The morning began like so many others, with a devotion. The passage that day was about Moses. He was not the kind of man who ever asked for the spotlight. In fact, his first instinct was to run from responsibility. Yet God placed him in front of Pharaoh, asked him to speak words that would determine the fate of nations, and used him to lead a people into freedom.

Moses did not perform miracles to prove his greatness. He did not summon plagues to draw attention. He was obedient, patient, and consistent. He interceded in prayer, persevered through resistance, and walked with integrity. Even Pharaoh’s people respected him. Those traits of patience, consistency, discernment, prayerfulness, tenacity, and credibility were not his natural strengths. They were activated in the pressure of calling.

That morning I realized Moses’ journey echoed my own.

The Leader Who Never Wanted to Lead

Back in 2018, I was asked to set up an international school. To many people, that might have sounded exciting. For me, it felt unbearable. I was content with a small preschool. Life was simple, steady, and filled with familiar rhythms. Why disrupt it?

If you had asked me then what superpower I wanted, I would have said invisibility. I was a wedding photographer once, and the gift of photography for me was simple: no one looked at the one holding the camera. All eyes were on the bride and groom. I could move quietly in the background, unseen. That was the kind of life I preferred. No stage. No spotlight. No speeches.

But calling does not ask if you are comfortable. It asks if you are willing. And the expansion of Stellar International School was not about me. It was about a vision bigger than myself. That was the beginning of what I now call my superpower activation.

Invisibility and the Weight of Visibility

The irony of life is that the very thing you resist often becomes the ground where you grow. For me, invisibility felt safe. Yet leadership demanded visibility.

Instead of hiding behind a camera, I had to step onto a stage. Instead of quietly doing my work, I was now the one people looked to for decisions. As the founder and CEO of Stellar Education Group, I had to carry responsibility that my nature wanted to avoid.

Everything in me resisted. I had never loved commitment. I had avoided long-term promises. I was quick to walk away when things grew difficult. Yet over time, those very fears became the soil where new strengths were activated.

I failed nine times before Stellar International School became a reality. My natural tendency would have been to quit. But each failure reaffirmed the vision. Each closed door made the calling clearer. And so I continued, not because persistence was in my personality, but because purpose had been planted deep within me.

Persistence was not discovered. It was activated.

What Really Unlocks Superpowers

The leadership literature calls these defining points crucible moments. These are times of adversity that forge identity. Warren Bennis described them as “trial by fire” experiences that create leaders. But I prefer to call them superpower activations.

They are the moments when reluctance collides with responsibility, when fear meets faith, when comfort gives way to calling.

History is filled with them. Nelson Mandela endured twenty-seven years in prison. Those years became his forge, transforming suffering into credibility, bitterness into patience, and weakness into moral authority. The Wright Brothers, with only a bicycle shop and limited funds, outlasted Samuel Langley’s well-funded attempt to fly because their purpose was stronger. They had a why that activated their persistence. John Maxwell calls it the Law of Victory: leaders find a way for the team to win.

Biology shows the same truth. Muscles only grow when their fibers are stressed and torn. Human anatomy has not changed for thousands of years. Two eyes. One heart. One brain. Yet life expectancy has doubled in the past century, not because our design changed, but because environment, medicine, and technology activated capacities already within us. Pressure shapes growth. Resistance makes us stronger.

Invisibility was the superpower I wished for. But visibility, responsibility, and persistence were the superpowers I actually needed.

Listening to the Unspoken

That same evening I sat with my father. He mentioned a news story from Japan: more and more people were neglecting the old ritual of visiting and cleaning family tombs. Urbanization, busyness, and shifting values had made it easy to let go of practices once sacred. Many temples now offer time-limited arrangements for ashes, after which remains are placed in communal memorials.

At first, it seemed like just a passing observation. But I knew it meant more. My father is not a man of many tears. He did not cry when his parents died. He always appeared calm. Yet I cannot remember a year when he missed sweeping the tombs of my grandparents and even my great-grandparents. His words may have downplayed tradition, but his actions revealed its meaning.

In that moment, I realized legacy is often carried not in speeches but in repeated acts of quiet consistency. It is the unspoken that reveals what truly matters.

So I told him I wanted to record his story, to capture his lifeline so that future generations would never lose it. I even found a book titled Dad, I Want to Hear Your Story, a simple tool filled with questions to guide the conversation. What began as a form of homework became a way of preserving legacy.

Superpower activation does not only happen in organizations. It also happens in families. Sometimes it is as simple as recognizing what matters to those you love, even when they never say it aloud.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

Looking back, I see the paradox clearly. The superpower I wished for, invisibility, was really a form of escape. It was about running away, about avoiding pressure, about not being seen. But the superpower I actually needed, visibility, responsibility, credibility, was the one that tied me to purpose, people, and legacy.

Victory is not the absence of struggle. It is the transformation of struggle into strength.

So the real question is not what superpower do you wish you had. The question is what struggle is waiting to activate the one you already carry.

When that activation happens, you realize, as I did, that it was never about you. It was always about the people you were called to serve, the community you were entrusted to build, and the legacy you were meant to leave.