Most people are working at a smaller aperture than they're capable of.
Aperture Lab studies how to widen the frame. Circumstances set the edges; the widening itself starts on the inside.
Three places a wide-open person gets narrowed down.
One title, one function
A job description collapses a whole person into a single line of work, and it's easy to start introducing yourself that way too. The value that made someone worth hiring rarely came from one skill. It came from moving between several, and leading with the title instead of the range makes that harder to see, even for the person holding it.
Capable, and still asking
Plenty of people already have the skill and the credential. What's missing is the self-permission to charge for it, lead with it, or claim it out loud. The gap sits between what someone can do and what they let themselves do.
Right person, wrong format
Sometimes the block really is the shape available: a job market, a business model, a hometown built for a narrower range than someone's got. But the quieter problem is how fast people adapt to that shape without ever questioning whether it fits. Talent doesn't usually announce that it's leaving. It just quietly shrinks to match the room it's in.
