When Your Superpower Feels Ordinary to You

This morning I was in a training for a business coaching program I've been involved with for the past year. The facilitator opened with a simple question.

“What is your superpower?”

I literally had no words. The word "intuition" came to mind, but that was not quite it.

Yes, I am intuitive. Yes, I use my intuition when I work with clients. Yes, I use my intuition when I write, teach, live my life, and try to make sense of the world around me. Intuition is definitely part of how I move through my life and my work.

But I knew that was not the answer. It felt too vague. Too easy. Too incomplete.

And then this happened ...

I went to ChatGPT and asked the question I could not answer for myself. “From all you know about me and my work, what are my superpowers?”

I know. It sounds a little strange. It may even sound a little egotistical. But honestly, I was curious. I wanted to see what would come back when something outside of me reflected on the patterns I could not quite see or name for myself.

What came back stopped me. Not because it was flattering, although I will admit it was kind. It stopped me because it gave language to something I have been doing for most of my life without realizing it and without fully embracing that it was a gift.

The answer was not that I am a good writer. It was not that I am a teacher, a coach, a pharmacist, a caregiver, a speaker, or a workshop facilitator.

Those are roles. Those are containers. The deeper gift underneath them was this:

I help people turn overwhelming life experiences and transitions into clarity, meaning, and next right steps.

That landed. Because as soon as I read it, I could see the thread that runs through all my experiences. I could see it in my years as a pharmacist, when I translated complex medical information into something patients, students, and healthcare teams could actually use. I could see it in my years teaching sex education, when I helped young people ask questions they were afraid to ask their parents, or that adults were often afraid to answer. I could see it in my coaching work, when people arrived with a tangle of fear, longing, confusion, and possibility, and we worked together to find the truth underneath it all.

And now I can see it in this caregiving season of my life. Caregiving is one of those life experiences that can become overwhelming very quickly. My caregiving journey began with my mom having a stroke at the dinner table when I was in Florida on business and popped over for a quick overnight. That moment changed everything. Not all at once, but in the way family caregiving often does, one decision, one conversation, one medical concern, and one new responsibility at a time.

At first, you may not even call it caregiving. You are just helping. You are making the call. You are checking the medication list. You are driving to the appointment. You are noticing the change in their voice. You are texting your siblings. You are asking the nurse one more question. You are lying awake at night wondering what happens next.

This is why I have become so interested in the gifts we dismiss because they come naturally to us. Women tend to dismiss their gifts all the time. Whether we are caring for an aging parent, a family member, a work team, or a friend in need, we often do what comes naturally and fail to recognize the gifts underneath it.

The person who can stay calm in a crisis may not realize that calm is a gift.
The person who remembers the medication changes may not realize that attention is a gift.
The person who asks the hard question or starts a difficult conversation may not realize that courage is a gift.
The person who notices the family dynamic no one wants to name may not realize that clarity is a gift.
The person who says, “We need to talk about what happens if things change,” may not realize that leadership is a gift.

The truth is, not everyone can translate chaos into clarity. Not everyone can sit in the middle of uncertainty and find the next honest step. Not everyone can hold both the practical and the emotional truth of a situation. Not everyone can say, “I love you, and we still need a plan.”

And maybe this is why the question felt so hard for me this morning. Because the thing we do most naturally often feels ordinary to us. It does not feel like a superpower. It actually feels like breathing. It's simply what we do. And sometimes what feels ordinary to us is exactly what someone else needs most.

So today I want to ask you the question I could not answer easily:
What are you doing in your life, your family, or your caregiving role that you keep dismissing?

Are you the one who notices when something feels off?
Are you the one who can read the room?
Are you the one who can translate medical information into plain language?
Are you the one who remembers what was said at the last appointment?
Are you the one who can sense when a family member is scared, even when they insist they are fine?
Are you the one who can ask, “What do you want if things change?”
Are you the one who can bring order to the paperwork, the calendar, the medication list, or the family text thread?
Are you the one who can sit with the discomfort of a hard conversation?
Are you the one who knows that love is not enough if there is no plan?

That may not feel like a superpower to you. But it might be.

So I will leave you with this:

What comes so naturally to you that you keep dismissing it?
What do people come to you for, over and over again?
What hard thing are you able to sit with that others tend to avoid?
What do you know how to translate?
What do you know how to notice?
What do you know how to make a little less overwhelming?
What else have you been doing for so long that you forgot it was a gift?

And if you use ChatGPT or another AI tool in a way that has helped you reflect on your work, ask it what patterns it sees. You may learn something about yourself.

Do not dismiss it too quickly.

The superpower that feels ordinary to you may be the very thing someone else is praying for.

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