Supervillain Syndrome

Aicila: [00:00:00] A superhero that works alone is a supervillain. I really don't know where I first read this. I tried to find it, and in some ways it doesn't matter who said it. What's matter is that I've tried to find it, and no matter who said it, it really hits at something true, which is that we absolutely need community.

We, at least I, we've talked about this more than once, uh, grow up in a very specific mythology of success in the US. The lone visionary and the solitary genius in the garage, the founder who saw what no one else could see and just willed it into existence. The story is not just incomplete, it can be harmful.

And I've talked about some different ways, but one of them I really wanna talk about is how isolation may feel like strength, and the story is not just incomplete, it's [00:01:00] actively harmful. It makes isolation feel like strength and community feel like compromise. So,

and, and it ignores the group effort and the power of collaboration. I don't, I don't wanna get into all of that right now. Um, I mean, I'm sure I will over time, and I have. But just really acknowledging that it's not just your vision and your strengths that make you who you are, it's the people you surround yourself with that enhance and amplify that as well as remind you to keep yourself in check.

I was watching the new, uh, s- and it's not new anymore, but the new Star Trek movies with Chris Pine. And I think in the second one, he gets really obsessed with he needs to go and do this thing, and everybody that he trusts, everybody that he relies [00:02:00] on for advice is telling him no. And he just does it anyway.

And that's interesting to me because Star Trek is a more collaborative story, and you can tell when he does that, when he overrides everybody who, whose advice and wisdom he's trusted for ages, that he's making the wrong decision. You're like, "Oh, that's, that's a sign that there's gonna be something happening in the story that's bad."

And, and that was one of those moments when I really realized the ways in which our stories can help us reali- uh, the, our stories can remind us that, that the, remind us of the power of our community or make us more suspicious of it. And what happens when we go it alone is that everybody has a blind spot, um, more than one, but definitely one.

We all have things we aren't reasonable about and moments of rage and reaction. And- In those moments when our better instincts might be [00:03:00] drowned out by pain, exhaustion, a bad week, or even bad information, in those moments, we all have those moments when our better instincts might be drowned out by pain, exhaustion, a really bad week, or even just bad information.

And in those moments, community isn't just a nice to have. It's the thing that holds you to the standards of care and the values and integrity that, that you might not be able to access yourself in that moment. And that's a little bit what I mean when I say, or at least a little bit about how I understood that, um, comment of, you know, a superhero-- a supervillain is a superhero that works alone.

'Cause you see it in all the superhero stories, and like I said, in the Star Trek story, where the, the quote unquote good guy loses track of themselves for a moment. They get very upset, and they just wanna do something that would, would never be s- something they'd be okay with, something [00:04:00] they would actively fight against.

But because we all have human moments, because we're all flawed, we might have those a- instincts. And it is the strength of our people, our community, and our systems that helps us stay the course. The people around you aren't just support. They can be a check on those impulses. And as you grow in power and influence, you really need that check.

That's governance, right? And that's, that's creating a system of ethics. That's creating a system that supports your ethics. Or what is it? Ethics is a system that supports your values. So opera-- It's a way to operationalize your values. And, you know, I talk about the different energies: connection, momentum, and creativity, and I've talked a lot about, uh, connection recently.

And part of it is because I, I do feel like it's one of the least understood in terms of business. It, it, uh, you know, it can be reduced to that warm, fuzzy bonus you get to [00:05:00] enjoy when things are going well. And it's more, it's so much more. It's infrastructure. It's the resource that makes all the other work sustainable.

And when it's low, when you're isolated, when your community has thinned out, when you're operating without people who will tell you the truth, everything else starts to cost more. Decisions become harder. The work can get heavier. And you can be doing the right things and still feel like you're pushing up against something you can't name.

I know that, uh, I was lucky, I guess, in some ways. When I started working in business, I was working in nonprofits, so I was the executive director, but I had a board, and I could call them. And there was lots of times that I would call, uh, my, my board president, it's usually my direct contact, if you will, in that way, and say, you know, like, "I have all of these things I need to do."

I don't have enough time, and she'd help me decide what was the most important thing. And when I felt [00:06:00] strongly one way, uh, you know, I could butt heads with the board and, and we'd come to a better solution. So I, I always... I had that, the advantage of that, a group of advisors, if you will, who had the larger mission in, in mind and the, the care and need of the community in mind that I was in regular contact with and that I could check in with when the day-to-day, uh, would maybe be a little distracting and take me off course in terms of I'd get really invested in this set of outcomes that were maybe good but didn't actually serve the larger mission or were not the best use of the time I had available in the work that I was trying to do.

So I really think that, that, like I said, so I was, I was lucky in that that was my first introduction to sort of a, a corporate leadership position. And so I've always had the expectation of looking to other people for support and advice, and I think that has given me a [00:07:00] lot of advantage in the work that I do and the systems that I build.

Uh, I wanna say something that's really important to remember is, uh, community advisors, having a community, having advisors doesn't mean surrounding yourself with agreement. And in a lot of ways that's actually closer to the villain setup than the hero one. You need people strong enough to tell you when you're wrong, committed enough to your values that they'll hold you to them when you can't see that you're straying, and secure enough in the relationship that they have with you that they don't just disappear when you push back or things get hard.

I was in a situation where I had a large group of people around me, and I didn't realize that they were not grounded in their values. They did not have the courage to share their thoughts and perspective. And so I ran into some situations where I reached out for advice and realized [00:08:00] that... I re- where I reached out for advice.

I had a large group of people around me. There was a period of time where, um, I had a, a situation where I had a large group of people around me and thought I had that community of support and accountability, and then ran into some situations where I realized they weren't grounded in their values and didn't really have the courage to share their thoughts and perspectives.

So while I had folks around me, it was a lot more like working alone, and it wasn't as helpful, even though it, it looked frictionless, right? Like it looked like things were just working along. It looked frictionless. It looked like things just worked well and The reality was it wasn't frictionless. It was, it was, um, fake.

It was lacking in, in real community engagement. Uh, so, and I think that's a little side note maybe, but just [00:09:00] understanding that conflict isn't nec- uh, conflict isn't bad. Now, there are those people that, that are contrarian constantly. They're always in it for the conflict. If that's their default, that's a different thing.

Uh, but, but having people that are willing to speak up, be honest, say what's important to them, and challenge you and, and, and, and, and have that is really important. And it's m- so it's like, you know, my friend likes to say, uh, she's building her Justice League. And I do think that is the difference sort of between a network and a league, uh, a network and a c- and a community and, and people that are really gonna show up is it, it is a league.

And building those people, building those relationships, creating that safety for conflict and, and, uh, communicating around those things, it's part of b- it's part, building it is part of the work. So my question this week is, who keeps you grounded? Not who cheers you on, who actually keeps you from going full supervillain when the [00:10:00] bad times hit, or who will, should they hit?

And that person or those people are doing some really important work for you and your business. And if you don't have those people, uh, maybe work on building that intentionally. Don't just hope it'll happen. Connection energy is one of the three types I measure in the energy snapshot, and, um, I...

Connection energy is one of the three types measured in the energy snapshot. Go ahead and take it. It's just a couple minutes. Bicurean.com\energysnapshot. The link is in the show notes, and let me know how it goes.