Prep Homework Workbook: The Strengths Portrait

WHYZMEN · REWIRE RETIREMENT


The Strengths Portrait
What Am I Wired to Do?

 Session Seven Workbook
 Everything for this session in one place — what you do before you come, what you build in the room,
 and what you carry into Session 8.




Name: __________________________________________             Triad:
_______________________________


Wise Men Seek, Knowing Their Why’s




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PART ONE


Before You Come
Two exercises. About twenty-five minutes.

 You already have most of what Session 7 needs. Two assessments are sitting in your inbox. Six or
 seven values are written in your Charter. Three or four pages of your own story are already on
 paper. This session does not ask you to generate anything new — it asks you to lay all of it on one
 page and see what keeps repeating. Do these with your Charter open beside you.



 WHAT YOU NEED IN FRONT OF YOU


       CliftonStrengths Top 5
       Printed or on a screen. Assigned at Session 5. If it is not done, do it this week — the whole session runs on
       it.

       VIA Character Strengths
       Free, and the full ranked list of 24 is what you want, not just the top five.

       Harvest Charter 1.1 — My Story
       The three paragraphs you wrote after Session 4. Bring the actual pages; you will be marking them up.

       Harvest Charter 1.1b — My Forgotten Range
       Your five to seven dormant capacities.

       Harvest Charter 1.2 — My Core Values
       The five to seven you landed on at Session 6.



 There is no spiritual gifts inventory this week. That work happens differently, and it happens in the room — you
 will find it at the back of this workbook.




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 Exercise One — The Crosswalk
 About ten minutes


Your values tell you what you are aiming at. VIA tells you which road you
actually drive.
Two men both value family. One shows up as Kindness — he is the one who notices. One shows up as
Leadership — he is the one who organizes Thanksgiving. One shows up as Humor — he is the one who
makes the room survivable. Same value. Three completely different roads.
Session 6 named the destinations. This page names the roads.

 READING YOUR VIA REPORT                  Peterson & Seligman, 2004


Twenty-four strengths, grouped under six virtues that appear in nearly every major moral tradition. Your
report ranks all twenty-four. The top five are what VIA calls your signature strengths, and they carry
three markers:

 Essential                                   Effortless                         Energizing
 It feels like you, not like a role you      It comes without being summoned.   It gives you energy rather than
 are playing.                                                                   taking it.


The third marker is the one that matters most in this season. You can be extremely competent at
something that drains you. That is a skill, not a signature strength — and the difference will matter twice
more before the night is over.

 THE TWENTY-FOUR            your report ranks all of them — this is the map


 WISDOM                        Creativity · Curiosity · Judgment · Love of Learning · Perspective

 COURAGE                       Bravery · Perseverance · Honesty · Zest

 HUMANITY                      Love · Kindness · Social Intelligence

 JUSTICE                       Teamwork · Fairness · Leadership

 TEMPERANCE                    Forgiveness · Humility · Prudence · Self-Regulation

 TRANSCENDENCE                 Appreciation of Beauty · Gratitude · Hope · Humor · Spirituality




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 The Crosswalk
 Values on the left. Roads on the right.



 1      Write your Session 6 values down the left column.
        Use the words you actually landed on, not tidier ones. Five to seven.



 2      For each one, name the VIA strength that carries it.
        Not the one that sounds related — the one that is actually doing the work. Ask: when this
        value shows up in my life, what does it look like from the outside? More than one carrier is
        fine.


 3      Any value with no carrier — check the box.
        That is the most useful mark on this page. It means you hold something as non-negotiable and
        currently have no reliable way of delivering it.


 MY CORE VALUE (Session 6)                    THE VIA STRENGTH THAT CARRIES IT                        NO CARRIER

 1.

 2.

 3.

 4.

 5.

 6.

 7.



 A value with no carrier is a gap in practice, not a gap in character. You may hold something deeply and simply
 never have been given a road to it. Roads get built in the spring — for now, just mark it honestly.




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 Exercise Two — The Skills Harvest
 About fifteen minutes


You have been writing your skills inventory since September. You just
called it a story.
Nobody needs to invent a list of skills this week. Two sections of your Charter are already full of them —
they are simply buried in prose, and prose is very good at hiding what it contains. This exercise is a
harvest, not a brainstorm.

 WHERE IT IS ALREADY WRITTEN


             My Story
             Read your three paragraphs with a pen. Underline every verb you used about yourself. Built.
 1.1         Negotiated. Taught. Repaired. Recruited. Diagnosed. Calmed. Most men are startled by how
             much capability is sitting in something they wrote about their childhood.

             My Forgotten Range
             The capacities nobody ever paid you for. Darwin could write Origin of Species because he was
 1.1b        also a geologist, a barnacle taxonomist, and a pigeon breeder — the range was the insight.
             Carry your list over.

             Anything else you do uncommonly well
 +           If it did not make it into your story or your range, add it here anyway. Nobody is checking
             sources.



 EVERYTHING YOU UNDERLINED           verbs, not job titles — what you actually did on a Tuesday




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 The Three You Would Keep
 The last move, and the one that matters.



 Choose three you would keep doing if no one ever paid you again.


 Not the three you were best at. The three you would keep.


This is not modesty and it is not a trick question. Most men were best at something they are relieved to
be done with. You can be the finest cost estimator in three counties and never want to open a
spreadsheet again — that is a skill that drains, and a skill that drains has no future in this season.
The three you would keep are the three that were never really about the paycheck. They survived forty
years without institutional support, which is strong evidence they will survive this transition too.


 1.


 2.


 3.



 If you cannot fill three, fill two. If your career ended in a way that makes this page feel hollow — a layoff, a role
 that was eliminated, an ending you did not choose — work from your Forgotten Range instead. That route is
 open when the career route feels closed, and for a good many men it is the better route anyway.




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PART TWO


In the Room
Five movements. One sentence at the end.

 These pages are worked together, in sequence, on the night. Read ahead if you like — but do not
 fill them in early. Two of them depend on what other men say to you, and one of them depends
 on what you notice in the moment. Bring a pen you like writing with.



 THE ARC
 1. The Unemployed Strength     2. Wiring & Character    3. The Trained Hand
 4. The Caring Shift  5. The Convergence — six rows, three rounds, one sentence




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 Wiring — CliftonStrengths
 Movement Two



 MY TOP FIVE       in order



 1.

 2.

 3.

 4.

 5.


 WHICH DOMAIN DO MY FIVE CLUSTER IN?


      Executing                                                    Influencing

      Relationship Building                                        Strategic Thinking



 WHICH OF THE FIVE DID MY JOB PAY FOR?




 WHICH ONE DID I DO FOR FREE?
 the one most likely to survive the transition intact




 Strengths do not retire. They go looking for work — and if you do not assign one a job, it will assign itself one.
 Usually a small one.




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 The Caring Shift
 Movement Four


When a man perceives time as open-ended, he optimizes for information, novelty, and a wider network.
When he perceives time as limited, he shifts toward meaning, depth, and the people he already loves.
Carstensen’s finding is that the trigger is not age — it is horizon.

You did not get soft. You re-sorted.

 AT 40, I CARED MOST ABOUT




 NOW, I CARE MOST ABOUT
 this line goes on the Board — and you will read it aloud




 THE SHIFT HAPPENED WHEN
 yours to keep; nobody will ask for this one




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 The Convergence Board
 One page. Six rows.


Everything here has already been written — tonight, at your kitchen table, or back in September. You
are transcribing, not inventing.


 WIRING                         Top 3 themes — include the one you did for free
 CliftonStrengths


 CHARACTER                      Top 2 signature strengths
 VIA


 NON-                           Top 3
 NEGOTIABLES
 Session 6 values


 TRAINED HAND                   The 3 verbs you would keep
 Story, Range, career


 DIRECTION                      What you now care most about
 Caring Shift


 COMMISSION                     Left blank tonight — returns at Session 8, named by your triad
 Spiritual Gifts




 The sixth row stays blank tonight on purpose. It is the one row you cannot fill in by yourself — it is not about how
 you are wired, but about what you were assigned and what this body has seen. Bring this page back to Session 8.




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 Round One — The Solo Build
 Eleven minutes. Silent.



 1      Fill the five rows.
        Transcription, not invention.



 2      Circle the repeats.
        Where does the same thing show up in two rows? Or three? Learner. Curiosity. Growth.
        Teaching. That is not four facts — that is one man, showing up four times. Recognition, not
        analysis.



 WHAT KEEPS SHOWING UP
 the pattern you circled — in your own words




 What is the thing you keep noticing that other people seem to
 walk past?
 One line. If nothing comes, use the question below instead — it is not a consolation prize, and for
 many men it produces the truer answer.




 IF YOU DRAW A BLANK — Who has asked you for help in the last two years, and what did they want? Unsolicited
 requests are data. People ask you for what they have already seen you do well.




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 Round Two — The Witness
 Eighteen minutes. Six per man.


You read your Board aloud, top to bottom. Then the other two men do exactly two things — name the
pattern you did not circle, and ask one question. Their question must begin with
“Where…” or “Who…” — never “Why.”
Why puts a man on trial and he will defend himself. Where and Who make him locate something — an
actual place, an actual person. A name you can call this week.

 WHAT THEY SAW THAT I HAD NOT CIRCLED
 write their words, not your translation of them




 THE QUESTION THEY ASKED ME




 MY ANSWER — AS HONESTLY AS I CAN PUT IT




 “The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” — Proverbs 20:5




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 Round Three — The Sentence
 Eleven minutes.



 THREE RULES
 Present tense — not “I was,” not “I want to be.” · A real verb and a real person — “serve the church” fails,
 “sit with men who just got laid off” passes. · The word “suspect” stays in.




 At my best, I am the man who _____________________________
 __________________________________________________
 _________

 Which makes me suspect I am meant to _____________________
 for
 __________________________________________________
 _____


 THE WORD ONE MAN HEARD                                       THE WORD THE OTHER HEARD




 It will usually not be the word you thought was carrying the sentence. Write down what they said — at Session
 10, when you build your mission, that word is often the hinge. And this is not your mission statement. That gets
 written in January, after this has had two months to sit.




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 The Test and The Clearing
 Before you leave


A hypothesis you never test is just a nice sentence about yourself.
Name one action — under two hours, before Session 10 — that would tell you whether the second
clause is true. You are not signing up for anything. You are gathering one piece of evidence.
Call the man who runs the tutoring program and ask what he actually needs. · Sit in on one meeting. · Take one
person to coffee and ask what they would want from you. · Volunteer once — once, not commit.


 MY TEST




 BY WHEN
 and who I will tell that I did it




 What comes off the calendar between now and January?
 Two hours a week. Not what does not belong in your life — that work is in the spring. Just what
 makes room for the Charter and your test. Two hours is small enough that no man here can say he
 does not have it.



 WHAT I AM TAKING OFF
 be specific — “less TV” is not an answer




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PART THREE


What You Made, and What Is
Next
One page of conclusion. One page of homework.

 You walked in holding two reports. You are walking out holding one sentence, one test, and a
 page that did not exist this morning. The next page gathers it in one place — fill it in before you
 go to bed, while the room is still in your head. Everything after that is for Session 8.




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 What You Made Tonight
 Fill this in before you sleep.



 THE SIGNATURE — CLAUSE ONE
 At my best, I am the man who… → Charter 1.3




 THE HYPOTHESIS — CLAUSE TWO
 I suspect I am meant to … for … → carries into the winter break




 THE WORDS THEY GAVE ME                                     MY ORPHAN VALUE




 MY TEST — AND THE DATE I WILL DO IT
 before Session 10




 MY TWO-HOUR CLEARING — WHAT COMES OFF, STARTING THIS WEEK
 → first entry in Charter 3.0 Subtractions




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 TRANSCRIBE THIS WEEK


       Charter 1.3 — Strengths & Gifts
       Your Top 5 with a sentence each, your three kept skills, and The Signature expanded to two or three
       sentences.

       Charter 1.5 — My Caring Shift
       One paragraph, from your three lines.

       Charter 3.0 — My Subtractions
       Your two-hour clearing, as the first entry.

       Naming the Gift — the next two pages
       Fifteen to twenty minutes. Bring this workbook back to Session 8.




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 Naming the Gift
 Session 7 Homework, due Session 8


“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”
1 Corinthians 12:7

Gifts are not issued to a man for his own use. They are issued to him for other people — which is why
the last word on your gifts does not belong to you, and does not belong to a website either. It belongs to
the men who have watched you for eight weeks. Your job this week is not to score yourself. It is to
gather evidence for that conversation.

 IF ANYONE SPEAKS        — 1 Peter 4:11

 Teaching                        Making a complicated thing clear to someone who needs it

 Encouragement                   Coming alongside a man who is about to quit
 paraklesis

 Truth-telling                   Saying the true thing when it costs you something
 propheteia

 Leadership                      Seeing where a group needs to go, and taking them there



 IF ANYONE SERVES        — 1 Peter 4:11

 Administration                  Turning a good intention into a plan that actually runs
 kybernesis

 Serving                         Seeing what needs doing and doing it without being asked
 diakonia

 Mercy                           Sitting with suffering without needing to fix it

 Giving                          Releasing resources freely, usually without telling anyone

 Hospitality                     Making a stranger feel expected rather than tolerated

 Shepherding                     Staying with people over years, not projects

 Faithfulness                    Being the one who is still there in year eleven



 Scripture names gifts in several places, and the lists differ. This card draws its language mainly from Romans
 12:4–8 and 1 Peter 4:9–11, with administration from 1 Corinthians 12:28 and shepherding from 1 Peter 5:2. It is
 a vocabulary for naming what we have seen in each other — not a complete catalogue.




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 Four Passes
 Fifteen to twenty minutes.



 1      Cross out the six that clearly are not you.
        Start by subtracting. Men are far more accurate about what they are not than about what they
        are — and crossing out carries none of the false modesty that circling does.



 2      For each one left standing, name an instance.
        No instance, no claim. A gift you admire is not a gift you have. If the line stays blank, that is
        information — keep it blank.


 GIFT                         NOT ME     WHEN DID I LAST DO THIS WITHOUT BEING ASKED? Name the person, and
                                         roughly when.

 Teaching

 Encouragement

 Truth-telling

 Leadership

 Administration

 Serving

 Mercy

 Giving

 Hospitality

 Shepherding

 Faithfulness



 3      What has someone else named in you that you waved off?
        Almost every man has been told something — you are good with the young guys, you should
        be teaching this — and deflected it. Go get it. It was someone else’s observation in the first
        place, which makes it better evidence than anything you can generate about yourself tonight.




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 The Nomination
 The last thing, and then you are done.



 4         Circle two or three with the strongest evidence. Then finish the
           sentence.
           Write it in pencil. “Suspect” stays in — next week the room gets a vote, and it may name
           something you did not.



 I suspect I have been given _________________________________
 because _______________________________________________
 ______________________________________________________
 ___________


If three men name something next week that you did not nominate, the homework did not fail. That is
the exercise working.



 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
 prepared in advance for us to do.”
 Ephesians 2:10
 Poiema. Workmanship. The wiring was prepared, and so was the work. Neither one was self-assigned.



WhyzMen · Rewire Retirement · Session 7 Workbook
Wise Men Seek, Knowing Their Why’s
Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used
by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.




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