E022 Sofiia Kovtun

Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 0:08 Femininity is powerful in all its forms, exceptional women, rare girls must be appreciated in every way for their perspectives, actions, thoughts, and their unique ways of being. Such rare girls are inspiring. And this is what this podcast is all about. Hello, my name is Aziz and my guest today is Sofiia Kovtune. Sonia won a $108,000 scholarship to study in one of the best schools in Canada Pickering college, she took first place in Pickering college global leadership program with a project for the environment in 2021. And she took first place in Pickering college global leadership program with a project about epilepsy. In 2017, Sonia was ranked in the top 100 most talented kids of Ukraine, and she consistently ranked high in the championship of Ukraine, in youth entrepreneurship, as well as the championship of the world. In youth, entrepreneurship, Sonia logs, fly dancing, Frisbee, cooking stocks, cryptocurrency and fashion, Sonia, how are you today? Sofiia Kovtun 1:43 Hey, I'm good, how are you? Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 1:45 I'm feeling lucky, full of gratitude, and honor to have you here today. And to begin this conversation, when it comes to your life, or your studies, or anything that is important to you. What seems to be an insight that you're having these days are something that you're thinking about a lot, because it's something you want to add to your life, or a thought that demands your attention. Sofiia Kovtun 2:16 I'm always open for something new. And like I'm easily getting bored if like nothing changed in my life. So I love taking risks. And of course, like probably any other teenager, I'm thinking about my future. And I'm trying to find new ways, try something new, learn something new get as much knowledge as possible to like succeed in the future. And, of course, a lot of sauce kicks in every day. And not every day is going successful. But it is how it is. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 2:51 I love this topic. So let's explore it. And I have at least three questions. But let's begin with one because, okay, taking risks usually will for people who can achieve a lot of things you need to do routine tasks and repeat the same thing again and again. And again, 1% a day to reach that Kaizen and constant improvement to get to your result. So how do you keep yourself entertained, or at least not bored? When you have to do things that are the same almost every day in order to build that momentum, Sofiia Kovtun 3:33 I'm just trying to keep in mind the phrase that if you're not taking the risk, you'll live will stay the same and it kind of became boring, even it's easy to say because sometimes the risk can have a consequences that always have consequences, right. And it can be positive and can be negative and of course negative. Like negative consequences bring you in a horrible mood. It's important to not stay in that mood, like forever. It's just like, give yourself a time. Like 10 minutes, one day, one week, just think about that. analyze that, you know, being sad being kinda like lazy, maybe procrastinate and stuff, but kind of give yourself a time to make the plan for the next steps you want to do. And to kind of learn from your mistakes from the risk that you took what went wrong, why? And how can you change it right? And, you know, I'm always thinking like, Oh, something going wrong in my life. I'm thinking when I'm going to be successful in the future. I'm gonna talk about all of the failures in my interviews, you know, so people will be like, Oh, so it's alright to do mistakes and it's all right, like, when like something went wrong. And of course when the you took a risk and it went positive and it brought you positive consequences, it is just like making your life more interesting and you see improvements and ease See something changing, and it's just bring you happiness and bring you something new and you kind of be coming more mature, I would say, Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 5:08 I love this topic, because in my experience, people who have failed a lot, have a lot of wisdom and become interesting, much more than people who were lucky enough to experience almost no failures. So it builds character and a strong personality. To ask you more, since this podcast is about rare girls and girls and femininity to you, do you feel your feminine or neutral or more masculine? And what is femininity to you? Because I notice you're speaking about emotions, modes, which is more of the typical femininity, perspective that emotions make a woman more feminine? Sofiia Kovtun 5:59 Yes, absolutely. I would agree with you. But I feel every person has emotions. And it's important to show them, it's important to leave with them and just not, you know, close them inside of you. And just leave the moment. Because that's what the life is about. My definition of femininity, it's, I will say, show how strong your and just like, but still be able to show how make the things are more beautiful. And I feel like feminine energy can make just everything more beautiful, and bring some insights and creativity and just in the relax. And at the same when the strong way, if you know what I'm talking about. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 6:48 I agree 100%. And I like that very much. You take risks, a lot of people stay within their comfort zones. They're afraid, very afraid of taking any risks. So yes, you said you have some mantras and thinking about the future that you will speak in your own interviews about the failures. But what motivates you to face the risk of embarrassment, the risk of failure or even rejection? How do you give yourself that push? Sofiia Kovtun 7:22 I think when you have a strong goal behind you, in front of you, I would say it's, it's something that motivates you. And it's important to stay consistent. Even if you failed even like, again, if you fail, just learn from your mistakes. If people start to talk bad or like you cannot make it or you know is going to bring you bad consequences. It's important to hear your body listen to your body. And if you have that feeling that yes, you're going to succeed and you have this huge goal. Just go there no matter what and stay consistent. And for sure, I can guarantee you for 100% You will get there. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 8:03 How do you clarify your goals? What I mean is, especially teenagers your age, they will not have a clear goal but more of a vague notion of better or success, or anything like that. And if you ask them, What does that mean, they don't have real clarity on it. You spoke on your big goal. So did you daydream a lot? And therefore that's how you know exactly and specifically what you want, including the future interviews you want to give? Or what's your goal setting method as well as how did you systematically clarify it? Or was it something that happened naturally? Sofiia Kovtun 8:46 Okay, so my personal method is take a piece of paper, and take your pen or pencil or marker or whatever, whatever you have near you. And to write your goal or your dream, in the most detail is possible to write, write the date, write the year, write what you're going to wear when you're going to achieve that goal, right, who are going to be around you, what are going to be around you what country what city are you in? Just try to analyze it as much as possible. And just to feel that moment. Don't think how you're gonna get to that goal. Don't thing. How many failures that can bring you or how many people you can lose. Just leave that moment like was all your body just lie, relax, imagine like, every detail around you how you achieve that goal, and the life will take you there. And it's important just to have a goal because I feel like goals are making us the better versions of ourselves. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 9:52 Thank you. And do you feel similar to most people your age or people you meet? Do you find points of connection with them or if not, since you had to move to another country, and a lot of people who move around, they find it difficult to build many friendships. What's your method to find connections with people, and to build bridges and connections and friendships in a new city, new location, and everything? Sofiia Kovtun 10:24 Oh, for me, it's kind of easy because I'm, since I was a little kid, I was I've always been really social. When I was eight, I was performing in the theater. And then when I was nine, I was ago, I started just saying, and I was going to the singing competitions was a good singer. I don't think so. But you know, it didn't distract me from like, going to the stage and like, see all of the audience and just like, you know, take that moment, and just like being in the spotlight, I would say. So, um, I really wanted to come to Canada, I really want to come to Pickering college and study here. So I was working toward this goal. And I use that math that I told you already about, like, I did realize that as much as possible, and here I am right now. So happy to be here. When I came here, it was of course, I was stressed. Of course, it was complicated, because, you know, saying goodbye to my family, to my friends in Ukraine, and coming to completely new environment. And just like, you know, being an English environment, when you when English is not your first language and you like you're scared, what people are gonna think of you of your acts and how people will take you. What about the education, right, like how I'm gonna cope with all of the, like, classes in English, and like everything completely new. But I was just trying to be open and like to every opportunity to every possibility and just talk to everybody. And this is how it went. And people when you're just not afraid of do a mistake. Like, I will say, even right now my English absolutely not perfect. And I probably already made like 1000 100 grammar mistakes, but I'm just talking, talking, talking. And this is how I'm like, practicing English. And was a friend is just again, talking asking people, how are they and then of course not was everybody you will be able to do a connection that was everybody, you will be able to become friends. And it's okay, because you cannot simply like every person and not every person can like you. But I believe that your people will always find you and you will always find your people just spread the nice energy. Try to be open to people try to catch every opportunity and make as many connections as possible, because we all know that. Like, the more connections you have, the better it is for you. It's like for example, right now I have a lot of friends from Mexico and from Germany and like this summer, if everything will be good was covered. I'm planning to go to Germany into Mexico to visit them. And oh my gosh, yeah, I hope I covered every question Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 13:11 you did, then we have time to ask more like, I will ask you this. You spoke about the energy and you spoke about risk taking? Do you feel it's important for you to experience frequently the full range of emotions from crying to being afraid to be unhappy and excited and hopeful? Or do you need and feel it's better to only feel and experience positive emotions. Sofiia Kovtun 13:42 We all know that life is a huge roller coaster and if you only experience happy emotions, and keeping all the bad emotions, and angriness and sadness inside one moment, you know there's like psychology thing called spoon effect when you're like just basically doing like a basic thing and just something getting dropped. And it's nothing huge happened but just because you had so many emotions inside of us that you just like kind of like closed, it's all getting out and you just have like emotional breakdown, to not have that and do not like you know, completely falling apart. I would say it's important to leave emotions at the moment. If you're happy, it's awesome. But I feel like teenagers should get more educated on how to cope with like sadness or angriness my personal recommendation is to give yourself at time you know do not like close it inside but also do not like put it on other people. I know it might be hard and usually put in our family and our closest friends and likely would they understand. Just go to your room and put a timer Something happened, I don't know, maybe you're going through the breakup, right? And it's not that easy for you to stop thinking about it in 15 minutes, give yourself a week, but just put a limit, it's so important to put a limit because then if you're not gonna put a limit, you just gotta leave it for the whole of your life and the whole of your life, you got to think about this breakup that happened. Yeah. So when you're putting a limit, you're giving yourself like a week or a month to like, cope with that completely leave all of your emotions out, think about every minute, every second how much you want. And then you forgot about it, you'll live through that experience, you let your emotions out, your new life started your new era started, right. And it's also important to give yourself what you like, for example, me when I'm upset, or I'm like crying, I love eating milk, chocolate, and tea. It's like, I just, I can just do nothing, just it milk chocolate, drink tea. And it's like a perfect time for me. And my mood extremely becoming like so much better. And that's what I like, if like some people like go to the gym, do sports, you know, it's awesome. Do that. If you like just slipping, just give yourself time in your bed and just slip if you like watching Netflix, watch Netflix. And it's just about, give yourself what you like, because you deserve it. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 16:19 Thank you, do you believe you're a smart person, or a very hard working productive girl? Sofiia Kovtun 16:29 That's a hard one. I would definitely say that I'm medicated. But I feel like smart is a really big definition. And is again comparing like, compared to who, you know, we can compare me to, I don't know, maybe like Elon mask. And of course, I'm absolutely not smart compared to him. And we can also compare me I don't know, to the five year old and of course, I'm like, more experienced and like kinda like smarter than the five year old. So I don't know how to answer that question. But yes, I love working hard to like achieve my goals as soon as possible. But it's also important to not like, push yourself too much. So I'm trying to like work, but also give myself a rest days. So then I'm not going to have that like breakdown and like procrastinating in the end. Because if you put too much and yourself, I learned by my experience, at one moment is just all starting to fall apart because you're basically just too tired. So just important to give yourself time to relax between your like, hard working era. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 17:38 And I'm sure it's spending time with people as a very sociable girl and sociable and therefore, how do you know if someone is your person? What about some people that makes you feel this is my person is if their values and things they say Did you ever experience instant chemistry with a boy or some friends or anything like that? Or do you always need time to build trust and to feel that connection, and it's never an instantaneous thing? Sofiia Kovtun 18:16 Well, I feel like there's nothing like chemistry or whatever. But sometimes you have the same interest, you have the same kind of goals for life, that's what brings you together, it's help you to have like the same topics you can talk about for hours. And the person can just make you feel comfortable, feel respected. For me, it's so important. You know, again, of course, as any other person sometimes that can be like, I don't know, for example, I failed my test, right? And my friend is coming to me and I'm like, so rude to her. And she just knows that like if I like I'm upset and I'm just rude to her not because of her but because of my test. So she will just understand to just give me a time and then she you know, she will not get mad at me back. And that's what I really appreciate. And I'm trying to be the same friend you know, if I sees it like, it's nothing wrong with me something just person like going through, if I'm not able to help them, I'm just gonna give them a time. And I feel it's important to have like the same values and also to support each other as much as possible to show love. And also, it's okay if you had a person that you found like a soulmate with you know, and you had so much interest together and you felt so comfortable. There are sometimes moments that happening in life when it's just go separate ways. And it's sometimes so hard to say goodbye to that person but you understand that you can now just like go further because you just like you simply Do not work anymore. And it's okay. It's also fine. I believe that if you let toxic people or people who do not bring you happiness, or make you feel left out, or, you know, make you feel like you are nothing or do not support your or just do not match your energy, just let them go. And you kinda like clearing your space around us that can bring you people to your life, that will bring you happiness, bring you support, you know, bring you your energy, and will make you happy. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 20:34 That's really, really interesting. And it makes me think about your love for fashion, as well as you understand your values and the kind of people you like, and your energy. So if you are to describe the identity, you're likely to express within your fashion, what is it? And how do you express your energy? Who you are through your clothes? Or accessories? Is it different every day? Or is there a core identity that you try to express? Do you follow the latest trends? Or do you try to go for some character that represents the type of person who you are telling me more? And do you really know your values deeply? So you try to express them? Or are you going through the phase of now discovering more and more about yourself, and it's still that confusing teenage period. Sofiia Kovtun 21:32 If we're talking about fashion, of course, as like, girly, girly girl, I'm following Vogue, and I'm reading fashion new sellers. And, you know, I'm following fashion influencers, I'm getting inspired. I definitely do express myself through the clothes or my style. I feel like it's just, it just me like the clothes was a part of me. And I was also like, interested in psychology. So I know like how the colors can influence how the people can see you, and how the colors can help you to express yourself. And it's kinda just makes me happy when like, I can wake up in the morning, and I can choose what I'm going to wear today. How do I feel? Like yes, accessories, oh, I want to go like this right now. Or no, I want to wear this right now. Oh, is it gonna look good with this one. And then of course, when like you're getting compliments after it's just makes your dad makes you so happy. And it makes you feel better. I feel like for me, of course, it's important how I look first, like for myself, not for like how other people see me. So I can feel comfortable, I can feel confident. And like clothes is something that we start our day with. And it's just kind of follows our energy further in the day. And what about my values, I absolutely do love, go inside myself and to like, really see what I want. And to not let myself go down to kinda not letting shady people come into my life, you know, like, I like the most like, if you know this phrase that the people around, you can show who you really are, and people around you can kinda show you your future. So if you're kinda in a bad company, who was like brush bringing you down, and you now have only bad habits, you're probably going to become the same even even if you're like, the nicest person in the world. And the same as if you're in around people who inspire you who can bring something new in your life. It's always awesome because you can learn from them and you can grow and you can kinda like, be open minded. And that's what I really while you like good people in my life. It's all I also know the phrase, if you are the smartest in the room, you're probably in the wrong room. And I feel it's really awkward because, you know, it's always important to have people who you can share your knowledge with and they can share something with you. And then both of you can grow together. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 24:34 Great. And you mentioned that you're a girly girl. What does that mean? And do you feel that nowadays, girly? Girls are rare. You don't see them around you for example in North America often or is this just a wrong myth and a lot of girly girls are around as well as what's your definition of that? Sofiia Kovtun 24:57 My definition by that? Is it like I I love makeup. I love flowers, I would just buy flowers for them to send in my room. I love fashion and I love picking my outfits. And I love for example, if I'm with a boy and he just offers like to, you know, bring my heavy bag, of course I'm gonna let him to do that. Because you know, like, why not. But I also feel of course a meeting girly girls here and I feel we just, we should just stop judging and dividing people for like, good or bad. If you are positioning ourselves up a strong woman, and you for example against makeup, Wow, wonderful, okay, it's your choice. If you're like, hey, men, you know, right, you're against the man and you just because something happened you like it's okay. Okay, fine. It's your opinion, it's your life. If you are like, you know, you love wear pink every day and you're doing your makeup. Well, awesome. What's your life, and it's just important to understand people do not judge them. If they want to express themselves like that. It's their opinion, and most likely, you're not gonna change it. And it's just important to like, you know, appreciate who they are. And what is a behavior is and just to kind of show respect. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 26:23 Thank you. You spoke about how respect is very important to you and having deep conversations for hours with people, but that you love new emotions, you love taking risks. You love the excitement of life. And you spoke about boys? Well, risk takers usually, like the stereotypical bad boys that give them excitement, and interesting emotions, but they're not so respectful. While maybe if they are with a respectful nice guy, they get bored, because it's not so full of emotions. Is this MF than a stereotype? What is your perspective on it? Do you like one kind? And not the other? Do you try to control who you're attracted to? And use your logic? Or how does it go for you? Sofiia Kovtun 27:14 Okay, in my opinion, it's definitely a stereotype. And okay, if we're talking about like, bad boys, definitely not my type, because they're usually, as you mentioned, yazar can bring you excitement, or, you know, something like new emotions, but also together with that they're bringing you trouble, stress, toxic, a lot of toxic in the relationship. And I feel like from an don't do not respect you. So that's why like, you know, bad boys are completely not my type. And I've never been in a relationship, but I've been a lot in psychology. So of course they can they can understand what is my not really expectation, I feel like expectation sounds too rude for the boyfriend, but it's just kind of like, I feel what would be a good match for me, you know, it just like, of course, it's respect. It's Yes, being able to talk about deep topics for hours. And I feel like every person loves new emotions and risk taking. And it's not always supposed to be like toxic, like, was bad boys, it can be something still exciting that you can do together. Maybe, I don't know, go to the roller coasters. You know, it can like it doesn't actually supposed to be like in relationship and emotions. It can like you can get it together by something else like adrenaline. It's like jumping with a parachute. You know, it's also a risk taking. And it's also something that can bring new emotions. And it's just my opinion on it. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 28:51 Thank you so much. And as a Ukrainian girl, how did you experience the war? How was your story? What was your situation? How were the emotions? How did you feel? Sofiia Kovtun 29:05 It was awful. I remember because Ukraine in Canada has time different seven hours. And I remember it was February 24. And I was in my room. It was 11pm I was just about to go to bed. You know, it was like I was like, Okay, I'm giving myself like last five minutes on the Instagram for you page. And I'm just like scrolling and I see that somebody posted a story of the bone that God like somewhere in the middle of Kyiv in the capital. And of course the rumors I've heard before is it like Russian president is about to attack Ukraine was stressing me out and I started to cry so bad Of course, like I got so emotional. I got so stressed as I was trying to call my parents but they were like probably slipping. So I I'm so lucky said like I'm living in boarding and I have my friend who is living dress near me, so I knocked on her door. And I was just crying. And of course, she knew what happened. So she didn't ask me questions. So I was just like drawing in her arms. And she was just like, hugging me, and just trying to call me down and just like, brace with me. And that's what also like, I really appreciate. And I'm incredibly thankful for that. And, you know, the, like, the days went, and like, the situation became only worse, and I got more stressed, I had to skip school, because when I was in the class, I wasn't able to concentrate or anything. I was checking my family 24/7. And I was like, I couldn't stop crying. I was just like, crying, crying, crying, crying, I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink. I didn't want to go on walks, I didn't want to do anything. But then, like the things that I already talked about, I kinda realize that if I cannot influence and situation that is going on right now, when I'm especially on another continent, like stressing out about that, and just, you know, completely falling down and just do not continue enjoy life will not help Ukraine, it will, it will, it will, it'll only bring my mental health down and my life down. So I gave myself a week, as I said, I put it like a deadline that like, Yes, I can cry, I can experience any emotions. After that, I need to find some enjoyment in my life. Now get so lucky was people around me with my friends who were just like, trying to get me on the walk, to go to the movies to go to the shopping, you know, kind of just to get me distracted, that would also really help. And just, it was like going going into the we're still going and I'm still trying to speak as a person who is in Canada right now. I'm trying to inform people here. What is the current situation so people here, staying aware of what's going on. And of course, use my social media as an expression of, for people to see because I have a lot of people not only from Ukraine, but from other countries from different side of the world following me to actually show what's going on so they can have understanding and just trying to support like, financially, you know, there's like a lot of funds are like for the Ukrainian army. And just, you know, got that realization that it cannot influence that. It's important to take care of myself, and just to pray and have a huge hope for my home country. Abdulaziz M Alhamdan 32:39 I agree. 100% Sonia, this was an enriching conversation. You're very interesting and have such maturity and forward thinking and depth, and introspection, and all I can say in the end is Slava Ukraini Sofiia Kovtun 32:58 thank you so much. Heroyam Slava