We all have superpowers. Most people call them talents. And sure, skills can be learned and honed, techniques can be perfected, but talent is that one thing that you can do better than most people and that comes easier to you than anyone you have ever met. Mine is storytelling. Storytelling is also connecting the dots between people who might have a lot to say to each other, connections between businesses that might do great things by combining their strengths, connections between professionals that can help each other with their respective projects: they light up before my eyes like the luminous path that is supposed to guide you to safety on a plane.
What do you do with a superpower?
It took me a while to realise that they weren’t always obvious to most poeple. Am I saying that all you got to do in life is find your talent and then float along to what you can do effortlessly? Not at all: once you found your superpower, that’s when the real work begins. And that work consists in finding ways to use your great power for good (and maybe to support yourself in the process) and to leverage the great responsibility that comes with it. There are times when that doesn’t pan out as planned, times when it all goes a bit “meh”, and times when it works like a charm and I sit through a fantastic event, rejoicing in all the good that will come from having brought the right people together at the right time and to speak about it.
CREATING CONNECTIONS WITH ROCKCHAIN
Working together with Danit Gal and Cassandra Melvin who founded ROCKCHAIN in 2017 is a very inspiring and meaningful experience of female empowerment and female collaboration. ROCKCHAIN is an invite-only network for women who are influential in their field. The mission of ROCKCHAIN is to connect for impact. Danit´s expertise as a HR and talent acquisition consultant and Cassandra´s corporate background as director of operations at SEMI leads to top-notch content events with makes ROCKCHAIN an outstanding female network for working women who want to connect for impact rather than just talking about it.
I joined them as their PR lead in the beginning of this year, and we co-created a Rockchain event called “From WHY to HOW” which was hosted at Techstars’ office in Berlin on March 10th. For those not in the know, Techstars is a Berlin-based startup accelerator with a mission to nurture promising enterprises and help them form the kind of connections that allow them to flourish and change the world. Which is a mission I strongly relate to, hence we were very happy to get Managing Director Jag Singh on board for this amazing event.
One connection flared up before us like fireworks in the night sky: the one between Jag’s Techstars and Lubomila Jordanova, C.E.O. and founder of PlanA.Earth, one of the most promising and relevant startups I have come across in years. PlanA.Earth has developed the first Emissions Reduction Software, which allows businesses to calculate, monitor and reduce their carbon footprint monthly. Now, in a world that is just barely starting to move again after standing still for almost two months and trying to do so more sustainably, can you think of a more meaningful mission or a more useful piece of technology? Lubomila was the event’s first keynote speaker and the first of an all-female panel that took the audience through several ways in which we can find meaning in our work and use our motivation to find creative ways to drive results.
You can read all about the panel and its other speakers in this illuminating post by Yasmine Genena, explaining how attorney Carly E. Howard explored the differences between the generalist and the specialist approach (something that every serial entrepreneur can relate to instantly), and how Susie Kahlich, Founder of Pretty Deadly Self Defense, showcased her amazing, empowering project to teach self-defense for women in an easy, accessible way.
And then, just to make things even more perfect, one of my favourite projects of this year was presented: the WW2020 Storytelling Contest, which you can read all about it here and which has been met with overwhelming enthusiasm by women from all over the world.
DO YOU NEED HELP HARNESSING YOUR SUPERPOWER?
Why did I just tell you all this? To tell you that you too have a superpower, and you probably channeled through a project you love, a project with the potential to change the world. And if you are struggling to find meaningful connections to help your project take off properly, it may be because that’s my superpower. And I’m happy to help.
