I see it all the time. You have a creative, imaginative streak, but your parents valued a drive for task completion. Or vice versa; you weren’t built for imagination; you like the simplicity of getting work done, and someone in your life made you feel lesser for that. You got the idea that you needed to be something different than what you are, because your default settings weren’t good enough, marketable enough, exciting enough. I’m trying to help people get rid of the baggage we’ve collected over time, and get back in touch with our authentic design. Personality Assessment Triangulation Here’s a trick: I believe that if you take three different unrelated personality assessments and double down on the commonalities, you have a stronger chance of pinpointing your true superpower. One assessment can be interesting. Three overlapping signals are instructive. This was never about finding a label you like. It’s about noticing patterns that keep showing up no matter which framework you use. Those patterns point to something real. There is a beautiful message hidden in the bottle of your design. What a Superpower Actually Is Your superpower is the special levers that you can pull for exponential progress. These are levers that you can pull again and again, even daily. The trick is to engineer your life so that you are pulling your unique levers as often as possible. When you do, progress stops feeling fragile. It becomes repeatable. I have created processes that enable you to notice your strengths and weaknesses, and then discover your Superpower Statement — one clarified sentence that describes the repeatable, joyful, thing(s) you do that most benefits the people around you. This enables you to choose the levers that spark the most passion and joy, focus down on those, and watch what happens with your life. This process is outlined step by step in my book, The Superpower Quest, which you can find at book.superpowerquest.com. The Spades Principle There is a phenomenon that I call the Spades Principle. Spades is a four player, team based, trick taking game. Good players track suits closely. When your partner is out of a suit, you lead it so they can trump. Card awareness and teamwork turn into winning strategy. Good spades players notice the clues and the cues coming from their partner’s hand, and then they always play to their partner’s strength. If you need to win books, and your partner is cutting diamonds, and you have diamonds, you play diamonds every opportunity you get. Notice and play to the strength. Notice and play to the strength. Notice and play to the strength. From Cards to Kids to Courts I do this with my kids. My son shows an early passion and ability for basketball. So we invest in basketball. My daughter has an affinity for creating, an artist’s eye. So we invest in her art. Notice and play to the strength. I see the same principle in basketball. If you have a player with an affinity and a passion for the three, feed him the three. If you have a player with an affinity and a passion for the post, feed her the post. Why Misalignment Hurts So Much The Superpower Quest is not really a personality assessment at its heart. It is a mechanism for you to notice and place your strength. I do not see it as competition to other frameworks I love; The Six Types of Working Genius. Enneagram. Myers Briggs. DiSC. The Big Five. I love them all. Do them all. Use them to learn the language of your own design. You might be surprised how many people are built to be post players and are shooting threes badly, because no one helped them notice how they are built. At some point, someone, or life, or themselves told them they were supposed to be something they are not. Why do we feel imposter syndrome? A big part of it is that we are playing a role that does not fit us, or we have never taken the time to understand what is going on deep down inside. Conclusion The Superpower Quest is not about becoming someone new. It is about noticing who you already are and finally playing to that strength. When you stop forcing yourself into roles that do not fit and start pulling the levers you were designed to pull, progress stops feeling fragile. It becomes repeatable. Daily. Sustainable. And once you learn to do that for yourself, you cannot help but begin to notice other people’s strength and help them learn to play to their strength as well. Call to Action Finish this sentence and pay attention to what comes up: Good things always seem to happen when I __________. That is a clue to your Superpower. Take the time to find your best levers! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit superpowerquest.substack.com/subscribe
