If you're a parent, a grandparent, a caregiver, or even a kid yourself, we’ve got a very important message for you! In this very special episode of Powered by Instinct, we'll share a game-changing webinar with guidance on how to empower your kids with the freedom to be themselves.
You’ll join Nicole Loucks, VP of Education and Youth Programs at Kolbe Corp, as she breaks down how to:
1. Help kids be more successful by leaning into their natural strengths
2. Empower youth to be creative, even when their creative approaches are different from yours…or their friends
3. Guide students through the pitfalls of school and into rewarding careers
Our goal is to equip students with the knowledge they need to become productive problem solvers. This is an important message, so please pass this podcast episode on to anyone in your life who has at least one kid they care about…it can make a huge difference.
💡 Hosts: Nicole Loucks (5824)
💡What they do:
- Nicole is Kolbe’s Director of Training, as well as VP of Education and Youth Programs.
💡Company: Kolbe Corp
💡 Where to find them: https://www.kolbe.com/our-experts/
Takeaways:
Kids and teens each have a unique set of strengths and ways of problem solving.
Their natural way of taking action can be measured through an assessment called the Student Aptitude™ Quiz.
When students aren’t given the freedom to lean into their natural strengths, it can cause stress and limit their ability to problem solve.
Your MO (innate way of taking action) may be different from your child’s. There are ways to make that work, but it requires knowledge and understanding.
If your child is being asked to work against their MO in school, new techniques and approaches can make a world of difference.
Key Quotes
"Life already requires so much effort. If you can do it within your strengths, you will literally get more done."
“We need to help kids make good decisions. That's our ultimate goal. We don't necessarily want them to be just like you or their friends or your kid’s friends. We need them to be really great problem solvers.”
“Each child has a natural strength in each of these areas that is innate to them that can't be changed and shouldn't be changed because this is our absolute best gift to the world.”
“There is not one path to be successful. They start in the same place, but the way they get there can be so different and should be so different depending on their MO.”
“Let your child just give themselves permission to not do something well. Not every child has to be somebody who is naturally going to structure or plan using a little planner. Give yourself permission to figure out a different way to get your homework done, or not follow the exact structure of the teacher.”
***
Find the freedom to be yourself by taking the Kolbe A™ Index or The Student Aptitude Quiz for the youth in your life.
If you would like to be a guest on Powered by Instinct or get in touch with any of our Kolbe Experts, send us a quick email: info@kolbe.com
Nicole Loucks: [00:00:00] Welcome to powered by instinct, a podcast for professionals who think about how your fundamental nature drives performance. If you're interested in getting more done more naturally, then let's jump in.
And welcome to a very special episode of powered by instincts. So if you're a regular listener of this podcast, you'll probably know how important it is for people to use their instinctive strengths in their day to day life. Those who work against their grain and lean away from their natural strengths will find themselves stressed out, which in turn can rapidly lead to burnout.
So we focus on empowering others to find the freedom to be themselves. And the results are absolutely amazing, but all too often we overlook this one section of the population who we need to be themselves when problem solving. And it's even more important. And that's our kids, because as we know, our kids today need to feel empowered to figure out how to work within their strengths so they can grow into our amazing working adults who know what they need to be successful.
So [00:01:00] today we're going to share a webinar we did called three tips to help empower your kids. My name is Nicole Laux. I'm our VP of Youth and Education Programs here at Kolbe Corp. I've had the pleasure of working with Kathy Kolbe and Kolbe Corp team for the past eight years now. And one of my favorite things to do is dig into how we can make a difference in the lives of the young people we work with.
Because it gives them the, the strength, the superpower. To be amazing adults and to go into the business world and use their strengths and be really productive problem solvers. And that's absolutely what we want. Prior to working with Kathy, I was a high school teacher. And so I saw day to day, all the things that we're going to be talking about with some of these youth and how it plays out for different kids.
I also have two young kids at home that I work hard every day to empower. And so I'm sure many of you do too. If you can get one light bulb moment out of our session today, we will have totally done our job because our mission at Kolbe Corp is to help people understand their own strengths and use [00:02:00] them in ways that matter to them most.
And when we're talking about kids, we want to make sure they know what is absolutely perfect about them and how they can contribute that to the world around them. As we know, especially our teens, but even our kids as young as elementary school, they have access to all this terrible stuff in the world.
And they have. So many things going on with them. They have peer pressure. They have bullying. They have to deal with different frustrations or fears. There are so many barriers to being your most productive self. We see this all the time with kids. So many barriers. They need to control how they do things because they have so little control over other things in their life.
Our first tip that we're going to be talking about today is my definition of success is the freedom to be yourself. Kathy Kolbe says that. It's our job to make sure that kids and teens that we work with know this and we need to help them make good decisions and be good problem solvers. That's our ultimate goal.
We don't necessarily want them to be just like you or their friends [00:03:00] or your kids friends. We need them to be really great problem solvers. And so we want to make sure that they have the freedom to be success. So our first tip is we need to reframe what success looks like. I'm going to say that again.
You need to reframe what success looks like. Success doesn't mean getting an A on that test. It doesn't necessarily mean getting into this best college. It doesn't necessarily mean doing exactly what your friends, kids do. We need to make sure that. We are framing success as the freedom to be themselves because each kid has everything they need inside of them to be successful.
And it's about figuring out what comes out naturally and tapping into that even more. So that's the first thing that we're going to talk about this morning, is how can we make sure the kids are truly successful with this brand new definition of success. What we know is that there are these three parts of the mind.
Ancient philosophers and modern psychologists talk about this three part or three dimensions of the mind for separate [00:04:00] domains for thinking, feeling, and doing. And we know that you are truly successful when you're able to kind of be in the zone in all three. The thinking part of the mind, this is the stuff that kids have to deal with in school all day long, right?
This is, how smart are you? They hear that all the time. What do you know? Any skills, your experience that you might put on a resume. Our feelings. Again, this is something that we deal with, with kids all the time. What's their personality? Are they introverted or extroverted? What motivates them? What do they like?
What do they value? And it's often really easy to figure out those thinking and feeling parts of the mind for kids. They have a sense that what those things are. They know where they are in terms of their class, if they know information or not. And you probably as parents or guardians really get a sense of what interests your child, whether that's video games or dance or other things.
But what we notice is that missing piece of the [00:05:00] puzzle that makes this fit together to make you really a whole person is that doing or that conative part of the mind. And again, you guys know your kids so well, but that missing piece of the puzzle, that doing It's going to help you navigate how to empower your child when nothing else seems to make sense.
They're motivated, they're smart kids, they're capable, but why is it not working? And so the doing part of the mind is all about their instinctive strengths, how they naturally take action and make decisions and how they execute, how they problem solve. So, as we go through today, we want to make sure that we are thinking of them in all three parts of the mind.
They are a whole child, a whole person. And so, again, those thinking and feeling parts are, are sometimes very much addressed already, in therapy, or in school, or in other things. But that doing part of the mind, that's the part that we sometimes have trouble with. What do we know about instinctive strengths and why is it that missing piece that when nothing else works, you can count on [00:06:00] that, is because it is innate.
You were born with this natural way of getting things done and it does not change over time. We see in test retest reliability studies that there is not a significant change in over 90%. That's huge. And so that's why it is totally predictive of how kids are going to take action. How are they going to problem solve and how they're going to be successful in doing things their way, because this doesn't change.
And by the way, it's innate, but it's not genetic. And so we're going to look at an example later this morning about a mother and daughter. They have totally different natural instincts and how they get things done is totally different. So this is a very stable tree. Unlike. You're thinking and you're feeling parts of the mind, right?
We know that preferences or interests change over time. And we know that knowledge and skills ideally grow over time, right? But this is how you naturally take action and that's not going to change. And what we know is that every young person has [00:07:00] four strengths that are their most amazing contributions that absolutely can't be changed.
And by the way, there's no best way of doing things. Any of these strings can be put in situations that work for them and they're able to shine. And there's also any of these strings can be put in situations that absolutely don't work for them. And it can be frustrating for both the child and the parent or guardian.
So our goal, again, as we're looking at these, is to raise really productive future adults who are problem solving. So we see that there's a need for each of these different strengths in the workplace. So let's take a look. We see that every child has a natural way of solving problems when it deals with gathering and sharing information.
From somebody who is naturally going to research, get lots of information, need a lot of information to get started, all the information sometimes, all the way to somebody who is naturally going to simplify. These are the kids who absolutely eyes glaze over when you give too much information. And in fact, they might come back to you and say, Hey, what do [00:08:00] we do here?
Because they're not listening to necessarily all the information at the start because they don't need it to get started. started. So again, all of these, every little area, one through 10 omnius continuum is an amazing strength, but we need to make sure that we're putting them in situations where that shines.
So in that researching area, a long red line, we can see kids who they are likely to ask a lot of questions in the classroom. It's hard for them to get started if there's vague or incomplete information or be excited about something until they've had a chance to do research or gather their own data.
Yeah. In the Follow Thru, all kids have a way that they naturally organize and design. From somebody who is naturally going to plan or structure, who's going to be very sequential, who's going to both create plans, and who's going to need to know the plan before they feel comfortable doing something, all the way to somebody, one of these kids who's going to shortcut things.
They are going to switch between tasks. They do not have a need to necessarily finish what they start. And they are going to [00:09:00] change a plan or thrive in an environment where that plan isn't really super structured. So these are going to be kids who in the classroom, Hey, there's a fire drill, or we're switching gears from math to reading.
No problem. Not a big deal. They don't have to necessarily start with one thing and finish it. They also are really adaptable to the plan changing. And so as a parent or a guardian, if you're taking somebody who has that short cutting strength out and you decide, Hey, we're actually, we're running late for the movie.
We're going to actually go to the play area and said, you're not going to have a kid who's necessarily throw on a fit. Whereas if you have a child who's a natural planner. That could be a real moment for you. Absolutely. Quick Start, all of our kids have this natural way of dealing with risk and uncertainty that is amazing from somebody who's going to experiment naturally, try things out, need opportunities, and to try new and innovative approaches to somebody who is going to naturally stabilize.
This is the kid [00:10:00] who's going to stick with what's working, who absolutely needs to know what's going to happen. In order to feel comfortable in perhaps a new and different situation, right? So my daughter Scout fits in this category. She is a stabilizer and so if there is a new situation that's coming up, we have to talk with her about it.
A surprise is not fun for her and it's not enjoyable. So we take steps to make sure that the perceived risk and the uncertainty that comes along with some new experiences as a kid is kind of downplayed a little bit and she knows a little bit more going into it. Because that helps her feel a little bit more comfortable.
So again, as we're going through these, think of a kid in your life. If you have the Student Aptitude Quiz or the Kolbe Y™ Result, pull that out because you want to see where they fall. But if you don't, be thinking about these behaviors. All right, our last amazing Kolbe Action Mode is So each kid has a strength in a way that they handle space and tangible information.
From somebody who naturally is going to construct, needs to demonstrate [00:11:00] solutions, has a really hands on approach to problem solving, we see these kids in the classroom who are, have a need to fidget. They're up, they're moving, they're touching things because that is how they naturally problem solve. All the way to some kids who don't need to see it to believe it.
They can envision a solution in their mind. So, I'm going to take a moment and say. And again, our goal is to raise really productive adults. Each child has a natural strength in each of these areas that is innate to them, that can't be changed and shouldn't be changed because this is their absolute best gift to the world.
So often what we do with kids is detailed of what they have to do. So if we think of a kid's day, Or, or a kid's life pretty much up until they're an adult. They have very little control over the, what they have to do, right? They have a schedule. They go to a school that's like, let's say eight to three.
They don't really get to pick their classes all the time. They definitely don't get to pick their teachers, [00:12:00] but they have a set schedule. Their parents after school oftentimes will dictate the schedule they have after that, whether they're in aftercare, whether they have a job or in extracurriculars.
They go to a school that they, again, might not have a lot of control over the environment. They're tested on a lot of cognitive information. So that's that thinking part of the mind skills based, which is how smart you are. Right? They grow up in a family with parents who might do things very different from them.
M. O. s of parents, we're going to talk about this a little bit, come into play heavily for kids. There are certain expectations, values built around how the parents naturally do things that can, that can be at play. So we definitely have familiar expectations. And when we think of teachers, especially as we get into middle school and high school, kids have six to seven different bosses.
They have six to seven different teachers that they have to learn. What are their expectations? How are they different? And they change every single year. Imagine how hard that would be. So if you're an adult and you don't like one of [00:13:00] these what's, you can often change it, right? You can quit your job. You can find a new environment to work or, or do things.
But the what is very much controlled for the kid. So what can they have control over? And that's really the how. There is not one path to be successful. They start in the same place, but how they get there can be so different and should be so different, depending on their MO. So you have time when school will feel easy, you'll have time when school will feel hard, but they have to figure out how to do it their own way to be really successful.
So that child that you were thinking of in your life, think about this. Do they get to that goal the same way you would do it? Or not. And ideally we're empowering them to get to that goal in whatever path really works for them. And really just providing the opportunities and freedom to find that path their own way.
Of course you can observe what your child does and talk to your child to figure out where they might be in that continuum and see what behaviors and things might be most natural so that they have that freedom to get to the end [00:14:00] point in their own way. But certainly what we have is the student aptitude quiz and it takes the guesswork out of it.
So this is a little language we think is really helpful. So we call it your MO. Your mode of operation is your natural pattern of behavior when free to be yourself. So this is an example of a student aptitude quiz result that you would get in the report. Um, and this person is eight, six, four, two. So you see where they might fall on that continuum we just talked about.
Again, answering some of these basic questions, we can see. Where that child naturally falls if free to be themselves, so you don't have to worry about figuring it out or the guessing game of let's try this and see what works and let's try that and see what works because this is going to tell you right off the bat.
So how can you make a difference? We talked about, okay, We need to make sure to empower them to get to the, how they can do something, right? The goal is set, but we need to have some freedom for how they can get to that end point. And I love this quote from William [00:15:00] Damon. He's one of the world's leading scholars on human development from Stanford.
And he says, everything we say and do around children registers, a child's character is formed through a succession of moment by moment communications and interactions, the people closest to them. Um, and even something as simple as regularly accepting. Expressing a positive outlook on life can make a significant difference.
One of my favorite books that I read my kids is How Full Is Your Bucket? And it talks about little drops of water getting into your bucket to fill it up. And that's what I imagined when I read this quote, is that sometimes it's the littlest things, little drops that make the biggest difference with kids.
And it's the same thing here. When we're talking about helping empower their strengths, To use their strengths? It's little things. So we need to just figure out how we can add one drop of water at a time because all those little drops are going to add up to something really amazing. So how is it that we add one drop at a time?
Watch out for times they use their strengths. Point them out. And again, even if you don't have a [00:16:00] student aptitude quiz, you can see when a kid is in their zone and doing things naturally, right? Because kids will revert back to doing what's natural for them if free to be themselves. If they are not pressured by outside or internal forces, they will be themselves.
Watch out for it and clean it out, raise that effort and that, um, using their strengths, even if it doesn't work out. So again, it's not about necessarily getting to that end goal because remember success is the freedom to be yourself. So when you're acting and putting in effort, if free to be yourself.
Let's praise that, even if it doesn't work out. Discuss frustrating points, but frame it in a way that's productive. Why was this frustrating? What would we do differently next time to make that better or do things differently? This doesn't need to be formal. These can be little communications throughout the day.
We're not just praising grades, right? We're not just praising the outcome. We're constantly watering and doing these really short, we call them short noticings, right? You're doing it very often. [00:17:00] And another thing that kids want to hear in a way that they can add that drop is talk about your own strengths.
Talk about what works for you and by the way, what doesn't work for you, because that's going to be really helpful for your kids to get a full picture of you and help them find purpose in the things that they do, right? What we know is that purpose allows kids to feel good about their contributions.
They'll continue to push and give effort if their contributions are valued in a really purposeful way. And again, we're praising their strengths or pointing them out. It may not be the way you would do it. As long as it's the way they would do it, if free to be themselves, that's what we want to really highlight here.
I love this quote by Reese Witherspoon. The second part is, she posted this a few days ago. She said, I'm realizing lately that I am the person I am now because I was able to express myself authentically and without fear when I was younger, I was so utterly me. And that was great. Simply put, I would love to always live as vibrantly as an authentically as I did at 10 years old.
We tend to beat [00:18:00] this out of kids over time that there's this correct way. You have to get something done. But guys, if given the opportunity, if we don't tell kids how, again, the how they have to do something and we give them freedom, they will absolutely revert back to what is natural for them. And that's where they're going to find success.
So we don't want to beat this out of them. We want them to grow into adults where they were able to be themselves when they were kids. And that's how they're able to continue to do that as adults. But what gets in the way? Okay. When you are in the zone, and we had this picture up early, you're, you're, you're a superhero, right?
You're using your mental energy super efficiently, you're contributing your best efforts, but you're totally going against your grain if you feel drained, unproductive. I want you to think of working against your grain or doing something that's not natural for you as your kryptonite. You will absolutely never do your best work like that, and your kids won't either.
So, our second tip is a lot of things that get in the way. By the way, [00:19:00] are totally avoidable. So, this kryptonite, we don't need it. And we can get through it. It is avoidable if we know a few things. So, we are going to do a quick exercise. This is where you're going to need your pen or your pencil. And like, a scrap of paper.
Okay? We're going to go ahead and I'm going to have everybody print your first and your last name. Once you've done that, grab your pen or pencil and shift it to your opposite hand, and then directly underneath this, go ahead and print your first and last name again. We do this exercise all the time. Most of you, that second time was hard.
It takes longer, right? You have to give more effort, more energy. It requires more focus. And it's super frustrating, and as you can see from mine, the result is worse. Have you ever said, Hey guys, kids, you're right handed, but I need you to learn how to write with your left hand to be successful in life.
Like, absolutely not. We would never say this to a kid, right? So why do we do this with other things? And what we know about handedness is [00:20:00] that it is innate. It is a trait that you are born with, whether you're right handed or left handed and we're ignoring those ambidextrous people right now. But this is innate.
I didn't have to tell you. Hey everybody, with your dominant hand, please pick up your pen or pencil. You automatically did that because it felt right to you. That's how you would naturally write. And then when I asked you to switch, it felt uncomfortable. It took longer. That's the type of outcome that we get.
And you can be putting so much effort and energy and going nowhere. It's such a waste of time and energy. And like, would you ever send your kids to school riding a bike like this? Absolutely not, because you would get diminishing returns, right? Your kid would be worn out and probably barely get down the block.
So when we're talking about working against our grain, why do we do it? But guess what? Just like handwriting, it doesn't feel great. You don't get your best results. This is what we see kids looking like and feeling like all the time. We have students who end up working against their grain really, really hard, whether it's self [00:21:00] imposed, because they feel like they need to do it that way, or it's imposed on them by their parents.
Supervisors, parents, teachers, a mentor, whoever it may be, but it's so debilitating. And that is where we lose momentum with kids, because then they'll stop trying. You put in all this effort, you're doing it in a way that is not natural for you, sometimes you get okay results. But a lot of times your results is not as great and then they're like, why would I try anymore?
It's not working. So then they stop trying. And then that's where we see that it can turn into some affective issues, right? They start feeling bad about themselves, feeling like they can't succeed. That's potentially where you start getting some cognitive deficits too. They start falling behind in school.
They're not learning the things that they need to learn. They're behind now. So be thinking as we work through some of this section, what are some things that you may be doing on accident dictating the, how a child has to get something done for the kids that you work with that might be potentially pushing them [00:22:00] against their green and how could we remove some of that as well?
And what we know is with kids. You may not even know what's happening and they might not even know what's happening or be able to articulate what's happening if they even identify that it is kind of working against their grain, but they have this sense that it's wrong, but they don't know why oftentimes.
And then it shows up in this really affective way. They check out. They say they don't like it. So these are some of the things that we hear all the time when we see that a child is not being successful because they are working against their agreement and putting in a lot of energy. This is boring. I don't like my teacher.
I'm dumb. They seem to have this like bad attitude about doing something. Then they start shutting down or totally disengaging, right? They might have some fear about doing something because they maybe wouldn't have For example, an initiating FactFinder kid who's a 10 needs lots of details, they might fear that they won't have enough information to make a good decision.
[00:23:00] They might be tired or fatigued from working against their grain, and certainly frustrated by putting in all this effort and not getting anywhere. So we see these signs as a parent, as an educator, sometimes even as a coach, and certainly as kids. You can start identifying these things. If you're feeling this way, is it really the problem that you hate your teacher?
Or are you not learning from your teacher the way that you really need to? So let's start reframing how we think about some of those things. Because we absolutely want to make sure that we're addressing the right thing. Right? This is boring. How you would address that at face value is totally different how you would address that if it's a working against your grain issue.
And providing that openness, that environment where they can do that is really important. When a child has strayed far away from using their strengths, right, they're working against their grain really hard, how do we help get them back to it? Because, by the way, there is no age where learning should not be fun.
When people say, oh, it's because of their age, they don't like school or something, that's a cop [00:24:00] out. They just maybe don't have the freedom to do things in the way, or maybe aren't interested in what they're learning, right? But let's offer to listen to what's happening and be, be aware of some of those warning signs, right?
Offer to share some strategies that worked for other kids or yourself. Not in a, you have to do it this way, but providing some different options and ideas can sometimes be really helpful for certainly certain MOs to latch on to. And then things to consider in the future. Hey. If you were to do this over again and nobody was watching you or nobody was telling you what to do, how, how might you do that?
Right. Be considering you're kind of almost coaching your child to kind of get them back on track and doing things how they would naturally, but try not to solve it for them. This is not, again, you're not dictating the how you deal with it. You're dictating the expectation, but then you're allowing space for them to figure out how they're going to get there themselves.
And by the way, it really all starts with you. If you know how you naturally operate, because you've either taken [00:25:00] the Kolbe A index or you have a really good sense of kind of how you would do things if free to be yourself, um, based on what we've talked about, you can unintentionally Have some biases towards what is expected in your home or as a teacher or what success kind of looks like in that situation.
But we absolutely want to make sure that we're allowing kids to be themselves. And sometimes that's hard for parents because we want that for them and we try to mentor them, but sometimes we're not the best mentors, right? If how we naturally do things isn't aligned with how our child naturally does things, then perhaps our approaches aren't going to be the most sound for them.
Okay. But it is really, really hard, right? So if you know your own MO, you can inform those potential biases that you might be on accident kind of sharing with your child. And we get this all the time. Parents, teachers, coaches, even older siblings give really well meaning advice to kids and students all the time.
that is truly terrible for [00:26:00] that student and in fact would make them work against their grain. And then that child puts more and more and more energy into doing it in a way that is not their best way and they don't get great results. So we call it good advice gone bad. Because it is well intentioned, everybody.
You would not be here if you did not care about helping your kids. But sometimes your advice, your great advice, well meaning advice, should be shredded. That kid should not listen to it, right? So either very explicitly you're saying it, or, you know, it's just certain things are praised in your house, right?
Like if you, We're to start something and finish it and not jump to something else and be really adaptable that, you know, it's not that you're saying, Hey, you can't do that, but you're praising the child who does how you do it naturally kids catch on to those types of things, right? And we want to make sure that we're getting some really great advice for those kids.
for their specific MO. There's a [00:27:00] lot you can do even if you don't have the same, let's say, MO or natural instinct as your kids. First of all, acknowledge that it's stressful or frustrating. That's what they need to do. And you can do that too. Hey, I know this is going to be really frustrating because you have to take this test and it requires you knowing a lot of facts and information and that's not how you do things.
I get that, right? And then once you know their MO or you have a good sense of where they might fall on those continuums, you can start anticipating what is going to cause that child stress. I gave the example of my daughter, like, Knowing that she does not deal with risk and uncertainty with, Hey, like, let's just jump in and experiment.
She needs a little bit more prep for some of those experiences that are new. And for some might be very exciting. And we know that ahead of time, and we're able to deal with it before it becomes this meltdown or this really stressful situation. Right? Third is give a permission slip. Let your child just give themselves permission to not do something [00:28:00] well.
Okay. Right? Not every child has to be somebody who is naturally going to structure or plan using a little planner. Give yourself permission to figure out a different way to get your homework done. Or not follow the exact structure of the teacher. It's not that they just can't do it, right? You give yourself permission, but then you have to figure out another way to do it.
This is not a cop out like, Hey, you don't do details, great, you don't have to take any other tests, right? They still have to figure out a way that they're going to get the information done and be able to demonstrate that they've learned the, the materials. So, Figure out how to do it differently in a way that works for you.
Remember that like little graph? Use a different path. It doesn't necessarily have to be the path that all the other kids are walking on or that even the teacher is walking on. And then get some help others, right? And again, this doesn't mean necessarily that somebody else is going to do something for you.
This could mean it's a kickstart. It's a jumpstart. So we have this example. Our president, Amy. Her son is [00:29:00] really smart. He's a doctor now, and he always had a really hard time getting started with ideas for projects or papers. He would write them. He would be really good at it, but just coming up with those ideas, he was a natural stabilizer.
Coming up with those ideas was so hard. So he would just get help from his mom, the teacher, a friend to just kickstart some ideas, and that would be a kernel of what it would end up being. But it would be enough that it wouldn't totally take him out of his game, and he would be able to get started in a really productive way.
Because that's the worst thing. If you're not doing something within your strengths, sometimes it's enough to just, Totally tap out, and that's certainly not what we want to see happen. What we see is that in the workplace, all of these strengths are really necessary. It certainly depends on which Avenue you go, what, what role you have and things like that, but there are environments and situations where each one of those strengths can be very successful and not just can be themselves.
But the [00:30:00] workplace needs them. Let's give Eric as an example. As a three and follow, school might have been pretty difficult perhaps, right? Because there is this expectation that you're going to be very organized, you're going to start something, finish it, move on, there's a structure built in, there are steps and steps and steps to do every single thing, right?
But does that mean that you should work against your grain? Because as an adult, you're going to have to continue to work against your grain your entire life. Like I sure hope not because that would be terrible. So now you're in a role where you absolutely don't need that. You're able to start things, switch gears really easily, and you don't need that structure, right?
So we are not setting kids up for success to be resilient. Being resilient is when you're faced with a stressful situation or asked to change or figure out a different way to do it. You still have to get it done, but you can always figure out a way to do it in a way that works for you. I really like this quote and it kind of leans into that even more from Dr.[00:31:00]
Russell Barkley, a PhD. He says, I am a shepherd to a unique individual. Shepherds are powerful people, right? They pick the pastures in which the sheep will graze and develop and grow. They determine whether they're properly nourished. They determine whether they're protected from harm. The environment is important, but it doesn't design the sheep.
No shepherd is going to turn a sheep into a dog. As parents, as educators, we get to design this pasture. We create this environment for kids to be successful. They're never going to change who they are naturally. That's just not going to happen. So we really need to lean in and figure out how they can be very successful people doing things their own way.
And yet when you look up parenting or teaching, like kind of memes and things on the internet. These are some of the examples that come up. They're super funny, but for anyone that's been around kids for any length of time, it's a little bit true, right? Dealing with kids, especially when they naturally do things that's slightly opposite from you are, it's really hard.
So we have to keep in mind, like, [00:32:00] I love this one. You're making it difficult for me to be the parent. I always imagined I'd be right. Because there are, sometimes there's natural budding of heads. So tip number three is we do not live in silos. Either do your kids, there are certain dynamics that come into play when you start getting two or more people together, your strengths, the teacher's strengths, other kids in the classroom, all of those start to play into how those dynamics work in a real life situation, right?
It would be great if all day long we said do your kids. Hey, do, do what you do naturally. But if I'm a parent to a kid with Eric's MO, looking at my eight, realistically, it's just going to be a little bit stressful for us. Like we are going to do things very differently. So we have to figure out how to allow each person to be the best they can be.
So collaboration can be hard. And we're talking about collaboration in terms of a family, a classroom, a group of friends, even if they're purposefully acting, people frustrate each other. Communication breaks down because, guys, we have a [00:33:00] natural way of communicating that is based on our strengths and what we need.
And it is easy to just butt heads, miscommunicate, and then it can lead to some other things, right? And then this one goes for kids in a group, but tasks are split up inappropriately, especially in like group projects or other things. We look at equal as being you do the same work, but little pieces of it.
Instead of really digging into how can we work together really successfully, Eric is going to do the talking. I'll do the planning and the structure of it and move forward like that. So I have a real life example. This is actually my mom and my sister, and they absolutely deal with risk and uncertainty very differently.
And they also deal with how they deal with space and tangibles very differently. So when working with this mother daughter duo, I have firsthand knowledge. These are two areas where they absolutely naturally buttheads. They love each other. They're both smart people, but they have forever butted heads [00:34:00] on how they deal with risk and uncertainty and how they deal with space and tangible and hands on stuff, right?
And then what happens is there's miscommunication and then it turns into affective issues. Everything from the types of chores. My mom's. Chores would be very physical in nature, working outside, doing yard work, cleaning the bathroom, that type of thing. Stuff that my sister had no interest, first of all, or was not very great at, not graceful at, for sure.
So my sister with her eight in quick start, She would try things and want to experiment with, you know, she had a way of dealing with risk. She does have a way of dealing with risk that is try it, see what happens. You might fail, but then you'll try something else. And my mom is so naturally risk averse.
It ended up with my sister feeling as though my mom didn't support her or believe that she could do it because in her mind, it's kind of a limiting thing, but it was just totally a miscommunication. How my sister needed to take action [00:35:00] for her to feel successful. And how my mom saw that somebody should take action to feel successful.
We're so different. So those dynamics in a real world example, come to play all the time. So how do you help collaborate? How do you help youth collaborate with others in a really great way? Look for mentors who do things your way. That would be my number one suggestion. Because sometimes the parent or guardian or teacher is not the right person.
Sometimes you have to find a different teacher at the school, even if they're not your teacher, who kind of operates the same way you do, to give you some advice, perhaps. And again, you're observing what people have accomplished, but you shouldn't try to necessarily emulate them step by step, because that's the how.
But figure out who can do things your way. This is where I see grandparents. Oh my gosh, being amazing or friends because how they do things. might be very similar to how your child does things and they can help guide them in that really great way. I will say though that again, it's not [00:36:00] genetic. Just because you have a certain MO does not mean your child will.
So you might not be the best mentor for them, but you might be. You also need to find ways to work with your strengths, right? As much as you can, even when you're collaborating with others, staying true to your own strengths is where you're going to get the absolute best results. For kids, consider the people they study with or do group projects with.
Sometimes your friends are not the best people to be in a group with. Because sometimes we're drawn to people who are just like you, because how you would do things with them, and it's easy, and you're not really striving, you have the same interests. But making sure that you are working in a productive way together sometimes requires those really great differences.
And lastly, it is so important, you have to respect the approaches of everyone in the family because you likely are going to have a variety, depending on how big your family is, a variety of different strengths in there that you're going to have to work around. So again, focusing on the goal, the outcome, the expectation, instead of focusing on the how is going to be your really big key point there.
So what does [00:37:00] this mean for kids when they're in school or looking for jobs or careers in the future? Something as simple as structuring your class schedule could be the difference between a child being totally energized all day long and completely drained. So this was a real life example that I worked with.
She was a 2 2 8 7. And her mom is a 9832 and so this 2287 was a freshman in high school and her mom had gotten this really great advice. Remember the great advice that you should shred? This really great advice that her child should just get rid of all her core classes in the morning, like math, English, science, history, like just get it done all in the morning so that her afternoon classes could be fun.
Right? And she could take dance and photography and P. E. in the afternoon. Well, with this M. O. of a 2 2 8 7, this person has a physical need for risk and they need to move around and they need to jump around and try different things. Sitting in a [00:38:00] seat in a core class for four to five hours straight would have been terrible for her, right?
So as much as like, hey, you should take P. E., break that up. Then maybe take a dance class after or like an art class where your hands on or moving around, things like that, shifting your schedule so that you are not just totally draining your energy. Because by the way, when you drain that energy, it's gone and you have to replenish it.
So fit in how you can change things up, work things up, get physical throughout your day. Right. And that helped her immensely. Her grades from semester one. To semester two, when she adjusted and broke up her hard classes with some physical, um, classes that she could kind of work around helped her completely.
And by the end of the day, she was no longer just like totally drained, right? So take a look by MO and see, is even the class schedule something that you can adjust to make the most. And then, thinking of things like school projects, allow kids to advocate for [00:39:00] how, again, not the what they have to do, of course they have to demonstrate that they know the information, and that this can be as individual as the person, right?
So, for somebody who is naturally going to specify or research, maybe a written report, Where they're able to include a lot of detail, a lot of information, somebody who's a natural planner could create a structured PowerPoint. Somebody who is naturally innovative or has that really innovative approach could do a verbal presentation, perhaps.
Somebody who's very hands on who naturally has a need to demonstrate could do a diagrama or. Some sort of physical project in their demonstration. And then certainly somebody who naturally facilitates or accommodates a lot of different ways of getting things done. Perhaps they could do a group project, right?
So we just have to be thinking through and kids don't know these are options, right? And so we have to help empower them to say, Hey. This is, I think, what I need for me to show you that I really get this and for me to do my best work. This would be really [00:40:00] helpful. And it's not always going to be an option, but it really doesn't hurt to ask, right?
And I think then this came up, we kind of answered that or mentioned this a little bit when we had the questions earlier. But again, if we define success as the freedom to be yourself, you can absolutely be successful in any career. They just need to look for environments, right. Or places where you were totally able to have control over that.
How. So there are tons of different strengths that can be really successful in the field of law, right? Whether you're a researcher or a paralegal or an attorney or all sorts of things in between in that area, same with business and same with medicine. So again, it's not what you're doing necessarily.
It's how you approach getting it done. And so giving yourself the freedom and looking for that as you go through is going to be really, really important. Life already requires so much effort. If you can do it within your strengths, you will literally get more done.
You will be able to do the hard things even [00:41:00] better. I hope you found a few helpful takeaways that you can begin to implement with the kids and teens in your life. If you're ready to get started empowering your kids, head over to Kolbe. com and locate the student aptitude quiz. It only takes about 15 minutes for kids aged 10 and up, and it will make a world of difference for them.
Thank you for joining us for another episode of powered by instinct until next time. May be free to be yourself. Thanks for checking out this episode of Powered by Instinct. If you enjoyed this episode, then follow Powered by Instinct wherever you get your favorite podcasts, or join us online at kolbe.com/podcast for all the latest episodes.