Effortless Thursdays #15: Being different is a disadvantage, until it's your superpower

'Gostan' to go forwards

I used to be different.

I used to run round and round the playground, trying to avoid being “it”.

Amongst the scaredy shrieks of laughter, I shouted out to my classmate:

“Gostan! Gostan!”

Noooooo! Why wasn’t he doing what I suggested?

He was “it”. (For my American friends, “it” is the game of tag.)

Going backwards

Gostan is a word with Malay origins. You can hear it in Singapore, too, where my parents and aunts and uncles grew up: 

“Oh John, we just missed our turn…can you gostan and turn in again?”

Gostan means “to reverse” or “go backwards”.

My classmate was perplexed. He didn’t have the foggiest. And in that moment I was different. 

I was teased for that difference. Teased for that use of a word, familiar only to me at home where meals were infused with a Scrabble-tile bag of Cantonese, Hokkien, Malay and English.

I used to speak and write English poorly. So much so that my chances of securing a place to read law at St John’s College at the University of Cambridge were almost dashed. My teachers were concerned about my ability to write coherent, grammatically correct sentences when I wrote essays on Goethe’s Die Natur and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. So they wrote in with my application to caution the applications tutor.

I was put on notice to improve, or else.

Being different felt like I was the one who was gostan. 

Going forwards

At St John’s, I hung out with a group of friends from Hong Kong. 

(Yup, I figured out how to write essays in the way the examiners wanted, so my teachers wrote again to reassure the applications tutor, and I secured my place and the three A grades I needed.)

I felt at home - welcome - speaking my broken Cantonese again, flexing in and out of Cantonese and English. 

There’s something that speaks to the essence of being human about choosing the most apposite word to describe a situation.

• 有冇搞錯 in Cantonese is one of my favourites. It’s SO much better than saying "Are you kidding me?  What's wrong with you? This is so frustrating!” (I can see the smiles on my Cantonese speaking readers now!)

• Geil in German is another favourite - which describes a horny, randy, wicked coolness!

• “Aiya” you’ll hear around South East Asia with all the different intonations that can convey frustration, or surprise, or forgetfulness, and more

• And Jetinho Brasileiro - the “Brazilian way”. Well, there’s so much that is lost in the English translation. (Imagining the wry, knowing smiles on my Brazilian friends is just exquisite!)

Seeing things differently. Saying things differently. 

Speaking different languages differently turned out to be my superpower.

The words that I hear create worlds in my mind that are different.

• I connect the dots between words - and worlds - that others don’t see. 

• I see patterns where others don’t - in intonation, meaning, context, absence, silence.

• I see differences where others don’t.

And when I’m coaching, I spot the differences that make people unique: uncovering their superpowers in what feel like disadvantages.

After all, what we think influences what we feel, and what we feel influences what we do.

Uncover your superpower!

How do you see yourself?

Your differences are distinctive. They set you apart.

You could let them hinder you, and hold on to the negative stories you have about them.

I’m still different, but I don’t see that difference as a disadvantage any more.

How could you see your differences through the lens of a superpower.

How could your gostan help you move forward instead of back?

Over to you!

If you have any insights or ideas you’d like to share, email me, share your thoughts in the comments below, or reach out via Twitter or LinkedIn.

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