AN IMPORTANT SUPER POWER

Being able to see something for what it is, allows us to see it for what it could be. When we're quick to glamorize items, we will often overvalue you that and assign false potential.

It's difficult to look past what something appears to be in the present moment and see it for what it truly is. In a world full of distraction and constant stimulation, we make decision and hold opinions in seconds. Branding and marketing experts know this and pry on this human downfall. They know how things have to appear on the surface to get your brain to say "yeah that's awesome I want it" regardless of it's true value-add. We're quick make something hold more value to us than it actually does. We paint false pictures of utility. If we called things by what they are instead of by their brand name, we would see how silly we are being in many instances. As Macklemore famously said "That's $50 for a t-shirt." 

Now, where does this work in reverse and why do I care about it? Seeing something for what it truly is allows us to spot value and/or potential. Take a business for example. A business is a financial instrument able to produce revenue. This might be a business selling dirt, this might be a business brokering the exchange of billion dollar real estate portfolios from one private equity firm to another. At the end of the day, they are the same thing: a business. One sounds more fancy and appealing than the other, but it's simply an exchange of goods/services in exchange for monetary compensation. This is where the potential comes in. We're quick to turn our nose up at opportunity because it doesn't look pretty. There's a great quote by Thomas Edison that captures this: "We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work." People who learn to see things for what they are instead of what they're made out to be or appear to be surface level, also can have a keen eye for opportunity. This allows them to figure out what is worth investing resources into and what is not.

Now, this way of spotting potential is not to be confused with setting expectations for various things. There's a difference between spotting potential and setting expectations. Setting expectations creates the opportunity to be let down when those expectations aren't met. Spotting potential is seeing something that, if fostered, has the capacity to become or develop into something in the future. There's likely an example of somebody doing something significant with anything you can think of. Rusty paperclip? Somebody has probably used one in some creative way to make their first million. Point being: respect potential. There's a lot more of it in everything than you think. 

I will use a personal example. When we first took over our new space, the office was this awkwardly shaped square with ugly paint and no lighting other than the terrible overhead LED lights that make me feel like I'm back in elementary school, aka, hell on earth. I took sometime to put things in to the office and now it's my productivity sanctuary. It has lived up to it's potential.

Not all that glitters is gold. Similarly, not all opportunity looks to be so at first glance. We need to look at things for what they are and reflect on where the potential lies and in what way we're able to capitalize on it based on our skills and abilities. This takes knowing ourselves. Our strengths and weaknesses and knowing our standard means of operation. To know yourself means digging into things a bit and trying to figure them out, but when doing so, try to strip the layers back and determine what the thing is in simple terms.

~ Bonde