#potential — part 3
What if the ideologies and the idealistic thoughts you have could become reality?
It was 2012. I had a corporate role in OD & Talent. I was doing my first international HR speaking gig in Eastern Europe. A totally new experience for me.
In one session I had a real-time translator helping me understand the speaker who was delivering the session in Romanian. I thanked my translator and enquired “So do you do this <translation> for a living?”
“No, I’m a student at an alternative university.”
Turns out there were 2 helpers at this event translating and helping speakers, and my translator introduced me to her good friend and fellow student at the alternative university who we’ll call Ioana.
Ioana and I introduced ourselves to each other and we got talking about this education venture in the heart of Bucharest. I was fascinated. Self-directed learning, no lecturers, no curriculum, no qualifications but a dedicated group of students who directed their own learning agendas.
“Why don’t you come to see it later?” was the invitation I couldn’t ignore.
So I became only the second individual from the UK to visit this large multi-storey house in a quiet street in Bucharest. Where I found a kind of Xanadu for education in young adults.
Rooms with different themes (on a later visit there was a room with tech and a 3-D printer — the first one I’d seen in real-life), books, flipcharts, non-matching furniture, and just a vibe like no other I’d felt.
In my TEDx talk of 2014, I described this place, as changing my life and it did. Because it was one of the most powerful feelings I’d had of an ideology and idealistic people in one physical space.
2 years later, my good friend and work soul-mate Lisa Gill covered the Alternative University in her post here and the website for it is here.
For about 2 years prior to this, I’d been exploring self-managed systems and the need for people to be less a part of a mechanistic system of work, and more a part of a humanistic approach that is more fulfilling and sustainable, and yes, productive.
So later that year, clearly unsettled, I ‘painted myself into a corner’. I broke my job and left the corporate world to pursue a self-directed, self-managed future.
And in my mind, was Ioana and the Alternative University and its ideologies and idealistic nature. Creating a community of like-minded souls who wanted to change the world where things are stuck, broken even.
Ioana shared that aspiration and spent 12 months with me in the UK before embarking on the next stage of her career journey. We went to many events, learned from others, and forged an idealistic partnership to change the world.
Move to 2019 and into 2020 and we made that ideal a reality. We came together and now I can begin to explore the potential elements to this story.
The first potential is the potential of dreams.
We both dreamed of a world where education and work were in the hands of individual people and not the system governed by a Parliament, Corporate giants and Academics. That’s not yet the reality but increasing numbers of freelance entrepreneurs and even technology startups that want to change the world, is seeing more people working to their systems and manifestations of their ideologies.
We dreamed that we wanted to be in the midst of that shift for work to self-managed, de-bureaucratised, and an open architecture for people to find themselves, their ‘mojo’ and as a result, do amazing things for others and themselves.
We never gave up on that dream and we’re now pursuing it even more so, but together, within the PTHR family/banner.
What is the potential in your dreams? How much does your dream inspire you that it shows what your true potential really is? Yet, how easily do you give in to the challenges that your dream may face?
Dreams of this nature often reveal things about your potential, and like Ioana, we faced into life choices, circumstances and even practicalities that challenged the feasibility of our dream of better education and work for all.
And yet, you could say, that dream has become a reality as we work together to change things and create better business for a better world.
Where you dream, there’s potential.
The second is the potential in the application of endeavour.
Endeavour is a word that isn’t used much in relation to education or work. Indeed the word means ‘try hard to do or achieve something’.
Try. Do or do not, there is no try (Yoda — The Empire Strikes Back).
We have gone beyond trying, Ioana and I. We’ve done and are doing. We’ve applied ourselves.
Initially, in 2014 to create a community (that has since, disbanded), and forged into our own individual ventures, to get them to a point where we could combine. Ioana has realised a lot of her potential and is clearer where her career path lies. As am I. And we now apply ourselves together and it’s every bit the wonderful collaboration we hoped it would be, back when we first talked about doing something to explore what working together would be like.
Where we really share a passion is in creating the systems of work for people to self-direct and self-manage. Since the COVID-19 lockdown, that’s what we’ve done. A partnership of beliefs, experiences and ideas that is creating the architecture for people to build flourishing careers and their own applied endeavours.
But now more on the potential in Ioana. It’s difficult to define the potential she has. In distilling the essence of Ioana’s passion I can only describe it as a passion for learning, change and better, that is combined with an outstanding commitment to building systems that create flow and fulfilment for people in their work.
Ioana has a learning ‘genome’ that is perhaps more exaggerated and appealing than anyone else I’ve ever met. So strong is the desire to learn and develop that it drives her, forcefully but gracefully, towards her contributions to others and to the work they do and unleashing their potential.
It’s never about Ioana. But it’s all about Ioana. Not in an ego-led, self-gratifying way. Ioana is the ultimate dreamer, idealist and ideology enabler.
If you can dream of something and Ioana believes in that dream, you will see more potential and application than you’d ever see in yourself. I’ve never seen such commitment to cause, and the potential in it, as Ioana demonstrates and exudes.
More personally, Ioana’s potential is perhaps the most limitless of anyone I’ve ever worked with. I can see this young woman:
- Leading a nation. She could out-Jacinda Prime Minister Ardern.
- Driving the UN’s push to a new form of educational model.
- Pushing the World Economic Forum to promote a social infrastructure that enables every dream in every entrepreneur across the globe.
- Architecting a system of work that reinvents global corporates and local start-ups.
What do you do when you have that kind of potential on your hands as a co-leader with that individual?
Now here’s the other important thing in potential.
Don’t force things just because you see potential in people.
Ioana may or may not believe in the full scale of potential as I see it, but it’s important for me to appreciate that how I help nurture Ioana’s potential, is in line with her life and work ambitions and plans.
It may be really easy to get carried away with the potential I see and I urge, encourage and even force Ioana to become what I see, simply because I see it.
Instead, I think it healthy to let someone know you see that potential in them and then work with them to ensure it’s on their terms. A little encouragement and even a gentle but firm nudge may help them overcome some lacking confidence or belief issues. But in reality, it’s their potential and even if you see it, it’s theirs to unleash. Better with you and for them.
People can demonstrate commitment and obligations that may mean they do things in favour of your desires that aren’t really their own. This may work out but is dangerous ground. In wanting to ‘please’ you or not let you down, they may put themselves into areas that are not necessarily where they’d see themselves, but because you declared it as a possibility, they might just comply even against their own desires.
So I think in talking about potential, we should also be mindful that this is a two-way deal. Between you seeing the potential in someone, and them believing and knowing the unleashing of potential is something they too, truly desire.
Ioana and I could’ve worked together from our start in 2013–14. But instead, we chose to try our own paths until 2019–2020. Because whilst there was a dream and potential in it, something urged us to explore more before we came together more consistently.
And it’s proven right. Ioana’s potential is now even more obvious to me as a leading force in alternative and progressive working systems. Our commitment to each other is perhaps more secured and natural through our exploration of the potential in other areas.
I think our combined future has more potential than the first combination over 7 years ago. I managed to quash any impatience I had to see Ioana’s potential unleashed. So instead, we kept in touch, did some coaching together, and let things naturally flow and aggregate.
We knew we had potential (each other and more so, combined). We also appeared to know that we didn’t need to force or try and peak that potential too early. I actually think our dreams of what our individual and combined potential will be exceeded by this show of patience and emergence.
It would be wrong of me not to share just how much potential is in Ioana as I thought it was a lot when I first met her. It has continued to escalate and advance.
And is the opposite of some people you might meet. Who may appear to have a lot of potential, but in the application side of things, it transpires to be somewhat lower than expected. It doesn’t mean such people don’t have potential, merely that the expectations of it need to be recalibrated somewhat.
Ioana’s potential is now growing before my very eyes. I see no end to what she might achieve and she inspires me on with the continued attention to unravelling the puzzle we’re both trying to solve: How do you take the ideology of self-management and create systems that enable people to thrive within it — be that in education, work and life.
I think we are pleased we followed our dreams, ideologies and idealistic natures based on our potential spotting in that first meeting over 8 years ago.
Dreams, application, nurture and combination are a recipe for potential unleashed that could just see the changes in the world, come to fruition in a balanced, satisfying and sustainable way.
Dare to differ. Dare to be different. Change the rules. Become the leader of your own school.
Potential is found in dreams and daring; realised through timely endeavours and togetherness. Ioana is potential with patience. And every bit worth the wait.
