How to reach your full potential by having a more open mind. (First) Guest post by Annette Kim.

Hi friends,

I want to share the greatest personal breakthrough I reached today and how you can apply this to reach your full potential past your wildest dreams.

Backstory (I’ll try to keep this short as possible. You have a busy life and a limited time in your day):

For ~10 years, I toiled away at a job that drained me physically and mentally to make ends meet. After enduring work, I HAD to relax myself through Netflix binges and video games. Zero art was made during these 10 years. Cindy (my incredible sister in law) gave me the opportunity to create art for Haptic full time. I took a severe pay cut but had enough to pay rent and eat food. However, I was able to have the energy to create art again.

The art I made working with Haptic showed me that I can and do improve people’s lives. This then gave me the confidence to further explore and experiment how to use my art to improve people’s lives on a deeper level. Slowly but surely, I was able to confidently stand behind my art as a way to directly better people’s lives. During the entire journey Eric and Cindy hyped me up and gave constructive feedback how to make specific art projects more effective depending on the goal.

I am now enrolled in community college to achieve a masters degreeĀ (will take 8 years) for art therapy as a way to significantly help individuals begin the process to heal trauma in their lives and move forward. Shoutout to my cousin Patty who told me to challenge if dedicating 8 years to do a meaningful career for the rest of my life is worth it.

Yesterday Eric presented Ars for Falling Walls, a competition to share your project that will help society improve. I almost did not go to the event because I did not want to miss my first day of school, but went to support Eric.

At Falling Walls, I was particularly blown away by Josh Pang. Josh’s project is to create a video game (World Game) that will use the collective potential of all people on Earth to solve the issues that will lead to the extinction of man. I genuinely wanted to contribute my art to Josh’s project so humans do not self destruct and reached out to him how I can directly help. I suddenly was shocked to realize my now greatest ambition and personal mission is to use my art to literally save humanity and that I believe in my ability to do so.

This entire backstory boils down to 2 points:

Point 1: Having an open mind, point 2: Acting on the opportunities that arise from having an open mind.

Having an open mind:

Every step that has led me to realize what I am truly capable of beyond my craziest dreams came from being open minded. I had the open mind to make a drastic change in my life by leaving my stressful but well paying job to do something I thought could be more fulfilling. I had the open mind to take Cindy up on her drastic proposal. I also had the open mind to allow others to help me improve through listening to Eric and Cindy’s advice.

I could have said, “Forget it. 8 years to become an art therapist is too long”. But no, I opened my mind to realize 8 years is nothing compared to the rest of my life. I could have so easily given up right there and then.

I too could have been close minded in the fact Eric is a confident and fully capable presenter therefore he does not need my support for the Falling Walls event. Had I not gone to support Eric just in case my presence will give him an extra boost, I would not have met Josh and realized my most ambitious goal I had ever set for myself (my previous most “ambitious” goal before having an open mind was having enough money to snowboard at least once every winter or until my knees gave out).

Acting on the opportunities that arise from having an open mind:

Of course simply having an open mind, is fantastic because you are presented new opportunities that you would not have considered before. Without ACTING on those opportunities, nothing would change and you will never be able to challenge yourself. I was genuinely surprised to see what I accomplished by actively acting to overcome the obstacles which made me confidently stand behind my abilities. TLDR: You have to also walk the walk.

What now?

Change is hard. I completely understand. It took me TEN YEARS to change my life from miserable to a fully realized version of myself. I’m 28 years old so it literally took me my entire adult life before trying something new.

I challenge you to spend 10 minutes on a brain storming session through writing or speaking with people you trust in how you can 1: make small but gradual changes to being more open minded or 2: psychologically drastic changes (no literal life or death outcomes) in being more open minded. Most importantly, once you choose…decide a time frame and STICK WITH IT.

Speak with your trusted peers/family the positive and or negative effects that happened from your method. You can also keep a journal to keep a time line of opportunities that arose from being open minded to see your journey/progress.

I believe in you but you have to believe in you.

Let us all help one another to reach our full potential (and hopefully not go extinct!)

Love,

Annette