I’ve been busy in productive (rather than time wasting) activity the last several weeks. I’m focusing on pulling together everything I’ve written in the past for the Thinking 2 Steps Ahead book and trying to find a workable structure for it. It is a mighty struggle.
Those of you who know me well know there’s a time between sleep and waking in the morning when I often have amazing ideas banging around in my head. I call that time my twilight. The ideas might help solve a problem I’ve been wrestling with or show me a side of something I hadn’t seen or realized quite in that way before.
When I was still working, my twilight would sometimes last until I’d taken my morning shower. I knew that because there were times when great ideas (I, at least, thought they were great!) would pop into my head in the shower. Why, I wondered, is my twilight such a dynamic and revelatory time for me?
I think it’s because that time of day follows a stretch of uncluttered brain activity. My subconscious gets a rest while I’m sleeping and finally, finally, has time to work out some good solutions for things that weigh on my mind. In this, there’s nothing special about me. It probably happens to every one of us. What may be different about me is that years ago I noticed and tuned in to my tendency to “receive” those good ideas in the morning.
One day last week in my twilight, a new working subtitle for Thinking 2 Steps Ahead popped in my head. Instead of “The Not Rocket Science Habit to Making Better Choices”, the words “An Ordinary Person’s Superpower” was pinging in my brain like the steel marble in a pinball machine. As I began to get my thoughts down on paper, the entire book’s structure began to take shape in a way I would never have consciously thought of on my own.
Here’s what I “received” that morning…
I am an ordinary person. Every person on earth is ordinary. As the old saying goes, we all put on our pants one leg at a time. It’s true some are born more advantaged than others, some have talents and skills that are developed or nurtured into something truly extraordinary, some make choices about hard work or priorities that seems to elevate them to celebrity status. But each and every one of them pops out of the womb on the same level of ordinary as me.
A superpower is nothing more than extraordinary skill at something. Superpowers are not reserved for super heroes. Ordinary people can develop them. High level, professional sports figures have athletic superpowers. Best-selling authors have story telling superpowers. Highly sought after thespians (actors) pretend to be someone else and are extraordinarily skilled at it. Musicians have musical superpowers. Celebrities are actually perfectly ordinary people who gain notoriety only because of the (overinflated) value our culture places on their particular extraordinary skill. Our culture is terminally screwed up, but that’s not the point of THIS post.
Ordinary people have valuable superpowers for which they’ll never reach celebrity status. Teachers who are exceptional at caring, inspiring, and impacting student lives have a superpower rarely recognized outside their immediate circle of influence. Soldiers, medical personnel, and first responders have got to have superpower, I think, just to do their jobs every day. I don’t think many would last in these professions without superpowers. I admire the superpower of good parents who day after day after day raise kids who become functioning, contributing human beings. Hell, there’s a clerk in my local post office who has the superpower of kindness and making every person she serves, even those buying one stamp, feel special to her.
So, here’s my theory. I believe every ordinary person has the potential to develop a superpower.
Let me repeat that because it’s so important. I believe every ordinary person has the potential to develop a superpower.
The past few years I’ve seen T-shirts, mugs, coasters, bumper stickers, etc., proclaiming I’m _________________ (fill in the blank)! What’s your superpower? I love these. I love the optimism and the implication that each ordinary person is in some way able to have a superpower.
Convincing people of this, though, is an uphill battle. We live in a culture that lies to us in subversive and dishonest ways. There are those who push to convince ordinary people they can simply “identify” with whatever they desire to be and magically become that thing. Identifying as a millionaire doesn’t make me a millionaire any more than, as the old saying goes, standing in a garage makes me a car.
It’s incumbent on us emotionally intelligent adults to start telling the truth. We’re not going to develop superpowers simply because we exist or want them enough. We have the potential to develop superpowers. Achieving it takes commitment, effort, and plain old hard work. The goal should not be to become a celebrity, but to nurture extraordinary skill at whatever innate gift God’s given each of us and that brings us joy and fulfillment.
When I was a corporate human resource professional, I tried to ask questions to get job candidates to think outside the box and give me some insight into whether they’d be a good fit for a position. A good question these days would be “What’s your superpower.”
With the advantage of hindsight, age, and experience, I answer that question like this: “I’m a thinker. I think through to consequences, I try to think before I react, I form my own opinions after seeking out and considering the facts of a matter, and I choose activities that require mindfulness rather than mindlessness.”
I struggled trying to make the structure of my book work when I was just talking about Thinking 2 Steps Ahead as a simple process of making decisions and choices. But, man, elevating thinking to a superpower! That put a unique spin on a ho-hum topic. Life is good and the book is coming together!
What’s your superpower?
P.S. Randy and I formed an LLC called Laurand Ventures years ago to operate our pressure washing business and sell the Hurricane Deck Brushes that Randy invented. Our motto was “Always Thinking”. We’ve been developing that superpower a long, long time.
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