Creating Your Climate: How to Grow Where You’re Planted

 Can a palm tree grow in the Rocky Mountains? 🌴🏔️

In this episode, we dive deep into the world of self-awareness and why it is the #1 predictor of success—beating out GPAs and standardized test scores. 
Whether you are a student planning for life after high school or an adult looking for more job satisfaction, understanding your "internal climate" is the key to moving from just "trudging through" to truly thriving. 
In this episode, we discuss: 

The Greenhouse Analogy: How to create the right environment for your unique personality traits.

The Self-Awareness Gap: Why only 10-15% of people are truly self-aware and how that affects our choices.

Rewriting Your Story: Identifying the "wounds" and labels from the past that color what you think you’re capable of today.

Beyond the Paycheck: Why choosing a career based solely on money often leads to burnout.

The YouMap® Advantage: How identifying your strengths, values, and "burnout skills" changes the way you do life.

Work with Me:

New 8-Week Live Course: I’m launching a live cohort in the Topeka area focused on self-discovery, mental health literacy, and emotional regulation.

YouMap® Coaching: Interested in a deep dive into your own strengths and interests? The YouMap® is for all ages

Want to take the YouMap® assessment?
Email me:
ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com 

Find my podcast
Email me:  ccoufal@cynthiacoufalcoaching.com
Text me:  785-380-2064
More information

Transcript

 Hi. I am so excited to be with you again this month, and since it's monthly, I have so much to say, so I'm gonna try to not talk for a really long time. We are still working on self-awareness and finding out things about ourselves and how important that is. I, every month I find out new things about myself, and I was listening to a podcast. Recently where? They were talking about personality traits, and I love that. And I love thinking about which ones do I have, why do I have 'em, and how can I use them? And so I wanna talk to you a little bit about that too, because that's what young people are working on as they do their post-secondary planning. That's what all of us are working on in relationships and in our work settings, and pretty much in our family relationships. [00:01:00] Everything we do. Requires us to know something about ourself so that we can do the best that we can do in that environment. And I love this analogy, and this came from the podcast that I was listening to, but he asked the question, kind of Palm Tree grow in the Rocky Mountains. And of course people are saying, well, no, because a palm tree is a warm climate plant and Rocky Mountains are snowy and cold, and even in the summer, you know, it would be a very short period of time and probably too cold most of the time, even in the summer. And he said that actually, yes, the palm tree could grow. In the Rocky Mountains. It was in a greenhouse, and I was thinking about how, and he was, he was meaning it about businesses, like [00:02:00] if you have certain personality traits that make it difficult for you in business, then you just need to create a greenhouse that has the right environment, the right ingredients to make your business work well. This analogy works for what I have been teaching too, that when. When our kids don't know all of their abilities and strengths and skills and interests, then they don't really know what climate they should be going to, to be the, to grow in the best way that they can't. And so I thought, well, this is a great way for young people to think about this. This is a great way for parents to look at this, that we just need to help them. Figure out what climate, what zone, if you are a gardener. And I am not, but I do know that I don't do any of the gardening. My husband loves gardening and I [00:03:00] like to choose the plants and the flowers and the bushes that are gonna go in our landscaping are in the garden. I just don't do the work. Um, and if you've listened to any of my podcasts, you'll know I don't really like outdoors that much. I like to go sit in it, but I don't like to do any work. And there's zones. So when you are looking in a, in a catalog of all the plants and all the bushes and all the trees you have to pick one that, or you have to pick ones that fit in the zones that you live in. Because if you pick a palm tree. We put it in our Kansas yard, it's not going to live because we don't have the climate year round that you would need for that to thrive and grow. So, um, that is something that I think is just so perfect that it came up in this podcast while I was thinking about, you know, what do I wanna talk about this month And [00:04:00] last month we did a lot of post-secondary planning talk and the, um. The person that we had come in for my monthly collaboration conversation was about what do colleges want? Well, this month I have the, the CEO and co-founder of the app gb. And GB is an app that helps you become more self-aware, and then you, it, it talks to you about work environments and college environments and different things so that you can make those really good choices later Only 10 to 15% of all people, and this is adults and every human, only 10 to 15% are truly self-aware. And so if you think about that and those, you know, as adults, I think we seek out self-awareness a little bit more than young people do. I think young people don't realize that there's ways to develop themselves or do different things, [00:05:00] or they don't. Know what they don't know. So they're, you know, they're, they're not searching it out as much as I think adults are, but if you think about 10 to 15% are, are really the only people that are pretty self-aware, then they're, we have all, we all have a lot of work to do. I just happen to have the type of personality that enjoys learning and seeking things out like this, and self-development and self-awareness has been so fun for me my whole life. So I'm always seeking out new ways to look at that, but I know not everyone is like that, but it is important that we have some care about understanding ourselves because that's where job satisfaction comes from. We, a lot of times people just choose their careers or choose their majors for the wrong reasons. They're not doing it for what climate will I [00:06:00] will I thrive in, but this is what my parent told me to do. This is what my friend is doing. This is where my boyfriend moved to what, you know, whatever. And then we're. We're not doing the thing that's good for us. We're doing what's good for someone else, and then it doesn't fit for the things that, that we're wanting to do. And what I found interesting in this podcast, and I'm not gonna talk a ton about the other podcast today, I, there's so much in that podcast, I kind of wanna use it for some other things that I'm doing. But what I will say about it is he said, we also. Think we know certain things about ourselves or we use certain personality beliefs and themes that people have told us about ourselves. Like, um, especially really wounds from when we were younger. Like, you're lazy, or you're stupid, or you're weird. Or you know, people don't wanna hear from [00:07:00] you or whatever. Things that maybe happened in a. In a toxic parental environment, or maybe it was just bullying at school or, you know, maybe we didn't fit in very well or we didn't feel like we fit in, so then we had these stories about stuff. And so our self-awareness is coming from things that were believing about, things that have already happened or things that people have told us, not the truth about who we are or what we are capable of doing. And so. There's kind of that other piece of it, and I do think that teenagers use that, those kind of beliefs that they've taken on from their parents or their school or the bus or the bullying at the lunchroom or on the playground or whatever, and start thinking that that's who they are, which then colors the things that they think they're capable of doing. When, they, they can't dig down into [00:08:00] the true stuff about who they are. And so in schools, you know, we're, when we talk about career development or post-secondary planning, and I know we're getting better about this, but in the past it was all about. Just having these different careers come in or show a film about, or read a book about these different jobs that people can do. And kids just pick stuff. And a lot of times, and I remember this in the high school so much, most kids would say, well, what pays a lot? That's what I want to do. Well, certainly we wanna think about lifestyle. Lifestyle as part of those plans and how do we wanna live our lives and what would that require of us? If we wanna have expensive things, how much money would we need to make in order to have expensive things? But a lot of times the kids were not interested at all in like, they would say, [00:09:00] oh, a doctor or a lawyer makes a lot of money. That's what I wanna do. Well, they weren't interested in science or they weren't interested in math, or they weren't interested in, uh, public speaking, or they weren't interested in. Learning the things that you would need to learn or they weren't interested in going to school for a long time. And I would try to talk to them about those things. And so I knew that the climate that they needed, they would need to have things that would make them want to stay in those things. So just choosing that as a career because it made a lot of money, doesn't make sense if you don't like any of the things it's gonna take to do that thing. But kids really don't have a clue about what jobs take in order to do them. They see something on TV or something in a movie sometimes. Well, a lot of times kids don't wanna do what their parents do, but a lot of times kids don't even know what their parents do for a job, but. If you think [00:10:00] about the millions of jobs that you can do in the world and the millions of jobs that probably haven't even been created yet that we don't even know about, we can't ask kids to be like, what do you wanna do? Or What job do you wanna have when they really don't have a clue about any of those things and they need to figure out, uh, we need to be spending more time helping kids really develop themselves, figure out who they are, and then that. Is where all that inspiration, creativity, and excitement comes from when you're doing the thing that you really like. When I think about my entire life, taking care of young people and their parents and helping people have a safe place to talk about anything and to help them explore whatever it is that they want to explore, I have loved that for 35 years. There. I, I can do that the rest of my life for [00:11:00] free. And those are the thing, like I get excited about, what can I talk about next? What can I create that will help young people? What can I create that will help their parents? That is exciting to me. Every day. Every day I wanna get out of bed because I have new ideas about the things that I'm gonna talk about, the things I'm gonna create, the things I'm gonna do with my clients. The networking that it takes, like meeting all the people. I love all of that stuff and I have found the environment that helps me to grow and this is the climate that I need to be in. A lot of people are just sort of trudging through not wanting to get out of bed, not wanting to do the thing because they're choosing jobs and places that are not, not helpful to them or not helping them to grow and thrive. One thing that I have been saying about schools for forever is that we focus too much on grades. The [00:12:00] GPA. You know, the, the test scores that we're getting, and I know that part of that isn't just that the school is wanting to do that. It's that even higher up than that, you know, government or state laws or whatever, say that your school is good or not good, or you get funding or no funding based on those things, but the emotional intelligence that a person has, which is your self-awareness. The amount of self-awareness that a person has at 16 predicts their income, their relationship quality, their mental health, more than a GPA and or standardized test scores. And so if that is true, well that is true. And since that is true, we need to be spending a lot more time helping kids realize who they are.[00:13:00]  Become self aware of the things that are gonna help them in this life. Have those good relationships, find the exact work that makes them wanna jump outta bed every day to do the things that just make their life at 16, all the way to 100. A fruitful, exciting, thriving fullest potential life. I think the biggest reason why this doesn't happen as much, not only because schools are. Graded kind of on these standardized test scores. So you wanna make sure you have those, but also adolescents brains are not done developing yet. And so that analyzing self-aware part of our brain is not fully there until about 25. And so. Some of the things that [00:14:00] they are self-aware of at the time at 16 is not what they're going to be thinking when they're 25, which is at the beginning of, of that next part of their life. And so that is a little bit tricky, but I do think that if we teach them more about themselves younger, then that developing into that person won't be so different or won't. Be opposite from them when they get there. When I was talking about like thinking all night and just jumping outta bed and being so excited about creating new things and stuff that I want to do, I am, I have created a course, a class. A group. I don't even know for sure what to call it yet. And it's all about this self-discovery, um, mental health literacy, emotional regulation, everything like those. [00:15:00] Essential skills that I think young people need to have in order to be the most successful, happy, thriving, adult capable adult. I am gonna teach those things in an eight week course, and I'm gonna start it out live because one of the things, if you remember a couple episodes ago when I was talking about my new year and how I wanted to do things differently, I want to be face to face with people. And so I'm gonna start this out as a live cohort, and so you would have to live in the Topeka area in order to be able to take the course, but I will put information about it in case you are a Topeka listener or someone who lives close. I have been telling my Holton friends about it because they aren't too far away, but. At the end for the young people, they will be getting a certificate. And I can't decide exactly how I [00:16:00] wanna word it. I want it to be something that, a resume, I want it to be resume worthy. Because what they're learning in this course is something that an employer, a college what, wherever they need this resume for. Would be like, oh my gosh, this, this is a, you know, a top tier candidate because they have this information. So I don't wanna just call it a life skills certificate or mental health literacy certificate. I, I don't know for sure. I haven't figured out the wording of what I want the certificate to be yet. But when they are finished with the course, then they will have this certificate and can put it on their resume that they have these skills that other kids are not. Necessarily gonna hang off because they haven't had this course in learning to become a capable adult so, um, that's kind of like one of the new exciting things. And I know that it will [00:17:00] become a Zoom or online or virtual course that young people and parents will also be able to take. And you don't, I'm not doing a certification for the parents unless they want it. I don't know. I don't think that a certification is something that a parent cares about, but I do think that young people will care about being able to, it's like. I'm gonna go through this stuff and then I'm gonna have something that I can prove to employers or schools or whoever that I, I do have these other skills, these life skills as self-awareness skills that predict my success in life. And I think that those entities will be really interested in kids who have that certification. And of course, you know, I am YouMap® certified and I. The YouMap® is exactly what we're talking about here. The YouMap® will show your child their strengths, their interests, their values, [00:18:00] and their preferred versus burnout skills. It's important to know these things. Even in high school, I find that most of my clients have study as a burnout skill. Now, that doesn't mean that they don't have to study because it burns them out, but we talk about how do you, when you have something that's important. As a burnout skill, then how do you study so you don't get burned out? What are the things that you need to do to make studying doable for you? How do you make it so that you aren't getting burned out? And so we, we talk about. What those things are about them and how they do life. Now, those that debriefing session or sessions, depending on how you wanna do it. Is a one-to-one thing because each person's YouMap® is very specific to them. And not that I couldn't do a YouMap® [00:19:00] group where we just sort of generally talked about the different topics. I think it's really important if you wanna do the deep dive part, where you take the YouMap® and then you, then I walk you through. Those, those pieces and exactly what you can do in each of those things and how they work specifically for you. And like I said, that can be done in a one hour debrief where we just go over it generally. The, if you, if your child does take the YouMap® and does that, they get a workbook that they can totally do all the exercises on their own. So it's not like. They get the hour debrief and then they don't really know what to do with the stuff. They can go on further with it. But if you would want to have more sessions to really coach through how do you use this that's certainly available as well. So I'm gonna put everything that you need to know about all the [00:20:00] stuff in the show notes and in the description of the YouTube video. But I am just so excited about like this self-awareness. Self-development journey because I am still on one. I will never not be on one. I like to tell. I mean, I think every week I say to a client you know, like they're saying they're struggling with something or they wondered about something or they didn't know how to do a certain thing. I'm like, yeah, I'm still working on that too. So we don't ever stop working on these things, but when we know. These are the things that we should be working on, or we know that a strength or a skill would help us if we did it a certain way. We build that greenhouse around us that has the exact environment that we need, the exact climate controls that we need to make our life. Good. So I'll talk to you next month if you want [00:21:00] weekly talks with me. It's not actually me talking, it's me talking on paper. But you can get my newsletter that comes out every week. And I also on social media, I do more. I, I do more often talk or create a post or write something that is around whatever the monthly podcast is about. I've thought about switching it and maybe doing my podcast weekly and doing my newsletter monthly. I haven't decided if that's what I want to do yet. It's an intriguing thought. Somebody brought it up to me recently. Not that I should do it, but that's what they do, and I was like, oh. I'm gonna have to decide how does that fit into my climate controlled, uh, greenhouse. You know, does that feel better than what I'm doing or would it really just be the same thing? I don't know. So I'm working on that as I'm [00:22:00] always working on myself, and I hope you're all figuring out things about yourselves and getting that self-awareness that you need. Because no matter how old you are, whoever you know is, is listening. You need to know things about yourself to have positive work, environments, relationships, everything. It isn't just about teenagers picking what they're gonna do after high school. So really anyone can contact me about the YouMap® 'cause the YouMap® is for all ages. So if you are interested in knowing more about yourself, let me know. Talk to you soon.