The Pain of Unrealized Potential

So a couple weeks ago, I guess it was maybe a week or two ago, this gentleman named Kelvin Kiptum passed away. You’ve maybe never heard of him, but he was potentially one of the greatest marathon runners to ever have lived. What made him so interesting is he was very young, very, very young, and he had only ran six marathons. And in that time, he was undefeated and was breaking records, world records, at a rate that we had never seen before. He was redefining what was possible in real time. He just came out of nowhere and was destroying the record books. And then as quickly as he came on the scene, he left the scene, and he passed away in a car accident. And I was reflecting on this with my budy sawhill the other day, and I wrote him, and I said, this might be the first time I’ve ever had the feeling, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that we lost a Mozart or an Einstein or a Steve Jobs before he could do the thing he was destined for.

He had this rare blend of potential coupled with inevitability that you usually can’t perceive without the gift of hindsight. I truly believe the world was his for the taking, and that if he had lived another 30 years, he would have done things that redefine what humans think is possible in long distance running. And I was thinking about this because if Einstein and Steve Jobs and Moitzar, if they hadn’t done the things that we now know them for, then they would have just been forgotten to the annals of time. And surely there are more forgotten geniuses than there are geniuses who had the opportunity to realize their greatness, whether through opportunity, because opportunity plays a massive role. Steve Jobs probably wouldn’t have been Steve Jobs if he had not been a product of a very particular moment of time and having lived in a very particular place in time, right, the same way, Einstein wouldn’t have either. And so we can often see these geniuses and world defining individuals and so.

Clearly connect the dots in hindsight of.
Like, oh, of course they are who they are, and they did these things. But with this Calvin Kiptum, I keep thinking of the fact that you could see what he was destined for and that he was in the right place at the right moment. Everything was lined up for him and then just never got the opportunity. Because that’s life. That’s just life. And I think it’s a sobering reminder that we’re all very fragile and that.
We all, despite maybe having a thing, that we’re called to do a destiny. We are here to realize, I don’t.
Know if I believe in fate or.
Destiny and all that stuff, but I.
Do believe we all have greatness inside.
Of us and that we have these.
Things that we are capable of achieving in the world. But you might not get that opportunity. That’s the truth, is that you might just get cut short someday and not have that. Or something happens in life that sidetracks you and takes you away from the thing that you were meant to do. And I share this with you because often we take for granted our immortality, even when we’re thinking about the fact that we aren’t going to live forever. We know that intellectually. But it’s one thing to think I.
Might die today, but it’s another thing.
To really sit with that and realize there’s no guarantee that you won’t just have a stroke in the next instant. There’s no guarantee that a meteor deer won’t just come flying through the window right now and take me out. There’s no guarantee for anything in this life. And I think realizing that and owning that and sitting with that then gives you a perspective that you can bring into the singular moment that is now. That you can take that awareness and be present and be grateful, but then also to be motivated to use what little time you have, to use this instant right now and not waste it, because you are putting it off for tomorrow and you think you have next year to pursue that dream, or you’ll do it in five years. When you hit this goal, you don’t have that. And so the message here is just to start living now and not waiting until tomorrow or waiting until the future. If you have this thing that you want to do, this goal, this ambition, this drive, stop putting it off.

Stop hitting snooze. Stop waiting for when things will be right and when everything will be perfect, because they never will be. And you might not get that opportunity regardless if you don’t use this moment that you have right now. So I don’t want you to look back with regret because you kept putting off for tomorrow. You kept putting off your greatness for tomorrow that never came. So rest in peace, Kelvin. And to the rest of us, it go make something that matters. Do it right now.

Don’t put it off. Stop waiting. That’ll do it for me, guys. We’ll see you in the next episode. Bye.