There is a story from an Olympics years ago, where a pole vaulter, on the podium after just receiving his gold medal, looked around the stadium as the National Anthem played, and wondered… how many people in this stadium could have beat me had they just picked up a pole vault when they were younger? It’s interesting to think about how many people could have been professional athletes, inventors, best-selling authors, or award-winning actors or singers, had they just decided to pursue those avenues.
You watch the athletes make big plays on television, you read the books that capture your attention and imagination, you attend concerts and shows, and you admire those that are building businesses, creating new products, and running with unique ideas. Why do you stand back and just watch? Why are you the fan in the stands and not the athlete on the field? Why are you reading the books, not writing them? Why are you sitting in the crowd and not on the stage? And why are you working in a business instead of building one, using products but not creating any, and admiring the ideas of others, but not formulating your own?
We tend to go through life as spectators. We observe our lives as they fly by. What about rethinking that? Maybe it’s time to go from spectator to participant. Maybe it’s time to get out of your seat, your bed, your house, and go beyond your comfort zone, and become the doer, not just the watcher.
It would be foolish for most of us to decide that watching The Masters golf tournament wasn’t enough, that we should be teeing off with Scottie Scheffler or Rory McIlroy, or that we should be winning that Oscar for best actor, or that it should be you that invested in that rocket that was just launched into space. But what’s not foolish is realizing that you have skills, talents, and abilities that are not being utilized. You’ve got potential that is lying dormant within you. There is more that you have to offer this world.
Our limiting beliefs are what hold us back. We believe that the ones doing great things have something that we don’t have. They have skills we don’t have, have access to resources that are unavailable to us, or have gotten lucky breaks that we don’t get. And yes, in many cases all that can be true, but if you ask most highly successful people about their achievements, most will say this… If I can do it, you can do it.
There’s a lot that goes into being a super-achiever… planning, hard work, sacrifice, discipline, etc., but it all starts in a moment. That moment is when someone decides. The instant someone decides to go for it is the instant that it all begins. It’s in that moment when they move from watcher to doer, from spectator to participant, from reader to writer, and from consumer to producer.
I love the word potential, which is defined as “inherent, latent capacity for growth, development, or future success that is not yet actualized.” It means that there is something there, it does exist, it just needs to be unveiled, pulled out, or developed. Think about that random chunk of marble that gets turned into a detailed, sculptured work of art. It could have sat there as a rock like all others, containing the potential for an awe-inspiring masterpiece, yet never developed. The masterpiece was there all along, it just needed someone to see the possibility, realize its potential, then work to make it a reality.
When deciding to move from a consumer to a producer, a spectator to a participant, a reader to a writer, or a user to a creator, there is always the risk of failure. But if you never try, how will you ever know? We’ve all heard the quote, “It is better to try and fail than to not try at all.”
Today could be the day that you make that move. You start. You decide. There is more within you than you could ever imagine. What are you really capable of? What talents have you left undeveloped? What opportunities have you left untapped? What gifts have kept concealed? It’s time to get up, get going, and get to work. You’ve been watching, using, and wondering for too long. It’s time to start doing, creating, and being. The world needs that potential to become a reality. The world needs what you have within you. It’s time to move from spectator to participant.
