The Hottest Superpower for 2025: Immunity to Gaslighting.

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Over lunch, we were busy chitchatting as professional acquaintances tend to chitchat. With us it frequently gets heady, but this time devolved into mindless chatter because everyone needed to give their brain a vacation. At one point somebody asked — I don’t know who, either Cyndi or Jason, it doesn’t matter — “If you could have just one superpower, what would it be?” After a chuckle, they went back and forth.

My first thought was A normal human being would have asked ‘If you could be a marvel superhero which one would you be?’ But they live on the margins of the zeitgeist and didn’t ask the question in a conventional context. So, their answers weren’t ‘I would be Wonder Woman, a characterization of the best traits of humanity.’ Or even ‘I’d like to have Doctor Strange’s ability to transport through time and space.’ However, each reply was reflective of the person’s inherent nature to add greater meaning to their lives or some benefit to all of humanity. They all described their new talents the way superheroes would. Not villains. I thoroughly enjoyed silently drinking it all in.

As it went on for a couple of minutes, it must have become painfully obvious to them that I hadn’t spoken. Both heads swung in my direction. “You’ve been quiet,” one of them announced like it was an accusation. “If you could have a superpower what would it be?” They both lovingly demanded an answer. Of course I had been preparing an answer and I wanted to be funny at the same time. I wasn’t funny at all. I just said, “No superpowers for me, thank you.” Everyone sitting at the table immediately protested, accusing me of feigning some high level of enlightenment or that I was pretending to be comfortable as a self-actualized mortal. Nothing could have been further from the truth. When it died down, I gave my reasoning. “I could never be trusted with a superpower. Within the first day I will have found a way to abuse it.”

Yes, give me superhuman strength and I would dismember somebody that pissed me off ten years ago. Give me the ability to time travel and I’d definitely go all Biff Tannen and go back to 2002 and put all my money into Netflix’s first IPO then ride the stock split in 2015. I’d take those earnings and drop a huge half-time wager because I’d know the Patriots are definitely going to come back from a 28-to-3 deficit and win the Super bowl against the Falcons. They laughed, but I assured them, “Trust me, if I had invisibility no one would be safe,” I said smirking. And then laughed a bit too awkwardly. “Maybe I can’t be trusted with power.” I was a bit chagrinned, “The villains come from somewhere.” I stopped short of presenting myself as a complete sociopath. I think.

A few minutes later when the conversation died down. I returned back to the topic and said, “So no superpowers, but I think I’ve developed a super habit.” To these people, this type of comment begs to be explored and discussed. And I had them hooked. We talked through the idea together, and it sounded like this:

As with any comic book character, I am flawed in my ‘mortal human’ form. Yes, it’s true, Deadpool and I are equally and annoyingly sarcastic, but that’s not important right now, so please focus. I carry a lack of self-confidence or anxiety that pops up at the most inopportune times. Everyone does, right? Sometimes when under a slow weight of pressure I don’t trust my own comprehension. A week or a month later, I occasionally second guess what I understood or what was believed to be true at the time.

So, I explained that one habit that I’ve taken to is note taking. It helps me keep track of minutiae. Jason commented, “I have noticed you always carry a notebook” and recalled I had one when we were on stage in the panel discussion earlier that morning. He was kind enough not to poke fun. Good man. He’d make a damn fine superhero.

“That’s my super habit. Wait, no, yes, like it’s my arc reactor.” I grinned with pride.

They stared at me in an unknowing and awkward silence until someone else declared, “That would be the lamest superpower, ever.” Then followed with, “But why do you call it a super habit?”

“…I guess I’d say my armor, it was never a distraction or a hobby; it was a cocoon”-Tony Stark. Iron Man 3 (2013)

The coolest superpowers often come from some sort of accident. Like when Peter Parker was bitten by a spider or Bruce Banner was exposed to gamma radiation. Deadpool was dying of cancer and his journey led to his brutally comedic immortality. When Tony Stark had metal shrapnel buried near his heart, he built his mini-arc reactor to save himself. Once he inserted it into his chest, he quite literally couldn’t live without it. This resonates with me.

A few years back I was in a bicycling accident and suffered temporary amnesia. I couldn’t remember the crash or why I crashed. I couldn’t remember where I worked or the car I drove, or even what state I lived in. I didn’t remember my wife finding me and getting me into an ambulance. I’m told that for a while I was stuck in a thirty second loop. The loop always began with “I think I fell.” Which, I’m also told, was initially very discerning to hear and then the repetition quickly degraded to annoying.

My first memory after the accident — the point at which my long(er)-term memory began recording — began when, laying in an ER bed, I noticed a paper in my left hand. Someone took the time to type it. They must have placed it in my hand to shut me up.

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These statements must have been answers to questions I could not stop asking. But also, the note also confirmed a few things: When I knew nothing else, I was concerned about the safety of others. And I was concerned about loved ones. That in itself, was and remains life affirming. When I knew nothing else, I somehow revealed I might be a good person afterall.

If someone tried to take the note, my hand recoiled immediately. I held it during the CAT scans and MRIs and all the other whirring machines and tests that showed I had no permanent damage. At some point a day later, a doctor managed to take it from me at the end of his shift. He pulled out a pen and wrote “You will be fine!” then stuck it back in my hand before abruptly turning on his heels and walking out of the room.

In the forty-eight hours after the accident I still couldn’t remember much but I was released when my memory — that loop of recorded recollection — got longer. Rest assured, as I write this over five years later, aside from the accident itself, all my memory recordings have since been recovered and new ones are made normally.

That little note was a foundational point. It was an inception point. It was also a safety blanket in the truest sense. I still have that note tucked in one of dozens and dozens of journals in my office. If I pulled it out from between the pages, it would reveal the imprint of my left thumb that once held it in a death grip. In the weeks that followed I had time to reflect.

While recovering from that accident, I applied my existing habit of note taking and used it to help rebuild my memory. After I had a conversation with somebody on the phone, I would write down what I remembered and then send them a photo of my notes, asking “Is this what we talked about? Did I forget anything?” This not only helped me rebuild memory, but also restore confidence. Like Tony Stark’s need to maintain an arc reactor in his chest, I’d become dependent on writing notes. If you want to call me a ‘real-life Tony Stark’ or ‘The Hulk, but with decent penmanship’ I would humbly say that’s a bit of a stretch. But you go ahead and call me that if you want to.

Only when I was done telling Cyndi and Jason this story did I realize that it was an amazing story indeed. It felt good to tell it. It felt good to have come through it. It was clear that learning to build my memory became my superhabit. I’ll continue below with my thoughts since that day I told one of my best stories.

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IN MY PERSONAL LIFE: I take lots of notes. I have lots of notebooks. Shelves and boxes of them, in fact.Some are personal and reflective. Within each one and on each page, the writing looks like anything from a list of facts, photos glued onto pages, a diagram or mapping of ideas with arrows or circles around them, dirty pictures I’ve drawn, and even lengthy paragraphs. I have the beginnings of dozens of scenes and plots of stories yet to be written. I have reflections on relationships and plans for my futures. Yes, you may recognize this because possibly you do this too.

IN THE WORKPLACE: Like you, I’ve sat at meetings typing on a laptop or tablet. Or you too had a notebook open, calmly taking notes. This is not at all unique. I, however, need my notes to get through the day. I no longer rely on memory for those supremely important or stressful things. I put great effort in important situations to capture the essence or outcome of a conversation. I capture discussions with words and scribbled diagrams and lists of key points. Different ideas are annotated with a simple coding system that lets me know if something in just informational or if I have to take action on something. When a new direction is given, I note it clearly and have a new understanding and the date in which change occurred and who gave that new goal or tactic.

An unexpected benefit: I can’t be gaslighted.

It is very common for all of us to see phrases like “That’s not what I said,” or “That’s not what we agreed to” become stumbling blocks to progress. I have an increased immunity to those moments. My list of things to do (AKA: “deliverables” in office-speak) is rarely - if ever — lost or forgotten. In our fast-paced world where our digital attention spans are measured in seconds, not minutes, notebooks have been my Ironman suit. I don’t have to suffer through my own self-doubt. I don’t worry — or I should say I worry less — about my ability to recall the minutiae. Instead, when I’m in those situations where recollections between people don’t align, I have an Ironman suit.

“With great power comes great responsibility.”Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben. Amazing Fantasy #15 (1962).

In comic books and movies a superpower must be used responsibly and with great intent. And it is the same with this superhabit. I’ve had to learn to wield it carefully. I’ve learned through mistakes — such as reading people’s words right back to them — it can be very uncomfortable if done without tact. However, it’s still invaluable because when I have a conversation with somebody a month later and they say “that’s not what I said” or “you misunderstood me” I’m no longer in doubt and I no longer feel self-conscious. It’s important at this point to explore how memory works:

Memory — that thing our brain does to record information and allow us to recall it later — is a weird thing. Recollection isn’t one thing but rather the combination of the brain interpreting, storing, and retrieving information. Memories are scattered throughout the brain, with different brain cells and regions working together to create a single memory. Accessing an event — that specific point in time — is a mysterious process. As I understand the research, we don’t actually remember events. When we think of something that happened, our brains do not provide us a recording of the moment. Rather, what we call a memory is us remembering our REMEMBERANCES of an event. Each time we remember something we are, to some extent, overwriting the event. And that’s an important thing about all of us as humans; our memories are in fact very fallible. Stress levels can impact memory retention. Low levels of stress can help form long-lasting memories and too much or chronic stress can impair memory. This applies to the repeated recollection process, as well.

Have you ever been so sure of something that you never had a doubt in your mind of what actually happened but then when somebody who else was there remembers it differently you’re instantly filled with doubt. When you write things down, you don’t need to recall the moment and risk your memory’s faults.

Did it really happen that way that I remember? Or are they right it didn’t happen that way but it happened the way they remember it? And then you spend hours and days questioning yourself. Am I fooling myself? Did I remember it the way I wanted to remember it or the way it actually happened?

This is the funny thing about gaslighting: Sometimes the person who remembers things differently does so not out of their own poor memory, but their own changing needs and opinions. Imagine somebody senior to you or somebody who holds power over you formally or informally and they say something like ‘you misunderstood what I said.’ If you take a moment I’m sure you can remember a time when somebody accused you of misremembering or misunderstanding. That can be devastating to your self confidence. Maybe that’s a key takeaway from many comic book characters: they are just like the rest of us, but they’ve developed something that protects themselves. They’ve evolved a liability into a power.

So no, absolutely not. I don’t want a superpower. I would definitely use that for evil. I’m not proud of that but I’m honest about it. But I do like to build superhabits and in this case the benefit of a superhabit is I can never be gaslighted. Not by the faults of my own memory and not by the faults of other’s memories as well.

Author’s note: To date, I have never been considered “The Deadpool of Scrums” but there’s still hope.