Strength Based Mentoring

Nexting While Walking Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D.   in   Making Hope Happen On our morning walks to his elementary school, my son Parrish and I do lots of  nexting . We talk about his next basketball game, the next movie we’ll watch, our next family trip. Nexting comes naturally to kids. It seems to pique their curiosity and give them little boosts of joy. Nexting is my way of practicing hope with Parrish, an eight-year old. By encouraging him to talk about the future, I find out what he is excited about. I learn about his plots and plans, and I help him come up with lots of ideas for how to make things happen. If I identify some gaps in his thinking, I can explore his “wonderfully horrible ideas” jokingly. That gives us a chance to discuss why some of his strategies may not be appropriate and to pivot to one of his other ideas. Talking about the next important event in Parrish’s life also lets me gauge whether he is confident, nervous, joyful,  fearful , or downright giddy.

Guest Post by Tom Rath , author, researcher, and speaker. #1  New York Times  bestselling author of  Wellbeing, Strengths Based Leadership, StrengthsFinder 2.0,  and  How Full Is Your Bucket?  and the forthcoming  Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes. Be more of who you already are by  Tom Rath  • July 31, 2013  Be more of who you  already are. That is the primary lesson I learned from my mentor and grandfather, Donald O. Clifton , who spent a lifetime studying “ what is right with people. ” Don helped me to see that if I spent my life trying to be good at everything, I would never be great at anything. In the late 1990s, after helping thousands uncover their strengths through in-depth interviews over three decades, Don and his team created a web-based assessment called StrengthsFinder. Don’s dream was to help far more people uncover their strengths. In the early days of working on this project, each morning Don would print a report of all the people who