Potential
Potential is the risk/reward lens. It asks what the problem could become if solved, what could go wrong, and what capability would need to grow for the reward to be real.
Your potential is limited by your capability to change perspective and perceive unseen opportunities.
All we are is all we can conceive.
Love is seeing potential in others and helping them move towards it - Viktor Frankl
Decision Ladder
Potential comes after Problems and before Priorities.
| Layer | Owns | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Problems | Good vs bad | Is this the right gap to solve? |
| Potential | Risk vs reward | What upside opens, and what downside must be protected? |
| Priorities | When and why | Should this win scarce attention now? |
| Plans | How and who | What bridge gets built, and which agents of change carry it? |
Potential is not optimism. It is the honest spread between possible reward and possible loss. The work is to see more upside without going blind to risk.
Context
- Fulfilment: Figure out what you are here to do?
- Purpose: Set a clear vision and mission
- Science: Use science to create technology
- Technology: Use technology to engineer better systems
- Habits: Use systems to live better practices
- Startups: Team up with like-minds fill a gap in the market by fulfilling a need
- Coach: Helping someone else is the best way to help yourself
Backcasting
Start with the end in mind. Working backward from a desired future state to visualise the path and determine what decisions are needed to get there is a powerful technique.
Picturing the destination makes the path clearer. Pre-mortems also help by projecting forward to envision how to overcome potential obstacles.
Links
Questions
What is the most important question you could ask yourself to make progress?
- Potential is bounded by what you can conceive — what is currently outside your value system's conception of what's possible?
- When you picture the destination clearly, which decision on the path becomes obvious that wasn't before?
- What's the difference between potential you can develop and potential you're waiting to be given?