192: Discovering and Developing Your Ordinary Superpowers with Mark Henson

Pete Mockaitis
Mark, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Mark Henson
Hey, thanks for having me. I hope I’m awesome at my job. If not, then maybe by the end of this interview I will be.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, so far you have enchanted me with your awesomeness simply by having a fantastic microphone. So kudos to you right there.

Mark Henson
I’m an AV nerd is what I am. I love AV equipment and I will but it all day long if my wife will let me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Well, it makes a real difference, and as we’re hearing, and listeners I hope are appreciating the power of the Heil PR 40 you’re rocking over there. I’m on a Shure Beta 87A myself.

Mark Henson
Oh, yeah, nice. That’s nice. Got a little microphone envy here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, pros and cons to each different model. But I want to go a little bit deeper into your backstory and history behind a microphone. I understand at one point you were a nighttime Top 40 radio DJ. Tell me, did you have a DJ name and what was the backstory there?

Mark Henson
I did, yeah. From the time I was in seventh grade I wanted to be a DJ. We had some DJs from a local radio station DJ. One of our middle school, very awkward middle school dances, the ones where all the girls stand on one side and all the guys stand on the other. And while I was standing on my guys’ side of the auditorium, or the cafeteria, the school cafeteria – by the way, these were held during the daytime right after school. Like it was just so weird and awkward all the way around.

But we had these DJs come in from a local radio station and I looked at them and I thought, “They are the coolest people I’ve ever seen in my life. That’s what I want to do.” And so, sure enough, I pursued that with a passion for a long, long time. I mean, from that moment on, all the way through high school, through college, I went to school for radio TV broadcasting, and then I launched into a radio career, or actually while I was still in college.

And then several years beyond, cycled through a couple of different names but the name that really stuck, of course, when you’re nighttime Top 40 DJ you’ve got to have a flashy name, and my flashy name was Joe Bahama.

Pete Mockaitis
Joe Bahama. Now did you have an accent or was it like island time?

Mark Henson
No, I bought every Hawaiian shirt on the clearance rack at the Gap one season, and so I had a uniform but I just used my real voice. I always tell people, when people know you’re a DJ, they’re like, “Oh, do your DJ thing.” And I would say, “This is pretty much it.” It’s kind of like me only turned up two notches. That was my on-air persona.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yes. Well, I can relate to that.

Mark Henson
No Caribbean accent or anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, cool. Well, anyway, it’s paying off in spades now with your great audio quality. And so I also wanted to touch base for maybe just call it an appetizer to our main entrée of talking about superpowers. I got a real kick out of your Twitter about Boring Meeting Prevention Month.

Mark Henson
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
What is this cause and what are some of your quick tips for preventing boring meetings?

Mark Henson
Well, it’s marketing hype, I’ll be honest. But it’s good marketing hype, I think. My main business, my core business, is a business called sparkspace which is an executive retreat center in Columbus, Ohio. We hosts offsite business meetings, team buildings, executive retreats, workshops, seminars in this very cool, very fun, very comfortable loft-style meeting space.

So it’s a place where you would go to get offsite rather than have to go rent a hotel conference room or go to a really boring conference center or, God forbid, hold it inside, a meeting, inside your own conference room back in your office where you’re full of distraction and horrible furniture. I always say that conference rooms in most businesses are where old furniture goes to die and the same with ideas.

So I invented this business several years ago, about 17 years ago now, of a place where people could get offsite, do something more creative in a more creative environment, let their hair down a little bit, be more collaborative, have a little more fun. And so this year, my new marketing director, Holly, got to send a shout out to her, she came up with this idea to declare July Boring Meeting Prevention Month.

I mean, we do it year round in my business but we wanted to encourage everyone else to stop having boring meetings in the month of July and, hopefully, that’ll trickle on down. So it was a very good marketing campaign for us and it’s been a lot of fun. We’ve had a lot of popup events in our lobby. We’ve had like a pancake flipper come in one day and flipped pancakes and toss them in the air to people as they were coming in the door.

We’ve had little things like we had somebody come in and make desk plants where everybody got to dig in the dirt for a little bit and make their own desk plant, and then take it home with them. Just these sort of fun activities that we introduce throughout the month to kind of shake up the meetings that were happening in our place, and the response was huge. People just absolutely loved it.

And then we also had – this was a fun idea, too – we have these emergency buttons in each room. Kind of like that Staples easy button, only we had these call buttons where, if your meeting got boring, you could push the button and then a bell would ring back in our office. We would take a box, a mystery box, into the meeting, drop it down and say, “Open this box,” and then we’d leave.

And the box might have some silly game, it might have Nerf guns in it, it might have some surprise for them to open up and play with for a few minutes to kind of shake up the meeting a little bit. And that has gone over extremely well too. Something we’re probably thinking about keeping long term somehow.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s a good time. So it sounds like your takeaway in terms of not having a boring meeting boils down to being able to change things up and not get stuck into traditional ruts of stuff you kept doing either by changing the space or just the activity and stimuli around folks.

Mark Henson
Yeah, I  think change is good, for sure, when it comes to meetings, both changing the environment as well as making sure you’re changing up the energy in the room frequently during a meeting. We did this Boring Meeting Prevention Month as this real fun thing, and I don’t think every meeting has to be fun to be effective by any means. Just even being well-thought out in your agenda and making sure that you stick to the plan and not go off on a million tangents.

It’s when people try to cram too much, or try to cover too many things, or they put too many slides in a PowerPoint, we all glaze over and it gets really, really boring. So just paying attention to some of those basic things can really keep the energy up throughout your meeting and help it be more productive. The number one thing I would say probably is don’t ever try to do too much in one meeting.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Oh, excellent. Thank you. Alright, so that’s our appetizer, talking about boring meeting preventions. Now let’s talk about the entrée here, the main ditty. Your book Ordinary Superpowers, great title. I had a Superman-themed wedding fun fact about me.

Mark Henson
Did you really? That’s fantastic.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, not every element but there were enough little pieces in terms of the Save the Day magnet and the invitation from the Daily Planet.

Mark Henson
Please tell me you were wearing tights. Please tell me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I was wearing my custom-made Superman outfit that I normally wear only once a year, on Halloween, but I was wearing that for our Save the Day photos.

Mark Henson
Oh, okay.

Pete Mockaitis
And there was a little Superman crest menu and tucked into like a tuxedo-fold napkin, and that’s probably about the extent of the Superman element. The rest was just good Catholic mass and food and drink and fun from there.

Mark Henson
I didn’t know Superman was Catholic. I learned something here.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I will if you look at the first Superman movie, boy, there’s some interesting kind of Christian themes that are kind of woven throughout there. But that’s a whole another topic. We’re talking about your book Ordinary Superpowers. What’s the skinny there?

Mark Henson
Well, it’s a book that was borne out of, like a lot of things, borne out of a tough time in my own life where I was going through a period of my business, and I mentioned my business is almost two decades old, and I hit a point a few years ago where I was kind of stuck. I kind of felt like I’ve been there, done that. I’d lost the passion for my business. I had moved on from being sort of the entrepreneur and creator to the manager and administrator of my business.

And I hit this big long stretch of time where I just really wasn’t into it anymore. And to help pull myself out of that, one of the things I did was I got back to my roots and started focusing on the stuff I was really, really good at. And through some external coaching as well as even some counseling eventually, what I discovered was when I got back to those things I was really good at doing, those things that I consider to be my superpowers, then stuff started happening.

I started getting interested again, I started with my passion started coming back, I started getting better results again, my business started to grow. So  all of these really good things kind of led me to say, “There’s something to this idea of we’ve always heard about focusing on your strengths,” and I’ve always had this sort of fascination and affinity for superheroes and superhero movies and just the idea that we have these talents or abilities that kind of exceed the norm for each one of us. And when we really latch onto those and we put those to good use, we start seeing some really good results in our lives. So that’s where the book came from. I focused on that in my own life and then I shared it through a workshop that I do and got really good results from that workshop.

And then since I had a workshop I decided there’s already an outline there for a book, and so I sort of took the workshop content and translate it into a book over about a year, a year and a half, and then finally got these thing in my hands in April of this year. And so far so good, and continue to do the workshop along the way as well, continue to get good results helping people discover and activate and enhance and multiply their superpowers. So that’s the down and dirty background of the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s fantastic. And that is a message we’ve heard before from, I’m thinking, Scott Barlow in episode 181, about how when you are operating in your strengths or your superpower, suddenly what seems stressful, in terms of like the load or demand or hours, seems totally fine and it’s, in fact, energizing and you’re rocking it. So that’s really cool. Now you mentioned a couple components of an ordinary superpower. But do you have sort of an overall definition or set of criteria that sort of define what makes an ordinary superpower?

Mark Henson
Yes, I do. Because we all have natural abilities and talents and strengths, and there’s no shortage of ways to figure out what your strengths are, right? There are StrengthsFinder 2.0, there’s every assessment under the sun from DISC, to Kolbe, to Myers-Briggs and all of those as well. So I wanted to keep it actually really, really simple so you didn’t have to remember a whole lot. The only thing you have to remember is what your strengths are, what your superpowers are, and you don’t have to worry about a whole bunch of other acronyms or labels or buckets or anything like that.

So , really, as you think about the things that you’re very, very good at, and we all sort of have an inkling of what those are, there’s a four-part test that I use that helps determine what an ordinary superpower is. The first part of the test is that it comes naturally to you. It doesn’t necessarily mean you were born with it, it just means that right now, at this moment in time in your life, it feels natural to you.

The second part of the test is that it’s elevated. As you look around your family, friends, your community, your circle, you have this ability more than most. It doesn’t mean you’re the best in the world at it, it just means that you have an elevated level of that ability when you compare yourself against the people around you.

By the way, this is the only time I allow people to ever compare themselves to anyone else because that is a recipe for failure and disaster for sure. But it’s okay in this case because you have to do some self-evaluation and see how you measure up in order to identify what your superpowers are.

The third part of the test is, “Does it help anybody?” We have lots of talents and skills that we might enjoy using and they might be pretty good, we might be elevated at them, but if they don’t help somebody, if they don’t make a positive difference in somebody’s life, then I can’t really consider that as superpower. So the third part of the test is, “Does it help somebody.” And it can help you along the way, but it needs to help other people to qualify as a superpower.

Fourth and final part of the test and, to me, probably the most important one because this is the one I use as the tie-breaker if everything else seems to be equal or if you really struggle and you say, “I’ve got multiple abilities that meet the first three parts of the test.” The fourth part is the most important one then, and it’s that you enjoy using that power. It actually gives you energy.

Like you mentioned a while ago where you can spend a lot of time doing this and you don’t necessarily feel drained. You might feel tired when you use it but you never feel that emotional and physical draining of something that we’ve all experienced doing something that we’re not very good at and we have to spend an awful lot of time and energy to make that work. And by the end of that we feel completely drained. To me, an ordinary superpower is when you’re done using it, you almost can’t wait to go back and do it again.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s so fun. Thank you. And it’s interesting, as you mentioned number three, “Does it help anybody?” I was thinking, I was chatting earlier, we had Lisa Cummings who has a podcast all about strengths in which I recommend checking out. And it came up that I was capable of clapping with one hand which sounds like this for the record. And so that does come naturally, it is elevated relative to others but it’s in no way helpful.

Mark Henson
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s really funny except for maybe brief periods of amusement.

Mark Henson
Well, when you’re holding a drink in one hand and you need to applaud, I found myself in that position just a few days ago. I was the only one in an entire crowd who wasn’t clapping for something because I had something in one hand, so I’m like, I’m beating my thigh, I’m trying to make noise some other way and I felt really awkward. But if I had that skill, if I had that superpower…

Pete Mockaitis
It might come in handy or it could be detrimental because you’re just drinking more.

Mark Henson
I like how you said it might come in handy.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I didn’t even notice that. Thank you. That’s good. Well played. So that’s a nice lineup there. And so maybe could you give us a few examples then in terms if a natural or an ordinary superpower has these four criteria kind of checked? Could you give us some examples of what then would constitute some examples of an ordinary superpower and maybe some things that are close calls but actually would not quite qualify in the four-part test?

Mark Henson
Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So, again, the four parts are, “It comes naturally to me, I’m better at it than most, it helps people and I enjoy using it.” So I can use my own skills probably most closely because I know those better than any. And  my top three the come to mind, for me, are I’m very good at exploring the new. I love to explore the new.

And that might mean brainstorming ideas for a new product or service, or a challenge that we have at work, but it also might mean rearranging the furniture in my house. It also might mean traveling because that involves exploring a lot of new things. So that is a superpower for me. I will follow that one all day long, and it meets all four parts of the test for me as well.

My second superpower is simplifying things. I love to take ideas that are like really worthy and complex and like narrow them down to the bare minimum. And this one is interesting because I used to not really think that was a superpower because it felt like all I was ever doing was just dumbing things down so I could understand it. You know what I mean?

Like when there’s something really complex I’d have to wrap my head around it and get it to a point where I could understand it. And I kind of… I don’t even know what that’s called, it’s self-deprecating or like really it was kind of a negative thing to me but I realized at one point wherein when people started pointing out to me that they couldn’t do that or really admire that ability in me, I started thinking, “Huh, there’s something here. Like I should use that power more proactively and see what happens.” And sure enough, now I believe it’s a superpower. So that’s a couple of mine, my top two.

A couple of others like they don’t necessarily have to be these hard and fast skills either. Like the one I used about my dad is that my dad sees the good in everybody. My dad was a high school teacher, and I got to witness him teaching firsthand because I actually got to have him for a semester in high school. And I witnessed him when he was teaching, he would take the roughest, toughest kids and he would always find good things about them.

They could be in a middle of a fight in the hallway and he would break it up and say, “Stop it, knuckleheads. You’re smarter than this.” And he’d pull them aside and say, “Why are you doing this? You have so much more about you than just fighting with other people.” And so he always saw the good in people. Still does. He’s 81 years old and you can’t go into a store or a restaurant or whatever without him pointing out the good in somebody else because that’s just how he’s wired.

My mom, on the other hand, she’s like the world’s best interior designer, and she never made a living at it, she never pursued it as a career but she totally could have. She’s 80 years old and her house still looks like it comes out of a modern magazine. She’s just brilliant at that. So those are just some close by examples.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good. When you said, “My mom, on the other hand,” I thought you’ll said, “is a master at criticizing.”

Mark Henson
Well, yeah, you know.

Pete Mockaitis
I thought that’s where you’re going. But, no, interior design decorator, that is a skill I’m going to need. We are closing on our first home in just a few days.

Mark Henson
Oh, congratulations.

Pete Mockaitis
Thank you. And neither of us are particularly gifted, my wife or I, when it comes to interior design so help would be appreciated. Okay. Very cool. So those are some great examples there. So then what is the approach to discovering them? Now you mentioned you could stake the StrengthsFinder 2.0 or any number of other assessments. What are some additional ways we can go about making that discovery?

Mark Henson
Well, in my book, I  outlined six questions actually that help you discover or reveal what your ordinary superpowers might be. And I’ll go through these questions very quickly. And I’ll tell you what, this appears in Chapter 4 of my book, and that’s the chapter I give away as a freebie when people want to just check out the book.

You know, a lot of authors will give away a free chapter and it’s the introduction or the first chapter which doesn’t really have any of the meat of the book in it. It just has the style. I decided to go right to the meat and give that away instead. So this is straight out of Chapter 4.

These six questions are: number one, “What are you always doing? What do you always find yourself doing?” When you’re in a meeting, what’s the role you play? When you’re at work what is it that you sort of default to all the time? What do you find yourself always doing?

Number two, the second question to ask is, “What do people always ask you for help with?” Chances are if people ask you for help with something, either they really don’t want to do it, or they recognize a superior skill in you that they don’t have.

Number three, “What do you always feel compelled to volunteer for?” When you’re at the PTA meeting, or you’re at the company summer party committee meeting, or even just a regular old staff meeting and they ask for volunteers, what’s that job or role or activity or task that you feel like you should raise your hand for? Not because you feel obligated because no one else is raising their hand but because you recognize that’s a skill you have that you could probably do with your hands tied behind your back. For instance, for me, like that one I’d answer, if anytime anybody needs somebody to talk into a microphone, I’ll raise my hand because I got that in my skillset.

Number four question is, “What do you do that other people admire?” When people compliment you, when they say, “You’re so good at that thing,” whatever that is, “You’re so good at organizing information,” or, “You’re so good at your podcast,” or, “You’re so good at whatever.” There might be some hints in there that there’s a skill or a talent that could be a superpower.

Number five is, “What do you do that makes a positive difference?” What kinds of activities do you find yourself drawn to where you know it makes a difference in someone else’s life? And the size of the difference doesn’t matter. That’s one of the things I try to get across in the book, too, is that the world tries to push us towards being epic and legendary, and go big or go home.

And really, to me, like the size of that doesn’t matter. If you make a small difference, you’ve made a difference. So don’t overdo it when you’re trying to think of like, “Big, huge things that could be my superpowers.” They could be really small things that make a difference.

And then, finally, number six, “What do you enjoy doing most in the whole world?” It’s that sort of, “If time and money is no object, how would you spend your time? What would you do?” And somewhere in there might be some hints. So those six questions, when you ask yourself those questions, hopefully if you come up with enough answers for those, then you’ll start seeing some themes at least. And you might even see some superpowers that really jump out at you because they fell in two or three or four or five or six of those questions, and it became very apparent to you as you ask and answer those six questions.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I do like that question, that setup very much. One thing that really strikes me there is when it says, “What do people compliment you for? What do others admire within you? And they say, ‘You’re so good at this.’” I think it’s very tempting to just sort of discard that like, “No, it really wasn’t hard.” And then you like miss out on the fact that they’re giving you a real big clue, a gem that will guide you there.

Mark Henson
That’s exactly what I call the book Ordinary Superpowers because sometimes those powers, those things that we have that meet the four parts of the test, that really are an elevated skill or whatever for us, because they feel so natural to us, we just assume that everybody can do it. We don’t think we’re all that special, or we blow it off, or we brush it off when somebody compliments us, we’re like, “Oh, no, no, it’s no big deal.” No, it really is a big deal.

If there’s any one point to the book it’s that like wake up to what those are and then be okay with that. Give yourself the permission to actually put those into more proactive practice and recognize them for what they are.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I really dig that. So that’s the sort of discovery phase. You also talked about some additional phases in terms of activating and enhancing a given superpower once you’ve discovered it. How does that go down?

Mark Henson
So  activating is really all about being proactive, looking for opportunities to use those powers once you’ve really identified and, probably more importantly, clarified and articulated what those powers are. So the more articulate you are about them you could start telling other people what your powers are, you can start expressing those, you could put them in your LinkedIn profile, if you wanted to, so that people start recognizing what your powers are. And then they’d know how to tap into you, right?

Wouldn’t it be great if everybody in your world knew exactly what you love doing the most and what you’re absolutely the best at? So that then when that opportunity comes up you’re the guy they call, or you’re the girl they call for that. That, to me, would be the ideal situation for anybody. So that’s what activation is about, is being very clear and articulate, and then looking for those opportunities to put those powers into practice.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Could you give us an example for how folks might proactively make that happen if they’re not currently sort of by default doing that in their jobs? One way is just letting the world know on LinkedIn, etcetera. How else?

Mark Henson
Well, honestly, letting your boss know if you have a boss, or letting your clients know. Sometimes we’re excelling at things that are not our superpowers and so everybody sort of keeps coming to us, giving us those projects or those tasks because we did so well on it the last time, but it’s not really what we’re totally wired to do. So we keep getting those same kind of projects and same kind of jobs over and over but it’s not really totally lighting us up.

So I would say communicate that. Make sure that you’re looking for those kind of projects and those kind of roles where your superpowers can really be put to use. One of the saddest things to me is when people feel like, “I’m so stuck where I am. No one is using my powers. My boss never asks me to really use my superpowers.” I’m paraphrasing here because people really don’t talk about superpowers until they understand them but they have that feeling like, “I’m not being fully utilized. There’s stuff I want to do that I don’t get to do.” But they’ve never made it known that that’s what they really want to do. And so they end up stuck.

One of the biggest crimes, one of the biggest crimes that people commit is just staying silent and waiting for someone else to tell them what to do, or waiting for someone else to give them permission to start using their superpowers, so they end up with this, “The grass is greener on the other side of the fence,” mentality when they have every bit of power they need to make the grass green right where they are.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s so on the money. And I remember chatting with Lisa Cummings again, she’s at episode 65, and we discussed that sometimes you can simply do a swap, like your boss doesn’t even need to know at times necessarily. It’s like, “Hey, I want to work on this stuff, and you’re going to work on that,” and it’s just sort of a little informal alliance that you form to get a little bit more of the stuff that’s in your superpowers zone within your daily work responsibilities.

Mark Henson
We have these annual reviews most companies do. I’ve abolished them in my own company because I don’t believe in an annual review. It’s just not enough. It’s not enough time, it’s way too much time in between. But if you have the chance to sit down in a review, instead of just focusing on, “Well, how did I do at this stuff that you asked me to do, which probably has very little to do with my actual superpowers?” make sure you carve out some time during that review process to say, “Hey, here’s some things I’m really good at that I’m not being utilized. Are there some opportunities that I could be putting those to use for the company?”

Or better yet, identifying those and being proactive about it and saying, “Hey, there’s this project that we haven’t been able to do yet but, man, I could knock out one out of the park if you let me.”

Pete Mockaitis
I dig it. Thank you. And then on the flipside of all this, you mentioned kryptonite, the archnemesis of Superman. Thank you. So what might be some examples of a person’s kryptonite in opposition to their superpower and how do we avoid that well?

Mark Henson
So, yeah, we  have kryptonite and we have obstacles. Obstacles are those sort of external things that we can work our way around, we can bust through them, we could actually eliminate those. Kryptonite is that thing or those things that you can’t change but they’re out there, and when you get near those things, they start sucking your power away from you and they make you less effective, they make you frustrated, and there’s not a darn thing you can do about it.

So, for instance, when I bring this up almost every time people start identifying a person in their life. It could be a boss, it could be a family member, it could be a co-worker but it’s those things that you just can’t change, “I can’t fire a co-worker if they sit in the cubicle next to me but they might be kryptonite to me because they just suck my time and energy, because they’re an Eeyore downer kind of a person, or they just talk too much, or they’re substandard at their job and I’m not and that drives me nuts. All of these things I have no control over except the one that I could do is limit my exposure.”

When you think about kryptonite to Superman, the only thing he could do with kryptonite is try to stay away from it, try to keep as much distance between him and kryptonite as possible. He just didn’t have enough in him to really fight the kryptonite, right? That was the one thing that could actually bring him down so he had to just avoid it at all costs. And that’s what I suggest people do. Like even if it’s a family member, even if it’s a co-worker, do whatever you can to avoid that as much as possible.

If you’re at a family reunion and you know that person is going to be there, well, most rooms are big enough for you to stay on one side and them to stay on the other side, and you can rotate as they move around. Maybe cross paths once in a while, but you don’t have to let them occupy your time and suck your energy like that. Same goes with co-workers. The worst is if your kryptonite is your boss. That would be probably one of the cases where I’d say the other grass might be greener somewhere else.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, intriguing. So I’m so struck that when you said kryptonite you mentioned people, and for me I’m having a hard time – I guess it’s a blessing – drumming up a person that, “Oh, I really just can’t stand them.” But I guess I’m thinking there are certain kinds of tasks or responsibilities

Mark Henson
Sure. Even entire projects.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, “Oh, my gosh,” a lot of times it has to do with like liability or compliance or like professional standards.

Mark Henson
For me it’s fixing technology problems.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah?

Mark Henson
Trying to fix technology. It actually meets three of the four parts of the test for me. I’m very good at it, it comes naturally to me because I’m a problem-solver, definitely helps other people, but when it comes to the enjoyment factor, the way I describe it is it sucks my soul. I can’t stand, like I was on the phone with the phone company for three hours the other day trying to get new phones installed.

It’s something that should take like 10 minutes, in my opinion, but it took three hours and more to get it all done, and we’re still not completely done with it, and it’s the most frustrating thing in the world to me. So fixing technology problems, if I could stay away from that stuff, I totally would. Unfortunately, once in while I got to deal with it, and so I just fight my way through it and then I move on as quickly as I can.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Okay. Well, Mark, this has been such rich, good stuff. Is there anything else you want to share before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Mark Henson
I would just say probably the number one thing that I wanted to throw out to suggest people is to make sure that you can focus on your superpowers, but I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make is that they focus on their most super non-superpowers at the expense of their superpowers. So those things that we happen to be very, very good at and people want us to do more of it because we’re very good at those things, it could even be, like in my case, it could be fixing technology problems because no one else in my company can do it like I can.

So they always want me to do it, but for me to do that is just not the best use of my time. And it takes the time away from using my true ordinary superpowers. So I need to avoid that at all costs. Otherwise, what would happen when we use our most super non-superpowers, is that we get stuck in that, and that we find ourselves in jobs and roles that we really didn’t want, or worse yet we get promoted to jobs or roles that we really don’t want because then that involves managing other people doing things that you never want to do in the first place, and that’s a common trap that people find themselves in.

So the faster you can focus on your superpowers and let go of even the most super non-superpowers, you’re going to be better off.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, excellent. Thank you. Now could you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Mark Henson
Yeah, I actually included this in the book. I ran across this when I was looking specifically for quotes and it has now become one of my all-time favorite quotes, from Joss Whedon who’s the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, and he’s a writer, director, he’s awesome, “Whatever makes you weird is probably your greatest asset.”

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Mark Henson
Most recently, like I have a hard time nailing stuff down because my last book I read is always my favorite it seems. But a recent book I finished that I really love was How to Live a Good Life by Jonathan Fields.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you.   how about a favorite tool?

Mark Henson
Calendly. It’s a scheduling tool that eliminates email and phone tag to just have a meeting or quick phone call with somebody. I love it.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s how we schedule this very conversation. I’m a Calendly lover myself.

Mark Henson
When I first started using that I thought it was kind of arrogant but I had people thanking me for sending them the link, like, “Oh, my God. It was so great. I’m going to start using that.” So, yeah, it’s fantastic.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, it’s so funny and I will have it sort of send out like briefing packets to guests sort of right in there with the email confirmations. And I have had superlative praises from folks, like, “This is the best process I have ever been through for doing an interview. Thank you.” It’s like, “Well, I’m glad you liked it because I chose it because it meant less time for me.”

Mark Henson
But I will echo that it was phenomenal. Like the prep material you send out, by far the best I’ve seen yet.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, shucks. Well, thank you. And how about a favorite habit, a personal practice of yours?

Mark Henson
One hour of reading every day. I get up, it’s the first thing I do. I read for an hour before I start working.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a particular nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks, they Kindle book highlight, they re-tweet, they nod their heads, they take notes? What’s up when you say that really connects?

Mark Henson
You don’t have to change the world, you just need to change your world.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, nice. Nice. Thank you. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Mark Henson
Easiest place is my personal website, that’s MarkHenson.me. And if you want that free chapter, the Chapter 4 I mentioned, actually just add a slash and then free chapter after that, MarkHenson.me/freechapter, and that’s where you’ll find that. And, by the way, well, you and I discussed this ahead of time and then I totally forgot until just now, but I want to give away some books. I love giving away books. I love selling books too, don’t get me wrong. But I love giving away books. So I’ll give away five books to members of your audience.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Thank you. Well, I’m excited and how do they get their hands on these?

Mark Henson
Why don’t we have them post something on LinkedIn where they’ll tag you and tag me. Do you post these episodes on LinkedIn?

Pete Mockaitis
I sure do, yeah.

Mark Henson
So, yeah, so find that, post a comment there, tag us in that so we’d know you did it, and then the first five people that do that, I’ll send them a free copy of the book. Not only that but I will also send a free superpower mask along with the book.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow. That’s cool.

Mark Henson
Again, a shameless marketing promotion because I really want you to like get on Facebook or Instagram and take a picture of yourself with the book, but it works.

Pete Mockaitis
That is clever. Well, you know what you’re doing. That is cool. Thank you. Well, perfect. Well, that kind of sounds like a challenge or call to action right there. Or is there anything else you want to issue forth?

Mark Henson
Just I’ll echo that, stop wasting time on your most super non-superpower activities because I truly believe that is hurting you more than you know.

Pete Mockaitis
Noted. Well, Mark, thank you so much for bringing this perspective. It’s been a whole lot of fun. I wish you lots of luck with sparkspace and Ordinary Superpowers and all you’re up to.

Mark Henson
Thank you. This is one of my most favorite podcasts ever and, honestly, I do not say that every time I do a podcast.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh. Well, I’m flattered. Thank you.