46. ​​What potential do I actually possess and how can I develop it?

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset. This channel is for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible in life. Today’s topic is potential. Personally, it took me years to realize how incredibly difficult it is to truly understand what potential means. But then I finally sat down and tried to understand what kind of potential I actually possess. And I have an interesting story to tell about that.

I have a really good friend who, back in my youth, or maybe even his, played a lot of basketball. He was a really good player and got pretty far, and everyone thought, “Wow, that guy’s got potential.” He had real talent. Then, for whatever reason, he quit and took up another sport, Mixed Martial Arts. He was also incredibly good at that, got really far, and immediately had the physical attributes to become a real pro fighter, but he quit that too.

Then he played American football for a while, right away in the top league. You have to understand, he’s a huge guy, pretty broad, big hands and all that. So it definitely fits that he played at a pretty high level right away. But even there he didn’t progress any further, and I don’t know the reasons why. But as with all his previous clubs, there was always this thought in the back of your mind when you thought about him: this guy has a lot of potential. Why he couldn’t fully realize it, that’s hard for me to judge personally.

What potential means to me

I believe there are many reasons, of course. But I’ve been thinking, hey, if someone has potential, what do they need to do to unleash that potential? I also ask myself, for example, hey, where does my potential actually lie? Or, of course, I already ask myself about my children, what kind of potential do they have and how can I even ignite that potential? I’ve spent a long time thinking, hey, what can I do differently in my own life to fully realize and unleash my potential?

I still find it difficult; I still don’t have any concrete answers. But what I definitely want to share with you today is that I believe potential exists when you can structure your day, or rather, structure it largely in a way that you consider meaningful. Of course, that’s a very vague way of putting it, because I think it’s incredibly difficult to be super specific, since there are just so many different potentials within a person that simply exist and need to be realized.

Consciously use one’s own strengths

To stick with my example, I think I’m a pretty good project manager. Of course, I have many weaknesses in other areas. But I believe project management is a good thing, and how can I unleash my full potential as a project manager? Or how can I unleash my full potential as a podcaster? And that brings me back to the point: how do I spend most of my day in a way that I can say was meaningful, how did I spend my day because I was able to fully utilize my strengths?

To delve a little deeper into this area, or to explore it further, I’ve also been thinking, hey, it’s mostly connected to whether I can live out and unleash my potential, whether I can do the things that are important to me, that are good for me, where I can fully utilize my strengths. And it’s kind of about whether I’m actually playing a supporting role in my own life. Am I driven by others, or am I playing a leading role in my own life and able to drive what I consider important?

You can imagine who can drive me when I’m not the main focus: sometimes it’s my employer, sometimes my partner, family, friends, business partners, and so on. It all depends on whether I’m driving my own life forward or being driven by others. And of course, work is a factor. I think most people work eight to ten hours a day. I think that’s the most common average.

Meaningful work and self-determination

And you have to ask yourself, do I enjoy this job or not? Is it meaningful work I’m doing, or is it meaningless work? Of course, that depends on your own definition. But I think you know the general idea. It’s mainly about whether I can control my own time and say, “This is meaningful work, and I’ve done it today.” I’ve expanded all my activities in that direction.

Continued

Work is just one aspect of life, albeit a larger one, but there are other aspects to life as well. And I’ve been thinking whether realizing one’s potential also means, for example, giving love to loved ones. What I mean by that is, many people have friends, family, partners, children, and so on, but they haven’t expressed the full potential for love that they actually possess. And that’s a shame, of course, and for me, it’s also an indicator of whether I’ve spent the day in a way that’s truly worthwhile.

And meaningful work is definitely when you can say, “I’ve given love to my loved ones,” or, another point, “I’ve developed physically or mentally.” It’s obviously very easy to just drift along. You do your job, learn nothing new there, come home, watch a little TV, learn nothing new there either, and don’t exercise. So it’s incredibly easy to essentially not develop at all, but I believe that physical and mental development is absolutely essential to further develop one’s potential.

Identify the available resources

The issue of available resources also comes into play. We all have different resources. Some have a lot of money in the bank, which translates to significant resources in a monetary sense. Others have less money, but perhaps they have a large network they can leverage. And I naturally ask myself, for example, have I used my resources effectively? Is the money I’ve saved simply sitting idle, or have I invested it in ETFs? Or, if I take an employee’s mother, have I utilized her effectively? Have I leveraged her strengths, or are she performing tasks where she’s less productive, thus hindering our overall progress as a company?

So, it’s a really interesting question: how effectively have I used the resources around me? And resources can be anything. If I have a network, have I used my mentors or advisors correctly? Have I made good use of my family for a certain project I’m about to undertake? Do I have a house renovation coming up? And have I asked my sister? Have I asked my uncle, and so on, if they can help me? In short, how do I use resources correctly and effectively?

One thing is also clear to me: we not only have different levels of resources available to us, but also different capacities. Physically, we are all different; mentally, we are all different. We have different interests, different character traits. I believe one must also distinguish between whether I have used my capacity correctly, in the sense that I have used my resources correctly.

Potential as exemplified by basketball

What I mean is, I’m a huge basketball fan, which is why I’m including this basketball comparison. There’s this incredibly short player. The shortest basketball player of all time in the NBA, he was 1.60 meters tall, his name is Maxi Bogues. And of course, when you compare him to one of the strongest and tallest players of all time, Shaquille O’Neal , this 1.60-meter man used his resources and abilities perfectly, at the right time, and he succeeded.

I think he was in the NBA for 14 years. Please don’t quote me on that, I think it was a really long time. And he basically got the most out of his height – unfortunately, very important in basketball – playing in the NBA for years and earning the respect of all the other players. He fully utilized his potential. Shaquille O’Neal , also a top basketball player, of course, but he had a poor free-scoring percentage.

Utilizing skills and capacities

He didn’t have the same training mentality as other players. He was incredibly good, but he didn’t fully utilize his potential. And I always ask myself that, too. Hey, I have certain abilities, did I fully utilize my abilities, my potential today, or did I actually prevent myself from doing so by occupying myself with pointless things? Another topic, which I also find really interesting, is that I know many people who I would say have potential. But they don’t realize it because, in my observation, they block themselves or even sabotage themselves in some way.

I find that very interesting too. I’ve even talked to a few people about it. “Hey, it’s been noticed that you’re blocking yourself right now. You actually have huge potential to move forward in this direction, but you’re not doing it.” And indeed, I’ve had a few conversations here and there, and people have actually told me, “Yes, that’s true.” Sometimes I know exactly what needs to be done, but I don’t do it. I don’t even know why. I use everything else as an excuse, all the excuses I have, just to avoid doing what’s actually the right thing to do in that moment.

Continued

That means, here too, it depends on how much I can realize my potential, whether I can, let’s say, mentally cope with the situation and avoid falling into a situation where I feel like I’m blocking myself, sabotaging myself. That’s a crucial point, and I think it’s not uncommon at all; there are quite a few people who basically know what to do but still don’t do it. For example, they know they need to change jobs because they’re not being supported, because they’re not advancing there, but they don’t do it. Instead, they spend half the day surfing the internet, or you know the examples. I don’t think I need to elaborate any further.

I also had a super interesting conversation about this with Daniel Schäfer back then, you might remember it, you can definitely listen to the podcast conversation again and it also touched on the fact that if you have recognized your own “why” in life, i.e. why you are even on this earth, what you actually want to achieve, if you then do nothing to at least get a little closer to that “why”, that is super fatal, so that you can really take off, because you actually know what makes you happy. But you still do it, you still do nothing to get there.

It’s best to listen again then..

Explore your own possibilities further

So guys, today’s topic was difficult for me, as you might have gathered. I’m constantly thinking about what my potential is, where my strengths lie. I always face the challenge of whether to invest more in my strengths or try to further improve my weaknesses. It’s incredibly difficult, and I don’t think there’s a real guide or, as I like to share with you, there aren’t really any “right” tools.

I believe it always depends on whether I play the main role in my life, meaning I drive my important issues forward, or whether I play some kind of supporting role, driven by my employer, my business partner, or whoever else. And I believe this is where the full development of one’s potential lies, because if I can spend my day the way I want to, the way I consider meaningful, because I have used my strengths, then I believe that one has definitely lived out one’s full potential, so to speak.

Finally, a short quote that I find extremely cool, I mean, I really think it’s something that’s made me think a lot. I mentioned it in another podcast episode, but I’d like to do it again today. It’s an anonymous quote, unfortunately, but I find it super interesting. If I translate it very briefly, someone once told me the definition of hell: on the last day you spend on Earth, the person you have become will meet the person you could have become.

A question about untapped potential

I find it incredibly interesting because it implies that perhaps, if I had fully realized my potential, for example, I would have become Chancellor, or President, or I would have founded Amazon instead of someone else. Perhaps that would have happened if I had lived up to my potential, if I had pursued it. So, as I said, the quote has come up before, but I found it incredibly interesting, and I definitely wanted to mention it again. It kind of resonates with me from time to time because I’m always thinking about where my own potential lies and how I can ensure that my children’s potential, for example, is ignited.

Okay everyone, I hope that even though I couldn’t share any concrete tools today, you were able to take away something about the topic of potential. If so, if you enjoyed it, as always, please leave a review, subscribe to the channel, and tell your friends and acquaintances about it, because that’s the only way the channel can continue to grow. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, don’t forget, mindset is everything.