The world contains a huge number of unexplored opportunities. Especially large-scale and unpredictable Nassem Taleb calls "black swans." Black alludes to negative connotations, but in reality there are also positive situations. For example, winning the lottery or the unexpected popularity of a new business niche. In these cases, they talk about potential. But this concept is complex and multifaceted. What is the potential?
Sell probabilities!
The first meaning of this word is hidden for the time being opportunities. Psychologists say a lot about potential. But coaches generally turned human potential into an expensive commodity. And it is selling well, although not all places are occupied in this niche. However, the manifestation of potential is a business. It is not strength and not intelligence that enhance human potential, but a constant application of effort.
Specificity of potential
We are all used to looking at chess players from the bottom up, considering their abilities to be special. However, an experiment was conducted: first, players and non-players were asked to remember the position of the figures that occurs in the game. Naturally, chess players reproduced it impeccably. But when they offered to remember the arbitrary position of the pieces, professional players and non-players remembered the order equally badly. All human skills are very specific and poorly transferred from one activity to another. What is the potential? These are activity-driven opportunities.
Conditional Calculations
The second value is related to economic geography. For example, in the complex concept of “country’s potential”, a conditionally calculated quantity is meant. Usually it is calculated on the basis of natural and human resources, as well as the demand for goods and services in the world market. What is the potential for economists? This is a hypothetical assessment of a country's capabilities. Moreover, smart states put first of all on human potential. If human resources are used well, then a poor resource country becomes successful, for example, Japan or Singapore.
Moral motivation
Of course, the country's potential is also directly connected with the mentality. It is impossible to make Russians work in the same way as the inhabitants of the well-known eastern country. Even the cult of labor, which was promoted for decades by the ideologists of socialism, could not instill a love of work. The very word “labor”, actually neutral, has become much unpleasant due to propaganda. I think that a Russian person is able to work “from the heart” only in connection with moral values. We work for our family, for the people we love, for our home. And not for the sake of incomprehensible and alien ideals, someone's norms of development. We, the former residents of the Union, are ready to do much to protect our family from the disorder and uncertainty of tomorrow.
Electric field terms
In the third sense, potential is the concept of physical science. The work of external forces on the transfer of a unit of charge. Usually the words "tension" and "potential" in science are used side by side, in any textbook they will be almost together. Tension depends on the potential, only with the opposite sign. To understand the equation of tension, basic knowledge of higher mathematics is necessary. What is the potential in the third value? A very definite physical concept … This is still far in meaning from human capabilities.
