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All strong brands have superpowers—and they use them to amp up their performance and deliver exceptional value. Your superpowers are one of six drivers of your personal brand—along with values, passions, differentiators, purpose and goals.
All strong brands focus on their strengths and become known by them. Yet it is not as easy as it sounds. That’s because we are a people obsessed with fixing weaknesses.
From a very young age, we’re told to correct the things we aren’t great at. Your teacher tells you that although you’re a genius in math, you need to get better at spelling. You get similar well-meant advice from your parents and from your managers. Often, this is good advice, but it forces you to focus more attention on weaknesses than on the things that make you great. Add to that something called negativity bias, and you have a recipe for excessive focus on your weaknesses. Negativity bias means that we give something that’s negative more weight than something positive. It goes all the way back to the caveman days when you had to give a threat a lot more attention because your life pretty much depended on it. All this attention to weaknesses gives you a mistaken mindset that impedes success: The path to success is paved with fixing weaknesses.
When you focus too much attention on fixing weaknesses, you become fine at a lot of things. Fine is the ugliest four-letter word that begins with F when it comes to career success. That’s because people don't get excited about things that are fine, average, OK, acceptable.
I am not recommending that you ignore weaknesses altogether. You must become at least “fine” at those things that will help you reach your goals. But for other weaknesses, the best approach is to ignore them and focus on your strengths.
People are impressed by, and excited about, things that are outstanding, superb, exceptional, amazing. And that’s you, right?
All strong brands are known by their superlatives—their superpowers. Oprah is the most empathic media mogul, exuding human connection in everything she does. Warren Buffett is the "Oracle of Omaha" and is widely regarded as the most successful investor of the 20th century. Marie Kondo, known as Konmari, is the defacto tidying consultant.
You have superpowers—they’re the things you do better than anyone else and are relevant to what you do. They help you wow those around you and get noticed.
Sometimes, your superpowers are the things that you don’t give yourself much credit for because they come really easily to you. Yet for others, these same strengths are hard to master.
To determine your superpowers, think about what people come to you for, check out your past performance reviews. Read the recommendations and testimonials people write for you. What themes emerge? These themes point to your strengths. And those strengths that are most helpful to excelling at your job are your superpowers.
When you know your superpowers, you can integrate them into everything you do every day. Every email you write. Every meeting you attend. Every presentation you deliver. That’s how you become a superlative.
Don’t be fine. Be extraordinary.
And look out for the next personal brand driver: purpose. We’ll focus on that in the next installment of this personal brand discovery series.
William Arruda is a keynote speaker, co-founder of CareerBlast.TV and co-creator of the Personal Brand Power Audit - a complimentary quiz that helps you measure the strength of personal brand.
