Why jobs will always underestimate your potential

I've noticed one thing in life recently, and it's that people will never overestimate your potential, they'll always lean towards underestimating it.

Unless you show with evidence you've done certain things.

I didn't used to understand that, until I started hiring for my own company recently.

I realized why. It's because people's time is limited so they won't spend much time thinking about you and dealing with uncertainties.

Which is why they will want to see proof that you have done exactly the thing for the job that they need, and have done it very well.

And this is why I want to argue that looking for a job will always underestimate your potential.

The first reason is that by looking for a job, you are pretty much trying to fit in to this very small role that someone else has defined, in which they need a task done. And by definition, there's no room for growth, because they are just trying to solve a specific problem through hiring for that role.

The second is that sometimes you can do that thing, but you just haven't proven yourself yet. So if you keep applying to jobs, you will never show that you can do it, because you sometimes have to do things for free in order to prove that you can do something.

Being a generalist

I don't even like the word generalist because I don't necessarily want to say i can do anything and it gives the impression that I don't do anything well.

It doesn't fit those who are multipassionate, and are good at many different things.

In the past I have mastered the violin, also playing badminton, and UX design, and hosting events, creating community, content creation, solo travel, digital nomading.

But no role will hire me to do UX design and content creation and host events.

If you want to have a more unlimited potential then you have to make sure that you have to create your own job.

Top down vs Bottom up

Creating your own job means you can do many things and not just what one person tells you. This is because all jobs are top down. Where as creating your own job is bottom up. You define what you want to give to the world. Is it a newsletter, a channel, an app, or all of these things. You get to maximize the value that you're giving because you can give in all these different ways.

Especially in today's world everything is trying to steal your attention. And you can only really do your own thing if you already have conviction that you really want this and you intentionally carve out the time to do so.

The essence of what I'm saying is that in order to have truly untapped potential you need to reject the top down approach, and go bottom up. Bottom up meaning, picking a few things you love and just offering these things to the world instead of being asked to do so.

Which means going out there and doing things to explore the value you can offer to the world.

If you want to see more of this bottom up vs top down approach, then leave a comment or reply and I would love to go deeper in my next article.

Of course if you're in a place where you need to work, treat a job as a way to earn money and gain some experience, but don't treat it as the end all be all. Always be looking for things you can do outside of it, because your calling is almost always not in the job that you're seeking but in something you can uniquely offer.

Thanks for reading and until next week,

Angel