Maximize Your Potential By Swinging Big
What are you currently doing to realize and maximize your potential?
Take a moment to let that question sink in. Sit with it and consider the work you are doing right now to show up every day as the fullest version of you.
What did you determine?
You can take those questions or leave ‘em. Or, if you’re the overachiever type, don’t just take ‘em, but put pen to paper and write some thoughts down. The point is to get you thinking.
I talk a lot about “maximizing potential” because it’s something I’m passionate about and work toward in my life. And I know that I am not alone here—for many of us, it’s an innate quality to want to matter, to do better and be better, and to make a difference. But still, we might not know what our “potential” is in the first place. Or how to find it.
Here’s how I see it: I believe that we all have unique God-given gifts—these are our talents, our strengths and weaknesses, our passions. The concept of maximizing potential means to maximize our gifts by leaning into them. When we do, we live in alignment with our life’s purpose. So think: what am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? What is my best use? Where can I make the biggest positive impact? Start there.
For the record, God (or source or universe) isn’t just going to tell you your purpose. In my opinion, you have to seek it out through exploration, trial and error, successes and failures. How else are we going to know what is satisfying and what feels good? My motto is to swing at whatever is in front of you, keep swinging, and continue to learn and grow along the way. Begin with a wide swath, and narrow, narrow, narrow. It might take until you’re on your deathbed to realize what your life’s purpose is (or was), but at least you’ll know that you never gave up on the hunt, and you gave it your all. AND, what’s more, as you continue to go about this lifelong journey of discovery, you’ll inadvertently learn more about yourself, which effectively brings about growth and transformation..and potential maximization. Imagine that.
To make this more clear, I’ll share my own story.
In my late teens, when I’d think about “what I want to do when I grow up,” I always concluded that I’d want to have my own business and thought maybe I’d go to business school. I applied and was accepted at MSU (where both my parents and grandparents attended), and I thought I would go there and study business. I even had a roommate planned. My uncle, who worked at GM, convinced me otherwise, recommending that I instead get my engineering degree and a few years of work under my belt first. I applied late to U of M and got accepted to study engineering.
And, that’s what I did. I worked one summer as an intern at GM in their transmission division. Over the summer, I grew frustrated with the lack of interaction, and decided a job in engineering was not for me. This left technical sales or consulting as job choices once I graduated. I decided on consulting and took a job in Chicago (where I met my wife). I worked in that role for a few years before starting my MBA at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business.
After graduating business school, I went on to become a director of sales and then... a salesperson myself. Throughout the course of this career path, I witnessed two $1B bankruptcies with different companies, the second of which left me jobless for the first time in my life. And, it was THEN that I decided to start my own business—Lyons Consulting Group.
I never would have charted this path for myself. Instead, I kept swinging—learning, taking on new projects, growing, evolving as a businessman and as a human being.
With LYONSCG, I created a big hairy audacious goal (BHAG, Jim Collins) for myself: to be a $50 million business by the time I was 50. Again, I couldn’t even imagine hitting this and I couldn’t see the full map to get there, but I knew I needed something BIG to push me out of my comfort zone, to break my own limiting beliefs, and to maximize my potential. Well, we hit $50 million by the time I was 51. Pretty damn close.
Why should all of this matter to you?
As I mentioned earlier, most if not all of us have a desire to matter and to make a positive difference in this world. And I want to help you. Awareness is step one. And, it’s also the first episode in my new video series. Launching on September 16, Sell Your Potential—Keys to Success as a Salesperson (And a Human Being) will take you through an eight-step process to maximize YOUR potential. Can’t wait for you to see and experience it!
And, in the meantime, maybe play the overachiever and ask yourself again: What am I currently doing to maximize my potential? (Hint: write something down, then start swinging for the fences!)