Looking Like Someone Who Poses No Threat Is a Superpower

In 2024 I took a course in public speaking. One of the homework assignments was to prepare a talk for the group on a given theme. I chose the theme “my superpower.” For a few days I turned over what it might be, and then I remembered some of the hardest negotiations of my life, and everything fell into place.

I’ve always looked a lot younger than I am. It was sharpest around 30, when I passed for something like 20. Back then I was building my business hard, and nobody in Russia had cancelled the fashion for looking tough — least of all after the legacy of the 90s.

When I’d show up to meetings, especially when the talk turned to dividing up resources, assets, cash flows, I almost always found myself among grim men, often much older than me, with stern faces. It felt like a silent contest: whoever looks harder is in charge. In that contest I didn’t stand a chance.

So how was I supposed to defend my interests in conditions like that? What superpower could I possibly be talking about?

Now, looking back on those events, I’ve realized that it was precisely because I didn’t look like a threat that I got what I came for.

Strange as it sounds, the very fact that they didn’t see me as an equal meant they listened, and they heard me. My face and my calm way of laying things out didn’t trigger any sense of rivalry. I wasn’t challenging their authority, I wasn’t showing aggression. I’d just describe how things might play out if this or that decision were made, and how it could be worth somebody’s while (without forgetting my own interests), with no attempt to push or force my opinion on anyone. And often I was floating pretty radical ideas about redrawing spheres of influence or ownership stakes, where someone at the table stood to lose money or part of a business. Those intentions could provoke real fury and rage. But to shout at, insult, or threaten some “kid” would have made their own position even weaker. I suppose the unwritten rule about not picking on your juniors is what saved me in those years.

I didn’t need to be the one making the decisions for everyone. I had no wish to become a target in business showdowns. Looking like a teenager with “harebrained” ideas, I could plant them in the heads of the people who carried the most weight, and they’d pass my thoughts off as their own.

I remember how embarrassed I was back then, how self-conscious about not looking like a boss, about not being taken seriously. Now I understand that this quirk taught me a kind of wisdom in how to get a thought across — to avoid head-on collisions, to stay flexible. And it may well have kept me physically safe too.

These days I use this ability on purpose. By not posing a threat to your opponents, and always leaving them a way to save face, you can achieve far more than in open confrontation — even when you already have both the strength and the resources for that fight.

Here’s to accepting yourself and finding your own superpower! 😎