Strength Based Mentoring

This school year for our strengths blog, we will be featuring a guest blogger each week for the 34 talent themes. The guest will write about what the featured strength looks like in their own life, blended with their other 4 themes. We believe in the power of sharing our strengths stories. Knowing my strengths has aligned my thoughts of myself and others with reality versus assumptions or expectations. It’s truly been life changing. This same transformation can happen with anyone we encounter, but it won’t come to pass if we do not take the brave step of sharing our own stories. Every single one of us has a story to tell--our own. You don’t have to be a talented writer, grammar wizard, or tech genius to be a guest blogger. All you need is a willingness and a bit of courage to share your story. If you are willing to share your story, please reach out to Tess at  tstarman@teammates.org . We will provide more information about this process, as well as some questions to help g

People exceptionally talented in the Deliberative theme are best described by the serious care they take in making decision or choices. They anticipate obstacles. CliftonStrengths This week our guest blogger is Janae Solomon. Janae has been a mentor since 2015 and last year took on the awesome challenge of serving as the Program Coordinator for TeamMates of McCook, Nebraska. Her top five strengths are Learner, Deliberative, Individualization, Input, and Developer. Here’s what Deliberative looks like for Janae: When I took the Strengths survey through TeamMates a year and a half ago, Ally warned us that there might be a strength we or our mentees would have a hard time taking ownership of because it had been previously been a label or a perceived flaw. That was Deliberative for me. When that came out as my number two strength, I thought “Yeah, I overthink things and take too long to make decisions. How is that a strength?” Thankfully, because of Ally and Tess’s strength

People exceptionally talented in the Context theme enjoy thinking about the past. They understand the present by researching its history. CliftonStrengths This week our guest blogger is Jay Wright. Jay has worn may hats in TeamMates, including Mentor, Program Coordinator for Bishop Heelan Catholic Schools in Sioux City, Iowa, and most recently, as Regional Coordinator for the Eastern region. His top five strengths are Context, Achiever, Developer, Includer, and Learner. Here’s what Context looks like for Jay: I can still remember when I fell in love with history.  We were driving to the 1982 Peach Bowl to watch our beloved Iowa Hawkeyes take on the Tennessee Volunteers in Atlanta.  (Relive the Hawkeye win here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujQQ96qV3U4 ).  The Hawkeye win is not the moral of the story however.  For me, the highlight of the trip was the stop at Chattanooga to see the Civil War battlefield which was, for 6 year old me, life changing.  I became fasc