How to discover your superpowers, own your story, and unlock personal growth | Donna Lichaw (author of The Leader’s Journey)
This episode features executive coach and bestselling author Donna Lishow, who discusses leveraging personal stories and "superpowers" to enhance leadership. She shares frameworks for identifying strengths, reframing imposter syndrome, and setting life goals, drawing from her work with top tech executives.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Donna Lichaw's Origin Story and Coaching Transition
The Power of Personal Storytelling in Leadership
Becoming the Hero of Your Own Narrative
Changing Your Internal Stories for Leadership Impact
Understanding and Shifting Others' Perceptions and Stories
Reframing Imposter Syndrome as a Functional Tool
Exploring Different Types of Kryptonite and Their Usefulness
Identifying and Leveraging Personal Strengths (Superpowers)
Practical Methods for Discovering Your Superpowers
Running Small Experiments for Personal Growth
Applying Product Frameworks to Personal Development
Identifying and Envisioning Subconscious Goals
Envisioning Your Desired Impact
Lightning Round: Books, TV, Interview Questions, and Mottos
6 Key Concepts
Story-Driven Leadership
This approach emphasizes that effective leadership stems from understanding and leveraging the stories we tell ourselves, rather than just the stories we tell others. By recognizing that our brains process experiences as narratives, leaders can intentionally shape their internal dialogue to empower themselves and their teams.
Hero of Your Own Story
Humans are inherently driven to be the hero of their own story, making choices and understanding the world through this lens. In leadership, this means aligning one's actions with a personal mission and purpose, starting with self-leadership before extending to others, which provides sustainable internal fuel.
Kryptonite
Referring to perceived weaknesses or challenges, this concept suggests that what we think harms us can actually serve a function. By examining how these 'kryptonites' serve us, we can embrace them in small doses or understand their underlying utility, turning them into tools rather than purely detrimental forces.
Superpowers
These are an individual's core strengths and abilities that, when leveraged effectively, enable them to make a significant impact. The philosophy encourages doubling down on these strengths rather than expending energy on fixing weaknesses, leading to greater effectiveness and energy.
Head, Heart, Hands
A framework for evaluating experiences and experiments, especially in personal growth. 'Head' refers to thoughts and cognitive understanding, 'Heart' to emotional responses, and 'Hands' to physical sensations and bodily feedback. Integrating these three filters provides a more comprehensive understanding of an experience.
Optimistic Stance
A non-judgmental approach to extreme or challenging situations, encapsulated by the phrase 'isn't that interesting.' This stance encourages radical appreciation and mindfulness of what is happening, allowing for more informed and deliberate actions rather than reactive responses.
9 Questions Answered
The stories we experience and tell ourselves are the most effective because our brain doesn't differentiate between true and untrue narratives, constantly seeking and understanding stories. Leveraging this innate ability allows individuals to shape their reality and become the hero of their own life.
Leaders can take a data-driven approach by gathering feedback from colleagues and team members to understand how they are truly perceived. This 'user research' can debunk false self-stories and help co-create a more accurate and empowering narrative, leading to more effective leadership.
Instead of trying to suppress imposter syndrome, one can ask how it is serving them. Often, it indicates hitting a growth edge and can compel individuals to work harder, learn new skills, and improve, making it a functional, albeit sometimes overused, behavior.
Kryptonite can be external factors to avoid (like toxic people or inefficient tasks) or internal traits (like dyslexia, ADHD, or being 'too quiet'). Internal kryptonite, when examined for how it serves you, often reveals hidden strengths or unique processing styles that can be leveraged, such as a 'quiet' person actually being a deep listener.
Studies show that playing to strengths is much more effective than trying to fix what's broken, which can be a waste of energy. Amplifying strengths allows individuals to make a bigger impact, fulfill their purpose, and achieve goals more productively and with greater energy.
Superpowers can be identified by reflecting on peak experiences from childhood, recent past, and the meandering path that led to one's current work. By analyzing these stories, recurring themes and abilities that energized and empowered you to make an impact will emerge.
Similar to lean methodology in product development, personal growth benefits from running small experiments to gather data. This involves taking tiny steps, observing the outcomes, and using the learnings to make informed decisions for bigger changes, iterating on personal development.
Coaches guide individuals to 'start with the ending' by envisioning their desired future (e.g., decades, 5 years, 1 year out) with vivid sensory detail. Once this exciting future is imagined, they work backward to map out the journey and identify the first experimental steps needed to get there.
If most of your day is spent on energy-sapping tasks and you consistently feel dread, it's a sign that you might not be in the right job or situation. The advice is to either change the context/situation or consider making a career change, as constant energy drain is unsustainable.
17 Actionable Insights
1. Leverage Your Self-Told Stories
Understand that the stories you tell yourself, whether true or not, profoundly impact your actions and identity because your brain doesn’t differentiate; leverage this by intentionally framing your narrative to be the hero of your own life.
2. Lead From Inside Out
Begin your leadership journey by focusing on yourself first, understanding your purpose and mission, as this inner fuel is sustainable and empowers you to effectively lead others, teams, and ultimately the business.
3. Identify Superpowers From Stories
To identify your strengths, analyze peak experiences from your past (childhood, recent projects) and your career path to find recurring themes that empowered you and made an impact.
4. Amplify Your Strengths
Focus on amplifying your strengths rather than expending energy trying to fix weaknesses, as leveraging what you’re good at leads to greater effectiveness, impact, and helps you achieve your goals.
5. Reframe Imposter Syndrome’s Function
Instead of denying imposter syndrome, ask yourself how this feeling serves you; often, it signals a growth edge and motivates you to learn and work harder, leading to improvement and eventually feeling less like an imposter.
6. Leverage Inner Kryptonite
Examine your “inner kryptonite” (perceived weaknesses or disorders like dyslexia) and identify how they might actually serve you or be linked to your strengths, such as visionary thinking or spatial reasoning.
7. Envision Your Ideal Future
To identify goals, vividly imagine your ideal future (decades, years, or quarters from now), engaging all your senses to visualize what you’ve accomplished and how it feels, then work backward to map out the journey.
8. Experiment for Personal Growth
Treat personal growth and new behaviors as hypotheses; start with small experiments to gather data, learn from the results, and then iterate by taking bigger steps, just as you would in product development.
9. Filter Experiments: Head, Heart, Hands
When running personal experiments, evaluate the results through three filters: “Head” (your thoughts and intellectual assessment), “Heart” (your emotional response), and “Hands” (your physical sensations and body’s reaction) to gain comprehensive insights.
10. Validate Self-Stories with Data
Challenge the stories you tell yourself by gathering real data, such as asking colleagues how they experience your leadership, to understand if your self-perception aligns with reality and identify areas for change.
11. Communicate Personal Work Style
If your team misinterprets your actions (e.g., being quiet in meetings), communicate your personal work style and processing methods (e.g., needing time to process) to foster understanding and better relationships.
12. Manage Your Energy, Not Time
Conduct an “energy audit” of your daily activities to identify what gives you energy versus what saps it, then prioritize doing more of what lights you up and find ways to outsource or manage energy-draining tasks.
13. Cultivate “Isn’t That Interesting?”
Adopt an “isn’t that interesting?” mindset to cultivate a non-judgmental, optimistic stance towards extreme or challenging life events, allowing for radical appreciation and more mindful, informed actions.
14. Address Persistent Work Dread
If you consistently wake up feeling dread about your job, recognize this as a significant sign that you may need to make a change in your career or work situation.
15. Use Fidgets for Virtual Meetings
To combat “Zoom fatigue” and maintain focus during virtual meetings, use fidgets or squishy objects to provide physical stimuli, helping to ground you and close neurological circuitry that’s missing compared to in-person interactions.
16. Find Your Purpose (Dolly Parton)
Discover your true self and intentionally align your actions and life choices with that understanding, as advised by Dolly Parton.
17. Pave a New Path (Dolly Parton)
If you are dissatisfied with your current life or career trajectory, take proactive steps to create a new direction for yourself.
6 Key Quotes
Our brain doesn't know the difference. It's like the most powerful ability our brain has is to understand and see stories everywhere. And so once you can really understand that, you may as well leverage it to be that hero in your life.
Donna Lichaw
When you start with you first at the center of the equation... it's much, much more powerful because it's not selfish... but it's purposeful.
Donna Lichaw
Certain stories we tell ourselves are actually quite functional and do not necessarily need to be rewritten.
Donna Lichaw
Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
Dolly Parton (quoted by Donna Lichaw)
You don't like the path you're walking on, pave a new path.
Dolly Parton (quoted by Donna Lichaw)
Isn't that interesting?
Donna Lichaw (quoting her mentor)
3 Protocols
Identifying Your Superpowers
Donna Lichaw- Go back to your childhood: Recall a project or activity that completely lit you up and made you feel at your best.
- Look at your recent past (last ~10 years): Identify a project or experience that jazzed you up and made you feel most effective.
- Consider your career path: Reflect on the meandering journey that led you to your current line of work.
- Analyze these stories: Lay these three narratives on top of one another to identify recurring themes and moments where your unique strengths (superpowers) emerged and empowered you to make an impact.
Running Personal Experiments for Growth
Donna Lichaw- Formulate a hypothesis: Identify something you believe is true or want to try, treating it as a hypothesis.
- Take one tiny step: Design a small, manageable experiment to test your hypothesis.
- Get data: Observe the outcomes of your experiment.
- Evaluate through Head, Heart, Hands: Reflect on your thoughts (Head), emotions (Heart), and physical sensations (Hands) during and after the experiment.
- Learn and adjust: Use what you learn to make informed decisions, adjust your approach, and potentially design a bigger version of the experiment.
Identifying Subconscious Goals (Envisioning the Ending)
Donna Lichaw- Start with the ending: Imagine yourself at a future point (e.g., decades, five years, three years, one year, or a quarter from now) where you've achieved your ideal outcome.
- Engage all senses: Close your eyes and vividly imagine being there. What do you hear, smell, see? Who do you see? What do you feel emotionally and physically? What have you accomplished?
- Write the journey backward: Once you have a clear, exciting vision of the ending, imagine how you got there and write out that journey.
- Identify first steps: From the beginning, determine the very first thing you need to learn or do to start working towards that envisioned future.