Superpowers for Good
The Skills You Can Master to Leave Your Mark on the World—Launching September 7, 2021.
Welcome to Superpowers for Good by me, Devin Thorpe. Over the past decade, I’ve interviewed more than 1,200 people—including Bill Gates—for my podcast. Hundreds of times, I asked my guests, “what is your superpower?” The answers are so inspiring, I’ve written a book about them, and I’m relaunching the newsletter and podcast here with a focus on the skills changemakers call their superpowers.
Some episodes of the podcast and other posts here will be available only to paying subscribers. This newsletter is my primary source of income. Your support is deeply appreciated. If you subscribe before the September 7, 2021 launch, you’ll get a lifetime discount of 33% off the already low price.
Each week, I will send at least one post to all subscribers.
The focus will be the lessons we can learn from amazing changemakers. Are they superheroes? They are no more superheroes than patience or optimism are literal superpowers. With this newsletter, I don’t want to encourage a white savior mentality. I’ve seen that guy. Painfully, I should admit, I’ve been that guy.
For the past decade, I’ve worked to align my journalistic writing—much of it for Forbes—with the principles of solutions-oriented journalism, which focuses on repeatable efforts that provide measurable relief to social and environmental problems. This dogma holds that there are no heroes, examining the processes and tools rather than the people wielding them.
Here’s the thing. Over and over again, I found the people were essential to the processes. How do you remove Bill Gates from a story about the Gates Foundation? He isn’t a savior. He isn’t a Marvel superhero. There are, however, things we can learn from him.
We can also learn powerful and vital lessons from the BIPOC women who have been—and will be—guests on the podcast. I strive to have women be more than half the guests.
Last year, I ended my eight-year run contributing to Forbes to run for Congress. Despite my experiment in politics, this newsletter and podcast are not political. Guests are not screened for political affiliation. We do look for people of impact.
My new book, Superpowers for Good: The Skills You Can Master to Leave Your Mark on the World, is due out on September 7, 2021.
Sign up now, so you don’t miss the first issue.
In the meantime, tell your friends!