Superpower

Superpower

In recovery, we have A LOT of aphorisms (that’s a fancy word for “pithy observations”). One is, “Your story is your superpower.” I was recently at the awards event for Hope Is Alive staff. As one person after another came up to receive their award and make their acceptance “speech,” I was amazed at the stories of transformation, calling, and hope. They were all celebrations of how far they had come, but they included the very difficult journey it took to get there.

The people I listened to that night are leaders. Leaders in the purest sense of the word. The awards they received included “Rookie of the Year,” “Word of the Year Carrier,” “Value Keeper,” and “Behind-the-Scenes MVP.” Their peers nominated them, voted for them, and then gave them standing ovations when they were called to the stage. In their acceptance speeches, they were humble, grateful, amazed, and emotional—and they told their story. The people they do life with see them—and experience them—as leaders.

I’ve been thinking about why their stories carry so much weight. Why does telling the hard part of your story make people trust you more, not less? I think there are four reasons, and they apply whether you’re standing at a podium in a recovery center or sitting in a conference room at work.

Your story creates connection like nothing else can. Credentials create distance as often as they create connection. Your title, your tenure, your track record—those things might earn respect, but they rarely earn trust. What earns trust is when someone looks across the table at you and thinks, “They’ve been somewhere hard. They know what it feels like.” The people at that awards ceremony weren’t connecting with each other’s résumés. They were connecting with each other’s real lives. That kind of connection is immediate and deep in a way that accomplishments simply are not.

Your worst chapters become your most useful ones. The parts of your story you are most tempted to hide are often the most powerful to share. Not because suffering is romantic, but because the fall, the bottom, the moment everything broke—those are the chapters that make other people feel seen and less alone. The sanitized version of your life inspires no one. The real version—the one with the hard parts left in—changes people. I watched this happen in real time that night. Every time someone described their lowest moment, the room got quieter and leaned in closer.

Your story is proof of concept. Abstract hope is weak. Embodied hope—walking around in a room full of people—is something else entirely. When someone says, “I’ve been there, and I got through it,” they are not just offering encouragement; they are offering evidence. Evidence that people can change, that hard things can be survived, that the worst season is not always the last one. The “Mission Keeper” who stepped up to that podium wasn’t just telling a story. She was proving something was possible. That is extraordinarily powerful, and it does not require a title.

Your story gives others permission. This is maybe the most underappreciated thing a leader can do. When someone with authority and influence chooses to be honest about their struggle, it lowers the cost of honesty for everyone else in the room. People stop performing and start being real. I have watched this happen at Kimray. When leaders share genuinely, the people around them start to open up as well. Your story doesn’t just help the person hearing it—it creates a culture.

There is a catch, though. The story only becomes a superpower when it has been processed, not just experienced. Raw, unworked pain shared publicly is just chaos. It can make people uncomfortable, unsure of how to respond, and ultimately less likely to trust you. But pain that has been walked through, made sense of, and integrated into who you are—that is a different thing entirely. The work comes first. The sharing is the fruit of the work.

The men and women I watched that evening have done the work. That is why their stories carry weight. They are not performing vulnerability. They are simply telling the truth about a journey that changed them—and doing it in a way that invites others into the same possibility.

You don’t have to be in recovery to have a superpower. To have a story worth telling, you simply need to have lived honestly, done the hard work of making sense of your experience, and be willing to let people see the real version of you. Every leader has chapters they would rather skip over. The leaders who are most trusted—and most followed—are the ones who have stopped skipping. Tell your story. It is the Bison Way.