I wish I could tell you this story started with years of research and development, focusing on experimental routines and scientific analysis which ultimately led to an amazing breakthrough in how we improve ourselves at a revolutionary pace. It did not.
This story begins with some dumb luck I had on a lazy Sunday afternoon playing a video game with my kids.
It’s a family policy that if my wife or I receive an unsolicited compliment about one of our children during the week they all get to play video games together on Sunday, and I will do my best to join them. This time the game was Castle Crashers.
It is a fun little medieval quest where you battle barbarians, killer bees, giant cats, and ninjas with lightsabers as you level up your character’s four attributes; magic, strength, agility, and defense. I suggested to my kids that we each focus exclusively on a unique attribute. One of us would be the magician, two of us would be the warriors, and the other the speedy little elf (children of the ’80s will recognize this as the “Gantlet Strategy”).
We had played the game a couple of times before, and usually - and I say this as a matter of a father’s pride - I leveled up faster than my kids.
Things started pretty normally, but then my seven-year-old son, our speedy little elf, leveled up just a little before me. Initially, I chalked it up to luck, but then it happened again.
Things got serious at that point. My focus became laser-like. This was no longer a fun little break with my kids. This was a serious challenge to my role as the alpha, the top dog, the leader of this family. This was a deathmatch, even if that seven-year-old boy was oblivious to it.
That’s when it happened. He lapped me. He was now two levels ahead. Reality sunk in. I wasn’t catching up - he was pulling away and there was nothing I could do about it. Over time the difference in our characters’ skill levels became stark.
His new chosen skill made him better at well…getting better. His improvements took on an exponential quality while the rest of our progress seemed to settle into a straight line, steady progression.
In our first few attempts at the game, we had just alternated between all four attributes as we leveled up, and agility seemed like any other skill, but the Gantlet Strategy revealed a quirk in the game; the existence of a “super-attribute”, a single ability that allowed my seven-year-old son to improve at a pace that no one else could keep up with.
It took me a bit to realize what was going on. Every time his agility increased he actually got better at four different things:
The speed at which he moved around the screen.
How quickly he could shoot each arrow.
How far each arrow could travel.
How much damage each arrow could inflict.
In the long run focusing on this one skill that was making him better at four things was all the advantage he needed to beat out any edge I may have had due to natural ability.
The Question For Us
That realization led me to ask the big question, do these kinds of “super-attributes” exist in real life? Are there Everyday Superpowers, single traits that we can develop that will have this exponential effect on our growth? Can we work on one thing that will make us better at three, or four things - or better yet - that will make us better at everything?
Super-Attributes & Reverse-Attributes
Everyday Superpowers - super-attributes - do exist. You may know people with them, people that seem like they are going through life on a moving walkway while the rest of us advance just one step at a time.
You may also know people who have characteristics that work like the opposite of super-attributes (we’ll call them reverse-attributes). These are the traits that we develop that make everything we do harder; like we are going in the wrong direction on that walkway.
As we explore these two types of attributes some of them will absolutely surprise you. Most of them, however, will be traits that you probably already consider helpful. They are much more than that.
Just like agility in the game, these attributes are hiding in plain sight among all the other characteristics we can develop, and their ability to exponentially change our lives goes largely unnoticed.
Everyday Superpowers
When it comes to superpowers the comic books have it all wrong. It’s completely backward. It’s not that there are individuals born destined for greatness because of their incredible innate abilities (there are rare exceptions).
Studies of highly successful people show that they are often no more intelligent than average. If you were to peel back their perceived cape and costume you would find a pretty regular person underneath, with one difference. Intentionally or not, they have developed super-attributes.
Imagine how your life would change if you focused on the things that make you better at almost everything you do, or if you just stopped doing the things that make almost everything more difficult. In the beginning, the differences will start slow, but over time you will start to get better faster and faster.
How different could your life be one, two, or five years from now? There is only one way to find out.
This newsletter is dedicated to finding knowledge leaders, exploring historical figures, fictional characters, and even delving into pop culture looking for the super-attributes that make us better at getting better, and the reverse-attributes that make us worse. If we are right, we won’t just get marginally better at a few things - we will get better at everything we do at a pace we didn’t think possible.
In the next newsletter, I’ll share the very first super-attribute we all need to develop, and what the best-selling book “Atomic Habits” got wrong. Let me know in the comment section if you think you know what that is.
I am so ready for the first super attribute 😊
I'm not familiar with that book, but this is thought provoking. I can't wait to read the next one!