189: Listener Favorite Summer Pick: 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Leaving Corporate and Launching My Business

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

This August, I’m delighted to bring you several of our top "listener favorites" episodes from the past year of shows. Today’s solo episode originally aired on June 27th, 2019. Hope you enjoy them!

“I know it’s scary to make the move from corporate life into your own business and you feel like you don’t know enough, but I’m going to ask you to really listen to yourself. You know a heck of a lot more than you think you do.” - Kathy Caprino

Are you ready to finally leave your corporate career and start your own venture? Or perhaps you have launched your business already and are facing important new challenges that you wonder if you’re adequately prepared for.

In this episode, I discuss why so many small businesses fail and share my raw, real-life experiences around what I learned in transitioning from my 18-year corporate career to running my own coaching and consulting business, Kathy Caprino, LLC. You’ll hear about the biggest gaps in knowledge and experience that kept me from having a smoother transition, and I offer some essential information that I wish I had understood before making the leap.

The biggest surprise for me in running a business was that even though I had been in marketing for years and had risen to the level of Vice President overseeing numerous large-scale programs, initiatives and staff in my corporate life, I still was very far away from being fully prepared for entrepreneurial life, and for serving as a true leader in my own venture.

The key knowledge gaps I explore here include: 1) Unconscious tendencies and blocks around successfully managing and relating to money, 2) Not selecting the best partners and why we often continually fail at it, 3) Why we need to step up to being a true leader and making critical decisions rather than staying stuck as the “doer” or “manager,” 4) Why pivoting more quickly and flexibly is essential, and 5) Listening to your own instincts and intuition and making moves that align with your truest core values and visions rather than deferring to “gurus” who don’t necessarily know their stuff or have your best interests at heart.