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> My experience has been the opposite.

> I think most people are underperforming to their potential, mostly because [conditions]

It sounds like your experience is identical. You've identified obstacles between what folks could do and what they're doing now. Today, folks are doing what they can with what they have.

Potential is always a measure of things that can't be done now.

> It’s more likely that those who are already successful like to rationalize that “everyone is exactly where they should be” as a way to justify their own positions.

I think this is something that gets imagined about other people. Reading minds isn't a thing and there is a human tendency to fill blanks.



You said “people aren’t walking around with gobs of unused ability.” I said the exact opposite thing.


>>People aren't walking around with gobs of unused ability; they're usually performing about where they're able

>My experience has been the opposite. I think most people are underperforming to their potential, mostly because

> they lack social connections or

> [they lack] knowledge to capitalize on it, or

> [they lack knowledge to] even begin to take the first steps to capitalizing on it.

You make reasonable points about the things they lack today. Without them, people are doing what they can.

Upon accumulation (of those things), different options would then be within their reach.

That said, I suspect what you're trying to address here isn't ability but improvement.




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