A Future of Possibility and Unbound Human Potential

What if nothing stood in the way of fully realizing human potential?

I don’t ask this question as a philosophical musing. I extend it as an invitation to examine more closely the assumptions and limitations we’ve inherited and consider how they cloud our view of what is possible. I invite my friends and colleagues, and the communities beyond us, to begin a collective journey of seeing, cultivating, and realizing the vast and untapped wellspring of human potential.

Picture this: a young woman in Cape Town innovates architectural designs capable of revolutionizing sustainable housing, but the credentialed gatekeepers refuse to recognize her work. Or a farmer in Tamil Nadu applies ancient agricultural wisdom to increase crop yields, but government officials prefer a more expensive, high-tech approach.  

For people and societies to flourish, potential must be fulfilled. Many have hypothesized the conditions needed for individuals to formulate great ideas and see them realized. Two books I read recently stand out: Adam Grant’s Hidden Potential, and Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s Abundance. Grant’s work rejects the idea of talent as a primary driver of success, and instead lifts up individual character and supportive environments as the determinants of achievement. In Abundance, I see Klein and Thompson positing that we can choose to design systems that make room for powerful, innovative ideas. Or we can fail to do so. 

I recommend reading both books; they provide a desperately needed moment of uplift. The authors paint a world ripe with possibility. They envisage a world where more human potential is realized, a world with more innovation and advancement, if only we create environments that nurture lifelong learning and learning from failure. 

Grant, Klein, and Thompson make compelling cases. And yet, I believe that one more idea is necessary to fully unlock the future they promise.

There is an ancient, yet enduring, South African greeting—Sawubona. The Zulu word— roughly translated as “I see you”—has much greater meaning than its literal translation suggests. The greeting isn’t about sight, but insight: it is an honoring, an acknowledgment, a recognition of a person's existence and potential. 

Grant’s work turns away from the focus on cultivating a talented few, and, instead, embraces a more egalitarian view of human potential. But where Grant, and, later, Klein and Thompson, ask for systems and communities to nurture and make room for this potential, Sawubona articulates a necessary precursor to societal investment: the simple, personal practice of recognizing another’s potential.

In short, for human promise to be cultivated and realized, it must first be seen. 

Consider the simple statement, often part of an origin story, that a teacher or mentor “saw something in me”? Perhaps you have said it yourself at some point. The line is used so frequently, we often overlook it—the quiet, powerful acknowledgment that being seen has the potential to shift how we see ourselves, and, often, what we believe is possible.

At Equivolve, the core premise driving our work is that human potential is everywhere—ready to be seen, cultivated, and realized. It is often hidden, not by its absence, but by the systems, structures, and stories that shape how we see, value, and allow for it. And it is hidden by our lack of insight—our personal assumptions about what the individuals around us are capable of. If we adopt a practice of recognizing and acknowledging others’ potential, and if we create the conditions for people to be more deeply supported, then we unlock a new era. We unlock a world where potential isn’t narrowly defined, where growth isn’t reserved for the few, and where what we build reflects not just our ambition, but who we are becoming. We unlock an Unbound Era. 

So this is my invitation to you: not to join a movement, but to help ignite one. This is my recognition of our potential to create new alignment, through actions small and large, between a radical belief in human potential and how we build our world. Here is our first step into the Unbound Era: together, we can build a practice, a habit, of seeing and recognizing potential in the people around us. 

Sawubona. I see you. 

This is the first of a series of thought pieces where we share the ideas that have stretched our thinking about the future’s possibilities.