“You have High Potential”- A rather dubious praise

This statement does sound familiar right? Usually, we receive such praises from our seniors both socially and professionally. At the moment, we feel very happy and overwhelmed.
Surprisingly, this time when a close friend/colleague who is a very celebrated academician told me “Vaidant, you have high potential?” I instinctively replied “ Thanks, so what do you mean by high potential? I keep hearing this a lot and it just seems misleading!”. You must be thinking “wow! This guy can’t even accept praise”, I love being praised but after one point when you have gained some self-awareness, that very same praise just seems misleading.

I recently read in a book by Sir John Whitmore that Performance(P) = potential(p) — interference(i) and oh man! I was bowled over really. I literally went in a mental flashback thinking about all those instances where I heard someone saying “ YOU HAVE HIGH POTENTIAL!” be it to me or someone else. It made me realize that such praise, even though not intended to be, can make the receiver ride on a high horse believing in his/her “high potential”.
As per that equation, P=p-i, the potential will turn out to a performance when it’s not interfered with by anyone or any thought. Interference can be of different forms, right? Someone in your team at work may be interfering with your potential, your own mind may play games of thoughts and interfere with your real-time potential and the list goes on. Most of such interferences are under our control and the ones that aren’t under our control need to be addressed timely to counter its negative impact.

I love the idea that people believe in my high potential, I would love it even more if I am fully aware of my potential. Once this #awareness is achieved, I gotta act on this awareness right? It’s like I am a good public speaker, so I may take #responsibility for it and speak at wider public forums. That’s taking full control of my high potential and implementing it instead of being merely happy with external validation even though I didn’t apply it much.
So next time someone points out your high potential, #ask them what made them say that. Be happy about the praise and be more curious as well. It’s a different journey altogether, and a rather good one once you explore into #awareness.