1. The Potential is unlimited

In order for you to realise the vastness of your own personal, or your business potential, have a look outside of your window towards the first park or tree.

It is really mind blowing, to realise that a 20 meters high oak, 5 times older than me (I am 36 as I write this) is making a shadow under the sun big as half tennis court. This, and most of the other trees on the planet, has grown from a single seed that could sit in the middle of my palm.

We, the people are like this seed.
A merger of two microscopic cells, the spermatozoid and the egg cell create us all. And what we are today?

The potential that we have for growth as human is simple unlimited. We could grow spiritually, financially and in any way we choose or desire.
Yet there is one problem to our unlimited growth. That is our miraculous ability, (or I should say inability) not to be aware and not to use our full potential.

Most of people and businesses use an average part of their energy, skills, resources time etc. Their life performances are at the lower level of the scale.
Imagine for one second what is at your disposal, and what are you loosing if you only use 20 or 50% of your potential in something?

To illustrate you this, I will invite you to do one very nice and funny exercise:

Stand up in front of a white board turned with your back. Make sure you are on an arm distance from the board. Take a white board marker in your writing hand. Than without moving your legs, rotate your body so you face the board, and mark with the pen a line or a dot.
Now, close your eyes for a moment and imagine in your mind how you are turning and marking much more than your first initial mark. When you are ready turn and mark again.
I am certain that almost all the people that have done this exercise are experiencing the same. The first rotation is lower than the second. I call the first result average performance, and the second the improved one.

After the rotation exercise in my workshops with students or managers, I ask them: Where in your life do you want to be?
At what level would you like to perform?
How much do you want to use and live your life, at 20, 30, 50 or 100%?

In our lives most of the people and businesses are average performers, using just a fraction of the potential that they have.
Mostly this low performance has nothing to do with how well we are educated, or know about a particular subject. I have seen highly educated and trained teams. I have seen teams with MBA’s and PHD’s who are performing lower than a high school team. In many occasions I have been a part of a highly educated teams that are delivering ridiculous results.

So what stops people and teams to perform at their best?
The answers on this question are many. From people being lazy, depressed, afraid of success, to having no meaning, vision and focus in life.

My intention with this guide is not to write about why people perform badly. It is to assist you in actually improving whatever you do in life right now and prepare and take you to a place where you will be able to say to your self:

This is it, I am living my dream

Let me just say, that unless you are prepared to take concrete and continuous action in your every day life towards reaching your goals and towards the moment of living your dream, you should put this guide on the side and never ever open it again.