons that I would really have people live with. The only one who knows what's best is you. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if your family, your friends there are always going to be people who think that what you're doing is wrong. You have to listen to it. I was listening to Henry Winkler. His biography just came out and I was listening to it on one of my drives and I loved one of the things that he said. When it comes to making decisions, he says your head knows some things, but your tummy knows everything. Trust your gut If you truly believe that this is what's best. I've talked with women who, again, their husband stays home and they get flack for that, but that's what works for their family, you know. And again it's with those tradeoffs. So you have to really believe in what you're doing and you have to shut out the naysayers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, you know there's. You can't please everyone and there are always going to be naysayers about doing things one way or another.
Speaker 2:And I get a lot of flak from my ex-husband and my ex-husband's great. We have a really good relationship, but I would get a lot of flak being on the road and oh, how I'm abandoning my son and how. And so I would, you know, talk to Nicholas and be like so what? Maybe like no, I'm totally fine. So, again, communicate, because sometimes the image that other people is what they're portraying but it's not reality.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that communication piece is so incredibly important, both with how we communicate with ourselves and our own needs and with others and building relationships, and I think that that is something that we are lacking just the understanding of how to communicate, the skills that can be built. I think there is an idea that, with so many things, I'm good at this or I'm not, I have this inherently or I don't, and most things are skills that we can learn, and so I really appreciate, appreciate your your take on that. You mentioned that you do have three books. Would you like to tell us a little bit more about that and what your intention for those are?
Speaker 2:So my first book I came out in 2017 and it's called Find your Focus 52 Weeks of Polarity, which I that's my brand is again the Clarity brand, and this was sort of my first book and my introduction to to helping people again have a deeper mindset and to know that they can take more control over their time, their energy and their focus. So the idea is you use this book over the course of a year and you read the entry, which is sort of a little blog entry, but then it's followed up with the journal of how you're going to implement that into your week, so that each week has an intention of going forward and helping you with your focus. The second book is called Women who Boss Up. This was a collaboration. I did this during COVID in 2020. So it's me and 15 other women just sort of sharing our stories again have how we bossed up, and that was a lot of fun and I've done some great collaboration with that.
Speaker 2:And then my third book is the one that just came out recently and it's the mother of all success manuals and it's how to control your time, lose the guilt and find work life harmony, and this is my guidebook for the mompreneur. So this is again my story, my trades. It has three sections mindset, skill set, actions and it breaks down all of these things that we've been talking about so that it really is a guidebook. I didn't just want it to be a book. And people asked me oh, do a workbook with it. And I'm like working women don't have time to do this and then go over here. So I sort of put the workbook in the book. So after each chapter there's working activities and action steps that they can start talking about what they took away, how they can implement it so that they're really working strategies along with it. So it's not just a read, it's a very strategic, you know book to be able to give them the tools and the you know, the mindset, the thought process and, again, all the strategies that they need in their toolbox.
Speaker 2:And one of the things I'm really proud of is two of my books are bestsellers, which is fantastic. But also with all my book sales I always give back. So for all of my books I always donate the proceeds to. This year I'm giving it to the fight against human trafficking. So I've been doing that for the last two years. So last year we were able to raise about $1,500 to go towards that, and so people know that when they, when they invest in themselves and buy a book, they're also investing in community as well.
Speaker 1:That's incredible and thank you for doing that. I think that's amazing. I really appreciate that you have the strategy in there and you have some of that work for people to do, because we know information is is amazing.
Speaker 1:It's not useful. Let's do something with it, absolutely. We are looking at the time. We're going to wrap this up. Thank you so much for being here. I have learned a lot and I'm grateful that you are out there doing the work that you are doing. How can people find you? How can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Thank you so much and I love what you're doing to spread these messages as well. The best thing to do is just to go to my website, which is just clarecapanocom. They can get access to not only the programs that I have. I actually just launched a membership which is called the lioness league and that is offering accessible and affordable training, masterclasses, networking. It's just $7 a month and they can become part of the lioness league. They can have links to watch all of my shows and all that fun stuff. So just go to my website.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Thank you so much for being here, Clara. I will put all of your information in the show notes and we will talk later. I love this. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. You know that I don't take your time and attention for granted. I wish you a beautiful week ahead. We will do this again. Until then, Clara and JPB out.