Saying No to the Wrong Six Figures: How Clarity Became Clara Capano’s Most Profitable Skill

This transcript has been generated using AI technology. There may be errors or discrepancies in the text. The opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the show or its hosts.

Susan Sly 00:00
Yeah. Well, Clara, you and I were chatting before coming into the show, and you said, clarity is the new currency, and I was on your show, and we were talking about everything from menopause to AI. And you know what happens when we are clear—living our best life and being out there to crush it—and then what happens when we aren't. And so just diving right in, Sister, where are you at right now in this iteration of your own life with clarity?

Clara Capano 00:37
Right? You know, I love that you're asking this question, because I think sometimes we don't acknowledge that we have different chapters, we have different versions of ourselves, and it's perfectly fine. You know, we can't be the same person we were when we were 13 or 25, or I'm not going to be the same person when I'm 75. And, you know, letting ourselves explore those and really embrace and celebrate them.
I will say—I probably have lost count—but I would say, best guess is I probably am on my seventh or eighth iteration. You know, we had the young Clara, the baby Clara, that was probably a little lost and confused. I'm the youngest of four, so I think, you know, always trying to find my place. And the first version of me found my place in academia. So my oldest sister was the artist. My brother is the party guy.

Clara Capano 01:30
The third one is the sweet one—Daddy's Little Girl, the cheerleader. And so for me, I was going to get recognition through academics and high performance, and that's what I did, you know? And so I dove into school, to all the AP classes, to doing those things. And you know, that served me for a long time—until it started not to serve me.
Because the problem is, when you try so hard to get yourself on the pedestal, it's really hard to stay on the pedestal. And you start learning that the whole destination of life is to knock you off your pedestal.
And so I think, you know, going through that, redefining myself after college—I thought that I would go and do a traditional thing, like become a lawyer—and I got into entrepreneurship. So redefining myself there and learning all the different things of doing that, becoming a mom, becoming a divorced single mom was a whole other iteration. Going into leadership. And now where I'm at is as a global speaker and trainer, finally feeling—

Clara Capano 02:32
—in my own skin, I shall say. I think it probably happened in my 40s, feeling unapologetic for who I am—not in a mean way, but going back to what I earlier said, of saying that was my path. And my past is a place of reference; it doesn't have to be a place of residency. And knowing that all of those things made me the beautifully imperfect person that I am now—and honoring myself for where I am today.

Susan Sly 03:02
Those iterations—it's funny. You mentioned seven or eight. I was talking to my oldest daughter, Avery, and she's 28, and you know—and she's like, "Mama, I feel like you're on Susan 8.0." And, you know, I was like, "Yeah." It's interesting she would say that.
And when we look at the average number of career transitions a woman has gone through by the time they're in their 50s, it's, you know, it's about right. One of my burning questions for you, Clara, is: did you ever know you needed to pivot—but you waited a really long time?

Clara Capano 03:37
Yes, and I did that out of fear. I think—I know—I always wanted to be a speaker. I remember being a young girl and knowing my place was on stage. I didn't want to be an actress or anything, but I knew I was on stage, and I knew it was all about delivering impact. However, I played small and I fed into the "Oh, it's going to be difficult," so I told myself that that was a dream that would never happen.
And so I think every time I went into a career, I was always trying to make it fit—and it just never would fit. I would try to get, you know, a promotion. I would go and get another degree, another certification, because I was constantly trying to find that missing piece.
When I finally let go—which was in my late 30s—and really leaned into the coaching, the consulting, the training, it was like, "Ah—this is where I was really meant to be." And learning how to do that.
But I think, you know, sometimes it's scary. And I look at my son now, who's 20, and I realize that things have changed. Society has changed the way things operate.
When I was in my 20s, the path was: you go to college, and then you get a job. Whereas now entrepreneurship is embraced. And I can see with my son—encouraging him and saying, "Yeah, you might need to go get a job to pay the bills, but let's build your dream. And there's no reason why you can't have it."
I'm trying to take the fear out of it as much as I can so he doesn't play small. And, you know, I think just understanding those things.
And I'm also really, really working on the surrendering mindset—the idea that life happens for us, not to us. So when things fall apart, when we have to pivot, understanding that I have to just trust the process and allow it to flow in the direction it needs to flow.

Susan Sly 05:30
And surrender—surrender is ultimately about faith, right? It's that, "Okay. I know that. I know that. I know."
There's always going to be that moment of literally taking that step. And I use the example of, you know, Peter getting out of the boat, right? And for anyone who grew up in Sunday school, they'll remember the story where Jesus is walking the water and he says, "Come walk with me," right?
And it's that stepping out of the boat in terror and going, "Okay, I'm going to step out in faith." And when we know we're going in that right direction, it's amazing how doors begin to open—the right people show up.
I want to go back to something you said—leaning in—because part of the show is also around tactics. Like, we have very vulnerable conversations on this show. And so many people have talked about everything from depression to going through divorce, cancer diagnoses, and losing everything you know—and building businesses right in spite of it.
When you leaned in, what were the very specific things you started doing?

Clara Capano 06:35
So—great question. I think some of the things were having to let go.
And when I talk about letting go, it's letting go of relationships that were not bringing joy to my life, that were not helping me to be the best version of myself. And that can be very hard and very scary.
Really focusing on living in alignment and listening to my gut and my intuition. Learning not to live by the paycheck, but to live by the value.
So—turning away opportunities. Because what I found is, as I was walking towards what I knew I wanted to do, all these people kept asking, "Hey, do you want to come work for us? Do you want this job?"
And it was really hard to turn down a six-figure income for my dream. And knowing that I had to stay the course and stay consistent.
Really shrinking my circle of trust—the people that I go to who help direct me. So rather than going and talking to a lot of people, it was maybe a circle of five. And those are the ones that I really trusted with my goals, with my dreams.
So when I went to them to workshop ideas, they were the ones that sort of kept me where I needed to go. And having that really helped.
One of the things I did—and I just did this 18 months ago—I moved. My son graduated, and I moved. I moved to a new city with really no friends, on my own—just me and the dog. And I did it because I just knew that's where I needed to be.
And where some people might say, "That's crazy. How do you do that?" I had to—just like you said—have that blind faith.
And I don't think you can do that... you know, we started off the conversation by talking about clarity as the new currency. It's that clarity—when you are clear on who it is you want to become—that becomes your checks and balances. Because then every opportunity is: is this going to move me towards that vision or away from my vision?
And you only lean into the ones that are going to move you towards that and help you build and support that clarity.

Susan Sly 08:39
What is your process for you personally? I mean, you coach, you speak—but what is your process for you in defining who you are in this iteration?

Clara Capano 08:51
You know, I really think about—and sometimes I like to model it. You know, I'll look at someone—say, Mel Robbins—and I love what she's doing. I love her style. I love her messages. I love how real she is. So I want to learn.
So what I always think is: start thinking of what are the goals that you have. Find people who are accomplishing those goals and learn from them.
You don't need to be exactly like them. I'm never going to be Mel Robbins, but I can be Mel Robbins–esque. And I can say, "Okay, what were the things that she did to get her show off the ground? To get on stage? To craft a TED Talk that really opened the doors for her to live in her authenticity—to not care what people think—because she's speaking her truth."
So a big thing for me has always been the idea that success leaves clues. I look at the people that are living the way that I define success—the people that I would emulate—and I learn, so that I can start to then piece that together so it's authentic to me.

Clara Capano 11:00
Sleeping—because when they're not sleeping, their brain is going in different directions. I think, you know, putting yourself on the back burner, losing money or losing business. For me, what I meant is my clients. I started losing clients because I was working with the wrong clients, and I wasn't showing up authentically.
Also, I think you have to pay attention. For me, my personal sign is avoidance. When I am out of alignment, when I am not doing well, I want to hide—meaning I want to crawl in bed and I want to pull those covers over my head and just avoid things.
So I think again, really listening to what are the excuses that we're telling ourselves. "Oh, everybody's doing this. I'm just like everybody else." But you know, more than anything, it's the intuition—you feel it. You feel the words coming out, and you're like, that doesn't sound right.
You look at yourself in the mirror and you don't recognize the reflection that's looking back at you. When you show up, you're not present. You are consistently looking for ways to get out of where you are.
All of those things are big signs. You're not finding joy. The things that used to bring you joy are not bringing you joy anymore. So those are some things to pay attention to.

Susan Sly 12:13
I hope this is resonating for our global audience, because I know some of y’all are just absolutely not living in integrity. And you're not clear.
And I'll just share—there's... I used to be an executive coach many years ago, and I have this girlfriend, and I coach her pro bono just to... because giving. And she was not in alignment. Not in alignment.
And I kept saying, "Sweetheart, if you don't get in alignment and yoga clear the universe—who I call God—is going to force it on you." And it happened. Her husband lost his job. She's now going through a separation. All these things are happening.
And she's like, "You're right." And I'm like, "There's only so much I can do. I can give you the wisdom, but if you're not going to actually execute and do it—which is hard..."
And Clara, let me ask you this. I mean, you talked about, you know, clients walking away because they weren't the right clients. You've taken many courageous leaps where you said, "I am not chasing dollars. I am chasing joy. I'm chasing fulfillment. I'm chasing value. I'm chasing what it is I want."
How did you personally say no to money at times and say yes to fulfillment?

Clara Capano 13:42
Yeah. And that's a really good question. And you know, this goes back to again—where are you?
I love money. I don't want anybody to think that money is bad. It's just—I had to redefine. Because for a long time, success for me—because I put myself in that quadrant of high performance—and my worth being on my title, my worth being on my bank account. And I got to a point where that was not serving me, and I didn’t like the person I was becoming.
So it started with—and I remember hearing, it was Maria Shriver—she wrote this down where she sat down and she redefined what success was for her.
So I did that exercise, and for me, I redefined it. And success for me boiled down to three things:
At the end of the day, did I show love?
Did I inspire someone today?
And did I impact the world positively?
So those are how I know success.
So when an opportunity comes up, I ask myself:
Is this going to be able to give me an opportunity to share love?
To spread joy and inspiration?
And to impact the world positively?
And I use that as my compass.
And then I really try to take the emotion and take the facts out of it. So for example, I was offered a speaking opportunity one time, and it was going to be a really good payday. And I sat down and I looked at it and I said, "Okay, let's lay this out factually before you agree to say yes."
Yes, it was going to be in a city that was not going to be easy for me to travel to. So I was going to have a layover, and then I would have to rent a car and drive. So it was easily a full day there, full day back, and then one day of speaking. So it was going to take me out of commission for three days.
Those happened to be three days that I shared custody with my son. So now I was going to have to be on the road and also give up time with my son.
When I looked at the audience, they really were not my target audience. So even though I would go and speak—and probably rock it on stage—it wasn't going to lead to residual opportunities, because they weren't my target audience.
So I had to ask myself:
Does this really make good business sense?
Is this going to deliver the inspiration and the impact in the right way?
Is it worth giving up time with my son?
And if I chose to stay, what else could I do with those three days to deliver impact and create my success?
And it just made better business sense for me to pass on that opportunity and to reinvest that time into the better things. And so I said no. I felt great about it, because I knew I was doing the right things.
And it just so happens that two days later, I got a call for something local, I wouldn’t have to travel, and it was the exact same payday.

Susan Sly 16:15
And there you go, right? And that’s the piece.
We know when we’re out of alignment—we’re “yes-a-holics,” saying yes to things only because... then we end up resenting them. They're not fueling us.
And I love that you shared that, Clara, because right now in my inbox, I have a lot of... you know, being, as you know, since I was on your show... being a woman in AI, and also, you know, in the Phoenix markets—like, "Can you be on this panel? Can you host this?" And they’re not paying me.
And I’m like, my time is valuable. I'm one of the top women in the world in AI. And it's like, yes, I want to serve my community, but I also want to value my time. And you simply can't do it all.

Clara Capano 17:05
No, no, you cannot do it all—because it never ends.

Susan Sly 17:07
Well, what about people saying—they’re like, "She’s a badass. She’s got this all together." Was there ever a time when you were a bit messy?

Clara Capano 17:14
Oh, yeah. And, you know, I think sometimes, again, greatness comes in the messy. And, you know, you have to really understand—because sometimes my messiness leads to my best creativity.
I will say my most messy time was when I was the most out of alignment. It was after my son was born. So I was probably between the ages of about 35 and 38, struggling with postpartum, working a job that was not bringing me joy, going through a divorce, and, you know, working on that—at the same time trying to recreate myself.
And it was real messy. I was not at my best. I damaged relationships. I damaged my health. And those were times—but if I hadn't gone through that period of breaking down, I never would have been able to rebuild into the person that I am today.
So you have to, again, realize that those things happen. And that’s where I say the surrender piece. Sometimes you have to let yourself go through it.
Now, messy sometimes still happens. So for me, I try to implement some things to minimize the mess—such as, every week before the week starts, I have a strategy session with myself as the CEO of Clara Capano Industries. And I sit down to lay my week out so I can be more intentional, so I can try to minimize the messiness—the distractions—before the week starts and think about where I want to go.
So being more regimented, being more scheduled, and understanding that a schedule brings me freedom—because I get to choose where my time goes and how it's invested.
And then using that definition of success as my checks and balances keeps me out of the messy. Because when I start to say yes and be that yes-a-holic—that’s when it gets messy. When I step out of my systems. When I start working out of alignment. When I start overcommitting to things that are not going to deliver impact—that’s when it starts to get...

Susan Sly 19:09
Messy. Yeah. And how often we do that—me too, right?
And it's the exact same thing. When I look at my schedule—when I look at my Google Calendar—and if it's full, and I just want to, you know... and I start to feel anxiety about it, I'm like, "Remember, you said yes to that," right?
And it's like looking in the mirror and going, calling yourself out on your stuff, and going, "Wait—that's nonsense."
And one of the things I’ve been doing, just because, you know, like you—there’s a link to be on the show, and then I’m a CEO of a company—and it’s like... so I deliberately go in and I mark out busy, busy, busy at these different times.
And I also—for me—I got away. I got crazily out of balance the beginning of this year. Moving back to Phoenix. Being a single mom. Renovating a house—all this stuff we were talking about before the show.
And I went, “Wait a minute—when I was making the most money, I had the most joy. I only worked six days a week. I did not work on the seventh day. I shut down my phone. Nothing was that important. My kids know how to reach me.”
And I went, Clara, I was like, “Oh my gosh. Like, you know what? What have I been doing?” And I was like the hamster on the hamster wheel.
Because, you know, we're doing our seed round for the company. We're growing our subscriber base. We're hiring people directly and doing all those things.
And I was like—I didn’t even recognize myself.
Yeah. And I—yeah, exactly.
And thank God this... you know, I picked up on it within 90 days, as opposed to going through a couple of years of it—and, you know, making myself sick.
I love that you said the checks and balances, right? Because in your coaching work, this is a big part of that. Like, let’s get clarity. Let’s keep you in alignment. Let’s help you get results.
There are times, though, when people listening are going to be, "Clara, but life is happening to me." And something big—like one of my girlfriends has stage three ovarian cancer. Another girlfriend—very senior level at a large company—she just got diagnosed with breast cancer, spread to both breasts.
And what advice do you give to men and women who suddenly have something like out of left field and go, “This wasn’t part of the plan?”

Clara Capano 21:41
Right? Yeah, and you know, you have to give yourself grace. And first and foremost, I'm so sorry to hear those about your friends. And you know, these things happen, and we have to give ourselves grace.
What I try to do is come back to: what can I do?
So, at the end of 2024, my father passed away. He went through, you know, a stage of dementia, and I moved to San Diego and moved in with my mom. I have, you know, other siblings that helped as well, but I really was the one at the house.
And so rather than doing things the same way that I always do, I broke it down and said, "What can I do?" And I created a plan about what I could do, which was really only two, maybe three hours a day.
And I went to my clients, and I just said, "Listen, this is what's happening. This is what I can do for you." And I showed up for those times. I communicated with my family, I communicated with my team, and I just had to be honest—this is what I could do.
And I think we have to give ourselves the grace. I think what happens is we sometimes live in scarcity: "I can't do those because I'm going to lose business." What I found is actually more opportunities came to me because people appreciated—they appreciated the honesty.
I had people coming out of the woodworks to support me. I had people saying, "Hey, do you need me to go to your house in Arizona, because you're not there anymore, and go water your plants for you?" You know, I mean... when you do the right things, the right people also appear in your life.
So I think you just have to really take that honesty pill. And going back to the checks and balances, a lot of times what I ask myself is: when something comes up, I ask myself, "If I choose to do this, what is it that I then have to say no to?"
Because I think again, you have to start looking at what is the right thing to say yes to and what to say no to. And if I'm going to say yes to this, am I not going to be able to be the person—the mom, the friend, the daughter—whatever it is that I want to be?
So I think giving yourself some grace and giving yourself the freedom to just be honest with what you can do—and knowing that it's just a season. It's just today. It is not your forever reality.

Susan Sly 23:49
Which is huge. And you and I both lost our dads last year. And the generation of—we have aging parents and children. And right now, you and I both have sons that are very close in age.
And we have a generation of young men—7 million, I believe—between the ages of 18 and 35 still living at home, still dependent. And the list goes on and on and on.
There has never been precedence for this time in our lives. Ever. Ever.
Which leads me to the next question: What is your process for setting goals for yourself?
Some people set them just at the beginning of the year. Some people—you have your process on Sundays, where you go into the week. But what is the process you use just to keep yourself like, "This is my goal" or "These are my goals, and this is how I keep myself accountable?"

Clara Capano 24:44
Absolutely. So I do an annual plan. This usually starts in November for me, and I put together a written plan. It's pretty robust, because it goes through again, you know:
What is my vision?
Who do I want to become?
What are my goals?
What are the activities that are going to get me there?
What does my schedule need to look like?
Who are my clients?
So I really work on getting that together.
Then what I do is I use that as my roadmap—just like if I were to jump in a car and drive from San Francisco to New York City. You've got to look at it more than one time.
So I do that. Then I break it down into 90-day segments. I say, "Okay, if this is my annual plan, for the first quarter what do I need to do? What does my schedule need to look like? What are the core activities?"
And what I do with my core activities is I usually bring it down to about eight core activities that I need to do consistently to deliver the results.
So I have my 90-day plan. When I sit down and do my weekly plan, it is based on my 90-day plan.
Every Sunday, I sit down and I say, "Okay, if these are my 90-day goals, what do I need to do this week? Are those eight activities time-blocked? Are they in my schedule?" Looking at those so I can stay connected with it.
Then at the end of the first quarter, I do about a three-hour half-day 90-day session. I take my annual plan, I look at the last 90 days, and I review:
What's worked?
How can I amplify that?
What isn’t working?
Why didn’t it work?
Then I set my next 90-day goals. I take it 90 days by 90 days, but my weeks are set up to deliver those results.
The reason I like to do it in 90 days is that it’s hard to get results under 90 days—because so much of what you do today, you’re not going to see the fruits of your labor for 90 days.
Also, I don't want to sit there in November and be like, "Oh, I wish I would have done this in January." I want to reassess it.
Going back to the analogy of the map and driving across country—there could be a thunderstorm, there could be road work, you might have to pivot, you might have to detour. I don't want to wait too long to do those things.
So I think really bringing it down, and it does need to be written. You want to have that and revisit it.
Then I do encourage people to get accountability—whether they hire a professional coach or even just get an accountability partner—someone they can check in with to say:
"This is what's getting accomplished."
"This is what’s not."
"This is what I need help with."
Somebody that's going to keep you from playing small and keep you from hiding and living in the excuses.

Susan Sly 27:18
Yeah, I love that. And written down.
And it's funny, because when I was—for all the listeners—when I was on Clara’s show, and I said to our producer after, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, Clara’s coming on the show,” because it’s like—we’re cut from the same cloth.
So I do a very robust written plan. It’s got images in it, all of it, and I’m reviewing it.
And I love what you said—you know, there could be a thunderstorm or whatever. Last year, on July 10, when my dad passed—being an only child—and I was talking to him on a Google Meet the day before, and he was telling me about chess club and, you know, swimming lessons, all the things he was doing.
And it rocked my world.
And I made a decision to essentially push away and delay and reassess—anything other than going to Canada, taking care of his estate, cleaning out things, all the things that one goes through.
And the wonderful thing about it on the other side, Clara, was I revisited my plan. And I went, "This year, I put a lot of things in that actually weren’t that important."
And it really forced me to pull back. I was in school—I was doing another program at MIT—and it was very rigorous. It was in the engineering school.
So I stopped doing my show, I stopped... other than just the very fundamentals, everything else.
And then I came back and I went, “Okay, what’s really important?”
And I think that forgiveness and that grace—but it’s also, you and I are very driven women.
Are you ever too hard on yourself, do you think?

Clara Capano 29:08
You know, it’s a blessing and a curse.
And I think as I get older—and I’ll say, as I mature on myself—I think I get kinder to myself. I try to work on that.
At the same time, it is what drives me. Because I want to be my best. I want to give my best.
I think what I’ve done is I’ve allowed myself the freedom to make mistakes, and to understand it’s part of the process. And to take more time for reflection of, "Okay, I messed this up. This didn’t work. Rather than beating myself up for three weeks, how can I re-approach it differently?"
And working on those, and just understanding that failure is a part of the process.
I will always be hard on myself, because that’s also what brings out my greatness.
So I think, you know, it’s that fine line—you can’t let it shut you down. It’s got to be more of a growth point of saying:
"Okay, this didn’t work."
"How can we re-approach it?"
"How can we learn from it?"
"How can we do it better?"
And having that humility to stand up and be like, "Yeah, really screwed that thing up right there," and knowing that.
And just when you live in integrity and you do that—it’s just part of it.

Susan Sly 30:18
Yeah, I love that. And it begs me to ask this last question.
Because thinking about, you know, the iteration of you you’re on now, right? And given everything—all the work you’re doing, your foundation, being a mom, your business—
So as we look into the future: What does version 9.0 look like for you, do you think?

Clara Capano 30:47
It’s going to be just an elevated version of where I am now.
I really want to do more global speaking. I want my show to be picked up by a platform such as Netflix, because I want to travel the world globally and interview people on having impact—because I want the world to see there’s no one way to define success.
And giving people the freedom to know that they can define success and live on their terms.
So I think just what I’m doing now, but just more on a global, more impactful level.

Susan Sly 31:20
I love that. I love that for you. And Sister, I’m holding space for you for that vision.
And I’m such a believer in the power of manifestation—and I’ll share a story with you.
So our producer is also our chief of staff, and she really wants to go to London this year. And I said, “Well, let’s manifest it. Let’s just manifest that I’m asked to go speak in London, and you’ll just come with me.”
Literally, in 24 hours, I was doing a speaker prep for an event that I’m doing in Majorca, and they said, “Well, we’re doing an event in London in the fall. Will you come?”
And I called her, I said, “See? Just like that—within 24 hours.”
And holding that space.
And I think that these iterations of us—especially at the pace at which technology goes, Clara, and the pace at which the world goes—they don’t... you know, our mothers used to go through seasons based on: "I’m a young woman," then "I’m having children," then "I’m going through menopause."
And seasons were very much defined by hormones and times of their lives.
And for us, an iteration could be three months. It could be three years. It doesn’t matter. We get to iterate—which I think is so incredible.
Well, Clara, thank you so much for being on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. In the show notes, we’ll share where everyone can reach you and all your social media.
And I want to give a final word to you. I just have a sense—like, speak to that person that we talked about who’s like, "You know, Clara, I’m inspired to iterate. I’m inspired to create this next version of me. I’ve got a lot of stuff going on..."
Give them some hope.

Clara Capano 33:05
For sure. Thank you.

Clara Capano 33:15
You know, I think when you look at that person and you want to send them that warm, emotional hug—I think just giving yourself the freedom to dream. Get that clarity. Get that vision of who it is you want to become, and walk in that vision each and every day.
Because as you take a step forward—another step—it starts to become your identity. And pretty soon, you’ll become that person.
And there is hope for you to become whoever you want. Don’t rush it. Embrace the journey. Trust the process. And love every step of the way.

Susan Sly 33:48
Clara, thank you so much. And I hope—whomever that was for—that you heard it. Give yourself permission to dream.
So Clara, again, thank you for being here on Raw and Real Entrepreneurship. And for everyone, wherever you are in the world, go check out our other great episodes—there are hundreds of them—and I will see you all in the next episode.

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