It is a calm afternoon and I am leaning on the perimeter wall adjacent to my mechanic’s auto spares shop as he services my very old ride. As happens every so often, different hawkers pass by, each enthusiastically and frantically attempting to convince me to buy this ‘latest’ air freshener or the other ‘original’ wipers for my car. This particular afternoon, there appears to be an influx of hawkers. So much that I have now run out of breath in my bid to be courteous by telling each of them, sio leo (not today). I am now shaking my head to signify my unwillingness to buy any of the ‘latest’ and ‘original’ wares on sale. I am afraid that any continued stay here will force me to appear rude by neither talking nor using my head to respond to their ‘please buy’ requests.
Before I find out how far the mechanic is, another hawker comes by. I want to literally run away but the glimpse of what he is selling catches my full attention. He is holding carefully made and wonderfully finished wooden car toys. Before he says a word, I find myself opening the conversation by asking whether the toys were from wood and which type of wood. He explains to me the process of collecting discarded wood from wood dealers and later sculpturing out different products. Did he just say, ‘discarded wood’! Of course I buy one and gladly pick his business card with directions to their workshop where they make wooden sculptures for both export and local markets.
You wonder why I am telling this hawkers’ story in today’s Focus Talk. This encounter reminded me of another similar story told to me many years ago and the two have pushed me to talk about your potential, the power within. Perhaps before telling the other story, it is important that we define your ‘potential’. It is the resting ability in you; the ability awaiting activation for you to perform certain tasks. It is what you are capable of doing but you haven’t done; it is what you can but haven’t. Each one of us was created with unique capabilities (potential) which require activation to be revealed. Those who believe in this great truth of life strive to activate and reveal their potential, while those who are yet to believe, sit expecting miracles; forgetting that even miracles are activated potentials whose actualization has been sped up.
It is saddening that many of us rarely believe that we can amount to anything substantial. My greatest task today is to convince you that you are made of great and you have innate power resting within you awaiting for you to awaken it. Which brings me to the other story told to me many years back. A sculptor scavenging for wood came to a forest owner who was processing some trees into timber. “I can’t give you my timber, it’s for sale”, the forest owner told the sculptor who had requested to buy a small piece of wood. A few meters from where they stood was a dirty abandoned piece of log which the sculptor saw. “What about that log? How much would it cost?” asked the sculptor pointing to the log. To the sculptor’s surprise, the forest owner gladly gave him the log free of charge claiming that the log could amount to nothing but firewood.
The sculptor had never been happier. He carried his dirty piece of wood home, sat on it with his hammer and chisel and concentrated on his work than ever before. He curved out of the rejected wood a beautiful bird that left all passersby amazed. Once done, he placed it on display and forgot about it. One day, the forest owner passing by the sculptor’s shop sighted the beautiful bird. He stopped and offered to pay anything to own the bird. The sculptor made a fortune from a ‘useless’ piece of wood and interestingly from the same person who had declared the wood as junk.
Whereas the forest owner saw junk in the log, the sculptor saw a beautiful bird. He saw the hidden potential of the wood. He made a choice to accept that there is nothing absolutely useless; everything has potential. Today, you might have been written off by those close to you as junk, but your maker only looks at the potential hidden in you. You might be looking at yourself as a lesser person due to your education level or employment position, when the potential within you is capable of moving the world. Every seed has potential of creating a forest; there is a man in every boy and a woman in every girl.
Your existence in this world in never accidental, you are relevant. You have to stand and showcase your relevance for the world is waiting on you. You probably doubt whether your capabilities can amount to anything, awaken them, they could be the next big thing. You have sat on your potential for far too long, you are delaying your life, you are holding the world at ransom. Remember, there are many problems in the world awaiting activation of your potential. Each of us exists with potential to make the world a better place by solving some problem. When you delay in awakening your potential, someone is suffering somewhere awaiting your solution.
If it is writing that book, write; if it is singing, sing; if it is preaching, begin to preach; if it is playing soccer, get down to the pitch today; if is entertaining people, begin to crack ribs now. Have you ever wondered how much pain the world would be undergoing had William Thomas Green Morton delayed his anesthesia discovery; where South Africa would be had Nelson Mandela delayed his freedom struggle; how many forests would have gone down in Kenya had Prof. Wangare Maathai sat on her Green Belt Movement potential; how much industrialization would have been delayed had Michael Faraday refused to believe in his potential to create the electric dynamo? As Myles Munroe, used to ask, “What would the world have lost if you had not been born?”
Your best life is ahead of you; your best life is in your potential. Do not settle for what you have already achieved, your potential is bigger than what you have already achieved. Stretch your potential farther by keeping it awake. Read about your area of interest, listen to people who have achieved in the same area, get a mentor in your area of interest, constantly practice your capabilities for before long, you will have mastered your craft. Be deliberate with your potential. Stay clear of those who squeeze life out of your potential by peddling negativity. When they see junk in you, you should see the beautiful bird that is hidden in you. Refuse to be part of the statistics of those who come to the world unnoticed, live unnoticed and leave unnoticed. Do something with your potential for YOU CAN DO BETTER!
Roy Okonji
Motivational Speaker and Author
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