About Us

Our Team

Cheyne M. Rippey, MA

Principal Consultant

Cheyne's Giftedness Statement:

Cheyne was born to discern ideas, then create a system that others can walk through. He does this best when working independently, yet near a mentor and the great outdoors.

In other words:

He's the guy up in the clouds, but he's making it rain.

Expertise:

Creating vision. Creating systems that achieve goals. Creating strategy. Understanding how to delegate what to who.

Michelle Debenport

Giftedness Coach

Michelle's Giftedness Statement:

Michelle empowers people to excel in their own calling by cutting through the clutter to find a clear path to success. She does this best when brainstorming, listening attentively, sharing knowledge, and encouraging to just take one step.

In other words:

She's the guide clearing the path so you can see your full potential.

Expertise:

Mindset coaching. Encouraging through consultations people to see their full potential and calling. Business acumen and sales.

Richard Young, ThM

Giftedness Coach

Richard's Giftedness Statement:

Richard exists to make himself available to others, goes the extra mile, and isn't satisfied until he impacts his client's life in a meaningful way.

In other words:

He's the passenger that does all he can to get you to the right destination.

Expertise:

Soul care during career development.

The Giftedness Group® has an extremely strong, unique, and exclusive selection process.

Not only does every coach have 5+ years of experience and a Master's degree or higher, but even more importantly

they have the innate giftedness to be a coach.

Their Giftedness Assessment results align with consulting, coaching, and/or counseling, ensuring that they embody the natural giftedness and experience to coach at the highest and deepest levels.

They are natural ambassadors for our values (seen below): analytical, results-driven, encouraging, interpersonal, quality over quantity, and practical in their coaching giftedness.

The Giftedness Group® Story

Going Back to the 1800s

In the late 1800s, Frank Parsons, "The Father of Guidance and Counseling," pioneered a novel idea: people should be matched to jobs that fit who they naturally are. He found that people started thriving when their careers align with their natural strengths, or what we now call "innate giftedness." But how do you know who you are? He identified four essential steps to discover your best job fit.

Self-Awareness: To find your true calling, you must understand your innate motivating factors. This begins with intentional reflection and documenting your thoughts—not just thinking, but writing them down.
Market Analysis: Success also depends on understanding the job market and the needs of the world around you (after all, you can’t just do ANYTHING and expect to get paid for it, but you must provide for a need).
Harmony: The more you align those two (your innate strengths with market demands), the greater your productivity, opportunities, and chance of happiness.
Story Analysis: The key to this alignment lies in analyzing patterns from your favorite life stories, both personal and professional. This is where The Giftedness Group® excels, guiding you to shine a light on these patterns better than any other system in the world.

In 1908, Parsons opened the world's first vocational guidance organization, Vocational Guidance Bureau in Boston, MA, just before his passing. But then the focus on abnormal psychology and Clinical Counseling grew in the early 1900s, and this strengths-based view of human nature took a backseat.

1961: A New Dawn

It wasn’t until 1961, with the founding of SIMA® International (what is SIMA®?) by Art Miller, that this perspective reemerged as a leading job fit counseling service. Art and his team studied the success patterns of over 100,000 professionals, demonstrating that by examining personal stories of satisfaction, individuals could uncover their natural pathways to success and fulfillment. His work, encapsulated in the book Why You Can't Be Anything You Want: The Power of Uniqueness, co-authored with Bill Hendricks of The Giftedness Center®, remains a turning point for modern giftedness theory.

The 2020’s & A New Way to Work

C. M. Rippey, Founder of The Giftedness Group®, was trained under Bill Hendricks to facilitate Giftedness Discovery consultations and workshops during his grad school internship. With his experience in Hospitality and Higher Education leadership, he has developed curriculum, led workshops, and continues to mentor others in discovering and leveraging their innate giftedness to find their best jobs. He opened The Giftedness Group® in 2018 which serves as a hub for:

Ongoing training and networking for Giftedness Discovery coaches
Individuals seeking clarity on their life’s purpose
Companies looking to optimize staff retention, performance, engagement, and satisfaction
Churches aiming to better equip and inspire their communities

Future Era with a Timeless Vision: Preparing for the 2030’s

While everyone's at an arms-race over how to use AI for their companies, The Giftedness Group® will stand strong on the ground of human connection with our mastery of the story-sharing consultations. We do hope A.I. amplifies our business processes, but we are ready for the 2030's when the need for human connection, purpose, and "Story" will have their resurgence because of AI. The Giftedness Discovery method focuses on story-sharing, and we've mastered the process.

AI might replace jobs, but it can't replace people.

The Giftedness Group® DNA

Our Mission

Our mission is simple yet transformative: to equip the modern world with purpose-driven work by helping individuals understand and utilize their unique gifts which can be extracted through our Giftedness Discovery process. The Giftedness Discovery process is the most natural way to redeem our strengths: finding patterns in our stories. We envision becoming the premier service for people development, fostering a culture of encouragement and entrepreneurial spirit. Our goal is to be the go-to resource for organizations seeking to motivate their teams through human-centered strategies.

Core Values

The Giftedness Group® will help you become all that you can be and you will soon realize that our core values are to be:

Relentlessly Encouraging - We have the giftedness of encouragement, of seeing your potential and helping you grasp on to it.
Compassionately Analytical - We've spent years honing our craft of reading between the lines to discern patterns in an articulate and insightful way, yet not without compassion and empathy in our approach.
Practical - Our advice is so actionable, you can practically taste it. Giftedness Discovery isn't merely theoretical, it changes lives, actions, beliefs, and minds. We put the ideas on the ground.
Quality First, Quantity Second - We won't act in a rush to move on to the next client. We are efficient, but not cheap. There are enough $20, 20-minute assessments out there. Your Giftedness Discovery exercises serve to be the best People Development assessment in the world.
Interpersonal - As technology continues to make big waves, we will always value old fashioned human connection. As we say, "Ai will never replace the power of someone sharing their own story."

Our Impact

We've saved or made individuals thousands and even millions of dollars by guiding them towards careers aligned with their innate motivating factors, helping them make the best possible decisions for their future.

We've saved companies time, money, and cultural capital by ensuring that the right people are in the right roles.

Ultimately, we provide people with vision, a sense of meaning, optimism for what lies ahead, and effective strategy.