Hi! I am Giselle Marzo Segura. I am a life coach, group facilitator, designer, teacher, mentor, writer and solutions thinker based in Miami, Florida. As the founder and creative visionary behind Strength Clusters™, I build bridges between people and groups through workshops, products, and visual tools that represent character strengths in a visual, multi-sensory and functional context. I devise new ways to see and hunt for new paths. The best word that can describe me is “wayfinder”.
After six years of unproductive interventions, I had a face-to-face encounter with the deficit-based thinking approach during a meeting with a psychologist to review our daughter’s most recent evaluation. After patiently listening to the results, I gathered the courage to ask.
“Where are the strengths in this evaluation?”
With a puzzled look, the psychologist responded. “Strengths? We don’t look at strengths.”
The answer marked a moment of sudden revelation. I realized how much we are conditioned to focus on the weaknesses, at seeing others as broken, becoming completely oblivious of our areas of strength and potential.
I value the importance of having a diagnosis. However, to have an effective plan of action, it is imperative to be just as thorough in also evaluating what is currently working and what could provide access to areas where signature strengths and innate intelligences could be explored. In the words of David Cooperrider, “we must study what gives life to a system and use that to paint a picture of the future”.
That moment at the psychologist office launched me on a journey to find strengths and a different solution.
My daughter’s learning differences and unfruitful efforts navigating the confusing world of labels and deficit-based thinking led me to a relentless pursuit of a strengths-driven life. This shift in thinking and the implementation of a strengths-based approach marked the turning point of healing for my daughter and our family.
Listen to a recent interview here >
I have made it my mission to help individuals, families, and groups understand, connect and see each other through a lens of strengths.
My ultimate goal is to cultivate a world of appreciation, contributing to creating dynamic relationships and environments in which all flourish together.
I was born in the Dominican Republic. Between the age of five and seventeen, I had lived in four cities in three different countries, Venezuela, the United States and the Dominican Republic. I am, most definitely, a Third Culture Kid. Most of my life I felt like a foreigner, even in my birth country. I know what it’s like to be the outsider. The experiences in my life nurtured my fascination for traveling, for cultural learning and appreciation, and the process of connection and reconnection with our gifts, our values, and our strengths.
Some say, I was a samurai warrior in my previous life, which may explain the intense discipline, relentless practice and love of learning through which I approach my life. In this life, I came in contact with the martial arts by chance as an adult, while enrolling my children in a martial arts school. I am currently Nidan 2nd Degree Black Belt in JKA Shotokan and 2nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. During my competitive years, I earned multiple world titles in the NASKA circuit and represented the USA as part of the JKA/AF Women’s Team Kata team competing at the 2014 JKA World Karate-do Championship in Tokyo, Japan.
My professional background spans over 20 years in marketing and graphic design both in the corporate world and as a dedicated entrepreneur, in the US and throughout Latin America. I currently collaborate with the VIA Institute on Character and my writing has been featured on their blog. Our story has been featured on the Tilt Parenting Podcast and in the recently released book "The Strength Switch: How the New Science of Strength Based Parenting Can Help Your Child and Teen to Flourish" by Dr. Lea Waters. I am a graduate in Science Communication from the University of Miami and a graduate of the Certificate in Positive Psychology program with Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar and Wholebeing Institute and a graduate an Ontological Coaching with Newfield Network and ICF.
I am passionate about life and the human experience. I love learning, traveling, photography, books, trying new foods, discovering new places, the arts, writing, and most importantly, my family. I crave pickled ginger and can’t live without my scarves, even in hot weather.