Breakdown, Breakthrough: The Professional Woman's Guide to Claiming a Life of Passion, Power, and Purpose

by Kathy Caprino

Thousands of professional women, though outwardly successful, find themselves in the midst of a crisis, believing that they’ve sacrificed meaning, fulfillment, and balance in their lives to achieve work-related success. Their lives feel unmanageable—and they are confused, blocked, overwhelmed and unable to move forward effectively. Kathy Caprino sheds light on this growing epidemic of disempowerment and shows women how to reinvigorate and reclaim their lives.

Breakdown, Breakthrough uses a comprehensive coaching, behavioral, and spiritual framework to explore how women can restore their power and reconnect with their life visions as they awake from the paralysis of professional dissatisfaction and personal diminishment. Caprino outlines a new model for understanding disempowerment, one that focuses on women’s relationships with themselves, with others, with the world, and with what she calls their higher selves. She identifies twelve specific challenges professional women face and offers concrete, practical advice for overcoming each one—helping readers “step back, let go of what is holding them back, and say yes” to creating a compelling and rewarding next chapter of life and work.

This is also a deeply personal book. Caprino candidly discusses her own struggles with crippling feelings of disempowerment, and shares moving stories and heartfelt advice gleaned from her interviews with over one hundred women who experienced and overcame the crises she describes. Breakdown, Breakthrough offers working women who are stressed, stuck, and dissatisfied access to new inspiration, hope, and a definite plan of action.

Genres: Self Help, Business, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Kathy Caprino, M.A. is an internationally-recognized career and leadership coach, writer, speaker and educator dedicated to the advancement of women in business. A former corporate Vice President, she is also a trained marriage and family therapist, seasoned executive coach, Senior Forbes contributor and the author of Breakdown, Breakthrough and The Most Powerful You: 7 Bravery-Boosting Paths to Career Bliss.

Kathy’s core mission is to support a “finding brave” global movement that inspires and empowers women to close their power gaps, create more impact and make the difference they long to in the world.

Kathy is the Founder/President of Kathy Caprino, LLC, a premier career coaching and executive consulting firm offering career and leadership development programs and resources for professional women including the Amazing Career Project course, her Finding Brave podcast, and the Amazing Career Certification training for coaches and her Career Breakthrough Coaching programs.

A leading voice on Thrive Global and LinkedIn, she is also a TEDx and keynote speaker and top national media source on women’s issues, careers, and leadership.

For more information, visit KathyCaprino.com and FindingBrave.org and connect with Kathy on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I purchased this book after hearing the author speak to the women's group at my workplace. Now, I work in a workplace primarily comprised of 20-35 year olds, and I did enjoy what Kathy said during her talk. However, this book is definitely not geared towards towards the younger demographic, coming across as both depressing and unmotivational.

The book provides many examples of women, generally mid career, who became greatly unhappy with work and life for a variety of reasons. It then describes how the women became happy again. Every example, though, is a woman stepping back from the corporate work. This isn't a book so much as realizing what is making you unhappy, as it is a book about realizing true passion (art, teaching, spirituality) which requires stepping back from the workplace and "discovering true self". It is the opposite of motivational and the opposite of the "lean in" theories.

As a side note, many of these women "discover themselves" through energy healing, crystals and come to Jesus moments, which is slightly annoying.

[Leanne Hunt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is what it claims to be — a guide for professional women. I hoped to find in it more tips for women entrepreneurs but it provides little in this regard. As a self-help book for career-women in corporate settings, however, it has some very good advice and will surely encourage those who are feeling stifled and unfulfilled in the roles they are presently playing.

The book is long on examples of women who became run-down, depressed and panicky in their dissatisfactory work situations. However, it is short on details about how these women transformed their circumstances and recreated their lives. Personally, I feel that the author shortchanged her readers here. It is one thing to recognise that you are in a process of breakdown, but it is quite another to put the pieces of your life together again in a pleasing arrangement. It would have been nice to get a bit more information on the steps to take once you decide what changes need to be made. Obviously, each situation is unique and the women themselves are all different in their temperaments and approaches. Still, learning how others managed to begin the process of self-realisation in their work is enormously motivational, even when the person you are reading about is in a completely foreign sector or industry.

One thing I can say for this book is that it comes across as genuine. I believe the author when she recounts her own experiences of breakdown and breakthrough. Her first-hand knowledge of her topic makes her a compassionate narrator. If you are a woman looking for guidance on how to transform your work life and you are willing to invest time and effort into self-examination and visualisation, I am certain you will find answers here.

[Diane Isler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very helpful for women facing a mid-career crisis, or those who want to avoid one.