In this engaging episode of the One Small Change podcast, Yvonne McCoy is joined by leadership and employee engagement coach, Consuela Munoz. They dive into the transformative power of understanding and leveraging personal strengths using tools like the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment. Consuela shares her personal journey of realizing her potential and how it propelled her career onto a new path. The episode provides valuable insights for entrepreneurs on using strengths to enhance team dynamics, improve communication, and boost engagement both personally and within their teams. The discussion emphasizes the importance of recognizing individual strengths to foster a cohesive and highly effective team.

Guest Bio:

Consuela Munoz is a passionate speaker and leadership and employee engagement coach. She is dedicated to spreading awareness about the positive impact of understanding personal strengths, specifically through the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment. With a focus on helping individuals and teams unlock their potential, Consuela guides entrepreneurs and leaders on a journey to enhanced engagement and effective teamwork.

Key Points Discussed:

1. Consuela's Journey with Strengths (00:01:03): Consuela shares her story of attending a conference where she was introduced to Gallup's StrengthsFinder, which led to a profound change in her career and life trajectory.
2. Impact of the StrengthsFinder Assessment (00:03:18): Consuela explains why the Gallup CliftonStrengths assessment was particularly impactful for her, differentiating it from other personality assessments and outlining its benefits in personal and professional growth.
3. Enhancing Team Dynamics (00:14:43): The discussion covers the importance of understanding one's strengths and those of team members to improve team dynamics, engagement, and effectiveness.
4. Entrepreneurs and Team Building (00:19:39): Consuela and Yvonne discuss how entrepreneurs can benefit from recognizing diverse strengths within their teams, emphasizing the creation of a balanced and effective workforce.
5. Practical Application and Key Strategies (00:22:37): Consuela introduces her quick guide for retaining and energizing employees, offering tips on leveraging strengths for improved team engagement and success.

Main Quote Made by the Guest:

"Understanding it is really the key. Because if you're not in charge of your strengths, your strengths are gonna be in charge of you." - Consuela Munoz

Links to Consuela's Free Gift:

• Quick Guide For Energizing Your Team - https://www.consuelamunoz.com/engage

Welcome to the One Small Change podcast. I am thrilled that you took

time out of your schedule to embark on this journey of exploration

and transformation with me. I'm your host, Yvonne McCoy, and I

bring almost thirty years of entrepreneurial experience. And I have a passion

for discovering growth through the power of seemingly small

change. So, again, thank you for joining me, and I hope

that you will find something really exciting to help you in your

business. And this week, we are talking to the amazing

Consuela Munoz. I I still slurred it,

didn't I? Oh, you got it just right. It was good.

So, you and I have worked together

before on a couple of different things. And and so I am

really happy that you are here so you can bring some of your wisdom and

some of your insights to people. So I'm not gonna try to, you

know, do the biographical background thing. Tell people who you are

and what you do, and what's a small change that you're gonna share with

them. So, yeah, I am Consuela Munoz,

and I am a speaker and a leadership

slash employee engagement coach. And

I love just spreading the news about strengths

and how that can change people's lives.

As far as the small change for me, that's where my

small change lies. So I had went to

a conference. Okay. They made me go. They're

like, man, I got in trouble, and and you're kind of

bad employee. You need to go to this conference. Right? So

it wasn't my fault y'all. It was the other people on the team. Right? We

had some team dynamic issues. So, anyway, so I'm I gotta go to this,

and I go to this, you know, this conference. And so

but I'm like, I'm gonna take advantage. I'm going to this conference, and you go

to all, you know, the all the breakouts. And it's just, like, one after another,

and you get all this stuff, and then you come home and you go back

to work. Right? But while I was there, I had went

to one of the breakout sessions, just a small breakout session. I went

in, and the lady in there was talking about

Gallup's strength finder. And I was like, what's a strength finder?

What is this? And, you know, she had a great dynamic,

breakout considering she wasn't on a main stage or anything. It was really

awesome. I really liked it. And, so I'd

like to tell you that I came back home and, like, immediately took the assessment

and no. I didn't. I did like everybody does. I came assessment and

no. I didn't. I did like everybody does. I came back and went straight back

to work. Right? I eventually took the

assessment, and what I did, like,

just mind blowing for me. Here's this little assessment,

and, you know, it's not like I've never taken any of other assessments

before, but this really set me

for my entire career and my life on a different path. So it

was a small little summit, little breakout room

that really changed, my future going forward.

And so, you know, we're talking

about kind of the recipe. What was the what was the benefit

of taking the assessment that was so mind so mind changing for

you? Yeah. So taking the assessment.

So it's strength finder. So if you guys know, it's Gallup Clifton strength

finder assessment, and, you know, some people will call

it like a personality assessment, like it's like some of the others. I

feel it's different. Obviously, I'm biased a little bit. But

when you take this assessment, it's going to tell you your top five

strengths. Depending which one you'll do, it'll tell you there are 34 strength

themes. It'll tell you your top five. Right? So when I took this

and I'm reading my results for the first time, you get, like, different kind of

reports. And at that point, it was a little bit simpler than it is now.

You get your report back. When I read it, Eva, when I

read this report, I'm reading the first sentence on the first strength,

and I'm like, oh my gosh. That's me. Like,

I'm looking around, like, are they watching me? How do they from

these questions, how do they know this specific thing about

me? It was something like the first sentence is like, you have a

story about everything and any subject possible. And I was

like, why, yes, I do. And

I I will talk your ear off about them if you'd like. Right?

So it just it it's all the most amazing

parts of you. All the best things that make

you you, but now it's written

on paper. It's black and white words, and they come from somebody else

saying, you are amazing, and this is the way specifically

you are amazing. And when I took that

and read that, I'm like, everybody needs to know this. How do people not know

this? Everybody needs to know this because it can change everybody's

life. I just know that,

years and years ago, when I went to to coach you, which was like coach

Phil, you know, when coaching first started, I took, like, a

personality assessment. And one of the things that it said about me

was that I had a performance a

performer's personality. And the description of that was,

I can be an extrovert when I'm on stage, but my

normal habitat is to be an introvert in my head.

And so it takes a lot of energy for me to

perform. And I was like, oh my god.

That is so true, which is why it explained why I never

schedule full day workshops. And if I have to participate in

a full day workshop, I never have it so that I have to

be have lunch with you. I have to get away from

everybody so that I can recharge. And so

I think that, you know, we we we think that we're

unreadable. And, you know, tell me how

you've used this and how other people you know, and

how you've taken other, let's say, assessments and built on that.

Well, I take assessments. So I've taken other assessments.

Like I said, this one, my favorite. This is the one I think is

is, above the others. Some of

those like MBTI, you know, those kind of things can be kind of

based on the work that you do. Where I feel that strengths

is more who you are, like, the

way you arrived here. You know? When

my babe was one of my kids was four, it's kind

of a funny story, but my we had moved into our house, like, literally

just moved that day, like, all the boxes and all that stuff. And it

was way past bed it was way past dinner time and past bedtime, and my

husband's literally, like, blowing up an air mattress for these kids

to sleep on. And I'm standing in the kitchen, and my four year

old comes up and he goes, mom, do you have a cookie? And I was

like, no. Like, it's past bedtime. You can't have a cookie. It's too

late. All these things, why it's too late. And he's like, okay. And

then he tugs on me again. He goes, mom, you are so

beautiful. And I said, oh, thank you. And he goes,

can I have a cookie now? And I said, yes. You can. That's how it

works. Go get a cookie. You know? But I I instantly

knew, like, oh my gosh. My kids got WOO. It's one of the strengths I

have. Woo is an acronym for winning others over. I'm like, he has

woo. So he instinctually, naturally

tells you what you need, gives you what you need.

What's in it for me? He's got it. And then whatever he's asked, you

don't even care anymore because you got all that you needed and more. So, like,

whatever you want, it's fine. It's all good. You know? So that's an instinctual thing

that he's had always, and here's me recognizing it

for. Right? So that's what I like. It doesn't matter what work you're doing

or what projects you're on or any of those kind of things, whether it's

personal or at home, it's who you are. And and understanding

that now here's the thing. Understanding it is really

the key. Mhmm. Because if you're not in charge of your

strengths, your strengths are gonna be in charge of you.

And so you want to use them purposefully where you need

them so that, you know, because any strength taken

too far becomes a weakness. Yes. So if you have if you

have, like, you know, belief or learner,

those are great. Like, learner can be really great, can help you take in a

lot of information. But if you have learner and you let it

run free, you could spend all your time learning and no time

doing. Right? And so that can get you into trouble because you just

but if you're just like, okay, I need to learn this new thing.

Let me dive in. And now that learner strength is doing its thing, but you

stop it at some point. You're in charge. You use it when you need it,

and you use something else when you need something else. And

so very it just it

makes a difference than to me than some of the the other reason I like

this one better, if I say MBTI and I say, oh, I'm

an EFP. Now if you know MBTI, you're like, oh, you'll

know things about me. But there are other assessments where they're like,

you're a color. Oh, you're a blue. What

does that mean? I'm a blue. And different assessments have different

meanings for different color. Or I had one that we did that was like,

you're a North or you're a Northwest. I'm like, what does that mean? Like, it

doesn't tell you what it means where if you take the strength finder and I

say, I've got communication. I've got activator. You're

like, oh, she likes to communicate, AKA

talk, and she likes to move fast. Got it. Like, you you have an

idea. If I said I had discipline or learner or strategic,

you know what the words mean, so you have an idea what that

means about me just from knowing that strengths. Well, I think the other

thing I just I wanna just go back a little bit. One of the things

that I think is if you take the time to invest in yourself

and do an assessment and I I'm just certified.

But I have to tell you that I don't find it the most useful thing

in the world. You know, I mean, there are other people that just think it's

fabulous. I I love this for the team

dynamics part of it, and not so much for the

individual part of it. Because I find that if you

can't remember it, you can't use it. And it just is too

whatever. So I like the idea that you you know, it tells you

your five strengths, your your top five strengths. But the thing that I

found interesting that you alluded to is that we

are born with a lot of this we are born with strengths.

And when I talk about, you know, your unique power

and how it's been educated out of us, that's one of the

things that happens. And when you can appreciate the strengths in your kids,

they develop so much better. I mean, one of the best pieces

of advice I ever got because I have to tell you, I'm not a warm

and fuzz I was not a warm and fuzzy mom. If I had not married

my husband who has started out as a kindergarten teacher, I would

have never had kids. I mean, that was not my childhood

was not, you know, a happy childhood, and I was like, I am not repeating

this for some other soul. Right? And so the

piece of advice that I got was the characteristics

that your children have when they're young that drive you crazy

are the ones that will make them successful when they're adults.

And my youngest is so persistent.

I mean, she is just like, did you do it? Did you do it?

Did you do it? Did you do it? I mean and as a kid, she

was like, can I have it? Can I have it? Can I have it? Can

I have it? You know? And I look at her now

and the things that she's accomplished, you know, that she will

dive into a subject and do something and just, you know, stick

with it. And so if you can recognize

those characteristics in yourself and recognize that your kids have

those characteristics, that is a wonderful thing.

So let's take this forward to entrepreneurs.

So when you know what your strength is, this is the

thing that your clients need and want,

right, and are attracted to. So talk about that a little

bit. Yeah. So, I mean, even to bridge from where you were, like, understanding

your strengths and your children, in the same way you under

understand from from your team. Right? Like, if you have a team

so say you're in your startup or you're you're building your team

or you're, you know, your team might be there, but

you're having some struggling with retention or that kind of thing,

understanding your strengths is the key to then understanding

theirs. Right? So, obviously, you can all take the assessment. That's a big thing, but

that's just the first thing. Let's just identify them. You

can you can take an assessment and be like, that's nice

and put it on the shelf. That that's not where the magic is.

Right? Mhmm. Although there's a bit of magic. I will say

a little bit before I go into entrepreneurs, a little bit of magic. Taking the

assessment and identifying your strengths

can increase your self confidence by 20%. Just

taking the assessment. Just taking the assessment because, again,

it's the most amazing parts of you all in one place for you

to read, and it's very powerful. Now imagine

if you're a leader and you've got this team, and you take

this assessment and you start understanding yourself, and you're like, yeah.

The thing about what I love about taking the strengths and then trying to

apply them, you know, implementing your

strengths and trying to grow your strengths,

that changes people's engagement. When you as a

leader become more and more engaged with the work you do, and then

you start seeing all the strengths of your teammates,

those that report to you, and you start helping

them grow their strengths, now their engagement increases. And when

you can get everyone on your team doing what they do

best more often than not, that's

when your team is unstoppable. That's when your team can achieve whatever it

is that you want to achieve. So I I'll share a quick

example of engagement. So I I had this we did,

a twelve week program I was doing with this team. And they're not even a

team. They're all individual ladies. Right? It was a women's group and all

these ladies. And this lady showed up, and she was disengaged. Let me tell

you all. She showed up in, like, shades of gray. She didn't

wanna open her mouth. She didn't participate, but she was doing the homework.

She started doing the thing. She started doing the thing. By the end of the

twelve weeks, she shows up, and everybody's like, man, you look good. And everywhere

she went at work, they're like, did you did you lose

weight? Did you did you change your hair? Like, what's I don't

know what's different about you. I don't know what's different about you, but something

is. She went from being disengaged to engaged with

her work. She was, like, on fire at work and,

like, throwing out ideas and all these things simply

because she increased her own engagement. And that helped everybody

around her also want it because it's in it's

contagious. Let's face it. Engagement is contagious. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Somebody is really engaged with their work and really pumped up. That gets

everybody excited. And I think one of the pieces sorry. One of the pieces

we miss is that the leader needs to be the most pumped up. We we

make an assumption the leader is engaged, but we wanna make sure that leader is

really engaged. That'll get their team going. Well, you know, the

thing one of the things about entrepreneurs, okay,

is, first of all, we carry a lot of information in our hair

hair hair our head. Right? And

so when we try to get other people to do stuff, sometimes

we're very incomplete in our communication.

And so we don't get the results that we want, and so we assume

that there's something wrong with with them. Right?

And when you can look at yourself and say, I have certain weaknesses. I have

certain strengths, then you can look at other people that way too,

making sure that you are communicating in a way that is

more complete. And, you know, one of the things that I say, one of the,

you know, banes of an entrepreneur is,

typically, they are really good at picking people that have,

you know, good people, and then they micromanage them into

mediocrity. Right? Because they want them you know, because

their organization is personality driven. Right?

And so when you realize that not everybody has the same strengths or

personality that you have and they can get the job done

and they make your team stronger. If you think of it as, you

know, as strands in a rope, if all the

strands are the same, they're all gonna break at the same point. Mhmm.

If you have strands that are different, you know, sizes and stuff like

that, it's gonna build much more certainty

and longevity into what you're doing and and make your

team so much stronger. So that's why I think, you know and and and the

other part, I think, is if you look

at how people develop,

typically, the you know, a really simple way to look at it is, you

know, it's kind of like self management and leadership,

project management and leadership, managing other

people, you know, in the leadership, and then leadership of, let's say,

an organization. As entrepreneurs, we tend to jump

over the first step and jump into the second step. We're

we're doing the thing that we wanna do. And so it's like

a knee jerk. It feels like, why do I have to find out about mindset?

Why do I have to find out about other people's working styles? Why do I

you know, because I just want them to do what I'm Do what I'm saying.

Just do this. Just do the thing. Right? Yeah. And so

this is, I think, a good way to do it without, people going, this

is really woo woo and, you know, this is not a

tangible thing because it is. And and it can

make it can be you know how, like,

sometimes if you just add a pinch of salt or just a pinch of something,

everything just pops and gets so much better? That's what this is like.

It really is an amplifier or a catalyst

for the work that you're doing. I totally agree. I

think, you know, entrepreneurs so, yes, they'll kinda skip over

and and not worry about their own leadership a little bit. But now if the

if they're going from being, like, a solopreneur or a couple

people to a bigger team, I feel like there's this

focus on, you know, as a sole you know, as

entrepreneur branding. Right? Branding, we got our personal brand and all

that. And then there's a miss around culture.

And so making that transition to having the

team and wanting to hire people that fit,

that you're hiring people that think like you and act like you.

And, you know, what we say in strengths, there are

34 strength themes across four

leadership domains, and you really want that that

balance. So you can't do everything

great, but your team can. So that everyone is operating

from a different places and seeing that not as an issue, but more

as a boon. Right? Like, they're a balance. When

they say, you know, like, talk about your partner or whatever,

that opposites attract. Right? Everybody's heard opposites attract. Well, yes,

they do. And and I you know, every once in a while, I'll do the

strengths of both, a husband and wife or kinda thing.

Right? Every time I've done that, beep, they're

opposites. Whatever is in the top five for one is in the

bottom five for the other and vice versa. It it works that way.

Why is that good? Because there's balance then. Because they do

think in a different way, so things get less missed. Right? If you

all think in the same way, then nobody's dealing with these

other aspects. Right? These things and they and you get you miss things

and you're not as powerful when and and then it's how do you

see that? You have to see that as a benefit.

So you could choose this is a mindset thing. You could choose to see that

as an issue because they think about things in a different way, or you

could be like, oh my goodness. I do it this way. I need help balancing

it. I'll do this. When I I worked for a

leader who was really amazing, really engaged, and we were

doing this, project. And she's like, I want you

in charge of this part. I'm like, awesome. So I come back with I had

worked with the creative department. I came back with some design ideas. We had to

have, we were gonna have a mascot for our

university. Right? Our online university when I was in corporate. Right?

And so I come back and she's like, oh, like, I came back with

these really pictures of this fierce owl. She's like, I thought

it was gonna be an owl with, like, a cap and gown. I was like,

because that's not what I did at all. I had this, like, talons

and, you know, fierce stuff. And and I was like, oh, because,

you know, I'm like three weeks into this job. Like, oh, man. I don't know

how this is gonna go. And you know what? She turned me three weeks into

this job. She goes, you know what? You do this better than I do. I'm

gonna trust your judgment. That's

amazing. That's where you need to be as a leader. Like, I I'm not in

charge of this because I'm in charge of you, but I'm not in charge of

this. You be in charge of it because I trust you. I don't know what

I'm doing there, so you do that. And when you can be

sure of yourself as a leader,

you're able to do that. And that raises the power of every person

on your team. As a leader, you want to be developing every person on

your team to be a leader of themselves so that they can then

lead other people. That cascading effect is when

your team really starts to have the power to do whatever it is that you

wanna achieve. So so let's do this because this

is a topic that's near and dear to my heart, and we could keep talking

about this forever. But you've got a freebie for us, so tell

us about that. Yeah. So freebies are fun.

Right? So this is really this is a quick guide to

help you retain and energize your

employees. So this is a guide that's gonna help you start

looking at, how

how you can develop and recognize your strengths in yourself

and those in your team, and then some quick things you can do to

help boost that engagement with everybody that is on your

team. Okay. Now you said you said employees. For a lot

of entrepreneurs, they don't have employees. They have subcontractors.

But you need those same skills with them. Oh, for sure. Do

you know? So so don't No. If you've ever run into the problem, you know,

I hear from many people, like, oh, I'm trying to

hire a VA or I'm trying to hire this person, and it didn't work out

the last one. And so they're real nervous about that. So understanding

your own strengths can help you hire someone with

the complementing that's gonna work for that. And and and start

looking at them as teammates even if they're contractors.

Start seeing them in a different way. Again, that mindset change.

Mhmm. Then you'll actually, you'll relate better and

you'll have better retention because of that. Well, I have to tell you that, you

know, part of my personality is I I don't know where this finds on the

strength finder is I have always been very type a and

fix it. You know? I've fixed the problem. And, you know, for

years, my oldest daughter has, you know, she'll call up and she's been

sick, and I and I automatically say, did you take something from that

for that? You know? And she'll say, mom, you're

you're supposed to say I'm sorry. You're supposed to say,

I'm sorry you don't feel good. You know? You know?

Yeah. You know? Give some empathy and stuff. So,

I have learned to say to stop myself

and say so that I'm not so judgmental and so

directed, to stop myself and say, tell me more about

that. Because you don't know how

they came to their conclusion or gotten to their situation. And so you're

offering a solution that may not be apropos at all.

Yeah. Because you haven't taken the time to get to know what

what's going on. So, anyway, so we're

gonna have a link in the notes for your wonderful gift that

everybody should get. And I wanna ask you

the the the question. When was the last time you

did something new for the first time? So

well, I can I can be glib and say, yesterday?

So I broke my toe in December,

and yeah. So that was exciting, y'all. I bent my big toe all the way

back to my foot, so busted it good. And so

I have now started toe

therapy, which I I know. So they

gave me these funky shoes. They're like a

rocking shoe. So walking in them first of all, I've

been walking in boots. So now I'm walking in these shoes, so it's a little

weird. And going down the stairs, I was like, woah. Like, I have to pay

attention. So it's like a thing. But I have to do,

jazz toes, and I have to do toe scrunchies.

So these are like new things that I haven't done before, but that

are vital to me so that my toe can recover faster. I

travel a lot, and so it's important for me to do therapy.

Discipline is low on my set of strengths. So

making myself do my exercises is,

a challenge, if you will. So that is, like, a new thing

that I'm having to figure out and just in the last day. So Well,

I am really sorry that that's your new thing. I would

I would have preferred you that you had something exciting and not

something that that that puts you in pain. So, anyway,

we've got we gotta do the commercial, and we gotta wrap this up. And

so for those that are listening, especially for the first time, make sure

that you subscribe and share this with other people, on

social media or however you you do that. And,

you know, one of the reasons that I do this is so that I can

help build a community that and supercharge it so that you

can grow and have impact. And so I hope that you'll continue to

join me on the one small change and that you'll see that

these tiny shifts can really yield monumental

transformation. So, Consuelo, what would be your last words that

you want people to take away? My

last words for you guys are that with a little bit

of effort each day, you can figure out how you can grow

your strengths and work with your weaknesses so that you

can have the impact that you were meant to have.

Oh, I love it. Well, as always, my last

way my last words are remember change is simple, but it's not

always easy. It requires courage, resilience, and a

willingness to step out of your comfort zone, and that

can be scary. So, again, join me for the one small change.

And if you haven't listened to the first episode or any of the other

episodes, be sure you do that. So until next time,

stay curious. Thank you, guys.