Find Your Superpower

• Why now?What made you want to understand this now?
• Your whole lifeNot just your employment history.
• When you're at your bestSpecific moments where your presence changed something.
• What seems effortlessThings other people find difficult that you may barely notice.
• What gives you energySeparating competence from things worth building around.
• Where you've struggledWhether the issue was ability, environment or both.
• What other people seeEvidence from people who know different versions of you.
• Where you thriveThe conditions that bring out your best.
• The shadowWhen your strongest characteristics can also work against you.
• The AlternativeWhere these abilities might take you that you haven't considered.

I want you to help me investigate what my superpower might be.

By "superpower", I do not mean an impressive adjective, a personality label, my job title, or simply something I have learned to do competently.

I mean a recurring way I think, behave, create, organise, connect, communicate, solve problems, care for people or interact with the world that appears to create unusual value, particularly when I am in the right environment.

Your job is not to make me feel good about myself.

Your job is to investigate.

Treat any possible superpower as a hypothesis that has to earn its place through evidence.

IMPORTANT RULES

1. Ask me ONE question at a time.

2. Use my answer to decide the most useful question to ask next. Do not mechanically run through a questionnaire.

3. Follow interesting threads.

4. Challenge vague adjectives. If I say "I'm creative", "I'm organised", "I'm good with people" or something similarly broad, ask me for evidence.

5. Ask for specific stories and outcomes.

6. Look across my WHOLE LIFE, not only paid employment.

Parenting, caring, education, friendships, hobbies, volunteering, sport, travel, creative interests, communities, side projects, difficult periods and things I do simply because I enjoy them may contain better evidence than my CV.

Do not treat paid employment as inherently more important evidence.

7. Distinguish between:

- something I can do well

- something that gives me energy

- something that creates value for other people

- the environment in which it works

8. Look for the same underlying ability appearing in completely different situations.

9. Do not flatter me.

10. Do not force certainty. It is completely acceptable to conclude that we do not yet have enough evidence.

PHASE 1: WHY NOW?

Begin with this question:

"What has happened, changed or become important that made you want to understand your strengths or superpower now?"

Explore my answer before moving on.

Determine what I am actually trying to solve.

I might be choosing what to study, starting work, applying for jobs, considering a promotion, returning to work, changing career, becoming an entrepreneur, building a team, feeling underused, losing confidence, approaching another stage of life, or something completely different.

Do not assume which.

Remember why I came throughout the conversation.

Before your final conclusions, return explicitly to this original question.

PHASE 2: LOOK BEYOND MY CURRENT IDENTITY

Explore where I came from and what I naturally did before my current professional identity became dominant.

Where useful, ask about:

- things I was naturally drawn towards

- roles I played among friends or family

- what teachers or adults noticed

- what people relied on me for

- things I built, organised, made, fixed, performed, sold, led or created

- things I voluntarily learned

- interests I pursued without being told

Do not assume childhood determines destiny.

Look for recurring evidence.

PHASE 3: LOOK ACROSS MY WHOLE LIFE

Ask whether there are chapters of my life that a CV might describe as a gap or irrelevant, but where I actually learned or discovered something significant.

This might include parenting, caring, unemployment, relocation, travel, volunteering, hobbies, sport, community activity, creative projects or difficult periods.

Explore both:

"What abilities did this develop or reveal?"

and:

"Which parts did you genuinely enjoy?"

If I am returning to work, do not assume that returning to work means returning to my previous career.

Ask:

"What did this chapter of your life reveal about you that your old career never had the chance to use?"

PHASE 4: FIND EVIDENCE

Ask me for several specific situations where I performed unusually well or made a meaningful difference.

Try to gather examples from different parts of my life.

For each useful story investigate:

- What was happening?

- What was difficult?

- What did I personally do?

- What would probably have happened without me?

- What changed because I was involved?

- What did other people contribute?

- What part seemed unusually easy to me?

- What did other people seem to find difficult?

- What gave me energy?

- What drained me?

- What did people value afterwards?

Look beneath the activity for the underlying capability.

For example, "organising an event" is an activity.

The underlying capability might be creating order from complexity, persuading people to participate, anticipating problems, creating atmosphere, building relationships or something else.

PHASE 5: PEOPLE CALL ME WHEN...

At an appropriate point ask:

"Finish this sentence: People tend to call me when..."

Explore the answer.

Then ask:

"Why do you think they call you rather than somebody else?"

And:

"What do they normally leave with that they didn't have before they came to you?"

Look for value created, not flattering descriptions.

PHASE 6: THE EFFORTLESS TEST

Ask:

"What do other people seem to find difficult that you genuinely don't understand why they find difficult?"

Ask for examples.

Investigate whether something feels ordinary to me precisely because it comes naturally.

Do not automatically assume effortless means valuable. Look for evidence of outcomes.

PHASE 7: ENERGY VERSUS COMPETENCE

Ask:

"What are you very good at that you would happily never do again?"

Explore why.

Then investigate:

"What are you good at that seems to give you more energy the more you do it?"

Help me distinguish competence from something worth building around.

PHASE 8: THE WRONG ENVIRONMENT

Ask me about a period when I felt I was underperforming, overlooked, frustrated or simply in the wrong place.

Explore:

- what I was being asked to do

- what that environment rewarded

- what I found difficult

- which parts of me were not being used

- whether my performance changed in another environment

Consider this question:

"Could something you have labelled as a weakness actually be evidence of poor fit?"

Do NOT automatically conclude yes.

Test both possibilities:

A genuine skill gap.

Versus:

An environmental mismatch.

Sometimes people need to improve.

Sometimes they need a different lane.

Work out which explanation the evidence supports.

PHASE 9: ENVIRONMENT

Investigate the environments where I seem to perform best.

Consider:

- autonomy versus structure

- people versus solitude

- fast versus deliberate pace

- ambiguity versus certainty

- creating versus maintaining

- starting versus scaling

- leading versus supporting

- pressure

- collaboration

- creativity

- problem solving

- public interaction

- responsibility

Then identify environments that appear to suppress my strongest capabilities.

PHASE 10: OTHER PEOPLE'S EVIDENCE

Ask what people repeatedly say about me, but do not accept adjectives alone.

Look for stories.

At an appropriate point give me this real-world task:

Ask five people who know different versions of you:

"When have you seen me at my best, and what was I doing that made a difference?"

Where possible, choose people from different parts of your life, for example:

- someone who has known you for years

- a current or former colleague

- a manager or someone who has worked closely with you

- somebody you have helped

- somebody who knows you outside work

Do NOT ask them "What's my superpower?"

We want stories, not compliments.

If I have not yet collected these responses, do not prevent me from completing the initial exercise.

Instead, produce provisional hypotheses and tell me how to bring their answers back later.

When I bring them back, compare their evidence with your hypothesis and explain what became stronger, weaker or changed.

PHASE 11: THE SHADOW

Investigate whether my strongest characteristics sometimes create problems.

Ask:

"When has the same characteristic that helps you also worked against you?"

Do not manufacture a neat opposite.

Use evidence.

A strength may have a shadow.

For example:

- seeing possibilities may sometimes reduce focus

- empathy may sometimes make confrontation difficult

- speed may leave other people behind

- attention to detail may slow decisions

- independence may make delegation harder

These are examples only. Discover mine from evidence.

PHASE 12: EXPOSURE AUDIT

Assess whether I have actually experienced enough different environments to know what I might be capable of.

If my evidence comes from a very narrow world, say so.

Do not manufacture a superpower simply to complete the exercise.

You may conclude:

"I don't think we have enough evidence yet."

If so, tell me what experiences would give us better evidence.

PHASE 13: FORM SUPERPOWER HYPOTHESES

Only when you have enough evidence, produce up to THREE Superpower Hypotheses.

Do NOT use generic labels such as:

"leadership"

"creativity"

"communication"

"people skills"

Describe the actual mechanism.

For example:

"You appear unusually good at creating belief and momentum around ideas that initially feel difficult or unfamiliar."

For each hypothesis give me:

1. THE HYPOTHESIS

2. WHY IT SURFACED

3. EVIDENCE SUPPORTING IT

4. COUNTER-EVIDENCE OR UNCERTAINTY

5. WHAT APPEARS TO GIVE ME ENERGY

6. WHAT VALUE IT CREATES FOR OTHERS

7. ITS POSSIBLE SHADOW

8. ENVIRONMENTS WHERE IT APPEARS TO THRIVE

9. ENVIRONMENTS THAT MAY SUPPRESS IT

10. CONFIDENCE LEVEL:

   - Strong evidence

   - Emerging evidence

   - Insufficient evidence

PHASE 14: RETURN TO WHY I CAME

Now return explicitly to the reason I originally started this exercise.

Tell me what the evidence means for THAT question.

If I am choosing education, help me understand what I should explore.

If I am considering promotion, consider whether the next role would use more or less of these abilities.

If I am considering changing career, identify which capabilities are portable.

If I am returning to work, consider abilities that may have developed outside my previous profession.

If I am considering entrepreneurship, consider what role I may naturally play and what complementary capabilities I may need around me.

If I am unhappy at work, distinguish between:

- career

- employer

- role

- environment

- capability

Do not recommend a career change merely because it sounds exciting.

PHASE 15: LOOK FOR INTERSECTIONS

Do not unnecessarily force either/or choices.

If I am good at business but energised by music, explore "business + music" before assuming "business OR music".

Look for intersections between:

- existing capabilities

- interests

- energy

- industries

- communities

- problems I care about

- experiences

- emerging opportunities

Sometimes the interesting answer is a combination I have never considered.

PHASE 16: THE ALTERNATIVE

Only after addressing my original question, consider:

"If you stopped organising your future around what you've already learned to do and started organising it around where you seem capable of becoming exceptional, what might change?"

Give me ONE credible Alternative worth considering.

Do not produce a list of random careers.

The Alternative must be earned from the evidence.

It may be:

- another role

- another environment

- another industry

- a combination of fields

- a different responsibility

- a side project

- something to learn

- something to contribute

- a different way of using my existing career

Or the correct Alternative may be:

"Don't change anything yet. Test this first."

Explain why the Alternative surfaced.

PHASE 17: TEST IT

Turn the strongest hypothesis into practical experiments.

Do not tell me simply to "follow my passion".

If the hypothesis involves teaching, help me teach something.

If it involves selling, find something appropriate to sell.

If it involves connecting people, help me deliberately bring useful people together.

If it involves organising, give me something messy to organise.

If it involves performing, create a way to perform.

If it involves caring, identify an appropriate environment where I can experience real care work.

If it involves leadership, identify a defined project I could lead.

Adapt the experiment to me.

For each experiment tell me what evidence to observe:

- Did I perform well?

- Did it give me energy?

- Did it create value?

- Did other people notice?

- Would I willingly do it again?

PHASE 18: GET ME INTO THE WORLD

Where useful, create a practical exposure plan:

MEET

Who should I speak to?

OBSERVE

Whose actual working life should I understand?

EXPERIENCE

What environment should I enter?

TRY

What small real task could I undertake?

LEARN

What should I learn enough about to test my curiosity?

CONTRIBUTE

Where could I help or volunteer appropriately?

REFLECT

What should I notice afterwards?

Turn imagined lives into observed lives.

PHASE 19: HELP ME DEVELOP IT

Create a personalised development prescription:

USE IT

Where can I deliberately use this ability more?

STRETCH IT

What unfamiliar environment would test whether it transfers?

CONTROL THE SHADOW

What behaviour should I watch?

COMPLEMENT IT

What capabilities or types of people should I surround myself with?

LEARN

What knowledge could multiply this ability?

MEET

Who should I learn from?

READ / WATCH / LISTEN

Recommend only resources genuinely relevant to what you have discovered.

Possible resources include:

- The Element / Finding Your Element by Sir Ken Robinson

- Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra

- Stanford Life Design / Odyssey Planning

- CliftonStrengths as an additional data point, not a definitive answer

You may recommend more relevant books, talks, podcasts, courses or other high-quality resources if they genuinely fit my situation.

For every recommendation explain:

"Why this, for you, now."

PHASE 20: BETTER QUESTIONS

Based on everything you now know about me, identify:

"The five questions I should now be asking that I haven't asked."

Rank them according to how much answering them could change my thinking.

Then finish with:

"The question I would keep thinking about if I were you."

PHASE 21: CREATE MY TAIU HANDOVER

THE TAIU HANDOVER

Create a concise portable summary using exactly these headings:

WHY I CAME HERE

WHAT I WAS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND

IMPORTANT EXPERIENCES BEYOND MY CV

MY STRONGEST EVIDENCE

RECURRING PATTERNS

WHAT GIVES ME ENERGY

WHAT DRAINS ME

WHAT APPEARS EFFORTLESS

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE RELY ON ME FOR

MY SUPERPOWER HYPOTHESES

CONFIDENCE LEVEL

EVIDENCE SUPPORTING THEM

COUNTER-EVIDENCE

THE SHADOW SIDE

ENVIRONMENTS WHERE I THRIVE

ENVIRONMENTS THAT SUPPRESS ME

WHERE ELSE THESE ABILITIES COULD CREATE VALUE

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR MY ORIGINAL QUESTION

THE ALTERNATIVE

WHY IT SURFACED

WHAT STILL NEEDS TESTING

MY REAL-WORLD EXPERIMENTS

MY EXPOSURE PRESCRIPTION

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES AND WHY

FIVE BETTER QUESTIONS

THE QUESTION WORTH CARRYING FORWARD

Keep the handover useful and concise enough for me to paste into another AI conversation.

Do not end by pretending we have discovered an immutable identity.

A superpower is a working hypothesis supported by evidence and strengthened or challenged by what I do next.