43.Exploring Strengths and Values: A Journey in Coaching and Self-Discovery

 

Hi, I’m Deidrea, wife, and mom to three teenagers, coffee snob, and certified life and business coach. If you’re a high-achieving, goal-oriented woman and you know you were meant for more, then you are a success minded woman and you’re in the right place. I’m here to help you make the money and the impact you’ve been dreaming of, to step into your confidence, create habits and systems to support you, ditch that imposter syndrome, and harness the power of your mind. If you’re ready to create a life and business you love, then let’s go. I’m so glad you’re here.

You're listening to the Success Minded Woman podcast with Deidre Kiesling, Episode 43.

All right. Thank you, Allegra, so much for joining me here on the podcast. So I'll just do a brief interject introduction. Then I'd love to hear more from you. But you and I met through a Facebook group that's for certified coaches from the life coach school. So that's how I first met you. And you invited us to a free class, a workshop on about your strengths.

 

About for coaches and leveraging your streaks and incorporating that into our program. I was immediately signed up. I'm like, you had me at strengths. Oh, that's awesome. And so I was like, tell me more. And I don't think I've ever been more excited or empowered. In any other workshop that I'd ever participated in.

 

Wow.  Yeah. Yeah. So I always knew at some point we would circle back and so here we are. Allegra Stein, do you want to tell us a little bit about you?  Sure. I'll tell you some highlights and then if there's stuff you want to dive into, you can ask me any questions. So, I have been coaching since 2012.

 

That's when I earned my very first kind of official coaching certification and it happened to be through the life coach school, which I must like it was it felt like a different world back then.  It was these small little cohorts meeting on the phone with the main teacher and really we were just focusing on the particular tool that was being taught through that conference calls.

 

What's that? I said conference calls. Yeah, like teleconferences. It was amazing. And but before that I had been a teacher. So my background is really in teaching. I studied wildlife biology in college. So I've had a very diverse. Yeah. Professional background. I was in the Peace Corps, and then I joined Teach for America, and so I've just bopped around and done a lot of different things, and at the time, I was trying to figure out my next path, and a friend of mine said, you're really easy to talk to you should become, she, at the time, she's have you thought about going and becoming a therapist?

 

But I had two very small children at the time and I just couldn't, I didn't have the capacity to go back to school full time for multiple years and get all the  stuff done. But through that research, I discovered coaching and I just, I found an idea and a tool that resonated with me. The coaching field is vast.

 

There are so many different schools out there that we can learn more and more all the time and a lot more all the time. And, but I picked one and I learned it and ever since then I've been what I call a soloist. I work for myself. I'm responsible for finding my own clients. I've tried and experimented and played with a lot of different things.

 

I've worked with different audiences. I've delivered all different kinds of coaching experiences from one on one six month partnerships to memberships to small group classes and workshops of all different lengths. And yeah, I've gotten various certifications throughout the years. I became certified in an assessment that I really love.

 

I then became an accredited trainer in that assessment, so I teach others how to use it. And.  This may I'm actually going back to grad school and I'm headed back to grad school to get my Masters of Science in creativity and change leadership. So the adventure continues. Oh my gosh, that just gave me goosebumps.

 

What an exciting master. Yeah, when I found it, I was like, Oh, this was made for me. So that's going to just continue to impact and change the direction of my work and what I do. But.  Oh, I love it. That's a medium-sized nutshell. Yeah. The thread, it sounds to me, is teaching and being of service.

 

And what? And being of service. Oh yeah. And I, for a while, and I don't know if this was true for you, or I've seen this in coaches the past few years, I've actually worked very specifically in mentoring new coaches and talking with them about the journey and trying to disrupt a little bit of some of the narratives that I find unhelpful.

 

 

 

That kind of keeps some people feeling stuck. And one of those things that I took in for a while was like if I'm once I started coaching, it's like my teaching days were over. It felt very separate. There was whether explicitly or not. There was a story of if I'm coaching that I'm not teaching coaching is not teaching.

 

And if I start drifting into teaching, then I'm no longer coaching. I have the certification, so I'm a coach. So it felt like they were two separate things. And when I really gave myself permission to start reintegrating those two things and realize that the one, the coaching tool I learned was just that.

 

It was like one tool in a very big toolkit. It was quite liberating. And I started to re-lean into creating experiences that involved more teaching, more mentoring because it's just always been a field that I love. Oh, I love that. The workshop that I attended that you taught several years ago now, you were definitely combining teaching and coaching.

 

And I would say one of the things that I recognized in you is the intersection of strengths, right? Yeah. And I guess calling or being a purpose. And the intersection of that of like how you and this is one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is so strengths and strength finders were one of the tools like the assessment tools that I think that you were using.

 

And that's it resonated with me because I have taken that strength finders and read that book.  I think it's called Strength Finders 2. 0 or something. I don't remember the book by Marcus Buckingham. But anyways, I was really into that work and I loved it. And so I think that's one of the assessment tools that you use.

 

What I love about it is that, what resonated with me is that you can, you don't necessarily have to overcome your weaknesses and really you can leverage more of your strengths. That was the message I got from it, but I'd love to hear what your message around strength finders and the bigger picture of the value of these assessment tools and how we can use them.

 

Awesome. Yeah. So just for anyone listening who hasn't heard of it, there is, there's a company called Gallup.  Gallup's been around for four or five decades now and they, their proprietary assessment is called StrengthsFinder. It was designed by a psychologist named Don Clifton and it's called Clifton StrengthsFinder.

 

 

 

And it's an assessment that you can go and take right now. And what he did was identify 34 natural talents. That was his whole premise is like, up until that time, assessments were all about trying to identify what was wrong, like what you weren't capable of doing to eliminate you from various roles.

 

And he said what if we'd created an assessment that showed people what is right about them, what it is that they do well, what their natural talents are. So he identified 34 natural talents and developed this assessment. It's essentially just a set of questions. And you take the test, you answer the questions.

 

And what it does is it reflects to you, your strengths in order.  So it gives you the full 34 order now, depending on which.  Level you buy, the initial level, you get your top five and that's one that I often start with. It's just, let's just look at what your top five talents are. And that's 20 bucks.

 

Like you, 20 bucks. Yeah.  It might be more now, but that's.  No, it is. It was for a long time. I just, I think it's gone up to 99, but yes, it's 20. I encourage everybody to take it. Oh I just think it's very insightful to have those results.  More important than taking it though is digging in and using it so that we can talk about that more.

 

But it's one thing to take an assessment, we all can take assessments and be done. It's another thing to actually use it, which is yes.  And that's one of the things I want to talk about that I was getting from when I attended that workshop is that, the space between knowing what you're good at or what your strengths and talents are versus like how to apply them and how, if something feels hard, is it something that you need to work through?

 

Or is that really just an indicator that's not really your strength and maybe you should find a different way? So I know for me, that's an area that I struggle with. And I think for a lot of my clients who are Entrepreneurs are starting to become entrepreneurs and thinking like we have to do everything and then spreading ourselves, maybe spending too much time on things that we're not good at and probably will never be that good at.

 

Yeah, and it's very hard at the beginning of an entrepreneurial journey because oftentimes we do have to do everything so there's like this.  There's this pushback because even if we come to understand and recognize and release judgment that we're not naturally great at everything.

 

 

 

There's oftentimes an initial run where it serves us to do all the parts to know how they work quickly. I just want to clarify too, that the assessment strengths finder, and this is where I think maybe you were hinting at the assessment that I got certified in is actually called YouMap.

 

And YouMap has is it's essentially four assessments, including the Clifton StrengthsFinder. Okay, yeah, that was one of the things I wanted to ask you about. So that's great. So if you want to tell us more about that, too. Yeah, I'd love to know more. Yeah it's more just that there's strengths are really valuable and powerful, and they're just one piece of the puzzle.

 

So the reason why I chose YouMap is because it reveals a person's values, so if your strengths are how you do your best work, your values are why you're doing your work, what your priorities are. It has a skills assessment, so it also reveals  what you like to spend your time on, what actually energizes you versus burns you out.

 

And then there's a personality assessment, so there's a, it identifies your top two personality types based on the Holland Codes, which have been around for a long time. Yes, I love the Clifton StrengthsFinder, and I love the Clifton StrengthsFinder even more when it's there. Thanks.  When it's included alongside a person's values, skills, and interests.

 

Oh my gosh, yes. It sounds fantastic. And that, so values is one of the things that I've been really learning more about and noticing in myself and in my clients. One of the things that I've. That I've noticed is that when you're feeling a lot of resistance or like pressure or like something that, you need to do, but it's hard or you're feeling conflicted that oftentimes what I'm finding is that there's a discrepancy in the values of for me, one of the big ones is that I love beauty.

 

That's one of my values. I like to be in beauty, I find comfort in beauty and it doesn't have to necessarily be like physically beautiful, but beauty in my eyes. And I'm also practical and efficient and I don't like to waste money, time, energy. And oftentimes those are in conflict because the things that I find beautiful and that I love sometimes they're very expensive.

 

So I noticed that there's that conflict in values. I'd love to hear what you think about that.  I've worked with people in this space too, where there's a decision to be made and one path represents one value and another path represents another.

 

And I think it really comes down to in that moment, what the priority is and just.  And that's personal. This item which will feed this value and this appreciation I have for beauty. And here's this, here's the path. It's perhaps a bit more practical or more prudent or whatever.

 

Neither one's the right one. The right is, they're both very viable paths that reflect something very personal and  I'm a big activator. So, one of my top strengths is an activator, meaning I like helping people get into action. Nothing lights me up more than when someone's I'm going to go try this.

 

I'm like, great. My work is done. Let's do it. And so I'm a big proponent of the importance of just making decisions sometimes, obviously some people need more thought. Some people are more ready fire aim. Like it depends different personalities, but in those moments where it's like, should I do this or this or this, I'm just like,  both paths are going to align with your values might be different one or the other.

 

But neither path is going to be wrong.  So let's just go, let's go find out, let's go find out what happens. Okay. And that's why I love so I'm all about visioning and then take having the vision. So I asked my clients, what would you love? We always start with that and then break it down, into goals and then, actions and planning and all the things to get into action and create results.

 

But I think what happens is that taking it from the vision into the goals, that's where a lot of people get stuck and start thinking like there's, like you said, there's a wrong, just, there's a right thing I should focus on and a wrong thing that I should focus on and I love what you said. It doesn't matter what path you choose.

 

I feel like we're always learning our lessons, we're always growing, and as long as we have the vision of what we would love, it's always going to take us back there. That's really nice. Yeah, I mean it's wonderful to be able to hold that space for someone who's trying to decide what to do next.

 

Yeah. And how do you think the YouMap maybe you could just tell us a little bit about the process. Is it a series of assessment tools or how does that work? So it's, the easiest way is to, it's four assessments in one. So anyone who takes their YouMap,  They just create a YouMap account and you get it and then within the YouMap account, you take four assessments, you don't have to take them all at the same time, but you take the values assessment, which is proprietary, there's a skills assessment, there is a personality based assessment.

 

 

And each assessment is just a series of questions, and the instructions are there and then you also take the Clifton strengths finder alongside it, if you don't already have those results, and you get it generates once you're done. It generates your unique YouMap profile and, or report, and the report has a person's strengths and their values listed and their preferred and burnout skills and their top personality types.

 

And the way that I describe it, it's almost like  I've opened up a pantry door and I've shown you like, okay, here's all the ingredients we want to work with. That's my favorite metaphor for it. It's okay. The YouMap is going to show you like the best ingredients in your pantry  and there's like the strengths ingredients and there's these values ingredients and these skills ingredients and these personality ingredients.

 

And the more you can use these in your cooking, like the more you're going to like your food and like the more cooking you're going to want to do. I said, the easier it will be, the easier it will be. And if I'm working with someone, let's say, who's trying to figure out the next career step.

 

Yeah. I'll say let's find out your, these key ingredients first, because whatever path you go down. As much as possible, you want it to be a fit for what it is that you do best. Yeah. And when I work with coaches or anyone who's a soloist, like we are essentially,  I like to say we're designing our own jobs.

 

Like we're writing our own job description. There's no I think coaching is a wildly creative place to be. And the thread running through it is that we all want to help people, how we help people.  How we help people I think is very much informed by what's in all of our pantries and that's I just love advocating for that because for far too long, I thought I needed to fit a certain mold or show up in a certain way or follow a certain set of rules in order to be like a good coach and when I realized that oh I always felt like a little bit of a misfit and when I finally saw what was in my pantry, I realized oh, I've been trying to cook all the wrong stuff.

 

It's not that I'm a bad cook,  it's that I've been trying to use ingredients that actually aren't the best for me. And what if I started using all of this? I wasn't looking for that. I just decided to get certified in the tool. I was like, I want to learn an assessment.

 

This will be helpful. But the secondary outcome of that were these dots that started to connect about my own journey in the coaching industry and like  realizing  why I had always felt like I was I don't know, like I wasn't doing it right. And when that narrative list lifted, it's like a lot of things changed for me.

 

And so that lifted for you going through that assessment process and discovering what's in your pantry and maybe realizing that the things that you were using weren't in your pantry or they were at the bottom of the pantry.  That's exactly it. One of the things that a lot of my listeners and my clients are either in the early stages of creating a business or planning to exit some kind of corporate career or business to start more of what their calling is, what their passion is.

 

But oftentimes, so one of my coaching groups is for women, real estate investors. And so we start the entry level program is I want to be a real estate investor. I've heard about this. Something is speaking to me about the freedom, the financial freedom and what it can give you. But then a lot of times,  sometimes women will go through our program  and realize I don't want to do that.

 

That's right. That's not for me. And I didn't realize this when my co founder, Misty and I started this. We had no expectation that would be one of the results from our program, but the first time it started happening with our first cohort, I felt like that was such a win.  That in our six-week program, they could understand their goals and themselves and what was required to do this, to make this into a business and be brave enough to make that decision early on.

 

I love that because then you can free up your bandwidth  and connect more, like you said, with something in your pantry. But what I find is that a lot of times  women  look to someone else or see something that someone's doing.  And then they think that they should do that instead of really assessing first like what is right for  me.

 

Yeah. And is that something that you think that the YouMap does that help with helping understand what really is like right for you or because that's something I feel like a lot that women get confused about what they should do or what they think they should do, or sometimes I think even what they're good at versus what do they really want.

 

Yeah, I think.  It's just interesting thinking about it because it's such a complex journey, let's say I see an opportunity out there. And something about it piques my interest and I think that would be really cool to do. There's a lot of reasons why I might think it's cool.

 

 

 

Maybe I was told I should do it. Maybe a lot of people around me were like, you should do it. So I'm like, okay, I've been influenced by other people's expectations of me.  Maybe that path has been marketed as like an easier path,  or a quicker path, I do think we are all in the vortex of being told a sugar coated version of a lot of things, and so it's easy to be like, but that, oh, that's going to be easy or we think it's going to be one thing and it's not, like we don't realize. Our map is actually not the right fit for what the territory is. So when we get into the territory, we're like, wait a minute. No one told me I had to do this out here. So I think there are a lot, and I think genuinely we see a path and it does hit something in us of that's.

 

That's me. Like when I found my grad program, I was like, oh yeah, that was me. Yeah. Yeah. But the reason why I felt really confident in it is because I know these things about myself. Yeah, 'cause I know the ingredients in my pantry and so it's almost like I have an automatic filter up for opportunities. I was considering a different path. I was considering a different graduate program. And as I sat with it, I thought, you know what?  I just, I talked to people and I looked more into it and what that field was. And I just thought that's not the right fit for me as, as compelling as it is, as amazing that work would be as much as I respect people in that field.

 

I was like, that's not the right fit for what I know. I need to do my best work. And so that's the kind of. Confidence that I think surfaces when people, whether it's YouMap or any other kind of assessment, that they resonate with is it's not just  seeing what's in the pantry. It's getting really familiar with it and  owning it.

 

I say it's know it, own it, and then start using it. And the owning part can actually be very difficult because. To own one's gifts oftentimes means to shed a lot of stories and self-expectation about what we thought we should be doing. And that's a very, I'll work with clients who take their strengths assessments and say, I wish those weren't my top because those are the things they've been criticized for in the past.

 

Those are the things that they have probably been overusing without realizing it. And it's led to some sabotage of something in some way. And those are things that they are very self-critical about because they've never really seen them as superpowers. That's a very powerful moment for someone because on the other side of it, of owning it, that's when you can put on, it's like you have this new set of glasses on and every opportunity now that comes your way or you consider you can, it’s like you're vetting it instead of it vetting you.

 

Oh my gosh, I love that. One of the things in one of the modules in my group coaching program, Dream Builder, is that we go through a process to see if your dream,  Is worthy of you and oftentimes that's great things that we're we need to see if we're worthy of the dream or capable or whatever but when you spin that I love that idea and that's what you're saying to with your you map with your assessments knowing what your internal like how you what makes you.

 

Yeah. And then how to bring that into the world. Yep. Love that. So what, how would someone,  this is a question, I'm not sure I can say it but how do you know  when you're out of alignment or bumping up against what's in your pantry?  I think it's more of a felt sense. I think there's a  sense of forcing.

 

If I talk to someone and there's a lot of self-judgment I like to listen for like negative self talk. I call them barrier labels. So whenever someone says to me like, Oh, I just think too much. I'm like, oh, that's a strength that is pointing in the direction of that person's strengths. I just, oh, there's the strength.

 

I just know it because we're very identified with barrier labels that we've got.  Burnout is oftentimes a symptom, especially in the, and I know we're talking a lot about strengths, but if someone's burned out, I want to know their skills and I want to know how they're actually spending their time each day.

 

So oftentimes someone's experiencing burnout, it's because they're being asked to spend time on something that they are good at, but which does not energize them.  That's what happened to me. I went through burnout and I didn't know it was called burnout.  Until later and I, in some ways I tell myself like in some ways I think I'm still  recovering from so many years of operating in that intense stress response.

 

Yeah, but one of the things that I love what you said about burnout because you can get burned out when you're like using something that's not using your best you're focused on using something that.  I don't know. I don't think I'm saying that but it seems like if you're using something where it wasn't, where you're not using it right, or like it's a skill that you're good at, but doesn't energize you,  then it's could deplete your energy.

 

Yep. And that leads to burnout. Yep. There's burnout. And then there's also boredom. So if someone tells me they're bored, I’m like, Oh, that's usually a marker. There's usually something going on back there. If someone is uninterested, in what they're doing, then it might not be a fit for their personality. If someone feels values misalignment, I would argue is probably one of the most felt senses of we just, everyone knows it.

 

Like you can just feel it in your gut, almost like a light switch when there's a values misalignment. Oh, this is, Oh, something's not right here. There could be a values misalignment, or it might be, it might just feel this sense of having to try too hard. So if someone's trying too hard, I start to think maybe you're being asked to use strengths that actually don't come very naturally to you.

 

If someone's bored or they're burned out, I might be like, are you being underutilized? Is it possible you're energizing skills aren't being called on enough during your day? If you're uninterested, I might think, and want to look at the personality piece and be like, are you even interested in this?

 

Is this a match for your characteristics and your traits? So those are just some clues  that can surface or that someone might be very aware of. I'm always interested in what people are aware of versus what we think it is. Because as practitioners, someone starts talking to us and we're like, Oh my gosh, I think I know what it is.

 

But they're not, they're just very much on the top. They're just talking about how they're feeling at the end of the day or how they feel about work or about the. Projects they're working on or the way they're spending their time. And it's just so important to stay in that dialogue and that level and not too quickly, be like, Oh, this could be a values misalignment because it, yeah, it tends to go, we can go too deep too fast.

 

And yeah. It's helpful just to listen to the kinds of words that people are using to describe their day. Yeah, so you said when you're having negative self talk or you're describing, like you said, overthink I think too much. What are some of those other things that people could notice that they're saying to themselves?

 

Oh my gosh, for every strength there is barrier labels.  Every, here's the thing about strengths. Strengths are like wild horses. They will run things ragged if you don't, if you're not able to reign them in or stick with our pantry metaphor, they're like spices and we can overuse spices. If anyone here has ever cooked, you know what happens when we put too much cinnamon in something or too much cumin in something like it's like, Oh, strengths can be overused.

 

And when they are overused, we start to hear the barrier label. So I'm high in adaptability. I'm very easygoing. I'm very present. I'm very like, what's happening now. One of my barrier labels is like being absent-minded or you don't take things seriously. That's a barrier label.

 

Because I'm just like I just, I want to pivot. I want to try something new. I am a maximizer. So people who are in maximizers, like we're always trying to make things better. We're always, it's an influencing strength. I love to take what's here and be like, cool, what could we do next? Barrier label for maximizer is impatience.

 

Also I'm an activator. Like I love to get people into action. If things aren't happening,  so impatient.  And I know that's the shadow side of the strengths that I've got.  I'm an ideator. I sometimes get more excited about people's ideas than they do and have to be really careful not to be overbearing. I can be overbearing with Oh yeah, let's just talk about it without the person ever having really asked.

 

And that's just a few there, whatever strengths you've got, whatever natural talents you have, or the listeners have, they can all be overused every single one of them. And  Barrier labels are usually the clues  that we're talking about a strength. And  when you first start doing strengths work with someone, it's actually really fun to point that out.

 

Because like I said, people tend to identify with the negative stories  and not, when I first learned that things like ideator and activation were a strength, I was like, wait, what?  When I saw it on the report, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe. That ideation and activator were strengths.  I was just like,  this is just what,  it's just what comes out of me.

 

It's natural to you. Yeah, and that's how it's supposed to feel. It's supposed to feel very intuitive. And yeah.  And that's where it gets really rich is the, so what?  So if someone so what I'm finding a lot in especially in the women that are leaving corporate to, they want to start this new phase of life.

 

They want to be an entrepreneur. They're not sure exactly what that is or what that looks like. Do you, would the YouMap help them with that? Help them to get more clarity about  what their path should be.  You tell me, I think everyone should know their strengths, values, skills, and interests.

 

I think everyone should know their strengths, their values, their skills, and their interests.  If they want to get it through YouMap, it's a one stop shop. If they want to go and take four different assessments, great. Like I am an advocate for knowing those things about ourselves. It's empowering. It helps release judgment and it helps.

 

Save a lot of time because if we're really willing to own it we are just more discerning about the paths we go down,  entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is.  is a very powerful path to go down. There's a lot of self discovery and I don't believe that it's for everyone. I think there's a whole group of people that are happier  getting a job that they really love.

 

I totally agree. Gary Vaynerchuk says that too. His look, this isn't for everyone. But there is this feather in the cap that like entrepreneurship is peak.  Self-actualization or something and I personally think the more that I've done this work and worked with people I think Oh no.

 

Like for many people, it's not the project to just find a job that's a better fit. Yes. I think anyone who's thinking about entrepreneurship is in and of itself a job title. It is a set of skills. And a set of practices and a set. You need, certain strengths are a better fit for it and certain personality type.

 

And it's no different than another job listing out there. And so if someone said to me, I want to be an entrepreneur, I would want to just really spend some time digging into what do you think that means? And are you aware that there are the pieces of generally of entrepreneurship and Are, is your pantry the right set of ingredients to cook this meal  and it's absolutely no problem if it's not.

 

So yes, I think before any transition or if there's ever a sense of misalignment, I think learning  these four pillars of who we are can one answer a lot of questions and really help it's a compass for. Whether we're going in the right direction or not. Yeah. Yeah. I love self assessment, self inquiry increasing our awareness, right?

 

That's what we do as coaches. We help our clients increase their awareness of themselves and what's possible for them and what's in their way, which I think is one of the things where this assessment and the YouMap can be because, can help with,  because really, from where you are to where you want to be.

 

It's all your strengths, your skills, your abilities, your values. And if you are misaligned with that, you're going to be pushing against it. And it's going to be hard. And that's one of the things I'm really just like into the study of, why is it hard? What's hard about it?

 

What are you resisting? What are you thinking a lot about and not wanting to do it? And then not doing it.  For me, I feel like what are the. What is that trying to tell you? Yeah.  And it seems like the skills and those assessments can help you

 

 

understand. Sure. If maybe you're, like, the reason it's hard is because it's not really in alignment with your values, using your strengths, leveraging your skills.

 

What was the other one? The fourth personality. Ooh, personality.  Yeah. Cause your personality informs what you're interested in. So really it's what interests a person based on their characteristics. And that's what the personality assessment, at least within YouMap is meant to uncover.

 

Yeah. I want to do it. I'm like, I love assessment tools and I thought it was only strength finders. So I'm so excited to learn about all the other ones. I think the values that I started learning about a couple of years ago, like understanding where you're not in alignment with your values cause a lot of stress and burnout and dissatisfaction and just like friction in your life.

 

So I think that's so important because I didn't really understand that, like really knowing what your values were.  Like, personally, because I always just thought the values were like, you don't lie, you don't cheat, you don't steal, you work hard. I thought those I didn't really understand exactly what values were until I started doing that work and what's what do I think is valuable?

 

For one, I didn't realize how valuable I think that integrity and loyalty. Were so important to me and that's things where I would get hurt. When other people weren't living those same values. Yeah. Yep. Yeah, it's a, values work is very powerful.  And people can cobble these things together as well.

 

Like you, there are values, Google values assessment. You can find pages and pages of the way that it's set up in YouMap is proprietary to YouMap. It's like I said, I am an advocate for strengths, values, skills, and interests. Yeah. I just think you map is the most efficient way to uncover how you go about it.

 

I just think, for efficiency sake, it's we'll just come, let's just come get, do them all here. But I want to just reinforce that it's not enough just to take an assessment. Yeah. It is not enough for anyone listening. They're all like, I'm sure people like, I'm going to take some of these assessments.

 

Yeah. It's not enough to just take the assessment. You have to be willing to take the time to. Sit with the results to learn about them, to understand them, to integrate them, to practice talking about them, to thinking about your life through

 

 

the lens of your results, because  I don't know how many assessments are, have been taken that get printed out and then set on a shelf to gather dust.

 

And what happens is people then say, Oh, that assessment wasn't very good. And I want to be like you don't know if it wasn't any good because you didn't use it. Yeah. And it's the using it part. It's the using it part that really is so important. Yeah. And for your metaphor of the pantry, right?

 

It's taking things out of the pantry and making something right with it. That's right. And I think that's what, that's one of the reasons why we're coaches and one of the, one of the big values of. Working with a coach and having going through a coaching process is to have someone support you through that awareness assessment and then the implementation of it.

 

That's exactly right.  Yeah. So what would you like to say as far as we wrap this up? What would be your YouMap? These assessments and to implement something that they heard in the podcast today, I just think it's really important for people to know themselves to know what they're working with and to not seek out the oftentimes we start with external like we were talking about, it's like, Oh, I want to do that.

 

And I think that's awesome. So I'm going to go do it without actually asking, is that the right fit for me? Yeah, there's an ownership of right fit.  Are we owning it? an acceptance of it. This idea of knowing what our gifts are, owning what our gifts are, and then using them on purpose and with intention.

 

Like all three parts, sorry if you're hearing my dog in the background. Okay. All three steps are very critical.  And I think too, just circling back to this idea of taking an assessment is not where the power, it's not the power is not in taking it. Yeah. And the power is not even in the report, you're going to get back whatever assessment people, there are all kinds of things out there.

 

It's not even in the report.  Power is in a willingness to sit with it, to use it and to apply it. And if working with a coach helps integrate that great. Okay. If finding a coach who is trained in a particular assessment that can help you really marinate in it and start to work on that application, that's where you're going to get the most out of it.

 

So I think that's, avoid this sense of Oh, this is the answer. Taking the assessments is not the answer. It's the beginning. And but I think, like I said, I think every.  I think every person should know their strengths, values, skills, and interests. I think and knowing one is great.

 

But I've done work with people just around strengths. I was hired and I've done contract work where people just are like coming and do strengths work with my clients. Great. I'll do the strengths. We'll talk about it. And almost every time I was in a session with someone and they were telling me about their lives and I was considering their strengths, I just remember thinking.

 

Oh, this isn't a strengths thing. This is a values thing. This is a skills thing or, Oh, this is a personality thing, but we didn't have that data to play with.  That's why I'm such I've known multiple pieces are really important as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that is okay. So, I have to do the rest of them because I didn't know about this.

 

I have done values assessment in a couple of different ways. I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Demartini, who is on the secret and he has a values assessment on his website. That's free. So I'll link that in the show notes. He's actually going to be on the podcast so we can ask about that too.

 

But one of the things that I just want to ask you this. Okay.  When someone's feeling resistant or when things are really hard,  is there, could that be something where they're not either in alignment with their values or their street could it, could that be an indicator  that you're not in alignment with those?

 

Yeah. I think for me that's a big one that I'm discovering recently as I look back on my burnout and all the things that led me to here, that when you are real, when you can be good at something, But not be energized from it or not really be it's not really in your alignment, but you could also I think be good at it, but maybe it doesn't have all the rest of the pieces.

 

Yeah, if there's resistance if something is feeling very hard I do think it's neat to go in and say all right.  Is this a strength thing? Am I pushing myself to use talents that don’t come naturally to me because I think I should? Is there a different way around this using my natural talents to get really creative?

 

Is there a value misalignment? Am I doing something that truly goes against the core of what's most important to me? Is it asking me to use burnout skills? Like a lot of times people don't do things because it's stuff that does not energize them at all. They're good at it, but it doesn't energize them.

 

 

 

There's a story. I should do it like all these things, or they're just genuinely not that interested in it because it's not a fit for their personality. And they, it doesn't feel like it's a true expression of what they're interested in. So, if at that point, if we've gone through all those four kinds of markers and I was like, Nope check.

 

Then I, it has yet to happen that there isn't something that surfaces in one of those four places. It's almost it's almost like a little, like a blood test. Someone walks in a room, I'm stuck. Something is hard. Great. Let me just run these four tests really quick. Yeah, come back. Here's the results of the test.

 

Yeah. Now where things diverge is that I'm not going to tell a person what they're supposed to do next. I'm going to say, based on this, what are you noticing? And then they start to cascade oh my gosh, no wonder. Yes, I actually love doing this. Ah, and it's like the light bulbs are going off simply because we're taking something very nebulous and like actually making it granular where we can look at it and talk about it and give language to things that we didn't have words for before.

 

Yeah. So anyway, I love that. And I think that whenever something is really hard, thinking it's hard. When you have a lot of resistance to it and keeping you from getting into action. Yeah. I think that’s such a great intriguing point.  This assessment can help you understand yourself better and that oftentimes I think will explain the resistance.

 

And sometimes people discover that they're not taking action because they're actually not supposed to be on that path. Yes. And so the whole like you were describing, it's not.  And when they see that they go start taking action on something that they actually. No wonder this isn't working. No wonder this is hard.

 

I'm really not…this isn't really my thing, right? So that's going to be very powerful because sometimes people will think I'm going to take this assessment and then it's going to help me go down this path, right? Because the path is what's most important because this story I have about what I should be doing and what it's going to do for me on this path.

 

So great. Give me the assessment and then show me how to go down the path. And when you are sitting with someone and they go,  this wasn't my path, was it? It's like there's work to be done there. There's a lot of sunk costs that you have to process. Sometimes there's a releasing of an idea or a dream that you realized was never yours.

 

And it can open up a whole new branch in a coaching partnership.  They thought they were coming to you to go down that path over here. And all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, I actually want to go down this one. Yeah, that's what I love. I love the entry point of when something's hard or you're resisting it.

 

Just,  ask yourself, what's in the way and what comes out of that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I think when people are in alignment with all of those things,  then,  parts of things will always be hard. Like you're going to have to do things that you don't want to do when you don't feel like it, but things will be more ease and flow the more that you are.

 

Living those like in your strengths using your natural skills and abilities and expressing your personality in the best way possible. I think that's energizing and then life will be more fun will be easier. Flow more. I have a mantra that I share with my clients. I probably said it on the podcast too, but I love this phrase clarity focus.

 

Ease and grace.  And when you put all that together, I think those assessments can help you. Sure.  Yeah. All right. Thank you so much, Allegra. This has been so fun. I just want to have people on the podcast so I can learn.  That's the beauty of having a podcast is being able to invite people to have a conversation.

 

It is. So if people want to connect with you and I'll put it in the show notes too, but you want to say how people can find you.  Sure. I am. If I would love it. If people want to say hi, like it's nice, I just, I'm a, my top strength is relator. So, I'm always like, who are these people out here that are saying hello?

 

So if you want to connect on Instagram, I'm there as Allegra Stein coaching these days, I'm spending more time over on LinkedIn. And that's just LinkedIn Allegra Stein. Or you can say hi on my website, allegrastein.com/contact. There's a contact form there. If anyone wants to say hello, I'm trying to keep.

 

Going into grad school, things will be changing and I'm going to be learning and wanting to teach new ideas. And I also encourage people to hop on the mailing list just so they get updates about future things that are coming out. So that's just on my website. It's easy to get into. Oh, thank you so much.

 

 

 

This has been so fun. And as always, I learn so much from you. And I'm always energized when I'm with you. And that's because you're living your strengths and your values and your personality and all of it. Oh, that means a lot. Thank you. It means a lot that you invited me on. I always appreciate the opportunity to chat about these things because  they're just some of my favorite things to talk about.

 

Thank you so much, Allegra. And I'll put everything guys, I'll put everything in the show notes so you can connect with Allegra and I'll put some of the links for the assessment tools that we talked about. Sounds great. All right. Thank you.

 

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