E-Quips: Coaching Mastery & Strengths Based Coaching with Rupa Rihan

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, we're live. We made it. Facebook and Instagram are having a couple issues, so I'm really excited that we made it today. And I just wanted to say welcome to all of our coaching quips guests today. We do these as weekly coaching mastery tips that are designed to equip coaches, future coaches, and coach-liked leaders with empowering approaches. I'm Laurel Elders, the founder of the Institute for Integrative Intelligence. With the ICF i'm a master certified coach, and I got my start in professional coaching in 2005. I became a complete coaching geek, and haven't looked back since. And I have with me today, my co-host, Bryant Alexander. Bryant is a coach that works with us in admissions, helping people align with the coach training options that are best suited for them and their organizations. Bryant, feel free to give everyone a shout-out.

Bryant Alexander:
Well, first, I just want to shout out everybody for this coaching quips. I think we had 77 rsvps, so I don't know if 77 people are here right now, but I just want to thank you all for taking the time to come out today to learn a little bit about coaching, and different types of coaching methodologies. We got a really special guest today and we'll introduce her in a minute. But, yeah, thank you. Just thank you for the support. Thank you for just taking the time out of your day.

Laurel Elders:
We also have with us Jill. Jill Arnoff. She is a leadership coach, and she's here to answer questions. She's also going to be putting little tips and things in the chat as we go so you can get more resources. But if you do have any questions as we go along, just plug those in the comments, and Jill will get that taken care of. And now I'm so excited because today we're going to be talking about strengths-based coaching, and we've invited one of my favorite people, Rupa Rihan, to join us. Rupa is a resume and LinkedIn specialist, facilitator, writer, and Gallup certified strengths coach who supported hundreds of leaders in clarifying their strengths, story and expertise in order to land new opportunities and find deeper fulfillment. Welcome, Rupa!

Rupa Rihan:
Oh, my gosh. Such an honor and privilege to be here with you both watching the lives and being here live with you now. So, um, this is an incredible way to start my morning.

Bryant Alexander:
Awesome.

Rupa Rihan:

Laurel Elders:
Yeah. I just wanted to kick us off by really appreciating the strengths based approach because we use it in our executive and leadership coach training program. And, I found that the research behind it is so impactful and just learning how. I think it was in the 1950s, Don Clifton asked the question, "what would happen if we studied what was right with people versus what was wrong? " And had processes to help them lean into that. So I'd love to hear what brought you into strengths.

Rupa Rihan:
I love that question so much. I always start every workshop with that question. What would happen if we started with what was right with people instead of what was wrong? And it just feels like, it's like a release, like a sigh. What could be possible? So, that's like a really grounding mantra for me. I came to this work, kind of unexpectedly. I first did the assessment in my twentys. I think like a lot of people, when I took it, felt like another personality test. At the time, I didn't quite understand it. And I have a lot of high relationship building strengths. And so I had ideation and I had positivity and things like that, and I just thought like, oh, that's nice. I know this about myself, but at the time, I was in a very outcomes driven organization, and I really wanted the strengths that my managers had. Some of my managers had, like, achiever discipline, like strategic self assurance command. And I was like, that's what a leader is. Like, I don't have the right strengths. And I felt mine were, like, too soft. So at that time, just didn't feel very empowering. It was like, this is like a fun tool. And, I'm learning more about my personality. And then I came back to it in the pandemic. So I think people have been posting, it's like four years this week from when the pandemic happened, which is wild, right?

Bryant Alexander:
I, uh, didn't even realize that. Wow.

Rupa Rihan:
Actually, when I was facilitating this past Saturday, we had to go back and I was like, no way. It's three, right? And do the math. It's four. Um, so in the pandemic, I came back to this work. I was really wanting to do a coach certification program. I wanted to do a program like the Institute for Integrative Intelligence, but I was like, "am I ready to make that jump? " And this program was a little bit more condensed, and I came back to the model. I was personally in a really tough place. I was pregnant with my second, I was isolated, and I was really depressed and feeling really bad about myself. Like, what do I have to offer? What am I good at? Uh, just in a tough place. And so kind of came back. A colleague suggested, like, I had just done the Clifton strengths coach training and it was amazing. And I went back to the model and I was like, this is so asset based, this could really help me right now. And so I did the training and I had this incredible coach, Danny Lee, who facilitated, uh, the training and had all relationship building strengths in his top five and was an incredibly effective executive coach and trainer. And I just realized like, oh, you could lead with relationship building and still be effective and still be exactly who you are. And I just loved it. And I have just been on this journey ever since to help people embrace what they're naturally good at and what they're naturally talented at and lead from that place as opposed to fixate on what we're not good at.

Bryant Alexander:
M um. Wow, what a journey. And something I want to highlight is just being in such a dark, uh, place during the pandemic, I think a lot of us were really reflecting like, what's really important. And I think with your situation specifically, like, being pregnant with your second child, not feeling too good about yourself, I think it's powerful for you to lean into your strengths even during that time. Like, let me do a little bit more self exploration for myself. Let me find the good or the strength that I have within me. And that takes a lot of resilience, especially during that time and with your situation. So I just want to acknowledge that for sure.

Laurel Elders:

Rupa Rihan:
​Thank you. Of course, yeah, that really touches my heart. I'm grateful for what's possible when we can connect with more people. Um, and be honest about our experience.

Laurel Elders:

Bryant Alexander:
Sure. Um, I guess kind of like a follow up question to that. What are your top strengths and how have those kind of evolved over time?

​Rupa Rihan:
Hm. Such a good question. So technically, this assessment, the Clifton strengths assessment will evaluate what are your natural talents and strengths and put them into 34 talent themes. And so you can look at all the research and the data and there's a lot of numbers around how they just don't typically move that much. But I have found mine have moved a bit based on the life phase that I've been in and the work I'm doing. So in my twenties, I had in my top five ideation, futuristic input, empathy and positivity. And in my twenties, a lot of us in our 20s, it's like, who do I want to be? A lot of the, oh, I had intellection, actually. So it was somewhere there really being in my head. And then as I moved into my thirties, I shifted more into really finding more my calling in developing myself and other people. Um, and my strengths sort of evolved a bit, too. And so we often say our strengths are in our top ten are really more like our top strengths. So you might have, like, a five that will move to a seven if you take it again. So, sometimes the one to five is incomplete. But when I started to take it again in my thirties and my work and my life, my values shifted a bit. I have right now empathy, positivity, developer, relator, and connectedness. 

Bryant Alexander:
Okay, got you. Okay.

​Rupa Rihan:
And, Laurel, I know you have some similar and different strengths.

Laurel Elders:
Yes. So my top five were relator, discipline, which I thought was interesting. That could not have been me earlier in my life. Belief, responsibility, and achiever.

Bryant Alexander:
Okay, I need to go take my strengths test. I know them, but I want to know them by that standard. So I need to go my testing.

​Rupa Rihan:
I'm going to send you a code, and then we could talk about it.

Bryant Alexander:
Appreciate it.

Laurel Elders:
​Well, one thing that really impressed me was the - And as you know, our passion is integration, helping people reach their potential. So, knowing your strengths, I see, is like a shortcut, because when I got my results, I was a little shocked by some of them, but yet, when I looked at the details, it made sense. So now, um, I've learned that the research shows leaning into your strengths was. I don't remember the exact number. It was, like, ten times more effective than trying to force against a, uh, weakness and. Yeah. Any thoughts on that?

Rupa Rihan:
I love that idea. I have so many thoughts, I'm bursting. well, one, I love knowing your strengths, laurel, and I totally see them in you, and I can understand. I think one thing we find with clients is have. We all have different definitions of what a word will mean. So, like, discipline, responsibility, and what. What we find is in this model, when you read the report, that. That the words and phrases can often be like, that's exactly me. Even if maybe we're thinking of discipline in a different way, like our definition. So I think I often find clients are, uh, like, oh, this definition really lands. When I read more, I didn't think of myself as somebody who had high discipline, but actually, I see it here now. So I'll name that.

And then in terms of, um, the strengths and the weaknesses. So, totally this whole kind of framework is around this idea that, um, the more we can double down and invest in and lead from our strengths, the more effective we are, the happier we are, the stronger outcomes we get, the more, um, impact we can make, which is really where I love and live to do this work. And then we define a weakness as anything that gets in the way. A weakness is anything that gets in the way of success or in the way of achieving what you're trying to achieve. And so the example I always share is that at the bottom of my report. So if you do the full report, you get, like, one to 36, 34 at the bottom, the bottom seven or eight. I have, like, discipline, responsibility, consistency, like, all these executing themes. And I am not somebody who's naturally motivated by a lot of those small pieces around execution the way some of my colleagues and friends with high discipline, high responsibility, high consistency, high achiever are, like, I can't sleep if I have the typo. That's not me.

And so trying to be someone I'm not, which I spent many years trying to fake it, um, really is not an effective way to motivate myself to do that well. So what we teach clients is this process of, like, name it, claim it, and aim it. And so name it is the act of naming your strengths. What are your top strengths, what's the definition? And then claiming it is the process of saying, how do they show up for you?

Because responsibility and relator will show up different for you than maybe how relator shows up for me. Laurel, um, we both have that strength. And then aiming it is like, now that we know our strengths, we can define them for ourselves, how they show up, how can we point them in the direction where we're trying to go, um, to help us achieve what we want. And so I take my relationship building strengths, and I aim them to help me manage my weakness in details.

So when I facilitate, like I facilitated on Saturday, I'm most motivated to do those things well because of the relationships that I have. Like, I want to show respect to people who come to my sessions. I want to respect their time, I want to respect the relationship. I want them to feel valued and seen. And so that helps me get details right and manage it, versus just being, like, trying to sort of say, this is an important part of being a professional. That doesn't motivate me as much. So that is where I think it can be really powerful. When it comes to our areas of growth or, our weaknesses, how can you aim what you're naturally good at to help you manage what's harder for you?

Bryant Alexander:
Very interesting. And I never thought about it like that because I'm a little bit of the same way. I love to facilitate. I'm not the best. Even though I've worked as a project program manager, I'm not the best in the weeds type of person. But because I know that this program is important and I'm actually facilitating, it's like, okay, I'll go through that deck ten times, because I want to make sure everything looks good, everybody feels good, everybody feels acknowledged, included in the conversation. I never thought about it like that.

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah, I really appreciate that reflection. And what it's, um, allowing for me now to be able to have the language to say name, "hey, here's what I'm naturally good at. Here's what I'm not as naturally good at" has allowed me to be able to partner more effectively with people who are motivated in that way. So when I've now been pursuing collaborations, I tend to pursue them with people who have high responsibility or high discipline or high achiever, um, who are looking for someone like me and maybe you, Brian, to kind of bring the ideation, bring the futuristic, bring some of that kind, um, of relationship centered, um, presence and teaching and connection. They're like, I want more of that. Um, but they're so good with the details, the tech. Even when I was facilitating on the weekend, I had, um, some people who have strong deliberative, strong discipline, helping with. They're like, tell me how many minutes for this protocol, and I'm going to be timing, and I'm going to be on top of it. So it's a great tool to consider how to collaborate better on teams and in partnerships.

Bryant Alexander:
Wow. Um, before I add to that, Laurel, did you have anything there?

Laurel Elders:
Oh, that just makes so much sense. The team part. Yeah. And just adding strengths, adding coaching to strengths. I know how much self awareness just expands at that point, which expands capacity.

Bryant Alexander:
Yeah, I, uh, was really thinking about it from - It's one of those obvious things that you really just don't think about. Of course, if I don't know something, I want to get somebody that's better at the thing that I'm not as good at. Right. Especially just as a entrepreneur, as an executive, like you just said Laurel, around self awareness, like, actually paying attention to the people around you and what they're good at and saying, like, okay, I see this person is a lot more organized than me when it comes to their calendar. Everything is color coordinated. The free slots that you can book, you know, where not to book. I'm not the best at that. So maybe this is going to be my project manager, so I can actually deliver whatever I need to deliver for. So obvious. But it just takes a person to notice what's going on around them, actually have intentional interactions with the people that they're working with to see. Oh, okay. Here's how I can leverage my strengths and this person's strengths in order to make something of value or that's impactful.

Laurel Elders:
Well, and isn't there something around, um, the energy drain or the energy giving? Right. If we're in our strengths, it energizes us. We're fighting against our weaknesses or things that aren't our jam. It drains us. And we try to be really conscious of that with our team. It's like, what gives you life? What drains you? Let's connect your employees or your people, your team, with what they're brilliant at. Their genius.

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah, I love that. I think that is a big part of what we do explore with clients is some of these questions around, like, what are you naturally good at? When do you feel like you're in flow? When do you feel ease? Right. And, when does it feel easy? Right. And so when we can align our work and our lives more to our strengths, we can let in more ease in our. It's. It's incredible. And it's interesting you mentioned the entrepreneurship part, Bryant, because I think early in my entrepreneurship journey, I was sort of throwing darts, like, oh, I'm open to kind of anything. I'll project, ah, manage. I'll design, I'll facilitate. Like, work is work. I think that's a good, um, starting place to be. Like, I don't know yet what I want, so I'm going to try out a bunch of things.

But once I went through the strengths, Clifton strengths coach training, and went on this journey, that's when I started to redesign my business to my natural strengths. So that's when I doubled down more on coaching, having high relator, high individualization, high positivity. I doubled down more on designing and facilitating community spaces, cohort programs, which play to my relationship building strengths. And that's when I pulled back from things like project, like being hired to project manage a project and would partner with people who are good at that and love a spreadsheet and Asana and things like that. Just like, love a good tool. And that really helped because the work got easier for me, when I rolled off of what I wasn't naturally as good at. And then, of course, we always want to grow and get better. So it's like, I do want to feel confident in some of these areas I'm not as naturally motivated in. But if there's a way to do it that makes, it allows everybody to play into their strengths, everybody feels better about themselves, which I love. We're too critical on our own. I love inviting that in.

Bryant Alexander:
When I hear you talk about this, I hear you talk about flow, I hear you talk about the things that feel easy or the things you get excited about energy around these different activities, especially as a leader, as an executive, as an entrepreneur. So it sounds like values kind of are coming in here, but could you speak to that a little bit more? Like, between your strengths values? It seems like there's some type of connection there. Could you speak to that?

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah, for sure. It's interesting because we did a workshop on values and strengths last year. Now I'm like, what did we present on? So, yeah, when I think of the relationship - I'll find it and share it with you later. With you both later. We use a lot of metaphor, which I really embraced after doing the coach certification program with the institute and getting to engage in so many amazing sessions on metaphor. Um, so around the time when I was doing the training, we did me, um, and a collaborator who's like, high discipline, high consistency, high responsibility, which is part of why we work well together. We did a workshop on values and strengths, and I think what we did was we used a tree flower and shared how values and strengths can be different parts of a bloom. And I often think values are the foundation. Um, they are our anchors. Like, what is true for us? What do we want to be true about our lives in any context? What are like three to five values?

And then for me, strengths are sometimes how I think of how we can actually express our values, how they can show up. So for me, my values are creativity, community and growth. And so how I express those values in my life, my strengths enable me to do that. So coaching is like, one way that I can express my commitment to growth in community. Um. Um. Mhm. I'm thinking, like, there's just so much to go there, but I kind of, like, I kind of like to think of it as, like, values as anchors and strengths as, like, I think that's where we, like, we showed the roots, like, the growth. Strengths is like, how you can actually express those anchors through the work you choose to do.

Bryant Alexander:
Got you.

Rupa Rihan:
And how you show up in the world.

Bryant Alexander:
That makes sense. Makes sense.

​Rupa Rihan:
I love that I have to find the image and send it to you both.

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, that would be great. I love it. I was just curious, what advice would you have for leaders that are looking to leverage their team's, um, strengths? Where should they start? What should they be considering?

Rupa Rihan:
There's so many resources, and there's a lot of free resources, too, if people are strapped for budget right now. So there's an incredible podcast. There are multiple podcasts where you can go deeper on your strengths. There's lots of kind of conversation and tips on how to do this with teams. So lots of free resources online on Gallup's website. So I'll just share that. Um, typically, for a leader who wants to do this work with their team, step one is, um, being open to doing the work themselves, like, first. So taking the assessment, doing a coaching session with a certified coach, or whatever journey they want to take, and being able to really be in relationship with their own strengths. Greater self awareness, greater self regulation. How do I not over index, let's say, if I have competition in my top strengths, when can that get in the way of my team feeling ease?

Right. So, working with a coach or on their own journey to really clarify their own strengths and sort of get bought in. And the next step would be to do that process with, uh, their team. Every time leaders are strapped for time, they really want to jump to implementation. But with the team, the first step is allowing the team to just better understand, what are my strengths? What am I naturally good at? When do I tap into ideation? When do I tap into significance? Why is this important to me? Um, when am I at m my best? When am I at my worst? When are we, as a team, at our best? When are we not at our worst? What can we learn from that? And then the next phase is called the team grid. So you can take everybody's strengths, their top five and put out a grid and be able to say, okay, as a team, where are we strong? Are we strong execution? Are we a strong influencing team? Are we a strong relationship building team?

So there's four domains. So that's when you, as a team, can spend more time to kind of really understand what is naturally coming to us with more ease. And then where do we have some gaps and how do we want to address that? How might we tap into our strengths collectively? So, let's say a team is high relationship building, but they need to fundraise a lot of money. They're saying, okay, I need to influence people to donate to our organization. We don't have a lot of influencing strengths, so let's just name it, right? And then explore, as a team, how might we tap into relationship building or high execution? Strategic thinking, strengths. The four domains. How could we tap into those to get to achieve our goal, because you don't need any different strengths than what you have. You just need to be able to learn how to really leverage what your natural strengths are, to kind of aim them towards your goal. And then there's a million other things I could go on forever, but that's like the kind of core process.

Bryant Alexander:
What a process. Very thorough. It sounds like. I think it sounds like it's just the little things that you have to consider. And what I mean by that is first knowledge of self. So, just knowing you, that's where it all starts. And I think that's true for any type of coaching or any type of transformation that you're trying to make, whether it be personally or professionally. And then it's like, okay, I need to bring people along for the journey. All right, let's see where you kind of stand as far as strengths or your personal ambitions. It's like just being curious about another person. I've been curious about myself. Now I'm curious about someone else, right? And then it's like, how do we bring. Then the third step, it sounds like, how do we bring this thing together? What's our zone? What's our strengths? How do we work as a collective? But then also, let's talk about where we aren't as strong at, and how do we actually play into that, or how do we figure out ways to, uh, strengthen those areas where we might not be as competent. So it just sounds like the details. Um, as far as understanding people is the most important thing when it comes to just not only strengths, but just actually having an effective and impactful team, um, a like minded team, and individuals who actually want to show up to work and actually want to work for you. So it sounds like there's just a lot of value there.

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah, I had to write it down while you were sharing Bryant.

Laurel Elders:
It's like the power of understanding our inner diversity and how to bring the diversity within us together to create this new, amazing outcome, bring in other people as needed. And I also, Rupa, I love what you said about "when does the strength get in the way? " So I wanted to talk about that a little bit more because we think, "oh, the strength, it's only always great. " And I've personally learned in my life that's not always true. Sometimes our strengths can get in the way.

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah. I love that you mentioned that, Laurel. And, I think I had mentioned to you in another conversation how much I appreciated the email that you send out to people on the list for the institute and how you were talking a little bit about positivity and positivity and positive psychology, just that body of work and different sides of it. And so I love that you're always thinking about that. Um, yeah. To kind of piggyback off of the self awareness of what we were talking about earlier, when we think about the goal of strengths in addition to what we've all talked about, it's like self knowledge, self awareness, um, and also self regulation. And when I heard that word self regulation used in the strengths world, it really sat with me. It felt powerful is what I'm trying to say. And so when you say, "how can strengths get in the way", or when can they hinder us? I think of self regulation, right? Like, how do we regulate how much we're tapping into a strength, or when we're noticing we're over indexing on it? So, to give you an example from one of your strengths Laurel, people with achiever, some of my clients with achiever will often talk about, know it's a strength. It helps me get things done. I have a list. I can achieve a lot. I can move the needle. And then sometimes they may express, "my achiever is getting in the way of me being able to take a risk, try something new, because I really want to be successful and I want it to be perfect".

​Laurel Elders:
Right.

Rupa Rihan:
My achiever- when I'm just too in touch with my achiever, I am paralyzed by perfectionism.

​Laurel Elders:
Right.

Rupa Rihan:
And part of my journey is like, yeah, when do I want to tap into achiever to get things done? And then when do I want to pull back a know and maybe tap into relator, for example, using one of your strengths, Laurel, to be able to learn what's possible and learn a different way of doing things, maybe it won't be as efficient as how I had originally thought I was going to get this done, but I actually find deep fulfillment with getting to really connect with other people and learn a new possibility. And so I want to be able to do that more in my life. I want space for that. And so creating space for more of my relator strength might mean letting go of a little bit of my achiever.

​Laurel Elders:
So it's like using strengths in tandem, it sounds like.

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah, we have, like, a theme. If you actually want Laurel with your report, you can sign back into your Gallup account. And there's a new top five report that came out last month. And it does show you your Strengths in pair in a tandem. For me, it's like empathy and positivity. All of them can be paired, but it'll give you like a little explanation. So go check that out. But yeah, I think that's, um, a good way of thinking about it. I kind of like to think of them as like a toolbox. I'm like, okay, I need to do this. I'm meeting with somebody to go over the design and facilitation of a session at ten. It's like, okay, I've got ideation, got positivity, I've got strategic, got futuristic, I've got relator developer. What do I want to tap into? Um, in order to help me get to this outcome that allows me to, um, self m regulate it a little bit more. Um, but yeah, I can overtap into positivity and everyone's like, chill. You don't always need to move people to a, uh, positive place. There's value in allowing for the experience. So it's something I have to really work on with positivity and ideation. As you can tell, uh, ideation is something I always have to manage because it's like too many ideas. I have to self regulate it. Sometimes that's not helpful for this space. Sometimes the space is about deciding and executing.

​Laurel Elders:
Mhm. Yeah, that makes sense.

Bryant Alexander:
I like how you said it's like a toolkit. I kind of see it like a c-suite. If anything, I'm really into just seeing yourself as a constantly evolving startup. And you were like, oh, I have this meeting going. Let me tap into this, let me tap into this strength. Let me tap into that strength. But it's kind of like the reverse of the inner critic. If anything, it's just like acknowledging that, uh oh, I have all these positive personas that I can tap into. Which one do I need for this meeting? And having that awareness of it really makes it that much easier. So that's powerful. It's like a little internal c-suite. Who needs to show up to this meeting? How am I going to show up? What's going to work best for me?

​Laurel Elders:
I love that. It's like, it's activating new ideas, new relationships, new possibilities.

Rupa Rihan:
Yeah, totally. To both of your points. I think when we can just feel more free to be who we naturally truly are, like our - I'm just pausing because, I had a coaching session once with Michael from the institute, and I remember him bringing up personal sovereignty. "What does that definition mean to you? " So maybe as I was just sort of trying to share this journey of really feeling free to just accept who we are on the inside, that word came to mind. And so my experience with leaders is, like, when we can do that, we can just achieve so much more of what we really want to. Things fall into place. I know I sound like a strengths commercial, but it really has changed my life. So I am just like- I like to bring it to more people.

Laurel Elders:
Is there a distinction between strengths and gifts? Because in Enneagram, we talk about, like, these are the gifts of this personality type. So I was just curious on that.

Rupa Rihan:
Enneagram just came up yesterday. I did a walking coaching session, which I loved, um, at the lake here in Oakland. And the client I was with was like, I'm an enneagram three. And so we were talking about it. In this definition in the Gallup definition, we define talent as a naturally reoccurring pattern of thoughts, beliefs, and action. That might be, like, one word off, but a natural reoccurring pattern of thoughts, beliefs, and action. And then we define strength as the talent that you naturally have, these natural patterns, and then amount of time you invest in that talent to develop it into a strength. So you could be a naturally talented, let's say, like, you're naturally talented, creative, you're great at drawing. This is outside of the model, but your ability to make it into a strength would be how much time, hours you actually invest in building out that strength.

So, similarly, let's say, in communication, for example, which is a strength in the Gallup model, a lot of people are naturally good communicators. You both are incredible, in my opinion. But people will invest the time, the energy, grad school practice, and maybe aim that into being someone like Obama, who can deliver a near perfect speech. So it's just such a strength because of all the time he's invested and also just his natural talent, the combination. So the gifts part is interesting because I guess maybe there's, like - I don't know the enneagram enough - like, maybe there's a synonym, a bit, between gifts and talent, but I don't know. What do you think, Laurel?

Laurel Elders:
Well, I'm an Enneagram Five, "The Investigator". So now I'm going to go investigate!

Bryant Alexander:
There you go.

Laurel Elders:
I want to know, because to me, the truth of these, any assessment really just brings to life more self awareness and more so that we can really tap into what is there and be aware of what's not there. And see how that can help us help inform our life path on this journey in this great big world of ours.

Rupa Rihan:
Right. Yeah. Let me know.

Laurel Elders:
I will. Yes. Maybe we have a part two. And just curious, before we wrap up, how do you use strengths in coaching? Because I know coaching is in and of itself, it defaults to helping people get in touch with the "yes". The strengths, the gifts, all of the yes of that person. So I'm curious, how does that show up for you in your coaching?

Rupa Rihan:
Mhm. Um, two examples. So one is sort of a more structured way in coaching where we can do that, name it, claim it, aim it process with a client so we can apply that to a goal. So we can say, okay, let's first name your strengths. What are your top strengths? And then let's claim them. How do they show up for you? And then let's aim it. So what is a specific goal that you want to achieve? And we would define all the parameters and then we would take the actual strengths. And there's different worksheets and resources that Gallup has, simple ones to help with this process that I'm happy to share with the community. But, we would say, okay, how are you going to aim developer to launch this new program? How are you going to aim responsibility? Specifically, what are two examples of what you're going to do to aim this strength? What are two examples for what you're going to do to aim connectedness?

So that's like one kind of technical tool that we'll use with clients and, um, that I've used before, which can be helpful because it's simple but it's asset based, it's not so overwhelming. Um, it's a little more motivating. The second, example is I have three, uh, career coaching clients that I'm starting with this week, last week, which is super exciting. And so looking at their strengths report has been so helpful. So one of them has, number one, futuristic, um, and also has responsibility and belief, um, like you, Laurel, in their top ten. And so when I saw futuristic for number one, I was like, this person is going to love visioning. This person is really going to be motivated by us getting very clear on what is the future vision, what is the goal, what are we driving towards, what will be possible in your life? And then they also had some really strong execution themes that allow me to know, okay, they're probably going to want to move things forward. They may not need as much, um, encouragement or accountability in the same way as somebody who might have high ideation, but maybe low discipline like myself.

And then I have another client who has high deliberate, who I'm starting with in her top five. And so that makes me know that this person really wants to make sure the time is well spent and that it's very clear kind of what we're doing, why we're doing it, where it's going to lead. So that informs how I'm communicating our coaching relationship, our goals, and a bit about how I approach doing the work with this client, even from my emails to, um, my coaching practice. So I actually think it's so helpful. And sometimes we can make assumptions based on maybe some small things we know about somebody. And when we see the report, we're like, oh, actually, this person has these strengths and motivations that I didn't know about. So it really helps me to customize the coaching and tap into their natural motivations.

Laurel Elders:
Yeah, that's great. All right. We are, at time, as always, so bittersweet. So thank you, Rupa, so much for joining us. Thank you both. Pleasure. And we hope that today's mastery tip is a lantern to your path with coaching. And it's our mission to elevate human potential through the art and the science of masterful coaching. If you're an individual or organizational leader seeking to bring coaching into what you do, please reach out to us. You can connect with Bryant here on LinkedIn or his email is [email protected].

And Bryant, do you want to share a little bit about our module one coming up?

Bryant Alexander:
Yes, uh, we are about two weeks out from Module One: Coaching Fundamentals. So March 22!
It will be a full day of the fundamentals around everything you need to know around coaching. So 6 hours.

Now, you might be wondering, how much does this cost?

Well, we have scholarships available, so please reach out to me. This is really a program that's going to-  if you're curious about coaching or if you're trying to understand what are the foundational elements it takes to be a coach, this is for you.

All right, so if you have any questions, please reach out to me. I can tell you everything about the program. I am a student and I recently wrapped up my coursework, um, about a couple of weeks ago, actually.

If you're really trying to generate self awareness, if you're trying to take more steps to be a more coach-like leader or you're looking to start your own coaching business, I'm here to support. Let's have a conversation. I want to just help provide clarity to help you make decisions. It's a coaching call. You basically get a free coaching call with me. That's how I put it. So please reach out to me and I'm happy to help with any questions you have.

Laurel Elders:
Thank you. And Rupa, if somebody wants to work with you as, ah, a coach and strengths coach, how do they find you?

Rupa Rihan:
Um, I'm on LinkedIn, I am on Instagram. I have a website, https://www.rupadevrihan.com. So find me on LinkedIn. Um, find my website. They can message me, can email me. I'm easy to find and I would love to work with anybody who wants to dive deeper in this work. And I'd love to be a resource for any coaches, um, in our network that are curious about how to integrate this into their practice. Like, um, totally happy to give suggestions or worksheets or podcast episodes. That's the relator and connectedness in me. So yeah, use me as a resource.

Laurel Elders:
Thank you. And we'll also, um, post a link to you when we post these below. And we help companies increase business performance and leadership impact by developing coaching talent and creating coaching cultures. So if you are a leader, a director in learning and development or HR, we would love to help you elevate what you're already doing through a coaching lens. So reach out and you can learn more at IntegrativeIntelligence.Global. Thank you for joining us.

We hope to see you next week. Bye.

Bryant Alexander:
See you.

Rupa Rihan:
Bye.