Strengths, Meet Energy: Why We Combine Core Energy Coaching with Gallup CliftonStrengths
Most high-performing professionals reach a point where effort alone no longer produces the results they want. They have the skills, the experience, the drive, and something still doesn't translate. That gap between what you're capable of and what you're consistently producing is exactly where our work at Thrivelab begins.
We build coaching around two questions: What are you uniquely wired to do? And from what internal place are you doing it? These sound like philosophical questions, but they're actually measurable ones, and answering them precisely is what separates real transformation from a good conversation.
Combining two tools
We're certified in two of the most researched leadership development frameworks: Gallup's CliftonStrengths and iPEC's Core Energy Coaching, measured through the Energy Leadership Index (ELI). We use them together because each one illuminates something the other can't see.
CliftonStrengths starts from a simple but well-tested formula: Talent x Investment = Strength. A talent is a naturally recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior, the raw material you were born with. It becomes a strength only when you invest time and skill-building in it. Gallup has spent decades validating this model, and their research now spans more than a million individuals and tens of thousands of business units, showing consistent links between strengths-based development and things like engagement, performance, and profitability.
Core Energy Coaching works from a different but complementary premise: that your energy determines how those talents show up. The Energy Leadership Index, developed by Bruce D. Schneider at iPEC, measures a person's Average Resonating Level of energy across seven levels, from catabolic states like apathy and anger to anabolic states like peace, joy, and full engagement. A 2025 iPEC study following coaching clients over nine years of ELI data found that people working consistently with a Core Energy coach saw a statistically significant rise in their average resonating level, along with a corresponding rise in anabolic (constructive) energy and a drop in catabolic (draining) energy. This matters because higher ARL’s are associated with higher life and career satisfaction.
Why the combination matters
Here's what most people don't realize: your strengths don't operate in isolation. Your energy filters them, and that changes everything.
Take a leader with a natural talent for strategic thinking. Operating from a low energetic state, that talent can turn into a habit of catastrophizing, finding every reason something won't work. The same exact talent, operating from a higher energetic state, becomes the clarity and vision that moves a team forward. The same strength can produce an entirely different result, depending on the energy behind it.
This is the insight that only becomes visible when both tools are in the room together. Research on iPEC's 360-degree version of the ELI backs this up from the leadership side. In a study of 184 business leaders and more than 4,000 of their colleagues, leaders with a higher average resonating level rated their own leadership competencies significantly higher, and their colleagues' ratings of them tracked closely with that self-perception. In other words, the energy a leader operates from doesn't just affect how they feel. It shows up in how capable they actually appear to the people around them.
What this looks like in practice
Your CliftonStrengths profile tells us what you bring to the table. Your ELI tells us the conditions under which those gifts fully emerge, and what tends to get in the way when they don't. Together, they give us a complete, individualized map of who you are at your best, and a much clearer path to getting there consistently, intentionally, and with far less effort than most people expect.
If you've ever felt like you know your strengths on paper but can't seem to access them when it counts, this is usually why. The talent was never the missing piece. The energy behind it was.
Curious what this looks like for you? Reach out to Thrivelab to learn more about our approach.
Sources:
Waldorf, L. & Atwill, K. (2025). Increasing Leadership Potential & Life Satisfaction with Core Energy Coaching™. iPEC.
Waldorf, L. (2010–2025). The Effects of Core Energy™ on Leadership Competencies: Energy Leadership Index™ 360 Study. iPEC.
Gallup (2026). Science of CliftonStrengths.
