Don’t Waste Your Superpower

Whatever makes you weird, is probably your greatest asset.

Joss Whedon

We all want to fit in—be like everyone else.

But there’s always something weird about each one of us.

Maybe we look different.

Maybe we act different.

Maybe we think different.

As children, we were teased and maybe even bullied because we were different.

We wanted to fit in.

But the harder we tried, the more it was obvious that we were different.

It felt like we were living on the island of misfit toys.

Eventually, if we were fortunate, we made peace with our weirdness.

We accepted it as something we just had to live with.

But what if that weirdness was an asset and not a liability?

Instead of just living with what is different about us, we should embrace the strangeness.

We can reframe the weirdness as a gift.

We can ask ourselves, “How can I use this unusual trait as an advantage?”

A model with an odd facial feature, a singer with an imperfect voice, a student with dyslexia — all have the opportunity to cultivate their imperfection as an asset.

If we try to hide our weirdness, however, it will feel like a curse rather than a gift.