Leveraging Your Superpowers with Adele Leah #73

After all, all art is experience.

Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor. This week, Gary is talking to Adele Lear all about superpowers. What are they? How do we uncover them? And how do they benefit us in our careers beyond simply getting paid more? With her unique approach to coaching and a fantastic small group program— more on those later— Adele is perfectly placed to discuss this topic. So without any further ado from me, this is Leveraging Your Your Superpowers with Adele Lear.

Hey Adele, welcome to the Company Doctor podcast. Great to have you.

Thank you, and thank you for having me. Very excited and a tad nervous to be here, but you shouldn't be nervous.

We're really looking forward to having you, and the title today is Leveraging Your Superpowers, and so that all immediately conjures up questions. But before we get started, I really wanted to introduce you to the listeners, so Adèle, tell us about yourself, uh, a brief introduction to Adèle.

So I'm not a big fan of job titles, which will maybe become apparent as we talk about superpowers. So I will introduce myself in terms of what I do, um, rather than the, the name I'm called. So I help people unlock their superpowers, well, uncover and unlock their superpowers so that they can step up, stand out, and shine, really to achieve the next level in their career and business.

I love that. And when I was, I was looking into you before this episode, I was, I was looking for your job title, and that exactly hit to me. But one of the things I was interested before we get started, I look back in your career and I think you started in a recruitment many, many years ago. How did you get from recruitment to coaching?

It was, feels like actually a very natural progression. I was thinking about this at the, um, at the weekend and really being very thankful that I've kind of I feel I've found my path. With recruitment, I was seeing literally hundreds and thousands of people year on year and helping them uncover what it is they wanted to do. And this is where the job title things come in, because we kind of end up in a stream of, I'm this job title. And working with so many people, interviewing so many people, we're not a job title. We are this unique combination of our skills, strengths, and our experience. And I really just got fascinated delving into this and what, you know, what makes somebody great at their role. And then also kind of what comes into it is also the environment that people are working in. So it's kind of aligning your superpowers and your values and what you want with a company. So it kind of just led me on this path to, to explore it more and move into, um, you know, I kind of moved into quite a typical career coaching role, and then that evolved and really helping people reach their full potential and really see how they can use their superpowers, which is what I like to call them, um, use their skills, their strengths, their talents in the right environment to really be, really be happy and successful and fulfilled in their career. And it's very much that kind of happiness theme that drives me to do what I do, which probably comes down to not being happy earlier on in my career because I didn't know what I wanted to do.

I love that. And what you're saying is really interesting. And, you know, we talk to a lot of people and, you know, people go through their life and their careers and they sometimes are unhappy but don't always do something about it. So we're going to dig into that. Let's talk about superpowers a bit. What— you've kind of touched on it, but for people listening, what— and we can guess what it is, but what does it— what do you mean by superpowers?

It's our innate talents and strengths that we use, and we build skills, but there's certain things that we're really good at or we're not so good at. And often we're focusing on the things we're not so good at and trying to build skills and strengths around that, rather than going, I'm really good at, you know, insert whatever, attention to detail, I'm really good at problem solving, I'm really good at organising and leading. And it's something, you know, when we— one of the things that I'm— one of my superpowers is helping people kind of connect the dots and see where this career and kind of skills and talent golden thread is, because we're doing it in and out of work. And it's something that's just naturally innate to us. And when we can use that in our work, in our roles, that's when we're not actually working, we're just being ourselves. And using our strengths to do a job. And we're building then the skills, the skills on top of that. So skills are much more tangible and it's things that we learn, but these strengths are things that are natural to us.

How do we uncover them though, Adele? Because, you know, the way you're talking about them, they're natural to you. But if I'm, you know, I haven't really thought about it before, and then we're talking about superpowers, how do I know what my superpowers are? And what's the best way for me to find out?

So often our superpowers are our blind spots. It's things that we kind of take for granted and we think that everyone can do. We don't kind of give them value. So they're not easy to spot unless you actually kind of put some intention on, on trying to find them. There's various different ways to do it. There are different online tools and tests that you can do to really, really get a deep dive. But if you're just looking, you know, how can I do it kind of on my own, one of the things that I do is we start looking at challenges that people have worked through in work or in personal life, the action that they've taken to overcome those challenges and the results that they've got. So it's the kind of CAR, very similar to the STAR method, and within the action you can often see what has been playing out. So was it, you know, were they curious about something that they dug deeper, uncovered more information? Be curiosities up there. Perhaps they needed to be really flexible and adapt to change, so then we've got adaptability, flexibility. So these kind of— there's little nuggets that you see along the way that start building up. Also, you phone a friend, you speak to a past colleague and say, you know, what do you think I'm great at? What do I help you with? So you see where you've helped people what you do better or more effectively than others, what you contribute to a team, what you contribute to, you know, perhaps friendships and relationships. Some people are amazing organizers and they just think, well, everyone can organize, can't they? But actually they can't. And it's those little tiny kind of nuggets of gold that, that build up to kind of create a bigger picture of what you're great at and where your superpowers are.

And do you think someone can find that on their own, or do they need someone to help them from outside to get that?

I think they can find little bits on their own if they ask the right questions. You know, if we ask different, better questions, we get different, better answers. So it's knowing the questions to ask and knowing where to look. Um, so I certainly think, you know, there's elements that you can spot on your own. I think one of the things with this is we are often not conditioned to sit there and go, I'm great at X, Y, and Z. We kind of downplay ourselves a bit, so using some of the online tools or working with somebody is just going to help you kind of see them and start owning them.

One, this is really helpful. One of the things you said earlier, and I just want to kind of join the dots, you said join the dots, you talked about, you hinted at some adversity earlier on. And when I, when I looked up before you came and did my bit of research, I found out that I think it was in 2017, you kind of looked like you reached a crossroads in your life. You left a comfortable job and a salary and moved to another country to start a new career or something to that effect. Yes. Is that the catalyst for, you know, trying to move on and do something else rather than just, you know, plodding along and being happy with your lot?

Yeah, there's been a couple of catalysts actually along the way. So gosh, it would've been early, I think it was around 2005, 2006. I ended up in a job that was really, really wrong for me. And really wasn't playing to any of my strengths, talents, or superpowers, and I was really unhappy. I left that job and I actually left the UK and went over to Australia and did a lot of kind of soul-searching and did a lot of the work now that I do when I'm coaching people actually on myself to try and kind of uncover where was I happiest playing in the world of work, what were the strengths that I was using that weren't being used in this job that I'd been very miserable in and started to connect the dots there. Wait, this was way, way before I kind of had really started in the coaching world, but it was probably— that was one of the things that started leading me with the recruitment work I was doing to really help people uncover where they were happiest. And when we look at a job title, it doesn't tell us everything. And job titles, you know, the same job title in one company versus another company can have a very different weight on areas of strengths and skills that are being used. So it was kind of uncovering all this that, that led me down this path. Then in 2015, '16, '17, around that kind of time, I decided to, to kind of take the big leap out of the, uh, the full-time employment and into, into the world of coaching and, and left Australia.

Yeah, well done. I mean, what, what comes up as you're talking is, was it a— is it a crisis looking back now? Is it a crisis or opportunity? When you're having a bad time at work and you're, you know, it's got— it got you thinking, is it a crisis or opportunity?

I think it starts as a crisis, and then if you ride through it, it can become an opportunity. They say that, um, the, the breakthrough is, is, um, on the other side of a breakdown, but you have to get through the breakdown. So I'm really thankful, you know, and I call the role that I left in 2005, 2006, it was my game changer.

Would you have done it sooner if you knew the result, or do you need a crisis to get you there?

I think I needed that crisis. I was chasing job titles and salary and kind of the status that came with working for certain companies. Company car was, you know, on my list of things I needed. When, when I got it, I was like, this just isn't making me happy. So I certainly needed that crisis to, um, to have the breakthrough. I don't think everyone does. I think there's a lot more information out there today around, you know, how to be happy at work, and a lot more free information that you can tap into that I think, you know, if you're turning up at work not feeling fulfilled, not feeling joy and excited and inspired, there's, there's things that you can start looking at before you actually hit that, that total breakdown point.

And do I, do I need to give up everything, or can I pivot from where I am?

Totally pivot. And often it's not, it's not a massive big career change. And I get, I mean, I have worked with some people on some you know, fairly wild and wacky career changes. But there's, like I said, there's this kind of like golden thread, and it can just take you to the next thing. And sometimes it's just flipping— maybe you're working in a role that 80% of it is not in your talent zone, and it's just getting the balance a bit better, and it's not a massive, a massive change and, you know, leaving, leaving careers behind. And also, you know, and I think now career change is much more acceptable than it used to be. And but there's lots of kind of skills and strengths that you would have built through one career that moves you into another.

Let's build on that then. So let's say I've kind of, I've worked out my superpower. You talked a lot about the golden thread. Maybe we should talk about that. What is the golden thread? And what are the biggest tips you can give me that move the dial on making a difference, moving towards where I'm trying to go to.

So the golden thread will be— I'm trying to think if I could give an example of somebody because it might be easier to explain it from working with somebody. It's where maybe they've— it's, it's that skills and strengths that they've used that is what they can carry forward. So perhaps it's the, you know, the strengths around detail, organisation, in one role which is going to play a key part in the next role. So it's these, it's this, it's the strengths rather than, you know, I'm great at using X database or using Excel. That's the skill that the strength allows them to be good at. So when we find this kind of the, the strengths and the talents, that's the golden thread, and they'll see how it's played out in terms of, you know, Perhaps they've been volunteering and there was an organisation side of it. Perhaps they're key part in a community project or within their school. So it's looking at all those kind of small dots throughout their, throughout their experience really. That's where that kind of golden thread comes in and they can see where it's, you know, where it's been and where it could potentially take them to. What then comes into play is actually having some clarity in terms of what they're looking to achieve. With their career, and we use achievements as a driver, not job titles and salary.

Yeah, so if, if, uh, I'm buying into what you're saying, I'm excited about it. What if you could give me a number of tips that, that get me on, get me on the path, get me on the journey? What would they be? If you can give me 2 or 3 things, what would you recommend?

So one of the things I would say is to take, do a stock take in terms of achievements that you've had throughout your career and some out-of-work things and have a look at what you've enjoyed. So think about the days where you've walked out of work kind of on a, on a high, you know, you've been really proud of what you've done. We often don't stop and just take stock and get pen and paper, and there's something in physically, you know, handwriting it down and going, actually, that was a great day when I did that, when I worked on that project. Then going a little bit deeper, what specifically did I do? What were the, you know, what was that skills and strengths was I using? Even down to who was I working with and why was that so enjoyable? So when we start seeing more detail in this picture, it gives us lots of clues. There's so many clues there. Then in terms of kind of connecting that to where you want to go in terms of, you know, achieving next level, it's actually thinking, you know, 5, 3, 5, or 10 years out from now, what do I want to be achieving? So an exercise that I do with a lot of my clients, and I also do with myself, is kind of put myself— and I always use a big birthday year, I find they just have more impact when we do this exercise— but put myself out and think, right, when I, you know, wake up and it's my, you know, whatever birthday—

21st.

Yes, my 21st, absolutely. And, um, I stand in front of the mirror. What do I want to be proud of achieving? What impact do I want to have made? What maybe do I want to have created, changed? I'm more on that side, um, from kind of more on the creative archetype. But there might be people, you know, in terms of what do I want to have developed, streamlined, organized. And then kind of getting that list of achievements that you want to, you know, move towards. And that's where then you can start seeing and seeing what you've done in the past and how it can link and connect to the future, then the job title kind of comes on top of that rather than— we're, we're climbing a ladder of job titles and we're not necessarily climbing the ladder in terms of, okay, where am I using my skills and my strengths and my talents, my superpowers, and what do I want to do with those? What do I want to create, achieve, impact? And I just think there's so much more energy in it when we look at it like that than I want to be, you know, a VP.

Yeah, very important person. That makes sense to me. But maybe, maybe, you know, when we first spoke, you talked about— you talked to me about the Shine Effect.

Yes.

I'm trying to see if it's connected. What is the Shine Effect and why does it matter? And is it connected to this?

Yeah, absolutely. Because when we're in our superpowers, when we're energized and we're doing the role that's right for us, in with the people that are right for us, in the place that's right for us, We can't not shine. And I just think, you know, we, we spend a lot of time in our careers that we should be turning up— not every day, I'm realistic, there's going to be some days that, you know, aren't as shiny as others— but we should be turning up feeling excited, enjoyment, energized, and shiny about what we're doing. So when we, you know, when we have this clarity on what we're great at and we know where we want to work, who are kind of people are that make us shine, it just makes work a hell of a lot happier than, you know. And if we look at the employment, um, employee engagement figures and employee happiness at the moment, that they're not very shiny.

And yeah, I just need to be more shiny. That's what we need, more shininess.

Well, I just think it would, you know, our career happiness is so important We've got a lot of years working.

What comes first, Adele, shiny or energy?

Um, I think it's the energy that makes us shine.

And can we create that energy ourselves, or does something— is it a cause and effect? Does something have to make us energized?

So when we're using our talents, um, which, you know, another word for superpowers in a sense, we are energized. So that's another indication. If you're finishing work day, you know, day in, day out, week in, week out, feeling exhausted and drained, we're not using our talents. Because when we do what we're great at, it actually energizes us.

Yeah, no, I get it. Just sometimes I've come across people that seem to enjoy their jobs, but they're kind of low-energy people. Is it a, is it a personal thing, or is there something they can do to be more energized?

No, definitely. So one of, on, um and I've just been doing some training in a talent tool, and one of my, uh, talents is I'm, I'm high energy. I'm naturally a high energy person, which is, um, you know, which is, which is great for me. Some people don't like it if they're not, they're not super high on Monday morning. Yeah, not on a Monday morning. Um, so yeah, you know, we've got different energy levels, but it's knowing what your energy levels are, what your kind of baseline is. And if at the end of the week you're just like, oh, you know, just, what a week, I hate my job. It doesn't matter whether you're a high-energy or a low-energy person, we know that there's something not right about it.

Yeah, no, it makes sense. And I think being self-aware helps, doesn't it? If you know, maybe you know in that place, or there's something going on at home or something where it's all connected. Yes. And part of that, you know, and as you're talking, you know, I can see ambition goes together with wanting to get on with your career. But do you need to be ambitious or driven in order to be successful? I'll give you a reason. On one of our podcasts, someone said they just realised they love their job, but they don't earn very much, but they're kind of okay with it because they enjoy what they do. Do you need to be driven to kind of take it to the next stage?

No, I don't think so. And I think it's what your vision of success is. So, you know, if it's around money, that's a, you know, that's a driver. And so it's kind of looking at what your drivers, career drivers are. I left a role in recruitment, which was, I was earning a lot of money. I wasn't unhappy, but I actually wanted more of a work-life balance. I wanted more freedom. I didn't want to have to go into an office. So I then kind of scoped out, well, what's my vision of success for the next phase of my career? And I did this before having, having my daughter, which I'm quite glad I did because the recruitment world and having a child would have been not an easy balance. But my vision of success was I want to be working from anywhere with a laptop. If I sit in my gym gear all day and go to yoga at lunchtime, I can do. So that was more of a driver than how much money I was earning. And I think we can change our vision of success as we go through stages of our lives and our career. And there might be certain points where, okay, I want to ramp up in terms of the visibility I'm getting, the money I'm earning, the promotions I'm getting. That might be a stage in your career, but then it might, you know, it might flip again. So again, when we look at that, what are we moving towards, it's really, you know, those achievements. What am I moving towards in terms of achievement? And that achievement might be I'm moving towards working 4 hours a day.

Yeah, that's a good— it's good to know, I think, because a lot of people think being successful means, you know, being on the hamster wheel. So it makes sense to me. I've got a couple of questions for you, Adele, and then we're going to get to your musical taste. So something that's on my mind is like, you've kind of seen the world, you've looked back and looked forward. So if you had a chance to look back again, would you have done anything differently knowing what you know now? And what would you have told your teenage self?

Big questions. Yeah. That's me. So, I think— so looking back, one of the things I kind of beat myself up a little bit for the first 10 years of my career, being a little bit wayward and not having any direction. So I do kind of wish I knew then some of the stuff I know now, so I didn't make some of the wrong career moves. However, in saying that, had I not made those wrong career moves, and zigzagged all over the place, I don't think I would be good at doing the work I do now. So it kind of— it was that path that led me to where I am today. I do really like it when I, I work with people and they're kind of, you know, mid to late 20s and they've already figured out that they need to have that direction. So I think, you know, having that career direction and really having a bit more of a structured, strategic development plan. So again, I think in my 20s, if I could have thought to myself, right, what do I want to be— what's the life I want to be living? What do I want to be doing? What do I want to have achieved by the time I'm 30? And actually, I didn't really do this work probably until mid-30s. So even if I'd done it at 30 and really mapped out where do I want to be at 40, I think would have just empowered me more and given me more control. I think, you know, I was in the passenger seat of my career journey rather than in the driver's seat, and it took me probably until about 37, 38 to get in the driver's seat. And so one of the things that gives me a lot of joy and fulfillment is helping people get in the driver's seat and go, that's where I'm going, I know why I'm going there, I know the stops I want to take on the way, and the achievements. We never actually reach the end destination because the goalposts move, but at least we're heading in the right direction. Because I spent between 20 and 30, like, I was totally lost without a map, in the wilderness, no idea what I was doing.

But it's good advice because, you know, I'm a firm believer in control— you control your own path, you know, don't wait for someone to knock on your door. So I really like that.

Yeah.

And again, for people listening, look, we've spoken a lot about superpowers and you know, a bit about your past and some ideas. But if I wanted to get back to the title and said, what are the quickfire things, if I'm listening, to leverage my superpower? So I know what they are, what are the quickfire things? Give me 3 things I need to do to leverage them. What would they be?

So 3 things. I would ask a close colleague or friend to say, what do you think I'm great at? So you've got external kind of view on what you're great at, write those down. Spend probably, if you can, a week with a little diary or notepad and pen, and once or twice a day, even if it's just at the end of the day, look back at what you've done throughout that day and kind of go, that brought me energy, that didn't bring me energy. So that's going to give you kind of two points of reference in terms of in terms of what you're good at, and then kind of assess that in terms of how much of my role is giving me energy and not giving me energy, and what could I change. And sometimes it's not, it's not huge. Perhaps you've got too much people, client-facing contact, and you prefer to be on the delivery and the detail and behind the scenes. So it's just then, you know, or vice versa, it just can be small changes that you can start to see, I need to navigate my career a bit more in that direction to bring me to a point where I'm doing things that are energizing me more.

And then what can I do to put them into practice? So I now know what they are, and my friends have told me what I'm good at and I should be putting to practice. What can I do with them?

So it's really, you know, looking at your role, then kind of, you know, mapping out your role. Okay, well, if this is what I'm great at, if this is what brings me energy, but my role is 80% of the stuff that doesn't bring me energy. It's either talking internally about how do you change, it's looking at, you know, what other options are there in that business or other businesses where I can kind of move and steer myself towards that. And again, it's aligning that with that vision that you're kind of moving towards for the, for the future.

Fantastic, this is so helpful. Adele, thanks so much for coming on. It's been really I can see your passion. You talked about your passion. It comes across. Thank you. I've really enjoyed it, and, uh, I'm going to make sure that I'm more shiny in the future. I definitely have energy, but I like the shiny word. That makes sense to me. So, so listen, we— for people listening, we have a podcast for our guests, things that— music that inspires them or they like. A couple of tracks from Adele, what can we add?

So for me, one that I think brings me lots of energy and, um, you know, gets can get me started on the days that I'm not feeling so shiny is You've Got the Love by Kandi Statton.

Nice, love that one.

But I do have a request actually, if I can throw two in the mix. So my daughter, when I said I had to pick a song to say here, she said I have to say I'm good, yes, I'm feeling all right, which I think is by David Guetta.

Nice one. Well, definitely add that in. We've got quite a lot of, uh, you know, good high beat music in the, in the mix. So we'll add that one in as well. Thanks so much.

Cool.

And Adele, thanks for coming on. It's been really interesting and helpful and inspiring. So thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you. And I hope that's given people a few little things that they can play with to, uh, uh, to find a bit more shine and spark in their careers.

Shine and spark coming up.

Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Thank you very much.

If you've enjoyed hearing from Adele and wished there was a way to hear more from her in a small group environment, then your wish is my command. Adele runs a variety of small group programs, the next of which is starting at the beginning of September. Step Up, Stand Out and Shine is a 6-week small group program that takes people through the steps to uncover their superpowers so they can step up, stand out, and enter a shiny new chapter in their professional lives. You can find more info on Adele and the program at adelelea.com. All that's left for me to do is to say thank you for listening, and of course a massive thanks to Adele for joining us, and we'll see you next time.