My Core Values

At a high level, my values are the guideposts for how I try to show up and make decisions in my business, and in life as my own #1 client working to befriend my strengths as best I can.

My core values - Courage, Celebration, Compassion, Candor, and Creativity - collectively work in tandem to support my clients in clarifying their own strengths and values while connecting more deeply with self and others.

Candor

Partially because I am a verbal processor, and mostly because I cherish authenticity, I place a high value on honesty and transparency. Though tough at times, this means “telling it like it is,” both in times of ease and times of discomfort. When positive intent is demonstrated in the delivery of our words, candor helps us grow both as individuals and in our connection to one another. 

As stated by leadership guru and social scientist Brené Brown,“Clear is kind.” I believe that one can be assertive and direct in sharing feedback or opinions, while also being compassionate and diplomatic. Befriending your strengths means recognizing and accepting difficult truths about ourselves at times, and I believe that reciprocal openness and candor between coach and client facilitates positive transformation even as we notice and name our blind spots.

Celebration

Strengths give us so much to celebrate, whether highlighting our accomplishments in the best of times, or helping us survive and be resilient when times get tough. There are numerous statistics on the benefits of strengths coaching, and my favorite is from research conducted by Gallup showing that people who actively use their strengths are TWICE as likely to have hope because they are living in their authenticity. 

As someone who has dealt with sustained hardship in the form of mental illness, I have come to feel a greater appreciation for moments of celebration when they occur. By creating Befriend Your Strengths, I am making a continued commitment to myself, and my clients, to pay attention to the positive, as it can be tempting sometimes to wallow in a sense of weakness. 

Compassion

When I think about compassion, I think about the exercise of care and kindness to both oneself and to others. Returning to the wise words of Brené Brown, “Loving ourselves through the process of owning our story is the bravest thing we will ever do.” Showing compassion to ourselves and others does wonders, especially when navigating our lesser strengths (a.k.a. weaknesses) and the shadow side of overused strengths.

Dr. Kristin Neff, perhaps the most renowned expert on the subject, lays out three elements of self-compassion: Self-kindness vs. Self-judgment, Common Humanity vs. Isolation, and Mindfulness vs. Over-identification (a.k.a., enmeshment with thoughts and feelings leading to negative spirals).

Discovering and developing our strengths helps us be kinder, more connected to self and others, and more confident, and self-aware. Applying a deeper strengths vocabulary to how we understand others and their actions helps us extend greater compassion outwards.

In a complex, chaotic time for humanity, I would venture to say that befriending our strengths is crucial to help us survive and thrive.

Courage

To continue with this multi-part nod to Brené Brown, I echo her reminder that, “the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language - it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart - and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.”

This is exactly what the Befriend Your Strengths process is designed to empower clients to do.

“Masking” is a term that has become increasingly well-known, particularly in the mental health and neurodivergence communities. Masking encompasses all the ways that we expend energy and emotion to cover up certain parts of ourselves that we feel shame or deficiency around because they are not broadly accepted, the “norm,” or neurotypical traits or ways of being/doing.

Masking has served a function for many of us, that at times was necessary for survival. However, many people are becoming more enlightened, aware, and embracing of such differences, and it is time to shed our masks, with compassion.

When we are brave enough to own our strengths and tend to our areas of lesser strengths, we open up so much more energy, positivity, and power to foster the fullness of who we are and offer our unique gifts to the world.

Creativity

What first comes to mind when I think of creativity are bright rainbow colors, innovative art masterpieces, and talented performers, all of which I love and value even though I can barely draw a stick figure!

In recent years, though, my concept of creativity has expanded as I have worked through cognitive behavioral therapy and begun to increase my mental flexibility. People with anxiety can be prone to rigid, “black and white” thinking, which often makes it hard for us to think of new or nuanced ways of doing things.

This tendency makes creativity especially important when hyper-perfectionism threatens to paralyze progress, and one needs to find methods and mindsets to harness the many ideas floating around in the mind.

As I lean into Dr. Carol Dweck’s concept of the “growth mindset,” I strive to maintain a positive orientation towards learning and risk-taking as opposed to thwarting my own development by attaching to rigid, fear-based beliefs around definitions of success, self-worth, and the implications of failure.

With Befriend Your Strengths, I apply an iterative approach to business-building and coaching, where there is space and safety to absorb and apply new ideas. I keep the doors open for the learning and creative possibility that comes from making mistakes, missing the mark, or being called out or called in. This approach, I believe, leads to the most valuable contributions and most beautiful outcomes.