#135 Discover Your Potential and Transform Your Mind

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode #135 Angilie Kapoor

“Discover Your Potential and Transform Your Mind”

(00:00) Doreen Downing: Hello, this is Dr. Doreen Downing, host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast, where I invite guests here who are open to sharing a struggle that they might have had in finding their voice, whether it was early on in life, maybe it was a family, maybe it was school, you never know, but there are so many places when we’re growing up that begin to hinder or stifle our natural voice. What we need is to be surrounded by applause and hugs and a big “yes” for our little ones. So, today I’m going to introduce you to Angilie Kapoor. Hello. 

(00:47) Angilie Kapoor: Hello, how are you? 

(00:49) Doreen Downing: Well, I’m having a good time. I’m in Northern California. Where are you located? 

(00:55) Angilie Kapoor: I’m actually in a small historic town in Mexico. It’s called San Miguel de Allende. It’s beautiful here. 

(01:04) Doreen Downing: For some reason, I have a different address for you. Are you living there now?

(01:09) Angilie Kapoor: No. My husband and I travel full time, so we’re always in different places. The address that you have is probably my permanent mailing address. 

(01:19) Doreen Downing: Yes. Well, when you and I spoke, it was just like, “Wow, look at this woman. She gets to travel around the world, plant herself in a beautiful location and share her wisdom.” I’m going to read the bio you sent, so people will get to know you right away.

Angilie Kapoor, a highly acclaimed leader with over 20 years of experience in healthcare, is dedicated to helping struggling workplace, business, and life aspiring leaders be productive, confident, and effective while also—this is important—while also maintaining a healthy balance between their personal and professional lives.

Through her extensive background in management and leadership, she offers invaluable knowledge and insight. She’s also a multi-book author, an inspirational speaker, and a TV show host of two TV shows. 

Angilie is the founder of Oversight Global, an organization dedicated to addressing the consciousness crisis in the world, one leader at a time. 

This bio—I almost don’t want to go on with the questions I have because the bio is so rich with information that I want to know more about, so I’ll start there. 

Usually, we start with how your early life was and your challenge, but this consciousness of leaders—say more about that. People are listening. How do we as those who are out there supporting people to be more and access their potential, which is what you do, one leader at a time.

I just think that’s so profound. Tell me a little bit more about this consciousness crisis as you see it. 

(03:19) Angilie Kapoor: Of course. I actually started off my leadership coaching career, working with workplace managers specifically in healthcare because that’s where I came from. And at the time, as I had gone through my own management and leadership career, I obviously had witnessed and been through firsthand really the gap and what is leadership development in the workplace.

I felt like I was ill-prepared to go from being an employee to then becoming a manager and then being able to climb that management ladder. But I just found that there was really not enough leadership preparation as well as continuing development. I also saw other colleagues go through the same thing as well.

So, initially, when I got into leadership coaching, that is what I wanted to address was really the gap of leadership development that exists in the workplace. But as I started to work with my clients and different industries and in different leadership positions, I actually started to recognize that it was more of a universal, global consciousness crisis in terms of people really not recognizing that they—because leadership doesn’t just exist in the professional world. It’s not just for the workplace. Fundamentally, we’re all able to be leaders and I feel like we’re all supposed to be leaders to—the very minimum—ourselves and our own lives.

So, really starting to recognize and addressing that, that a lot of people are just missing that awareness and being conscious of their ability as well as part of who they’re meant to be, again, as a leader of themselves and in their own lives. Leadership isn’t just for the workplace. It’s really something that is an aspect of everything in life. 

That’s what I mean by consciousness crisis. At first, it started as things that leaders in the workplace didn’t know or were aware of for them to be effective and inspiring leaders. But yes, it’s just grown to be that all of us are meant to be leaders to ourselves and in our own lives and a lot of us don’t recognize that. 

(05:36) Doreen Downing: Well, when I read that line, Angilie, that’s exactly where I went—around us. The message to those who are listening today is, “What does consciousness crisis for ourselves mean in terms of how much—are we self-aware? Are we interested in what really goes on inside of ourselves, being true to ourselves?”

And consciousness is all about awareness—the choices, the decisions, and the behavior comes from that. I just really like that you pointed to us as the ones that are leading our own lives. You didn’t pop out with this message. Well, maybe you did. Maybe you were brought here on this earth to give this message, but I would assume that it didn’t start that way. 

So, let’s dial back. I usually like to take people back and share some stories of early childhood and maybe some struggles that come up for you that you’d like to share today related to having a voice or not.

(06:46) Angilie Kapoor: Yes, definitely. I’m sure you get this a lot, but I actually was bullied as a child throughout my childhood, and it was because—I don’t know if you can tell now, but my left eye does not move. It always stays. It’s a lazy eye, basically. 

I was bullied a lot and made fun of during my childhood years because of my eye, because I looked different than everybody else. I also had chronic migraines. They started very early in my childhood. My very earliest memory in my childhood involved me having migraines. Also having to deal with that. But that really, those two experiences mainly really caused me to be very much of an introvert growing up. I was a very shy girl.

During recess, I’d be the one that you’d find in the corner, sitting by herself, not really interested in interacting with other kids because I just felt like they were going to make fun of me and say mean things to me and things like that. That’s really what my childhood started off like. 

One of the other things that really didn’t help was that my dad was in the military, so we would move around a lot. So, about every year, I would be in a new place having to really start over, and it’s really hard to start over when you’re a girl who people really view as being different and then being scared of that difference.

Growing up, I was an introvert, very shy, very quiet. I really didn’t like to play with other kids, things like that. And that really went into my high school years as well because again, kids aren’t the nicest when we’re growing up and going through those different phases. 

In high school, I did start to branch out a little bit and start to explore different things. I was a cheerleader all four years in high school. I also was the vice president of my sophomore class, so I did start to venture out a little bit and recognize that what people were saying to me back when I was a little girl wasn’t true.

I was really trying to find who I was and start to develop that self-awareness and things like that. And so, I did get into things like that in high school and started to build my confidence and branch out a little bit and develop some really meaningful friendships and things like that.

But even though I started to do that, I was still very much an introvert. I was very quiet. I only let people who were really close to me and those that I felt like I could trust, really get to know me. Otherwise, people really didn’t know who I was. That really was the basis of my childhood. 

(09:15) Doreen Downing: Great. Thank you for sharing. I’m going to roll back one more time because I know that a lot of people who listen have—and I’ve interviewed several people who have had parents that were in the Military and not only that moving frequently is one thing, and it sometimes is disturbing, but it also gives you more, as an adult, ability to adapt more quickly. That’s something I’ve heard. So, anything about being the daughter of a military person, your father? 

(09:47) Angilie Kapoor: Yes, definitely. Like I mentioned, the average was I’d be in a new place every year. I’d never stay in a place for more than a year and a half, or two years. So, yes, we did move around a lot, and I do agree with you, with what your other guests have said that it does definitely help you build those abilities to be flexible and adapt quickly and things like that. But it’s also a very lonely way to be. 

When I was going through school, it was the eighties, and so, we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have cell phones. So, when I did get close to some people and develop friendships, once I left, those were gone, which was heartbreaking for some of those situations. 

You really start to bond with people and then have to move on, but yes, I definitely do feel that my ability to be resilient and be adaptable and be okay with change did come from that experience of being a military daughter. 

(10:45) Doreen Downing: Something else I just heard too was about the attachment you make with friends and then the loss that you have, multiple times, you had put yourself. And so many people don’t have that experience. One home, one school, all the way through. 

But again, the way that I view things here is that, yes, it was a challenge, but you gain something. What do you think you gained from all that loss and all that? 

(11:14) Angilie Kapoor: The insight that I gained from that experience is that things happen at the time that they’re supposed to happen. I definitely believe now that people come in and out of your lives for a reason, whether that be, for a second, just bumping into somebody on the street or in the store or something or being more of a permanent fixture in your life, like your parents, your siblings, spouses, things like that, or people who might have been in your life for a number of years and then all of a sudden aren’t. 

I definitely have developed the perspective that things and people come in and out of your life when the time is right and there is a timing for it.

So, when I have people in my life now, I definitely, I’m grateful for that blessing and really try and look at it from a standpoint of what is it the lesson or what am I supposed to gain from having this person in my life? Then again, because I’ve been, like you mentioned, I’ve been through so much of that loss as a kid, but not really seeing it as a loss. See it as our time together in this life has ended, so now, let’s see what happens next. 

(12:17) Doreen Downing: That goes along with what we were talking about a few minutes ago about the adjustment. I’m in awe of you having had something like multiple losses and having such a wise integration of the meaning of that for yourself, and then how you apply it to life, and that the people who come into your life are meant to be there for however long they’re there. There’s an acceptance that I hear from you. 

I have the thread of voice today, so I’m going to come back to you and have you—just before we move on, is there anything else that comes out around the journey? It does seem like high school. You started to find your voice. You were doing cheerleading in front of a whole audience or you were doing some government-elected official type thing. What about that is finding a voice? 

(13:15) Angilie Kapoor: Yes, definitely. In regard to that, in high school, I also got involved with the newspaper staff and the yearbook staff. So, I really did start to find my love for writing and expressing myself in that way. Back in third grade, actually, I had a great teacher. I still remember her name. Her name was Mrs. Spelling and she loved to write. 

One of the things that being part of her class, she really worked hard on is helping her students to be very good writers and learn to express themselves on paper and by word and things like that.

In fact, because of her tutorship that started in third grade, my writing skills were always very advanced. Throughout the other grades, I would always be in advanced literature or advanced language because I was able to develop this great ability to write.

Between third grade and high school, because of the difficulties that I had being bullied, I did leave that. I didn’t recognize that writing was something that I could use as an outlet for my voice, and that is something that I really enjoyed.

I found it again in high school when I discovered that they have a newspaper and I’m able to write for it, or I can do some stuff for the yearbook. Getting involved with those again in high school. So, again, really starting to branch out and become more aware of who I was in high school.

Today, that has turned into me writing two books. I actually have three, but I don’t have it up there, but I have three books, and then I have another one coming out, and I have plans for other books, and then of course writing for my blog and stuff like that.

Really rediscovering that love for writing. Really finding it as an outlet to be able to express myself and use my voice. A few years ago, when I started my self-discovery journey during my healthcare management career, I found journaling, which I had never really done before.

I always thought that my writing in a journal, “How is that going to help me?” But then, I started to journal and I’ve been journaling ever since. Being able to do that every day and again, utilizing that as a tool to further discover who I am and self-development and stuff like that. So, yes, writing’s definitely been huge for me in finding my voice. 

(15:29) Doreen Downing: That’s wonderful. The ‘finding your voice’ in words, and still, it doesn’t always have to be words that are spoken, even an expression. I like to say, “Life is your stage,” and we aren’t talking about a fear of public speaking as such. We’re just talking about how we might’ve held ourselves back because of early experiences and not feeling that comfortable. What you discovered about writing being a place where you can access the voice within. 

You’ve got several books. I’m going to ask about it, but I’m going to take a break right now and come back and we will explore more of what’s in your books because that’s your voice apparently. 

(16:14) Angilie Kapoor: Sounds good.

(16:25) Doreen Downing: Hi, we’re back now with Angilie Kapoor, who is somebody that I’ve already been awed and impressed with today with her ability to express out loud what happened to her as a child being bullied and why she was bullied and being in a military family where there was a lot of adjustments that she had to make, but what we’ve learned so far today is how somebody could be in a situation and then later on in life, integrated in such a way that it’s a positive for them. 

So, yes, lost, maybe of friends, or lots of moving around could mean, “Oh, I can adjust easily,” so that sense of self that we’re talking about today. It’s like the potential inside of us. We don’t live in, “Oh, look at how bad it was.” It was like, “Oh, there’s value in every single,”—and I get this from you, Angilie—”There’s value in every single experience.” 

As we mentioned right before the break, you’ve got three books and I currently do work with authors who have found their voice and put it on paper, but to go out to bookstore events, networking events, interviews, is a whole different process.

Finding their speaking voice, you might say. Isn’t that something that they know what’s inside because they’ve written about it, but to show up in public and not be able to talk about it. And so, I’ve had a lot of clients that I’ve worked with who are on that verge of—the only way the book is going to be seen is if you get out there and start talking about it.

Obviously today, even though you might be an introvert, I don’t think you are holding yourself back from talking about your books. What are they about? 

(18:28) Angilie Kapoor: The first book I wrote in 2021, and it’s called, Mindset, The Power of the Mind, and it was really me experimenting with writing a book and achieving that lifelong dream of writing a book and becoming an author and things like that. 

Mindset is really important to me and also in what I do. It was the first, I would say, modality or tool that I discovered when I started my self-discovery journey being a healthcare manager. Really starting that journey and going from focusing on more professional development and things that I was being told I needed to learn to really focusing on my self-development and then finding that the more that I got to know myself and love myself and accept myself, the better I was able to then lead my team members effectively. 

That’s my approach today. What I do is it really starts internally. Not so much externally, like people think when we really discover who we are, and what we’re capable of, and our potential, we really find that everything that we need, we have within, we don’t need to look externally. It’s all in here. We just have to recognize that and tap into it. 

But back to my books. My first book is Mindset, Power of the Mind. It was really a general introduction on what mindset is and my experience with mindset.

Then my second book that came out last year is Leader Mindset Activation. That’s actually the behind-the-scenes methodology of how I help my clients cultivate a mindset of being healthy and positive and a mindset for success and abundance. After discovering that their mindset has been really hindering them and holding them back from the things that they’ve been trying to accomplish and do. That’s my second book. 

And then the third one that I mentioned that I don’t have up there is actually the accompanying workbook that goes with Leader Mindset Activation. I have a lot of interactive exercises in the book. To help readers actually do the exercises and implement the things that we talk about in the book, we created a workbook for it. That’s something that’s also available with that book as well. 

(20:38) Doreen Downing: Well, now that I know that the books are all about mindset, it makes perfect sense what we were talking about before. You’re talking about the way you view something, which is a mindset. I guess you would call that a mindset, right?

The way you view something integrated, as I said before, and making it positive is the challenge. Yes, we create our own life. We think it’s true. So, I really admire the work that you’re doing then. Is it with companies or is it with individuals? Tell us about that. 

(21:17) Angilie Kapoor: I actually do both. I do work with individual managers or directors, just people who are in leadership positions and whatever they’re doing. I just also want to mention that it’s not just being a leader in the workplace with the title. 

I actually work with teachers, as well as parents because again, like I mentioned earlier, leadership really spans all aspects of our lives, and so when people really start to discover that, “Yes I can be a leader of myself and in my own life,” and really expand that out to being a leader in their school or a leader to their family, those are the people that I tend to attract as they are the ones looking for that development as a leader, not just in the workplace, but also in their professional lives. 

So, yes, definitely work with different types of individuals. I also work with companies as well. I’m helping them to develop the leadership development programs that they don’t have, so that they can really concentrate on helping their leaders and their workplace have the support, and resources, and tools that, like I mentioned, I found was really missing, and really thinking about developing their leaders to be conscious leaders and leaders who really look at their staff members and their teams from a human-experience type of standpoint. 

One of the things that I talk about is that the leadership styles that we’ve always had in the workplace are very outdated. And so, really looking at developing leaders and who use leadership styles that are more diverse and really integrate the human experience in terms of being empathetic and compassionate and understanding to the people that they’re working with and recognizing that it’s not strictly a nine to five. It’s very hard for people to compartmentalize their work from their personal life. It’s really all interconnected. 

(23:09) Doreen Downing: I love the human experience that you’re talking about. So, I want to take this back to the listeners right now because of what you’ve just said. Can the listeners, who are here with us today, look at a point in their life that they might be able to adjust and have a new mindset, what would be the first question you would ask or how would you guide them in the first step? 

(23:43) Angilie Kapoor: One of the first questions I always ask people is I always ask them to tell me who they are. A lot of the time, I get people rattling off what their job title is, the company that they work at, but that’s not what I’m looking for.

I’m really looking for an answer to, “Do you know who you are at your core?” That’s really a question that, first of all, really intrigues people because they’re like, “What do you mean, ‘Who am I?'” “I am an IT tech or a project manager.” And I’m like, “Well, that’s what you do, but who are you?”

That really starts a conversation of really helping people to look at their own personal core values because that’s another thing that everybody that I asked, they don’t know what their own personal core values are. They’ll start rattling off their company’s core values or somebody else’s core values.

That really indicates to people when I asked even just those two questions is number one, they don’t really know who they are. It gets them thinking, “Who am I then? How did I get here? And who am I really? What’s the process of me figuring out what that is or who that is?” 

My first piece of advice for people who want to go on a self-discovery journey and really authentically find out who they are is start getting curious about yourself and the things that you do, the things that you say, the things that you believe because unfortunately being in Western civilization, there’s a lot of societal expectations and conformity and molding of people that I think happens.

I don’t think it’s necessarily done on purpose. I think sometimes it is, but a lot of times it isn’t. It’s just something that’s really happened over civilizations of there being expectations. 

When you have that type of conformity in your society, it really doesn’t allow for people to learn about themselves, become self-aware, and discover who they truly are.

It’s really people that are put on these paths and these tracks that necessarily might not be for them, but they’re not really allowed to explore who they really are and where they want to be. 

That would definitely be my first piece of advice is to start getting curious about yourself and start asking those tough questions.

(25:55) Doreen Downing: Before we sign off here, I just want to take a big breath here and have people hold that question. “Who am I?” What Angilie said, it’s not about what you do, it’s about who you are, what does that mean to you, and the self-awareness that’s deeper, the core that’s within you. 

How that relates to the work that I do is that’s where your voice, your true voice comes from—that core. It’s not about a performance and you look better and you know how to make a speech. It’s really—Can you communicate who you are with somebody who’s right in front of you? Not necessarily on a stage, but that you are just really able to interact in a more straightforward, clear, relaxed way. 

So, before we go, because we’re out of time now, or almost out of time, I want to give you a last moment, if there’s anything, maybe first tell us where we find you nowadays, because you’re in Mexico, but I’m sure you’re online. How do we find you? 

(26:58) Angilie Kapoor: Yes, definitely. So, if you go to my website, which is oversightglobal.com, everything will be there. You can access my YouTube channel, my social media, my email, and then of course, the two TV shows that I have. So, oversightglobal.com. 

(27:16) Doreen Downing: That’s good. Yes. A place that contains everything.

(27:19) Angilie Kapoor: Yes. 

(27:20) Doreen Downing: You could say goodbye and could you give us one last—I mean, you’ve been so wise and free with your wisdom today—last words? 

(27:32) Angilie Kapoor: My last words are: to everybody out there who might be struggling to find their voice or use their voice, recognize that you were put on this earth for a reason, that you are unique, and your uniqueness, your individuality is beautiful. So, don’t hide from it or run from it, and really find your strength within yourself, your uniqueness, and your individuality, and use that to help you find your voice because you are here for a reason, and there is a message from you that others are meant to hear.

So, it’s important that you find yourself, that you figure out that message, and that you share it because it’s going to help so many other people out there. 

(28:14) Doreen Downing: Just like today, how you’ve helped so many people out there today by sharing your voice. Thank you so much, Angilie. 

(28:23) Angilie Kapoor: Oh, thank you. It’s such a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.