The Potentiality is a new project from Michael Boronowski, Kurt Heinrich and John Horn, the guys who brought you four years of The Daily Gumboot. With insight and tips from a team of writers from around the world, The Potentiality’s mission is to educate and inspire passionate changemakers with ideas and tools that will allow them to build powerful and positive communities.

We are your resource library. We are your cheering section. We believe that you will make a difference. We will inspire you to reach your potential. So, if you see yourself as a positive changemaker, this site will support your personal and professional development by focusing on six key competencies that will help you realize your potential at home, at school, and in your neighbourhood.

[Editor’s Note: Full disclosure: this open-source, community-driven think tank of a blog is in its beta phase, so please make comments and provide feedback through our social channels.]

So far, we’ve written some great pieces that focus on six key competencies that research shows are the pillars of personal and professional success. They are: communication, collaboration, thinking & learning, creativity & innovation, adaptability, and leadership.

Communication

Communicating means speaking and writing with simplicity, clarity and influence. This is the most sought-after skill on Earth because we talk and write to people every day. You will use this competency to present awesome ideas.

Collaboration

Collaborating means that the potential of a project is realized by a team and not individuals. Classrooms, workplaces and dense urban neighbourhoods require effective teams to drive change and inspire fun. You will use this competency to collaborate like a symphony.

Learning & Thinking

Learning & Thinking means finding new tools and strategies to understand and solve life’s challenges. Intellectual capital is the driving force of today’s knowledge economy. You will use these competencies to transform problems into solutions.

Creativity & Innovation

Creativity means artistry. Poetry, web design, math, bicycle repair, public speaking. Regular people do such things in regular ways. Artists make such things memorable. Creativity is the soul of a community. You will use this competency to do what you love.

Adaptability

Adaptability means comfort with change. Being flexible and open to compromise is what drives consensus and resilience. You will use this competency to be fresh and positive in an uncertain world.

Leadership

Leadership means inspiring others to do something. Our planet needs leaders like you to save it (no pressure).You will use this competency to get the best out of people.

Every successful changemaker needs these competencies in their toolbox. These skills and abilities are as diverse as they are critical for your career – for the record, we define “career” in the most holistic sense, where it means the work you are paid to do, how you volunteer, how you play, how you build relationships, and how you live. At its best, your successful career should be you living life as the best version of yourself.

As part of The Potentiality, you’ll also find case studies that analyze how changemakers use these competencies at home, at work, in the classroom, and in their neighbourhood –  the first one will be posted next week, and it’s about a cool start-up called bazinga!. They will be designed to provide practical and pragmatic advice on how leveraging the key competencies have addressed challenging situations that organizations have dealt with in the past (you will probably also find this sort of thing in places like The Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Inc.com, and the The Globe and Mail because imitation is the truest form of flattery and they really, really like our ideas). Be sure to check out our network of 100 Community Builders, too, and learn what it takes to be a great communicator, inventor, leader, connector, and thinker.

Mike, Kurt, John, and the writing team are all passionate storytellers. As it was with The Daily Gumboot, storytelling is absolutely the soul of this project. In addition to practical and pragmatic information about building key competencies, frequent visitors to this site can also expect heartwarming, thought provoking and hilarious stories about cool and compelling communities and community-builders from around the world. These types of tales – as well as The Daily Gumboot’s best articles from the last four years – will live in a part of The Potentiality called 1,000 Community Stories. That’s right, we wrote over 1,000 unique stories about the concept of community and they’re pretty great.

At the end of the day, this site is all about where we intersect. This is where your goals and questions, reader, and our sincere interest in your potential meet to create awesomeness. As you build strong and sustainable communities at home, at work, in the classroom, and in your neighbourhood, please connect with The Potentiality and let us know what we can do to inform and inspire the positive change that you create. We are available for in-person consulting, speaking and coaching gigs, too, so be sure to contact John or Kurt with any questions about consulting, advertising or other potential business partnerships.