Introducing the Superpower Series
For a long time, I was very good at being what the situation required.
The professional. The competent one. The person who delivered, who stayed within the box, who followed the path diligently and was praised for doing so. I wore the role like a second skin.
And then, unexpectedly, the role didn’t exist anymore.
I remember the disorientation I felt at that time. Not just the professional uncertainty but something deeper and more unsettling underneath it. A question I hadn’t expected to be asking, and couldn’t quite answer:
Who am I outside of this?
It’s a question that sounds simple. It isn’t.
Welcome to the Superpower Series
Over the next four weeks I will be writing about something I deeply believe in. That within each of us lives a set of remarkable human capabilities that the modern world has not encouraged us to trust.
For a long time, the professional world rewarded a very particular kind of person. Efficient. Consistent. Reliable. Someone who stayed within the box, followed the path, and didn’t take up too much space with ideas that fell outside the brief. And for many of us – myself included – became very good at being exactly that.
But something is shifting.
Almost overnight, the conversation changed. Workplaces are asking for creativity, critical thinking, and reimagination. The ability to think differently, to bring our whole selves, to lead with curiosity rather than compliance. The rise of AI is accelerating this faster than most of us expected because the capabilities that machines cannot replicate are precisely the human ones we were never encouraged to develop.
And that’s a lot to suddenly be asked of ourselves.
If you’ve ever thought – I know I should be thinking more creatively, more boldly, more authentically – but I genuinely don’t know where to start – this series is for you.
Because I don’t think the answer is another productivity framework or a list of habits to adopt. I think it starts somewhere deeper and more fundamental than that.
It starts with connection. To yourself. To all of yourself, not just the professional, polished, performing version.
The four superpowers I’ll be exploring are Connection, Resilience, Curiosity and Owning Our Authenticity. They are drawn from my own experience and research, but these are not a definitive list. They’re a starting point. An invitation to get curious about what yours might be.
Because one thing I’ve learned in the last few years is to be less prescriptive and more playful. To hold things lightly. To try things on and see what fits – rather than following someone else’s map of what growth is supposed to look like.
So as you read each week, I’d love you to bring that same spirit of curiosity to yourself. Notice what resonates. Notice what doesn’t. And start to ask – what are the capabilities that feel most uniquely, most powerfully, most essentially you?
The world needs each of our uniqueness now more than ever. There is no-one on this planet quite like you.
This is an invitation to explore how you connect with, and celebrate being you each day.
The self we outsource
Most of us spend the majority of our waking hours inhabiting one version of ourselves.
The professional self. The one that performs, delivers, and is measured. The one that gets the feedback, holds the title, and knows exactly where it stands.
The problem isn’t having a professional self. The problem is when it becomes the only self we tend to.
When my role changed unexpectedly, I discovered something I hadn’t fully reckoned with. I had, without realising it, built my sense of self on something that could be taken away. And when it shifted, I felt genuinely unclear about who I was when I wasn’t being that person.
What followed was one of the most disorienting, and ultimately most important, periods of my life.
Because I had to figure out who I was outside of the role.
The parts we forget
What I discovered, slowly, and not without resistance, was that the parts of myself I had been neglecting were precisely the ones that could hold me steady.
The part that loves to hike. The part that loves to ride in the mountains and swim in the sea. The part that comes alive in nature, or in a room full of people she loves.
These weren’t frivolous. They were foundational.
Neuroscience tells us that our identity is not a singular fixed thing but an amalgam of many parts – different self-states that emerge depending on context, relationship and circumstance. (Psychology Today) We are not one self. We are many. And when we consistently suppress or ignore most of them in favour of just one, something in us suffers for it.
When we stop tending to the whole of who we are, we lose touch with ourselves in ways that go deeper than we realise.
The root system
We forget, sometimes, that we are nature.
And just like plants, we need strong roots to keep us steady in the storms of life. Our roots are ours and ours alone – to be nurtured and cared for.
When we outsource our sense of self entirely to a role or identity that can change overnight, those roots can feel suddenly pulled out, leaving us untethered. But when we tend to the whole of who we are — the curious one, the playful one, the one who feels most alive in certain places and with certain people – we build something more durable.
When one part is unsteady, we have others to lean on.
We can always find our way home.
As Amanda Gorman wrote: “For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
The bravery, I think, starts with this. With coming back to yourself. With remembering that you were always more than the role.
Connection to self isn’t the starting point of the inner journey.
It is the journey.
Coming back to your roots
There is a reason the roots metaphor feels so true.
Research in somatic psychology shows that grounding practices work not by thinking our way to calm — but by sending physical signals directly to the nervous system that communicate safety. When we are connected to ourselves – our whole selves – we are better able to self-regulate. To find steadiness not because nothing is shifting, but because we know what we’re standing on.
That steadiness starts in the body.
Here is a simple practice to try this week – wherever you are, whenever you need it:
Find somewhere quiet. Feel your feet on the floor and press them down gently. Take a slow breath in, and a longer breath out. Let your attention travel slowly through your body – noticing where you feel steady, where you feel held. Don’t try to change anything. Just notice. Press your feet into the ground once more – and bring to mind one part of yourself that has nothing to do with your work. A part you love. A part that makes you feel most like you. Hold it there.
That’s your root. And it’s always there – however much shifts around you.
I’d love to hear which superpower feels most alive — or most needed — for you right now.
