Whats Your Superpower (and Who Cares)

Whats Your Superpower (and Who Cares) When you hear about superpower, what is it that first comes to your mind?Superman? Batman? Spiderman?The entertainment industry has had success in painting a picture of how human beings can become superhuman beings. Is it a wonder that clothing designed to look like Superman’s outfits sell all over the world?But fictional characters are not the only definition of super powers.Superpower can also mean a unique ability which is within you. It could be that there is no-one else with it or those with it are simply few. Still, that is a limited way of looking at it.Your superpower could very well be somewhat common in the sense that there are other people in the world with the ability. But it is still unique in the sense that it sets you and those like you apart.IS YOUR SUPERPOWER AN IMPORTANT ABILITY?Yes, it is. If you are yet to recognize this, then please learn to appreciate yourself. Get to know what you are truly good at. The things you can do very well without much struggle. Basic ally, get to know your strengths.Your superpower is the ability which makes you succeed in business or in school. It is what enables you to outperform others in a game or exam.Looking around you, you will notice your friends also have their own unique abilities. These are their superpowers.Being what makes you do something better than others, your superpower is an important ability. That is why you need to know it. After you know it, don’t just sit on it. Work it out and with continued practice, you will hone it like any other skill you have learned.Your satisfaction in life is tightly connected to your superpower. If you get to know it and practice it, you will enjoy life more than the average person. You will start leaning towards that ability and hopefully seek to benefit others through it.That is what your superpower is meant to be. A tool to help you become of benefit to the world.Understanding your superpower is just as important as understanding your strengths and weaknesse s. These help you make choices around career, a life partner, decisions on which team to join etc.Since like many other people you most likely have several strengths, your superpower is the strength that dwarfs all the others. Taking some alone time to reflect on your strengths will help you recognize which on is the strongest.You can also ask your family to help you with this as they may have noticed some of your abilities.Like the fictional characters, your superpower gives you an advantage just as Spiderman can crawl on walls while Superman can’t.SAMPLE SUPERPOWERSBelow are some of the superpowers evident in some people. See whether you identify with any of these. If you do, then it’s time you developed it.EnduranceEndurance is a real superpower, especially when you consider those with it.Picture world marathon runners. Someone running 42 km (26.2 miles) will need great endurance. Marathons are not races to be run fast. They take time and the drain on your energy is great.Tha t is why many cannot do it though they can at least be among the spectators to watch the race.The 2018 Berlin marathon was won by Eliud Kipchoge from Kenya. He took 2 hours, 1 minute and 39 milliseconds to finish the 42 km race.If you were to compete against him, how long would you take?Marathoners do train hard, just like other sportsmen and sportswomen. Apart from the training, there is a natural ability for them to be able to achieve the success they do.For example, in Kenya, most successful athletes come from highland areas located in the Rift Valley. This means that it is the people born and brought up in these areas that have an ability to maintain the energy and endurance for such a long race.In life, if you have endurance it may have been seen through the challenges you have faced and overcome. Apart from physical endurance, you may also have mental endurance. This is one ability most successful entrepreneurs will say they either had or cultivated.Since building a business i s not easy, mental endurance is needed. There will be times when no money is being generated, yet you have to keep going. Your idea may backfire but you still have to keep going. Idea after idea may fail but to realize success, you have to keep on moving.This sets some entrepreneurs apart from others. Those who perform well often talk of endurance as a necessity. Something they couldn’t do without.This endurance is either inborn or cultivated. But for those who have it naturally, for them it is a real superpower.Breathing under waterMention swimming and one of the names that come to mind is Michael Phelps. With a total of 28 medals, he is currently the most decorated Olympian of all time. Though a good competitive swimmer, Phelps cannot stay under water for long.Can you?If you can, then you have a great superpower.Imagine scuba diving with no oxygen tank on your back. You swim underwater for hours exploring and taking pictures of the marine life without the need of coming up for a ir. This would not only be a career success but a popularity success too.The average human can breathe underwater for approximately 2 minutes. The Guinness World Record is held by Aleix Segura of Spain who did it for 24 minutes 3 seconds.Such a superpower can land you enjoyable jobs with the best documentary producers in the world. You would also quickly turn into a celebrity due to the many movies you will be asked to act in.OmnilingualismThere are more than 6,500 languages in the world today and most of them have native speakers as well as those who learn the language later.It may be a job requirement when your company wants to post employees abroad.If you are an American and speak English fluently, you will have to learn the new language of where you will be posted. That can be a serious challenge. It can be especially challenging learning languages which don’t use the alphabets you are used to. For example Chinese.But what if you didn’t need to learn any language at all?This is where omnilingualism comes in. If this is your superpower, then the moment you hear a new language, you automatically understand it. With omnilingualism, the parts of your brain that handle language will very quickly take up the new language. It wold not be a work of translation but you will speak as though it was your mother tongue.WritingWriting may seem or sound like a simple job to be done. But this is not the case. Any media house which publishes some material understands this well enough.Whereas some may think that writing is just a matter of picking a pen and writing, there is more to it. You have to plan, decide what subject to write about and choose the writing style and of course, the right words.Many of the people who read novels are the ones most likely to disregard this superpower.Considering that writing is essentially an expression of what is going on in the mind or heart of the writer, it is no wonder that those who know less tend to be ignorant of what it takes. These people think that writing is the same as talking, the only difference being that writing means putting those thoughts in paper form.General talking is usually very informal and that cannot go into books. Therefore, serious authors need to know grammar. If they don’t know it, then the editor will have to fill that space.Something else, the material has to flow well and be attractive for the readers.One good example of a writer is William Shakespeare. His writings are appreciated all over the world and are being used in literature classes way after he passed on.If you are good at expressing your thoughts or ideas through writing, then that could be your superpower. If you can for example easily start and finish writing a novel in record time, include some writing styles like poetry and the like, then you should not despise that skill.Knowing it as your superpower should help you focus on utilizing it for your own benefit as well as that of others.DiplomacyThere are those who a lways see an opportunity to bring people together when there are conflicts. It might be a simple argument which has deteriorated. Or a serious challenge which threatens to destabilize the unity of a family or peace of a nation.These people will put their efforts towards reconciling the warring parties. And although reconciliation is never an easy thing to achieve, this will be done with less of a struggle than others would have faced.Diplomacy is a sensitive topic.It is also utilized in business and can come in handy when your company is facing some wrath from customers. In such a situation, diplomacy is the skill which will be used to calm the customers down and engage all parties until the contentious issue is resolved.This is what also happens during employee strikes or go-slows. Even if the management has the power to ‘force’ people back to work and fire those who don’t agree with it, this is rarely the path that will be followed.There will have to be someone with the abil ity of calming people down and bringing them to an agreement.Diplomatic people are usually peace and harmony-loving individuals who prefer to see peace in as many areas as possible.Are you one of them?Organizing or planningFrom organizing large events to the smaller ones like birthday parties celebrated at home, there are people who do it well. The full scale of this skill is seen in the planning of national events as done by some event organizers.Although they have teams working with them, there is always one person who is overseeing all the work being done. From getting to know the requirements, contacting individual service providers to watching over the event as it goes underway, these people are real gems.With an ability to see the full image of how an event will be, how the venue will be decorated, guests coming in etc, they ensure nothing goes wrong. They will give directions accordingly and with the dedication they have, see to it that the clients’ expectations are met.Thi s trait can be seen early in children. Signs like a child always keeping tabs on what needs to be done and reminding others of their responsibilities or roles, indicate a child could be a planner. Once the skill is identified, it is best that training and developing the skill starts early.This way, the child becomes confident from an early age. In school, he will be quick to not only give insight on what should be done in a project, but can also take the lead in projects. This is without much persuasion from teachers or fellow students.By the time the child is an adult, he will be very successful in using the ability he has. And the beneficiary as always, is the society at large.Are you a great planner?Connecting with animalsThere are two kinds of animals: wild and domestic. While you may be used to the domesticated ones e.g. cows, goats, sheep etc, what about the wild? Can you interact with them freely as you would with a dog or sheep?For you to attempt that, you will have to do a lot of reasoning and get assurance from the most reliable sources that you will not get hurt. Still, you may approach the animals with a lot of caution as you are not sure whether it will stay calm and friendly.But talking about superpowers, there is one man whose superpower is connecting and interacting with wild animals. And his favorite are lions.He also plays with hyenas. Yes, those laughing animals known for their greed and powerful jaws.Watch a video of him and these animals below. When you think about it, between him and the lions, who exactly is the main tourist attraction? Looking at those big cats is certainly a beautiful view. But what about this man who lies in the arms of lions and tickles hyenas?Kevin Richardson got to know his superpower and put it to use. Now people will get to watch great documentaries since there are more humans who can fix a camera on a lion to see what it sees wherever it goes.Fast learnerEveryone says they are fast learners, especially when writ ing resumes and going for interviews. But a closer look would tell you that those statements are very far from the truth.If you are a real fast learner, you will have an exceptional ability to understand the material you interact with. If it is school material, you will normally not need to study as hard as the others are doing.It might be that once the teacher teaches in class and you concentrate, automatically that is understood and there is no more need to study again.Normally, if you are a fast learner, you will typically have good memory. The memory is an essential added value. It aids in facilitating the storage of images and any other material as well as retrieve them when required.For employment purposes, being a fast learner can offer great returns on investments to your employer. This is because you can quickly understand the problem at hand and offer solutions.This will make you one of the most valuable employees. You can also do well in the tech world where things change quickly.Decision-makingMaking decisions is a difficult thing. And making hard decisions is more difficult.If you are the founder of a struggling startup, do you close shop or persist and see whether things will be better in the next 3 months?In case you choose to stay and hope for the best, how sure are you that this time round things will work out better?Considering that the more you stay, the higher the bills and the losses, how do you know that this isn’t an opportunity for you to quit and save some cash?On the other hand, what if you gave up on your idea then 1 month later, receive an online order whose value would have sustained the business for two months?Decision-making as a superpower is not just about making decisions.Decisions are made daily. You decide to get out of bed, take a shower, have breakfast, drive to work and not walk etc. But critical decisions need a level of super ability.That is why great decision makers become great leaders in whatever industry they oper ate in.If working as employees in an organization, they are rewarded through big allowances, high salaries and some of the best perks. The reason is simple: take care of something not many are willing or have the ability to.To understand this, consider that those positions are high-risk and full of pressure. But there are those who manage well enough.Such can comfortably say that it is their superpower that is working behind the scenes.CONCLUSIONEveryone was created with a unique ability. The worst that can happen is for you not to know what your superpower is. If you don’t, you may try copying other people but the struggle will just cause you frustration. Get to know your superpower and live a more meaningful and fun life.