Upgrade Yourself

Question: How much greater would the world be if you maximized your potential?

  • The answer is your potential energy.

Each of the eight billion people on Earth has their own potential energy.

  • The sum of all this potential energy is the world’s greatest untapped resource.

We need to convert this potential energy into action.

  • In physics, potential energy is converted into kinetic energy by a force.
    • However, if the friction is greater than the force, there will be no movement.
      • We need to maximize our positive force and minimize the negative friction.

The #1 reason why people don’t reach their potential is money.

  • Poverty causes obvious barriers to success like lack of safety, health, and education.

The #2 reason why people don’t reach their potential is fear.

  • Fear of failure prevents people from tackling their most ambitious ideas.

Many of the world’s smartest people are stuck in jobs that don’t enable them to reach their potential.

  • How can we free these people to solve bigger problems?

How can we help as many people as possible maximize their potential?

  • I’m writing this book to convince more people, myself included, to chase our highest potential.

This idea is a work-in-progress. If you’d like to riff on it, hit me up @neilthanedar on Twitter!


A higher peak is right in front of us. Will we have the courage to climb it?

Published by Neil Thanedar

Neil Thanedar is an entrepreneur, investor, scientist, altruist, and author. He is the founder & GP of Utopic, a pre-seed biotech VC fund investing in the future of science. He is also the founder & chairman of Air to All, a 501(c)3 nonprofit medical device startup, and Labdoor, a consumer watchdog with $7M+ in funding and 20M+ users. He previously co-founded Avomeen Analytical Services, a product development and testing lab acquired for $30M+ in 2016. He has also served as Executive Director of The Detroit Partnership and Senior Advisor to his father Shri Thanedar in his campaigns for Governor, State Representative, and US Congress in Michigan.