What happens to potential when it has nowhere to go?
Years ago, I became fascinated by an old structure on our property that I came to think of as a “well to nowhere.” From the outside, it looked as though it had been built for a purpose. Someone had invested time, labor, materials, and probably money into creating it. Yet it produced nothing. There was no useful flow of water, no meaningful destination, no return on the investment.
The structure remained, but its potential had been buried. From time to time we heard critters stirring below the heavy wooden lid, but there seemed to be no other purpose.
I think people can live that way, too.
We can spend years building careers, collecting experience, developing skills, and gaining wisdom, yet never fully tap what is inside us. We may be productive and responsible—even successful by conventional standards—while quietly recognizing that some of our best abilities are sitting unused.
That is the hidden cost of untapped potential. It rarely announces itself as failure. More often, it shows up as restlessness, boredom, frustration, disengagement, or the persistent question:
Is this really all there is?
When Showing Up Isn't the Same as Being Engaged
The Strengths We Leave in the Ground
Potential Has a Cost When it Goes Unused
We often talk about potential as though it were something inspirational: You have so much potential.
But potential carries responsibility. Unused potential has a cost.
There is the cost to the individual who spends years feeling underutilized. There is the cost to an organization that pays for a person’s time but never accesses their best thinking. There is the cost to families when frustration at work follows someone home. And there is a broader cost when capable people stop creating, mentoring, solving problems, serving others, or pursuing ideas because they have convinced themselves that their opportunity has passed.
The economic cost is significant as well. Gallup estimates that low global employee engagement cost the world economy $438 billion in lost productivity in 2024. Its newest 2026 report estimates the broader productivity cost associated with disengagement at approximately $10 trillion globally.
Those are enormous numbers, but behind them are individual stories.
- A person with an idea who never voices it.
- A leader who has stopped caring.
- An entrepreneur who keeps postponing the venture.
- An experienced professional who assumes younger people are now the ones with something to contribute.
- A gifted communicator who spends years doing work that requires almost none of that gift.
Potential doesn’t disappear simply because we fail to use it. It often turns into frustration. I’m currently finishing writing the book that will be released in several months, Move Beyond: From Brokenness to Purpose. Its message is full of principles of restoration and rebuilding and the mindset it takes to do so.
Purpose Changes the Equation
In late 2025, Gallup reported that employees with a strong sense of purpose at work were 5.6 times as likely to be engaged as employees with a low sense of purpose. They were also less likely to experience burnout or to be looking for another job.
Purpose, then, is not merely an inspirational word we put on a poster.
It changes how we experience work.
That doesn’t mean everyone needs to quit a corporate position, launch a nonprofit, write a book, or start a business. Purpose can be expressed in countless ways. Sometimes the answer is not leaving your career but redesigning how you operate within it.
Perhaps you begin mentoring younger employees. Maybe you volunteer for projects that better use your strengths.
You could develop a skill you have neglected, teach what you know, begin a side project, or explore an opportunity that has been sitting in the back of your mind for years.
The important question becomes less:
“What job should I have?” and more:
“Where can what I do best make the greatest contribution?”
That is a very different question.
The Mid-Career Trap
Untapped potential can become especially noticeable in the middle and later stages of a career.
Early in life, progress is easy to measure. We graduate. Get the job. Earn the promotion. Buy the house. Raise the children. Build the résumé. Reach the next milestone.
Then something changes.
The ladder may no longer seem as interesting as it once did. The promotion that used to represent success may now represent more meetings and less freedom. Skills that took decades to develop may feel underused. We begin to realize there are fewer working years ahead than behind.
That realization can feel unsettling.
But it can also be tremendously clarifying.
Experience has given us something our younger selves did not possess: perspective.
We know more about what energizes us and what drains us. We have accumulated competencies, relationships, failures, victories, and hard-earned wisdom. We have enough history to recognize patterns.
The question is whether we will use them.
Your next chapter does not have to erase everything that came before it. In fact, some of the most meaningful work may come from recombining what you already know in a new way. I created the Core Common Denominator,® mentioned in several of my books, to help identify strengths, competencies, lifestyle and areas of passion. It’s a simple system, yet with time and thought, can be very revealing.
Redirect the Well
If you discovered that a well on your property had been built but its water was flowing nowhere useful, you probably wouldn’t stand beside it for the next twenty years complaining about the original design.
You would investigate.
- Where is the source?
- Where is the blockage?
- Where could the water be redirected?
- What could it nourish?
Then, if there was no solution, the decision may be made to take it out and plant something that would grow and flourish. We actually did this with our “well to nowhere” on our property. We took it out planted peach trees that give us fruit most every year. We can ask ourselves the same questions about what is unproductive in our life, then take action as needed. Consider these questions:
What do I consistently do well? Not merely what have you been paid to do, but what comes naturally to you? What do people repeatedly ask for your help with?
What gives me energy rather than continually draining it? Every meaningful pursuit requires effort, but some work leaves us tired and satisfied while other work simply leaves us depleted.
What strength am I barely using? Think beyond your current job description. Perhaps it is teaching, creating, organizing, leading, writing, encouraging, analyzing, designing, building, connecting, or solving.
Who could benefit from what I know? Potential becomes purpose when it moves beyond ourselves.
What is one small way I could redirect it now? You do not need to blow up your life to begin using more of your potential. Start a conversation. Take a class. Mentor someone. Volunteer. Test an idea. Write the first page. Make the phone call. Begin the project.
Small redirections can eventually change the entire destination.
Don't Build a Well to Nowhere
There is a difference between a life that looks productive and one that is producing what it was uniquely equipped to produce. It’s like putting makeup on and having nowhere to go, so we do nothing to change our situation.
We can become so accustomed to our routines that we stop questioning whether they are taking us anywhere. The paycheck arrives. The calendar remains full. Responsibilities get handled. From the outside, everything may appear fine.
But deep inside, we know when something valuable is sitting unused.
- Your abilities were not developed merely to remain stored beneath the surface.
- Your experiences—including the difficult ones—have taught you things someone else may need.
- Your strengths are clues.
- Your restlessness may be a signal rather than a problem.
- And your accumulated wisdom may be more valuable now than it has ever been.
The goal is not simply to stay busy until retirement. It is to make certain that the years, skills, wisdom, and opportunities entrusted to us are flowing somewhere that matters.
So here is how to apply this: Take another look at the well. You may not need to dig an entirely new one.
You may simply need to redirect what is already there.
And if there’s no other solution, take it out and plant something that will grow and flourish.
Additional Resources
Women at Halftime: Principles for Producing Your Successful Second Half by Deborah Johnson: Will you merely face into the second half of life, operating with a tired and outdated strategy, living on autopilot? Or will you successfully reinvent yourself and climb to your personal peak of Hero Mountain? Chapter 4 includes Core Common Denominator®
Power of After: What’s Next Can be Your Most Purposeful Chapter by Deborah Johnson. This book helps you answer the crucial question, "What's next?" as you create your ideal business using AI and other current technologies.
Stop Circling: Steps to Escape Endless Roundabouts: provides both the inspirational perspective and solid tools to design an individual or professional future path and to get individuals there successfully.
Get The SUMMIT on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/4z3mDIs
HALFERS Position Free Download
YouTube Channel: Mindset & Mental Strength for Mid-Career Growth
Personalized Mentorship: Thoughtful guidance for your next chapter creating clarity, confidence & momentum.
The Summit book by Deborah Johnson
Goal Setting Worksheets-free download!
Hero Mountain Summit- a 5-month "Power of After" journey to help you answer "What's Next?" with your desired lifestyle & maximized skills and experience.
FREE Resources and links: https://GoalsForYourLife.com/DJWorks
YouTube Podcast Playlist: Women at Halftime/Power of After
We can spend years building careers, collecting experience, developing skills, and gaining wisdom, yet never fully tap what is inside us.
deborah johnson
Thought Leader, Keynote Speaker, Author
If you are interested in growing and learning, check out our online courses here: Online Learning
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