Why we want to help others reach their potential

The world is an amazing place.  Most of your annoyances you should be thankful for and chalk them up as “first world problems” (i.e. before you complain about how you might hate your boss / job / life, be thankful that you aren’t in a third world country or you aren’t in a war-torn part of the world where in both cases having a job at all would be a luxury).  And with everything to be thankful for, what if we could make things a little better.

As the first blog post indicated, we feel that most people are like Michael Jordan.  Unfortunately that’s Michael Jordan in his baseball career, not his basketball career.  Mind you a career in the baseball major leagues is important.

That’s not everyone for sure as there are definitely those who have found their basketball.  But I’d estimate at least 50-60% (dare I go as high as 70-80%) of those that I have worked with are in this state.  Now I’m waiting for someone to put the numbers together based on research but if we assume that my anecdotal data is correct for an instance, imagine what the world would be like if 50-60% of the working population was performing to their potential…

I’m going to be controversial for a moment and I can imagine the hate mail, but if I were to ask you what would be a stereotypical industry where you’d say that people are not living up to their potential, what would come to mind?  I’m guessing public sector would be one of the first to come mind.  Now I know many amazing and hard working public sector workers that I’ve had the pleasure of working with.  Unfortunately for each of those, I could name a (small, maybe big) handful of others that were definitely not reaching their potential.  So if we could take those 50-60% and get them working to their potential, then imagine how much better government would be?  Now take the another industry and improve those 50-60%, and another, and another… How much better would the world be…

The interesting piece, at least to me,  is that if workers are engaged and working to their potential, they trend towards top performer status. Top performers are anywhere from 2-4 times (10x in roles requiring creative work) more output at high quality than their “average” counter parts.  This means that the 50% we are getting to their potential could be producing more than an ADDITIONAL 50% output.  And this is with our existing resources.

Imagine a world with 50% more everything being produced, WITHOUT 50% more resources being consumed.  It’s a very utopian thought but we believe we can make it a reality, and we’ll do it one person at a time if we have to.

We believe we are achieving our potential through career mentor coaching and want to make our extra contributions to the world.

Now think about yourself.  How much more of an impact would you want to have on the world?  What if you could double the contributions you provide to the world?  Wouldn’t you?

ABOUT FOCUS inspired

We are career catalysts looking to initiate the reactions that would not have otherwise happened towards your career success. “Personal trainers for your career” helping you turn knowledge into results!