The Phrase that Limits your Potential

There’s one phrase that limits it all.

A phrase that shuts down your potential, freezes your results and stops your progress in its tracks. It will rob you of what could be and leave you with the same old results you’ve always had – for your business or yourself. Setting this one phrase aside will be life-changing, business changing and transformative for whatever you’re focused on…

It’s a phrase that’s so common that many don’t even realize how often they say it. That was the case for a client of mine a few weeks ago. I was in a conversation with the President of a national company aiming to create a culture of growth, innovation and results. They’ve been around for decades in a relatively slow growing market, but technology is starting to disrupt their business and competitive pressures are forcing them to respond. When talking about how their business could change, this executive uttered the phrase that was limiting it all: 

I know. 

If you already know, what room is there for anything else? 

When you already know everything, there’s no room for new ideas, new perspectives or new approaches. You’re left copying, reconstituting and rehashing what already exists and what already has been done (no innovation there). Your potential (again for yourself and your business) is exponential in nature. It can rapidly change into something that’s dramatically different from where you are today. It looks a little bit like this:

You move up into that potential gap by asking questions, inquiring, discovering. By saying I want to know. 

You move down in the potential gap by “knowing”, certainty and judgment. By saying I already know. 

You wouldn’t enroll in a college course and tell the teacher you already know everything. You’re there to learn! 

You wouldn’t sit on a jury and pronounce you know the verdict before the case even starts. You’re there to take in new perspectives, to see all the angles you can become aware of! 

But somehow already knowing what your budget can do, what your team is capable of, what a particular technology can create, what a vendor can bring you, what you have time for… is perfectly acceptable in many cultures. Acceptable while unintentionally limiting any real growth. 

When this executive really took this idea in, it was like he had been unshackled. All of a sudden free from all the knowledge of the past and finally open to something new (an approach we’re now in the process of bringing into their company). It’s the first step of creating real change, real innovation and real transformation – even in a highly competitive market. 

If you’re looking to create real change, this is the work. If you want to create real change in that work, I can help. We’re working with businesses in many highly-competitive sectors to create cultures that aren’t just copying, reconstituting or rehashing what everyone else is doing. But are creating something new, of course, starting from a place of inquiry.

Email me here and we can discover if there might be a fit, together. 

There’s a trap though.

What I’ve just shared here is also something you can know. You might be reading this and in your head already saying: I know. 

Here’s the thing.

You do know.

You have tremendous amounts of information, data and experience – all of which is valid. But that phrase (and that approach) is automatically limiting your potential. It stops you from discovering something new, opening up a new perspective or seeing an opening for action that you were blind to prior.

We all know. Certain things anyway. And what we “know” is giving us the results we already have. If you’ve achieved your potential – “know” away! (but pro-tip, no person and no business has). If you’re ready to step into that potential gap, to realize new results, drop that phrase that’s limiting it all.

Start knowing less and questioning more.