Reconnecting with Our Strengths

Rupa Dev Rihan (she/her) is a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, leadership facilitator, and community builder who helps leaders—especially underrepresented leaders—lead with more clarity, confidence, and ease. With over 16 years of experience in education, coaching, and storytelling, she designs creative, strengths-based experiences that are warm, empowering, and deeply human. Learn more about Rupa in our Q+A below, and click on this link to read Rupa's full-length feature in our June 2025 issue of En Root!

This month's theme is all about understanding and playing to your strengths. Tell us how this theme has played a role in your personal or professional life.

I’m a total strengths enthusiast! Tapping into my strengths has completely reshaped how I approach my work, parenting, and how I care for myself. I’m a Gallup-Certified Strengths Coach, and I haven’t looked back since I got certified five years ago. I first rediscovered CliftonStrengths during a difficult season in the pandemic. It was 2020, and I felt disconnected, lonely, and depressed after giving birth to my second child. Reconnecting with my strengths gave me a mirror to remember who I was—and a blueprint for how I wanted to move through the world.

Today, I use the CliftonStrengths framework in my coaching and facilitation work with leaders and teams to help them lead more effectively and achieve their goals with more ease. There’s something incredibly powerful about realizing that the way you naturally show up isn’t just “enough”—it’s your superpower!

At OutGrowth, we believe in designing the space and time to reimagine the path forward. How do you think that a commitment to understanding our core strengths can help us to navigate our lives and careers?

Such a great question! So much of our time is spent trying to fix what we think is wrong with us—when often, the real opportunity is to lean deeper into what’s already working and double down on those strengths that come to us with ease.

Knowing your strengths helps you make aligned decisions and define success on your own terms. For example, I’m a very relational person who leads with relationship-building strengths. That self-awareness helped me pivot into coaching and facilitation, where I could anchor my work in what I do best—connecting, listening deeply, and creating meaningful experiences.

It also helped me step away from project management or operations-heavy roles in my own business. While I can do those things - and picked up projects in that area when I was first start of out - it takes me three times as long and feel like swimming upstream. I’d much rather collaborate with someone whose strengths lie in those areas—because strong partnerships (at work and in life) thrive when we each bring our natural talents to the table.

What is one hard lesson you learned in this past year that contributed to your growth?

Rest is not a reward—it’s our birthright. I had to unlearn the deeply ingrained belief that productivity equals worth. As a working mom, facilitator, and business owner, I’ve been grinding hard these past few years. And while it’s been incredibly fulfilling to see my business grow, it also took a toll on my physical and mental health.

Last year, I co-organized a Rest Retreat, and it shifted something in me. I saw firsthand how space for rest, connection, and creativity allows for deep joy—the kind you can’t buy on IG or TikTok. Since then, I’ve been more intentional about being offline a little more and prioritizing rest as part of my growth, not the thing I do after I’ve earned it.

What is one competency or skill you hope to develop in 2025?

In 2025, I want to deepen my somatic coaching practice. I’ve been on a journey to integrate more body-based wisdom into my work, because our bodies hold so much knowing—especially for those of us who’ve learned to survive in spaces not built for us.

I’m truly such a beginner in this work, but I want to continue training and learning so I can support clients not just in what they do, but in how they feel in their bodies as they lead, rest, and take up space. And it’s a beautiful way to reconnect to my lineage and deepen my own practice of presence.

What inspires you?

The brilliance of the women I work with—clients, partners, and executives who lead with heart and vision. My 4- and 8-year-old kids, who are endlessly curious and creative. Writer and thought leader Luvvie Ajayi Jones. A phenomenal coach I’ve worked with, Michael Tucker. Beautiful essays, sunsets, walks, I could go on forever! Honestly, there are so many people and things that inspire me,

... though I will mention that I’m constantly inspired by those who are carving their own path and doing it in a way that’s deeply human.

At OutGrowth, we believe in preparing the next generation of leaders. What is one resource you'd recommend to those looking to carve out the time for growth in the next year?

Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey. It’s a powerful invitation to reclaim our time, our bodies, and our worth in a world that constantly demands more. We included Trish’s Rest Deck at our Rest Retreat last year, and our attendees loved them. This book helped me reframe what it means to grow—not through hustle, but through presence and healing. It’s a much have resource, guidebook, and manifesto!

What's next? What are you excited about in the coming year?

This year, I’m especially excited about launching more intimate group coaching experiences and deepening my 1:1 practice with clients who are navigating transitions, burnout, or big decisions. I’m also headed to a Gallup-Certified Coaches event in Denver this June—and I can’t wait to nerd out on strengths with other practitioners and soak in the energy of that community!