TEDxHouston: What Keeps You From Reaching Your Potential?

I came to a realization this weekend.

People really do take themselves and their lives way too seriously. So much so, that we occasionally miss out on the rare bright moments that inspire us to do greater things.

Sometimes it means taking a moment to laugh with a co-worker, or actually notice the sparkle in a child’s eye when they learn something new, and sometimes it means just stopping and looking at what’s going on in the world long enough to see how many amazing things happen everyday.

That’s why events like TEDxHouston inspire me so.

It’s rare that I leave an event with so many ideas that I have to stop the car to jot down new ideas that pop into my head. That happened three times Saturday evening. After letting ideas about worthiness, sustainability, creative technique, design and urban growth synthesize for about 36 hours, one thing that all the speakers touched on directly or indirectly continues to resonant with me. It can be summed up with a simple question:

What is it that keeps people from reaching their full potential?

Think about it for just a moment and you will probably come up with a common list of “usual suspects” – Lack of education, lack of financial resources, lack of support, unexpected personal obstacles.

Those seem reasonable right? If I asked this question to 10 people, 9 would come up with this list while ignoring what is probably the biggest factor. FUDs . FUDs (fear, uncertainty and doubts) have the potential to stop us dead in our tracks.

Fear of failure, rejection, ridicule, the unknown or mediocrity keeps us from pursuing activities or goals that might otherwise bring us success or joy.

You’re Not Perfect But You Are Worthy

Our fear of mediocrity most often manifests itself as perfectionism. Perfectionism is probably the ultimately form of taking yourself to seriously. Think about the things we pursue: perfect job, perfect home, perfect kids, perfect bank account, perfect body… I get stressed out just thinking about it. According to speaker Brene Brown we even impose this perfectionism on babies:

As parent we think we’re supposed to look at our babies and say ‘you’re perfect, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep you this way’, when what we should be saying is’you’re imperfect, but you are worthy of love and belonging and I will do everything I can to make sure you know this.” – Brene Brown

Perfectionism is not an asset. We spend lifetimes is pursuit of perfection not realizing that it doesn’t produce a healthy self image or awareness.

It’s OK to fail, or be less than perfect – it doesn’t make you worth less from a human standpoint.

Don’t Let The Facade Fool You

Perfectionism prevents us from just going for it and figuring out how to get better over time. Speaker Dan Phillips says, “If failure will destroy you, you will find success hard to find.”

Even though his talk was primarily about commercial and consumer waste, he also gave a powerful example of how perfectionism manifests itself among home builders and buyers by taking Maslow’s triangle and putting last things first.

Modern culture has taught us that it is so important to keep this facade that we will do things that are not in our best interest.

I put my own twist on this, but the point is the same.  Sometimes the same mechanisms that drive us to create great things are the same that cause us to make superficial choices.

Mark Johnson of Hometta drove this point home further by challenging us to reboot our value system, seek out authenticity and “be more interested in impressing their kids than impressing friends/neighbors.”

Embrace The Messiness: It’s OK To Be Uncertain

Dr. David Eagleman closed the conference with a talk on uncertainty – a state that most people are uncomfortable with. In fact when we’re not being perfectionist, we are probably attempting to codify and clarify every part of our lives so nothing unexpected, unknown or unprovable messes up the perfect picture that we set up. Dr. Eagleman used a quote from Voltaire that was especially powerful for me “Doubt is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd position.”

I would even argue that in some ways certainty is the enemy of creativity.

People have difficulty with creativity simply because we live in a world that in many ways demands uniformity, linearity and certainty. Creativity & discovery are inherently risky. If you are OK with breaking away from the norm and as choreographer Dominic Walsh put it, “trusting in the abstract without really knowing why you’re doing it” the truth will reveal itself.

P.S. Brene Brown’s quote “Stories are data with soul” really rang true for me because despite it’s resugerence in modern culture people still ignore the power of a well told story.