A lesson from Inception: Realize your superpower
There’s a scene in Inception where Ariadne becomes aware she’s in a dream. She starts creating and moving huge objects in the world. She can manipulate the world on her own.
She’s realized her superpower.
You have one, too. And when you realize it you can start leaning into it.
I often think of Seth Godin’s Linchpin where talks about the idea that everyone is an artist*. Whatever you do at work that can be easily done by other people, that’s not art. But the tasks that only you can do: that’s your art.
That’s your superpower.
Some people’s superpowers involve business, running meetings, a/b testing ads, presenting to groups.
Once you figure out what that is—even better if you enjoy it—then you can:
- Develop that skill further
- Increase the amount of time you’re doing it
- Figure out ways to apply it to the rest of your work
- Teach your art to other people
Then, like Ariadne, you can create doors from nothing and open them to new opportunities.
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[*] I also appreciated Bob Iger’s answer to a question about creativity in an interview. The interviewer asks if he looks at himself as a bit of an artist—one of those business is more art than science sort of things. He basically says, no, the people writing Marvel and Pixar stories are artists. Wouldn’t want to compare mysef