What Is My Potential Practice?

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How often do you step back from the busyness of everyday life to look carefully at the situations you are facing – and explore the bigger picture?

How often do you pause to consider how much you know, compared with everything there is to know?

Think about the Earth and how the natural world works. The systems humanity has created. The history of our planet and the people who have shaped it. The many subjects, industries, countries and organisations. The billions of people, with their different experiences, cultures, languages and ways of seeing life.

There is an extraordinary amount to discover. Each of us understands only a small part of it.

So, how often do you ask yourself: What would be useful for me to learn – or relearn – to see more clearly, make better decisions and recognise opportunities I might otherwise miss?

What could that understanding make possible for you, your family, the organisations you work for or own, and the communities and countries you are part of? Where could it help you achieve greater success, wellbeing and positive impact? Which problems or threats might it help you notice and address sooner?

I’m Robert Frost, co-founder of Maximy. These are the kinds of questions your Potential Practice helps you explore.

It is the habit of deliberately stepping back, widening your perspective and examining what is happening more closely. You become clearer about what you know, what you are assuming and what you still need to understand. From there, you can explore what could be better – and choose how to act.

Have you ever discovered something that changed how you saw a person, a situation – or yourself?

Perhaps someone you thought was unfriendly was going through a difficult time. A subject you believed you understood turned out to be far more complicated. Or a conversation revealed an opportunity you had never considered.

The situation may have been there all along. What changed was your ability to see it.

Your Potential Practice helps you create more of those moments – and turn what you discover into a positive difference.

Let’s explore four things: how we see the world, what could be possible, how to action what we discover, and how to make this a regular practice.

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Part One: Understand how you see

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Three ideas help explain why Potential Practice matters.

a) Our iceberg views remind us how much remains outside our understanding.

b) Our worldview lenses shape how we interpret the part we can see.

c) Taking a helicopter view helps us step back, notice connections and explore a wider picture.

Together, they encourage us to question our first impressions and look more carefully.

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a) We all have 'iceberg views'

Think of an iceberg. From above the water, you see only part of it. Much remains beneath the surface.

It is a useful image for how we understand ourselves and our worlds.

We notice some of our thoughts, habits and reactions. Yet we may understand much less about what shapes them. We see other people’s behaviour, but often know little about their experiences, pressures, fears or intentions.

The same applies to organisations, communities andcountries. We see an outcome, hear a headline or experience a problem. The history, decisions, incentives and relationships that helped create it may remain largely hidden.

We see part of the picture – and can easily mistake it for the whole. Where understanding is missing, we often fill the gaps with assumptions.

“They don’t care.” “That will never work.” “I’m no good at this.” “People like that always behave that way.”

These explanations can feel convincing, especially when they fit something we already believe. But how much have we actually checked?

Sometimes we are unaware of how much of the picture we are missing. We feel familiar with a subject and assume we understand it deeply.

A bias we can all suffer from is the illusion of explanatory depth: believing we can explain how something works more thoroughly than we actually can.

In research by psychologists Leonid Rozenblit and FrankKeil, attempting detailed explanations helped people recognise gaps in their understanding.

Try it with something familiar. Could you explain, step by step, how a zip or toilet works? Where does your explanation become uncertain?

We can use that same question more broadly: How well can I explain what I think I understand?

You might have a strong view about why a relationship is difficult, why an organisation is struggling or how a national problem should be solved. Trying to explain the causes, connections and consequences can reveal where you need to learn more.

Recognising a gap gives you somewhere useful to begin.

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b) We all look through 'worldview lenses'

Our upbringing, culture, experiences, beliefs, and values shape how we interpret the world.

Together, these form our worldview: the lenses through which we notice things, give them meaning and decide what we believe.

Those lenses can help us make sense of life. They can also draw our attention towards some explanations and away from others.

Two people can experience the same event and come away with very different interpretations. Understanding why they see it differently may reveal something neither could see alone.

Potential Practice invites us to ‘clean’ our lenses by examining them:

What am I assuming? Why does this explanation appeal to me? Whose experience have I not considered? What evidence would cause me to change my mind?

We are all human. Our attention, memory, knowledge andexperience have limits. We cannot remove every bias or achieve a complete view, but we can become more aware of our blind spots and more willing to test our understanding.

Different perspectives deserve thoughtful attention, alongside careful consideration of the evidence supporting them.

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c) Rise into the helicopter view

Imagine trying to find your way through an unfamiliar town at street level - without a smartphone. You can see the next turning, the traffic ahead and perhaps a sign pointing you somewhere.

Now imagine rising above it in a helicopter.

You can see how the roads connect. Where the congestion begins. Which routes lead elsewhere. You may even realise you were heading towards the wrong destination.

Potential Practice creates that kind of shift in perspective.

You step back from the immediate demands and ask: What is the bigger picture? What am I trying to achieve? Who else is affected? What might happen if we carry on like this?

Then you zoom in again to examine the details that matter.

Consider a family whose evenings have become tense. At street level, each disagreement seems to be about the latest unfinished task. From above, a different pattern may emerge: everyone is tired, expectations are unclear and one person feels they are carrying responsibilities nobody notices.

That wider view creates new possibilities. The family can discuss what each person needs, share responsibilities differently and try a better routine.

The value comes from returning to everyday life with a clearer understanding and a more useful response.

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Part Two: Explore what is and what could be

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Your Potential Practice helps you look across your life and the wider world.

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For yourself, it might reveal a strength you have overlooked, something important to learn or relearn, or a habit that is making life harder.

For your family, it might reveal a conversation you need to have or a better way to support one another.

In an organisation you work for or own, it might reveal an unmet need, a better service, wasted effort or a risk people have stopped questioning.

In your community, it might reveal people whose voices aremissing, resources that could be shared or an opportunity to bring people together.

In the countries where you live and work, it can help you examine public choices more carefully: what is working, who is affected, which assumptions need testing and what different futures might look like.

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At each level, the aim is to identify opportunities for greater success, wellbeing and positive impact, while noticing the costs or risks a proposed improvement might create elsewhere.

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A decision that benefits one person or organisation may create difficulties for others. Taking a wider view helps us make those consequences visible and explore better options.

It also helps us question whether familiar arrangements are still serving us.

For example, a community might see an unused building as a maintenance problem. Looking more widely could reveal people who need somewhere to meet, local groups looking for space and volunteers with useful skills.

A new possibility emerges. It still needs testing: who would use it, who would run it, what would it cost and who might be affected?

That is Potential Practice moving from what is towards what could be.

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There is far more possibility ahead

It is easy to look at the world as it is and assume that this is broadly how it must remain.

Yet so much of what we now take for granted had to be imagined, discovered, invented and built. There are still problems we have not solved, ideas we have not explored and better ways of living and working we have not yet created.

Viewed against Earth’s long history, humanity is young. It is possible that our descendants could have millions of years ahead, on Earth and perhaps beyond. That future is uncertain and depends partly on how we respond to the opportunities and dangers before us.

There are serious threats, difficult trade-offs and challenges that demand attention. Potential Practice makes room for these alongside hope and imagination.

It asks both: What could become better? And what could go wrong if we fail to notice or act?

What could we learn from another person, culture, organisation or field of knowledge? What might become possible through better cooperation, science or technology? Which changes should we prepare for now?

We cannot know exactly what the future will bring. We can explore different possibilities, notice emerging changes and become better prepared to respond.

Part Three: Turn understanding into action

 Seeing an opportunity is a beginning. Seizing it requires achoice about what to do next.

You might need to learn something, have a conversation, involve an expert, find support or test an idea on a small scale. You might need to change a plan, address a threat early or stop doing something that causes harm.

You can think alone and with others. Someone with different experience may notice what you miss. A trusted thinking partner can help you examine an assumption or consider an uncomfortable question.

AI can also help you explore perspectives, generate questions and compare possible approaches. Check important claims and use your own judgement when deciding what to trust and how to act.

You will usually see more opportunities than you can pursue at once. Choose where to focus by considering what matters most, who could benefit, what is urgent and what is possible with the time and support available.

As you act, pay attention to what happens. Did the change help? Who experienced the benefit? Were there consequences you did not expect? What should you do differently next time?

This is how reflection becomes progress.

Part Four: Make it a regular practice

You do not need to understand everything before taking action. Start with something that matters and give it your full attention.

Ask yourself questions like:

What is happening? What do I know, what am I assuming and what remains uncertain?

What might I be missing? Whose perspective, experience or expertise could help?

What would be useful to learn or relearn? Which gaps in my understanding matter most here?

What could be better? What would greater success, wellbeing and positive impact look like?

What needs attention? Which threats, constraints or unintended consequences should I examine?

What will I do next? What should I discuss, test, change or stop – and when will I review the result?

You might do this during a quiet walk, in a conversationwith someone you trust or as time deliberately set aside with your family or team.

‍To begin, you may like to set aside 15 minutes this week, choose one situation that matters to you and work through these questions. Finish by choosing one next step and a time to review what happened.

The rhythm will depend on the situation. What matters is returning to the practice regularly and turning what you discover into worthwhile action.

Think back to that moment when something changed how you saw a person, a situation or yourself.

What might become possible if you made more room for those moments?

Your Potential Practice begins when you pause long enough to ask: What am I currently too close to see?

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Thanks for reading

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Best,

Rob