The 4 Major Ways Potential Speaks Daily – Part 1

I f I dropped several coins in a busy street, I am most certain to gain attention as well as deep interest. Why? Because the value that the coins represent is what people in the streets are looking for? Why else are they there? But look at it this way: What if there was no value in the coins?

The noise they make will draw attention but there will be no interest whatsoever. We have tuned ourselves to listen to the voices of the things that we think matter the most to us. And every waking day, we gravitate towards those with keen interest.

In the process, the most potent thing of the face of the earth suffers the brunt of our attention and interest on other things. Our potential remains dormant, unused, untapped and yet still very potent. In some cases, it is even abused. However, the voice of potential still speaks.

What is our response?

We ignore it:

Yes, we can hear that voice but we have bills to pay. Food to put on the table. Exams to pass. Degrees to attain. What’s potential? Step aside, there are more important things to do.

We silence it:

Yes, we hear you loud and clear, but you are a distraction to the most important things in life. Life is structured to work this way. You are not part of the system. You are too demanding and yet you do not even promise payment. You are very unpredictable. Shut up!

We crowd it out:

What? What’s that? You mean there is something called potential? We are so steeped into action on a daily basis that we fail to realize that potential is crying out to us from the day we were born.

We respond half-hearted:

We get convinced that we heard the voice and so we respond but we do not commit. We make a resolution here and there, but our hearts have already been trained to be elsewhere. Soon enough, we are either ignoring, silencing or crowding it out altogether.

Listening to The Voice of Potential

To listen to potential, we have to start learning to hear its voice. Potential represents possibility. Therefore, if you are looking for things that are fully formed, a coherent voice with a 7-point plan on how you will get rich, you will not hear that benign voice of potential calling you out.

All the answers we ever needed in life especially for the future are all already available, but they are shrouded in the mystery of potential. In science and technology, medicine, military-ware, education, homelife, arts, multimedia, transport and commerce, every sector of life has all its biggest answers in potential.

So how does she speak?

1. Through Problems to be solved

“Opportunity is seldom taken because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work”. Every time a problem is in your vicinity, the voice of potential is speaking. Either you have the wherewithal to stem out the problem, or you have seeds of potential in you that need to be excavated for the problem to be solved, or you provide the necessary connections for the problem to be solved.

Covid and Vaccines

Think of Trump and his Covid19 vaccines. (Let’s not be political folks). The problem was and still is a universal problem. When it hit, the world was being put to the test to stretch ourselves and find respite. The answers for Covid19 were available and still are available to the world. However, the availability is not that straight forward, it is in the form of potential. Trump was told that it would be a miracle to deliver vaccines in three years. It happened in 9 months.

The way we respond to problems will determine whether we shall excavate the potential or not. It will tell us whether we are listening to the voice of potential or not. We can choose to run away, which basically tells potential that we haven’t heard. Running means we think and are convinced that we have no potential.

Problems speak of potential

Have you ever stopped to think: Is there a problem that the human race has ever faced over the centuries that remains unresolved? Think of flight, computers, vehicles, tarmac roads, electricity, cookware, housing, medicine etc. Every one of these things were invented by listening to the voice of potential and thereby daring enough to exploit it.

2. Through Passion in Our hearts

Every time you exude passion for anything or anyone, that is the voice of potential speaking to you. The most sinister thing about the human is that we ignore the things we are passionate about because we have learnt to use a different system in life. I was passionate about writing but I ignored it for two decades because I needed to get a degree.

When I wrote my first essay at the tender age of 10 and it blew my teachers away, whom do you think was speaking? It was my potential actually shouting. However, we have systems in place that are designed to massage our need for certainty. These systems are so obeyed that they have become our task masters and we don’t even know.

Dare To Listen

It is so much so that even if potential shouted with a megaphone, we do not have belief enough to listen and heed its voice. But passion in your heart is not just “for just” as Ugandans would say. There is a reason behind that voice. Potential is inextricably connected to passion. Passion indicates that either you have the potential with you are you can galvanize it from someone else. That’s what Trump did with his Covid19 vaccines.

Do not ignore your passion. If you are a parent, be open enough not to ignore the passion of your child. I am aware that passion and potential will stretch you. I am aware that they are too expensive. I am aware that they are very unconventional, but I can tell you that that is the way we are to function: In response to their voices.