Living Up To Your Potential

Intro by Skip Cohen

I’ve loved all of Bev Walden’s “Tuesday Tidbits,” but this one hit me the hardest to date because it’s so relevant.

We’re all fighting to maintain a level of normalcy as the pandemic continues to change everything around us. As a professional photographer, your business has changed substantially. You’ve had to adjust to so many different parameters in how not only you live your life, but your clients live theirs.

Wedding and portrait photographers have been hit the hardest as events have been postponed, sittings canceled, and revenue streams disappearing that just months ago seemed completely healthy.

As you read what Bev wrote, we’ve all been put in a position similar to Tim’s father, so many years ago. We’ve all been paralyzed by the pandemic through fear, the economy, and the challenges around us.

But here’s the fantastic thing about your role as an artist and human nature. Nothing stops the creative spirit. Through this crisis, artists are doing new things and finding unique ways to create and help people capture memories!

As we go into this year’s holiday season, imaging will have more meaning than perhaps any time in history. People have been isolated for too long. The challenge of what to get Grandma for Christmas this year becomes so apparent – nothing could be appreciated more than something under the imaging umbrella that brings her family to her!

Bev’s closing line says it all… ”Living up to our full potential is not trying to avoid making mistakes. It’s giving it our all, wholeheartedly, with all we’ve got.”

By Beverly Walden

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done.

Life’s too short to think small.”

Tim Ferriss

Rick Sorenson, a man I was reading about recently, tells of the day he decided to plunge headlong into the riptide of life. His moment of truth arrived when he saw himself dead and buried. On the tombstone, six feet above him appeared these tragic words:

He Had Potential.

Potential generally refers to a currently unrealized ability.

As I sit and ponder what makes us tick, what keeps us going, and why we are so busy with new ideas and projects 24/7, I believe it is striving to reach our potential. It’s like the carrot on the end of the stick, dangling in front of the horse. We are going after the carrot! It’s keeping us young:-)

Tim often tells the story of his dad who was paralyzed from a slipped disk when Tim was 6 years old. After many surgeries and a year in the hospital and rehab, he had resigned himself to being bedridden the rest of his life.

At the time of his accident, he was working as a civilian for the Army Depot here in Lexington, and a Colonel who had a daughter getting married called and asked him to shoot the wedding. Pausing before answering, Tim’s dad politely told him he could not do anything like that. After all, he was barely in a wheelchair, mostly in bed and still in rehab.

As the story goes, the Colonel insisted and finally told Tim’s dad it was an order!

So…he worked on his mobility and did the wedding. After that wedding, he shot nearly 1000 more with Tim’s help. He had not realized his POTENTIAL before the Colonel’s request and once he did, he had a long and successful career as a wedding and portrait photographer, earning his Craftsman, Master and Artist degrees from PPA, starting Walden’s Photography and mentoring many young photographers along the way.

Living up to our full potential is not trying to avoid making mistakes.

It’s giving it our all, wholeheartedly, with all we’ve got.

Every day, on your way to work, make the decision to give it you’re all.

Don’t let FEAR (Fales Evidence Altering Reality) stop you from reaching your potential!

Yes, we will make mistakes. But we must learn from our mistakes, be willing to change our course and set sail for distant waters where possibilities lie in wait for us.

After all, the first 6 letters in potential are POTENT!