Living your best life may allow you to leave untapped potential unrealized. In this episode, Lori and Jimmy share stories, ideas and quotes to help you realize the best that is in store for you in life.
Realizing your greatest effort and results requires a certain mindset. You can’t be your best if you think you are limited in life as most people think. You are different. You are unique. You have untapped potential that separates you from the masses of people who are simply living their lives of mediocrity.
You will gain insight into:
- Discovering your superpower and how to use it to achieve greater results in life.
- Why you must become a lifetime learner!
- How to communicate effectively with others and influence people to achieve their best outcomes.
- Who you must become, as demanded by the world, to truly live a life by your design.
- When you must capitalize on opportunities and how to realize your full potential in life.
Podcast Transcript
LF:
What is that I hear? Yes, it’s potential knocking at the door. Good morning and welcome. I hope you’re ready. I hope you’ve got your listening ears on. Jimmy’s with me. We’re ready to roll this morning. We’re excited. Good morning!
JW:
Good morning! I gotta tell you, I’m never gonna make it as that sound effects guy. What is that for? You said knocking. I was so, so late to the game.
LF:
Next time we’re gonna, we’re gonna work on it. We’re, we’re not, we’re not perfectionists, but-
JW:
You know, I interviewed with Universal Studios years ago when I was a kid and I still couldn’t make the horse sound with the wooden blocks. He sounded like a defective horse. I don’t know what I did wrong. No. Hey, good morning everyone. This is the Lori Few with Jimmy Williams as a sidekick. You know, it’s a wonderful just to ride the coattails of this young lady to stardom and fame. I’ve been doing it now for many episodes. Lori, I want you to know from the bottom of my heart, thank you for allowing me just to tread the waters of the wake that you leave behind as you go through too, this world. So . Hey, you know, speaking of water we’re talking about a lot of rain lately, and I’ve gotta tell you, it has been to speak of the word untapped potential as this episode is Somebody left the tap on at our, our place cuz it has been raining and raining and raining so badly. I gotta be frank with you. I saw a puppy dog the other day with floaties on. I mean, it’s that bad.
LF:
Well, I mean, it is springtime in Oklahoma. You never know. One minute it’s a monsoon. The next minute it’s a drought. So, we’ll, we’ll take all the running, flowing water we can at the moment.
JW:
Oh, I gotta tell you, you know, this is a great episode though, Lori, because this is something you’ve experienced in life because you’ve tapped your potential, but you let, let’s, let’s maybe share some stories today about a lot of people that we know that haven’t. I’ve gotta give you one quote though that I love. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Had a quote that really comes to mind on the potential. And this one is A few can touch the magic string and noisy fame is proud to win them a last, for those that never sing but die with all their music in them. Ooh. Oh, that’s, wow.
LF:
That’s kinda deep, yeah. Deep for this early. Can’t wrap my brain around that.
JW:
Yeah! So, Mr. Holmes is saying to us, Hey, you have a lot of potential that’s not being realized. So let’s focus on some of that this morning. Lori, talk, talk to me a little bit. Have you met anyone? You know, that’s just a bright shining star, but they just couldn’t seem to get up and get going and realize their potential?
LF:
Are you talking about me?
JW:
No, I’m not talking-
LF:
You’re talking about me!
JW:
I said, did you know anyone else? Anyone I need to put else in there? There we go.
LF:
You know, actually, yes. And it, it evolved in a friend of mine in college. We were complete strangers when we met. But obviously through classes in school, we became kind of kindred spirits and acquaintances and, and later in life friends and, and
JW:
Is this Justin? No. Oh, no. Okay. Sorry. I thought you were talking about Justin. Okay, go ahead.
LF:
We’re more frenemies than we are.
JW:
Oh, that’s bad. Okay.
LF:
But, you know, I loved that. What I loved about her was that she, you know, was a positive in influence and we did see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I always felt that she was ready to take the next step in her career after we graduated and then move on in life. And she always seemed to just hide in the shadows a much more of a person behind the scenes. And I would say to her, you know, you could go for this, you could try. And always, I felt that it was untapped. Either the circumstances weren’t right, the planets didn’t align, or she didn’t have the right people in the right room at the right time to help make and catapult her career. And, you know, years later, after, you know, working multiple jobs and, and having success, but just never really feeling a hundred percent fulfilled.
LF:
She calls me one day and she’s like, listen, you’re never gonna believe this. I finally just decided to go for it. And I was like, what? What? She said, there was this crazy job opportunity that she said, I don’t think I’m qualified, but I’m gonna put my name out there, throw my hat in the ring and, and just, you know, see what happens. And she actually was selected for the job, went in feet first full, you know, guns blazing to try to learn everything she could about the new company that she was working for. And now she is actually in charge of their retention and recruitment department.
JW:
How cool is that?
LF:
Finding that, and you know, she said, now that I’ve had the experience to untap my potential to see what I can do by pushing myself now, I find that in the people in the company that I’m recruiting for or working for them to try to help other people and bring them in so that it just makes our company more successful. So love, love, love her, and she is a force to be reckoned with. But I always saw her as that person that I thought could do it. I believed that she could do it, but it took her a while to figure it out that she believed in herself, that she could tap that unknown deep down, buried, you know, and sometimes we do it for anxiety, we do it for, we don’t wanna be rejected, we don’t wanna put ourselves out there, but just really owning it and coming into your own, even if it didn’t happen in the beginning, you know, or in the middle or maybe even towards the end of your career, I think anybody can do it. We just have to be willing to work the process.
JW:
You brought up something there. First of all, I’m glad this is audio only my friends who goes, what that story did. I just got goosebumps all over my arm. , because that was kind of chilling. I love those kinds of success stories. But you know, one thing about this is, is you said, Hey, you know, anybody can do it. We just gotta tap into that. So many people I think sell themselves short because they don’t have the crowd cheering for them for this reason only. Now, this is gonna sound harsh, everyone, but I truly believe this in my lifetime. I have made some dear friends from my high school days you know, grade school, high school and so forth, and I made some different friends in college. And throughout my career as, as I’ve been blessed in things and doors open and so forth, you make newer friends and some of those friends you made maybe in high school and junior high, just they’re friends, but you just don’t see ’em very much, Lori, you know what I mean?
JW:
They’re just not that deep a relationship anymore because you evolve, you grow, and you tap into some of those relationships that are now more common with you as you’ve gotten in your career than maybe you would be if those friends were still in your life. Not saying that we’re disowning anyone, I’m just saying you kind of outgrow them, right? And at the end of the day, you wanna surround yourself with people that believe in you and want the best for you. So what happens, a lot of times there’s these, oh, I hate to say it, these negative Nancys so to speak. And what they do is they want to keep you dragged down because why, Lord, that’s where they’re comfortable. Mm-Hmm. , they have not tapped their potential, so they want to keep you there. So here’s a good story. I will tell you briefly there’s a gentleman I know that could have been a wonderful recording guitarist, and this guy can play like you wouldn’t believe.
JW:
He was, man, one of the best guitar players I knew when I was a younger man in high school and coming up through college. And he never hid it big because his parents kept telling him, you’re wasting your time. You need to go get a real job. You know, just that dragon on him all the time. Now I’m not saying his parents were bad people, they were trying to build his character to the point where he understood that may be your dream, but you gotta have something that pays the bills. Right? And at the end of the day, I often wonder how Randy, his name is Randy, I often wonder what happened to him because he went to work for don’t laugh. He went to work for a peanut factory that made peanuts and he played his gigs on the weekends, practiced all the time, never really took that untapped potential and put it to its best use. And, you know, that’s something that I see a lot of younger people doing, you know.
LF:
I absolutely agree. I think for young people, especially now that there are so many outlets to be, if you will, visible with social media, with the internet, with streaming services and even podcasts. I mean, there are so many more opportunities for people to put themselves out there, to network, to socialize, to figure out who they who and what and where. And all the moving parts. To me, they seem so much more tangible than even, you know, 20 years ago when I was in high school. But they’re afraid to go for it. They’re afraid of rejection. They’re afraid of putting their heart out on and being judged for it or being criticized. And I, I tell people all the time, what’s it gonna hurt? You gotta try what? You never know. You don’t wanna live your life in the what ifs or if I never, you’ve gotta be able to say, okay, I tried it.
LF:
Yep. Didn’t get the result I wanted, didn’t get the feedback I wanted. That’s okay, I learned from it. Move on to the next thing to see what it’s gonna be. But I, I absolutely think that that’s true. You always wonder what happened or what if to the person that you saw something in. And that’s why it’s so important that we tell people, tell people, I think you sound great. I think you look great. I think that art is great. I think your writing is great. I think you should hone in on those skills. And everybody knows somebody who dabbles in something. That’s what I think is so great about the world and the network that we build. We cast our net really wide and we figure out the people that we wanna bring in and we take from them and we put those things in our arsenal to make us all a better person.
JW:
Oh man, I tell you what, there’s a whole episode right there that was wonderful. . I, you know, one thing too, I wanna visit with people on, there’s several facets of life in which you may have untapped potential, but you may have tapped all your potential in a certain area of life, right? And so I tell people in education now, I’m not talking just formal, I’m talking lifetime learning. You know, I, I order these things called great courses. I’ve got like 88 of them and they’re on different areas of studies, such as one’s on science, one may be on politics, one may be on history, one may be on biography, whatever. And I just love to learn. And I believe that’s really what makes the world better for you, is the more you get better for the world because our world’s changing. Wouldn’t you agree?
LF:
Oh, absolutely. Faster than we can keep up. So I’ve got a question for you, Jimmy. Yes. What do you think, what do you think personally, professionally is the biggest untapped resource?
JW:
Well, that’s a great question. So to tell you folks, we don’t script any of this. I’m stalling now to give you my answer by making this comment . No, I will tell you this-
LF:
We talked about untapped potential, but what are the, what’s an untapped resource?
JW:
Yeah. I think the untapped resource though is, is building on relationships that give you that support you need to move forward. So a lot of people are so hung up, and please don’t anybody throw anything at us. If you see us in public I believe we need to get away from the telephone business of carrying around this thing called a, you know, smartphone or whatever. And we need to start shaking hands, talking with people if it’s safe to do so. I’m not saying during the pandemic, but we need to get back into relationships being the basis for our strength, not the telephone being the resource for our time. And you’ll see that we fight ourselves. It’s not the telephone making, let’s do it. It’s that FOMO, right? The fear of missing out, or we gotta send something to a friend. Cause I just heard something funny.
JW:
These things that we used to do in letters and cards. You know, I’m a big card writer, I like to send cards. I’m still that old guy that kills the trees. I get it. But I still like to write on paper. And at the end of the day, there’s these resources called human beings. And so a friend of mine is is taking a, a new, new job. Well, she’s trying to look for a job right now. And she was just talking to me yesterday and she sent her resume to me because she said, you used to live in the Tulsa area. And I said, I sure do, and I’ve got a lot of relationships still there that I’m very thankful for. And she said, would you help me? And that’s all she had to say. And I said, yes. And she goes, well, I didn’t finish my sentence.
JW:
I said, it does not matter. You’re my friend, friend. Whatever I’m capable of doing, I wish to do so. And she said, okay, would you help me get my resume out and if you know of any contacts in this area? And she told me the area of which she’s been training, got her degree. And I said, count on it. I’ll get you some contacts. I will actually further that and forward it to my friends that are in those areas. And we’ll get started on it right away and which we’ve done. I’ve already sent some of those resumes. And so my point I’m making with that is the relationships are really what makes this world go around for people to reach their full potential. No one, and I hate to say it like this, but no one gets the pinnacle of life without someone else lifting them up.
LF:
Mm. Truth, very. I love that.
JW:
Yeah. You, you know, as much as we say I’m a rugged individualist and I built this company I got news for you. It takes team members, right? Yes. It takes those wonderful customers or clients. It takes a product that someone probably developed for you. You see where I’m going? You cannot be a solopreneur in this day and age and reach, in my opinion, your untapped potential because we were meant to be beings that talk and, and, you know, gregarious, we were meant to talk and be around other people. We’re a tribal world, are we not?
LF:
Sometimes our tribes can be complicated, sometimes . Yeah, we are though. I mean, that’s, that’s the thing. And navigating that, navigating those tribes of people and those dynamics and those personalities. But what I love about that, there’s always room to learn. There’s always room for growth. There’s always opportunity to say, that’s not working for me, or I need to go over here and be part of this group, or we’re gonna work on something completely different and find those strengths within those tribes. You know? I’m not a huge survivor watcher on the reality show. I have a lot of people that talk to me about it, that they are diehard fans. They’ve watched every season and they tell me about the different tribes and the different immunities and challenges. And, you know, it kind of gets a little cutthroat towards the end about who’s gonna be the ultimate survivor. I’m so glad that life is not really like that because we need those people to be in our tribe. And at the end of the day, it’s lonely at the top. Nobody really wants to be at the top alone. So I, I don’t know, maybe I, maybe I need to watch that show and learn a few tips or tips of the trade. I have no desire to be on reality tv, but that, that’s what made me think of that when you said tribe.
JW:
No, I apologize, but my show, the show popped in my head. Are you talking about the one where they’re naked and out running around?
LF:
No, no, no. That’s something else. Oh, okay. Survivor-
JW:
I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I do remember seeing a commercial. I’m going now, that’s not for me, that that’s not for me to run around outside like that.
LF:
Survivor is the one where they put everybody on an island and you partner up with people and they put you together and then you get voted out based on your loyalty, or if you’re a traitlor or you know, that kind of thing. Now, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jimmy.
JW:
Well, there was one, they get a man and a woman. They put ’em together naked in some unknown location, and they have to live off the land for so long and they win a hundred thousand bucks. That’s all I got from a commercial, to be very frank. I thought there was something wrong with my tv. There was so much nakedness, it was blurred out. And I’m like, why is the TV blurry? I got a little closer to, I said, oh, my word. Changed the channel. Seriously.
LF:
I know what I would be willing to do for a hundred thousand dollars, but I don’t know that that would be it.
JW:
You ever get a mosquito bite on your tushie, you’re gonna regret it. That’s all I can tell you. But listen, let’s get beyond that.
JW:
Here’s one thing I do want to say. Hey folks, this podcast can touch any topic. You know, we topic, topic, we will go there. One thing though, I want you to, to take as our listeners from Live Life by Design is this, and I mean this with all sincerity, that the real wealth of this world are the relationships that we make, the relationships we keep, and those that we help support in other people. And what I mean by that is, is Darren Hardy is one of my mentors. I love his stuff. He puts out, he’s just so inspiring to me. And he had a mentor of his that was worth hundreds of millions of dollars, never married this man, never had a child. He was dying. And it was a friend of his father’s. His dad was an old football coach, and this man had owned real estate, commercial, residential.
JW:
He owned all kinds of properties in California, and so worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He’s on his deathbed. And he, he Darin went to say his goodbyes and he said it was so sad, he said, as I’m sitting there and he had this oxygen in his nose, he was barely able to talk. He pulled him in a little closer to his mouth and he said, I’m dying with all this wealth that I have to give away to some charity or something. But he said, if I were you, I would spend more time on relationships and family than owning assets. Wow. Now this comes from man’s multi multimillionaire, hundreds of millions of dollars. And he said, I looked at him and I’m like, I thought he was the king of the world. You know, he had any car that he’d wanted to buy. He wrote homes, checks for homes all over the coast. I mean, I’m talking millions of dollars in homes. And he said, I looked at him after he said that and I thought, I get it. The real net worth of a human is not based on what we own, but who we hold in our heart and our minds.
LF:
That is so true. You know, you hear people a lot talk about money, can buy you a lot of things, but money can’t buy. You necessarily can’t buy you happiness, long-term happiness. I mean, sure you can buy yourself something and you’re happy for a minute, but it’s just a thing.
JW:
Now let’s don’t confuse that because I, as a CPA will tell you, money can lease happiness for at least a, a good period of time. But yeah, you’ll never own it. But you can lease it for-
LF:
Well, we all, we’re all about good financial decisions here.
JW:
Yes. Sorry, excuse me.
LF:
Not to be con, not to be, you know, confused. But you know, it’s, we, we talk a lot about effort. And, and so in all of this, you have to put in effort to untapping your potential. You have to put effort into your relationships. You have to put effort into building in and building up other people. So what do you recommend, Jimmy, when you’re exhausted from putting out so much effort? What’s the one thing that we can do to make sure that we just don’t burn out?
JW:
Oh, great question. Here’s one thing I recommend. Find your center of the universe for you. And what I mean by that, like a state-
LF:
You’re to say, find the center of the donut. Sorry.
JW:
That’s a mystery. I don’t know where that thing goes. But anyway, no, find your center for you. So you gotta stay grounded to me, Lori. So I have my spiritual beliefs I stay grounded in. I have my family, I stay grounded in. And believe you, me, my wife is so honest with me, she will tell me she’ll, Hey, you need to dial it back, you know. So, you know, you can’t pay money for that. Kinda love, Lori, that, that’s just pure love right there.
LF:
That’s true love right there. Yes.
JW:
On a serious note, you just need to stay in your core. You know, I love to read good books about great people. The George Washingtons, the Thomas Jeffersons, Abraham Lincolns of the world. You know, these people that to me had little, some of them did, some of them didn’t, but had little but gained much influence in the world because they gave of themselves in a greater manner than they were equipped to be when they first took office. George Washington did not want to be president, but he was acclimated full, full, a hundred percent. I mean, they didn’t even take a vote. They just raised hands and said, that’s him. Nobody else could be president. But at the end of the day, that is not what made George Washington a great, a great president, was that they liked him. What made him a great president was his wisdom and his core beliefs that he had stayed with. He stayed with his religious beliefs during that time. He stayed with his beliefs in life and fairness and equity. And, you know, that’s the thing that makes us real human beings. It’s not about all these things that are around us and who we surround ourself with per se. It’s who we have around us that helps us become a better human. That’s what makes life worthwhile.
LF:
And that’s what makes the effort worth it every single day.
JW:
And a cup of coffee, as Lori would tell you.
LF:
Yeah, well listen, absolutely. A hundred percent gotta have that. No doubt about that.
JW:
He spoke with a friend of mine today from Columbia. He is a coffee bean. So what he does, he is the person that buys the beans. He has the business of exporting the beans to roasters. And I, I gave him your address, so I’m hoping he’ll send you something.
LF:
That would be fantastic. I love, love, love, love, love. Oh, I, you know, people laugh now. They’ve made coffee scent in just about anything. Perfume, candles, room spray. I’m like, give it all to me. I want to smell it all the time. I love it. I, I nothing is better than walking into a coffee shop and smelling that freshly roasted coffee.
JW:
You know, we’re really digressing here. But I like to untap. You know, I like to tap into my potential when I’m at Dillard’s and smell some good colognes for men. , now you’re laughing, but they give you this big, it looks like almost a Parmesan cheese shaker, uhhuh. And they’ll say between each of these that you smell, you need to smell this because what’s it do? It, it basically voids the smell outta your nose. Yeah, the nose cleanses the nose.
LF:
Like you cleanse the palate, only it’s the smell.
JW:
So I took a big whiff the first time years ago. They did this to me. I just took it back. Well, okay, so boy, I took a big whiff and tears came to my eyes, it was so strong. And she said, now breathe this. And I said, ma’am, I can’t breathe. Period. So I don’t know what Yeah, . But Lori, take us out of there today. Let’s talk about how you tap your full potential every day. So you’ve asked me, how about you?
LF:
Oh goodness. I, hmm. So as of late, I have been trying to tap my full potential in focusing in a little bit more on my self. And I know that’s not a typical norm cuz we are very much about, you know, other people. But I have really tried to look inward lately to figure out what it is that I feel like I bring to the table, what I want to bring to the table, what I think I bring to the table that’s good. And get that feedback from other people because they may not think it’s good what I’m bringing to the table. And so I really want people to know that it is okay to have those conversations with yourself. In fact, I think it’s important. I think it’s part of the process of evolving into the human being that you’re meant to be on walking the face of the planet.
LF:
If we are working on ourselves, we’re working to make ourselves better, and in turn we make other people better. Now, I’m not saying that it’s a glowing report right now, but as Jimmy says, we set goals, you know, 30, 60, 90 day goals. And so at each juncture of those, when I feel like I’ve done something or crossed a hurdle, I’m gonna reward myself. I don’t really know what that is yet because I’m still so new in the process. But I just want people, and especially our listeners to know that it’s okay to focus on yourself. It’s okay to ask those internal questions about what am I doing? Where do I wanna be? Who do I wanna be when I grow up? I think we’re all still having those questions and conversations with ourselves. And it’s okay to do that because you have to be the best version of yourself. And that’s what’s gonna help you find that untapped potential by asking those questions and being curious and knowing that it’s okay. That just because you’ve done something or you’ve been doing something forever, you feel like there. It’s never too late to pivot. It’s never too late to change, and it’s never too late to try something new. So just don’t be afraid. Come along this journey with me. We’ll do it together. There’s safety in numbers. We always feel better when we have a buddy to do something. Jimmy and I know this firsthand.
JW:
Absolutely.
LF:
Just don’t be afraid. Don’t, don’t, don’t get in your own head. Get, get out there.
JW:
You know, that’s good advice. I gotta tell you, one of the worst things I have to do at night is get my brain to quit working and thinking I really do. I have to try to really focus and concentrate to just clear my mind so I can sleep. And so I always read good things. Sleep is an elusive thing. Yeah. I don’t know, man. Very elusive. Sleep to me is getting tougher and tougher to deal with, you know, and I’m a very young 58, but I gotta tell you, I get so much excitement in life. It’s hard to turn it off at night and go to sleep. And, you know, I, I get up pretty early 5, 5:30. I like to get up and get around. So I’m, I’m moving and grooving, but I don’t get to go to sleep that early. I try to. But here’s a challenge I want us to think about with our audience. Live life by design is about being a bigger, better, and bolder you. Whatever that that is intended to and whatever you wish it to be, we wish for you nothing but the most success in that role. So the challenge this week, Lori and I have talked about how you can tap your potential in different facets of life. Your spiritual, marital, family financial, whatever it is. I think you need to pick one facet of life this week that you know you have untapped. That potential. You need to reach down deep and make it a effort that is one of the best efforts you can make to be a better person in that area of life. And go out and be that bigger, better bolder you. Because the world doesn’t just need you. It expects you to show up being the best you possible.
LF:
And with that, go out this week and-
Both:
Live a life… by design!
JW:
We had it til you laughed, Lori.
LF:
I ruined it! That was our one chance!
JW:
Hey folks, we’ll see you next week. Thanks for joining us here on Live Life by Design. On behalf of Lori Few, the star of our show, Jimmy Williams, the understudy, glad you could join us. Thank you so much everybody. Have a blessed week.
