How To Stop Wasting Your Potential (And Level Up In Life)

I always found it strange how the average person lives. 

Most people don’t seem very happy with the lives they live—they just “do what they gotta do.”

I’ve worked in the restaurant industry for a decade. At one point I had two jobs. I’d work a brunch spot at 6am and in the evenings I’d sling burgers and sandwiches at a bar & grill.

I was making good money I suppose.

The only problem is I never had any time to spend it. I couldn’t live my life the way I wanted to and I didn’t really enjoy being at my jobs. 

I was tied to my jobs and I hated my life.

What good is the money if I’m still enslaved?

I wanted freedom. 

I wanted autonomy.

I found it very strange how most people accepted this lifestyle without question: “That’s just the way it is.” 

“Yeah, but that’s not the way it has to be,” I’d reply to them in my head.

Work a job you hate just to pay bills until you die? That can’t be the reason why we came here.

I found it even more strange when people would brag about how they were “stacking paper” by working overtime hours.

So let me get this straight. You trade more of your time for money to buy expensive toys that you never get to play with because you’ve traded most of your time away? And you don’t even like your job?

How does it make any f**king sense? 

I don’t see how people buy into the game and never question it.

I always felt like there was something more. 

I didn’t want to be a slave to the system.

I wanted to create my own game.

In the mid 2010’s I went to a community college for Information Technology.

I was attracted to people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. 

People that were hellbent on transforming the world and progressing humanity with technology. 

Innovators. 

Free thinkers.

Challenging the collective paradigms.

I wanted to work in Silicon Valley and build something great for the world.

It seemed like all sorts of new innovative tech was popping out of Silicon Valley and I wanted to be a part of it.

I had dreams of working for Google at the time. It looked like a fun company to work for.

This never happened though because I had a lot of trauma and limiting beliefs to work through over the years to come. 

I lacked any self-esteem and had crippling social anxiety. I would never make it to a place like Google. I’d probably have to settle elsewhere.

And as the years progressed I came to realize that I would prefer working at local bar & grills over having a corporate tech job and learning to play office politics. 

I did end up enjoying cooking and could have loads of fun during a good dinner rush. 

But as the years went on, I always had it in the back of my head that I wanted to work for myself. 

It was somewhere in between 2014-2016 that I was attempting to learn HTML & CSS so that I could be a freelance web designer. 

But I never stuck it out. (Like I said, I had so much trauma and limiting beliefs to work through.)

Later, I learned to code in 2021. But it was back-end stuff. 

I recently realized I like front-end because I love designing and I get to be more creative.

It’s actually funny to me that I ended up learning web design this past year. 

Life is cyclical.

Maybe some of us find our way back to the person we were supposed to be. 

Maybe some of us don’t.

But the idea of being average and living a life I hated until the day I died was repulsive to me.

It was enough for me to continue my seeking.

Something more was always calling me.

I fell down the self-improvement rabbit hole, started going to the gym, picked up running, lost weight, found spirituality and meditation, and did a lot of inner healing over the years. 

I became obsessed with leveling up in the game of life. 

I became obsessed with actualizing my potential.

Besides that, I have not let go of the idea of being a free and autonomous individual. 

My current quest is to leverage the power of the internet to live a life of freedom and autonomy while positively impacting people along the way. (And create cool shit too.)

A life of fulfillment doing work I love. 

Work that lights me up inside.

I invite you to live up to your full potential with me.

The Realization That You Are Pure Potential

All of your perceived limitations are self imposed.

I wish somebody would have told me that sooner.

I wasted a lot of years believing the negative voice in my head was me.

Anytime self-doubt or fear would creep in, I would give into the voice. 

“I mean you’re right, who am I kidding?” I’d think to myself.

I don’t know if this is news to you but—the voice in your head is not you.

That voice is just identification with past experiences and emotions—but it is not YOU.

Don’t believe me?

Let’s run an experiment.

Sit down in a comfortable position and observe the voice in your head. Don’t identify with it—just observe. 

If the voice is talking—who is listening to the voice? 

Don’t give me an answer. Just be still and observe.

Now think back to when you were a kid—playing with toys, having fun.

You’re not the same kid anymore. Not just physically but mentally you have evolved.

Yet—something about you has remained unchanged.

The awareness you had as a kid is the same awareness you have now as an adult. Can you sense this presence within you?

If you want to take it a tad deeper. I’d recommend self-inquiry for the advanced players.

To sum it up, self-inquiry is asking yourself a series of questions and seeing what it points to. After each question simply observe for the next few minutes.

Here are some of my favorite questions to ask:

• “What is here now when there is no image to uphold?”
• “What is here now when there is nothing to do?”
• “What is here now when there is no one to be?”

And here is my favorite one:

• “In the absence of thought—does awareness of experience disappear? Contemplate this without thought.”

If there is a voice that arises and says, “This is stupid. This is dumb.” Etc. Simply observe that voice.

During this meditation session—I usually return to a sense of peace, contentment, and feeling of fulfillment.

When you glimpse this state—even if it’s just for a split second—maybe a few moments—you too will come to the realization that you are pure potential.

Because in the absence of your thinking—without identification with thoughts—how could you not be?

It is only your identification with your thoughts that limits you.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t live in this state 24/7. 

I still f**k up and fall for the limiting stories time and time again.

But I am more self-aware now.

When it happens I can pull myself out of it quicker and quicker each time. 

Instead of ruminating on negative thoughts for weeks—it becomes days, and eventually just a few hours before you catch yourself and return to awareness.

And every subject is different. You might be better at returning to awareness with certain subjects and not so good at others.

It is a practice.

A daily practice.

Cultivate this practice every morning.

Eventually it bleeds out into your daily life.

Bridging The Gap Between You And Your Potential Actualized

Understanding that you are not the negative voice in your head is just one piece of the puzzle.

Now that you know who you are not—who is that you want to be?

Once you truly grasp that you are not…well, you—you realize you can become whoever you want.

You can play as any character you want to play as.

Who is it you came here to be? What is it that you came here to do?

It’s a heavy question, I know.

Most people don’t know what they want but they know what they don’t want so let’s start there.

The Anti-Vision

What don’t you want to move towards? What is the bane of your existence? 

You’ve probably guessed that for me the bane of my existence is living an average life, working at a job I hate, while my potential is left unfulfilled.

People are actually more motivated to move away from pain than they are to move towards pleasure. This is why if you ever study sales, they tell you to find the pain points in potential prospects and agitate that pain before offering your solution. 

For example, if you don’t go to the gym what’s the worst that could happen? 

You gain another 20 pounds this year? 

Maybe 40?

You’re starting to feel uneasy aren’t you?

This lits a fire under me more than the idea of having an aesthetic physique. The idea that I could revert back to being overweight and having little to no-energy is more motivating than the idea of having Tom Holland’s Spider-Man physique to be honest. 

Most people are too comfortable where they are and that’s why they don’t move. They may not be super happy and fulfilled but they also aren’t incredibly unhappy. They’re in no-man’s land. This is the worst place to be in if you actually want to fulfill your potential. 

So think about what you don’t want and exaggerate the pain. This is the only way you gain firepower for moving forward.

What are moving away from?

The Vision

Now that you know what you don't want this should help bring clarity for what you do want.

If I don’t want to be overweight with little to no-energy this clarifies for me that I want to be lean and athletic. I want to live an active lifestyle and have loads of energy. This gives me a vision to work towards.

What is the complete opposite of what you don’t want?

Think about the life you want to live. 

Where do you want to live? What type of work do you want to do? What’s your day-to-day life like? Etc.

Create a vision for yourself. Something to move towards.

I always hate when goal-setting workshops have you write down a 5 year or 10 year goal. 

F**k if I know. 

That’s honestly way too far out in the future in my opinion. It always changes. The most I plan for is 3 years but even that changes as I continue to grow, evolve, and gain more clarity.

If it feels overwhelming—just focus on this year.

What’s your vision for the end of the year?

What would you like to be celebrating in Dec 2024?

Values

Do you know what your values are?

No, I mean seriously, do you know?

Because if you would have asked me this 2 years ago I would not know what to say. It’s honestly not something I ever thought about consciously until last year.

During my quest to learn and understand personal branding and online business last year—this topic came up a few times.

What are your values?

“Huh? What are my values?”

There was a book I read that brought this up (“The Buddha and The Badass”), a few online resources, and an online course.

The course had a long list of values and asked you to pick out a few that matter most to you.

Of course, if you know me I instantly gravitated towards personal growth. And while I always knew this intuitively it was nice to have an exercise that brought this into my conscious awareness.

I went over my values again and again last year. I thought about what I truly valued in life.

I settled on a few core values.

Everything started to click for me.

Understanding my values not only helped me understand the work that I wanted to do for the world—but in my personal life as well.

I realized the people I want to be around are people that have similar values—not necessarily similar interests. If our interests differ but we have similar values, we will get along just fine. 

When you truly understand your values you can slice through the noise. Anything that doesn’t align with your values becomes an easy no. 

Look up a list of core values and pick a few. 

If this feels hard, use your vision for the future.

If your future-self has already achieved these goals then what does your future-self value?

Live Consciously & With Intention

Most people are sleepwalking through life. They wake up in the morning—check their phone, turn on the tv.

From the moment they wake up they are bombarded by other people’s thoughts and opinions.

They never create the space to just be with themselves in solitude. This is probably a big contributing factor as to why many people don’t even know what they want out of life. 

It’s because their own inner voice is being drowned out by all the other media they consume.

Take time to go on walks—without input (no music, no podcasts). Meditate in silence—without the guided meditation. Journal or write. Reflect on the day, week, etc. Contemplate ideas. Play with concepts. Be with yourself.

Live consciously and with intention.

In the morning, set intentions for the day. Follow-through. Take action. Don’t let life pass you by.

The average person doesn’t do this. They wake up and float through life wondering why things never work out for them.

Maybe you can’t control everything that happens to you—but you can gently redirect yourself towards a better future by being more intentional.

Reverse Engineering

Whatever your vision is for the end of the year—reverse engineer it.

What are the skills you’d need to have? Who is the person you need to become?

Then live intentionally and act as that person would.

Embody this new character.

It sounds simple—but this is going to be scary AF and painful at times. It’s going to be uncomfortable. Continuously stepping outside of your comfort zone is not for the faint of heart. 

This is when you go back to your anti-vision. 

There must be more pain in staying in your comfort zone than moving towards your goals—otherwise you quit.

I can’t quit because the thought of forever working in the restaurant industry and never realizing my potential is more painful than moving towards my goals.

I can’t quit because one of my values is growth over comfort.

I can’t quit because the vision of building a better world and creating cool shit drives me.

Take the time to honestly reflect on these things for yourself. 

What is it for you?

When you have this shit straight nothing will be able to stop you from fulfilling your potential.

I hope you found this useful.

—Player 2