Latent Potential : On Being Let Go and Finding What You’re Capable Of

I got laid off recently. Before I dive into how I'm feeling about the whole situation, let me share an Ira Glass (of the OG This American Life Podcast) clip where he was giving advice on producing creative work and the dissonance between knowing what is good and the quality of the work you’re actually producing. It’s a bit of a tangent, but stay with me here.

The Gap Between Taste and Output

The advice was really about the difference between having good taste and creating ‘good’ work. When you first start doing this creative work, you realize there's a huge gap between the thing you're trying to make—the good stuff—and what you're actually making. The important part is that you know the stuff you're making isn't that good, and it's sobering. This is the point where a lot of people quit.

But the thing that got you into the game in the first place—your taste, your standards—is still killer. It's still intact. You have to reconcile the difference between the mediocre work you're producing and the level you know you should be performing at. The only advice? Keep working. Keep going.

That's exactly how I feel about my recent job situation.

Living Below What You’re Capable Of  

I fundamentally knew it wasn't a place where I was reaching my full potential. Frankly, I was bored a lot of the time and I felt that the work was routine and not that challenging. I could probably do more elsewhere, but the steady cash flow I was bringing in compared to the effort I was putting in — it was too comfortable to leave. You realize that you’re not performing at your full potential and that you’re really not learning that much anymore, but hey a paycheck is a paycheck so why mess up a good thing? 

But as it turns out, I realized that it’s actually quite exhausting to do nothing at work all the time. It’s exasperating to do nothing meaningful from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. It's tiring to live below the standard of what you know you're capable of. When you make that type of trade-off month after month, year after year, you soon realize: damn, I'm not as sharp as I used to be.

Wild Horses

Being laid off felt like the greatest release. Wild horses aren't meant to be tamed—they are wild because that’s what they’re meant to do: to run free and gallop as far as the horizon would take them. Even though I might not be working in an official capacity anytime soon, I'll still try to consciously put out good work out there, like this newsletter. You just feel better about yourself when you do meaningful work, and that feeling is more important than a paycheck. Sometimes the universe has to push you out of comfortable mediocrity to remind you what you're actually capable of.

Sometimes that untapped potential is literally hidden in your pantry.  Take this for inspiration:  the combination of bacon, butter beans, and pecorino cheese. Add in some garlic, heat and water and it makes a simple dinner that you would never have thought of otherwise.

I'd be the first to tell you I'm someone who stick with what I know - usually Asian — but somehow I thought I needed to expand my comfort zone.  As I'm getting more “mature”, I realize I should probably eat more vegetables. I can't just be a protein bro for the rest of my life.

Looking at incorporating more vegetables into my diet, I realized that beans are a great source of protein. When I looked in my fridge and saw bacon and beans, I searched NYT Cooking, and this Creamy White Beans With Pecorino and Pancetta recipe came up. It's very Italian, adapted from a pasta alla gricia, and it turned out fantastic.

It requires minimal ingredients, and for someone who would never normally make something like this, it came out much better than I expected (I was just expecting just beans and bacon bits, but oh it became so much more). I'd say it's more of an fall/winter dish because it's heartier—butter beans with pecorino cheese that emulsifies into some a cohesive sauce. But it actually works as a summer dish too if you just want something light that could serve as a side.

The recipe as written uses pancetta but I tried this recipe twice, once with pancetta and once with bacon, and both works equally well. The flavor of the rendered fat might be different as bacon has a smokier taste - which I like. As long as you have those fatty salty notes, the whole thing melds beautifully. The beans balance everything really well, and the cheese and water is something I never would have expected. Italian innovation, right?

Sometimes the best discoveries happen when you're forced to work with what you have rather than what you think you need.

As someone who isn't an F1 fan, I found it thoroughly entertaining, and more importantly, it captured something universal about unfulfilled potential. Without giving too much away, Brad Pitt plays an F1 driver who never really got his shot due to a debilitating car crash that he could never mentally shake off.

His need for speed brings him back in 2025 to race F1 again—a chance to fulfill that decade long dream of being the best driver in the world. It's a simple story, but it works as pure fan service for the sport, and I genuinely enjoyed it. The action sequences were engaging and watching it in IMAX helped. It was an immersive experience in the F1 cockpit and contained some of the best action cinematography I've seen this year. It was certainly better than watching Tom Cruise try to survive an submarine imploding in the latest Mission Impossible without any dive suit. F1 delivered that classic summer blockbuster experience that I remember during the pre-streaming era. 

In some ways, I can relate to Pitt's character. He never quite got his shot, or maybe he was always getting in his own way and never really getting the chance to prove he was the best. There's something deeply frustrating about unrealized potential—that gap between what you know you're capable of and what circumstances allow.

I don't think it's meant to be a particularly inspirational movie. It's entertainment, pure and simple. But on the theme of this newsletter, it works perfectly: one should always strive to keep doing what they do until they've met their internal standard. You never feel quite done until you've accomplished what you set out to do.

As I enter Leo season, this feels right: strive to be the best, even if it's the second time around.

Sometimes letting go is the best thing that could happen to you.  

Savoring this moment with you,

Kevin L