Your Potential Is Not the Problem

Chapter 1: Why Most Approaches Fail — and What Actually Works

You have tried to work harder. You have tried to "believe in yourself." You have probably tried to wake up at 5 a.m. and meditate and visualize the outcome so vividly you could almost touch it. And yet, here you are, holding a book that promises to deal with the problem of potential, because the gap between what you know you could do and what you are actually doing feels like a permanent, unbridgeable chasm.

That chasm is the subject of this book. But I am not going to tell you that you just need to try harder. I am not going to tell you to think more positively. I’m here to tell you that the common wisdom about potential is not just unhelpful – it is the very thing that is keeping you stuck.

The real problem is not you. It is the approach you have been given.

We are raised on a myth. It is a seductive and pervasive myth that runs through commencement speeches, corporate motivational posters, and the biographies of famous entrepreneurs. The myth is this: there is a version of you, the "best" you, that is waiting just beneath the surface. All you have to do is unlock it. If you can just find the right key – the right book, the right technique, the right vision board – the floodgates of your potential will open, and you will finally become the person you