Mindset story: What is your superpower?

Once upon a time, there was an ant named Ali who lived on a farm. Ali the ant had a problem. You see, Ali didn’t feel like a very important ant. Sometimes when you have lots of brothers and sisters there can’t be much time for a mom or dad to give that special time a little ant may want. Ali was also very small so small that lots of other creatures didn’t even notice him, well not unless he bit them. His bite was very hard, no one could bite someone like he did, and that was his superpower. When he would bite someone they would yell at him, swat at him, and be angry with him, but that really wasn’t the way he wanted others to notice him. He wanted to do something special with his superpower, but how could he when he felt so tiny and unimportant? He wondered what he could do. One day Ali the ant was going about his business, unnoticed in the crowd, when he heard some loud noise coming from the vegetable garden. You see, the man and woman who lived on the farm that Ali called home liked to eat nice fresh vegetables, so they grew their own. Their garden was their pride. They had fenced it off to keep the farm animals out, but on this particular day, a big billy goat had broken through the fence and started to gobble up their prized vegetables. The farmers did everything that they could to chase the goat out. They pushed and they pulled. They shouted and coaxed. They tried to dangle a carrot in front of Billy, but he remained as stubborn as an old mule and refused to leave. The man and the woman asked the speckled, red-combed rooster if he would help. The rooster was big and proud. He ruled the roost in the chicken coop, but when he screeched at the goat, “Get out of the vegetable patch!” Billy refused to go. The rooster flew at him, squawking, pecking, and flapping his wings in his most terrifying way, but Billy just butted the rooster over the fence and went on eating.

The man and woman turned to their faithful brown sheepdog who had no trouble herding flocks of thoughtless sheep across the paddocks. “Can you help?” they asked. Surely he would have no trouble with just one wayward goat. The dog barked, tapped, and growled in his most ferocious voice. But the billy goat turned, looked at the dog, butted the dog over the fence, and went on eating. The man was getting so distressed to see the vegetables disappearing into the goat’s mouth that he decided to get the biggest and strongest animal that was on the farm. He ran off to one of the paddocks and brought back his biggest, most powerful bull. The bull was huge, surely he would strike terror into the heart of the goat. The bull snorted and pawed at the ground, saying to the billy got, “Get out of the vegetable patch!” But when the goat started to butt at the bul with its shaped horns, the bull turned around and ran away like a coward. As the man and woman stood together wondering what else they could do Ali the Ant marched up to their feet and asked “Can I help?”

At first, they didn’t even notice where the tiny voice came from. When they looked down and saw the little ant, they burst out laughing. “What can you do that the fearsome rooster, wise sheepdog, or the powerful bull could not do? What is your superpower if I may ask?” they made fun of the ant. “Maybe there are things I can do that they can’t just as I can’t do some of the things they can do. Maybe you don’t have to be big and strong, but just be able to do what you do well,” replied Ali the ant. Well, the farmers didn’t know what else they could do. They were at their wits’ end and their vegetables were continuing to disappear into Billy’s mouth even as they watched. “We have tried everything else,” they acknowledged, “and that hasn’t worked. Have a go if you want.” “Sometimes,” said the ant, “when you have done everything you can, you need to try something new.” With that, Ali the ant walked off through the vegetable patch toward the goat. Ali was so tiny Billy didn’t even see him coming. He climbed up the goat’s hairy back leg so carefully that the goat didn’t even feel him. Ali gently marched along the goat’s backbone, right up to its head. Even more carefully, he crawled across to Billy’s right ear, found a piece of soft, tender flesh and then he bit as hard as he could. The goat leaped in pain and fright and fled from the vegetable garden. The billy goat never really knew what had happened so it never, ever returned to the garden to eat the farmers’ vegetables again. Ali felt very important when the farmers thanked him for using his “superpower” so helpfully and for doing what no other animal could have done. All the other ants thanked Ali, too because the man and woman from then on out let them wander through the vegetable patch to eat and drink whenever they wanted. From then on out the farmers were also very careful never to tread on any ant when they were walking around the farm partly because they were grateful for the help from Ali the ant, and partly because they were afraid that Ali would use his “superpower” on them.