Modern Day Super Powers

My dad called me out of the blue several years back and said to me he was clearing out their office where my parents ran their medical practice for probably 25+ years.  I sort of grew up in that office.   My parents worked a ton so I ended up spending a lot of time there entertaining myself there and in the later years, as their IT guy setting up the computer systems.   I built computers in the basement from parts I sourced from Computer Shopper Magazine and setup a Novell NetWare Network including running cat5 between all of the offices.  It was a fun.  I since dropped it from my resume but I was Novell NetWare Network Certified!  Haha.  

Apparently, I had left 10-15+ boxes of comic books in my old office in the basement.  I had forgotten that before I left for college I brought my entire comic book collection to the office basement because it was cool, dry and clean.  30 years later, my comic books have reappeared!  Each comic book long box was filled with individually bagged with acid free backing comic books.  I think i had about 10,000+ comics in my collection total.  

My dad didn’t mince words.  He was a man on a mission to clear out the office.  He had loaded up all 10-15+ boxes of comic books on a pallet destined for California and was delivering the tracking number.  

‹›×

‹›×

‹›×

Holy smokes.  I was being reunited with my childhood passion!  I loved comic books.  The characters, stories and art took me to all new places.  I used to daydream about various superpowers and argue with my friends which ones were the best.   I lived the Marvel Cinematic Universe before it had made its way to the big screen.  Meanwhile, my wife wanted to know what the heck this pallet of boxes were that just arrived in our driveway.   

My favorite character was Tony Stark / Iron Man. He didn’t have super human powers like the others but simply applied his intelligence and scrappy thinking to solve hard problems.   Ok, he had his own character flaws but I always felt he was pretty damn cool at the time.  

Ok, there are no mutants with super strength or folks with the ability to shoot laser beams from their eyes however, I’ve always felt that there are actually modern day “super powers” that humans are actually capable of.  Below are some that I have seen.  Some might not feel super by comic book standards but to me, they feel powerful.  You be the judge.  

• Leadership — I’ve seen this done very well, very poorly and in very rare cases, legendarily well.  When done well, it feels like a super power.

  • Example — Bob Iger.  CEO of Disney resulting in an increase of the company’s market cap from $48 billion to $257 billion. Pixar acquisition, Marvel acquisition, Lucasfilm acquisition, 21st Century Fox acquisition, Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, Shanghai Disney, Disney+.   

• Team — A team is a group of individuals working together to achieve their goal. Some folks are just better at bringing the best out of a group of individuals.

  • Example — Mike Krzyzewski

• Product visionary — We all know of the products that have changed our lives.  There are usually product visionaries behind them.

  • Example — Steve Jobs. Macintosh, Modern Computer Typography, iMac, iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad.

• Creativity — Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is formed. No standardized test is going to measure this.  The creative process is amazing. 

  • Example — Christopher Nolan.  Filmmaker.  Following (1998),Memento (2000), Insomnia (2002), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012),Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), Tenet (2020), Oppenheimer (2023)

• Work Ethic — Can you work harder than everyone else?   I told myself at a young age that whatever I did in my professional career, I was going to outwork the folks around me to get to where I wanted to be.

  • Example — Elon Musk.  PayPal, SolarCity, Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Hyperloop, OpenAI, Neuralink, Twitter.   

• Execution — Arguably a foundational skill for any leader but some folks are better at getting things done than others.

  • Example — Jim Sinegal, Co-Founder and previous CEO of Costco

• Grit — Perseverance, hardiness, resilience, ambition, need for achievement and conscientiousness. I love grit. Will you persevere?  Will you power through obstacles?  Will you find a way?  Will you rebound from failure?  Will you keep going until you reach your goal?

  • Example — Michael Jordan

• Communication — do you communicate with a high level of fidelity, simplicity and passion to others?   

  • Example — Bill Clinton, 42nd United States President

My list kept going but these are my favorites.  What do you think?  Are there a few that I’m missing?  What are better examples that have the above super powers? 

We all have a super powers.  What are yours?  

As always, thank you for reading.  Please leave your thoughts or comments below.   

-rjm