I chose to entitle my podcast “The Peak of Potential” because for over 26 years, I have worked with individuals and organisations to achieve the fullest use of their talents and interests. The ultimate goal of living is to become everything we are capable of becoming. This is what I call the Peak of Potential.
This summit of existence has both internal and external states which together lead us to the realisation of one’s human potential, and represent the height of personal development. In a group, organisation, or community, potential is the sum of all of the individual members together reaching for all they are capable of becoming, or being held back by members who settle to live in life’s valleys’ rather than push toward the mountaintop peaks and summits of achievement. As a side note, this is why groups of people will continually seek to add members who are seeking the peak of potential, and subtract those who resist the costs and risks of climbing for the peaks, instead settling for the safety of mediocrity.
Potential has both internal and external elements which are the foundations of acquiring the most basic needs of life. Without our basic needs in place, we will never be able to have the time or resources needed to become all we are capable of being.
Internally, the pathway to peak potential realisation is built on several important foundations. First, the foundation of a better insight of what the true realities of life are over against false realities. Second, the development of an inner life and resources by encountering and developing solutions to problems, adversity, and suffering. Third, arriving at deep level self-acceptance, rather than hating and berating ourselves.
Externally, developing healthy and strong connections to others and the world are needed. We can never achieve our greatest potentialities without the resources and talents of others uniting with our own. The most profound moments of reaching the peaks of potential occur when we feel most alive and connected to others. Moments of love, understanding, achievement, happiness, truth, justice, harmony, goodness, completion, self-sufficiency, and so forth. I have felt most on top of the world on my wedding day, at the births of my children, during holiday family gatherings, when a client accepted a proposal, when an organisation I was leading or working with accomplished a big win, and when things that once existed as only dreams or plans in my mind became realities.
To the extent a person finds cooperative social fulfillment, he establishes meaningful relationships with other people and the larger world. In other words, he establishes meaningful connections to an external reality—an essential component of reaching our potential. In contrast, when we approach others and the world around us as adversaries, we acquire hostile emotions and limited external relationships. We then end up living in our minds, but never achieving in the external world. This limits our ability to become what we could have been.