My 3 year old son, Ethan is an interesting fellow. And so is every person born of a woman. He has promise, just like any other 3 year old in the whole wide world.

“Very few people will dispute the fact that children are laden with potential, waiting to be exploited”.

 

Trouble is when the same three year old is gauged 55 years later.

He is unique, just like all of us are. To say that he has potential, you will have very many people in the world agree with you. Very few people will dispute the fact that children are laden with potential, waiting to be exploited.

Trouble is when the same three year old is gauged 55 years later. You ask someone if a 55 year old has potential, you get lots of doubts. That is understandable, given the way we have been programmed to think.

How to Unearth Potential

1. Get Revelation on the Potential Principle:

2.Take the Path of Most Resistance:

3. Lean onto Natural Gifts and Talents

When I was in Primary school, I had a natural gift of working with words, in speech and in writing. Every time the teacher would give a creative writing assignment, the whole class would start jostling for the second spot, because they knew that I already occupied the first!

I was naturally gifted in that area. Unfortunately, as I graduated on to High School, less and less focus was put on developing that gift…and I went for almost 10 years without focusing on my writing gift. I only picked up writing in 2011.

Question: What is there to show of my other pursuits in “education?” Not so much.

Question: What is there to show of my natural gifts in writing and speaking? Two books published, 4 more on the menu, plus this blog and many other speaking engagements that change people’s lives.

 

Why people do not pursue gifts and Talents

There are several reasons as to why a large percentage of the human population seldom pursue what they are gifted at:

1. Culture:

“It has always been that way”. A large percentage of people marvel at raw talents that they see…but still due to cultural norms, pursue a certain preset order of events in life. This is because the route of talent pursuit seemingly dos not have guarantees that all will be well. There is no guarantee that the gift and talents pursuit will earn you an equivalent of more of what a job will. So we conform, and push our gifts and talents to the periphery of life. It’s that sad.

2. Education:

A friend of mine says that the word “Education” comes from the root word “Educare” which means to “Draw out”. In other words, instead of concentrating on what we can pour in to a human being, how about we be fascinated by what we can draw out of them? How about making education a potential unearthing adventure?

“Those who fail that said examination are expelled by the system, discarded and labeled as ‘useless’…another sad fact”

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Our present education systems are based on mass production of people, individual based training is not there. The yardstick for different people with different abilities, talents and dispositions is the same examination. Those who fail that said examination are expelled by the system, discarded and labeled as ‘useless’.

In short, the primary core of education these days is not to unleash potential, but to train people for employment. Another sad fact

3. Focus

Still on the education system, if you wanted to find out the next steps for most of the graduates, they will tell you almost to a mathematical constant that they are looking for a job!You know why? It is because a job provides a seemingly guaranteed ‘security’ with the knowledge that after each month, one earns a certain amount of money. Guarantee is the key word here, but as we saw in the previous post, RISK is the key word with potential.

That is another sad fact.

Back to my three year old Ethan.

There is something that he just loves. I have not seen this in any other kid since I was born. He loves playing drums. He loves music and multi-media. If I don’t buy him drum sticks, he fetches raw ones from the compound and comes into the house to “play drums”. This happens daily!

The worst that I could do is to ignore this talent/gift or whatever it is at the moment. If I find myself championing something that supersedes or negates Ethan’s interest, I will be contributing to killing his potential.

The fact is, I have no idea where this interest he has in drums is going. My job is to nurture him and let him grow in his talent.

What about School? You ask. Well, if school is not going to unearth his potential, I would rather seek “Alternative Education”.