Run Toward Your Fears And What Holds You Back With Michele Capots

Nick McGowan (00:01.442)

Hello, and welcome to the Mindset and Self Mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan, and today on the show, I have Michelle Kapotz. Michelle, how are you doing today? I’m great, I appreciate you being on. I’m excited to get into our conversation. So hey, why don’t we just get things started? Why don’t you tell us what you do for a living? And what’s one thing that most people don’t know about you that’s maybe a little odd or bizarre?

Michele Capots (00:12.638)

I’m good, Nick, how are you?

Michele Capots (00:27.434)

Okay, so I am a transformational coach with a focus on mental wellness and resilience. I’m also an international speaker and storyteller, and I’ve had essays published in local and national publications. Something bizarre I was thinking about, I don’t…

bizarre, but what might be a little odd is I still sleep with a nightlight. I am someone that cannot fall asleep in a dark room, and part of it might be because all I watch are true crime and serial killer documentaries.

Nick McGowan (01:08.974)

Ha ha.

Nick McGowan (01:12.342)

that might do it.

Michele Capots (01:13.59)

So when everything’s dark, I have to have a light on. I have to have a night light, a bathroom light. Something has to be on. I can’t sleep in a dark room.

Nick McGowan (01:23.806)

All right, so we can just dive directly into that, but I think the true crime stuff might be your catalyst, at least let’s say, of why you need to have the nightlight. I was on a big CSI and Criminal Minds kick for like a solid year, year and a half. Oh my God, Criminal Minds is incredible, but there’d be times where I’d be watching it at night, even just playing on my phone or my iPad, just kind of vegging out, and then I’d start getting ready for bed, and I’m like, what the fuck was that noise? What is that?

Michele Capots (01:37.637)

I love your voice.

Michele Capots (01:50.19)

I’m sorry.

Nick McGowan (01:51.998)

and it’s like the neighbor or like, I don’t know, some animal outside, I’m like, what the fuck, somebody’s trying to kill me right now.

Michele Capots (01:58.546)

See, I like that feeling of being scared. It’s like that when you’re about to get on a roller coaster, like it’s that I like that feeling. Well, not.

as I’m trying to sleep and I’m afraid someone’s breaking in the house and going to kill me. But the original, when I’m watching the show, like that’s why I love thrillers and scary movies. Like I love that feeling of being scared, which I guess is sort of bizarre or odd.

Nick McGowan (02:29.706)

Maybe. It’s interesting that I think there’s a lot to that. Like if you really take that idea and kind of step to the side of it, there are tons of video games that are just death and destruction. I grew up with video games starting to get to the point where they are now, where they started to have more Call of Duty type games or like you’re just blowing shit up sort of deal. And there’s so much death and destruction. And there’s a lot of people that are really into true crime and

stuff like that, but it’s wild to think like you don’t actually want somebody to come kill you, but you want to watch it. So there’s a psychological, I don’t want to say issue or problem, but there I’ve already said it. There’s something that’s there that, and I’m kind of the same where I’ve thought about that before. Like what is it that I like?

Michele Capots (03:05.678)

I’m out.

Right.

Michele Capots (03:16.568)

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (03:22.658)

And then I’d like to have some of like my heightened response of like, what’s going on, but I don’t like it when I turn the damn TV off and everything’s silent. And I’m like, what is going on? What is that noise? Is somebody already in the house? It’s like, no, no one else is in the house. Like this is, this is the house. Um, but why do you think that people and yourself, like, we can just start with you. Why do you think that there’s, there’s that attraction to that?

Michele Capots (03:30.942)

Mm-hmm.

Michele Capots (03:37.109)

Exactly.

Michele Capots (03:49.21)

I don’t know. I’ve always, um, I’ve always liked scary shows. Like, it’s suggested that what you watch sort of dictates the kind of person you are or the things about you. So, I don’t-

I don’t want to call that into my life and I don’t want to do that to somebody else. I will say, if I were ever to get kidnapped, I know exactly what to do. I will know exactly what to do if someone throws me in a trunk. I will know how to get out.

Nick McGowan (04:19.192)

Hahaha, sure.

Michele Capots (04:29.654)

But no, I’m not sure. I don’t know where that all started from, but I’ve always loved scary things. And now it’s just complete true crime and documentaries. And I don’t know.

Nick McGowan (04:46.526)

Yeah, it’s like getting into the mind of a serial killer. It’s like, but you don’t want to, I don’t want to kill anybody. I’d even said to my partner recently, I was like, if I killed somebody, that, that means that like we had to. It was either life or death, but I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself after that. And what an interesting thing. Yeah, but.

Michele Capots (04:49.399)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Michele Capots (05:01.286)

Yeah, but I find it fascinating.

Nick McGowan (05:05.522)

I had friends growing up, specifically in high school, that were big horror fans. Like, they just absolutely loved the gore and everything that went into it. I remember trying to hang out with them and watching some, I don’t know, B or C shitty fucking gory movies and being like, what is this? They’re like, this is incredible. I was like, well, some of the bad ones you can tell. It’s like, that’s corn syrup. I think that’s all that is. That’s ketchup. That’s just a ton of ketchup. Other ones are just crazy.

actually messes with you. And I don’t know, it’s difficult for people that go through traumas, that have had somebody that’s passed away or has been murdered or something like that. Have you ever had anybody that’s been close to you that has been in any sort of situation like that?

Michele Capots (05:52.494)

Actually, it’s really funny. My mother’s brother, so this was long before me, long before I was even born, but yes, he had been murdered when he was in his early 20s. So yeah, that’s…

Nick McGowan (06:19.554)

I mean, I’m an asshole. I always want to know details. I’m sorry.

Michele Capots (06:22.834)

Yeah, I don’t even know if I remember all of the details, but he had been… came home from work and was…

I don’t even know if I can go into all the details. He came home from work and he had just gotten paid and had stopped at a bar and then went home and someone followed him home and stabbed him and robbed him. Yeah. So, but that was, like I said, that was long before I was ever even born.

Nick McGowan (06:51.349)

out.

Nick McGowan (07:01.782)

So you were told that story, obviously. It’s not like you made that up or just found it out or read it in a newspaper, something like that. But how did your mom handle that? Did that mess with her?

Michele Capots (07:14.994)

sure. Yeah, and I remember, I remember when my grandmother…

My grandmother died when she was, I don’t remember how old, 93, 94. She had dementia at the end, but when we were fond of peppering her with questions about her life or about herself, or we used to just ask her all sorts of questions,

grandfather or great moments, bad moments. And I think one of the times we asked her what the hardest thing she ever had to do and she said forgiving the man that killed him. So yeah, and that gives you an idea of who my grandmother was.

Michele Capots (08:23.986)

But yeah, so knowing all that, perhaps I shouldn’t really be a fan of these shows. Yeah, really. Yeah, but it that goes to show what a great woman my grandmother was.

Nick McGowan (08:30.239)

Yeah

This isn’t an intervention at all. Sounds like it may be at this point.

Nick McGowan (08:46.442)

Yeah, that’s gotta be really tough. My mom’s friend growing up, I always kind of considered her an aunt. She was just always around. She was like a, she wasn’t a blood aunt, but she had two twins. And one of the twins was murdered at one point. He was in his early 20s as well. He had some money on him, went to a bar and was shot and killed. And obviously the grieving for her son and the funeral and all that must have been.

extremely tough just like I’m sure it was for your mom and your grandmom and all but I remember She had said that she had to forgive the guy who killed him Because she was still here and she had to keep going on with that and that’s really hard for people to do I knew it was really hard for her I could tell like even as she told it to me and She told it to me and a few other people wasn’t me directly but it was I could tell it was still weighing on her Even though I could see that there was like that

that freedom that she had, being able to actually say, all right, I forgive you for this, and being able to move on. And I couldn’t imagine not being able to do that, but I could imagine it’s gotta be extremely difficult to be able to do it. Now you had talked about how your grandmom was a great woman. Was she somebody that had a huge impact on you and really helped you become who you are today? Or was it somebody else or what?

Michele Capots (10:01.112)

Yeah.

Michele Capots (10:13.854)

Um, both my mom and my grandma. I think my mom is always the pillar of strength for me. She’s always been…

a pillar of strength for me and obviously she got all of that from my grandmother. So I’ve learned a lot about strength and resilience.

from both of them, which I think has made me want to do what I’m doing today, which is help others to find that strength and find that resilience within themselves.

Nick McGowan (11:04.454)

Was there a moment maybe when you’re younger or even in your 20s or something where you were like, this is the path that I want to be on? Or is that something that kind of came later where you had gone through enough stuff that you had to transform to become a transformational coach?

Michele Capots (11:18.998)

No, there’s actually, it’s a very distinct time. I mean, I think that…

One of the things when you asked what’s one thing that people don’t know about you and I said the sleeping with the nightlight, but what I think other people don’t know is that it took me, I spent almost two decades crippled by fear and self doubt that held me back from going after my dream.

Michele Capots (11:55.212)

I believe my life was never gonna change. One day, and there’s one day that stands out, I was driving home from work on Beachwood Boulevard in Pittsburgh and I got a thought. And it was that it would be so easy. I was slumped over leaning my head against my hand

of my red Honda Civic and it was taking everything I had to do the 20 minute drive home. And one 18 wheeler passed me on the Tulane Road and I got the thought with the next one I can just go a little over the white line, a quick swerve to the left and I will never have to feel this way again.

As I drove past a park, I saw a couple on the lawn having a picnic, a man jogging, people biking, and I thought they make it look so easy. They’re just enjoying life, but it was something that I couldn’t do anymore. I’d spend all day every day with my hands shaking, my insides trembling.

I couldn’t concentrate or focus. And when I heard laughter in the office, I thought it was at me. I worked in an open office, not in cubicles where you could hide behind a partition, but just a row of desks, one after the other after the other, like in elementary school.

Nick McGowan (13:43.191)

Hmm.

Michele Capots (13:44.202)

and everyone could see me and I knew that they knew that I was coming undone. I was a newspaper reporter at the time. This was in my late 20s and eventually it got to be too much. I couldn’t concentrate on interviews. I couldn’t write so I had to take a two-month hiatus from work.

And then I really felt like a failure. My friends are buying houses, getting promotions, getting married, and it’s taking everything I have to drag myself out of bed. Those two months passed, and slowly, with medication and therapy, I started to heal.

But on the day it was time to return to work, I didn’t want to go. Everyone knew where I was and what had happened. And this was before depression was as widely talked about as it is today. And I pulled into that parking lot and I remember just sitting in the car for a long time, trying to get the courage to go inside.

And when I reached for the door, it felt like a ton of bricks. But unfortunately for me, it had one of those bells, you know, the kind that ding every time someone entered. Everybody looked up and I wrote.

Nick McGowan (15:18.753)

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (15:23.458)

shit.

Michele Capots (15:26.042)

Marcy, the administrative assistant, ran over and she gave me a hug and I felt my body start to soften and relax a little bit. And then she whispered something in my ear that told me everything was going to be okay. All she said was, I take Prozac too. In that moment, by letting me know that I wasn’t alone,

She gave me the strength and courage I needed to go inside. It was a powerful moment and one I obviously still remember today. And the story should have ended there, but it didn’t. A couple years later, there’d be another depression. This one followed by mania and a mental illness diagnosis.

I started to feel like that game whack-a-mole, like every time I popped up and got well, I got knocked back down again. But that feeling when the bell dinged that day, that one moment of utter fear and insecurity, it became a regular everyday experience. Without even realizing it, I let self-stigma and…

not feeling good enough, seep into every area of my life. At this point, I wasn’t writing anymore and I found myself in a series of unfulfilling jobs and toxic relationships. I was completely disconnected from my authentic self.

Nick McGowan (17:05.68)

Thank you.

Michele Capots (17:06.514)

I saw my friends with the things I wanted, but the stories I told myself was that’ll work for them, but that’ll never work for me. I’ll never have the job I love or I’ll never have the healthy relationship.

I’ll never be that person that I wanted to be. And I believed every one of those stories. I started to feel like there was something fundamentally wrong with me, that I was broken. And it became comfortable to feel that way. It was my comfort zone. And I stayed stuck for a number of years. And then I met a woman.

who became my mentor, who taught me the power of an old war saying, run towards the sound of the cannon, which in effect means run towards your fears and the things that are holding you back.

And I never realized the power those words would have on me or that it’s something I’d still practice today. Then it was about accepting my illness and not being sidelined by it. But today it’s come to mean so much more. I had to get to the point that my comfort zone was too uncomfortable to stay in.

And the only way to run towards the sound of the cannon was to face my fears and fears about myself and look within. So I’ve learned how… ..

Michele Capots (18:52.682)

to question my thoughts and the feelings that created them. I became willing to go deep to the roots. And when I did, I could see that I was never broken. It was only my perception that was broken. And when I realized that, that’s when everything in my life started to change. So that’s like my one moment.

or it’s couple moments.

Nick McGowan (19:26.276)

Sure. That’s got to be a lot in different ways.

especially, you know, hindsight being 20-20, you can look back and see where those things are. But let’s take a step back even further. What was the genesis of the reasons why you actually thought what you thought and that you perceived those things? Was it something from a childhood trauma? Was it some situation that had happened that just completely fucking wrecked everything and you were like, I am worthless at this point? And then you believe that story. Where did that story originally come from?

Michele Capots (19:58.882)

The stories originated that there was something wrong with me, the worth story. A lot of the work I do today is around self-stigma and self-worth. And…

I think the reason is those were two things that were really big in my life, that were really big in my life, and that I have to work on both. I share that story because I’m not the only one. We all have a tendency to fear that self-doubt or not feeling good enough. The reasons may be completely different. For me, it was my mental illness.

mental health journey that was the catalyst for everything, but there’s a lot of reasons that people can feel stuck and unable to move forward. My mental illness was the catalyst. And I remember…

Michele Capots (21:15.378)

I remember during that time in my late 20s when I was going through the depression, I was sitting at a bar with a woman that I worked with who was a friend or an acquaintance. And I remember telling her how I was feeling, what was going on, which I didn’t understand.

Michele Capots (21:44.83)

And I remember her asking me questions, like, if it was because the guy I liked someone else, or if it was because my story didn’t go over well. Like, she was looking for one reason to pin all that on, to be…

Nick McGowan (22:05.907)

Yeah.

Michele Capots (22:11.37)

the catalyst for everything. And when it comes to depression, or when it comes to mental illness, I mean, yes, it can be in your genes and there’s things from your life that can contribute, but there’s not one thing that sets you off. And I think a lot of people that don’t…

understand mental health or don’t understand mental illness, look for that one thing. If we could just fix that one thing, everything will be okay. And

Nick McGowan (22:51.638)

Mm-hmm.

Michele Capots (22:58.698)

That’s not how it works. In my experience, there’s a big difference between mental health and mental wellness, and I focus so much on mental wellness today. Mental health is the diagnosis. It involves therapy and doctors and medication, but mental wellness is the process. It’s the

Michele Capots (23:28.592)

steps you take, maybe it’s eating well or getting enough sleep, meditation. It’s the whole person, mind, body and spirit, and you don’t have to struggle with mental health to strive for mental wellness. There’s such a difference between them.

And I think they get thrown together a lot of times, mental health and mental wellness, but I think there’s a distinct difference between them.

Nick McGowan (23:52.226)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (24:00.694)

Yeah, they sit in the same bucket at times, but they are separate pieces. It’s almost like oil and water being in that bucket at times. And if only, if only there was one thing that you could look back at and go, yeah, this was the damn thing, then you could fix that thing. But that’s not how that works. I always look for what was the trauma? Was there a major trauma that happened or some sort of situation that kind of pushed you over the edge? And I know that’s a part of everything else that happens,

back and seeing like there were different times where things kind of stood a different way for you or looked a different way for you. Even with you getting to the point where you were depressed and needed to take a hiatus and be able to separate yourself from being in that space over and over and over and over again. That’s a huge thing. A lot of people just won’t do that. They’ll just continue to do the same shit day in and day out, day in and day out and expect different results. It’s the definition of insanity. But for you

of that and start to look outside of that, you brought up two things therapy and medication. I’m not a huge fan of medication. I’m actively not on medication, but I understand that it does help people. I actually just finished reading the book Body Keeps the Score about trauma and the guy who wrote the book was a psychologist who would give medications and also get into different type of traumatic…

Different therapies, not just talk therapy, but all the different types, EMDR and things of that sort. And being able to kind of go through those. So what have you found outside of the medication, because you’ve talked about how it’s more about the mental wellness at this point than just the mental health piece to it. But what have you found that’s actually helped you over the course of time, looking back at the body of work that you’ve done?

Michele Capots (25:53.11)

So I think it’s twofold. There’s a couple things. I mean, one is meditation. That is a big part of my life and a big part of mental wellness for me today. It’s…

It’s really taking care of myself, tapping, meditation, changing my eating, eating well, making sure I’m getting enough sleep, not working 60 hours a week, but taking care of myself, spending time as one of my coaches taught me being.

Nick McGowan (26:40.098)

Mm-hmm.

Michele Capots (26:40.166)

not just doing all the time, but being. So all of that is one bucket that is really important to my wellness and that they’re daily steps I do, so physical steps I do to take care of myself. But also what I’ve learned is

what I said earlier, learning how to stop and question my thoughts and feeling a feeling. So not looping. Researchers have found it takes 90 seconds, just 90 seconds, for a feeling or sensation to pass through the body. Anything more than that

means we’re looped in the story. We’re reinforcing it over and over again. But if we sit with it and just let it pass, we can feel it starts to dissipate. So I will

sit with it, sit with whatever I’m feeling, having the courage to feel being uncomfortable and feeling that as a way to find freedom from it. If you think of two ducks in the water, we see it all the time. Two ducks, they get in a squabble, they get in a fight.

Nick McGowan (28:08.886)

Hmm.

Michele Capots (28:25.526)

and they break away, they flap their wings, and then they sail off. But if it were us, or I’ll speak just for me, if it was me, we hold on to it and think repeatedly, I don’t believe he just did that. Did you see what just happened? And we’ll stay there for days, weeks at a time, going over and over and over again.

Nick McGowan (28:40.738)

Mm-hmm.

Michele Capots (28:54.718)

when if we just let it pass through and release it, we can be free from it.

Nick McGowan (29:04.154)

Easier said than done. And you and I both know that. And I know that there’s gotta be somebody that will listen to this episode. And from that beginning piece of it, just be like, oh, fuck you guys. I hear this shit all the time. I should meditate. I should slow down. I should do this. I should do that. But you don’t know my life. Like, yeah, everybody’s life is a bit different. But those are the key components that it actually takes for us to being able to be healthy.

Michele Capots (29:05.866)

much easier said than done.

Nick McGowan (29:31.722)

And there’s a lot of bullshit that’s behind it, even systemic bullshit that just, why do people go crazy? And I think about myself, there have been different times I’ve been suicidal, I’ve attempted a few different times, I’ve done craziness because I thought I had to hustle and I needed to be part of this thing that life should look some sort of way. And it’s a bunch of bullshit, it doesn’t need to. It really takes the self-awareness is kind of that key that’s underneath all of it that you’ve talked about. You gotta be self-aware to be able to go, hold up, what is this?

And why am I feeling this? And why am I still looping on this thing? Instead of just allowing it to keep eating at us and eating at us and eating at us.

Michele Capots (30:09.302)

So I will agree with you and go as far as to say, I hated meditation. I hated meditation and the first time someone taught me to tap, I thought it was the dumbest thing in the world. I couldn’t, I thought it was ridiculous. I struggled for a long time to try these things and…

Nick McGowan (30:18.106)

Good.

Michele Capots (30:38.142)

It wouldn’t work for me. I was convinced that I used to go. I did all of the…

Nick McGowan (30:39.772)

Mm.

Michele Capots (30:47.958)

candles and incense and sitting cross-legged and then that didn’t work. So I thought that maybe if I went to a meditation group where the osmosis of the whole group would rub off on me that would be helpful. And I’d go and there was like 20 people in the room.

It was dark by candlelight and someone would walk in late.

and I’m sitting there, my leg tapping, my eyes wide open, waving at them, showing them where a seed is. It wasn’t working. But then in one of those groups, I had someone talk about nature as a form of meditation. And that person said that when they were in the great outdoors, they noticed their mind went silent. And I didn’t…

I didn’t even register really, but the next day when I was walking my dog, I thought about that. And I realized that I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was just walking my dog. And when I went on hikes,

my mind tended to be silent. So that became my meditation for a number of years. I wasn’t trying anything else. Nature was my form of meditation. It’s different for everybody. Prayer can be a form of meditation for someone. What it’s going to look like for each person is different. But I was against it.

Michele Capots (32:37.79)

for so long. I judged people that did it. And now I can’t go a day without it.

Nick McGowan (32:48.002)

I hope that person who was like, ah fuck you guys is now like yeah right there Yeah, because that’s real I mean we’ve all gone through something like that But I do think that some people are afraid to be able to actually show the underbelly of like hey, I hated this I didn’t get it like I remember the same thing with tapping somebody had said to me tapping before I was like Are you fucking kidding me? What is that? Yeah, but then you’re like, but if it’s science based

Michele Capots (32:52.077)

I’m sorry.

Michele Capots (33:09.006)

I feel like a monkey.

Nick McGowan (33:15.09)

and it actually taps into the rest of your being, and there’s something seriously about that. But it doesn’t work for everybody. It works differently for people, and it’s a matter of figuring out what the thing is. I’ve heard people say before, when I think of meditation, I think of somebody sitting on a pillow for hours at a time and just being silent. Like, that’s one form of it, but like you said, being out in nature, or just reading, or…

funny something that I guess a good handful of people probably don’t know about me a meditation for me is actually going through my sports cards and my sports memorabilia it’s meditating for me my mind kind of just goes blank I go through the motions I go through it and I’m there and I’m able to actually then think about the additional things that I want to think on my accord instead of just having all this shit run around so meditation looks different for everybody

Michele Capots (34:11.098)

that brings you into the present moment. Looking at your sports cards brings you into the present moment. And that’s really all it is, is anything that brings us into that moment.

Nick McGowan (34:28.482)

So how do you help somebody find that for themselves? Because again, people will think, well, if I got to try meditation, I got to try all these different things, yes, you need to find the thing that works for you, but how would you help somebody actually suggest figuring that out for themselves?

Michele Capots (34:46.43)

So I wouldn’t necessarily…

Michele Capots (34:52.442)

Sometimes I start my sessions with a grounding experience. It’s not a meditation, but it’s a deep breath. It’s a grounding to bring people, like we just talked about, into that moment. But…

I can’t suggest for anyone to bring it up as a practice that this, it has to be something that works for them, that they find. One of the things that I have found and that I also do is somatic work, which, as I said for me, has made a difference in my own life and that I work with people on somatically.

I believe there’s such a connection between our mind and body.

that our body reacts to everything that our mind tells it, the things that we have stored over time. You were talking about trauma, the things that our body holds on to, that through work we can learn how to let go of. But again, it’s never something that you’re going to take a pill and be cured,

and your life is going to change. All of these things, if that works, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But it’s practice. It’s adopting these habits and tools. And…

Michele Capots (36:41.738)

Yeah, it’s adopting these habits and tools in its practice. It’s not something that one thing is gonna change your life just like that.

Nick McGowan (36:53.866)

Well, if you think about the time that you and I have both been alive, we’ve had some sort of technology in our lives.

people 100 years ago, 200, 1000 years ago, they didn’t. Things may have looked different. Life was probably more difficult, a lot more difficult in different ways, but they didn’t have the same sort of energy that we have now, like social media. The amount of noise that is just thrown at you from social media, the amount of shit that you see of other people, and there are great times that they’re posting up on social media, or the things that you think that you should be doing because life should look some sort of way.

caught up in those for the most part without being able to actually just go through the process. And the reason why I’m saying all that is if there was an actual pill or something we could take that would be healthy for us and actually fix those problems, I’m sure a lot of people would take it.

I could only imagine that almost feels like a sci-fi movie. Like yeah, here’s this one pill, and this will change everything because it erases all of your memories and like starts you over from scratch or something like that. It just, it’s not possible to be able to do it. You have to do those small bits and pieces to actually become a different person. I feel like a lot of people, and I was one of those people too, where I thought, well, if I do more of these things and I could take this one pill or I could make this giant,

or this big paycheck or whatever things are gonna be different. Just like how people think, well one day when I have this big house or when I have this thing that I really want, my life’s gonna be different. I’ll be happy. That’s not the case. It’s never actually the case. It’s a matter of figuring out those little pieces that form the whole.

Michele Capots (38:36.126)

It’s a matter of figuring out those little pieces that form the whole, and it’s a matter of feeling that way now. If you’re not happy right now, you’re not going to be happy when you get the big house or you get the big whatever. It’s…

I heard this once and it’s being happy right now and I just did a post on that recently, but it’s being happy now without the money, without the big house, without those things. It’s being happy again. I go back to the present moment with yourself in that presence without all those things.

Otherwise, you’re going to get all those things and what makes you think that you’re going to be happy then? You’re not going to be happy then. I don’t know if it’s Eckhart Tolle or where I heard it, but it’s bringing your future now. It’s bringing your future to you. Not waiting for your future.

Nick McGowan (39:34.196)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (39:46.818)

Mm-hmm.

Nick McGowan (39:53.994)

Yeah, it’s the way of being work at that point and how you are and what you actually Want and feel is how you should want and feel at this moment it’s I keep thinking about like when people won win the lottery and It’s like they’re bankrupt in six months or a year or something like that. It’s like the money didn’t make those different people it just enhanced the craziness they had inside of them or the fear or the lack of and all of that and Those things aren’t going to change us

figure that out for ourselves. So along that note, what sort of advice would you give somebody on their path towards self-mastery?

Michele Capots (40:31.554)

The biggest thing that, the biggest advice that I would give someone is…

Michele Capots (40:42.294)

to keep going, to keep going, to keep trying, to keep going. That you’re gonna feel the fear, you’re gonna have the fear, but to feel it and do it anyway. You don’t need to let fear rob you of the life you wanna create for yourself.

You never have to stay stuck. So my biggest advice would be to keep going, to not give up, to keep going. Find what works for you and manage, learn how to feel the fear and do it anyway and create the life you want for yourself.

Nick McGowan (41:34.37)

great advice that’s building the process right there and becoming that as you work through it. So Michelle, I appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you for your time. Before I let you go, where can people find you and where can they connect with you?

Michele Capots (41:49.01)

Yes, so you can find me on my website which is michellecapotz.com. Michelle is one L. It’s a pet peeve. I always, everybody throws two in there. So it’s a one L Michelle, michellecapotz.com. And also on Instagram which is michellecapotz.com spelled out all one word. D-O-T-C-O-M.

Nick McGowan (41:59.126)

Yeah.

Nick McGowan (42:18.89)

Perfect. Well, again, thank you so much for being on the show today. We appreciate your time.

Michele Capots (42:23.01)

Thank you so much, Nick, I enjoyed it.

Nick McGowan (42:29.398)

All right, good stuff. So what did you.