Burn Your Goals: The Counter Cultural Approach to Achieving Your Greatest Potential

by Joshua Medcalf

I think our desire to make things easier and give those we lead, whether they are our sons and daughters, employees, or members of our team, resources and experiences we never had might actually be crippling their chances of becoming truly great and reaching their fullest potential. Our efforts might give them a better chance of not failing as hard, but it’s giving them an even greater chance of being highly mediocre at everything they touch in comparison to their ultimate potential. Ironically, and counter-culturally, we might be better off trying to make things more challenging than less challenging. Maybe we should be creating intentional constraints on resources instead of giving those we lead all the resources needed to be “successful”. Because that “success” and those resources might be the greatest obstacle to them becoming everything they can be. Maybe they get a “good” job, and have a white picket fence with a dog and two kids, but what if they had the potential to find a cure for cancer or start the next Apple, but you gave them what they wanted instead of what they needed? Our fear of failure for the next generation is creating people primed for mediocrity at best and crippled at worst in comparison to their greatest potential. Sadly, in an era of never before seen opportunity and resources, a generation of people are unprepared to seize almost any of it.