Sponsor the next email to 200,000+ entrepreneurs →
A few weeks ago, I was down in New York City, hanging out with about 30 or 40 successful entrepreneurs and creators at a short mastermind. Like most of these events, the conversations bounced around from topic to topic as people shared their specific concerns. They ranged from hiring to scaling to launching new products, and eventually found their way to the core question every mastermind seems to address:
How do I make more money?
I truly enjoy these events because I love business. I love thinking about how to generate leads and revenue, and exploring that with other smart people is always a lot of fun. But when I shared how I was personally thinking about the next five or ten years, I got a pretty different reaction from the other attendees.
I mentioned that I was slowing down. I want to spend more time writing, self-publishing a book, getting to know my readers more deeply, and potentially making less money than I had in previous years. When I was done sharing all of that, I could see a few heads nodding, but mostly confused looks. I imagined most of the attendees were thinking, "What the hell is this guy talking about?"
A book agent, who's worked with every major publishing house, was particularly surprised that I hadn't signed a publishing deal after having multiple offers. What in the heck was I waiting for? He called the opportunity "enormous" and suggested that I wasn't "realizing my potential" by doing things my own way.
I thought it was a pretty reasonable point.
A big-time publishing deal would absolutely open doors for me. I'd probably reach a much bigger audience, sell a bunch of books, do the morning show rounds, and make a hell of a lot more money. The problem is that I'm just not that interested in doing it that way.
A few other people piped up and encouraged me to outsource my writing so I could spend more time on “business activities.” Again, pretty sensible advice when you know how much time writing takes and how many other things I could be doing if someone else handled this pesky writing stuff.
But I love writing. One of my biggest ambitions over the next decade is to become much better at it, and I imagine that's going to require spending an enormous amount of time practicing.
So I found myself in this very funny situation. Here were a bunch of successful people encouraging me to realize more of my business potential, and the most popular suggestion seemed to be to spend less time doing something I’m trying to become exceptionally good at.
It made me wonder why we're so quick to recognize someone's potential to build a bigger business, but rarely consider what else they might be capable of doing with that time.
Take, for example, someone who spends twenty years building a $50 million company. We love to hold these entrepreneurs up as shining examples of success, admire their decades of dedication, and celebrate everything they've accomplished. And for good reason! Building a company like that is incredibly difficult.
That same entrepreneur might have a wonderful family life, write books, play music, and do all sorts of other interesting stuff along the way. But even the most accomplished person you know has barely scratched the surface of everything they might have been capable of doing with their life. But we don't accuse them of wasting their potential. Why would we? Instead, we choose to celebrate what they've accomplished, without worrying about all the possibilities they've left unexplored.
But when someone decides to keep their business small so they can devote more time to something they love, we don’t offer them the same grace. Both of these folks have made intentional choices about which possibilities to pursue, but only one of them is expected to explain what they're giving up.
Every successful life requires wasting some part of your potential.
And the way we look at potential is usually through the lens of what we personally value the most. A book agent is naturally going to see the number of books someone could sell, while an entrepreneur sees all the businesses they could build. They're looking at the same person and imagining wildly different possibilities for their life.
I now realize that I've done this to people plenty of times. I've spent the last seven years of my life encouraging people to build their own business or try solopreneurship without always comprehending what's important to them.
To be fair, there's tremendous value in having someone else recognize an ability or opportunity you don't necessarily see in yourself. Encouragement is often exactly what you need to try something really difficult, and I'm forever grateful for the people who did that for me.
But there's also something awesome about reaching a point in your life where you firmly decide which of your abilities you want to develop. Especially as you get older, your priorities shift, and money stops being the core driver of your decisions.
The entrepreneurs I met in NYC are going to build big, successful businesses. That book agent is going to help many authors sell millions of books. I'm going to become a much better writer over the next decade. And every single one of us will leave hundreds of other opportunities unexplored along the way. I've decided that I’m comfortable with that.
By the time the mastermind ended, I had stopped feeling silly about my choices. I think the book agent's probably right about the opportunity in front of me, and I appreciate his perspective. But we're thinking about two very different kinds of potential.
So the next time someone tells me I'm wasting mine, I think I'll ask them a simple question.
Which potential are you talking about?
