Mindset Over Strategy: Bold Moves with Dr. Kapu Patel

Are your mindset blocks quietly sabotaging your business strategy?

In this episode of Good Girls Get Rich: The Conversations, LinkedIn expert Karen Yankovich is joined by Dr. Kapu Patel – certified mindset coach, former scientist, and master networker – to talk about the real reason women entrepreneurs stay stuck, how to network with genuine intention, and why your identity needs to match your ambitions before strategy can work.

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Mindset Over Strategy: What’s Really Keeping Women Entrepreneurs Stuck

You can have the best strategy in the world.

The clearest content plan. The perfectly optimized LinkedIn profile. The launch calendar mapped out for months.

And still go nowhere.

That’s what mindset coach Dr. Kapu Patel has seen over and over in her work with women entrepreneurs. And it’s exactly what she and I dove into during our recent episode of Good Girls Get Rich: The Conversations.

Dr. Patel is a certified mindset coach trained in Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), timeline therapy, and hypnotherapy. She’s also a former Big Pharma scientist, a photographer, and one of the most naturally gifted connectors I’ve ever met.

If you’ve ever known exactly what you needed to do – and still couldn’t make yourself do it – this one’s for you.

The Networking Secret Nobody Talks About

Here’s something that surprised even me: Dr. Kapu Patel shows up to networking events without business cards about sixty to seventy percent of the time. On purpose.

“It’s not about the exchange of cards,” she told me. “It’s about being fully present with the person right in front of you.”

She’s right – and I teach this too. We’ve known since the dawn of marketing that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. But most people show up to networking events thinking about what they’ll get out of it rather than what they’ll give.

Kapu’s approach is different. She looks for the people standing alone in the corners – because she knows from experience what it feels like to be that person. She goes to them first. She finds one real thing that moves them. And then she follows up on LinkedIn, where the real relationship gets built.

“Find out one thing about them that actually moves them. It could be work. It might not be work. But everyone wants to feel special.”

If you’ve been collecting business cards and wondering why your network isn’t growing, this reframe might be exactly what you need.

Why Strategy Alone Won’t Get You There

I say this constantly in my work: all the strategy in the world won’t move you forward if you haven’t done the mindset work.

Dr. Kapu puts it this way: smart, capable women know exactly what they need to do. They have the plan. They have the tools. And then June comes. Nothing happens. July comes. Still nothing.

That’s not a strategy failure. That’s a mindset block.

Her job as a coach is to pay attention to what’s NOT being said – because that’s almost always where the real answer lives. Using tools like NLP and timeline therapy, she helps her clients go beneath the surface to find the belief that’s actually driving the behavior.

And more often than not? That belief was formed in childhood.

“That math grade you got when you were eight years old is still running your business.”

She’s not joking. And once you understand it, you can’t unsee it.

Real Stories That Will Make You Think Differently

Kapu shared two client stories that stopped me in my tracks.

The woman who couldn’t speak up in meetings

She was brilliant. Her ideas were consistently better than her colleagues’. But she couldn’t speak up in a conference room. She was terrified of being challenged.

Through timeline therapy, they traced the fear back to a story her father had experienced before she was even born – a story that was passed down and silently translated into her inability to advocate for herself in professional settings.

Once they identified the root, they could break the pattern.

The photographer who couldn’t ask to be paid

Kapu was vulnerable enough to share her own story here. When she started her photography business, she could not ask clients for payment. She would deliver the work – and then watch them walk out the door without paying. She’d let it happen again and again

The root? She was raised with the belief: never ask anybody for anything. Even when it’s rightfully yours.

And as I told her: it’s pretty hard to build a seven-figure business if you’re not asking people to pay you.

The You Shine Framework: How It Started

Before mindset coaching, Kapu was a photographer. And not just any photographer – she specialized in helping women see themselves the way the people who love them see them.

Her tip for anyone with a photo session coming up? Channel yourself into a moment of pure joy – surrounded by people you love. See yourself through their eyes.

“When you do that, you forget that one eye looks smaller than the other. You forget your brows aren’t perfectly even. All those little things just disappear.

That philosophy became the foundation for everything she does now. Whether it’s photography or mindset coaching, it’s always about how it feels – not how it looks.

Identity Work: The Part We Skip

Here’s what I know from my own business: your ambitions and your identity have to be aligned.

You can want a million-dollar business and still show up every day as the person who apologizes for charging for her work. You can want more visibility and still shrink every time the camera turns on.

The gap between where you want to go and where your identity currently lives – that’s the work. And it’s not a one-time fix. Every new level brings a new version of the same challenge.

Dr. Kapu helps women close that gap. Not with affirmations, but with real, science-backed methods that get to the root of why you’re stuck.

Magical Quotes From The Episode:

Karen Yankovich Quotes

  • “Energy enters the room before you do.”

  • “People can feel the energy behind what you create.”

Dr. Tanya English Quotes

  • “You can’t heal until you feel safe.”

  • “When you’re focused, centered, and in your power, that shows up in your bank account.”
  • “If you’re not the queen in your own life, somebody else is.”

Resources Mentioned In This Episode:

If anything in this post resonated with you, the first step is simple: book a mind mapping call. No pressure, no pitch. Just a real conversation to see if you’re a good fit for each other.

  • Website: YouShineMindsetCoaching.com
  • Instagram: @YouShineMindsetCoaching
  • LinkedIn: Search Dr. Kapu Patel
  • Community: Courageous Chutney Church (monthly virtual + in-person gatherings)

And if you’re ready to pair mindset work with LinkedIn visibility strategy, come check out the Visibility Salon at www.VisibilitySalon.com. Because the inner work and the outer strategy? That’s where the magic really happens.

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Read the Transcript

Episode: Mindset, Networking & Bold Moves with Dr. Kapu Patel

Recorded: May 7, 2026  |  Duration: 50:24

[00:00] Welcome & Introduction

Karen Yankovich: Welcome to Good Girls Get Rich: The Conversations. I’m Karen Yankovich, and I’m here live on LinkedIn every Wednesday at noon Eastern. I bring amazing guests to the show because I want you to be able to jump into the conversation in real time – not just listen.

Today I’m joined by my friend Dr. Kapu Patel. Dr. Patel is a certified mindset coach trained in classical coaching models, Neuro Linguistic Programming, timeline therapy, and hypnotherapy. She has over three decades spanning Big Pharma, startups, and personal mentorship. She creates a safe space for her clients to make their next big, bold move – with courage, clarity, and confidence.

[01:35] How Karen and Kapu Met

Karen: Kapu, we actually met around 2017 or 2018 – maybe eight or nine years ago. We were both at the New Jersey Conference for Women run by the Princeton Mercer Regional Chamber of Commerce. I was doing LinkedIn profile reviews on the trade show floor, and you had your photography studio there. It was such a natural partnership.

[02:00] Kapu’s Approach to Networking

Karen: One of the things that has always stood out to me about you, Kapu, is your incredible ability to network. I teach this all the time – it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. You are the sum of the five people you surround yourself with. But most marketers don’t invest enough time there. You do. Tell us about that.

Dr. Kapu Patel: I love meeting people. I love knowing about people. Last Saturday it was raining and I told my husband I wanted to go out for coffee – not because we don’t have coffee at home, but because I wanted to be around people. When we walked into the coffee shop, my husband made a beeline for the quiet corner with two empty tables. I said no. We’re sitting with everyone else. I derive my energy from meeting people. And yes – I’m an introvert.

Karen: I believe it, actually. I’d probably say the same thing about myself.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Introverts recharge by going inward. But I love meeting new people. Here’s something that might surprise you – about sixty to seventy percent of the time, I don’t even bring business cards to networking events.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Because it’s not about the exchange of cards. It’s about being fully present. In a room of a hundred or two hundred people, how do you make a real connection with the person right in front of you – if all you’re thinking about is handing over your card? We are working with humans. Everyone wants to feel special. Find one thing about them that truly moves them. It doesn’t have to be about work.

[06:19] Remembering Connections Without Cards

Karen: I love that strategy, but I immediately thought – what if I meet you and I don’t have your card? I’m going to go home and forget your name. I always try to write that one thing on the back of someone’s card so I can follow up later and say, ‘Hey, how was your trip to Disney World?’

Dr. Kapu Patel: I have a trick for that. We all have phones. I take selfies with people and make a note with their name. Then I connect with them on LinkedIn. That’s the key piece – LinkedIn is where the follow-through lives. And I was intentional about not bringing cards because I wanted the connection itself to be the focus.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Here’s something else I do at networking events. I came from a science background, where networking means: do great work, publish it, and hope people find you. When I became a photographer, I had no idea those in-person communities even existed. So I used to stand in corners at events because I didn’t know anyone. Now I make it a point to scan the corners first – and go introduce myself to the person standing alone.

[08:26] Presence, Gravitas & the Photographer’s Eye

Karen: You have a presence when you’re in person, Kapu. You have warmth, generosity – and gravitas. You’ve built that. It makes people think, ‘I need to know her.’ And I think that naturally led you to photography, where you helped people feel comfortable stepping into their next chapter.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Photography chose me, honestly. I was deep in pharma, and I lost my dad somewhat unexpectedly. I was on a call with a client from a hospital cafeteria while he was fighting for his life. I came home and said, ‘Something has to shift.’ My husband said, ‘Do what you want.’ So I took time off – I actually closed everything.

[10:50] From Scientist to Photographer

Karen: Aka – you quit your job.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Yes. And what made me pick photography was that I had always been a photographer on the side. I used to sell landscape prints for charitable causes. When Hurricane Sandy hit, I was without income – but I wanted to help people who were suffering. I was in a yoga class and my teacher quoted Arthur Ashe: ‘Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.’

Karen: For those listening who may not remember – Hurricane Sandy devastated New Jersey. I’m actually at my beach house at the Jersey Shore right now. The beaches still haven’t fully recovered, over a decade later. Houses were swept out to sea. It was unimaginable. I love that you approached it from a ‘how can I help’ standpoint.

Dr. Kapu Patel: I offered family photography sessions because nobody had walls to hang landscapes – but families were coming together. I set it up with five charities. You could donate in multiples of fifty, five hundred, or five thousand dollars, and I’d do your family portrait. Until then, I actually told myself I hated photographing people – hello, introvert. But I got a lot of press coverage, stayed busy, and discovered I loved it.

[13:19] The ‘You Shine’ Mindset Behind the Lens

Dr. Kapu Patel: When I started calling friends to book sessions, they kept saying: ‘I don’t like myself in photos.’ That was my first tick box. I realized: a photograph should never be about how it looks. It should always be about how it feels. So I started coaching my clients into the right mindset before they even arrived for their session.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Here’s my one big tip for anyone who has a photo session coming up: forget that there is an expensive camera in front of you. Channel yourself into a moment where you are the happiest you’ve ever been – surrounded by people you love. And see yourself through the eyes of the people who love you.

Karen: Oh, that’s a really good tip.

Dr. Kapu Patel: When you do that, you forget that one eye looks smaller than the other. You forget your brows aren’t perfectly even. All those little things just disappear. That’s how the You Shine session was born. I thought it was only for women – but men have the same insecurities. We’ve been told what we’re supposed to look like for so long that we’ve forgotten what it actually feels like.

[15:51] Building Community: Courageous Chutney Church

Karen: A couple of years ago, while you were still focused on photography, you started a Facebook community. I remember watching it and thinking – what is she doing? But it felt like a pure gift to your community.

Dr. Kapu Patel: It started during COVID. I couldn’t meet people in person, and I crave intellectual community. We all have the same joys. We all have the same problems. Women of a certain age – we’re all navigating similar chapters. The overarching message was: be truly, heartfully grateful for this body you wake up in. Self-love. Lifting each other up. If a woman posted something brave, the goal was for other women to lift her higher.

[18:02] Why Aligned Community Matters

Karen: When you create a space with aligned values, it helps people feel less alone in their ambitions. I’m the only entrepreneur in my family. They love me, but they don’t understand why certain milestones matter the way my entrepreneur community does. They don’t get that to have a six-figure income as an entrepreneur, I need a quarter-million dollar business. They don’t understand how hard it is to apply for a mortgage without a traditional paycheck. A community of people who actually get it – that changes everything.

[20:06] The Pivot from Photography to Mindset Coaching

Dr. Kapu Patel: The transition was very natural. Even in pharma, I always mentored. I always wanted to know the person before I delegated a task. When women started coming in for branding shoots, many of them had already invested real money and time – and they still had blocks that prevented them from fully showing up.

Dr. Kapu Patel: While they sat in the hair and makeup chair, they’d talk about their big, bold dreams – and then immediately layer on ‘but I can’t really do that because…’ That’s the conscious mind talking. Underneath, the real reason is almost always something different entirely.

Dr. Kapu Patel: That’s when mindset coaching entered the picture for me. I was intentional: I didn’t want a sixty-hour weekend certification. I chose Mindset Coach Academy because it offered ICF certification AND neuroscience-based modalities – NLP, timeline therapy, hypnotherapy. I also still work in pharma part time, because the two sides of my brain are beautifully balanced that way.

[25:00] The Goal to Touch 10,000 Women

Dr. Kapu Patel: I said this out loud once and I’ll say it again: I want to touch ten thousand women in two years. That’s my wildest goal.

Karen: That’s so doable for you, Kapu. This conversation alone has the potential to reach ten thousand women – and number ten thousand and one will reach out to you. I actually think ten thousand isn’t a big enough number. If you’re talking about reaching women with a meaningful shift, multiply that by the ripple effect. Think a hundred thousand. Half a million.

[27:08] Strategy Without Mindset Won’t Get You There

Karen: I say this all the time: all the strategy in the world won’t get you where you want to go if you haven’t done the mindset work. I see women with ambitions way up here – but their mindset is still down here. Until those align, the strategy doesn’t land. And it’s never a one-time fix. Every new level brings new discomfort. New identity work.

[31:55] How Mindset Coaching Actually Works

Dr. Kapu Patel: Clients often come with a stated goal. But as you go deeper, that’s rarely the real goal. They believe that reaching that goal will make them happy – and sometimes that’s true. But the bigger issue is: they’re smart people who know exactly what they need to do, and they’re still not doing it. That’s not a strategy problem. That’s a mindset problem.

Dr. Kapu Patel: My job as a mindset coach is to pay close attention to both physical and verbal language. What’s NOT being said is often more important than what is. Then I use tools like NLP to help them reframe – and go deeper into what beliefs formed in childhood are still running their adult lives. I joke about this: that bad math grade you got when you were eight years old? It’s still running your business.

Karen: I wholeheartedly believe that. I can name moments from grammar school that defined something about who I became – not always in a good way.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Some of it is good compost. It helps us grow. But sometimes our roots can’t develop because there are too many rocks in the way.

[39:53] Real Client Examples

Dr. Kapu Patel: I had a young, brilliant woman who had incredible ideas – but she could not speak up in a conference room. She was afraid of being challenged. She’d watch a less-prepared colleague say her idea out loud and get all the credit. Through timeline therapy, we traced that fear back to a story her father had experienced before she was even born – and how that story was passed down translated into her inability to speak up in front of people likely to challenge her. We had to break that pattern.

Dr. Kapu Patel: And I’ll be vulnerable here. When I started my photography business, I could not ask people to pay me. I would provide the service, and then they’d walk out the door – and I would just… let them. I eventually traced it back to being raised with the belief: ‘Never ask anybody for anything.’ Even when it’s rightfully yours.

Karen: And it’s pretty hard to build a seven-figure business if you’re not asking people to pay you.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Exactly. I had another client whose invoices just never went out. She had a CRM system ready to go – and still nothing happened month after month. We discovered she was in a relationship where her partner wasn’t contributing financially. Not sending invoices was her subconscious way of protecting that money. Her conscious mind had no idea that’s what was happening.

[43:52] How to Work with Dr. Kapu Patel

Karen: Kapu, tell us how people can find you and work with you.

Dr. Kapu Patel: I love meeting people – so the first step is always a no-pressure discovery call. We call it a mind mapping session. It’s a conversation to see if we’re the right fit, and if what you need is something I can truly help you with. If not, I refer you to my network.

Dr. Kapu Patel: My website is YouShineMindsetCoaching.com. I’m also active on LinkedIn and Instagram at @YouShineMindsetCoaching, where I share daily thoughts. And I run a community called Courageous Chutney Church. Courageous because it’s about courage. Chutney because we’re spicy. Church means conversation. We meet once a month – sometimes virtual, sometimes in person – and we pick a topic to stay goal-focused. Women come back month after month, and some don’t say a single word, but they walk away with something.

Karen: I love that. Even if it’s not a coaching session, just having one small shift from that discovery call makes the thirty minutes worth it. And my guess is most people will come back and say: tell me more.

[47:12] Closing Thoughts

Karen: Kapu, thank you so much for doing this with me. We’ve been talking about it for a while, and it was so worth the wait. For everyone listening: if you want to reach Kapu, all of her links are in the show notes. Subscribe to this podcast, share this episode, and tag both of us so we can amplify it. That ripple effect is exactly how we support each other.

Dr. Kapu Patel: Thank you for hosting me. I absolutely love this – unscripted, live, and authentic. That’s everything.