If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?
What is your X-factor?
What makes you unique?
Isn’t it fascinating how we go through an educational system that values conformity and then enter a job market that bombards us with such questions? So how do we go about finding out the answer?
There are several frameworks that help you think around that, but one that I often share in my workshops with young leaders comes from The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman, and revolves around basing your X-factor on three essential pieces; your aspirations, your assets, and market realities.
Aspirations and Values: These lie at the core of what makes you unique, and as much as you would like to believe they tend to remain static throughout your life, that’s usually not the case.
Not only do your aspirations shape what you do, they are themselves shaped by your experiences. Your values and aspirations at 18 years of age are not going to be the same as those at 30.
You’ll always be reinventing yourself and growing. You’ll always be meeting new people and coming across new ideas that alter your worldview.
In this TED talk, Ashley Stahl talks about how to figure out what you really want and “be your own kidnapper” by taking these three steps:
- Do a self-audit: Be honest with yourself about what is working for you and what isn’t? Where you holding.
- Follow your freedom: Paying attention to what feels good to you so you can set yourself free.
- Engage: Take action but perfectionism is the enemy of action. Clarity comes from engagement not from thought.
Assets: Taking stock of your assets means more than just seeing what you have in terms of financial capital and physical possessions. It also includes assessing the intangible aspects that also carry value such as the knowledge you carry in your head, the skills you consider your strengths, and the relationships that you have.
And that means all relationships, not just friends, family, and colleagues, but also acquaintances (also known as your weak/dormant ties). If you were wondering why weak or dormant ties are important, psychologist Adam Grant cites in his book Give and Take a study by Mark Granovetter that demonstrates people are 58 % more likely to get a new job through weak ties rather than strong ties.
Grant attributes that to the tendency of strong ties to give you redundant information as they travel in the same circles and share similar viewpoints, whereas weak ties have access to different people and different leads.
Market Realities: This is the hardest part to figure out when it comes to understanding what will give you the competitive edge that will help you define your X-factor.
Market realities are defined as the supply and demand for what you offer the marketplace relative to the competition. They’re dynamic and as we’ve recently seen because of the coronavirus, things can change overnight. This is why, as I’ve mentioned in the previous post, it becomes important to be adaptable, develop an entrepreneurial mindset, and always keep your eyes open for new opportunities.
An alternative to getting industry reports, which tend to be really expensive, is to conduct informational interviews with people who are in the field to understand on a macro-level where the industry is and where it’s going.
If you were to conduct 20-minute informational interviews with 5 mid-career professionals in the industry of your interest (focus on weak ties rather than strong ties), you could ask them the following questions;
- How is your industry changing due to COVID-19?
- In your opinion, do you see this change as being permanent or would people go back to the way things used to be after all of this has passed?
- What are the biggest challenges your industry is facing right now?
Putting together all these elements, you can now build your version zero of your X factor and share it with others.
Let me know how that goes.