Why Do People with Potential Sometimes Go Unnoticed?

00:01 I've been wondering:

00:02 do late bloomers really exist,

00:08 or is that idea just a comfort?

00:11 Let me put it another way:

00:13 do rare kinds of people really exist?

00:18 Maybe they do.

00:20 But it feels as though

00:22 we see fewer and fewer such cases now.

00:28 I thought about it briefly.

00:31 What we call "late success"

00:36 may actually be

00:40 a device some people use for content,

00:45 or a kind of message

00:50 that meets a certain...

00:53 psychological need for self-comfort.

00:58 This is such a FOMO-driven age.

01:04 Everyone is anxious:

01:06 Why haven't I succeeded?

01:08 Why don't I have

01:13 something like

01:14 a better standard of living,

01:17 or better conditions at work?

01:19 So all kinds of explanations emerge,

01:22 and those explanations

01:25 can take many different forms.

01:27 Some people may find

01:32 comfort in those explanations:

01:35 "My situation is only temporary.

01:38 Things will definitely get better."

01:43 I'm reminded of a show I once watched.

01:47 It was called...

01:51 I've forgotten again.

01:54 But it was

01:57 a BL...

01:59 No, wait.

02:00 It was a GL film.

02:03 Or was it a TV series?

02:07 I think it was a series.

02:09 Anyway, I forget.

02:13 What stayed with me after watching it was

02:18 that the role capital plays

02:22 in our real lives

02:27 may go far beyond what we imagine.

02:31 After I finished it,

02:34 one sentence came to mind:

02:37 someone is always selling hope,

02:40 and we're the ones

02:45 who survive on that hope.

02:48 It's like what I was just saying:

02:52 because we have

02:54 these comforting narratives,

02:56 we can

03:00 believe that the future holds hope.

03:03 But I tried to understand why

03:07 stories of late success

03:11 may feel less credible today.

03:14 I have a sense that

03:19 some supposed late bloomers

03:23 have simply never "made it."

03:25 They never achieved so-called success.

03:29 There may be

03:35 well...

03:37 there may be

03:38 several reasons they haven't made it,

03:40 or achieved so-called success.

03:43 Those reasons might include,

03:46 on the first level,

03:48 never entering a field where

03:51 they could build leverage—

03:55 a high-leverage field.

03:58 Another reason is that

04:01 they may truly have ability,

04:04 but today's market hasn't recognized it.

04:11 Then there's a third reason.

04:12 This one isn't about the outside world.

04:15 It's mainly about the person themself.

04:17 They may know that they possess

04:22 enormous intrinsic value,

04:23 but haven't turned it into external value—

04:28 something visible to the outside world.

04:36 Some examples came to mind.

04:39 Throughout history,

04:41 there have been painters

04:44 and masters in other artistic fields.

04:50 Why did they become widely known

04:55 only after they died?

04:58 Why was their work

04:59 only recognized then?

05:01 One possibility is that they

05:04 were truly ahead of their time.

05:06 No one realized that their ideas

05:10 and their work

05:12 would become more valuable in the future.

05:15 In other words, there was no

05:20 discerning eye to recognize their talent.

05:23 That's one reason.

05:25 Another is that

05:27 their network

05:30 and personal connections

05:36 couldn't bring them into

05:39 the high-leverage spaces I mentioned,

05:43 where the right people could spot them.

05:47 And some people genuinely

05:51 devote themselves purely to their art.

05:54 They don't think,

05:55 "My work is valuable,

05:57 so more people need to see it.

05:59 I need

06:01 everyone to recognize its value."

06:04 Some people are simply

06:06 absorbed in honing their craft.

06:08 They never think of turning that inner—

06:11 their intrinsic value,

06:12 or the value contained

06:15 in their life,

06:16 into something other people can see.

06:23 That's just my immediate guess.

06:28 So I thought: if

06:31 someone truly believes

06:34 they deserve to be seen by certain fields,

06:39 certain markets,

06:41 or certain people,

06:43 they could try doing a few things.

06:47 These are also things

06:49 I'm currently thinking about

06:51 and working on myself.

06:55 For example, we can turn our thoughts,

07:00 our writing,

07:01 and the things we make

07:03 into something

07:05 other people can see,

07:08 consume,

07:10 use,

07:12 and share.

07:15 That might be audio,

07:19 perhaps...

07:21 audio in the form of podcasts,

07:23 or video and vlogs,

07:24 or writing and articles.

07:28 That's the first level:

07:29 putting your work out into the world.

07:33 The next level is this:

07:37 if we put it out there,

07:38 we need to choose

07:40 platforms to carry that content.

07:43 There are now

07:45 so many platforms available.

07:46 It depends on where you genuinely feel

07:51 your value is best placed.

07:54 And then

07:54 there's another crucial point.

07:57 Some people are truly remarkable at

08:02 making excellent use

08:04 of every resource around them.

08:08 I reflected on myself.

08:10 I don't lack connections,

08:13 but I don't know how—

08:15 or I'm not good at using them well.

08:19 That leads to my

08:22 third point: draw on people around you.

08:28 Though "use" isn't quite the right word.

08:31 If you genuinely need something,

08:34 you can try asking for help.

08:36 Through those actions,

08:39 you can move closer to a high-leverage system

08:42 or a high-leverage field.

08:45 AI coding is very popular now.

08:48 If you can use AI coding

08:52 to actually build something,

08:53 you can share it with open-source communities

08:56 or put it on GitHub.

08:59 You can even approach

09:01 and talk to established people about

09:05 what problems they're facing,

09:07 what they're building,

09:08 and what kind of

09:10 outcome they're hoping for.

09:16 As I keep talking,

09:18 something else comes to mind.

09:21 If you follow venture capital content,

09:25 or people in that field,

09:28 you may know

09:30 that there's someone right now—

09:34 I'll call him a mentor for now—

09:36 who is looking for unconventional people

09:40 and helping them start companies.

09:44 I've been in contact with his intern.

09:49 But there's one issue:

09:51 the things his intern has been doing

09:56 don't strike me as especially

10:02 results-oriented.

10:05 I used to work in a school,

10:09 where I observed the students I taught.

10:13 I noticed that some students

10:16 were exceptionally strong in one area.

10:19 But within that system,

10:23 grades came first.

10:25 Grades ruled.

10:26 So if your grades weren't very good,

10:30 you could be

10:32 strong elsewhere,

10:32 and still have that strength discounted.

10:35 Here's one pattern I observed:

10:38 to get a teacher's attention,

10:42 first, you needed good grades;

10:44 second, an outstanding ability;

10:47 you needed a connection with the teacher—

10:51 not a close one,

10:52 but at least some connection.

10:54 For some students,

10:56 their abilities stood out

10:58 and they had some connection with a teacher.

11:01 The teacher might pay them more attention

11:05 and give them more things to do.

11:09 Those assignments

11:10 might help them

11:12 develop that ability,

11:15 or perhaps train them

11:17 in a particular skill.

11:20 But some students

11:21 had exceptional abilities

11:23 and little contact with their teachers.

11:25 The teachers never saw their talent

11:28 or their potential.

11:30 So for a student like that,

11:36 their path of growth was theirs alone.

11:39 No teacher helped them along.

11:43 Based on what I saw in education,

11:49 I realized that

11:51 if the mentor's team I mentioned

11:55 wants to find unconventional people,

11:59 their search may not be on social media.

12:05 It may need to happen offline—

12:08 in schools, communities,

12:10 or other interest-based spaces

12:14 and communities.

12:17 I always feel that to find people,

12:19 you need to go where people actually are.

12:21 But social media

12:23 is a thoroughly mixed crowd.

12:26 People with real potential

12:30 may leave no trace there,

12:33 because their potential—

12:36 or rather,

12:39 all their time and energy—

12:41 may go into making things.

12:43 If they're busy making things, they may have no time

12:47 to put themselves online,

12:49 to write, for example,

12:50 or tell others what they've built.

12:54 Some people are true specialists:

12:57 exceptional in one area,

12:59 and correspondingly weaker in another.

13:02 All-rounders?

13:03 I think

13:06 they certainly exist.

13:08 They're simply not easy to discover.

13:12 So

13:15 if you want someone outstanding in a particular area

13:18 who doesn't fit our

13:21 traditional image of an entrepreneur,

13:25 then the search path—

13:27 where to look—

13:29 is itself worth thinking about.