What's Your Superpower?

“What happened next?”

That’s the phrase that pays when I do my Superpower Workshop.

The Superpower Workshop is designed to help you understand a special ability or strength that helps you thrive in the world. It’s beyond a hard skill, like being super good at math, art, or languages.

It’s more about something unique, often hidden or latent, that gives you an edge.

In the exercise, we unearth the Superpower from a #Fail.

I ask folks to think about a failure or disappointment. Then like mental archaeologists, we excavate and figure out what Superpower you used to get out of your ditch and onto something great.

Like the Samurais say, “Fall down 7 times, get up 8,” I want to know what happens between 7 and 8. As you pick yourself up in your memory, I ask (and keep asking) “What happened next?”

I did this Superpower Workshop last week with some students at City College here in NYC.

I also did this at The One Club’s Creative Leaders Retreat with my co-founder of Coaching For Creativity, Karen Crane.

And I’ve done this exercise in one-on-one coaching sessions.

Whether it’s a wide circle, an intimate circle, or a personal session, the results are the same: people discover what makes them strong. Super-strong.

I now offer this up for you: Think about a failure or a moment of real disappointment in your career or life. Then ask yourself what you did to climb out of your ditch. Keep answering the question: “What happened next?”

What you may discover is a Superpower.

At City College, one of the students did a complete career shift from finance to branding and marketing. In the process she discovered she was able to become impervious to negativity and focus solely on her vision. It helped her tune-out the doubts of her father and other naysayers.

Focus and tuning-out negativity are her Superpowers.

At the Creative Retreat, a woman who saw herself as highly analytical took a distressing situation and revealed that she actually possessed an incredible intuitive side.

Suddenly, intuition was a Superpower.

In a one-on-one session, I had a client discover that he had a superpower with listening and communicating with clients. It was revealed after he thought about a time when a client fired him for doing neither skills particularly well. His turnaround plan involved developing both skills and now he is a true master.

Professionally, this exercise is called “Post-Traumatic Growth.” And the forging of your “Narrative Identity.”

I call it discovering your Superpower.

What’s yours?

Image: Midjourney.