Why Do Elephants Have Big Ears?
Three Techniques to unleash your hidden potential
Losing an Election
It was the first semester of my college days. A long, Long time ago. Elections for the class leader post was announced. My friends, as a joke, submitted my name for the post. My opposing candidate knew everybody and was a very social person. Me being a total introvert, I was not sure whether my classmates were even aware of my existence! So when the time came for me to cast my vote, I decided that there was no chance of me winning and I cast my vote for my opponent. Guess what, I lost the election as I had predicted. But by one vote! My vote!
It was a complete shock to me!
Elephant Story
As was the case at that time, I went to get some sympathy from my mentor (Who also happened to be my Dad). He listened to my tale of woe and said, “You have Elephant Ears”. My Dad has these cryptic messages when I came to him with my problems. As usual, I gave him a blank look. What did Elephants have to do with my situation? An elephant had big ears to swat away the flies? He had another argument that made much more sense…
He explained “Elephants have huge ears and because of that, they are not able to see the size of their bodies. This allows a small human being to control it” He continued, “In your case too, you have Elephant ears because you are not able to see your potential. So, you let a little doubt cause you to act the way you did!”. Of course, the story was much longer, and my immature mind took some time to get to the core fact. But when I did get it, I internalized it!
I have used this story in many mentoring sessions I had through my years of building teams. The core message is, everybody has great potential and you need to get rid of the elephant ears to see it and use it
“Believe in your infinite potential. Your only limitations are those you set upon yourself.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
With that context, I came up with my top three tips to maximize your potential. Here they are:
Become a good protege
During the early days of my career, “Find a good mentor” was the advice I received most often. Years of being a mentor myself, Can I now offer a different perspective? I want the new mantra to be “You need to be a good protege”. You need to be able to listen, understand, question and more importantly know how to get the most out of a good mentoring relationship.
Young excited professionals expect the mentor to be this magician, who with just a few pieces of advice, transform their career by providing them with short cuts to success. Lacking the ability to get most out of the relationship and sadly disappointed, they blame the mentor and continue their Quixotic quest to find yet another wizard.
A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you.
Bob Proctor (1)
Get out of your comfort zone
It was embarrassing to say the least. My Customer wanted to build a strategy and my experience was to deliver solutions to meet customer objectives. The strategy was done by folks who were specialized in the subject. At least that was my impression. I walked sheepishly into my boss’s office and told him that he needs to find somebody else to do the work since I did not know how to run a strategy engagement. He looked at me as if I had gone crazy. He just said “Do not waste my time. Just figure it out”. Shaken I went out and read up everything I could and did the engagement and ended up delighting the customer.
A frog in a well cannot discuss the ocean, because he is limited by the size of his well — Zhuangzi, The Way of Chuang Tzu
A lot of water under the bridge over the years. I did learn my lesson and I have done Blockchain Strategy workshops in over 10 countries worldwide!
That was one of the best pieces of mentoring I had!
If you are stuck in the same company or working with the same technology for years, Step out of your comfort zone and discover new possibilities of what you can do and achieve
Rewrite your resume
Nope. Not asking you to look for another job. But I want you to look at what you have achieved in the past with a new set of eyes. You will be amazed to discover the hidden potential. Resumes usually are these chronological milestones of your life where you talk about what you did, for whom and what you achieved.
Let us apply the “Potential Filter”
Focus on what inside you helped you complete those achievements? The intangible capabilities which separate you from others.
For example
Let us say you have worked in several companies/countries — It shows the potential you have of dealing with different people/cultures and thriving in them. Forget the skills, they are of the past. The potential speaks to what you can deliver in the future and that could open new doors you never realized existed before
One of my close friends made a move from being a Senior Technical Project Manager to VP of Human Resources. All because he took a close look at his resume and identified that his superpower was to deal with stakeholders (Customers, employees, partners) and their issues — Empathize with them, motivate them and get them to work as a team. When presented with the facts, the CEO gave him a chance to take on the role of a newly departed VP and display his potential in an entirely new field
Conclusion
In conclusion, make sure you don’t have Elephant ears, identify your hidden potential and live up to your promise.
References
- http://www.wiseoldsayings.com/mentors-quotes/#ixzz6Hbqfb4JW
- Why Do Elephants have big Ear — My very own self-published book
