2022
Vanvisa Agbayani-Musigapala
It was within me all along – investing in true emotional expression helped me see it.
You’ve probably heard the advice to be true to yourself. And increasingly, we’re encouraged to bring our authentic selves to work. But what does this actually mean and why is it important?
The nature of authenticity is that it will look, feel, and sound different for everybody.
According to Psychology Today, authentic people “strive to align their actions with their core values and beliefs with the hope of discovering, and then acting in sync with, their true selves.” My journey to greater authenticity has not only helped me accept a truer version of myself, but it has also – surprisingly – helped me realize a superpower. I call this core value a superpower because how I exist in the world feels so right and comfortable when I tap into it.
This is my story of how cultivating my authentic emotional expression connected me to my superpower (read on to find out what it is!).
First, I invite you to reflect on a few questions:
I’ve always thought of authenticity as something of a self-cultivating, self-encouraging concept where I openly communicate my emotions and own my vulnerabilities in front of those that I’m comfortable with. As I went through the Design To Be Training, I learned that in addition to owning my emotional expressions, a big part of authenticity is to also encourage this very same emotional expression in others. Understanding authenticity as a combination of self-awareness and encouragement of the same healthy behaviors in others has been eye-opening. I have a stronger sense of empathy in how I approach collaboration and how I show up professionally.
Key here is professionally - as a career transitioner into the UX / Product Design space, I have made it my mission to be as authentic as I can, in any space. I vowed to not reduce myself to a more palatable version for a corporate environment, for any companies or teams I would join. I’m truly fortunate to have been on experienced design teams with high emotional intelligence, where I found myself slowly owning my voice by asking questions, expressing fear and owning doubts to my teammates (former and current), and slowly bringing pieces and flavors of my personal self into my professional work, bit by bit.
By understanding what feels authentic to me, through my experiences of building trust at both individual and team levels, I was able to realize my superpower is joy. A piece of me that has always felt authentic is bringing joy into any spaces I step foot in – personally, and now professionally. One of the things I enjoy most is seeing people laugh at a good, entertaining story, whether shared by me or a teammate.
I choose the word realize intentionally because I’ve always had this joy within me – as both a superpower and a core value that I resonate with. Joy looks different for everyone, and my version is simply arriving as my authentic, curious self, with all my quirks and where I ask questions, share stories, and make sure I leave the room having gotten at least some waves of laughter from those I interact with. Over the past 2 years, I’ve developed joy as one of my core values because it’s something I truly believe in when I collaborate, face a challenge, or exist as a person in complex systems. Realizing this superpower was a surprise, but it feels completely right in how I live: I see it in both my personal and professional lives. I arrived at this realization through a combination of reflection and retrospection and the feedback I receive from those around me – how I exude joy in meetings, how I make people smile when we interact, and how I bring enthusiastic energy in how I show up.
As designers, we often hear the term superpowers in the form of design superpowers, like prototyping or tackling complex problems. Figuring out your design superpowers can help you understand what value or specialty you bring to your team, and it involves a combination of two core emotional intelligence practices: building self-awareness and soliciting feedback. Admittedly, I find that to be quite intimidating because design superpowers suggest I have to be excellent, and while I’m sure I’ll develop some technical superpowers as I grow in my career, joy resonates with me as a core value and feels more human, more attainable. I exist with this joy and choose to bring joy into what I do. It is the humanness in how I exist that can only grow and evolve but never become obsolete, unlike technical skills. To me, a superpower is a core value + authenticity.