What’s Your Superpower?
My superpower is: I’m a jerk.
Always have been. Growing up, I was known to be a very blunt person. Just telling the truth without softening it or filtering it was what came naturally to me. As you can probably imagine, I tended to leave a trail of offenses in my wake. Even though I rarely meant to hurt anyone, my obliviousness to the sensitivity of the human heart eventually caused my very empathetic wife to take me by the hand and explain how I was wrong (as wives are occasionally known to do).
Over time I started to become aware of the way I would offend people. I made a personal conviction to be more sensitive, to be more thoughtful — basically, to focus on curbing this weakness of mine. I ended up spending several years forging a difficult, uphill trek to turn my weakness into a strength.
I was always thinking about it — I would walk away from people and replay conversations back in my mind and second-guess myself… “Was that thing I said offensive? Did they look hurt? What could I have said differently?”
It consumed me. I remember looking in the mirror one day and feeling like I couldn’t even recognize myself. I had gone from being a confident, ambitious, go-getter to someone who would fearfully over-analyze every word that came out of my mouth. I felt stunted in the workplace, in my interactions, and even in my home.
Enter Paul Allen. No, not Microsoft’s Paul Allen (may he rest in peace); the other Paul Allen (he occasionally refers to himself as Paul Allen The Lesser).
Paul is a long-time mentor of mine. As a student, I had emptied my pockets to take an internet marketing course from him. He had created a string of successful businesses, including Ancestry.com, and I wanted to learn everything I could from him. We’ve stayed in touch over the years.
My crisis of identity coincided with Paul taking on a new role as a Strengths Evangelist at Gallup. It was his mission to educate the masses on something called “strengths psychology.”
For those who don’t know, strength psychology is all about focusing and capitalizing on your strengths instead of trying to round you out by polishing your weaknesses. The Gallup Strengthsfinder Assessment was created to help you identify and rank your strengths.
I took the assessment and, not surprisingly, empathy was at the very bottom of my strengths list. I looked at the top of the list. There, I had strengths like taking control of a situation, empowering the right people to get the job done, adaptability, etc.
It hit me — I had been funneling all of my energy into boosting the wrong attributes for me. I had spent years trying to overcome my weaknesses while completely neglecting my strengths.
It’s what so many of us end up doing — we tell the kids that are amazing at math but bad at spelling that they need to spend more time practicing spelling instead of helping them turn math into a superpower. That’s the difference between remaining average and fostering genius.
It’s like going up to Steph Curry and saying, “You’re the greatest shooter in the history of basketball, but you suck at swimming — so you should spend more time practicing swimming.” It’s ridiculous! (For the record, Steph might be a phenomenal swimmer — I have no idea).
So I made the switch. I stopped beating myself up for not being great at empathy and focused instead on my organizational and leadership strengths. At work, I started thriving better than ever. I regained my confidence. Even my marriage improved, because my wife (whose #1 strength is empathy) and I were finally able to balance each other out and make an effective team.
“But, Benton,” you might be thinking. “Isn’t it important to be a well-rounded person? If everyone on the team just focused on what they’re best at, wouldn’t a bunch of glaring, unrefined weaknesses come back to bite people?”
Possibly. But I would say that, even though we’re individuals, being part of a team is what makes us valuable as a company, as a project team, or even as a family. A huge part of being a team player is being the best player possible. If I’m good at problem-solving and adapting to any situation, why spend my time trying to become empathetic when my wife and colleagues can supplement that weakness?
At Harmon Brothers, I realized I was unconsciously hiring all these employees whose strengths made up for my weaknesses, and whose weaknesses were balanced by my strengths. I had each member of the team take the Gallup Strengthsfinder Assessment, and we printed the results out and put them up on a “Strengths Board” for the whole office to see. It turns out empathy is one of our organizational strengths despite it being my weakness.
We resolved to capitalize on our strengths and turn them into superpowers. I believe that’s, at least in part, how we’ve become a world-class organization, and how we’ll continue to become the best in the business — by helping each individual on the team focus on becoming world-class at something, his or her something.
So whether you’re a director, a writer, an intern, or a jerk like me; find some time to really think about your strengths. Check out Soar.com. Paul Allen is building an amazing community of strengths coaches who are helping people like you and me develop our superpowers.
