Scott Schimmel 0:00
Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode and useful podcast. I am Scott Schimmel. And I can remember still remember, it's been a long time now. But I can remember when I was asked that question, The Question,
What are you going to do? What are you gonna do you do with your life? What are you gonna do next? What are you gonna do for college? What's your major? It's all really like the same question. It's all the same intent behind it and had the same result for me. Stress, anxiety, pressure.
And it's still true. For Kids. Today, I watched somebody ask a doctor actually pediatrician asked one of my kids. So what do you think about doing after high school, and you just, I can literally hear the factory of adrenaline stress, cortisol just being pumped into this little kid's brain and body. And for me, when I was at age, I just decided to skip all of that and just head them off at the pass. I would tell every adult whoever asked even before they asked, When I get older, I'm gonna go into business, I'm gonna go into finance or accounting. And nobody, nobody questioned it. Nobody said, Are you sure? Is that really what you want? Is that really who you are? Are you just doing that to avoid the anxiety? No one asked me any that everybody just said, Oh, cool. Okay. So what we've been doing through the school is primarily helping kids answered that question, what are you going to do? What are you going to do with your life, and our big theory is that you ought to do something that you're designed for, you ought to do something that brings you joy, you ought to do something that makes an impact, you ought to go ahead and design a meaningful life, and behind every single kid is a great story waiting to be told. So how do you help a kid answer that question? Don't number one, ask them that question. What we're going to show you are the seven other questions that you should ask. And if you're a kid, if you're sharing this with your kid, these are the seven kids the questions, this is the roadmap that you can follow. And if you put pen to paper and start talking out loud, about your answers to these seven questions, when you get back around to the big question, so what are you going to do? You will know you have clarity, and you will have confidence, I promise you. So here they are. Question number one. What am I good at? This is typically the first and only place that we stop at typically, what are your grades? Say? What is your GPA? Say? What what are the test scores, say? If you're inclined towards math movie, you should probably pursue a career in math. If you're more artistic or better with words, well, we got to really steer you in that direction. And it's helpful, but it's only one piece of the puzzle. It's only one lens to look through at your future. And you can consider each one of these questions like a different layer of lens, that if you can keep layering in answers to these seven questions, when you look through the lenses, you will see clearly. Number one, what are you good at? What if people told you? What comes easily to you? What does your your report card say? What are you good at when you were with a group of friends, not just inside school? But what are you good at when it comes to building something or solving problems? or hanging out with a group of people or being on a team or being in a group project? What are you good at? Do you start things? Do you like to finish things? Do you like to wonder about things? create things? solve things? What do you what? What is it? Everybody's good at something? What are you good at? Second, what are you drawn to? This is more along the lines of what do you do in your free time in your spare time and don't say? You can't just say oh, scrolling through social media, or girls or boys or looking good, though. Well, what are you what are you drawn to what? Where is your curiosity take you and you maybe as a teenager might have this, the sensation to this particular question, Donald. So maybe you look back a little bit more when you were eight 910 When you're in elementary school, where did your curiosity take you? What are the things that you would just search for for hours on YouTube or get a book at the library to study and what was it about that thing? And now when you're with a group of friends, what kind of percent are you drawn to that kind of situation? Are you drawn to them some people like problems some people notice when others are excluded. Some people recognize that, that somebody needs to take a leadership stance and fix something or start something. What is it that you're drawn to? Third,
what matters most to me, you can call these beliefs, you can call these values in your in the same ballpark, what matters most to you. And there's a separation here from two particular stakeholders in your life. Number one, your family. And number two, your friends. And what we're trying to help you think through is not what matters most to your family, or to your peers, but to you. And oftentimes, that circles back to being really similar to what your family cares about, and what matters most to your friends. But I do believe you have to go around the track a couple times. So what matters most to you? What do you stand for? What is most important to you? Is it justice? Is it beauty? Is it connection and relationship? is it solving problems coming up with new ideas? speaking truth to power? What matters most to you? Number four, what bothers you? What are the problems that you look at, maybe you hear about on the news, maybe you see in a group of friends, or on your school campus or in the team that you're on, or you hear your neighbors talk, or your extended family talk about this particular issue and it just ticks you off, it just really, really gets at you? What is that particular issue that really, really, really bothers you, you can get a sense of that, you can have a much clearer sense of what to do. Number five, who do I want to become? And this is very different than what do I want to do? This is who do I want to be? And then you think through in your family, and your friendships and your community, your neighborhood, your extended family, your group of friends? If you work in an organization or a company, who do you want to be? What kind of person? What kind of when you're a parent, what kind of parent do you want to be? What kind of volunteer Do you want to be? How do you want to be known? When people talk about your think about you? This can embody and as you're, as you're figuring that out, as you're putting some thoughts out into the world, and you're looking for people that you resonate with and resonate with you and you look up to and you appreciate them and you respect them, you're drawn to them pay attention to that. Because that says something about you. Six question, there's only two more. What do you want? What do you want out of your life? What kind of lifestyle do you want? What kind of family do you want? What do you want your life to be? What do you want in five years and 10 years? What do you want to say when you're retired? And when you're old? It's desires? It's dreams, imagination? And then finally, what do you need? What do you need? And this comes down to resources and bare minimums? In some ways? What do you need to live on? What do you need in terms of money? What do you need in terms of education? What do you need in terms of being able to provide for the dreams, the values, the beliefs that you have? If you imagine, and want to be somebody who has a family with multiple kids? What do you need in order to live that out? And it's not necessarily on you. But you need to think about? So what do you need? If you're able to answer in some way, those seven questions, let me go through them one more time. What am I good at? What am I drawn to? What matters most to me? What bothers me? Who do I want to become? What do I want? And what do I need? When you get to that question? So what are you going to do next? You will be able to confidently and clearly give an answer that resonates deep within you. If you're working with a kid, walk them through that week by week and these aren't questions that you just have an answer to and it's done. These questions are alive. Always present. Always having energy in life always more to the story of the answer that you have. An if you're teaching a kid, coaching a kid, have a kid in your family. By far the most thing important thing that you can do is no answer those questions out loud in front of them so they can hear your answers. So, clarity and confidence, I want that for you. It's possible, get to work, grab a pen, grab a journal, grab a friend, start talking it through.
Hey, thanks for joining in on The YouSchool podcast, we'd love to share with you the resources available on our website at theyouschool.com not just articles, ebooks, worksheets and other podcast episodes, but specifically you should know about a free course we have available called The Real Me course. It's digital, it's interactive, and it'll guide you to get clear about who you are in a great store you can tell with your life. So go register for a free account and get started on The Real Me course today at theyouschool.com. That's the you school dot com
